>At 9:47 PM 3/27/96, Glenn Morton is rumored to have typed:
>
I am really mythical. :-)
Bill wrote:
>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).
>
Thank you for the agreement, this is a rare occurrence :-) I want to further
lay out the position for interpreting Genesis as normal history.
I have been told several times on this and other lists that the language and
the rules of exegesis force one NOT to take Genesis 1-11 as history. But when
I ask for confirmation that it is the language and exegesis alone which drive
the non-literal or non-historical viewpoint by asking whether 15% of the
Church fathers believed in the non-literal/non-historical view, no one
provides evidence to that effect. (If someone is doing this research now I
would be interested in hearing about it). Thus as Garry DeWeese and Jeff
Mullins point out, the difference between the ancient exegetes and the modern
ones involves the science (astronomy, geology, archaeology, etc) not the
language. If this is the case, then why can I not use the science of our day
to support a historical exegesis?
>
>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.
Agreed.
>As someone said earlier, this should certainly not be taken as a personal
>flame of Glenn, whose posts I greatly appreciate.
>
Not taken as a flame but a well laid out definition of terms. Thank you.
glenn