From: Jan de Koning (jan@dekoning.ca)
Date: Tue Jul 01 2003 - 11:00:08 EDT
I tried to stay out of this conversation, but I would like to point to a
book written by my uncle. Unfortunately for many it is written in Dutch,
which some of you may be able to read. The book is: Dr.J.de Koning
"Studien over de El-Amarnabrieven en het Oude Tesyament inzonderheid uit
historisch oogpunt", Delft 1940. I saw it in several university
libraries. He claims that the numbers in the OT are not numbers in our
sense apparently. One of the facts he based it on was that the scientific
excavations of Jericho showed that it was impossible for the number of
people mentioned in the Bible to walk seven times around the small town as
it was then on one day. He mentions other reasons as well, but this one
stuck in my mind. In general he said we have to be very careful with
numbers in the OT because apparently they used them in a different way than
we do, and he had no explanation for it.
When I grew up I heard interesting debates, since another uncle was an
adherent of the so-called Bristish-Israel movement. The result was that I
remained interested in the subject, but not in debating it, since it gets
you nowhere. Apparently those who reject the way modern science shows
history, are not interested in what science has shown. And on the other
hand many people have had all kinds of explanations of numbers in the
bible. Few remain, and most are not founded on an understanding of the
thinking of OT Bible writers who wrote for a people who had no scientific
grounding.
Yes, we are interested in studying relationships of the Bible and
Science. In our denomination we had a study committee on it around
1990. It came out with an extensive report in 1991, I believe.
Jan de Koning
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