You saw great profundity in Jim's statement:
> I think you're trapped this mode because, for you, historical HAS TO
> mean only one thing: journalistic, VCR style reportage. Well, it
> doesn't. It's as simple as that. Or do you think Paul Revere never
> existed simply because Longfellow wrote a poem about him?
Does this mean that you think some of the Scripture consists of
historical fiction? Kind of like the movie `The Ten Commandments'?
How far does this view go? Is the book of Job historical or historical
fiction? What about Daniel?
Obviously there is much poetic and parabolic language in the Scripture,
but the purpose is not entertainment, but enlightenment. The critical
issue is always what the author intended to communicate. Historical
fiction inhibits clear communication because one can never be sure
what is fact and what is fiction. I sure hope that Jim did not mean
that Genesis 1 has the historical reliability of Longfellow's poem.
I also doubt that it is necessary to have a Hebraic thought-form in mind
when reading the Scripture. Not only would such a requirement contravene
God's intention to `hide these things from {the} wise and intelligent and
... reveal them to babes', but also limits the value of Scripture to
the greeks to whom Paul said:
All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching,
for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;
that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.
The overriding issue is *always*: He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
When I took algebra the teacher ran through one of the proofs that 1 = 2.
Ever since I have always been suspicious when it looks like somebody
is dividing by zero. If Scriptural interpretation is `renormalized'
by Hermeneutic principles that in the end allow one to say it means
almost anything, then perhaps God could have written a much shorter book.
When somebody seems to be suggesting that readers of the Scripture must
disregard what their `ears hear' due to some product of human analysis,
I am doubly suspicious.
Hey! Maybe I *am* a fundamentalist afterall!
--DaveJesus answered and said to him, "Are you the teacher of Israel,and do not understand these things? [John 3:10]
But Jesus answered and said to them, "You are mistaken, notunderstanding the Scriptures, or the power of God. [Matt 22:29]