- Humans acquire a vast amount of factual information through testimony, arguably more than they learn through experience.
- The extensive reliance on testimony is remarkable given that one often cannot verify testimonial information.
- What makes testimony distinct from storytelling is that it has an implicit or explicit assertion that the telling is true. The literary format and style of the Gospels is that of the ancient biography, a historiographic genre that was widely practiced in the ancient word. Thus, one can regard these accounts as a form of testimony.
A Natural History of Natural Philosophy (pp. 165-172)
A more plausible explanation is that young children are psychologically disposed to acquire knowledge through testimony and perception: the information received in this way is basic, in the sense that it is unreflective and not based on other beliefs. This leads them to the impression that they have always known these facts. Also, and perhaps more crucially, children do not make a distinction between knowledge acquired through testimony and knowledge acquired through direct experience.
…children treat testimony to scientific and religious beliefs in a similar way.
…children do not find religious testimony intrinsically more doubtful than scientific testimony.
The current empirical evidence indicates that testimony is a fundamental source of knowledge, similar to memory and perception (in line with antireductionism), but that children and adults are sensitive to cues for the reliability of informants (in line with reductionsim).
Books such as the recent Faith vs. Fact by Jerry Coyne rely on this to be the case [that testimony is a fundamental source of knowledge], while at the same time denying that such knowledge counts as knowledge. Sadly, some commenters here at TSZ believe that Coyne’s “way to knowledge” is “the only way to knowledge.” Taking Coyne’s word for it is hardly convincing.
I liked it, but it took a while to get to it. I do most browsing on non-video-friendly devices. The main thing I have against videos is they take five or ten minutes to present information that would take thirty seconds to view in a chart. And when you are done, you don’t have the chart for reference.
Ah, I guess you prefer flies?
Geeze
The Pentateuch gives a very precise definition of shâmayim ‘heaven” care to guess what it is? Hint it’s not where the angels live or outer space.
Peace
Not much usually, The subject rarely comes up. When it does I share my understanding and they share theirs. We try to convince each other for a while Then we move on to more interesting stuff
peace
Ever hear of the incarnation? It’s the event that changed everything. The Incarnation removed the local old covenant and replaced it with the universal New Covenant.
On this side of the incarnation the local drama can be seen for what it always was merely a shadow of the ultimate reality
quote:
For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, (Heb 10:1a)
end quote:
peace
fifth,
You’re so cute when you try to bluff.
Care to explain how “all flesh under the heavens which breathes the breath of life” doesn’t mean “all flesh under the heavens which breathes the breath of life”?
Resume squirming.
How about you do some research on you own for once?
Here is a small nugget to get you started
quote:
On the second day of that week,God again spoke. This time he commanded the fog to lift up from upon the waters to form clouds over the “Land” In that way God filled the sky over the “Land” with clouds . He also named the area where the clouds floated overhead the “Skys”
Genesis: 1 6-8 (an interpretive translation : Dr John Sailhamer)
peace
Just give him the answer. We’re seeing “the courtier’s reply” writ large.
I already did. Here it is again
“Heaven” in the Pentateuch is simply the area above the “Land” where the clouds are.
peace
I’ve been there.
Clouds, a very geographically localized phenomena. Adding more cray-cray doesn’t appear to be helping..
Clouds are very localized. The weatherman said it was partly cloudy today and no one thought he was talking about the entire globe.
Ever hear of Montana “the Big Sky”country? Those crazy westerners must think that they own the entire atmosphere.
Come on man. Use your head
peace
I just looked up a definition for cloud cover
quote:
cloud cover
noun
1.a covering of clouds over all or part of the sky.
2.the fraction of sky covered by clouds.
end quote:
Surely you understand this to be a local phenomena? Or do you honestly think that we are talking about the entire atmosphere here?
peace
Does the Bible make any use of the word “all” in the context of the flood?
I’ll try.
So God is basically disgusted by humanity. And by humanity we mean a very localized people. So he tells Noah (age 600) that a flood is coming and he is to build and ark (which is shown to not be a viable vessel but, miracle or something) and gather up all the creatures of the world and by world we mean small region. He then floods the world (local region) so that even the highest peaks are covered (he contains the water by force fields or something) and then they finally settle on the Mountains or Ararat and get down to some insestual repopulation (man and beasts alike). God promises Noah never to kill every living (local) thing again (in that region) by way of a rainbow even though that region has had many floods since. No nearby cultures happened to record all of this, and the egyptians managed to continue building pyramids through it.
It makes perfect sense. And if you were to replace God and Noah with Allah and Mohamed you’d still be thinking “it looks water tight to me, very plausible”.
Bonus:
Noah burns some things. This pleases God: ” And the Lord smelled a sweet savour; and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.” by the ground he means THAT ground, and ‘every living thing’ is within a certain locality..
Yes, It’s usually in contexts like the following.
quote:
Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
(Gen 6:11-13)
end quote:
I read this to mean God will destroy “all flesh” on the “Land/earth” (‘erets). I think that the key to understanding the flood story is the repeated emphasis on the land. It’s a constant drumbeat The author of the story must have saw it as critical If you miss this you miss the point.
The book end of the flood story is found in passages like this one
quote:
“And now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the rules that I am teaching you, and do them, that you may live, and go in and take possession of the land that the LORD, the God of your fathers, is giving you.
(Deu 4:1)
end quote:
That is why it’s important
I hope that makes sense. If you are really interested I suggest you take some time and study this for yourself.
It’s possible when you are done you still will conclude that my understanding is all wet. That’s OK to each his own.
I really am not to concerned about how a bunch of atheists read it. I only shared my thoughts at all in response to a direct question
peace
No, I don’t find it interesting. Except in a clinical sense.
Fifth, you didn’t answer my question about Cain above.
It’s hilarious to watch fifth fight the Bible — and lose badly.
In the Pentateuch there are AFAIK two terms for earth/land ‘ădâmâh and ‘erets.
Just like words in English their exact meaning is determined by their context. Cain got expelled from the ‘ădâmâh to wander in the ‘erets of Nod that was east of Eden.
The importance of ‘ădâmâh in the passage lies not in it’s locality but in it’s connection to the soil that testified against Cain.
quote:
And the LORD said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground (‘ădâmâh).
(Gen 4:10)
end quote:
‘erets in this passage is not “the rest of the world” but a particular specific region called Nod.
quote:
Then Cain went away from the presence of the LORD and settled in the land (‘erets) of Nod, east of Eden.
(Gen 4:16)
end quote:
The closet thing in the Hebrew to what we think of as “globe” is probably têbêl it’s not found the the Pentateuch as far as I know.
Again you might want to research this for yourself. At the very least you’ll get a better understanding of the fascinating complex stories that form the foundation of western civilization.
Here are the definitions of each of these words. Just remember context is king
‘ădâmâh
ad-aw-maw’ soil (from its general redness): – country, earth, ground, husband [-man] (-ry), land.
‘erets
From an unused root probably meaning to be firm; the earth (at large, or partitively a land): – X common, country, earth, field, ground, land, X nations, way, + wilderness, world.
têbêl
the earth (as moist and therefore inhabited); by extension the globe; by implication its inhabitants; specifically a particular land, as Babylonia or Palestine: – habitable part, world.
I hope that helps
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
Thanks..
FFM:
“Heaven” in the Pentateuch is simply the area above the “Land” where the clouds are.
So heaven did not exist if there were no clouds or is the meaning the place where clouds form, the sky?
I read this to mean God will destroy “all flesh” on the “Land/earth” (‘erets). I think that the key to understanding the flood story is the repeated emphasis on the land. It’s a constant drumbeat The author of the story must have saw it as critical If you miss this you miss the point.I read this to mean God will destroy “all flesh” on the “Land/earth” (‘erets). I think that the key to understanding the flood story is the repeated emphasis on the land. It’s a constant drumbeat The author of the story must have saw it as critical If you miss this you miss the point.
The land existed prior to the Flood, the emphasis of the Flood is water cleansing the land,rather only the local land.
I really am not to concerned about how a bunch of atheists read it. I only shared my thoughts at all in response to a direct question
If you are contending that the Bible is factually correct, then it should be immaterial who your audience is.
Do you have any thoughts on why the Bible which is the divinely inspired Word requires years of study to understand and apparently is so easily misunderstood if the point is to communicate the Truth?
Are the translations from the original not divinely inspired?
Why would the Church allow an incorrect version of the Flood to be taught?
What would the point be of a local flood? There are lots of local floods. There have been floods in recent years that have killed more people that the population of the middle east five thousand years ago.
And if the Flood did,’t kill everyone on the planet, what was the point? As long as you are doing a local cleansing that kills infants and fetuses, why spare Noah? Presumably there were other people outside the flood zone that hadn’t pissed god off.
As long as we are reading things in contest, we could consider the English word, earth.
Earth can mean dirt; it can mean land; it can mean the planet we live on; it can mean generic rocky planet. It can, in context, suggest things that are “dirty”, like sex. Earthy.
The context on the flood story suggests god was angry at humankind and intended to destroy humankind. What say you, Fifth?
As a bunch of people have already noted, this local flood biz is a double-edged sword. Because the creation in Genesis is also of “ha-erets.” I.e., on Fifth’s interpretation, God created something like a zip code and then took over the place.
I mean, given enough interpretative latitude and desire, you can make any words fit any facts, but you have to be willing to live with the result. In this case, God designated a patch of land for the Hebrews, “made it” sometimes sunny, sometimes dark there, suggested its use for a few species, including humans. Adam was guided there, got naughty, a bunch of people were begotten there, etc.
I take the moral to be that you can make the flood story true if you’re willing to turn God into something like a successful–if weirdly crabby, bossy, and domineering– tour guide with some magic skills.
In the New Testament I’m guessing the “walk on” will be seen to be a mis-translation (again due to modern, non-genuine skepticism) of “swim in.” (I mean have you folks actually never heard expressions like “Jones could really get around on the water” or “Remember when Jones fell into the drink? Have you ever seen anybody ‘get over’ it with such speed?”) Or maybe “water” refers to the result of a particular bodily function, and walking on it is nothing but the rather mundane treading on a particular (unclean) area. (Surely even fake skeptics of the kind in such abundance here have heard of making water!)
These are games anybody can play, and, admittedly they’re both fun and can produce interpretations that cannot be refuted. But they also betray result-orientation to a degree that’s absolutely astounding.
The danger, again, is not only the farcicality of such a program, but also that one quite likely ends up with nothing that anybody would consider a reasonable object of worship.
I guess the miracle of the Flood is that it wasn’t very miraculous.
At least not obviously.
Glen Davidson
Fifth just exists at a higher level than mere atheists. Other possibilities, untrammeled by perceptual and experiential limits, are laid open, so that a crowd of resurrected saints at one point in the first century is neither surprising nor unlikely. And, what looks to all the world like a story where a flood exterminated everything (fish, bugs? Sure, you can quibble, but don’t) except what was in a boat, becomes a local disaster. Why the boat? More drama, perhaps.
Words must be as unlimited as our expectations. Just because you and everyone alive haven’t seen once-rotted corpses wandering the streets means nothing to the odds of that happening. And just because you have never recognized words understood for millenia to indicate a world-wide disaster as instead meaning “local flood” doesn’t mean that they can’t mean just that.
Yes, while you silly atheists believe in limits and try to make sense of it all, clearly there’s no need for limits or making sense.
Glen Davidson
I’d say more like a successful mafioso. From the very beginning: nice garden you’ve got, Adam, shame if anything happened to it.
Maybe the capo di tutti capi was getting tired of the effort it takes to stay on top and that’s why he raised his son to take over the family business. That was good, the son figured out all kinds of ways to enlarge their territory.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FaUq4h818E8
O Mung where art thou?
Both fifth and Mung are (understandably) embarrassed by the Bible.
This was Mung’s reaction to Matthew’s mass resurrection story:
Mung clearly doesn’t want to believe that Matthew was talking about a physical resurrection, but the text says otherwise:
Deal with it, Mung.
keiths,
But KeithS, They’re read far more and are far more skeptical..
Here is the quote again
quote:
WE AFFIRM that inspiration, strictly speaking, applies only to the autographic text of Scripture, which in the providence of God can be ascertained from available manuscripts with great accuracy. We further affirm that copies and translations of Scripture are the Word of God to the extent that they faithfully represent the original.
end quote:
You seem to have an odd understanding of what the church is. It really is not in a position to “allow” anything. It’s just a ragtag bunch of believers it does not have any political power.
peace
You are divorced from reality.
Where did you get the idea there was a boat involved? The text says ark. There is a huge difference between an ark and a boat and understanding the difference is important in understanding the story.
Is it any wonder I would get the idea that you all have rejected a strawman?
peace
No the creation in Genesis 1:1 is a “merism”. That is a whole different kettle of fish.
I’m amazed, Do you guy really think this stuff has not been thought through? comparing scripture with scripture is the key to exegesis.
peace
The problem is not in believing in limits. It’s in thinking what you learned as a small child is the entire picture.
What would you think of a redneck who rejected evolution because he heard about it in kindergarten and it did not seem logical to him.
Evolution is more nuanced than the stuffed you leaned as a child. The same goes for Christianity.
As far as making sense of it all. That is pretty much the opposite of what you all are doing. You seem to have a vested interest in making it nonsensical.
Why else would you bring up zombies? You certainly did not get that from trying to “make sense” of the text?
peace
No. Christianity is based one book (well two testaments etc) that haven’t changed. This book is internally conflicted, factually wrong, at odds with history and science.
Well, you can call ’em whatever you want. Don’t wanna call ’em zombies, fine, pick another term. But whatever the term is, there is no way to “make sense” of a text which tells a story — which we’re supposed to believer “really happened” (because, duh, gospel good news and truth!) — that there were many of those whateveryoucallems who had been dead people, who had been in their tombs, when the graves opened and the whateveryoucallems walked/floated/were transported from inside graves to somewhere outside graves … where supposedly “many” people witnessed them.
You can call it whatever you bloody like, but you still can’t explain it.
Because dead people don’t rise up from graves and visit their friends and relatives. Because previously-dead people don’t get reanimated or reincorporated into not-dead or new bodies and get out of what had previously been their graves to go visit their friends and relatives.
And if they did, miraculously, in this one location Jerusalem and at this one instance right as Jesus gave up the ghost, then it would have made the Roman histories (not just Matthew’s tale) because it would have been do amazing, so important, so stirring that — even if it didn’t inspire revolution in the streets — news of the appearance of the whateveryoucallems would have been reported to the governor and it would have been gossiped about for months if not years all around the shores of the Med.
It’s not just that all (christian and non-christian alike) historical scholars know better than to take written stories about miracles as evidence that the supposed miracles did in fact occur. It’s not just that everything we’ve learned about biology (and chemistry, and entropy) points out that dead people don’t rise from their graves. It’s not just that the christian god has never seen fit to work another such miracle since then — although surely there have been plenty of other christian saints who would have been more deserving of a reanimation than a random bunch of Jewish proto-christians who had died before Jesus did. It’s all of those things put together, and more, that makes it impossible for a sane person to take Matthew’s tale literally or seriously.
And yet, the only problem you have with that tale is that we choose to call ’em zombies.
Boy, are you confused.
So is that all I know about it, or are you just making shit up?
I’m thinking the latter.
Do you reject evolution, then?
Not especially. There are a whole lot more details, but they don’t necessarily change the meaning.
Gee, were those college courses I took on the Bible really geared for children?
I didn’t. You did.
You didn’t get that from what I wrote, jerk. I mentioned “once-rotted corpses” specifically to allow that they may not then be rotted corpses. Try not reading your prejudices into what I wrote.
Glen Davidson
So, to be clear, “erets” in the Noah story means land in the area, but “erets” in the creation story does NOT mean land in the area: there, it means the entire earth. The result of this dual meaning is that, while the Flood was not such a big deal, the Creation was a very big deal. That’s very convenient, and, as I said earlier, is also kind of an amusing game. The more one equivocates, the more fun one can have!
FWIW, what you here call “studying” (and seem quite proud of), many would refer to as “weaseling” and be at least a little embarrassed about.
Watching. Laughing. Do carry on, all of you.
Two people have recently made comments worth reading. fifth, who you all just laugh at, and Kantian Naturalist, who you all just ignore.
And I bet if you all try just a little harder you can get KN to leave in disgust.
But the “critics” are the literalists! But then I think you know that 😉
Have you read Nahum Sarna?
There wouldn’t be any connection to you finding what they write congenial, would there? Do you really not notice this?
BtW, I don’t ignore KN. I recently asked him a question about a post of his that I didn’t understand. He hasn’t responded.
Of course I notice it. Why do people think mocking something is better than learning about it? Do they do so because they find it congenial? Are they just too close-minded and dogmatic?
Oh sure, let’s talk scripture with a bunch of atheist fundies!
That may be worth an OP.
Please do quote one of the comments Fifthmonarchyman recently made which you think is “worth reading”.
And since I know I’ve already read it, whichever it was, please also indicate why you think it’s worth something, so I have a chance of understanding what significance you think I’ve apparently missed. A few non-cryptic words, if you can …
It is possible to be explicitly understandable, Mung, if you just try.
Mung, why do you think this is an either-or question?
Personally, I’m offended that you don’t pay enough attention to me to notice that I prefer BOTH learning about something AND mocking it.