Just because we disagree doesn't mean that our
disagreement simply reflects our personal
preference or presuppositions. A good example
of a similar debate concerned Robert Gundry's
commentary on Matthew, in which he argued that
Matthew at times employed a midrashic form of
argument that would have been recognizable to a
first century Jewish audience as "theological
fiction"--not factually true, but making an accurate
theological assertion. The proper response to Gundry
was not to accuse him of abandoning the text, as many
did, but to question whether Jewish readers would
have truly recognized those aspects of the text to be
a form of midrash. Upon comparison with a wide body
of extrabiblical literature, Darrell Bock argued in an
article titled, "Is Matthew Midrash?" that Matthew
did not fit a recognizable midrashic pattern. This was
not a presupposed conclusion, but one made on the basis
of considerable observation and comparison of texts.
Bock's article was not a proof, but it was a reasonable
argument that was well received within the scholarly
community.
That's the kind of evaluation I'm talking about. Those
who attempt to make similar arguments regarding
Genesis have a tougher road ahead of them because
there isn't as much extrabiblical literature from
that period, making authoritative comparisons more
difficult.
I had said that "Those who dismiss the [genre] question
are in fact assuming a particular answer to it." Dave
said, "I don't think this is at all true, " then seems to
me to have demonstrated the truth of it by saying that
his answer "preclude[s] the necessity of categorizing
passages into a particular genre." By assuming that we
are reading it correctly as we see its plain (to us)
meaning, we are assuming a very literal historical
genre that might make very good sense to us today but
might have seemed very odd to the "fishermen and
shepherds" a couple thousand years ago.
I think Dave is right in saying that the discussion
in question (between Jim Bell and Glenn Morton)
will not likely be resolved through a discussion of genre, especially since even
scholars in OT literature often
don't feel they can fully resolve the issue in Genesis,
but it is nice to know where the boundaries are sometimes.
Thanks for the discussion.
_____
Robert_Pyne@dts.edu