> Again, your coming in late leaves a lot of ground to make up.
Only if you keep assuming that I have come in late just because this was
the first time I posted on *this* thread. Perhaps you assume that because
I don't seem to agree with you that I haven't seen what you had to say?
> I'll try to put it in simple terms:
Always a good practice. But I think I understand Glenn's perspective,
and it is really the only kind of history there is in terms of actual
history. You seem to want to make distinctions based on different
types of historical writings. The question is whether Genesis 1 is
historical in the `actual history' sense or not.
> That's where we differ. We also differ because Glenn doesn't accept
> any other kind of history. Do you? Maybe not, because you write:
I don't think that any other kind of history is found in the Scripture.
There may be places where the details weren't gotten quite right, but
it sure doesn't have the filled-in-ness one would expect with
historical fiction (or 'saga history', if you please).
> It ain't fiction, Dave. There really was a Paul Revere (in history) who
> made a famous ride (in history). Longfellow didn't make him up out of
> whole cloth, like Tolkein made up Frodo. See the difference? Fiction
> means "feigned or imagined." Paul Revere wasn't imagined.
Ah. The old divide-by-zero trick. You cannot make Longfellow's poem
equivalent to history by noting a historical aspect. He was telling
a story, based on a historical event. But though his invention was not
out of `whole cloth,' there was indeed invention. Do you see this yet?
Fiction is the leaven, not history. You don't add history to fiction
to get historical fiction, you add fiction to history. Just a little
fiction can fictionalize the whole.
You cannot read Longfellows poem and do more than `guess' at which
details are actually historically true. You cannot even know whether
there was a Paul Revere (perhaps he was a composite).
> To most, historical fiction is something like Gone With the
> Wind. It is centrally about characters who never existed.
I have never heard GWTW called historical fiction. Historical fiction
purports to retell a historical event, but does so with embellishment
for the purposes of adding entertainment value. e.g. the example I gave
before of `The Ten Commandments,' or Leon Uris `Mila 18' and `Exodus'.
(The entertainment value does not negate other goals, such as to
inform or move your audience to action).
BTW, I think I was wrong, and that you indeed see Genesis 1 as historical
fiction (though perhaps you would say `historical saga'). If this *is*
true, then it does make your view clearer. It also puts you squarely
in the corner of Glenn's diagram that he expected. Perhaps you didn't
accept the term because you had a different definition of `historical
fiction' in mind?
If it is *not* true, perhaps you could idenfity for me which of the
recorded events of Genesis 1 are historically accurate, and which are not?
***
> Well, if misrepresentation happens, we can't go to implications. The logic
> won't work. You can't get to accurate analysis unless the initial position
> is stated accurately. Once that's done, I enjoy talking implications.
After reading this response I am starting to think that you go out of
your way to be `misrepresented'. All it takes is to redefine terms
your way, and then quibble according to your definitions. According to
Glenn's definition of historical record, which you clearly understand, you
are in the corner he put you, yet you have been protesting for two days
that you are not. But your objection is based on a different
definition of historical than Glenn used. You must remember that the
map is defined by the legend.
***
> <<I guess we are thinking of different authors. The Author I was referring
> to has ways that not even the Hebrews understood, and spoke through them
> of mysteries that they did not comprehend. >>
>
> The same Author commands us to work hard to "rightly divide the Word."
> Surely you take him at His word here? Just what does that mean to us, today,
> trying to understand His revelation? Use hermeneutics or not?
Indeed I do. To use a clearer translation, we are to: [handle] accurately
the word of truth. I agree that this is how we should treat the Scriptures
... as accurate. Otherwise God has done less than He requires of us.
> On the individual level, I agree with you! This is the great promise
> for all (the promise recaptured in the Reformation). But we also
> operate on a collective level (and have to, or else our Christianity
> becomes a kind of spiritual anarchy).
Your trying to convince the wrong guy here. I actually teach in favor
of a view of the church which I call `Christian anarchy'. It is the
model that I believe the Scriptures teach, and the God is taking us
back to. (Of course it is really only anarchy in the sense of human
accountability). But that would be a completely different discussion
for a different forum.
> That is why Christ left us THE
> CHURCH, and not Lone Ranger masks. And in this church has "appointed
> some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and
> some to be pastors AND TEACHERS..." The implications of the latter, I
> think, are evident.
The problem is what tools you elect to use for your teaching.
To quote from the same epistle:
And my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom,
but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should
not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God. Yet we do
speak wisdom among those who are mature; a wisdom, however, not of this
age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away;
(I do wish you would explain to me why this passage, which I keep
quoting, shouldn't be taken seriously.)
The danger is discerning which intellectual tools are of the general
goodness of God, and which are from the design of the wise of this age?
***
> No, that's not what it means. "Thought forms" refers to paradigms, models
> through which a certain culture processes information. Without an
> understanding of these, it is difficult if not impossible to truly
> understand what the author intends for his audience.
I think you miss the point. The cognitive structures in humans are pretty
much all the same (well, there is the Broca's area discussion), but what
is different is the underlying set of experiences (which can be understood
independently of the culture).
Where the `thought forms' become important is that they will limit the
way people within a culture permit themselves to reason or express ideas
based on their underlying experiences. (Thus it takes an understanding
of the Japanese culture to understand why seemingly mild criticism can
actually be a confrontational challenge).
However this cultural consideration is just about valueless in the case
of the Scripture. In fact the Scripture very often sets out to
explicitly refute the cultural limitations on the reasoning of its
audience. It is God reasoning with man, not man reasoning about God!
What is far more critical then is to understand the experiences of authors,
and to gain the mind of Christ, that we might reason as He does.
> <<It is not the text or forms used, it is the purity of the Spirit of God
> moving upon the authors that is so astounding. (One of my points of
> disagreement with Bloesch).>>
>
> Then you're REALLY missing Bloesch! Listen:
Nope. What I was referring to was where he blurs the distinction between
the Scripture and somebody preaching under the unction. He seems to have
either less regard for the purity of Scriptural inspiration, or he listens
to far better preachers than I do.
> [Bloesch, Holy Scripture, p. 119]
> Sounds like Dave Probert to me!
I hope not. Bloesch has a decidedly different model of how the Scripture
was written.
> "Today, theology needs to recover the paradoxical unity of Word and Spirit,
> for ONLY ON THE BASIS OF THIS UNITY CAN SCRIPTURE BE MADE TO COME ALIVE AND
> BE A TRANSFORMING LEAVEN IN THE LIFE OF THE CHURCH.
> Again, this sounds a lot like Dave Probert.
Nope again. ``It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits
nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.''
The word, in the sense of the ink on the paper, is nothing. It is the
Spirit that is everything. A unity of the two is not required.
This is not to say that Bloesch isn't making an important contribution
toward eliminating Bible worship. Many in his audience think the spirit
is nothing and the ink everything.
> So perhaps we have come to agree at last?
But it is not clear that we even understand each other.
--Dave