Pete, have you read the whole of the historical part of the Old Testament? I can't believe you haven't, but can you honestly claim that the god who commands the extirpation of whole peoples like the Amalekites is decent? Or is in any way likely to be the father of Jesus, who claims that if one has seen Him, one has seen the Father? Or indeed, likely to be the God who inspired Hosea and Amos?

I know you live your life according to the latter. I can imagine you very easily arguing like Abraham did with the angels about sparing people from destruction, and I can't imagine you acceding at all readily to what seemed a divine command to kill anyone. (I look back to merrily singing a children's hymn "Who is on the Lord's side?" with no knowledge of its context in the Levites slaughtering some of their brethren who had offended YHWH, and shudder.)

I appreciate your dislike of the idea of evolution being based on death and disease, but if there were less of that sort of thing in the OT, that argument would be more convincing. Wiping out most of creation in a flood is not so different from things being eaten, is it? Killing all the first born of Egypt, when only the Pharaoh was concerned with decision making? But evolution may not be depend on that as much as is presented, anyway. It is to do with not passing on genes rather than being devoured. In my family, the last two generations have included at least five women who will not be contributing to the future of the human race - we never managed to meet the right man at the right time. None of us, as far as I can make out, were in any way deformed or diseased, and the two who are dead had reached their full span.

I've bookmarked that article and will read it when I have time. But I don't believe that it is an essential foundation for belief in the Gospels to accept the OT as literally true. The essence of the gospels, I believe, is the witness of Jesus and his followers, and the action of the Holy Spirit in them. If that were to fail because of references to a history which cannot be confirmed in the real world, it would be much much weaker than the last 2000 years has shown it to be.

And it would be falling into a trap seen by Augustine of Hippo. He was very concerned by those of his fellow believers who rooted their faith in matters which the pagans around could easily see to be untrue.

The universe has a very convincing appearance of great age. If faith in Christ is to be hung on its reality being much shorter, but being made with that appearance for some reason, such as Gosse's suggestion, which brings into question the creator's desire for the salvation of all, it is going to become impossible to spread that faith.

Kent, I don't think you entirely took in my argument about authorship. The writer who includes a back story for a narrative's character is not dealing with the same situation as a deity who creates a backstory for a world, and without any indication that that is what it is, expects people to see that that is what it is, as opposed to the "real" situation. With a book, we select it from the shelves, with a film, we go to the cinema, or put a DVD in the player. There is a framework in which we engage with the author. With life, we do not have any such choice, and only one source to suggest that we are in a work of fiction. The result of failing to accept that is eternity in hell, is it not?

The God who so loved the world that he came down to show us that, and to save us, would He set up a misleading trap? Because that is what YEC's are claiming.

Penny