The missing link — to bananas

I decided to add the following to my earlier post about science and religion.

Humans and chimpanzees have over 98% of their DNA in common. But we also share about 50% of our DNA with bananas.

A writer in New Scientist magazine recently remarked that this fact does not make humans a kind of advanced banana; nor does it make humans a kind of advanced chimpanzee. Since the famous Scopes “Monkey Trial” in the 1920s, there has been a serious breakdown in relations between science and religion, but much of the debate has been as silly as arguing whether or not humans are bananas.

Humans, apes and monkeys all share “building blocks” from the bin marked Primates. However, these blocks are assembled differently between humans and chimpanzees. So we share a family resemblance because God has been remarkably economical in reusing components in the making of humans; yet we are also uniquely human and not just "Chimps version 2.0".

This has theological implications.

Although there is clear evidence of biological processes which led to the appearance of humans, it is also clear that humans have always been humans: similar to, but different from the apes.

So science is right to categorise us as being in the same group as the apes; Christianity is right to insist on our uniqueness as God’s creation.

But, most importantly, we are capable of rational response to God, something quite different from biology; and it is that, supremely, which most makes us human.

Observations concerning Genesis

I've been watching, and avoiding participation in, a Facebook discussion about interpretations of Genesis. My avoidance is because I believed that the discussion would have been inappropriate to the particular context.

So I decided to provide a more fitting context as well as broadcast my views, such as they are, more widely than to my Facebook friends. I am opening the topic for discussion rather than attempting to provide a definitive statement, because I am not sure that we can really do that.

My first observation is that a person's salvation does not depend on his or her views about the creation. Salvation is soleley on the basis of faith in Jesus Christ. I make that observation because some of the talk I hear almost suggests that you can't be saved if you don't hold to six-day creationism. And that is a heresy. We need to be very clear about that. To require something of a person other than trust in Jesus is to subtract from his finished work, and that is grievous error. I also point out that there never has been an agreed consensus about how to interpret the creation accounts, which is quite different from, say, the doctrine of the Trinity.

My second observation is that the early chapters of Genesis are open to many interpretations. Six-day creationism is entirely possible and was held for centuries until questions were raised in the 19th Century about how this book fits in with scientific observations. More recently, Bernard Ramm has suggested (on the basis of analysis of the Hebrew) that the days of Genesis are not literal 24-hour periods, but merely a schema to describe how God both formed and previously shapeless and empty creation. The point to remember is that these are both interpretations. Neither says that Genesis is irrelevant or that it should be discarded. They seek to understand the text. That is something we all must do.

My third observation is that science and religion deal with different questions. Science deals with "what?" and "how?", religion deals wih "who?" and "why?" Science can't, for example, tell us about God, because God, by Judaeo-Christian definition, stands outside the creation. If he could be directly detected or subjected to testing, he would be less than God. On the other hand, the Bible can't really provide all the evidence needed to get anywhere near full answers to the big scientific questions. It is not that kind of book.

My fourth observation is that the Hebrew of Genesis seems very literal and then suddenly subverts the literalism, such as by having God remove "a rafter" or "a beam" from Adam's side to make Eve, or the use of almost barn-yard language about the Spirit of God in chapter 1. It doesn't mean that the passages are not largely literal, but it does mean that caution should be exercised.

My fifth observation is that young earth varieties of creationism fail to provide convincing answers to the complexities of scientific data from a range of disciplines. Everywhere you look, the data points towards an old earth, with life forms coming and going in an amazing variety. Those who hold to this group of interpretations seem to believe that those who hold evolutionary views essentially reject the idea that God did it. This is a serious misrepresentation of the position. For example, one way of understanding the creative process is that, in the most minute changes of molecular chemistry, God did it. For example, the fusion of two chromosomes -- reducing the 48 in apes to the 46 in humans -- is one of the mechanisms by which we are differentiated from apes. Analysis of the structure of the DNA reveals that a fusion has taken place. Is there any reason to suggest that this is not the work of God? Some of the anti-evolutionary views circulating these days verge on the heresy of deism: the view that God started everything going and either left it to its own devices or only gives it all a push every now and then.

My sixth observation is that what can broadly be described as theistic evolutionary theories have difficulty in accounting for death and decay before the Fall. They may, themselves, also fall prey to a kind of deism of their own if they fail to recognise the tiny steps by which change occurs.

My seventh observation is that "Intelligent Design" is not answer to the science-v-religion debate. Because it relies on the idea of a Designer, it ultimately falls foul of the same problem noted under my third observation, that an observable divine Designer would be less than God. It is entirely appropriate for people from a theological or philosophical perspective to seek evidence of design in the creation and feed that evidence into an understanding of God, but it is not a question which science should consider or is capable of considering.

My eighth observation is that vocal minorities on the various sides of the debate seem more interested in gaining power and sole recognition than they are in exploring questions of truth. They are often led by people with limited theological or scientific credentials (some with limited credentials in both fields) who are happy even to threaten and bully those with whom they disagree in the hope of obtaining capitulation and agreement. That is a far from Christian approach and should be resisted.

My ninth observation is that strident argument on these topics unnecessarily obstructs communication of the gospel with people of a scientific bent. Ultimately, we want them to trust in Christ. How they end up thinking about creation is very far down the line. The current heat of argument serves to drive them away and harden them against the Lord who died for them, and God will not hold us guiltless.

Personally, I suspect that Bernard Ramm is on the right track, but I am concerned that the good news of a God who created us, who loves us and who sent his son for us sould be recognised as far more important than working out an integration of Genesis with scientific creation theories.

The one position I do reject is Scofield's, though I respect his effort to relate science and the Bible. There is no evidence at all in the Bible for a dinosaur-destroying cataclysm and recreation between Gen 1:1 and Gen 1:2.

A letter to John about the Bible

G'day, John!

Your dad tells me you have been discussing the Bible with your friends.

I'd suggest that you get hold of The Lion Handbook of the Bible and look around for anything else on the history of the Bible. There's also a good overview of the arguments for Christianity called, from memory, God Actually, by an Australian author, which might be useful to have.

THE OLD TESTAMENT
It is helpful to consider the history of the Old Testament separately from that of the New. The Jews used to destroy tatty scrolls, so, until the mid 20th century, the earliest available Old Testament scrolls dated from the 10th Century. In 1949, the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, so we now have first-century evidence for Old Testament texts.

One important fact from the Dead Sea Scroll discoveries is that what this desert sect used around the time of Jesus is scarcely different from the present-day Old Testament. The differences are the kinds of thing you would expect in anything hand-copied.

This discovery is not as world-shattering as you might think, because there was already independent evidence for the Old Testament in such things as the Greek Septuagint translation of about 200BC, and odd quotations elsewhere (some even in the New Testament) which probably reflected a Hebrew tradition rather than the Greek translation. Still, it is good to get direct confirmation.

However, it is hard to be sure about the early history of the Old Testament. There are a few markers along the way. We do know that, in the 8th Century BC, a Bible scroll was discovered in the Temple during a clean-up. Apparently the Bible hadn't been in use for some decades at that time. How much of today's Old Testament the scroll contained, we don't know, but it was probably the Pentateuch.

There is also clear evidence that parts of the Old Testament originally existed in separate documents which were later joined together. For example, the early chapters of Genesis almost certainly existed as four different documents at one time. Scholars call them, J, E, P and D (Jahwist, Elohist, Priestly and Deuteronomistic.) For example, Chapter 2 is Jahwist, because it uses the name Yahweh (Jahweh) for God, whereas Chapter 1 is Elohist, because it uses the title, Elohim, for God.

Many other parts of the Old Testament show evidence of having been compiled from earlier separate writings. For example, the Psalms were clearly written by a number of authors and later compiled into a hymn book.

Some Christians are embarrassed to find evidence of an editor's hand, and that embarrassment plays right into the hands of critics, like Muslims who claim that the Koran was dictated word-by-word to Mahomet. We believe that the God who inspired the original writers is powerful enough to guide the hand of an editor as well. Some books, like the Pentateuch (the first 5 books) have to have been edited, because Moses could not have written about his own death!

It is likely that the Old Testament as we know it appeared in three stages: first, the Pentateuch, which was lost but rediscovered in the Temple in the time of the kings, then the Psalms were added followed by the earlier prophets; finally, the books such as Daniel and Esther were added.

Remember that the Old Testament was written on scrolls, and, in the first century, these scrolls mostly contained one book, or two or three short ones. The “codex” form (book form) was not invented until around the end of the first century, and may well have been a Christian invention, as an easier way to carry the Bible around,

So the Old Testament is not really a single book.

Of course, the Catholics and Orthodox are suspicious of Protestants for omitting the Old Testament Apocrypha. These are writings found in the Septuagint, and used among Alexandrian Jews around 200 years before Christ, but not found in the Hebrew Bible. At the time of the Reformation, Christians still argued about exactly what books should be in the Old Testament, and Protestants settled on the Jewish tradition rather than the Greek one.


NEW TESTAMENT
The history of the New Testament is somewhat simpler. All the books were written between the mid-40s and the end of the first century (not too many people still argue that Revelation and some other writings appeared in the mid-second century.)

Many scholars date the New Testament books to the mid first century, with some, like Bishop John A.T. Robinson (who was far from being an Evangelical) arguing that every part of the New Testament was written before the destruction of the Temple in 70AD.

Robinson argued that the destruction of the temple was seen by early Christians as proof that, when Jesus died, that superseded the need for the Temple sacrifices, yet not one New Testament writer even mentions that the Temple was gone. He also finds some other internal evidence for early dating of the New Testament. However, not everyone agrees with him.

I think that Mark is definitely pre-70AD, and Matthew and Luke are probably from the same era, but John may be from around 80 AD. Matthew almost certainly comes from an Aramaic original, written perhaps 10 years before the Greek version. I also think that Hebrews was written before 70 AD. The writer spends well over half the book contrasting the Temple practices with Christianity, yet never once mentions that the Temple has been destroyed.

We know that Paul's letters to the churches are also pre-70AD, but maybe not his letters to Timothy and Titus. Revelation is probably also from close to the end of the 1st Century, say, 90 – 100 AD.

In the early days, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Shepherd of Hermas and a few other books were possible candidates for inclusion in the New Testament alongside the books we have today, but they were never widely accepted. During the second century, there were also many Gnostic writings like the recently discovered Gospel of Judas. The Gnostics combined some Christian teachings with ideas from Greek philosophy and/or Eastern religions. These were rejected by mainstream Christianity, and only ever found favour among Gnostics. None of them were based in history like the Gospels are.

Muslims often put forward the so-called Gospel of Barnabas as being the original book of the Gospel, and say that the four records of the gospel found in the New Testament are corrupted writings based on that source. However there is no known Greek text for it, and it seems to have been written in Spain in the 16th Century. It was probably written to support Muslim claims that Islam is the true successor to Christianity. Remember that Islam was very strong in much of Spain until the later 1400s.

One very strong support for the New Testament as we know it is the Gothic translation by Wulfila in the latter fourth century (about 380AD). There is no complete copy these days, but there are several partial copies which contain only books found in today's New Testament. If other books had formed part of the New Testament of the time, it should be expected that some parts of these books would have remained in the Gothic Bible.

People like Dan Brown argue that Constantine, at the Council of Nicea in 325AD, reinvented Christianity, forcing the omission of several books and rewriting others. The grain of truth is that Constantine paid for 50 copies of the New Testament to be made and provided to various churches, and that a collection of Gnostic writings was burned during the Council.

However, there are several reasons why Brown is wrong.

* Constantine hosted and opened the Council, but played no part in it, as he was not yet baptised, so could have no role in a Church council. The written records of the Council, made while it was being held, show this.
* The argument was who Christ is, not about the content of the New Testament. All parties agreed on what writings they disagreed about. They argued over how to interpret it.
* There were over 300 bishops and others at the Council, and it would not have been possible to push through a change in the New Testament.
* The Arian party (followers of Arius: they lost the argument) continued to have their own churches without any great conflict. When Wulfila (himself an Arian) produced a New Testament translation which any Gothic-speaking Catholic could have accepted, Arian bishops funded him. Because the Goths were outside the Roman Empire, no one had to be afraid of Government disapproval.

In the 15th and 16th Centuries, there was a growth of learning, and many old manuscripts were found. This was one of the foundations of the Reformation as well as of modern Biblical studies.

New translations were made from the Greek and Hebrew, and scholars began compiling and comparing the manuscripts. Obviously, manuscripts will contain errors, such as repeated or omitted words, and, occasionally, a writer will quote something similar from memory instead of checking the original, or will mishear what someone has dictated. The more manuscripts we have, the more able we are to detect and “repair” such errors.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, even more manuscripts became known, and we now have a better idea of the original manuscripts than ever. The King James Version/ New King James Version are largely built on the older compilations of Greek texts, and New English, New International and other recent versions rely on later scholarship. However, as the translators of the New King James Version admit, none of the variations between the different texts would alter any basic Christian doctrine.

Anyway, grab some of those books from Koorong, and see what you can find.

Cheers,

Peter

An unwelcome Turning Point

An inquest is just finishing in Sydney into the death of Rebekah Lawrence, who became highly distressed after attending a four day seminar run by a group known as Turning Point. During and for several days after her course, she displayed symptoms of psychosis. On her final day alive, she became abusive towards fellow workers, took off her clothes, and plunged to her death from an upper floor of her workplace.

Psychologists and psychiatrists in evidence before the inquest have been very critical of the techniques used by Turning Point, particularly when staff lacked training to deal with extreme reactions to the experience. It has also emerged that Mrs Lawrence is not the only person to have suffered an extreme reaction after a Turning Point seminar and end her life.

Adele Horin's article in the Sydney Morning Herald, You can't change habits of a lifetime in a weekend of self-help classes (22 August) contains a lot of wisdom about "self help" groups like Turning Point, but misses some important issues.

As T.S. Kuhn and several others have pointed out, most change does come through a crisis, often described in terms of conversion or paradigm shift; there is a period of confrontation with and resistance to the new, followed by a stage of brokenness where a person undergoes re-orientation, and then the person enters the new understanding and altered behaviour patterns.

As a born-again Christian (Goulburn Street Open Air Campaigners, 1962) I am well aware of how this works. Conversion may alter one's orientation in a flash, but the transformation may take a little longer. I suppose that the scientists who, in a crisis-type paradigm shift, abandoned the phlogiston theory of heat in favour of modern molecular energy theories still had to do a lot of work on what that actually means in practical terms.

Adele mentions the transformations which born-again Christians go through.

She writes, "To experience ''a permanent shift in the quality of your life'' as Landmark promises is theoretically possible after a single mind-blowing weekend, I suppose. After all, born-again Christians are transformed after an even briefer encounter session with Jesus. But real transformation, say from being an angry person into a calm and considered one, mostly takes years of committed effort, the acquisition of specific skills and self-understanding - and even then success is not assured."

What she does not pick up on is that, while groups like Turning Point have adopted many of the practices of American evangelism -- and it is clear that she is not attempting to draw comparisons here -- there are some very basic differences.

Most evangelical churches today have been influenced by psycholgical and sociological theories and have modified their practices accordingly. So I find it useful to think back to how things were around the time I was converted, when most every day, garden-variety Christians still saw psychology as anti-Christian mumbo-jumbo and hadn't even heard of sociology.

The little Baptist church which I began attending around the time I was converted did not have members with a highly analytical mindset. But we had some rough theories about conversion.

First, we were a little suspicious of the sudden convert. After all, Jesus said that the seed which springs up rapidly is most likely to die off rapidly, because it has no depth of soil. Yes, there were out-of-the-blue conversions which lasted, but they were rare.

On the other hand, we did expect fairly significant changes in a convert. If you were converted, then things must necessarily change. We relied on a mistranslated verse: If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature, the former things have passed away: everything has become new. A new convert was not just someone who had repented and believed, but was transformed into a new mode of existence. That had to show!

The reality is that this verse, accurately translated says something like, If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation... that is, it is not so much that I have changed my kind, but that I have begun living in a new realm, with all the attendant difficulties and adjustments which face anyone who moves to unfamiliar territory. Once again, a process.

We were also adept at noticing people "under conviction" -- going through a struggle about whether or not to commit to Christ. That is, we knew that the conversion experience was the culmination of a process.

The second thing is that we knew that even the dramatic, life changing conversion needed support. That support was not an endless round of evangelistic services, though the Sunday when someone did not come to a personal faith was rare. But much of church life revolved around getting together for a social night or the monthly fellowship tea, being part of the choir or spending Saturday in a working bee at the Protestant Homes. A changed lifestyle, a changed community and encouragement to look outward as well as self-assess all remain part of the healing process.

Also, we knew the value of one-on-one support. A weakness was an unwillingness to refer people to counselling outside the church (not that much was available); a strength was that we recognised that everyone struggles and needs a friend from time to time. Knowing that you are being prayed for and will probably be asked next week, "How are you going?" is a powerful incentive to keep on the path!

Sadly it seems that too many of these self-help groups lack the broader insights that have informed churches for centuries. And the result is too many Rebekah Lawrences.

The Netbook Phenomenon

I don't own a netbook, nor am I likely to in the near future. But I think that they are saying something about people's attitudes.

For those who are unfamiliar with these devices, they are tiny laptop computers. Where the average business laptop has about a 15" screen, netbooks have a screen half the size or slightly bigger. 12" is generally considered the upper limit.

But netbooks have other distinctive features. They generally have no CD/DVD drive, no more than 1GB of memory, and a not very large hard drive. Most use a single core processor running at below 1.7GHz. Most full-sized laptop computers have a DVD drive, 3 or 4GB of memory and dual core processors running at over 2.0GHz.

The idea behind the netbook is that it is capable of running basic programs (word processor, spreadsheet, basic photo editing) and, above all, of using the Internet. It is designed for travellers and people who make light use of a computer. And most are small enough to slip into a briefcase leaving plenty of room for a packed lunch.

The netbook phenomenon is important because it points to a shift in values.

People still go for the big, powerful computers, just as they still go for big, powerful cars. But a backlash is developing. People are beginning to realise that small works fine, that you don't necessarily need all the features and the "just in case" add-ons. Simple, straight-forward and, above all, portable, works fine. The Toyota Corolla offers some advantages over the Ford Fairlane.

Part of the reason is that extra power doesn't gain you much. In the 1950s, a Jaguar Mk VII capable of 160kph could cruise near that speed for hundreds of kilometres on the derestricted back roads, which was a great advantage over cars like my little Austin which struggled to reach 110 with a tail wind.

Today, the little 1.5litre sedan probably achieves 160 given a push, but only on the freeways is it permitted to reach 110 -- the same as the Jaguar driving alongside it.

Similarly, with computers, when the limiting factor is often disk speed or even the user's typing speed, how much processing speed do we really need? Is "grunt" more important, or a battery which lasts through the day? How often do we really need our CD drive?

With the netbook, the answer is coming down on the side of moderate speed, durable batteries, and plugging in a CD drive when it's necessary.

The netbook phenomenon suggests that, in technology, some people are beginning to accept E.F Schumacher's view that "Small is beautiful".

On the other hand, as the growth of netbook ownership is mainly as a second computer, we need to ask ourselves whether owning 1-1/2 computers is really the definition of smallness. Not that I should talk, of course.

When Jesus sent his disciples out, he told them not to take spare sandals or extra cash -- in effect, he told them to travel light, and discover that God is dependable. There is a radicalism in his approach from which we can all learn. His attitude coloured the early church's approach to poverty, where they sold off property to provide more resources to give to those who lacked. It was also very much the attitude of the early Franciscans, and a value prized by the evangelist, John Wesley.

Of course, for some people, the laptop and projector are part of the basic equipment; for others, that is mere indulgence. But the issue remains: are we acquiring and depending on goods because they are vital to what we do, or because we feel unprotected without them?

Top - Report of death exaggerated

They are now saying that Noordin Top was not killed in the recent siege. Indonesian authorities have withdrawn earlier reports.

The threat remains.

As I said yesterday, though, the threat does not end with the removal of one terrorist, no matter how important to the project.

Keep praying for our world!

Top is dead

ABC News reports that Indonesian authorities have confirmed the death of wanted Muslim terrorist, Noordin Top in a shoot-out in central Java. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/08/08/2650105.htm

I suppose that our first reaction is joy and relief that one of the leading terrorism threats has been ended. As someone who appreciates and values pacifism, but have never been able to make a personal commitment to it, I do believe that there are times when violence can only be stopped by violence. In a similar way, Christians were leading participants in the assassination plot against German terrorist, Adolf Hitler.

I don't think it is contradictory also to feel an element of disappointment, even grief, at this death. For all that I think Top had to be defeated, that any person has to be killed to end his career is an indication that we have failed to find a better solution.

Similarly, in the middle ages, when Europe and Asia Minor faced waves of invading Muslim armies, a Christian soldier who killed in battle, even defending the life of a fellow Christian, still had to perform penance for three years. The need for fighting was recognised, but the failure implicit in killing anyone for any purpose was also acknowledged.

This was in stark contrast to the Muslim belief that any soldier who died in battle would go straight to heaven without passing Go.

But I also wonder what has been achieved. Yes, Top is gone, and the leading explosives expert of south-east Asian terror is no longer able to ply his trade. But we must not delude ourselves into thinking that Muslim terrorism is drawing to an end.

Unlike the Communist terrorism of the 1960s and early '70s, the goal of Muslim terror is not easily satisfied. The Baader-Meinhof groups and such were looking for comparatively limited changes: changes in policy, release of certain prisoners, statements and acknowledgements.

Muslim terror has much broader and less achievable goals: the overthrow of all other systems until the world is under Muslim domination.

How do you stop your actions if your goals are non-negotiable and non-achievable? You either abandon the entire project, or you never abandon it. There is little middle ground.

I do not believe that all Muslims are terrorists, of course -- far from it.

But peace-oriented Muslims battle to be heard or to convince their more aggressive neighbours that there is an option withing Islam.

The problem is that people are more likely to change their positions through conversion than through modification of a viewpoint. So it is harder in some ways for a follower of violent Islam to change within Islam than for that person to convert to a different world-view which rejects violence.

Perhaps we Christians need to be more outspoken about the alternatives we can offer.