You wrote:
> I agree in principle with your expectation. But an utterly important fact
> is that the writer of Gen 1 was not an observer to the actually event.
And another, even more utterly important fact is that the writer may
well have been Moses, a prophet unique in all of history because God
spoke with him mouth to mouth. I don't see how to take any
generalization about his culture (his training being in an era of
Egyption history that we know so little about anyway) and then say
what he knew after forty years of knowing God face to face.
> If Gen 1 was INTENDED to record VCR history, you then have a case.
> However, do appreciate you make an important hermeneutical move in
> suggesting the genre of this literature carries a strong VCR historial
> nature.
I agree that *what* God intended to communicate to us in Genesis 1 is
indeed critical. And I have no disagreement with Jim that the overriding
message is that `God created'. However I think Gen 1 also conveys far
more, if we can only see it. I don't claim that I do, only that I
haven't given up hope. I doubt that Genesis 1 was even understood
by those limited to ANE cosmology, as I expect that they well understood
that the sun was the source of sunlight, yet God separated light
from darkness even before giving the sun to rule the day.
> Arguments from the NT supporting the VCR history of Gen 1, though
> worth considering, could be set aside in that one could argue the writers
> of these were also steeped within this intellectual context and this ANE
> cosmology.
And all these years I thought the Bible was such a reliable
witness. What a shame that it turns out to have only been
written by men from within their limited intellectual contexts.
Perhaps also their view of sin was limited by their moral context?
Then again perhaps we exaggerate the superiority of our own
intellectual context. Progress is relative. God laughs at us.
The problem I see you and Jim having is that you want
to say something about the specific based on the general.
--Dave