JIm Bell did not write:
anything about how his 50,000 year creation of man view fits with modern
archaeological knowledge.
I will not ask that question again, Jim. It is obvious that you are not going
to answer it. But from the constant avoidance of that question I can only
conclude one of several things:
1. You don't know the answer. Which would be alright to admit.
2. Your view does not match archaeological observation and you don't want to
admit it.
3. Observational facts don't matter to the truth of your view anyway and
thus the question does not need to be answered.
My fear is that it is the last possibiility which is what you are arguing
for. I fear this because of what you quote Bloesh and Pinnock as saying:
>>"The crux of the problem in contemporary evangelicalism concerning the
inerrancy of the Bible revolves around different understandings of truth. The
conflict is not so much theological as philosophical. Because a large segment
of conservative Protestantism has unwittingly accepted Enlightenment
reduction of truth to the rationally empirical or evidential, the possibility
of forging some consensus on this question is made all the more difficult.
What is clear is that the cultural understanding of truth has eclipsed the
biblical understanding among many earnest Christians." (Bloesch, "Holy
Scripture," IVP, 1994, pp. 296-97)
Clark Pinnock agrees: "Whereas we are eager to distinguish the factual from
the nonfactual, it cannot be said that the biblical writers always were, and
we worry about the imprecision they permit in their work. We are even tempted
to improve their work by making definite things they left indefinite. The
price we pay is a large number of biblical difficulties that subsist *not so
much in the text as in our own enculturated minds.*" (Pinnock, "The Scripture
Principle," Harper & Row, 1984 p. 118).
These quotes send chills up my spine for the future of Christianity. If the
Biblical writers were not always concerned to " distinguish the factual from
the nonfactual" how do I know if Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were so
careful? If this can be said of Moses, then why can it not be said of "the
front four" of the New Testament? If they weren't careful to distinguish
fact from non-fact, then maybe their were no angels announcing Jesus' birth.
Maybe, Jesus didn't even exist. If he did exist then maybe he is some sort
of heroic figure from a saga written by these guys? Are the miracles
performed by Jesus real or are they part of the heroic myth surrounding all
great leaders. Afterall, if we are to distinguish what kind of literature
the various parts of the Bible are an argument can be made that the New
Testament is merely propagandistic literature for a new religion. And what is
a new religion without a few miracles? The authors obviously made all this
stuff up to glorify their leader. And do you know what the greatest miracle
is? RESURRECTION!
If I were to guess, I would guess that you will say something like, "The New
Testament literature is different from the Old Testament. Greek culture was
more interested in facts." Assuming that you would say something like that,
remember these writers referred to Adam and Noah as real people! Also Matthew
and John were from a more strictly hebrew culture and as such may not have
been afflicted terribly by Greek cultural views. They may have been more
willing to let the details slide.
All I see from Bloesh's definition of Biblical understanding vs. cultural
understanding of truth, is that it matters not what the observational data
says. I see nothing short of the collapse of Christianity in such a view,
especially in this day in age. They are offering me a view which says,
"Christianity is true because I believe it to be true not because there is
any objective evidence for it." Well, I believe elves are what make
computers run.
Bloesch is free to tell us what that Biblical understanding really is. Since
observational data does not matter, there is no way I can independently check
on what he says. This places me at his mercy for knowing what the Bible says
and places him in the position of speaking ex cathedra. I am unable to
challenge his statement of what the Bible says because I am unable to bring
forth any objective data to refute whatever claims he makes. This gives an
errant leader much latitude.
But, if I choose to ignore him, I can produce my own view of what the
literature says as I did above. (NT is propagandistic) This leads to the
situation described in Judges 21:25 "every man did that which was right in
his own eyes".
You write:
>>You reject the views of virtually all current scholars, but haven't yet
read
them (you admit). I'm not sure this is the scientific or theological method
at
its best.
Because of this, you ask questions such as the following:
<<So, how can the statement "In the beginning God created the heavens and the
earth," be both TRUE and NON-HISTORICAL at the same time? It seems to me
that if the statement is TRUE, it MUST also be HISTORICAL !!!>>
I don't think you'd ask this if you were up on the current scholarship,
especially Bloesch. I can do no more than keep referring you back there.<<
If you are representing the views of these modern scholars correctly, then I
am not highly motivated to go read them.(see above) I get enough of their
views through you to know that they are advocating an inconsistent position
and a position fraught with grave difficulties for Christianity ( I want it
clearly understood that I believe your scholars are Christians. I disagree
strongly with their theology and epistemology)
I have several times agreed with you that Genesis 1 is poetic in literary
style. Thus it IS distinguishable objectively from Genesis 2-4, 6-9 and
12-50 which is not written in that style. Your sources have no problem with
the historicity of Abraham,Jacob, or Joseph. They just have difficulty from
similarly written document prior to Genesis 12. They have no trouble
believing the genealogies of Chronicles are somewhat valid (except the parts
copied from early Genesis). They have no trouble believing David lived but
they do have trouble believing in Cain. My secret suspicion is that they do
this because they have no way to correlate those events with historical fact.
They have some ability to do that with the post-Abrahamic events.
glenn