Re: Descendants of Wolves, Bovines and Adam
Robin Mandell (rmandell@jpusa.chi.il.us)
Tue, 17 Nov 1998 19:51:28 -0600
At 06:50 PM 11/17/98 -0800, you wrote:
in a letter to Paul,>
>What I can't accept in the way you and other deal with this type of issue
>is this: You admit that the Biblical story doesn't match the description
>and yet are unwilling to then draw the proper conclusion---Early Genesis
>is factually erroneous and thus worthless as a purveyor of truth. And
>being unwilling to draw the proper conclusion, you conclude that the Bible
>therefore must be true.
>
>As I have said before this is a 'Heads I win; Tails you lose" type of
>apologetic. Heads the Bible is true; Tails, the Bible is true. Such an
>apologetic does lead to the Bible being true but only true in a trivial way.
I am not sure yet where I sit on the historical trustworthiness of Gen.
but I sense a problem in locking in like you are here.It is possible that
the "truths" we really care about in Genesis stand with or without the
flood being historical simply because they are in fact true regardless of
how much God decided to intervene in the cosmology and language of the
author.What you said seems too close to boxing God in and making rules
about his method of revelation.Again,a part of me is with you on this I
just think we should stay fluid in such a troubled spot.I know it sounds
like we are hedging are bets so that our faith becomes so diconnected from
history and science that we are unassailable but I suspect there is more to
it than evasion.Didn't mean to jump in the middle especially as I too
admire the clear thoght and work you have put into all this plus you even
took the time to write me and answer my questions which was very
encouraging.thanks greg>