Hector Avalos has a new article in The Bible and Interpretation about the need for Biblical scholars to be involved in fighting creationism. Here’s a sample:
Scientists are not trained to recognize how creationists are distorting biblical texts. Thus, Jerry Coyne’s Faith v. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible (2015) does an excellent job of explaining scientific theory and methods, but one will not find any discussion of how most creationists are misreading Genesis 1-3.
Creationists in the pews tend to shrug off arguments about DNA, radioactive dating, and other technical subjects because they are not familiar with them. But one need not even go into these scientific intricacies if the Bible does not even say what creationists claim.
For example, most Bible readers today don’t realize that the Bible speaks of a heaven made of a solid material or a dome in Genesis 1. English translations often obscure that fact. Therefore, it will take a biblical scholar to explain that the Hebrew version of Genesis has a sky that is made of a metallic or solid material.
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