(edited)

Canopy theory -

It happens that many of the very cool properties of water (touched upon by DigoryKirke in his post here) combine with the laws of science to make any significant canopy problematic (this was also touched upon in the Feedback article Dr R linked above).

Like Fencer I'm not adverse to considering that there may have been more water vapor in the atmosphere before the Flood than there is now - but from a standpoint of there being enough additional water there to make a global flood more 'feasible' to a skeptic, it's just not going to happen, for several reasons:

- Water vapor is a greenhouse gas. Adding enough to the atmosphere to produce a canopy of water-as-rainfall of only 0.5 meters (insignificant in a global flood event) would result in a roasting surface temperature of about 400K (127C or 261F), compared to a current approximate global average of 290K (17C or 63F) - cited on this ICR page.

- Such a greenhouse effect would render the sun, moon, and stars invisible (consider Venus' incredible cloud decks). We know from the Old Testament that this wasn't the case (Psalm 8, Psalm 19, etc).

- Lastly, when that water vapor condenses into rainfall, its latent heat of condensation would boil away the atmosphere and cook the surface to 810F/432C (for a 40-foot water-as-rainfall canopy, as cited on this page).

Influential books and Jesus 'worships' us

This two happen to dovetail a bit for me. I too hope that this latter statement was just mis-spoken. Wouldn't it be idolatry for Jesus - the God-Man Himself - to worship any of His creation?

One of the most influential books in my life is John Piper's God's Passion for His Glory, which indirectly touches upon this idea. It's his assertion (backed up by numerous Scriptural texts where it says God did something for His Name's sake as well as the complete text of Jonathan Edwards' essay The End for Which God Created the World) is that God's actions in creating, redeeming, and eventually restoring the world are done primarily to bring Himself glory. This doesn't mean He doesn't love us or care for us, but that His prime concern is - and must be - Himself.

Another influential book - probably the first "Christian" book I read - was A.W. Tozer's The Pursuit of God. Like Piper's, this book really opened my eyes. The idea that God was worthy of my 'pursuit' - and what that means in practical terms - was just something I'd not really contemplated before reading it way back when.

Canopy Theory I think was a good, noble attempt to try and figure out how God arranged the Flood applying science, but like the "C Decay Theory" or the "God Created Light on the Way Theory", it's just plain unsound for the reasons others have listed.

I don't know if there was an increased amount of vapor in the air Pre-Flood...I know that Genesis states that the Garden of Eden was watered by a mist, but that may have been a localized occurrence and Scripture doesn't say for sure how the rest of the planet looked. One thing is for certain...something was quite different when the Earth was relatively new; human lifespans were much longer, animals were much larger, and there was a much wider variety of them overall. The question is what is it that changed so drastically? What did the Flood do that so drastically reduced our lifespans and had such a huge impact on animal life? I can't help but believe that to a large degree many of the environmental issues we suffer from today (on a global scale) probably have their roots in the Flood, which chronologically speaking wasn't terribly long ago (4,000 years or so, give or take a few centuries).

It's also quite apparent that at one point early on the continents clearly were one massive supercontinent (which, to me, also helps explain how Noah was able to get all the animals to the Ark so quickly...the animals simply didn't have as far to walk) and were likely torn asunder during the Flood. The tectonic plates rest on large quantities of water...I've read that the Earth's tectonic system wouldn't work at all if there wasn't water already down there and in great amounts. The Great Plains aquifers are probably remnants of receding floodwaters and there are more such reservoirs that are being discovered as well. So much changed during the Flood...I don't know that I even really grasped the scope of such an enormous incident and how the aftereffects are still with us today until I started discussing this with you guys. It was a mindblowing display of power on God's part!

As for the waters of the deep there are several different theories out there, and deep reservoirs of water under the mantle are definitely one. I think that's a distinct possibility, but I also have to submit Dr. Russell Humphreys' theory that much of the floodwaters might have come from the original "Deep", that mass of water that God used to create the cosmos with (Doc Ransom nicely alluded to this water 'above the firmament'). If Humphreys' theory is true there is still a gargantuan amount of this water out in the extreme boundaries of the universe, an almost limitless amount of it, and it would be nothing for God to siphon off of it to provide for a bit extra water for use in the Flood.

Thanks to everyone that answered about my pastor’s statement. I hope he just misspoke. *sighs* I can’t wait until I move and can choose my own church, except I don’t know how to go about doing that. *sighs again* I don’t know if I want to stay with the ELCA or not. I have reasons I want to and reasons I don’t. Some I can post here and others I can’t / don’t want to post here. However, if you want more details send me a PM. First, I get the impression that the ELCA doesn’t require a literal reading of the Bible (by literal I mean that the creation story is true as it is).

The ELCA has not officially taken a position about evolution. The ELCA teaches that the scriptures witness that all of life is a gift of God. However, the scriptures do not say, for example, how God's creating word, "Let there be...," brings creatures into being. Lutheran tradition has respected the work of the natural sciences in investigating phenomena in the natural world and explaining how they work and how they originated. Because our knowledge both of God and of other things is partial (I Corinthians 13:9), what is accepted at any one time as valid scientific knowledge and theory can be either added to or corrected by further scientific investigation and better theories to explain the phenomena we see in the world.

We learned in confirmation that there can be truth in a story without it being true. If I remember correctly, Adam and Eve were used as an example. Here is a link to the ELCA’s statement about the Bible I’m so confused and troubled I can’t make heads or tails out of anything so I’d really appreciate it if people would looked it over and give input. I’m really not happy about a new resolution the church passed, unhappy enough that I was ready to leave the church but then one of my pastors (not the one I’ve posted before) gave a sermon that mentioned it was wrong to leave the church because of it. I took the following quote off of the church website.

… So, as the early church used the concept to talk about God, in a nutshell, they described God’s very being in relational way: somehow those three distinct persons operate together in such a way that they are a unity. In other words, God at the very core is dynamic, organic, and interdependent. Each person, Father, Son, and Spirit, opens themselves fully to the other. This understanding of God has profound implications for how we live as God’s people, but I want to focus on one.

You see, this understanding of God also means that this relational God opens up God’s self to us and draws into God’s life, God’s very being. This grace in which we stand that Paul describes in Romans happens because of Jesus’, life, death, and resurrection through the power of the Spirit according to the will of God the Father. This is important because standing in God’s relational grace enables us to stand in grace-filled relationship with each other. But even as we celebrate this reality of our life in God we have to acknowledge we fall short. That’s why I’m grieved that so many have walked away from our church, both as ELCA and as a congregation, over the issue of ****** and biblical interpretation because they think that unity means uniformity. Yet, as we can see from God’s nature, even God isn’t like that. God calls us to be a differentiated unity just as God is.

We have to figure this out, how to live in a grace-filled relationship that is open to the other who may look at the life of faith differently. We need to do this, not for the sake of the existence of the church but for the sake of being the church. …

(PM me if you want to know what was in where the asterisks are). I like the liturgy and having seasons of the church year. The Lutheran church is comfortable so it that respect I don’t want to go. I also feel guilty even considering choosing a non-ELCA church. I would really like any advice / suggestions.

Thanks to everyone that answered about my pastor’s statement. I hope he just misspoke. *sighs* I can’t wait until I move and can choose my own church, except I don’t know how to go about doing that. *sighs again* I don’t know if I want to stay with the ELCA or not. I have reasons I want to and reasons I don’t.

Given the direction that the ECLA is going, I would actually recommend leaving. It's a hard decision, I agree, but you want to be part of a church body that actually believes that the Bible is true. Unity at the expense of right teaching, doctrine, and practice is called compromise. It is quite justified to leave a church that compromises on the Gospel and on what the Bible teaches.

Here are some options for other denominations:

Lutheran Church Missouri Synod: of the churches I am describing, this is the one with which I have the least familiarity. I am told, though, that it is a confessional Bible-believing fellowship. Given your background, this will probably be closest to what you are familiar with.

Anglican Church in North America: this body is composed of Anglicans who have recently split from the US Episcopal Church. They use the Book of Common Prayer and have theology ranging from reformed to nearly Roman Catholic. It has a liturgical calendar similar to yours, but with some modifications.

Presbyterian Church in America: not to be confused with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), its liberal counterpart. I just had to put in a plug for my own denomination. It has no set liturgy but does have a fairly consistent confessional theology in the Calvinist tradition. Practice can range from fairly high church (organs, choirs, etc) to contemporary/multicultural churches.

Just a couple of options out there. The key to finding a good church is to find scriptural teaching.

TBG

I've been rereading the Gospels recently and came across a verse that's kind of confounded me before, so per the advice of a friend on here I figured I'd put it out there and see what others have to offer.

This is from John, Chapter 3. This is the chapter in which Christ is talking to Nicodemus about being born again.

John 3:13 No one has ascended into heaven except the One who descended from heaven - the Son of Man.

The rest of the passages in that chapter I have no issue with, but this one has sort of troubled me before because both Enoch and Elijah were taken up to Heaven and didn't face death here on Earth. But if they're not in Heaven then where are they? Were they not allowed entry until Christ returned to Heaven? This is one I've tried to tackle for several years but have never been able to reason it out...that said any help is appreciated!

The Eastern Orthodox teaching on the matter is that prior to the Ascension they resided in Abraham's Bosom, which is in Sheol. Sheol is...

Well, it's hard to describe. We use language to point toward a higher reality, so what I'm about to say sounds like I am talking about a geography of afterlife. But the EO don't think of Sheol or The Abyss or Heaven or Paradise as a geographical reality so much as a condition. For instance, the phrase "Kingdom of Heaven" is not found once in the NT in the Greek. It is literally "the reign or rule" of God. A Kingdom would be a "created thing" whereas His rule or reign is "uncreated" and an extension of who God is. So Sheol is sort of the abode of the dead, a place where both the righteous and wicked go when their bodies fall asleep.

In geographic terms, it is divided into sections. The section for those who will be embraced by God (enter Abraham's Bosom) and then a section for the unbeliever. The parable of Lazurus and the rich man, for instance, points to this and is in continuity with Jewish tradition.

But it's more easily understood as a state. God is a consuming fire, the divine light, and those who responded to that light out of love become* that light and fire and like the burning bush are not consumed. What we get in Sheol is a foretaste of either Heaven or Hell, depending.

*we become that light because it is not we who live but Christ who lives in us. We strive to be conformed to the image of the Son that we might become "glorified" as he is glorified, cf. John 17

I don't know if there was an increased amount of vapor in the air Pre-Flood...I know that Genesis states that the Garden of Eden was watered by a mist, but that may have been a localized occurrence and Scripture doesn't say for sure how the rest of the planet looked.....It's also quite apparent that at one point early on the continents clearly were one massive supercontinent

Yes, it is me back again. You could be right, but I have also heard that when the Earth was first formed there was a much weaker gravity pull, which has strengthened over the millennia and ages. There was at least one direct hit by a comet, in the area of the Yucatan peninsula, which caused widespread extinction of species, and yes you are definitely right - there really was a Supercontinent which has been called Pangea. Eventually this continent split up into two main regions - Laurasia, which accounts for much of Eurasia and North America, and Gondwanaland for the rest.

About that time there was a sea, named the Tethys sea, and believe it or not, that sea does still exist, as part of the Indian Ocean. When Africa split off from South America, which you can still see from the shape Africa's western coastline and the eastern one of South America, a new ocean was formed, and ever since the Atlantic has been growing bigger whilst the Pacific Ocean has been growing smaller. Africa joined up with Europe and Asia, whilst South America joined up with North America, what was left of Laurasia.

This was not the only breakaway movement. The landmass now called Australia was first spun around as Antarctica moved away from South America, then broke off northwards. Antarctica westwards of the Ross Sea has an identical geology to that around Adelaide in South Australia, as we were told when I went on an excursion there. As well as Australia, India also broke away, and travelling faster than Australia, with which it shares a tectonic plate, slammed into Asia, creating the Himalayas. Whilst these processes went on, the currents of the ocean were set in motion, changing to be what they are today.

Whilst all these processes went on over time, there has been plenty of opportunity for massive floods of one kind or another, especially around the Middle East, where the Black Sea has alternated between being closed off entirely from the Mediterranean, and having its own outlet, through the Dardanelles. I have also heard that both Venus and Mars were once beautiful planets like Earth, but for some reason they developed differently.

... animals were much larger, and there was a much wider variety of them overall.

I expect you would be interested in recent discoveries of ancient rock art in the Northern Territory (Australia), where archaeologists have found actual depictions of some of these larger and now extinct animals. These drawings were made by Australian Aborigines who first migrated to Australia 40,000 years ago. We also know of large animals from elsewhere in the world such as woolly mammoths and sabre-toothed tigers. Some now extinct Australian animals, such as the thylacine, were still around until European settlement, up to the 20th century, but before I was born. It is a shame that worldwide the larger animals that we still do have seem to be dying out due to man's rapaciousness.

In such more recent times, in what is called the Holocene era, when man has been around, the weather has been more stable than it has been in past eons, which also suggests some of the verses of Genesis. I might also add that it was extremely unlikely that the original compilers of our present day Bible could have known all this as provable fact, and some of their insights in Genesis can therefore be only called inspired guesses if not an outright miracle. Sort of like St Paul commenting that those of his generation 'saw through a glass darkly', as if they saw shapes and movement, such as through translucent or dark glass, but could not understand exactly what it was they saw. And I might add, that if it wasn't for the Bible, with the accounts we see today, we would not have ever learned as much as we know today from those who wanted to know more.

'Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for knowledge for my name's sake'.

Bumped back to page 3. That's odd for this topic.

My brother just got me Star of Bethlehem for my birthday and I showed it to my parents tonight. I know this has been brought up but I really enjoy seeing the correlation between external evidences and the Bible itself. Yes, I hold the Bible as the upmost authority on everything and every little detail within its hallowed covers is 100% truth, but I am always amazing at how science and history ALWAYS line up with the Bible with greater precision than anything else.

Something else that impressed me about Rick Larson's presentation is that he stated clearly at the beginning and stayed consistent that he was not trying to prove the Star of Bethlehem. He took the Bible and the astronomical/historical data as separate entities and simply compared them. He never did prove it, but stated it as a hypothesis, and the hypothesis could not be proven false by either scientific means or Biblical means. He went not just into the Birth of Christ but also the Death of Christ, and the stellar activity at those times were absolutely stunning.

And Rick Larson's closing statement in the presetation gives us all a new understanding of God's character. When God flung the stars into space at creation he had to know the exact time that he would come to the earth and die. Not only that, he had to know what we would call the stars, what we would call each constellation, so he could position everything to take place precisely as was prophecied and at the exact times. Science showed that the moon went into a lunar eclipse at the exact time of Christ's death, which gave the 'blood moon' that was prophecied. And I am just like 'WOW!!!' What are you thoughts not just on the presentation of the Star of Bethlehem but also the use of external evidences to correlate (not prove) the Bible?

I just want to throw my 2 cents in if that's okay. I am primarily agnostic (meaning I don't believe we can know if there is a god or not, but I also believe if there is one then he is impersonal and unloving. I've written some papers and whatnot on this issue, but here's the basics:

-I define love as putting someone and their needs before your own.
-If god created man for a purpose (to worship him, as the Bible says) he is not only selfish but borderline malicious
-If god truly loved us (following the biblical standpoints) he put his desire for worship ABOVE the needs of us, and most of us are going to go to hell anyways (he doesn't love us)
-I prefer to think of god as indifferent rather than malicious, but it doesn't really matter