Darkness at noon

EDWARD T. BABINSKI SAID:

“Steve, Have you read my chapter yet?”

Why would I waste time and money on your potboilers when I can read actual scholars in the field?

“Or looking for excuses not to do so?”

I don’t have to look for excuses not to do so. They come running to me.

“What exactly do you believe about Genesis 1 and its relation or non-religion to science, cosmology and geological history?”

I believe that Gen 1 is a somewhat stylized account of how God made the world.

I’m not especially interested in how it relates to science. Rather, all that matters is how it relates to reality. In that respect, Gen 1 is true to reality.

Science is not reality. At its best, science is a human construct, based on human perception, along with various metascientific assumptions and evidentially underdetermined extrapolations.

Lately, science has also been deformed by methodological naturalism.

“If Noel Weeks really said that ‘a three-tiered cosmology isn’t even really identifiable within ancient near eastern creation myths’ then he can argue that point with the Egyptian and Mesopotamian experts I mentioned.”

i) Since I’ve quoted extensively from his article (in another post), there’s no reason to speculate on what he said.

ii) You aren’t attempting to counter his arguments.

“Do you honestly believe that one Young Earth creationist ancient historian Noel Weeks who writes for ‘Answers in Genesis’ is on par with the scholars I mentioned in my blog reply (and in my chapter) whose specialties are ANE cosmologies?”

i) Why not? His doctoral advisor was Cyrus Gordon, the premier ANE scholar of his generation.

ii) Moreover, I quoted two of your own scholars to disprove your sweeping contention. Try not to be blindingly obtuse.

Anyway, this is just a smokescreen on your part because you can’t deal with his arguments.

“The three-tier view was held for thousands of years in both Egypt and Mesopotamia. It's visible in ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian writings and the Bible, and visible in creation myths, creation-related passages, and implied in other passages that do not directly discuss cosmology.”

Once again, I quoted from two of your own scholars to the contrary. Are you illiterate?

But while we’re on the subject, here’s another quote from Horowitz:

“A number of Sumerian incantations may preserve a Sumerian cosmographic tradition of seven heavens and seven earths that can be compared to the three heavens and earths of the Akkadian mystical-religious text KAR 307 30-38,” Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography, 208.

Is that a 3-tier view? Sounds like a contrast between a 14-tier view and a 6-tier view.

“But assuming that is a correct summation of Weeks' view I'd like to know what Week means by ‘isn't really identifiable.’"

If you’d like to know what he means, you might begin by reading his article.

“Lastly, If you want to discuss my chapter, fine. But you should read it first, along with the endnotes, and then tell me how much ‘science’ you think remains in the Biblical creation story in Genesis 1.”

i) I’m commenting on information that you volunteered over at Hip & Thigh, along with your subsequent comments to me (such as they are). You chose what information to put out.

ii) In addition, Ed, you’re just a hack popularizer. If I want to read attacks on how unscientific or mythological Gen 1 allegedly is, there are plenty of “scholars” I could turn to. Indeed, I’ve read my fair share. Since you’re the one who keeps hyping credentials, you disqualify yourself in the process.

“How Genesis 1 fits with the sacred day of the week and sacred festivals of the ancient Hebrews.”

Naturally, since Gen 1 inaugurates the pattern.

“What have you read lately on ANE cosmic geography? Answers in Genesis articles?”

For some reason, you suffer from a compulsive need to make a public fool of yourself. When, in my prior response to you, I quote verbatim (with pagination) from two of your own scholars, doesn’t it dawn on you that I’m getting my information direct from the source? Must you be so dense?

As to who all I’ve read on the general topic, that includes Gregory Beale, Daniel Block, John Currid, Peter Enns, Richard Hess, Wayne Horowitz, Thorkild Jacobsen, Othmar Keel, Kenneth Kitchen, Terence Mitchell, Jeffrey Niehaus, John Oswalt, David Tsumura, John Walton, Noel Weeks, and Donald Wiseman, among others.

“Yeah, those are really going to bring back ‘scientific creationism,’ though I really think the dioramas of Eden with dinosaurs at the Creation Museum are doing the job, a sanctified Flinstones pre-history of man. My what literate heights creationists are reaching these days.”

I wasn’t defending scientific creationism in my response to you. I was merely responding to the execrable quality of your reasoning.

However, if you insist on making invidious comparisons, then YECs like John Byl, Marcus Ross, Jonathan Sarfati, Andrew Snelling, and Kurt Wise stack up quite nicely next to the likes of you.