 Hey everybody today we are discussing Genesis and Cosmology and we are starting right now. Ladies and gentlemen thrilled to have you here for another epic discussion is today we have two distinguished guests, two experienced debaters who I'm very excited folks. This is what I've been waiting for for a long time and I also want to say by the way I'm really thankful that they've been so patient as you guys may remember those of you in the audience we were hoping to have these guys on in the last couple weeks but only because I kept having these mental lapses maybe it was wishful thinking I was just really excited and so I would accidentally put it on the earlier date that it actually was but now the day is finally here so very fun folks want to let you know also it's their first time here which makes it special as well and if it's your first time here consider hitting that subscribe button as we've got a lot more debates coming up so for example it is the case that tomorrow Mark Drizdale has invited Kent Hovendon for a debate so they will be debating for their final debate of the trilogy their endgame debate and also want to let you know folks whether you be Christian atheist agnostic no matter what walk of life you come from we hope you feel welcome here as we really are a nonpartisan channel we have no videos that kind of a spouse beliefs or or lack of beliefs or critiques of debaters or anything like that it is purely up for you in the comments to leave your opinion and so we're just honored to get to listen to these speakers and I want to give you a quick introduction is these guys as I had mentioned seasoned a lot of experience and a lot of background so I'll start with Jeff who is Dr. Zuerich is an astrophysicist and a research scholar at reasons to believe also he earned a PhD in astrophysics from Iowa State University his writing and speaking encourages people to consider the connection between scriptures truth and scientific evidence he is the author of is there life out there who's afraid of the multiverse and escaping the beginning as well as co-author of the impact events series Jeff is also a project scientist at UCLA also excited to introduce you well first let me say hi so thanks so much Jeff for being here we really appreciate you joining us hi James looking forward to the debate and appreciate the invitation absolutely I'm now going to give everyone an introduction to Phil so skydive Phil who I'm trying to remember I remember one of our subscribers was like you have to have skydive Phil on and so we were excited that skydive Phil is a popular youtuber who has interviewed many of the world-leading scientists including Stephen Hawking so sir including sir sir Roger Penrose Allen Gooth and many others so many in the field and top-notch people he is a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society as well and so want to say thanks so much Phil also for being here yeah great to be on really looking forward to it by the way folks in addition to these guys being so gracious about the fact that the scheduling we just kept having these mental lapses but also Phil it's one in the morning where he is so he was he was so accommodating for us as our normal evening times is around 8 or 9 p.m. when we get started so we appreciate that as well and want to let you know folks if as you're listening to the debate you're like hmm I would love to hear more of that gentleman well both of the gentlemen I would put their links right down there in the description box so that you can hear plenty more where that came from and also with that want to let you know if you have a question during the debate feel free to fire your question into the live chat as I will then pull out that question and then add it to the list for Q&A at the end super chats are also an option in which case you can make a comment if you would like toward one of the speakers and being your friendly selves as usual you can also if you do super chat it will push your question or comment toward the to the very top of the list for the Q&A so with that it is basically a pretty flexible conversation or debate today basically five minute opening statements from each speaker followed by open discussion with that Skydive Phil has mentioned that he's willing to go first if that works for both of you sure yeah fine with me well then we will hand it over to Skydive Phil so thanks for being here folks and again thanks Jeff and Skydive Phil for being here okay well thanks a lot I just want to start off by saying that Jeff and I have had some discussions before we agree on a lot of things and that's really cool I think Jeff's incredibly honest I think it's one of the best sort of theists in this sort of game and we agree a lot of things one of the things that we agree on is that if the Bible is true then the book of Scripture and the book of nature should say the same things where where we disagree is that I don't think they do say the same things I think that the Genesis is a creation myth and it shows all the signs of being written by people that you know don't know the true history of the universe and so let me just start with some of the sort of what I think are the signs of that so first off in Genesis it talks of primordial water the first thing that exists is water God moves over the face of the waters but modern science does not think water is primordial it also has this very parochial view of the world I think so in the beginning God creates the in Hebrew it's the Hashemim and the Haaretz and that is really better translated not as heavens and earth but as land and sky there's no mention of other solar systems or the galaxies nothing that wouldn't have been visible to the people at the time one of the worst offenses I think in Genesis is that there is a solid dome of the sky it talks about a firmament which separates waters above waters beneath another problem is that the grasses and trees are created on the third day before the creation of the Sun and the stars on the moon and also this is in Genesis but it's in Isaiah God is above the earth he looks down it says he sits enthroned above the circle of the earth and his people are like grasshoppers now that only makes sense if God is you know sort of high up looking down humans are created out of dust they didn't evolve and also I think there's reasons to believe that the days the yom they are literal days and why do I say that it's not just because it has the word day that wouldn't not be enough but it says that in the morning and the evening it also doesn't why not just mention it's billions of years I mean why not just say the earth form four and a half billion years ago there's just no reason why it couldn't have done that at the end God rests why would an omnipotent being rest and then the people that created you know in the early days in Genesis they live for hundreds of years but you know we have dental records of other humans they don't seem to have lived a hundred of years so I think why why are there all these mistakes then you know why is the water primordial why a solid dome of the sky why is an evolution why six days of creation I think the answer is I mean I'm sure Jeff will come up with some explanations for this and what I have to look at those but I think there's one simple explanation for all these mistakes and that is what Genesis really is is a monotheistic retelling of the surrounding polytheistic mythologies so if you look at the enuma Elish which is a much more ancient Babylonian story we have primordial waters we have the water separated by solid structure which is stretched out we have Marduk one of the gods he becomes the chief God because he's able to speak constellations into existence and he does that on the fourth day there are six days of creation in the Bible in the enuma Elish there are six tablets describing different creation epochs and at the end of the enuma Elish the gods rest Marduk also stretches out the dead body of Tiamat to form the heavens and the sequence of creation in the enuma Elish is the water land stars beasts man so it's the same in the as the Bible we also have the flood stories like the Atrahasis and the epic of Gilgamesh very very similar to that Noah's Ark except the difference is in these Sumerian flood stories that gods send the floods because they are the humans are not simple but they're noisy and the gods are looking to rest we also have in the Sumerian myth we have a garden called Edinu Edinu Eden similar okay and there's a goddess called Ninosar who is tended by a male there's a the goddess tended by a male and a female and Enki eats a forbidden fruit and then she gets a pain in her rib and eventually that leads to the creation of a new goddess called Ninti which is translated as Lady of the Rib so you get this idea of someone being born of a rib you've got Marduk's victory over the sea god as echoed in Yahweh's defeat of the Leviathan in Psalm 74 13 and if you look at the dynasties the Sumerian king lists all these kings live for hundreds of years so I think you just have this really simple explanation for why there's so many at least appearing to be errors and problems in the Genesis account and the simple explanation is they just took it from it's just no different to any other creation myth thank you very much Phil for that five minute opening statement and we will now kick it over to Jeff thanks so much Jeff as well for being here on the floor is yours so I will echo what Phil said that we've interacted a lot and I think we do there's a fair number of things we agree on and obviously we we disagree on one of the big things you know as does a God exist or not and one of the reasons why I do think God exists is that as I look at what the Bible says is that it seems to confirm what I see in the what I've seen in the world and so you know kind of three things that I think point to the legitimacy of Genesis is that you know that it is a diva or is divine origin is that one thing to remember is that Moses is talking to the Israelite people and I was listening to a theologian and he made a comment that resonates a lot is it you know I tend to think of you know that Moses is addressing the Israelites but we think more like Moses than his original audience did so the his original audience as Phil mentioned steeped in polytheism that creation is obeying the whims of various deities that the creation is supposed to be worshiped but Moses comes along and in Genesis outlines this monotheistic that there's a God who created the universe it's orderly that we are as humans supposed to understand the rule over creation and what's remarkable about that is that you know 3,000 years later we think more like Moses than the people Moses was talking to Moses did such an effective job in contextualizing that there was just this radical shift in how Christianity or Jews and then ultimately Christianity thought about that and it does so and it and it paints Moses description paints a picture of creation that allows science to glow it grow and flourish you know and I there's there's a part of that that I think we often walk over is it in Genesis there's the creation of the universe in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth there's this change to the what's going on on the earth that there's this happen and this is the way it looked and then this happened and this happened and this happened and what happens here influences what goes on it and later times that there's this we tend to think that way in Western civilization and because of Judeo Christian worldview has a the background so it's it's something that very naturally resonates with the way we think and I think that's a contrast to the way a lot of people in the world have thought throughout history so I think Genesis gets that right there I would also argue and in contrast to what Phil's saying that it gets the basic details of creation correct you know it talks about there's a linear time that there's this happen this happens this happens that creation has a beginning science at least it's a reasonable idea scientifically that creation has a beginning the creation is orderly and engineered that it can be studied you look at the description of the early earth the earth was formless and void darkness is over the surface of the deep Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters that that's the way the early earth would have looked that it gets that and then I think there's another kind of my third point or third reason why is that I think it accurately portrays the human condition you know and one of the things that pervades Genesis especially the creation accounts is that things have a purpose things have a meaning humanity is here for a purpose and a reason not just to be subservient to the gods but God has created us with a purpose and we as humans live that way you know and it also has this even in the Genesis account there's this great good that humanity can do coupled along with this horrendous evil that it explains the human condition well and you know I think there's going to be a lot of things that we're going to probably flesh out and disagree on and maybe clarify but I think that Genesis really does a good job of saying things and articulating things in a way that is very favorable to science flourishing and I think it gets the basic picture right okay so am I okay to come back you bet we'll jump right in the open conval okay great okay so that thanks for your opening presentation check I mean when you say Genesis gets things right I mean do you I mean let's just take two right let's take three errors that I think we have one is primordial water so the first thing that we have existing is primordial water now that is that one it's very common in other creation myths so in the enuma elish we have primordial water we have primordial water in the Egyptian creation myths we have in Sumerian creation myths so it's it's it's unremarkable fact and also it's a wrong fact because we don't think water is a primordial substance so if you're talking if you think that Genesis is talking about some ultimate creation right then we shouldn't really be starting off with water should we well so I guess it would be a little or just a clarification there is you know it Genesis 1 2 and or Genesis 1 1 2 and 3 in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth so that's a statement you know God's created the totality of creation and it really doesn't say what he created out of in fact Christians would argue that the description there along with the rest of scripture is that it's out of nothing but the I don't know what justifies that what justifies that it's out of nothing that's kind of the implication of that word for creation there how look up the definitions you know you go look at what the Hebrew means there in Genesis 1 and has that connotation of creation out of nothing that it's it's okay pre-existing stuff it's it's bringing something new into existence okay I don't think it is and the reason I say that is if we do look up the word barra which is the Hebrew word here it's in strong concordance and it says that it is verb to shape or create probably loan word fashioned by creating shape out of pair pair of read for writing stick an arrow stick for an arrow so it's creating cutting something out of a shape that's actually the root of the word we also know that the word barra is used for Adam and Eve and Adam and Eve would describe as great being Adam is created out of the dust of the ground that's not out of nothing and also Eve is created from Adam's ribs so he uses the word barra is used clearly in the case of you know being made out of something not out of nothing well so I would you know want to you know there's we could step through and look very carefully at each of the Hebrew words and I think there's some utility in that but I would say you know that what my position is and what I would you know as I've talked to theologians and Christians and you know I would love to say okay there's this uniform voice amongst all Christians and there's not but as I've looked at and studied and talked to theologians is that this word for barra it's divine activity so it's not human activity it is at least in the context of Genesis it does have this connotation of bringing something into existence out of nothing which would apply to the universe and then also to humanity if you look at it it's God is that humanity is created and made and it has this connotation of made being preexisting stuff and created being something new and so specifically in the context of humanity you've got Adam and Eve being created in the image of God that that's the new thing being brought into existence there so it doesn't mean they're completely new out of thin air it means that there's something completely new about them right I mean obviously I think when so I agree obviously when we make something we're making something new if I make a table out of some wood the table is new but there's no creation ex nihilo there I'm making the table out of preexisting materials so I agree but in the image of God that the spirit or the spirit that's put into humanity that makes us in God's image that would be the thing that's it's not a physical substance that's the new thing in creation that didn't exist before right okay so bodies would have exist well I think the problem is the image of man is not a clearly defined phrase I don't think there's a clear definition of what the image of man mean I mean I don't think there's any particular reason to think that it just means we look like God it could just mean we don't know what the phrase means people make their own interpretation out of it but there is Ezekiel 21 9 it says now thou son of man make thee two ways at the sword of the king of Babylon my calm they shall come forth out of the land and make a signpost and it's got the word Barah there you know it's talking about people making things and it uses the word Barah we've got Adam and Eve are made using the word Barah we've got so there's just nothing at all to say that Barah is anything to do with creation ex nihilo and in fact it's a little bit of an overstatement though because I can go I mean there are theologians who study this and part of the difficulty of you and I is that neither of us are biblical Hebrew scholars and so we're what do the experts have to say but I can go show you Hebrew theologians that would be well accepted within the Christian community that make those statements so it's not a bizarre unusual reading it's it's one of those that is within the realm or within the realm of good theological scholarship well I think it's an invention of Christian philosophers so and and going back to maybe Tertullian and John Philoponus it's not in the Bible I mean I mean if you look up I mean yes you're I'm not a Christian I'm not a scholar and neither are you in this subject in terms of Hebrew translation but I did go to Hebrew school and you can look up these words in a lexicon so people can look up Strong's Concordance Barah B-A-R-A and they can see the definition and it's nothing that says anything about creation ex nihilo this is I read it to you it says verb to shape or create probably loan word fashioned by cutting cutting a shape out or something like para read for writing or stick for an arrow trade involving cutting I can also go look in the theological word book of the Old Testament which is another lexicon that defines things and that's going to be one of the definitions there so I mean at the really I'm not entirely sure where to go here because we're talking about well this definition okay so I mean I well I would I would ask people to look up Strong's Concordance look it out for themselves and what's great about Strong's Concordance is it's online you can click on the word and you can see all the times that this word has been used in the Bible and I think I think you will see a strong case that it doesn't mean creation ex nihilo particularly as the the rabbinical scholars of the time in the Talmud they don't mention creation ex nihilo if it's so clear at least it's not clear maybe we can agree on that that it isn't clear that it means that yeah I know I think I would agree with that statement like okay this is gotta mean this but okay you know I I think this is certainly a reasonable way to look at it if I can't if I can't prove that it's gotta mean that so okay that's fair enough okay so why don't we we move on to the second problem which is a solid dome of the sky I mean I think the Bible clearly teaches that there is a solid dome of the sky and so so can I let me let me ask about or I want to ask you a question about that yeah sure sure you know one of the struggles I have in understanding biblical Hebrew is the structure of the language is entirely different than the way English language the English language is in this sense that you know you go look at your Strong's Concordance in the Old Testament there are roughly 8000 words the vast majority of proper names so I think it's about 2600 of proper names 8000 okay so but it's somewhere in a few thousand words whether it's yeah sure it's about 6000 words in the great okay so let's say 6000 words yeah you know English language you know on a conservative it's probably hundreds of thousands if not millions of words so there's there's this very different structure in how you communicate meaning at least as I see that in that you know here I can go look and say ah this is the word that communicates the meaning whereas in a small vocabulary language your usage and your structure is going to do that and so you know one it one thing that is true is that when you go look in Genesis 1 that there are you know you talked about evening and morning that's an unusual structure there which says okay maybe there's some unusual meaning here and so this is the difficulty I have in defining and saying okay this is what this has got to mean it's kind of why I go look and say all right what do what do conservative theologians who old to the you know and their inerrancy and authority of scripture I look at my class of scholars there and say what what are the range and as long as I'm within that range there's I've got I can build something that makes sense I guess okay that's fair enough I mean I agree that it is there's a less vocabulary in Hebrew than there is in modern English I don't think it's quite as I my my understanding of modern English that's 140,000 words yeah clearly you're right that it is a smaller okay although we shouldn't the difficulty actually is knowing how many words are in ancient Hebrew because the way we're defining how many words are in ancient Hebrew is in how many words are in the Bible no English word is in that book I looked up how many words how many unique words are in Harry Potter in the first Harry Potter books only 4,000 words is actually you know do you don't see you wouldn't assume that English has 4,000 words by five so there's probably more Hebrew words you say 474,000 4,000 4,000 okay unique words something is roughly roughly so we can't assume that that yeah but but point taken but nevertheless let me try and make a case of the ferment is a solid done okay so first of all we go to the Jewish encyclopedia it says the Hebrews regarded the earth as a plane or a hill figured like a hemisphere swimming on water over this is arched a solid vault of heaven so this will our fastened lights and stars okay so if we look up the word in he in strong concordance it says that it's the vault of heaven or firmament regarded by Hebrews as solid and supporting the waters above it you can go on Wikipedia we'll look up the word rackier which is the Hebrew word here is derived from the root racker which means to beat or spread out thinly i.e. the process of making a dish by hammering thin a lump of metal so they thought the sky was like a bowl I mean it looks like that and how did they make bowls where they hammered something out and that's what they thought it was other cultures also had a solid vault of heaven so in the enuma elation we see also a solid vault of heaven which separates the waters I mean if it's not solid vote why how can it separate the waters we also see in the Sumerian mythology there's a heavenly ocean called and the terrestrial ocean called key and it's separated by guess what the rackier solid vault it also says yeah so we the Greek translation when the Greeks translated this and you know in the early Christian period they translated it a steroma which you know if you look that up in a Greek in a medical textbook it will say some supporting tissue is something that supports and again that would make sense for a solid dome the Latin translation is firmament which means something firm Augustine he said that it was a solid dome of the sky my Luther said the same also there are windows in the heavens so in Genesis 711 when the flood comes the windows in the firmament open up in the in a z-call he talks about the color of the sky was a color of a terrible crystal stretched forth above them we also have just quite a lot last thing I don't want to take up too much of this time this is from the Torah doctor the Torah dot com which is a sort of commentary is on Jewish thought and they said this is this is so this is Jewish writing the idea of the sky above is a solid structure and I'm quoting now is shared by almost all pre-modern human cultures it is best understood as a pre-scientific mind attempting to make sense of what they see above them this is what's the offering is intuitive they're factually incorrect to count the sky is blue because it's full of water like the sea water doesn't fall on us because something is holding it up and that's something is transparent since we can see the blue hue of the liquid above it behind it the barriers of dome shape since we see the heavens above carving the horizon that meets in the flat earth I'll just move on a little bit to the rabbinical commentaries and the Talmud for example now for those who don't know the Talmud that is a bunch of writings by famous rabbis at a very early period the Talmud record varying opinions about the thickness of what is clearly a solid firmament from the seven layers seven layer firmament of Rush Lakish to the two firmaments of Rush Judah from the finger-width firmament of Joshua and so on and so forth so there's a lot of reasons to think this is a solid sky it's kind of what I'm trying to say and I don't dispute that there are legitimate reasons for looking at that and again my question would be in there given that the primary function of Genesis one is to reveal who God is and how the Israelites relate to him the fact you know so it's not primarily a what does the sky look like it's primarily yeah I mean there are polemics against Egyptian ideas littered throughout Genesis one and so the primary function there is who is God and how do we relate to him the fact that people get wrong the people and then looking at the word the interpretations have gotten wrong or gotten a wrong idea about what is true doesn't mean that that's what the words meant for one but you know because I mean I look at I look at a number of scholars that look at that today and they say yeah this is what it means but it also you know we look at it means this and and there's there's an aspect of that that as a scientist I relate to because there's a whole lot of times where I'm looking at something and it means this and as we probe and understand better we realize oh there's aspects of this that we didn't understand and so we are we adjust our interpretations to say okay what matches the data out there and so I mean I'm not if you want me to defend a position that the Bible has been incredibly clear on all these details and this is a sign where they've gotten it wrong I think it it's not surprising to me that people have gotten something like this wrong because you know you go to the New Testament and they got what the Messiah was supposed to look like completely wrong having studied the Old Testament so to me it's not surprising that people many people even and even well motivated people will get some of these details incorrect the question to me in my mind is does that or is that the mandated interpretation or is it one that may seem reasonable because again Moses was giving a polemic against Egyptian mythology so I would expect him to use a lot of that language in there or was he saying it in a way that left room for something more expansive and I think it's the latter but again that's a that's a scientist looking at that not a not a Hebrew theologian but let's just go as a scientist I mean we wish what we shouldn't do is try and fit things where they don't fit like we shouldn't keep modifying our theories to fit the data which at some point we have to say the theory was wrong right correct but do you do that because you've run up against something where there's a genuine conflict almost every person I've dealt with that has some theory that they like when the new data comes out they ask can I reasonably accommodate that new data within my theory even though you know and so the question of where do you do that and it's definitely long is not as clean cut as it's off well I agree so I mean I think you know would we agree on the question of parsimony we should try and have a parsimonious explanation as possible right yeah I would think so yeah okay so again that's that's an unusual or what that means exactly sure I mean you know so I say that because you know I mean I've looked I've watched Max Teckmark debate people about the multiverse and he would argue that you you'd like the most parsimonious or the simplest and his version of simple is mathematically described simply whereas other people say simple is fewest number of elements you know so sure sure I mean there can't be ambiguities about what we do that was my so I agree I agree but where where but I just think that the most parsimonious explanation of this text is that they believed in a solid day in the sky why is that most parsimonious because it's described in every other culture it's even if you right it's also described in the Bible as this firmament is is separating the waters and there are doors that open up that let the water in it's the work the root of the word rakia means to beat something a solid dish out so everything and also we have all the early rabbinical commentaries all agreed it was solid we also have all the scientists at the time I mean look at the models developed by Ptolemy Aristotle and so on they had solid that the stars were embedded in solid crystal spheres and in fact even Copernicus thought that there was that they were he got rid of the the spheres that the planets moved on but they actually believed there wasn't the solid sphere the stars were on so everyone believed it the language implies it that the context implies it because it's separating the waters so to me the how can it not be that that is the most parsimonious explanation that they really believed it was a solid dome no I would agree I mean it like I said I agree with your assertion that most people thought it was a solid dome right okay there's I guess the picture I have of this description and this is where I think maybe a fundamental guiding principle of how we look at this may be a little different is that my contention is that if God is the inspiration for scripture and the author of creation that when I look at them they're going to they're gonna agree now that's caveat it but or with this big caveat that I may not have the data to figure out how to navigate all of that you know and so some things I will some things I won't so in looking at that you know given that you know so I'm gonna look at okay literally how would I analyze this that there's a there's a purpose behind the document and is it achieving that purpose and is the point I'm looking at in terms of the scientific is that central to the purpose or is it somewhat peripheral and you know given that it's a polemic against you know Egyptian cosmologies and maybe even other pagan cosmologies the idea that it uses a bunch of the language doesn't surprise me so the similarities kind of make sense and I guess I honestly I have to look a little deeper I don't know how seriously this idea that it's a dome plays into the polemic against but it sounds to me or my suspicion is that it's kind of like you know what I would do if I were teaching a class of five or six or fourth graders math you know I'm gonna go in there and I'm gonna say you know you don't divide by zero actually I wouldn't say it that way because that's wrong I yeah you can't say you can't divide by zero I say you can't divide by zero unless you know how and you don't know how so you know so I'm going to they're gonna commute most people most of them every one of them is going to think oh that means you can't divide by zero but that doesn't mean you can't it just means that you have to learn how to do it and so that's kind of the picture I have there and I'm wondering again I would you know you brought up some specific details that I just haven't investigated that's fine how serious is that conflict there and my suspicion is is more in the latter class of it's a detail that people misunderstood but it wasn't central to the issue and so that that that sort of stuff happens quite often right so I take a point that you know you've got to see how to fit it and so on but let me ask you a question what would it take for you you say that there's the nature and scripture must agree and so we both agree on that right right so the question is what would it take for you to read something in scripture and say that does not agree with science this this is wrong so this is gonna sound very weasley and I'll just announce that up front but it sounds weasley but it's the way I operate throughout all of the studies that I do my scientific studies as well is it what I would have to do is find something where this is exist this this means this and it's genuinely in conflict because I've just found a lot of places where things appeared to be in conflict and what that meant was I just misunderstood things and you know and and and why I make it why I make that comment that way is you know I know Richard Feynman he loved to deal with perpetual motion machines you know everybody said okay we got a perpetual motion thing and so everybody would send him in and often he may not even recognize where the problem was and so it looks like oh I've got something that's a perpetual motion machine you say you can't have therefore it's wrong right but he was kind of guided by the okay there's this bigger principle that energy must be conserved therefore you can't make perpetual motion machine so if you ask him what would show you that this is wrong it was like I'd have to see a genuine conflict the fact that he may not understand some of them doesn't mean there's a genuine conflict and so you know if it came down that you know things that would say okay Christianity just flat out wrong if it was shown that the Jesus didn't raise from that that would flat out show Christianity was wrong there's no way to kind of weasel around or right there's no way to show that is there I mean that's part of the challenge that's impossible right there's not definitive answers to a lot of these things right let's just see if we agree on something then suppose hypothetically that we agreed that the Genesis did describe a literal solid dome of the sky that howled up waters and it the waters come down when that when the doors of the sky open up suppose we had good reasons to think that were literal hypothetically would you then say that this is wrong that this can't be authored by God so you're asking me to make a definitive statement I just say hi so I'm just trying to think carefully to make sure I don't think it's okay yeah I could definitively say that that would put that would be a major stumbling blocks to accepting the truth of Christianity okay that's fair enough why don't we move on to another one then so let me let me ask you the question you were saying well it has to be was talk Moses was talking in the language of the people of the time but I don't see why he couldn't have said I mean if we're expecting this remarkable concurrences between the book of nature and the book of Scripture why couldn't they have just said the earth was created four and a half billion years ago I mean why not say it because well I mean so I've given enough talks to know that I am always wrestling with this how much detail do I put in yeah and how and there's a point to where the detail gets in the the detail even though technically correct gets in the way of the message yeah you know and I'm not I I'm not in the guy I didn't live back in those times but I mean you've got people the big message is there is this one God who controls everything who's not part of creation he's outside creation who controls everything who created you and cares about you the age of the earth really doesn't matter in that so it's something I mean I say this carefully there's a number of times where if I were God and it's a good thing I'm not if I were God I would have done things more cleanly or I would like to there are times where I'd like things to have been done more cleanly so that you can know these yeah and for whatever reason God's chosen not to give us all the details and some of that is fun and I know you you see that because you work in scientific theories and there's times where it's like oh I wish we could have this piece of data that would do this and sometimes it is sometimes it's not and quite honestly sometimes theories go out of favor because the people who believe them died and a new group of people so there's that ambiguity and that's part of the joy of doing the science if you will and I find that true in Christianity as well is that there there's a nothing there that I'm convinced is right that in all of these details they're kind of fun details and I see that parallel in science there's a there's a lot we've gotten right but there's also a lot of fun details to play with right sure I mean but hopefully what we're trying to do in science is to reduce the ambiguity you know they're sure they're both there but yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so so the problem I have is that Genesis does give details that you know that are problematic I mean the fact that it says there are six days of creation is at least problematic I mean we do know that there are people today and you've debated them who think they are right and had it not said that then that problem wouldn't be around and I don't see what it adds to say that you know it doesn't seem to be a reason to say there are six days of creation except that's not entirely true because one I think it's true that probably historically most theologians thought those were six days it's not been a big discussion until the last hundred or so years right because we that specific debate is a fairly new one where it's taken on the intensity that it right because the people of the past didn't know how old the earth was and it's only the last hundred years or so that we've known that so so that debate the ferocity yeah go ahead sorry so but the problem is God would know that there are people today in the 20th and 21st century that would have that knowledge look at the but I mean for me I look at the Bible and I go not no way that's the creation of a God that created the universe because it just looks exactly like it's been written by it just looks just like every other creation myth you know the enuma elish has six tablets each describing days of creation and then arrest so if I'm going to look at Genesis God could have just said let's just skip mention of six days it's going to confuse people later on he's going to know that and why don't we just say the earth was created four and a half billion years ago they could have said it and then that remarkable concordance would be there the one that you you hope to see would be there I guess two two things I would point out there one is that I think you'd be as just a lousy God as I would so we don't get to decide that fair enough I'm sure I would be more significant point than that is that while there are his there while I would argue there is historical stuff or events being described that actually described creation there's also a literary structure in there you know so there are there that you look in there and there's there's kind of these there's I think they're called chiasms where you know there's a start and an end and there's these structures of three where the the first three days parallel the second three days in terms of being created in that are made and then filled and so there's it's not just a historical account it's a historical and a theological and a polemic and and and so I guess when I when I look in there and say okay yeah you could have said this that I also have to ask the question would that impact any of these other things you know and again I will point out I think a lot of people throughout the history of the earth if you were to tell them the earth is four and a half billion years old they just look at you like what you know that's been a fairly new thing we've been able to even have any sort of ability to measure on and one thing that's true of scripture is I would argue is true of scripture is it it's written to everybody who would read it and so the you know adding a detail for people that would confuse most people for people later I'm not so sure that's a good way to write beyond well I think the fact that there are sort of things that would be surprising I mean I think it would be surprising that the Messiah was going to die and resurrect so that's not what Jews expected I think that's generally considered to be the case that's not what the expectation of Jewish messianic thinking was and yeah so I don't see there's a problem with that reaction of what you know of course any any date would be surprising because no one knew the date so but if they put it in and it could have then you would have that remarkable concordance that that you know your colleague you Ross keeps talking about why I don't think is there you know so I just think it could have been there and the simplest explanation the simplest explanation for why isn't there and the simplest explanation why there's a solid dame of the sky and the simplest explanation is why there's primordial water is because it's just written by people that didn't know if it were written by humans then you would expect them not to know the age of the earth you would expect them is that and this is not meant to be a gotcha it's just a question that occurs to me off the top of my head here is that a kind of Western way of looking at that though you know if you were steeped in Eastern culture Eastern mysticism yeah that strikes me as a question that you may not even be thinking or may not even bother you at all no I don't think it would bother you but it bothers people today he was writing to was probably more closer to Eastern culture than to Western or you know Eastern mysticism than Judeo-Christian monotheism that seems a detail that you wouldn't put in there well if so if you're saying that that the Bible is really written for people of its time then you may have a point I think but I think we're trying to say the Bible I think the current view of Christianity at least and Judaism as well and I think Islam and many other religions is that their their holy texts are universal they're written to us just as much as is written to them so it wouldn't have given a problem to the people of the past and it would have given an advantage to the people of today so the people like myself who look at the text and don't connect to God and say look this probably isn't from God because it just it gets things wrong and it doesn't get things right then it would have eased that tension and it would have got more people connecting with God because they wouldn't look at that text and go obvious myth I don't know that that's true though because it's not clear to me how you would tell the ancient Israelites or the you know the Hebrew people that this the earth was four and a half billion years old it's not clear to me that there's language in ancient Hebrew to do that clean oh there is there is I'll tell you how you could do it okay so maybe there is but you know I would also look when you look at Genesis 1 and it may not be the surface reading again because I think the primary audience is where you're going to get the surgery and especially when it's communicating you're asking the question what's it primarily communicating you know we're off-dealing in a secondary or maybe tertiary issue here when we're dealing with the timescale there are certainly indicators and signs in there that wait a second maybe these aren't you know maybe this isn't just a few thousand years ago I mean you got a gustin who's arguably one of the most respected Christian theologians who's saying I have no idea what kind of days these are and he's just looking at the text not even influenced by you know the scientific data later so I think there are indicators in there of hey maybe there's more to the story than you're getting on this detail and that's part of me is that what part of me what points to divine inspiration is that it's very articulate in the immediate message but it is written in a way that throughout culture throughout time can be understood it's just not always easy there's often a lot of work we have to do in part in in our Western culture there's some of this work things that bother us like timescales and you know how old is the earth those are those are the exactly the areas where I would expect us to go have to do a lot of work and so the fact that it's a little harder to get that seems to make sense okay I mean if the thing is Augustine did doubt doubt whether the days were literal and I can see why anyone would think maybe they're not because how can you have day and night before the sun is created I mean that seems crazy to me well but even there you've got the that's the I think Genesis one is the only place where it's in there was evening and there was morning and so again the order or the usage there is unusual throughout scripture so that would be one of those markers of hey maybe there's something else going on here but why wouldn't you just think it's literal days I mean why not because the usage of the first you know day one the second day the third day morning evening and morning the morning sounds like an unusual language it's the only way it's ever the evening of morning if you were thinking it was day as a sort of the day you might use the phrase the days of our lives or something you know like the same proper you know but when you say evening and morning that is a marker for a for a literal day I mean I think throughout the rest of the Bible it's there was morning and evening like I said it's it's the unusual usage in a small vocabulary language unusual usage communicates meaning that would be the marker that there's something more going on there so I don't think it's just obvious that oh this is a this is a normal day I think that's what Augustine's getting at there is that when I look when he looks at the text he sees there's something very unusual about these so maybe they're not just well I think he just deduced that there was a problem from just looking at something in the sky you know I mean I don't know obviously I can't read Augustine's mind but and I'm not an Augustine scholar so but interestingly of course Augustine never doubted us or we're done with this guy so if we're going to appeal to Augustine you know we have to do it fairly so well I know you actually make a good I appreciate the point it's you know these are there's a lot of data that comes into what's the way do we look at that how do we figure out whether this is good bad or other right let me just a lot of difficult stuff to deal with yeah okay let me just pull up one more problem and then maybe we should move off the sort of problems of Genesis and go into more general things if that's what you want to you know whatever you want to do but actually see what James wants to do okay yeah yeah but all right let me just have this one last thing this the order of creation does not look correct I mean you've got the sea this primordial ocean then you have the creation of the earth you have plants and trees and then the sun and the stars and the moon are on day four that is very odd to us we don't think the stars are younger than the earth we think the stars are older than the earth so it seems to me that is but yet it is in the enuma elish that order so if if the creation story in Genesis was given to us by god I would expect the order to be right if it was copied from the enuma elish I would expect it to have the same error as in the enuma elish and sure enough it does but I think again when we start to look at the details there I think that that error may not be as pronounced and I don't even think it's an error because again if I were coming at it from a kind of a scientific mindset if I'm addressing whether the science is right in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth that you know you look there that's the everything that you know the heavens and the earth that the totality of creation um then you now have the frame of reference being on the surface of the earth earth was formless void darkness was over the surface of the deep spirit of god was hovering over the surface of the water so in that view the sun's there surface of the earth is dark because something's preventing the sun from getting there you know this is how I would look at it as a scientist and say okay what's going on here so you've got formless and void which has this connotation of hostile to life it's dark water's covering the earth that matches scientifically our description of the early earth you know there's going to be darkness there's going to be clouds covering the earth it's going to be covered in water there's not going to be any structure because you know the land forms from later purposes and so the reason why I mention that is because you now go to day four and it says let there be lights in the sky or you know I'm actually missing the exact language let there be lights in the sky the greater light to govern night the lesser light to govern or the greater light to govern the day the lesser light to govern the night yeah that word is not created it's it's let there be so well the word the word okay so we have we have two words yas which means to make right and then we have y ra which means to appear so I think what you're trying to say if I've understood your position correctly what you're saying is is that it's not that the sun and the stars and the moon were created on the fourth day but they appeared to someone on the surface of the earth yeah right and the pointer to that is that the reason why they're now made is there for signs and seasons and days and years so the the creatures and ultimately the people who need to see them are now going to be able to see them that's what that would be my contention right okay so let me try and offer a critique for that then because what I would say is that first of all it doesn't really make sense to have the point of view change because we're talking the only the only being that exists at this point on day four is god and he's supposed to be on the present so why would the perspective change second of the language so yas is the Hebrew word that means to make and why y ra means to appear now that we do have the word to appear in Genesis it's but it's in Genesis um 1 9 and it's the dry land that appears so if it were the sun and the stars and the moon that were appearing then why not use the word why y ra but instead it doesn't it doesn't do that and it could have done that it does let them appear and it's you know it it doesn't it doesn't why let the Genesis 1 9 16 and it says and god made the sun and god made the sorry just without having it on my yeah sure a passage I don't have memorized word for word so it says let there be lights let there be lights and then it says and god made the sun and moon and the stars also right right but where it says let there appear is for the dry land there's the only time in Genesis where it uses that Hebrew word why y ra which is Hebrew coordinates strong support its word number 7200 people can look this up and then the other word is to make word number 62 13 and um so it doesn't what so then what it specifically is the term there in in Genesis 114 because it's i'm always positive it's 16 where it says and god made the sun moon and stars but there's a different term it's like let there be lights in the sky which is yeah it is the same thing as let there be or let there uh yeah so why why are you asking what why are you asking the word and that's used to try three times one is to make light one is to make the lights and so when it the beginning let there be light right so presumably you think god are you saying god created would you agree that that is saying god created light no i don't i don't think that's god created because if it was god created it would be a barrage so in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth on the surface of the earth it's normal to let there be lights and let there be light which is the light from the sun is now penetrating to the surface of the earth so it's something going on in the atmosphere right but if it were that i mean so the thing the word here why it russ means to make that's the translation given and so to me that's the same as barrage just create i mean there's no they're just if i say the word i created something or i made something they're different words but they mean the same thing as far as but that's true in english that's not true in hebra it is true in hebra you can look it up that's if you've got a small vocabulary i mean i mean people can look at it but that's not universally true what i would say no it's not universally true but in this case it is true so why in this case and not other cases because if because people why didn't why didn't it just use barrage if it means the same thing as genesis 11 well it's like if i asked if you said to me why did you use the word create there rather than make didn't you create that table i just said i made it that's a very big deal of talking about it i don't know but it's true in hebra as well it's true in hebra as well you can have different words the effectively mean the same thing like like but well i would suggest so well but i will say this in in in the hebra yeah words have multiple meanings for things so i mean you know yam we talked about day earlier you know you've got yam being on on the first creation or the first day of creation the the light the daylight portion of the day that's yam yeah you've got uh and there was evening and there was morning the first day you've got um let it on day four yeah for signs and seasons and days and years so there's a there's a 24 hour day there and then you've got uh two four referring back to the entire creation week so you've got the same word that has multiple meanings so even if it did use borah in genesis one one and one three that doesn't mean it's got the same meaning and so that to me no you have to use an entirely different word it's almost certainly a different meaning right i i agree you have to look at the content of course i think we would of course we're back to this this discussion but the question is what is the context right so that's where we delve in and i think in this case if it were the case that it it um meant the sun of the stars to appear then it could have just used the word appear and the fact that it didn't speaks against that and also they have the word for cloud they have the word for mist so it could have described the that easily and it didn't it don't and it's used in this i think i think you know in john wire where it says in the beginning was a logos you know and that you i think could be translated as the word it's talking about the fact is what's the theme to me uh and and that's what i was taught in hebrew school is that god is literally speaking things into existence that he says something and they appear this is this is what happens for marduk in the enuma elish that's why he's elected the chief of the gods it's because he can say things into existence and why did that where where does that come from because people believe in incantations that you could say certain spell i mean we get this in every body now you say a spell and and something happens and this is this was the ancient view so i think they had a view then that god could speak things into existence and that's why it says let there be light he spoke something into existence let there be lights in the sky you know he's speaking the sun and the moon and the stars into existence and that and had it meant appear out of the cloud you know then it could have just said it it could easily have said it and it's got the word right there in genesis one nine but it then they don't use it i i guess i wouldn't argue i mean i think what you've laid out is a reasonable way to look at it i just don't think i'm mandated to do that and in fact as i've read various scholars their their position is no there's god created everything in the beginning there's something it's an appearing or you'll let there be lights in this let there be light you'll let there be lights in the sky that that's a it's perfectly consistent with you know you're on the surface of the earth there's something going on that now allows the light from the sun to penetrate down to the surface of the earth so have you ever seen a single doesn't you're because your original contention was the sun and the moon and the stars come after the earth is formed after the plants that's not that the genesis text doesn't mandate that and so if it doesn't mandate that i'm not going to i can make anything sound absurd even you know i mean i go talk to take my favorite scientific theory i can make it sound absurd depending on how i say it part of my job as a scientist is how to look and say okay does this match up is there a way to do that and does it make sense and i think i doesn't match up and can i do that the answer is yes the question we're discussing i think we disagree on is does that make sense you would say now that seems contrived you're forcing things i'm saying it seems to fit well i guess we'll have to let the audience decide one thing i would suggest for the audience is go on strong's concordance look these words up and what's really wonderful about it is it gives you definitions and it you can click on the word and you can see all the other times it's been used and what context it's been used so you can decide between myself and jeff who well he has them all i would agree with what you're saying i would just say i would say if you're going to get to that you actually have to do a little bit more extensive research than strong's concordance no sure sure but that's kind of like saying we'll compete you get the answer yeah great but there's more to do there so no no of course i'm not saying only do that but that's something that is easily done no i mean i would i would that's a great place to start yeah it's a good place to start so and i would suggest the thing is i've never heard a single rabbinical commentary on genesis say that the sun and the stars and the moon appeared out of a cloud enveloping the earth that i've never heard that and i don't think anyone that reads the hebrew would ever think that um i've just okay so that would be i you know i again i'm not extensively read and i'm not a hubrie scholar and you know part of my reticence to get into that is a reluctance to get into that is that i have people who have gone in and studied hubrie and it's really challenging to get sufficient to where you're not having to listen to what somebody else has to say so yeah that's fair enough i mean that's fair enough yeah okay i mean i've been driving the conversation too much here jeff we've got about i don't know 25 minutes left why don't you drive things a bit well we've actually covered a lot of things i mean uh you know so so uh what what would be your response i i know you're arguing that there's similarities between the numinal ish and various things yeah the gilgamesh epic there's various similarities um regardless of the similarities though um there is this basic structure of how the universe works that there's a an orderliness a a time relatedness a cause and effect if you will um that uh and particularly a cause and effect where creation is following how god's designed it as opposed to creation is behaving certain way based on the winds of gods that that's kind of the the the natural sense of what's being read there in genesis that regardless of whether other creationists get that or are do you agree that that sort of description matches kind of the way the universe needs to be or the world needs to be for science to work i mean i think uh that in in i don't know about in genesis there there is a passage where it talks about the ordinances of the heavens and the earth is that what you're referring to i i guess specifically what i'm you know i'm kind of sticking in genesis is you know you read genesis and it's in the beginning the way i would characterize in the beginning here's some initial conditions and then this happened and this happened and this happened and this happened yeah there's a how is that different to any other creation myth what's that i don't see how that's different to any other yeah suddenly gives a narrative god created this then he created that then he created this so yeah there's a narrative there but i don't see how that's different to other creation myths i mean if you look at um the kia or apache creation myth you know it's it's it's very interesting it says in the beginning there was nothing it's the only creation myth i know that actually says explicitly there was nothing like the bible doesn't say that um then it says there was darkness and there was light and then you know and it talks about um you know things being brought into existence the earth is a small ball that gets that he that the creator god kicks and it gets bigger and bigger and bigger and i can say god there's so much like how the earth form because we think the earth form by a creation you know little pebbles coming together and so i i just don't see what the difference is supposed to be between let me ask my question a little differently because i'm not so looking at the details okay yeah yeah as it is the general picture of how creation works that there's you know i mean my my you know i kind of think of various things that i contrast with and you know you got the greek mythology where you've got Zeus and various things throwing lightning bolts and it's kind of the god drive how things work and you've got kind of eastern mysticism god and avid's creation and it's you know you worship the rocks rather than study whereas in genesis i i think you're hard pressed to get away from okay god exists outside of creation he's over creation there's an orderliness and a purpose or a purposefulness to it and humanity plays a role or plays an important role in there not just a subservient role and that we're supposed to go out and rule over and subdue that there's it seems to have a lot of the necessary preconditions for science to work in the way it's described there and that seems to be what flows out of the creation account as opposed to being it's not like i'm reading that in it i mean i think the first people that i know of in history that really are saying we should look for natural explanation for things that there are regular laws of nature that that's unambiguously saying that is the melatis school of thales in about that's about 580 bc which is roughly actually the same time that genesis is thought to have been written a lot of people think that it was written during the Babylonian exile about the same time i think in genesis we do have that well okay so the most scholars you know biblical scholars i know would put it in the exodus which would have been 1300 years ago so that would predate that we can just dispute over yeah we i would dispute that i don't think that's why you gotta you can't they can't possibly be right jeff because there's no because there are no um well i wouldn't say can't possibly be right the architect the archaeological evidence is against it the very earliest form of any hebrew script is about 10th century bc there are no there's just nothing before that in any hebrew script so the idea that you have this whole bible written you know 300 years before the very first fragment of any hebrew script i don't think that's reasonable i think the most reasonable thing is it's written i mean people can look this up for themselves we won't have time to go into this but i i think that it's much more reasonable that it was written around 600 bc no one knows of course nobody knows right well but if you got moses writing it it needs to be during well most scholars wouldn't think that moses did write it because well but that's the that's uh given well i think if that if moses isn't the author that opposes other bigger problems to the legitimacy of scripture anyways right right well with most the reason why moses is not considered the author well there's a couple of reasons i mean let's just think of two one is that if you look at let's say genesis let's stick with genesis if you look at genesis one and then genesis two it's weird because they're telling the same story um but there's like two versions of the story now what's interesting so these there are a couple of there are many cases of this in the bible where they're scholars call them doublets where you talk to tell exactly the same story differently so genesis one and genesis two are telling the same story but differently now what's interesting is that if you look at the language used and some of the word use usage the one version always for example the most scholars say that there's the j author and the e author so j because they use um yawai to describe god whereas in genesis two they use alachim they never use the yawai so it looks like there's two authors i mean there are many different things like that where it looks like there's two authors not one author and also moses dies in you know in um you know before the story's finished so he couldn't possibly be the author because it describes his own death we we're going to give a chance i'll give you a chance to respond jeff just want to let people know that we will go into the q and a pretty soon so once one of you are ready to give uh if one of you is willing to give the other the last word we haven't had like a structured debate so given that it's a discussion we'll kind of have to go with whoever feels like giving the last i had the first word so i think it would be fair for jeff to have the last word i would i would just uh so so my response to that is these these are things that christians and non christians have talked about a lot um you know i i i i would contend the position you're putting out has i mean it's not just ludicrous i mean there's there's evidential or there's reasons to think that's true but i don't think that there's anything in the data that demands that or anything that says that okay moses wasn't the author and it takes place during the exodus um all that to say is that i i think the the i'm trying to address this without bringing new stuff in so i don't unfairly get the last word there but now go ahead okay i i just think you know when i when i look at the way genesis describes creation and how we fit in there though obviously it's got a lot of similarities which makes sense to me why those similarities would be there it actually makes it paints a good picture of how we think uh in terms of purpose in terms of how how creation behaves and i think that's a that's a remarkable thing given that it was written at minimum 2,500 years ago if not if not further ago so you bet thanks so much we will jump into the q&a folks and want to say thanks so much jeff and skydive for this has been a really fun uh conversation just keeping an eye on the live chat not only collecting questions but the response of people just really enjoying this and saying that this really brings much more quality in terms of the conversation so it's been a pleasure we will jump over into these questions which the first one is from thanks so much j shy question for phil they asked they said can you look up the speech act theory just because they expressed a message in ancient way uh so they say uh can you look up the speech act theory and then they say just because they expressed a message in ancient ways doesn't mean the illocutionary meaning is incorrect we'll give you a chance to respond to that phil okay so yeah i mean you can always give something all words have to be interpreted and and you can always assign them a new meaning i think what i've done is try to give them the most reasonable meaning what was most parsimonious explanation and i think i've given reasons why the simplest okay let one explanation is that this text came down to us from a supernatural being that created the universe that's one possible explanation another explanation it was just ancient people trying to make sense of the world i think that that one is more parsimonious gotcha thanks so much next up got a super chat from jamie russell thanks so much they said was the really were there really any church fathers who doubted an approximate 6000 year history in the bible so i think they might be challenging you on your old earth creation position jeff i i really don't know the answer to that what i what to me is the central issue there or what i would contend is that most of them were not really that concerned with how old things were again that's a very western mindset of dealing with ages so to me what gives me indication that there were people considering that there was more to this so statements like agustin where if you're going to say oh this is a few thousand years old those have to be 24 hour days and adam has to be created on the sixth day and so you got about a week before that the fact that agustin is saying i don't know what these days are and all he's doing is looking at the text and trying to reason that to me says there are people who are saying okay we need to be careful about what sort of time frame and what we put on this the the really the really place where it became off the universe was about 6000 years old was much later with archbishop jane or archbishop usher that's where that kind of timescale where it became codified as an important issue in christianity that's where that happened i just don't think it was a big issue how old things were when you go back uh that far back gotcha thank you and j shy firing in another super chat they had said i think this is for phil they said genesis isn't evolutionary monotheism it's revolutionary monotheism inspiring philosophy made a great video that john walton and other scholars reviewed i might be wrong about that i'm trying to figure out who that is for well why don't we both respond i mean i think it clearly is evolutionary because you can look at other creation myths and you see the antecedents you see in the enuma elis just primordial water you see the waters being separated that's in genesis you see marduk speaking stars into existence you see the flood myth in the epica gilgamesh and then the atrahasis i think the evidence is overwhelming that this is evolutionary it's basically rewriting the old polytheistic myths in a monotheistic form and i would argue that there's definitely ties and visibility i mean you know if i were going to write something today i would use the language of today to do that but to me what makes it revolutionary is that here you've got moses addressing the israel or the israelites as they're coming out of egypt and the people he's talking to you see throughout the rest of the old testament they're just steeped in idol worship and pagan worship and their world view is just very different and yet two and a half millennia later three millennia later um we think more like moses than the people he was writing to that to me says there's something really revolutionary going on in terms of how moses is writing and what he accomplished as seen by the evidence later you bet thanks so much and thanks so much steve mccray who says hello to both of you by the way he uh says in a super chat if a spatio temporal spatio temporally god exists outside of spacetime or universe as a great demiurge or creator what does it mean to exist quote unquote then as we understand quote unquote to exist well i'll think i'm trying to think what exactly that question means i guess what i would say is that you know for me to exist requires some sort of physical existence that i am not fully who i am if there's not some sort of physical spacetime matter and energy if you will um that does not apply to god so in that sense space and time are a limitation not a ultimate sort or ultimate way of being and the fact that me being a spatial spacetime being is going to inherently put limitations in my ability to conceive what existence means outside of that so i think it's a it's an interesting question that has a lot of different things a lot of different areas to explore but if it's if it's a way of saying well what does existence mean or you know could god really exist if space and time don't exist i think that's uh overstepping what or not recognizing the limitations we can put on existence because we're confined to space and time gotcha thank you very much and brian stevens thanks for your question they asked could the story of genesis be true and other books in the bible be false if so how do you know each individual book in the bible was inspired from god so i guess in principle anything's possible i mean you know so yes that could be true um and in all honesty to answer that question you'd i would have to have done a lot more study and how do they determine the canon and what goes in there what i what i would say is this that if god is who he claims to be in the scripture then all the books must carry that that weight in there of being true if it's not if there are things that are genuinely wrong in there and that would be an indicator that it's not divine authorship so i don't see how you get the god as christians have understood god to be and have there be actual demonstrable mistakes where things are wrong or or inconsistencies or genuine contradictions i i don't see how that works well can i just say something on that um i think people should look up that what's called the documentary hypothesis and i think it's the overwhelming view of scholars that study the bible that it it does not have one author there's a j-author the e-author the d-author the priestly author they're i'm assuming you're talking about genesis or genesis i'm talking about the whole bible obviously there are other authors for other books of the old time right but i i mean even genesis is considered that there is not one author and therefore i think the questioner has a good point that it could be true that one bit of the bible is true and another bit isn't and that's that's completely conceivable and there's no reason not to suppose that next yeah go ahead sorry i can give you a quick rejoinder if you'd like no i i've said what i said so i'm just gonna repeat it you got it thanks so much a j shy thanks for your super chat they said i agree with phil on the similarities in sharing the same cultural background as the rest of ancient near east but genesis is also very unique so uh let's see i guess if either if both of you want to respond you can okay i mean i agree there are things in genesis that are different to what's come before absolutely that the the idea of a monotheistic god is different to the enuma elish enuma elish has different many gods so i agree there are things that are unique to the bible but that doesn't mean that it doesn't borrow heavily i mean it clearly does and so yeah my whole thesis is that it's a monotheistic version of an old polytheistic myth and so there's no reason not for there not to be some things which are unique and other things which are borrowed you got it i mean you know i would just say that you know when i i have gone and read the enuma elish and read through genesis and they do appear very different i mean obvious you know there are similarities and we've agreed on those but i do think they fundamentally have a different tenor about them that i just think that there is a distinction there that transcends or is much larger than the similarities gotcha thanks so much next up we have a question from the stolen earth they asked uh for dr zwaringk how did mankind make it as far as the moses epic if everything they were doing up until then was wrong and needed a quote-unquote revision i i'm not entirely sure what that question means i guess what i would say is you know god you know if the the story is god's created adam and eve they fell that set in or you'll put in or set in pat or set in play a path that god had ordained before time that jesus was going to come die on the cross redeem us from our sin and and adopt us into eternity with him so you know there were different ways that that has got it or that there's a there's a process by which all of that is revealed and before the mosaic law that there was just some there was a way that was revealed that there's the abrahamic covenant and there's the mosaic covenant you have the noi covenant and then ultimately the new covenant in christ birth or christ coming so the idea that there that is being there's being revealed over time and and a an expanding or an elaboration of the story uh that doesn't that's what i kind of what i would expect there gotcha thanks so much next up we have another question this one's from iron charioteer they asked they said uh doctors we rank if he asked if he believes the samaritan and akkadian cultures existed because he never addresses never addressed phil's questions regarding them so uh yeah i do think they existed i i i don't know that i ever the the idea that they exist doesn't or bother i thought i did address that you know it seemed to be the main point of the question was that there are similarities between these and how do we deal with that so i guess i'm unsure what what question i didn't address in there you've got it i'm not sure either well we'll keep an eye on the live chat if they want to bring that up again but next question let's see i think that's all we have so i want to say thanks so much everybody for being here it's just in time for phil to be able to go to sleep as it is is it two thirty in the morning there now yeah i'm a late night person don't worry about me we totally appreciate you being here both gentlemen it's been a true pleasure thank you very much james and thank you jeff it's always fun to chat and uh i really treasure the time that we spend chatting together it's really great i i agree it's been fun enjoyed the conversation james thanks for having us on and uh hopefully we can do it again sometime absolutely and so thanks everybody want to remind everybody out there that's watching if you've enjoyed what these gentlemen have been saying tonight good news both of their links i have put down in the description box so that way you can click on those links in here plenty more where that came from so thanks so much folks keep sifting out the reasonable from the unreasonable