Michael Kruse

Cheryl,

“My husband has been pushing me to take my research that was used in WIM and expand on it and put it into a book.â€

You should listen to him! 🙂

“If one takes scripture and removes everything that they don’t personally like (by avoiding passages that have clear prohibitions or by reinterpreting God’s prohibitions to soften or avoid God’s words on the matter) then scripture loses its authority and we become the ultimate judge of God’s word. It is with sadness that I agree that this is what some egalitarians have done. I have read where Paul is disrespected as a male chauvinist or as someone who got it wrong in the beginning.â€

I am in full agreement with you here. There are those who have taken the their position not because of scripture but I spite of it. Curiously, in a book a just read about theology in the civil war there were many abolitionists who did the same. They opposed slavery in spite of the Bible not because of it. That undermined the authority of scripture on a host of issues. The same is true with this one.

“However I have some DVD’s of their teaching and I have seen several debates between young earth versus old earth people and I have two books that go through Ross’ material and refutes him point by point.â€

And this is precisely what I have feared! How would you react to me as complementarian critic of yours said that I has never watched WIM but I had a point-by-point critique of WIM’s most adamant opponents and therefore know WIM to be in error?

Prov 18:17

“The first to present his case seems right, till another comes forward and questions him.†(NIV)

If you have not read at least “The Genesis Question†and hopefully “A Matter of Days,†then you have not really listened to this other perspective! I encourage you to read for yourself what he says. I have read “Genesis Flood†and at least four or five other book length presentations of the Young-Earth view. I have occasionally visited websites of YECs and read articles written by them. I have truly listened to multiple sides of this debate and with a father and friends as scientists I have been around this debate a lot.

“To be fair, they list the reading that God created animals after Adam as an option.â€

“I have read through the explanation and the requirement for the pluperfect and it appears to be a very solid case.â€

I am aware of they allow the alternative but you are missing my larger point. Your claim was that it must be read this way. This article was written by YEC folks. What the article highlights is that it is not a cut-and-dry case, open-and-shut case, even among YEC. That is my primary point.

“I have read through the explanation and the requirement for the pluperfect and it appears to be a very solid case.â€

But did you read alternative views in their own words, not through the filter of their opponents? (Proverbs 18:17) Almost any case can be made to appear solid if you are only exposed to one side of it. The article makes clear that they believe the minority position to be that animals were created after Adam. Possibly the most widely referenced resource on such topics “Keil and Delitzsch†disagrees with your analysis. (That doesn’t make them right but it does mean the burden is on dissenters to make their case and refute the conclusion of the opponent.) I disagree that other translations have said this in the perfect sense. I think they have stated things ambiguously, sometimes using punctuation to set off one part of the verse from the other. I need to know not only what Barnes thinks but what his opponents think and why they are wrong.

“Okay does this qualify as chapter one of my new book?â€

Just add this comment to it and you are there! 🙂