Not Just Making God a Liar, But a Bungler as Paedagogue!

As Georgia Purdom, PhD, said on this video:

Confirming evidence of a literal Adam & Eve with Dr. Georgia Purdom
Answers in Genesis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deV99oPnKlI

About 4 minutes into the video.

Some guys think "ancient Hebrews were not very knowledgeable about science, so God accomodated his revelation to what they could understand and let them write down an account on that level, even if that is not how it happened."

After this resumé, Georgia Purdom very rightly asks - and answers:

"Do you know what that makes God? A liar!"

Well, not just that, Georgia! Not just that!

Also a clear bungler in paedagogics!

Genesis was written by Moses, right? This means it was either written during the time when he was Egyptian official (among perhaps more advanced Egyptians), or when he was alone in the desert (as a wanted criminal, or considering himself as in that risk zone) or during the walk with Israel through the Desert.

Either way, this walk was involved in Israel accepting Genesis as a book penned by Moses and a word coming from the God who had revealed Himself to Moses in the burning bush.

This walk was for forty years.

Each day (with a few exceptions), the amount of work to do was collecting mannah for that day, no more. On Fridays the chore was a bit higher, they had to collect mannah for Friday and for ensuing Sabbath, no more, even if that is twice the usual chore. Each night they did some walking, behind the pillar of fire, presumably not just to get through the desert, but also to stay away from Egyptians or Amalekites.

40 years. Plenty of time for instructions to be given. Schola means "free time" and the walk through the desert was that. And in 40 years school, God would still not have been able to instruct them sufficiently as to make them realise that "thousand times thousand and ten thousand times ten thousand years" is a bit longer time than a day, and a bit longer time than the history recorded from Adam in chapters after Creation story.

But of course, this issue also comes with a vengeance on non-Geocentric Creationists.

When Joshua told Sun and Moon "stand thou still" and "move thou not" - if the real miracle had been about Earth not turning around itself, why was Joshua wording it like that?

To accomodate with the "primitive" state of Hebrew science? Right ... what was I just saying about how long God had had to give them instruction allowing them a real grasp on a Genesis written differently, if different had been the historical facts? Well, that also applies to how long God would have had to give them instructions to understand the other words of Joshua, if Joshua had spoken to Earth and its axis instead, if that something else had been the real astronomical fact of the miracle in Joshua 10.

When I was small, it didn't take ME forty years to wrap my mind around "millions of years" and "Earth turns around itself each day" and "Earth turns around Sun each year".

And my teachers were even so not God in those matters, so would normally be inferior to God.

Except, on the accomodationist view either of Genesis or of Joshua's words in Joshua X:12 (!), God would have, having forty years, been inferior to them.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Cergy
St Mary Magdalen
22.VII.2016