Science And The Bible

[tumbleweed41]

How did you come to this conclusion?

First of all, let me just say that I like your avatar. Obviously that means a great deal more to me than to you. Archie Bunker and Southpark.

How did I come to that conclusion. Well. At best they are both opposing propositions to reality. You may think that the present is far removed from the past but in a satirical gesture you should actually know better.

Cartman, frozen in time, with the (as I understand it) the ministry of science is no more relevant than the dark ages. Farting noises, transsexual school marms against the norm or, as in the case with Southpark and Archie Bunker don't mean **** to me but a laugh.

You got something better than that better cling dogmatic to the banal and insipid repetition of history which obviously don't register.

Interesting, but, you have avoided the question.

How did you come to the conclusion that biological evolution is nonsense?

 

[Skwim]

Bats And Birds

The Hebrew word ohph, used at Leviticus 11:13 is sometimes translated incorrectly as birds and sometimes as fowl.

Really! Who says it's an incorrect translation? Not by my source, which spells it "owph," and gives the following definition:

1) flying creatures, fowl, insects, birds

a) fowl, birds

b) winged insects
​

The English word fowl applied originally not only to birds but all winged flying creatures such as bats and insects.

Really!

fowl (n.)
O.E. fugel "bird," representing the general Germanic word for them, from P.Gmc. *foglaz (cf. O.Fris. fugel, O.N. fugl, M.Du. voghel, Du. vogel, Ger. vogel, Goth. fugls), probably by dissimilation from *flug-la-, lit. "flyer," from the same root as O.E. fleogan, modern fly (v.1). Originally "bird;" narrower sense of "domestic hen or rooster" (the main modern meaning) is first recorded 1570s; in U.S. also extended to ducks and geese. As a verb, O.E. fuglian "to catch birds." Related: Fowled; fowling.
source
​

So although birds would be correct as a translation the word fowl as such may be outdated but not originally incorrect.

So what, "fowl" isn't used in the passage. "Bird" is.

So we still have bats, "atalleph," being called birds "owph" right next to 19 true owphs in Leviticus 11:13-19

Insects with four legs

At Leviticus 11:22 the Hebrew word arbeh is translated as locust and refers to the migratory locust fully developed and winged.

Of course, because it's only in the adult form that the grasshopper changes both physically and behaviorally into its locust form.

The Hebrew word yeleq refers to the creeping wingless locust that is immature and undeveloped. (Joel 1:4) The Hebrew term solam refers to the edible locust as given in Leviticus 11:22b.

Immaterial.

It would be a leper locust rather than a flier. The Greek akris is in reference to the insect locust and "locust." (Matthew 3:4 / Revelation 9:7)

There is no such insect as a leaper locust. ALL locusts fly.

The leaper insect has two pairs of wings and four walking legs with two much longer leaper legs. Remember. These ancient people were by no means, botanists but they could count and they were eating these things so there would have hardly been a mistake even without divine inspiration. They referred to them as "going on all fours" because they walked on their four legs and would leap on the two remaining leaper legs.

There is no such thing as a leaper locust (locusts are simply a swarming and migrating form of several species of grasshoppers), AND all grasshoppers use all six legs when walking.

[youtube]izMx9dVlgxA[/youtube]

Then there's the matter of ". . . all other winged insects that have four feet are detestable to you." There is no such an animal. ALL insects, winged or not, have SIX feet---no more, no less---it's one of the defining characteristics that separate them from the other members of their phylum, which includes the spiders, centipedes, millipedes, pauropods, and Symphylans.

Pi In The Bible

Short sighted because the decimal point didn't exist at the time so it would have been pointless - ha - and because, as Bible commentator Christian Wordsworth, quoting Rennie, said: "Up to the time of Archimedes [third century B.C.E.], the circumference of a circle was always measured in straight lines by the radius; and Hiram would naturally describe the sea as thirty cubits round, measuring it, as was then invariably the practice, by its radius, or semi diameter, of five cubits, which being applied six times round the perimeter, or 'brim,' would give the thirty cubits stated. There was evidently no intention in the passage but to give the dimensions of the Sea, in the usual language that every one would understand, measuring the circumference in the way in which all skilled workers, like Hiram, did measure circles at that time. He, of course, must however have known perfectly well, that as the polygonal hexagon thus inscribed by the radius was thirty cubits, the actual curved circumference would be somewhat more."

The lack of decimal point is immaterial. The problem is that a circle simply cannot posses both a diameter of 10 and a circumference of 30. And the assertion that"the circumference of a circle was always measured in straight lines by the radius" is simply asinine. Even the Bible tells you this isn't the way the dimensions of the "sea of cast metal" were determined;

KJ
2 lThen he made the sea of cast metal. It was round, ten cubits from brim to brim, and five cubits high, and a line of thirty cubits measured its circumference.

RSV
2 Then he made the molten sea; it was round, ten cubits from brim to brim, and five cubits high, and a line of thirty cubits measured its circumference.

"A line' of thirty cubits measured its circumference." No even a hint that the circumference was calculated. It was measured!

Earth Created In Six Days

The Hebrew verb consists of two different states. The perfect state indicates an action which is complete, whereas the imperfect state indicates a continuous or incomplete action.

At Genesis 1:1 the word bara, translated as created, is in the perfect state, which means that at this point the creation of the heavens and the Earth were completed.

No it doesn't. Bara simply means:

choose, create creator, cut down, dispatch, do, make fat

A primitive root; (absolutely) to create; (qualified) to cut down (a wood), select, feed (as formative processes) -- choose, create (creator), cut down, dispatch, do, make (fat).
​

Later, as in verse 16 the Hebrew word asah, translated as made, is used, which is in the imperfect state, indicating continuous action.

No it doesn't. It means "to do" or "to be." It indicates no "continuous action."

The heavens and Earth were created in verse 1 and an indeterminate time later they were being prepared for habitation, much the same as a bed is manufactured (complete) and made (continuous) afterwards.

This means that the Bible doesn't indicate the universe was created in 144 hours or six days. The Bible doesn't state, nor can one determine through chronology or any other means of the Bible, the age of the universe.

It's interesting how you pointedly avoid the crucial word here, "day." As used in the Genesis 1 "day" (yowm) means.

1) day, time, year

a) day (as opposed to night)

b) day (24 hour period)

1) as defined by evening and morning in Genesis 1

2) as a division of time
​

a) a working day, a day's journey

c) days, lifetime (pl.)

d) time, period (general)

e) year

f) temporal references
​

1) today

2) yesterday

3) tomorrow
​

(My source: Strong's Exhaustive Concordance)


Sorry R. S. but your explanations are utter failures, and even suggest a fair bit of duplicity.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

There is no such insect as a leaper locust. ALL locusts fly.

There is no such thing as a leaper locust (locusts are simply a swarming and migrating form of several species of grasshoppers), AND all grasshoppers use all six legs when walking.

Then there's the matter of ". . . all other winged insects that have four feet are detestable to you." There is no such an animal. ALL insects, winged or not, have SIX feet.

It is, indeed, pretty obvious -- so much so that it would have been easily known by those who created, transmitted, and evolved the tradition. So we're apparently left with a couple of possibilities:

• The Torah was dictated by a stupid and unobservant God and no one was willing to change the text.
• Whatever its source, generation upon generation passed down an oral and written tradition and somehow failed to note the discrepancy.
• The text accurately conveyed a message in the most effective idiom at the time.

The Economic Research Service of the USDA reports that the average daily vegetable intake in 1999-2002 was 1.58 cups including 0.32 cups of tomatoes. Few people would be so childish as to pretentiously mock the report for failing to recognize that the tomato is a fruit.

Pick the fights that are worth fighting.

 

[Skwim]

It is, indeed, pretty obvious -- so much so that it would have been easily known by those who created, transmitted, and evolved the tradition. So we're apparently left with a couple of possibilities:

• The Torah was dictated by a stupid and unobservant God and no one was willing to change the text.
• Whatever its source, generation upon generation passed down an oral and written tradition and somehow failed to note the discrepancy.
• The text accurately conveyed a message in the most effective idiom at the time.

The Economic Research Service of the USDA reports that the average daily vegetable intake in 1999-2002 was 1.58 cups including 0.32 cups of tomatoes. Few people would be so childish as to pretentiously mock the report for failing to recognize that the tomato is a fruit.

Pick the fights that are worth fighting.

I pick the fights I find interesting. R. S., in his attempt to spread erroneous information, seems to make up facts so as to convince people the Bible is error free. Whether or not the believer chooses to accept this notion is immaterial to me, but what I dislike is deceiving people into it by selling them bad information. And by the way, the tomato is both a fruit (a berry, to be exact ) and a vegetable. Unlike "fruit," which is a scientific term, "vegetable" "has very little meaning in describing plants, other than to suggest their horticultural nature or culinary use."*

* This is Not a Weasel: A Close Look at nature's Most Confusing Terms p.28