>I am going to answer your last question first.
>
>Larry Martin wrote:
>>What "hot buttons" have I
>>pushed that made me come across as a sneering "liberal scholar who make the
>>scipture say what it plainly doesn't say" (in the words of St. Phil)?
>>What specifically is your complaint?<
>
>Who is St. Phil? I didn't think you came "across as a sneering liberal
>scholar..." I do not think the approach you are taking is a good one (for the
>reasons below) and I hope I was merely attacking the idea not you. If you
>feel I wasn't, then I apologize and hope you will forgive me.
Sorry... "St. Phil" is a veiled irreverent reference to Phil Johnson, whom
many of us have had battle with. No, I did not assume you were attacking me
rather than the idea. My irritation coming through was based on having my
idea associated with things I never intended. My suggestion to use
"picture" was meant as a better phrase than the technical term "myth"
because I believe it transmits more faithfully what I and many evangelical
scientists intend to convey about our interpretation of Genesis. Again,
popular connotations for "picture" are much more positive: "pictures don't
lie" and "a picture is worth a thousand words". The fact that you view it
as inadequate to express the genre of Genesis 1 or Psalm 104 has not
convinced me yet. But I'm still willing to listen, as long as you take
seriously my context and don't apply it to things I have not.
>My specific complaint is that as we all struggle with these issues, we apply a
>standard of truth to science that we seem unwilling to apply to the Scripture.
>When it comes to science and history we believe what we do because there is
>physical evidence which forces us to the conclusions we draw. In the case of
>historical sounding events in Scripture, we are quick to allegorize them in
>order to save them from falsification OR as is the case with the YECs we are
>willing to disregard every piece of observational data in order to have a
>particular historical view of the scripture. Neither of these approaches
>seems satisfactory to me.
I don't see my primary motivation being to save scripture from
falsification. I appreciate Terry Grey's words "sources outside of
scripture, such as science, may be the occasion for but may not be the
basis of a reinterpretation of scripture". While in seminary, I examined
what the best evidence was for the intention of the author's of scripture.
My conclusions (a mix as tentative yet as strongly held as any of my
scientific ones) included that Genesis 1 could not sustain the
interpretation YECs were placing on it.
>That is why I asked about Genesis 6-9. As a person in the geosciences, this
>is the area with which I have the greatest problems. A flood SHOULD leave
>evidence of itself. But I never saw any view which could explain those
>events. The global flood does not explain footprints on layer after layer and
>does not explain why the orbital periodicities of the earth are preserved in
>the thicknesses of finely laminated sediments. The local flood views I had
>heard simply do not match the Genesis account and logic. How can Noah float
>for a year down a river valley and end up on a mountain. Local floods never
>last a year. Also no one could point to a set of sediments and say "There,
>those are the sediments of the flood." If I applied the rules I do in my job,
>then I would be forced to conclude NOT that the scriptural account is true but
>pictorial, but rather that this story is absolutely false. Period.
My conclusion on Genesis 6-9 was that it could not sustain a global flood
interpretation. (For some evidence, different from what I considered at
the time but still compelling, see the brief recent communication in the
ASA journal, "How many trees did Noah take on the ark?", Dec '95.) Coming
to a negative conclusion is just as disatisfying (though no less difficult)
as in science. The fact that finding the clear 'meaning' of the passage is
still difficult to find is no reason to return to an inadequate
interpretation.
>Surely there has to be a better approach than either of those above. That is
>my complaint. On the YEC side I must disbelieve everything I see and on the
>other side, I must disbelieve any concrete TESTABLE historical data in various
>parts of the Scripture in order to retain their veracity. This is a Hobson's
>choice. Or maybe more to the point, that classic Viet Nam tactic, "In order to
>save the village we had to destroy it."
I suspect there is a better approach. Just as I suspect there is a better
approach to solving the quantum gravity problem than I've seen so far. The
difference is that I suspect the better approach might already exist in the
literature on Genesis 6-9 whereas I doubt the winning approach to Quantum
Gravity has been published. And just as I expect quantum gravity to be
solved by physicists rather than Biblical scholars, I expect a good
interpretation of Genesis 6-9 not to come from YECs or physicists.
>Larry wrote:
>
>>I'm not willing to comment yet on Geneis 6-9; I don't know that I would or
>>would not prefer "picture" there. It's taken me a dozen years just to gain
>>a semi-coherent understanding of Genesis 1-3! Genesis 6-9 is not a
>>_creation_ picture, as you well know. (Try Ps. 104) Remember, I am trying
>>to find a metaphor which conveys my confidence in the truth of scripture
>>without overstating (lying) to my culture and telling it "this is a science
>>text." Misidentifying the genre of Genesis 1 has serious apologetic
>>consequences.
>
>Everybody keeps assuming that Genesis must be a science text in order to
>convey true historical information. This simply isn't true. As I mentioned
>in a reply to George Parks (which I hope went out. GNN is upgrading our mail
>service so they cut us off from the outside world) you don't have to have a
>scientific account to convey information.
Sorry to have not spoken loudly enough: I agree -- truth is not tied to
"scientific" explanation.
>If evolution is true, and I believe
>it is, then the Bible could convey true information by merely a statement that
>"Out of the slime, God created life" or "A fish gave birth to all the other
>animals." This criticism that the Bible MUST have been a book of science in
>order convey true information is simply not the case. By the way, I think
>Genesis does indeed indicate this when it says that "God said, "Let the land
>produce living creatures..." This is certainly NOT the animal reproducing
>after their kind that the YECs often cite.
But all I'm saying to you is that I'm far from convinced that the
intention of the writers of Genesis 6-9 was "history" as we understand it.
Though evolution from slime might be a possible interpretation of Genesis
1:20, I will never be convinced it is a likely one. I am far too convinced
that such an interpretation would never have occured to the original
readers, hence it is so far from the core of what God spoke that I would be
in error to accept such an interpretation as the word of God. If I insist
that God should have spoken in a certain way (or with greater clarity on
some topic), then I am no longer putting myself under God, but over.
>You wrote:
>>So read some more. Use your God-given, scientifically trained, BS-detector
>>to sniff out when someone brings evidence rather than speculation to the
>>table. Just because some call themselves scientists, doesn't mean we
>>accept everything they say. Why should theologians be any different?
>
>When I do some of that, (which is what I think part of this discussion is)
>people get riled up. To me it is BS to hold to either of the choices I see
>offered.
So people get riled up... I haven't noticed that stopping anyone from doing
science or theology. I agree with you that those choices are an artificial
dichotomoy and neither is acceptable.
>For instance, I can probably get people riled by pointing out a
>problem in Kline's article in Perspectives, p. 6. Kline writes:
>
>"The lower register relates to the upper as replica to archetype."
>
>How on earth am I to verify, confirm or even support such a statement? How do
>I know what the upper register (heaven) looks like? I might agree that
>Kline's interpretation CAN fit with the data of Genesis, but how am I to know
>that this IS the way it is supposed to be? Let's face it. The only things we
>can verify are physical. So if we use the non-physical (as is 1/2 of this two
>register cosmology) how am I to test it?
Recognize the type of scholarship Kline is offering in this context. He is
using technical terms to report findings, but not giving all the evidence.
I suspect that there are some articles that scholars in his field accept
that point out the wide use of type/achetype language in ancient
literature. The fact that you can't independently verify is due to the use
of different criteria in scientific and historical practice. I suspect you
would soften your statement "The only things we can verify are physical" if
you thought for a moment less like a scientist and more like a historian,
or even a husband.
>You wrote:
>>Here we differ. I think that God intended to communicate to the original
>>readers. Insofar as I can discern what they would have understood, I hold
>>myself to have heard from God. That's why I would bother learning Hebrew
>>and history.
>
>Lots of ancient cultures clearly understood the concept of evolution.
>Aristotle _On the Generation of Animals_ Book II [731:32] Great Books, 9, p.
>272 states:
>
>"For since it is impossible that such a class of things as animals should be
>of an eternal nature, therefore that which comes into being is eternal in the
>only way possible. Now it is impossible for it to be eternal as an individual
>(though of course the real essence of things is in the individual) were it
>such it would be eternal--but it is possible for it as a species"
>
>The fact that Aristotle could (apparently) deny the change of species, implies
>strongly that he understood the concept of morphological change. So why were
>the Hebrews unable to comprehend this?
I didn't mean to imply that they "couldn't" understand evolution, just that
it was irrelevant to God's intentions in Genesis 1.
>You wrote:
>>I would suggest someone believe in X-rays, since the models we have are
>>good _pictures_ of reality. N-rays have obviously been shown to be lacking
>>for evidence. You seem to be holding that using "picture" is inadequate to
>>express the truth of Genesis 1.
>
>You are correct. You are using the word picture here as a physicist uses it.
> A theory. What I believe is that I haven't heard any pictures of Genesis
>which give me enough confirmation points from physical reality to make me feel
>any better about them than I do about N-rays.
>
>glenn
By the way, I also don't use the word "theory" in the general public. It
turns out that "theory" has the connotation of "speculation" to people
other than scientists, so the word is nearly useless for conveying how
strongly I believe, for example, in relativity.
The fact that you want Genesis 1 to give you confirmable or testable
evidence about scientific matters says more about you than about the
content and meaning of Genesis 1. To stop being negative and only pointing
out what Genesis 1 can't mean, I'll put forward my conclusion that Genesis
1 is an intentional apologetic for "Sabbath" written in such a way as to be
so clear to any original Hebrew reader that thinking it had to do with
correcting or even addressing 20th century cosmological or biological
theories would be laughable.
-Larry Martin, PhD, Associate Professor of Physics
martin@npcts.edu http://www.npcts.edu/~martin/
(312) 244-5668 fax (312) 244-4952 home: (312) 478-0679
North Park College, box 30, 3225 W. Foster Ave., Chicago, IL 60625