1/21/01
George Wrote:
>-----Original Message-----
>From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu]On
>Behalf Of george murphy
>Sent: Saturday, January 20, 2001 5:48 PM
> As soon as you speak of other "areas verified" then you're
>putting it in
>the context of the rest of
>scripture. That's OK with the sort of view of the historicity of
>scripture you
>argue for, but then of course you have to present the arguments
>for the other
>areas. What I was objecting to was what seemed like the idea that
>confirming
>the flood narrative is a king of key which in itself raises the
>credibility of
>scripture as a whole to a different level.
As I see it, the flood is just about the only thing that is verifiable that
makes any difference to the Judeo/Christian story. Let's look at the
situation.
1. there is nothing we can verify today about the resurrection, Jesus'
birth, or the making of wine, the raising of Lazarus, the feeding of the
5000 etc. We have no Jerusalem Posts to look at news accounts, we have no
physical evidence of the wine or the body of Lazarus to look at. What we
really know apart from Scripture is that a group of people appeared in the
early part of the 1st century proclaiming that Jesus was the son of God and
that he had been killed and then resurrected.
2. In the OT we have no ability to verify the raising of the Widow's son,
the floating axhead, the pillar of fire, the Exodus, Abraham's life etc.
Given that nations invade other nations as surely as night follows day, we
have no extra-biblical evidence that the Babylonians were called down upon
the Israelites by God. The claim simply can't be verified. Its like me
claiming that God called you to be a thorn in my side on historicity! :-)
It isn't verifiable. Sure we have evidence of David and the Davidic line,
but most of that is merely the record of history that doesn't offer
something profound in the way of God interacting in the world that leaves
evidence. Daniel's 70 weeks prophecy is the only exception to the general
lack of verifiability seen in the OT.
So now we come to the claim's made in early Genesis, that God created the
world and that God brought upon mankind a great flood wiping out all but
eight. It is unverifiable to claim that God created the Big Bang. One can
believe it, but one can't demonstrate it. How do we put God in the witness
chair? And if we go with the classical interpretation of Genesis 1-2 we
would have to say that the Bible has been falsified because science has
clearly demonstrated that evolution took place--i.e., the animals found low
in the geologic column don't look anything like living animals meaning that
life forms have changed.
But with the flood, there would be physical evidence that would be capable
of verification. This evidence would consist of demographic patterns of
people, physical sediments, etc.
If you don't think that the flood is one of the few verifiable things in
Scripture, which also makes a spits worth of difference to the truth of the
main point of the salvation story, then please by all means tell us how you
will verify TODAY the resurrection, birth etc or how you will verify that
God actually interacted with this world? As I see it, there are really only
about 2 places.
If I merely avoid verification, then I am creating a faith based upon faith!
Fideism.
>
>> The Bible
>> >is a collection of writings by different people spread over 1000+
>> >years, and the
>> >fact that a couple of its chapters give information about
>> >something that really
>> >happened tells us nothing about the truth of its many other
>> >accounts.
>>
>> If there were no inspiration of the scripture, I would perfectly
>well agree
>> with you. But there is the claim that the Bible is God's word. If it is
>> nothing but the words of "different people", then what you say
>is absolutely
>> correct. But if God engaged in some sort of overarching guidance of what
>> they wrote, then what you say has no merit.
>
> I believe that God inspired the "different people" but the
>skeptic of
>course doesn't, & it was his/her response to your argument that I
>was trying to
>summarize.
Mere belief without evidence of this inspiration is nothing but fideism.
Faith based upon faith.
With such a person you can't assume either the unity
>(in the sense
>of having a single coherent theme) or the inspiration of scripture. & that
>means, as I said, that the truth of the flood narrative wouldn't
>imply anything
>about the truth of other parts of the Bible.
Paul Seely argues quite effectively in his book that the religion Jesus
taught was not the religion of the Jewish peoples. Thus there is not a
single theme to the Scripture.
>
[snip]
I worte:
You can't have the theme
>you spoke of
>> run through the Bible without God having guided it. If he guided
>falsehood,
>> then he is not to be trusted for the same reason I don't trust the God of
>> Gosse--both are deceptive Gods.
>
George replied:
> I don't disagree with this - with the reminder that I
>have always
>said that the Bible does deal with historical events and that the
>truth of a
>statement doesn't require that it be historical narrative. But
>that's just the
>reset again. The point here is that you are not going to make any headway
>against skepticism if you begin with the claim that scripture is inspired.
I have stated this on numerous occasion (but people always fail to hear it).
Apologetics is not an evangelical tool. It is a discipleship tool. It is
more useful to keep people from leaving the faith than it is to entice them
into the faith. So, these arguments are not aimed at the skeptic, they are
aimed at the Christian who like the lady who wrote me last Saturday who had
been about to give up hope that anything coherent could be offered which
joined the facts of science with the facts of scripture. I don't do what I
do for the non-christian.
>
> I see no significant difference & if anything the fact
>that Pilate is
>a lot closer to Jesus historically than is Noah might carry some
>weight. This
>is really a question of what line of argument is going to be most
>persuasive, &
>that depends on who you're talking to.
See above. I have said this to you thousands of times George, I don't see
apologetics as an evangelical tool. It is to prevent people from leaving the
faith when they figure out that nothing the YECs teach them is true and that
all the liberals offer is a solution akin to the famous Vietnam saying, "In
order to save the village, we had to destroy it". Removing the Bible from
historical verification, which is what many want to do destroys it because
we are supposed to have a God who acted in history--real history.
[snip]
>> My problem with many of your arguments is that if we apply them to other
>> religions, we must conclude that all other religions are equally
>true. Given
>> that they are all mutually exclusive, that process becomes a reductio ad
>> absurdam.
>
> No because
> 1) I don't think the scriptures & traditions of other
>religions do
>have the type of historical support (N.B. I do not say "proof" or
>"infallible
>historical accuracy" )that Christianity does, &
Aboriginal religions have stories that have been scientifically supported.
They involve people walking across land where now there is sea. The stories
were told prior to the rise of sea level. And I would contend that Buddhism
has about the same level of historical support. We know about when
Siddhartha Gautama lived. We know the names of his wife, his cousins, where
he went, where he taught. I don't see how your claim for Christianity
having more historical support than say Buddhism has any basis in fact.
> 2) you are omitting questions about the _meaning_ of
>historical
>events and the explanatory power of religious claims.
Exactly HOW do we verify the 'meaning' of Biblical events? How do I
objectively determine the meaning of some event. I recall several years ago
reading a short biography on Ramanujan (who was just mentioned by Gordon
Brown) and when he got some mathematical insight, he ascribed meaning to it.
He believed that one of his Hindu gods was responsible for giving him that
inspriation. Was he correct? He had both the _meaning_ of
historical events[his inspiration] and the explanatory power of religious
claims. So, what is so special and objectively different from his meaning
and the one you are talking about.
The problem I see with your argument is that you start from the assumption
that there is nothing at all like Christianity anywhere else and then build
your argument upon that assumption. In point of fact, most religious claims
can't be verified and it seems to me that the only way out of this quagmire
is to use verification on the few religious claims that are capable of being
verified.
glenn
see http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/dmd.htm
for lots of creation/evolution information
anthropology/geology/paleontology/theology\
personal stories of struggle
>
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