Re: A man of mud Re: Academics who actively support Young Earth Creationism

From: George Murphy (gmurphy@raex.com)
Date: Sun Nov 02 2003 - 21:46:58 EST

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    Walter Hicks wrote:
    >
    > George Murphy wrote:
    >
    > > Walter Hicks wrote:
    > > >
    > > > Vernon Jenkins wrote:
    > > >
    > > > >
    > > > >
    > > > > I read in the Hebrew of Gen.2:5 that the pristine earth experienced no rain;
    > > > > and in 2:6, a brief reference to the alternative hydrologic cycle that then
    > > > > obtained.
    > > >
    > > > And I read in english
    > > >
    > > > 2.6 but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the
    > > > ground-
    > > > 2.7 the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into
    > > > his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
    > > >
    > > > So Adam was made of mud (or do we have interpret something)?
    > > >
    > > > Interpret? Interpret? Surely that is not allowed ;)
    > > >
    > > > In the 50's Tennessee Ernie Ford had a song called "16 Tons". The first line was
    > > > "Some people say a man is made out of mud."
    > > >
    > > > Biblical literalist no doubt.
    > >
    > > I don't want to defend Vernon's argument, but Gen.2:7 says "from the dust of the
    > > ground." The Hebrew `aphar is "dust". It is not legitimate interpretation to infer
    > > from v.6 that all the ground was muddy & thus ignore the literal sense of v.7.
    >
    > If Ford had sung "... made out of dust", it would not have rhymed with the next line of the
    > song. Life must be tough for a song-writing-biblical-literalist. Can't even run a few versus
    > together.
    >
    > Be it mud or dust, he must have been unsightly.
    >
    > But "slime"? -- That sounds like something from Hollywood.

            Perhaps. Some anti-evolutionists have criticized evolution for saying that
    humanity came "up from slime." But the fact that western Christians for ~1000 years
    regarded the Vulgate as authoritative shows that such an idea shouldn't have to be a
    problem for Christianity.

            I'll repeat something that I said in an exchange here a few weeks ago. One
    should be a "biblical literalist" in the sense of taking the precise letters & words of
    scripture seriously. But one should _not_ be one in the sense of assuming that all the
    texts of scripture are to be read as accurate historical narratives.

                                                            Shalom,
                                                            George

                                                    Shalom,
                                                    George

    George L. Murphy
    gmurphy@raex.com
    http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/

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