From: John Burgeson (burgythree@hotmail.com)
Date: Tue Mar 04 2003 - 13:03:11 EST
Commenting on my observation that the genealogy in Matthew cannot be seen as
being without error, George replied:
"We shouldn't imagine that Mt just didn't know how to count, or that he was
hoping that nobody would notice that the last third of the genealogy had
only 13 generations."
Of course, I made no such claim. I did (and do) claim that the account is
certainly in error. In so claiming I would not attribute either of the two
"imaginations" above to the writer of Matthew.
"It's one thing to try to figure out the theo-logic which he was using, as
Gundry does. It's quite another to claim that somehow Mt really does list
14 biological generations so that he's historically "inerrant.""
I agree with your second point -- But "theo-logic" or not, the passage is
certainly in error. Mathematically in error. 14+14+14=42 in those days as
well as in ours.
There appear to be two ways of approaching the inerrancy of the Bible
question.
One is to assume inerrancy a priori; take the deductivist approach and force
fit every problemmatic passage into its own "ad hoc" explanation. Almost all
the problem passages I've looked at can be "explained" in this way, although
the result has the Bible suffering "the death of a thousand qualifications."
Some of the "ad hocs" are (IMHO of course) really strained, for instance:
James 4:5 which quotes scripture that does not exist
Jer 27 which reads "Jehoiakim" rather than "Zedekiah"
Matt 27:9 which references Jeremiah rather than Zechariah (I note that
Calvin commented on this and, in effect, said "so what?") But it IS a
passage which falsifies inerrancy, except with a very far out ad hoc.
Stephen Davis wrote a great book on all this -- THE DEBATE ABOUT THE BIBLE
(1977). So good was it that an inerrantist, Pinnoch, even wrote the Forward
to it. I have written notes on this book and placed them on my web site,
page 2, section 11. I welcome comments on them.
George, you also wrote: "...In his Mt commentary Gundry says: "To get this
third fourteen Matthew probably counts Mary as well as Jospeh; i.e., the one
chronological generation carries two other kinds of generations within it, a
legal (Josph's) and a physical (Mary's).""
I appreciate that explanation; I had not seen it before. Of course it is,
like every other explanation I've seen, another "ad hoc." I would say that
even if true (that is, accepting the ad hoc for the sake of argument) the
passage remains in error; that is, the explanation does not suffice.
Stephen Davis (and I) do not approach the Bible as being inerrant a priori
-- that is, we do not take a deductivist approach, but an inductivist
approach to the subject. But read my notes on his book -- better still, read
his book. 150 pages.
If one wishes to take the a priori presupposition that the Bible is without
error, then there can be no debate of course (except whether that approach
is the correct one). If one takes the inductivist approach -- studying the
Bible for what it says and not what one brings to it -- concluding inerrancy
might be possible, but I think one can do it only by turning off his or her
brain at the church door.
BTW -- another book on the subject is Harold Lindsell's THE BATTLE FOR THE
BIBLE. In defending inerrancy, Lindsell points out that the idea that the
Bible is without error makes it quite certain that Peter denied our Lord not
3 times, but 6 times. Davis has a lot of fun with that howler in his book.
Burgy
www.burgy.50megs.com (revised Mar 3, 2003)
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