I guess that depends on how you interpret the words the "circle of the earth" in Isaiah 40:22.

From this I assumed that the Bible was either talking about the shape of the earth or its orbit, that is, that the earth revolves around the sun.

If the early scientists had read this verse, they may have rethought their erroneous views. But in those days I don't know if they would have had access to the Bible or would have had to accept the church's interpretation of it.

The Bible is not a scientific book. It was not written to people with a scientific mindset.

When it says the world was created in seven days because God spoke, it does not give us a scientific or technical explanation of how that worked.

To say we don't know how it worked would be a scientific statement. To say it's impossible would not be, unless qualified with "with our current knowledge."

The problem isn't one of science OR theology, but of imagination.

I don't know how to determine whether or not a universe "has meaning". This phrase carries no information content to me.

Science is merely an attempt to develop rules that enable us to predict what happens next in a specific situation.

/Bevin

Pythagoras, around 550BC, stated that the Earth was round.
Isaiah is written around that time.

Look at http://sol.sci.uop.edu/~jfalward/Flat_Earth.htm

Basically the ancients in the Middle East before the Greeks thought the Earth was flat - and it shows in their sacred writings. I don't know what the Chinese thought when.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth



/Bevin

By that association you wish to show automatically that David must be wrong, but that would be a precious argument. Why not show by evidence that David's responses are without foundation?

Do you believe that God inspired "errors"?

You call one such error "the obvious concept" of a flat earth in the Old Testament. I would be interested to know exactly what verses seem to you to make this concept so obvious?

I don't deny that people of that period--and any other, including our own-- have held many false concepts of the earth and the universe. I don't think the Bible was written in order to correct people's views of those matters. No doubt the Hebrews' views of many things was similar to the views of most of the peoples of that time and location. On the other hand, God managed to communicate everything through His prophets that will save us if you and I study and obey the Scriptures. Do you believe that?

Because the specific topic of what are the evidences for evolution and why specific anti-evolution arguments are invalid has been ruled by the moderators/owner to be inappropriate for a public forum of this bulletin board.

That is exactly what I believe - that the Bible contains the misunderstandings of its authors about many things where they were simply matching the views of peoples of that time and location, and that God did not see a need to correct those misunderstandings in the process of interacting with and inspiring them - nor to keep those misunderstandings out of the poetry, letters, histories, etc that they wrote.

It is the people that are inspired, not all the details in the stories they propagated.

/Bevin

As usual, I come back to the forum after long absences. But it is good to "hear familiar voices." Bevin is still around to keep us from being satisfied with "usual responses." Hi Bevin! Having taught some high school science, but theology having the upper hand in number of college/graduate credits (!), I can understand your (Bevin's)frustrations. My scientific background cringes when I hear some of the "creation science" that is broadcast over Christian radio stations. However, Bevin, aren't you talking the opposite extreme for a Christian? Although I believe the Bible writer is inspired with God's salvation message rather than his words (and his scientific understanding), I find your faith too strong in "evolution" (whatever school you accept). Science can test and give evidence of what is happening, and so can give some fairly good idea of what happened in the past as far as natural processes. But if there is a God (and both you and I know there is!), then some things can happen out of the testable norms--or is He God? Origins of course are non-testable. I guess I find even a 7 day creation more plausable (once we allow ourselves to believe there is a God)than a complete mechanical beginning. Of course, as my Biology professor said, "after creation we as SDAs have to be some of the greatest evolutionists since we have a lot less time for adaptations to take place!)"

It has been my understanding all along that Bevin believes in Evolution, an old earth, and that the flood was a myth that didn't happen in a world wide way, but I could be wrong. I like Bevin even though we do not agree on that topic.