Comment by Luke Scientiae on August 19, 2011 at 12:23am

Matt,

Reading Heather's comments I remembered a nice way of driving home just how scientifically undeveloped the ancient world was at the time the Bible was written. Consider that when people died, you had literally know idea why that happened. Every death we know perceive as a heart attack or an embolism or cancer... back then... nothing, the person just drops dead and that is literally ALL you know. Of course interpretations came in the guise of "it was God's plan" or whatever, but consider the non-existent understanding. Try to imagine living in that kind of backwards world, where any of your relatives that died - you didn't know why they died. Even if it was a serious injury that killed someone; still nothing - no understanding of why serious injuries should kill people at all. No germ theory, nothing. In this context people put together an account of their understanding of the world's origins, probably trying also to stick to the original story as much as they could remember from what they were passed down the generations. Of course these days it reads as completely unbelievable.

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