so you believe noah lived to be like 800?and that we are all products of incest?

hehe - good question trim!

and I guess the answer is yes on both parts. And you believe we are products of incest too if you adhere to evolution. Unless, of course, you believe that hundreds and thousands of humans 'evolved' within the same generation so that they could have a choice in their procreation.

I guess evolutionary incest would go all the way back to that first cell, wouldn't it?

@Sicarius - you won't ever ruin it for someone of faith. And you won't point out anything for the first time. This debate has been going on for almost 2000 years by people smarter than us. All inconsistencies have been catalogued, and defended. All inconsistencies to the defenses of the inconsistencies have also been catalogged and explained. And so on about 5 levels deep.

@Jacob - Are you a "young-earther"? You say that it is your belief that the dinosaurs died in the flood of Noah, but there is no way to prove it.

Well, actually there is an enormous amount of proof against it. There is so much scientific evidence of when the dinosaurs were here and when they died, that the only reason anyone would question the science is if it pointed out an inconsistency in a book they thought was supposed to be flawless.

As far as inconsistencies go in the New Testement, consider for a second that all of the texts that didn't make it (The gospel of Philip , for instance), didn't make it because of the choices of humans. Whether the books were divinely inspired, or not, whether they were historically accurate or not, the ones that chosen were chosen by a committe of humans. Maybe they just left out the ones, that caused "accuracy issues" such as Jesus being married.

maybe we will never know, but if the bible is true then we diffinetly are, just a question wheres the evidence that what was written in the book of genisis is true, i.e did adam and eve tell someone with a language that they "made up"?

trim...I think it was Methuselah who lived to be in his 900s? Though Noah lived a while as well I think.

Jacob, I think you are misunderstanding evolution there. New species do not evolve wholesale and spontaneously. Speciation occurs incrementally over a very long period of time. That means that in any species, one member will acquire a beneficial mutation (beneficial for its specific time and environment). It will reproduce more than others because it has that trait. The offspring share this advantage, and it spreads thusly. There isn't any incest in the same sense as 'Adam and Eve'. We also know through genetics that one male and one female isn't a viable breeding population. I believe the number for humans is around 150 (to have sufficient genetic diversity).

About the "Who wants to go through their whole life ignoring such a monumental truth?" Well, there are plenty of other explanations with equal credibility (not least other religions, including Polytheistic ones). Also, I don't consider any explanation to be the truth, and that includes things like atomics and gravity. It just so happens those are the theories with the most evidence as accepted by the majority of experts in the field. They are never the truth. Truth doesn't really exist. I guess that's where my problem with religion is. In order to have faith you can't have doubt in your mind, otherwise by definition you don't have faith. At least secular explanations admit there is a possibility they're wrong.

Can I also make it clear I consider this a lively and healthy debate, and it's good to have people willing to engage on these issues to such an extent. I can see your point Jacob, even if I don't agree :D

Phil and trim - you guys are bringing up some great points and questions! I would hope that anyone who considers themselves a Christian would be willing to wrestle with these things. Too often, Christians are content to just be a Christian because "my daddy raised me right" or something like that...

I am a "young-earther" and my reasoning for that definitely springs from the text, not from science. I do recognize that the weight of scientific evidence seems to point to an older earth and there are plenty of Christians who are "old-earthers". I also think that the old-earth perspective is within the possibilities for interpretation of the text.

However, I think that a young-earth perspective is the best reading of the text and I think that there are still enough questions within the scientific realm that I am still of the young-earth perspective.

It is important to note here that the old-earth perspective would not necessarily be inconsistent with the text.

As for the canon of Scripture - that is a fascinating study. I am more familiar with the formation of the New Testament scripture than I am with the Old Testament. I plan on digging in to the Old Testament canon formation soon.

There is a TON that could be said about the new testament formation, but I'll start by saying that the NT was really already in use among early believers long before it was 'canonized'.

As for the question regarding how Genesis was written it seems pretty clear to me that there are really only three options: 1)God revealed it to Moses, 2)Moses just made it up, 3)It was an oral tradition that Moses wrote down.

My guess is that it was an oral tradition. I have not extensively studied Genesis from an academic perspective so these are merely my own musings.

You're right H - Methuselah is the record-holder at 969!

As for my understanding of evolution, I think I understand it very well. My point was exactly what you said - according to evolution there would be no wholesale arrival of a new species on the scene. Hence, all species are from an 'incestuous' relationship between the first two of their type if you want to use that language. Personally, I find that idea a little weird...

Listen - I just want to bring humanity back to two created people. Evolutionists want to bring us back to a single cell! Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't think you can use incest as an argument given the constraints of the theory of evolution.

Also, I too appreciate the debate - it's good to engage in these kinds of discussions =)

At the risk of posting too much I'd also like to respond to the comment that there really is no truth.

Personally, I think that's just postmodernist hogwash. Sorry for the strong opinion, but c'mon - are you really going to tell me that just because we, with our finite minds and limited perspective, cannot accurately discern truth that truth doesn't exist???

Actually, I think you've pointed out something here - the only way we could actually possess truth is if it were.............drum roll here...........revealed to us. For instance, maybe if a being that was not hampered by a finite mind a a limited perspective, say, God, took the time to communicate truth to us, perhaps in written form?

Yikes, five posts in a row - I need to get back to work here... =)

he number of apparent inconsistencies in the biblical narratives is immense—Gleason Archer's encyclopedic work on the subject (from an inerrantist position) runs to almost 500 pages.[21] Some concern plot (e.g. the question of which day of the week Jesus was crucified[22]), some are arithmetical (the question of Noah's age after the Flood[23]), some theological (why is there so much killing mentioned in the Bible and how does this square with "Thou shalt not kill"?[24]). i know its from wiki but 500 pages of t inconsistencies seems an awful lot

In the Book of Genesis; Cain kills Abel and then goes off to the land of Nod where he comes across other humans with no explanation where they came from though Cain's mother and father, Adam and Eve, are meant to be the first of the human race. Cain's conversation with God alludes to the idea that God is neither omniscient, omnipotent or omnipresent as God has to ask Cain where Abel is after Cain had killed him, the Bible then claims "Then Cain went out from the Lord's presence" as though God isn't present in all places.-so where did these people come from then

It is a lot, but there are some things to bear in mind. A work like that is exhaustive - it lists EVERYTHING! So, if there are 200 manuscripts that say Noah was 777 years old and 200 that say he was 776 (just a hypothetical, I'm not actually sure what the variant in this case is or would be) then that is four hundred variances. You can see how that would rather quickly add up the pages even though in this instance we're talking about one difference.

However, someone earlier pointed out that even one inconsistency is damning to someone who claims inerrancy. This is true in the sense that if the Bible is internally inconsistent then it is a HUGE problem.

However, remember that with inerrancy we are talking about the autographs - the original manuscripts.

For the sake of argument, let's say that all the manuscripts ever produced up to this point in time were exactly the same without a single difference! And then Jacob, a new Greek student decides to produce a manuscript. Since Jacob is basically incompotent with his small amount of Greek knowledge he produces a Greek manuscript that is full of mistakes!!

Now, does the existence of this document mean that the Bible is no longer inerrant?

but the orignal manuscripts had inconsistencies between them

@Jacob - your 3 options regarding Genesis don't include the one that most Torah scholars believe. That there were 5 authors and an editor and that differences in similar stories were combined together for political reasons after the 2 Kindoms of Judea and Isreal recombined.

It's VERY interesting stuff, for believers and non-believers alike. There's a book called "Who wrote the Bible" by Richard Friedman - who is an Old Testament and Hebrew scholar - no translations for this guy, he reads it as is.

I've always thought that the problem with Fundamentalist Christianity is their insistance that not only is the NT without error, but so is the OT. There are truly a lot of problems with the stories in the OT, and not even Orthodox Jews are bound to the idea that all of the stories are Literal. And they're the ones for whom the OT (especially the Torah) matters most. Not Christians, the NT is what matters to them. If you can get past the necessity that Adam and Eve were litterally the first 2 humans and that Satan litterally manifested himself as a snake and corrupted Eve - or that God would be so bored as to stick these 2 people in a garden and let them eat ANYTHING but the apples, then the teachings of Jesus will come through a little bit more clear. But I get that one of the teachings of Jesus was regarding the infallability of the OT, and thus ironically, Jews - who don't believe Jesus was the Messiah - are free to dismiss the literal interpretation of a book that is way more sacred to them than the fundamentalist Christian who can't deny it because of something Jesus said.

BUT - did Jesus really say it? I mean did he say it like that? or did Luke misinterpret him? or did the story alter slightly between the time Luke heard it and the time he wrote it down?

Imagine Jacob - how much easier it would be to be a Christian and claim the truth of the NT without having to defend all of these far-fetched Jewish stories that the Jews don't even believe.

to think that you have to accuse about 5 different branches of science of being wrong with no evidence that they are wrong, just to have the OT be "flawless". I feel for you, that's gotta be tough.

Nope.

The Bible, at least from a Catholic perspective, is only inerrant in matters of faith necessary for salvation. In this mode of thinking, it's entirely proper to think of the Flood as a parable, not an actual global deluge.

The nope was for Jacob's post.

@phil: I knew of only 4 major sources, E, Y, P, and D; which is the fifth?

Which is harder to get past, that Adam and Eve were the first humans, that Satan manifested himself as a snake, or that God created the whole universe out of nothing??

If you accept God as creator then those other things aren't very hard to imagine. I'll respond more to your post in a bit...I'm headed out right now.

trim, if you'd like to share the inconsistencies then I'd be happy to discuss them with you.

well i will but first you should respond to the other things i have said and also phil's

Norin - it's been a while, maybe it was 4 + the redactor.

Also it might not have been Luke that quoted Jesus, it might have been Mark or John or Matthew or Paul. But you get the idea.

Been a while for me too, we looked into it in high school, and I haven't looked touched it a lot ever since, I'm more interested on the psalms to tell the truth

sorry jacob, christians are just so easy to patronize.

so a jew zombie wants me to eat crackers and drink wine so I can have his forgiveness for a naked chick eating a snake apple otherwise an invisible man in the sky who loves me very much will send me to an eternity of pain and torture. sounds plausible.

Why are you such an intolerant bastard? That's incredibly offensive what you just wrote.

Fair enough sic, you certainly aren't the first to mock Christians. Just do me a favor and don't call Christians intolerant when you are the one too intolerant of Christians to treat them with any respect.

It was 4 + the redactor. And though this is taught often in adademia, amongst biblical scholars (believers and non) the idea of 4 authors is somewhat mocked as ridiculous.

he never called christians intolerant, and it may be offensive invictus but what part of it isnt true (discounting the zombie bit)

And Jacob as Christians we can't expect people to be "tolerant" of our ideas and mock their "postmodernism" at the same time. Our faith is offensive. Jesus was offensive. That's ok, but let's not hold others to a standard that apart from Christ is terribly difficult to reach.