Ain\'t nature wonderful (Introduction)

by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Friday, September 17, 2010, 12:43 (5160 days ago) @ dhw

Interpretation of the bible is indeed tricky. I generally start with a few basic premises: -A) The Bible does not contradict nature or accurate scientific knowledge.
B) The Bible does not contradict itself
C) There are key words in the Bible that are clear indicators of figurative language when it is not otherwise expressly stated. i.e. 'World' as compared to 'Earth', World referring to the political/secular society, Earth referring to the planet, dirt, etc.-So far, I haven't found a point where those premises have lead me wrong. However, I keep digging and learning, and don't claim that there is nothing that violates a,b, or c.-
According to their kind does actually have a modern biological theme to it, namely, animals that can breed. You may be able to breed sub-species, say a basset hound and a wolf(provided the wolf didn't eat the hound :P), but you could not breed a basset hound and a feline. 'According to their kind', imho, represents the original breeding separation between species. As I have pointed out before, Genesis and Evolution do not really conflict in many respects. Evolution has not produced any evidence that cross-species changes have occurred, (normally called Macro-evolution, though evolutionist don't like the term because it points to a major flaw in their theory) but have only proven that similarities between species exists, even down to a genetic level.-The three classifications do, in their way, resolve some of the ambiguity. Based on the current species, there are relatively few that are domesticated. And the types that are domesticated have not dramatically changed in the last few thousand years. -"There are three groups of land animals here: the cattle or livestock (mostly domesticated), things that creep or move close to the ground (such as reptiles or rodents), and the wild animals (all animals of the field). The three terms are general classifications without specific details"-I don't see where this is much different that classifications we would use today in general conversation, domesticated animals, wild animals, and reptiles/rodents/insects.-As a side note, this would actually shed some light on the 'Great Flood' of Noah. His instructions were to get pairs of animals according to their 'kind'. So he would not have had to get two bison, two long horns, etc, but rather one set of cattle ancestors. This two also fits with the the modern biological evidence that suggest that a large number of large mammals went extinct in the more recent past (10k-20k BP). The ironic thing is that this would involve a much faster rate of evolution than what modern evolutionary theory has projected. -At the moment, there are roughly 5100 odd species of mammals on the planet, however, that does count does not delineate between marsupials, felines, canines, bovines, primates, etc. Of that 5100 odd species, there are only 27 taxonomic orders. that are then broken down into suborders. Even at this point, even though you have already reached the level at which members could interbreed, you have still not reached any great variety of specimens. My point being, that IF the only qualification for the creatures that Noah had to bring on board was that he had a few pair of each of the common ancestors, there still wouldn't have been that many animals on board. And, after the flood, they could, and would have dispersed quite rapidly as they went in search of food in a new, more barren, world. -Just a theory though