Hi George,
This will be my last on this topic. I need to get my house ready to sell.
----- Original Message -----
From: "George Murphy" <gmurphy@raex.com>
To: "glenn morton" <mortongr@flash.net>
Cc: <PHSEELY@aol.com>; <adam@crowl.webcentral.com.au>; <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Friday, June 09, 2000 1:33 PM
Subject: Re: Methane in the late Archean
> > You are focussing far too narrowly on the issue of miracles & (as usual)
the
> idea that Scripture must be all accurate reporting of historical events if
it's to
> be inspired.
> In Jonah, e.g., the fish is simply a plot device to get Jonah from A to B.
> There is nothing intrinsically impossible about a man being swallowed by a
fish &
> surviving (though I think Ted Davis has disposed adequately of the most
popular urban
> legend about this happening in modern times) & it certainly isn't
impossible for God
> to bring this about. The reasons for thinking Jonah to be nonhistorical
have nothing to
> do with that, but rather with the great exaggerations & obvious humor of
the story & the
> fact that there is no evidence at all of the mass conversion of the
capital of the
> Assyrian empire & the "King of Nineveh".
The problem I have with using false stories in an inspired book is that it
gives the appearance that the ends justify the means.
> Similarly with Balaam: The talking donkey is only a small part of the
story,
> & appears at what seems to be a very strange point in that story. As it
begins in
> Num.22 Balaam is a faithful prophet who insists on doing only what God
tells him to do,
> including going with the princes of Moab. Suddenly in 22:22 God is angry
with Balaam -
> for doing what God told him to do! - and the donkey becomes the means by
which Balaam is
> - what? Told to do exactly what he was going to do before! Then after
arriving in Moab
> he obediently does what God tells him, refusing to curse Israel & blessing
them instead.
> The story ends with him going back home (24:25). Only later does he
suddenly &
> inexplicably become the bad guy of the later Jewish & Christian
traditions.
> It is obvious that there are different sources behind this whole account.
> (Conservative commentaries on this can make hilarious reading with their
> "harmonizations.") At the juncture of what appears to be two different
versions of the
> story we have a talking animal, a familiar figure in myth & folklore.
Sure, God could
> make a donkey talk. But it is quite contrary to donkey nature & (in view
of what I said
> about the account as a whole) the historical evidence for it is pretty
shaky.
> You can argue those things if you wish. But the issue is not just - or
even
> primarily - "Could God make a fish swallow a man?" or "Could God make a
donkey speak?"
Not only is the historical evidence shaky for these stories, it is also
shaky for the Exodus itself. However, we believe that the Exodus was
basically historical but decide to reject most of the things that sound
weird to us. To me this is a problem of our increduality making us the
judge of the things we will and won't believe. To me it is just as
incredulous that a man should walk on the water, calm the storm, take a few
loaves of bread and feed 5000 as it is for a donkey to speak or an axhead to
arise. If we can't accept the later, why should we accept the former?
> Your hyperbole makes communication difficult. You can't say "Little
conformance
> to reality" but have to say "No conformance" - which is manifestly wrong.
Don't be too struck with the semantic choice of words or the difference
between the two statements. By little conformance to reality, I mean that
only the bare fact that God created the world is historically
true--everything else is wrong in how it was done. That is so little
conformance to reality that I can't see a reason to believe that the account
is of much value. To me the difference between having only the agreement
that God created the universe and believing that God didn't create it is so
small as to be meaningless as far as concerns the validity of the Biblical
record.
You may have the last word.
glenn
Foundation, Fall and Flood
Adam, Apes and Anthropology
http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/dmd.htm
Lots of information on creation/evolution
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