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To: john in springfield; metmom
"It's like asking whether the text of Darwin's Origin of Species has changed over the last 150 years. No, it hasn't. But our understanding of evolution has changed over time. So has our understanding of God."

So in comparison to Darwin’s book on his theory, "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life"; would you say that the same kind of textual changes that would have to be made in Darwin’s book to meet the understanding we have today of his theory would have to be made in the Bible to meet our understanding of God?

In other words; Darwin’s book would go through a radical change to meet our understanding of evolution; do you think the Bible needs to go through the same change to meet today’s understanding of God?

40 posted on 03/20/2010 3:38:18 PM PDT by celmak
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To: celmak

Look, you asked a question: “Has the Bible ever changed?” I replied, quite accurately, that yes, it quite certainly had. I even pointed out HOW it had changed; none of which has been disputed - nor CAN it be disputed, since it’s acknowledged as fact by Christians, non-Christians, anyone who’s familiar with the history.

I still don’t really know what your point was, although I suspect it’s the typical fallacy that seems to be pushed a lot. Every time we find that some aspect of our understanding of evolution has been a bit too simplistic (in this case it was simply the assumption that genetic nature is fixed at birth rather than somewhat flexible with genetic changes gained during life passable to succeeding generations), a bunch of people jump up and say, “SEE! SEE! THAT MEANS THE WHOLE THING IS FALSE!”

But it means no such thing. Scientists (and the general population) are not abandoning evolution. Over time, even as our understanding of the process becomes more complex, the opposite is happening.

It’s pretty silly, really. It’s kind of like standing up and proclaiming “Henry Ford was WRONG! The Wright brothers were WRONG!” simply because we now have better automobiles than the much more rudimentary versions they produced.


42 posted on 03/20/2010 4:52:12 PM PDT by john in springfield
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To: celmak
Darwin’s book would go through a radical change to meet our understanding of evolution; do you think the Bible needs to go through the same change to meet today’s understanding of God?

And incidentally, the Bible already HAS gone through EXTREMELY radical changes to create your current understanding of God!

If we start with the first books, they were written... when? At least around 1500 BC?

Books were continually written and started to be accepted as "scripture" over the next 1500 years.

No sooner did the Jews start to decide exactly which books were in the official Bible and which were out, than along comes an entire new movement which RADICALLY departed from the prevailing understanding of God. All of a sudden God wasn't just the holy and transcendent Creator God, he was also (and more primarily) a Father who was prepared to sacrifice His Son for the sins of mankind.

This was such a radical change that it didn't just modify Judaism, it created an entire new major world religion.

I think your point was along the lines of "Darwin didn't get it right, but the Bible has always been right and hasn't had to be changed."

Sorry, it just doesn't wash. Our understanding of God, even the basic form of todays Bible, has taken, at a bare MINIMUM, at least 1,500 years of thought, debate and councils to take shape. Our understanding of evolution has only been in play for 1/10th of that amount of time.

43 posted on 03/20/2010 5:26:47 PM PDT by john in springfield
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