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

Bob -

Though it deals more with the NT writers than with Jesus himself, Chapter 4 of Peter Enns' Inspiration and Incarnation, "The Old Testament and its Interpretation in the New Testament," is helpful on this topic.

It is very likely that John 3:14-15 makes use of a targum on the story of the bronze serpent in Numbers. While the text in Numbers just says that anyone who looked on the serpent would live, the targum says that they lived if they "believed on the name of the memra [utterance] of the Lord." (Or words to that effect: I'm quoting from memory.)

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Robert Schneider
  To: Merv
  Cc: Michael Roberts ; asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Monday, September 03, 2007 10:23 AM
  Subject: Re: [asa] legitimate parallel to explain death before Adam?

  Does anyone know if a study has been made on the hermeneutic Jesus used in the light of recent important research into Second-Temple Judaism's hermeneutical approaches? It would be very useful for a discussion like this one. Bruce Chilton has made a study of the Targumin and in a book on the topic offered the Jesus that when Jesus cites Scripture he is often using the text of a Targum Amaraic paraphrase on the Scriptures.

  Bob Schneider

  On 9/3/07, Merv <mrb22667@kansas.net> wrote:
    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

  --
  Robert J. Schneider
  187 Sierra Vista
  Boone, NC, 28607
  828-264-4071
  "Science and Faith: perspectives on Christianity and science: http://community.berea.edu/scienceandfaith/.
  "A Catechism of Creation: An Episcopal Understanding": www.episcopalchurch.org/science/.

  When asked what he would do if he knew Christ would return tomorrow, Martin Luther is said to have replied, "I would plant a tree."

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Received on Mon Sep 3 11:28:00 2007