Re: Reading Genesis literally

An excellent book on scripture that comments on these issues without taking
a polemical stance is Eugene H. Peterson's Eat This Book: Conversations in
Spiritual Reading.
Peace,
Randy Gabrielse

At 4/25/2006 09:56 AM, cmekve@aol.com wrote:
> George is correct (as usual!) As C.S. Lewis said [perhaps quoting
> someone else] "Thoughts beyond their thoughts to those high bards were given."
>
>But I also was thinking of some of the 'critical' approaches to
>Scripture. The traditional "literal" sense (i.e., the meaning of the
>original authors) would imply that detailed "critical" study is both
>necessary and a good thing. But historically (from the 19th century book
>Essays and Reviews to the Jesus Seminar) the overriding approach is that
>the meaning of the original author is the only legitimate meaning. This
>is clearly not the case for any written text (think Shakespeare) and
>certainly not for Scripture -- as the Church has always recognized. Even
>though non-literal uses can be abused, as the Reformers pointed out rather
>vociferously, that doesn't mean we have to toss out the baby with the
>bathwater. Scripture authors themselves were constantly expanding and
>building on and reinterpreting earlier Scripture, e.g., Ezekiel on part of
>Genesis, Jesus (as presented by the Gospel writers) reinterpreting the
>Law, etc. And for a modern approach to retrieve the "typological"
>interpretation of Scripture (which was prevalent for well over a millenium
>in the Church), see theologian Ephraim Radner's book Hope Among the Fragments.
>
>Karl
>*************
>Karl V. Evans
><mailto:cmekve@aol.com>cmekve@aol.com
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: George Murphy <gmurphy@raex.com>
>To: cmekve@aol.com; williamehamiltonjr@yahoo.com
>Cc: asa@calvin.edu
>Sent: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 16:44:50 -0400
>Subject: Re: Reading Genesis literally
>
>Karl's last sentence below refers (I think) to what has traditionally been
>called the sensus plenior of a text. There can be such a "fuller sense"
>of a text even from a merely human author. (Dorothy Sayers gives a good
>example from her own work in The Mind of the Maker.) & if we believe that
>the Holy Spirit is involved in a distinctive the development of biblical
>texts then we shouldn't be too surprised if there is sometimes more in
>them than their human authors intended.
>
>Shalom
>George
><http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/>http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
>----- Original Message -----
>From: cmekve@aol.com
>To: williamehamiltonjr@yahoo.com
>Cc: asa@calvin.edu
>Sent: Monday, April 24, 2006 3:15 PM
>Subject: Re: Reading Genesis literally
>
> It's important to keep in mind that what the Church (including
> Augustine) has traditionally meant by "literal" is the meaning that the
> original authors intended. This is very different from what American
> evangelicals (both YEC and non-YEC) mean by the term. Note also that the
> full meaning of Scripture can and does exceed the "literal meaning".
>....................

D. Randall Gabrielse
Director, Areopagus
RandyG@ISU-Areopagus.org
515-290-0607
www.ISU-Areopagus.org
Received on Tue Apr 25 17:08:25 2006