RE: Black Sea Flood

From: Dr. Blake Nelson (bnelson301@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat May 04 2002 - 10:45:35 EDT

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    --- Glenn Morton <glenn.morton@btinternet.com> wrote:
    (snip)

      ***end of old post***

    I think you should have the courtesy to withdraw this
    criticism and
    admit
    you erroneously represented my position.

    glenn

    BN: My point, which is still valid although
    admittedly made tendentiously is that there is no such
    thing as a literal interpretation of a text. Outside
    of 2+2 = 7 or the atomic weight of Krypton is 127.6,
    it is hard to say what statements are clearly false.
    The bowl of the sky may be read by some as false,
    others as a metaphor. Adam may be read as a personal
    name or a generic term for man. The six days may be
    read as days or aeons.

    I do not think I have entirely misrepresented your
    position. I think you try to make truth claims such
    as the atomic weight of Erbium = 167.26 out of things
    that are a lot more subject to exegesis than a claim
    about an exact property of something, if you see what
    I mean.

    I did not mean to be at all insulting (although the
    Ugaboogah example could be interpreted as insulting by
    others), as in science and in literature, one tests
    the veracity of a statement by trying to push it to
    its extreme limits. At the extreme limits, I don't
    think the necessity of "truth" claims that you try to
    make hold up. You seem to agree by trying to
    differentiate cases. We disagree as to how far and to
    what extent something can be read as a truth claim. I
    think demonstrably false truth claims tend to be more
    like 2+2 = 7 and the atomic weight of chlorine = 28.
    They have to be contained within a defined system that
    requires precision. One last example from history, do
    you really believe that the mice gnawed through the
    Assyrian bowstrings when they marched against Egypt?
    Herodotus records that Sennacherib marched against
    Egypt. During a certain night, field mice supposedly
    invaded the Assyrian camp and gnawed the quivers, bow
    strings and leather shield handles, thus disarming the
    military force. As a consequence, many of the soldiers
    were killed and others fled (ii.141). If this is
    false -- that the Assyrian military defeat was due to
    field mice, does that mean the battle did not happen
    or that the Assyrians did not lose? Of course it
    doesn't.

    We also disagree on the extent to which something in
    one book of the Bible being demonstrably "false" would
    have on undermining other texts (or even the same
    text, cf. Herodotus' mice) in the Bible.

    I think that is a fair assessment of where things
    stand.

    Humbly,

    Blake

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