Science versus science or religion versus religion

Excellent point FL :-)

Does a hammer have goals? Does the physics describing its swing at a nail have the goal of building a house? No! I can say this with full confidence that the immediate cause of a nail going into a board---the physics of it---is mindless and without goals while still believing that the ultimate cause---my purpose and my utilizing the hammer---is full of teleology. Science has never denied it.

An important rule in reconstructing the earliest events in life's history is to assume that they proceeded without the benefit of foresight. Every step must be accounted for in terms of antecedent and concomitant events. Each must stand on its own and cannot be viewed as a preparation for things to come. Any hint of teleology must be avoided. ----American Scientist, Sept.-Oct. 1995. Highlighted words are De Duve's own emphasis.

"Post-Darwinian evolutionary theory, which can explain the emergence of the first bacteria, doesn't even leave much room for a deist God whose minimal role might have been to flick the first switch." http://www.slate.com/id/2124297/

After all, it's the Christian thing to do.

FL, does your faith require denying science, or at least that part of science dealing with the study of evolution?

Not all people of faith agree with you, nor agree with your assessment that their position is the equivalent of a surrender to materialism. They're doing their best to reconcile their faith with the reality of the world.

By the way, evolution isn't the only area of science that espouses materialist explanations. Physics, geology, and other disciplenes can also threaten faith. Faith, when characterized by petrified belief, will always be threatened by materialist explanations of nature.

"a completely mindless process" with "no conscious forethought" nor any "purpose" nor "goal" [...] After all, God, Jesus, and the Bible are chock-full of the teleology that evolution and evolutionists completely and totally deny across the board when scientifically presenting "What Evolution Is" [...] Because the denial of teleology is total, at some point you gotta choose between the Bible and the Darwinists, because for evolutionists, the official scientific position is there's NO teleology, NO conscious forethought involved with the origin of any life form (including us), period.

By the way, evolution isn't the only area of science that espouses materialist explanations. Physics, geology, and other disciplenes can also threaten faith. Faith, when characterized by petrified belief, will always be threatened by materialist explanations of nature.

What the hell is it, exactly, that they are bitching about?

Gee FL your all over the place.
A moving target looking for a bullet.
Your whole premise is based on some amorphous glob or more generously a fixed horizon over which you don't want to look, that satisfies your current state; AND that human exploration should not be examining? Is that your point ?

On that basis Columbus would never have sailed over his horizon.
Even when he did, at the mouth of the Orinoco river, he was able to taste fresh water miles out to sea and what was his conclusion? The Orinoco was a mighty damn big river that must have come from a mighty high mountain. The only mountain that big to his knowledge was the Mountain of Purgatory vividly described by Dante. Sir Francis Drake, a master mariner, upon finding countless new animals in the new world took back to his homeland the sad news that Noah's Ark was a physical impossibility.

Lets just have a look at your your blunderbuss of BS

1. A cosmic switch and god in a Hawaiian holiday shirt? huh ? Really? You need a rest. Aside from your obvious ....ah, again generously, literary flourish, what happens IF a testable explanation moves that cute little domestic scene onto ANYTHING else.

2. Evolution is mindless and undirected ? Of course, absolutely right, that's a killer, purely atheistic, nihilistic in fact, IN THE MINDS of those who have no appreciation for all life on Earth and those who think that their minds and its processes have any bearing on the overpowering urge that every living thing on the Earth experienced over the eons up to the very moment you read this dot. The drive to live and procreate. It ain't pretty or neatly laid out like your Sunday best but without it there would be NONE of life on Earth we see this present moment. If you must have some sort of scaffolding on which to hang your thoughts how about widening YOUR horizons ,critically examine your lack of self awareness and keep in mind that biblical knowledge, is not, and has never been infallible in the wrong hands.

Like Futuyma and Lewontin, De Duve makes sure there isn't any point on the evolution timeline, no point in Earth history, where even a front-loading or deistic God could squeak in there.

— FL

According to Dr. John West, a Discovery Senior Fellow, Evolution Sunday is part of a much larger campaign by Darwinists to explicitly use religion to promote their theory, a campaign that extends to public schools. "In California, Darwin supporters have spent more than a half-million dollars in federal tax money for a website that directs teachers to use theological statements endorsing evolution in science classes," said West. Noting that the website is now the subject of a federal lawsuit for violating the separation of church and state, West asked: "What secular purpose is served by the government trying to convince students what their religious views on evolution should be?"

The website described above is scandalous and is far more hypocritical than Evolution Sunday, because this website promotes misusing the public schools to indoctrinate students about the relationship between Darwinism and religion. Comment #78948 by Donald M on this thread notes that Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, also promotes misusing the public schools for this purpose. Even just teaching in public schools that Darwinism and religion are not necessarily incompatible constitutes a government endorsement of religion.

— Andy H

Evolution and Religion The alleged incompatibility of religion and evolution has been used as a way of persuading people to deny the history of the Earth. The following misconception is dependent on a misunderstanding of the functions of both science and religion.

Misconception: "Teachers should teach 'both sides' and let students decide for themselves. " Response: Given the wide variety of religious views about creation, there are not simply "two sides" to be compared --- and, in any case, these views are not science and do not belong in a science classroom. In science class, students should have opportunities to discuss the merits of arguments within the scope of science. For example, students might debate exactly where birds branched off of the tree of life: before dinosaurs or from within the dinosaur clade. In contrast, a debate pitting a scientific concept against a religious belief has no place in a science class and misleadingly suggests that a "choice" between the two must be made. The "fairness" argument has been used by groups attempting to insinuate their religious beliefs into science curricula.

For concise statements from many religious organizations regarding evolution, see Voices for Evolution on the NCSE Web site.

I think they believe that the Theory of Evolution destroys the pedestal that puts humans above (better than) the rest of the animal kingdom. The other sciences don't explicitly do that.

But last week, some of those critics filed suit in federal court against the University of California at Berkeley, charging that its views on evolution are leading it to violate the separation of church and state. Berkeley was sued for maintaining a Web site, Understanding Evolution, to help schoolteachers. The site contains a links section that notes the many religious organizations that have stated that faith is not incompatible with evolution, and these links violate the First Amendment, according to the suit.

"I am a scientist, and I understand what science is. It is fact-based. It involves hypothesis testing. It is not faith-based," he said. The Web site was designed to help teachers --- especially those who may feel pressure because of the current attacks on evolution --- better explain the science. The information about religious views was included on the Web site not out of a desire to change anyone's religious beliefs, Roy Caldwell said, but because many teachers ask for advice on how to deal with this issue, since their students ask them about it. The information about religious groups is strictly factual, he said. "The fact is that there are many people who recognize that religious faith and science are not necessarily incompatible," he said. While the focus of the lawsuit is about evolution, Roy Caldwell said that critics of evolution have a larger agenda. "I think this is a much broader attack on scientific principles in general," he said.

Caldwell explains his Position

Sorry Rilke, I dislike personal attacks especially those who include the word(s) lie, liar, lying...
Take it to the bathroom wall please....

Ok, PvM, I am reposting my earlier comments sans the offending reference which was meant merely to provide a source for people to check out. You also have not responded to the substance of those comments, so I am hereby addressing them to everyone here.

If the campaign to establish the compatibility of science and religion is to be predicated on the idea that Genesis is meant to be interpreted allegorically or metaphorically, it will achieve pitifully little and certainly not help the cause of science. Such an approach is rightly viewed by millions as based on the evisceration of the words of the Bible of any real meaning and will be rejected. So there is no reason for science to support such an approach.

What the scientific community ought to be supporting is establishing the compatibility of science and religion EVEN IF THE BIBLE IS INTERPRETED LITERALLY. As I have reported here on many occasions, such an approach has successfully been accomplished by various recent scholars.

Now, that is an approach that can and will actually make a difference.

What the scientific community ought to be supporting is establishing the compatibility of science and religion EVEN IF THE BIBLE IS INTERPRETED LITERALLY. As I have reported here on many occasions, such an approach has successfully been accomplished by various recent scholars.

— Carol

If the campaign to establish the compatibility of science and religion is to be predicated on the idea that Genesis is meant to be interpreted allegorically or metaphorically, it will achieve pitifully little and certainly not help the cause of science.

— Carol

PvM,

With all due respect, if you will read the statement signed by the 10,000 clerics, the document that some in the scientific community, including many in this bolg, seem to be pushing in support of the idea that science and religion need not be inherently in conflict, you will see that the campaign is entirely based on the proposition that the words of Genesis do not mean what they appear to be saying.

My point is that such an approach will not get us very far for the reason I provided above. There is a much more effective approach available.

If you would like the scientific community to just "do science" and crawl into a shell and leave the rest of the world to its devices, fine. Then don't complain when the consequences are not to your liking. If, on the other hand, there is to be a campaign, I say let it be an effective one, or at least as effective as possible. And much more IS possible than the above anemic campaign.

Sorry Rilke, I dislike personal attacks especially those who include the word(s) lie, liar, lying... Take it to the bathroom wall please....

— PvM

Comment #79227 Posted by PvM on February 12, 2006 02:53 PM Andy H wrote: "The website described above is scandalous and is far more hypocritical than Evolution Sunday, because this website promotes misusing the public schools to indoctrinate students about the relationship between Darwinism and religion. " Anything else at the site that may offend :-)

Is now informing the student suddenly indoctrination just because some may disagree?

And are you sure that Eugenie Scott promotes 'misusing the public schools'?

And why the attempt to change the topic :-)

What the scientific community ought to be supporting is establishing the compatibility of science and religion EVEN IF THE BIBLE IS INTERPRETED LITERALLY. As I have reported here on many occasions, such an approach has successfully been accomplished by various recent scholars.

— Carol

The basic issue here is the claim that it is hypocritical to use religion or religion-based arguments to promote Darwinism ---- so I think that the website in question is right on topic.

Posted by Carol Clouser on February 12, 2006 03:59 PM (e) Ok, PvM, I am reposting my earlier comments sans the offending reference which was meant merely to provide a source for people to check out. You also have not responded to the substance of those comments, so I am hereby addressing them to everyone here. If the campaign to establish the compatibility of science and religion is to be predicated on the idea that Genesis is meant to be interpreted allegorically or metaphorically, it will achieve pitifully little and certainly not help the cause of science. Such an approach is rightly viewed by millions as based on the evisceration of the words of the Bible of any real meaning and will be rejected. So there is no reason for science to support such an approach. What the scientific community ought to be supporting is establishing the compatibility of science and religion EVEN IF THE BIBLE IS INTERPRETED LITERALLY. As I have reported here on many occasions, such an approach has successfully been accomplished by various recent scholars. Now, that is an approach that can and will actually make a difference.

Teachers have told me they have had good results when they begin the year by asking students to brainstorm what they think the words "evolution" and "creationism" mean. As expected, some of the information will be accurate and some will be erroneous. Under "evolution," expect to hear "Man evolved from monkeys" or something similar. Don't be surprised to find some variant of, "You can't believe in God" or some similar statement of supposed incompatibility between religion and evolution. Under "creationism" expect to find more consistency: "God"; "Adam and Eve," "Genesis," etc. The next step in constructing student understanding of concepts is to guide them towards a more accurate view. One goal of this exercise is to help them see the diversity of religious attitudes towards evolution. After one such initial brainstorming session, one teacher presented students with a short quiz wherein they were asked, "Which statement was made by the Pope?" or "which statement was made by an Episcopal Bishop?" and given an "a, b, c" multiple choice selection. All the statements from theologians, of course, stressed the compatibility of theology with the science of evolution. This generated discussion about what evolution was versus what students thought it was. By making the students aware of the diversity of opinion towards evolution extant in Christian theology, the teacher helped them understand that they didn't have to make a choice between evolution and religious faith.

Posted by PvM on February 12, 2006 06:57 PM (e) ... Misuse indeed... Scott's article should really be read before describing it as 'misuse'

Hi Carol.

Why should science give a flying fig about your religious opinions?

And why are your religious opinions any more authoritative than anyone else's, other than your say-so?

"Informing" the students that Darwinism and religion are not necessarily incompatible (1) is an attempt to change the religious views of students who disagree with that position,

— The Andy formerly known as Larry Fafarman

(2) is a misrepresentation of the positions of some religions,

(3) implies that religions that don't hold that position are "bad" religions,

and (4) promotes religion by telling the students that they don't have to be atheists to accept Darwinism.

Stephen,

English literature and Geography need not be reconciled until you discover that your favorite writer, whom you respect and adore, seems to ba saying that London is in Africa.

Rilke,

Yes it has. I have provided many examples of this on this blog on many occasions, all of which remain unrefuted. And I have provided source materials for folks who wish to engage in further research. Pay attention.

Yes it has. I have provided many examples of this on this blog on many occasions, all of which remain unrefuted. And I have provided source materials for folks who wish to engage in further research. Pay attention.

— Carol

What the hell is it, exactly, that they are bitching about?

I think they believe that the Theory of Evolution destroys the pedestal that puts humans above (better than) the rest of the animal kingdom. The other sciences don't explicitly do that.

Gen. 2: 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. Psalms 8:5 You (God) made him (mankind, humanity) a little lower than the heavenly beings (angels) and crowned him with glory and honor. 8:6 You made him (humanity) ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet: 8:7 all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field, 8:8 the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas. 8:9 O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

"The image of God thesis does not go along with just any theistic view. It requires a theism that sees God as actively designing man and the world as a home for man. "If, by abolishing the view of nature as designed in substantial detail, Darwinism forces a retreat to something like deism, then we are deprived of the idea that man has a special place in the divine order. "Even if we can still view nature as in some sense God's creation, we will no longer have a theism that supports the doctrine of human dignity."

"The application of the theory of common descent to Man deprived man of his former unique position."

Rilke,

Would you care to cite any of my so called "mistranslations" and "abuses" of Hebrew and science? Now is the time to put up or shut up.

And for your information, you cannot possibly contribute to my income by buying my husband's book, since I am not married.

Rilke, Would you care to cite any of my so called "mistranslations" and "abuses" of Hebrew and science? Now is the time to put up or shut up.

— Carol

And for your information, you cannot possibly contribute to my income by buying my husband's book, since I am not married.

Again, THIS is the kind of thing where Christian clergy need to get off their ecclesiastical hinies and publicly engage, publicly take a stand for the Bibles they are supposed to (let us pray) believe in. The image of God thesis is very important for understanding who we are and how we relate to God. But evolution denies t.h.a.t one too.

— FL

The image of God thesis is very important for understanding who we are and how we relate to God. But evolution denies t.h.a.t one too.

I see. So (1) ID is just religious apologetics, (2) IDers are just lying to us when they claim it's not, and (3) Judge Jones was perfectly correct when he ruled that ID is religion, not science. Got it.

— Lenny

Now, Rachels points out the following inescapable consequences of Darwinism:

— FL

I could make my peace with Darwinism if I had to, and I'm sufficiently theologically astute to do the fancy footwork, but it's the science itself that I don't think holds up, and that's what motivates me to critique Darwinism and develop intelligent design. -Bill Dembski (quoted at http://www.antievolution.org/cs/ )

"I would never argue that Darwinism entails the falsity of the doctrine of human dignity; rather, I would contend that Darwinism undermines human dignity by taking away its support. "The idea of human dignity is the moral doctrine which says that humans and other animals are in different moral categories; that the lives and interests of human beings are of supreme moral importance, while the lives and interest of other other animals are relatively unimportant."

"That doctrine (of human dignity) rests, traditionally, on two related ideas about human nature: the idea that man is made in God's image, and the idea that man is a uniquely rational being. "In chapter 3, I discussed the implications of Darwinism for religion and argued that if Darwinism is taken seriously, the brand of theism that supports the image of God thesis is no longer a reasonable option. "And now in chapter 4, I have argued that Darwinism must also lead to the rejection of the idea that man is the only rational animal. We may now draw the conclusion that the traditional supports for the idea of human dignity are gone." ---Created From Animals, p.171

Naturally, a universe that can be seen as self-contained physicalism, if one chooses to see it that way, creates an alternative to belief. The simple presence of this alternative seems to have you and many others running around in a panic.

so according to Dembski, FL is not "sufficiently theologically astute" to reconcile the two, I suppose.

Lovely, FL accusing fellow clergy of being ostriches. How does Dembski fit in with FL's viewpoints, which I find poorly supported.

I see. So (1) ID is just religious apologetics, (2) IDers are just lying to us when they claim it's not, and (3) Judge Jones was perfectly correct when he ruled that ID is religion, not science. Got it.

A bit of a stretch to read all this into FL's statement.

I need to interject here that the lives of 'other animals' ARE important to God; see Matt. 10:29-30. Humanity was assigned to be responsible stewards/managers of them (Psalm 8), so that must mean God indeed cares about them. However, Jesus Christ did not make the ultimate sacrifice and die on the Cross to redeem the 'other animals' like He did to redeem humanity, so in ~that~ particular sense, they are 'relatively unimportant' to use Rachel's qualifying term.

— FL

Okay, back to Rachel: "That doctrine (of human dignity) rests, traditionally, on two related ideas about human nature: the idea that man is made in God's image, and the idea that man is a uniquely rational being.

"And now in chapter 4, I have argued that Darwinism must also lead to the rejection of the idea that man is the only rational animal. We may now draw the conclusion that the traditional supports for the idea of human dignity are gone."

And again, it's not something that you find the other disciplines (physics chemistry meteorology etc) trying to pull. They don't do this kind of bizness on humans and God. Only evolution and evolutionists do. Think about it.

...that God's communicated with us more closely and openly than with any other species, and that Jesus incarnated as a man (rather than a parrot, say)...

Comment #79259 Posted by PvM on February 12, 2006 06:57 PM From the "Dealing with AntiEvolutionism" webpage of Eugenie Scott -- "After one such initial brainstorming session, one teacher presented students with a short quiz wherein they were asked, 'Which statement was made by the Pope?' or 'which statement was made by an Episcopal Bishop?' and given an 'a, b, c' multiple choice selection. All the statements from theologians, of course, stressed the compatibility of theology with the science of evolution." Misuse indeed... Scott's article should really be read before describing it as 'misuse'

"And again, it's not something that you find the other disciplines (physics chemistry meteorology etc) trying to pull. They don't do this kind of bizness on humans and God. Only evolution and evolutionists do. Think about it."

Astronomers pulled the Earth out of the center of the universe and even out of the center of the solar system. You think the fundamentalists of the day didn't find this threatening? Ask Galileo. Geology has found the Earth to be billions of years old. This isn't threatening to those who insist on a literal reading of the Bible? Archaeologists have cast doubt on many of the stories of the Old Testament. This doesn't bother those who read the Bible as a history text?

Biology isn't the only science that threatens the Faith.

Andy H (nee Larry, nee Reed, etc.)

Why, given your obvious concern for ethical issues, do you continue to post in violation of PT's rule six which prohibits multiple Names?

't ain't cricket.

And, quite frankly, people do oppose evolution on religious grounds - because they (like you, apparently) don't understand the theory.

FL is right: evolution does conflict with his religion in ways that other aspects of science don't. And Lenny is right: FL's objections make the religious basis of the ID movement crystal clear.

While there's a legitimate state interest, I think, in not nurturing stupid science education, there are specific constitutional prohibitions against doing anything to inhibit stupid religions.

FL wrote: I need to interject here that the lives of 'other animals' ARE important to God;

You know, FL is right. No scientific content, however factual, which goes against a religion should be taught in a public school.

Therefore it is incumbent upon us to search all the textbooks and remove any reference to any medicine or surgery whatsoever lest we step on the toes of the "christian scientists".

Incidentally, Eugenie Scott wrote in the above webpage, "people don't oppose evolution because they disagree with the science but because it offends their religious sensibilities." That shows just where she is coming from.

Would you care to cite any of my so called "mistranslations" and "abuses" of Hebrew and science? Now is the time to put up or shut up.

— Carol Clouser

Personally, I hold by the Rambam in Moreh Nevukim, where he says that the literal reading of Bereshis is for the simple minded and ignorant, and that given any contradiction between good science and the literal reading of Torah, the literal reading of Torah is to be understood as symbolic.

Guide for the Goyim: Rambam is known in English as Maimonodes, and Moreh Nevukim as Guide of/for the Perplexed. The translation that uses "of", by Shlomo Pines, is more accurate and more readable and more knowledgeable in every way. "Bereshis"="In the beginning [of]"="Genesis". "Torah"=many things, here, the Pentateuch=the Five Books of Moses. "treif"=literally, torn off part of an animal, and thus forbidden by the dietary laws, but more generally used to mean not acceptable to frum Jews whatsoever.

And for what it's worth, I am using "literal" here to mean "as written", not "figurative", a common non-literal meaning of "literal".

And for your information, you cannot possibly contribute to my income by buying my husband's book, since I am not married.

To me, that is a flagrant example of misusing the public schools to try to influence students' religious attitudes towards evolution.

The above quote noted, "all the statements from theologians, of course, stressed the compatibility of theology with the science of evolution." Yes, of course there was no statement from Cardinal Schonborn stressing the compatibility of theology with intelligent design.

Incidentally, Eugenie Scott wrote in the above webpage, "people don't oppose evolution because they disagree with the science but because it offends their religious sensibilities." That shows just where she is coming from.

I think that the best thing to do is to just tell the students that evolution theory has important applications in science and that scientists can still use the theory even while believing that all or part of it is untrue ( regardless of whether the reasons for disbelief are religious or non-religious ).

"The image of God thesis does not go along with just any theistic view. It requires a theism that sees God as actively designing man and the world as a home for man.

Now keep in mind that Jacob Weisberg has already pointed out that "the prevailing scientific view", evolution as an unguided undirected process, doesn't even leave room for a deistic god to flick the first switch, let alone allow for Rachel's "something like deism."

And the poster GT(N)T, or any other evolutionist, will NOT find any parallels to Marley's point within, say, the field of physics or astronomy or chemistry or meteorology. That's the difference.

"The application of the theory of common descent to Man deprived man of his former unique position."

Again, this is NOT true of physics, astronomy, chemistry, meteorology. That is, you won't find any similarly far-reaching deprivations being put on the table, via these other disciplines. Survey 'em yourself and see.

The image of God thesis is very important for understanding who we are and how we relate to God. But evolution denies t.h.a.t one too.

Amen to that Glenn.
An inquiring mind does not seem to be a tool the Creationism Intelligent Designtoligist's have, nor even the most basic power of introspection. And is it going to take people who are naturally blessed with those abilities to waste their time to fix the mess the Creationism Intelligent Designtoligist's have made, .....against their will?
I wonder ;)
How about Lenny's questions handed out to every high school teacher esp. the ones about
ahem...why does fill in blank religious opinion etc etc

William E Emba,

Your post above is a great demonstration of the adage "a little knowledge is dangerous". Otherwise stated, you are an "Ahm Ha-Aretz".

The fact is Rashi would be the first to tell you that "yohm" in Hebrew could literally mean "era" just as well as "day" for he himself so translates the word many times in the Bible, even when used in the same context as in Genesis (see, for example, Hosea 6:2). The fact that he doesn't explicitely do so in Genesis is due to his not having been alerted, 900 years ago, to the significance of this translations at this location. And Rashi's choice is not at all binding on anyone else.

Rilke,

Your lame excuse for not putting up demonstrates to all that it is time for you to shut up. This issue is on topic for this thread since it pertains to the reconcilibity of religion and science. Let everyone here see what "abuses" of Hebrew and science you think I have commited. If you have none to offer, have the decency to retract that claim.

Does every last thread on Panda's Thumb have feature Carol Clouser babbling about Hebrew translation details. Goddam I am sick of that.

Carol, recitation of the prolonged rationalizations in Landa's book aren't germane to the OP of this thread. Why do you have an objection to the Bar? Are you afraid of losing visibility? I doubt anyone on this board takes you seriously enough to pay attention, but I could, of course, be wrong.

I must admit, re-reading your earliest postings, particularly the ones where you demonstrate considerable conflict of interest issues, and generally disingenous behavior doesn't fill me with much hope that you'd be able to argue seriously about Landa's book - the very irrational response about 'yom' in the posts above would appear to confirm it.

The fact is Rashi would be the first to tell you that "yohm" in Hebrew could literally mean "era" just as well as "day" for he himself so translates the word many times in the Bible, even when used in the same context as in Genesis (see, for example, Hosea 6:2). The fact that he doesn't explicitely do so in Genesis is due to his not having been alerted, 900 years ago, to the significance of this translations at this location. And Rashi's choice is not at all binding on anyone else.

— Carol

Does every last thread on Panda's Thumb have feature Carol Clouser babbling about Hebrew translation details. Goddam I am sick of that.

Oh, and you were the one who brought Rashi up as an authority in the first place. So which is it? Is he an authority? Isn't he an authority?

Rilke,

Glad we can finally get to some substance.

(1) You claim that whenever "yohm" is used in the OT in conjunction with a numeral it means a day. You say that so confidently, one can actually be led to believe that you have diligently researched the matter. Perhaps you have. In that case you must have missed Hosea 6:2 as just one of many counter examples.

(2) You claim that the "normal" meaning of "yohm" in the OT is day. If by normal you mean majority, you are correct. But that may simply be a reflection of how many times the OT needed to refer to days vs. the need to refer to eras. As such, it is not a meaningful basis for making a selection at any particular location.

(3) I too am not interested in getting into the flood right now. But whenever you are ready and willing, I will be glad to discuss it with you, since you have been so considerate.

Oh Carol: while you are being so "considerate" in your replies, why not deal with Rilke's Grandaughter's last post?

Admitting that Rashi is autoritative when he agrees with your/Landa's position, and non-authoritative when he disagrees, would be a start.

Admitting that Landa is just another interpretor, however well-founded you may personally believe him to be, and not a source of objectively-demonstrable "scientific" observation, would be another start.

Then we might finally be able to get somewhere in this tiresome non-"debate" about your entrenched meme-complex.

I'm not, of course, holding my breath waiting for you to make either admission. Not your style.

Rilke,

Depends how you employ the concept of "authority".

Rashi is certainly a towering figure in Biblical and talmudic commentary and a great expert in Biblical Hebrew. Which is why his translating "yohm" in so many places as "era" is very significant.

But a human being he was, one who lived 900 years ago, at a time when there existed no reason to assume that the choice of translation of "yohm" in Genesis would attain considerable importance. In other words, he had no reason to give it a second thought.

But neither Rashi nor anyone else can impose or have decisive influence over this matter or any other matter. You see, in the OT and in Judaism there is only ONE God.

Depends how you employ the concept of "authority". Rashi is certainly a towering figure in Biblical and talmudic commentary and a great expert in Biblical Hebrew. Which is why his translating "yohm" in so many places as "era" is very significant. But a human being he was, one who lived 900 years ago, at a time when there existed no reason to assume that the choice of translation of "yohm" in Genesis would attain considerable importance. In other words, he had no reason to give it a second thought. But neither Rashi nor anyone else can impose or have decisive influence over this matter or any other matter. You see, in the OT and in Judaism there is only ONE God.

— Carol

The spectacle of various brands and strands of different religions arguing interminably amongst themselves about the compatibility or otherwise of evolution with religion is truly odious.
Clearly for some brands, evolution is necessarily incompatible with their faith, but for other brands it isn't. So what? Seeing as their real argument is about which is the one and only true faith, the little sub-plot concerning evolution is a fatuous irrelevance. If one of them could just establish that theirs really is the one and only true one, they would thereby establish at the same time the resolution to the compatibility argument.
Until then it's all doodle-squat.
The evidence for evolution speaks for itself, whether it is compatible with the one and only true faith, if there is one, or whether it isn't. Biology should stay well clear of this whole sterile argument. It's not about compatibility, stupid, it's about the strength of the science and nothing else.

Yadda, yadda, yadda.

(You may need Landa's help to translate this unfamiliar term. But please don't count on him having gotten it right.)

Rilke,

While we are on this, may I also point out that Genesis does NOT say, as you have it, first day, second day, etc.
Instead it says, one era, a second era, etc. ONE instead of FIRST, A instead of THE, and ERA instead of DAY. It's all in the Hebrew. The first two of these is not even a matter of choice; no other possibility exists, period. Any other translation is demonstrably wrong and sloppy.

Rilke,

Are you sure Rashi translates "yohm" as you think he does? I am not certain of that at all. Nowhere in Genesis does he explicitely say that.

Can you even read Rashi in the original?

Your post above is a great demonstration of the adage "a little knowledge is dangerous". Otherwise stated, you are an "Ahm Ha-Aretz".

— carol clouser

The fact is Rashi would be the first to tell you that "yohm" in Hebrew could literally mean "era" just as well as "day" for he himself so translates the word many times in the Bible, even when used in the same context as in Genesis (see, for example, Hosea 6:2).

For the record, Rashi did not translate "yom" as "era" or "age" in Hosea 6:2. That is a stretch, based on the usual interpretations. For example, "the third day" in Hosea 6:2 gets the Rashi "the third house". No more, no less. Does Rashi mean to tell us that "yom" literally means "house"? Of course not. He is referring to the third Temple of the Messianic Era, in the usual rabbinic idiom.

The fact that he doesn't explicitely do so in Genesis is due to his not having been alerted, 900 years ago, to the significance of this translations at this location.

Sometimes, when the literal reading was to be applied and was also unusual ("tavu et haizim", the women "spun the goats", usually interpreted as they "spun the goats' hair" Exodus 35:26), Rashi let his reader know with a quick "mamish". Again, real simple. And not part of Rashi on Bereshis 1.

And Rashi's choice is not at all binding on anyone else.

The bottom line: the book is treif. As ignorant as ... as someone telling us that "entropy" is globally defined in relativistic cosmology. As deceitful as ... as someone shilling a book and not mentioning her financial connection. As mindless as ... as someone confronting knowledgeable refutations with one-liner insults.

I admit, it is possible that Landa's book is not so blatantly incompetent on these rather obvious issues, considering your abysmal track record in the departments of simple English and simple honesty. But I doubt if I'll ever make the effort to find out.

Comment #79377 Posted by Russell on February 13, 2006 08:43 AM While there's a legitimate state interest, I think, in not nurturing stupid science education, there are specific constitutional prohibitions against doing anything to inhibit stupid religions.

there is nothing that the courts can do to stop stupid science education.

There is no constitutional separation of stupid science education and state, so there is nothing that the courts can do to stop stupid science education. Also, contrary to your above statement, there is a specific constitutional requirement for the inhibition of the teaching of stupid religions in public-school science classes --- it is called the establishment clause. So the courts should inhibit the teaching of evolution theory in public-school science classes.

— Andy

Your ideas are 'interesting' but lack a certain amount of reality.

Comment #79102 Posted by PvM on February 11, 2006 10:14 PM Advertisement deleted

Comment #79243 Posted by Carol Clouser on February 12, 2006 03:59 PM Ok, PvM, I am reposting my earlier comments sans the offending reference which was meant merely to provide a source for people to check out. You also have not responded to the substance of those comments, so I am hereby addressing them to everyone here. If the campaign to establish the compatibility of science and religion is to be predicated on the idea that Genesis is meant to be interpreted allegorically or metaphorically, it will achieve pitifully little and certainly not help the cause of science. Such an approach is rightly viewed by millions as based on the evisceration of the words of the Bible of any real meaning and will be rejected. So there is no reason for science to support such an approach. What the scientific community ought to be supporting is establishing the compatibility of science and religion EVEN IF THE BIBLE IS INTERPRETED LITERALLY. As I have reported here on many occasions, such an approach has successfully been accomplished by various recent scholars. Now, that is an approach that can and will actually make a difference.

Comment #79249 Posted by Carol Clouser on February 12, 2006 04:41 PM PvM, With all due respect, if you will read the statement signed by the 10,000 clerics, the document that some in the scientific community, including many in this bolg, seem to be pushing in support of the idea that science and religion need not be inherently in conflict, you will see that the campaign is entirely based on the proposition that the words of Genesis do not mean what they appear to be saying. My point is that such an approach will not get us very far for the reason I provided above. There is a much more effective approach available. If you would like the scientific community to just "do science" and crawl into a shell and leave the rest of the world to its devices, fine. Then don't complain when the consequences are not to your liking. If, on the other hand, there is to be a campaign, I say let it be an effective one, or at least as effective as possible. And much more IS possible than the above anemic campaign.

Because the denial of teleology is total, at some point you gotta choose between the Bible and the Darwinists, because for evolutionists, the official scientific position is there's NO teleology, NO conscious forethought involved with the origin of any life form (including us), period.

— FL

Marley's point is well worth thinking about, since quite frankly, it's true.

And Rashi's choice is not at all binding on anyone else.

— Carol

William E Emba,

Apparently you don't even know what the word "literally" means.

By your use of the term we would be led to the conclusion that when the OT speaks of God's "outstretched arm" the literal meaning of that is that God has an arm and he stretched it out.

That is not translating literally, that is translating stupidly.

"Literally" refers to the plain meaning of the words used. Have a dictionary? Check it out.

Yohm Kippur literally means "day of atonement" although strictly speaking "kippur" refers to "wiping away". It is a borrowed meaning based on the idea that atonement leads to the wiping away of one's sins.

Many Hebrew words have borrowed meanings, and yohm as era is borrowed from the singular day being used to mean a multitude of days. An era, after all, usually consists of a multitude of days. Borrowed meanings are literal meanings, they are based on the plain meaning of the words.

The bottom line is this: The plain meaning (I am intentionally avoiding literal meaning) of the word yohm used in many places in the Bible is, according to Rashi, ERA. And he does not even say otherwise in Genesis. And you are totally wrong about Rashi in Hosea. On the next line in Rashi there, right after the one you quoted, Rashi says: BAYOHM HASHLISHI, IN THE THIRD PERIOD (of time). Now what could more plain and simple than that?

Now what could more plain and simple than that?

Math. It's all in the math. Jesus knew and understood quantum physics, algebra, geometry, calculus, and he knew the truth about evolution. Just ask Jesus.

Lenny, please show some respect. And try to reduce your ad hominems. They become quite tiresome.

did i miss the memo? Is this "be nice to idiots" week?

You should try my medication. I'll sell you some.

By your use of the term we would be led to the conclusion that when the OT speaks of God's "outstretched arm" the literal meaning of that is that God has an arm and he stretched it out. That is not translating literally, that is translating stupidly.

Paul,

Much of what you write is right on target, but you seem to miss the point in some key areas.

First, I personally am NOT on a mission of any type to improve the world. If I were as altruistic as I should be I would have followed my doctorate in Physics with 25 years doing research or academia work related to science, and getting paid very little for it. I am just a woman in the fast lane primarly interested in advancing my career. I am here because I enjoy talking to intelligent, reasoning people, which scientists indeed are to a significantly greater extent than most people and to a much greater extent than fundamentalists (rather than use derogatory terminology, I press a few extra keys and type it all out). Although, scientists too fall short in this regard, as do we all.

Second, I am not sure that "blogging" is the way to make a difference. Landa does attend many speaking engagements and is quite actively involved in making his case. I have written some pieces in this regard and have also spoken to various audiences.

Third, I am not proposing that scientists take a stand on Biblical interpretation. Others need to do that. But in defending its interests science is in fact already supporting various endeavors, albeit indirectly, as examplified by the 10,000 clerics case. These ought to be made more effective, such as by supporting efforts that go to the heart of the problem. And you know what that is - literal biblical interpretation.

Fourth, I now regularly check ATBC for any comments I might wish to pontificate about. I have not seen anything of interest lately. If you want to elicit a discussion there about anything, by all means do so. I SHALL "deign" to show up. I just need to be reminded occasionally to look over there. It is somewhat off the beaten path, don't you think?

Fifth, as I told you once before, I have not seen nor have I placed any published numbers for you know what (I don't want to be accused by some, apparently including you, of advertizing). So I cannot tell you much about anything in this regard.

Paul,

I applaud your experiment with your friends. Please let us (and me) know as to its progress and results.

Lenny, please show some respect.

And try to reduce your ad hominems. They become quite tiresome.

Apparently you don't even know what the word "literally" means.

— carol clouser

By your use of the term we would be led to the conclusion that when the OT speaks of God's "outstretched arm" the literal meaning of that is that God has an arm and he stretched it out.

That is not translating literally, that is translating stupidly.

"Literally" refers to the plain meaning of the words used. Have a dictionary? Check it out.

3. a. Theol. Pertaining to the 'letter' (of Scripture); the distinctive epithet of that sense or interpretation (of a text) which is obtained by taking its words in their natural or customary meaning, and applying the ordinary rules of grammar; opposed to mystical, allegorical, etc.

— Oxford English Dictionary

Yohm Kippur literally means "day of atonement" although strictly speaking "kippur" refers to "wiping away". It is a borrowed meaning based on the idea that atonement leads to the wiping away of one's sins.

This really is a simple concept. "Chumash" literally means "five", but is always understood in appropriate contexts to mean the Pentateuch. Somebody telling me that "chumash" literally means Pentateuch is being an idiot.

Many Hebrew words have borrowed meanings, and yohm as era is borrowed from the singular day being used to mean a multitude of days. An era, after all, usually consists of a multitude of days. Borrowed meanings are literal meanings, they are based on the plain meaning of the words.

The bottom line is this: The plain meaning (I am intentionally avoiding literal meaning) of the word yohm used in many places in the Bible is, according to Rashi, ERA.

And he does not even say otherwise in Genesis.

And you are totally wrong about Rashi in Hosea. On the next line in Rashi there, right after the one you quoted, Rashi says: BAYOHM HASHLISHI, IN THE THIRD PERIOD (of time). Now what could more plain and simple than that?

William,

I can only conclude that you either do not read or are deliberately lying. The very definition you cite from the oxford dictionary clearly states that literal meanings are those "obtained by taking its words in their NATURAL AND CUSTOMARY meaning..." Yet you claim that "plain meaning" is not literal.

And Rashi in Hosea clearly says that yohm means period of time. The previous comment by Rashi pertaining to "house" seeks to explain the "third" aspect of it, that it refers to the third temple. Your point is utter, unmitigated nonsense.

No sane person would argue that the literal meaning of yohm kippur is day of wiping. One doesn't pick a word in isolation in deciding these issues. You look at the phrase in context. And the meaning in which it is ordinarily understood, as opposed to mystical or allegorical meanings, becomes the literal meaning.

Even though I don't care much about how accurate of a bible translation I have (Have you read Jules Verne in French? Waaaaay more readable)this is a really fun conversation. Congratulations, I think it's worthy of it's own thread at AtBC. But, please don't stop. This has the makings of a very good debate.

No sane person would argue that the literal meaning of yohm kippur is day of wiping. One doesn't pick a word in isolation in deciding these issues. You look at the phrase in context.

— carol clouser

And Rashi in Hosea clearly says that yohm means period of time. The previous comment by Rashi pertaining to "house" seeks to explain the "third" aspect of it, that it refers to the third temple. Your point is utter, unmitigated nonsense.

— Carol

I can only conclude that you either do not read or are deliberately lying. The very definition you cite from the oxford dictionary clearly states that literal meanings are those "obtained by taking its words in their NATURAL AND CUSTOMARY meaning..." Yet you claim that "plain meaning" is not literal.

— carol clouser

And Rashi in Hosea clearly says that yohm means period of time. The previous comment by Rashi pertaining to "house" seeks to explain the "third" aspect of it, that it refers to the third temple. Your point is utter, unmitigated nonsense.

What Rashi does do is offer readings of Biblical words, phrases, and passages that he either expects his reader will find confusing, or where he feels the standard rabbinic interpretation is essential. Sometimes, he goes further and includes a short grammar lesson. Even when offering nothing more than a translation into Old French, it is still a reach to say that Rashi is doing nothing but serving up a dictionary meaning, since he sometimes translates the same word in two different ways.

In the case of Hosea 6:2, Rashi offers two readings involving yom, one of them being "house". By your approach, Rashi yoking house with yom is the same as Rashi telling everyone that yom literally means house.

In other words, your approach is utter, unmitigated nonsense. Treif. Sheker. Shtush. Bubbameisa.

No sane person would argue that the literal meaning of yohm kippur is day of wiping.

One doesn't pick a word in isolation in deciding these issues.

Ignoring that question arguendo, yes, you do look at words in isolation in order to get at their literal meanings. That's what literal means. It has nothing to do with sanity: the ordinary meanings of the words are taken, and then combined by the rules of grammar, as the OED2 says. If that delivers "day of covering", then that is the literal meaning.

The degree to which the result sounds peculiar reflects the degree to which the metaphorical meaning has become taken for granted. That's all. The literal meaning of "wing" is upper bird appendage. It is not building part. The metaphor has become so standardized that in ordinary speech, no one even notices there is a metaphor anymore.

You look at the phrase in context. And the meaning in which it is ordinarily understood, as opposed to mystical or allegorical meanings, becomes the literal meaning.

But if you really believe in looking at the phrase in context--the "contextual meaning"--you will note that the context for "yom" in Genesis 1 is Genesis 1, not Hosea 6. Simple! "No sane person", to quote you, would look in Hosea to find the context for Genesis 1. And what do we find in that context? "It was evening and it was yom, the nth yom." And how does it end, the seventh yom? With Shabbos, the day of rest. (For the Hebrew impaired, Shabbos and Shivii=seventh are two forms of the same word, with "week" being yet a third form.) The context is absolutely clear: evenings and Shabbos, which in the ordinary customary use refer to ordinary time scales, so the only conclusion is that the contextual meaning of "yom" in Genesis 1 is a 24-hour day, plain and simple.

Of course, people in search of figurative meanings look everywhere for interpretations, and taking one by cherry-picking one of two Rashi interpretations from Hosea 6:2 is fine and dandy for that purpose. "No sane person" would pass off this far-reaching ignoring of context, blatant ignoring of multiple interpretations in one verse, and misreading of OED2 as a garden variety literalism, now would they?

Carol,

I wonder.
Do you believe the bible(as you and Landa translate it is literally true?

Do you believe that evolution is established science and that ID has not offered anything to the science yet?

I am serious here and, after going back through a google search of your posts, I can't tell. I am not sure what point you are trying to make. I know that you say that ordinary bible translations are inadequate.

Do you believe that those who worship god are reading the wrong god? Is the western religious tradition based on a bad translation and thus woefully, hopeless, endlessly lost?

Please answer. This thread is lost anyway.

William,

Sigh... Your post above is so chock full of nonsense on top of nonsense that I don't know where to begin to straighten you out. So I will leave you to your ignorance.

Let's see if my super-duper CarolClauserTranslator is working...
She says, literally (of course), "I can't address your points, you've made me look foolish, so now I'm going to ignore you. Of course, I'll start by telling you I'm ignoring you, so that you'll respond to that and I can once again begin our dance."
Does that about cover it?
I thought so.

hugs,
Shirley Knott
literally

No Carol, please don't go. I really want to know the answers to my questions. Don't worry about William, you are talking about a relative subject- you can both be right. Please answer my questions. I can tell that you do have a lot to offer and that you are much more familiar with the bible than I am.

Sincerely,
BWE

Sigh... Your post above is so chock full of nonsense on top of nonsense that I don't know where to begin to straighten you out. So I will leave you to your ignorance.

— Carol Clouser

But it's public knowledge now that you cherry pick your sources, that you claim "literalism" when you can't even hack the dictionary definition, and rely on "context" that ignores the actual source but finds something hundreds of miles away. And on top of all this, when it gets abundantly clear what a total idiotic mumpsimus you really are, you declare victory and fool nobody. What a pathetic loser.

So yes, keep pimping your employer's book, but please, over in the religious nutcase parts of the web, where such gross incompetence in reasoning ability is considered a stellar achievement.

Don't worry about William, you are talking about a relative subject- you can both be right.

— BWE

I think what the scientific community should do is do science and show how science and religion need not be inherently at odds. In the end there will always be some who will have to reject science because of their faith.

— PvM

Indeed, the whole problem with "literalism" of any stripe is that, OED definitions notwithstanding, there really is no such thing as a literal meaning. I rely somewhat on the linguistics of George Lakoff here.

He argues that only the words (linguists would say 'lexical units' to be more precise) that represent "embodied" concepts can really be thought of as "literal," or, again, to be more precise, "non-metaphorical." "Embodied concepts" meaning --er, literally-- nouns associated with the body and the immediate needs of human existence and a few of the most elementary "action verbs." Beyond these, all of language can be considered an interconnected web of metaphor extrapolated from the most basic terms.

WEE's example of a "wing" of a building is a perfect example, and highlights the degree to which this effect is amplified when translating between languages. If most of our everyday speech in our native tongue is to some degree "metaphorical," then how can one hope to even approach the goal of an entirely metaphor-free translation of an ancient text in another language? The whole process, by its nature, is riddled with subjective decisions and personal preferences. Carol's refusal to come to terms with this betrays a hopeless commitment to an untenable kind of absolutism, and suggests to me that she will never see the sense in what her interlocutors here are trying, in vain, to force her to realize.

Carol, I wonder. Do you believe the bible(as you and Landa translate it is literally true? Do you believe that evolution is established science and that ID has not offered anything to the science yet? Do you believe that those who worship god are reading the wrong god? Is the western religious tradition based on a bad translation and thus woefully, hopeless, endlessly lost?

I am curious to know why Carol posts here. How am I supposed to get what I want if all you ruffians go scaring her away with all this nitpicking over biblew translations

Indeed, the whole problem with "literalism" of any stripe is that, OED definitions notwithstanding, there really is no such thing as a literal meaning. I rely somewhat on the linguistics of George Lakoff here.

— CJ O'Brien

WEE's example of a "wing" of a building is a perfect example, and highlights the degree to which this effect is amplified when translating between languages. If most of our everyday speech in our native tongue is to some degree "metaphorical," then how can one hope to even approach the goal of an entirely metaphor-free translation of an ancient text in another language?

The whole process, by its nature, is riddled with subjective decisions and personal preferences. Carol's refusal to come to terms with this betrays a hopeless commitment to an untenable kind of absolutism, and suggests to me that she will never see the sense in what her interlocutors here are trying, in vain, to force her to realize.

Carol's problem is that she is just another fundamentalist. She has her preordained answers, and she thinks she has reached them through rigorous thinking, when all she has done is assume her conclusions and ignore anything running contrary to them. In other words, she's here to preach, which in her case has taken the particularly ugly form of shilling.

The idea that there are people eager to learn, eager to be corrected, proven wrong, have their understanding of the world refined, changed, enhanced, is worlds beyond her comprehension. Thus, I'm more than happy to learn that physicists have in fact come up with an accepted notion of total entropy of the universe in modern cosmology. None of the textbooks have such a concept, and some are explicit in warning that so far as we know, the concept is meaningless. Carol just reiterates a pre-Einstein now-crackpot view of the universe, oblivious and impervious to a century of physics in between. Her approach to Hebrew interpretation is equally defective.

Carol first appeared here to hawk a book by Josh Landa; an attempted demonstration that the Bible was completely compatible with modern science.

— Rilke's Granddaughter

Unfortunately, her ideas on "literalness" are deep crackpot doodoo. And her proofs consist of reading things into what traditional commentators have said, and then dishonestly reporting her conclusions as if these were there in the original. And insulting anyone here actually familiar with Hebrew and Rashi.

william wrote: If that's all it was, I don't think anybody would have cared. The claim actually made was that the book demonstrates that if the Bible were only read literally, in ways that all modern commentators across the board have not done in their ignorance of Hebrew, then there would harmony between Science and Religion. Science as in Real Science, not the fake pseudoscience Gish, Morris, Dembski, Behe and the like peddle to their congregants. Unfortunately, her ideas on "literalness" are deep crackpot doodoo. And her proofs consist of reading things into what traditional commentators have said, and then dishonestly reporting her conclusions as if these were there in the original. And insulting anyone here actually familiar with Hebrew and Rashi.

I suspect that you are correct, Mr. Emba. I note that your attempt to explain to her what literal actually meant produced a strongly emotional and irrational response.

Mote. Beam. Game over.

Actually, it's quite possible to have a sensible discussion in English of what Hebrew is literally saying. No one translation can do the trick, but extensive discussion of the grammatical and etymological riffs happening in the original are possible.

Sure. I'm not espousing mushy relativism. Texts have meaning, and they can be agreed upon by reasonable people. But neither will I admit to absolutism, where the 'perfect' translation is possible. Language is just not that kind of animal.

Haw haw.

BWE,

Please don't think for a moment that I have been "scared away" by the likes of William and his side-kick Rilke. I just don't suffer fools easily. I tried to help him (and her) learn a thing or two but he just keeps repeating his childish nonsense ad nauseum. So what more can I do?

The issue here is not a relative one. To William the literal meaning of a word is obtained by isolating it from its neighbors, probing into its roots and history, then arriving at some official definition which may at all not agree with how people use the word. That is a ridiculously extreme reading of the word "literal". Thus he idiotically insists that the literal interpretation of the phrase "he walked into the west wing of the building" is that "he walked into the part of a bird." And this he claims is the "normal and customary" meaning of the word "wing", which is the dictionary definition of "literal"!

I say that words get their meaning by the way they are used by people, by writers, by readers, and so on. The dictionary lists "a section of a building" as one of the definitions of "wing". That's one of the meanings people attach to that word. The literal interpretation of "he walked into the west wing of the building" is that "he walked into the western section or extension of the building."

William's repeated contention that Rashi in Hosea translates yohm as house is so childishly stupid, it is beyond the pale. Any ten year attending Hebrew school would justifiably laugh his head off at the mere thought of it. And Rashi DOES IN FACT provide the services of a dictionary, despite William's ignorant assertion to the contrary. There must be ten thousand examples of this, if not more. Rashi always focuses primarily on the "normal and customary" meaning of the words, in other words, their literal meaning (known in Hebrew as PISHAT). When he departs from that out of neccesity he says so. And he clearly and unequivocally interpretes "the third yohm" (sounds like Genesis, right?) there as "the third era". This is on top hundreds of other examples in the Bible where era instead of day is the best fit for yohm. Clearly that meaning must be admitted as a reasonable possibility in Genesis.

Ask any Hebrew speaking person even today to translate the phrase "the middle ages" for you into Hebrew. You will hear "yimai ha-bainayim" (plural of yohm), thus employing yohm to mean AGE. Yohm as ERA is thus perfectly normal and customary, though by no means is it the only meaning. There actually are three meanings to yohm (era, 24 hour period, dawn to dusk).

I didn't mean to ignore you earlier, I just ran out of time and refused to address William's adding ten more items of ignorance on top of repeating the earlier ten stupidities.

Sigh... Your post above is so chock full of nonsense on top of nonsense that I don't know where to begin to straighten you out. So I will leave you to your ignorance.

Carol,
Good. I'm glad you're not intimidated.

I wonder.
Do you believe the bible(as you and Landa translate it is literally true?

Do you believe that evolution is established science and that ID has not offered anything to the science yet?

Do you believe that those who worship god are reading the wrong god? Is the western religious tradition based on a bad translation and thus woefully, hopeless, endlessly lost?

Because, if the bible really says that humans evolved the same way everything else has evolved, through natural selection, but our translations left that part out, I should think that would be big news for the Education Community who is mostly trying to fend off the well financed efforts of the Discovery Institute Core Kernel.

BWE,

"Do you believe the bible(as you and Landa translate it) is literally true?"

My argument is that the Bible is not neccesarily contradicted by science even if interpreted literally (words meaning what they normally and customarily mean) so long as the original, that is the Hebrew, is translated accurately and correctly. In other words, one cannot use science to discredit or refute the Bible.

"Do you believe that evolution is established science and that ID has not offered anything to science yet?"

Evolution most definitely is established science, as established as they come, which is not all that firmly established. ID has not offered anything to science but that does not imply that it did not happen that way.

"Do you believe that those who worship god are reading the wrong god? Is the western religious tradition based on a bad translation and thus woefully, hopeless, endlessly lost?"

There are too many questions wrapped into a package here. I have already stated that the popular translations of the Bible are sloppy and riddled with errors. There is much else to critcize and applaud in "western religious tradition", whatever that includes, but I am not sure what it is you are focused upon. God and the Bible are two independent entities that you seem to be lumping together.

Please don't think for a moment that I have been "scared away" by the likes of William and his side-kick Rilke. I just don't suffer fools easily.

— Carol

I tried to help him (and her) learn a thing or two but he just keeps repeating his childish nonsense ad nauseum. So what more can I do?

The issue here is not a relative one. To William the literal meaning of a word is obtained by isolating it from its neighbors, probing into its roots and history, then arriving at some official definition which may at all not agree with how people use the word. That is a ridiculously extreme reading of the word "literal".

Thus he idiotically insists that the literal interpretation of the phrase "he walked into the west wing of the building" is that "he walked into the part of a bird."

And this he claims is the "normal and customary" meaning of the word "wing", which is the dictionary definition of "literal"!

I say that words get their meaning by the way they are used by people, by writers, by readers, and so on.

The dictionary lists "a section of a building" as one of the definitions of "wing". That's one of the meanings people attach to that word. The literal interpretation of "he walked into the west wing of the building" is that "he walked into the western section or extension of the building."

William's repeated contention that Rashi in Hosea translates yohm as house is so childishly stupid, it is beyond the pale. Any ten year attending Hebrew school would justifiably laugh his head off at the mere thought of it. And Rashi DOES IN FACT provide the services of a dictionary, despite William's ignorant assertion to the contrary. There must be ten thousand examples of this, if not more. Rashi always focuses primarily on the "normal and customary" meaning of the words, in other words, their literal meaning (known in Hebrew as PISHAT). When he departs from that out of neccesity he says so. And he clearly and unequivocally interpretes "the third yohm" (sounds like Genesis, right?) there as "the third era". This is on top hundreds of other examples in the Bible where era instead of day is the best fit for yohm. Clearly that meaning must be admitted as a reasonable possibility in Genesis.

Ask any Hebrew speaking person even today to translate the phrase "the middle ages" for you into Hebrew. You will hear "yimai ha-bainayim" (plural of yohm), thus employing yohm to mean AGE. Yohm as ERA is thus perfectly normal and customary, though by no means is it the only meaning.

There actually are three meanings to yohm (era, 24 hour period, dawn to dusk).

I didn't mean to ignore you earlier, I just ran out of time and refused to address William's adding ten more items of ignorance on top of repeating the earlier ten stupidities.

My argument is that the Bible is not neccesarily contradicted by science even if interpreted literally (words meaning what they normally and customarily mean) so long as the original, that is the Hebrew, is translated accurately and correctly. In other words, one cannot use science to discredit or refute the Bible.

— Carol

The most important point is that Hebrew is not an exact language - multiple translations are possible, and we have NO WAY WHATEVER to determine the actual sense intended by the authors in a large number of cases. To claim otherwise is a falsehood.

Landa is just insisting that he, and he alone, is correct.

Carol, I'm still curious about your dishonest behavior regarding Landa's book in the first place: trolling on PT (and other boards); posting anonymous reviews on Amazon, etc.

Do you consider that to be ethical?

Rilke,

Since you once again repeat the laughable notion that Rashi in Hosea translates yohm as house, an idea that you gleaned from William's incisive analysis, it is as certain to me as night follows day that you cannot read Rashi in the original, that you are totally out of your element here, and that it is an utter waste of my time talking to you.

The same is the case for William, although he seems to know a bit more about Hebrew and Rashi than you do, which is absolutely nothing.

Rilke, Since you once again repeat the laughable notion that Rashi in Hosea translates yohm as house, an idea that you gleaned from William's incisive analysis, it is as certain to me as night follows day that you cannot read Rashi in the original, that you are totally out of your element here, and that it is an utter waste of my time talking to you. The same is the case for William, although he seems to know a bit more about Hebrew and Rashi than you do, which is absolutely nothing.

— Carol

2. He will revive us from the two days, on the third day He will set us up, and we will live before Him. He will revive us from the two days He will strengthen us from the two retributions which have passed over us from the two sanctuaries that were destroyed. on the third day With the construction of the third Temple, He will set us up. from the two days From the two times that have passed over us. on the third day In the third time.

found the book on Amazon

There are several reasons I continue to press Carol on these points, despite my recognition that she is unable to discuss these matters seriously.

First, is that this is an excellent example of the 'fundie-theist' modus operandi: enter with concealed motive; become argumentative on small points; evade questions or actual challenges to their position; continually threaten to 'pick up their marbles and go home'; repeated changes of subject and goal-posts; etc.

What is interesting is that we see here that these traits can be displayed by those of any religious affiliation.

Secondly, of course, as a woman, I am embarrassed by Carol's inability to offer a coherent argument or coherent response to challenges. I mean, we really are better than this.

To Whom It May Concern,

Having re-read my post above #79533 I realize that I did not express myself as clearly as I should have pertaining to "the outstretched arm" in the OT. I did not want to say that this translation is the literal one, just that the writer's obvious intentions when using such expressions in connection with God is to render the meaning of the words in the figurative sense of "might and reach".

The point was that similarly with yohm in Hosea, the writer's obvious intentions are to refer to era instead of day, as Rashi makes it abundantly clear, whether that is the literal meaning of yohm or not, which it is. In Genesis it is not as obvious as in Hosea, but it still is a perfectly reasonable translation, except to those who desperately neek to create conflict between the Bible and science.

None of this impacts the rest of the above discussion. I stand by everything else I wrote despite the persistant sniping from the peanut gallery by folks who just have no idea what they are talking about.

PvM,

Thanks for your indulgance here.

Since this seems to be an innappropriate place to ask, did any body follow my link above?
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert_ingersoll/about_the_holy_bible.html
Mr. Christopher pointed out this link on a different thread. Fascinating. I made a post on my blog about it.

To Whom It May Concern,

— Carol

Having re-read my post above #79533 I realize that I did not express myself as clearly as I should have pertaining to "the outstretched arm" in the OT. I did not want to say that this translation is the literal one, just that the writer's obvious intentions when using such expressions in connection with God is to render the meaning of the words in the figurative sense of "might and reach".

The point was that similarly with yohm in Hosea, the writer's obvious intentions are to refer to era instead of day, as Rashi makes it abundantly clear, whether that is the literal meaning of yohm or not, which it is.

In Genesis it is not as obvious as in Hosea, but it still is a perfectly reasonable translation, except to those who desperately neek to create conflict between the Bible and science.

None of this impacts the rest of the above discussion. I stand by everything else I wrote despite the persistant sniping from the peanut gallery by folks who just have no idea what they are talking about.

PvM, Thanks for your indulgance here.

Oh, and Carol - a word of advice: ad hominems don't actually constitute an argument. It just makes you look childish.

Having re-read my post above #79533 I realize that I did not express myself as clearly as I should have pertaining to "the outstretched arm" in the OT. I did not want to say that this translation is the literal one, just that the writer's obvious intentions when using such expressions in connection with God is to render the meaning of the words in the figurative sense of "might and reach".

— Carol Clouser

The point was that similarly with yohm in Hosea, the writer's obvious intentions are to refer to era instead of day, as Rashi makes it abundantly clear, whether that is the literal meaning of yohm or not, which it is. In Genesis it is not as obvious as in Hosea, but it still is a perfectly reasonable translation,

except to those who desperately neek to create conflict between the Bible and science.

As Rambam says, all such conflicts are resolved by figuratively interpreting the Biblical verses in question.

None of this impacts the rest of the above discussion. I stand by everything else I wrote despite the persistant sniping from the peanut gallery by folks who just have no idea what they are talking about.

Carol: zolst vaksn vi a tsibele, mitn kop in drerd. Everyone reading this thread knows exactly what I just wrote, figuratively speaking. Something Yiddish for "Carol is a doodyhead, nyeah nyeah nyeah". Context makes this abundantly clear. But I suspect some will be curious as to what the literal meaning of what I wrote actually is. You see, context is utterly worthless for that purpose. My doodyhead commentary is no help either, despite it being 100% authoritative (after all, you can't get more authoritative than the author himself!).

No. The only way to get the literal meaning is to take each word, individually, and then combine the individual meanings according to the rules of the appropriate grammar. In this case, Yiddish and English share Germanic roots, so a word-for-word translation suffices: "you should grow like an onion, with your head in the dirt".

Simple, right?

What is interesting is that we see here that these traits can be displayed by those of any religious affiliation.

— Rilke's Granddaughter

Secondly, of course, as a woman, I am embarrassed by Carol's inability to offer a coherent argument or coherent response to challenges. I mean, we really are better than this.

The issue here is not a relative one. To William the literal meaning of a word is obtained by isolating it from its neighbors, probing into its roots and history, then arriving at some official definition which may at all not agree with how people use the word. That is a ridiculously extreme reading of the word "literal".

— Carol Clouser

Thus he idiotically insists that the literal interpretation of the phrase "he walked into the west wing of the building" is that "he walked into the part of a bird."

Perhaps you can tell us what adjective to use when modifying "meaning" here? Fill in the blanks, please: "Lame duck"="bird with a broken leg/wing" is the ________ meaning, whereas "lame duck"="politician whose term is ending" is the ________ meaning.

And this he claims is the "normal and customary" meaning of the word "wing",

which is the dictionary definition of "literal"!

I say that words get their meaning by the way they are used by people, by writers, by readers, and so on.

The dictionary lists "a section of a building" as one of the definitions of "wing". That's one of the meanings people attach to that word. The literal interpretation of "he walked into the west wing of the building" is that "he walked into the western section or extension of the building."

William's repeated contention that Rashi in Hosea translates yohm as house is so childishly stupid, it is beyond the pale.

Any ten year attending Hebrew school would justifiably laugh his head off at the mere thought of it.

And Rashi DOES IN FACT provide the services of a dictionary, despite William's ignorant assertion to the contrary.

There must be ten thousand examples of this, if not more. Rashi always focuses primarily on the "normal and customary" meaning of the words, in other words, their literal meaning (known in Hebrew as PISHAT).

"Pshat" does not mean "literal", although that is what they tell ten year olds in cheder class.

As I mentioned before--I gave an explicit example--Rashi sometimes emphasizes that a peculiar looking text is meant to be read literally. "The women spun the goats" does not need translation. It is so bizarre, though, that Rashi feels to emphasize that it means exactly what it says: the goats' hair was not sheared until after spinning was done. (I remembered the exact Rashi wrong--there is somewhere else where Rashi's sole comment is "mamish"="literally so".) Were Rashi doing what you were saying, there would be no examples of this. But Rashi is not doing what you are saying.

Rashi is aiming for the minimal standard interpretation of the text, and provides whatever commentary is needed to get the reader there. The most extreme avoidance of literalism in Rashi is Song of Songs, where the entire commentary is essentially nothing but a free allegoric translation, giving the relationship between God and Israel. No mention of physical body parts, for example.

When he departs from that out of neccesity he says so.

And he clearly and unequivocally interpretes "the third yohm" (sounds like Genesis, right?) there as "the third era".

I of course reject that last reading as ridiculous, but not because Rashi told me one way or the other. He doesn't. Meanwhile, Rashi is completely silent on whether he thinks "yom"=era the second time around is literal or idiomatic.

I wouldn't get too excited about "the third yom" echoing Genesis. There are other "third yom"s around. For example, Redak glosses Hosea 6:2 by telling how the third yom of a sickness is the worst, and that is when healing comes, and refers to Abraham being visited by the angels on the third yom of his circumcision.

This is on top hundreds of other examples in the Bible where era instead of day is the best fit for yohm. Clearly that meaning must be admitted as a reasonable possibility in Genesis.

Well, no. The real literal meaning of "yom" in the context of Genesis 1--pay special attention to the fact that nights and days are mentioned together, and that it culminates in the Shabbos, well known day of rest--your literalist has no choice but to conclude Genesis 1 is about 7 24-hour days.

Like Rambam, I am not in the least put off by the blatant contradiction that exists between a literal reading of Genesis 1 and modern science. As he says, the real meaning is not for the ignorant, so they get simple tales instead.

Ask any Hebrew speaking person even today to translate the phrase "the middle ages" for you into Hebrew. You will hear "yimai ha-bainayim" (plural of yohm), thus employing yohm to mean AGE. Yohm as ERA is thus perfectly normal and customary, though by no means is it the only meaning. There actually are three meanings to yohm (era, 24 hour period, dawn to dusk).

Do pay attention that this phrase helps the literalist not one whit in reading Genesis 1, who has to deal with evenings and the Shabbos as part of the textual context. The middle ages are not part of the Genesis 1 context.

I find it extremely telling that, ever since you brought up the importance of context, you have been completely silent about the role of context in reading Genesis 1, and in particular, the other words that all say, loudly and clearly, yom=day here.

In summary, you are making up reasons why you must be right as you go along. But when someone (obviously not you) takes ten seconds to notice that your own arguments actually refute you, you just blither on as if it has never been mentioned. A real onionlady!

The most important point is that Hebrew is not an exact language - multiple translations are possible, and we have NO WAY WHATEVER to determine the actual sense intended by the authors in a large number of cases. To claim otherwise is a falsehood.

— Rilke's Granddaughter

For example, Hebrew uses gender in second person pronouns. If I write a short story in the second person in English, the gender ambiguity really does not translate into Hebrew. It's not a case of a Hebrew translator has to try and psyche out whether I had meant male or female, and if he succeeds he makes a good translation, and if he fails, he makes a bad translation. The point is I had never meant either one, and the Hebrew language insists on a choice on this question.

Biblical translations often face this difficulty going the other way. Choices that English insists on specifying before a grammatical sentence can be generated are SIMPLY NOT THERE in the original. It's a difficult challenge to convey this open-endedness, short of writing commentaries.

William,

I am going to try to respond to your last post without responding in kind to your insults. By now you have insulted women (#79513)and non-Jews (#80101). It is I who should be embarrassed with you as a co-religionist. I shall however be brief because it is time to bring this circus to a close.

First, you distort my position. I never argued that yohm can only mean era in Genesis. Of course it could mean day. But to those who are certain that science refutes the Bible, I say - not so fast. The burden of proof is upon you. It could very well refer to era, as the word is used in the Bible in many areas.

Second, I contend that era actually makes more sense than day in Genesis, for various reasons, among them the fact that it is so used in a few other places in the story of creation. The "and there was evening, and there was morning" you repeatedly cite is not impressive. It could very well refer to a multitude of evenings and mornings, a tactic employed in many other places in the Bible. The seventh ERA of rest which leads God to bless the seventh day of the week also does not settle the matter.

Third, you refuse to face the fact that your own dictionary citation supports my definition of literalism - NORMAL AND CUSTOMARY meanings. Rules of grammar pertain to words strung together by their NORMAL and CUSTOMARY usage. One of yohm's normal meanings is era.

Fourth, Rashi talks in Hosea about "houses" for one reason only, to define the three eras. He definitely defines yohm there as era, supporting the idea that the word can so be employed in the Bible, in the context of counting yohms, as in Genesis. That he says nothing in Genesis about yohm could be due to the fact that he is ambivalent about the matter. I agree that, more likely, Rashi takes yohm in Genesis as day, but that is his choice, it is not binding on the entire world.

Fifth, Rashi declares multiple times that he wrote ONLY to illuminate the PISHAT, which refers to, again, the ordinary and customary meanings of words. And he frequently elucidates his position by comparing words used in one place to how it is used in other places, sometimes "hundreds of miles away". So it is a tried and tested method.

Even the pinheaded know that it is tacky to gloat.

Still [gloat], this pinhead cannot resist nurturing a wee ember of pleasure at the royal roasting the obnoxious CC is deservedly receiving for her rather pathetic mendaciousness, so long on display here, from folks who are calmly and lucidly blowing her little ark out of the spate.[/gloat]

I never argued that yohm can only mean era in Genesis.

William wrote:

"As I mentioned before---I gave an explicit example---Rashi sometimes emphasizes that a peculiar looking text is meant to be read literally. "The women spun the goats" does not need translation. It is so bizarre, though, that Rashi feels to emphasize that it means exactly what it says: the goats' hair was not sheared until after spinning was done. (I remembered the exact Rashi wrong---there is somewhere else where Rashi's sole comment is "mamish"="literally so".) Were Rashi doing what you were saying, there would be no examples of this. But Rashi is not doing what you are saying."

Well, the other "mamish" you are thinking of is on "vayishlach yaakov malachim", where Rashi says "malachim mamish", meaning Jacob sent angels not human messengers to his brother. As far as I am concerned, both translations of malachim, messengers or angels, qualify as literal, since both meanings are ordinary and customary, to one extent or another. (I have no idea how you would apply your extremist and outlandish concept of literalism here.) And I don't interpret "mamish" to mean "literally so". It's more subtle than that. It's akin to saying, "really so, believe it".

Clearly Rashi expects the reader to interpret literally as much as possible. He needs to say something in the case of the goats because it seems so strange, and he needs to say something in the case of malachim because the literal can go either way.

Pinhead,

Let us see if you can follow this. It's not rocket science. Ready? Have your seat belt on? I said before and I say now that the KJV and other popular translations are replete with incorrect and inaccurate translations. Some of these are downright illegal, others are the result of a poor choice.

Yohm CAN mean day and is so used many many times in the HB (Hebrew Bible). I never said otherwise, despite the pretensions and protestations of some morons here. Do I sound like the type of person to not know that yohm is used as day hundreds of times in the HB? I have repeatedly stated that yohm has three possible meanings. But "day" is the wrong choice, in my opinion, in Genesis. The correct choice is "era". And since it is normal and customary for yohm to be employed this way, in the HB and in Hebrew-speaking everyday conversation, this meaning constitutes a literal interpretation of that word.

Got that?

I am going to try to respond to your last post without responding in kind to your insults.

— Carol Clouser

By now you have insulted women (#79513)and non-Jews (#80101).

I shall however be brief because it is time to bring this circus to a close.

First, you distort my position. I never argued that yohm can only mean era in Genesis.

Of course it could mean day. But to those who are certain that science refutes the Bible, I say - not so fast. The burden of proof is upon you. It could very well refer to era, as the word is used in the Bible in many areas.

Second, I contend that era actually makes more sense than day in Genesis, for various reasons, among them the fact that it is so used in a few other places in the story of creation.

The "and there was evening, and there was morning" you repeatedly cite is not impressive. It could very well refer to a multitude of evenings and mornings, a tactic employed in many other places in the Bible.

The seventh ERA of rest which leads God to bless the seventh day of the week also does not settle the matter.

Third, you refuse to face the fact that your own dictionary citation supports my definition of literalism - NORMAL AND CUSTOMARY meanings. Rules of grammar pertain to words strung together by their NORMAL and CUSTOMARY usage.

One of yohm's normal meanings is era.

Fourth, Rashi talks in Hosea about "houses" for one reason only, to define the three eras.

He definitely defines yohm there as era,

and supporting the idea that the word can so be employed in the Bible, in the context of counting yohms, as in Genesis.

That he says nothing in Genesis about yohm could be due to the fact that he is ambivalent about the matter.

I agree that, more likely, Rashi takes yohm in Genesis as day, but that is his choice, it is not binding on the entire world.

Fifth, Rashi declares multiple times that he wrote ONLY to illuminate the PISHAT,

which refers to, again, the ordinary and customary meanings of words.

Rashi is giving pshat, though. But unlike what they tell ten-year-olds in cheder, pshat does not mean literal reading.

And he frequently elucidates his position by comparing words used in one place to how it is used in other places, sometimes "hundreds of miles away". So it is a tried and tested method.

Yohm CAN mean day and is so used many many times in the HB (Hebrew Bible). I never said otherwise, despite the pretensions and protestations of some morons here.

— Carol

Do I sound like the type of person to not know that yohm is used as day hundreds of times in the HB?

I have repeatedly stated that yohm has three possible meanings. But "day" is the wrong choice, in my opinion, in Genesis.

The correct choice is "era".

And since it is normal and customary for yohm to be employed this way, in the HB and in Hebrew-speaking everyday conversation, this meaning constitutes a literal interpretation of that word.

As I mentioned before---I gave an explicit example---Rashi sometimes emphasizes that a peculiar looking text is meant to be read literally. "The women spun the goats" does not need translation. It is so bizarre, though, that Rashi feels to emphasize that it means exactly what it says: the goats' hair was not sheared until after spinning was done. (I remembered the exact Rashi wrong---there is somewhere else where Rashi's sole comment is "mamish"="literally so".)

— Carol Clouser

Well, the other "mamish" you are thinking of is on "vayishlach yaakov malachim", where Rashi says "malachim mamish", meaning Jacob sent angels not human messengers to his brother.

As far as I am concerned, both translations of malachim, messengers or angels, qualify as literal, since both meanings are ordinary and customary, to one extent or another.

(I have no idea how you would apply your extremist and outlandish concept of literalism here.)

I know of people who grew up thinking "malachim" were a certain Lubavitch splitter group from before the war. Their ordinary use of the word was to their neighbors. They certainly never went around saying "malachim" literally meant such-and-such splitter group.

Tell me, in onionladyland, what's the literal meaning of "hasid"? No matter how many millions of hassidim there are, it will always remain "pious person".

And I don't interpret "mamish" to mean "literally so". It's more subtle than that. It's akin to saying, "really so, believe it".

Clearly Rashi expects the reader to interpret literally as much as possible.

Had he not glossed the malachim, the reader would have applied the ordinary Hebrew meaning.

He needs to say something in the case of the goats because it seems so strange, and he needs to say something in the case of malachim because the literal can go either way.

He needs to say something about the malachim because the ordinary reader using the ordinary meaning will be mistaken.

EMBE QUOTED CLOUSER:

"Had he not glossed the malachim, the reader would have applied the ordinary Hebrew meaning."

I thought I was done with this discussion since you are essentially repeating ad nauseum the same lies, distortions and stupidities. But the above fabricated "quote" of mine really sets a new low for behavior even by your standards. Coming on top of your insulting all women and gentiles, you are now decidedly on my sewer list.

Seriously Carol
You are a 5th rate pedant.
Just before you conveniently forget about era not being equal to a day which I predict you will never mention here on PT again, along with anal and oral sex, slavery and all the other ridiculous projections you bring up , however before you do, just how long exactly is your era and how about the sequence of events for each era?
What William seems to have almost done is switch on the light in the dark confines of that thing between your ears you claim is a brain.

Here is a challenge, learn another extinct language, sanskrit
would be perfect for you.
I hazard a guess you would have, shall we say greater difficulty, imposing you cultural prejudices on it, particularly if you sing it.

Carol Clouser said to EMBE "Coming on top of your insulting all women and gentiles, you are now decidedly on my sewer list.
Perhaps Carol you should examine your "Good Book" to see how IT views the status of Women and Gentiles?
In both the Old and New Testaments women are assigned a position not appreciably different from that of domestic servants, their status is demeaning, debilitating, and wholly incompatible with self-respect and confidence.To use the vernacular, the Bible is sexist and permeated with male supremacy, as the following verses show only to well: "...and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee (GEN> #:16)." If you are desiring more proof you should read: Duet. 21:10-14, 24:1-4, Judges 5:30, Esther 1:20-22, Rom. 7:2, 1 Col. 3:18, Titus 2:4-5, 1 Peter 3:1, Lev. 12:2, 5, Gen. 3:20.
As for the Gentiles
GOD ORDERS KILLING: "ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. And five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put 10,000 to flight: and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword" (Lev. 26:7-8). "the Lord said to Moses, Take all the heads of the people, and hang them up before the Lord against the sun, that the fierce anger of the Lord may be turned away from Israel. And Moses said to the judges of Israel. Slay every one his men that were joined to Baal" (Numb. 25:4-5). "Vex the Mediates and smite them" (Numb. 25:17). "But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breathes. But thou shalt utterly destroy them...as the Lord thy God has commanded thee" (Duet. 20:16-17). "So Joshua smote all the country of the hills...he left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded" (Joshua 10:40). "As I listened, god said to the others, 'Follow him through the city and kill, without showing pity or compassion. Slaughter old men, young men and maidens, women and children...." (Eek. 9:5-6). "And the Lord sent you on a mission, saying 'Go and completely destroy those wicked people, the Amaleta's; make war on them until you have wiped them out.'" (1 Sam. 15:18). "Attack the land of Maratha and those who live in Peaked. Pursue, kill and completely destroy them' declares the Lord. Do everything I have commanded you" (Ker. 50:21). "Now go, attack the Amaleta's and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys" (1 Sam. 15:3).

EMBE QUOTED CLOUSER: "Had he not glossed the malachim, the reader would have applied the ordinary Hebrew meaning."

I thought I was done with this discussion since you are essentially repeating ad nauseum the same lies, distortions and stupidities.

— carol clouser

But the above fabricated "quote" of mine really sets a new low for behavior even by your standards.

Coming on top of your insulting all women and gentiles, you are now decidedly on my sewer list.

Hey Carol, why, again, should science give a flying fig about your religious opinions?

And why, again, are your religious opinions any more authoritative than anyone else's, other than your say-so?

Both you and Heddle seem to think you are God's Spokesperson, yet you both don't say the same things. One of you must be worng.

Which one?

By insinuating that his derogatory insults aimed at women and gentiles are somehow sanctioned by wrapping himself in the mantle of "Torah Judaism" and the "Yiddish language", William E Emba is essentially asserting that these entities are complicit in his callous and bigoted behavior. In so doing he in effect adds them to the list of those he has insulted. That list now consists of: women, gentiles, Torah Judaism and the Yiddish language.

He is nothing but a bigoted, ignorant buffoon.

This is really shocking disingenuity, Carol. You have argued repeatedly, from the first moment you arrived on PT, that as "correctly" translated by the impeccable Landa 'day' does indeed mean 'era' in this crucial passage of Genesis. [Bold emphasis added.]

Yohm CAN mean day and is so used many many times in the HB (Hebrew Bible). I never said otherwise, despite the pretensions and protestations of some morons here. Do I sound like the type of person to not know that yohm is used as day hundreds of times in the HB? I have repeatedly stated that yohm has three possible meanings. But "day" is the wrong choice, in my opinion, in Genesis. [Bold emphasis added.]

Hey, Carol, ... why, again, are your religious opinions any more authoritative than anyone else's, other than your say-so?

— 'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank

So if she ever does answer the question again, and says "Rashi", you and everyone else will know that she's just lying as usual.

By insinuating that his derogatory insults aimed at women and gentiles are somehow sanctioned by wrapping himself in the mantle of "Torah Judaism" and the "Yiddish language", William E Emba is essentially asserting that these entities are complicit in his callous and bigoted behavior.

— Carol Clouser

I mean, this is a no-brainer. Which I suppose is too much for you to handle.

He is nothing but a bigoted, ignorant buffoon.

Does anyone know where the universe came from? Science allows us to go back to the first billion billion nanosecond but not earlier. Was there 'poof' out of nothing it came? Is matter eternal as the Greeks believed? Any updates on the attempt at, I believe, Temple University, as reported last month, by a famous DNA researcher to take the exact chemical combination of the most simplest life form, put them together in the exact manner and make life? Any updates? Last I heard, he admit in the very same story that he wasn't sure that even after he put the chemicals in the very same (exact) order that he knew how to 'turn it on'. What do you think he meant by 'turn it on'? If we have the exact chemical composition should it not automatically 'turn on'?

By insinuating that his derogatory insults aimed at women and gentiles are somehow sanctioned by wrapping himself in the mantle of "Torah Judaism" and the "Yiddish language", William E Emba is essentially asserting that these entities are complicit in his callous and bigoted behavior. In so doing he in effect adds them to the list of those he has insulted. That list now consists of: women, gentiles, Torah Judaism and the Yiddish language. He is nothing but a bigoted, ignorant buffoon.

— Carol

Rilke wrote:

"I am both female and a gentile. I do not find his remarks either derogatory OR demeaning: he is simply pointing out the strictures of his faith - a faith you do not appear to be familiar with."

Perhaps you do not read Yiddish, but "a goyisher kop" means "a gentile brain". So in attempting to insult my intelligence he goes about it by asserting that I have the intelligence of a gentile. Now even you with "literally" a gentile brain can understand the insult. What difference does it make what language he used? And faith has absolutely nothing to do with it.

And all Jewish women, including the most observant, study Torah (with Rashi's commentary) these days. While some opinions have been expressed in the past by some rabbis limiting the role of women in the study of Torah, they were always supposed to study enough Torah to know the commandments and observances. Which is a lot of Torah. Only bigots like Emba think along the lines of "you are a woman, you should not be studying Torah".

It is very telling that you defend him. The real reason is clear. The most important thing to you is that the Bible not be reconciled with science. This not only blinds you and Emba to the impeccable logic I presented here and on other threads, it also causes you to crawl into bed with your "enemy", who insults you on both accounts, your gender and ethnicity.

There is no point in continuing this discussion since both of you deliberately and repeatedly refuse to reason open- mindedly on the matter. You both repeatedly and deliberately distort my position and are blinded to all sense o logic by the desperate imperative of your desired outcome.

Carol, you do know that the bible can't be reconciled with science dont you?

I think we need to start keeping count of how many times Carol is going to declare the discussion closed.
Or a betting pool on the resulting number -- I suspect it will be in the triple digits.

And Carol, do take note -- there are other possible reasons for rejecting the spurious nonsense you continue to dribble here. It need not be driven by an overpowering need or desire to continue to hold the Bible as irreconcilable with science. It may just be that there is on overriding concern for the truth.
And the truth is that Judah Landa, in his silly little self-published tract, has accomplished something which no one (other than you, of course) on any of the threads you've polluted with your presence takes even remotely seriously.
Oddly enough, those opposed to your views have been forthcoming about the whats, whys and wherefores of their concerns.
You, on the other hand, have done little more than pout, condescend, shrilly bleat attempts at insults, and have done nothing whatsoever to present a *reasoned* defense of a *solidly staked out* position.

You're worse than useless, you're a hysterical, ignorant, shrill poseur.
You would contaminate any compost heap you were tossed upon.

hugs,
Shirley Knott
who really doesn't care if the bible can be reconciled with science. Science doesn't need the bible (nor, really, does anyone). If the Bible can be reconciled, so what? If it can't so much the worse for it. But in either case, there's plenty of grounds for rejecting it.

Perhaps you do not read Yiddish, but "a goyisher kop" means "a gentile brain". So in attempting to insult my intelligence he goes about it by asserting that I have the intelligence of a gentile. Now even you with "literally" a gentile brain can understand the insult. What difference does it make what language he used? And faith has absolutely nothing to do with it.

— Carol

And all Jewish women, including the most observant, study Torah (with Rashi's commentary) these days.

While some opinions have been expressed in the past by some rabbis limiting the role of women in the study of Torah, they were always supposed to study enough Torah to know the commandments and observances. Which is a lot of Torah. Only bigots like Emba think along the lines of "you are a woman, you should not be studying Torah".

It is very telling that you defend him. The real reason is clear. The most important thing to you is that the Bible not be reconciled with science.

This not only blinds you and Emba to the impeccable logic I presented here and on other threads,

it also causes you to crawl into bed with your "enemy", who insults you on both accounts, your gender and ethnicity.

There is no point in continuing this discussion since both of you deliberately and repeatedly refuse to reason open- mindedly on the matter.

You both repeatedly and deliberately distort my position and are blinded to all sense o logic by the desperate imperative of your desired outcome.

Perhaps you do not read Yiddish, but "a goyisher kop" means "a gentile brain". So in attempting to insult my intelligence he goes about it by asserting that I have the intelligence of a gentile. Now even you with "literally" a gentile brain can understand the insult. What difference does it make what language he used?

— Carol Clouser

And all Jewish women, including the most observant, study Torah (with Rashi's commentary) these days.

While some opinions have been expressed in the past by some rabbis limiting the role of women in the study of Torah, they were always supposed to study enough Torah to know the commandments and observances. Which is a lot of Torah.

Only bigots like Emba think along the lines of "you are a woman, you should not be studying Torah".

Similarly, Rilke's GD also insulted you when she said she found you embarrassing as a woman. She was not insulting women in general.

It is very telling that you defend him. The real reason is clear. The most important thing to you is that the Bible not be reconciled with science.

This not only blinds you and Emba to the impeccable logic I presented here and on other threads, ...

There is no point in continuing this discussion since both of you deliberately and repeatedly refuse to reason open-mindedly on the matter. You both repeatedly and deliberately distort my position and are blinded to all sense of logic by the desperate imperative of your desired outcome.

Carol, you do know that the bible can't be reconciled with science dont you?

— BWE

Again a faith based claim. Countless Christian and many Christian writers have shown that this argument is just plain wrong. Perhaps you mean to say that particular interpretations of the Bible are hard to reconcile with science. It all depends on what one expects the Bible to be and not to be.

BWE wrote:

"Carol, you do know that the bible can't be reconciled with science dont you?"

I not only know no such thing, I know that the original version of the Bible HAS ALREADY BEEN reconciled with science by recent scholarship and that this is the case even with a literal reading of the text.

Again a faith based claim. Countless Christian and many Christian writers have shown that this argument is just plain wrong. Perhaps you mean to say that particular interpretations of the Bible are hard to reconcile with science. It all depends on what one expects the Bible to be and not to be.

— PvM

I know that the original version of the Bible HAS ALREADY BEEN reconciled with science by recent scholarship and that this is the case even with a literal reading of the text.

I not only know no such thing, I know that the original version of the Bible HAS ALREADY BEEN reconciled with science by recent scholarship and that this is the case even with a literal reading of the text.

— Carol

We have already learned that Carol is clueless as to what "literal" means in interpreting the words and phrases that make up a text.

She has also been challenged several times to validate her claim that anything like an "original version of the Bible" remains extant. (She has been informed on more than one occasion of the the likely mythic and cultural precursors for several of the key elements that were drawn into the Genesis creation account, but has chosen to ignore that information.) We can expect, with a high degree of certainty, that Carol will again fail to rise to this challenge, and that she will never show us an "original" Bible.

One can discuss, as PvM and Flint are doing, whether it is possible to reconcile various less-than-literal "interpretations" of the Genesis account with the findings of science, but any attempted reconciliation of the many familiar details of the literal Genesis account with science quickly becomes strained. In this restricted sense, at least, BWE's statement is hard to argue with.

This is not to say, of course, that the early stories in the Bible may not serve believers and other readers in many valuable ways, but efforts to make it serve as something that had not remotely been conceived as a human enterprise at the time the Genesis accounts were drawn together--that is, as a practical, everyday science manual!--is manifestly silly, on the Ham and Hovind level of cartoonish preposterousness.

It's worth noting, in this regard, that Carol has never moved past her "era"-not-"day" dictum in her effort to defend her "correctly"-translated literal creation account, even though--on one thread or another--she has been asked to deal with other problematic episodes (Noah and the ark, 900-year-old patriarchs, etc.). Carol's only response to these inquiries--usually while peering out from behind Heddle's coattails--has been to retreat into miracle-babble (she's perfectly entitled to believe in miracles, of course, but not to claim that science is compatible with miraculous explanations).

Thus, even if we were--out of sheer exasperation and exhaustion!--willing to grant her a pass as to her outLANDAish interpretation of this one passage, her adamant refusal to deal with any of the other problems which stand in the way of accceptance of her overall claim leave her in a position which deserves nothing but dismissal.

I not only know no such thing,

I know that the original version of the Bible HAS ALREADY BEEN reconciled with science

by recent scholarship

and that this is the case even with a literal reading of the text.

Carol,

Why are you here? Seeing as the point of every one of your posts is to state that the bible is completely consistent with science, I can come up with a few reasons. You want all these people to know that since the bible is consonant with science, we should:

(1) Use the bible as a scientific text for generating future hypotheses
(2) Proclaim the authors of the bible as divinely inspired, and we should all convert to monotheism
(3) Stop rejecting science because of our faith in biblical literalism

#1 is ridiculous. For #2, you've said that you're not here to prosletyze. #3 would be a perfectly reasonable position (assuming you and Jay El are right), but seems inappropriate for this forum. Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to take this to one of those Christian Forums, where there are a lot of kids that have "incorrect" views about what the Bible says about natural history?

Or am I missing another consequence of consistency between the Bible and science?

One can rearrange the letter's in Larry's original cognomen to make ARR YL (= "are ill"). Regrettably, we failed to initially interpret this as the veiled admission of multiple personality disorder and evident psychopathology that, in retrospect, it so plainly was(though Sir_Toejam discerned the underlying syndromes in an impressively early fashion).

Carol's "presentation" gave every appearance of being quite different, leading us to initially "diagnose" ethical rather than psychological disorders. However, as her inability to maintain a personam distinct from that of Landa has become increasingly evident, and as the other more bizarre and delusional aspects of her condition have manifested with greater frequency, we are beginning to see that the ethical difficulties were superficial symptoms of a deeper disorder with disquieting similarities to Larry-ngitis (or, perhaps, Lar-rhythmia).

One troubling limitation of Internet communication is our lack of any reliably effective ways to respond to such cries for help. We can only hope that these troubled individuals prove capable of reaching out to those who are closer to them, and better placed to intervene with appropriate referrals and therapy.

And, of course, it's necessary to beware the temptation to arrive at too specific a diagnosis on uncertain and insufficient evidence. (Though, in Carol's case, sufficiency of evidence isn't so much the problem as that of a distressing redundancy--though even that is of some help in unifying her presentation with Larry's.) In any event, since there is little we can do--beyond engaging in our usual "talk therapy"--we would hope that our caution in this regard is not misinterpreted by the victims as an invitation for them to continue superfluously modelling the identical rituals.

And by this measure, the bible cannot be reconciled with science.

Argy stokes,

Your chice #3 comes closest to my purposes here, as I have stated many, many times. The science community is engaged in a massive cultural war and I have information they ought to find useful. The reaction here only demonstrates that there is no shortage of closed minded morons on both sides of that war.

Pinhead,

As I have stated on many occassions, don't ever assume that my not responding to any particular post implies that there exists no response or even that I do not have one. It is amazing how many times I have had posts laden with invective, insults, distortions, fabrications and profanity addressed to me, and when I choose not to respond the posters have the temerity to argue that the absence of a response constitutes refutation. I concede no such point.

You know very well, pinhead, what I mean by "original" Bible because I have addressed the issue in other places. All the phantom issues you raise about the origin of the Bible have NOTHING to do with what I mean by that term and have nothing to do with the argument I am making. It simply contrasts the relatively recent popular translations to the earlir Hebrew version.

As far as the reconciliations becoming "strained", I completely disagree. As a matter of fact, if one looks at the entire story of creation in Genesis (first eleven chapters) it flows much better, with no straining at all, if the original is translated correectly.

And thank you very much for your concern about my health. But you know what you can do with it.

The reaction here only demonstrates that there is no shortage of closed minded morons on both sides of that war.

Lenny, But no one claims that Aesop's Fables ought to be reconciled with science because we recognize them for what they are, fiction with an allegorical truth.

Argy stokes, Your chice #3 comes closest to my purposes here, as I have stated many, many times. The science community is engaged in a massive cultural war and I have information they ought to find useful. The reaction here only demonstrates that there is no shortage of closed minded morons on both sides of that war.

— Carol

Pinhead, As I have stated on many occassions, don't ever assume that my not responding to any particular post implies that there exists no response or even that I do not have one. It is amazing how many times I have had posts laden with invective, insults, distortions, fabrications and profanity addressed to me, and when I choose not to respond the posters have the temerity to argue that the absence of a response constitutes refutation. I concede no such point.

You know very well, pinhead, what I mean by "original" Bible because I have addressed the issue in other places.

As far as the reconciliations becoming "strained", I completely disagree. As a matter of fact, if one looks at the entire story of creation in Genesis (first eleven chapters) it flows much better, with no straining at all, if the original is translated correectly.

Lenny, But no one claims that Aesop's Fables ought to be reconciled with science because we recognize them for what they are, fiction with an allegorical truth.

Still, if you're trying to be a science, you need scientist heroes. Creationism used to consist mostly of biblical literalism. But since a 1987 U.S. Supreme Court decision found that the presence of Bible-based "creation science" in public schools violates the separation of church and state, creationists have gradually embraced intelligent design, with its scientific veneer of mathematical precision and handful of well-funded backers with academic titles. Galileo's willingness to tackle opponents feeds the scrappy-underdog self-image that the ID movement cultivates. Never mind October's Gallup poll showing that 53 percent of Americans believe that God created humans in their present form, while just 12 percent think we evolved without divine help: Creationists who complain they cannot get their work published cite Galileo as a fellow desert wanderer.

Perhaps you mean to say that particular interpretations of the Bible are hard to reconcile with science. It all depends on what one expects the Bible to be and not to be.

— Flint

This veers awful close to doubletalk. By this exact reasoning, ANYTHING can be reconciled with ANYTHING. If we interpret a dog's hair as legs, we can reconcile dogs with trees, if we interpret leaves as legs also. Sheesh.

As an extreme example, there is a 13th century or so qabbalistic manuscript that takes the verse from Psalms "a day in Your view is like a thousand years", works out what 5000 years becomes, and then applies the verse again, to conclude the universe is really 15 billion years old.

There are also those who take a relativistic interpretation of yom=day. They point out that while of course yom literally means day, the frame of reference is not specified "in the beginning"--indeed, the earth and sun did not exist yet--so the apparent time scale conflict is resolved by the previously unknown flexibility in the meaning of "24-hour day".

All three of these interpretations are within the rules. I personally don't take any of them seriously, but hold by the Rambam, who says Genesis is an allegorical account of the inner qabbalistic meaning of Creation. As such, any attempt to map Genesis to physical reality is pointless.

Stevepinhead
On the therapy thingy for the delusional maybe a useful project to help Carol with her "literary" problem is to send her a box full of stuffed PT Panda's with little T shirts. On the front written "Carol I love you" and "God" on the back.

For Larry I suggest another with a Law Degree from the "South of the Border, Cranks School of we deny everything, and willy enlargement research labs" stuck in its paw.

One can play mix and match games between words and possible meanings, but only according to a limited set of rules.

Bully for them ! Ha! Allegorical Christians! I know many, I go to church with them. But most?

Your post above is a great demonstration of the adage "a little knowledge is dangerous". Otherwise stated, you are an "Ahm Ha-Aretz".

— William E Emba

And your drivel on Rashi has been a great demonstration of why women shouldn't study Torah.

And regarding calling her "goyisher kop" being a sign of prejudice towards the goyim, as opposed to my being Jewish just naturally using the handiest Yiddishism on hand, Carol should consider the phrase "that was mighty white of you" in English. Said by a white man to a black man, it is (ignoring sarcasm or other possible ironies) condescendingly rude of the highest order. Similarly, when said by a black man to a black man, it's plain meaning is of "race traitor", "sell out", "Uncle Tom", or the like. I have no idea what it means when said to a white person.

More interesting, though, is the hilarious hypocrisy in Carol's accusations. Of course, it's obvious to everybody here that Carol is just lashing out in blind stupidity, since she is so totally utterly refuted, and she knows it, and she knows everyone knows it. But calling someone an "am ha-aretz", although sanctioned by millennia of Talmudic usage as a synonym for an uneducated person, is based on the Biblical idiom for farmer (literally, "person of the earth"). That's right, Carol called me a farmboy, and she meant it with all the negative implications inherent in city slicker putdowns of rural folk. By her logic, she is engaged in class elitism of the most boorish sort. I, for one, am astounded (and laughing to boot) as the onionlady takes careful aim and shoots her own feet off. Own goal!

For the record, I do not engage in pop culture. My knowledge of music after the Beatles is almost entirely limited to what I can glean from the New York Times' crossword puzzle and running jokes on slashdot. I singled out Madonna for the above crack solely out of distaste for her involvement with fringe Judaism. I have no basis to even form an opinion regarding her musical ability.

Comment #80833 Posted by Rilke's Granddaughter on February 19, 2006 01:03 AM Carol wrote: Argy stokes, Your chice #3 comes closest to my purposes here, as I have stated many, many times. The science community is engaged in a massive cultural war and I have information they ought to find useful. The reaction here only demonstrates that there is no shortage of closed minded morons on both sides of that war.

Comment #80768 Posted by carol clouser on February 18, 2006 07:27 PM Argy stokes, Your chice #3 comes closest to my purposes here, as I have stated many, many times. The science community is engaged in a massive cultural war and I have information they ought to find useful. The reaction here only demonstrates that there is no shortage of closed minded morons on both sides of that war.

Paul:

I find RGD's response to be entirely reasonable and not fatuous in any way, although I think RGD is being somewhat disingenous in her questions. From the perspective of a truly hidebound creationist (and by now there is little doubt Carol fits that description), what science is doing REALLY IS engaging in a massive cultural war. The Arabs ironically see this same war. Science's methods and assumptions allow pure wishful thinking little place to hide. Science refuses to compromise - statements about reality are to be based 100% on merit, and 0% on preference. For such as Carol, this is a terrible offense.

And I think I can understand that from a creationist perspective, science's willingness to follow the evidence, change its mind, and endlessly tinker with explanations of anything is genuinely sinful. Science has assumed away the absolutes on which creationism rests. From the creationist position, one either agrees or one has a closed mind. Black or white.

I don't doubt Carol's motives at all. She is looking for something that *holds still*, a pre-packaged collection of absolute truths, a world where those who disagree are to be retrained or rejected, because they are wrong. Her strategy is entirely appropriate (perhaps inevitable) for a creationist: she proclaims "I have the answer!" Challenges along the lines of, what is the answer and what's it based on and how does it account for X, baffle Carol. The hook, the selling point, is that she has the answer. That it exists, that it's solid, that it eliminates uncertainty and doubt and confusion.

And by observation, this strategy works very well indeed, in attracting those whose needs are met. Carol is not arguing, she is preaching. The fact that those few who do NOT share Carol's needs have been so very damn effective must be galling. For a creationist, there is no burden of proof. God has spoken, proof is superfluous. You are called to BELIEVE. If you do not, your mind is closed.

One can play mix and match games between words and possible meanings, but only according to a limited set of rules.

— Flint

As an outsider, I'm not familiar with the rules you appear to know quite thoroughly. I can only try to deduce them based on what people say. And when people say that everything in the bible, if read literally, agrees with science, I get curious as to how this might be the case. When they say that what does NOT agree with science is a miracle (which is thus exempt from science), and when they get to decide which verses are miracles and which aren't, things seem pretty damn arbitrary to me.

As an example, I noticed that the Rashi on Hosea that Carol is so fond of can be read as glossing "the third yom" as "the third terror". Hebrew is normally written without vowels, so a different choice of vowels leads to a different reading. This is entirely within the rules.

And that's why I made the point that Carol can't work forwards, deriving something yet undiscovered but true and interesting about reality from a literal bible reading. She can only work backwards, taking what science has determined and "discovering" that the bible said it all along. Since she makes the point that *anything and everything* science discovers is compatible with the bible, including what has not yet been discovered, and yet she is operating within "a limited set of rules", these rules must necessarily be indefinite in scope.

Traditional Judaism has always encouraged this sort of interpretation. Every verse, we are told, has 70 meanings, and the men are required to try and discover them.

And it strikes me that if this is the case, the bible basically means whatever anyone chooses it to mean essentially without limit. And in that case, it is meaningless; why bother with it, except as a compendium of tales one particular ancient tribe chose to crib from neighboring tribes?

Near the end of Deuteronomy, Moses is giving his farewell talk, and he says how the talk is for everyone from the drawers of water to the hewers of wood. After one little sermon where the speaker mentioned how this is traditionally understood to mean everyone of every occupation, a friend commented to me, rather jocularly, that he felt excluded, since he is in computers. And I responded back that water "flows", so this was just symbolic of drawing flowcharts, i.e., software, and that hewn wood leaves "chips", i.e., hardware. He was quite happy. This interpretation went way beyond the rules, but it was entirely in the spirit.

Don't be fatuous, it doesn't become you. Carol is making use of a metaphor. It's a crying shame she obviously doesn't know what that is, but she is using one. And 'Culture War' is a commonly enough used phrase that you ought to know better.

— Paul

The science community is engaged in a massive cultural war and I have information they ought to find useful.

— carol clouser

The reaction here only demonstrates that there is no shortage of closed minded morons on both sides of that war.

William,

OK, I think I understand what you mean about the rules, and about Carol cheating on them. This still leaves me curious as to what the creation tales in Genesis are actually good for, beyond historical curiosity. I've read that there are literally thousands of creation tales anthropologists have collected, some (perhaps most) of them far less derivative than those in Genesis. But beyond noting that people are curious about their history and willing to make stuff up to satisfy this curiosity, the meaning is lost on me.

I think I can appreciate that it's a neat game to take some ancient and much-translated and redacted text that lacks vowels, and see how many different ways there are to re-translate this material within a given system of rules (i.e. any vowel can be substituted anywhere, any of various meanings can be attributed to any word thus produced, any reasonably plausible context can be used to project meanings onto the sentences that result, etc.) I can understand that if the rules are not constrained, the game becomes less challenging and entertaining.

But what do you really get out of playing? If the ancient Hebrews had kept no written tales or records, what would anyone today really lose? After all, MOST such ancient tribes didn't record much (damn those taciturn Neandertals!) but we don't feel impoverished by this. So from my perspective, the "interpret the Bible game" mostly just causes trouble and inhibits the accumulation of actual knowledge.

My apology Rilke, read the way Flint showed, you were not off base. I read Carol's 'engaged' as a passive statement, not an active one. My mistake. Thank you Flint. However, I honestly think that Carol is not so fatuous herself as to suggest that science initiated this culture war intentionally, although the first move was science's rejecting the "methodology" of religion. That x'tian fundies think this way is definitely a given.

Flint, I do doubt Carol's stated motives. You recognize the motives inherent in her position, but I guarantee that she will deny them. Hell, I don't think she is even aware of them in the way you are.

Mr. Emba,
Could you comment on the word 'rakia'. Landa uses it as 'curtain' and says that it refers to the atmosphere. I have seen it instead mean a metal plate or dome, a product of beating metal until thin and flat, and thus a suitable representation of the hemispherical vault of the sky. Landa doesn't dispute this. He simply acknowledges that one definition of 'rakia' is 'beaten' and then ignores the possible implications in order to harp on his conclusion. I recognize throughout the book that cherry picking, as you pointed out, is going on but without any knowledge of Hebrew I am helpless. 100 miles of atmosphere does not seem like a curtain to me but when I look at the sky I can see where the ancient Hebrews would have thought the sky was a dome of something solid they simply couldn't reach.

The person I would love to see take down this book died in 1992, but I would be happy to mail you the copy I got. If this interests you my email is:
sfbrulesatcsdotcom

Sincerely,
Paul

Flint and Paul,

I realize you folks are not into Hebrew and Rashi and all that, so if Emba claims I am cheating and I claim he is downright lying to you, which he in fact is doing, it will be difficult to settle the matter via posts and counter-posts in this forum. But you deserve that I try. So here it goes.

Emba is not only cheating he is deliberately lying to you. Rashi in Hosea cannot possibly be referring to a "third terror" because the prophet is talking about the third yohm as a source of uplifting and new life and vigor. It is meant to be a very positive development, not at all a terror. Besides Rashi NEVER uses that word that way.

Rashi in Hosea also does NOT AT ALL gloss yohm as "house". That is idiotic, childish nonsense. I am repeating myself here, but the facts have not changed. All Rashi aims to do with his "house" talk is explain the eras. The prophet talks about the "two eras" and the "third era". That would leave the reader perplexed as to what these eras refer to. So Rashi helpfully explains that the two eras refer to the times of the two destroyed temples and the third era refers to the time of the future third temple. There is no doubt whatsoever that Rashi there translated yohm as era.

Emba is also lying to you when he distorts my position as one of comparing Genesis to Hosea and that I claim Rashi interprets yohm in Genesis to mean era. I never said or did any such thing. As I have stated multiple times before, I am merely picking Rashi's brain in Hosea, to obtain support for the notion that the word yohm in the Bible can mean era even in conjunction with a numeral, and I apply that knowledge to Genesis where it probably disagrees with Rashi's silence on the matter. This may be too subtle a distinction for Emba's bigoted mind to grasp. More likely he is just lying.

Since yohm is used in many places to mean era, I consider that definition to constitute a literal reading. It is certainly one of the three normal and customary meanings of that Hebrew word (the definition of literal). In Genesis the Bible clearly switches back and forth between various meanings for yohm and other words (such as Adam). In this same verse where Emba says yohm means day (Genesis 1:5) the word yohm is also used to mean "daylight" ("and God called the light yohm"), then switches to something else. He says it switches to 24-hours, I say to era. In Genesis 2:4 the definition of era for yohm is a far better fit than day, and the same is true in Genesis 5:1. The word Adam switches meaning from "human" to "man" to the "name of an individual" multiple times. With all this switching going on, who is that bigoted ahm Ha-Aretz to tell you or me that the only correct literal choice is "day"?

Perhaps it's because it says "the evening, the morning"? And when Jacob informs his brother Esau (Genesis 32:6) "And I have an ox, a donkey...", does that not refer to very many oxen and donkeys? And "the frog" came upon the land...." (Exodus 8:2) was that one frog? The singular in Hebrew is frequently used to refer to a great plurality. That's a common Biblical literary device. It may not be literal there, but it clearly is the intent.

Make no mistake about it. There is no proof that science contradicts the plain meaning of the words in Genesis.

Flint
Perhaps I can help on the creation stories.
They are all a primitive metaphysics (meaning literally "after nature")
A logical system in its day that explained the cause of life and served the purpose of people not sitting around gazing at their navels trying to work out what it is all about.
Many of them have the earth as the mother and the sky as the father not too much imagination required there.
Genesis is of course based on the Gilgamesh Myth with little bits borrowed from other myths in the region, a pretty safe bet if you just want to get on with it, making war on neighbors and stealing all their women and oxen OR if the need arises just kill 'em all if they look like they might come back and bite you.
In the culture of the day people heard these oral stories and they would be understood by educated people (priests) as allegorical however one of the main tasks of the priests then, was to organize society for the benefit of the kings. That task required a world view to be created that would benefit the priests first then the kings. Life at the time was full of what we would consider now as "misinformation" for political purposes. Each person in society was subject to unquestioned power, your life was not something that you had control over EVEN for kings. An archaeological dig in Persia revealed a whole court buried in a ceremony that seems was a requirement from 'above' -part of their mythology.
One of the Buddhist creation myths I am familiar with has the Buddha meditating at a bhodi tree he first went to the North side of the tree and the heavens tipped down to hell, so he moved to west and again the heavens tipped down to hell, he tried the the south the same result, when he moved to the east he found the center of the universe. This is of course is allegorical in the sense that the Buddha had found his own center
The other word views were not in PSYCHOLOGICAL balance. Note that the Buddha said that heaven and hell are states of mind in the here and now and that he acknowledged all the Buddhas that went before him and all the others that were to come after, in other words a metaphysical non-theistic system. When the Dalia Lama was pressured by the press after a meeting with the Pope some years ago what his views on god were, he replied "God is your business, Dharma is my business".
This is similar to the the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas where he says Jesus said "split the twig and there you will find me" a Spinozian view if ever there was one, in other words the divine permeates all life and IS life... good, bad and ugly.
Carol I think confuses Metaphysics, a system of rational thought to explain ones position in the universe with Myth where the semiotics must be decoded in a subjective manner to extract meaning. That is a typical problem for slaves to objectivism.
Keep in mind there are Hebrew Gnostics who would have a completely different view to Carol and then there is Howard Bloom who seems to have done some language analysis and thinks Women may have had a part in writing the Old Testament --no wonder there is so much fire and brimstone.

Carol:

Your nose is pressed so close to the bark, perhaps you are missing the tree, much less the forest. I really couldn't care whether science is compatible with ANYONE'S set of superstitions. Imagine someone spending a great deal of psychic energy here justifying how science is compatible with "Old MacDonald had a farm". After enough such posts, you might begin to wonder...

I think I recognize a thesis buried in your efforts: That if all those ID creationists would only go out and buy the book you are trying to sell, they would all see the light and recognize that their faith is a bunch of poorly-informed foolishness victimized by incompetent scholarship, and overnight they would drop their resistance to knowledge and join together, Dembski and all, dancing in the streets. Although I get the strong impression that if they stopped this conversion process AFTER buying the book, you'd be nearly as happy.

I would hope you'd answer the same question I put to William Emba: Why bother? Why play the bible game? It seems to cause you grief without bringing you any worthwhile knowledge.

Carol
Fancy you calling SOMEONE ELSE a liar, your history here has been one of doing NOTHING BUT push your stupid book and creationist apologetics.
And before you say you don't support Creationism Intelligent Design, you are a creationist like it or not.

I realize you folks are not into Hebrew and Rashi and all that, so if Emba claims I am cheating and I claim he is downright lying to you, which he in fact is doing, it will be difficult to settle the matter via posts and counter-posts in this forum. But you deserve that I try. So here it goes.

— Carol

Emba is not only cheating he is deliberately lying to you. Rashi in Hosea cannot possibly be referring to a "third terror" because the prophet is talking about the third yohm as a source of uplifting and new life and vigor. It is meant to be a very positive development, not at all a terror. Besides Rashi NEVER uses that word that way.

Rashi in Hosea also does NOT AT ALL gloss yohm as "house". That is idiotic, childish nonsense. I am repeating myself here, but the facts have not changed. All Rashi aims to do with his "house" talk is explain the eras. The prophet talks about the "two eras" and the "third era". That would leave the reader perplexed as to what these eras refer to.

So Rashi helpfully explains that the two eras refer to the times of the two destroyed temples and the third era refers to the time of the future third temple. There is no doubt whatsoever that Rashi there translated yohm as era.

Emba is also lying to you when he distorts my position as one of comparing Genesis to Hosea and that I claim Rashi interprets yohm in Genesis to mean era.

I never said or did any such thing.

As I have stated multiple times before, I am merely picking Rashi's brain in Hosea, to obtain support for the notion that the word yohm in the Bible can mean era even in conjunction with a numeral, and I apply that knowledge to Genesis where it probably disagrees with Rashi's silence on the matter.

This may be too subtle a distinction for Emba's bigoted mind to grasp. More likely he is just lying.

Since yohm is used in many places to mean era, I consider that definition to constitute a literal reading.

It is certainly one of the three normal and customary meanings of that Hebrew word (the definition of literal). In Genesis the Bible clearly switches back and forth between various meanings for yohm and other words (such as Adam). In this same verse where Emba says yohm means day (Genesis 1:5) the word yohm is also used to mean "daylight" ("and God called the light yohm"), then switches to something else. He says it switches to 24-hours, I say to era. In Genesis 2:4 the definition of era for yohm is a far better fit than day, and the same is true in Genesis 5:1. The word Adam switches meaning from "human" to "man" to the "name of an individual" multiple times. With all this switching going on, who is that bigoted ahm Ha-Aretz to tell you or me that the only correct literal choice is "day"?

Perhaps it's because it says "the evening, the morning"? And when Jacob informs his brother Esau (Genesis 32:6) "And I have an ox, a donkey...", does that not refer to very many oxen and donkeys? And "the frog" came upon the land...." (Exodus 8:2) was that one frog? The singular in Hebrew is frequently used to refer to a great plurality. That's a common Biblical literary device. It may not be literal there, but it clearly is the intent.

Make no mistake about it. There is no proof that science contradicts the plain meaning of the words in Genesis.

OK, I think I understand what you mean about the rules, and about Carol cheating on them. This still leaves me curious as to what the creation tales in Genesis are actually good for, beyond historical curiosity. ...

— Flint

But what do you really get out of playing?

If the ancient Hebrews had kept no written tales or records, what would anyone today really lose? After all, MOST such ancient tribes didn't record much (damn those taciturn Neandertals!) but we don't feel impoverished by this.

Make no mistake about it. There is no proof that science contradicts the plain meaning of the words in Genesis.

— Carol

I realize you folks are not into Hebrew and Rashi and all that, so if Emba claims I am cheating and I claim he is downright lying to you, which he in fact is doing, it will be difficult to settle the matter via posts and counter-posts in this forum. But you deserve that I try. So here it goes.

— Rilke's Granddaughter

It's not that difficult to settle; any good book on Torah will do.

Emba is not only cheating he is deliberately lying to you. Rashi in Hosea cannot possibly be referring to a "third terror" because the prophet is talking about the third yohm as a source of uplifting and new life and vigor. It is meant to be a very positive development, not at all a terror. Besides Rashi NEVER uses that word that way.

As a matter of fact, there is nothing conceptually problematic about associating terror with the coming of the Messiah. It is frequently described as a time of great troubles and tribulations. So "baas"=terror makes quite reasonable sense by itself. The reason I reject it is I can't relate it to third terror as such, whereas First Temple Era and Second Temple Era are well-known concepts, as is Third Temple Era=Messianic Era.

But as I mentioned, I could easily give a little sermon based on this alternate reading, but I would not pass it off as anything other than an interpretive reading.

Rashi in Hosea also does NOT AT ALL gloss yohm as "house". That is idiotic, childish nonsense.

A word inserted between the lines or in the margin as an explanatory equivalent of a foreign or otherwise difficult word in the text; hence applied to a simliar explanatory rendering of a word given in a glossary or dictionary. Also, in a wider sense, a comment, explanation, interpretation. Often used in a sinister sense: A sophistical or disingenuous interpretation.

— Oxford English Dictionary

(Interesting: the OED2 online has a misspelling!)

I am repeating myself here, but the facts have not changed. All Rashi aims to do with his "house" talk is explain the eras. The prophet talks about the "two eras" and the "third era". That would leave the reader perplexed as to what these eras refer to.

This cannot be emphasized strongly enough: Carol is simply making this up. The 'author' says 'yohm'. Rashi glosses it as 'era' (among other things - including an indirect reference to 'house').

Perhaps it's because it says "the evening, the morning"? And when Jacob informs his brother Esau (Genesis 32:6) "And I have an ox, a donkey...", does that not refer to very many oxen and donkeys? And "the frog" came upon the land...." (Exodus 8:2) was that one frog? The singular in Hebrew is frequently used to refer to a great plurality. That's a common Biblical literary device. It may not be literal there, but it clearly is the intent.

Could you comment on the word 'rakia'. Landa uses it as 'curtain' and says that it refers to the atmosphere. I have seen it instead mean a metal plate or dome, a product of beating metal until thin and flat, and thus a suitable representation of the hemispherical vault of the sky. Landa doesn't dispute this. He simply acknowledges that one definition of 'rakia' is 'beaten' and then ignores the possible implications in order to harp on his conclusion. I recognize throughout the book that cherry picking, as you pointed out, is going on but without any knowledge of Hebrew I am helpless. 100 miles of atmosphere does not seem like a curtain to me but when I look at the sky I can see where the ancient Hebrews would have thought the sky was a dome of something solid they simply couldn't reach.

— Paul Flocken

Hirsch, a 19th century commentator, says Ibn Ezra's meaning is secondary, and the primary meaning is of a thin layer of separation. Malbim, another 19th century commentator, identifies the raqiya` with the atmospheric cloud layer.

The various commentators point out the word has the same root as vayiraq`u "and they hammered out" Ex 39:3 and as roqa` "it spread out" Is 42:5.

From a modern point of view, I don't see why you think "curtain" is inappropriate. After all, in the view from deep space, the atmosphere certainly is a thin layer.

The person I would love to see take down this book died in 1992, but I would be happy to mail you the copy I got.