Hello and welcome!
This is my wife Mary and I'm Ed, and we are
Branch Davidian Seventh-day Adventists. We're
excited you are joining us today. We present
or expound on a principle or belief related
to the SDA Sabbath School quarterly each week.
This quarter's study is entitled "How to Interpret
Scripture." This week's lesson is entitled,
"Creation:  Genesis as Foundation – 
Part 2."
But before we get into this week's lesson,
we need to do a review of last week's study.
In last week's lesson, we discussed that Seventh-day
Adventism, as can be seen in the writings
of our pioneers, was built on the foundation
of "materialism." Materialism is the belief
that everything is made of matter, as opposed
to spiritualism or immaterialism, which is
the belief that something outside of matter
could have existence.
A perfect example of this is the SDA materialistic
doctrine concerning the "state" of the dead.
As Seventh-day Adventists, we firmly believe
that there is no human existence or experience
apart from the physical body. The SDA pioneers
understood this to be only a part of materialism.
They also believed that heaven is a physical
place, that God has a physical body, as does
Jesus and all the hosts of heaven; they believed
that everything that exists is physical. For
a deeper study on this, see our videos in
the end screen and tagged above, and also
check out the link in the description below
to our study called "Materialism, Our Forgotten Foundation."
In line with this, we believe in science.
We read last week that Ellen White promoted
the trusting of the results of scientific
experimentation over trusting experiences
that are not in harmony with physical and
natural law. Science is what proves the truth
as it is in material reality.
And speaking of science, the lesson for Monday
brings up a common question today concerning
the bible's portrayal of the shape of the
earth. The lesson reads,
"A Flat Earth?
It is commonly believed that many in the ancient
world thought the earth was flat. Most people,
however, for a variety of good reasons, understood
that the earth was round. Even to this day,
though, some claim that the Bible itself taught
that the earth was flat."
[Sabbath School Quarterly Lesson, Sunday, 
May 24, 2020]
Now before we go further, if any of you out
there are "flat earthers," I want you to know
that I was too, and I understand where you
are coming from. I was very dogmatic about
the contents of the bible, and thought that
if the bible writers perceived the earth to
be flat, then it must be flat! I didn't understand
the principles we are about to go through.
When I learned these things, I had to let
go of my belief in the flat earth, and I think
you will see why as we go on!
So, today we are going to discuss something
called "the common understanding of the day."
All we mean by this is that at different points
in history, there are certain beliefs and
understandings that are common to the people
of that time. For example, today we all understand
that living organism are made up of cells.
This is a common understanding, but only since
the 17th century when cells were discovered.
Prior to that time, people did not have this
common understanding. Likewise, an understanding
that we all share in common today is that
each child is a genetic combination of both
their parents. But this common understanding
arose surprisingly recently. For centuries,
the common understanding was that every sperm
contained a tiny little human that was merely
grown in the womb. It used to be the common
understanding that bloodletting cures disease,
that vision works by shooting light beams
from our eyes, that flies were spontaneously
generated from rotting food, and all sorts
of things. The fact that something is a common
understanding doesn't tell you whether it
is right or wrong, but understanding what
people commonly thought at the time when something
was communicated is important when trying
to understand what that person was trying
to say. For example, if you found a scrap
piece of paper that said, "A healthy social
life is essential for the production of good
humor." You might assume it is a line from
a book on "how to be a good comedian" or even
a piece of advice from a self-help book trying
to get people to not be too uptight. Either
way, you would most likely understand the
sentence to be advocating social connectedness
as a means of experiencing or creating some
good laughs. The reason why you would think
this is because today, we have a common understanding
that the word "humor" refers to things that
are amusing or comedic. But if it turned out
that this line was actually from a 15th century
medical text, your assumption would be wrong.
This is because the common understanding of
the 15th century wasn't the same as the common
understanding of today. In fact, in the 15th
century, like many centuries before it, there
was a common understanding that our bodies
contained four fluids which they called "humors,"
the balance and quality of which they considered
essential for health. Without knowing the
common understanding at the time the sentence
was written leaves us prone to misinterpreting
it by imposing our own common understanding
onto the text. This retrojection of an idea
from one time to an earlier time before it
arose or became common is called "anachronism"
and it is something we should try to avoid.
Now let's look at the issue brought up in
Sunday's lesson. What did the people of the
ancient world commonly understand about the
shape of the earth? And then, does the bible
say that the earth is flat?
We are going to look at what the people of
the ancient world probably thought about the
earth, sun, moon and stars, and how that would
impact what God would say to them, or even
what uninspired authors of that time period
would be likely to say regarding cosmology.
So, to determine this, we can do a simple
search of the internet or your local library,
to see when people commonly began to understand
that the earth was a sphere.
It seems that it was Pythagoras who was among
the first to understand that the earth was
round sometime near 500 B.C.E., and that by
the third century B.C.E, most educated people
in the Greek-speaking world believed this
to be the case. Most people until the 16th
century, however, still had a geocentric perspective,
believing that the earth stood still while
the sun and moon and stars revolved around
us.
Thus, before that time, the common understanding
was that the earth stood still and that it
was the sun that was moving in the sky. Furthermore,
prior to the third century BCE, the common
understanding of most people in the world
was that the earth was flat, covered by a
solid sky dome which contained a very small
sun and moon and stars. The fact that this
is what people believed is evidenced both
by historical records and artwork. You can
check out the Wikipedia page on the flat earth
as a starting place for your research. We
have a link in the description below.
And of course, most of the Hebrew bible was
written before the third century B.C.E. and
quite naturally, it expresses the common understanding
of the day.
As an example of this, in Psalm 19:6, King
David described the sun as being on a circuit
in the sky, rather than the earth being on
a circuit around the sun. It reads,
"It [the sun] rises at one end of the heavens
and runs its circuit to the other; nothing
is deprived of its warmth."
[Psalm 19:6]
But we need to consider two things from here...the
first one is that this description of the
sun seeming to be moving across the sky was
not David's main point. It is quite clear
to see by reading the entire Psalm that David
was rejoicing in the fact that the law of
the Lord is perfect, blessing everything it
shines on, just like the sun warms every point
of the earth that it shines on.
Imagine, if the common understanding of the
day was simply that the sun moves across the
sky to warm the whole earth, but instead David
communicated today's understanding concerning
the nature of the universe, that the sun was
really a very small star, the earth being
just one of many planets orbiting the sun,
which as a solar system is actually circling
the center of the milky way galaxy, which
is moving along with billions of other galaxies
in our universe, which is only one of many
universes...well, the point could still be
made, that God's law is dependable and gives
light to all it touches, but most would have
missed the point because their world view
apple cart would have been toppled. And what
would be the advantage of toppling their apple
cart if the common person of the day had no
means of understanding astronomy in that way?
The point David was making could be made using
either the common understanding of his day
or the common understanding of our day...but
since he was writing with this ancient understanding
himself, and his audience would have had the
same ancient understanding, it would have
been confusing and unproductive to make the
point using our modern astronomy.
The discussion question for Sunday touches
on this. It reads,
"Put yourself in the position of someone who
lived thousands of years ago. What evidence
would you have that the earth moved? Or would
you find the evidence that it stood still
more convincing? Or what evidence would you
find that it is flat, or round?" 
[Sabbath School Quarterly Lesson, 
Sunday, May 24, 2020]
We know that this is the way it was, not only
with the ancient prophets and peoples, but
with more recent prophets and peoples too.
We know that Ellen White lived and was speaking
to an audience from the 19th century, really
just fresh out of the dark ages. The context,
culture, language, and common understanding
of her day affected not only what and how
she communicated, but how God inspired her
as someone who had that same context, not
unlike King David and God's people in that
day.
Ellen White said that inspiration is one hundred
percent human and one hundred percent divine.
She said that it is God who inspires the prophet,
but the words belong to the prophet. In other
words, unless God totally cancels out the
prophets mind and works through the prophet
as merely a robotic interface, He has to accommodate
the prophet's cultural, scientific, and linguistic
context in order to effectively use them to
communicate messages of truth to people with
similar contexts in a way that they would
understand and gain the most benefit from the messages.
Ellen White explained,
"The union of the divine and the human, manifest
in Christ, exists also in the Bible. The truths
revealed are all 'given by inspiration of
God;' yet they are expressed in the words
of men and are adapted to human needs." 
[Ellen White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 5, p. 747]
Now before we go on, the point she is making
here, is that like King David with the sun,
inspiration from God is a combination of the
divine and human. The words of inspiration
are expressed in the words of men and are
adapted to human needs. We need to point out,
as we have in other videos, that the common
understanding of her day was that the bible
was all to be considered the "word of God."
However, she never gave a specific list of
books to be considered canonical, she never
sanctioned a specific bible canon, and actually
considered the apocrypha to be important for
the wise of these last days to read and understand  
(see Manuscript Releases, vol. 16, p. 30-35).
James White actually promoted the printing and sale of the apocrypha so people could gain from it 
(see Review and Herald, Feb. 2, 1869 p. 48).
And some of the pioneers even
considered some writings in the Apocrypha
to contain inspiration (see Joseph Bates,
A Seal of the Living God, p. 66.1; and
D. G. Needham, Advent Review and Sabbath Herald,
August 5, 1856, page 96.10).
Her point was not that the bible is a list
of books we are to consider inspired and none
others, her point was that inspiration is
a union of the divine and human.
The people of her day were, as we said, just
coming out of the dark ages, they did not
have access to the internet like we do, they
could not investigate the history and development
of the man-made bible canon lists like we
can. God was not making that point about the
bible canon to the people of the 19th century.
He was trying to help them understand the
nature of inspiration, and the nature of reality
and truth. He worked within the common understanding
of the day of human prophets not only in bible
times, but in modern times too. God inspired
King David in the same way He inspired Ellen
White...He works with His prophet's understanding
and context to adapt the truth to human needs.
This is why Ellen White said, it is the present
truth that the flock needs now...because present
truth is adapted to our present needs. She
said,
"There are many precious truths contained
in the Word of God, but it is 'present truth'
that the flock needs now."
[Ellen White, Early Writings, p. 63]
Now, you may be thinking that knowledge has
increased quite a bit in the 100 plus years
since Ellen's passing. Our language, circumstances,
understanding of science, understanding of
history, use of technology, and many other
aspects of our modern context has changes
quite a bit in the past century.
Don't you wonder what God wants to say to
us today? Since Jesus did not expect prophecy
to cease (see John 16:12-13), maybe we shouldn't
either!
Thank you for staying with us through the
entire video. We invite you to visit our web
site www.bdsda.com to learn more about who
we are and just as important who we are not.
Please join us each week, as we will continue
to offer new and interesting insights for
your Sabbath School studies.
God Bless!
Many Blessings!
