Ä Area: Separation of Church & State ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ Msg#: 348 Date: 10-14-96 04:52 From: Lenny Flank Read: Yes Replied: No To: Jim Hansen Mark: Subj: Separtion of ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ JH>My evidence, as if you didn't already know and are just waiting JH>for me to say, JH>is the Bible. A book that after thousands of years has yet to be JH>proven wrong. Or are you the one who has finally done it? BWA H AH AHAV HA H AH AHA HA HA AH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Can the Bible Be Taken Literally? by Lenny Flank (c) 1995 The entire basis of fundamentalism and scientific creationism, as the creationists themselves have pointed out, is a belief that the description of creation in Genesis is literally true, and is a correct historical description of what happened. And, as we have also seen, this basis is part of a larger faith that the entire Bible itself is literally true in all that it says, completely free of error or contradiction. The fundamentalists who would have us take "the Bible" literally are rather unclear about WHICH Bible we should view as inerrant. In addition to the well-known King James version of the Bible, there are also the Scofield Bible, the Anchor Bible, the Revised Standard Bible, and several others. A literal Bible might be easier to accept if all of these versions read the same, but they do not. The King James Version, for instance, mentions "unicorns" in several different places: "God brought them out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn." (Numbers 23:22) "Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib?" (Job 39:9) "His glory is like the firstlings of his bullock; and his horns are like the horns of unicorns." (Deuteronomy 33:17) "He maketh them also to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn." (Psalm 29:6) Unicorns, however, do not and never have existed. The references to "horns" and "strength" make it likely that the original verses probably referred to the auroch or wild ox, which is now extinct but which lived in the Middle East at the time the Old Testament was written. And, indeed, some of the other versions of the Bible translate these verses as referring to "wild oxen" rather than "unicorns". Perhaps the most famous example of mistranslation is the Biblical assertion that Christ was "born of a virgin". The original Hebrew word here is "almah", which means simply "a young woman". The Hebrew word that refers specifically to a virgin is "betulah", but this word is not used here. When the Bible was translated into Greek, the Hebrew word "almah" was translated into the Greek "parthenos", which means "virgin". (Spong, 1991, p. 16) Thus, the original Biblical assertion was that Christ was "born of a young woman", and this indeed is the way it is translated in several versions of the Bible. One verse that is NEVER translated correctly in any version of the Bible is the very first, Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." The Hebrew word for "God" here is "elohim", which is actually the PLURAL of the word, and literally means "the gods". Thus, an accurate translation of this would be "In the beginning, the gods created the heavens and the earth." This verse is only one indication that the monotheistic religion introduced by the Bible was not always monotheistic. Several other Biblical verses imply that there are, or used to be, more than one god. Genesis 1:26 says, "And God said, Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness." In Genesis 3:22, God is depicted as saying, "Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil." During the description of the Tower of Babel, God is described as saying, "Go to, let us go down, and here confound their language." (Genesis 11:17) There are also indications within the Bible that, just as in the Greek legends of Hercules, who was half-human and half-god, the Hebrew gods also sometimes mated with humans: "The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and they took them wives of all they chose . . . and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown." (Genesis 6:2-4) Today, Biblical historians have concluded that Judaism was at one time a polytheistic religion, until the time when the priests of the storm god Yahweh gained enough political and religious power to declare that their god was not only the most powerful god, but was in fact the only one. The translation problems of the Bible are not helped by the fact that often several different versions of Biblical events are present, each of which appears to have come from a different source. There are two separate versions of the Creation story, for instance, one in Genesis 1:1- 2:3 and the other in Genesis 2:4-25. There are three separate versions of the Ten Commandments, in Exodus 20:2-17, Exodus 34:1-27, and Deuteronomy 5:6-21. Biblical scholars have concluded that the Pentateuch was not written by a single person (and none of it was written, as tradition held, by Moses). Instead, the linguistic and archeological evidence (including the famed Dead Sea Scrolls) indicates that the stories of the Bible existed only as oral tradition for hundreds of years before they were written down, and that there are at least four separate sources for the text of the Old Testament, known as the Yahwist source, the Elohist source, the Priestly source, and the Deuteronomist source, with each section written at different times. All of these varying sources were edited together into their final form by an unknown person or persons known as the Redactor, who probably performed this task in about 400 BC. The Yahwist source is believed to be the earliest, and probably lived in the tenth century BC during the time that Solomon was King of Israel (960-920 BC). He probably lived in the part of the kingdom known as Judah, and in his narratives he emphasizes the righteousness and accomplishments of the Israeli monarchy (which also came from Judah). The Yahwist is believed to have written large segments of Genesis and Exodus. It is from this source (known as the "Yahwist" because of his habit of referring to God by the name "Yahweh") that we get the second of the two Creation narratives in Genesis. Although Genesis chapter two appears later in the Bible, it was apparently written earlier than chapter one. The Yahwist version of the Ten Commandments, for instance (Exodus 34) makes no mention of Yahweh resting on the seventh day and blessing it as the Sabbath--apparently because the seven-day chronology given in the first chapter of Genesis hadn't been written yet. The Elohist source (so-called because of his habit of referring to God as "Eloha", or "The Lord", in accordance with a religious law then in effect which forbade the use of God's name) lived about 100 years after the Yahwist. He is believed to have been a resident of the northern part of the Kingdom of Israel, and unlike the Yahwist source was unsympathetic to the Israeli monarchy (as was much of the northern kingdom at the time). Some scholars believe the Elohist was an anti-royalist priest at the shrine of Bethel. The Elohist source wrote parts of Genesis and Exodus, but apparently did not write his version of the Creation story. If he did, it has not been included in the final compilation we know as the Bible. The Deuteronomist source, as the name implies, wrote much of the Biblical book of Deuteronomy. The Deuteronomist's materials first appeared in 621 BC, when a copy of his writings were reportedly discovered hidden away during repair work at the temple of Solomon. Although traditionally Moses is held to be the author of this work, it was most likely prepared by a member or members of a group of priests who were then agitating for religious reform in the kingdom, which coincidentally would bring the priests greater political control over Israel. After it was "found", the book was taken to King Josiah, who immediately implemented all of the reforms it called for. The new writings were merged with those of the Yahwist and Elohist to form most of the Biblical books of Deuteronomy, Joshua, First and Second Samuel, and First and Second Kings. The Priestly sources date from the fall of Jerusalem to Nebuchadnezzer in 596 BC and the period of Hebrew captivity in Babylon (587-538 BC). In exile in Babylon, the Hebrew priests made an effort to keep the culture and religion of their people alive by a thorough revision of the sacred traditions. The Priestly source (it is unknown whether this was one man or a group of priests working together) added large sections to the Bible which lay out detailed rituals and religious laws, all designed to keep the religious practices of the Hebrews intact and to prevent them from becoming culturally assimilated into their Babylonian surroundings. It is from this source that the complicated religious rituals of Leviticus were compiled, as well as most of the books of the prophets. The existing Biblical texts were also edited to emphasize the importance of religious ritual. The story of Noah, for instance, was altered. The Yahwist had written: "And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female. Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee to keep them alive." (Genesis 6:19-20) For the Priestly source, however, it was important that Noah be able to maintain all of the ritual sacrifices and offerings demanded by religious law, so to this narrative was added, "Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female; and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female." (Genesis 7:2) It is from the Priestly source that we get the first chapter of Genesis, which, although it is first in the Bible, was actually one of the last parts of the Old Testament to be written. The Priestly version of the Creation story, which runs from Genesis 1:1 to Genesis 2:3, presents an entirely different emphasis than the Yahwist version, found in Genesis 2:4 to 2:25. The Yahwist skips over the details, so to speak, and, without any explicit chronology or timetable, simply states that God created the heavens and the earth and placed Adam there, made in the image of God. The Priestly source, however, goes into considerable detail about how and when God created the sun, the moon, and the stars.-!- * POW 1.0 On Trial * Powerline Offline reader for Windows - New Windows OLR -!- WILDMAIL!/WC v4.12 ! Origin: Father & Son*610-439-1509*Whitehall Pa (1:2607/112.0) Ä Area: Separation of Church & State ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ Msg#: 349 Date: 10-14-96 04:53 From: Lenny Flank Read: Yes Replied: No To: Jim Hansen Mark: Subj: Separtion of ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ In First Samuel 16:1-23, we are told the story of how David came to be in the court of Saul (and later became King of Israel). According to this account, God tells Samuel that David will be the next King. Shortly after, King Saul asks for somebody who can play the harp, and somebody mentions David, the son of Jesse. Saul sends for him: "And David came to Saul, and stood before him; and he loved him greatly, and he became his armorbearer. And Saul sent to Jesse, saying, Let David, I pray thee, stand before me, for he hath found favor in my sight. And it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took an harp, and played with his hand, so Saul was refreshed, and the evil spirit departed from him." (I Samuel 16:21-23) In the very next chapter, however, we are given a totally different story of how David came to become a part of Saul's court--perhaps the most famous story in the Bible, the tale of David and Goliath. Now, we are told that David's three older brothers joined Saul's army to fight the Phillistines, and David went home to watch the sheep (no mention here of David being an "armor-bearer" in Saul's army). When his father asks him to take some corn and bread to his brothers at Saul's camp, David arrives just in time to hear Goliath challenge the Israeli army, and he asks the people around him why somebody doesn't just kill Goliath. He is taken before Saul, who, from this account, gives no sign that he already knew David as the guy who played the harp and who he "loved greatly". Instead, Saul tells him he can't fight Goliath because he is just a kid. David then goes out and kills Goliath, causing King Saul to ask "Whose son is this youth?" (I Samuel 17:55). David is brought before Saul, and Saul, apparently having no idea who David is, asks again, "Whose son art thou, young man?" David answers, "I am the son of thy servant Jesse the Bethlehemite." (I Samuel 17:58) But this makes no sense. How can Saul not know who David is, or know that he is the son of Jesse, when just a short time before he had been smitten by this same David's harp-playing and begged his father Jesse to let him stay? Throughout the whole "David and Goliath" story, Saul gives no sign at all that he already knows David as his armor-bearer, yet the earlier verses make it clear that this was how Saul met David. The two accounts are mutually exclusive. Both cannot be right. These differing accounts become understandable when it is realized that they are not historical accounts, but oral traditions which were passed down for hundreds of years before being written into the Bible at different times and by different people. In such a process of transmission, errors and omissions are inevitable. They only become a problem when one attempts to take these stories as literal historical truth. Like the Old Testament, the New Testament also existed as oral tradition for a long period of time before being reduced to writing. It is not surprising, therefore, that the New Testament is also riddled with inaccuracies and inconsistencies. The most glaring inconsistencies (and the ones most difficult for the literalists to explain away) are found between the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Since Biblical prophecy stated that Christ would be a descendent of King David, both of these gospels trace Jesus's lineage back to the time of David (and before). However, these genealogies are not consistent with each other. In Matthew 1:16, we are told that "Jacob begat Joseph, who begat Jesus." But in Luke 3:23, we are told something totally different: "Heli begat Joseph, who begat Jesus." To make things worse, the lineage given by Matthew 1:2-26, traces Christ's ancestry back to David's son Solomon. But the genealogy given in Luke 3:23-38 makes Christ a descendent of David's son Nathan. Either the ancestors of Jesus were genetic recombinants, or someone's genealogy is wrong. On top of this, Matthew lists a total of 55 generations from the patriarch Abraham to Jesus, while Luke lists only 40 generations between the two. These are not matters of differing interpretations or theological dispensations; they are a simple recounting of what purports to be a historical fact--the ancestry of Christ-- and they do not agree with each other. What could be more simple than telling us the name of Christ's grandfather? Or which former prince of Israel he can trace his ancestry to? Or how many generations have passed between Christ and his ancestors? No other conclusion can be reached than that one of these two writers is wrong. Both of these lineages cannot be correct. This, of course, is not a problem when one realizes that neither of these writers ever met Jesus, and neither had access to any first-hand information--one (or perhaps both) of them simply passed on mistaken information. This is, however, a major problem for those who want to take the Bible as literally inerrant and historically accurate. Other inconsistencies between the four gospels abound. Since the gospel of John was the last book to be written, and was apparently written independently of the other three, it is not surprising that it should contradict the others on numerous points. In John 2:13-17, for instance, the driving out of the money-changers from the temple by Christ is placed at the beginning of his ministry, just after his picking of the Apostles. In all of the other gospels, this incident is described as happening just before the crucifixion (Matthew 21:12-13, Mark 11:15-19, and Luke 19:45-48). John's account places the miracle of the catch of fish as a post-resurrection event: "This is now the third time that Jesus shewed himself to his disciples, after that he was risen from the dead." (John 21:14) But Luke describes this as the incident which caused Peter, James and John to join the disciples at the beginning of Christ's ministry (Luke 5:4-7). Matthew 26:17, Mark 14:12 and Luke 22:17 all describe the Last Supper as being the Passover meal--but John 13:1-9 describes it as taking place the week before Passover. There are also inconsistencies between the other gospels. Matthew, for instance, is the only one of the gospels to mention the miraculous star over Bethlehem. (Matthew 2:1-2) In Mark 10:35-37, we read: "And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came unto him, saying, Master, we would that thou shouldest do for us whatsoever we desire. And he said unto them, What would ye that I should do for you? They said unto him, Grant unto us that we may sit, one on thy right hand, and the other on thy left hand, in glory." But in Matthew 20:20-21, there is a different version of this story: "Then came to him the mother of Zebedee's children with her sons, worshipping him and desiring a certain thing of him. And he said unto her, What wilt thou? She saith unto him, Grant that these my two sons may sit, the one on thy right hand, the other on the left, in thy kingdom." Here, it is James and John's mother which makes this request, not the disciples themselves. Again, none of these discrepancies are disturbing if we remember that these were oral traditions that were passed down for decades before being written. But for the Biblical literalists, they present embarrassing problems of consistency. Even more disturbing to the literalist fundamentalists (as well as the creationists) are those passages of the Bible which deal directly with verifiable history. The Bible is rife with passages which are simply not historically accurate. In Daniel 1:1, we read: "In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakin . . . came Nebuchadnezzer . . . unto Jerusalem, and besieged it." From archeological data, we know that Jehoiakin began his reign in the year 609 BC, thus this Biblical siege must have taken place in 606 BC. But Nebuchadnezzer wasn't even the King of Babylon in 606 BC, and he didn't attack Jerusalem for the first time until 597 BC (Asimov, 1968, p. 599) Another passage in Daniel 5:1-2 states: "Belshazzar the King . . . commanded to bring forth the gold and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzer had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem." Belshazzar was indeed a historical figure, but he was not Nebuchadnezzer's son and he was not the King--he was a viceroy to Nebuchadnezzer's son King Amel-Murduk. (Asimov, 1968, p. 605) The prophet Ezekiel predicted that Nebuchadnezzer would take the city of Tyrus (Tyre) and sack it: "For thus saith the Lord thy God; Behold, I will bring upon Tyrus Nebuchadnezzer king of Babylon . . . and he shall set engines of war against thy walls, and with his axes he shall break down thy towers." (Ezekiel 26:7-9) Nebuchadnezzer, however, never conquered Tyre--he was forced to lift his siege after fifteen years of fighting. (Asimov, 1968, p. 588) Ezekiel also predicted that Egypt would be conquered and made a subordinate kingdom: "And I will bring again the captivity of Egypt, and will cause them to return into the land of Pathros, into the land of their habitation; and they shall be there a base kingdom". (Ezekiel 29:14) This never happened. There are also many incidents described in the Bible which have no extra-Biblical confirmation--and some of these are the most famous stories of the Bible. In Daniel 4:33, we are told that Nebuchadnezzer was afflicted by God when he didn't repent his sinful ways: "He was driven from men, and did eat grass as oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till his hairs were grown like eagle's feathers, and his nails like bird's claws." Had such an affliction suddenly struck the king of Babylon, the most powerful man on earth at the time, someone would certainly have noticed, but there is no mention of such an incident in any Babylonian, Sumerian or any other Middle Eastern records. Similarly, when the sun stood still at God's command so that Joshua's Israeli army could finish slaughtering the Amorites (Joshua 10:12-14), such an extraordinary event would have been noticed by people all over the globe, yet there is no written record of such an event outside of the Bible--not a word from Mayan astronomers or Chinese astrologers or anybody else. Likewise, there are no records anywhere in the voluminous Egyptian hieroglyphic records of any Biblical Plagues (surely the Egyptians would have noticed if all of their first-born children died--it would have decimated the country and left Egypt a shattered state ripe for conquest). There are no extra-Biblical records of a non-Egyptian aide to the Pharaoh named Joseph, and no Sumerian, Babylonian or Assyrian records of the sudden destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. In the New Testament, Matthew describes the "slaughter of the innocents", in which Herod tries to eliminate the Christ child by killing every male under three years old. There are no records of such an incident in any Jewish, Roman or Greek historical records of the period, and this slaughter is not even mentioned in any of the other books of the Bible. It does, however, have remarkable parallels with the earlier Biblical story of the birth of Moses (where another leader tries to have a prophesied rival eliminated by killing children--and which also has no extra-Biblical references). Most Biblical scholars believe that Matthew cribbed the Herod story and based it on the account of Moses. -!- * POW 1.0 On Trial * Powerline Offline reader for Windows - New Windows OLR -!- WILDMAIL!/WC v4.12 ! Origin: Father & Son*610-439-1509*Whitehall Pa (1:2607/112.0) Ä Area: Separation of Church & State ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ Msg#: 350 Date: 10-14-96 04:56 From: Lenny Flank Read: Yes Replied: No To: Jim Hansen Mark: Subj: Separtion of ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ To the creation "scientists", of course, the crux of the matter is the Bible's reliability as it applies to scientific matters, particularly to the events described in Genesis. But here, too, the Bible demonstrates itself to be no more sophisticated than were the simple goat-herders who wrote it. In First Kings 7:23, we are told of a large vessel that was made for King Solomon: "And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other . . . and a line of thirty cubits did encompass it round about." (I Kings 7:23) The ratio of the diameter of a circle to its circumference is known as "pi", and pi has a numeric value of approximately 3.15 . Thus, a circular vessel of diameter ten cubits would have measured about 31.5 cubits round, not 30 as described here (and if the vessel were not circular, the circumference would have been even larger). Either the measurements cited here are incorrect, or the Bible is claiming that the value of pi is 3.0 . This, of course, is a trivial matter to most of us--the unsophisticated Biblical writers, who had no idea what "pi" even represented, simply gave the wrong measurements. But to the Biblical literalists, who view the Bible as historically and scientifically inerrant, it is inexplicable. They prefer not to talk about the fact that the Bible gives the wrong value for pi. In Leviticus 11:13-19, as part of the dietary restrictions imposed on the Jews, we see another example of the unsophisticated view which the Biblical authors took towards the natural world: "And these are they which ye shall have in abomination among the fowls; they shall not be eaten, they are an abomination: the eagle, and the ossifrage, and the osprey, and the vulture, and the kite after his kind; every raven after his kind; And the owl, and the night hawk, and the cuckow, and the hawk after his kind, and the little owl, and the cormorant, and the great owl, and the swan, and the pelican, and the gier eagle, and the stork, the heron after her kind, and the lapwing, and the bat." Bats, of course, are NOT birds, but to the unsophisticated Hebrew tribesmen, anything with two wings that flew was "a fowl". Further in these dietary laws, the Bible makes the surprising assertion that some insects have only four legs: "Even of these may ye eat of every flying creeping thing that goes upon all four, which have legs above their feet, to leap withal upon the earth; the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind. But all other flying creeping things which have four feet, shall be an abomination unto you." (Leviticus 13:22-23) Grasshoppers and beetles certainly are "flying creeping things", but they have never had only four feet. Another place where the Bible makes a mish-mash of science is Genesis 30:31-43. In this story, we are told that Jacob is given the opportunity to take all of the livestock from Laban which are spotted or striped and keep them. To insure a better take, we are told, Jacob cleverly took willow sticks and carved them into a striped and spotted pattern, "And he set the rods which he had piled before the flocks in the gutters in the watering troughs when the flocks came to drink, that they should conceive when they came to drink. And the flocks conceived before the rods, and brought forth cattle ringstraked, speckled and spotted." (Genesis 30:38-39) In other words, Jacob, by allowing cattle to view spotted sticks during the act of mating, was able to induce them to produce spotted cattle, which is just as impossible as producing striped human babies by having sex in front of a barber pole. Today, with our knowledge of genetics, we know this Biblical story to be scientific nonsense, but to the ancient Hebrew herders, such "magic" was widely accepted and was not questioned. In fact, the Bible accepts completely the primitive view of these ancient pastoral societies. The earth was assumed to be flat, with the sun revolving around it and the stars embedded in the "firmament", a hard dome that covered the earth. Above the firmament was Heaven. It was because of this world-view that the ancient Hebrews saw no problems with the story of Joshua commanding the sun to stop in the sky (the sun, of course, doesn't move around the earth). Similarly, those Biblical verses which indicated that the earth was immovable and flat were not questioned until the time of Galileo. In Daniel 4:10-11, we are told of a vision in which Daniel sees "a tree in the midst of the earth, and the height thereof was great. The tree grew, and was strong, and the height thereof reached unto heaven, and the sight thereof to the end of all the earth." On a sphere such as the planet Earth, it is impossible to see "to the end of all" from any one spot, no matter how high. But, since the writers of the Bible believed the world to be flat, this presented no problems. Similarly, in Psalms 104:5, the poet writes that God "laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not move forever". The earth, of course, DOES move--and a sphere has no "foundation". But, since the Psalmist believed that the earth was flat and rooted to a fixed spot, this presented no problems either. On two occasions, the Bible leaves the realm of reality altogether, and asserts that humans and animals have conversed together in spoken language. In Numbers 22, we find the story of Balaam, who was riding a donkey when the road was blocked by an angel that only the donkey could see. When the donkey refused to move ahead, Balaam whipped it, whereupon the donkey turned and said to him, "What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times?" Balaam, rather than falling off the donkey in astonishment (what would YOU do if your dog suddenly turned to you and told you to stop hitting him for peeing on the rug?), instead calmly explains that he wished he had a sword so he could kill the donkey. Whereupon the donkey talks again, and says, "Am I not thine ass, upon which thou hast ridden ever since I was thine unto this day? Was I ever wont to do so unto thee?" (Numbers 22:28-30) Needless to say, donkeys do not, and never have, talked, and lack all the physical traits necessary for speech. The most famous of all the talking animals is the serpent in Genesis, which is supposed to have talked to Eve: "Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, Hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?. And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die." (Genesis 3:1-4) Snakes, of course, have no vocal cords or other physical prerequisites for speech. Biblical literalists often attempt to explain away this absurdity by postulating that the serpent was really Satan in disguise. This, however, is undermined by the fact that God curses the serpent for tempting Eve, and makes the serpent crawl on its belly as punishment (a Christian version of a Kipling "just-so" story--"why the snake has no legs"). If indeed it was Satan tempting Eve, and not really a talking snake, then why did God curse the poor innocent serpent for something it could not have done? As Clarence Darrow pointed out during the Scopes trial, the whole "serpent" story is impossible to take as a literal description of an actual event. During his cross-examination of William Jennings Bryan concerning the literal accuracy of the Bible, Darrow asked Bryan, " 'Upon thy belly thou shalt go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.' Do you think that is why the serpent is compelled to crawl upon its belly?" Bryan answered, "I believe that." Darrow asked, "Have you any idea how the snake went before that time?" Bryan answered, "No sir." Darrow asked, "Do you know whether he walked on his tail or not?" Bryan, to the laughter of the crowd, answered, "No sir, I have no way to know." (Wills, 1990, p. 23) One other item in Genesis makes a literal reading impossible. According to the creationist time scale, God created the universe in six days, as recorded by Genesis. After each act of creation, the Bible intones, "And the evening and the morning were the first day". A "day", of course, is measured by the revolution of the earth near the sun. But, according to Genesis, the sun wasn't created until the fourth "day", and the "day" wasn't divided from the "night" until then. (Genesis 1:14) What meaning, then, can the word "day" have when applied to the period of time before this? The old-earth creationists, of course, have postulated that the "days" mentioned in Genesis are really indeterminately long periods of time (the Hebrew word translated as "day" is "yom", which can mean "a length of time" as well as a "day"). Assuming that each "day" was really several hundred million years, however (as the day-age creationists do) only raises other problems. According to the Biblical account, plants were created on the third "day", while the sun wasn't created until the fourth "day". If each "day" were really a long period of millions of years, it would have been impossible for plants to have existed before the sun was created, since plants are dependent upon photosynthesis for survival. It is simply not possible to take the Genesis story literally, any more than it is possible to take the Flood story or any other part of the Bible as inerrant. The Bible is not a history book and not a science text--it is a spiritual book that deals with theological and spiritual matters. To attempt to force the Bible into literal inerrancy on historical and scientific matters is to distort it and cheapen it, and such attempts inevitably turn Christianity into a laughingstock. Just as we remember with contempt the Inquisition's attempts to stop the spread of Galileo's heretical notion that the earth moved around the sun, so will future historians view the Biblical literalists' attempts to stop the teaching of evolutionary "heresy". -!- * POW 1.0 On Trial * Powerline Offline reader for Windows - New Windows OLR -!- WILDMAIL!/WC v4.12 ! Origin: Father & Son*610-439-1509*Whitehall Pa (1:2607/112.0)