Re: concordance & genesis (edited)

In this post, I am just keeping George's last comments, skipping the
discussions that had occurred before.

george murphy wrote:
>... I have "confounded" nothing. The existence of material from different sources which tell of what are putatively the same events differently is one reason why an exegete will take seriously the possibility that one or both accounts are not historical narratives. That holds for the various gospel ccounts as well as for those of the OT. <

George, the question whether an apparent narrative is composed of
accounts from two different sources is not the same thing as the
question whether this (possibly composite) narrative is historical. Both
may be true or false, or one may be true and the other false. This is
the issue I addressed, because you brought these two questions together,
and, as I understood it, mixed them. Now you are bringing up yet another
question: whether two narratives of what appears to be the same story
must be attributed to different authors because they appear to
contradict each other. There may also be one or more possible ways of
harmonizing the two accounts without forcing any text: either the
contradiction is only apparent, or they really relate to two different
events.
 
> GM: Some analysis here will bring out the defects of insisting that all the stories in the Bible are historical narratives. (& in spite of Peter's theoretical disclaimers that he's willing to consider the possibility that they aren't, he never seems to recognize that any story that looks superficially like history is _non_ historical.) <

I have clearly said before that I consider various stories in the Old
and New Testaments as non-historical, e.g. the crowning of a tree, the
Ohola/Oholiba story, various parables Jesus told and probably others.
But I have never made an inventory. On the other hand, all the cases you
have brought up so far are more questionable cases, which other
theological commentators take as historical. Jonah is a borderline case
- and I have said before that I am not yet sure whether to take this
book as basically historical. It's just that so far I have brought up
arguments for historicity, because you brought up exclusively ones
against it.
 
> GM: First, I have emphasized that there was a real Jonah and of course a real Nineveh. But that doesn't make the Book of Jonah historical narrative. Historical novels with Joan of Arc or Hitler as characters, or ones set in New York or Tokyo aren't historical simply because they make use of real people or places. <

You only emphasized that there was a real Jonah after I had said so. But
I agree that this doesn't necessarily make the book historical
narrative.
 
> GM: Second, you ask below, 'And who was the "writer of Jonah", if the text itself claims to be written by the historical "Jonah the son of Amittai"?' An interesting question - if the text made that claim. But it doesn't. 1:1-2 is God's command to Jonah, within the framework of the story, to go to Nineveh, not a command to write the Book of Jonah! <

The formula "The word of the Lord came to [the prophet's name]" (Jonah
1:1) appears to be one of the usual ways by which a writing prophet
introduced his own writing (cf. Hosea, Joel, Micah, Zeph.).
 
> GM: Third (I am not following Peter's order), those who are "in a position to comment on the extent of the awakening indicated" agree that there is no evidence at all that such a mass conversion of the capital of the Assyrian empire took place in the time of Jonah. The records are fairly detailed and there is no mention of the worship of YHWH, pagan deities continued to be worshipped down to the destruction of the city, & the Assyrians continued to be as ruthless as ever. If the whole capital of the superpower of the time had been converted to Yahwism, there ought to be some independent evidence of it. There isn't - & not for lack of any records of the period. <

Negative evidence is notoriously weak, and, in addition, you request an
unreasonable extent of an awakening. What's the historical record of the
impact of Hezekiah's and Josiah's reforms? Did _all_ Judea repent on the
basis of John's preaching? (Mat.3:5 says "all"). In order to compare the
impacts of these "awakenings" with that of Niniveh, we would have to
look what the spiritual situation of Israel some years after Hezekiah,
Josiah, or John the Baptist was. We would hardly find much more
spirituality than in the Niniveh Nahum denounced, although Hezekiah,
Josiah, John and their spiritual impact on many are undoubtably
historical. Do we have _any_ biblical report of an awakening lasting 100
years? Jonah lived 100-150 years before the fall of Niniveh. Humans are
fickle.
 
> GM: Fourth, Gen.10:11-12 doesn't show that all the cities mentioned were included in Nineveh. In fact, the Hebrew word order would naturally mean that Calah, not Nineveh, was "the great city" - & it in fact would have outranked Nineveh in political importance before the rise of the later Assyrian empire. (Vgl.E.A. Speiser, _Genesis_, in The Anchor Bible.) <

I concede this possibility.
 
> GM: Fifth, of course one can postulate that Jonah actually preached long sermons in addition to the 5 words actually given in the text - but why? Why not first pay attention to what the text says before introducing all kinds of "might have, could have" explanations to make it fit with what you think should have happened? & in fact the 5 word message and its amazing effect in converting the whole city (including those who only heard of it 2d, 3d, &c hand since Jonah only got a little way into the "great city" & only a few would have heard him) is quite consistent with the whole point of the story.
> Because remember - Jonah doesn't _want_ Nineveh to be converted! That's why he ran away in Ch.1 - not because he was afraid of persecution or anything of the sort but because he hated the Ninevites (as, given their treatment of Israel, what Jew wouldn't) & didn't want them to repent. He wanted God to destroy them - vgl. 4:1-3. So he walks a little way into Nineveh, says the minimum message that God has told him to speak, and walks out. He can say, "OK God, I've done what you told me to" - confident that his few words can't have any effect. But God _does_ want Nineveh to be converted, and uses even this feeble means in order to save it. <

I agree that this is a plausible interpretation. All I said is that the
text does not explicitely say Jonah said nothing but the 5 words
recorded. But whatever the case, I don't see what this implies about the
historicity (or not) of the story. In both cases, whether in the story
or in reality, it would have been a divine miracle, as you indicate,
therefore no argument against historicity.
 
> GM: Sixth, of course "Should not I pity Niniveh?" (Jonah 4:11) make[s] sense in a 'merely didactical parable' - though it is hardly "hypothetical." IT'S THE WHOLE POINT OF THE STORY! It's the quite non-hypothetical attitude of the God of Israel to the insular Israelite Jonah, expressed in a rhetorical question. (Because Jonah already knows that YHWH is "a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing harm" [4:2].)
> But it's more than that, going beyond the bounds of the story of Jonah. It reaches out and grabs the collar of Peter Ruest and George Murphy and everybody else who hears the story and demands "Should I not pity Nineveh - and Nazi Germany - and al Qaeda - and ... [fill in your nemesis here]." <

Yes, I agree that this is the central point of the story. But then, _if_
the story is indeed but a parable, why did God not send Jonah _in
reality_ to preach to the Ninivites, if he so pities them? This is what
I meant to point out.
 
> GM: Seventh, there are a lot of other occurrences which are improbable as history which come together to make the story work. Not only the city of Nineveh but the pagan sailors are converted by Jonah's preaching (1:14). Not only is Jonah swallowed by a fish unknown to science, but he sings a hymn of _thanksgiving_ while still inside it. (& BTW, a hymn which sounds as if he were threatened with drowning [2:5] rather than being digested.) & yes, I exaggerated a bit in saying that the animals actually were clothed in sackcloth - though the command to do so is remarkable enough! <

The sailors are deeply moved by the very genuine testimony of Jonah (not
any "preaching"), as well as by their very realistic fear of drowning
themselves. Conversion may be an exaggeration. We don't know whether
it's a fish or a whale (old Hebrew probably didn't make the difference),
and I am not sure whether all of these are scientifically excluded. And
I am not so convinced as you seem to be that in a whale's belly he would
not be in danger of drowning before being digested. As to Jonah's hymn
of thanksgiving, I understand it as having been written after the
experience. 2:1 mentions his praying while in the belly of the whale,
but 2:2-9 sounds more like having been formulated afterwards, and having
being placed between v.1 and 10 as an insertion to mark the dramatic
situation. If 2-9 were the formulation of his prayer while in the whale,
it would have to be cast in the present tense, not in the past, which is
used by all translations I checked. The fact that it is a thanksgiving
is in accordance with this interpretation.

> GM: If I failed to understand what you were saying, it was only to the extent of not realizing that you were going to qualify that statement away. If God "fully [N.B.] respects the prophet's personality including his language, culture, lack of knowledge, way of thinking, etc" then God is willing to make use of mythical ways of thinking in order to convey his message if such ways of thinking are part of the prophet's culture. But then note what I said earlier, which follows here.
> > GM: Having said this, I would add that much of the use of "myth" in the Bible is in the form of what Brevard Childs called "broken myth" - i.e., not just uncritical presentation of pagan myths but use of their language to express the faith of Israel. Childs' _Myth and Reality in the Old Testament_ is a very helpful treatment including detailed study of several texts. <

I did not take back or "qualify that statement away", but added a
complementary aspect to it. A prophet being divinely inspired to
formulate a message for his hearers/readers in the name of his Lord is a
two-sided proposition: it has a human, but also a divine side. If God
wants to commmunicate something, he certainly is not going to let the
prophet talk any odd pieces out of his own ideas, without providing him
with any hint or guidance. There are a lot of possibilities between
God's dictating word for word and his letting the prophet completely
unrestrained. I don't see any reason why God _has_ to employ myth, even
broken myth, unless it is presented as a story in such a way that both
the prophet and his audience are absolutely clear about the fact that it
is "just a story" and that it never "happened as told". But if the
prophet and/or his hearers/readers are of the mistaken impression that
"it really happened like this", although it never did, there is
something wrong. Would God use such bad didactics?

> GM: But when the whole story is pervaded by humorous exaggeration one ought to start thinking seriously about what kind of account it is. <

Your arguments have not convinced me that Jonah is fiction. As I said, I
think it might possibly be a parable, but the evidence for such an
interpretation remains weak.

> > > GM: 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. <
> >
> > PR: That's one interpretation.
>
> GM: It's an interpretation of the text that makes sense in its cultural context. That is quite different from your interpretation which assumes a scientific understanding of the world for which we have no evidence in the culture in which Genesis was written. <

Your claim that Armin Held's and my interpretation assumes a scientific
understanding of the world _by the ancients_ is without foundation. We
don't claim Genesis provides _any_ scientific information. We just claim
that, by God's gracious guidance of the inspiration process, it may be
_compatible_ with it. Nor do we claim that this compatibility modifies
the theological understanding the ancients or the early Christians or
those of the Middle Ages or anybody else can have of the text. But its
significance is the removal of stumbling blocks for those who are
cognizant of such scientific realities. As it stands, the text makes
sense not just in its cultural context, but for people of all times and
cultures, but not with a mythological interpretation. People of
different times and cultures may clothe the theological kernel in
somewhat different worldviews when reading the text, but all can do so
without running into conflicts with genuine realities known in their own
times. The natural flexibility of human languages (not mathematical
ones) would allow for such a possibility. Flexibility doesn't mean
"anything goes", but it makes dogmatic statements of a single correct
specific interpretation of a given expression rather questionable.

> GM: And I am sorry that I have to reject your claim that there is some symmetry in our approaches to interpretation. Concentrating here on Gen.1:14-19, there is simply nothing in the text about any cloud cover breaking open. The claim that that's what the text is talking about is, indeed, pure assertion. If you think that's too harsh, find 20 intelligent but biblically illiterate people who have never read Genesis. (In the present state of Christianity in Europe, that shouldn't be hard.) Have them read Genesis 1 in a good translation and ask them what they think vv.14-19 is about. Let me know how many think it's about "the previously permanent cloud cover breaking open."
> & there's no need for any sophisticated knowledge of Hebrew or anything like that. There's nothing about cloud cover in the Hebrew either. <

Although I have explained many times why I am engaging in this approach
(together with Armin Held) and what it implies and entails, you still
seem to misunderstand it. If you want to, I can try again. As I told
Dave Siemens, if you want to prove our proposal impossible, you'll have
to deal with it on its own terms, not on yours. You keep pounding on
some detail, taken out of its context, and deal with it in the context
of your own axioms. Gen.1:14-19 neither says that there is a solid dome,
nor that God fixed the luminaries onto it. With respect to your
suggestion to have 20 intelligent, biblically "naive" people say what
they think it means, is virtually impossible to put into practice in a
meaningful way, although I don't dispute the abysmal biblical illiteracy
among modern Europeans. I have 6 good German translations (which are not
just Uebertragungen), i.e. Elberfelder, Schlachter, Luther '84, Zwingli,
Menge, Bruns. But _all_ of them formulate something like "an der Feste",
"am Himmelsgewölbe", etc., which confirm what is the old and mistaken
prejudice, as can be seen by contrasting it with the correct translation
in the NIV Interlinear, which says "in the expanse" for "be-raqia^".
Similarly, Segond correctly has "dans l'étendu du ciel", Darby "dans
l'étendu des cieux", Casa della Bibbia "nella distesa dei cieli",
Sociedadas Bíblicas en América Latina "en la expansión de los cielos".
In addition, we have, all over Europe, the deplorable state church
system or its derivatives, which still have the power to influence
virtually all young people through compulsory classes, and most of the
time, this occurs in a theologically liberal and
destructively-bible-critical environment. Even if I ventured to try, I
probably could not find a single unprejudiced reader in German-speaking
areas. Unfortunately, the Vulgate "firmamentum" has been impressed upon
European culture and thinking for nearly 2 millennia, and German
theology, which passed from scientific ignorance to liberal
destructive-criticism ignorance, never seemed to be properly motivated
to correct this old mistake. I am desolate that modern evangelical
theologians are mostly content to continue this sad state of affairs.
 
> GM: There is just as much mention of the Sumerians outside the Garden as of the permanent cloud cover in Chapter 1 - d.h., zero.

Have I ever claimed the text to mention Sumerians directly? Of course,
on the prejudice that Gen.1-2 cannot have any historical basis, they
must not be found indirectly, either.

Peter

-- 
Dr. Peter Ruest, CH-3148 Lanzenhaeusern, Switzerland
<pruest@dplanet.ch> - Biochemistry - Creation and evolution
"..the work which God created to evolve it" (Genesis 2:3)