All of which rests on the fundamental fact that without the Patriarchs and the Prophets, Christianity itself would make very little sense.
I can't imagine there are many Christians out there who have not read the Torah -- the Mosaic law of the first five books of the Old Testament otherwise known as the Pentateuch.
The word "torah" itself means "law" (turath).
Alamo-Girl, here's something I'm wondering about. You know how I love the classical Greeks, for "discovering" reason and "putting it on the map"; and thus, along with it, "natural philosophy."
The striking prophetic developments in Jerusalem were fairly contemporaneous with the noetic outburst in Athens. If we can say that the classical Greeks discovered the foundations of modern science, then I think we can equivalently say that the ancient Jews discovered the foundations of the historical method. The history of Western civilization tells us that both disciplines have been needful, even indispensable, to account for where we are now. Both science and history being "evolutionary developments." Or so it seems to me.
What alone stays the same always are God's Will and Truth, the "divine measure," according to which judgment is meted out, presaging the culling to come.
"People get ready, there's a train a-coming
You don't need no ticket, just get on-board...."
Thank you so much, dear sister, for your constant kind words of encouragement.
Thank you for including me in your ping. The Word of the Lord is the most important thing, the standard, the way, the truth, the light, the knowledge of God. Refusing this men will perish in their sins. By faith in Jesus Christ I have been given an intense love for The Word of God and it lives in me like John leaping in the womb of his mother Elizabeth at the presence of Jesus the Son! The Lord God Almighty has made Himself known--what grace to fallen man.
It strikes me from the outset that the origins of what is now generally defined and accepted as Science are in the pursuit of the knowledge of the creation rather than the Creator (Romans 1:25). (I haven't read the whole article yet!)
On reflection those men of science who investigated the creation and who were also worshipers of the Creator God were the ones who made the most startling and helpful discoveries and achievements. These are they who found purpose in the knowledge of God Himself, and knew that the creation was there in service to Him first and to themselves as an heritage. It was in their discovery of Him through His revelation of Himself not merely in all created things but in all of creation--through His Name, Law, and Son as well as sea and stars and spores--that led to their discovery of meaning and use.
In contrast, those Scientists who fulfill the quote above absolutely "discover" only meaninglessness, the outflow of which is the abuse of themselves and one another in using what is created to serve singularly the finite creature's ends--abortion, organ harvesting, cloning, etc. Thus Science's highest accolades and strongest affinities among mere Scientists are to the Survival of the Fittest doctrine.
It is because the Creator does indeed exist as the Author and Originator of all that is created, and all sincere investigation of created things must eventually arrive in Him, that modern Scientists (true to the origins, perhaps, of that branch of knowledge, but not to its fulfillment) do in fact resort to very unscientific methods in order to continue to practice the ideology that they have formed around their short-shrifted observations.
Knowledge of the Universe that denies and purposefully excludes knowledge of Him who formed it is a ladder with many rungs but only one sidepiece: dangerous climbing indeed.