Christian Forums

Paul Wight is the Giant

Quote from: Rella on Wed Mar 30, 2022 - 17:11:42
Nothing, but is certain that if there were any remains from a giant human it is always a scam or con. And was amusing to me that this popped up as this subject is again making its rounds.

The bible talks of giants, and then that idea is ALWAYS knocked down to them just being a little large compared to man as we know him..... Guiness records has The tallest man in medical history for whom there is irrefutable evidence is Robert Pershing Wadlow (USA) (born 6:30 a.m. at Alton, Illinois, USA on 22 February 1918), who when last measured on 27 June 1940, was found to be 2.72 m (8 ft 11.1 in) tall.

But just to churn things up a bit....

There were at one time.... either very old or recently old....  very large animals.

Every once in a while someone will stumble across a skeleton of such and sometimes one will be displayed... ( or parts there of with a mock up of what it would have looked like.)

Yeah, the classical Greek cities had museums.    They displayed fossils, with "dragons"  (fossil giraffe head and neck),



cyclops giants (fossil elephant skulls) and so on.

Quote from: Jaime on Wed Mar 30, 2022 - 15:19:17
Old earth is the explanation attempt of the inexplicable when juggling the Bible.

Old earth isn't an attempt at anything.  It's just believing your eyes, and the Bible.

Quote from: Wycliffes_Shillelagh on Thu Mar 31, 2022 - 11:26:15
Old earth isn't an attempt at anything.  It's just believing your eyes, and the Bible.

I am open to old earth, not open to people evolving from monkeys.  That's just idiotic.

Jarrod, Old earth is coming up with things that are described otherwise differently in the Bible. I accept the virgin birth even though it goes against EVERYTHING the natural world tells me about birth and procreation. I have no issue with God speaking the present earth into existence in a relative instant. No need to wonder how it would have come about on it's on without God. And those two notions don't have to jibe. I accept the miraculous parting of the Red Sea. I have no need to wonder if a distant volcano in the Mediterranean caused a tsunami and momentarily sucked the water out of the Red Sea. God just did it pretty much as was described with the walls of water standing up on both sides. Scientifically irrational, but what else is new with the God of the Bible?

I too am open to Old Earth, but it has no more logical appeal to me as a scientist/engineer than young earth brought about by God to me as a believer. It doesn't take shutting off the brain to be a believer in the Bible.

Quote from: Texas Conservative on Thu Mar 31, 2022 - 11:30:13
I am open to old earth, not open to people evolving from monkeys.  That's just idiotic.

No kidding; monkeys are far too evolved in their own way to have ever given rise to humans.    Humans are phylogentically apes, not monkeys.

Quote from: Jaime on Thu Mar 31, 2022 - 12:04:37
I too am open to Old Earth, but it has no more logical appeal to me as a scientist/engineer than young earth brought about by God to me as a believer. It doesn't take shutting off the brain to be a believer in the Bible.

The important thing is old Earth or young Earth has no significance for God's word.    YE creationists are no less Christians than any other of us.   Nor are old Earth creationists.  Sometimes both sides forget this, and we need to be reminded from time to time.

I do think being dogmaticly an old earther in order to be accepted by academia is a little sketchy for a Christian. Not sure, but still  

I notice that Stephen Gould perhaps the most well-known "evolutionist" because of his popular essays on the subject, willingly took on a YE creationist as a doctoral candidate.   As Gould remarked, all that really counts is ability.

Quote from: The Barbarian on Thu Mar 31, 2022 - 19:01:43
No kidding; monkeys are far too evolved in their own way to have ever given rise to humans.    Humans are phylogentically apes, not monkeys.

Didn't evolve from Apes either.  That's just retardation even if it is what is taught nowadays.

Quote from: Jaime on Thu Mar 31, 2022 - 12:04:37
Jarrod, Old earth is coming up with things that are described otherwise differently in the Bible.

Do you have any examples of this other than Genesis 1?  Genesis 1 can be (SHOULD BE) read to support an old earth.  On the other hand, I can think of plenty of times where the Bible makes reference to an eternity past (e.g. "from everlasting to everlasting")

I see old earth as the default position.  In the absence of a pastor/priest telling people otherwise, everyone adopts the position that the earth is ancient.

Quote from: Jaime on Thu Mar 31, 2022 - 12:04:37
I have no issue with God speaking the present earth into existence in a relative instant. No need to wonder how it would have come about on it's on without God.

With God, this is possible. 

However, the earth being created fully formed is NOT what is recorded.  The Bible says that when God created everything, it was first unformed (Gen 1:2).  Then He formed everything later over a period of time; not all at once.  We can argue whether that period was seven 24-hour days or seven ages of the earth or billions of years.  But the Bible explicitly contradicts the idea that everything was brought into being fully formed, so the "doctrine of apparent age" ought to be thrown out on that basis.

Quote from: Jaime on Thu Mar 31, 2022 - 12:04:37
And those two notions don't have to jibe. I accept the miraculous parting of the Red Sea. I have no need to wonder if a distant volcano in the Mediterranean caused a tsunami and momentarily sucked the water out of the Red Sea. God just did it pretty much as was described with the walls of water standing up on both sides. Scientifically irrational, but what else is new with the God of the Bible?

My concerns aren't scientific either.  I'm interested in the interpretation of Scripture, and also in how archaeology and history fit the Biblical record.  So for me, I'm not too interested in HOW the Red Sea was parted.  But I am interested in WHERE it was parted, because that would help make sense of part of the Biblical text that has been mysterious for a long time. 

I do have a problem with people calling themselves scientists when their intent is to oppose science, though.  They would be better served to confess as you have, that they believe these things happened and the explanation of HOW is just not that important.

Quote from: Jaime on Thu Mar 31, 2022 - 12:04:37
I too am open to Old Earth, but it has no more logical appeal to me as a scientist/engineer than young earth brought about by God to me as a believer. It doesn't take shutting off the brain to be a believer in the Bible.

On the contrary, it requires extra effort to understand the Bible.  Or I guess one could just take the pastor's word for every single thing and warm that pew comfortably.

Jarrod

I would say Genesis 1 fully is congruant with YE. It could be wrangled to mean pretty much anything else if one had a mind to do so. If the scripture left out the mention of a time period, literal or figurative then of course old earth would be just as palatable.

Quote from: Jaime on Fri Apr 01, 2022 - 11:13:23
If the scripture left out the mention of a time period, literal or figurative then of course old earth would be just as palatable.

No, no, no.  The opposite is true.  The mention of a time period means that there was, well... a time period.  A time period is the opposite of an instantaneous moment.  If creation were instantaneous, the chapter would read like this:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.  The end.

Quote from: Jaime on Fri Apr 01, 2022 - 11:13:23
I would say Genesis 1 fully is congruant with YE. It could be wrangled to mean pretty much anything else if one had a mind to do so. If the scripture left out the mention of a time period, literal or figurative then of course old earth would be just as palatable.

Jaime:

Take a walk into Gen 2 for a minute.

Look at verse 4 KJV (sigh) 4 These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens,

Surely you must agree that generations... no matter how they are used for this description is longer then 1 - 24 hour day?

Verse 4 NASB95  4This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made earth and heaven

Even the wording in this simple verse talks of the heavens and the earth "when they were created".

In the day that the Lord God made earth and heaven.

There is nothing here that suggests that was part of the YE creation. I submit the YE end of things is regarding Adam and forward..... and not until.

Two translations that seem to point to a possible OE creation

Quote from: Wycliffes_Shillelagh on Fri Apr 01, 2022 - 11:25:58
No, no, no.  The opposite is true.  The mention of a time period means that there was, well... a time period.  A time period is the opposite of an instantaneous moment.  If creation were instantaneous, the chapter would read like this:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.  The end.

God would have no problem speaking into existence exactly what was written in each day as a 24 hour day. We would ONLY logically presume a day doesn't mean 24 hours because without God it would take eons and epochs.

Rella, Genesis 2 is not the next 7 days. Chapter 2 is a retelling with way more detail and time about Adam and Eve BEYOND them being brought about on the earth. All the stuff of Adam and Eve's decedents definitely did not happen in a 24 hour day, Yet God could very well have done the things in the first 6 days in 6 literal 24 hour days AND THEN the story of detail could have transpired in Chapter 2 narrative for their lives following. He also could have taken 24 million years, but I don't believe it was relayed to Moses the way it was for it to have been that way. With God in the mix, we aren't constrained to only what science would dictate. I don't in any way believe the Bible is a complete minute by minute or even day by day or even year by year account of human history. For instance the Nephilim is only addressed in a few obscure places. That of course is kinda the subject of this thread thread (Giants), but we are left with very sparse details of an exceedingly interesting subject.

Quote from: Jaime on Fri Apr 01, 2022 - 11:39:07
Rella, Genesis 2 is not the next 7 days. Chapter 2 is a retelling with way more detail and time about Adam and Eve BEYOND them being brought about on the earth. All the stuff of Adam and Eve's decedents definitely did not happen in a 24 hour day, Yet God could very well have done the things in the first 6 days in 6 literal 24 hour days AND THEN the story of detail could have transpired in Chapter 2 narrative for their lives following.

Rella had it right.  Genesis was originally arranged into segments with headings "these are the generations" and the first segment is 1:1 - 2:4.  The first 4 verses of chapter 2 belong with Genesis 1.  Whoever added chapter/verse divisions got it wrong on this one.

Quote from: Wycliffes_Shillelagh on Wed Mar 30, 2022 - 13:46:53
This is as much of your post as I read.  I skimmed a little, and it seems you're still fighting those strawmen.

Once again, I don't care about evolution.  I haven't supported it (or any other scientific theory) once in this thread.  My opinion of Darwin is very low, though that's actually because of his racism.

I only care what Scripture says.  It says God forms things slowly over time, subduing chaos and bringing order bit by bit.  It doesn't say God is a genie who poofs things into existence.

Old Earth does not equal evolution.

Jarrod

Fair enough. You believe in some other form of bringing things about slowly over time, than evolution. Please do show us from the scriptures, where they state that God formed things slowly over time, bit by bit. Surely if it is as you say, such is clearly expressed in scripture somewhere. Where? Thank you.

Quote from: Wycliffes_Shillelagh on Thu Mar 31, 2022 - 11:26:15
Old earth isn't an attempt at anything.  It's just believing your eyes, and the Bible.

What do you see with your eyes that spells old earth? What Bible verses tell us of old earth?

Quote from: Jaime on Fri Apr 01, 2022 - 11:29:34
God would have no problem speaking into existence exactly what was written in each day as a 24 hour day.

God would have no problem with anything.  But my concern is not for what God can do (literally anything), but rather for what does the Bible SAY happened.

Quote from: Jaime on Fri Apr 01, 2022 - 11:29:34
We would ONLY logically presume a day doesn't mean 24 hours because without God it would take eons and epochs.

If I were a casual reader, I would assume a day doesn't mean 24 hours because the sun and moon don't exist yet. 

I am not a casual reader, though.  I've studied Gen 1 in depth.  Read it in Hebrew and Greek.  Cross-referenced every other place in the Bible where it is quoted and even alluded to.  Done comparative religion studies on it.  Read a bunch of textual criticism.  Sussed out exactly what theological points are being made there.  To believe in seven literal 24-hour days takes an extraordinary effort of sticking one's head in the sand.  ALL of the studies I've done point the other way.  All of them.

One of the 3 theological points made in Gen 1 is that God forms His creation over time... the nature of God as Father is to subdue chaos slowly, bringing order by defining boundaries.  This is the nature of God's relationship with man.  He is our Father in the sense that He molds us over time.  It's the whole Potter and clay thing.

The literalist take on the chapter is actually in direct contradiction to that point being made by the author.  For me, that is the clincher.  When your interpretation subverts the message and intent of the original author, you're just wrong.

Jarrod

Quote from: The Barbarian on Thu Mar 31, 2022 - 19:04:30
The important thing is old Earth or young Earth has no significance for God's word.    YE creationists are no less Christians than any other of us.   Nor are old Earth creationists.  Sometimes both sides forget this, and we need to be reminded from time to time.

This is true. There are professing "Christians" today, who know very little of what the Bible teaches, let alone agree with or ty to live according to it. The title of Christian no longer necessarily holds the meaning of Bible believing. Most "Christians" simply choose which part of scripture they prefer, and ignore the rest today. The scriptures themselves predicted this scenario.

2Ti 4:1 I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; 2 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. 3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; 4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

Quote from: The Barbarian on Thu Mar 31, 2022 - 19:49:32
I notice that Stephen Gould perhaps the most well-known "evolutionist" because of his popular essays on the subject, willingly took on a YE creationist as a doctoral candidate.   As Gould remarked, all that really counts is ability.

That is regarding the discipline of science, not salvation or biblical truth.

Quote from: Rella on Fri Apr 01, 2022 - 11:26:22
Jaime:

Take a walk into Gen 2 for a minute.

Look at verse 4 KJV (sigh) 4 These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens,

Surely you must agree that generations... no matter how they are used for this description is longer then 1 - 24 hour day?

Verse 4 NASB95  4This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made earth and heaven

Even the wording in this simple verse talks of the heavens and the earth "when they were created".

In the day that the Lord God made earth and heaven.

There is nothing here that suggests that was part of the YE creation. I submit the YE end of things is regarding Adam and forward..... and not until.

Two translations that seem to point to a possible OE creation

To the contrary, each epoch of the creation account whether it were a day or millions of years would be a generation, concerning that which was created. It wasn't, and then it was. The generation was the time which transpired between when it was not, and when it was. We understand that bacteria and even some insects that have very short life spans, some even only minutes, still represent a passing generation when they are gone. So it is with creation as well. When something that wasn't, is made into something the is, that is the generation of its creation. Regardless of how long you think it took. That is the meaning, not a certain amount of time, or not.

Quote from: Wycliffes_Shillelagh on Fri Apr 01, 2022 - 13:12:37
Rella had it right.  Genesis was originally arranged into segments with headings "these are the generations" and the first segment is 1:1 - 2:4.  The first 4 verses of chapter 2 belong with Genesis 1.  Whoever added chapter/verse divisions got it wrong on this one.

Negative, that is an example of repetition and enlargement found in very many places throughout scripture.

WS, I would assume when the bible says day, whether the sun existed or not, it would have been a comparative amount of time to God and his Spirit retelling the events. The notion of Days, Months and Years was set up by God in the One Story that is the Bible. I don't think he would have seen the advantage of unnecessary confusion to man. The 7 day cycle began, and was important to God and his interaction with people with the Sabbath, and the 7 year land Sabbaths, the 50 year Jubilees, the Lunar cycles and the Solar cycles and the growing seasons and how all that interplays with his sacred feast days and appointed times. The idea of interjecting a 24 hour day at the Beginning would not have been all that unusual in the scheme of things it seems to me.

I have no problem whatsoever with a multiple Billion year pre-primordial chaotic watery formless whatever prior to God speaking order into existence on the first day. Nothing would impel me to go down a linguistic trail of maybe each "day" in creation is a billion years. As an aside, I don't believe the Bible necessarily supports a 6000-year-old earth. And I equally have doubts about it being as old as Old Earthers suggest. I am in the camp of I don't know, and we don't have enough information to challenge what a miraculous God could do and more or less indicated in the story relayed by Moses to us. To my pea brain, the Red Sea parting is a mini-microcosm of the God's power at creation. Totally against the scientific model, and I'm more than OK with that. Nothing really rings my alarm bell about the miracles of the Bible, like well there has to be a logical natural phenomenon explanation. No, not for me.

If there was a Big Bang, God did it. That in itself is beyond the realm of science. Something banged, but where did the something come from. Or if nothing banged, an all powerful God would have been behind bringing the entire universe out of nothing with a word.

Quote from: Amo on Fri Apr 01, 2022 - 13:47:10
Negative, that is an example of repetition and enlargement found in very many places throughout scripture.

Yes, you said it much better than I did. 

Quote from: Amo on Fri Apr 01, 2022 - 13:30:15
What do you see with your eyes that spells old earth?

Almost everything terrestrial that occurs naturally.  I suppose you want an example, so...



I've got a reasonably good idea of how dirt and rocks form.  I've got some idea of erosion, too.  Don't link me a pseudoscience article - I won't read it.

Quote from: Amo on Fri Apr 01, 2022 - 13:30:15What Bible verses tell us of old earth?

Genesis 1, but you're willfully blind there, so...

In Psalm 90 and a litany of other places the Bible refers to eternity past ('from everlasting').  Psalms 18.

Job 9.  Job 40-41 on God's creation of behemoth and leviathan.  Really a recurring theme of the whole book of Job is the mysteriousness of God's powers of creations, and man's (Job's) inability to expound them.  Job actually talks about the creation more than any other book of the Bible.

I found those in a couple seconds just searching.  If I took my time I'm sure I'd find a lot more.

Jarrod

Quote from: Amo on Fri Apr 01, 2022 - 13:47:10
Negative, that is an example of repetition and enlargement found in very many places throughout scripture.

You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?

Genesis IS arranged into sections with headers introducing them.  It's demonstrable:

Gen 2:4  These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,
Gen 5:1  This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him;
Gen 6:9  These are the generations of Noah:
Gen 10:1  Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth: and unto them were sons born after the flood.
Gen 11:10  These are the generations of Shem:
Gen 11:27  Now these are the generations of Terah:
Gen 25:12  Now these are the generations of Ishmael
Gen 25:19  And these are the generations of Isaac, Abraham's son:
Gen 36:1  Now these are the generations of Esau, who is Edom.
Gen 37:2  These are the generations of Jacob.

Maybe next time don't contradict someone when you don't even understand what they're saying.

Jarrod

Quote from: Jaime on Fri Apr 01, 2022 - 13:55:16
I have no problem whatsoever with a multiple Billion year pre-primordial chaotic watery formless whatever prior to God speaking order into existence on the first day. Nothing would impel me to go down a linguistic trail of maybe each "day" in creation is a billion years. As an aside, I don't believe the Bible necessarily supports a 6000-year-old earth. And I equally have doubts about it being as old as Old Earthers suggest. I am in the camp of I don't know, and we don't have enough information to challenge what a miraculous God could do and more or less indicated in the story relayed by Moses to us. To my pea brain, the Red Sea parting is a mini-microcosm of the God's power at creation. Totally against the scientific model, and I'm more than OK with that. Nothing really rings my alarm bell about the miracles of the Bible, like well there has to be a logical natural phenomenon explanation. No, not for me.

If there was a Big Bang, God did it. That in itself is beyond the realm of science. Something banged, but where did the something come from. Or if nothing banged, an all powerful God would have been behind bringing the entire universe out of nothing with a word.

We're not really that far apart.

For my part, I don't have a problem with 'I don't know' or even 'it's unknowable.'  My issue is with the people who say they do know, when they clearly do not, and with the harm they do to Scripture.

-Jarrod

Well, my perception is that Old Earthers are guilty of that as well.

Quote from: Jaime on Fri Apr 01, 2022 - 13:55:16
If there was a Big Bang, God did it.

Yes, of course.

Quote from: JaimeThat in itself is beyond the realm of science.

The actual "bang" is beyond the realm of science as we know science today. But after the passage of the first Planck Time, it then becomes the realm of science as we know it today. A unit of Planck Time is 10^-43 seconds. That is a pretty short length of time.

If it happened in an instantaneous bang that would have been worthy to make THAT semi clear in scripture, rather than mostly ambiguous or blurry. God did speak things into existence just not seemingly all in one instant, but as reported in scripture.

No kidding; monkeys are far too evolved in their own way to have ever given rise to humans.    Humans are phylogentically apes, not monkeys.

QuoteDidn't evolve from Apes either.

That question comes down to evidence.   Let's see what an honest and knowledgeable YE creationist says:
Evidences for Darwin's second expectation — of stratomorphic intermediate species — include such species as Baragwanathia27 (between rhyniophytes and lycopods), Pikaia28 (between echinoderms
and chordates), Purgatorius29 (between the tree shrews and the primates), and Proconsul30 (between the non-hominoid primates and the hominoids).
...
Evidence for not just one but for all three of the species level and above types of stratomorphic intermediates expected by macroevolutionary theory is surely strong evidence for macroevolutionary theory. Creationists therefore need to accept this fact.
YE creationist Dr. Kurt Wise, Toward a Creationist Understanding of Transitional Forms

I notice that Stephen Gould perhaps the most well-known "evolutionist" because of his popular essays on the subject, willingly took on a YE creationist as a doctoral candidate.   As Gould remarked, all that really counts is ability.

Quote from: Amo on Fri Apr 01, 2022 - 13:39:06
That is regarding the discipline of science, not salvation or biblical truth.

Just showing you that even a YE creationist was accepted as a doctoral candidate based on his ability, without regard for his religious beliefs.

Quote from: Wycliffes_Shillelagh on Fri Apr 01, 2022 - 14:02:17
Almost everything terrestrial that occurs naturally.  I suppose you want an example, so...



I've got a reasonably good idea of how dirt and rocks form.  I've got some idea of erosion, too.  Don't link me a pseudoscience article - I won't read it.
Genesis 1, but you're willfully blind there, so...

In Psalm 90 and a litany of other places the Bible refers to eternity past ('from everlasting').  Psalms 18.

Job 9.  Job 40-41 on God's creation of behemoth and leviathan.  Really a recurring theme of the whole book of Job is the mysteriousness of God's powers of creations, and man's (Job's) inability to expound them.  Job actually talks about the creation more than any other book of the Bible.

I found those in a couple seconds just searching.  If I took my time I'm sure I'd find a lot more.

Jarrod

Yes, we can all see rocks. I don't see how that ability proves old earth though. To the contrary, we have excellent views of miles and miles of rock layers in many places going very deep into the earth. In the Grand Canyon especially, which is where your photo looks like it might be from. What we find there, many layers of rock which are stacked on top of each other very evenly. Showing apparently little to no signs of disconformity due to the erosion that would no doubt take place over the course of the millions of years deep timers suggest in their formation. Such even and undisturbed layers as it were, are highly suggestive of rapid formation, and problematic for deep time formation. So what is your idea of how these rock layers formed?

The fact that scripture talks an eternal past, has nothing to do with the age of this earth, unless the verses themsleves tie the two together. To the contrary, the scriptures do describe a beginning for this world, and even provide a genealogy going back to Adam and Eve created at that beginning. During that account of creation the terms day and evening and morning suggestive of the same, are used repeatedly. You claim that, that which is actually and literally written down should be interpreted as something else, and that which is not actually and literally written down should be interpreted as the reality according to your own deep time scenario belief. What you believe must be alluded to, according to your own understanding, it is not plainly stated in scripture. Nor have any interpreters of scripture that I know of, ever tried to convey in translation what you presume. Which seems to me to be a pretty good indication, that it simply isn't there enough to be considered in translation.

It does not appear to me, that you found very much at all, in just a couple of seconds. Save that which one with preconceived ideas already, would find rapidly while searching for such things, which the scriptures themselves do not simply state anywhere. Perhaps you could expound upon Job's observations a bit more, cornering their support of your views.