From Voyageurs National Park on FB: Called “Catamaran” by locals, Bert Upton is among the strangest of historical characters on area waters. He lived in a hut built over a dug-out at Squirrel Narrows. Found frozen to death in the 1930s by Kettle Falls pioneer Oliver Knox; Upton was perched lifeless in the snow just a half-mile from his home. Shunning civilization, Upton defined the word hermit. First spotted rowing his crude log raft on Namakan, no one knows how he got there. Upton’s accent implied an English heritage but any personal inquiries brought a stony silence. Some suspected him a man fleeing the law; others saw a bizarre outcast; everyone knew he was peculiar. Just five feet tall and wildly unkempt, Catamaran wore hacked-off pants and walked barefoot with a stick. Winter demanded shoes but no socks, a cast-off Mackinaw, and a trailing cap made from the leg of old underwear. He was oddly religious, and suspicious of being poisoned. Surviving on snared rabbits and fish, he ofte...
Not only is this bad science, it is bad biblical exegesis too.
ReplyDeleteEarly Hebrew writings use numerical poetics - 40 this, 7 that, 12 of this thing, 10,000 of this other thing, 600 or 800 of that thing. The numbers represent non-literal periods of time or non-literal amounts. For example a period of 40 days or 40 years is a time of testing - it means "a long time that really sucked". 7 of any period of time means "enough time to do it perfectly" but 6 days or 6 years indicates a rushed job and 6 of anything indicates imperfection or evil. Any double or tripled number is just emphasis (70 x 7, 666 etc) of the underlying poetic idea.
An analogy would be the modern phrase "a ton of work to do", where the work may not actually weigh a literal ton - or "a peck of trouble" where we are not actually talking about an amount of trouble of that fills 537.6 cubic inches.
Creationists - bad at science, bad at religion.
Thanks, ASH LAW. I don't have patience enough anymore to actually type that kind of stuff out.
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