From: Robert Schneider (rjschn39@bellsouth.net)
Date: Tue Nov 12 2002 - 21:17:25 EST
Allen writes:
>
> From what I've read, the typical archaeological concept of man is that
> he has evolved upward in intelligence and capability until he was able
> to learn to read and write. On the other hand, many propose that Adam
> and Eve were created intelligent, capable of fluent communication with
> each other and God from the moment of creation. The source-critical
> dissection of the pentateuch is founded upon the former, as is the
> typical archaeological interpretation of the formation of writing (and
> the associated dating methods). The Wiseman theory better fits the idea
> that Adam and Eve were intelligent from the beginning and that writing
> may have been more widespread than current theories seem to think
> (perhaps more so among the Biblical patriarchs than the typical
> population). The problem lies in the foundational assumptions -- did
> man kind evolve upward to being able to read and write? or was reading
> and writing a natural outgrowth of intelligence from the beginning? If
> you accept the former, then the Bible doesn't make much sense as an
> ancient document. It will naturally be interpreted within dumbing-down
> evolutionary assumptions as a much later redacted collection of myths.
> After all, the patriarchs cannot be anything more than uneducated,
> unintelligent, superstitious nomads or perhaps petty chiefs, right?
>
> The question is, do we take the Bible at its word or do we accept
> evolutionary assumptions first and then interpret the Bible within them?
Bob's comments:
Contrary to Allen's assertion, the source-critical method applied to
Genesis and other OT textual studies is not based on evolutionary
assumptions but on analyses of the texts themselves. The earliest source
critics, Jean Astruc (1684-1766) and Richard Simon (1638-1712) ante-date
anthropological work on early hominids and subsequent evolutionary
interpretation of them. Later source critics like Julius Welhaussen, whose
work was developed in the 19th cent., were also working out of minute
analyses of the text of the Pentateuch. One doesn't have to accept the
evolutionary paradigm in either science or philosophy to discern differences
in the language, structure, rhetoric, etc. of portions of a text. Whatever
the perceived excesses of the documentary hypotheses, its various forms are
based on _textual_ analyses.
I do not see that it follows that if one accepts the "evolutionary
assumptions" then "the Bible doesn't make much sense as an ancient
document." Speaking as one who accepts evolution as a valid scientific
paradigm, and who is presently teaching a course in Genesis to college
students, I can tell any reader of this note that neither my students nor I
would conclude from these magificent stories that the patriarchs were
"uneducated, unintelligent, superstitious nomads." Would anyone,
evolutionist or no, ever think Jacob was unintelligent!? These wide,
sweeping either/or assumptions make no sense.
The statement, "The question is, do we take the Bible at its word or do
we accept evolutionary assumptions first and then interpret the Bible within
them?" is IMO a false either/or choice. It also begs the question of how
one "takes" the Bible. We do not "take the Bible at its word"; we interpret
its words, whether we're anti-evolutionists or not.
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