Evolution and the Gospel

Not true. He doesn't say this anywhere. The Theory of Evolution is actually a number of theories, and has not been elevated to fact by the Pope.


God Bless

 

For what it's worth, my God did not have to use evolution to get it right, He did it right the first time out, just like my Bible says.

 

I have the same God as you and God did not have to use evolution to get it right. I think we can all agree to that.


God Bless

 

My bad! Sorry, I could have sworn I had read that he was RC.

 

Just out of curiosity, to those that allegorize the book of Genesis (RCC and Protestant):

The creation of Eve... please explain how the miraculous formation of Eve from a piece of Adam's side (the "rib" translation being a little questionable) equates with the allegorization that God gave some australopithecine (or some other ape) a soul.

 

Steve:

Why is rib questionable?

God Bless

 

Hey, Kathryn. I am not a Hebrew expert but I have read from different sources that the Hebrew idiom used in Gen. 2:21,22 does not refer specifically to the rib but to an area of the side which includes the ribs. The NIV translation uses the word "rib" but also gives a footnote.

Maybe I jumped over a couple of steps in using this as example of tying genesis to theology, but I think that some parts do not lend themselves easily to allegory. The story in Genesis is presented as history... it is WHY man is in the condition he is in today and it is also why God had to take on the additional nature of a human, to live the perfect human life in perfect obedience to the Father, to die a sacrificial death for sin in order to make atonement for sin, and to be resurrected as a physical human in order that we may also have the hope of physical resurrection and defeat over death.

 

Seems pretty specific that it is a rib God took out. I checked the King James Version and the Douay Rheims they all say rib.

God Bless

 

The choice of 'rib' for translation there is a very poor one, actually. The word being translated is sela or tsela. It is from a primary root which simply means 'to curve.'

It is used 41 times in the Old Testament. Ten of those times it is translated as 'side'.

Exodus 25:12 -- Cast four gold rings for it and fasten them to its four feet, with two rings on one side and two rings on the other.

Exodus 26:20 -- For the other side, the north side of the tabernacle, make twenty frames...

Similar references using 'sela' as a side of the tabernacle are in Exodus 26:26, 27, 35; Exodus 36:25, 31, 32; Exodus 37:3.

In Ezekiel 41, the word 'sela' is used 9 times in the description of his vision of the Temple.

What just occurred to me as I was looking this up to see what was going on is the thought that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit when we are Christians. That makes it very interesting that this word, used both in describing the Tabernacle and the Temple, is the word used for the place in Adam where Eve was taken from.

Thus, though, out of the 41 times the word 'sela' is used in the Bible, almost half have to do with sides or side rooms! It is also translated as 'sides' (four times), boards (two times), in conjunction with another word as 'opposite sides' (two times), and is also used in reference to a hillside, beams, a floor, and planks. It is translated as 'rib' in only that ONE place in the Bible -- so 'rib' as a bone may be too narrow a meaning for what the Bible is actually saying.

 

Helen: I like that comparison with the temple, and see an important analogy there, yet, I don't believe we can dismiss the reason the Bible translators used rib and not side. The next verse Genesis 2: 23 makes no sense if the bone of the rib, along with some flesh was not used. We can't just decide that the Bible translators made poor choice of words and change them to what we think is better. We have no authority to make these changes.


Genesis 2:21
And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;

Genesis 2:22
And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

Genesis 2:23
And Adam said, This [is] now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh : she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

God Bless

 

Good point. Barry checked the Dead Sea Scrolls (we just talked on the phone about this) and they leave out that verse altogether. The Alexandrian LXX also uses rib.

So we started talking. Most of the references are to either something 'stiff' like the masonry in the temple, or to wood itself, when not simply used as 'side' or a variant of side.

So it started to make sense that a curved part of our bodies which is 'stiff' and supporting would only be the rib -- and that part is in the side.

And yes, your reference to both bone and flesh does fit it better than 'just' rib.

Gets interesting when you start fitting pieces together even from this distance in time. God has left us enough to give us more and more understanding as we mature in Him. It's fun.

Something's gotta be fun! Some parts of this growing up are rather hard!

God bless.

 

I wondered about the LXX, but didn't know how to check it. Thanks. I just received today a book I ordered called Biblical Archaeology A Generation of Discovery by Siegfried H. Horn. I got his name from Barry's site. I will have fun tonight.

God Bless