1st I should note that "concordism" is a very broad term which can cover a
spectrum of positions, so it shouldn't be surprising that any attempt to speak about
what it means will not be accepted by some who consider themselves concordists. (In
fact I - moi! - have been accused of concordism because I think that the idea of
mediated creation in Gen.1 is significant for a theological understanding of evolution -
which really stretches the term.)
glenn morton wrote:
>
> 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.
I believe that God really did create the heavens and the earth. But it's
problematic to call what happened "in the beginning" "history" since it's the beginning
of time, not something that happened in time. & I have even greater difficulty seeing
your "Days of proclamation" view as "history" since then Gen.1 happened before time.
We've discussed this before.
> > 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.
Okay, but again see my distinction of levels of interpretation in the earlier
post. As I said there, what's questionable about a lot of concordism is the tendency to
give level 4 interpretations (contemporary theology in relation to modern science &c) as
if they were level 1 (original intent).
> > 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.
Actually it's the Good Samaritan - & as I recall there's been some struggle
about that, with you arguing that it _could_ have happened & that that's significant.
> 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?
"Christianity is an historical religion, therefore any given text in the Bible
must contain historical material" of course doesn't follow. Yes, Jesus' resurrection
really happened & its truth can be defended on historical grounds. & no, if we don't
believe Jonah was swallowed by a fish, our children won't necessarily stop believing in
the resurrection.
> > 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?
1) If the original authors may not have known the real message the Holy Spirit
intended for a text, as you argued earlier, _a fortiori_ their audiences didn't either.
2) As I pointed out previously, it's clear that the intentions of the biblical
writers & redactors were quite different from that of "history as it really happened"
historiography - which doesn't mean that they were _never_ interested in writing that
type of history.
> > 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.
Okay, you bracket off Psalms - though it contains historical data (e.g., Ps.78).
Many concordists, while of course agreeing that the proverbs themselves are ahistorical,
were really by Solomon because of Prov.1:1. Lamentations refers pretty clearly to the
real historical events of ~ 587 B.C., and Paul's letters have a lot of historical
referents (e.g., Gal.2). So your distinction isn't clear. You defended the historicity
of Jonah rather vigorously, which seems to me neither necessary nor very plausible.
> > 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.
The rivers in Gen.2 help make the point that the text is about the creation
of the real world - but so is Gen.1 (I know, I know!) & there aren't any names there.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
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