The "Ransom Sacrifice" short version.

by Norm 103 Replies latest jw friends

JanH

Actually, Mike, the word "mathematician" in Augustine's text means "astrologer."
Take care.
- Jan
--
"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen"
-- Albert Einstein
GinnyTosken

Mike,
Thank you for the book recommendations. I will check them out. I am eager to read their explanations of these Bible difficulties. I will report back after I’ve looked
them over.
You scoff at this idea. Maybe you do so because you don't understand the message of Christianity. Or maybe you just consider it foolishness. . . . I will here explain it to you.
Perhaps you didn’t mean it so, but you came across as very condescending. Were you ever one of Jehovah’s Witnesses? I have been taught this ransom sacrifice idea since age 6, complete with illustrations of Adam on one side of a scale and Jesus on the other.
I commented as I did because it seems to me that the whole idea of sacrifice demeans God. We humans are encouraged to forgive our debtors; God requires that the debt owed him be paid before he can forgive. If you reason that God paid the debt himself, you reduce God to an anal-retentive accountant, transferring balances from one account to another, while his son suffers in the process.
Why didn’t he just straighten out the whole matter with Adam and Eve? Then the price was only two human lives. Was any human being ever capable of satisfying God’s extremely high standards, or have humans always been sinful?
God is often compared to a loving father. Any human father today who would have his son nailed to a stake or cross for whatever reason would be considered a child abuser. If you believe that this son was a part of God himself, then it is as though God temporarily cut off his own right arm to satisfy his own requirements. In any other context besides a Christian one, the whole idea of a ransom would be considered insane. Yet, it has been held up as demonstrating God’s perfect justice, his great mercy, and his amazing love.
Please understand that I am only expressing my honest opinion, something I often had to squelch as a JW. So many things in the Bible made no sense to me, and many stories seemed so unfair—God’s preferring Abel’s sacrifice to Cain’s, Rachel’s helping to deceive Isaac, Abraham’s treatment of Hagar. I know that what I say may seem blasphemous to some. I always trust that if there is a heavenly father, he will understand my need to question.
Meanwhile, I couldn’t help noticing your post about numerology. I thought you might be interested in the snippet below from an issue of Junior Skeptic. The complete article can be found at:
http://www.skeptic.com/jr9-07.html
The complete article also mentions pyramidology, Jehovah's Witnesses, and pi.
Ginny
The Number Game
The custom of manipulating numbers to discover hidden meanings is called Numerology. It is so easy to come up with startling coincidences that "hidden" numerical relationships should not be used to prove the existence of helpful space aliens or unknown advanced civilizations. Finding these relationships is really a game of "Pick and Choose."

Mathematician Martin Gardner demonstrated how easy it is to find a pattern within a bunch of unrelated numbers. He analyzed the Washington Monument to see if he could "discover" the property of fiveness to it:

Its height is 555 feet and five inches. The base is 55 feet square, and the windows are set at 500 feet from the base. If the base is multiplied by sixty (or five times the number of months in a year) it gives 3,300, which is the exact weight of the capstone in pounds. Also, the word 'Washington' has exactly ten letters (two times five). And if the weight of the capstone is multiplied by the base, the result is 181,500--a fairly close approximation of the speed of light in miles per second.

He then joked "it should take an average mathematician about 55 minutes to discover the above 'truths.'"
You can find amazing "coincidences" by measuring your own home. On my first try I discovered that the length of my house times 10,000 is the same as the distance to the sun divided by the number of days in a year! I started out by dividing the distance to the sun by the days in a year just because it sounded like an impressive (but actually meaningless) astronomical fact. I instantly saw that it more or less matched the length of one side of my house, give or take a few zeros. So, I added the (times 10,000" to get a match!
aChristian

Jan,
You wrote: Actually, Mike, the word "mathematician" in Augustine's text means "astrologer."
So then, why did you apply Augustine's words to me. Do you believe that my pointing out what appears to me to be evidence of design in our universe amounts to my practicing astrology? Does that make the Christian astronomer Dr. Hugh Ross an "astrologer" also, since his entire ministry is devoted to pointing out what he considers to be evidences of design in the sun, moon and stars?
Mike
JanH

Hi Mike,
You wrote: Actually, Mike, the word "mathematician" in Augustine's text means "astrologer."
So then, why did you apply Augustine's words to me.
It was mostly a joke. I do find your exercise in numerology mostly humorous. If you read Russell's old Pyramidology texts (based on, among others, Dr Seiss), you should see a mirror image.
Do you believe that my pointing out what appears to me to be evidence of design in our universe amounts to my practicing astrology? Does that make the Christian astronomer Dr. Hugh Ross an "astrologer" also, since his entire ministry is devoted to pointing out what he considers to be evidences of design in the sun, moon and stars?

I don't know about Ross, but yes, what you do is astrology. You assert that supernatural beings are communicating with us by the placement of celestial objects. This is certainly the practice of astrology. It is also a form of occultism, that is, belief in hidden, secret communication from supernatural agents.
- Jan
--
"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen"
-- Albert Einstein
aChristian

Ginny,
You wrote: you came across as very condescending. Were you ever one of Jehovah’s Witnesses?
I certainly did not mean to come across as condescending, and yes, I was once one of Jehovah's Witnesses, as I knew you were. That is why I thought it would be worthwhile to explain the ransom to you. Because JWs do not understand it. I am still left wondering if you do. For it appears that you did not even read my post. For you said, "I have been taught this ransom sacrifice idea since age 6, complete with illustrations of Adam on one side of a scale and Jesus on the other." In my post I showed that such an explanation of the ransom is totally erroneous. If you didn't read it, and I can understand why you may not have - thinking it was the same old story told by JWs - I think it would be worthwhile for you to do so.
You asked, "Why didn’t he just straighten out the whole matter with Adam and Eve?"
Because Jesus did not die to pay for Adam's sin. He died to pay for the sins of everyone who has ever lived. I believe this includes all of the people who lived before Adam and Eve and all of the people who lived in the lands surrounding Eden at the time Adam and Eve lived in Eden. The fact is, the Bible does not tell us that Adam was, in an absolute chronological sense, "the first man." I am convinced that God simply used Adam and Eve, and orchestrated the events in Eden, to illustrate the unrighteous condition of all mankind. ( This understanding also answers the often asked questions, "Where did Cain get his wife?" and "Who were the people living in the land 'east of Eden' whom Cain was afraid might kill him?" Gen. 4:14-17 )
A good book dealing with this subject matter has been written by Dick Fisher. Fisher's book is entitled The Origins Solution. Some sample chapters of it can be read and copies of it can be ordered from his publisher's web site. http://www.orisol.com/
You asked: Was any human being ever capable of satisfying God’s extremely high standards, or have humans always been sinful?
Mankind has always been sinful. The Bible tells us that, "All unrighteousness is sin." (1 John 5:17) Because God created us free to do both right and wrong, and because God cannot do wrong we are less righteous than God. Because we are and because "All unrighteousness is sin," we are all now and have always been "sinful." But since God made us that way, He gladly overlooks our "sinful" nature and our "sinful" acts and He fully accepts us just as we are. To gain His full acceptance and His full forgiveness all we have to do is believe in our hearts that He now offers it to us by means of Christ's sacrificial death.
You wrote: God is often compared to a loving father. Any human father today who would have his son nailed to a stake or cross for whatever reason would be considered a child abuser. If you believe that this son was a part of God himself, then it is as though God temporarily cut off his own right arm to satisfy his own requirements. In any other context besides a Christian one, the whole idea of a ransom would be considered insane. Yet, it has been held up as demonstrating God’s perfect justice, his great mercy, and his amazing love.
Again, if you simply skimmed over my explanation of the ransom, which I gave to you earlier, you may want to read it all the way through.
You wrote: So many things in the Bible made no sense to me, and many stories seemed so unfair—God’s preferring Abel’s sacrifice to Cain’s, Rachel’s helping to deceive Isaac, Abraham’s treatment of Hagar.
I would suggest you do some study on all such topics. Read several good non-JW bible commentaries on all the passages of scripture in question. I'll get you started by telling you that God preferred Able's sacrifice over Cains because it was a blood sacrifice. And, as I mentioned to you earlier, Christians believe God required the shedding of blood for the forgiveness of sins in Old Testament times to emphasize the fact that sin is responsible for death. And we believe God did so to point forward to the time when he would give the life of his own Son in order to offer all of us his forgiveness for all of our sins, and along with his forgiveness also offer us eternal life.
You wrote: Meanwhile, I couldn’t help noticing your post about numerology.
As I have pointed out to Rem and to Jan, I do not believe any of my posts can be fairly called "numerology." For I have only sought to demonstrate a clear connection between the God of the Bible and the God who designed our universe. Since they both apparently liked the same numbers a whole lot, we have good reason to suspect they may both be the same God.
Mike
aChristian

Jan,
The dictionary gives us only one definition of astrology and it is not yours. It is this: "The study of the positions and aspects of heavenly bodies IN THE BELIEF THAT THEY HAVE AN INFLUENCE ON THE COURSE OF HUMAN AFFAIRS." (The American Heritage Dictionary, Second College Edition)
I do not believe that heavenly bodies have any influence on the course of human affairs. Therefore your statement, "What you do is astrology," is an incorrect statement.
The rest of your accusations are even more off base. You wrote, "It is also a form of occultism, that is, belief in hidden, secret communication from supernatural agents."
I contend that the God of the Bible deliberately left evidence in His created works that He is the One who created our universe. You have demanded hard evidence that the God of the Bible created our universe. You have done so because you have as yet found no such evidence. Thus if any such evidence exists it must not now be widely known or plainly visible to all. So then, the only hard evidence of God's existence that anyone could possibly present to you is of a kind you can denigrate by referring to it as "secret communication." Then by referring to God Himself as a mere "supernatural agent" you are able to accuse anyone looking for hard evidence of God's existence in His created works of engaging in "occultism." I've seen you argue better.
AlanF

Hi Mike,
: You wrote: Your defense of your beliefs would be a lot more believable if you actually dealt with solid refutations such I posted and you've ignored. You can't hide behind "I'm not out to convince those who don't want to believe." The refutations stand, whether you deal with them or not. Failing to deal with them only proves to unbelievers that Christians are to a large extent blind believers.
: I believe you have made only one previous post to this thread, which I immediately answered almost line by line.
I now see that you did. For some reason I didn't see it, and have been looking for an answer for a couple of days. Sorry about the mixup, and I apologize for taking you to task for not answering. Below I give my response to your detailed reply.
: In my reply to you I never said anything like, "I'm not out to convince those who don't want to believe."
No, but you said that about certain others, in particular I believe, to JanH.
: Maybe you missed my reply. Or maybe you didn't like my answers to your objections. But to say I "ignored" your "solid refutations" is untrue.
Right, and I've rectified that below.
Belated response:
: You wrote: [So, according to you] God deliberately created humans so that they could never fully obey him. Doesn't that strike you as weird? Your exposition has not touched on why this is something that a reasonable creative entity would do, so far as I can see.
: No, it does not strike me as weird. For I believe God wanted everyone who would at some point choose to live their lives righteously, and who He would later give the ability to do so perfectly, to have a first hand knowledge and understanding of why God's ways are best. God did not want even those who would freely choose to do things "His way" to not personally understand why "His way" is the best way. Only by creating the human race in such a way that all of us would be sure to gain a personal "knowledge of good and evil," (i.e., creating a human race that could never fully obey him) could God be certain that all of us would acquire such "knowledge." For only by making sure that every human being would personally experience the negative results of unrighteous living could God be sure that all who would sooner or later choose to live righteous lives would fully appreciate why doing things "God's way" is the best thing for us.
I think that this argument is completely bogus. While you may not think it's weird, I certainly do, for reasons I've explained. Since you don't accept my reasoning, I'll present why the Bible itself seems to invalidate your reasoning.
First, Romans 5:12 is quite clear about the origin of sin:
Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned. (NASB)
This "sin" is obviously what we're talking about -- the inherent inability of humans to fully obey God, whether they want to or not. If through the "one man" Adam this sin "entered", then until he committed his first act of sin, this inherited sin was not in the world, i.e., "inherited sin" did not exist. Furthermore, if upon Adam's sinning, "death through sin" entered into the world, then human death did not exist prior to Adam's sin, i.e., humans did not die until Adam sinned. Indeed, Romans 5:14 emphasizes this idea: "Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam." But because we know that humans have existed in one form or another for hundreds of thousands of years, and depending on how we define "human", for millions of years, and they certainly died, and unlike the JWs and various young-earth creationists you admit that humans existed long before any "Adam" of a few thousand years ago, then you must admit that your ideas conflict with the Bible's direct statements.
Second, according to everything I've read in the New Testament, Jesus himself certainly never had to experience an inability to obey God in order to understand "why God's ways are best." Indeed, for whatever reason, Jesus was completely able -- both as a spirit being and as a man -- to fully obey God. If that were not true, then he would either be guilty of some direct act of sin or be burdened by the very sort of "inherited sin" that he came to earth to get rid of. So what you're saying is that God made the man Jesus quite different from the way he made all other humans before him. But if Jesus was that different from other humans, then he could not have been an exact substitute for Adam -- who you have already stated was created without the ability to fully obey God and therefore quite different from Jesus -- which pretty much invalidates the concept of "a ransom for many" (Matthew 20:28) and the ubiquitous Bible notion of "life for life". And of course, if God could do this for the man Jesus and satisfy his desire for whatever you're claiming he wants, he could certainly do it for every other human.
: I believe "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" in Eden, which God told Adam and Eve not to eat from but from which he knew they would eat (being "forbidden fruit" and all), was meant to illustrate the situation we are now discussing.
Please relate this notion to the ideas I just expressed.
: You wrote: [So according to you] God deliberately created humans so that only a small, random fraction of them would end up gaining the prize of eternal life. Again isn't that a weird thing for God to do? Why would he want to do such a crazy thing? Why would he want most of his intelligent creatures to die? Why not just create ALL of them with the desire to choose to live a perfectly righteous life? If God can do it for that small fraction that randomly comes to possess the desire, why not for all? Why build in the defect in the first place?
: You seem to feel that those who at some point in their lives choose to serve God make that choice solely due to their genetic programming. I doubt that is the case.
That's not what I'm saying at all. My point is that the practically complete randomness of genetic tendencies plus the virtually complete randomness of environmental factors, which factors are incorporated into the final human product solely via genetic programming -- all of which effects would be known to an omnipotent C Creator God -- result in whatever choices each person makes. Since God created humans with all their abilities and tendencies, including being affected by evironmental factors, the final result must be according to God's will. And if you claim that the final result is that only a small fraction of humans will want to obey God, then that is according to God's will.
: But your basic question remains. Namely, "Why not just create ALL of us with the desire to choose to live a perfectly righteous life?" I do not believe God creates any of us with preprogrammed "desires." I believe God creates all us free to decide how we want to live our lives.
Yes, modified by various factors as I described above. Again, there are genetic tendencies that are modified by environmental factors, but the sum total -- the tendencies combined with the genetically programmed ability to be affected by the environment -- are entirely according to the will of the Creator. You can't possibly disagree with this, because to do so would be to say that humans were created to act opposite to the will of the Creator -- a logical absurdity.
If you believe that the Creator is responsible for how each animal acts, then we have plenty of examples of creatures that act almost completely according to pre-programmed instinct. They can act in no other way. For example, most infant snakes know instinctively how to hunt and what to hunt for. They learn a little bit by experience, but who taught them how to hunt in the first place? It's a lot more complicated with humans and we don't know a lot of the details, but the basics are the same: creatures act entirely according to the way they were created.
: You wrote: Several of your statements are self-contradictory. For example, you said: quote:
Even if we now all had the ability to live perfectly righteous lives, few people would choose to do so.
: I don't see how that is self-contradictory.
I went on to explain why, which is what we will now consider:
: You asked: First, how do you know that?
: Because we all now have the ability to live fairly righteous lives but few people choose to do so.
I see. In other words, you're saying that the observation that few people today, who don't have the ability to live perfectly righteous lives, actually choose to try to obey God is proof that if they had the ability, they wouldn't choose to. Don't you see how silly this is? You're trying to prove what "perfect" people would or would not do based on what you observe quite "imperfect" people doing. That's like trying to say what the perfect man Jesus would have done based on what you observe imperfect people doing. Your statement contradicts what you claim elsewhere to believe.
: You asked: How can anyone say that someone with a perfect ability to live an incorruptible life would choose to act contrary to his nature?
: Having an ability to do something is not the same thing as having a nature to do something. I have the ability to rape and to murder. However, I do not do these things. For they are not in my nature.
You're just about playing semantic games here. What do you think the "nature" is that God pre-programmed into humans throughout human history, going back as far as you care to go, down through Adam and Eve, through Jesus' day, and up through today? Please be comprehensive, or you'll leave me to guess what you're trying to say.
When I mentioned someone with a perfect ability to live an incorruptible life, i.e., a life that fully corresponds with God's expectations, I had in mind that the nature of the person, or his basic tendency as a result of the way his Creator made him, was to fully obey God. What you're postulating is something completely different. You're postulating that most humans, even if created "incorruptible", would still choose to disobey God. That's inconsistent with what I see the Bible saying, and with the idea of a reasonable creator.
: You wrote: Your above-quoted statement is contradicted by this one: quote: If God had created us incorruptible to begin with we would now have no such choice. We could not choose to do wrong. For if one has the ability to do wrong he is corruptible.
: I don't see how that contradicts anything else I said.
But I explained why, in my very next statement, which you agreed with:
: You wrote: If it is true that if one has the ability to do wrong, he is corruptible, then it is equally true that if one is incorruptible, he does not have the ability to do wrong.
: I agree.
I don't understand what you don't understand about why I said your statements are contradictory.
: Once we are given incorruptibility we will no longer have the ability to do wrong. I would gladly give up that ability now.
I don't think I'd ever want to give that up, since it would mean I've voluntarily become a robot.
: But I am glad I had it for a while. For having it has allowed me to gain a first hand appreciation for why God's ways are best that I could have never gained without it.
Maybe so, but like Jesus, it is entirely possible to gain such an appreciation without actually personally being "imperfect" or "sinful" or whatever term you like to use.
: You asked: Are you saying that there are actually four potential categories of humans?
: (1) Those who do not have the ability to live perfectly righteous lives.
: (2) Those who have the ability to live perfectly righteous lives and choose to do so.
: (3) Those who have the ability to live perfectly righteous lives but choose not to.
: (4) Those who are incorruptible and therefore not only have the ability to live perfectly righteous lives, but do not have the ability not to do so.
: I guess so.
Then again I see no reason why you can't see the contradictions in your statements that I pointed out, as well as serious logical problems with the entire "ransom sacrifice" doctrine. If you agree that the above four categories fall out of your views, then you must admit that your views conflict with what the Bible says, since these four categories certainly can't be found in the Bible. If you disagree, then please provide scriptural references that support your claims.
: You wrote: The bottom line of your argument amounts to this: God created humans such that only a small, random fraction would CHOOSE to obey him perfectly if they could. Only those who happen to possess this unlikely tendency will eventually gain the prize of being UNABLE TO CHOOSE to disobey God.
: Again, I don't know about your "tendency" argument.
You have no logical choice but to accept it. There are three and only three possibilities: (1) complete inability to obey God; (2) complete inability not to obey God; (3) something in between. The first two possibilities amount to robotic behavior, which you've already discounted. Therefore we're left with (3). That is further refined by your own claim that very few would choose to obey God even if they had the ability. Your claim is simply that the general tendency of humans is to disobey God, since you say that very few actually do obey him. Case closd.
: Christ did say that more of us would end up on the road to destruction than on the road to life. But that does not mean God desired this to be the case.
Of course it does. If God created humans, then he created everything about them -- including their proclivities. If as you claim, the human proclivity is to disobey God, then God created that tendency. You can't have it both ways, Mike. To claim the contrary would be to claim that God created humans to be the way he didn't want them to be -- another logical absurdity.
: I have two children. I love them both. I have done everything I can to encourage each of them to make good choices in life. If one of them ends up choosing to live a life of crime, am I to blame?
Of course you're right in this. But you didn't create your children. You're stuck with whatever nature or tendencies or whatever you want to call it, that they came with. God is rather different.
: I believe that when Christ said most of us would end up on the road to destruction he was only predicting the future. Knowing the future and purposefully creating the future may be very different things, even for God.
What you're saying is that God created a world without purpose, since he has no control over what the future will bring. If he has no control, then he is not omnipotent. If he has no desire to control it, but wants to let it roll on randomly, then he is responsible for whatever nasty things happen due to "time and unforseen circumstance". In that case he's either irresponsible, an idiot, or someone I don't want anything to do with.
: But now we get into questions of man's "free will" and "predestination," subjects which I told Jan I prefer to let professional theologians argue about.
Well, I think that to be a complete human being you have no choice but to consider these things. If you bury your head in the sand and hope that such questions will go away, you're no better than the silly young-earth creationists who hope that the boundless problems that reality poses for their views will disappear.
: You wrote: "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport."
: I believe that old saw is mistaken. I believe God loves each one of us very much.
I have seen little or no evidence of that, either in my life or in that of anyone else, whether they try to do good as you and I do, or to do bad as criminals do.
AlanF
GinnyTosken

Mike,
I read your post several times. Evidently I went astray in assuming that you believed sin was inherited from Adam. Now that you explain that you believe we are sinful because God made us that way, the whole premise behind a ransom sacrifice makes even less sense to me.
Mankind has always been sinful. The Bible tells us that, "All unrighteousness is sin." (1 John 5:17) Because God created us free to do both right and wrong, and because God cannot do wrong we are less righteous than God. Because we are and because "All unrighteousness is sin," we are all now and have always been "sinful." But since God made us that way, He gladly overlooks our "sinful" nature and our "sinful" acts and He fully accepts us just as we are. To gain His full acceptance and His full forgiveness all we have to do is believe in our hearts that He now offers it to us by means of Christ's sacrificial death.
I can only sigh and say that your explanation sounds like sheer doubletalk.
God created us as sinners.
Because he created us as sinners, he overlooks our sinful nature and behavior and fully accepts us as we are.
Yet somehow we must be forgiven for a nature God himself has given us in order to get God’s full acceptance (which I thought we had just one sentence ago).
Somehow the death of Jesus makes God able to forgive and accept a nature he created.
I wanted to understand how you thought about many Biblical issues. While I don’t agree with your conclusions, I have enjoyed our discussion and appreciate your openness.
Ginny
waiting

Thank you all!
This has gotten so long and insightful that I had to revert to my jw ways - print it out and get out my yellow highlighter for the Main Points.
I'm not joking btw.
waiting
AlanF

Hi Mike,
While use of multiples of the number 4x10^N (like 4, 40, 400; N = 0, 1, 2) in the Bible might seem divinely ordained to some, to me it has a rather more mundane origin. I'm not going to comment on most of your references to use of multiples of 4x10^N in the Bible, since I feel that it's about on a par with C. T. Russell's claims about various magic numbers being used in the building of the Great Pyramid of Gizeh. However, you commented on something that is fairly easy to verify or debunk, the latter of which I will now do.
I certainly agree that a total solar eclipse is among the most spectacular of natural events. If you haven't seen one in person, you can't know what it's like. So it's no surprise that some view both solar and lunar eclipses as a manifestation of God's power.
You said to JanH:
The sun's diameter is exactly 400 X the size of the moon's diameter. (864,000 mi. vs. 2,160 mi.) But remember, it makes no difference whether you measure their diameters in miles, meters or toothpicks. This 400 X ratio will always be the same. (1998 edition of The World Almanac, pages 290 and 291)
The sun's distance from the earth is also always about 400 X greater than the moon's distance from the earth. And despite the fact that the earth and the moon both have elliptical orbits, this 400 X sun vs. moon distance ratio is exact twice every lunar month. (Dance Of The Planets, Version 2.71s, A.R.C. Science Simulation Software,1994)
You and I have been through this before, and apparently you didn't learn much from the facts that I posted some time ago. So here we go again. I've done a bit more research on this topic so my figures this time are more precise.
The sun and the moon are not exactly 400 times different from one another in diameter. In actual fact, according to the best measurements of NASA, the ratio is 400.6. (see National Space Science Data Center: Sun: Volumetric mean radius (km) 696,000; http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/sunfact.html ; Moon: Volumetric mean radius (km) 1737.4; http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/moonfact.html. These radii translate to diameters of the sun: 864,950 miles; moon: 2159.14 miles. These figures are strongly confirmed by the fact that NASA has been quite successful in sending space probes to various destinations in our solar system. So since your argument here hinges on an exact 400:1 ratio, you've got a problem.
: Because the moon's diameter is 1/400 the size of the sun's diameter and because the moon is 1/400 as far away from the earth as the earth is from the sun, the moon is precisely the correct size to cover the face of the sun as seen from the earth. It is because of this relationship, which the earth, sun and moon have with the # 400, that we are able to observe what has been called "the greatest spectacle in nature," a total eclipse of the sun.
: Consequently, when a total eclipse of the sun occurs, and the moon then covers the sun in the sky as perfectly as a lid fits its own jar, all who have a basic knowledge of astronomy have their attention immediately drawn to the # 400. ( See National Geographic, May 1992, page 41) It is also interesting to note that, "The average time between total eclipse paths crossing one location (being able to observe a total eclipse of the sun from any one spot on earth) is about 400 years." (See The Sun - Our Star, Robert W. Noyes, 1982, page 145)
The problem with this reasoning is again that the 400:1 ratio is not correct. The actual distance ratio varies between about 362 to 427 depending on where the moon happens to be in its elliptical orbit and where the earth happens to be in relation to the sun.
Really, by rounding off numbers too much, you've pulled a bit of a trick on yourself. The number 400 does seem rather magical until you look at the actual figures involved:
Moon:
Diameter : 2159 miles
Avgerage distance from center of moon to center of earth: 238,854 mi.
Minimum perigeee: 221,438 mi.
Maximum apogee: 252,724 mi.
Sun:
Diameter: 864,950 mi.
Average distance from center of sun to center of earth: 92,890,000 mi.
Minimum perihelion: 91,400,000 mi.
Maximum aphelion: 94,500,000 mi.
From these figures it’s clear that the ratio of the sun/earth and moon/earth distances varies from about 362 to 427, with an average of 389 – not 400. It’s clear that your statement, “the moon is precisely the correct size to cover the face of the sun as seen from the earth” is somewhat misleading.
A further confusion is your emphasizing that the 400 X sun vs. moon distance ratio is exact twice every lunar month. Well, that’s true but it has almost nothing whatsoever to do with eclipses. The problem is that this 400 X ratio can occur at just about any point in the moon’s orbit, whereas for your point to be valid it would always have to occur when the earth, moon and sun were in a straight line. This only happens on average 2.37 times a year, which means your statement is meaningless. A quantity that varies periodically from about 360 to 425 is naturally going to hit the 400 mark twice a period, but so what?
You also appear to have little understanding of solar eclipses in general. Solar eclipses occur as total eclipses, where the moon completely blanks out the sun, and as annular eclipses, where the moon is completely in front of the sun but is too far from the earth to completely blank it out, which leaves a ring or annulus of light around the dark moon. Occasionally the moon is at just the right distance that an eclipse can be annular at one location and gradually switch to total as the event progresses, and even switch back to annular. This means that total eclipses can last anywhere from an instant to just over 7 minutes, and so can annular ones. There are almost twice as many annular eclipses on average as total ones. The best estimates I’ve been able to find for the average frequency of solar eclipses is about once every 140 years for annular and total combined, about once every 225 years for annular eclipses, and about every 375 years for total eclipses. My point here is twofold: the exact magical number 400 does not appear in eclipse phenomena as you argue, and quite in contrast to the impression you give, in the 2 out of 3 times where the moon might cover “the sun in the sky as perfectly as a lid fits its own jar”, it actually doesn’t quite fit.
So, while the approximate same apparent size of the sun and moon may be suggestive of a Creator, one can hardly make it a virtually magical thing by using the number 400. One might just as well use 360. And we know from experience what relying on such magic numbers can do.
AF

The "Ransom Sacrifice" short version.

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