Re: Biblical Interpretation Reconsidered

On Dec 17, 2003, at 3:16 PM, Jack Haas wrote:
>  
> Can any of you suggest an approach (or better have had success with an
> approach) that canmove such believers from this "wooden" take on God's
> word?   Or, perhaps, what moved you from this view?
>  
> I'm preparing a collection of FAQs related to our interests from the
> list and other resources. (Names always deleted)
>  
> Thank you.
>  
> Jack Haas

Greetings Jack, and all. I recently started lurking (again) and hey,
ho, here's something I can comment on in some small measure. I know a
few of the contributors to this list are familiar with my stuff as they
are active on the theologyweb.com forum.(Hi guys)

I recently wrote a paper called " Genesis One and Beyond: An
Investigation of the Temporal Questions of Creation in the Biblical
Texts" that takes the Framework Interpretation as the best explanation
of the data. In it I turned the YEC's strongest argument against them.
  The claim is that the word translated 'day' in the text (Hebrew YOM)
when modified by a numerical adjective is always an ordinary day. This
is an extremely strong exegetical argument against interpretations that
take the YOM to mean something other than an ordinary day, such as the
Day-Age view. The unfortunate thing for the 24-hour group is that they
don't take the first three days as ordinary days, but utterly abnormal,
non-solar 24-hour periods of time. Since this is an extremely strong
argument against non-ordinary-day interpretations, that would include
the 24-hour interpretation.

If you can get a 24-hour person to bite on "it always means an ordinary
day" then you might be able to shock them into seeing that they don't
actually do what they claim to do...take them as ordinary days. Since
the Framework Interpretation takes all 6 creation days to mean ordinary
days, it doesn't commit that mistake.

If you're interested, you can download the paper in Word format from
Lee Irons' website here:
http://www.upper-register.com/other_studies.html

It was also posted as HTML to theologyweb.com for discussion. Here's
the link.
http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?
action=showthread&postid=274421#post274421

The other thing that might help (from my perspective) is to show them
that Moses wrote the Genesis 1 narrative purposely avoiding use of the
grammatical pattern that would indicate a chronological enumeration of
time periods. I covered this in an addendum to the paper that I'll
quote a small section of:

---begin quote---
1. For enumerating periods of time in the two idiomatic exceptions
above, the pattern is:
Cardinal, cardinal, cardinal, etc. (definites with article for months,
definites via proper noun for the king's reign)

2. For enumerating periods of time other than the two exceptions
discussed, the pattern is:
Ordinal, ordinal, ordinal, etc. (definites with article)

3. For enumerating countables, the pattern is:
Cardinal, ordinal, ordinal, etc. (definites with article)

4. The Genesis pattern is:
Cardinal, ordinal, ordinal, etc. (mix of definites with article and
indefinites)
---end quote---

If Moses had wanted to indicate that the Genesis 1 narrative was
actually an enumeration of time periods, he would have used pattern #2,
not what he used in #4 (which looks suspiciously like what we find it
pattern #3 *grin*). This shoots down their claim that the
'straightforward' reading is of a chronological enumeration of time
periods.

If you'd like a copy of the paper, email me and I'll send it to you.
babucher@alum.mit.edu

Time will tell if these are effective methods for getting many YECs to
listen, but so far I've been pleased with the response, both public and
private.

Regards,
Brian
Received on Thu Dec 18 18:22:14 2003