If everything in the Bible is true, here is a softball for you: What is the age of Earth and the Universe? How and when did life come into being on Earth? Where Adam and Eve really the first humans? Did Noah's flood really happen? Exodus? Who wrote the Pentateuch and when?

Mark - the Bible does not tell us the age of the Earth or the Universe, just the identity of The Creator. Life came into being when God created it. Adam was the first human. Eve came second. Noah's flood really, really happened, as did the Exodus. Moses wrote most of the Pentateuch during the 40 years Israel was wandering in the desert. The Bible doesn't say when that happened, but many historians estimate that it most likely occurred somewhere between 1462 and 1405 B.C.

Let's play catch. What is the age of Earth and the Universe? How and when did life come into being on Earth? Where Adam and Eve really the first humans? Did Noah's flood really happen? Exodus? Who wrote the Pentateuch and when?

Lant ..I will still vote for you... even though... repentance and then its retention is really not required to achieve any true redemption...we must all contemplate the true meanings of the paths we have personally chosen within our lives....

Hi, Obe. While we must all contemplate the true meanings of the paths we have personally chosen within our lives, repentance and belief/trust in Christ is necessary for true redemption.

Historians believe Exodus occurred between 1462 and 1405 B.C. correct? Not creation? I believe that is what you were saying Lant?

ski, correct. I was referring to the writing of the Pentateuch, which, as you surmised, occurred during the Exodus.

Gotcha

Using the internal chronology of the Bible, scholars debate two popular dates as to the creation of the Universe 5199BC and 4004BC. Scientific tests date the Universe to 14 billion years old and the Earth to 4 billion years old. Archaeology has proven the existence of humans well before 5199BC and also proven no massive flooding of all of Earth. When analyzing the Pentateuch with source criticism, it is clear that many authors contributed to it over hundreds of years, hence the contradictions it contains. Nearly 2 million Israelites marched from Egypt to Canaan with out so much as a trace left behind plus the fact that Canaan's population was around 100,000 after the arrival. The Bible should be taken for what it is. A book of stories with morals to be taken from it, not the word of God. Believing literally in the Bible is like believing that Dan Brown's books are not fiction. Because some facts are contained within the stories we cannont accept the entire story as factual.

Hey Ma---toss them bibles in the pig pen...they ain't the word of God after all, I reckon....Mark_Hoffman (no less) said so!!!

Rant is mistaken.

Using only the Bible's own chronology, Archbishop James Usher calculated that the universe was completed on October 23, 4004 B.C.; on a Saturday afternoon.

(source: "Annales Veteris Testamenti, A Prima Mundi Origine Deducti: Una Cum Rerum Asiaticarum Et Aegyptiacarum Chronico", J. Usher, anno 1658).

...and the good news is, I will continue to find the answers to life's most intriguing questions right here on the blogs of the Auburn Journal.

Mark_Hoffman -

The myths in the Bible were not written as history or biography, but rather as mythos - in this case a metaphorical saga of the Hebrew tribes. Pneumatics know this, but Hyletics cannot yet understand it, and thus misconstrue the transcendent beauty of Mythos as an objective (albeit irrational) Logos.

Skeptic: you must live alone 'cause nobody else can fit in the room with your head! (cranius giganticus insufferablus ) Or is it that your are a "pneumatic" ya know, kinda like the co-pilot in "Airplane"? " The transcendent beauty of Mythos..." Oh just make me puke will ya!

Mark Hofmann, could you please name your sources for the information you post. As I have read other sources which agree with the bible as far as the flood. While it was believed for many years by science that this did not occur the belief is now that it did. Therefore, please give your sources and the date of the source. I really am interested. The information that I read was recent and science is now taking a closer look at the flood being a reality. I would also ask that you be specific as to the contradictions. I am interested so if you would I would like to look for myself. Thank you

open up the gates of the chruch and let me out of here.....

Mark - just got back and won't return until tomorrow. So briefly, here's my response. There is a debate amongst scholars as to the date of creation, because of the views on whether Genesis is referring to literal days or figurative periods of time since we know that, to God, a day is as a thousand years. There is also some debate as to whether the Bible contains all the generations. The two dates you refer to certainly are believed by many. To me, it is not important as far as anything to do with salvation is concerned. They are dealing with educated guesses, not black and white fact.

"Scientific tests" are all over the board on the age of the earth, and keep changing. Archaeology has "proven" nothing about the longevity of the human population. Age dating relies on unproven assumptions and provides inconsistent results. It also fails to explain many discoveries. It is also riddled with fraud regarding a number of past "discoveries." Observant is right regarding the flood. It explains a lot more about geological evidence than any other theory.

What proof is there that there is no evidence of the Exodus? Where did they look? How deep did they dig? How hard did they try? What evidence accepted by some was rejected by the atheists that claim there is no trace?

Explain to me how Jesus fulfilled so many prophecies of the Old Testament, if God did not inspire the suthors, and it is just a collection of stories.

observant- start here this will help demonstrate where I am coming from. It is brief and to the point from wiki, I will go on later. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah%27s_Ark Two of each or seven pair, and how on Earth at that time did species native to the Americas make there? The world was flat at that time.

Lant- It is much past my bed time I will answer your reply tomorrow. I do want you to know I value your belief and believe that you follow a true and pure path. This is in no way a personal attack.

From the Harry Potter books we all know that a real and true prophecy is made only by someone who was born with the magical gift of being able to see the future, like a necromancer or magus. When Voldemort picked Harry, he set the the ancient prophecy in motion. Later, in a subsequent book, Harry fulfills the prophecy, just like Jesus in the Bible. So did God inspire Harry Potter? Was it just an amazing coincidence Harry fulfilled the prophesy perfectly? Or was the story of the prophetic fulfillment simply adapted to fit the ancient prophesy?

"What proof is there that there is no evidence?" No evidence indicates there is no evidence. As you professionally know, the burden of proof is on the claimant. You claim the biblical Exodus happened. I provided a professional opinion that there is no evidence that the Exodus took place the way the Bible says it did.

Think about it. It is highly improbable that 600,000 men with their herds of livestock wandered in the desert for forty years without leaving a single piece of evidence; not a shard of pottery, not a piece of metal, not a lost coin or a Hebrew inscription, not a piece of trash or evidence of a campsite. Together with women and children, the biblical account was the movement of a couple of million people, who could actually fill the distance between Egypt and Israel by standing in line. Yet the otherwise meticulous Egyptians don't mention being abandoned by a workforce composed of one third of Egypt's entire population. Not a peep. And the Hebrews fled into Canaan, a heavily militarized Egyptian colony.

Common sense tells us that water, food and livestock forage might be hard to come by in the desert, especially for a crowd of a million ex-slaves. No physical evidence of the biblical Exodus has been found in an archaeological context, perhaps because evidence presupposes a physical and factual relation. Believers have beliefs. And beliefs are not, by their very nature, fact-based. Isn't faith enough?

A mythical tradition cannot make a claim to be historical and then refuse to have it evaluated by historians. It is not a historical claim that angels watch over us. But to state that an entire nation wandered across a particular desert at a particular time in the past and conquered a neighboring nation is a historical claim. One cannot then cry "unfair" when archaeologists evaluate it by applying the same professional standards they use to evaluate any historical claim.

Many of us, who claim to know Jesus, or be known by Him, haven't even left "Egypt" yet...For some of us who have already left, our "fear of the Lord" keeps us from returning...For some of us, the light is so strong, it keeps us carefully and in a state of fear and trembling...moving forward to the "land of milk and honey"...

slapstick - you have got to be kidding. Your providing a "professional opinion" does not establish anything as fact. Look at all the liars who provide junk science opinions in court. Buttheads with a bias.

If God provided food to sustain them and supernaturally made it so their clothes did not wear out, why would you expect to find discarded items? And even if you were looking for discarded items, where would you look? Do you know the path they followed? After over three thousand years, where would you look? How deep would you dig? You really think you would find a campsite? Where are the campsites of all other peoples that roamed the desert in those days? The Israelis did not flee directly into Canaan. They crossed the Red Sea from Egypt into Saudi Arabia. Believe it or not, there is evidence of their having been there.

You are saying all beliefs cannot be fact based and have to rely on faith? Do you believe Obama is president? Regardless, faith does not have to be blind. It can be, and for many, is based on fact and sound reasoning.

Lant,

Radiocarbon dating is pretty acurate to about 59,000 years. The prophecies of the old testament where not fulfilled, Jesus Christ may have existed as man but he was not a god, and cannot act has his own witness. Please tell me that if you had a daughter and she came to you pregnant and said she was a virgin you would believe her. Exodus did not happen, it would have destroyed Egypt at the time. Moses did not live 120 years, Noah did not live 600 years, and Adam did not live to be 930 years old.

Mark - I have not sensed a personal attack and look forward to the remainder of our exchange. Despite the summary provided by Wiki, there are both Biblical and Scientific reasons for believing that the Ark and the global flood were real. I do not have time right now but will provide you with references later, if you are interested.

There actually may be a few truths found in many of the myths that have been verbally passed down from one generation to the next...until finally they were written down by those that could not remember the entire stories as they were told. We all struggle with spirituality and a internal need to feel that there is more to our existence than meets the eye. Religion has helped fill the void for those who are seeking more....

I for one can envision an historical event such as a great flood somewhere on the planet in time long long ago.....happening to a race of people we did not know.

Observant- I can assure you mainstream scientists do not believe a world wide flood occurred. There was an episode discussing this on the Science Channel.

Sorry Lant- I hate to say it but "Scientific Tests" are not all over the board as to the age of the Earth. It's right at the 4 billion mark.

Lant- I am sorry but there are no scientific reason to believe the Ark and Flood were real. In fact it is quite the opposite. There is zero evidence of a world wide flood. The most likely answer (as the flood story was written well before any Biblical text dates) is due to the fact that the wall separating the Mediterranean and Black Sea gave way, causing the entire region surrounding the Black Sea to flood. People inherently lived very close to fresh water and as the Black Sea was at the time a major fresh water source, much of the world's population would have explained the event as a "great flood".

People back then also called comets dragons because they had no other way of explaining the mysteries of the universe.

http://science.discovery.com/top-ten/2009/natural-disasters/natural-disasters-01.html

They say it right there in the text "Most of the scientific community seems to regard the legend as nothing more than a myth"

ski - most of the scientific community are atheists and/or evolutionists. They interpret everything with their bias, which includes starting from the premise that there is no God or Creator. They rule out the truth before beginning their quest, and strain to make everything fit their ever-changing theories. Much scientific energy has been wasted over the last century in the search for evolutionary evidences and experimental proofs, which have been unsuccessful so far and will continue to be.

On the other hand, there are a growing number of creation scientists who come to the opposite conclusion. They are professionals, typically with advanced degrees from major universities, who are generally involved in the same types of work as the average scientist. The difference is that creation scientists have a "world-view", or "model" for their science which is based on the belief that an intelligent designer ("God") exists who created our universe and the natural things in it. The creation events were one-time events and are not taking place today.

ski - can you tell me why all the mountains of the world have been under water at some time or times in the past, as indicated by sedimentary rocks and marine fossils near their summits, if there was not a global flood?

I can assure you, you are the one with the biased agenda and not the people who try to educate people by presenting basic research, evidence and facts. Its about being keen on discovering the true past, what the real story is. That is far more important than trying to disprove God or Creation. It's education and most people who believe the earth is less than 10,000 years old are not very educated in the subject matter. You make statements like "Much scientific energy has been wasted over the last century..." and it's not. They're sentences invented by you and nothing more. It's absurd to see a creationist museum filled with people riding dinosaurs and it's left at that. There's no premise, no facts, just imagination. There are thousands upon thousands of scientific studies that all support the same thesis/conclusion. Behind the studies are mathematics; written hypothesis with mathematical support where 2 + 2 = 4. You present the argument that that statement is false; that 2 + 2 =5. You also seem to believe, that we are so important. We are not. Look up in the sky and you realize there are 14 billion light years of space and we don't even register the size of a nuclei.

As to your second question- that was actually researched and proven not true. Someone just like you said somewhere in the past that this is evidence, well in certain locations there is such evidence YES, but it is localized to that geographic area and not suggestive of a world wide flood. You know there is not enough water to flood the earth right?

Can you explain why when you look at a world map it is clearly obvious that the continents were once a single supercontinent? And when we reverse engineer the current movements we find that you have to go back 3.1 billion years? Please explain with your most scientific, educated, reason for how that is simply impossible?

People once still believed the earth was flat even after they were told no, no it isn't. Lant- You sound like a non-believer. A similar such rejection occurred amongst theologists when Copernicus said we revolve around the sun, we are not the center of the universe. It took great minds like Newton, Galileo and Kepler to finally convince the church that they shouldn't forbade Copernicus' Astrological Theory.

ski - you listen to your atheist scientists and I'll listen to my creation scientists and God. I will agree that it is absurd to depict people riding dinosaurs, but I disagree with your position on thousands upon thousands of scientific studies supporting the same conclusion, if that conclusion is some hypothetical validation of evolution.

Before the highest mountains rose, the deepest ocean valleys formed, and the plates shifted, there was plenty of water to cover the earth.

Why are there educated scientists with Ph. D.'s that disagree with you? Are they "not very eductaed?" The same evidence can lead to differing conclusions, depending on a person's bias. The question is which bias do you have.

As a for instance, the proposition that the Grand Canyon was formed over millions or billions of years by the Colorado River is absurd. It is more likely that most of it was carved out over a period of days. Would you like to look at the evidence?

How do you think life began? Mark hasn't answered that question yet. Want to give it a try?

People believed the earth was flat partially because they didn't pay attention to the Bible. It would have set them straight.

When the rest of the world believed the earth was flat, Isaiah declared that the world was round… Isaiah 40:22 “It is He who sits above the circle of the earth." The Hebrew word there for circle [“chuwg”] literally means “sphere.” When did Isaiah write these words? Between 740 and 680 B.C. That was at least 300 years before Aristotle suggested, in his book On the Heavens, that the earth might be a sphere. Other verses are Proverbs 8:27 and Job 26:10. More than 2,000 years later some people still believed that Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) was going to sail off the edge of a flat planet in 1492.

Before Isaac Newton discovered gravity Hindus believed that the earth rested on the back of an elephant who stood on the back of a turtle that was swimming in a great endless sea. The Greeks believed that the mythical god Atlas carried the earth on his shoulders. What did the Bible say? In one of the oldest books in the Bible, Job said, “He [God] hangs the earth on nothing.” Scientists did not discover that the earth hangs on nothing until 1650.

ski - I agree that the continents were once joined. You don't have to reverse engineer the currents if you introduce other forces, such as a great flood, fountains of the deep, and a restructuring of the earth's surface. Walt Brown has done a pretty good job of explaining this. The great flood explains a lot more about geology than any other theory I have read about.

The evidence is absolutely overwhelmingly in favor of the Grand Canyon being formed over millions of years. Is the Colorado river not obvious enough? What is absurd about that?

You can have a Ph. D. in BS and speak BS better than everyone else. Every person I know who thinks the earth is 10,000 years old are the last people I would ever trust with something like Investment Advice.

I won't even bother with the " before the mountains formed"

Hindus believe the earth rested on the back of an elephants, while you believe people can be born of a virgin and the grand canyon was made in days. I can't decide which is the most absurd.

Walt Brown isn't taken seriously in the real world.

To bad Christian Theologists didn't understand the Bible a little better back in the day. Or maybe it wasn't the same Bible?

The Epic of Gilgamesh was written 1300 before the earliest Biblical version. Can't deny verifiable facts.

Creationism is a small U.S. cultural belief set that is unfounded and unsupported. It's why it's not taught in the school system. Well it's mostly not taught because it can't be taken seriously.

I suppose you believe life began by a God sitting overhead who decided to make a universe 14 billion light years across, add one tiny little planet to house a bunch of different looking life forms, in a tiny little corner of the universe? That makes total sense. That God also made species with verifiable identical DNA within 2% because why? That God decided every life form on the planet would share DNA sequences that are the exact same but that God of course made all those different species individually and at basically the same time. As for the dinosaurs and other "pre-historic" creatures? Well God put their bones in the dirt. I do not and have never suggested life without a greater creator. I am simply implying evolution is the answer to the how and not the why. Is there a grand Architect overhead? Possibly, but most certainly not the Christian God you believe in.

ski - Walt is bad-mouthed by atheists because he's right and his theories help refute their evolutionary BS. Their criticisms of his work are weak. You do not want to know God. Your choice and your loss.

Neither you nor Mark have addressed the fulfilled prophecies which are historical fact.

By the way, ski, are you under the mistaken impression that I am in the business of giving "Investment Advice"?

He's bad mouthed because he doesn't know what he is talking about.

That's it? Well, enough for today. Won't be back 'til tomorrow.

No loss for me or you. When we die it will be as a dreamless sleep. Nor are any prophecies thus mentioned fact.

No I was using the investment advice as a tool to make a point. But in a sense what you offer is Investment Advice now that I think about it. What you offer is what you believe to be the truth and you feel it is your duty / burden to share that belief. To bring in more believers to your cause. I think the advice pretty much goes as follows: Believe in Jesus or risk burning in eternal hell fire.

ski - I know you doubt the virgin birth. Are you also saying Jesus wasn't a Jew, born in Bethlehem, of the tribe of Judah, and descended from King David? Did He preach the good news and perform miracles? Was He crucified between two theives? And so on.

I see what you are saying about investment advice, as it pertains to the soul. I certainly do not have a "burden" to share the gospel, just a calling and it is a joy.

Going back to your 2:25 post, studies have revealed that 2% is not an accurate number. However, why wouldn't God replicate the instuctions for life insofar as the basic code is concerned? Why, when different kinds mate, are their offspring unable to reproduce? Where are all the missing links?

Are you saying you might believe in Intelligent Design, as long as the Designer is not the God of the Bible?

I am saying I believe in the possibility, I just don't think God is a concept man can understand (maybe we are not supposed to). I am saying the Designer is not of any human belief set.

Lant, I can explain why the mountains have sea shells. It's not because of a flood covering the entire earth. Most likely it is the result of the 'mountain building process'.

There is evidence of gigantic waves, caused by tidal or seismic forces, sweeping parts of the earth. "Only those that clung to the highest mountains survived." is how the old story in the South Pacific goes. here's a short video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nS_aR8XX_U&NR=1

Chuxx, so you, unlike ski, admit that the mountains have shells. Good. Certain facts should be undisputable, but subject to various interpretations. One of the things that Walt Brown does in his book, "In The Beginning," is to compare how various theories address undisputable geological facts as well as other scientific discoveries. You might find it interesting.

ski - okay. How about the prophecies?

I know you believe the prophesies are true, I however, believe they unfounded.

BTW I never said mountains don't have shells. I said they are explained by the local historical geographic nature.

"they are unfounded"

Consider the lillies of the field, they toil not, neither do they spin....

ski - thanks for the clarification on the shells.

Are you saying you do not think the prophecies have been fulfilled? If so, why do you think the prophecies have not been fulfilled?