Re: The Oldest Homo Sapiens: Fossils Push Human Emergence BackTo 195,000 Years Ago

----- Original Message -----
From: <RFaussette@aol.com>
To: ""George Murphy"" <gmurphy@raex.com>; """Dick Fischer"""
<dickfischer@earthlink.net>; """"ASA"""" <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, March 01, 2005 8:53 PM
Subject: Re: The Oldest Homo Sapiens: Fossils Push Human Emergence BackTo
195,000 Years Ago

> George wrote:
> There is no way that scientific study of evolution or of anything else
> will tell you that Jesus of Nazareth is God Incarnate.
>
> rich:
> I agree. You have to know that in your heart, it is a matter of faith and
> has nothing to do with science, but the rational mechanics in genesis
> regarding the fall of Adam dovetail perfectly with the suggestion that
> Jesus was "of God."
>
> I don't see a contradiction with a Darwinian interpretation and we were
> talking about genesis. That's one of the requirements to a rational,
> interpretation of Biblical texts. You have to know your context and live
> within its rules.
> The necessity for Jesus' incarnation is foreshadowed in genesis but I
> think bringing Jesus into a discussion of the fall in genesis is
> premature. Genesis is a literary piece with an allegorical substrate that
> was tacked onto the front of the pentateuch, some say during the exile,
> some as late as maccabeean times.
> What is its significance? That is the question right now, not the
> Incarnation.
> If you don't tackle the texts in their provenance, which is to say, make
> historical statements about them based on history or make anthropological
> statements about them based on anthropology, you have no hope of coming to
> a rational holistic understanding of what to most people appear to be
> pretty fantastic Judeo-Christian beliefs.

Yes, we have to first try to determine the meaning of the texts in their
original setting, as they were understood by their human writers and the
audiences to which they originally were addressed. But to that extent we're
just doing literary criticism, not theology. Christian theology is to be
done from the standpoint of faith in Christ. That means, among other
things, that the OT is to be read in the light of the NT. (But, N.B., after
it's been read on its own terms!) The NT is full of christological readings
of the OT. This does not negate the "original intent" of the OT writers but
adds to it - which makes sense if those writers, & the whole of scripture,
were inspired by the Spirit of Christ.

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
Received on Tue Mar 1 22:04:25 2005