From St. Augustine he only gave the mis-used and overquoted and therefore quotemined quote on the topic.
[De Genesi ad litteram libri XII, book I]
19. 39. Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking non-sense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of the faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although “they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.” (1 Tm 1, 7)
On the Prudence and Openness in Interpreting Sacred Scripture, when Biblical Passages deal with our Knowledge of Nature
https://inters.org/augustine-interpretating-sacred-scripture
What he doesn't mention is, St. Augustine was stating this in response to people who believed not just that Earth was flat, but that Heaven was a flat disc.
Something which keen and systematic observations by the naked eye may refute, even before Magellan.
So, he pretended "early Church Fathers" and Philo and Josephus didn't believe Genesis to imply a Young Earth.
But he didn't specify which ones, of the Church Fathers, so I go to Philo now:
III. (13) And he says that the world was made in six days, not because the Creator stood in need of a length of time (for it is natural that God should do everything at once, not merely by uttering a command, but by even thinking of it); but because the things created required arrangement; and number is akin to arrangement; and, of all numbers, six is, by the laws of nature, the most productive: for of all the numbers, from the unit upwards, it is the first perfect one, being made equal to its parts, and being made complete by them; the number three being half of it, and the number two a third of it, and the unit a sixth of it, and, so to say, it is formed so as to be both male and female, and is made up of the power of both natures; for in existing things the odd number is the male, and the even number is the female; accordingly, of odd numbers the first is the number three, and of even numbers the first is two, and the two numbers multiplied together make six. (14) It was fitting therefore, that the world, being the most perfect of created things, should be made according to the perfect number, namely, six: and, as it was to have in it the causes of both, which arise from combination, that it should be formed according to a mixed number, the first combination of odd and even numbers, since it was to embrace the character both of the male who sows the seed, and of the female who receives it. (15) And he allotted each of the six days to one of the portions of the whole, taking out the first day, which he does not even call the first day, that it may not be numbered with the others, but entitling it one, he names it rightly, perceiving in it, and ascribing to it the nature and appellation of the limit.
The Works of Philo: ON THE CREATION
https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/yonge/book1.html
Sounds like Philo believed in six literal days.
Now God loved this man for his righteousness. Yet he not only condemned those other men for their wickedness, but determined to destroy the whole race of mankind; and to make another race that should be pure from wickedness: and cutting short their lives, and making their years not so many as they formerly lived, but one hundred and twenty only, (15) he turned the dry land into sea. And thus were all these men destroyed. But Noah alone was saved. For God suggested to him the following contrivance and way of escape. That he should make an Ark of four stories high; three hundred cubits1 long; fifty cubits broad, and thirty cubits high. [An. 2929] Accordingly he entered into that Ark, and his wife, and sons, and their wives; and put into it not only other provisions, to support their wants there, but also sent in with the rest all sorts of living creatures, the male and his female, for the preservation of their kinds, and others of them by sevens. Now this Ark had firm walls, and a roof; and was braced with cross beams: so that it could not be any way drowned, or over-born by the violence of the water. And thus was Noah, with his family, preserved. Now he was the tenth from Adam: as being the son of Lamech: whose father was Mathusala: he was the son of Enoch, the son of Jared: and Jared was the son of Malaleel: who, with many of his sisters, were the children of Cain[an], the son of Enos. Now Enos was the son of Seth, the son of Adam.
Chapter III, 2
I will now treat of the Hebrews. The son of Phaleg, whose father was Heber, was Ragau: whose son was Serug: to whom was born Nahor: his son was Terah: who was the father of Abraham: who accordingly was the tenth from Noah: (27) and was born in the two hundred and ninety second year after the deluge. For Terah begat Abram in his seventieth year. Nahor begat Haran, when he was one hundred and twenty years old: Nahor was born to Serug at his hundred and thirty second year: Ragau had Serug at one hundred and thirty: at the same time also Phaleg had Ragau: Heber begat Phaleg in his hundred and thirty fourth year: he himself being begotten by Sala when he was an hundred and thirty years old: whom Arphaxad had for his son at the hundred and thirty fifth year of his age. Arphaxad was the son of Shem; and born twelve years after the deluge. ...
Chapter VI, 5
Flavius Josephus of the Antiquities of the Jews — Book I
https://penelope.uchicago.edu/josephus/ant-1.html
Sounds like Josephus believed Abraham was twenty generations from the first man ever to exist.
Note that the adding up of particular generations between Noah and Abraham gives more than the total of 292 years he claims to be the addition of them.
I have elsewhere said this probably is because he learned the Genesis 11 by heart from a LXX leaning or adjacent Hebrew copy, but then was told and accepted to use the total of 292 years.
Either way, twenty generations don't add up to 40 000 or 100 000 or 300 000 or 700 000 thousand years.
So, basically, Sam McKee was spreading misinformation on Premier Unbelievable.*
Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Decapitation of St. John the Baptist
29.VIII.2026
Decollatio sancti Joannis Baptistae, quem Herodes circa festum Paschae decollari praecepit. Ipsius tamen memoria solemniter hac die colitur, qua venerandum ejus caput secundo inventum fuit; quod, postea Romam translatum, in Ecclesia sancti Silvestri, ad Campum Martium, summa populi devotione asservatur.
Lutetiae Parisiorum depositio sancti Mederici Presbyteri.
* Not sure what is the case about other subjects. The video is longish, but I looked that part up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHtHZltpr7g
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire