Re: [asa] legitimate parallel to explain death before Adam?

Michael Roberts wrote:
> Denis wrote the following to sum up the YEC position which claims to
> be the historical view of the church.
>
>
> *Even more troubling for evolutionary creation is the fact that
> the Biblical authors, including Jesus Himself, often refer to the
> early chapters of Genesis as literal history. *
> **
> This is a typical YEC canard based on dodgy evidence . Douglas
> Kelly gives 50 or so examples in Creation and Change p 129 and
> falsely claims that the NT took Genesis literally
> **
>
Granted -- how, exactly, Jesus & his contemporaries read the O.T. is
probably assumed, but on what evidence do you base your assumption that
they *didn't* read the Scriptures literally? I can see how one might
begin: It is fascinating to read of Jesus' word play with the
pharisees in John 11:34, for example. Where he quotes a Scripture in
which people are called gods (from Psalm 82). It would be a classic
case of quote mining Scripture (and Jesus even adds the comment "...and
Scripture cannot be broken". He apparently delighted in tripping up
Pharisees with such word play -- probably because he knew their
propensity to "live by the word" --or should we say "literally", and he
used it against them to make his points. (See also, the whole 'whose
son is the Lord?' exchange.) They seem like inconsequential arguments
theologically speaking, but not to the Pharisees who loved the letter of
the law. (and the crowds delighted...) II Cor. 3:6 -- the letter
kills but the Spirit gives life.

But beyond these things, I can't see any reason from Scripture to think
that Jesus thought of the Mosaic law & writings any differently than
anyone else of his time would have. (more on this below.)

> **
> *In addition, the origin of physical death poses a particularly
> acute problem for conservative Christians who accept biological
> evolution. The Scriptures clearly state that death came after the
> creation of humanity and that it was a Divine judgment on the
> world for Adam's original sin. *
> **
> That's funny. It doesnt say it in any of my bibles, whether AV,
> RSV, NIV. NRSV, JB or anything else
> **
>
Yes it does -- or at least the N.T. does **when you read it literally
and take liberties with context** which is what is being contested here
in the first place. (Rom 5:12, I Cor. 15:21) Before you get your
dander up (am I too late?), I'm not trying to defend the literal reading
here, or that death didn't occur before Adam. Science aside, that has
plenty of Biblical problems such as "how did Adam know about death" if
it allegedly wasn't anywhere in the world yet, and so forth. What I am
defending is the easy assumption that N.T. writers and their
contemporaries took it literally. I can't offer any direct evidence
that they did, but to say that their understandings anticipated the
scientific objections that would be raised fifteen centuries later, and
therefore they harbored this anachronistically futuristic knowledge of
naturalism and cosmology is a stretch, isn't it, Michael? Denis grants
the literalists this assumption and shows (very convincingly I thought)
that accommodation to the current understandings of the time is a norm
throughout Scripture, and therefore their (the literalists') argument,
even if true, carries little weight. The implication that we must share
the same cosmology that Paul had in common with his culture is shown to
be the falsehood that it is. Now -- the appeal to Jesus, himself,
perhaps takes it to a different level. To demonstrate that God
Incarnate operated with a certain understanding perhaps carries more
weight. So is it fair to demand that as a precondition for modern
theologians accepting modern scientific findings, that Jesus himself
(being omniscient to the thinking of many, after all) should have
scientifically set this all straight when he walked the earth in the
flesh? Do you insist that the modern argument has to be won at that
level? I don't think it has to be. Of course, I don't think Jesus
chose to exercise omniscience in that kind of way (which might have been
part of 'emptying himself' and not considering equality with God
something to be grasped). And I would base that on, of all things,
... a straightforward reading of Scripture. So, given that Jesus
seems not to have been here to launch modern science onto the correct
track as preferred and defined by post 16th century thinkers, but to
accomplish something much greater, I don't think any appeals to his
Scriptural silence on this can help us. So Denis' argument includes, I
think, even Jesus himself. He abided in the Father and knew what he
needed to know to accomplish His mission. He used current
understandings of his day to help deliver that far more important message.

Most of this was about the N.T. times, but I am also interested in your
materials (I should probably read your book you mentioned) regarding
the 17th or 18th century thinkers who predated Darwinism in their
thinkings about death and an ancient earth. I don't question your
claims, I'm just curious how they concluded that death had come before
man. (I know the antiquity itself was already well challenged at that
point.)

--Merv

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Received on Mon Sep 3 09:10:57 2007