How do you interpret the book of Genesis? Today we're gonna be talking to Dr. Jason Lyle about understanding Genesis, basically looking at biblical hermeneutics and the book of Genesis. Welcome to the Youth Apologetics Training Podcast. All right, guys, welcome back. This is Michael Bohm, and you're listening to Youth Apologetics Training. Yeah, today, guys, we're gonna be talking to Dr. Jason Lyle about his new book, Understanding Genesis, How to Analyze, Interpret, and Defend Scripture. Now, I know in times past, I've already done several studies in the area of biblical hermeneutics. Well, Dr. Lyle's book is really just a tremendous contribution to Christianity and hermeneutics. It's about 470-odd pages long, and this book, the first half of the book, gets into biblical hermeneutics, and it covers a lot of things that I haven't even touched, and it puts it in such a middle-shelf, layman's, easy-to-understand way, just an awesome resource, really. And then the second half of the book gets into how the book of Genesis gets twisted and misinterpreted by so many well-meaning Christians. It's such a well-done book, and it really shows you how to look at your Bible, how to read it, how to understand it, and then takes it and applies these concepts, these principles, to the book of Genesis. I've had Dr. Lyle on before, just a little bit about him. Dr. Jason Lyle, he's a Christian astrophysicist who writes and speaks about science and the defense of the Christian faith. He earned his master's degree and PhD in astrophysics at the University of Colorado in Boulder, not too far from where I'm at. Dr. Lyle currently works as director of research at the Institute of Creation Research I see our amazing organization. So without further ado, Dr. Jason Lyle, welcome back to the Youth Apologetics Training Podcast. Well, thanks for having me on. It is a great honor. I love having you on. I had so much feedback on the last episode that we had you and yeah, it's been great. Now, recently I picked up your book, Understanding Genesis. and subtitle, How to Analyze, Interpret, and Defend Scripture. What a book! I mean, I'm really excited about it. I wish that this would be a book that would be required reading in just about any seminary out there. It gives you such a well-rounded understanding of hermeneutics and how to properly apply them to what you're reading in the scriptures, but do you want to give me a kind of a brief rundown of what the book is about and why you wrote it? Well, I'll tell you, I'm in creation ministry, and so what we do is we defend, in particular, Genesis. We defend all of the Bible, but we specialize in the defense of Genesis here at the Institute for Creation Research. And we found over the years that almost any scientific objection or pseudo-scientific objection that people can raise to Genesis, creation, even the age of the Earth, a thousand years, we can answer that. We can point out that when you really understand the science, it actually confirms the biblical account of creation. And so those scientific arguments, they don't have the scientific arguments that the evolutionists try to use. They don't have any weight anymore. We've answered those. And so I found that evolutionists have switched their strategy, and lately they've been, believe it or not, trying to appeal to the Scriptures themselves to support evolutionists, as strange as that may seem. And so it occurred to me that, well, we need to talk about how the Scriptures are to be read, because it boggles my mind that anyone could read the first few chapters of Genesis and think, yeah, God created over billions of years using evolution. I mean, you just wouldn't draw that conclusion reading those chapters of Genesis. So how is it that people are able to draw these very unusual interpretations from the text? That was really what motivated me to write this book. The fact that we now have a generation of Christians, and by the way, I'm not doubting the status of their salvation. I understand that people can trust in Christ and still have some theological problems. I'm sure we all do that. But nonetheless, It's a problem when people are reading Genesis and saying, yeah, that could be evolution, that could be millions of years, and there was no worldwide flood, and so on. We need to be able to answer those kinds of criticisms, because it really matters, and the Bible really is very clear. I would suggest that one of the reasons why we have so many different denominations today is because we disagree on the rules for interpreting the Scriptures, because most denominations, at least the conservative ones, would say, well, we're reading the Bible and doing what it says. And yet they have a different takeaway than what another denomination would say. Obviously, we're not agreeing on the rules by which the Bible should be interpreted. So this book really is an exploration of what are the rules by which we should interpret Scripture, and when we apply those rules to Genesis, what do we learn? Right. And I love this book. I love how it's put together. Because about the first, in Friends, it's actually quite a long book. But don't let that throw you off. It's written in a way that even a layman can understand. And like the first half of the book, It gives you all of these rules. It talks about rules of logic, hermeneutical principles, various fallacies that are committed when we read various texts within the Bible, different genres of literature in the Bible. It explains all these rules, and then the second half of the book gives you application, and it goes into so many different ways that people have misread and misapplied these rules and committed some of these fallacies in reading the book of Genesis, specifically. And wow, what a contribution. What an amazing read. So let's jump into this. Like, for example, you have a whole chapter on faulty methods of hermeneutics. Tell me some of the more common hermeneutical mistakes people make. Well, I mean, there are different approaches that people take to the scriptures. They'll take the, you know, they'll say, well, I'm of the pietistic interpretation, or I'm of the mythological theory. In fact, the mythological theory is one of the more common ones today when it comes to Genesis. Many people have said, well, Genesis isn't meant to be understood as historical. It's a myth. It's designed to be a story that conveys certain spiritual truth, but you're not supposed to take it as literal history. and the Jesus seminar of the mid-1980s, and there are still some of those around, of course. They embraced that type of hermeneutic. But the question is, what did the author of Genesis intend for his statement to mean? And what this book does is, not only do I say, look, here's what I think the right way of interpreting Scripture is, here's what I think the rules of hermeneutics are. I mean, anybody could do that. What I try to do in this book is show you that that the Bible itself, first of all, tells us how it ought to be interpreted, and secondly, if you use any other hermeneutical method, it ultimately reduces to nonsense. Because, I mean, there are these other methods, the mythical theory, the accommodation method, which says that God uses common errors at the time to try to impart a greater truth. And so, you know, he didn't really mean that he made in six days, but people believed that at the time, and so he used that as a segue to truth. And, well, these are all fallacious. In my view, these are all fallacious, because they are contrary to the way that we would take, first of all, any other book or any other conversation. I mean, when it comes to Scripture, people seem to think, you know, I get to interpret it the way that I want. But if you think about that, that's absurd, and we wouldn't apply that to other people, right? I mean, if somebody said to me, I think the Bible ought to be interpreted according to my standard." And I said, well, I don't take your words literally. I think you agree with me. If you use that same method on the person who's making the statement, it's self-refuting. Or, you know, the person who says, well, I think day means something different to God than it means to people. And so when God says day, it means something different than when we say day. Oh, really? Words mean different things to different people. Well, in that case, you agree with me that words don't mean different things to different people. I said, no, no, no, you misunderstand. I said, words mean different things to different people. I said, yes, but I took your words differently than you intended them. All of these different methods that people use, if you just think about them, they are self-refuting. They cannot stand up to rational scrutiny. And so what I do in the first few chapters of this book is not only talk about these other methods, but I show that if they were applied consistently, they would be self-refuting. And self-refutation is a very, very powerful form of reputation. Right, right. And I can see where a lot of these mistakes are somewhat adopting a postmodern worldview, where what does it mean to me, not necessarily what it means to you. And I love how you're disarming that. That's wonderful. So I've covered I've done a whole series on hermeneutics before, so a lot of the principles in, well, I shouldn't say that, some of the principles that you cover in your book I've already covered, but there's several that I have not, and so I was going to ask you about them. Like, for example, the substitution principle, what's that? Yeah, you know, it's actually a principle that we use in mathematics all the time. If A equals B, then A may be substituted for B. That's pretty obvious, right? So if you have two numbers and they're the same, you can plug one in for the other. Now, that works really well in terms of scriptural interpretation, because a lot of times people will say, this verse means B. Okay, the verse says A, what that really means is B. Well, if A and B are the same, then you can substitute it in. You could paraphrase the verse without changing the meaning. And so, for example, I think I used in the book John 3.16, you know, for God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever should believe in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. Now, what do I think that means? I think it means that God gave Jesus to us, He gave His only Son, because He loved us, and that if we don't accept Christ, we're dead in our sins, but if we do receive Christ as our Lord and Savior, then He'll save us and we'll live forever with Him. And if I've correctly captured the meaning, then I can actually paraphrase John 3.16 in that fashion without changing the meaning. But if it changes the meaning, then I know that I have an incorrect interpretation. And sometimes you can use that principle to show people that they have an incorrect interpretation. One example is where Jesus says in Matthew 19 that from the beginning of creation, or from Mark 10, there's their parallel accounts, from the beginning of creation God made them male and female. Now some people say, well what that means is he's talking about the beginning of marriage, okay? And he's saying that from the beginning of marriage, God made them male and female, which is another way of saying he made marriage, because male and female are the marriage in that context. But if you substitute that in, it would mean that Jesus is saying, from the beginning of marriage, God created marriage, which would be true, but it would be trivial. Why would you bother to say that? Everything exists from its own beginning. And so the substitution principle shows you that that interpretation is wrong, because it reduces Jesus' statement to a triviality. What Jesus really means is from the beginning of creation, the creation of the universe, God made marriage, God made the male and female. He's pointing out that it is part of God's original intention. The family unit is God's by design, and it was that way from the beginning. Okay, yeah, very good. Okay, and I just did a podcast about a week ago on Seventh-day Adventists. They have a teaching where they will use this substitution principle incorrectly. They'll say that in the Old Testament, sign and mark, those two words are used interchangeably. And because the Sabbath at one point is referred to as a sign, Therefore, to observe the Sabbath on Saturday would be having the mark of God. And then, they take another leap of logic in the New Testament, there is the mark of the beast. Well, that must mean those who observe the Sabbath on Sunday, you have now taken the, you know, the anti-mark, the mark of the beast, if you will. Now, just to make sure that anybody listening, if you missed that podcast, That is a teaching that they believe is in the end times. So those in the end times who worship on the Sunday Sabbath, according to their theology, would be taking the Mark of the Beast. But anyway, yeah, there you go. So there's that substitution principle happening there. Interesting. Okay. What about, let's see, the fact-value principle? This is an important one because A lot of times people will criticize the Bible for recording something that somebody did that was unethical. And they'll criticize the Bible for that. You know, so somebody goes out and they, or, you know, King David's sons rebel against him. They say, see, your God's wicked. He's endorsing that. Well, he's not endorsing that. He's just reporting that it happened. The Bible records events that God does not approve of. And one obvious one would be the crucifixion of Christ. Now, of course, God allowed that. He planned it, in fact. but he doesn't approve of it. God didn't approve of people killing the Savior, but he records that event for our benefit, and of course he used it ultimately for his glory, to bring everyone who would be saved to him. But the Bible records things that it does not approve of, and so we need to be very careful when we're searching the Scriptures. And even when a godly person does something, and you say, well, see there, God's endorsing that. Well, not necessarily, because godly men sometimes do ungodly things. We need to be very careful when we're searching the scriptures that we're not just reading about something that happened, or whether we're reading something that God intends for us to do likewise. And the only exception to that really would be Christ. Everything that Christ does, of course, is something that God approves of, because Christ is God. So there's no distinction there. But for anyone else, we need to ask, okay, just because they did that, does that mean it's something that God approves of? In many cases, it is. I mean, there were things that King David did that were very godly, but there were a few things that he did that were not godly. So when he commits adultery with Bathsheba, God's not approving of that. In fact, we know God doesn't approve of that because he punished him for it. He punished the whole nation for that, actually. And so we know that that's not something that God approves of. It's very important that we make a distinction between facts, what happened, and values, what God approves of. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, just because the Bible describes somebody's action doesn't necessarily mean that now it prescribes that same action for us. You know, that's something that we should do. And you, as you were going through there, when God does something, it's always right, the red letter principle. Yes. You kind of touched on that already. Did you want to elaborate on that anymore? I mean, that's pretty much it in a nutshell? Yeah, that's pretty much it. Just a point. I call it that because, of course, some Bibles have in red letters the words of Christ. And I've heard that criticized because all of the Bibles is the word of Christ. And it is. But it's interesting because we know that whatever Jesus says is true and whatever He does is good. And that's not the case with other people. With other people that are mentioned in Scripture, we need to take a look at what they say and analyze, you know, is that something that God approves of, or is it something God disapproves of? Jesus is the only one where we can say we know that God approved of everything he did and everything he said, because he himself is God. Yeah, amen. Yeah. What about the silence principle? The silence principle is often revealed by the misuse of it, which they call an argument from silence. And an argument from silence is when somebody will make the claim that something didn't happen because it's not reported. And so it's when you make an argument based on what is not found in the text. And you just really have to be careful about that because an argument from silence is always weak at best. It's never a good argument. And often it's just fallacious. you know, the Bible does not say that John the Baptist ever went to the bathroom. That's not meaning he never went to the bathroom. I mean, it's just ridiculous when you think about that. Obviously, the Bible, everything it records is true, but it doesn't record everything that happened. It doesn't record everything that's true. What's in it's true, but we need to be very careful about speculating about why the Bible doesn't report something. And we just got to be careful about that. And I'll grant there are some places where there's a very conspicuous absence, where if something happened, it's likely it would have been reported. But even there, you just have to be very careful. Just because God doesn't record something in his book, doesn't mean it didn't happen. Amen, that is so true. Yeah, there are moments when you're reading through and the silence is just absolutely screaming like, you know, for instance, Acts chapter 15 where they had that council and they finally conclude, you know, should Gentile believers be circumcised in order to be saved? Do they need to observe all the law of Moses? And James comes out and finally concludes, You know, don't fornicate, don't eat meat with blood in it, and something else, now it's slipping my mind, but he doesn't mention anything about, you know, make sure all you Gentiles are observing the Sabbath every week. And that's just one that's fresh in my mind because I just did a podcast on it. But that's one of those where it's like, gosh, that is an argument from silence. But boy, you would expect this is an issue that is directly towards the Gentiles and the law of Moses. You would expect something to happen there. But you're right. It's still one of those arguments where it's not very strong. You need to add a little bit more meat to those bones before you can really take it forward. Right. And in that case, there's a question that's been asked. And the way in which he gives his answer really does make it pretty clear that, yeah, we're not required to follow the ceremonial laws that were imposed on the Jews in the Old Testament. So that's an example of a conspicuous absence, something where we would really just naturally, we would expect that the question would have been answered in a different way, had he really indicated that they were to, you know, continue those things. Of course, Paul explicitly in Galatians 6, or Galatians 5 and 6, talks about circumcision being done away with and so on and so forth. Right, right. Yes, exactly. Okay, well, how about another one? This superfluous distinction fallacy? Yes, that's boy, that's a very common one. And if I were to rewrite the book, I might expand on that even more. That's an example of where someone makes a distinction that is not warranted by the text. Certain words do have distinctions where, you know, the law, for example, the law of God, that can mean different things depending on context. Superfluous distinction fallacies where people split the meaning of a word not because it's necessary or implied by the text, but in order to make it fit with their preconceptions. And so that's a very common use of it. And I think one of the examples that I give, let me see here, Well, you know, there are folks who say, well, we're under grace now, not under law. And there's a verse that they will quote on that, and they take law to mean the commandments of God, that we don't have to obey those commandments anymore. Well, that's not really what the text means when you study it in context. The superfluous distinction fallacy is where people will add nuances to the text or split the meaning of words when the text itself does not require that. Now, there are places where the Bible itself makes distinctions in words, and we're supposed to follow that. But when people add distinctions based on their own preconceptions, boy, that's a problem. And several examples of this, it's hard for me to come up with them on the top of my head, but I know that several examples occur in the appendix of this book where I have a dialogue with somebody who denies the Trinity, and he was very adept at coming up with superfluous distinctions. He would say, when it says that, when it calls God the Son, or when it calls the Son of God, God, it doesn't really mean God, it just means that he's acting in the power of God. Well, you can't make that distinction on the basis of the text. There's nothing in Scripture that indicates that Jesus was less than God. Now, there are places where the judges, for example, are sometimes, occasionally, very rarely, called Elohim, which is God in the Old Testament. Very rarely, because they're acting under God's power. But there's a biblical reason to understand it that way, that they're not actually God. There's nothing in the New Testament or the Old Testament that would indicate that Jesus is less than God. It's just the person I was talking to had introduced that superfluous distinction in order to protect his preconception that Jesus isn't God, so that he could continue to believe that and still say that he believes in the Bible. So how do you go about spotting those superfluous distinctions? How do you spot those? And then how do you go about disarming them? Basically, the way to spot them is to notice when somebody makes a distinction, but they don't back it up with Scripture. And so somebody says, well, Jesus isn't really God. This is just used as an honorary title. Okay, give me scriptural support where Jesus, being called God, is merely honorary. Can you give me any examples of that in Scripture?" And if they can't, then it's a superfluous distinction. Or, you know, give me some textual principle that's violated if Jesus is God. Well, of course they can't do that. And so that's an example of a superfluous distinction. The way you refute them is to ask somebody to back it up scripturally or logically from the Scriptures. And if they can't do that, then that tells you that the distinction they've added doesn't come from the scriptures, it comes from their own preconception, and therefore it may be dismissed. Yeah, yeah, there you go. How did you arrive at that conclusion? How do you know that? That's good. That's really good. What about the reliability of ignorance, Falsey? This is another fun one. There is a sort of a common misconception that people who have studied the scriptures a lot have gone to seminary and so on, boy, they've been perverted in terms of their way of thinking. And by the way, I'll admit that in some cases that can happen. It is true that some people go to seminary and they come away with less respect for the Word of God than more, and that really is an indictment on our seminaries today. It shouldn't happen. But nonetheless, in general, people who study the Bible a lot and go to seminary and get good training, good biblical training, they come away with very good knowledge of the Bible. But nonetheless, people think, well, They're trying to intellectualize it. They're being more like the Pharisees and Sadducees. It's just an intellectual knowledge. If you really want to understand the Bible and read it in a totally unbiased way, the best way to do it is not to get any of that education. Just read it for yourself. You know, if you really want to know what a scripture means, ask a 10-year-old who has no biases one way or the other. Ask him to read it and what he thinks it means, and that's the meaning. And so the idea is the less educated you are, the more you're able to understand the scriptures. And I'm sorry, but that is just wrong. It's just wrong. And I understand where people are coming from, because it is true, you acquire biases when you go to seminary. But the fact is, children have biases, too. I mean, you know, the 10-year-old has biases. We all have those. The key is to be aware of them and to be ready to swap them out if there's a clear indication from the Scripture that our biases are wrong. So I think it's very helpful to consult with people that are well-educated in the Scriptures. I have a lot of respect for that. doesn't mean I, you know, if they say something that's contrary to the Scriptures, well, that's their problem. I'm not going to go along with that. The Scriptures are paramount, to be sure. But, no, we ought to respect those who have spent a lot of time in the Word, and I rely a lot of times on commentaries and things like that. The key is you just need to remember that God Himself is sovereign, and people are fallible. But I think we ought to be respectful to those who have studied the Word of God. Do you find that with this reliability of ignorance fallacy, another common approach is, all I need is the Holy Spirit, and I'm good? Yes. In fact, I have an entire chapter in this book called, Me, My Bible, and the Holy Spirit. Because I remember asking somebody one time, you know, what resources do you use to help them understand the Scriptures? And he replied, that's just me, my Bible, and the Holy Spirit. And at the time, that sounded really pious, really religious, you know, spiritual. But the fact is, it's actually not biblical. I mean, first of all, God gave us the Church, and one of the purposes of the Church is to preach the Word, you know, to be in season, out of season, and so on. God gave us other believers to help us along the way. Most people, when they start reading the Word of God, the Word of God's clear enough, but the main, plain doctrines, I think a child can understand, I really do. But there are nuanced things in the Scriptures that you're going to have to study for a while to understand them. And it's so helpful if you have somebody who's already studied that issue, who can give you a little bit of clarity on it. And when I think back, especially to these people that lived hundreds of years ago, I mean, there were people... It's just amazing. I mean, we have so many distractions today, sports and computer games and all these things. There were people who devoted their... Yes, cell phones. We had people that devoted their lives to studying the Scriptures. Some of them knew the Bible backwards and forwards. They had it memorized in the original languages, even. And wouldn't it be foolish for us to just ignore their comments on Scriptures? Now, please don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that we should ever elevate their opinions of the Scriptures to the same level as the Scriptures. I understand that if a father of the faith says something that's anti-Scriptural, we need to reject him and go with the Scriptures. I get that. But nonetheless, what a rich body of literature we have from some of these people that lived hundreds or thousands of years ago who commented on the Scriptures. Folks like Martin Luther, now he was wrong about some things, but boy, he had some insight. Or John Gill, I used John Gill sometimes in my studies, and what a man of God. He's got a comment on every verse in Scripture, and he's generally pretty logical and very smart in terms of the way he comments on it. Isaac Watts, who wrote such great hymns as Joy to the World, for example. He actually has a book on logic that I read, and it's so faithful to the Word of God, and it just looks wonderful to read. Yeah, it's wonderful to read these things. So it's not just me and the Bible and the Holy Spirit. Certainly the Holy Spirit is the person who is able to open our eyes up to understand God's Word, but God never intended us to read His Word in isolation. We should read his word on our own time, certainly, but we should also chat with our fellow Christians and say, you know, here's how I read this passage, brother. How do you read it? And talk about these things and learn from some of those people who came before us who had studied God's word so much. What a blessing to have that literature available. And of course, today with computers, we can access that just at the tap of a finger. So it's just amazing what we have these days. Oh yeah, Esword, and of course there's always Google. You're going to find all kinds of stuff on Google. But yeah, I think when you make the claim that the Holy Spirit is guiding you, I mean that's awesome, the Holy Spirit does guide us, but it opens that door for a lot of subjective isogesis to start happening where you start, you know, there's a lot of instances where people believe the Lord is leading them in one way or another, and that's really simply just not the case. And so certain things start getting pushed into the text that just aren't there. Exactly. And that's something else, too. I have a discussion on that somewhere in the book. I forget where I have it, but towards the beginning, where people will sometimes try to use that as a debate point. They'll say, well, you're wrong, because the Holy Spirit told me this is the right reading. And that's not a legitimate debate point, because your opponent could say, well, the Holy Spirit told me the exact opposite. Now, one of you is not hearing from the Holy Spirit. How do we know if we're hearing from the Holy Spirit? And the answer is, we check to see if what we think we heard agrees with what the Holy Spirit wrote in His Word. It's the Bible that is the ultimate standard for interpreting the Bible. Right, right. And when you start claiming the Holy Spirit told you, whatever follows at that point, you're basically claiming that your words now are equal with Scripture. Whatever you're about to say that must be also canon. It's kind of a dangerous position to be in, but... It is, yeah. And by the way, if you're wrong, if you're wrong and you're saying that God said something that He did not say, well, that's a sin. That's blasphemy, according to Scripture. Right. That's not a sin you want to be committing. That's why I think we need to, in terms of what God says, we need to stick with what God has said in His Word, because that's objective, it's available to all of us. If you and I have a disagreement about what God said in His Word, we can settle that by opening up the Word and checking. It's just that simple. Yeah. Amen. Yeah. And in the Old Testament, when somebody prophesied falsely, something very serious would happen to you. Yeah. You know? And so, anyway, going on, what about the—and you actually touched on this right in the introduction, but the point is fallacy. Yeah. Boy, that's another big one. Accommodationists often use that. Accommodationists, remember, are those who have the hermeneutical method, that they think that God perhaps uses the errors of the time and goes along with them for the purpose of communicating a greater truth. And so, an accommodationist might say, well, Genesis chapter 1, you're not supposed to take those details as truth. People at that time kind of had that type of mythology, and so God used that to communicate a greater spiritual truth, but the point is that God's the Creator. And so that's what they would say about Genesis 1. That's the only thing you're really supposed to take away, according to these people, that God is the Creator. That's the point of Genesis 1. And the problem with that, of course, one of many problems, is if that's all God intended, He could have ended Genesis after the first verse, right? If that was the only thing He could have conveyed, that God created Heaven and the Earth, then why did He go on and spend an entire chapter telling us how He did it? He's giving us details. Now, I'll grant that the main point of Genesis 1 may very well be that God created. I mean, I think that's certainly one of the main points, if not the main one. But the fact is, God does give us details, and God is not a liar. And so when He tells us that He made the six days, we're to accept that as well. Everything that the Bible touches on is true by virtue of the fact that God is the one who is speaking, and God is truth. And so, in fact, in many cases, the details establish the main point. And so you can't ignore the details and then expect that the main point would be true. If Genesis verse 2 and on can't be trusted, then why would you trust verse 1? That's it. That's it. That's exactly right. One of the other chapters kind of changing gears here, you talk about different types of literature or genres in the Bible, and it really does affect how you should read these different genres. For example, like there's historical literature, there's letters, there's poetic literature, and so much more. Do you want to comment to that effect? Maybe talk about the different types of literature you're going to find in the Bible, and then also how you then should be reading it, and, you know, kind of how you take it. Yeah. You know, just like any other literature today, there are different genres, there are different styles, writing styles, depending on what you're trying to communicate. There are historical books, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, primarily historical in nature. A lot of the Old Testament is historical in nature, most of it actually, in terms of their recording events that happened. And it's just that straightforward. So historical narrative. The Gospels are primarily historical narrative. They record events that happened, generally in the order they happened, but not always. You can switch orders. But then there's other types of literature in the Bible, too. There's poetic statements in Scripture. The Psalms are lists of praises, and indeed many of them were sung, they were actually songs at the time, praises to God. And when you read poetic literature, you don't read it in quite the same way that you would read a book on American history, for example. Poems have a different way of speaking to us. And certainly the poetic literature in the Bible is as true and inspired as the historical, But it's meant to be read in a different way. Poetry tends to use more figures of speech, metaphors, things like that. You know, God is a rock. It might take that to mean God literally is, you know, like an igneous rock or sedimentary. Well, no, of course not. Of course not. We understand that. It's a metaphor for stability and the fact that he's foundational for other things and so on and so forth. And of course, we get that. We understand that. And today, if you were to pick up a book and start reading it, you would very quickly recognize what type of literature it is. But for some reason, when people go through the books of the Bible, they tend to confuse the type of literature. I think there's reasons for that. But in any case, Genesis, for example, is historical narrative, and it's therefore to be read that way. Some people would say, well, that's poetic. It's a metaphor. No, the Psalms are poetic, and some of them contain metaphors. Genesis is historical narrative. And in fact, it's very easy to recognize the different types of literature, especially when you know something about the original Hebrew language. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew. And the way Hebrew poetry works is quite different from English poetry. English poetry, we tend to be more consumed with rhyme and meter. That's not the case with Hebrew poetry. In Hebrew poetry, they were more concerned with parallelism. And that's where you say something, and then you say basically the same thing using different words. And so Psalm 19.1, for example, the heavens declare the glory of God and the skies proclaim the work of his hands. It kind of says the same thing, right? The heavens declare the glory of God is kind of the same as saying the skies proclaim the work of his hands. They're both basically saying the same thing using different words. That's an example of parallelism. And that is the defining feature of Hebrew poetry. If you don't have parallelism, it's not poetic. It's just that simple. And when we look at the poetic sections, when we look at Proverbs, for example, Proverbs is primarily poetic. It's giving us little bits of advice in poetic form. It's not meant to be read in a literal sense. But it's giving us truth, but it needs to be interpreted in the right fashion. Now, when we look at Genesis, we see absolutely no evidence of poetry. And so these folks who say, well, Genesis is poetic, or it's a parable, or whatever, no, we know from the way it's worded that it's not that style of literature. Genesis is written in the same way as Exodus, in the same style as the Gospels. Historical narrative. It's just recording facts that happened. It's even more obvious if you know something about the original language. Genesis chapter 1 uses a Hebrew construction called a vav consecutive, and that's where you have, and this happened, and that happened, and that happened in English Bibles. It reads kind of awkwardly in English. In fact, some versions even remove some of the ands just to make it a little more readable. but it's actually a very good Hebrew. And when you have that, and this happened, and that happened, and followed by a verb in the original Hebrew word order, so and said God this, and did God that, whenever you have that, it's an indication that you're dealing with historical narrative. Whenever you have a long chain of those Vav consecutives, you would never have that in poetic literature. You might have an individual Vav consecutive, but you'd never have a chain of them in poetic literature. So there's no doubt, when you actually study the text, that the author of Genesis intended for it to be taken as historical narrative, and therefore we ought to read it in a primarily literal fashion, because that's how you read history. You read it as literal history, not as poetry or parable. Right, right. Yeah, and you brought up parables. I get that often where people ask me about parables, and specifically, for example, the situation where we had Lazarus, and here he is in this compartment of Sheol, And he's communicating with God in asking for Him to give him some water. And they're saying, well, that's just a parable. That's not something we take literally. Basically trying to disarm the idea that hell is conscious torment. And so, you know, a lot of times when you look at these different forms of literature, people will miss the point entirely. And with that particular instance, it's interesting, too, because the Bible actually doesn't call that a parable. So you have to think through, is that really a parable? But even if it is, there's no doubt that what Jesus is trying to convey is that hell is not a place you want to go to. That's one thing he's trying to convey, that once you die, the opportunity for salvation is over. that no one can cross from hell to heaven or heaven to hell, and that's very comforting to someone like me, because I know I'm going to heaven when I die, because Christ has promised to save me. So I know there's no chance in heaven of me slipping up and having to get sent to hell. I know that I'll continue to be righteous, truly, because Christ has made me that way in heaven. Also, another point for that particular instance that Jesus illustrates is that if people are not persuaded by the Word of God, they won't even be persuaded if someone rises from the dead, which is a wonderful takeaway from that story, and it's something that Jesus Himself experienced when He was resurrected. There were some people who doubted. In Matthew 28, I think it's maybe verse 17, where it says, you know, they worshipped Him, but some doubted. So even in the presence of the resurrected Lord, that blows my mind, even in the presence of the resurrected Lord, there were some who doubted that He was raised from the dead. But in any case, the point that I've mainly illustrated in this book is that, for the most part, you can recognize parables. Most of them say he spoke to them in parables. There was a certain man, and usually they don't have specific names, and they illustrate a spiritual truth by showing us something physical. And the point is, Genesis is not remotely written in that style. It's not written in that... In fact, the list of genealogies you have, like in Genesis 5, and so-and-so begets so-and-so, and so-and-so begets so-and-so. You would never find that in a parable. That would be ridiculous in a parable. Or in poetry, for that matter. That would make a terrible poem, wouldn't it? Right. And with those genealogies, you can actually connect Adam all the way down to Abraham, just by looking at so-and-so begot so-and-so, and they were X amount of years old when they had so-and-so, and then it just connects together. There's nowhere where you can insert millions of years or even, I mean, you know, a bunch of generations for that matter. Yeah. Yep. Very clear indication that we're dealing with historical narrative, and therefore it's to be taken in a straightforward fashion. Of course, even, you know, even historical narrative occasionally will have a figure of speech in it. When, you know, the Bible refers to his people as, you know, the Israelites as being stiff-necked. We don't take that to mean they literally had stick nets. We understand that as a metaphor for stubborn. We get that. But primarily, the way you read historical narrative is literally. And therefore, Genesis, being historical narrative, is to be read literally. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, Changing Gears, you have another chapter on logical fallacies in biblical interpretation. There's a lot of good fallacies here. Like, for example, equivocation. What is that? Equivocation is where a word that has more than one meaning, when you make an argument, you switch the meaning of the word in the middle of the argument. And so if I said, you know, doctors sure know a lot about medicine, and Dr. Lyle is a doctor, therefore Dr. Lyle knows a lot about medicine, that would be an equivocation fallacy, because the word doctor is being used in two different senses there. It can mean a medical doctor, but it can also refer to somebody who has a PhD, an egghead like me, as they say. And, you know, it's medical doctors that know a lot about medicine. I certainly don't. Not my area of expertise. There's different ways that can be used in Scripture. I think the example I give is the word creation. That can mean more than one thing in Scripture. It can refer to the act of God's creating, or it can refer to the thing that God created, the universe. And it's used both ways in the Scriptures. It's used both ways. And there are people who conflate those two, and they try to use one for the other. they'll pull out the wrong meaning of the passage, and that would be an example of an equivocation fallacy. One example of that would be Psalm 104, which some people have said, see, that's referring to creation. Well, it is referring to creation, but they're saying it refers to the act of God's creating. And it really doesn't. It alludes to the fact that God did create, certainly, but it's mainly a psalm rehearsing God's maintenance of the present world, the present creation, as it were. And it's very clear because it talks about the cedars of Lebanon. Well, Lebanon didn't exist back at the beginning, and ships that sail in the sea, and those didn't exist back during the creation week. So we know it's talking about God's care for the present creation, and yet people use that to say, well, no, that's talking about the creation, God's act of creating. That's an equivocation fallacy. Right, yeah. You know, I'm looking at this huge list of various logical fallacies in biblical interpretation, and I realize there's no way we're going to be able to look at all these. And you cover a bunch of these, if not all of these, in your book Discerning Truth, which is another one that one of these days I've got to con you into coming back on so we can talk about that. That is such a good book. I want to touch on all these, but there's just no time. So yeah, friends, if you want to learn more about various logical fallacies, Dr. Lyle's got a book, Discerning Truth. What a book. It just gets into a lot of these and is so effective in speaking to the layman and presenting these various logical fallacies and how to spot them, how to disarm them, and also just a lot of examples on where and how they're used in the creation debate. So yeah, that's a great book. Check that one out. And hopefully one of these days I can con Dr. Lyle to come back on and talk about that book as well. Now, you have a whole chapter on the Bible's instructions on interpretation. Now, that, you know, that caused me to stop and, really, that's interesting, and it was a really good chapter. Can you talk about that for a little bit? Yeah, I consider that really the heart of the book, honestly. Yes, yes. I felt like a lot of preparation was necessary to build up so that we could understand that chapter, and so that's why it comes late in the book, chapter 9 instead of chapter 1. But the Bible itself tells us how to interpret it. And people are bothered by that. They think, well, wait a minute, if the instructions for how to interpret the Bible are in the Bible, then how could I ever get started, right? I mean, it's kind of like, there's an analogy I give in that chapter about, allegedly, there was a VCR brand where the instructions to set up the VCR and how to use it instead of writing them out on paper, somebody thought it would be more efficient to show people. So they recorded it on a VHS tape, a videotape, the instructions on how to make the machine work. But of course, in order to view the tape, the machine would have to already be working, in which case the tape would be pointless. Is the Bible like that? Well, of course, even in that scenario, you could stick the tape in somebody else's machine who has a VCR that's already working, and that could show you how to set it up. The Bible's kind of like that. God, you know, as we learn more about Scripture, more often than not, God uses other people in our lives to push us forward in our understanding of His Word, people who already have an understanding of the Scripture, and they help us to read it properly. But the thing that I want to point out is that the Bible really does tell us, it doesn't use modern vocabulary, of course not, why would it use technical jargon? It's meant to be understood, you know, for a variety of times. But it does tell us how it's to be interpreted. There's several ways it does that, but one of the more common ones is we can see how Jesus interpreted the Scriptures. I think that's a very easy way to understand it. Take a look. How did Jesus interpret the Old Testament? Jesus is God, so however He interprets the Old Testament is the right way to interpret the Old Testament. He's the one that inspired it in the first place. His Holy Spirit was the one who moved men to write those original words. And so when Jesus quotes the Old Testament and uses it to make a point, he's doing it correctly, and that's how we should do it. That's a great example. But basically what I do in chapter 9 is I go through and I show that all the principles of hermeneutics that would have to be true just from common sense are also scriptural. They're things that would have to be true if the Bible's true, and of course it is. And then I spend a great deal of time trying to deal with this problem of how do we get away from this idea of circular reasoning? I mean, how do I understand the Bible in order to get the instructions correctly? If the instructions on how to read the Bible properly are in the Bible, then how do I get started? How do I read to begin with? And the answer to that is God has written the Bible in such a marvelous way that when you first read it, it's so clear, the basic main things are so clear, you can't miss them. I mean, if you have an open heart, if you're open to God, and granted, some people have their eyes closed, they don't want God's truth, and they won't even understand it maybe on the first pass, but if you're open to that, if you're willing to let the Holy Spirit in and help you to understand God's word, you're going to get the main truths on the first pass. And now that you have those main truths, Now that you understand a little bit of the Bible, you can go back and read it again on the second pass, and you're going to understand it better on the second pass. Some of the things that you maybe misunderstood on the first pass, they now make more sense, and so on. The more you read the Bible, the better you understand the Bible. And really, it shouldn't bother people that the instructions on how to read the Bible are in the Bible, because frankly, students go to school, and they learn language. And what does the teacher use to teach them language? Well, here she uses language. Nobody complains that, you know, well, how could a student get started then? Well, the fact is they do have a rudimentary knowledge of language when they begin school. But then, through language, the teacher's able to help them improve their understanding of language, and so on and so forth. And the Bible really is the same way. The more we read the Bible, the better we understand the Bible, the more we read the Bible better. on the next pass, and that's called the hermeneutical spiral, or the hermeneutical circle. And I found it's a true principle, and it really has to be that way, because the Bible is the ultimate standard for all truth claims, and that means it's necessarily the ultimate standard for its own interpretation. Yeah, yeah. And that's just it. You're born, you don't know English or whatever language that your parents speak, and they're going to start speaking to you. And you just start picking things up. And pretty soon, we all are born with basic Logic built in yes, and you just you start picking things up you start putting together that that outline that skeleton And then you start hanging meat on the bones You know putting it together and each time you pass through that that Bible It's the same thing you're you you start picking up more things and you learn more about God's character and how he communicates to us yeah, if it's if it's not fallacious and to use language to improve our understanding of language, then neither is it fallacious to use the Bible to better improve our understanding of the Bible. Amen. There you go. Amen. So, from this point then, you start getting into application, and you start looking into various ways, because this book is still about Genesis, and so you start looking at various ways that people falsely and correctly will look into the the scriptures of Genesis and then pull out concepts that you know quite often have to do with creation and evolution, but that's your field and that's That's awesome. That's exactly one of the reasons why I bought the book. I didn't realize how much I was getting into it's such a good book, but and so you spend a very lengthy chapter on the age of the earth and In fact, I think it was over 60 pages. Excellent chapter. And this is not so much getting into the science of it, it's getting into what the book of Genesis actually says. It's getting into the grammar, getting into the Hebrew, getting into the context, applying these hermeneutical principles correctly, and then also giving you the alternative arguments from apologists such like Dr. James White, which again, when no one's questioning, I'm sorry, not James White, Dr. Hugh Ross, you know, sorry, you know, nobody's questioning his salvation by any stretch at all. But just, you know, he will put forth many arguments to the effect of the Bible teaches that the earth is millions, billions of years old, and you will go through point by point and look at a lot of the things that various people, you know, arguments people will make and disarm them, refute them using these hermeneutical practices. Awesome. Very well done. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. And a whole chapter on theistic evolution, also the extent of the flood. Some people will teach that it was a local flood and not a global flood, which There there was a really funny picture. I cannot remember who put it out. It probably was answers in Genesis, but a really funny picture of You know a local flood where you've got flood flood waters covering the highest mountains and there's like this invisible wall that's holding everything in and on the other side everything's dry because we all know water will rush to the lowest areas and It's kind of hard to have the water covering the highest mountain in a local area and yet not covering the highest mountains in other areas. My good friend Dan Leva, he's the one who did that slide. He did it for Answers in Genesis. That's right. That's right. That's exactly right. Yeah, I'm friends with him on Facebook. Yeah. So, you know, anyways, just a fantastic book, friends. I cannot recommend it enough. I think you also have that book, Discerning Truth, and I'm really hoping to get you back sometime to talk about that as well. Also, you have a book, The Ultimate Proof of Creation. Can you tell me about that real quick? Yeah, people have asked, you know, is there kind of one argument that I can specialize in? Because, you know, I can't know everything about science. That's certainly true. Is there one argument that just flat-out refutes evolution? And I believe there is. And that book basically shows you that unless biblical creation is true, you couldn't actually know that anything is true. And it takes a while to flesh that out. But nonetheless, it's actually quite a bit shorter than this book. But nonetheless, what it does is it shows you that all the things that we take for granted, the methods of science, logical reasoning, and so on, are all predicated on the assumption of biblical creation. And so if God really didn't create, just to give you a little taste of it, I can't give you the full argument, it'd take too long, but just to give you a taste of it, Why is it that we expect the universe to obey laws that are discoverable by the human mind, that obey mathematical relationships, and so on? That makes sense, because God created the universe and has imposed order on it, and upholds it in a consistent fashion by His power. That's how we know. If the universe were just an accident, why would we expect it to obey laws? Why would they be the same everywhere? Why would the law of gravity be the same on Friday as it is on Monday? You see, I can answer that as a Christian, because I know that God is beyond time, and He's promised me that He will uphold the future like the past, according to Genesis 8.22. And so I know that gravity will be the same on Friday as it is on Monday. But the unbeliever, even though he assumes that, he doesn't have any reason on his own worldview for that to make sense. If evolution were true, you'd have no reason to believe it. In fact, if evolution were true, you'd have no reason to believe anything at all. You couldn't know anything. And the book goes through and shows you how that works, and It may sound a little bit complicated. It's really not. I've been able to teach this stuff to teenagers within one week, and they get it by the end of the week. So I know it's not that hard. Anybody can learn it. Anybody can learn it. Amen. Yeah. All right. Well, cool. Dr. Lyle, thank you so much for coming on the show. This has been very informative. I love your book. I cannot recommend it enough. It's been an honor to have you. Well, thanks. Thanks so much for having me on. I really appreciate it. All right, guys. There you have it. That was Dr. Jason Lyle. Again, if you missed the title of his book, it's Understanding Genesis, How to Analyze, Interpret, and Defend Scripture. well worth the money you pay, awesome book. We covered a lot of things today, and Dr. Lyle gave us so much good information. Now, again, his book is like 470 some pages long, and it is jam-packed. There is so much in there, just an excellent resource. So avail yourself of that, and with that, I love you guys. And we'll see you next week. Yeah.