A Biblical Interpretation Of The Earth in Space
He has inscribed a circle on the face of the waters at the boundary between light and darkness -Job 26:10
What sort of imagery does the verse above cause in your mind? For me, it causes me to envision the planet earth from space, mostly blue, circular, surrounded by darkness. Does that image seem familiar to you? It should, I am describing earth as it appears from space. This is one example of the way that language can be interpreted depending on the context of our preexisting notions. If I believed in a flat earth, for example, I may interpret it more like this:
Does Evolution Disprove God?
As a Christian, I have seen quite a few strong reactions from my fellow brothers and sisters regarding evolution. There are many claims made regarding the evolutionary process that Christians could never accept, and rightly so. However, I think something that the Christian community may consider is whether or not all of the premises the atheist evolutionary community provides as evidence against God are at all required by actual scientific observations regarding evolution.
A Biblical Interpretation Of The Big Bang
In this article I hope to make a sound argument for how the biblical story of creation can align with modern scientific theory. I suppose, in order to accomplish this goal, there is no better place to start than with Genesis 1:1.
The YOM Problem
Yom is the Hebrew word for day, and is used as such throughout the Bible. In most cases, there is no question of the meaning of the word due to the surrounding context. However, when it comes to the creation of the universe, or anything really, we don’t have any context at all unless we know two things; the thing that is being created, and the process that is being used to create it. These are two things that we really do not have an understanding of when we look at the book of Genesis. We do not know what the universe is, and we most definitely do not know, with complete certainty, the process by which it was created.
The Cosmological Axis Of Evil
Humanity has had many opinions about the earth’s role in the universe throughout our brief history. Only recently in our history have we even understood that there was much more to the universe than earth, that we might be able to travel beyond earth. For many centuries we thought that the earth was the center of the universe, but the Copernican Principle taught us that the appears to rotate around our sun just as the other planets within our solar system do, and that the earth is not particularly special within the universe. This seems to fly in the face of the Judeo-Christian idea that the universe was created for humanity. If we don’t exist within a special place in the universe, how could the universe be “for us”?
A Biblical Interpretation Of Evolution
Evolution is something that has troubled a great deal of Christians and swayed a many people from accepting the possibility of a Biblical God. I think the biggest reason for this is that theologians have historically had a certain way of interpreting the Bible and are not strongly convinced by the evidence for evolution. This lack of conviction in the scientific theory causes people either question science or question their faith. I think that this is a mistake.
Evolution And Adam
Any Christian that chooses to adopt the idea of an earth which is older than the direct numbers presented in the Bible, roughly six thousand years, will need to account for several things, one of which is the fact that it would be difficult to accept a claim which agrees with the estimated age of raw materials, rocks, water, etc, but does not agree with the estimated age of human remains. This is, of course, resolved if one accepts the idea of divinely controlled evolution, but that too comes with its own set of challenges. Those challenges are what I would like to focus on right now. Can evolution and Adam be reconciled?
The Miracle Of Abiogenesis
The emergence of life from dead matter, or abiogenesis, is the the generally accepted reality derived from the concept of evolution. There are many questions surrounding the details of this process and many theories have been proposed over the years. Indeed, it is up to science to determine how this process may have occurred, however, it is up to philosophy to determine the why. Was this a chance occurrence, or was it by design?
A Snake In The Garden
The Garden of Eden is such an unique story in Genesis as it portrays the fall of mankind into sin or rebellion against God. What I find most fascinating is the common interpretation of the story, that Adam an Eve were first ignorant of good and evil. It is assumed that they lacked the ability to distinguish between bad and good. However, this distinction requires reason and intelligence in order to be performed. Understanding the story in this way presumes God created Adam in an animalistic state and his sin was actually rewarded by elevating him to a full human state. This actually goes against the idea that all of mankind started with Adam, who was created directly by, and in the image of God. When we throw in the commonly portrayed talking snake there is quite a bit to unpack in this story.
Symbology of the Patriarchs
When reading Genesis 5, we are presented with the genealogical record of patriarchs leading from Adam to Noah. Most of the names have very little information regarding them, but one thing that does stand out is the substantial ages that are associated with each person. Methuselah is especially noticeable, as he lived for 969 years before his death. This chapter of Genesis has spawned quite a few questions, and many of them still remain unanswered today. Perhaps, if we break down the way that we approach this chapter, we might be able to glean some additional information.
