<<The problem, Paul, is that you offer a self-supporting tautology. Believe
that Jesus is God and you don't have to worry about whether or not the
document that tells us of Jesus is true or not when it speaks of Jesus and
his divinity….>>
Actually, even with historical documents that are unrevealed, a person has
every right to receive them as valid historical documents IF the sources are
reliable. And, in spite of the fact that naturalistic historians write them
off a priori insofar as they speak of miracle, even most of them have been
willing to write some kind of a history of Jesus based on the gospels. F. F.
Bruce made the case for the reliability of the gospels in his book, Are the
New Testament Documents Reliable? My starting point, therefore, is outside
of my faith in Christ; and is, therefore, not tautologous.
<<Then precisely where is the 'Divine' in the divine revelation? If all we
have is human sources producing, via human authors, a human book about a God
who won't correct even the most egregious errors in the account about Him but
who 'makes concessions' to the human's ignorance, what then is so special
about the Bible?…>>
Note: I did not say or even imply that _all_ we have is human sources. I
said the history qua history and science qua science in the Bible make no
biblical claim to be revealed. As to where is the 'Divine'? Rather than
answer your question abstractly, let's take Gen 1:7, "And God made the
firmament and separated the waters which were below from the waters which
were above the firmament and it was so." Since outside of fundamentalist
circles with their egregious rationalizations, the meaning of the word
"firmament" is a rock-solid dome over the earth, we have in this verse an
egregious scientific error to which God has made concession.
Why this concession? I think first of all there is no question that the
Hebrews believed there was an ocean surrounding the universe; and that this
ocean was a potential threat to survival, as shown during the Flood when the
firmament allowed some of that surrounding ocean to come through to earth
(Gen 7:11; 8:2). Without the firmament to act as a dam, it was inconceivable
to them that life on earth would even be possible. Like a child afraid of the
boogy man in the dark, the parent buys a night light for the bedroom. The
concession to the irrational belief may well have been made out of love.
But who knows how many other reasons God may have had for this concession?
Their Mesopotamian neighbors already had the same concept of the universe;
but, what a difference in the theology. The Babylonian account, Enuma elish,
which there is good reason to believe lies (not as a document, but as a
preliterary tradition) behind Gen 1 also tells how the firmament was formed:
Tiamat (cf Tehom, ocean in Gen 1:2 ff) was a raging wild woman who comes out
with a number of allied gods against Marduk to do battle. There is a great
deal more description, but saliently, Tablet 4, lines 85 ff tells of the
battle:
"Stand thou up that thou and I meet in single combat! When Tiamat heard this
she was like one possessed; she took leave of her senses. In fury Tiamat
cried out aloud. To the roots her legs shook both together. She recites a
charm, keeps casting her spell. While the gods of battle sharpen their
weapons. Then joined issue, Tiamat and Marduk, wisest of gods. They strove
in single combat, locked in battle. The lord spread out his net to enfold
her, The Evil wind which followed behind he let loose in her face. When
Tiamat opened her mouth to consume him, he drove in the Evil wind that she
close not her lips. As the fierce winds charged her belly, her body was
distended and her mouth was wide open. He released the arrow, it tore her
belly. It cut through the insides splitting her heart. Having thus subdued
her, he extinguished her life. He cast down the carcass to stand upon it.
…[then after subduing the gods who were her allies]…he then paused to view
her dead body, that he might divide the monster and do artful works. He
split her like a shellfish into two parts: half of her he set up and ceiled
it as sky, Pulled down the bar and posted guards. He bade them to allow not
her waters to escape." (Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old
Testament, p. 67)
In Genesis the waters and the firmament (Tiamat/Tehom) are completely
demythologized. They are a part of God's creation, completely subject to him
from the beginning. God does not have to fight the waters with their
associated goddess opposing him with charms, spells, weapons and allied gods.
The firmament with its water above and below is not the body of a conquered
goddess split in two, but a natural part of the creation. Nor are guards
needed to keep the sluices of the firmament closed lest the earth be flooded.
There are also important contrasts between Marduk and the God of the Bible.
It is these contrasts which constitute the Divine in the divine revelation;
and its takes a hardened heart not to see the superiority of Genesis 1. (You
can see a more extended discussion of the contrasts in Nahum Sarna's
Understanding Genesis, pp. 4-12.)
Lastly, you said,
<<…I mean if God doesn't reveal history, he doesn't reveal science, how do
you know he revealed any theology?>>
One could go to great lengths here to talk about epistemology, but the above
example illustrates what I find all through Scripture: the natural is the
natural of the times, the theology is in contrast to the theology of the
times-not always in the underlying idea but in the higher plane to which it
is taken. Even with the resurrection, a close study will show that the
resurrection of Jesus is on an altogether different and higher plane than the
mystery religions, particularly in its appeal to eyewitnesses. The quote in
Yamauchi from A. D. Nock, no small authority in this area, should not be
brushed aside lightly:
In Christianity everything is made to turn on a dated experience of a
historical Person; it can be seen from I Cor. XV. 3 that the statement of the
story early assumed the form of a statement in a Creed. There is nothing in
the parallel cases which points to any attempt to give such a basis of
historical evidence to belief (Early Gentile Christianity and Its Hellenistic
Background, 1964, p. 107).
Paul S.