On Fri, 30 Jun 1995 15:37:31 -0500 (EST) you wrote:
MF>OK, Jim....I understand you to be advocating the view that the
early
>chapters of Genesis are historical but in a non-literal sense. Is that
>correct? I have heard this argument (Peter Kreeft argues this in his
>Handbook of Christian Apologetics) but I fail to see what is meant by
>this.
I don't want to get too deep into this, but... <g>
One example of "historical but in a non-literal sense" would be
prophecy. Many prophecies concerned history that was to occur, but
most were couched in partly symbolical language.
MF>I will take Francis Schaeffer's approach to try to flesh out our
>differences. Do you believe that Genesis 12-50 is historical, and by
>historical I mean that if you had been at Sodom and Gomorrah you would
>have seen the destruction of the cities exactly as Genesis describes, you
>would have seen a man named Abraham go to Mount Moriah to sacrifice his
>son, you would have seen a baby boy born to couple nearly 100 years old,
>you would have seen Joseph betrayed by his brothers and become
>second-in-command to Pharaoh, etc. etc.? Ss (Schaeffer used to distinguish
>his meaning of historical by saying that if you had been in Jerusalem at
>the time of Christ's death you could have walked up to the cross and
>gotten a splinter in your finger from it.)
Almost no-one would agree that Gen 12-50 is literal history.
MF>If you do accept Genesis 12-50
>as historical in this sense, then why do you not take such an appraoch to
>Genesis 1-11? What textual evidence warrants such an interpretive shift?
As I have pointed out, they are made up of different source documents.
No, not JEDP type documents! Real tablets and possibly scrolls. This
is evident from the colophons (footers) that say, "These are the
generations..." (Gn 2:4; 5:1; 6:9; 10:1; 11:10; 11:27; 25:12,19;
36:1,9; 37:2). Read conservative OT theologian R.K. Harrison's
"Introduction to the Old Testament", 1969, p547f.
Different documents must be interpreted on their own merits. Just
because document #7 "the generations (histories) of Ishmael" (Gn
25:12), ie. Gn 11:27b-25:12, may be straight history, does not
necesarily mean that document #1 "the generations of the heavens and
of the earth" (Gn 2:4a) ie. Gn 1:1-2:4a, must be straight history.
God bless.
Stephen