From: Alexanian, Moorad (alexanian@uncw.edu)
Date: Thu Dec 12 2002 - 15:51:20 EST
These sort of questions sound a bit strange in view of the following
verses: ’ÄùThrough Him all things were made; without Him nothing was
made that has been made.’Äù John 1:3. Moorad
-----Original Message-----
From: George Murphy [mailto:gmurphy@raex.com]
Sent: Thu 12/12/2002 11:15 AM
To: asa@calvin.edu
Cc:
Subject: Did Jesus know the genetic code?
The question posed in my subject heading is, on one level, as
reasonable as "Did
Jesus know that the earth was round?" If one claims that, because he
was the Son of God
he must have known that the earth was round then he must have also
know that it isn't
exactly spherical, its quadrupole, octupole &c moments as well as the
genetic code, the
details of nuclear fusion &c.
There is no compelling reason to make such a claim - & also
no drop-dead
argument to reject it. I belive that the divine kenosis
should be taken with
complete seriousness, that God Incarnate lived a human life under the
conditions of
finite humanity in 1st century Palestine, & that limitation of
knowledge was part of
this. Some NT texts (Mk.5:30 & 13:32, Lk.2:52) point rather
explicitly in this
direction. OTOH, he was (& is) God Incarnate & when all is said and
done, we don't have
access to the inner workings of his mind.
That's "on one level," the theological. On the purely
historical level there's
nothing impossible about Jesus having known the shape of the earth -
& even its size -
found by Greek science. There was a strong presence of
hellenistic culture in
Palestine, & we simply don't know how much familiarity with it Jesus
had. OTOH we have
no indication in the gospels that he ever gave any thought to the
shape of the earth,
nobody trying to trap him by asking, "Rabbi, is the earth
round or flat" &c.
So the question about Jesus' views on the shape of the earth
may be like asking
what I think is the world's greatest soccer team. I've never given
any thought to it,
don't know, & don't very much care.
Shalom,
George
--
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
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