I recently had a look at my copy of Bernard Anderson's " Creation &
Chaos", a collection of lectures dealing with these topics. His first
lecture" Creation and History" gives a very good explanation of the
interrelation between history and the various creation accounts in the
Bible. He argues that Israel borrowed elements from what was originally the
pagan mytholgies of the Middle East , rewrote them, and integrated them into
an historical account of the saving acts of God. I highly recommend this
book.
-----Original Message-----
From: george murphy [mailto:gmurphy@raex.com]
Sent: Tuesday, April 23, 2002 12:31 PM
To: Glenn Morton
Cc: Shuan Rose; Robert Schneider; asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: A matter of trust?(Or why YEC persists)
Glenn Morton wrote:
As an excersize in creativity and just for fun (not for seriousness),
Shuan prsented the following challenge:>>>Yet God my King is from of old,
working salvation in the midst of the earth. 13Thou didst divide the sea by
thy might; thou didst break the heads of the dragons on the waters. 14Thou
didst crush the heads of Leviathan, thou didst give him as food for the
creatures of the wilderness. 15Thou didst cleave open springs and brooks;
thou didst dry up ever-flowing streams. 16Thine is the day, thine also the
night; thou hast established the luminaries and the sun. 17Thou hast fixed
all the bounds of the earth; thou hast made summer and winter. (Psalms
74:12-17)I have a feeling that there will be few calls for a concordist
interpretation of this passage! <<<Well lets see, god did divide the sea
with continental drift (many times) and he did break the head of the
reptilian dragons of the Cretaceous era by dropping the Chicxulub meteor
onto their heads which of course gave them (their carcasses) as food for the
few survivors. The meteor also 'cleaved open' a big hole allowing
groundwaters to escape in the form of springs. Most of us do believe that
God created the luminaries and the sun as well as summer and winter. Voila!!
a concordistic interpretation!!! :-)
I gave a paper on these "Chaos struggle" passages at the 2000 ASA
meeting. (Ps.89:8-13, Job 26:12-13 & Is.51:9-10 also have to be
considered.) I certainly appreciate the humor of Glenn's concordist
interpretation but of course, joking aside, no one in his/her right mind
would insist that these passages have to interpreted historically,
"concordized" with science &c - which gives the lie to the claim that other
passages dealing with creation _must_ be so interpreted.
The average churchgoer is either quite unaware of these passages
or just skims over them while reading the Bible without realizing how
obviously mythological they are. Giving some attention to them can be one
way of helping people realize the variety of ways in which creation is
presented in scripture. (& to forestall the obvious criticism - these
passages passages should be taken seriously as part of the witness to
revelation. But they ain't history or science.)
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
"The Science-Theology Interface"
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Apr 23 2002 - 13:05:54 EDT