From: Debbie Mann (deborahjmann@insightbb.com)
Date: Sat May 17 2003 - 13:04:26 EDT
From high school English. Simile - a comparison using like or as. Metaphor,
a comparison without like or as. My dictionary is a little more explicit. "A
figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of
object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy
between them. (As in the ship plows the sea.)
Could there have been a super nova within range during Joshua's day?
Ignorance is far less disconcerting.
-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu]On
Behalf Of PASAlist@aol.com
Sent: Saturday, May 17, 2003 1:03 AM
To: jeisele@starpower.net
Cc: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: The Tower of Babel - Less Confusing
In a message dated 05/16/2003 5:23:51 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
jeisele@starpower.net writes:
Again, I don't challenge your scholarship. I have found it
right on target. I probably wasn't specific enough in my
post. Part of that is that your reasoning on Genesis seems
so odd to me that I have a difficult time stating your
position.
You want to say God provided inaccurate information to
the Hebrews because they couldn't handle accurate information.
I really can't justify such a position. As for reason,
I find it keeps me from error.
Well, my reasoning (and George's, though slightly different) seemed odd to
Glenn Morton. He kept saying the same thing you are saying here. I believe
this inability to understand comes from being deeply ingrained with a
paradigm, so deeply ingrained that it is very difficult to get out of the
box. The paradigm says, If God spoke Genesis, then everything he said,
science as well as lessons on faith and morals, would have to be accurate,
true. It could not be any other way.
This assumption, paradigm, is rooted in reason. It is not that one should
not be reasonable or jettison reason, but that reason is an inadequate and
often misleading SOURCE of true knowledge. That is Rationalism, using reason
as a source, is the error. The Greeks were famous for distrusting empirical
data. They wanted absolute truths, and the only way they felt they could get
them was to go from observations to reason. Not to experiments with the
physical world, but to abstract reason. The loved math. It is that love of
rationalism that gave us the dictum that if one dropped a heavy weight from
a high location and a light weight at exactly the same time, the heavy
weight would hit the ground first. This is a perfect example of rationalism.
Human reason is quite satisfied that, of course the heavy weight would hit
the ground first. I have even posed this question to college graduates who
majored in some liberal art, but had little scientific training, and they
are very skeptical when I tell them that both weights will hit the ground at
the same time. I especially remember one gal who graduated from UC Berkeley.
When I told her the weights would hit the ground at the same time, she said
very emphatically with strong doubt in her voice, "Are you sure?"
Similarly the perfectly reasonable assumption that God would not say
anything which was not true is from Reason. As a rule of thumb for the
revelation which God intended to make in Scripture, I accept his word as
true, but it is not an absolute: it is not true for everything found there.
My position is not that "God provided inaccurate information to the Hebrews
because they couldn't handle accurate information." God did not provide the
cosmological ideas in Gen 1 or even the Flood story. Those ideas were
already present in the culture when he decided to speak through the writer
of Genesis. They were apparently inherited from the patriarchs. In any case
they were already there, just as the right to divorce a wife for any reason
was already there. In the latter case the hardness of heart of the
Israelites prevented God from supplying the pure truth. At least that is
what Jesus thought, and I agree. In the case of the stories in Gen 1-11, I
think providing a truer account would have at least made the communication
of the theological truths more difficult. I think the Israelites would have
been forced to stumble if they had been asked implicitly to set aside their
old ingrained prehistory. Also, it seems clear to me both from Gen 1:26-28
and the history of mankind, that God has delegated the discovery of
scientific truth to humankind. Accordingly, he does not reveal his knowledge
of scientific truth. He does not provide accurate information in that realm
even to his chosen people, and my study of Scripture shows me that all
science in the Bible from Gen 1 to Rev 21 is the science of the times.
As the OT shows, God had his hands full just trying to communicate
monotheism, holiness, etc. to the Israelites It would have been
counterproductive to add trying to teach them science, and there was no need
for it. In fact, Gen 1-11 is implicitly a polemic against the theology of
the times. It the basic prehistory had been set aside, the polemic and
witness to the true God would also have been undermined. It was written in
the thinking of the times because that is the way it would speak most
forcibly to people.
So, instead of relying on Rationalism to tell me what God must do or must
have done, I just look at the empirical facts. They tell me he has not
corrected their ingrained prescientific prehistory, and it is equally clear
to me that the prehistory comes essentially from the Mesopotamians. In that
part of the world it is the science of the day. For the readers it was
scientifically up to date.
So, God did not provide inaccurate information. Nor is he of such a
rationalistic frame of mind that he feels compelled to correct all they
believed. He implanted curiosity in humankind and gave them the task of
correcting the science---which we have done and are continuing to do. God is
a father and a teacher, and the OT is a tutor, Paul says, for the people of
God in their youth. God adapted his revelation of true theology to the
ingrained prescientific mentality of the times. For example, they believed
the sky was a solid dome, and the Babylonians said it had been put up by
Marduk after a terrific battle with the sea-goddess Tiamat. In order to
correct the bad theology, God takes up the concept of a solid sky, but
reveals that the Creator did not have to battle any goddess or anyone else
to make the sky. Indeed, the sky is presented as a completely natural part
of the universe, not attached or ruled by any god except the God who created
it. You want to see the divine revelation here? It is in the setting forth
of the sky as a completely natural part of the universe. No other peoples at
that time could even think like that. There is more revelation than that, of
course. But, I am just illustrating that God did communicate true revelation
to the Israelites, but via their preexisting ingrained scientific
understanding.
If I write anymore I will have a book here. So, I hope you can see my
approach to Genesis is perfectly reasonable but at the same time perfectly
honest. I don't have to distort the Bible or the sciences, and the
recognition that the science in Gen is ancient is based on the empirical
evidence showing that it is found in the ancient Near Eastern writings. The
recognition that the theology is indeed a divine revelation is based on the
witness of the Holy Spirit , yes, but also on the fact that the theology
stands in strong contrast, indeed in some places apparently purposeful
contrast to the theology of the times; and it is superior to that ancient
theology.
Think about this. It is a different paradigm, just as reasonable as the
old rationalistic one, but it flows from the data, not lording it over the
data.
Paul
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