Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

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/