Dear George,
Apropos of this , there is a verse somewhere in Gospels about Moses
accepting divorce because of the hardness of the[ Israelites] heart .
That sounds like accomodation. Maybe in God's Plan, God has to gradually
"train" Man up in the way he should go-both in terms of morality and in
the scientific understanding of the universe.
-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu]On
Behalf Of george murphy
Sent: Monday, April 08, 2002 8:03 AM
To: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: cosmology & polygamy
There is often resistance to the idea that the Holy Spirit & the
biblical writers accomodated themselves to scientific understandings of
the world of their times & cultures, views which we now know to be very
limited or wrong. The same people seem to have no problem accepting
this with some of the morality accepted in scripture.
Polygamy is perhaps the most obvious example. Many of the
heroes of the OT had lots of wives, concubines &c & nothing at all is
said in condemnation of this. Some of the consequences may be bad, like
Solomon's wives leading him to idolatry, but polygamy itself isn't
condemned. N.B. This isn't simply a matter of reporting historical
facts. Polygamy is not only reported but is accepted.
There are other examples. David is a man after God's own heart,
except for the Bathsheba-Uriah affair. But what about the protection
racket he's running in I Samuel 25, as well as other less than
progressive aspects of his tactics & policies?
& of course there's the whole holy war business with
extermination of populations &c, and slavery. Again, these are not
simply reported but approved & even commanded.
This kind of argument has often been used in village-atheist
type Bible debunking & I do NOT want to use it in that way. But such
examples do make it very clear that the biblical writers, and ultimately
the Holy Spirit, accomodated themselves to moral behaviors which the
Jewish and Christian communities would eventually find unacceptable.
So why is it so hard to believe that the biblical writers and
the Holy Spirit could have accomodated themselves to a now-outdated
cosmology?
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
"The Science-Theology Interface"
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