On Sat, 20 Jul 1996 09:42:03, Glenn Morton wrote:
GM>I keep coming back to a fundamental question. How much of the
>Bible can be ontological/theological (as opposed to historical)
>truth,and still have us have confidence in the message of the Bible?
>If Adam-Noah are not real people and real events you might be able
>to get away with retaining confidence in the message. But what if
>Abraham is ahistorical? Joseph a jest? Moses a myth? David a
>dream? Solomon a silly story? Mary a mirage? Joseph a joke? If
>all that was untrue, would you believe that Judeochristianity was
>theologically true? Would you still claim that there is theological
>truth in the system? I would dare say you would view it with the
>susupicion reserved for fraudulent cults.
>
>Thus, I would suggest that the YECs are correct in their view that the
>erosion of Biblical historicity should be of serious concern. A house
>which has a couple of inches of its foundation cantelevered over the edge
>of a cliff is not in immediate danger of collapse. But if erosion
>continues and the percentage of the house which extends over the edge
>grows to 10 percent, then the house is not a safe place in which to live.
I am in concord (pun intended! <g>) with Glenn on this point. The
Biblical writers are always and everywhere concerned with history.
This is not to say that it is always literalistic, newspaper-
reporting history. Real history and mythopoeic imagery are not
mutually exclusive. The book of Revelation purports to reveal "what
must soon take place" (Rev 1:1), ie. real, historical events, but it
clothes these in highly symbolic imagery.
I agree with Ramm (and Orr) in seeing Genesis 3 (for example) as real
history clothed in symboic form:
"It is argued that the picture of God working like a potter with wet
earth, anthropomorphically breathing life into man, constructing woman
from a rib, with an idyllic garden, trees with theological
significance, and a talking serpent, is the language of theological
symbolism and not of literal prose. The theological truth is there,
and this symbolism is the instrument of inspiration. We are not to
think in terms of scientific and anti-scientific, but in terms of
scientific and pre-scientific. The account is then pre-scientific and
in theological symbolism which is the garment divine inspiration chose
to reveal these truths for their more ready comprehension by the
masses of untutored Christians. This is the view of James Orr who
wrote:
`I do not enter into the question of how we are to interpret the
third chapter of Genesis-whether as history or allegory or myth, or
most probably of all, as old tradition clothed in oriental
allegorical dress-but the truth embodied in that narrative, viz. the
fall of man from an original state of purity, I take to be vital to
the Christian view.' (Orr J., The Christian View of God and the
World, 1897, p185)
(Ramm B. "The Christian View of Science and Scripture", Paternoster:
London, 1955, p223).
God bless.
Steve
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