From: PASAlist@aol.com
Date: Thu Jun 26 2003 - 15:10:33 EDT
Dick wrote,
> Bible translators have caused most of the heartburn. They labored under
> the misconception that the entire human race commenced with a man (Adam) who
> lived roughly seven thousand years ago, that the entire globe was covered by
> the flood from which only Noah, his sons and wives survived, and that all of
> our languages began at the tower of Babel - which it turns out was a
> Mesopotamian ziggurat.
>
The consensus of modern OT scholars, who are certainly going back to the
original Hebrew and are interpreting the text in the light of its ancient Near
Eastern background, is that the "misconceptions" which you speak of represent the
original meaning of the biblical text, albeit the globe per se was not in
view. Nevertheless, Adam is the first human being, the flood destroyed all
mankind in a cosmic event that leaves no place for anyone escaping, and therefore
all languages were one after the Flood until the events at the Tower of Babel.
It is not the translations which are causing the problem of a lack of concord
with modern science, but the Bible itself when viewed as a revelation of
history and science. The real problem is the apriori extra-biblical philosophical
assumption that a divine revelation could not be couched in terms of the science
of the times. The Bible does not claim to be a revelation of history and
science. It only claims authority for spiritual matters (2Tim 3:16).
Paul
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