Is Gen 1-3 "real" or is Atheist Darwinism "Real"?

Have not read all the posts...

There is nothing in the text to suggest that the account of Adam and Eve did not actually happen as described in Genesis. They were real people that lived in a real garden that ate fruit from a real tree...etc.

 

I am definitely not saying that. I'm just wondering how someone could distinguish truth from fiction if they don't accept the whole of Scripture. Since you're saying matters of theology and spiritual truth are not in question, then that answers it. Yet I was questioning someone who said that the Bible was written by people who claimed (he really emphasized claimed) to be inspired by God. So it seems difficult to image if one would question the author's inspiration that they could still take any authority from them. Then you get down to what is true, not true, etc. (everything I mentioned before).

 

Who said there was no NT? Is this the authority of TP? Can you give evidence for this statement?

 

The canonical NT was not settled till the Council of Chalcedon. Until at least 325, there was widespread disagreement on some of the content.

Read a history book.

 

Secular histroy books were written by secular people, many of the Roman Catholic. The last book of the Bible to be written was the Book of Revelation, written in 98 A.D. At that time the canon of the NT was completed.
The principle set forth in Scripture is this:

2 Peter 1:21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

Now we know Catholics (and some others) would like to change that verse to make it read "for the prophechy came...but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the councils of the RCC." But it doesn't say that.

It says that these holy men of God (the prophets of the OT, and by extension the apostles of the NT) spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. The RCC owes us nothing. They had nothing to do with the canon of the Bible. It was completed by the end of the first century.

Shortly after the first century certain heresies started to creep in. Almost every author of the NT, along with Jesus himself, warned about false teachers to come. The early churches were prepared for them. They knew what to look for. In fact the first epistle John was written to combat the heresy of gnosticism.

John writes about false teahers:
1 John 2:19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.
--They were pretenders. They didn't last long. They could be easily identified because they could not continue under the faithful teaching of the Word of God.
What does Peter say:
2 Peter 3:2 That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour:
--He says to be mindful of 1) the prophets--the authors of the OT scriptures; and 2) the apostles--the authors of the NT Scriptures. Peter seemed to be able to identify the authors of epistles which were inspired.

He does it even more precisely here:
2 Peter 3:16 As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.
--In verse 15 he refers to the epistles of Paul. That is the context, as he then says "as also in all his epistles." He then maakes reference "also the other scriptures," including the epistles that Paul wrote as scripture. Paul had written a number of epistles and not all of them made it into the canon. But Peter seemed to recognize which ones were scripture (inspired), and which ones were not.

Paul taught Timothy. In 2Tim.3:16 he teaches him that all Scripture is inspired of God.
It was the Apostles that taught the early believers, the early churches, who passed the same knowledge on to their successors. The canon was kept in trust by early believers; the early churches. They had the intelligence to know what was heretical and what was not. There was no need of Catholic coucils. The Catholic Church from its very inception in the beginning of the fourth century was pagan. How confusing it must have been for them to differentiate between a heretical book and an inspired book when it was hard enough for them to define heresy. The early believers never faced that problem.

 

Tragic, I think there was a use of many of the NT letters. There is even example of that IN the New Testament. Peter cites Paul's writings "with the wisdom God gave" him. (2 Peter 3:15). Just because it wasn't "formed" into a single book doesn't mean people didn't use them, learn from them, or consider them uninspired. I imagine they clung to them because the writers had contact with Jesus himself. Who knows....maybe it took so long because they had Baptist tendencies (haha).

 

Come on, DHK, you're better than that.

There's some evidence that Revelation was actually written in 67AD or so (immediately following the Neronian persecutions). In any case, I'd limit the books written after 64-67 to the Johannine epistles and the Gospel of John. But yes, whenever those were done, the canon was, in effect set.

However...

It is a fact that many churches, amny believers, didn't have a "complete copy" of the NT books. Some regions would have had only one Gospel, perhaps a few letters. The Apocalypse of Peter was considered canonical by some, for awhile, and it took a long time for Revelation to be accepted as canonical.

It can be argued that, if a Christian had only the Gospel of Mark, then they may have understood Arianism to be true.

Athanasius listed, in 325 or so, what he considered canon to be, and it lines up perfectly with our canon of today. However, the canon was not officially settled until a few years later.

 

Annsi,
One more 2 Peter passage come to my mind after reading some of this stuff: 2 Peter 3:3 "...that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts..." Could it be more evidence that we're in the last days?

 

Today, when we go from door to door in evangelism we sometimes hand out a booklet containing Romans and John. That is the only Scripture those people have.
When Carey went to India he translated the Bible into 26 different languages.
But in some dialects he only managed to do portions of the NT. They didn't have the complete Bible either.
There are still nations today that don't have the Word of God in their own language, and many that only have one or two books in their own language. Your argument is quite frivilous.

 

Doesn't that make your argument frivolous, DHK?

 

Here's a little frivolous history...

100 A.D. -- Different parts of our New Testament were written by this time, but not yet collected and defined as 'Scripture.' Early Christian writers (for example Polycarp and Ignatius) quote from the Gospels and Paul's letters, as well as from other Christian writings and oral sources.

Paul's letters were colelcted late in the first century. Matthew Mark and Luke were brought together by A.D. 150.

200 A.D. -- Here is the New Testament used in the church at Rome (the 'Muratorian Canon'):
Four Gospels
Acts
Paul's letters: Romans, 1&2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1&2 Thessalonians, 1&2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon.
James
1&2 John
Jude
Revelation of John
Revelation of Peter
Wisdom of Solomon
('The Shepherd of Hermas' was to be used in private, but not public, worship)

250 A.D.
Four Gospels
Acts
Paul's letters (same as listed above)
1 Peter
1 John
Revelation of John

Disputed at this time were: Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2&3 John, The Shepherd of Hermas, Letter of Barnabas, Teaching of Twelve, Apostles, Gospel fo the Hebrews.

300 A.D
The New Testament used by Eusebius included
Four Gospels
Acts
Paul's letters (as listed above)
1 Peter
1 John
Revelation of John (at this time the authorship was disputed)

Disputed but well-known at this time:
James
2 Peter
2&3 John
Jude

400 A.D.
The New Testament was fixed for the West by the Council of Carthage. It included the books we have today.
Excluded were The Shepherd of Hermas, Letter of Barnabas, Gospel of the Hebrews, Revelation of Peter, Acts of Peter, and the Didache.

Reference: Church History in Plain Language, Bruce Shelley, Word Publishing, 1982

 

interesting info. helen....i love history.

 

Not at all. Does one need the Book of Obadiah to be saved. Oh, but that is in the OT. What about Jude, can you lead a person to Christ without having the Book of Jude. Do you think you can learn quite a bit of doctrine if you didn't have the Book of Jude. In the early churches the letters were written on scrolls. The printing press didn't even come into existence until the 15th century. Thus these "books" were passed from church to church. There were professonal copyists, and many copies were made of the various letters that met the requirements of inspiration.
The Book of Revelation was completed about 98 A.D. but that didn't mean that miraculously every Christian suddenly had a completed Bible of 66 books.

 

... which was my point.

 

Rew, you are quite intelligent, and very rational at the age of 19. You exhibit more reasoning ability than 100 literalists who think that their narrow interpretation of scripture is the ONLY true one. It is not up to them to define Baptist in a broad sense. They can do so for their own autonomous church congregation, but it is a shock for some to come on this board and be exposed to Baptists with viewpoints other than their own.

Keep questioning, keep thinking, keep exploring, and rejecting dogma if it is shown to be flawed.

God bless.

 

I wish to congratulate you on your GPA. I hope you can keep that up. I would like for you to be able to take your potential and make something of it.

When I was 19, I was a lot like you. I was on my way to a degree in mathematics with a minor in physics at an accredited college. I never had your GPA, but my cumulative was over 3.0 and it kept me on an academic scholarship. From there, I got my degree, and now teach at the age of 30.

At age 19, I was still an Evolutionist. However, I did not yet have an ability to analyze my own assumptions. At the age of 20, in a 200-level mathematics course in geometry, for the very first time, we had to learn to do proofs, and we had to assume less and analyze as many assumptions as we could. It was a difficult experience, and well worth it.

My first step away from Evolution was a Jehovah's Witness book introducing scientific evidence against Evolution that its backers could not account for. Creationist books gave me more such evidence, plus evidence for a young universe. I do not remember very much of all that; it has been years, and I think about other things now. These books also reported assumptions by Evolutionists that are held as evidence -- but are only unproven assumptions. One of the best authors I have ever read was by Henry M. Morris, who has degrees in the natural sciences.

Later, I learned about the intense struggle to keep evidence against Evolution out of the schools. I am not talking about bringing in Creationism or Intelligent Design -- I am talking about merely presenting evidence against Evolution in the schools. The opposition to that proposition is very telling -- history teaches that those who want to suppress evidence typically have something to hide.

Finally, I learned to question my assumption that secular science is the basis on which to judge the universe. From a young age, we are conditioned to believe in "science." We are taught to evaluate truth "scientifically," and to think "scientifically." However, secular science is its own faith system. The faith assumptions of secular science include:

1) only what humans can observe with their senses is admissible evidence;
2) God/s may or may not exist, but it does not matter because we assume s/he-they never violate the normal operations of the natural universe.​

Needless to say, the second of these faith assumptions is at variance with Scripture: God worked numerous miracles in Scripture contrary to nature's normal operations. The first of the faith assumptions tells me to limit the information I will consider to construct an accurate understanding of the universe -- and further, to limit information on such important questions to what we puny mortals can find out for themselves with our cosmically insignificant capabilities. I am not willing to do that.

I respect the right of a secular science believer to have faith in the tenets of secular science. Many intelligent people have done so, and years ago I did as well. As for me now, I do not accept secular science as a faith system to judge the validity of other faith systems, anymore than you would accept a biblical faith system to judge the validity of secular science's faith system. I will have faith in the Word of God, which in the past has accurately predicted events hundreds of years in the future. I do not have all the answers to various challenges, but when the text says God gave the Scriptures, as at 2 Timothy 3:16, I believe it.

I hope that in the future, you will learn to better recognize assumptions in everyone including yourself, and learn to truly respect people who direct their faith in different directions than you do. Respect and agreement are not the same thing, so disagreement does not need to be shown by disrespect.

You are very bright, and I hope you do not close yourself off to learning everything that you can learn.

 

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