From: George Murphy (gmurphy@raex.com)
Date: Sun Oct 12 2003 - 16:43:52 EDT
allenroy wrote:
>
> > I suppose it depends upon which translation of the Bible
> you choose to
> > read. For instance, the NIV reads:
>
> Of course you are not required to accede to my
> request to "suspend disbelief"
> temporarily, but you haven't, & that makes me wonder if it's
> even been worthwhile to
> present the argument. What you have done is move
> immediately to "harmonizing" Gen.1 &
> 2, with the rather tendentious perfect tenses of NIV as
> support.
>
> I did "suspend disbelief" for a while, but it leads no where but
> confusion. Besides, I believe that you are being inconsistently
> super-literal. (see below).
>
> To all your comments in brackets below I (or any
> other critical reader) would
> ask, "How do you know this?" To say that 2:4b is "a
> reference to the Creation Week"
> assumes at the outset that the 2 accounts are to be
> harmonized as historical narratives
> - which is the point in question.
>
> The first creation account ends with these word which refer back to
> the just completed Creation Week, "This is the account of the heavens
> and the earth when they were created." En 2:4a
> So, when one reads in Gen. 2:4b "When the LORD God made the earth and
> the heavens--" it is obvious that this second phrase is a reference
> to, in fact, a repeat of, the first phrase (2:4a) which is talking
> about the just completed Creation Week. Therefore, 2:4b can be
> nothing else but a reference to the Creation Week.
The "confusion" to which you refer is just the possibility that the Genesis
accounts might not be what you thought they were - i.e., historical narratives. & the
"obvious" character of your interpretation of 2:4 results just from your claim that
you're right. I.e., you're not willing to examine your basic presupposition of the
character of these texts.
> You may say that your harmonizing approach is a
> possible interpretation. Of
> course it is. But it is an interpretation which you bring
> to the texts, not one that
> arises naturally from reading them.
>
> Of course it is interpretation. Like you said, the Bible needs
> interpreting. And I believe that it does arise naturally unless you
> are trying to be super literal.
>
> On the NIV's perfect tenses ("had planted" &c.):
> Rendering of Hebrew verbs into
> Indo-European tenses can be tricky because of course Hebrew
> doesn't have tenses in that
> sense. But I see no justification for translating /wayita`/
> &c as perfects rather than
> as simple pasts. I yield to anybody on the list like Paul
> Seely who's more of a
> Hebraist than I on this.
> [snip]
> The "problem" is simply that you've shoehorned the
> story of Chapter 2 into the
> framework of Chapter 1 because of your a priori assumptions
> about the characters of
> these accounts - & thereby do violence to both texts. In
> spite of your talk about
> getting your interpretation from the Bible, you are simply
> imposing a traditional
> interpretation on the Bible.
>
> What it all comes down to is whether one chooses to be a
> super-literalist--insisting that the verb tenses be followed precisely
> --which results in contextual conflicts between the two chapters, or
> whether one recognizes that subtle difference of meaning of just two
> verbs will result in complete contextual harmony. And, contextual
> harmony is exactly what one would expect and desire.
>
> I believe that in this case, you are more literal--super-literal--than
> those you denounce for being literalists. And because you are being
> super literal here, you insist that these two accounts cannot be
> harmonized and that gives you liberty to be much less than literal
> with the rest of the creation accounts, inventing redactors to serve
> your purpose.
This is really precious! Your "interpretation" of the text involves changing
what it says when it doesn't agree with your preconceptions, & I'm accused of being
"super-literal" because I insist on paying attention to what the text says!
Part of the problem, I realize, comes from ambiguity in the word "literal."
When it's used in a phrase like "biblical literalist" it refers to people who insist
that the biblical texts in question must be read as accounts of "history as it really
happened" rather than as in some ways "figurative. In that sense I am critical of
"literalism." (N.B. This doesn't mean that no biblical texts are historical
narratives, but only that one shouldn't assume that all are.)
But in another sense being "literal" means paying attention to the precise words
that are used - whether they function figuratively or not. "He makes me to lie down in
green pastures" in Ps.23 is figurative, but that doesn't justify changing it to "he
makes me to lie down in desert wastes." If being "super-literal" means that I think we
should pay attention to what scripture says instead of making it say what we want it
too, I plead guilty.
Even though I don't think that Gen.2:4b-25 is straight historical narrative, it
is a continuous narrative, & the precise wording which expresses the flow of the action
in the story is important. God creates the man, then plants, then animals, then the
woman.
OTOH your "contextual harmony" is something you were intent on finding from the
beginning. You find it by ignoring what 2:4b-25 actually says & forcibly clamping the 2
accounts together.
>
> Traditional interpreters knew about the questions of when
> the angels were created, when some fell, &c. But they never
> thought they had to have millions of years to do it. You
> say "Since it is inconceivable that all this [creation of
> angels &c ...] could happen in less than 3 rotations of
> planet earth ... " Nonsense! How long did it take God to
> create angels? How long did "war in heaven" last? Do you
> really imagine that you can measure these things by
> terrestrial time scales, that it took as long as WWII to
> cast Satan out of heaven &c. This is just a pretext for
> arguing that there is internal evidence for a long period of
> time between 1:1 & 1:2.
>
> We know that Angels exist.
> We know that they exist and work within the universe.
> We know that they are created beings.
> We are not told, however, when they were created.
> We know that Lucifer was created a perfect being.
>
> How long would it take for anyone, created perfect, with no bent to
> rebel, to reach the point of considering rebellion?
> How long would it take for the seeds of rebellion to grow in an
> environment that promotes love and acceptance?
> How long would it take for Satan to begin to make headway in
> convincing others of his position in an environment that is
> antithetical to his views.
> How long would God be patient with Satan.
> How long would it take for Satan's views to be come powerful enough to
> cause disruption of heaven so that he must be removed from his
> position.
>
> We know that there was war in heaven and Satan was cast out. Rev 12.
> We know that Jesus said "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven."
> LK 10:18
> Satan's fall happened before Jesus became incarnate because His fight
> on the cross had not yet happened.
>
> We are not given any time spans for all this, but surely, to think
> that all this happened in split seconds is stretching credulity.
We have no idea what time might mean for angelic beings or how long any of the
phenomena you speak of took place. Angels are traditionally supposed to have the
properties (among others) of "illocality, definitive ubiety and agility" - which
suggests that things can happen pretty fast for them. For all we know Satan being cast
out of heaven took a millionth of a second in our time. To be more generous, note that
in Paradise Lost Milton describes the revolt of Satan, war in heaven, & the casting out
of the evil angels as taking - 4 days!
Of course I don't cite Milton as an authority here but simply as someone who
shares traditional beliefs about angels but who had no chronological ax to grind &
described these events as taking a relatively short time. & I am making no commitment
at this point on the question of how authentically biblical traditional angelology &
demonology are. But it's clear that, even with those traditions assumed, there is
absolutely no basis for any claim about the length of time for a "gap" (if there had
been a gap) beyond the need to get the billions of years demanded by science into the
account.
..................
> I didn't start this converstion with the intention
> of watching you play "I can
> harmonize it for you." Until you show some willingness to
> take what I'm saying
> seriously, there's nothing to go for.
>
> I dare you to show how it cannot be harmonized.
I double dare you (during recess).
You have quite missed the point. I didn't say that they couldn't be harmonized
as historical accounts - if one is willing to do violence to the texts. I can play the
harmonizing game if it comes to that, making Jesus heal a blind man as he went into
Jericho (Lk) & then two as he left the city (Mt) [with almost the same dialogue in both
cases] - of whom Mark didn't bother to mention one - & similar games. But that sort of
gimmickry fails to take scripture seriously. It replaces the Bible, with its 2 creation
stories, 4 gospels &c, with a "harmony" which irons out the particularity of the texts.
Scripture _is_ harmonious - on a theological level. But trying to harmonize
everything on an historical level just doesn't do justice to the texts, however much it
may be comfortable for some folks' preconceptions about the Bible.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sun Oct 12 2003 - 16:45:24 EDT