SteamDoc@aol.com wrote:
>
> In a message dated Wed, 13 Mar 2002 7:00:51 PM Eastern Standard Time, "Jim Eisele" <jeisele@starpower.net> writes:
>
> > But nobody else is currently standing up for a
> > Bible that contains anything more than a fable for Gen 1.
>
> I think this statement illustrates what many of us see as the root of the problem. It is written as if the only two options are "only a fable" or "scientifically accurate history". There are more options!
>
> How about:
> "Inspired communication of vital truths about God and his relation to his creation, set in a form appropriate to the pre-scientific understanding of the day."
>
> Surely such a view is "more than a fable." The problem comes in the view (which would have been totally alien to Moses) that truth communicated by story is somehow inferior to truth conveyed in scientific terms. Those with that view should remember how often Jesus taught in this "inferior" mode.
I have difficulty with viewpoint in that it just sounds like an excuse
made up by Christians after science established that it is not a correct
scientific explanation. The real issue as I see it is whether or not the
author intended it to be a "metaphor" or whether he really believed it
to be an accurate, historical account of creation. Somehow all of
Genesis reads to me as though the author related what he believed to be
real history.
If we conclude that it is not accurate simply because of what we have
learned from science, then calling it a metaphor seems invalid to me.
Therefore I would ask, how did people interpret Genesis before , the
year 1500. Was the consensus that it was "fact", "History" or what? I'm
certain that someone on this listserve knows the answer to that
question. If it was always considered to be a metaphor, then so be it.
Otherwise, I question that interpretation.
Walt
>
> Allan Harvey, steamdoc@aol.com
-- =================================== Walt Hicks <wallyshoes@mindspring.com> In any consistent theory, there must exist true but not provable statements. (Godel's Theorem)You can only find the truth with logic If you have already found the truth without it. (G.K. Chesterton) ===================================
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