> Jeff Mullins wrote:
>
> >Today we also have archeological finds and scientific
> >knowledge (such as the earth is round and goes round the sun and not
> >vice-versa) to guide us towards a correct understanding of the text of
> >Scripture.
>
> Your last sentence (and Garry DeWeese's statement) is about half of my point
> on this issue. If we use the external evidence such as the fact that the
> earth is round and circles the sun, or knowledge of the archeology, then we
> are not getting our interpretation out of the internal Biblical evidence such
> as language, structure etc. We are getting our interpretations largely
>from
> the SCIENCE we know not from the language relationships. (this is going to
> upset people) But of course, when someone challenges the exegesis, we are
> told that it is the language and methods of exegesis which require a given
> interpretation and the non-initiated can not possibly understand.
>
I agree with you here. To claim that we do not use our interpretations of
natural phenomena when interpreting Scripture is nonsense. If we were not
meant to do so, then the Bible would be a book of pure theological theory
instead of being mainly a book of history (i.e., we are given
demonstrations about who God is and what he is like much more than we are
just told about it).
The first 11 chapters of Genesis are the only parts of the Bible that
cannot be externally corroborated. However, this is no problem for me given
the high degree of reliability that the rest of the book has proven to have
(not to mention the most important "external corroboration:" the Holy
Spirit (Eph 1:13-14)). For me, I have little problem with accepting that
Genesis 1 is a figurative word-picture about real events without telling
anything about the mechanisms of them.
>I simply wish those who claim such
purity in motives and methods would realize that this is what they appear to
be doing. If they weren't doing this, then it would be easy to find the 15%
> level of church fathers who believe that Genesis 1 was myth and Adam, Eve and
> the Fall were allegorical.
I think we need a little more rigorous terminology here.
figurative != allegorical
An allegory is a story in which the characters and events described are
fictional but represent real persons and events in a figurative way.
Genesis 1 contains only one character and He is not fictional. It tells of
events that are also not fictional. The objects created were real and not
representative of something else (i.e., light, birds, stars, etc.). The
only possible allegory that I can see is if we take the day/age approach in
which the days are seen to represent long periods of time. Everything
described in Genesis 1 is real and not fictional.
figurative != myth
A myth is a man-made story to explain unexplainable natural phenomena by
the use of a ficticious mechanisms. Apollo driving his fiery chariot across
the sky "explained" the phenomenon of the sun and its apparent movement
relative to the earth for the ancient Greeks. Genesis is only myth if we
accept that it was concocted by the Hebrews, perhaps as a plagarism of the
Upanishads.
figurative != fiction
Were we to take this position, then we would immediately disregard not only
Genesis 1, but also much of the prophecy in the Bible. I don't think anyone
really thinks that all of the figurative parts of the Bible are untrue; I
think that people are uncomfortable when a passage that they think is
literal could actually be figurative instead. They then feel like much of
the truth of it is being lost. This may or may not be true, but I think
that it is primarily an emotional (if understandable) reaction.
figurative != unreliable && uncorroborated != unreliable
For most of Church history, there has not been archaeological corroboration
for much of the Bible. Yet, millions of people have had no trouble
believing in it anyway, for other reasons good enough for them. We have the
advantage of knowing, for instance, that the Hittites were a real people
and that written language was common in Moses's time. "Blessed are those
that have believed without seeing." There are so many other reasons to
believe in the reliability of the Bible that if some part of it is not
externally corroborated (nor is it likely to be since the events happened
in the too-distant past), it doesn't bother me much.
As someone said earlier, this should certainly not be taken as a personal
flame of Glenn, whose posts I greatly appreciate.
Bill Dozier
Scatterer at Large
dozier@radix.net