How do you like me now?

1Corinthians14:33-38NRSVA"for God is a God not of disorder but of peace.
(As in all the churches of the saints, ³⁴ women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law also says. ³⁵ If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.^{[d] 36} Or did the word of God originate with you? Or are you the only ones it has reached?)

³⁷ Anyone who claims to be a prophet, or to have spiritual powers, must acknowledge that what I am writing to you is a command of the Lord. ³⁸ Anyone who does not recognize this is not to be recognized."


Church of England General Synod backs women bishops

The Church of England has voted to allow women to become bishops for first time in its history.

Its ruling General Synod gave approval to legislation introducing the change by the required two-thirds majority.

A previous vote in 2012 was backed by the Houses of Bishops and Clergy but blocked by traditionalist lay members.

The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby said he was "delighted" but some opponents said they were unconvinced by the concessions offered to them.

The crucial vote in the House of Laity went 152 in favour, 45 against, and there were five abstentions. In November 2012 the change was derailed by just six votes cast by the lay members.

In the house of Bishops, 37 were in favour, two against, and there was one abstention. The House of Clergy voted 162 in favour, 25 against and there were four abstentions.

Analysis By Robert Pigott, religious affairs correspondent, BBC News

It is hard to exaggerate the significance of today's decision at the York Synod.

It breaks a hitherto unbroken tradition of exclusively male bishops inherited from the first Christians almost 2,000 years ago.

Some Anglicans see it as a "cosmic shift" - arguing that the Church's theology has been changed by its acceptance that men and women are equally eligible to lead and teach Christianity.

With the decision, the Church is acknowledging the importance secular society places on equality, signalling that it wants to end its isolation from the lives of the people it serves.

The legislation leaves traditionalists relying largely on the goodwill and generosity of future women bishops, a source of anxiety for many, but heralded by some as a sign of a new culture of trust and co-operation in the Church.

With the even more divisive issue of sexuality on the horizon, the Church will need that culture as never before.

Before he announced the vote, the Archbishop of York John Sentamu, asked for the result to be met "with restraint and sensitivity". But there was a flurry of cheers when it was announced.

The result overturned centuries of tradition in a Church that has been deeply divided over the issue.

It comes more than 20 years after women were first allowed to become priests. More than one-in-five of priests in the church are now female.

The motion will now go before Parliament's ecclesiastical committee, which examines measures from the Synod. The Synod would then meet again on 17 November to formally declare that women can be bishops.

'Big moment'

The first woman bishop could potentially be appointed by the end of the year.

 

 

The Rev Canon Nikki Arthy said she would welcome the appointment of a woman bishop in Gloucester

The vote followed after almost five hours of debate at the University of York.

The Dean of Salisbury, the Very Reverend June Osborne, said it was a "historic day".

She told the BBC: "I don't think you can overstate the fact that the Church of England allowing women to take up the role of bishop is going to change the Church.

"I think it's going to change our society as well because it's one more step in accepting that women are really and truly equal in spiritual authority, as well as in leadership in society."

The Reverend Lindsay Southern, from the parish of Catterick with Tunstall, North Yorkshire, said "it's been a really long journey but we were so pleased with the graciousness of the Synod debate".

But Lorna Ashworth, a lay member of the Synod who voted against women becoming bishops, suggested it was "not going to be a smooth road ahead".

She said she had no plans to "run away" from the Church but predicted there could be "difficulties" in a number of areas, such as those involving new priests opposed to the changes.

 

Archbishop Welby: "We'll require... a long period of culture change"

Another lay member, Susie Leafe, director of the conservative evangelical group Reform, said she was "very disappointed" by the vote.

"There is still at least a quarter of the Church for whom this package does not provide for their theological convictions," she said.

The motion had the backing of the Archbishop of Canterbury and Prime Minister David Cameron.

Speaking in the debate, Archbishop Welby said Church of England bishops were committed to meeting their needs should the legislation be passed.

It contained concessions for those parishes that continue to object to the appointment of a women bishop - giving them the right to ask for a male alternative and to take disputes to an independent arbitrator.

In a statement issued by Lambeth Palace later, Archbishop Welby said: "Today marks the start of a great adventure of seeking mutual flourishing while still, in some cases disagreeing. The challenge for us will be for the church to model good disagreement and to continue to demonstrate love for those who disagree on theological grounds."

The Archbishop of York said it was a "momentous day".

He said: "Generations of women have served the Lord faithfully in the Church of England for centuries. It is a moment of joy today: the office of Bishop is open to them."

There were celebrations outside the General Synod meeting at York University

Mr Cameron said it was a "great day for the Church and for equality".

And writing on Twitter, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg praised Archbishop Welby's "leadership" on securing the Yes vote, adding that it was a "big moment" for the Church of England.

Labour leader Ed Miliband said it was "wonderful news".

But Prebendary David Houlding, a member of the Catholic Group on the General Synod, who voted against the legislation, expressed concerns at the potential impact the result could have on relations with the Catholic Church.

The Anglican Communion has the largest Christian denomination in Britain and a presence in more than 160 countries. Women bishops are already in office in a number of provinces including the US, Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

On target?

On Paul Nelson Day 2014: The Target Problem

Paul Nelson April 7, 2014 11:04 AM

 

 

 

 

Thanks to P.Z. Myers's annual lampoon of me, I've thought more deeply about the relationship between development and evolution than I ever expected to do.

Moreover, "Paul Nelson Day" provides me with an annual teaching opportunity, because I can link from the comments thread at Pharyngula to the discussion here.

So -- today, kids, I want to introduce you to a great puzzle, one that is central to the unsolved problem of the macroevolution of the animals.

Here's the context you need to know to understand the significance of the puzzle, which we can dub "The Target Problem," for reasons that will become obvious.

Three key points:

(1) A hundred and fifty years after the Origin of Species, the evolutionary pathways from unicellular eukaryotes to any of the animal body plans remain entirely unknown. For details, see Steve Meyer's book Darwin's Doubt.

(2) These missing pathways are often blamed on the absence of "transitional" fossils. While having more fossils might help, the evolutionary mystery -- at its core -- would still not be solved. The Target Problem remains.

(3) The necessary evolutionary pathways will remain hidden as long as one seeks to explain their origin via undirected processes.

Now, (1) is simply the case. If you don't agree that (1) is a fact, choose any of the phyla -- or (Nick M., I'm thinking of you), if you don't like the taxonomic category "phylum," choose any animal species present in the Cambrian -- and send me the evolutionary pathway leading to that group from its unicellular eukaryotic ancestors. (Email me here.)

What's the easiest way to grasp the Target Problem? Start by watching a short YouTube clip, of course, to ground the discussion in a concrete and well-understand example -- namely, the development of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans.

This clip shows, in four minutes, the twelve-hour developmental trajectory from fertilized egg to hatching worm. As you watch, keep in mind that all these cell divisions, with their asymmetric daughter cells (and their daughters, and theirs, and so forth, right down to the terminally differentiated cells in the hatching worm), must have been constructed by the undirected processes of evolution, if that's what happened at the origin of C. elegans, anyway. John Sulston won the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for working out the details of the cell lineages in this species, from fertilized egg to hatching. You can see the famous diagram of the lineage here.

All right -- so what's the Target Problem? It arises when we consider the relationship between "developmental time" and "evolutionary time" (see the figure below). Developmental time we can actually observe and track in C. elegans. That's what you just watched in the YouTube clip, and what Sulston's branching diagram depicts schematically.

Evolutionary time, by contrast, we can't observe or track, but we know what must have happened during evolutionary time, if an undirected process constructed what we can see unfolding in C. elegans. Several things must have occurred, among them:

• an increase in cell number, from one (i.e., in the unknown unicellular eukaryotic ancestors) to approximately one thousand cells in an adult C. elegans.

• the origins of cellular differentiation, namely, specialized cell types, such as cuticle, gut, nerve, etc., cells, with corresponding genetic controls

• the origin of the three-dimensional architecture (body plan) of C. elegans

• the origin of C. elegans sexual reproduction and gametes (eggs and sperm).

And, never to be neglected, the small difficulty of staying alive during the whole of evolutionary time, as required by the Principle of Continuity.

The Target Problem? How to describe functional (and reproductively capable) organisms, which must have existed during evolutionary time, as cell number count goes up, and cellular differentiation increases. We're using C. elegans as our example because we have a complete cell lineage, genome, and lots of other details to ground the discussion, but the Target Problem exists for any other animal species thought to have evolved from a non-animal ancestor.

The Target Problem has never been solved. That's why no one can tell you how the animals evolved from single-celled ancestors.

 

Junk science exposed.

Not So Simple: Fruit Fly ENCODE Arrives

Evolution News & Views March 20, 2014 10:53 AM

 

 

 

You know about ENCODE, the project that found 80 percent or more of the human genome is transcribed and appears functional. Now, along comes modENCODE: the ENCODE project for model organisms. Results from the fruit fly are in, and Indiana University shares the surprises (for evolutionary theory, that is): "Study of complete RNA collection of fruit fly uncovers unprecedented complexity."

The paper shows that the Drosophila genome is far more complex than previously suspected and suggests that the same will be true of the genomes of other higher organisms. The paper also reports a number of novel, particular results: that a small set of genes used in the nervous system are responsible for a disproportionate level of complexity; that long regulatory and so-called "antisense" RNAs are especially prominent during gonadal development; that "splicing factors" (proteins that control the maturation of RNAs by splicing) are themselves spliced in complex ways; and that the Drosophila transcriptome undergoes large and interesting changes in response to environmental stresses. (Emphasis added.)

Ten of the 41 researchers from 11 universities working on modENCODE came from IU. They found many genes transcribed only under stress, such as exposure to heat, cold, and toxins. "In total, 5,249 transcript models for 811 genes were revealed only under perturbed conditions," they said. As if the "junk DNA" myth needed any more pounding, the lead author testifies:

"As usual in science, we've answered a number of questions and raised even more. For example, we identified 1,468 new genes, of which 536 were found to reside in previously uncharacterized gene-free zones."

The news item notes that "biologists have developed increasing appreciation of how well genes and critical life processes are conserved over long evolutionary distances."
Cambrian Conservation
Meanwhile, the transcriptome of another model organism, the sea anemone, was studied by researchers at the University of Vienna. This creature, like the fruit fly, shows a similar unexpected complexity in its gene networks. The news release claims that this creature is "half animal, half plant," but what they mean is that gene regulation for both kingdoms of the tree of life is so similar, it must have already existed in the microbial common ancestor 600 million years ago:

The team led by evolutionary and developmental biologist Ulrich Technau at the University of Vienna discovered that sea anemones display a genomic landscape with a complexity of regulatory elements similar to that of fruit flies or other animal model systems. This suggests, that this principle of gene regulation is already 600 million years old and dates back to the common ancestor of human, fly and sea anemone. On the other hand, sea anemones are more similar to plants rather to vertebrates or insects in their regulation of gene expression by short regulatory RNAs called microRNAs. These surprising evolutionary findings are published in two articles in the journal "Genome Research".

So here is another apparently "simple organism" with "complex gene content." What they found contradicts another evolutionary expectation:

In the last decades the sequencing of the human and many animal genomes showed that anatomically simple organisms such as sea anemones depict a surprisingly complex gene repertoire like higher model organisms. This implies, that the difference in morphological complexity cannot be easily explained by the presence or absence of individual genes. Some researchers hypothesized that not the individual genes code for more complex body plans, but how they are wired and linked between each other. Accordingly, researchers expected that these gene networks are less complex in simple organisms than in human or "higher" animals.

Well, surprise. When they examined the epigenetic mechanisms for gene expression and regulation (the "grammar" of the genetic code), they found that "Gene regulation [is] comparable to higher animal model systems." For instance, they estimate that 30 to 50 percent of genes are regulated by microRNAs, just one of the facets of regulatory processes.
Rescuing Evolution
The dominance of complex regulation in such a simple organism leads these evolutionary biologists to postulate that "this principle of complex gene regulation was already present in the common ancestor of human, fly and sea anemone some 600 million years ago." Yet the simple Precambrian animals lacked most of the developmental processes and organ functions of those that emerged fully formed in the Cambrian explosion.
To bolster their story, the researchers claim to have found microRNA activity in these animals that resembles that of plants. Since the discovery contradicts the hypothesis that the regulatory elements arose independently in the two kingdoms, they believe they have uncovered "the first evolutionary link between microRNAs of plants and animals." But then they try to have it both ways:

In summary, while the sea anemone's genome, gene repertoire and gene regulation on the DNA level is surprisingly similar to vertebrates, its post-transcriptional regulation is plant-like and probably dates back to the common ancestor of animals and plants. This is the first qualitative difference found between Cnidaria and "higher" animals and the findings provide insight on how important levels of gene regulation can evolve independently.

Of course, the identity of the common ancestor was left as an exercise.
In 2013, ENCODE turned the tables on Darwinian evolutionists with their assumptions about junk DNA, showing that the human genome is overwhelmingly transcribed and most likely functional. And it's not just functional, but regulated with mind-boggling layers of complexity -- switches, networks, and codes controlling other codes. Now, the modENCODE project is showing the same pattern for fruit flies. The Vienna study shows the same thing for sea anemones. Both expect that "unexpected complexity" will be the norm for all "higher" organisms.
Yet if all this inter-related complexity has to be pushed back to some mythical common ancestor, it is tantamount to believing multiple miracles happened to a simple organism that had no gut, eyes, sex, limbs, or nerves. The mythical "common ancestor" that possessed these abilities serves only as a placeholder for ignorance -- not a scientific explanation.
Intelligent design, which does not rely on such religious premises, knows how to explain the observations. Whenever we see a complex, functioning system (like a rollout of a software system), we know intelligence played a role in its origin. We also know that intelligence can explain multiple, independent instantiations of similar systems. We never see, however, complex, networked systems arising de novo by unguided natural processes.
In 1980, Carl Sagan knew nothing about ENCODE and modENCODE. With all the revelations of genetic complexity coming to light in the past 34 years, these must be hard times for Neil deGrasse Tyson to keep a straight face while sweeping his hand up the cartoon-drawn Tree of Life in Cosmos 2.0 and ascribing "all the beauty and diversity of life" to random mutations. As Casey Luskin noted, it only makes sense if you don't think about it.
 

Genius well beyond the new gods

Thou shalt not test the new gods.

Thou Shalt Not Put Evolutionary Theory to a Test

Douglas Axe July 18, 2012 6:41 PM

 

 

 

Paul McBride, a PhD student studying vertebrate evolution in New Zealand, is concerned that religion may be driving the research that Ann Gauger and I are doing, or perhaps that we've been driving under its influence. As you might guess, there's some irony in this. His criticisms of my chapter in Science and Human Origins suggest that he may actually be the one whose scientific reasoning is being impaired by his beliefs.

We all agree that evolutionists are crediting remarkable things to an unguided material process. McBride also agrees with us that this process has significant limitations. In his words: "Evolution is not a process that is capable of producing anything and everything, at all times in all species. It is, conversely, a greatly constrained process." This being so, surely McBride ought to agree with us that the claims of evolutionists need to be evaluated in light of these constraints. It seems to me that to disagree with this would be to adopt a decidedly unscientific stance.

In essence, the scientific approach here should follow two steps: 1) determine unequivocally what the evolutionary mechanism can do (present tense) by performing experiments with appropriate mathematical models used to interpret the results, and 2) determine whether the things that evolutionists claim it did do (past tense) marry up nicely with what we've found that it can do. Ann and I have invested heavily in this undertaking, and we have some work to show for it. I can't fault McBride for not investing in it, because the evolutionary community he finds himself in certainly doesn't cater to this. For him to adopt their aversion to critical analysis of Darwinism, though, is regrettable.

Like many of his peers, McBride seems to thinks it's illegitimate to suggest that laboratory tests showing what evolution can't do have anything to say about what it can do (or did do). Ann and I conducted experiments to find out how many changes would have to occur in a particular enzyme X in order for it to begin performing the function of another enzyme, Y. We found that they are too numerous for unguided evolution to have accomplished this transformation, even with the benefits of a massive bacterial population and billions of years. Having carefully made the case that our chosen X and Y are appropriate for the aims of our study, we think this result has catastrophic implications for Darwinism. McBride disagrees:

The real question is not "Can X be turned into Y?" because that sense of direction requires preordination, which is not theorized to be a part of evolution. If we remove this preordination, the question becomes "Can X turn into something else?"

In my book chapter I compared our X-to-Y conversion to the challenge of converting one golf club into another -- a putter into a pitching wedge. Now, if someone were to claim that there's a natural unguided process that refashioned not just golf clubs but thousands of other things as well, producing a great variety of extraordinarily sophisticated things from humble starting points, the scientist in me would want to see some evidence to back that claim up. Cruise missiles from roller skates? Really? Smart phones from flashlights? Are you sure about that? And my skeptical stance would naturally intensify if I were to find that this highly touted process can't actually produce a pitching wedge from a putter in the time it supposedly performed all these miracles.

Not everyone approaches the subject from a skeptical stance, though. McBride wants to say that because evolution operates in an unpredictable hit-and-miss way, one documented miss doesn't mean anything.

Really? If we're going to be scientific about this, shouldn't we withhold judgment on that until we've put some effort into step 2 above? In particular, shouldn't we pay some attention to the fact that evolution has to explain invention on a much larger scale than we examined -- not just single new enzyme functions, but the suites of these needed for new metabolism, often requiring completely new protein architectures... and not just new architectures at that molecular level, but also at the level of cells, and tissues, and body plans? If evolution is hit-and-miss at the very bottom level of this hierarchy, how would it ever succeed at the top level, which depends so critically on the lower levels? That would be like struggling with simple words in Japanese but being fluent when it comes to high-level conversation. It's not just unlikely. It's incoherent.

The importance of step 2 -- reconciling what we know evolution can do with what we claim it did do -- was precisely my intended point near the end of the second chapter of Science and Human Origins. There I laid out the experimental evidence that would be needed to show that an evolutionary transition from apes to humans is indeed feasible. McBride misconstrues my challenge in his haste to dismiss it:

Axe is suggesting that until the day that each single mutation leading from a common ancestor with chimpanzees to man is predicted in order, with each mutation individually investigated for its fitness effects, there is still room to argue about holes in evolutionary theory and leave room for the calm, guiding hand of the Intelligent Designer.

Again, he's focusing exclusively on the past, whereas I'm asking evolutionists to do what other scientists do when they aim to say something credible about the distant past. They do the work of connecting it in a credible way to the present. They base their claims about what did happen on their understanding of what does happen. Before scientists claim that a natural process produced humans from apes, they ought to spend some time reflecting on what would have to be true in order for this really to happen within the constraints that McBride has acknowledged.

For example, McBride criticizes me for not mentioning genetic drift in my discussion of human origins, apparently without realizing that the result of Durrett and Schmidt rules drift out. Each and every specific genetic change needed to produce humans from apes would have to have conferred a significant selective advantage in order for humans to have appeared in the available time. Any aspect of the transition that requires two or more mutations to act in combination in order to increase fitness would take way too long (>100 million years).

My challenge to McBride, and everyone else who believes the evolutionary story of human origins, is not to provide the list of mutations that did the trick, but rather a list of mutations that can do it. Otherwise they're in the position of insisting that something is a scientific fact without having the faintest idea how it even could be. That's just not what scientists should be doing.

The divine Law and blood VI

Was The Decree to "Abstain From Blood" Only a Temporary Requirement or Obligation to Christians?

The Book of Acts clearly shows that many years after the Jerusalem council issued that decree, Christians continued to comply with the "decision that they should keep themselves from what is sacrificed to idols as well as from blood and what is strangled and from fornication." (Acts 21:25) They demonstrated that the requirement to abstain from blood was not merely limited to one area or for just a brief period of time.

Historical evidence is clear and abundant concerning Christians abstaining from blood throughout the following centuries. Note what early Latin theologian Tertullian (c. 160-230 C.E.) stated:

"Let your unnatural ways blush before the Christians. We do not even have the blood of animals at our meals, for these consist of ordinary food. . . . At the trials of Christians you offer them sausages filled with blood. You are convinced, of course, that the very thing with which you try to make them deviate from the right way is unlawful for them. How is it that, when you are confident that they will shudder at the blood of an animal, you believe they will pant eagerly after human blood?" -Tertullian, Apologetical Works, and Minucius Felix, Octavius, translated by Rudolph Arbesmann (1950), p. 33.

And Minucius Felix, a Roman lawyer who lived until about 250 C.E. wrote:

"So much do we shrink from human blood, that we do not use the blood even of eatable animals in our food." - The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. IV, p. 192.

"The Primitive Christians scrupulously complied with the decree pronounced by the Apostles at Jerusalem, in abstaining from things strangled and from blood." -The Ecclesiastical History of the Second and Third Centuries (1845), by John Kaye, Bishop of Lincoln, p. 146

File under "well,if you say so?"

NIH Announces New Software for Scientists Publishing Articles in Evolutionary Biology

Evolution News & Views April 1, 2014 12:01 AM

 

 

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) have created a computer program to assist scientists who are writing articles in evolutionary biology. According to NIH Director Francis Collins, authors can access the program for a nominal fee (subsidized by their federal research funding), choose from a variety of templates, and simply insert their latest research data. The sophisticated software then integrates the data into standard evolutionary algorithms and adds relevant technical terminology.

The program is based on computer code written by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and it is accessible on the NIH website. Here is the title and abstract of a computer-generated article recently accepted for publication in Nature:

Genetic evidence reveals a heretofore-unsuspected evolutionary relationship between roundworms and fruit flies

ABSTRACT

All species are descendants of common ancestors that have been modified by genetic mutations, natural selection, and random genetic drift. We studied two desert-dwelling organisms, the roundworm Caenorhabditis drosophilae and the fruit fly Drosophila nigrospiracula. The former spends part of its life inside the head of the latter, and the rest of its life on rotting cactus tissue. We sequenced a homopolymeric gene that is expressed proleptically in both organisms and found a surprisingly high degree of homology, indicating a heretofore-unsuspected evo-lutionary relationship between the two asymptotic species. Nonlinear phylogenet-ic regression using a binary dummy variable of 2 suggests that C. drosophilae and D. nigrospiracula diverged because of mutationally stable disequilibria due to frequency-independent apostatic natural selection and simultaneously converged because of ecologically constrained stochastic gene sorting. To the best of our knowledge this represents the first demonstrated case of allopatric speciation in the absence of geographical separation. We conclude that C. drosophilae and D. nigrospiracula are descendants of common ancestors that have been modified by genetic mutations, natural selection, and random genetic drift.

Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (which oversees the NIH), has assured potential users of the new software that they will not encounter the same problems as people who recently tried to sign up online for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, and that their work will not suffer the same fate as 120 articles in mathematics and computer science that were recently withdrawn from publication after being exposed as computer-generated gibberish.

Image: Francis S. Collins/NIH

To doubt or not to doubt II

Teamwork: New York Times and Science Magazine Seek to Rebut Darwin's Doubt

Casey Luskin September 24, 2013 10:07 AM

 

 

 

It's now evident that, their previous denials notwithstanding, Darwin defenders have been unnerved by Darwin's Doubt. On the same day last week, both the world's top newspaper (the New York Times) and one of the world's top scientific journals (Science) turned their attention to the problem posed by Stephen Meyer. We'll respond later to the review of Darwin's Doubt in Science. For now, let's take a look at science-writer Carl Zimmer's piece in the Times, "New Approach to Explaining Evolution's Big Bang." Zimmer promotes the conclusions of a commentary in Science that accompanies the review of Meyer's book, purporting to explain the Cambrian explosion.

There's something odd about Zimmer's article. Despite the vigorous media dialogue over Darwin's Doubt, reflected in print, online, and over 300 Amazon reviews, Zimmer declines to mention the book or its author. But then the article in Science that claims to reveal the causes of the Cambrian explosion never acknowledges the controversy either. ENV noted a similar reticence in last week's Current Biology paper, which makes reference to "opponents of evolution," and critiques a very Meyer-esque argument, but likewise refuses to cite Meyer or Darwin's Doubt by name.

Zimmer endorses an approach to the Cambrian explosion, taken by M. Paul Smith and David A.T. Harper who wrote the Science commentary, that's often seen in papers on the subject. These papers cite a myriad of explanations, on the apparent assumption that just by tossing out a bunch of scattershot ideas, you've solved the problem. Carl Zimmer describes the method as follows:

Geologists suggested geological causes. Ecologists proposed ecological ones. Many of those ideas have merit, Dr. Smith and Dr. Harper argue in a commentary in this week's Science, but it's a mistake to search for a single cause. They propose that a tangled web of factors and feedbacks were responsible for evolution's big bang.

How did that work? Zimmer writes:

Long before the Cambrian explosion, Dr. Smith and Dr. Harper argue, one lineage of animals had already evolved the genetic capacity for spectacular diversity. Known as the bilaterians, they probably looked at first like little crawling worms. They shared the Precambrian oceans with other animals, like sponges and jellyfish. During the Cambrian explosion, relatively modest changes to their genes gave rise to a spectacular range of bodies.

But those genes evolved in bilaterians tens of millions of years before the Cambrian explosion put them to the test, notes Dr. Smith. "They had the capacity," he said, "but it hadn't been expressed yet."

Isn't that interesting -- bilaterians "evolved the genetic capacity for spectacular diversity," for no apparent reason, long before it was "expressed." The Science paper notes "an apparent > 100-million-year gap between the evolutionary innovation and its consequences"! For all that time, the "genetic capacity" sat on its hands, doing nothing. Then, thanks to sheer dumb luck, it turned out that the "innovation" was exactly what was necessary to evolve into all the diverse forms of animals we observe. The only thing missing was an environmental trigger.

The trouble is that, in Darwinian theory, you don't survive and reproduce based upon what will happen in the future. You survive and reproduce based upon what happens now. Darwinian evolution can't select for future goals, and thus could not evolve the "genetic capacity for spectacular diversity" in the future. Despite their theory, which was formulated to explain away the appearance of teleology in biology, Darwinians are being forced into increasingly teleological-sounding explanations for the Cambrian explosion. Not that Team Darwin is anywhere near to admitting that.

As Meyer explains in Darwin's Doubt, building new forms of animal life requires massive amounts of new biological information in the form of myriads of new genes, non-coding DNA regulatory elements, gene regulatory networks, and epigenetic information. He shows, for several separate reasons, that the neo-Darwinian mechanism lacks the creative capacity necessary to generate these various forms of information.

Recall, for example, that Meyer shows that that functional genes and proteins are exceedingly rare within sequence space. And, for this reason, he argues that a random mutational search will be overwhelmingly more likely to fail, than to succeed, in generating even a single new gene or protein during the entire history of life on earth. Similarly, he shows that mutations in DNA alone cannot produce the epigenetic ("beyond the gene") information necessary to build new animal body plans.

Does Zimmer, or the article in Science that he cites, address (or solve) these or any of the other problems that Meyer addresses? They don't.

But ID theorists pay close attention to the crucial question: Where does the information necessary to build a new animal come from? Zimmer and the scientists he writes about don't even ask that question.

They just assume the "genetic capacity" arose 100+ million years before it was "expressed" -- without providing any causal explanation for the origin of that information. In other words, they just assume an animal with all the necessary information to produce all future Cambrian animals. That's quite an assumption! Of course, once that information had arisen, all that was then required was some global environmental change to trigger "an evolutionary cascade that led to the rapid rise in diversity" (as the Science paper puts it). Because Earth's history is filled with geological changes and environmental catastrophes, such events aren't hard to find. Indeed, they're practically a dime a dozen. Here's what Zimmer finds:

It took a global flood to tap that capacity, Dr. Smith and Dr. Harper propose. They base their proposal on a study published last year by Shanan Peters of the University of Wisconsin and Robert Gaines of Pomona College. They offered evidence that the Cambrian Explosion was preceded by a rise in sea level that submerged vast swaths of land, eroding the drowned rocks.

I responded to Peters and Gaines's study last year -- and again this year. Because, puzzlingly, it continues to be cited, over and over. As I wrote:

Citing increased chemical weathering around the time of the Cambrian explosion doesn't explain the abrupt appearance of new genes and other genetic information needed to generate new body plans. If they expect us to believe that sedimentation rates explain the sudden origin of new body plans, then it would seem that the Cambrian explosion is still a "mystery."

Wait, there's more. "But these great floods also poisoned the ocean," Zimmer says, and "In order to survive, animals had to evolve ways to rid themselves of the poison." Are we about to hear an explanation for how new information arose? No:

One solution may have been to pack the calcium into crystals, which eventually evolved into shells bones, and other hard tissues. Dr. Smith doesn't think it's a coincidence that several different lineages of bilaterians evolved hard tissues during the Cambrian explosion, and not sooner.

According to this logic, increasing the level of "poison" (calcium) in water generates new information. From there, it's a snap:

These shells and other hard tissues sped up animal evolution even more. Predators could grow hard claws and jaws for killing prey, and their prey could evolve hard shells and spines to defend themselves. Animals became locked in an evolutionary arms race.

OK, I think I now understand why the Cambrian explosion happened. Here's the formula:

• First, the "genetic capacity" to produce all known animal forms arises without any adaptive benefit in some unknown hypothetical ancestral organism.


• Then it does nothing for some 100+ million years. (Nobody's sure exactly how long.)


• Then some environmental trigger adds selection pressure. Earth's history is full of options; choose one, or choose five. Zimmer's scientists choose chemical weathering + sea level rise + oxygenation of oceans.


• Then an "arms race" ensues, and all that untapped genetic information is suddenly "expressed," and boom goes the dynamite: numerous animal body plans appear in a geological blink-of-the-eye.

The Science commentary puts it more artfully: "Together, these interacting processes generated an evolutionary cascade that led to the rapid rise in diversity." And so, there you have it: Cambrian enigma solved -- provided of course that you don't ask any pesky questions about the origin of genetic or epigenetic information.

Genesis17-22NWT(2013 Edition)

17 When A′bram was 99 years old, Jehovah appeared to A′bram and said to him: “I am God Almighty. Walk before me and prove yourself faultless.* 2 I will establish my covenant between me and you,+ and I will multiply you very, very much.”+

3 At this A′bram fell facedown, and God continued to speak with him, saying: 4 “As for me, look! my covenant is with you,+ and you will certainly become a father of many nations.+ 5 Your name will no longer be A′bram;* your name will become Abraham,* for I will make you a father of many nations. 6 I will make you very, very fruitful and will make you become nations, and kings will come from you.+

7 “And I will keep my covenant between me and you+ and your offspring* after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring* after you. 8 And I will give to you and to your offspring* after you the land in which you lived as a foreigner+—the entire land of Ca′naan—for a lasting possession, and I will be their God.”+

9 God said further to Abraham: “As for you, you are to keep my covenant, you and your offspring* after you throughout their generations. 10 This is my covenant between me and you, that you and your offspring* after you will keep: Every male among you must get circumcised.+ 11 You must circumcise the flesh of your foreskins, and it will serve as a sign of the covenant between me and you.+ 12 Throughout your generations, every male among you eight days old must be circumcised,+ anyone who is born in the house and anyone who is not one of your offspring* and who was purchased with money from a foreigner. 13 Every man born in your house and every man purchased with your money must be circumcised,+ and my covenant in your flesh must serve as a lasting covenant. 14 If any uncircumcised male will not circumcise the flesh of his foreskin, that person* must be cut off* from his people. He has broken my covenant.”

15 Then God said to Abraham: “As for your wife Sar′ai,*+ you must not call her Sar′ai, because Sarah* will become her name. 16 I will bless her and also give you a son by her;+ I will bless her and she will become nations; kings of peoples will come from her.” 17 At this Abraham fell facedown and began to laugh and to say in his heart:+ “Will a man 100 years old have a child born to him, and will Sarah, a woman 90 years old, give birth?”+

18 So Abraham said to the true God: “O that Ish′ma·el might live before you!”+ 19 To this God said: “Your wife Sarah will definitely bear you a son, and you must name him Isaac.*+ And I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant to his offspring* after him.+ 20 But as regards Ish′ma·el, I have heard you. Look! I will bless him and will make him fruitful and will multiply him very, very much. He will produce 12 chieftains, and I will make him become a great nation.+ 21 However, I will establish my covenant with Isaac,+ whom Sarah will bear to you at this appointed time next year.”+

22 When God finished speaking with him, he went up from Abraham. 23 Abraham then took Ish′ma·el his son and all the men born in his house and everyone he had purchased with money, every male in the household of Abraham, and he circumcised the flesh of their foreskins on that very day, just as God had spoken with him.+ 24 Abraham was 99 years old when he had the flesh of his foreskin circumcised.+ 25 And Ish′ma·el his son was 13 years old when he had the flesh of his foreskin circumcised.+ 26 On that very day, Abraham was circumcised and also his son Ish′ma·el. 27 All the men of his household, anyone born in the house and anyone purchased with money from a foreigner, were also circumcised with him.

 

 

18 Afterward, Jehovah+ appeared to him among the big trees of Mam′re+ while he was sitting at the entrance of the tent during the hottest part of the day. 2 He looked up and saw three men standing some distance from him.+ When he saw them, he ran from the entrance of the tent to meet them, and he bowed down to the ground. 3 Then he said: “Jehovah, if I have found favor in your eyes, please do not pass by your servant. 4 Please, let a little water be brought and have your feet washed;+ then recline under the tree. 5 Seeing that you have come here to your servant, let me bring a piece of bread so that you may refresh yourselves.* Then you may go on your way.” At this they said: “All right. You may do as you have spoken.”

6 So Abraham hurried to the tent to Sarah and said: “Quick! Get three measures* of fine flour, knead the dough, and make loaves of bread.” 7 Next Abraham ran to the herd and chose a tender and good young bull. He gave it to the attendant, who hurried to prepare it. 8 He then took butter and milk and the young bull that he had prepared and set the food before them. Then he stood by them under the tree as they were eating.+

9 They said to him: “Where is your wife Sarah?”+ He replied: “Here in the tent.” 10 So one of them continued: “I will surely return to you next year at this time, and look! your wife Sarah will have a son.”+ Now Sarah was listening at the tent entrance, which was behind the man. 11 Abraham and Sarah were old, being advanced in years.+ Sarah was past the age of childbearing.*+ 12 So Sarah began to laugh to herself, saying: “After I am worn out and my lord is old, will I really have this pleasure?”+ 13 Then Jehovah said to Abraham: “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Am I really going to give birth even though I am old?’ 14 Is anything too extraordinary for Jehovah?+ I will return to you next year at this appointed time, and Sarah will have a son.” 15 But Sarah denied it, saying, “I did not laugh!” for she was afraid. At this he said: “Yes! You did laugh.”

16 When the men got up to leave and looked down toward Sod′om,+ Abraham was walking with them to escort them. 17 Jehovah said: “Am I keeping hidden from Abraham what I am going to do?+ 18 Why, Abraham is surely going to become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth will be blessed* by means of him.+ 19 For I have come to know him in order that he may command his sons and his household after him to keep Jehovah’s way by doing what is right and just,+ so that Jehovah may bring about what he has promised concerning Abraham.”

20 Then Jehovah said: “The outcry against Sod′om and Go·mor′rah is indeed great,+ and their sin is very heavy.+ 21 I will go down to see whether they are acting according to the outcry that has reached me. And if not, I can get to know it.”+

22 Then the men left from there and went toward Sod′om, but Jehovah+ remained with Abraham. 23 Then Abraham approached and said: “Will you really sweep away the righteous with the wicked?+ 24 Suppose there are 50 righteous men within the city. Will you, then, sweep them away and not pardon the place for the sake of the 50 righteous who are inside it? 25 It is unthinkable that you would act in this manner by putting the righteous man to death with the wicked one so that the outcome for the righteous man and the wicked is the same!+ It is unthinkable of you.+ Will the Judge of all the earth not do what is right?”+ 26 Then Jehovah said: “If I find in Sod′om 50 righteous men in the city, I will pardon the whole place for their sake.” 27 But Abraham again responded: “Please, here I have presumed to speak to Jehovah, whereas I am dust and ashes. 28 Suppose the 50 righteous should lack five. Because of the five will you destroy the whole city?” To this he said: “I will not destroy it if I find there 45.”+

29 But yet again he spoke to him and said: “Suppose 40 are found there.” He answered: “I will not do it for the sake of the 40.” 30 But he continued: “Jehovah, please, do not become hot with anger,+ but let me go on speaking: Suppose only 30 are found there.” He answered: “I will not do it if I find 30 there.” 31 But he continued: “Please, here I have presumed to speak to Jehovah: Suppose only 20 are found there.” He answered: “I will not destroy it for the sake of the 20.” 32 Finally he said: “Jehovah, please, do not become hot with anger, but let me speak just once more: Suppose only ten are found there.” He answered: “I will not destroy it for the sake of the ten.” 33 When Jehovah finished speaking to Abraham, he went his way+ and Abraham returned to his place.

 

 

19 The two angels arrived at Sod′om by evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sod′om. When Lot saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the earth.+ 2 And he said: “Please, my lords, turn aside, please, into the house of your servant and stay overnight and have your feet washed. Then you may get up early and travel on your way.” To this they said: “No, we will stay overnight in the public square.” 3 But he was so insistent with them that they went with him to his house. Then he made a feast for them, and he baked unleavened bread, and they ate.

4 Before they could lie down to sleep, the men of the city—the men of Sod′om from boy to old man, all of them—surrounded the house in one mob. 5 And they kept calling out to Lot and saying to him: “Where are the men who came in to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we may have sex with them.”+

6 Then Lot went out to them to the doorway, and he shut the door behind him. 7 He said: “Please, my brothers, do not act wickedly. 8 Please, here I have two daughters who have never had sexual relations with a man. Please, let me bring them out to you for you to do to them whatever seems good to you. But do not do anything to these men, for they have come under the shelter* of my roof.”+ 9 At this they said: “Stand back!” And they added: “This lone foreigner came to live here, and yet he dares to judge us! Now we are going to do worse to you than to them.” And they crowded in* on Lot and moved forward to break down the door. 10 So the men reached out their hands and brought Lot into the house with them, and they shut the door. 11 But they struck the men who were at the entrance of the house with blindness, from the least to the greatest, so that they wore themselves out trying to find the doorway.

12 Then the men said to Lot: “Do you have anyone else here? Sons-in-law, your sons, your daughters, and all your people in the city, bring out of this place! 13 For we are going to destroy this place, because the outcry against them has indeed grown great* before Jehovah,+ so that Jehovah sent us to destroy the city.” 14 So Lot went out and began to speak to his sons-in-law who were to marry his daughters, and he kept saying: “Get up! Get out of this place, because Jehovah will destroy the city!” But to his sons-in-law, he seemed to be joking.+

15 As dawn was breaking, the angels became urgent with Lot, saying: “Get up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here with you, so that you will not be swept away in the error of the city!”+ 16 When he kept lingering, then because of Jehovah’s compassion for him,+ the men seized hold of his hand and the hand of his wife and the hands of his two daughters, and they brought him out and stationed him outside the city.+ 17 As soon as they had brought them to the outskirts, he said: “Escape for your life!* Do not look behind you+ and do not stand still in any part of the district!+ Escape to the mountainous region so that you may not be swept away!”

18 Then Lot said to them: “Not there, please, Jehovah! 19 Please, now, your servant has found favor in your eyes and you are showing great kindness* to me by preserving me* alive,+ but I am not able to flee to the mountainous region because I am afraid that disaster may overtake me and I will die.+ 20 Please, now, this town is nearby and I can flee there; it is only a small place. May I, please, escape there? It is only a small place. Then I will survive.”* 21 So he said to him: “Very well, I will also show you consideration+ by not overthrowing the town you speak of.+ 22 Hurry! Escape there, because I cannot do anything until you arrive there!”+ That is why he named the town Zo′ar.*+

23 The sun had risen over the land when Lot arrived at Zo′ar. 24 Then Jehovah made it rain sulfur and fire on Sod′om and Go·mor′rah—it came from Jehovah, from the heavens.+ 25 So he overthrew these cities, yes, the entire district, including all the inhabitants of the cities and the plants of the ground.+ 26 But Lot’s wife, who was behind him, began to look back, and she became a pillar of salt.+

27 Now Abraham got up early in the morning and went to the place where he had stood before Jehovah.+ 28 When he looked down toward Sod′om and Go·mor′rah and all the land of the district, he saw quite a sight. There was dense smoke rising from the land like the dense smoke of a kiln!+ 29 So when God destroyed the cities of the district, God kept Abraham in mind by sending Lot out from the cities he overthrew, the cities where Lot had been dwelling.+

30 Later Lot went up from Zo′ar with his two daughters and began living in the mountainous region,+ because he was afraid to live in Zo′ar.+ So he began living in a cave with his two daughters. 31 And the firstborn said to the younger: “Our father is old, and there is not a man in the land to have relations with us according to the custom of the whole earth. 32 Come, let us give our father wine to drink, and let us lie down with him and preserve offspring from our father.”

33 So that night they kept giving their father wine to drink; then the firstborn went in and lay down with her father, but he did not know when she lay down and when she got up. 34 Then on the next day, the firstborn said to the younger: “Here I lay down with my father last night. Let us give him wine to drink tonight also. Then you go in and lie down with him, and let us preserve offspring from our father.” 35 So that night also, they repeatedly gave their father wine to drink; then the younger went and lay down with him, but he did not know when she lay down and when she got up. 36 So both daughters of Lot became pregnant by their father. 37 The firstborn gave birth to a son and named him Mo′ab.+ He is the father of the Mo′ab·ites of today.+ 38 The younger also gave birth to a son, and she named him Ben-am′mi. He is the father of the Am′mon·ites+ of today.

 

20 Now Abraham moved his camp from there+ to the land of the Neg′eb and began dwelling between Ka′desh+ and Shur.+ While he was residing* at Ge′rar,+ 2 Abraham repeated concerning his wife Sarah: “She is my sister.”+ So A·bim′e·lech king of Ge′rar sent for Sarah and took her.+ 3 Afterward, God came by night to A·bim′e·lech in a dream and said to him: “Here you are as good as dead because of the woman whom you have taken,+ since she is married and belongs to another man.”+ 4 However, A·bim′e·lech had not gone near her.* So he said: “Jehovah, will you kill a nation that is really innocent?* 5 Did he not say to me, ‘She is my sister,’ and did she too not say, ‘He is my brother’? I did this with an honest heart and innocent hands.” 6 Then the true God said to him in the dream: “I know that you did this with an honest heart, so I held you back from sinning against me. That is why I did not allow you to touch her. 7 Now return the man’s wife, for he is a prophet,+ and he will make supplication for you+ and you will keep living. But if you are not returning her, know that you will surely die, you and all who are yours.”

8 A·bim′e·lech got up early in the morning and called all his servants and told them all these things, and they became very frightened. 9 Then A·bim′e·lech called Abraham and said to him: “What have you done to us? What sin have I committed against you that you would bring upon me and my kingdom such a great sin? What you have done to me was not right.” 10 And A·bim′e·lech went on to say to Abraham: “What were your intentions when you did this thing?”+ 11 Abraham said: “It was because I said to myself, ‘Surely there is no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.’+ 12 And besides, she really is my sister, the daughter of my father but not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife.+ 13 So when God caused me to wander from the house of my father,+ I said to her: ‘Let this be how you show loyal love to me: Everywhere we go, say of me, “He is my brother.”’”+

14 A·bim′e·lech then took sheep and cattle and male and female servants and gave them to Abraham, and he returned his wife Sarah to him. 15 A·bim′e·lech also said: “Here my land is available to you. Dwell wherever you please.” 16 And to Sarah he said: “Here I give 1,000 pieces of silver to your brother.+ It is a sign of your innocence* to all who are with you and before everybody, and you are cleared of reproach.” 17 And Abraham began to make supplication to the true God, and God healed A·bim′e·lech and his wife and his slave girls, and they began having children; 18 for Jehovah had made all the women of the house of A·bim′e·lech barren* because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.+

 

 

 

21 Jehovah turned his attention to Sarah just as he had said, and Jehovah did for Sarah what he had promised.+ 2 So Sarah became pregnant+ and then bore a son to Abraham in his old age at the appointed time God had promised him.+ 3 Abraham named his newborn son, whom Sarah bore to him, Isaac.+ 4 And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, just as God had commanded him.+ 5 Abraham was 100 years old when his son Isaac was born to him. 6 Then Sarah said: “God has brought me laughter; everybody hearing of it will laugh with me.”* 7 And she added: “Who would have said to Abraham, ‘Sarah will certainly nurse children’? Yet, I have given birth to a son for him in his old age.”

8 Now the child grew and was weaned, and Abraham prepared a big feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. 9 But Sarah kept noticing that the son of Ha′gar+ the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, was mocking Isaac.+ 10 So she said to Abraham: “Drive out this slave girl and her son, for the son of this slave girl is not going to be an heir along with my son, with Isaac!”+ 11 But what she said about his son was very displeasing to Abraham.+ 12 Then God said to Abraham: “Do not be displeased by what Sarah is saying to you about the boy and about your slave girl. Listen to her,* for what will be called your offspring* will be through Isaac.+ 13 As for the son of the slave girl,+ I will also make a nation out of him,+ because he is your offspring.”*

14 So Abraham got up early in the morning and took bread and a skin bottle of water and gave it to Ha′gar. He set these on her shoulder and then sent her away along with the boy.+ So she departed and wandered about in the wilderness of Be′er-she′ba.+ 15 Finally the water in the skin bottle was used up, and she pushed the boy under one of the bushes. 16 Then she went on and sat down by herself, about the distance of a bowshot away, because she said: “I do not want to watch the boy die.” So she sat down at a distance and began to cry aloud and to weep.

17 At that God heard the voice of the boy,+ and God’s angel called to Ha′gar from the heavens and said to her:+ “What is the matter with you, Ha′gar? Do not be afraid, for God has heard the voice of the boy there where he is. 18 Get up, lift the boy and take hold of him with your hand, for I will make him a great nation.”+ 19 Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water, and she went and filled the skin bottle with water and gave the boy a drink. 20 And God was with the boy+ as he grew up. He lived in the wilderness and became an archer. 21 He took up dwelling in the wilderness of Pa′ran,+ and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

22 At that time A·bim′e·lech together with Phi′col the chief of his army said to Abraham: “God is with you in everything you are doing.+ 23 So now swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me and with my offspring and with my descendants, and that you will deal with me and with the land where you have been residing with the same loyal love that I have shown you.”+ 24 So Abraham said: “I swear to this.”

25 However, Abraham complained to A·bim′e·lech about the well of water that the servants of A·bim′e·lech had violently seized.+ 26 A·bim′e·lech replied: “I do not know who did this; you did not tell me about it, and I heard nothing about it until today.” 27 At that Abraham took sheep and cattle and gave them to A·bim′e·lech, and the two of them made a covenant. 28 When Abraham set seven female lambs apart from the flock by themselves, 29 A·bim′e·lech said to Abraham: “Why have you set these seven female lambs here by themselves?” 30 Then he said: “You are to accept the seven female lambs from my hand as a witness that I dug this well.” 31 That is why he called that place Be′er-she′ba,*+ because there both of them had taken an oath. 32 So they made a covenant+ at Be′er-she′ba, after which A·bim′e·lech got up together with Phi′col the chief of his army, and they returned to the land of the Phi·lis′tines.+ 33 After that he planted a tamarisk tree at Be′er-she′ba, and there he called on the name of Jehovah,+ the everlasting God.+ 34 And Abraham stayed* in the land of the Phi·lis′tines for a long time.*+

 

 

 

22 Now after this the true God put Abraham to the test,+ and he said to him: “Abraham!” to which he replied: “Here I am!” 2 Then he said: “Take, please, your son, your only son whom you so love,+ Isaac,+ and travel to the land of Mo·ri′ah+ and offer him up there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I will designate to you.”

3 So Abraham got up early in the morning and saddled his donkey and took two of his servants along with him and his son Isaac. He split the wood for the burnt offering, and then he rose and traveled to the place that the true God indicated to him. 4 On the third day, Abraham looked up and saw the place from a distance. 5 Abraham now said to his servants: “You stay here with the donkey, but the boy and I will go over there and worship and return to you.”

6 So Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and put it on his son Isaac. Then he took in his hands the fire and the knife,* and the two of them walked on together. 7 Then Isaac said to his father Abraham: “My father!” He replied: “Yes, my son!” So he continued: “Here are the fire and the wood, but where is the sheep for the burnt offering?” 8 To this Abraham said: “God himself will provide the sheep for the burnt offering,+ my son.” And both of them walked on together.

9 Finally they reached the place that the true God had indicated to him, and Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac hand and foot and put him on the altar on top of the wood.+ 10 Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife* to kill his son.+ 11 But Jehovah’s angel called to him from the heavens and said: “Abraham, Abraham!” to which he answered: “Here I am!” 12 Then he said: “Do not harm the boy, and do not do anything at all to him, for now I do know that you are God-fearing because you have not withheld your son, your only one, from me.”+ 13 At that Abraham looked up, and there just beyond him was a ram caught by its horns in a thicket. So Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering in place of his son. 14 And Abraham named that place Je·ho′vah-ji′reh.* This is why it is still said today: “In the mountain of Jehovah it will be provided.”+

15 And Jehovah’s angel called to Abraham a second time from the heavens, 16 saying: “‘By myself I swear,’ declares Jehovah,+ ‘that because you have done this and you have not withheld your son, your only one,+ 17 I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply your offspring* like the stars of the heavens and like the grains of sand on the seashore,+ and your offspring* will take possession of the gate* of his enemies.+ 18 And by means of your offspring*+ all nations of the earth will obtain a blessing for themselves because you have listened to my voice.’”+

19 After that Abraham returned to his servants, and they got up and went back together to Be′er-she′ba;+ and Abraham continued to dwell at Be′er-she′ba.

20 After this it was reported to Abraham: “Here Mil′cah has also borne sons to Na′hor your brother:+ 21 Uz his firstborn, Buz his brother, Kem·u′el the father of A′ram, 22 Che′sed, Ha′zo, Pil′dash, Jid′laph, and Be·thu′el.”+ 23 Be·thu′el became the father of Re·bek′ah.+ Mil′cah bore these eight to Na′hor the brother of Abraham. 24 His concubine, whose name was Reu′mah, also bore sons: Te′bah, Ga′ham, Ta′hash, and Ma′a·cah.