That was a clever way of getting out of your "breath" and "spirit"
problem.
Pretending you are going on holidays so I stop answering and then not
going! <g>
On Tue, 27 Jun 1995 09:06:04 -0500 you wrote:
BH>I find this discussion quite remarkable: Glenn, who accepts an
ancient
>earth and evolution defending a very literal interpretation of Genesis v.
>Jim who does not accept evolution defending a more sophisticated literary
>analysis of Genesis. Both people I have come to respect quite a bit too,
>so mind you this is not intended to be a slam at either
..
GM>It is allegorical. God really didn't create the Heavens and the
earth. Gee,
>then what is all the fuss about?
BH>Okay. This is what I want to respond to. Glen may be indulging in
a bit
>of sarcasm here, but his statement illustrates a view that seems common
>among YEC's, a view that I don't understand. That view seems to equate
>allegory with fiction. If it's allegorical it ain't so. My Webster's
>Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary's definition of allegorical includes: 2.
>Having hidden spiritual meaning that transcends the literal sense of a
>sacred text. (The first definition is just "having the characteristics of
>allegory"). IOW declaring a passage allegorical doesn't necessarily mean
>that the literal sense is false. It just means that the passage carries a
>spiritual meaning that transcends the literal words. I'm totally in
>agreement with Glenn that it's possible to use (or perhaps misuse)
>allegorical interpretation to excise the concrete meaning from the text,
>and I'm as opposed to that as he is. But the allegory = lies paradigm
>seems to me to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
Agreed. Erickson says somewhere that theology is "better sung than
said". A wise minister once suggested that the Bible is a love song to
mankind. Why
do we persist in trying to make into a formal letter from a stranger?
>R. C. Sproul even characterizes the early chapters of Genesis as
>poetic(it's in his book "Knowing Scripture". I can find the exact
>quotation if you'd like.) He does not by that mean that the literal sense
>of these passages should be ignored, but he doesn't want the spiritual
>meaning to be lost either. While we shouldn't read the Bible the way the
>world does, there are useful things about understanding literature that we
>learned in high school and college literature courses, which we should use
>when appropriate.
I don't think that Genesis 1 is poetry, but neither do I think it is
strictly
literal history either. It is unique as literature, because its
subject matter
is unique. Another wise minister preached that Genesis 1 was not about
Creation at all - it was about God. While no doubt hyperbole, but with
a
huge element of truth.
God bless and have a good holiday in France. Tell Chirac if you bump
into
him that we don't want nuclear tests in our backyard!
Stephen
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