Re: Something must change

Allan Harvey (aharvey@boulder.nist.gov)
Thu, 20 Aug 1998 16:40:38 -0600

At 05:00 PM 8/20/98 -0500, Joel Peter Anderson wrote:
>On Thu, 20 Aug 1998, George Murphy wrote:
>
>> I think Glenn wants to focus more strongly on the Flood than I
>> do. The object of my criticism is not so much his specific thesis
>> (though I have problems with it) as with the tendency of many
>> conservative Christians to think that all biblical accounts could in
>> principle be verified as historically accurate if we could just find the
>> evidence. There is simply a refusal to give serious consideration to
>> the possibility that the Bible contains other types of literature.
>
>This *sounds* rather naive - though I certainly know from my time spent
>lurking here you are far from naive.
>
>The "concordist" school of thought, indeed seeks "the evidence" to
>demonstrate the historicity of biblical narratives, but is, in my
>experience, full of many, many people who know full well that the Bible is
>composed of many forms of literature.

Not to speak for George, but probably a more accurate rephrasing of his
last sentence would be "... refusal to give serious consideration to the
possibility that any but a few easily recognized parts of the Bible
(those that are blatantly not historical chronicle like Psalms,
Revelation, etc.) could contain other types of literature."

With that clarification, I agree with George's criticism of the attitude
toward the Bible taken by most concordist efforts. We need to let the
Bible speak to us according to the purpose and style of the inspired
authors (as best we can determine it), not according to our human
standards of what we think the Bible ought to be.

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| Dr. Allan H. Harvey | aharvey@boulder.nist.gov |
| Physical and Chemical Properties Division | "Don't blame the |
| National Institute of Standards & Technology | government for what I |
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