From: Ted Davis (TDavis@messiah.edu)
Date: Tue Oct 28 2003 - 11:01:48 EST
Dick Fischer's suggestion about a book is interesting, the one Keith Miller
recently edited for Eerdmans doesn't address the biblical concerns as
directly as some other things I've seen. (It doesn't ignore them, either,
it just doesn't address them as fully as creationists need them to be
addressed.)
An essay from PSCF many years ago is the best one I have ever used with
students; that is, they see the concerns and get the message, although they
do not all find the argument persuasive enough to give up YEC. The article
is by Conrad Hyers, "Dinosaur Religion: On Interpreting and Misinterpreting
the Creation Texts," JASA (Sept 1984): 142-48. Hyers wrote another essay in
Miller's book, a good essay but not as effective (IMO) as the earlier one.
Hyers lays out very nicely, the interpretive issues related to Genesis One.
He also indicates why "dinosaur religion" (evolutionary naturalism as
religion) is objectionable, and why "scientific creationism" is also
objectionable. My students all invariably agree with his large point, that
Genesis is a "sweeping affirmation of monotheism" vs pantheism and
polytheism; but some of them would like Genesis to be more than that.
I consider this a fair objection to his article, incidentally. For 18
centuries, almost all Christians did view Genesis as an historical and
roughly or strictly chronological account of creation. Not every sensible
person has to agree, that our knowledge of the other ancient near east
creation texts have to affect our reading of Genesis in precisely this way.
But a large number do agree--on biblical grounds.
ted
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