LogFAQs > #884920120

Kungfu Kenobi posted...

I don't think that's fair at all. There are plenty of metaphors for iterative construction that would be readily grasped by bronze-agers. None are apparent in a straight reading of Genesis. So even as an allegory it's hard to argue that Genesis doesn't contradict evolution, at least implicitly by the omission of such a metaphor.

We're talking about the Kent Hovinds of the world, people who take a very strong (and decidedly selective) stance against anything the Bible doesn't say. Why it doesn't say it isn't of any relevance to them, and the fact that they dismiss the notion of the Bible being a product of its time is extremely important to addressing Lok's question. This is a point that differentiates something like Young Earth Creationists from other Christians.

As for Leviticus, my takeway is that it shows the importance of having some working clocks to test a broken clock against. Elsewise you gum things up with at least 5 needless chapters on the magical properties of goats amidst some decent advice on not drinking too much alcohol.

(Also, I don't have a fucking clue how Paul saw the world, let alone think a certain way about it. :p)

Pretty sure evolution as a concept would require either a fossil record or for them to track the differences of animals over time, so the fact that ancient man didn't observe the changes then record it in the Bible (or, alternatively, "it wasn't significant enough for mention") doesn't make the omission significant. Further, there are a lot of scientific phenomena not listed in the Bible which people might have encountered.
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