You and I are galaxies apart on the issue of reading Genesis. I would
*never* use the word *dictated* as you did in a recent post.
I see no reason to argue about it here, but if you are interested in
reading Genesis through the eyes of a Jewish scholar of the Hebrew
Scriptures I would suggest the book, _Understanding Genesis_, by Nahum
Sarna (New York: Schocken Books, 1970)
Following is an excerpt to whet your appetite:
"It should be obvious that by the nature of things, none of these
[creation] stories can possibly be the product of human memory, nor in any
modern sense of the word scientific accounts of the origin and nature of
the physical world.
"Biblical man, despite his undoubted intellectual and spiritual endowments,
did not base his views of the universe and its laws on the critical use of
empirical data. He had not, as yet, discovered the principles and methods
of disciplined inquiry, critical observation or analytical experimentation.
Rather, his thinking was imaginative, and his expressions of thought were
concrete, pictorial, emotional, and poetic. Hence, it is a naive and futile
exercise to attempt to reconcile the biblical accounts of creation with the
findings of modern science. Any correspondence which can be discovered or
ingeniously established between the two must surely be nothing more than
mere coincidence. Even more serious than the inherent fundamental
misconception of the psychology of biblical man is the unwholesome effect
upon the understanding of the Bible itself. For the net result is
self-defeating. The literalistic approach serves to direct attention to
those aspects of the narrative that reflect the time and place of its
composition, while it tends to obscure the elements that are meaningful and
enduring, thus distorting the biblical message and destroying its
relevancy." (pp. 2-3)
Cordially,
Howard Van Till