>I AM NOT ARGUING FOR INERRANCY. I am arguing for historicity.
THere is a big difference. Inerrancy means every detail must be exact. I DO
NOT HOLD THAT VIEW. But it seems that everyone wants to categorize people
into certain preconceived niches. What I am arguing for is that there must
be a historical basis to the account. And the account must substantially
match the event which founded the account.
My comment:
The judgement of how an account "substantially matches the event
which founded the account" depends on criteria that cannot be
fully articulated. However, the criteria for a "substantial match"
differs according to whether one classifies the account as
"legend" (in the same category as the Iliad and the Sumerian Flood
story) or as a "scientifically and historically accurate account".
A legend, even though many of the details are evocative (appeal to
the emotions or imagination), may be associated with a historic event.
That is what I regard as historicity. The details cannot be
regarded as "true or false" in the modern sense of these terms
(that is, according to the criteria of a "historic or scientifically
accurate account").
Your qualifier "And the account must ... " seems to lean toward
applying the "logic of a historically accurate account" rather than
the "logic of legend". Hence, the appearance (to me) that you approach
the text from the "logic of inerrancy" rather than the "logic
of historicity" (or for me, I suppose, "the logic of consilience").
I think that concordism applies the "logic of our yearning to
see all things in Christ" in that it is a search for 'matches' between
the early chapters of Genesis and the archaeological and evolutionary
record. Historicity is part of that match, but it is not the only
part. Most of all, the associations with history (or, for chapter 1,
the evolutionary record) follows logics that are not the "logic of a
scientifically accurate account".
Ray