Glenn,
Why am I not surprised to see your reply?
I wrote:
>>I presume, then, that you are comfortable with the idea that 5.5 million
>>years ago there were fairly mature civilizations of modern humans (complete
>>with agriculture, musical instrument making, making and working with iron
>>and bronze, shipbuilding, etc) and that the factual particulars of a flood
>>experience were accurately preserved by oral tradition for that same 5.5
>>million years?
And you replied:
> And I presume you are completely happy with the total mis-match between the
> account and topography and physics of the more classically suggested sites
> for the flood? Do you think water flows uphill in Mesopotamia? You are a
> better physicist than that!
1. Discovering that it is essentially impossible to find a one-to-one
correspondence between any particular terrestrial flood event and the
Genesis Flood narrative--read as if it were a chronicle of such an event--is
neither surprising nor disturbing to me.
While the human trauma of actual flood experiences in the greater
Mesopotamian region may help us to understand why flood narratives
functioned as they did in Ancient Near Eastern cultures (as dramatic
vehicles for reflecting on divine judgment and divine/human relationships
generally) I see no basis for the expectation that the details Genesis 6-9
should correspond to any one particular flooding event.
2. Does water flow uphill in Mesopotamia? No, Glenn, I presume that physics
applied then as now.
> So what you do is decide that the details of the
> account don't matter. If that is true, if the details truly don't matter to
> the truth of the story, then the account might very well not be about a
> flood but about a country bumpkin going to the big city.
3. You and I and many others have gone round and round on this matter of the
truth of various biblical stories. The question is, what is the Flood
narrative about? If it is assumed to be a chronicle of a particular
Mesopotamian or global flood event, then the narrative might well be
declared to be false. If, however, it is taken as a reflection on the
character of the divine/human relationship--written in typical Ancient Near
Eastern literary style--then it is possible that some profound truths are
conveyed by this narrative.
4. You seem to suggest that there are only two possibilities for the
character of the Genesis Flood narrative. It is either, (1) an accurate (by
modern historiographic standards) chronicle of a particular Mesopotamian
flooding event, or it is (2) useless fluff, perhaps a silly story "about a
country bumpkin going to the big city." As long as these are the only two
alternatives offered, reflection on what Genesis 6-9 might contribute to our
understanding of the divine/human relationship will be effectively stopped.
> [skip some detail]
> All I am asking for is a mere 3 million year gap
> between the first appearance of man, and the first appearance of EVIDENCE of
> man--a smaller gap than any of those above. Why exactly is this an
> unreasonable expectation, Howard? Or do you not believe in statistics?
5. Becoming better informed about the formational history of modern humans
is a worthy enterprise. You are well justified, Glenn, to ask the Christian
community to become more aware of what is known about this.
Surely there were ancestors to modern humans 6 million years ago, although I
doubt very much that their cultural development was sufficient for them to
be the modern human characters in the Genesis 6-9 narrative. However, I
would argue that such considerations are entirely irrelevant to the Flood
narrative. Knowledge regarding the culture (religion, literature,
technology, etc.) of the Ancient Near Eastern civilizations would, however,
be essential for us to begin to understand how this narrative functioned in
its own time and place.
Cordially,
Howard Van Till
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Feb 02 2001 - 09:46:10 EST