Sorry for being behind folks. After catching up on my reading, I felt it
necessary to respond to this one. Thanks for the understanding.
Don Perrett's responses to posting by George Murphy:......
GM: Genesis 1 & 2, the different parts of the flood story, the 2 accounts
of Saul's 1st acquaintance with David - all of these _look_ as if they're
composed of material from different sources, but the concordist immediately
starts to figure out ways to "harmonize" them as historical narratives - as
Peter did when I commented on the flood story. Why is this the case if one
seriously entertains the idea that everything doesn't have to be historical
narrative?
DP: So should we apply the same reasoning to the descriptions of Jesus'
actions? There are more than just two of them. So should we also believe
that this was just a tale or do we take it as an historical event? I would
venture to say that all Christians believe it to be history. Why is the OT
any different?
GM: Am I overstating the matter? Below I mention briefly the book of
Jonah, &
though this probably _isn't_ made up of material from different sources,
there are good
reasons to think that it isn't an historical account? Or will Peter & other
concordists
immediately start explaining that Nineveh really was as big as it says, that
Jonah
really said more than 5 words, that all the animals really did put on
sackcloth, that
the capital of Assyria really did undergo a mass conversion, &c. Or will
they really
consider the possibility that this isn't history. Surprise me.
& this is why it was reasonable for me to ask Peter what of theological
value
would be lost if Job were fiction, & why it wasn't an answer for him to ask
what would
be lost if it were fact (i.e., history). The situations are not symmetrical
because I
certainly believe that major passages in the OT are historical narrative
while the
practice of concordists suggests that they aren't willing to consider that
some aren't.
But as I said, surprise me.
DP: And Christ did not actually bring someone back from the dead or make a
blind man see or rise from the grave. There is no such thing as
resurrection because it is not scientifically proveable. I understand your
point, but have YOU considered the possibility that all events in the bible
are in fact actual events albeit overexagerrated. The intricate details may
have been lost in time, translation and such, but why would anyone entertain
the idea of the story just being made up? Christ used parables and I'm sure
that there are some in the OT but unless someone can show grammatically or
textually that any passage is a parable, I choose to take it as fact. And
whether I understand the translation or interpretation is for me to deal
with. The bible is not the shortcoming but my understanding of God's word.
So yes there are some things that are not history but just because something
does not seem plausible is a criterion that sets oneself up for spiritual
failure.
GM: Finally, the question is not just about literary forms but about the
writers'
use of the state of the art knowledge of the world of their time. The
writer of Gen.1
wasn't just writing a story in which the sky was a dome - he thought it
really was a
dome.
DP: And you don't think you're presuming too much? How can anyone, either
way, state what someone thinks, let alone a writer from millenia ago? This
of course goes both ways. I however am inclined to believe that while the
writer's perspective is included within any writing, God should be able to
insure that HIS message is still visibly apparent regardless of the writers
intent. Not a large task considering he was able to create an entire
universe.
GM: Please note that I have not described the biblical narratives as
"ancient
_mythological_ worldviews." The flat earth with solid dome of the sky & the
waters
above the heavens in Gen.1 are part of an archaic cosmology but it is not
mythological.
In fact, the writer of that text goes to some pains to _de_mythologize it.
But that was
done for theological purposes, not because either the human writer or the
Holy Spirit
were trying to teach us any aspects of _modern_ scientific cosmology.
PR Now this is strange! A "flat earth with a solid dome of the sky & the
waters above the heavens" is not mythology? If I understood correctly,
those who claim to find this "archaic cosmology" in Gen.1 think it was
taken over from polytheistic pagan myths, just substituting one God for
the many gods to "demythologize" it, to put it somewhat simply. If this
was the writer's agenda, why did he not clearly state it? The prophets
like Isaiah had no qualms at all to call pagan gods "nothings",
"dungheaps", etc. and to heap ridicule on those who insisted on
believing in them and their worldviews.
.......................
Nothing strange there. There is no necessary religious significance to a
"flat
earth with a solid dome of the sky & the waters above the heavens." It's
just the way a
lot of people in the ancient near east saw the world - & from the standpoint
of those
living in a limited part of the world, not an especially stupid way of
seeing it. In
the Middle Ages some (though by no means all) Christians understood the
world in this
way without seeing any contradiction with Christian faith.
This is archaic geography & astronomy, not mythology. It is mythological
when
the world was made out of the body of Tiamat or Ymir, when the stars are
deities that
control human lives, &c. & the writer of Gen.1 demythologizes this
cosmology by, e.g.,
putting the creation of the "great lights" - sans names that suggest
divinity - in the
middle of the week to serve definite purposes, & leaving the stars as an
afterthought.
It's more subtle demythologizing than calling the Babylonian gods nasty
names, at least
as effective.
...........
GM I would not say that Gen.2:7 simply could not be about a single first
human
being who was a real historical (& historic - historische und
geschichtliche) figure.
But internal evidence indicates that it needn't be read that way &
scientific evidence
suggests that it shouldn't be.
PR You may not remember what Armin Held and I published in PSCF 4/1999,
231: we consider Gen.1:26f to deal with the creation of humans and 2:7
with the much later call of Adam, who was not the first man. But
thinking these two passages talk of the same event is one of the main
stumbling blocks for Genesis interpreters. It is probably one of the two
main mistakes responsible for the fact that even evangelical theologians
seem to feel that the only feasible way to interpret Gen.1-2 is to
accept the source-critical speculations (the other main mistake is
thinking Gen.1:14ff deals with the creation of the heavenly bodies).
I see little merit in the arguments of that article. The idea that these
are
"stumbling blocks" is mere assertion on your part. The sun, moon and stars
were made on
the 4th day: The statement in your article that God "caused the previously
permanent
cloud cover to break open" is pure speculation. You are rewriting the Bible
to make it
fit your notions. It is a more serious error to imagine that 2:7 is the
"call" of Adam,
as I note below.
PR Adam was not the first human. And "Yahweh God fashioned [yatzar] the
Adam - dust [^afar] of the ground" (Gen.2:7) need not imply that this
was Adam's miraculous creation out of non-living matter, just as little
as for Job, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, who use analogous metaphors, even
partly exactly the same words. "I too was taken from clay" (Job 33:6).
He pleads with God: "Your hands shaped me and made me ... Re-member that
you molded me like clay. Will you now turn me to dust [^afar] again?"
(Job 10:8-9). But he also specifies: "Did not he who made me in the womb
make them? Did not the same one form [not yatzar] us both within the
womb?" (Job 31:15). Isaiah 64:8 says: "We are the clay [not ^afar] and
you are our potter [participle of yatzar], we are all the work of your
hand". Similarly, Jeremiah (1:5) was formed [yatzar] in the womb by God.
Thus, "to be formed out of dust" by God, or "formed out of clay" (as a
potter does) was a customary metaphor for God's making one grow in one's
mother's womb. Didn't Job, Isaiah and Jeremiah consider their own births
to be historical events (in addition to whatever theological statement
they wanted to make in that connection)?
.......................
If you focus narrowly on the language of Gen.2:7 you can draw parallels
with the
passages you mention, but reading the entire story of 2:4b-25 makes it quite
clear that
it is about the first humans. The creature made in 2:7 is "the Adam" - "the
human" who
is given the commission of all humans, to guarad & keep the earth & to know
the animals.
"It is not good for the man to be alone" - which he wouldn't have been if
he weren't
the first human.
Adam is a theological representation of the first human. This is obvious
in
I Corinthians 15:47: "The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the
second man is
from heaven." The whole Adam-Christ theme falls apart if Adam is not
understood to mean
the first human. You are selling out a major part of the theological
significance of
the creation stories.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
Received on Thu Dec 11 08:19:32 2003
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