SpaceBanter.com - View Single Post - The stars in the heavens

**SolomonW[_2_]** · July 28th 08, 04:20 PM posted to alt.bible,sci.astro.amateur,soc.history.what-if

In article b2c636a9-4371-401d-9467-d845f5c0af59
@d45g2000hsc.googlegroups.com, says...
SolomonW wrote:
--------------------------------------------------
"Look at the sky and
see if you can count the stars. That's how many descendants you will
have."
-------------------------------------------------------------
"I will bless you and give you such a large family, that
someday your descendants will be more numerous than the stars in the sky
or the grains of sand along the beach.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++

trying to resolve these two quotes one possible solution, the writer
of this chapter states that ancients might have had a telescope.

Any thoughts?

Thoughts? Sure.

The quotes are not ambiguous unless taken literally. Each indicates
simply that his descendents would be too numerous to count.

To have a population too numerous to count, would be a feat even in
biblical times.

The bible for example talks of "ten thousand times ten thousand", that
is 100 million.

Trying to reconcile Biblical quotes as literal, one against the other,
is an exercise in futility.

Which I am not really trying to do!

Steer clear of anyone trying to do so, on
either side of "the cloth". They are enemies in a war that does not
concern the truths found through science and faith.

Indeed.

As for the existence of a telescope at the time that Genesis was
written, that requires as large a leap of faith as anything else you
cannot prove beyond doubt.

Indeed. I suspect if such an instrument had existed the knowledge would
not have been lost.