From: Michael Roberts (michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk)
Date: Thu Nov 14 2002 - 12:27:31 EST
Bob
You don't realise what a bogeyman evolution is!!
Having said that various critics approached th eBible with particular
philosophical viewpoints FCBaur and the Tubingen school are a classic
example, we still suffer from their follies
Michael
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Schneider" <rjschn39@bellsouth.net>
To: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, November 13, 2002 2:17 AM
Subject: Re: Genesis in cuneiform on tablets
> 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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