You wrote:
>My concern with the concordist hermeneutic is its overemphasis on the
>divine aspect of Gen 1. That is all. If God wanted to inspired E=mc2
>into Gen 1 He certainly could have--afterall He is God. But did He "set
>up" modern scientific caveats in Gen 1 with the writer not being
>cognisant of them as the PCs and concordists would like
>us to believe? Mr. Morton, I am sure you have something to say here.<<
I just got back in town to a ton of e-mail. But I have been thinking about
this issue. I have come to the tentative conclusion that the entire idea of
having Genesis 1:1 being metaphysical is one huge eisegesis. You somewhat
suggested as much when you wrote:
>>if you challenged these ANE writers with regard to
the notions of CXN (BTW, I like your acronym, Jim) or dualism,
they probably would have said, "Huh?" <<
I would respectfully suggest that if you asked the ANE writer if Genesis 1:1
was merely a mythic story of heroic proportion, he would have given you the
same answer, "Huh?" I would suggest that they (at least the majority of
them) believed it's veracity (i.e., that God actually did create the
universe) and thus for us today to view it differently really is an
eisegesis. I would suggest that Jesus' reference to Adam (Matt. 19:4) which
actually refers to Genesis 1 rather than Genesis 2, would imply a belief in
the text's historicity during Jesus' time. It also seems clear that Timothy
(1 Tim 2:13-14 believed in a historical Adam. Paul (Rom 5:14) believed in
the existence of Adam, since he referred to "the time of Adam". It is a
little difficult to refer to "the time of Beowulf" or "the time of Frodo"
because there was no time for them. Luke placed Adam in a list as an equal
with the likes of David, Obed, Jesse, Abraham, Terah etc. He treats Adam no
differently. The writer of Chronicles starts with Adam (1 Chr 1:1) and
treats him like Abraham.
I am probably going to get soundly beaten about the head and shoulders for
this one. I stand here awaiting my punishment. :-)
glenn