From: george murphy (gmurphy@raex.com)
Date: Wed Nov 19 2003 - 06:20:10 EST
bivalve wrote:
> DC>> On the other hand, it seems quite reasonable to assume that the author of a particular passage in its current form thought that it provided a coherent, internally consistent account (with the caveat of possible problems in transmission). However, this assumption does not tell us how the original author would have harmoinzed. E.g., two versus seven animals within the Flood account could be a general statement (2), with some exceptions (7), or both numbers could be regarded as symbolic rather than actual counting.
> GM> Yes, there are different types of concordism. Trying to read biblical texts as modern scientific accounts may not be the same as trying to unify separate accounts into a single historical narrative.
> >But in your last paragraph above you are begging the question by assuming that
> > a) the texts (like the Flood story) in question had a single "author" &
> > b) whoever put the account together in the form we now have it was concerned about historical harmonization.
>
> DC: Actually, my intent was not to assume these in that paragraph. I was thinking of "author" broadly to mean whoever put the text in approximately its present form, regardless of his sources, and meant to include possibilities that he thought it was internally coherent because he considered them to be, e.g., theologically rather than historically significant.
OK - though in that case "redactor" or "editor" is probably a better term. Perhaps we should just say that the biblical writers & redactors may have had standards of concord quite different from ours.
>
>
> >> Likewise, independent accounts of the same event ought to agree. Again, this does not tell us how to arrive at agreement.
> > They ought to agree in our overall theological view but not necessarily as historical or scientific accounts.<
>
> Yes, though I was thinking more about historical accounts (whichever they may be) which describe the same incident and thus ought to agree. E.g., if (as seems reasonable), all accounts of Gadarene demoniacs refer to a single historical incident, either one or two individuals were cured, though one can try to account for neglect of a second individual in some accounts (e.g., he left like the ungrateful lepers).
This is probably the case with a number of the accounts in the gospels. But I think the concept of "history" is stretched in many concordist readings of the OT. I think that memories of Mesopotamian floods are one source of tlie behind the biblical flood story - probably via other tellings of the story - but that allows us only to say that the account in Genesis is has a fragment of history, not that it's an historical account.
Shalom,
George
Dr. David Campbell
> Old Seashells
> University of Alabama
> Biodiversity & Systematics
> Dept. Biological Sciences
> Box 870345
> Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0345 USA
> bivalve@mail.davidson.alumlink.com
>
> That is Uncle Joe, taken in the masonic regalia of a Grand Exalted Periwinkle of the Mystic Order of Whelks-P.G. Wodehouse, Romance at Droitgate Spa
>
>
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