This is a good example, but not the only one. The reason I use it is
that there are few people today who hold to geocentricity. As a result,
the debate will never shift away from the hermeneutical issues at state
back to a debate on the science of the relationship between the sun and
the earth.
My employing Josh 10 with Russ was to make the point the he, like me, has a
"hermeneutical plasticity" in his approach to the scriptures and resultant
exegesis. Therefore, with this priniciple in place--that is, that science
discovered after the writing of the Holy Scriptures may overturn their
literal or obvious meaning, and INTENDED meaning of the author--I appeal to
Russ that the issue of do
novo monogenism might also reflect an Ancient Near Eastern intellectual
category (or if you wish, a state of the art scientific statement about
the origins of
humanity). In so doing, I am also saying to Russ that if he ever comes
to accept human evolution, this shift in his thinking would have little
theological impact because he already has the hermeneutical plasticity to
absorb it--ie, because he has already done it with Josh 10. In sum, my
appeal to Josh 10 is to underline that a precedent has been set by not
only me, and not only Russ, but just about every thinking Christian.
Now on to other examples of what I consider are ANE intellectual
categories that were employed in DESCRIBING NATURE (keep these
capitalized words in mind because you will see I will come back to them
with regard to my definition of that elusive term 'science'):
(1) Creation out of a dark watery chaos. You have heard me refer to this
numerous times before on the reflector before. But the ANE mind just did
not conceive of a creation out of nothing. This is not to say that they
were not bright enough, because they certainly were. But there was not a
long standing intellectual tradition at that point in the history of
ideas and the idea of creatio ex nihilo had yet to emerge. Evidence from
a Hebrew perspective is that there was no Hebrew word for our "matter."
And before one can think about a creation out of nothing, the intellectual
category of "matter" has to be part of one's intellectual furniture.
Of course, there should be some reflectorites who should be taking me
quickly to task. What about Col 1: 15 and Heb 11: 3 (and 2 Macc 7: 28
for our Catholic friends)? Yes, those are indeed creatio ex nihilo
passages of our Lord's creative activity. So how do we solve the very
real contradiction in the Word of God. It is simply a function of
recognizing that when "[i]n the past God spoke to our forefathers through
the prophets at many times and in various ways" (Heb 1:1, NIV), the Holy
Spirit inspired these prophets with His Word, but also respected their
epistemological horizon. That is, yes and clearly the Scriptures is the
Precious Word of the only God of heaven, but this message is carried in a
clay vessel context. To use G.E. Ladd's helpful aphorism, "the Bible is
the Word of God given in the words of men in history." _The New
Testament and Criticism_ (1967), p. 12. [To anyone one wanting to read a
terrific theological piece do consider Ladd's book--you will not be
disappointed]
(2) Creation is not at the absolute beginning of time. This is closely
related to my previous point. The proper English translation of Gen 1: 1
is "When God began to create . . .", not "In the beginning God created .
. ." And modern translations are now beginning to reflect this
exegetical subtlety. It
is interesting to note that the LXX, which is subsequent to the Ionian
(Greek) intellectual revolution, translates Gen 1:1 as "In the beginnng .
. .", (en arche), thus reflecting the notion of absolute beginning. But
remember the
LXX translators were steeped in Hellenistic intellectual categories. The
same occurs with all our English translations up to the last twenty or so
years, and again this is attributable to our Western epistemology
imposing its categories on an ancient text--clearly a prime example of
eisegesis. Moreover, the debate regard the first word of the Bible
'bereshit' clearly testifies to the Hebrew grammatical construct state
(ie, 'When God began ') and not to the absolute state (ie, 'In the
beginning). [I acutally have a 60 page defense of this position I hope to
soon finish and publish in an Old Testament journal, if only I can finish
this current PhD on frog teeth and evolution]. As hard as it might seem
to believe, our English translations have betrayed the autographs.
Opposites
Separations
(This would exclude phenomenological expressions and
> general usage of terms susceptible of particular technical meanings in other
> contexts.)
Or are there other better examples of intentional scientific
> statements in scripture which incorporated ancient Near East science (eg
> astronomy)?
Gen 5
I must confess that I find them very difficult to come up with,
> and am wondering if you are considering mythopoetic language as necessarily
> incorporating explicitly theoretical commitments to abstract propositions.
> This would be contrary say to Lewis' discussion of "The Language of
> Religion" in _Christian Reflections_ , or to his treatment of Merlin in _That
> Hideous Strength_, or to his discussion of the Ascension in _Miracles_, or to
> Glenn Tinder's discussion of Newman's idea of historical development as
> "elucidation" in the current issue of First Things.
>
> This is all too cryptic, but I'm still in the dark about how we demythologize
> Joshua 10. Galileo did so in a grand manner, I'll readily concede, in his
> Letter to the Grand Duchess, but how do we do it? Must anyone *necessarily*
> do it just by reading scripture in a different age than that in which it was
> written? Please define "demythologize" and "science" with reference to
> Joshua 10, if you would, so that I can better follow your argument. Thanks!
>
> PEACE
> Kerry
>