> Bill Hamilton writes:
>
> >Okay. I'm one of those guys who have been arguing that it is not the
> >intention of Genesis to convey the Young-earth view--conveniently leaving
> >out any mention of what the writer(s) thought about the issue.It would be
> >interesting to know (and probably impossible to know) whether the
> >writer(s) made a distinction between the truth about God they were
> >conveying and the context they were conveying it in -- ANE views of
> >cosmology and culture.
I would say the writer didn't know simply because he was a nomad, and it
takes some hermeneutical gymnastics to grasp such categorization. Such
thinking is a late development in the history of ideas.
> IOW there are two sets of intentions involved
> >here: God's and the writer's. The writer's intentions were the
> >necessary result of the fact that all messages are conditioned culturally
> >to some extent and were not necessarily in opposition to God's intent in
> >inspiring the writer(s) to produce the document.
God's truths transcend our languages and epistemological categories, and
proof of this is that an ancient document like Gen 1 can speak to us today
in a very meaningful and real way.
Glenn Morton replied to Bill's post:
> You are close to falling into the trap I couldn't get out of. If God,
> being God, knew the truth about the creation, and inspired an account in
> Genesis, it is quite possible that God's intention was to convey the
> truth(God not being a liar) but the writer's understanding of the message
> may have been very incomplete. Thus it is quite possible for God's
> intention to be something other that the traditional view. Of course, I
> vote for the Days of Proclamation view.
Glenn is on a slippery slope, still hanging on by his apologetic
fingernails . . . he should give up that last vestige of his YEC
past--his concordism. Glenn you have painted yourself in a corner with
the days of proclamation thesis . . . and you know it . . . you are not
being (to use your words) "fully self-consistent."
God did intend to convey truth--ontological/theological truth--which was
carried/processed within the hermeneutical horizon of the ANE mind (which
included a science of origins, and which has since been superceded through
time by better theories of origins--thus the science of origins is NOT
that which is of utter importance, just like a geocentric world view is
not of utter importance).
Glenn, get back to Gen 1--it's the science of roaming nomads . . . God
inspired roaming nomads and entrusted them with His greatest truths--the
world is His creation, we've been created in His image, we're a bunch of
sinners, etc, etc. Their science and intellectual categories were merely
a vehicle transporting these truths.
Such a subtle, subtle God . . . sort of like His being incarnated in the
body of simple 1st century Carpenter, eh?
Comme toujours,
Denis
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Denis O. Lamoureux DDS PhD PhD (cand)
Department of Oral Biology Residence:
Faculty of Dentistry # 1908
University of Alberta 8515-112 Street
Edmonton, Alberta Edmonton, Alberta
T6G 2N8 T6G 1K7
CANADA CANADA
Lab: (403) 492-1354
Residence: (403) 439-2648
Dental Office: (403) 425-4000
E-mail: dlamoure@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca
"In all debates, let truth be thy aim, and endeavor to gain
rather than expose thy opponent."
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