Fundamentalism, Literalism and Inerrancy

…literally thousands

Certainly my impression. They claim to be literal whenever they think they can feel holier-than-thou for it, but they’re perfectly willing to go metaphorical whenever they think literalism is at a disadvantage, or if it demands that they change their behavior.

I got into an argument at a party once with a literalist.

Him: “I don’t think it’s a good idea to study fiction. Fiction is all just lies. We should just study the Bible, because everything in it really happened.”

Me: “But what about the parables? Didn’t even Jesus tell stories to make a point?”

Him: “No. Those weren’t stories. If Jesus said that a king did something, that there really was a king who did what He said the king did. Jesus wouldn’t have said it if it wasn’t true.”

And of course, what is lacking is any reliable way to determine which passages are to be taken literally, and which figuratively or allegorically, since Christians, even those using the same label (literalist, fundamentalist, whatever) frequently disagree among themselves.

Why thank you Mr. Barton, I’ve never heard a clearer explaination of how to pick cherries.

Bronze Dog and Michael Heath are right. There are tens of millions of US Christians who claim to be literalists, but who will deny the literal interpretation of anything which would make them change their behavior. They are often bright in some ways – they might be auto mechanics or engineers – but are crippled by their constant need to avoid introspection and compare any of their assertions to other assertionsof theirs.

A bronze age goat herd could imagine that a storm god could make it rain until even the mountains were underwater, and he wouldn’t be stupid for doing so. But a modern Westerner would have to be very stupid, or simulate this, to believe in a literal global flood today. These people work very hard at being functionally stupid. Far harder than they would if they hadn’t been raised that way. I agree with you, Michael, that raising kids like this is child abuse.

What about the third category, the Biblical science prognosticators who turn the vague language into ex post facto science predictions? Trees clapping, mountains singing – how did these so-called primitive nomads know about wind turbulence and plate tectonics? Science is only now catching up with the law put down by god!

I will guarantee that there are fundies who believe that mountains sing and trees clap because the bible said so.

My favorite fun die (hmmm, autocorrect inserted that space. Think I’ll keep it) defense of inerrancy is “mistranslation”. God lets errors creep in later.

Inerrancy will always be far more important than literalism one reason:

It is much easier to defend (relatively speaking) since, where literalism fails, inerrancy allows any number of vagaries and tortured logic available to be used when you’re defending your position.

A prime example of that is the Genesis Flood. Literalism requires you to defend the indefensible no matter how ludicrous it is. But if it’s only inerrancy you have to protect, that opens up a wide range of explanations and rationalization for you.

Thus you get anything from interpreting the Flood as a localized disaster seen from the perspective of a primitive people, to it being a mythological morality tale with an important lesson about faith and God’s mercy.

As long as you can find an explanation consistent with the overarching message of the Bible (as you/your pastor/your church/your denomination sees it) then you can claim that the doctrine of inerrancy remains intact (even as creationists join with the atheists to scoff).

Why else is inerrancy so important? Because in the black and white world of the fundamentalist, it is the only thing that prevents their entire worldview from falling apart. It’s a vital crutch for their faith that allows them to resist any challenge to their beliefs unscathed. Kick it away and, they would argue, there is no basis for believing that anything in the Bible is true, even the Resurrection itself.

If that was actually true, it would mean that many fundamentalists were living only a single step away from being an atheist at any time. Of course, in most cases, it doesn’t work like that, but it’s an interesting notion all the same.

When the occasion arises, I try to get fundamentalists to read the teachings of Jesus according to the “plain meaning of the text”. What does Jesus say about accumulating wealth? About fighting evildoers? About following the Law of Moses? About actually having to FOLLOW the teachings of Jesus in order to be saved? Most of them don’t even know, and if they know, they instantly switch to non-literal interpretation to escape having to actually DO that stuff. See

http://www.atheistnexus.org/profiles/blogs/the-ethics-of-jesus

heddle,

The link you provided goes to a Wikipedia page, please link us to the actual document you cite so we have the correct document and version.

In addition I don’t know how you interpret all the biblical passages which have been falsified, either by science and/or because they contradict another biblical passage. So please provide us with your interpretation of the most obvious contradictions everyone but inerrantists/literalists know to be false yet you still believe to be true.

Fine but I can’t start without knowing which standard you’ll be referencing. So I’ll need the version of the Bible I’m to use which makes certain factual assertions which are supposedly all true and supposedly don’t contradict assertions in other passages of that same version of the Bible. I prefer the Revised Standard Version but it’s your show, so which one am I reference?

Geddle – Whar about Young’s Literal Translation? I find that helpful since it is closer to the original either Hebrew or Greek.

Dingo.

DJ,

Yes, I find Young’s Literal Translation very helpful.

DJ,

Off to class right now– honestly don’t expect any time to play internets before Sunday evening. And then we have NASCAR from “exciting” Kansas speedway!.

“…In many cases you have to go back to the Hebrew or Greek.”

In case you hadn’t noticed, there is no “back” to go to. There are so many instances of variance among manuscripts – no originals are available to us – that while the discussion can become increasingly scholarly (with luck) there can be no definitive resolution to the debates which began BCE and continue to this day. These variances existed in the oldest known manuscripts long ages before the problems associated with correct vs. incorrect translation ever arose. Inerrancy is a hybrid begotten of a red herring by a dead horse.

joedelaney,

I’ve known about the Chicago Statement for a long time. The real test here if heddle’s game is to consider a biblical factual assertion where we can convincingly and empirically falsify that assertion or point to an obvious contradiction. Then it’s up to heddle to create his own defense. Merely pointing to an article in that statement to claim a falsified fact or contradictory assertions are out-of-bounds and doesn’t count because that statement said so would be a pretty juvenile, unserious, and ridiculous way to defend inerrancy, so I’m optimistic heddle won’t do so.

What I need from heddle to start is either have him point me to a Bible translation since he’s the one claiming the Bible is inerrant, and then I’ll start by finding a factually untrue statement (which will be easy); or else heddle starts by pointing to a popular passage that reasonable informed people claim is false and consider the cogency of his defense if it’s true.

so heddle,

Please then pick a passage most people think is factually incorrect and argue it isn’t. If you’re unwilling to do so, how about the most astonishing claims in Genesis 7 (Noah’s flood) we know could not have occurred and yet are claimed to have occurred.

I’d prefer waiting until you have time to address some of the most fantastical claims in Genesis 7, where I assume you know the set I refer to here.

Plus, all the other stuff that did not happen: The two creation stories in Genesis (we know how the universe developed), Adam and Eve story (genetics prove two first humans isn’t possible), tower of Babel (we know how languages develop), Israelites slavery under Egypt (no evidence), the exodus (no evidence), Jesus (all stories told decades later after his supposed life by anonymous Greek authors), etc. The bible is so full of false history that I can’t take any claims in it with a grain of salt.

joe – I am certainly not supporting Heddle (he can fight his own battles) but ‘unicorns’? Show me the bible verse about unicorns!

Dingo

—–

PS: I’d suggest getting a paper bag, placing it over your mouth and nose in an air-tight seal and breathing into that for a while (whilst consciously slowing your breathing rate).

Mical Heath,

OK, when I get back.

DJ,

The unicorn issue is perhaps the dumbest of all biblical criticisms and only utter morons like joedelaney bother to bring it up. The Hebrew word, in all instances, is reym, which is most likely a type of ox. It refers to two-horned animals. The Hebrew word does not apply to a one-horned creature (except possibly a rhino) and never, ever referred to the mythical unicorn. The KJV (the only translation that uses unicorn) did not use the Hebrew here, they translated from a translation, the Septuagint. That uses an ill advised word in translating the Hebrew which the KJV translators translated into unicorn. Even so there is no indication, at all, that even they took it as the mythical beast, but rather a one-horned animal. But even if they did it doesn’t matter–in this case, trivially, the Hebrew does not refer to the mythical unicorn. No serious biblical critic brings this up. It is about the intellectual equivalent of asking “why then pygmies?”

In this case you don’t need much scholarship to refute joedelaney–a third grader could do it.

Really?

Dingo

—–

Westminster Codex has:

Deut. 33:17 – ‘רְאֵם֙’

Isaiah 34:7 – ‘רְאֵמִים֙’

Psalms 22:21 – ‘כֶּלֶב’

Nombers 23:22 – ‘רְא֖ם’

Numbers 24:8 – ‘רְא֖ם’

Not a unicorn in sight.

Something I wrote in 2009, with a few minor edits here and there:

———–

The word “satyr” is used for the Hebrew sa’ir (שעיר). The word, as an adjective, can mean “hairy”, and the Vulgate translates it as such: pilosus. This is somewhat strange, because the word is used through the Old Testament, and while it sometimes refers to a place, Mount Seir (and always has the prefix that means “hill, mountain”), when it is used to refer to an animal, it means a goat (hircum). Why did Jerome use a different word when the Middle East had plenty of wild goats that Isaiah was probably referring to as calling to each other in a desolate place? Well, perhaps he was unsure, and perhaps he meant something besides just “hairy wild goat”. Wikipedia (with, as ever, the eternal caveat) links pilosus to a “wild man” rather than a half-man, half-goat — which indeed includes the interpretation that the word “satyr” itself could also mean a wild man rather than a freakish chimera.

On the other hand, the Septuagint does have the word ὀνοκένταυροι. This is not a word that I am at all familiar with, but it definitely does not mean “goat”. I see that Wikipedia does define onocentaur as a mythical animal after all!

Well, in that case, perhaps a tradition had arise that the word in this location did mean something stranger than a wild goat, and Jerome was just following that tradition. But I have no idea how this might have arisen, given all of the previous translations of the word as “goat”.

But as noted above, Isaiah is a weird book and has some weird language. Perhaps over-imaginative translators, even centuries ago, read more into the text than was really there. Think of the apophenia and pareidolia and just plain pattern-seeking that goes into reading horoscopes and such.

———–

The word “Unicorn” is used for the Hebrew word “re’em” (ראים), but this word has no reference to single horns. However, Jerome used monocerotis (Ps 92:10), which he appears to have taken from the Septuagint, which has μονοκέρωτος. Jerome also has, interestingly enough, rinocerotis (Num 23:22, Num 24:8, Deut 33:17, Job 39:9-10, Ps 29:6) (LXX: μονοκέρωτος, again). And he also uses unicornes (Is 34:7) where the LXX has ἁδροὶ, which appears to mean strong/stout men — here, Jerome might have been correcting what he thought was a mistake, using a word more in line with all of the other uses of re’em as translated in the LXX. There’s also one more instance of unicornium (Ps 22:21)(LXX: μονοκερώτων, yet again)

Given the above use of rinocerotis, it seems plausible to speculate that Jerome actually saw a rhinoceros at some point in his travels, and had that in mind for all of his translations of re’em. After all, “rhinoceros” means “nose-horn”. As such, it definitely does not match the traditional unicorn, with a horn in the middle of its forehead, not anywhere near its nose. And while he does use “monoceros” and “unicorn”, keep in mind that these words had not been firmly attached to the mythical animal in the 5th century when Jerome was traveling and studying. Still, he should have stuck to the one translation of “rhinoceros”.

Of course, while Jerome gets a pass on not intending a mythical animal, he was still wrong about the translation of the word. As best as I can tell, no species of rhinoceros has a natural range that extends anywhere near Israel, or even Egypt. Assuming that Jerome saw such a beast, it had no doubt been taken captive elsewhere and brought to a menagerie in the Mediterranean/Middle East. But perhaps he can be forgiven for not knowing that.

More blame attaches to the translators of the KJV. By the time they were working, “unicorn” had its more mythical meaning, and rhinoceroses were better known as natural animals. But despite the fact that Jerome used rinocerotis more often than he used unicornes, they everywhere translated re’em as “unicorn”. Well, that’s their problem.

Of course, modern scholarship suggests that Jerome, and the translators of the Septuagint, were simply wrong, and re’em is far better translated as “wild ox”, or aurochs. Presumably, the translators of the Septuagint lived in an area where there were no wild oxen, but the most impressive large horned animal that people would know of was a (caged) rhinoceros. Who can say?

———–

[I also had a section on “dragon”, but it needs work.]

Something I wrote in 2009, with a few minor edits here and there:

[reposting because the original is still in moderation, presumably because of the multiple wikipedia links, which I am redacting in this version to text:]

———–

The word “satyr” is used for the Hebrew sa’ir (שעיר). The word, as an adjective, can mean “hairy”, and the Vulgate translates it as such: pilosus. This is somewhat strange, because the word is used through the Old Testament, and while it sometimes refers to a place, Mount Seir (and always has the prefix that means “hill, mountain”), when it is used to refer to an animal, it means a goat (hircum). Why did Jerome use a different word when the Middle East had plenty of wild goats [wp:Wild_goat] that Isaiah was probably referring to as calling to each other in a desolate place? Well, perhaps he was unsure, and perhaps he meant something besides just “hairy wild goat”. Wikipedia (with, as ever, the eternal caveat) links pilosus to a “wild man” [wp:Wild_man] rather than a half-man, half-goat — which indeed includes the interpretation that the word “satyr” itself could also mean a wild man rather than a freakish chimera.

On the other hand, the Septuagint does have the word ὀνοκένταυροι. This is not a word that I am at all familiar with, but it definitely does not mean “goat”. I see that Wikipedia does define onocentaur [wp:Onocentaur] as a mythical animal after all!

Well, in that case, perhaps a tradition had arise that the word in this location did mean something stranger than a wild goat, and Jerome was just following that tradition. But I have no idea how this might have arisen, given all of the previous translations of the word as “goat”.

But as noted above, Isaiah is a weird book and has some weird language. Perhaps over-imaginative translators, even centuries ago, read more into the text than was really there. Think of the apophenia and pareidolia and just plain pattern-seeking that goes into reading horoscopes and such.

———–

The word “Unicorn” is used for the Hebrew word “re’em” (ראים), but this word has no reference to single horns. However, Jerome used monocerotis (Ps 92:10), which he appears to have taken from the Septuagint, which has μονοκέρωτος. Jerome also has, interestingly enough, rinocerotis (Num 23:22, Num 24:8, Deut 33:17, Job 39:9-10, Ps 29:6) (LXX: μονοκέρωτος, again). And he also uses unicornes (Is 34:7) where the LXX has ἁδροὶ, which appears to mean strong/stout men — here, Jerome might have been correcting what he thought was a mistake, using a word more in line with all of the other uses of re’em as translated in the LXX. There’s also one more instance of unicornium (Ps 22:21)(LXX: μονοκερώτων, yet again)

Given the above use of rinocerotis, it seems plausible to speculate that Jerome actually saw a rhinoceros at some point in his travels, and had that in mind for all of his translations of re’em. After all, “rhinoceros” means “nose-horn”. As such, it definitely does not match the traditional unicorn, with a horn in the middle of its forehead, not anywhere near its nose. And while he does use “monoceros” and “unicorn”, keep in mind that these words had not been firmly attached to the mythical animal in the 5th century when Jerome was traveling and studying. Still, he should have stuck to the one translation of “rhinoceros”.

Of course, while Jerome gets a pass on not intending a mythical animal, he was still wrong about the translation of the word. As best as I can tell, no species of rhinoceros has a natural range that extends anywhere near Israel, or even Egypt. Assuming that Jerome saw such a beast, it had no doubt been taken captive elsewhere and brought to a menagerie in the Mediterranean/Middle East. But perhaps he can be forgiven for not knowing that.

More blame attaches to the translators of the KJV. By the time they were working, “unicorn” had its more mythical meaning, and rhinoceroses were better known as natural animals. But despite the fact that Jerome used rinocerotis more often than he used unicornes, they everywhere translated re’em as “unicorn”. Well, that’s their problem.

Of course, modern scholarship suggests that Jerome, and the translators of the Septuagint, were simply wrong, and re’em is far better translated as “wild ox”, or aurochs [wp:Aurochs]. Presumably, the translators of the Septuagint lived in an area where there were no wild oxen, but the most impressive large horned animal that people would know of was a (caged) rhinoceros. Who can say?

———–

[I also had a section on “dragon”, but it needs work.]

owlmirror,

despite that fact that the grammatical form of spcificity is not used in Gen 7, then it is just as valid to say that in Gen. 1:1, God only created a small and specific land, not the planet Earth.

That (and the rest of your rebuttal) makes no sense. There is no way in which god creating only a small land in Gen 1 would ever be a reasonable interpretation. Just because ‘erets might be interpreted as land without specificity in Gen 7 (and that is perfectly valid, despite your ominous references to grammar) it does not imply that in all instances ‘erets without specificity must be interpreted as a small area of land and can never be interpreted as the entire earth. This is similar to another incorrect argument, championed by YECs, that since yom (day) when used ordinally everywhere else in the OT* refers to 24 hour days, its use ordinally in Gen 1 means Gen 1 must be referring to 24 hour days.

Now if there ever was a exegesis (I can’t imagine what it would be) that required God only produced Palestine in Gen 1, the advocate of that position could indeed argue that the Hebrew supports it. Compared to modern English biblical Hebrew had a miniscule vocabulary and so the translations are often one-to-many. This provides for lots of wiggle room.

———–

Which, while off topic, is not even true. See Hosea 6:2.

Owlmirror,

But if you get to arbitrarily limit the scope of the word, why not anyone else?

I guess one man’s “using a legitimate alternative definition of a word” is another man’s “arbitrarily limiting the scope of a word.”

It’s not so much the ordinality as the specific reference to evening and morning.

Actually it is both–YECs make a big deal about the ordinality (and the evening and morning constuct)

But why do you care, anyway? You weren’t a day-age advocate, as I recall, because even if yom refers to “magically arbitrarily large period of time”, the sequence of described events in each “yom” does not match the findings of cosmology, geology, or paleontology.

I only care in an academic sense.

English has lots of “wiggle room” too. I could argue that Richard Carrier is inerrant, using standards similar to those of defenders of biblical “inerrancy”

Perhaps you can- I never claimed inerrancy a la the Chicago statement was an exacting standard! But seriously–that is why zeroing on the OT and creation accounts is not productive in this debate. Focusing on possible contradictions in the NT text is more stressful.

what year did you convert/receive your regeneration?

1998

Brownian ,

Man, I forgot what a dishonest man Heddle is.

You are an idiot and a troll. There was nothing dishonest about that statement. It was lighthearted. And I did use a legitimate alternative definition–as even owlmirrow does not dispute. Not that you would know–your only skill is kissing PZ’s ass.

Not that you would know–your only skill is kissing PZ’s ass.

When you converted because of your wife, did she demand you sacrifice your originality too?

And now that you have visited (and contributed nothing) why not go back to this chucklehead and brag about how you “verbally eviscerated” me.

You’re losing your touch. Go back to your smug pomposity. It’s the only game you have.

Shorter Heddle (and Chicago Statement): “It’s still real to me, dammit!”

Brownian,

Can you do it without waffling, goal-post shifting, or any of your other assorted dishonesties?

You are a miserable, pathetic creature. You can string together as many adjectives as you please; it doesn’t make them legitimate. The argument is whether land without specificity must be used the same way in Gen 1 and Gen 7. The answer is no. In Gen 1, given there is no known view of scripture that has God only creating Palestine, there is no reason to make the argument there. Nevertheless I added, at the end of my post, that it you did have a reason to make the argument in Gen 1 that the Hebrew supports it. And it does. Dipshit.

joedelaney

You are Brownian’s intellectual twin. Clearly separated at birth.

Owlmirror,

I apologize for mischaracterizing your argument, so I will re-characterize it as flat-out wrong. There is no grammatical issue here except one you are making up. There is no book of biblical Hebrew grammar that sets as a rule that which you are unilaterally imposing. Or if you know of one, please provide the link.

Not to mention it is not hard to find counter-examples such as Gen 13:17 “arise, walk through the land” where the word is used exactly as in Gen 1 & 7 ( without any specificity– not “that” just “the”.) And yet it means something much, much less than the whole earth. Unless you think God was calling on Abram to circumnavigate the globe.

If a flood/disaster is local, you don’t tell those you want to save to build a boat (or shelter). You tell them to leave the local area; maybe get to ground higher than the flood peak

Sorry–arguments about what you would do if you were god may be relevant when debating god’s wisdom, but they are not relevant in discussions of inerrancy. At any rate, the flood could be local and yet much larger than the area of Sodom. It is not at all clear, just because you say so, that one method of preservation is obviously superior.

The ark would not have floated to a mountain; it would have followed the floodwaters seeking lower ground.

What does this mean? Are you saying that nothing that floats during a flood ever comes to rest on high ground as the waters recede? Really?

Unless you think God was calling on Abram to circumnavigate the globe.

I’m pretty sure Owlmirror doesn’t think ‘God’ ever called on anybody to do anything.

Oh, and one last thing, Heddle, since you claim to care about evidence.

This comment:

Not that you would know–your only skill is kissing PZ’s ass.

I assume that’s an interpretation of scripture? Perhaps some of your vaunted theology?

Because you can’t fucking support it any other way.

As I said, you’re a dishonest man. A profoundly dishonest man.

I hope your god rewards you well for your lack of integrity.

You almost make a relevant comment (accidentally)

I take it back. It’s not just dishonesty. There’s something bigger gone wrong with you. You’re utterly incapable of responding honestly. You would scream bloody murder if anyone quoted someone else as if their comments reflected on you (and you have done exactly this). Yet you cannot even admit that you dishonestly referred to a comment by someone else on a thread I have nothing to do with and tried to tie it to me.

Of course, it’s obvious what the issue is: you simply cannot abide from anyone else anything less than than the same sort of utter reverence for yourself that you hold for yourself.

Unfortunately I am engaging in textbook troll feeding.

No. What you’re doing is lying to yourself. You tell yourself I’m trolling and that you’ve no good reason to respond, and yet you cannot help yourself from doing so, because your enormous ego won’t let you.

Oh, Jesus Christ. And you call me a moron?

Pay attention, you fucking dipshit.

I wrote this: “Yet you cannot even admit that you dishonestly referred to a comment by someone else on a thread I have nothing to do with and tried to tie it to me.”

What could it have been in response to?

Well, I can understand you’d have trouble following anything that isn’t masturbation over your god’s authority, but that’s why I quoted what it was in response to.

You almost make a relevant comment (accidentally)

See? See how I did that? I’ll put it all together, for the Calvinist in the class:

You almost make a relevant comment (accidentally)

I take it back…Yet you cannot even admit that you dishonestly referred to a comment by someone else on a thread I have nothing to do with and tried to tie it to me.

Now, what was your comment in response to?

I’ll go slow, since you’re clearly having a hard time following your own comments.

It was in response to this (and here I’m charitably assuming you understand to communicate with other humans, though that is by no means obviously evident):

This is about as weak as quoting someone who is not me in a thread I’m not even participating in in an attempt to ‘gotcha’ me.

Why do I think that? Well, it’s a reasonable inference since, y’know, you quoted that part ‘n’ all:

This is about as weak as quoting someone who is not me in a thread I’m not even participating in in an attempt to ‘gotcha’ me.

You almost make a relevant comment (accidentally)

Now, what is this “This is about as weak as quoting someone who is not me in a thread I’m not even participating in in an attempt to ‘gotcha’ me” all about? What could that be referring to?

Think, Heddle. I know you’re not used to it, but think: what could you have possibly written that such a statement could describe?

(Not that I can’t understand your difficulty. My statement actually describes two things, and compares them. The “as [blank] as” construction is typically used in that fashion. An advanced concept, I know.)

The ‘this’ that begins the statement does refer to the joedelaneny comment I quoted. I called that ‘weak’; that’s all. It didn’t bother. It just showed a lack of creativity on your part. See, unlike you, I actually am self-consistent in that when I say I consider you miserable and pathetic, I don’t actually give a shit what you think about me, or anyone else. You love your evil god, because you’re an evil man, and that’s about it. I don’t care that I don’t rate with you, because I consider you a repulsive, terrible human being who prides himself on his ability to justify beliefs he admits he cannot justify to anyone else.

But remember that “as weak as” construction, the one that I noted in English indicates a comparison, with the thing being compared to about to be mentioned?

Well, the thing I was comparing to is “quoting someone who is not me in a thread I’m not even participating in in an attempt to ‘gotcha’ me.” You’d know that, because it came right after the “as [blank] as” construction.

Again, think, Heddle. What could you have possibly written that such a statement could describe?

Look, I don’t want to tax you too hard on something that’s not an attempt to justify your love of tyranny since that seems to be your only forte, so I’ll just answer:

“quoting someone who is not me in a thread I’m not even participating in in an attempt to ‘gotcha’ me” refers to this:

And now that you have visited (and contributed nothing) why not go back to this chucklehead and brag about how you “verbally eviscerated” me.

And that is the kind of thing you yourself scream bloody murder at, whenever you get lumped in with other Christians, whenever someone makes a comment about Christian belief that does not coincide perfectly with what you believe.

(Of course, since it has nothing to do with me whatsoever, I know why you brought it up: it irked you, because you cannot abide any disrepect, you vain, vain man.)

And even if that conclusion was too tough for you, a person of reasonable intelligence would at least be able to know which fucking comment I’m referring to.

Hell, even a person of below reasonable intelligence who wrote the fucking comment should.

So this:

If so, grow some skin. That would make me scream bloody murder? Hardly. If so I would be screaming bloody murder continuously, given the number of derogatory “reminds me of heddle” type comments that peppered Pharyngula when I used to post there. You hang out too much with your homeboys. When you are not in the N in an all-out N on 1 (as you always are on Pharyngula) it appears you get your little feelings hurt.

Is completely irrelevant, is hardly accurate, and just shows how fucking inept you are when the subject isn’t “What the Great Calvinist Heddle Thinks about Calvinism and God”.

So fuck you, you fucking pompous asshole. Lose the attitude, or try a little harder not to be so fucking wrong.

Sorry I missed that

You should be sorry, lying fucker, since I described exactly what you wrote.

and of course the actual referencing of the offending comment would have been utterly superfluous wouldn’t it?

If you weren’t so busy trying to come up with clever ways to stroke your own ego, you might have been aware enough of exactly what you wrote to recognise it when described.

But, since all you care about is defending your pretentiousness, you can’t even follow a simple line of comments.

That’s for the weak-minded little people, not for intellectual giants like you

Do you think this serves your point, dimbulb? Especially after all your exhortations as to what a person of reasonable intelligence would expect? You’re the most hypocritically oblivious person I’ve ever had the misfortune of encountering.

Again, Heddle, call me a moron all you want. It’s not possible for me to care less. You’re actually bullshit, embodied in the form of a sycophant to a non-existent tyrant. There’s nothing admirable about anything you are.

And if you can’t follow the conversation at hand, then shut up. That’s the advice you love to dole out, ain’t it?

So follow it.

Well, I guess that’s it then–until your next drive-by trolling–which I have to try to ignore.

I’ll be sure to pop in to remind people what a disgusting liar you are whenever I feel like it. And you won’t be able to ignore it.

Since you’re utterly incapable of mea culpas (other than the sarcastic kind), it’s pitifully easy to draw you into a situation like this where you’d rather eat your own foot than admit error.

‘intellectual giants’ indeed.

I may not be one, but it doesn’t take much intelligence to tweak you into revealing your horrendous hubris.

You’re a foolish and easily played man. You’re about as vain as they come.

I’ll leave you with Owlmirror. Maybe there’s someone reading this thread who will be impressed by how well you can convince yourself that your version of Christianity is the true one and that you’re not actually a self-delusional prick.

Owlmirror – concerning ‘onokentauroi’ see here.

Nope, no mthyical animal there, unless gorillas, chimpanzees, bonoboes and humans are mythical.

Dingo

I apologize for mischaracterizing your argument, so I will re-characterize it as flat-out wrong.

But it can’t be wrong, because I can’t be wrong. I’m inerrant now, because I’ve declared myself to be so on the Internet.

Youll just have to accept it on faith that I’m right. But in case your obstinate and inherently anti-Owlmirror nature means that you have no faith, I’ll just have to keep arguing.

There is no grammatical issue here except one you are making up.

I hate relying on Wiktionary, but it’s easier than copying and pasting pages from a Hebrew grammar.

  http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%90%D7%A8%D7%A5

‘erets is the singular construct form; ha’arets is the definite form.

Not to mention it is not hard to find counter-examples such as Gen 13:17 “arise, walk through the land” where the word is used exactly as in Gen 1 & 7 (without any specificity– not “that” just “the”.) And yet it means something much, much less than the whole earth.

Holy ignoring the narrative context, heddleman! The previous verses Gen 13:14-15 were all about specifying which land is being discussed!

By the way, thank you for finding more support for the interpretation that God only created the land of Israel, since Israel is exactly what is being discussed in those verses, and referred to by ha’arets.

Sorry–arguments about what you would do if you were god may be relevant when debating god’s wisdom, but they are not relevant in discussions of inerrancy.

I acknowledge that I was positing what a typical sane, rational person would do in order to get vulnerable people out of the way of some imminent threat. I have no problem with you conceding that God, in the narrative, is insane, of course.

At any rate, the flood could be local and yet much larger than the area of Sodom.

The area doesn’t matter. The point is that there is no case where the time to physically travel out of the range of any local flood danger is greater than the time to construct a large ship (or its equivalent), from scratch, on land, in man-hours.

Unless, of course, you’re positing magic shipwrights. Are you?

Why, exactly, would a god need to save two (or sometimes 7) of every animal from a local flood? It’s not like any species are in danger of extinction (and God doesn’t limit the animals to just the rare ones, or mention an endangered-species preference; indeed, rather the opposite).

It is not at all clear, just because you say so, that one method of preservation is obviously superior.

The Internet Statement on Owlmirrorical Inerrancy says that my say-so, is so. If you don’t buy it, you’re just following your natural depravity.

The ark would not have floated to a mountain; it would have followed the floodwaters seeking lower ground.

What does this mean?

That water seeks the lowest level, of course. How do we know that floods have occurred? By the patterns of deposition and the debris flows.

Are you saying that nothing that floats during a flood ever comes to rest on high ground as the waters recede?

Well, I wouldn’t expect it to, by and large. If a flood fills a basin, the currents will tend to push floating things to the edges of the basin; to the new higher coast of the lake or sea that the flood creates. If it fills a river valley, then of course floating things will follow the slope of the river valley to the sea.

So, you’re basically positing that there’s some flooded basin that had a low hill called Ararat, and the ark snagged on this low hill, after a long period of time on the water, in preference to floating to and landing anywhere on the rim of the flooded basin?

This is your theory?

I’m pretty sure Owlmirror doesn’t think ‘God’ ever called on anybody to do anything.

Owlmirror doesn’t, but Owlmirror is used to discussing contextual reality and trying to take fiction on its own terms, until suspension of disbelief is broken.

Since nobody argues that God only created Palestine in Gen 1

And nobody argues that God only flooded a small local area in Gen. 6-8.

Some have argued that real floods (local river flood; Black Sea sill breach; Persian Gulf sea level rise) may well have inspired the stories, but not that the Bible narratives themselves directly and specifically refer to any of those local floods.

On the other hand, given that many Christians view Gen 7 as describing a local flood

I suspect that that many would view Gen 7 as being inspired by a local flood. I might be wrong, except for the fact that I cannot be wrong. Clearly, if Christians agree with you and not with me, then reality must be wrong.

heddle,

I’m late responding here where I recognize that if you haven’t subscribed to this thread I won’t be getting a response.

My challenge was for the all the extraordinary claims in Genesis 7 taken into context. Your narrowing those claims to a description of some water and land misses the following passages in that same chapter, RSV, which I emphasize here:

. . . 2 Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate; and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate; 3 and seven pairs of the birds of the air also, male and female, to keep their kind alive upon the face of all the earth. 4 For in seven days I will send rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground.” . . . 11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. 12 And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights. 13 On the very same day Noah and his sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them entered the ark, 14 they and every beast according to its kind, and all the cattle according to their kinds, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth according to its kind, and every bird according to its kind, every bird of every sort. 15 They went into the ark with Noah, two and two of all flesh in which there was the breath of life. 16 And they that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him; and the LORD shut him in. 17 The flood continued forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. 18 The waters prevailed and increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark floated on the face of the waters. 19 And the waters prevailed so mightily upon the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered; 20 the waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep. 21 And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, birds, cattle, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm upon the earth, and every man; 22 everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died. 23 He blotted out every living thing that was upon the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the air; they were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those that were with him in the ark. 24 And the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days.