RE: ICR - Jan 2005

At 10:34 PM 31/01/2005, Dick Fischer wrote:
>Charles wrote:
>
> >So should we decide that Genesis 1-11 is historical just so that we can
> "win the war" against creationists?
>
>I think we could decide that at least Genesis 2-11 could be historical
>based upon data and evidence - the stuff of science. Genesis 1 is more
>pre-historical, but not out of the bounds of reason.

Even my uncle who was a doctor in Theology took the whole of Gen.1-11 as
not based on history as we understand history. That was before WWII. He
came to that conclusion, among other things, by comparing the Old Testament
and the El Amarna tablets (learning to read them in the original) and
comparing the results (the Amarna tablets wrote about history as well) to
history as written by the early historians in the Near East. Then he
considered the results with what excavations taught about the size of
possible populations. He quoted in his book on the El Amarna tablets the
size of Jericho, when the walls `fell down`` and concluded that the numbers
in Gen. about the size of the Israelitic population at that time cannot be
as we read in our modern translations.
I think that God would speak to the old Israelites (and other peoples) in a
language they understood, not in a way of speaking based on modern
historical and scientific ways of thinking. The Bible tells us too that we
should speak to children in a childlike way. God`s speaking is adjusted to
the level of understanding of His listeners.

It does mean that I will not argue with people who seem not to be able to
understand since that means only arguments and further arguments. It only
becomes necessary to study these things when learned people start talking
theological and scientific impossibilities. Are there many of those on
this list? And what are their arguments?

I have had to talk about this issue since 1988 publicly, and get the
impression that those who do not want to believe that the earth is older
than a few thousand years keep on not doing the necessary work to
understand what their opponents say.

Jan de Koning

Jan de Koning
Received on Tue Feb 1 12:39:22 2005