Those of us who grew up with the biblical account of the Israelites crossing the Red Sea never thought it the least fantastic or implausible. Now someone has come up with a fascinating model of what may have happened: Parting the waters: Computer modeling applies physics to Red Sea escape route.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010, 7:40 PM
September 29th, 2010 | 11:24 pm | #1
“Those of us who grew up with the biblical account of the Israelites crossing the Red Sea never thought it the least fantastic or implausible.”
How true. The same applies to Noah’s ark, Jonah and the whale, the Tower of Babel, the stories of Samson, etc. The question, however, is this: once you have grown up, can you then appreciate how these stories are indeed a bit fantastic and implausible?
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting that there is anything impossible about any of these stories being literally true. I’m rather asking about the limits of one’s credulity as an adult.
As you suggest, adults often believe something because they grew up believing it. Adults often maintain these same beliefs because, as adults, they have never given much critical thought to the issues. I suppose that this is the position of many Christians with regard to most of the Old Testament stories. What I doubt, however, is that one’s childhood belief in the literal truth of the Noah’s ark story (for example) will survive critical reflection, when this is done by the educated, thoughtful, and honest adult Christian. I expect that most adults would agree with me on this point–even if it might be a bit uncomfortable to admit.
September 30th, 2010 | 7:59 am | #2
“Those of us who grew up with the biblical account of the Israelites crossing the Red Sea never thought it the least fantastic or implausible.”
God’s Divinely Inspired Word gives us the historical fact-narrative of His miracles.
Thank You Lord!
September 30th, 2010 | 9:44 am | #3
C. Ehrlich-
To suggest that believing in the account of “Noah’s Ark” as an adult is uneducated, thoughtless, and dishonest is arrogant and nearsighted. I’m interested to know where you attained such knowledge to affirm that such events are impossible. Because something is not normative and even improbable does not mean it is impossible.
September 30th, 2010 | 9:44 am | #4
C. Ehrlich writes:
Indeed, if one grows up believing that the cosmos is a closed system of causes and effects, and that it is not radically dependent on God for its very existence, it is likely that one will not have given much critical thought to the presuppositions of this worldview. That will impact one’s beliefs as an adult and will condition one’s response to such biblical reports that do not fit comfortably within this credibility framework. As a consequence one will be open to accepting such fanciful accounts of the cosmos’ origin as those ascribing it to a highly unlikely series of chance occurrences. You are right, Mr. Ehrlich; it is amazing what some people manage to find plausible.
September 30th, 2010 | 10:32 am | #5
Interesting vedio.
No one is quite sure where the people of God did pass through the Red Sea. But Moses wrote down an excellent truth of how God parted the sea, and how I would have loved to have been there and seen that!
And you would think in seeing such a miracle of Moses’ by the hand of the Lord would make His people excited and steadfast in their hearts and faith. But in a little while they were rebelling against this incredible God of miracles.
And so it is the same today for many in the Church.
September 30th, 2010 | 10:57 am | #6
Every time I see a video like this I think, “Why?” I don’t mean that in a condescending way, but I genuinely wonder why someone would go to all the effort to “explain” this story in a scientific manner. I think asking that question can help us understand what’s going on in someone’s heart on several levels.
September 30th, 2010 | 12:05 pm | #7
“I’m interested to know where you attained such knowledge to affirm that such events are impossible.”
JB, it looks like you need to re-read comment #1.
D.B. Koyzis, your response is a bit enigmatic. Perhaps you might spell out the “the presuppositions of this worldview” in which it is believe that “that the cosmos is a closed system of causes and effects, and that it is not radically dependent on God for its very existence.” Are you suggesting that such beliefs are the implausible presuppositions, or are you suggesting that there are additional implausible presupposition underlying these beliefs? Are you suggesting that, as long someone is open to the idea that the cosmos is not “a closed system of causes and effects” then, for this person, the Noah’s ark story is suddenly plausible?!
September 30th, 2010 | 12:09 pm | #8
Parting the Red Sea
How?
Get Fiscal Conservatives and Social Conservatives to discuss the best direction of the GOP.
or
Get GOP establishment and Tea Party folks to discuss the best direction of conservativism in the U.S.
That will part the “Red” sea.
September 30th, 2010 | 2:51 pm | #9
Brad Williams writes:
To be honest, I’m not all that interested in apologetics as it is often understood, and I reject the notion that we need to find “infallible proofs” for God’s existence and activity in this world. The Holy Spirit does not need these to change a person’s heart. If the Spirit is not so working, such efforts will be ineffective anyway.
However, I do not at all conclude from this that such efforts as the one shown above lack merit. I think it’s possible that God did indeed choose to part the sea in this fashion, although we can never know for certain, of course. I find it fascinating for the same reason any other scientific hypothesis or discovery would pique my interest.
God is creator and relates to his creation in creational ways that are accessible to his image-bearing creatures, i.e., us. I do not believe that what are often termed miracles are “supernatural” in the sense in which this term is frequently used, i.e., that God acts apart from his creation and without proximate creational causes. If it be discovered that Noah’s flood occurred as the glaciers of the last ice age were melting and flooding previously unsubmerged coastal land, I will find it of interest, but it will neither confirm nor shake my faith.
From my very human perspective, I find it much more difficult to believe that God has forgiven my sins and accepts me as his own adopted son in Jesus Christ. Yet this is what Scripture teaches. I know I am a sinner and often fail God and the people around me in various ways. That the Maker of the Universe would undertake to send his Son to die for these sins and to pull me out of my plight — well, that’s harder to fathom. Nevertheless, I believe the promises of Scripture to this effect.
September 30th, 2010 | 3:31 pm | #10
David,
I think, maybe, that you misunderstood my comment or else I was unclear. I didn’t mean to imply that this was a total waste of time. I only meant to imply that asking why someone would take the time to make a model like this might be enlightening as to where they are spiritually in many ways.
I also agree with you that I am not that into “apologetics as it is often understood.” I believe in sharing the gospel, and I think that we should be ready with an answer for those who inquire about the hope that we have. But making models of the creation of the world, arguing the existence of God from First Causes, that is usually more helpful to the faith of the converted than it is for the conversion of the unbeliever.
I think I also agree with you about the nature of the miraculous. It is plain from Exodus 14:21 that God drove back the sea with a strong east wind. It could have looked like the biggest coincidence in the history of the world for an uninterested person, I suppose. So, I guess naturally speaking, the parting of the sea isn’t that hard to explain.
What would be a bigger challenge to explain naturally was the massive pillar of fire that kept Pharaoh’s army from getting at Moses and the Israelites all night long. Let’s see a computer display of that! :)
September 30th, 2010 | 6:29 pm | #11
It is no more implausible to me now, as an adult, that an omnipotent and omnipresent God oversaw and brought about the events related to Noah’s Ark, than it was implausible to me as a child that He did so. Even as child, I never thought it was anything less than miraculous that it happened as described. Kids don’t really “believe in” fantasy the way some adults seem to think they do — they don’t think dragons come walking down the street every day or that any of the things they hear about “in stories” are normal. They simply accept a wider range of possible realities, and perhaps wish strongly enough that some of the odder ones are true that they begin to believe it. When you throw God into the mix, the possibilities become infinite. So when you realize that “God did it” is as much of the story as “it happened,” there just isn’t any implausibility to it at all to the one who believes.
September 30th, 2010 | 7:34 pm | #12
I thought that “Sea of Reeds” was generally accepted as the true translation. For example, this explanation appeared in “Bible and Spade,” Winter 2006 (published by the Associates for Biblical Research)
http://www.biblearchaeology.org/about/
“…It may come as a surprise to many students of the Bible that in the original Hebrew text the body of water the Israelites crossed when leaving Egypt is called yam suph, ‘Sea of Reeds,’ not Red Sea (Ex 15:4, 22; Dt 11:4; Jos 2:10; 4:23; 24:6; Neh 9:9; Ps 106:7, 9, 33; 136:13, 15). Unfortunately, yam suph has been rendered ‘Red Sea’ in nearly all of our translations, the Jerusalem Bible and the New Jewish Publication Society Hebrew Bible being notable exceptions.
The ‘Red Sea’ phrase came into the account with the third century BC translation of the Old Testament into Greek. Called the Septuagint (abbreviated as LXX), its translators made yam suph (‘Sea of Reeds’) into eruthrá thálassē (‘Red Sea’). The Latin Vulgate followed their lead with mari Rubro (‘Red Sea’) and most English versions continued that tradition…”
Also, William Tanner came to the same conclusion twelve years ago in a paper titled “Did Israel Cross the Red Sea?”, PSCF, Sept 1998:
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1998/PSCF9-98Tanner.html
“…Super-elevation, caused by the wind blowing steadily and strongly for hours, can drive much of the water out of a very shallow basin. The height of super-elevation (from one side of the basin to the other) may be one to two or so meters. However, it is not a reasonable mechanism for water one hundred meters deep, or one thousand meters deep, and, therefore, is not applicable to either the Gulf of Suez, or to the Red Sea. And since the historical text is very clear about what happened, the reader is not entitled to use a “miraculous augmentation.” Thus, the reader should be careful to distinguish between (1) a supernatural mechanism (which requires no rational physical limitations or causes, and therefore cannot even be discussed in any detail within a rational framework), and (2) a supernatural cause for the timing of a natural mechanism. The writer of Exodus clearly chose the latter. Such a shallow basin is precisely what is needed to have a ‘Sea of Reeds’…”
October 1st, 2010 | 3:10 am | #13
Pentamom, no one here is denying the possibility of any of these things. The issue concerns what is “fantastic and implausible.” Even if we all concede that it’s entirely possible for God to make it so, it’s still a bit fantastic and implausible to believe that the moon will become square-shaped tomorrow. Wouldn’t you agree?
October 1st, 2010 | 7:15 am | #14
The miracle in Exodus that I think is actually most difficult to explain naturalistically is the death of the firsborn. Why is it that all and only the firstborn were killed if the plague had a natural cause, and why did it affect most of Egypt but not Israelites? There have been many attempts to explain the plagues naturalistically, and some of them are plausible as far as that goes, but (1) explaining efficient causes doesn’t say anything about the final cause, (2) it wouldn’t account for all the miracles anyway, and (3) if the point of the miracles is to demonstrate God’s power, it’s counterproductive to assume there’s a naturalistic explanation for all of them.
October 1st, 2010 | 12:04 pm | #15
No, it is not “implausible” to believe that God can do anything at all. That is my point.
I know you weren’t talking about impossibility.
Premise: an all-powerful, omnipresent with the ability to bring everything out of nothing.
Proposition: said being did something that would be implausible were it any other being.
What is implausible about the proposition, given the premise? My point is that you only find it implausible if you factor out the premise before considering the plausibility.
October 1st, 2010 | 12:07 pm | #16
Example: if I claimed that I had secret service agents at my beck and call, that would be implausible.
If Barack Obama claimed it, it would not be the least bit implausible.
Only if you shut your eyes for a minute and pretend it’s not Mr. Obama speaking, do you start wondering if it’s plausible. But why would you do that? And why would you consider the miracles of the Bible apart from the claim of who the Actor is?
October 1st, 2010 | 2:09 pm | #17
Pentamom, I noticed you avoided my question. But here’s another: if your very trustworthy friend told you that God said he was going to kill all firstborn Democrats tomorrow morning, wouldn’t you also find that a bit fantastic and implausible?
October 1st, 2010 | 2:56 pm | #18
C. Ehrlich, I’m curious what the point of your questions to pentamom might be (both this one and the square moon question). If I were her, I would ask you to explain that before I answered. There are premises underlying your question, and it would be helpful for you to state them clearly. Otherwise she would be required in her answer to guess what you’re getting at, and anticipate all the possible angles, which is one great way to keep a discussion from moving forward in a fruitful direction.
For my part, I take it that you find some meaningful parallel between the plausibilities of the Red Sea parting, the moon changing shape, and someone claiming God said he would kill Democrats’ firstborns. If that parallel meaningfully exists, then your questions are valid. Would you be interested in explaining how you see them being parallel? If it’s just implausibility, that would be good for us to know. If it’s more than that, then that would be helpful for us to know, too.
Relevant to that is a question that you yourself did not answer:
October 1st, 2010 | 7:03 pm | #19
The first goal with these questions is simply to see if we can find some common ground–or, whether instead, to discover that the limits of her credulity are more surprising than we might otherwise suppose.
October 1st, 2010 | 8:00 pm | #20
Could you be more explicit about your premises; not just the “first goal,” but the assumptions you bring to your question? I offered you some tracks to run on last time; you could perhaps say whether I was on track or not with that.
October 1st, 2010 | 9:25 pm | #21
C. Ehrlich,
if your very trustworthy friend told you that God said he was going to kill all firstborn Democrats tomorrow morning, wouldn’t you also find that a bit fantastic and implausible?.
Not if he had predicted and been the agent of a previous 9 plagues or so, including turning the entire Mississippi river into blood.
But then, it may surprise you the limits of my credulity. I believe that a God-man was born of a virgin, that he died on cross for my sin and raised his corpse from the grave three days later, that he floated up into heaven, and that he is there interceding for me now because he loves me.
October 1st, 2010 | 10:29 pm | #22
Tom, as far as I know, I’m not bringing in any other “assumptions” to this question. I asked a simple question for a simple reason. Let’s not encourage others to be evasive.
October 1st, 2010 | 11:24 pm | #23
C. Ehrlich,
Be at least a little honest here. The whole post has nothing whatever to do with what God might do tomorrow.
It has everything to do with what God did in recorded history.
So your question is not as simple as you claim.
It’s like saying to some kid that you don’t believe that their Dad would’ve married someone like their mom, “Would you believe it if I told you that your Dad was going to get married tomorrow?”
The problem you’re having is that you don’t believe in an all-powerful loving holy personal Creator of the universe who orchestrates all human history for His purposes.
If you did, the question of credibility goes away.
If there is such a God (and there is) then why the difficulty in believing that He could (or would, for that matter) do what Moses told us that He did?
It’s like saying that I’m gullible because I believe that the butter tarts on the counter were made by my Grandma, just because you don’t believe I have a Grandma.
October 2nd, 2010 | 12:03 am | #24
Daryl, you needn’t worry about hidden motives here. The thread is about how children often believe Old Testament stories without thinking that they are the least bit fantastic or implausible. Now, some adults here also seem to think that there’s nothing even a bit fantastic about the stories of Noah’s ark, Jonah and the whale, the tower of Babel, the stories about Samson, etc. Do you share this opinion?
If do share this opinion, I’d also wonder about the limits of your credulity. I’d also ask you a question to see if we might find some common ground:
Pick the most trustworthy friend that you have. Suppose that he or she phones you and says that God has revealed to him/her that He intends to kill all firstborn children next week. However, if you smear the blood of a freshly killed puppy all over your car, God’s angel of death will pass over your family. This will be God’s way of sparing His people. Here’s the question: even if you did go out and kill a puppy (just to play it safe, perhaps), wouldn’t you find your friend’s prophecy just a little bit implausible and fantastic?
I would. And I wouldn’t even kill a puppy.
(I find it somewhat interesting that people are having such a hard time answering these questions.)
October 2nd, 2010 | 3:22 am | #25
C. Ehrlich,
The word “fantastic” has multiple connotations. Everyone knows that miracles are exceptional, so in that sense we all agree they are fantastic.
Are they also fantastic in the sense of being fantasies? Here’s where your assumptions, which you claim not to have, are patent. Daryl already called you on them.
So did Pentamom. You said we should not encourage evasiveness, and there’s a question she asked, which I have repeated (so it’s been put to you twice now), a question that entirely alters the tenor of what you claim is going on here. Would you please address it? Here is is again:
I would add this. Clearly these events are unusual, unique in history, not explainable in terms of the regular operations of nature. We all freely acknowledge that; in fact, we know that they were intended to be taken that way. Miracles are miraculous, not ordinary. Whether they are fantastic in the second sense, however, does not hang on how unusual they are. It hangs on whether they happened.
October 2nd, 2010 | 4:16 am | #26
Tom, your suspiciousness has gotten out of hand. Here you are reading into my questions assumptions that simply don’t exist. Nowhere do I assume that God doesn’t exist, or that we should consider miracles in isolation from Him. Nowhere do I attribute to Koyzis a specialized definition of his term “fantastic.” Notice how these are simply your assumptions about me.
I don’t know whether you take pleasure in such obstructionism or whether you even realize what you are doing here. In any case, your behavior only hinders honest questions and straightforward conversation.
October 2nd, 2010 | 4:38 am | #27
Okay, then, while I don’t agree with your strongly worded accusations, let me back up and try again anyway. Let’s set aside any assumptions I attributed to you. Here’s how my previous comment reads in that case:
**************************
C. Ehrlich,
The word “fantastic” has multiple connotations. Everyone knows that miracles are exceptional, so in that sense we all agree they are fantastic.
Are they also fantastic in the sense of being fantasies (or fanciful, remote from reality)? Clearly these events are unusual, unique in history, not explainable in terms of the regular operations of nature. We all freely acknowledge that; in fact, we know that they were intended to be taken that way. Miracles are miraculous, not ordinary. Whether they are fantastic in that second sense, however, does not hang on how unusual they are. It hangs on whether they happened.
*****************************
No obscurantism there, just a perspective on “adults here [who] also seem to think that there’s nothing even a bit fantastic” about the Bible stories you referred to. Sure, in one sense the events are fantastic, and we would all freely acknowledge that. But they happened; and if that’s the case, then (as an adult) I hold that there’s nothing the least bit fantastic about them in the second sense I’ve pointed to here.
October 2nd, 2010 | 7:37 am | #28
You asked,
Well, of course I would. So would everyone else here. For God to do that in the context of 21st century North America would be completely out of character and a denial of his own words on how Christ finished and completed all blood sacrifice (see the entire book of Hebrews, especially chapters 8-10). It would also be utterly confusing to us who have lived two millennia since he spoke those words, and who have had all these centuries to put such sacrifices behind us.
Would it have been confusing in the same way to the ancient Israelites in Egypt? Not at all. For them, religious sacrifices of blood were not unexpected. The important question is not, after all, whether it would be implausible or fantastic for it to happen to us in our context, but whether it was so in the context in which it actually happened.
Was it out of character for God to do that, all those centuries ago? Here you must take into account not just Genesis and Exodus but the entire flow of salvation history, which I cannot take time to review here. In that context, and at that stage in his working out that history, it was entirely in keeping with God’s holiness, righteousness, sovereignty, and goodness to save the Israelites in the manner he did.
So the manner in which we would respond to your present-day scenario has no bearing on the truth of what God did in the time of Moses.
October 2nd, 2010 | 1:35 pm | #29
In this particular case, there’s also the fact that it sounds so obviously stolen from the book of Exodus that you’d have to think it’s overwhelmingly likely that they just took the idea from the Bible.
October 2nd, 2010 | 1:56 pm | #30
“In that context, and at that stage in his working out that history, it was entirely in keeping with God’s holiness, righteousness, sovereignty, and goodness to save the Israelites in the manner he did.” -Tom G
Nice.
God even used Israel to kill other nations: Men, women, and children. That’s a heavy truth to take in in our day.
But it is the way God worked in His theocricy. In our day combat is between the commbatants, and women and child are protected.
Have a terrific Sunday in the love, peace, grace, and joy of Christ our Lord and Friend.
October 2nd, 2010 | 3:26 pm | #31
donsands,
It’s all too easy to make historical events look bad, by presenting them apart from their full context. This is not the place to launch off the current topic into an explanation of all God has decided to do in history or why he decided to do it. Let it just be noted that what you’ve said here is both terrifically over-simplified and also prejudiced. Perhaps someone will start a thread on this here, and then we can discuss it for real. (I’ve done a series on it at my Thinking Christian blog, so you can look there if you’re interested in one Christian’s more extended treatment of it.)
October 2nd, 2010 | 4:40 pm | #32
“Let it just be noted that what you’ve said here is both terrifically over-simplified and also prejudiced.”
I don’t mean to take a rabbit path. Sorry. The truth is the truth, and sometimes it is simple, but we complicate it with our emotions. I know I do.
I shall check out your link. Thanks.
October 2nd, 2010 | 6:56 pm | #33
Tom,
I’d again advise you to practice more diligently that dictionary trick I suggested to you twice before: in attempting to understand a word’s meaning, look it up in the dictionary, paying particular attention to those senses of the word that best fit the context of discussion. You fussed and resisted this suggestion before, but here again it might have helped us all avoid another senseless delay. Using your dictionary might have led you to discover on your own the following sense of “fantastic”: “Having the appearance of being devised by extravagant fancy” (OED). I realize all of this sounds very pedantic. That I regret. But this is the third time that you’ve slowed down our discussion by an apparent refusal to consult a dictionary!
I’m glad that you feel confident in answering for “everyone else here.” And though I wouldn’t have missed all the delay and posturing that separated my simple question and this simple answer, I’m happy it was finally addressed. If from now on you would start using your dictionary and resisting your suspicion assumptions, we might yet have straightforward interchange.
I’m happy to see that we share some common ground about the puppy prophecy. I now wonder if that common ground can be expanded. So consider the following cases:
(a) Your most trustworthy Christian friend calls you to say that God has decided to scorch North American next year with flames from the sun. He asks you to mortgage your house to purchase materials for a vast underground bunker, the basic idea of which he says is from the Lord.
(b) In a dream, you see something that matches the biblical description of an angel. This angel blesses you in the name of Jesus and tells you to sell your possessions and to give all to the poor, and then, wearing only a loincloth, to grow your beard and to walk the streets of NY for a year and to prophecy the destruction of Manhattan by “locusts”. You ask for a sign, and the angel says that you will wake up with a fever. And indeed, you find that have a slight fever the next morning.
In both cases I would find the pronouncements a bit “fantastic and implausible” (to say the least). This is true even though I do not rule out the possibility that God could communicate in such ways, that He could scorch the earth, and that Manhattan could be destroyed by locusts, or something resembling locusts. I wouldn’t comply with the requests. I wonder if you would act similarly. Would you still feel confident in speaking for all the others?
October 2nd, 2010 | 7:37 pm | #34
C. Ehrlich,
We agree on some things for a change. I think “dictionary trick” is a good name for the rhetorical ploy you have attempted three times now. Your self-description of “pedantic” is also quite apt. I wrote that comment in good faith and with the intention of moving the discussion forward. I would be grateful if you would take it in that spirit.
As to your questions (a) and (b), honestly I don’t see what relevance they have to God’s work in history. See Daryl’s comment #22; he has already stated the reason I would give for saying that.
October 2nd, 2010 | 8:51 pm | #35
Tom, I don’t think we should attempt further conversation, given your apparent intention to reject this obviously helpful habit of consulting a dictionary in the manner described. I regard a willingness to make such a modest effort as a minimum requirement of “good faith and the intention of moving the discussion forward.” Simply put, your behavior speak louder than your words.
October 2nd, 2010 | 9:26 pm | #36
If my relying on a different dictionary than the one you used (see here and compare my comment in question) is all it takes for you to conclude I have not met your minimum requirements of arguing in good faith, then I think that’s a strange standard. I do not have a copy of the OED here; I don’t have an online subscription; and apparently a subscription is necessary to discover that definition, for there are no results for it in Google. My failure to catch that unique definition clearly does not represent bad faith. If you view it that way, though, then so be it; I can’t change your mind on that, I’m sure.
If you don’t want to attempt further conversation, it is certainly not necessary for you to do so. The questions and points I have put to you in good faith remain unanswered.
October 2nd, 2010 | 10:02 pm | #37
“It’s all too easy to make historical events look bad, by presenting them apart from their full context.” Tom
BTW, I wasn’t trying to make an “historical event” look bad.
I read your 4 part series. It was good.
Lord bless.
October 2nd, 2010 | 10:06 pm | #38
Looking back on what you’ve written here I can see I misinterpreted you there, donsands. Sorry about that, and thanks for the encouragement.
October 3rd, 2010 | 12:52 am | #39
Again Tom twists and perverts. No one is faulting him for lacking access to the OED, since he certainly doesn’t need that particular dictionary to find senses of “fantastic” more appropriate than ones he has selected for my usage and Mr. Koyzis’. The fault is rather Mr. Gilson’s shameless habit of finding meanings for another’s words, not in order to best understand what the other is saying, but in order to fit his own agenda, and to make his interlocutor’s argument look the weaker. This, as I said, is habitual in Mr. Gilson case. For the most recent example, one need look no further than to the sense with which he understands “trick” in #33. Ironically, this is from the very context in which I am pressuring Mr. Gilson to make more honest use of his dictionary.
October 3rd, 2010 | 12:58 am | #40
While I regret having to use such harsh language in my recent comments, I think that it is appropriate in this particular case.
October 3rd, 2010 | 2:55 am | #41
“Again Tom twists and perverts.”
C. Ehrlich, #1: “I’m rather asking about the limits of one’s credulity as an adult.
As you suggest, adults often believe something because they grew up believing it. Adults often maintain these same beliefs because, as adults, they have never given much critical thought to the issues. I suppose that this is the position of many Christians with regard to most of the Old Testament stories. What I doubt, however, is that one’s childhood belief in the literal truth of the Noah’s ark story (for example) will survive critical reflection, when this is done by the educated, thoughtful, and honest adult Christian. I expect that most adults would agree with me on this point–even if it might be a bit uncomfortable to admit.”
Educated.
Thoughtful.
Honest.
Adult Christian.
C. Ehrlich, do you hold yourself out as an educated, thoughtful, honest, adult Christian?
Second, do you believe that the miracle of the parting of the Red Sea as recounted in Scripture is historic fact-narrative?
October 3rd, 2010 | 3:32 am | #42
One good way to respond when another person presents an argument to make yours look weaker is by coming back with a counter, a direct answer, or a stronger argument in response.
One good way to deal with it when another commenter takes a word differently than you intended it is to say simply, “no, I meant this instead.”
Both of these are certainly more appropriate than these incessant ad hominems/personal attacks. As argument forms, they both have the additional virtue of not being fallacious.
If your use of the word “trick” had been part of a legitimate argument, C. Ehrlich, I would have dealt with it as such. It wasn’t. It was part of one of your ad hominem gestures toward me.
October 3rd, 2010 | 12:39 pm | #43
Again, Tom wants to call ad hominem my description of his ongoing practice of twisting and perverting the statements of others. He regularly does this by attributing limited and unfair meanings to another’s terms, and by, as in the example I just gave, re-interpreting my straightforward advice about a useful dictionary method as the ludicrous criticism that he lacks access to the OED!
That Tom’s behavior here is one in which he “twists and perverts” my comments is beyond reasonable doubt. That’s not ad hominem. It would be ad hominem to call Tom a twisted pervert. But that’s not what I’m doing. We should leave God to judge that.
October 3rd, 2010 | 1:54 pm | #44
C. Ehrlich, let’s recognize this for what it is. This discussion thread, like several previous ones, has become a swampy, mucky place that no one would want to visit.
If what you say about me is true, then I am the chief cause of the stink, and I am also unqualified to be a contributing member of this blog. I don’t think that’s the case, but I don’t claim to have a completely objective stance from which to evaluate it. This morning I emailed Joe Carter, First Things’ web editor, about the toxicity here. Among other things, I told him that, for the good of the blog, I would resign from membership here if my behavior really is poisonous as you say it is.
I’m making that public now. I don’t think he answers email on Sundays, so we may not hear from him until tomorrow.
October 3rd, 2010 | 2:42 pm | #45
Tom, I believe that there are times when two people should not interact. As I’ve suggested previously, I think that we should probably not interact. Thinking back over our past interchanges, I’ve probably said things awhile back that have in some way offended you, or which have at least challenged your self-image. Now it as if we are in a feud.
One way to avoid this degeneration of threads by feud is to simply avoid interacting. As you might have noticed, I have stopped initiating conversations with you. I have also avoided adding commentary to your last posting. I think that it would be to everyone’s advantage, and to the good of this blog, if you were to voluntarily followed this lead. At least as I see it, no one needs to be the martyr here.
October 3rd, 2010 | 2:49 pm | #46
As I see it, a blog like this ought to uphold a set of standards; and if what you say about me is true, then I am not qualified to be a contributing member. So I’ll stand with my position on principle.
Practically speaking, it’s rather odd, too, to suppose that whichever one of us comments first on any other thread would lock the other one out from participation, which is the likely outcome of your suggestion. So I’ll stand with my position on those grounds as well.
October 3rd, 2010 | 5:28 pm | #47
“If what you say about me is true, then I am the chief cause of the stink, and I am also unqualified to be a contributing member of this blog.”
I think Tom Gilson is qualified to be a contributing member of the Evangel blog.
October 3rd, 2010 | 5:30 pm | #48
C. Ehrlich: “What I doubt, however, is that one’s childhood belief in the literal truth of the Noah’s ark story (for example) will survive critical reflection, when this is done by the educated, thoughtful, and honest adult Christian. I expect that most adults would agree with me on this point–even if it might be a bit uncomfortable to admit.”
Educated.
Thoughtful.
Honest.
Adult Christian.
C. Ehrlich, do you hold yourself out as an educated, thoughtful, honest, adult Christian?
Second, do you believe that the miracle of the parting of the Red Sea as recounted in Scripture is historic fact-narrative?
————-
C. Ehrlich, please answer these two straightforward questions.
October 3rd, 2010 | 8:48 pm | #49
Tom, this is something of an exaggeration. What I suggested is that we each avoid initiating interaction with each other. Practically speaking, the only one who must resist commenting on a thread will be me, as I will avoid commenting on any of your posts. As for any other threads, the only thing that we each have to avoid is initiating responses to each other. As Abraham said to Lot,
As for your other point, it’s possible that the argumentative vice is largely limited to your interactions with me. As I’ve suggested, our interactions have developed into something of an ongoing feud, presumably growing out of some perceived offense dating back perhaps to your “Islam and America” post on August 21st (this would be an instructive read). But that’s just a hopeful possibility—I don’t typically read your responses to others. I suppose the way to test it would be to find cases in which others have challenged you in the direct fashion that I frequently challenge you (“Tom, this is something of an exaggeration….”), or cases in which someone else has suggested the possibility that you are succumbing to an argumentative vice.
October 3rd, 2010 | 10:11 pm | #50
So the argumentative vice is mine. Interesting. Nice to see how open you are to considering your own possible part in it. It reminds of comment 68 and the preceding material here.
No, the Abraham and Lot answer will not suffice. If your charges against me are generally true, and if I am guilty of an argumentative vice that has dragged this down into the muck, then I am not qualified to be a blogging member of Evangel, and on the basis of principle I must resign from the blog.
If, on the other hand, the charges you have laid against me are not generally true, and if I’m not largely guilty of all that you have charged, then the problem must be something other than that. In that case there ought to be no reason to accept from you any prior restriction on commenting where I think a comment is appropriate.
I have opened myself up to review on that question, to the extent that I am willing to walk away from here, if necessary, on the basis of that review. I think the evidence is pretty clear on the question, but I’m willing to accept that my judgment on it is not fully objective. I encourage you to be open in the same way.
There are two questions from TUAD awaiting your answer still. As for me, I’m done here until we hear from the editor of the website.
October 3rd, 2010 | 10:43 pm | #51
Although I am happy to see that you are open to review, you’ve posed a false dilemma here: the claims that I have made may be strictly true, possessing no more generality than they are claimed to possess.
This, however, is a logical point, and I think the real issues between us are personal. I’d wager that all this conflict is rooted in some perceived personal grievance going back to that “Islam in America” thread. Hence my recommendation, along with the disheartening realization that you’ve demonstrated rather thoroughly your aversion to taking any recommendations from me. (I should have foreseen that my “follow this lead” suggestion in #44 would be inevitably opposed.)
October 3rd, 2010 | 11:16 pm | #52
I received an email from Joe Carter. I had offered to send him some background information, and he told me instead to feel free to post it. Herewith:
I actually had followed your advice and reviewed the Islam in America post. Your first words directed to me there were, “I smell hypocrisy.” That was argumentative. In that post you called me “defensive and hostile,” three times, the first time in response to this from me:
That was neither hostile nor defensive; your description of me there was false.
I am of course arguing here. Is it argumentative vice I am displaying? How else am I going to show that you have been making false statements?
In the next two posts on which we interacted, those having to do with “Serving Tea” and “Strangers in a Strange Land,” I questioned you on what you meant by “sectarian” and “defensive.” Here in this post you have called those questions the first two in an
It’s hard to see how asking what you meant constituted twisting and perverting your statements. Actually, your statement there was just factually false.
In the Strangers post you asked me a question in comment 14 which I answered in comment 16, and which you asked again in comment 23 as if I had not answered it. You never did answer my question as to what you meant in context by “sectarian.” Instead you condescendingly and pedantically told me to look it up in the dictionary. The dictionary, my friend, knows a lot of meanings, but it does not know, nor could it tell me, which meaning you had in mind. I was offering you the respect of letting you explain yourself rather than assuming I could read your mind via some dictionary, yet you belittled me for it (or at least tried hard to do so). You continued the same pedantry not just for one post but for the next one and this one.
In the “Serving Tea” post you again told me to use the dictionary for a word that I asked you to explain in context, and for which I had actualy offered a dictionary definition in the question. That was blindness on your part, in addition to failure to recognize the same context-dependencies I have just mentioned regarding the prior incident.
When in comment 15 of that post I offered up a summary of Christian history including “freedom of conscience, the dignity of women (a Christian innovation in world history), the rule of law, ending slavery (another distinctly Christian innovation), protecting the life of newborns and the unborn, instituting genuine care for the poor and infirm, and so on,” you responded by ridiculing “zygote hysteria.”
You accused Bret there of “childishness;” and you offered a distinctly false apology in comment 32 and again in 47. In comment 52 you twisted my prior comment out of context, stating that I had suggested that turning the other cheek may only be necessary if one is having a gospel-centered conversation, which I had distinctly not said. You went on to warn me of reacting on the basis of wounded pride or having my self-image called into question. It was not the last of the aspersions you cast on my character.
In this post you claim you have not practiced ad hominems with me, but you have used the following terms related to me and/or to what I have said:
Suspiciousness “out of hand”
Obstructionism
Hindering honest conversation
Fussing
Resisting
Causing senseless delay
Suspicion assumptions
Twists
Perverts
Shameless
Habitual
In #42 you were gracious enough to leave open the door that I might not be a twisted pervert. For that apparently I should be thankful?
In response I have returned no insults in kind. The worst you can charge me with is not consulting a dictionary, and not agreeing with you.
The argumentative vice is not mine, C. Ehrlich.
October 4th, 2010 | 1:28 am | #53
Although Joe Carter probably wishes to follow Jesus here (“Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?”), I suppose that his intervention as editor has regrettably become necessary–given the our evident inability to resolve this feud on reasonable grounds, as witnessed by the stiff (if not sound) opposition to my Abrahamic proposal above. Therefore I should probably say something in response to Mr. Gilson’s litany of personal grievances above.
The heart of the matter, as I see it, is to be found in the very first grievance on Mr. Gilson list, which, in its chronologically priority, is also arguably the “first blood” in this unfortunate feud. This perceived offense occurs in my comment #11 in Tom’s “Islam in America” post (Aug. 21). It begins, “I smell hypocrisy.”
What immediately follows this three-word statement is my description of what the apparent hypocrisy amounts to. From that description it is obvious that this is a follow up to Bret Lythgoe’s point (#7, #10) that “there’s no inherent contradiction between believing in the Islamic faith and accepting democracy.” When Tom then reacts theatrically (#12), I call him out on it, and the feud is fully born.
What we can see in this record is the pattern of all things to come. Though my initial comment (#11) is directed to the abstract idea of certain fundamentalists questioning another form of fundamentalism’s democratic compatibility, Mr. Gilson takes me to be accusing him of hypocrisy (#16). When he then reacts with fantastically dramatized complaints (#12), he invites the sort of correction (#14) that he simply cannot tolerate (#16). This, I would offer, is a repeated pattern. The crucial elements, I’ve now come realize, are these:
The interminable feud is generated by the way in which these elements loop back into each other (over-the-top reactions prompt corrections from me, which—because they are from me—are intolerable, and–because of that hair-trigger sensitivity again–are construed as additional personal slights…). This is perhaps the main pattern you would find over and over again were you to investigate the actual context of the other personal grievances Tom has listed.
Given this pattern, I of course share some of the blame for “winding Tom up,” so to speak. I certainly would be blameworthy if I had seen this pattern from the start as clearly as I see it now. But alas I did not see this pattern so clearly, and in my interchanges with Mr. Gilson I was simply responding within the context, attempting to answer him just as I would answer any other—with naïve directness, with no effort whatsoever to coat my words with sweetness, and with no attempt to feign reverence towards someone whose behavior and arguments I really could not respect.
I still stand by the Abrahamic proposal I suggested earlier (#44, #48, and #50 in this thread). As I’ve said, I should have known that Tom would resist any recommendation coming from me, but I still believe that it is prudent. Given that most commenters tend to tread lightly (if not reverently) around Mr. Gilson, I think that there is a good chance that my proposal will address our problem. I am most certainly willing and ready to steer clear of future interaction with Mr. Gilson.
October 4th, 2010 | 8:28 am | #54
Mr Ehrlich,
I agree with you on two things. We should not interact, and the editor should be involved in this. I expect this will be my final word to you here until he takes a more active role, though I’m not closing the door on further response in the meantime should it become necessary.
I do want to answer your most recent before I pull back from discussion for the time being. You speak of my so-called “hair-trigger sensitivity.” I’m wondering what inappropriate response my “sensitivity” has produced on this thread, other than (possibly) my co-opting your term “dictionary trick” for a different purpose than yours. Note that there was plenty for me to be sensitive to, as you described me and my language here in terms of:
Suspiciousness “out of hand”
Obstructionism
Hindering honest conversation
Fussing
Resisting
Causing senseless delay
Suspicion assumptions
Twists
Perverts
Shameless
Habitual
And maybe a “twisted pervert,” but we’ll suspend judgment on that
Here’s how I responded to all of that: in essence it was, “if you are right, then on the basis or principle, for the good of the blog, I will withdraw.” I guess that qualifies as hair-trigger sensitivity.
Again you tell me of my inability to tolerate criticism from you. My stance here in the last 24 hours speaks otherwise, loudly; in fact on this you are just factually wrong. To disagree with criticism is not equivalent to being unable to tolerate it. Though I have so far disagreed with your criticism, I was willing to be told by others that you were correct, and to respond accordingly. I have in fact stood tons of criticism over my six years of blogging. I have accepted strong corrections and made appropriate apologies and revisions. I have recently accepted and apologized for corrections even on this blog (#37 on this thread, for one). I have not responded the same to yours, because I just don’t agree with you. I have at least answered you, unlike what you did in comments 63 to 68 on the “Serving Tea” post, where your response was to change the subject.
Your unwillingness to address the possibility that you are even partly to blame (other than “winding Tom up”) for the swampiness here is consistent with that behavior. Your “apology” on “zygote hysteria” (#33 here) is very illustrative: while ostensibly apologizing, you laid all the fault at others’ feet. Similarly in comment #70 on that post, and also just now in your “winding Tom up” comment. You made a gesture that looked like accepting responsibility, but in it you found a way again to make it really the other’s fault.
There is the smell of hypocrisy here; speaking of which, no, it is not obvious that when you first used that phrase it was only in response to what Bret had said. Your comments on that touched strongly on topics in my original post. What you consider my inability to tolerate criticism (#16 there) was in fact just a response, ending with “If it seemed dramatic to you, then so be it; you’re welcome to your opinion.” It takes a lot to find that inappropriate.
Your own response to questions I asked here on this thread about premises and assumptions could easily be interpreted as oversensitivity on your part. But see how I responded in comment #26. Rather than accusing you, I gave you your ground quite willingly on that, and then re-asked my question in a revised manner. (That, by the way, was a demonstration of my ability to respond to your criticism. Though I didn’t necessarily agree with it, I made no fuss about it, and I moved forward with a correction.) You responded by calling on me to use a dictionary. Then, when I revealed that I actually had quoted from a dictionary, that didn’t help much, did it?
Your “naive directness” was nothing of the sort. When you chided me for not using the dictionary, you were evading the argument. I had asked a question that you could have answered; instead you told me to go somewhere else and find in there the precise thought that you had in mind. That’s not being direct; it’s directing me away from you and toward some uninvolved inanimate object.
Even now you are evading acknowledging the several patently false statements I have just pointed out to you in my last comment. You’re not even contesting them; you’re just ignoring them. That’s not being very direct. (You’re not doing a great job of responding to TUAD’s questions, either.)
You try to make a great deal of ground on my reacting to “personal slights,” adding that there was a “repeated pattern” of reacting poorly. First, let me state for the record that your multiple suggestions that I follow your “dictionary trick” were poorly disguised putdowns. I called you on that the first time. The second time (#64 here), however, I responded on the basis of the argument, not on a personal level. Same with the third time. There was no repeated pattern of responding to these things as personal slights, so on this you are again factually wrong.
You are demonstrably speaking falsehoods, you are making strong personal accusations against me, and though you rightly say that it is important to respond well to criticism, you show absolutely no signs even of acknowledging any made against yourself or (in many cases) your arguments.
Your Abrahamic overture remains inadequate and misapplied, too, I might add. Abraham and Lot actually separated so as not to encounter one another at all. I continue to hold that if what you say of me is generally true, then on principle I must depart the blog. You have made repeated strong attacks upon my language and my character. I hold that you have committed multiple false statements in so doing. If I am mistaken about that, or even some significant portion thereof, then I am not qualified to be here. If on the other hand I am not mistaken, then it follows that you are guilty of multiple repeated persistent falsehoods here in the process of attacking me personally. It’s inappropriate to allow behavior of that sort to control interaction in the way you have proposed. I will not agree to it as the basis for some kind of bar that prevents me from responding to you in the future, should you post anything I am interested in responding to.
In other words, one of us is behaving very badly here. It’s me, if you are correct; otherwise it is you. The solution is not to pretend the other is not there. The ideal solution is to correct the problem between us. If that does not work, I will not tiptoe around you. I am either a full contributing member of this blog or I am not; and I do not believe in that kind of interpersonal evasiveness.
The editor will decide what to do about this, I’m quite sure.
October 4th, 2010 | 9:36 am | #55
(You’re not doing a great job of responding to TUAD’s questions, either.)
C. Ehrlich, these questions are straightforward.
If you don’t respond I don’t think it’s unreasonable for anyone to tentatively conclude that:
(A) You do not hold yourself out as an educated, thoughtful, honest, adult Christian.
and
(B) You do not believe that the miracle of the parting of the Red Sea as recounted in Scripture is historic fact-narrative.
—–
Of course, a confirmation or denial of this is welcome and preferred. Thank you.
October 4th, 2010 | 9:07 pm | #56
Re-reading this on Monday evening, I regret that I went on so long with post #54. I had made all the point I needed to make with the previous one, and this one was unnecessary to say the least. Mr. Ehrlich has been accusing me of reacting with too much sensitivity. I really do not think that was the case before now, but I’ll admit I let him get my goat this morning, and it shows. This time I actually did go over the top. I apologize to all readers.
October 4th, 2010 | 10:41 pm | #57
“Even if we all concede that it’s entirely possible for God to make it so, it’s still a bit fantastic and implausible to believe that the moon will become square-shaped tomorrow. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Okay, sorry, I didn’t realize that was an actual question seeking an answer.
And the answer would be: it depends. If I had a solid reason to believe that *God said* that He would make the moon square-shaped tomorrow, then it would not be implausible that it could happen.
That is exactly my point about what you’re doing — you’re acting as though the premise of “God doing it” is somehow separable from what is being described. If the question was, “Do I find it plausible that some indefinite actor could have parted the Red Sea or effected all the miracles necessary to bring about the Flood and the salvation of Noah and the animals,” I’d probably say, yes, that’s implausible. But in cases where the only possibility being raised is that God acted directly and revealed His own actions, the question of plausibility is inseparable from the questions of the power of God and the reliability of scripture. Nothing that is logically possible, is implausible for God, nor is it in any sense dubious if it is infallibly revealed.
October 5th, 2010 | 12:10 am | #58
Pentamom, it is entirely true that if God says He’ll square the moon tomorrow, then the moon will be square tomorrow. Moreover, if it is plausible that God has said He’ll square the moon, then it is plausible that the moon will be square.
The point I’m interested in slightly different. Consider situations in which we are not certain that God has promised or foretold the event in question. Depending on the nature of the supposed event, we may rightly say that it is “a bit fantastic and implausible.” Such is the case with the moon turning into a square. But now notice an interesting thing: with some such supposed events, their implausibility has a way of affecting the plausibility of the claim that God has or will bring such events about. So, even if your most trustworthy Christian friend tells you that tomorrow God will square the moon, the implausibility of the event seems to infect (to decrease, that is) the plausibility of your otherwise trustworthy friend’s claim about what God will do. Compare this to the case in which the same friend tells you instead that God will make it rain this winter. If this is right, then the mere implausibility of an event (e.g., Noah capturing and accommodating two of each species of every non-aquatic animal into his boat) may affect the plausibility of the biblical record—even though we can all concede that, just like squaring the moon, God could get those animals onto that boat.
This is not, of course, to deny that there are independent reasons to grant plausibility to the biblical record. But, just as there may be independent reasons to trust your friend, severely implausible events may have a way of making even the biblical record (for which we have independent reasons for trusting) still seem, at least to many fair-minded adults, “a bit fantastic and implausible.”
October 5th, 2010 | 12:33 pm | #59
R Hampton,
The problem, as I see it, with your super-elevation argument is that the biblical text contradicts it.
Two main things.
If super-elevation by wind action was all that happened then how did Israel pass through on dry-land? If the bottom of a sea-bed remain soggy, as one would expect if you pumped all the water out in 1 day, there is no way people and animals and wheeled carts could cross is. Particularly numbers in the order of 2 million people.
Also, even if we grant that the ground was wet and not dry, how would the difference of a metre or 2 be enough to get all Israel (including little children and young livestock) through and yet still drown an army of grown men to the point that no one survived?
Also, I’ve heard the Yam Suph argument before, but I don’t think it holds water. I have no argument as to how it got into the text and back out, I’m not a linguist or a textual critic, but I do have this:
At the time of the Exodus, Sinai was under Egyptian control. So crossing that sea would leave them still in Egypt. If they crossed the Sea of Reeds (as most Bible maps locate it) it would be a simple matter for the Egyptian army to go around. Even if they all drowned, it would be a simple matter for Pharaoh to bring in more troops and continue the charge.
Further, Paul tells us in Galatians that Mt. Sinai (contrary to modern maps) is located in Arabia, leading to the conclusion that Israel actually did cross the Red Sea into that part of the world.
Finally, given that God sent the wind, the realities of how much wind can move how much water become completely irrelevant. Why did Israel and the rest of the world in that area become filled with awe that a wind blew a couple metres of water to the far side of a lake, if that was a common occurrence?
October 5th, 2010 | 12:37 pm | #60
C. Ehrlich,
The trouble with your “God will square the moon” argument it that it still doesn’t relate.
What if I told you that God squared the moon, as He said He would, last year.
And that eye-witnesses wrote about it.
Implausibility takes a hit in that case. Which is exactly the case with Jonah, the Flood, Crossing the Red Sea, Elisha’s floating axehead, all of it.
You seem to argue that the laws of nature, I, and no one I know of could make such and such a thing happen, therefore it’s not realistic to believe that it did.
Where is God in the equation?
Both His ability to do things and His ability to communicate that He did things don’t even enter into your reasoning.
October 5th, 2010 | 2:32 pm | #61
Daryl,
If you really are interested in the history, I suggest reading this – and anything else from this website:
Amenhotep II and the Historicity of the Exodus Pharaoh
http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2010/02/04/amenhotep-ii-and-the-historicity-of-the-exodus-pharaoh.aspx
“…Did Amenhotep II die in the Red Sea, as the Bible allegedly indicates about the exodus-pharaoh? No, he died in typical fashion, and his mummified body is still preserved. Yet despite popular belief, this conclusion does not conflict with the Bible, since no Biblical text actually states that the exodus-pharaoh died there with his army.
“Can any of Amenhotep II’s military campaigns be related to the exodus events? Yes, his second Asiatic campaign coincides extremely well with the exodus events, and many of the details related to it and Egypt’s post-exodus future cannot be explained without these connections.”
“Can the loss of over two million Hebrew slaves, certainly Egypt’s “slave-base” at the time, be accounted for in the records of Amenhotep II’s reign? Yes, the loss of the Israelite slaves can be accounted for by Amenhotep II’s acquisition of 101,128 slaves in Canaan during his second Asiatic campaign, the only such campaign of its era that was launched in late fall and took so many captives.”
“Is there any evidence to confirm that Amenhotep II interacted with the Hebrews after they left Egypt? Yes, Amenhotep II captured 3,600 ‘Apiru’ (Hebrews) during his second campaign, which was launched just under seven months after the exodus. Despite many futile attempts to disprove the association of the Hebrews with the Apiru of the New Kingdom, far more evidence exists that favors their being one-in-the-same.”
October 5th, 2010 | 3:09 pm | #62
R Hampton,
Everything you just posted in that comment is very interesting, but it has nothing to do with what I said, or what you said in your earlier comment either.
I’m more interested in your reaction to my reaction to your comment.
October 6th, 2010 | 8:06 pm | #63
Daryl,
Within my first post lies the answer to your question about God’s place in the miracle:
“…Thus, the reader should be careful to distinguish between (1) a supernatural mechanism (which requires no rational physical limitations or causes, and therefore cannot even be discussed in any detail within a rational framework), and (2) a supernatural cause for the timing of a natural mechanism. The writer of Exodus clearly chose the latter. “
October 6th, 2010 | 11:22 pm | #64
R Hampton,
Yes, I recall that. But I think that is incorrect.
At a minimum, for the reasons I gave in my first reply to that comment.
We can disagree, I’ve got no problem there. But I think your conclusions ignores several factors that a merely God-timed natural phenomenon doesn’t address.
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