Links for August 25th

1. Forget Somali pirates. Who’s up for outfitting a privateer and waiting for Mr. Chavez’s gold?

2. Gold is at record high rates. Who in their right mind would think of buying at this time? This can’t end well.

3. Here’s the real evangelical perspective and response to above NPR.

4. I’m still a little puzzled about who it is that Cain and Abel got married to, exactly.

   Also the part about Adam living to be 900 years old is, scientifically, at least a little specious.

5. Here’s the real evangelical perspective and response to above NPR.

   Do you really think of “the evangelical perspective” as a monolith for which there can only be one “right” perspective?

   James, you might also puzzle over the double creation of Adam and Eve. First, in Genesis 1, he creates them:

   So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

   Great, got it. And then, confusingly, he does it again in Genesis 2:

   Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground, but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground. Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. […] [T]he Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

   Erm. What? What became of the first Adam? And Eve? Why are they treated like brand-new characters? Presumably it’s a simple editing error. And now a bunch of people try to take it literally. Like Cain moving to Nod and getting married.

6. Also the part about Adam living to be 900 years old is, scientifically, at least a little specious.

   Just wait till you get to the part where Jesus is raised from the dead.

7. actually, that article that Hans linked to had a pretty good quote in it; although ironically the article itself was actually incensed by it, this excerpt from Karl Giberson made a lot of sense to me:

   “The Bible is not a book. It is a library — dozens of very different books bound together. The assumption that identifying one part as fiction undermines the factual character of another part is ludicrous. It would be like going into an actual physical library and saying “Well, if all these books about Harry Potter are fictional, then how do I know these other books about Abraham Lincoln are factual? How can Lincoln be real if Potter is not?” And then “Aha! I have got you! So much for your library.””

   … not that I think much of it is actually factually correct, but it is important to remember that the Bible had dozens of authors and was assembled over the course of hundreds of years, in a time before we made clear deliniations between concepts like History, Science, and Religion.

8. Just wait till you get to the part where Jesus is raised from the dead.

   :)

9. Just wait till you get to the part where Jesus is raised from the dead.

   Hey, at least put a “spoiler alert” on these comments. I’m still reading the book, for crying out loud! :)

10. “Just wait till you get to the part where Jesus is raised from the dead.”

    Understood metaphorically …such symbolic burial and “resurrection” were not atypical of Middle Eastern mystery cults … the raised from the dead part is much easier to swallow than the “he lived 900 years” part.

11. I’d like to see Mann get all litigious on people who tore up his name.

12. …the raised from the dead part is much easier to swallow than the “he lived 900 years” part.

    Perhaps, but I don’t understand why you’d hold to a literal interpretation of Adam’s age in Genesis 5 (despite precedent to the contrary) and then choose to interpret the Gospel accounts of Christ’s death metaphorically. There’s a much stronger case to be made that the former is using literary license.

13. Jon: That would imply that there’s MORE evidence that someone was actually raised from the dead than that someone lived 900 years. I don’t think there’s any evidence that either actually happened. Taking a literal intepretation of either is irrational.

14. That would imply that there’s MORE evidence that someone was actually raised from the dead than that someone lived 900 years.

    Oh, but there unquestionably is. There’s a single statement in the Pentateuch referencing Adam’s age, whereas there are a handful of written accounts describing the narrative of Christ’s resurrection, and in fair detail.

    (Unless you mean physical, run-this-through-the-labs evidence, in which case I think you’re setting a standard that most of human history fails to meet.)

    To clarify, I’m not saying the historical record proves Christ’s resurrection, but there is irrefutably more evidence of the resurrection than of Adam’s age.

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