An English chemist has found the hidden gateway to the RNA world, the chemical milieu from which the first forms of life are thought to have emerged on earth some 3.8 billion years ago.
Read the article from the New York Times
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In college I did a paper on creation and through my studying I found one very interesting fact. The story of creation in Genesis is written in a known poetic form from the Ancient Near East. The pattern it follows is very interesting. Days 1-3 parallel days 4-6. Day 1 God created light, day 4 he created the bodies that form light. Day 2 he created land and sky, day 5 he created land and sky animals. Day 3 he created land and vegetation, day 6 he created animals and humans. The pattern is poetic as the writer tries to explain how creation was perfected over an unidentified period of time, ending with the number 7 which is used throughout the bible and other writings from that time as a symbol of perfection or completion.
ReplyDeleteThere is no reason to read this text literally, it actually creates more questions and confusion that way.
The creation account was never meant to be understood as a text on how God created. It was written to explain theology, not science. Nowhere in the Bible do we learn anything scientific. We would be a lot better off if we do not try to read our science culture into a theological text.
Hey Darren, I can't agree more. They are two separate things, science and scripture. One stands up to repeated testing and the other relies on faith. I have come across "science" based evidence for a creator but all seem to lack the basic understanding of testable theories. Give "The Case for a Creator" DVD a go or read into the intelligent design theory.
ReplyDeleteDarren, you make an interesting point to how literal the text is in the bible. My question is then, at which point does one take a literal view versus placing everything into context? Is there some balance applied? How does this play across the different denominations?
ReplyDeleteTheo...
ReplyDeleteIts all about understanding the text in its historical context. It was written in a different language from people in a different culture on the other side of the world 2-5000 years ago. The reason Gensis' creation story can be taken as poetic is because the style of the literature supports it. This is something that can only be found through studying the text in its ancient context.
Sorry, I forgot to answer the question about denominations...I think its an important question.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of the process of how people read and understand the bible, it shouldnt differ across denominations. Of course, there are differing views of what meanings are taken out of the text, but that stems from different understanding of ancient language, culture and context. There comes a point where there are multiple thoughts of ancient times, all with substantial "evidence". Anybody familiar with archeology will understand this as theories of ancient times change with each new finding (sometimes acutely, sometimes substantially).