Originally posted by Elfie
Aren't turtles, tortises, alligators and crocodiles *dinosaurs*?
There are also persistent rumors about a creature living in the swamps and jungles of central Africa. Scientific expeditions have not yet found any specimens living or dead but they have found strange (and very large) 3 toed tracks.
There are other passages in the Bible that speak of the creature Leviathan. There is another creature the Bible speaks of as well, Behemoth. Both creatures must have been huge and many believe they were dinosaurs of some sort.
Ok, that's fair. I actually have a house on Lake Champlain in upstate NY, where another Loch Ness type "monster" supposedly resides...
However, the bottom line is that currently dinosaurs (as we see on Jurassic Park or those nifty discovery channel specials) have not been found lying in the same layer of dirt as humans, to put it plainly.
"Trash-can concept".
I just don't understand why faith & science can't coexist... Anyone see the shows on the National Geographic channel about the theory that the formation of the Black Sea was Noah's Flood, or the one on the Discovery Channel that went into the whole plagues of Egypt, and how one could scientifically build off the next to result in the story actually happening?
The plague one was very interesting... They even came up with a reason for the 1st born Egyptian sons to all die off... Apparently the food (forget what sort, but something the Jews wouldn't eat) could have reacted with one of the earlier plagues to make it mildy poisonous. Now back in the day, I guess the Egyptian's would let their first born sons get the lion share of the food to keep the family line going and all... Well, eat enough of that mildly poisonous food might just kill you.
I found it very, uh, well let's say tantalizing. Made me want to learn more...
Hell, scientists have even speculated that a Virgin Birth is *technically* possible, though so incredibly mathematically unlikely that for it to ever happen would truly require a miracle. But hey, hence the faith.
And, I've heard, that looking at astrology or astronomy (forget which), showed that there is actually a plausible chance that three wise men from the East (they were thinking Babylonia if I recall correctly) would have actually seen a particular sequence of events in the sky that might actually lead them to make such a pilgramige. Apparently something terrific happened in the sky around the time Jesus was said to be born (not going by the Bible, going by the Roman/archaelogical evidence for his DOB). Now I don't have the source in front of me, and if someone does please pipe in, but apparently there was some planet, or constellation, or something in the sky that represented the Jews, and then Jupitor IIRC moved into it, and was also eclipsed by either the sun, moon, or both. I don't remember exactly, but it was pretty impressive.
Now, if you came from a culture like Babylon that had a large interest in the night sky, isn't it plausible that you might interpret something like this as the "King of the Jews" and set off?
Babylon's east of Bethlehem, after all.
Long post, no links, no sources. Still, these sort of things tend to intrigue me. And personally, I'd rather look at Biblical events like this then simply accept them as fact because "they're in the Bible and that's that".
It doesn't really take much of a stretch for science and religion to work together... Just if your mind's cemented in the idea that the Bible's always literal and always 100% correct as written, well.... Enough eggshells for me, I think you see what I'm trying to say.
