At 10:32 PM 1/9/00 -0500, George Murphy wrote:
> a. Gen.1-2 was meant only as 1 illustration of the general argument that
>it is not legitimate to assume as a default setting that the biblical
authors had
>the same goal of "history as it really happened" as 19th century European
historians
>& most American Evangelicals.
Is "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth' real history as
it happened? If yes, then we can at least establish Genesis 1:1 as history
albeit incomplete history.
> b. See my post of 18 August 1999 on the "Days of Proclamation" view of
Gen.1.
>Briefly, while this expresses an interesting theological view of creation
with which
>I am in significant agreement, it is quite impluaisible to present it as a
"Level 1"
>(original authors, redactors, & audiences) meaning of this text. As you
say later, the
>the "account certainly reads as history" - not history before time &c but a
>beginning of time & series of events in time.
BEcause we learn more as time goes on, I am not sure that it is really a
good idea to base the interpretation of scripture solely on the way the
ancients read it. God may have meant one thing but the ancient readers
understood it in another way.
> But as soon as it is suggested that any significant biblical text - Job,
>Jonah, &c - may _not_ be historical, there will be an outcry from many
concordists
>(including, in the case of Jonah, Glenn Morton) to defend their character
as historical
>narrative. I.e., it's hard to find texts about which concordists will
just cheerfully
>say, "Yeah, that's inspired fiction."
How about the prodigal son which you like so much. It could have happened
but it didn't have to because it does happen all the time.
While concordists may not insist that all the
>details in a biblical account are historically accurate, there is a strong
tendency to
>insist that there must be some historical facts in the text.
But Christianity and Judaism are historical religions. If the events that
founded them are fantasy, the religion is false! If there were no exodus,
Did God then not speak to Moses on Sinai? If there were no resurrection,
who do we worship? If God didn't create the world (historically speaking)
then what do we worship? And if God is so impotent as to be unable to
communicate clearly, is he powerful enough to guarantee our salvation?
> I'm not terribly concerned about the Columbine example. Of course
Christians
>should have some integrity & not claim that things really happened if they
didn't.
>What I'm much more concerned about is, e.g., insisting so strongly on
historically
>verifiable aspects of biblical accounts that their significance is lost
sight of.
But the same things goes for the texts of the scripture. If you do go to
the way the ancients viewed genesis 1-11, they viewed it historically.
Someone told them it was real history. So what applies to the Columbine
example applies equally well to the ancients. They shouldn't have been
spouting what everyone thought was real history when it was really fantasy.
And if we can't trust the ancient writers not to do this sort of thing, can
we trust what they say about salvation etc?
>
> I said "We shouldn't assume all accounts to be H." Your reply is, "We
don't -
>we just don't agree that they're not-H." The distinction is slight.
No, the distinction is not slight. Psalms, Proverbs Lamentations, many of
Pauls letters are not historical. So for you to say that we assume all
accounts to be historical is far from the mark.
> You're missing the forest for the trees - or the landscape for the rivers.
>I agree that there _may_ be accurate geographical information in the text,
& that it's
>worth exploring that possibility. In Gen.2 it's clear that there is.
What I reject is
>the claim that there _must_ be accurate geographical information there.
I like rivers and trees. :-) Because it is the details that matter. Only if
the details are correct can the landscape and forest really be there.
glenn
Foundation, Fall and Flood
Adam, Apes and Anthropology
http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/dmd.htm
Lots of information on creation/evolution
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Jan 10 2000 - 07:10:52 EST