Monday quote

Paul mentions that we are the Temple of the Holy Spirit. That phrase, lifted out of context, has been used to urge Christians to refrain from refined sugar, sedentary lifestyles, and, of course, big stinky cigars. But Paul says specifically he is only talking about sexual sin here. Other sins are outside the body, but fornication is not. This would include chopping a finger off with an axe. Poor stewardship, bad idea, and all that, but it is not a defilement of the Temple. That is accomplished through fornication.

Douglas Wilson. Fidelity.

American civic liberties quiz

I took the [American] Civic Literacy Exam. 33 questions on a range of issues concerning history, politics and economics.

Most of the questions were reasonable, though a couple may have been disputed based on theory versus fact. Definitions are reasonable, as are historical facts; but observations in line with theory may be disputable. For example,

International trade and specialization most often lead to which of the following?

• an increase in a nation’s productivity
• a decrease in a nation’s economic growth in the long term
• an increase in a nation’s import tariffs
• a decrease in a nation’s standard of living

While I agree with the answer, and it could be argued that observations have confirmed this, economists of other schools may dispute it.

The average result was 49%, with US college educators (university lecturers) averaging 55%. I managed 88% (29/33) despite its heavy US focus. This seems a little concerning for US education.

My incorrect answers were:

• What part of the [US] government has the power to declare war?
• What was the main issue in the debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas in 1858?
• Which of the following fiscal policy combinations has the federal government most often followed to stimulate economic activity when the economy is in a severe recession?
• If taxes equal government spending, then:

I am not convinced that my answer to the taxes question was incorrect. The question is

If taxes equal government spending, then:

1. government debt is zero
2. printing money no longer causes inflation
3. government is not helping anybody
4. tax per person equals government spending per person on average
5. tax loopholes and special-interest spending are absent

I answered 1, zero debt. I was assuming that the government had no debt prior to this. And #1 seems reasonable unless the government has a significant other incomes (such as mines). 2 is incorrect. 3 might happen to be true, but not because of the question. 4 is supposedly correct. 5 is incorrect.

Option 4 doesn't seem to be correct; again if the government has other incomes, but also taxes from companies means that government spending per person may differ from tax per person. I still think (assuming no debt prior) that answer 1 is better, though I am happy to be corrected.

Monday quote

If the anthropological data suggest something short of the ideal, that is not because nothing is universal, but because two universals are in conflict: universal moral knowledge and universal desire to evade it. The first one we owe to our creation. The second we owe to our fall.

J. Budziszewski

Legitimate textual source questions

I came across a comment that suggested that source criticism is acceptable for Christians when dealing with the gospels but not the Pentateuch. Presumably that means discussing how Luke and Matthew are dependent on Mark is permitted but finding the Elohist and Priestly divisions of Exodus is not? I assumed that this remark was reflecting a cynicism on the limitations, and even hypocrisy, of biblical critique within Christendom (or perhaps evangelicalism).

I can see why such an idea may come from but I believe it is unjustified. Such comments imply that non-Christian criticism is less biased. This is not the case however.

The source question is somewhat apparent in the gospels. They are called the synoptic gospels. It is evident to readers that Matthew, Mark, and Luke are similar in many ways and, while distinct, together they are moderately different from John. Thus a source question arises naturally from the text. As it does with Jude and 2 Peter, or Chronicles and Kings. This type of source question is considered legitimate in both the Old and New Testaments.

The Pentateuch is not comparable to this situation. While there is overlap amongst the books, especially with Deuteronomy; the source debate is not about parallel texts in the Torah, it is about deconstructing the text.

It is not entirely true that source criticism is not "allowed" here. Some conservative scholars think that Moses compiled Genesis largely from extant texts that antedated him. They base this conclusion on the toledoth theory.

So one reason is that source differs between the 2 texts. One looks to the source of similarities between parallel texts, the other looks to the source of a text assumed to be disparate. Another significant reason is that many Christians reject the suppositions of persons who originated the theory. People that were antagonistic to both God and Scripture. This is especially warranted given that several of their assumptions were incorrect: such as the belief writing had not been invented by the time of Moses. Frankly, if their foundations are absent then their edifice is broken and will remain so despite attempts to repair it.

Monday quote

Unions are the evil, stupid, parasitic cousin of government. They possess most of the negative attributes with none of the positive ones.

Vox Day

Bookstores on the decline

An Australian politician gets in trouble predicting the decline of bookshops.

I think in five years, other than a few specialist booksellers in capital cities we will not see a bookstore, they will cease to exist.

Mr Sherry may have lacked some prudence here? Though earlier this year an Australian bookstore collapsed and blamed online selling.

The owners of Angus & Robertson and Borders in Australia, REDgroup Retail, collapsed in February with A$118 million ($153 million) in debt, blaming online competition as one reason for the failure

And it it is not just the advent of online buying which affects other retail sectors, but electronic formats including both electronic books and online information sources.

Perhaps his advice could have been welcomed.

Senator Sherry made the comments at a launch of the Driving Business Online campaign, a private sector initiative designed to encourage small business owners to boost their online presence.

It is not like his comments will change the behaviour of Australian buyers. But people seem more attuned to perceived insults than facing reality.

What some people do in their kitchen

A Swedish man who was arrested after trying to split atoms in his kitchen said he was only doing it as a hobby.

Richard Handl told The Associated Press that he had the radioactive elements radium, americium and uranium in his apartment in southern Sweden when police showed up and arrested him on charges of unauthorized possession of nuclear material.

The 31-year-old Handl said he had tried for months to set up a nuclear reactor at home and kept a blog about his experiments, describing how he created a small meltdown on his stove.

Amusing. Though I remember a story about an American performing fusion in his house.

So he has second thoughts and asks advice from Sweden's Radiation Authority. Couldn't an answer suffice, rather than calling the police?

Monday quote

The boom plants the seeds for its future destruction.

John Papola and Russ Roberts

Christians ahead of the technology curve

I was aware the Bible played a significant role in the development of the book format—the change from scrolls to spine and pages. But apparently Christians were at the forefront of using the newly invented codex for several centuries.

The codex was invented in the late first century AD. Christians may not have invented it, but they were the first ones to popularize it. For the first five centuries AD, eighty percent of all Christian books were on a codex while only twenty percent of all non-Christian books were written on a codex. For the first time in Christian history, followers of Christ were ahead of the technological curve!

Christians were not just taking advantage of advancing technology for the sake of evangelism, but for their own sake.

Monday quote

Did you know they adjust the data? Sometimes 50 years after it was recorded. That's right, and the 1970s kept warming for the next 30 years.

Joanne Nova

The meaning of "expanse" in Genesis 1. Part 6

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5.

BioLogos have an article on the firmament of Genesis 1, "The Firmament of Genesis 1 is Solid but That’s Not the Point", by Peter Enns. He begins by twice asserting that biblical scholars agree that the expanse (raqiya`) is solid and appeals to observation of the horizon and the assumption ancients thought the world flat.

Ancient Israelites “saw” this barrier when they looked up. There were no telescopes, space exploration, or means of testing the atmosphere. They relied on what their senses told them. Even today, looking up at a clear sky in open country, the sky seems to “begin” at the horizons and reaches up far above. Ancient Israelites and others in that part of the world assumed the world was flat, and so it looked like the earth is covered by a dome, and the “blue sky” is the “water above” held back by the raqia. 

Really? Clouds clearly move across the sky, as does the sun and moon, and even stars. Does the sky really look solid, or is solidity invoked by some cultures to explain rain? Enns does not mention that a curved horizon could lead observers to think the earth spherical, especially combined with observing lunar eclipses.

He goes on to discuss word meanings.

The translation “firmament” (i.e., firm) gets across this idea of a solid structure.

The comment on "firmament" is unhelpful because, although it does carry the idea of firmness, he implies by using the word "translation" in the above sentence that raqiya` means firm when the etymology of "firmament "is actually via Latin.

Biblical scholars agree on this understanding of raqia. For some Christians, however, this is troubling. How can the Bible, which is the inspired, revealed word of God, contain such an inaccurate piece of ancient nonsense? Hence, some invest a lot of time and energy to show that the raqia is not solid but more like the atmosphere. Often, the word “expanse” is the preferred translation because it does not necessarily imply something solid.

We will note here that Young's Literal Translation published in 1898 uses the word "expanse". And "expanse" is considered more accurate given that raqiya` is more likely related to "spread out" than it is to "solidity".

The second problem is a much larger theological issue, but is actually more foundational. Regardless of what one thinks of the raqia, why would anyone assume that the ancient cosmology in Genesis could be expected to be in harmony with modern science in the first place?

Well it may not be in harmony with modern science, by why can it not be in harmony with the truth? If the atmosphere is how it is, why can Scripture and science not both be in harmony with this? Is it somehow better to have Scripture not concordant with the way things are? Modern science understands pregnancy in greater detail than understood by the ancients. Following Enns here it would seem that an inaccurate understanding of the virgin birth by the ancients be more likely to be recorded than an accurate one. But the ancients knew that virgin conceptions were impossible, even if they did not understand activation. Why cannot the ancients appreciate a non-solid expanse even if they did not understand partial pressures of gases, absolute temperatures, and triple points? Every observable can be considered a fact of science. Should every observation in Scripture be expected to be at odds with reality because it can also be described by modern science?

As a matter of clarification, I don't think that Genesis is in harmony with several scientific cosmologies.

Genesis and modern science are neither enemies nor friends, but two different ways of describing the world according to the means available to the people living at these different times. To insist that the description of the sky in Genesis 1 must conform to contemporary scientific is a big theological problem. It is important to remember that God always speaks in ways that people can actually understand. In the ancient world, people held certain views about the world around them.

There is some truth to this latter comment, God may talk in ways that men understand (though not always). An important distinction here is that simplification is not the same as falsity. As Sarfati has often said

A mother might tell her four-year-old ‘you grew inside my tummy’—this is not false, but language simplified to the child’s level (‘tummy’ as a broad term for the abdominal region, but not as specific as ‘uterus’). Conversely, ‘the stork brought you’ is an outright error.

The greater problem here, however, is separating knowledge into scientific and biblical. Yes they are distinct, but by nature of the way they arrive at knowledge. They are epistemologically distinct. But that does not mean they speak to different topics. They may make competing claims on the nature of reality and real events of history. To have an account in the Bible that corresponds generally to the way things actually are, even if that coincides with contemporary science, is hardly a theological problem.

Enns then lays out 7 reasons for solidity of the expanse:

1. The other cosmologies from the ancient world depict some solid structure in the sky. The most natural explanation of the raqia is that it also reflects this understanding. There is no indication that Genesis is a novel description of the sky;
2. Virtually every description of raqia from antiquity to the Renaissance depicts it as solid. The non-solid interpretation of raqia is a novelty;
3. According to the flood story in Gen 7:11 and 8:2, the waters above were held back only to be released through the “floodgates of the heavens” (literally, “lattice windows”);
4. Other Old Testament passages are consistent with the raqia being solid (Ezekiel 1:22; Job 37:18; Psalm 148:4);
5. According to Gen 1:20, the birds fly in front of the raqia (in the air), not in the raqia;
6. The noun raqia is derived form the verb that means to beat out or stamp out, as in hammering metal into thin plates (Exodus 39:3). This suggests that the noun form is likewise related to something solid;
7. Speaking of the sky as being stretched out like a canopy/tent (Isaiah 40:22) or that it will roll up like a scroll (34:4) are clearly similes and do not support the view that raqia in Genesis 1 is non-solid.

Many of these I have addressed previously but briefly

1. Item #1 may be true, but then perhaps the Israelites didn't borrow as much as we think, especially when we consider that Genesis 1 is much older than other cosmologies often referenced.
   
2. I have not identified every occurrence nor researched their content so cannot answer item #2.
   
3. Genesis 7:11 and 8:2 reference the "windows of heaven" and the "fountains of the great deep". These are likely idioms. Nor does either passage actually suggest that the "windows of heaven" let thru the "waters above".
   
4. I have addressed Ezekiel 1 and Psalm 148 here. Job 37 (as currently translated) is suggestive of Enns' thesis, and requires a discussion of its own
   
5. In item #5 he mentions that birds fly on the face or surface of the expanse to which I concur. But this means that the surface at least is non-solid, and other passages mention birds within the expanse/ heavens. Using Enns' own reasoning here the expanse must be non-solid.
   
6. Item #6 is a difficult issue. I have addressed it here. The problem is that while etymology is helpful, it is not definitive. And it is likely that the idea transferred to the noun is "spread out", not the metal which happens to be beaten.
   
7. Item #7 is errant. These are clearly similes as I discuss here, but the association between the tent and heavens is that they are stretched out, not the material they are made from. The sky is stretched out like the way that a tent is stretched out. Consider the phrase, "The boy ran like lightening." This is a simile, but no one would interpret the simile implies the boy is made of electricity.

I don't have much to address in the latter part of the essay. I do not give a lot of credence to the phenomenological argument he tries to refute, other than saying that idioms do not necessarily mean what they literally say. But Genesis 1 is not using an idiom here. The moon comment is irrelevant. Objects can be lights directly or indirectly. The moon is a light whether it intrinsically produces electromagnetic radiation, or just reflects it.

We get to the end of the article. Enns finishes by saying

It is important to be clear on what we have a right to expect from Genesis. This is central to making progress in the conversation between science and faith.

And while I agree with this statement, Enns fails to mention what we can expect from Genesis. I suspect what he and I think is reasonable to exegete from Genesis differs considerably. A repeating theme is that ancient Israelites did not have modern knowledge (or equipment to gain them scientific knowledge). This assumes that what they wrote was based on their (false) beliefs about cosmology, which is usually assumed to be borrowed from other contemporary cultures. It is important to note here that Christians understand Scripture to be supernaturally revealed. Of course the Bible is historical. It touches events in history that were witnessed by Hebrews within and Gentiles without. We have documentary and archaeological evidence on biblical happenings. However while authors used historical sources and observation, insights into the meaning of events was often given by God. And even some historical events require supernatural revelation; how else would we be privy to dialogue between Yahweh and Satan concerning Job?

It would seem that Genesis 1 as history would need to be exclusively revealed as no humans witnessed it. If God created the universe, and if he could reveal the events of the 6 days of creation, and if Genesis 1 can easily be interpreted in line with what we actually observe about the earth and the atmosphere, then why the the desire to force errancy?

Monday quote

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised "for the good of its victims" may be the most oppressive.

C. S. Lewis (1898–1963).

Public health and unwarranted conclusions

I read a fair number of articles. This is a paraphrase of one but I have seen similar several times over.

In conclusion our results show that exposure X is associated with significantly increased chance of outcome Y. Public health recommendations/ government agencies should reduce/ ban exposure X.

(This is assuming outcome Y is bad, a converse argument could be made if exposure X is thought to be good.)

This is frustrating for several reasons.

1. The word significantly usually means statistically significant. That is the authors are confident that the association they have found is a real one, not a chance one. For various reasons I think many findings that are claimed to be real are actually chance, so I may not be convinced the statistics justify the conclusion. But assuming the statistics do justify it, the significance relates to the degree of confidence in the result, not the size of the result. The phrasing "significantly increased chance" sounds like the size of the association is strong. It may be minor. A risk ratio of 1.003 (1.002–1.004, p <0.001) is statistically very significant but not functionally significant. Even a risk ratio of 3 (i.e. you are 3 times more likely to develop outcome Y) may be irrelevant if the outcome is extremely rare. Does it really matter if you increase your risk from 1 in a million to 3 in a million?

2. Association is not causation. Yes it may be a real effect, and it may be a relevant one, but it still may just be an association. We need to establish causation. Addressing a problem if it is causative may not resolve it. Addressing an association that is not causative definitely will not resolve it. And it could potentially worsen it. We need studies that show definite causation. Then we need studies that show intervention to reduce exposure X actually reduces outcome Y.

3. Nothing in the research relates to public policy. The study does not show that the policy was enacted and was effective. Even convincing knowledge that reducing outcome Y by preventing public exposure to X does not imply anything should be done by the state about X. Should the state ban hang-gliding because it is associated with increased mortality? Should it make every vice illegal because of detrimental effects on self? And there are further question about enforcing a ban. What about the monetary cost considerations? What about liberty? Will the unintended consequences be worse than the problem? Perhaps all that is warranted is education. For example the government can mandate labelling without banning a substance.

I am not arguing against any public policy. It just seems that socialism is so embedded in some people's psyche that new information to them logically implies government intervention.

Travel and post scheduling

I am having some family time in warmer climes sans adequate internet access. I will attempt to use the scheduling feature on Blogger with which I have variable success. I am unlikely to respond to comments or remove any inadvertently hung in spam.

Monday quote

A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.

Douglas Adams (1952–2001), Mostly Harmless.