III : With Ignatius of Antioch and Ron Aller : Less than One Day Ago

With Ignatius of Antioch and Ron Aller : I : Before I Get In & My First Response · II : Two Days Ago / One Day Ago · III : Less than One Day Ago · IV : Epilogue

Ignatius of Antioch

@Hans-Georg Lundahl So if that reading is possible all the celestial bodies are in a hard dome above us and there is an ocean behind it? That is not possible very observable evidence! The waters about and the sun and moon under than is mentioned multiple times after the flood even if that didn't have the issue of the celestial bodies. Job mentions the hard surface around the earth.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Ignatius of Antioch ""popular narrations" are narratives like historical ones that didn't exist in the 13th century BC"

Sorry, the Genesis, the Exodus, the Leviticus, the Numbers, the Deuteronomy, the Joshua, if not yet all of the Judges, and arguably already Job are there to contradict you. Historical ones did exist.

"So you're a Sede? The Church teaches that the office of the pope will never be vacant."

Can't teach that. There is usually a vacancy between the death of a Pope and election of the next.

Next question is how long that vacancy can be. I think Sedes proper have a problem with a vacancy now 62 years long (thought in terms of 72, my sloppy choice of terms in calculation, but 62). The problem will be very acute in 2030 when that becomes 72.

I am a conclavist and Pope Michael was elected after perhaps 32 years vacancy (1958 - 1990) or perhaps 1 year vacancy (1989 - 1990, counting from Giuseppe Siri's death, if he was Pope but forced to step back).

Less big problem, right?

"even if he was saints can be wrong."

One saint can be, all saints can't be. You are claiming saints - specifically church fathers - would also, others of them, support long age or non-factuality of accounts in Genesis, you need to show who and where, not just say of each I cite he could be wrong because he's just one of many.

Ignatius of Antioch

@Hans-Georg Lundahl No they don't contradict me you just haven't read them. The language in dogma is worded to allow a conclave before the next pope so there is no issue with the succession. There are lots of variants of Sede and they very on which pope they think is an antipope. If you oppose one pope elected by a majority then you're a kind of Sede. Bringing up pope Michael not an elected by a majority or a conclave is really questionable. No present valid ordination exists or Apostolic Succussion. Now I know you're nuts! All the Fathers of the Church don't agree in this issue and not all the saints said what cited from Aquinas.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Ignatius of Antioch "I gave an example of context earlier so that is not true. All your book's arguments from the Fathers use spurious quote books, are out of context or are just narrating the scriptures."

If so, I forgot - or you called it context and I refuted it. What example was it?

What would "my book" be? Did you not catch that I have read Church Fathers?

"Augustine didn't believe in 6 days of creation and did embrace a non-literal view"

Of the term days, not of the account as such, as a whole. Remember I have actually read over the limit between books 5 and 6 in his De Genesi ad Litteram libri XII. Not quotes, full length text, though I concentrated on the passage where non-literality of six days came in.

"is the same wording used for myths all over heir culture and it even is phrased before with parables."

Show one single example where that phrase ust mean myth, if not you are bluffing.

Parables refers to some of Christ's words being parables (like lost son, or sower and bad and good soil).

"Ancient Near East Epic poetry isn't the same as allegory."

I don't think Gilgamesh is very like Genesis.

So, you cannot claim to intimately know a culture and from that knowledge assign the genre "Ancient Near East Epic poetry" to Genesis.

"If you think entering cosmology in the wrong order and then giving a different order of the same cosmology is historical then you have reading issues."

I don't see either a wrong order or a different order.

Also, I don't see where you get your "historical knowledge" of cosmology from.

"A part of your problem is you're comparing Greek and Latin mythology with Ancient Near East mythology while they borrowed some things their writing style is different and it even differs from nation to nation."

You know, what I know of Ancient Near east is closer to Nordic myth than to Genesis.

"So if that reading is possible all the celestial bodies are in a hard dome above us and there is an ocean behind it?"

You did not bother to read my debate with Drew on that exact matter before answering? Because "hard" dome and "ocean" behind it is not in the text.

"The waters about and the sun and moon under than is mentioned multiple times after the flood even if that didn't have the issue of the celestial bodies. Job mentions the hard surface around the earth."

Know what?

• 1) Genesis is history, as seen from chapters 2 to 50 (all events observable by men, in some cases by prophecy).
• 2) This means Genesis 1 is history too. Note very well, if you argue Genesis 1 is not history, and then argue from that that Genesis 2 to 50 isn't history either, you are putting the cart before the horse.
• 3) If you have a serious issue with anything in Genesis, Job, Hezechiel or whereever, read my debate with Drew first, and THEN approach on what I haven't answered there! Pretty please!

Ignatius of Antioch

@Hans-Georg Lundahl you really didn't refute I responded later and your next point is full of presuppositions like what a myth means to different people? Does it mean the message is a myth about God? However, I will answer it St. Augustine said, "These works are recorded to have been completed in six days (the same day being six times repeated), because six is a perfect number — not because God required a protracted time, as if He could not at once create all things, which then should mark the course of time by the movements proper to them, but because the perfection of the works was signified by the number six. For the number six is the first which is made up of its own parts, i.e., of its sixth, third, and half, which are respectively one, two, and three, and which make a total of six." (The City of God, book 6, chapter 30) That was near the end of his life! St. Augustine also said, "It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he [the non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are. In view of this and in keeping it in mind constantly while dealing with the book of Genesis, I have, insofar as I was able, explained in detail and set forth for consideration the meanings of obscure passages, taking care not to affirm rashly some one meaning to the prejudice of another and perhaps better explanation. ("The Literal Interpretation of Genesis, chapter 19) "With the scriptures it is a matter of treating about the faith. For that reason, as I have noted repeatedly, if anyone, not understanding the mode of divine eloquence, should find something about these matters [about the physical universe] in our books, or hear of the same from those books, of such a kind that it seems to be at variance with the perceptions of his own rational faculties, let him believe that these other things are in no way necessary to the admonitions or accounts or predictions of the scriptures. In short, it must be said that our authors knew the truth about the nature of the skies, but it was not the intention of the Spirit of God, who spoke through them, to teach men anything that would not be of use to them for their salvation." ("The Literal Interpretation of Genesis, chapter 20)

@Hans-Georg Lundahl No Nordic myths are written in a different style with fewer details about their location and people. Often in Ancient Near East myths at least half the people were real people even some of the gods were named after kings or were an actual king. I get my knowledge of their cosmology from tablets and artifacts. Hard dome and water behind it are in the text "raqia" is a hard dome and the waters were separated by it and the stars, moon and sun were in the dome.

@Hans-Georg Lundahl It was in this thread! St. Basil the Greats says, "Such is also the character of eternity, to revolve upon itself and to end nowhere. If then the beginning of time is called one day rather than the first day, it is because Scripture wishes to establish its relationship with eternity. It was, in reality, fit and natural to call one the day whose character is to be one wholly separated and isolated from all the others. If Scripture speaks to us of many ages, saying everywhere, age of age, and ages of ages, we do not see it enumerate them as first, second, and third. It follows that we are hereby shown not so much limits, ends and succession of ages, as distinctions between various states and modes of action." (Hexaermeron 2:8) This follows your 24 hour day citation.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Ignatius of Antioch "No they don't contradict me you just haven't read them."

I have.

"The language in dogma is worded to allow a conclave before the next pope so there is no issue with the succession."

The wording is "perpetuos successores" and doesn't mention conclaves. This means "perpetual" doesn't mean every day.

"There are lots of variants of Sede and they very on which pope they think is an antipope."

With Palmarians, it starts - ends - and starts again around a real "Paul VI", considered as prisoner in the Vatican. Now you don't need to explain different shades of Sede to me, I know more about the subject than you, as you will see.

"If you oppose one pope elected by a majority then you're a kind of Sede."

By a majority of legitimate electors in a legitimate conclave.

"Bringing up pope Michael not an elected by a majority or a conclave is really questionable."

He was elected by a majority of 5 against 1 (himself), in an emergency conclave, to which clergy, including Cardinals, were invited but didn't show up.

"No present valid ordination exists or Apostolic Succussion."

Are you denying the apostolic succession after Duarte Costa, or are you unaware that:

• Pope Michael was ordained and consecrated bishop Gaudete weekend 2011;
• a Pope or bishop can be elected before he is ordained (St. Ambrose of Milan even before he was baptised)?

"Now I know you're nuts!"

Check Matthew 5:22. Carefully.

"All the Fathers of the Church don't agree in this issue"

You didn't quote me, but I presume the general topic Young Earth Creationism. Yes, they did, but not six-literal days.

"and not all the saints said what cited from Aquinas."

He knew them better than both you and I.

"The City of God, book 6, chapter 30"

Proves St. Augustine was not for six literal days, but not that he was against literality of other aspects of the Genesis 1 account. Also clearly disproves the idea he would have accepted long ages as interpretation of the six days, at least shows he didn't.

"The Literal Interpretation of Genesis, chapter 19"

Is it from De Genesi ad Litteram Liber Imperfectus? Or from De Genesi ad Litteram Libri XII, and if so from which of the books?

I seem to recall it is from the latter and from book one, which I read much of. Now, nowhere in it does he say anything about long ages, and what he considers must not be allowed to happen is making Bible (by faulty contradiction) contradict what is certainly known from experience and reason, which is not the case with long ages (or with Heliocentrism).

"The Literal Interpretation of Genesis, chapter 20"

It so happens, Earth orbitting Sun and such a Neanderthal skeleton being 40 000 years old do not enter into his terms "the perceptions of his own rational faculties".

"No Nordic myths are written in a different style with fewer details about their location and people."

I was not thinking of style, but of content. Osiris is parallelled in Baldr, and Marduk vs Tiamat in Odin, Vile, Ve vs Ymir.

When it comes to Heroic Legend, this is not even so, though sometimes the sequence seems garbled - Theoderic of Verona serving Attila and opposing Ermaneric.

This stylistic difference between Nordic (divine myth) and ANE myths is not a reason to take OT books for being as little factual as these.

"Often in Ancient Near East myths at least half the people were real people even some of the gods were named after kings or were an actual king."

I'd agree. I'd just not agree that Genesis and the other ones have somewhat less than half of the people fake people.

"I get my knowledge of their cosmology from tablets and artifacts."

Which makes it sketchy at best. And then you go on to misapply it to Biblical cosmology as per Genesis 1, certain chapters of Job, etc. AND, even worse, conclude from Genesis 1 being scientifically inaccurate, that Genesis 2 to 50 is historically inaccurate.

"Hard dome and water behind it are in the text "raqia" is a hard dome and the waters were separated by it and the stars, moon and sun were in the dome."

Firmament or raqia is in the text. Waters above (one level of) the firmament are in the text. Thank you for changing "ocean" to "water". We do find H2 and H2O by spectrography in the vastness of the universe, above the (lower levels of) the firmament. But you still haven't shown that the raqia is a hard dome. You haven't shown it is made by atoms linked to each other in unchanging configurations, like the stones in a building (physical definition of a solid), since you haven't shown it is made by atoms at all. I'd say the raqia is the matter between particles, and it is in certain ways more solid than solids (hence things in texts that can be interpreted as solids) and in other ways less so (it can be transversed by particles or configurations of them, as if it were literally the void modern physics imagines).

"It was, in reality, fit and natural to call one the day whose character is to be one wholly separated and isolated from all the others. If Scripture speaks to us of many ages, saying everywhere, age of age, and ages of ages, we do not see it enumerate them as first, second, and third. It follows that we are hereby shown not so much limits, ends and succession of ages, as distinctions between various states and modes of action."

Oh, this is supposed to say days one, two, etc could be long ages? No. While I missed this, St. Basil is talking about the relation of day one to eternity. And he is very explicitly excluding this from applying to second, third etc days. What he is saying is, day one does not come successively after an eternity past. Fine with me. The reference to ages is not saying the days are ages, it is disproving it by saying you don't say "second age, third age" and so on about the phrase "ages of ages". It is a denial of succession, not an affirmation that times amounting to millions of years succeeded each other within the days.

Thanks for proving, once again, that St. Basil was a Young Earth Creationist. And if you don't get it, learn to read!

I look at one specific sentence:

"Often in Ancient Near East myths at least half the people were real people even some of the gods were named after kings or were an actual king."

Does "Ignatius of Antioch" really imagine that it is different in Greco-Roman or Nordic myth? I enumerated events that could not at all have happened, but no persons that could not have lived. Perseus can have killed a dragon, but not been received into the stars. Hercules can have killed a lion barehand (like Samson did), and even rid the Lernaean Marshes of what would be a demonic apparition (perhaps not same way as that used by St. Front with La Gratusse), but even so he cannot have taken turns with Atlas carrying heaven on his shoulders. He can have bragged that, he can have imagined that, but he cannot have done that./HGL

A little PS, so far (if I get more responses, I'll be happy to make a new post):

matrixlone

@Hans-Georg Lundahl young earth creationism comes from Ellen G white and she stated all the specific claims of young earth creationism like Noah's flood being the cause of the grand canyon..

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@matrixlone There were Catholic priests considering Noah's Flood as cause of Paris basin before Ellen G White.

Thanks for showing off your half learning in history, how about getting a bit more all sided in historic lore?