How do you know the Bible is from God?

by cognac 77 Replies latest jw friends

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  EverAStudent

  All good questions.

  Remember that God knew that we humans would sin before He created the world and He even planned on a means by which to save us from sin before He created the world (Ephesians 1:4, 2:10). Therefore, He obviously never intended THIS earth to be an everlasting paradise.

  Romans 5:12 tells us that death first came into the world when Adam and Eve sinned. This is why "creationists" like myself believe that the evidences used by evolutionists to theorize an evolutionary advance of life is wrongly interpreted. If evolution were the way that life came into the world then the garden would have been planted on a billions-of-years-old graveyard that also contained the parents of Adam and Eve. Death would already have been present, so what kind of a hollow warning would it have been for God to tell Adam and Eve, "don't sin or you will die"? Did they not expect to die anyway? So much for paradise.

  I know that you have come to believe that the evolutionary scientists have "proven" that life came about naturally over billions of years. In so much as they have convinced you, they have "proven" their case. They have not convinced me, so I continue to consider the evidence of the biblical creation account to be persuasive. It is a matter of faith. Just as the literalness of the flood is a matter of faith.
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  Judge Dread

  In the end, it's a matter of faith.

  Judge Dread
• 

  inkling

  Romans 5:12 tells us that death first came into the world when Adam and Eve sinned.

  So... to be clear, do you mean that before Adam and Eve
  sinned, there was NO death, even of animals?

  Just as the literalness of the flood is a matter of faith.

  So, an complete overlapping record of tree rings living straight
  on back through the time of the flood means... what exactly?
  
  What about the unbroken Chinese historical records straight
  through the time of the flood?
  
  And the absurdity (and falsifiability) of the idea that millions of
  species of plants and fish could survive under (in semi-salty)
  water for a year?

  [inkling]
• 

  PSacramento

  Its been typically accepted by most that the flood was a local event and by local I mean a BIG ASS local event that effected many countries and that "all the land/all the world" has a figurative context to it and is not a literal context.

  But if people want to believe in a global flood that destroyed every living creature accept those on the Ark, that is their choice of course.
• 

  bohm

  EAS: Which observations would, in your oppinion, disprove the ark?
• 

  leavingwt

  In the global flood scenario, what is the official explanation of kangaroos in Australia? I'm asking in all seriousness.
• 

  PSacramento

  I good place to start for BOTh parties of the flood:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_geology
• 

  bohm

  EAS: I dont want to bury you and I, to, would really like to know your view on leavingwt's question, since in this whole flood debate it can sometimes be hard to actually find out what both sides theories are. But i do have something else that is more personal in nature and i really think is the first question that need to be asked: if we ASSUME that the bible said nothing about ark, and it said nothing about evolution/creation. ie. we take away ALL the biblical evidence and consider ONLY the secular. would you then believe the ark to be true? evolution?

  By the way - thanks for being here! It is allways interesting to have a JW point of view to stir things up once in a while.
• 

  EverAStudent

  A straight up problem for all parties is the precise timing of the flood. The 4000-years-ago tradition for many creationists is grounded in the tracing of the recorded lineages. However, it is not possible to determine if there are families or generations not recorded in the biblical record. The ones that are there are recorded because of their importance to the story of humanity.

  That said, it would seem unlikely that "millions" of years of history are unaccounted for, and I am not even trying to imply such a thing. Was the flood 4000 years ago, 5000, 9000, more?--I do not know. Was there a flood at all? I sincerely believe there was.

  Someone asked above, "EAS, what would it take to disprove the ark to you?" What have you got?

  IF someday it is genuinely discovered that Adam and Eve never existed and that evolution is the mechanism God used to create the planet over billions of years, then we would be forced to conclude that the creation account was intended as a parable instead of as history. How would that impact my faith? At one time, it would have been devastating. Today, I would shake my head at my lack of understanding as to how to read the first book of the Bible and the book of Romans and then continue in my faith that Jesus is the Creator, ruler, inheritor, and king of this universe. Jesus is the Christ, the Holy One, the Alpha and Omega. Without faith in Him, there is no salvation and no Christian faith at all. Saving faith is in Christ, not in creationism.
• 

  EverAStudent

  Bohm wrote, "EAS: I dont want to bury you and I, to, would really like to know your view on leavingwt's question, since in this whole flood debate it can sometimes be hard to actually find out what both sides theories are. But i do have something else that is more personal in nature and i really think is the first question that need to be asked: if we ASSUME that the bible said nothing about ark, and it said nothing about evolution/creation. ie. we take away ALL the biblical evidence and consider ONLY the secular. would you then believe the ark to be true? evolution?"

  First, thanks for not wanting to bury me :)

  There are no "official" creationist views on much of anything, since, unlike the Watchtower Society, creationists are largely independent in theology, science, and study, that is, there is no oversight board to keep us standardized. Many creationists will tell you that all species share similarities because they share a common planet. God said He made the planet to be inhabited. The differences are God's design. The design is programmed for flexibiliity and not stagnation. The DNA code has built into a vast amount of pre-programmed variations and pre-planned adaptations. For example, take a sighted fish school and trap it in an underground stream and without light it adapts to its environment, effectively becoming blind because there is no longer light to interact with. Modern scientists will call that a form of micro-evolution. Creationists see it as flexible DNA coding to allow for adapting to the ever-changing environment.

  You asked that if the Bible did not speak of creation, the ark, or the flood, would I believe in them or in the dominant secular view? How could I believe in something I did not know about? For example, a couple of men who were ex-patriots from Jerusalem had only ever heard John the Baptist preach but had never heard of Jesus. They were later asked whether they had been sealed with the Holy Spirit. They replied, "We did not even know there was a Holy Spirit." They wanted to believe in the Holy Spirit and in Jesus, but they had not yet been taught.

  Bohm also wrote, "By the way - thanks for being here! It is allways interesting to have a JW point of view to stir things up once in a while." Sorry to disappoint. I am a born again Christian, not a JW. I am on this forum because I had been meeting regularly with JWs in Bible studies for well more than a year. I wanted to know more about what they and ex-JWs thought and believed. Again, sorry to disappoint.