I have been puzzling about this all day.
At 08:24 PM 08/06/1999 -0400, George Murphy wrote:
>But recognizing that even genuine relics can become objects of
superstition, protestants
>should not forget a basic truth which they can exhibit: The doctrines of
creation,
>Incarnation, and resurrection of the body mean matter has religious value
(which is not
>to say that it is to be worshipped). Our salvation has been brought about
through
>matter - most centrally, through the material body of Jesus. Even though
the Shroud
>cannot _prove_ the resurrection "with the certainty of faith" & even
though prayers
>spoken in its presence have no more intrinsic value than those spoken
anywhere else, IF
>it is genuine (a big if, of course), Christians should have a sense of awe
at seeing
>something with such close connections with the most important events in
the history of
>the universe. If we're willing to spend millions of dollars to preserve
the flag from
>Fort McHenry, think of how much more value genuine relics of the life of
Jesus should
>be!
As you noted in your response tonight to Tom Pearson finally prodded me
into a question. To Tom Pearson you wrote:
>OTOH, Scripture speaks of God as creator but it
>says nothing at all about the survival of the burial shroud of Jesus.
It seems to me that your treatment in the past of Genesis as being less
than historically true conflicts with your statements and treatment of the
shroud. We have had many a discussion of this issue. Of the shroud, you
point out, correectly that it would be a strong historical evidence of the
reality of Jesus's sacrifice. And you go on to note that the Bible says
nothing about the shroud but does speak of God as creator. This is true.
So why are you willing to accept the historicity of the shroud (of which
the Bible makes no mention) but unwilling to accept the historicity of
early Genesis (of which the Bible makes much mention). This seems rather
inconsistent to me.
To document my statement about your views of Genesis I cite the following:
"But even with this, there is a quite orderly sequence of creation days.
Plants are created, then sea creatures and birds, land animals and, as the
climax of creation, humanity. (But it doesn't work very well to try to make
these days correspond to geological ages or something like that, Again, the
biblical account is theological proclamation, not a scientist's observation
notebook.)" ~ George L. Murphy, The Trademark of God, (Wilton, Conn.:
Morehouse-Barlow, 1986), p. 18
Which in my book makes it non-historical.
If God can't create the world, and have enough power to communicate what he
did to us in a simple but straightforward manner, then how do we know he
has the power to raise Jesus from the dead, shroud or no shroud?
glenn
Foundation, Fall and Flood
Adam, Apes and Anthropology
http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/dmd.htm
Lots of information on creation/evolution