The Bible, The Bone Yards, and The Genesis Flood (Part I)

 “Even on the critics’ own terms—historical fact—the Scriptures seem more acceptable now than they did when the rationalists began the attack.”

                                                                                                                                Time Magazine, 12/30/74

 “A wave of archaeological discoveries is altering old ideas about the roots of Christianity and Judaism—and affirming that the Bible is more historically accurate than many scholars thought.”

                                                                                                                                U. S. News & World Report

 “…the face of the globe was also affected by changes in sea level…at times in the early Cretaceous…comparable to the present, but subsequently the continents were flooded with relatively shallow seas…In America, seas flooded the southeastern flank of the Appalachian Mountain.s, …the Mississippi Valley…and advanced…at times to link the Gulf of Mexico with the Arctic Ocean…Large seas extended over parts of Asia, Africa, South America and Australia.

                                                                                                                   Geological Report @   

                                                                                                               http://www.answers.com/topic/cretaceous

They disparage today, at the very thought of intellectual engagement with a Christian who wants to argue the merits of his faith, but, who has done little to prepare himself beyond what he feels, or, believes—as if no one has a greater privilege therefore than he…On the other hand, how shall a saint disparage less, when confronted with the overbearing, self-righteous, slapdash Bible scoffer and critic, seeing that he as a fervent, Bible-ripping skeptic has no knowledge of the Book of his disdain? Why should the Christian not be moved equally, to the brink of angst even, when clearly that scoffer has done no research relative to the crutch upon which he has chosen to lean, launching his ill-fated diatribe against a God who has never been wrong?   

Introduction

Fascination grips the minds of many when they think of the Bible—even when they do not understand or believe its “tales”.  It is to some a “superlative” as literature, among books of literature.  Contempt, however, clouds the minds and shades the hearts with loathing among those who disbelieve the Book of books—in light of its historical and scientific ramifications.  Science, they say, in all of its denominations has quite dispelled the Bible as myth.  Others contend that ‘men’ wrote it, regardless of ‘who’ inspired it, so, it is all myth!  As this treatise and other research will show, they are neither qualified to attack the Bible, nor to speak on behalf of science, of any genre, as it relates to the Bible.  They have, in fact, thoroughly succeeded only in relegation of themselves to the realm of mythologists, to say the least, proving only that they are liars, at best—having no knowledge of either the Bible, or, the science on which they rely for its refutation.  How rational, then, can their petty objections be? 

Tony Walker is a veteran writer, fellow and senior participant at thewritersbox.ning.com.  There, it seems my friend has a peculiar passion that sparks verbal shootouts and cyber-wars.  I was privileged to stumble upon someone’s recent response to an old thread (proposed in 08/2008) that, according to Tony (the thread was his), just will not die—and well it should not, given that evidently all sides of the argument failed to proffer any kind of a truly reasoned reaction to Tony’s otherwise “serious” challenge.  My response in turn drew “rational” commentary (as far as that goes!) from other fellows at thewriter’sbox.com which further set the stage for this impending, long over-due show-down. It was originally intended to be nothing more than a simple emailed delivery.

To further establish the backdrop for this latest round of cyber-fire, the cast of participants (and their contributions) to date are as follows:

• Tony Walker:  leader, instigator, provocater—his thread:  “The Bible:  Fiction or Fact?…I’m trying to start a serious discussion here, so please don’t splatter me with your favorite quotes from your Bibles”, the chagrined old grouch retorted.  From the tenor and tone of Tony’s query it appears that perhaps he was serious, in his own, inimitable way—more so than I had originally imagined.  He continues, “…should the Bible be treated as a collection of folk myths, a handy pocket guide to getting along with each other, a genealogical history of the Israelites, or should it be recognized as the actual, written down in His own hand, word of God.  Just to set the record straight, I tend to go with the first explanation, with a few useful tips to be taken from the second.”  No explanation appears to have surfaced as to why this was such a pressing issue to Tony.
• Rianna:  “The Bible is collection of a myths, just as all the stories of Greek, Roman, Norse, and other mythologies…I also believe that it was written by the inspiration of God…” but, she says, “…it was still man’s hand who wrote the Bible.  Making it just as fallible as any other story.”  All of which prompts the question, what do you, or should we, call this:  circular reasoning or, what?  What kind of thinking is this?  In her self-contradictory logic, Rianna professes some kind of a belief in God (she would have to, if in fact she believes He moved men to write!), although she proceeds to call Him a liar, in that she says (infers), He knowingly chose men to do His writing (which is precisely what the Bible teaches of itself), when on the other hand He knew full well those same men could never relay His words, exactly as they were received from Him (in that all men writers are fallible, or liars, and, everything they write is a lie!)!  She later fires another shot, “Each book from Genesis through Revelation is a myth…may have basis in fact…nothing in history is complete fact, the Bible or my World History book from college (one can only wonder what college she attended, and, whether it would own her as one of its alumni!)”.  How can a thing written by men possibly have basis in fact, when in truth, there is no such thing as fact, where his writings are concerned—per Riannaean logic?  Was she drunk, stoned, or both, when she wrote this thing, having obviously not thought it through?
• Michelle James: (one of the original respondents, though she did not contribute here) “The Bible is fact…it is historical…” unfortunately, as good ol’ Tony anticipated, she could provide no convincing, supporting argument, in which case he shot back, “…Ok, prove it!…”
• Stephan Loy:  “…the Bible is not fact…Genesis never happened…the flood never happened…There are serious self-contradictions to resolve”.  Mr. Loy makes fervent appeal to “…the geological and archaeological records…”, neither of which he, evidently, has studied with any measurable intensity, or, to any rational degree!  He shows a near wanton ignorance of history by his reference to the ancient Sumerian culture, which he did not research before bearing his soul!  Contradictions, he alleges: 

a) Judas dies twice;

b) Genesis 6 and 7, relative to the number of animals coming to Noah. 

“The Bible cannot (therefore) be a perfect record.”

208 or so comments later:

• Jasen Ward:  Gen. 1-3 cannot be “…an accurate account of God’s creation of the universe…given known physics…not historically accurate because if fails to provide a coherent time table (according to whose authoritative reckoning, one wonders(!)?) and tries to represent the order of processes which are not accurate according to what is known about the early times on earth (specifically what he had in mind here, has been left to chance!)…cannot be verified by science and runs counter to known laws of physics and physical process…(somebody should tell Mr. Ward that the entire world of quantum physics, first proposed by German physicist Max Planck in the late 19th century, supplemented by Einstein’s math wizardry, backbone of our modern existence—and, totally unheard of prior to Mr. Planck—ran counter to then known laws of physics!  So, knowing this, how was then, and/or, how now is our modern existence, therefore utterly untenable, in light of man’s previously prevailing ignorance of the laws of quantum physics (once more, consider that everything proposed by John Dalton, Planck, Einstein, etc., etc., ran counter to then known Laws of physics!  Mr. Ward, furthermore, demonstrated no specific knowledge of the Bible’s scientific voice, against which he argues relentlessly, beyond that which is most commonly known—namely Noah’s flood and time.)?  This type of rationale is yet hopelessly irrational insofar as it stipulates or presupposes that precursory “ignorance” in any form, on any level, automatically precludes any possibility for reality—where that reality is not already in full bloom!  In addition, ardent, well rehearsed students of scripture are thoroughly acquainted with the fact that the Bible was in fact scientific in a number of diverse ways, including the area of raw physics—specifically, quantum physics here—when in fact there was neither the discipline of any of the general sciences, natural or physical, nor was there physics—classical, or, quantum.  Consider:

a.      Heb. 11:3—the foundation to everything visible, rests or is anchored in its atomic sub-structure (Dalton/Planck/Einstein);

b.      Zechariah 14:12-15—finale and aftermath of an end-times military campaign in which the death-nail is driven by a war-time killing mechanism hopelessly unimaginable then, frightfully real now, namely thermonuclear breakdown (Nagasaki/Hiroshima);

c.      Malachi 4:1; II Pe. 3:5-12—the last-days’ thermo-nucleic impetus for the death-dealing thermonuclear outbreak in Zechariah 14 (also consider Revelation 18; Manhattan Project/Japan in WWII);

d.      Gen. 1:1-5; Exodus 10:21-23; II Pe. 2:4; Jude :6; Rev. 16:10-11—darkness:  not merely an absence of light, as it contains a power that is uniquely its own (astrophysics—black-holes:  apparent areas of nothingness in outer space that can gobble up anything, and, destroy stars hundreds of times the size of our own sun, at 870,000 miles in diameter!))”. 

A six-day creation is impossible, Mr. Ward continues in his assertion.  “…the first life forms…bacterial, then worms, then land based plants, not the other way around with animals…(no basis or justification cited!  Just infallible “Ward” reasoning!  The order of creation per the Bible, Genesis 1:11-12, 20-25; 2:4-7—plant kingdom; kingdom of water-borne creatures; kingdom of fowls; animal kingdom; humanity.)”  Genesis is “…not history, but allegory”, thus, Genesis time is allegorical, non-comformable to “the rigorous demands of science…” Moses as author of Genesis was wrong simply because he was “human”, per Mr. Ward—in affirmation of already demonstrably wrong Riannan logic. 

Of Muslims, Jews, and Christians 

Before moving on, Tony poses another stumper that should probably be dealt with right about now.  Relative to “Camel shaggers, Red Sea Pedestrians, and Death Worshippers (Muslims, Jews and Christians)”, he wonders, “…why is it that none of the big three religions can agree on which day the seventh day was.”

Truth be told, the big three disagree on this and every other bone of contention for just that reason:  They are all religions, not biblically based or sanctioned relationships to the God thereof—no matter how wide spread they are, how popular they are, or, how contentious they each may be to the contrary.  They generally have no more belief in God than does the average unbeliever.  On any kind of a daily continuum, the Bible has no significant impact upon their lives or living.  They all rely totally on their own imaginations, bereft of any attempt to accurately exegete, interpret, or to expound upon a Book that by its very nature demands careful study and scrutiny.  In addition, the Bible sets standards, levies high expectations, and principles of living and conduct to which they are not willing to acquiesce or to submit.  Hence, to circumnavigate these expectations, standards, and codes of conduct, they simply reinvent that which is already, so as to reshape God according to their desires and ambitions.  I. e., instead of them becoming what God wants, they each re-make or rethink God to their liking.  Hereby, in effect, each by his own several interpretational schemes becomes his own god, to the exclusion of the God of the Bible.

With all this in mind then, we begin this dialogue, looking at everyone’s attack on the historicity of the Bible and its flood component, based primarily upon the diatribe of Stephan Loy.

Mr. Loy

This gentleman could be described as adroit and astute.  He is a self-described “…believer, who studies his Bible”!  Hmmmmm!  How does that work?  How can anyone as obviously intelligent as he (knowing now that he is a teacher), yet be as cynical and skeptical—all in one breathe, on the same day—and still be a believer?  A believer in what, or, whom?  How can one profess to believe in the Bible, when he spares no energy trashing it? 

First, let’s deal with the alleged “self-contradictions”:

• Noah’s Flood, Gen. 6 & 7:  Some Bible critics manage self-deception to the point of downright stupefaction!  There is no contradiction between Gen. 6:19-20, and, 7:2-3.  The issue here is strictly a matter of clarification, expanding or enlarging upon instructions already given, and/or, a delineation of those instructions—which He (God) being the Architect and Chief Engineer on His project, was perfectly at liberty to do, as He saw fit.  Moreover, the seven pairs of “clean” animals as opposed to the pairs of “other” (unclean) animals was merely a way of delineating and proactively making provision so as to insure that there were enough animals on board that could be eaten for food (the clean ones) during the long, one year voyage, and, to repopulate the earth, after the flood waters receded.  Thus Noah was instructed to gather seven couples of the clean animals and two pairs of everything else.  There is, furthermore therefore, no contradiction here.
• Judas Iscariot:  Mr. Loy’s demand that we deal with these and other issues “…without using the Bible as their source…” is ludicrous.  We are Christians.  As such we have nothing to say, where there is no reference the Bible.  Moreover, the Bible is our source and must be appealed to, or we have no problem over which to haggle, and there is no rationale for this discussion. 

Relative to his troubles with Judas and his death, first and foremost, he died, of course, by his own hands.  That is, the man committed suicide—thus, his was a private death, not a public execution.  It should, therefore, not take too much genius to reason that he did so away from the public eye, so that no one knew of his deed for quite some time.  By the time he was discovered, the makeshift weapon of self-execution, namely a noose of some sort, had snapped so that he fell to the ground, whereupon his, by then, rotting corpse burst open, spilling his guts.

As will be shown and demonstrated throughout the remainder of this treatise, science has a great deal more to offer in defense of the Bible’s credibility than it ever will in support of Mr. Loy and company’s untenable arguments against it.  So, let us just see how well they do, leaning upon the pillars of their understanding of “science”, and/or history.