From: Jan de Koning (jan@dekoning.ca)
Date: Tue Jun 03 2003 - 16:10:30 EDT
Maybe I was not clear enough in what Rich quotes. I believe, that all
those who want to speak about a seven-day (Day in the modern sense)
creation, and in saying that the Israelites were talking in the same way as
we do about history, must first study archeology, geology, etc. I strongly
believe that God is not lying to us in either geological facts, or in
biblical facts. It strikes me time and again that some people want to read
the bible using modern reading methods, modern ideas about "truth", modern
ideas about history, modern ideas about everything. The way modern people
read, wrote and think is not even the way my grandparents thought, talked
and thought. Now go back 6000 years. The only thing I know that God does
not lie to me in the Bible and He does not lie to me in geology either. So
we must study a lot, but not try to explain Geology (as God made the earth)
by the way God spoke to people thousands of years ago, who had another idea
about language as we have. That becomes clear when we realize that some
words in the bible are translated by different words when the context is
different. To accept the translation we use as the final word is very
shortsighted.
As I said I have been involved so often in these discussions over so many
years, and I will not start all over again this time, though sometimes,
what I read becomes a bit too much. For those who can find the reports:
my point of view is clearly stated in the Report to the synod of the
Christian Refiormed Church in North America, 1991, page 367.
Jan de Koning
At 12:09 PM 03/06/2003 -0400, RFaussette@aol.com wrote:
>In a message dated 6/3/03 10:56:52 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
>jan@dekoning.ca writes:
>
>
>>"Never happened" and "advance an ideological agenda" are expressions
>>which have a certain "ideological" background. Expressions like that do
>>not help. All of us are Christians, the ASA is after all an organization
>>of Christians, according to its statutes. That means that all of us
>>accept the Bible. If anyone not the death and resurrection has no
>>meaning for that person, and such a person has no right to call himself a
>>Chrisrian. That non-Christians disagree with me, us, is nothing
>>new. Nor is it new that outsiders don't accept the Bible.
>
>
>Those expressions you quoted were the intro to the article on archeology
>in Israel, not my personal feelings and certainly not my words. The
>article was posted for anyone interested in Biblical archeology not long
>after someone mentioned Asimov's book on the Bible. What is the
>connection? Neither of these educated Jews, one a prolific writer, the
>other an archeologist in Israel, have trouble rejecting a literal
>interpretation of the Bible, which is a real issue for Christians. I
>wonder why not.
>
>rich
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