Egyptian Mythology

[Joe Sperling]

"Remember this one thing that a day with the Lord is like a thousand years, or a thousand years as a day in the eyes
of the Lord(inexact paraphrase---but in the book of 1 Peter).

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
And the earth BECAME(true Hebrew)without form and void."
There could be a huge space between verse one and verse
two. And there could be another huge space between verse two and when God again visits the earth to restore
it. Remember he says "replenish the earth" as though it was something that needed to be done again. For a good read pick up "The Invisible War" by John Barnhouse. He points these things out in a very articulate way. I personally believe the world to be billions of years old just as the scientists say. I do not believe this conflicts with the Bible at all. Man himself may only be 6,000 years in existence, who knows? Whether the world is 6000 years old or 14 billion years old, it's all the same with God--time is nothing to him. what is considered a "short time" with God?
"Behold I come Quickly"--to God that's now---to us 2000 years is  a long time and were still waiting for Christ to appear. But 2000 years years is like two days to God(again see 1Peter)--and even that shouldn't be taken literally--I think what Peter is saying is that time is truly non-existent with God. We are sitting in one spot watching the parade go
by. We see only that part of the parade that is passing us right now. God is far above the parade and sees it moving from the start to the finish at one time. God may have done many things with the earth before we were put on it as human beings. God is infinite in his imagination--he may have used th earth like we use an etch-a-sketch to create many different things we have in our imagination. God is outside of time, but he has all the time in the world to do whatever he wants to do.

--Joe

[Arthur]

"Remember this one thing that a day with the Lord is like a thousand years, or a thousand years as a day in the eyes
of the Lord(inexact paraphrase---but in the book of 1 Peter).

When Peter is saying this, he is not saying it in reference to when the earth was created.  God does give specific amounts of years when refering to the chronology of mankind in Genesis.  This passage in II Peter is given so that we may take comfort in the fact that God will carry out his promises though it may not be immediately.  As the next verse explains, "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness..."  So you see, the verse you quoted has nothing to do with God's account of creation or the age of the earth.

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
And the earth BECAME(true Hebrew)without form and void."
There could be a huge space between verse one and verse
two. And there could be another huge space between verse two and when God again visits the earth to restore
it.

The Bible makes no mention of any "gaps".  The gap theory as taught by its proponents is not in the Bible. Invented in 1814, the gap theory came about because some Christians would not trust what the Bible says to refute what the evolutionists were saying.  To accomodate the teaching of the evolutionists, they concocted this theory to try to coincide with the fantansy teaching of the Big Bang, denying what the text of the Bible bears out.  
The Hebrew word for "without form" is tohu.  tohu is never used in the Bible in reference to judgement.  The text does not say "The earth became formless as a result of judgement".  The translators correctly translated it.  "The earth was without form and void" because God hadn't created anything yet.  Duh!  Instead of just taking the Bible at what it says, the gap theorists try to slip in some fantasy ideas that simply aren't there, taking their lead from unbelievers.  There was no gap of "millions of years."  That's all a fairy tale that some people thought up in the early 1800's and has never been proven by true science.  

Remember he says "replenish the earth" as though it was something that needed to be done again. For a good read pick up "The Invisible War" by John Barnhouse. He points these things out in a very articulate way. I personally believe the world to be billions of years old just as the scientists say. I do not believe this conflicts with the Bible at all.

The Hebrew word for "replenish" is male, which means "to fill" (and not "to refill").  The King James was written in 1611.  In 1611, the English dictionary defined "replenish" as - "to supply fully, to fill." Nearly a century later, the dictionary defined it as - "to fill or build up again", so you see that the second definition was added. I just read a modern dictionary that has one definition of the word to mean "to finish, to complete, to perfect." They translated it correctly for the language at that time.  If the Hebrew writer wanted to convey the thought "refill" that you are suggesting, he would have used the word shana, which means "to fill again".

Man himself may only be 6,000 years in existence, who knows? Whether the world is 6000 years old or 14 billion years old, it's all the same with God--time is nothing to him. what is considered a "short time" with God?

Yes God does know and he has given us an account in the book of Gensis, complete with years so that we can know without a doubt.  Why is it important?  Evolution is a fairy tale and a lie that has been developed by the father of lies to promote the questioning of the authority of God's word.  How many children are forcefully taught, to this very day, that they came from dirt that turned into pond scum that turned into monkeys that turned into them.  Instead of being taught that they are made in the image of the eternal, living God who loves them and has a purpose for their lives, they are taught that they came from dirt that exploded.  And look at what has happened ever since.  You teach a young man that he is an animal and how do you expect he is going to act?  Let me ask you, could you leave your keys in your car in the 50's?  Did they have metal detectors in schools in the 50's?  Were there nearly so many teen-age pregnancies or aboritions in the 50's?  What has happened?  Well ever since the 60's, the religion of evolution has been taught in public schools.    And see how it has been a detriment to our society.   The very fact that you say what you say shows that someone was influenced by this religion and they passed it on to you.  But you don't have to listen to them. Study and you will see that evolution is the biggest, laughable lie that anyone has ever taught.
If there is no God then there is no law giver and they can do what they want.  That is the basis of humanism and why evolution is the promoted state religion in our society today.   To this day there are known lies published in the textbooks.  It is little different than what occurred in communist countries.  I could go on, but you get the idea.

"Behold I come Quickly"--to God that's now---to us 2000 years is  a long time and were still waiting for Christ to appear. But 2000 years years is like two days to God(again see 1Peter)--and even that shouldn't be taken literally--I think what Peter is saying is that time is truly non-existent with God. We are sitting in one spot watching the parade go
by. We see only that part of the parade that is passing us right now. God is far above the parade and sees it moving from the start to the finish at one time. God may have done many things with the earth before we were put on it as human beings. God is infinite in his imagination--he may have used th earth like we use an etch-a-sketch to create many different things we have in our imagination. God is outside of time, but he has all the time in the world to do whatever he wants to do.

--Joe

Yes, God can do anything, but it was man's imagination that came up with evolution.  God has already recorded for us what he has done.  All we need do is believe it and not try to come up with something else.  Speaking of the Lord's return, the Bible has this to say:
3 Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, 4 And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. 5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: 6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: 7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

"In the last days will come scoffers, walking after their own lusts" this describes humanism.  
"all things continue as they were from the beginning."  This is the "scientific" doctorine of uniformtarianism (what we observe happening today must have always been happening like that).  

"For this they willingly are ignorant of"  that means -- "dumb on purpose."
"...that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:  Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: "
Evolutionists explain how the earth is now by saying it took "millions of years".  The Bible says that the earth is the way that it is now because 4,400 years ago there was a flood that completely destroyed the world at that time.
"But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men."  The reason why people are dumb on purpose so as to believe the evolutionist religion is so that they don't have to deal with the fact that there are consequences for their ungodly behavior and that they will one day have to meet their maker.  

Joe, you (and no doubt many others) have been deceived, just like I was.  And the people who taught us were probably sincere.  But I believe the Bible now, and I am confident that about 6,000 years ago, on the first day, God created light, on the second day...etc.  No gaps, no millions of years, no big bang, no evolution as an explanation for the origin of species.  God made me and he loves me and one day I'll have to stand before him to give an account for my life.

Check out http://www.drdino.com/cse.asp?pg=articles&specific=35

[Joe Sperling]

Arthur---

I don't believe in evolution at all. I just happen to believe
that it is very possible that the earth is extremely old. God
gave the world doctors and scientists--and most of all he gave us intelligence by way of the mind. You wouldn't have a light to read your Bible by if Thomas Edison hadn't created a light bulb. Because one believes in The Bible and Science also doesn't make one an evolutionist.I just happen to believe that scientists have discovered many things, and have helped bettter our lives. The very people in the past that believed the world was only 6000 years old also persecuted Galileo for saying the earth wasn't the center of the Universe. I believe it was a Bishop Ussher who came up with the date of 6000 years or there about.
I believe that astronomers and scientists(and true there are some atheists, but there are also many believers too) have used Science and established many truths. Hey--for all I know the world is only 6000 years old---but that is very doubtful, seeing all the remains of ancient dinosaurs, etc. Unless you believe that shortly before the Babylonians, etc. were huge dinosaurs walking about. but that isn't consistent with what archaeologists find at all. I believe in the Bible, but also with science, and the age of the earth is not important in whether I believe in God or not. God can do anything.


Take care, Joe

[Arthur]

The Bible is in no way at odds with science.  "Science" or knowledge is man's obsverations of God's created universe.  Of course man can be wrong--we are limited, finite beings.  But even from what man has observed, there is no scientific evidence for evolution, and by that I mean macro-evolution (the origin of species), cosmic evolution, chemical evolution, etc.  I do not mean micro-evolution (variation within kinds), which is definitely observable and is occuring today.
What people know to be commonly referred to as evolution, which encompasses all of those evolutions, is a religion that is not scientifically based at all.  People believe it just like I believe in God.  They believe "In the beginning dirt..."  I believe, "In the beginning God..."

Evolution has not added a single benefit to the human race.  In fact, all of the major branches of science - Astronomy, Physics, etc. have been started by creationists.  
I do not know who told you that bit about Galileo's persecution.  The issue was not about religion versus science.  The issue was that the Catholic church (which in no way represents Christ, rather is the largest and oldest cult in the world) held to the Aristotelian view of the solar system while Galileo was finding emperical evidence to support the then-recent Copernican view of the solar system.  This threatened the Catholic's power, which is why they persecuted him.
Galileo was a man of faith as well as a man of science.  In 1615 Galileo wrote in a letter to Madame Christina of Lorraine, the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, "I think in the first place that it is very pious to say and prudent to affirm that the Holy Bible can never speak untruth -- whenever its true meaning is understood...He [Copernicus] did not ignore the Bible, but he knew very well that if his doctrine were proved, then it could not contradict the Scripture when they were rightly understood."  Exactly!
Now, as far as evoution is concerned -- Nazism, communism and a host of other idea that are harmful to humans and aided in the slaughter of  millions this century had their origin in the evolution religion.

As for the dinosaurs, yes there were dinosaurs at the time of Babylon, and Rome too for that matter.  It is on their coins and on the walls of their cities, as recent archeological digs have proven.  Another recent discovery found over 10,000 stones in Inca, Peru.  Several hundreds of them had pictures of dinosaurs and humans interacting, i.e. riding them, putting them to work, etc. as well as brain and heart surgery (BTW, people aren't getting smarter like evolutionists say.  People before the floord probably were way more intelligent then we are today).
The word dinosaur wasn't around until 1841, before that they were referred to as dragons.  It is easy to see how they have died out for various reasons since the flood.  But there are dinosaurs alive to this very day, in the swamps of the Congo, etc.  I could into detail about this, let me know if you want it.  

As for the light bulb--actually, I would be able to read my Bible--by the light of the sun that God created.    Or by a candle, or perhaps even by some sort of device that was run on one of the pre-diluvial batteries that was found in a coal mine.


For more info on Galileo, check out http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/galileo.html

[Will Jones]

Interesting post, Arthur!  

The linear theory of evolution has taken a huge beating in the last 10-15 years as the fossil record has grown:  all of these supposed pre-humans actually existed at the same time for over 1 million years; thus, they were not different steps towards modern homo sapiens.  This news has finally seeped into popular culture through TIME magazine, books and a recent Discovery Channel program I saw.

Please tell me your sources for the information you relayed about dinosaurs!  I would love to read about that!    I think it is interesting that "dragons" are a shared myth by all major cultures in the world.  This indicates that "dragons" did in fact exist in human memory.

My next post after this should be quite interesting.  

[Will Jones]

One of the people on this thread said, "Will, I like to think that life is a continual experience of discovery and evaluation and rediscovery."  I agree.  This life is a process and we never arrive fully at perfection or perfect knowledge.  We "peer through a glass darkly" at the moment as it says in 1 Corinthians.  Therefore, it can be dangerous for people who claim they have THE TRUTH because they could deny the truth by believing in a "truth" that is false.  How many times when we said we were right we were wrong and had to eat humble pie?  Many times I am sure.

"Faith" is a "firm persuasion," not a license to assert that you are right and you have the truth and everyone else is wrong simply because they do not agree with you.  We must take pains to be humble and admit that the light in us could be darkness; we should be constantly renewing our minds in light of Scripture AND scholarly findings.  Due to the fallibility of human nature, people can never claim that what they believe in is THE TRUTH, just what they believe is the truth for them at that moment.  The gospel is the truth.

Why do so many Christians have different ideas?  Everyone has a different notion of truth that is right for them or seems to fit in with their concept of theology based on their understanding of the Bible.   This fact that we all have different (though similar) ideas implies that we must decide or interpret truth for ourselves:  that was what Luther stood up to the Pope for—the right to interpret Scripture individually.  He believed that the Bible contained the Word of God, i.e., the gospel, the good news of salvation, BUT he (like many others until the Fundamentalist movement) did not believe that the Bible was inerrant and infallible and "is a completely reliable record of the history of the world" like Arthur wrote and many modern-day Christians were taught.  Luther (like Augustine and many others) studied the Bible and criticized parts of it and even pointed out discrepancies and stated that they did not believe that some of the stated authors were the real authors.  For example, many people like Luther have commented about the clear contradictions in the Resurrection Narratives if you attempt to compare the four gospels.  (Now, please, nobody tell me there is no contradictions until YOU have attempted to piece together a clear series of events from all four gospels yourself--I have painstakingly tried like Luther and so many others and it is simply not possible unless you omit contradictory passages.) How many women went to the tomb, where did they/she first see Jesus, and how many angels were in or out of the tomb and were the angels sitting, standing and what did they say exactly if you compare all gospel accounts?

If you accept the fact that the Bible contains the gospel, the good news and truth of God’s love for humankind, you have no problem because the Bible was written by men and inspired by God.  But if you assert the Bible is infallible and inerrant and a “completely reliable account” of history and science, nonbelievers can and have used these beliefs to discredit Christianity.  For example, the Fundamentalist notion of a perfect Bible and the Word of God was used against Christians in the famous court case over allowing evolution to be taught in American schools.  Genesis 1-3 was examined and was very easily proven to be contradictory because there are in fact two separate creation stories in Genesis (Gen. 1: 1-2:4 vs. Gen. 2: 4-24) as scholars have shown.  The first creation story was written in reaction to the Babylonian Creation story to show that only one God created the world rather than many.  If you don’t admit that there are two different creation stories in the Bible and the Bible was complied from various human writings, the Bible will have contradictions.  For example, were humans formed before or after the animals (Gen. 1:25-27 vs. Gen. 2:18f)? In Gen. 1:12 it stated the land had already produced vegetation on the third day, three days before the creation of man, but in Genesis 2:5 no vegetation had yet been grown!  If the Bible is innerrant in terms of Science and History, if God created light in Gen. 1:2f, why did He then create the sun, moon and stars on day four (Gen1: 14-19)?  The Creationists had argued in court that evolution/science was the work of humans and therefore flawed but the evolutionists argued the exact same thing and discredited the fact that the Bible is "a completely reliable record" of science and history!  

As the above example so clearly shows, you need to think twice before asserting the Bible as “a completely reliable record” of history and science.  To make the Bible out to be more than just a book written by men and inspired by God causes problems and discredits Christianity in the eyes of secular Biblical scholars and others who think they cannot believe in the truth of the gospel because most Christians hold to the inerrancy and infalibility of the Scriptures.  Such people who seriously study the Bible as literatures know that some “mistakes” in the Bible can be written off as copyist mistakes like 2 Sam. 21:19 vs.1 Chron. 20:5 or 2 Kings 8:25 vs. 2 Kings 9:29), and some can be explained away like who bought the Potters’ Field (Acts 1:18 vs. Matt 27:6-7) or if the Lord or Satan tempted David to number the people of Israel (2 Sam. 24:1 vs. I Chron 21:1).  But were the disciples supposed to take or not take staffs and sandals (Mark 6:8-9 vs. Matt:10-9-10)? How many fighting men were there really (2 Sam. 24: 9 vs. 1 Chron. 21:5)?  Despite its human foibles, however, it still contains the truth of the gospel for us today, but it is not a "perfectly reliable document" in terms of history and science.  I could give more examples but I will stop here.

THE POINT TO THIS POST IS:
We need to interpret the Bible ourselves for today and realize that humans wrote it at a particular place and time and within a culture that no longer exists.  In Genesis is says that the day Adam and Eve ate the fruit they would die.  We do not take that literally and INTERPRET that death as spiritual.  We no longer greet one another with a holy kiss even though Paul tells the saints to.  We no longer own slaves and the role of women has thankfully changed in society.  The Apostle Peter says we are to obey those in authority over us but in Acts he stood against the authorities.  The point to this paragraph is we must interpret the Bible ourselves and decide what God’s will is for us.  He has given us a brain and He wants us to use it so that life can be "a continual experience of discovery and evaluation and rediscovery."

Praise the Lord!

[Joe Sperling]

Will---

I really appreciated your post. I t was very much to the point and is the stance I take also. As for Arthur mentioning that dinosaurs must have co-existed with man because dragons appear on coins, etc.  There is quite a bit of artwork, modern and ancient which shows men with sartyrs, dwarves and elves---do we gain from this that sartyrs, dwarves and elves MUST have all co-existed with men also? The Babylonians had statues of Lions with wings on them---do we gain from this that lions with wings must one time have lived and co-existed with the Babylonians? To me that is faulty logic.  But this has been a fun discussion.
Take care,  Joe

[Arthur]

That was one of the evidences I mentioned, yes.  Yes, I agree with you, that is not conclusive evidence.  There are many other pieces of supporting evidence that I did not have time to write, but I'll put a few up now.  Also, the Bible makes it clear in Job 41 when it talks about the behemoth, that man and dinosaurs lived together at the same time.  I'll get to that at the end of this post, but for now, how about some pictures?
 


"This apparent Plesiosaur washed up on Moore's Beach in Monterey Bay, California in 1925. The neck was described as being about 20 feet long. No credible explanation has ever been made to explain it, other than Plesiosaurs still living in the Pacific Ocean.  The sardine fishermen often reported seeing creatures like this in the 1920-40 era."

"This photo of the Lake Champlain monster was taken by Sandi Mansi in 1977. Dr. Hovind interviewed her.  Thousands of people claim to have seen this creature in Lake Champlain, on the New York/Vermont border."


"Nessie, seen with open mouth.(Readers Digest's Strange Stories, Amazing Facts 1978 p. 424)"


"These two pictures are of an apparent Plesiosaur caught by a Japanese fishing boat off the coast of New Zealand in 1977. It had apparently been dead for a couple weeks. It was 32 feet long and weighed 4000 pounds. Some have argued that this is a basking shark because the protein was 96% similar to shark protein. No one has ever seen plesiosaur protein to know what it should look like. Scores of vastly different animals have very similar proteins. This only proves a common designer for both."  And basking sharks do not look at all like this.

"On November 16, 1970, this 50 foot long carcass washed ashore in Situate Harbor, Massachusetts in the middle of the night. Before it could be safeguarded and studied, a crowd had gathered and mutilated the body. Many of those who saw it felt it was a sea monster."

"This 31" creature was found on the shore of Lake Erie and mounted by taxidermist Pete Peterson. It is currently at the Creation Evidences Museum in Glen Rose, Texas. (254-897-3200) The creature has yet to be identified."  Undoubtedly it is a infant form of a much larger beast.

The pictures and quotes are from the www.drdino.com website.

There have been over 20,000 sightings of dinosaurs or dinosaur-like creatures in the twentieth century.

In the Likouala region of the People's Republic of the Congo natives have reported seeing a huge creature that they refer to as Mokele-Mbembe.  They describe it as being about 30 feet long and having a long neck and tail.

Fossilized human footprints have been found at multiple sites, ALONG-SIDE OF dinosaur tracks and other extinct creatures.

In 1968, in Antelope Springs Utah, William J. Meister, Sr., a non-Christian evolutionist found a human footprint and trilobites in the same rock.  In fact the footprint was stepping on some of the trilobites.  Then he found more such footprints as evidence that the human was wearing sandals.  This has been confirmed by other scientists.   Well, the trilobite was supposed to be extinct millions of years ago.  Long before evolutionists believed that humans existed.

In the Paluxy River in Glen Rose Texas, dinosaur and human tracks have been found together, embedded in the same rock bed.






"Oh No! We missed the boat!"  Funny (and sad too), but true.

The pictures are from www.bible.ca

There are so many more sites and pictures, check them out at http://www.bible.ca/tracks/tracks.htm


In the book of Job, there are two creatures that God refers to when he is illustrating his power and strength to job:  the behemoth and the leviathan.

Job 40:15-24

15 Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox. 16 Lo now, his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly. 17 He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together. 18 His bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of iron. 19 He is the chief of the ways of God: he that made him can make his sword to approach unto him. 20 Surely the mountains bring him forth food, where all the beasts of the field play. 21 He lieth under the shady trees, in the covert of the reed, and fens. 22 The shady trees cover him with their shadow; the willows of the brook compass him about. 23 Behold, he drinketh up a river, and hasteth not: he trusteth that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth. 24 He taketh it with his eyes: his nose pierceth through snares.


Now, some..eh hem..."scholars" have tried to explain this away as being a hippopotamus or an elephant.  The reason they do this is because they have bought the lie of evolution and are trying to accommodate it.  Dinosaurs were created along with all the other beasts of the field on the sixth day as is recorded in Genesis 1.  
God describes this beast and one of the things he says is that "he moveth his tail like a cedar".  Have you ever seen the tail of an elephant or a hippopotamus?  They have itty-bitty small little tails!  No, what God is referring to here, is probably the brontosaurus or the gigantisaurus.  In fact, God says that the beast is "the chief of the ways of God."  This beast was the cheif of what God had made.  God made him to display his power and ability to men so that we may marvel and give God the glory.  Satan, and this is just up his alley, has tried to use this, God's most magnificent creation as well as other dinosaurs, with the aid of our ability to forget, to try to get us believe that God didn't create anything, it all evolved, and therefore we need not give glory to Him.  Notice that God said, "Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee..."  God just goes right out and says it.  The burden of proof is on the evolutionists to prove that it is not so.

7 But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee: 8 Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee: and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee. 9 Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the LORD hath wrought this? 10 In whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind. 11 Doth not the ear try words? and the mouth taste his meat? 12 With the ancient is wisdom; and in length of days understanding. 13 With him is wisdom and strength, he hath counsel and understanding. 14 Behold, he breaketh down, and it cannot be built again: he shutteth up a man, and there can be no opening. 15 Behold, he withholdeth the waters, and they dry up: also he sendeth them out, and they overturn the earth.   Job 12:7-15

[David Mauldin]

The Bible jives with science?  What about  ..."from the rising of the sun to the setting thereof..."  Yes Galileo almost lost his life over this one.

[Arthur]

What about it?  Oh, are you trying to say (heheh) that because the Bible says "from the rising of the sun to the setting thereof" that it is scientifically inaccurate?  Oh my!  
Have you ever used that expression David?  Does that mean you actually think that the sun is rising and setting rather than realizing that what is going on is that the earth is rotating.  

You see, you and I use metaphors, similies, puns, sarcasm, analogies, word play, etc. all the time.  So does the Bible!
When it is written "from the rising of the sun to the setting thereof", at that moment, God is not making a scientific declaration.  He is giving comfort to his people in a way they can understand and visualize.  
There are times that he puts things literally (such as the number of years that men lived in Genesis).  The context usually makes it obvious when those times are.  Just like I know when you mean something to be literal or when you are using a metaphor by the context in which you say it.

I would think that God knows how the universe that he created operates.  hehehe  

[David Mauldin]

So what you are saying is that when you interpret the Bible all sorts of rules apply.  Sometimes its literal!  Sometimes its metaphor!  Sometimes its principle!  Sometimes its Cultural?  Gee with these kinds of rules just about anything can be interpreted from the Bible! I sure wish I would have known about this before I cut off my hand and plucked out my eye!

[Arthur]

Yes!---to the first part. God is not some concept, he is a living being!  He's got personality, and he's not boring.  His letter to us (the Bible) is not some drab, put-you-to sleep material.  It is incredibly complex, yet beautifully simple in conveying its main thesis--i.e. how much he loves us and what he has done for us.
So when we read it, just like when we read anything, we've got to think about it.  As humans we are prone to over-generalizations --oops, I think I just did it lol!  So we throw everything into one category, or we discount another thing after hardly even looking at it, or we just plain don't get it because, well we're human.

No!  to the second part. Not just anything can be interpretted.  God says what he means.  If he says it in a metaphor, he intended it that way, but it is not proper to just make it say whatever you want.  See what I mean?   We need to be careful when we study it, just like any book we read, so that we may accurately understand what the author is intending to convey, and not try to make it say something else.  

[David Mauldin]

You are very honest to state the possibility of human error  yet at the same time you speak with absolute conviction. Seems like a controdiction. This is why I can never take the stance of "Thus sayeth the Lord ..." again I am a limited being.  God is an undefinable mystery.  I believe we can speculate, we can explore experiment, but we can never arrive. (Yet I could be wrong)

[Joe Sperling]

Those are pretty "amazing" photos below. Too bad they always turn out to be hoxes. Recently, one of the most "authentic" pictures of the Loch Ness Monster turned out to be a hoax---the one taking the picture admitting it on his death bed. For many years a tape of Sasquatch was held to be "for real", but again an admission by those involved has proved it was a hoax. The "human fottprints" next to dinosaur prints are never perfrect prints where you can see 5 toes. The "resemble" human tracks but may have been made by dinosaurs or other animals. if it could be "proven" these are human footprints they would appear in more than the National Enquirer. But, alas, they have always been "washed away" or "vandalized" before one can really get a good look at them. It's like UFO pcitures--always blurry and hard to identify. Again, I do not believe in evolution--I believe God created the world. I do not hold to the concept that because one believes the world could be billions of years old that one is helping  the evolutionists. Try reading a book by Hugh Ross--he is a brilliant writer, a sincere Christian--but he presents a creationist view in a scientific system of logic. It is very enlightening to read one of his books. I appreciate all you have posted Arthur---that's what's great about this BB--to see different views and ways of looking at things---you can't help but learn something in an atmosphere like that.  take care,  Joe

[Arthur]

Ok, Joe. What can I say?  Either those are real pictures or they are not.  The people who saw them and touched them and took the pictures sure must have thought they were real.  Some of them are in the pictures too, I doubt you'd say they were hoaxes.  Do you know that all of these are hoaxes?  Unless you do, you cannot say that they are.  Many of the evidences I listed have been verified by multiple eye-witnesses, and some of them are in museums that you or I could go visit today.  About the five toes, I counted five on that one picture of the human footprint that is on top of the dino footprint.  Those tracks are still there today, if I'm not mistaken.  And I think I heard that some have been cut out of the bed rock and are being preserved.  As for hoaxes, many of the so-called "evidences" for evolution - Nebraska man, Pilt-down man, Neanderthal, etc. have been irrefutably proven to be hoaxes.

Hugh Ross --  Ah yes, he is one of the champions for the gap theory, but he is wrong.
I do not think that it is harmless to believe in the gap theory or that the earth is billions of years old.  I think that it is denying what the Word of God says in order to accomodate the lie of the enemy of Christ and Christians, namely Satan.  In the garden, the serpent, who is the father of lies, questioned the Word of God.  "Hast God said...."   He is doing the same thing to this day.  The religion of evolution is dreadfully detrimental to humanity, and the gap theory is an attempt to marry that lie with the truth of the Bible.   Such a thing should not be done.