Sunday, December 31, 2017

Glaring Biblical Errors in the Movie: "Genesis: Paradise Lost" part IV

"They examin[ed] the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so" (Acts 17:11).

             At the very beginning of GPL, Charles Darwin was blamed for causing people to assume the world is old.  In actual fact there is a strong and broad body of evidence that is entirely independent of Darwinism which indicates that the entire cosmos, including the earth, is very old.  To give some examples:  1) On the basis of the speed of light, the time it has taken for light to travel from its respective sources (e.g. galaxies) to our optical instruments can be measured in billions of years.  The light from our closest galactic neighbor, Andromeda, took 2 ½ million years to reach us.  In order for YECs to dismiss this indicator of age, they must, in denial of Rom. 1, suppress as opposed to embrace the plain testimony of the heavens.  2) Ice core samples pertaining to annular snowfalls in the high arctic, indicate time frames of over 800,000 years of deposition (see Hugh Ross. A Matter of Days. (RTB, 2015), pp. 190f.).  3) Taking into consideration the range of necessary conditions in order for fossilization to in any way occur lead to the conclusion that it is simply impossible for the topography of our entire planet, including the Himalayas, to be attributed to a singular deluge.  See my two papers, “The Biblical Extent of Noah’s Flood” and “The Prints are Everywhere.” 
     

6.       GPL employs dubious lines of argument in their attempts to support its YEC position, including appealing to statements by Jesus to establish the “historical” nature of Genesis.  Although I too affirm its historicity, nothing Jesus said proves He affirmed YEC.  GPL also raises a concern, “If we can’t trust the first nine chapters of Genesis, how can we trust the resurrection of Jesus Christ?”  Yet this question is utterly absurd.  Taken to its logical conclusion, no claims at all to matters of fact, including assertions by the movie narrators, would ever achieve a level of trustworthiness for the reason that the entire human race is prone to error.  Further, since ancient historical narration has been conveyed by varying modes of literary expression that include verse (Psalm 105, Homer’s Illiad, and Virgil’s Aneid), GPL lacks grounds for its certitude that its YEC position is the only valid historical interpretation of Genesis 1.  Finally, Jesus himself would oppose at least posture 5A (above) as indicated by the question he posed to Nicodemus: “If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe me, how can you believe me if I tell you heavenly things?” (John 3:12).  In 1 John 1:1-3 the Apostle John applies Jesus’ very same principle by appealing to three of our modes of perception (“heard, seen with our eyes, touched with our hands”) in order to affirm our doctrine of the incarnation (John 1:12); not vice-versa.  This returns us full circle to Jesus’ reply to John the Baptist’s emissaries by appealing not to Scripture, but instead to what their senses actually told them (Matt. 11:4).  Contrary to the YEC propensity to ignore the logical principle of “non- contradiction,” Both Jesus and the Apostle John held that revelation must, in actuality, harmonize with the phenomena it describes.  See my paper, “Truth is Never Less than One.” 

Thursday, December 21, 2017

Glaring Biblical Errors in the Movie: "Genesis: Paradise Lost" part III

“[They Examined] the Scriptures daily to see if these Things were so.” (Acts 17:11)

4.       GPL’s assertion that its 24-hour day, young-earth creationist (YEC) interpretation of Genesis 1 is “unassailable” is far from substantiated.  Even though Martin Luther held to the 24-hour day view, he conceded on the first page of his Genesis lectures that the text of Genesis 1 is “difficult to understand(Jaroslav Pelikan, ed. Luther’s Works: Genesis, v. 1. (American Edition, Concordia, 1958), p. 3).  In spite of Luther’s honesty, my own Church body, The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS), refuses to entertain even a conversation on this state of affairs, despite my requests (see my correspondence with the Commission on Theology and Church Relations (CTCR) of the LCMS titled, “Debate Challenge CTCR”).  In reply to the following challenge that the LCMS has publically posted: “Unless there is compelling reason on the basis of the biblical texts themselves…we are to believe God created the world in six 24-hour days,” I have picked up the gauntlet with my list of ten substantial grounds for holding that the creation days are indeed longer than 24-hours.  To give a few examples, firstly I challenge the claim that the Genesis “evening…morning” refrain proves the days are 24-hours each.  I reply that such phrasing utterly deviates from the text of Leviticus 23:32, which by contrast specifies duration: “from evening to evening.”  Secondly, although the movie narrators use the definite article (DE) “the” in reference to the creation days (e.g. “the third day,” etc.), with few exceptions the DE is not found in the Hebrew text.  This implies the “days” are indefinite.  Thirdly, since God exists outside of our time (2 Peter 3:8), it is entirely conceivable that His “days” are not ours.  Fourthly, on the YEC view, there is no Sun on days 1-3, which would be the normal indicator that the days are 24-hours.  See my essay, “The Biblical Demand to Take Another Look: Ten Exegetical Reasons the Creation Days of Genesis are Non-24 Hour.”


5.       When GPL insists that its YEC interpretation of Genesis alone is God-honoring, it misrepresents the Bible’s own claims as to how its authority is established in the face of scientific knowledge.  GPL’s dismissive posture contradicts St. Paul’s stricture in Romans 1:18-20 which forbids suppressing the testimony of nature.  There are NO biblical passages which pit revelation against the witness of nature as though they conflict. To the contrary, the Holy Spirit speaking through St. Paul not only deems it wickedness to suppress that testimony, He further elevates the same to the status of a convicting law (Rom. 3:19-20) thereby rendering unbelievers culpable for refusing to honor God as Creator.  As v. 20 states, “Ever since the creation of the world [God’s] invisible nature, namely His eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.  So they are without excuse.”  For this reason GPL ought to renounce its participation in blunting this convicting aspect of God’s law by its suggestion that the witness of nature can’t trusted!  See my essay. “The Bible Expressly Forbids Suppressing the Testimony of Nature.”

Friday, December 15, 2017

Glaring Biblical Errors in the Movie, “Genesis: Paradise Lost” part II

“[They Examined] the Scriptures daily to see if these Things were so.” (Acts 17:11)

In addition, the GPL insistence that the sun and the moon were not created until Day 4 entails a neglect of the difference in the Hebrew vocabulary employed on Day 4 as opposed to in 1:1.  While the latter uses the word bara, which means to create out of nothing, the three verbs (yehee, haya, asah) that are typically translated “made,” with respect to the “two lights” on Day 4, mean “to cause to appear,” which is a far weaker concept than is bara.  They are describing the transition from the heavy cloudy atmosphere that had obscured these lights during the early earth (1:2) and their later dissipation on Day 4 which allowed the same lights to become visible as distinct objects.  See my paper, “Genesis 1:1-2 Anticipates Big Bang Cosmology.”
 
2.       GPL is wrong to suggest (repeatedly) that the BB is atheistic.  It is, to the contrary, a matter of record that when the BB first came to be acknowledged as the correct accounting for the existence of the cosmos, it was atheists who were its most vocal opponents because they understood that a cosmos with a beginning from nothing necessitates a transcendent creator to bring it into existence.  Stephen Hawking to this day seeks to evade the BB for the same reason.  Yet it is illogical for anyone to suggest that the BB can be the ultimate cause of existence.  Although scientists hold that the universe has been expanding since its beginning from a BB, many Christians also believe the same.  Yet we do not regard the BB as the cause of that beginning, but instead, only as an effect from the actual Causer of all existence who is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and us too!  As Scripture declares, “By faith we understand that the whole created order was fashioned by the command of God so that the things we see were brought into existence not from that which appears” (Hebrews 11:3).  It is both scientifically and conceptually impossible for absolute nothingness to bring anything into existence.  See my paper, “Was the Big Bang the Big Beginning?”

3.        When GPL asserts that only God is able to have witnessed the creation event, it is betraying an ignorance of the scientific basis for holding that the BB correctly describes the beginning and development of the universe.  The grounds for the nearly-unanimous scientific adherence to the BB (despite the problem it poses to atheism) are not secret!  While it is of course true that no human being was alive at the beginning of creation, even so, scientists have the means to look back across the history of the universe for the reason that light-travel duration gives them the ability to observe every stage of its expansion virtually all the way back to its beginning.  Indeed, every time we observe any heavenly body, including our moon (its reflected light takes 3 seconds to reach our eyes), we are looking back into the past.  Through advanced “optical” instruments scientists are being increasingly equipped to confirm that the universe arose from a singularity and has been expanding ever since.  Furthermore, this data refutes the GPL assertion that the BB isn’t testable.  Every scientist who is open to every aspect of the observational evidence without prejudice, and so chooses to investigate it, will reach the same conclusion.   See my rebuttal of two Lutheran Witness articles, “When Science Meets the Church,” p. 3.

Indeed it is disappointing that YECs reject the huge body of evidence supporting the BB since these indications constitute the clearest and most powerful scientific verification of all that the cause of all material existence can only be the God of the Holy Bible.

Thursday, November 30, 2017

Glaring Biblical Errors in the Movie, “Genesis: Paradise Lost”

“[They Examined] the Scriptures daily to see if these Things were so.” (Acts 17:11)

                Although the movie “Genesis: Paradise Lost” (GPL), is a beautiful production that is a feast to both eyes and ears, its’ central message entails significant blunders that violate the text of the first chapter of Genesis on several fronts.  It also engages in certain logical fallacies, and, with apparent willfulness, glaringly misconstrues vital aspects of its primary “whipping boy,” the Big Bang (BB).  The latter set of errors is symptomatic of GPL’s larger reactionary posture toward scientific knowledge with respect to origins.  This antipathy is a logical outcome of its failure to apprehend St. Paul’s positive posture toward the authority of natural knowledge (science) identified in Romans 1:18-20.  For these reasons, even though I sincerely applaud GPL’s intentions to both elevate the authority of Scripture and evangelize our present generation (I share their intentions), it instead illegitimately imposes a chasm between the Bible (2 Tim. 3:16), and the testimony of nature (Rom 1:20).  It also tragically imposes a stumbling block which hinders the scientifically-inclined from considering the claims of the Gospel (see my paper, “The Elephant Standing Between Secularists and their Receptivity to the Gospel”).  Consider then the specific errors which I will first highlight and then answer below.  Every essay of mine cited here can in every case be found at my website: www.christianityontheoffense.com

1.       It is clearly incorrect for GPL to suggest that Genesis ch. 1 cannot accommodate the BB.  Since 1:2 begins with the Hebrew copula waw (“and”), this construction according to Hebrew grammar indicates that the previous verse (1:1) cannot be a heading, but is the first episode of the narrative (story) itself.  It recounts the creation of the heavens AND the earth as God’s first creative act.  So GPL is mistaken in its assertion that the earth stood solitary as the very first object of creation.  What 1:1-2 instead says is that the heavens (including the earth) were created within a period of unspecified time-frame prior to Day 1 (beginning at v. 3).  Indeed there is absolutely no exegetical (textual) prohibition in these verses of any finite amount of time, including billions of years.  Only on Day 1 in v. 3 does the earth became the solitary focus of God’s work-week.  1:1 doesn’t even fit the grammatical category of a heading (as 2:4a by contrast does).  GPLs’ mistaken assumption that 1:1 is a title also leads to two awkward consequences including firstly that within the narrative, no mention of the creation of either the heavens or the earth could be found anywhere!  Furthermore, if it were true that 1:1 was a title, its reference to “the heavens” would oddly have absolutely connection to the remainder of the chapter.

To be continued…

  

Monday, July 31, 2017

The Self-Contradictory Absurdities of “Liberal” Transgenderism Public Policy, part 2

                Perhaps the most primary blunder in the agenda behind these policies entails the dishonest commission of a double standard by its utter neglect of (indeed outright disregard for) environmental considerations in the social arena.  Despite the present bureaucratic imposition of environmental impact studies prior to the construction of even the tiniest bridge, building or landscape development, virtually no thought is given to the obvious environmental ramifications which follow from opening girls showers to men and boys.  Even the vocabulary that is typically employed (“restroom facilities”) serves (in contra-diction to the recent feminist mantra, “my body, myself”) is dismissive of the degree of the violation endured by females of all ages in terms of the loss of their personal sense of modesty and the deprival of their self-determination.  At the same time the determination on the part of the proponents of this agenda to advance the same, come hell or high water, is so resolute as to lead them to throw rationality itself to the wind.  As I introduced the theme earlier, so now I will briefly summarize where it is in the current agenda that its proponents entangle themselves in four self-contradictions: Their program logically entails both 1) a profound perversion of the concept of justice and 2) a superficializing (dumbing-down) of the concept of compassion.  It also entails both 3) the illegitimate subordination of objectivity under subjectivity, despite the specifically inter-personal nature of the context, and 4) it dismisses decisive relevant scientific data insofar as it undermines their ideology.  It is these incongru-ities which I name in the following letter to the editor I submitted for publication on May 17, 2017 to the Everett Herald.  In keeping with the Herald’s guidelines I adhered to the specified limit of 250 words.

Dear Editor,

                The “Madman” in atheist philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s parable by the same name, declared that the denial of God leads logically to the denigration of humanity.  Yet, although morality is one indicator of societal dissolution, other formative aspects of our culture are also deteriorating today.  St. Paul anticipated this same inevitability in Romans 1:18-32.  Assumptions behind that agenda which is driving the overthrow of protective boundaries concerning feminine modesty undermines rationality itself with respect to justice, compassion, logical reflection, and the authority of scientific truth.  Indeed it is built on a house of cards.

                Any concept of “justice” which overthrows the protection of girls and women by opening their showers to men and boys cannot bear the scrutiny of its own rhetoric.  Such a travesty of justice can be maintained only by perverting the definition of justice.
  
                What entitles promoters of this agenda to vilify their opponents as “intolerant” when they are the ones imposing such humiliating consequences onto defenseless females?  Their posture restricts privilege to only a few while depriving the remainder of fundamental “rights to privacy.”

                By what theory of intellectual formation should students be required to address transgenders with pronouns that contradict their anatomy?  The classical goal of education as the pursuit of truth is thereby perverted into deceitful brain-washing.

                Finally, the fact that the new criterion for identifying one’s gender has become their “inner self-identity” as opposed to genitalia and genetics, indicates that “educators” will even pragmatically dismiss science as expendable insofar as it hinders their agenda.


Sadly, the newspaper chose not to print the letter.
The Self-Contradictory Absurdities of “Liberal” Transgenderism Public Policy, part 1

                This posting is NOT a challenge to the legitimacy of the personal experiences of self-identified transgender persons (TGP).  As a Christian who is by definition also a sinner, I acknowledge my own brokenness, including susceptibility to temptation in matters sexual.  Consequently I am in no position to dismiss the weight of the experiences of TGPs with respect to their sexual self-identity.  It is indeed my conviction that every last person experiences a disparity between what we in our own ways deem to be appropriate standards of sexuality which we nevertheless do not keep (Romans 2:1f), at least within our own thoughts.  Secondly, I am NOT seeking to impose roadblocks that would hinder TGPs from receiving either equal justice under civil law, or the extravagant grace which God offers them at this very moment and within their present state (the process of sanctification is a separate aspect of our new life in God -- Rom. 6:4).  Romans 4:5 correctly summarizes the entire point of the whole Epistle by stating there that God “justifies the ungodly” (notice also the latter half of Rom. ch. 7 where Paul concedes his own sinfulness by his describing his personal experience in the present tense).  Two New Testament Greek words further clarify this liberating reality (John 8:58).  Firstly, the word “justify” means to declare sinners righteous before God in spite of the actuality of our brokenness.  Secondly, the seemingly ominous word “repent means to open our heart to the authority of God through His revealed Word, namely the Bible; which is an entirely different proposition from attempting to stop sinning (which we simply cannot achieve).  As with me, so also with TGPs, there is nothing standing between us and the grace of God other than our own refusal of His loving invitation to come to Him just as we are.

                I write the above with full understanding that certain TGPs may have no interest in receiving the grace of God.  That is, of course, their choice.  But what I have sought to do is dismantle the false notion that Christianity either excludes the invitation of God’s forgiveness to TGPs, or imposes such conditions as would render His invitation impossible for them to qualify.  Indeed, such alleged conditions would likewise disqualify every last one of us!
 
                For Christians, in the present deliberation over transgender policy it is therefore urgent that we maintain both a conceptual distinction and a clear demarcation between the following two aspects of this challenge: 1) how one ought to relate to TGPs in light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and 2) how social policy ought to be framed in a manner that is consistent with the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights so that such rights are safeguarded for every single citizen and not merely for members of certain special interest groups.  In terms of the former, Christians are to minister to TGPs with the level of love and humility that acknowledges we are fellow sinners before a holy God who nonetheless extends grace to all people.  On the other hand social public policy as it currently stands entails damaging consequences which extend across the entirety of society so that multitudes of non-TGPs suffer unnecessarily.  The damage I identify, however, is not the direct result of TGP realities, but instead of gross incompetence on the part of the very framers of the current laws they alleged they are constructing in the name of justice.  I pronounce such strong judgment on such policies for the reason that they contradict their own assertions at every turn.  The simplest solution to accommodating TGP needs, and the fairest one to all others who are impacted, is to provide restroom and shower facilities that are either single-use, and/or designated specifically for TGPs only.  But it is a travesty of justice to instead insist on the imposition of TGPs into facilities that are designated for those whose anatomy is opposite their own.
   

To be continued…

Sunday, July 16, 2017

Truth is Falling Everywhere, Except


Part 3 of 3.  Footnotes may be accessed in this same essay at my website: www.christianityontheoffense.com
              
               When such a celebrated thinker as Stephen Hawking declares, to the contrary, that the cosmos can easily be accounted for apart from the existence of an all-powerful and intelligent creator, secular culture is very quick to suppose that the case for God’s existence is thereby further discredited.  Such pronouncements also tempt believers in God to suspect that the security of Christian belief requires insulating our convictions from the scrutiny of the facts of science.  Yet in actual fact, Dr. Hawking isn’t appealing to science, but instead to a philosophical commitment, and that of a kind that is deeply flawed.  While the brilliance of his mathematical mind cannot be contested, two things need to be understood:  Firstly, his competence in math does not automatically carry over into his philosophy.  And secondly, mathematical conjectures that are coupled with theoretical physics don’t necessarily equate with empirical reality.  Hawking’s attention is focused on conjecturing over abstract conceptions which cannot be proven by scientific observations, even in principle.

                Observational and measurable data from Big Bang cosmology indicate, to the contrary, that the entire cosmos (matter, energy, space, and time) had an absolute beginning out of nothing in a manner that is entirely consistent with the opening declaration of the Bible: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1).  Consequently this miraculous creation-event, fully documented as it is by scientific methodology, utterly overthrows atheism even as it powerfully affirms the existence of the God of the Bible.  On the other hand, Dr. Hawking’s fixation on theoretical as opposed to empirical physics is merely a further example of employing data selectively in service to a preferred materialistic paradigm which in the end cannot be sustained by the empirical data. 
               
            This ploy is furthermore an indicator of that logical outcome which follows from denying the existence of a standard-bearer of truth (God); namely that PMs effectively exempt themselves from obligation to follow facts where they lead.  In response to their illegitimate tactic Christians dare not join them by diving into the same miry abyss in which the concept of truth is digressing into irrelevance and dissolution.  For the fact is there remains a place where truth continues its marching onward with full conviction.  Building as we do on the foundation of God’s Word of truth (John 17:17) which embraces both His own revelation and His works (Psalm 111:7), we can expect these two to harmonize.  With respect to the proclamation of the Gospel, the biblical grounds for our knowing our message is true lies not merely in the fact that God says so, but because His very Word demonstrates this epistemological methodology all the way from Genesis through the Book of Revelation.  Consequently, in the name of the God of all truth, we may boldly emphasize the reality of this relationship between word and world under the actuality of the providence of God.  Take notice of three essays of mine which illustrate that the unvarnished facts of science and history indeed point to the truth of God’s revealed Word by indicating that He is both Maker and Redeemer.  Christians have nothing to fear from the unity of truth, while we have everything to gain by highlighting it in our proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

Wednesday, July 12, 2017

Truth is Falling Everywhere Except


Part 2 of 3.  The entire essay, including footnotes, can be found at my website: www.christianityontheoffense.com

                Now I anticipate strong objections to my earlier suggestion that YECs are neglectful of scientific evidence.  It is obviously true to the contrary that in some manner they do appeal to scientific data.  But as I stated in my opening sentence, this happens only selectively in the sense of “cherry-picking” for those “fruits” they deem desirable.  Yet the filter they employ for discriminating between good and bad fruit  is Genesis ch. 1.  In other words, on their assumption that that passage teaches a 6-10 thousand year old earth, then only scientific evidence that is consistent with their time-frame is afforded consideration.  This effectively means that only evidence of a kind that is already supported by Scripture is admitted.  Yet this entails two logical fallacies.  Firstly, it commits an oxymoron in that the “facts” they allege support Gen. 1 are intrinsically under girded by the very passage they seek to substantiate.  Yet in order for an argument to qualify as evidence, it needs to stand independently from the authority that it is intended to support.  Secondly, it commits the bait and switch fallacy in that it claims to herald as truth an interpretation of Genesis 1 which is attained by the dubious means of redefining truth.

                As I stated earlier, no other means for substantiating a given assertion as true exists than by submitting it to the scrutiny of the data it purports to address.  My suggestion that even God obligates Himself to that challenge, then, is not disparagement of His majesty.  To the contrary it is a profound affirmation of the very character of the Triune God of Truth (John 16:13) in that, what His word declares will in actuality correlate with the facts of the real world.  And so it demonstrably is the case, that “The heavens declare the glory of God [even as] the firmament proclaims His handiwork” (Psalm 19:1).

To be continued...

Monday, July 10, 2017


Truth is Falling Everywhere, Except

I have finally returned to blogging after having completed my MA in Science and Religion through Biola University

Part 1 of 3.  My footnotes are accessible in this same essay at my website www.christianityontheoffense.com


               Young-earth creationists (YEC) and philosophical materialists (PM) ironically share one common posture with respect to scientific knowledge; they both employ it selectively insofar as it advances the agenda behind their respective isms.  To give just one initial example here, even though PMs commonly boast of their rigorous commitment to scientific facts and reason, their silence in the current disputation over transgenderism-shower arrangements implies their tacit approval of the redefinition of sexual identity according to the candidate’s subjective “self-awareness,” in violation of the objective scientific data of both genetics and genitalia.  At the same time, although YECs eagerly embrace scientific data on the condition that it is perceived to support their interpretation of Genesis 1, they dismiss out-of-hand other data which indicates that the cosmos is much older than 6,000 years.  Each party then, despite the disparate motives which drive them, effectively demotes the authority of scientific knowledge to that of a pragmatic tool that may or may not be useful in a given instance for advancing their disparate agendas.  The consequence of this ploy is that they each uniquely further the disintegration of the authority of objective truth in our day; the former by their denial of truth as a legitimate binding category of thought; while the latter by the revision of the very meaning of the term.  Yet for Christians especially, this ploy is self-defeating.  What both parties (PM and YEC) fail to understand is that the Bible forbids such wariness toward scientific facts.  The Apostle Paul notes in Romans 1:18-20 that, in terms of the convicting aspect of the law (Rom. 3:19-20), the testimony manifested by “the things that have been made” must not be suppressed for the reason that they constitute a standard by which unbelievers will be judged to be “without excuse” for reason of their rejecting the Creator.  Consistent with this point, St. Paul states that God additionally employs the facts of nature for the purpose of witnessing to the entire world of His own existence and power (Psalm 19:1f.).  Consequently, to the extent that this evidence is suppressed or marginalized, the case for God’s existence is weakened. 
     
                Whenever personal beings, irrespective of their status, make assertions about phenomena and events which can in principle be investigated, the only possible means by which such claims can be substantiated is to measure them against the pertinent empirical facts of the case.  Not even the God of Holy Scripture exempts Himself from this necessity. For this reason it is futile for Christians to seek, as they frequently do, to shield the Bible from the scrutiny of the knowable facts of science and history, especially since it addresses both of these aspects of reality.  Of course it isn’t Christians who are glee-fully announcing that truth as a category of thought which demands our moral submission, is now dead, but instead secularists of every stripe.  In actuality PM by definition has no conceptual room for truth as a metaphysical entity that elicits obligation.  As surprising as it may seem, the concept of truth as a standard that is to be obeyed has its foundation not in science (even though science depends on the commitment of scientists to that criterion), but instead in religious convictions of a theistic kind.  In spite of this, however, Christians in their peculiar fashion commonly fail to embrace truth according to this full-bodied definition as it follows logically from biblical theology.  Indeed, insofar as YECs insist on submitting both scientifically and historically-attestable facts to the “final” authority of the Bible so long as the latter appears not to be able to accommodate the former, they are violating a first principle of logic identified as “the law of non-contradiction,” by their employing a strategy which entails commit-ting an intellectual transgression that Scripture itself never practices.