Samuel,
You wrote:
> I need to explain that I did not reply to your original question to me
> regarding being "comfortable to have man living 5 mill yrs ago". I do not
> feel I know enough about anthropology to make any defence for this view.
> My bias is towards the Mediteranian Flood view because of the geological
> considerations and the repeated pushing back of the time line for the
> appearance of early man makes me comfortable with a date in the early
> millions.
The point of my question to you was to suggest that there are HUGE problems
raised when is it assumed to be reasonable to posit that the Ancient Near
Eastern cultural setting of the Genesis 6-9 flood narrative can be pushed
back 5.5 million years. I fully agree that there were pre Homo sapiens
species at that time, but to equate those creatures with the characters in
the biblical flood narrative strikes me as an exceedingly unreasonable
stretch.
Glenn's desire to do this, in spite of these problems, follows naturally
from his concept of biblical inspiration. As I indicated in a recent post,
it is
that concept of inspiration that demands a concord (agreement) between
the particulars of the flood story (assumed to be a matter-of-fact
chronicle) and modern scientific reconstructions of terrestrial history.
> Glenn, thanks for taking the matter up for discussion with Howard and
> others and allowing us to learn from the discussion. It is good hearing you
> articulate your views, Howard. I would like to think of the account of the
> resurrection of Jesus as being "historical fact" compared to the account of
> Mohamad's resurrection/ascension to heaven, Howard.
Given the radically different cultural, historical and textual contexts of
the flood narrative in Genesis 6-9 and the resurrection accounts in the
Gospels, there is no reason whatsoever to insist on their having exactly the
same historical status. To judge that Genesis 6-9 is not a matter-of-fact
chronicle of a particular geo-hydraulic event sets no precedent at all for
one's reading of the resurrection accounts.
> Have just returned from a week away from the office - hence the silence
> from my end (European Winter Conference on Spectrochemistry at Lillehammer
> where the temperature was minus 28 C !).
I'm glad I visited Lillehammer in the summer!
Cordially,
Howard
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Feb 09 2001 - 10:01:36 EST