Re:  The Oldest Human Fossils ...

At 09:43 PM 3/2/2005, RFaussette@aol.com wrote:

>George, I ignored what I agreed with or found neutral. I only remark
>where there is a conflict/question. You said in a number of different ways
>in a few posts something about a Christological something or other looking
>back to Genesis something or other and I tried to point out to you that to
>look at the texts scientifically and we were only looking at Genesis, you
>had to pick a discipline and applies its tools to the texts, be it history
>or anthropology or archeology, etc. without any references to Christ or
>any theology at all and to look with non-prejudiced eyes at what emerged
>from your study and only then compare the result to your existing theology
>to see if it supports or refutes it. Even bringing up Christ in a thread
>on the meaning of Genesis clouds the issue if you are doing a scientific
>analysis. I scanned your articles. You should read mine. It's not literary
>criticism. It's Darwinian exegesis and it explains the two most important
>archetypes in Genesis, person!
>al and communal redemption, the heavenly chariot that the kabbalists say
>(what do they know?) is the science of nature in Genesis. George. Read it.
>It's correct whether you talk to me or not.
>
>George, if I only talked to myself, I wouldn't get an argument.
>Read and argue my paper George online with your peers. Tear it apart. Oh
>no. It's better to prove your point by not talking to me.
>Best,
>rich

Just a little side remark of one who does not want to get involved in this
discussion. However, when the way we read the Bible is the subject, than I
like to participate a bit. Even if you do not use your "theological
thinking", you cannot help but use your basic underlying "philosophical",
if you will , outlook on life. That means for the beginning of Genesis,
which is God's revelation about what happened before people could read to
people who started to learn about their surroundings. That means, that
Gen. 1-11 cannot be read without taking into account:
1. our faith that God Created the world.
2. that God spoke to people in a language they understood.
3. that this was written down maybe years after God spoke first to people.
4. that th3 original texts are not available any longer, but that we have
texts which are old and sometimes differ. We trust that the theologians
and linguists who did the translating into modern languages know what they
are doing, though they, too, are very much influenced by their ways of
thinking, (call it philosophies.)
5. that early translations of the Bible and exegeses were very much
influenced by the Greek philosophy of the translators.

Yes, Darwinian exegesis exists, but I believe that all of us on this forum
want to be true to the original text. However, the people who wrote down
the first time the chapters of Genesis etc. looked at the world in a
different way than we do, they spoke a language we do not understand, and
lived in circumstances we cannot imagine. To come to a right understanding
is more needed than linguistic abilities. Needed as well is historical
understanding, geographic and geographical history, language and language
understanding etc.
God gave us the Bible to teach us about sin and salvation, not just to
satisfy our wish to know history etc. But God does not try to fool us in
our search for knowledge, etc. Our life before God is not only our
church-going, but all of our studies as well. And we will never succeed
thoroughly or completely. Still studying is a God-given task as well,
where God speaks through nature and Bible. We will never be finished with
our studying. God will explain it to us later. (But that is a separate
subject. After all "time" is part of God's creation. Is it just a fourth
dimension? Or, is eternal life time-less, so that the moment of our death
becomes "immediately" our resurrection and living on the New Earth?)

Jan de Koning

PS: you can see that I am 80 years of age , and thus think sometimes about
after-life.
Jan
Received on Thu Mar 3 10:35:06 2005