From: Jan de Koning (jan@dekoning.ca)
Date: Thu Jun 26 2003 - 16:35:18 EDT
>In reply to Paul:
I disagree . There are OT scholars going back to the original Hebrew, who
realize that God was talking to a people which had no scientific
understanding in the modern sense. God talked to them in a way they
understood, not in modern scientific language. The first 11 chapters of
Genesis are by many bible-believing scholars understood as God talking to a
people which did not yet have a scientific understanding of geology, but
they needed to know that they were as a people deviating from God's
will. Even in the 19th century already: in Holland Kuyper, Bavinck for
example.
The bible talks more often in that way. Take the "parables" of
Jesus. They are true, but not in a modern scientific sense.
Lest you doubt my orthodoxy: I believe that the Bible is the Word of
God. I believe that Jesus died for my sin.
But also: I believe that none of us reads the Bible as we should, since we
are all sinners.
And: God is not lying to us when he shows His powers in nature, nor when
He is talking to a people which had not studied modern science. He wants
to be understood, though.He always speaks (in nature as well) to be understood.
Jan de Koning
>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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