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  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: Robert K Brumbelow <lomeint5 AT yahoo.com>
  • Cc: Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Eden
  • Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2004 03:33:59 -0700

On 14/06/2004 03:03, Robert K Brumbelow wrote:


...
Peter,
You can say that, yet I have been in the mountains in Colorado and in the Alps and in both places I have found sedimentary rock. That to me is pretty strong evidence of a world wide flood. Further I live in North Central Texas hundreds of miles from the nearest coast and hundreds of feet above current mean sea level where almost all of our stone deposits are sedimentary. Now my understanding is that sedimentary rock only forms under a liquid such as water. ...


Yes, of course there is sedimentary rock in very high places, indeed right at the top of the highest mountains. Some sedimentary rock is laid down by rivers and in lakes, or by wind (sand dunes don't need water, but they become sedimentary rock), but indeed most of it is laid down by the sea, and some of this is found on the highest mountains. If you ask geologists who have spent their life studying this, the reason is that this land has been lifted up, by earthquakes and more gradual processes, over periods of millions of years, and simultaneously gradually worn away by water, ice, wind etc until in many places only mountain peaks remain.

... I would not be so quick to divorce faith and science. it has been my own personal experience that when one is in conflict with the other its because of a misunderstanding or bad facts.


I don't want to divorce faith and science, but I do want to show up bad science for what it is. There are too many people who decide in advance what conclusions they want to find (often, but not always, based on faith but often with a lot of their own preconceptions of what the Bible etc means mixed in) and then find some pseudo-scientific means of reaching that conclusion. Very often this science is transparently bad to anyone (like me) with a degree in science and a critical mind.

And to bring this back to biblical Hebrew etc, the same principle applies in physical science as in linguistics, archaeology etc: if you reach a conclusion which is quite different from that of the established scholars in the field (whether geologists, theologians, archaeologists or whoever), you may be right, but you need to make very sure that you are if your result is to be accepted by anyone except for an uncritical fringe.

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/





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