RE: evolution-digest V1 #1111

Glenn R. Morton (grmorton@waymark.net)
Wed, 30 Sep 1998 20:36:43 -0500

At 05:26 PM 9/30/98 -0600, Kevin L. O'Brien wrote:
>Greetings Glenn:
>
>I think I understand your point.
>
>But what if the writers of Genesis 1-11 knew they were not writing history,
>but myth and theological essay? I know how you feel about the Documentary
>Hypothesis, but J and E almost certainly knew that much of what they were
>writing of those chapters was myth, legend and allegory (in fact, one
>writer has suggested that J was written more as a historical novel than a
>book of theology) and P was mainly concerned with genealogies, ritual and
>(in a few places like Genesis 1) essays on the nature of God and His
>activities. My point is that if Genesis 1-11 was not meant to be history,
>then the entire problem you are struggling with evaporates. (Or so I
>think.)

I would agree with you, except for one point. Given the total lack of
physical evidence for any of the JEDP documents and the lack of mention
among other ancient hebrew documents, appealing to non-existent and
undocumented documents seems highly dubious. How can anyone know the
purpose a non-existent document was written for? How can we know the intent
of an author whose work has not been found and thus never studied? This is
worse than the scholars at an exobiology convention!

Let me ask you what is the difference between you believing this and
believing in leprechauns?

Con
glenn

Adam, Apes and Anthropology
Foundation, Fall and Flood
& lots of creation/evolution information
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm