Re: Flood Deposits in Mesopotamia [Was: Special Creation]

Exactly, it is a well-balanced statement of inerrancy, going back to Hodge etc. It is also close to those evangelicals who reject inerrancy.

However popular understandings of inerrancy are often un-nuanced and incline to literalism and your binary approach (not yours of course)

I can almost accept inerrancy as put forward by Warfield Packer and Stott and probably practice it. I cannot accept the Chicago definition which I believe has created the environment for the rise of YEC and is the ultimate root of ID.

Michael

----- Original Message -----
  From: David Opderbeck
  To: Michael Roberts
  Cc: glennmorton@entouch.net ; asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Tuesday, March 07, 2006 4:21 PM
  Subject: Re: Flood Deposits in Mesopotamia [Was: Special Creation]

  No, it's a pretty standard definition of inerrancy by a leading Baptist theologian in a Systematic Theology text that's used as the standard text in many of the major evangelical seminaries in the U.S., including conservative seminaries such as Gordon Conwell. But the label you put on it ultimately is neither here nor there. The point is that Christian understandings of scripture are and have always been much more nuanced than the "true or false, " "literal or accomdationist" binary that critics on both the extreme right and extreme left like to use.

   
  On 3/7/06, Michael Roberts <michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
    This definition is quite simply accommodation.

    Michael

    ----- Original Message -----
      From: David Opderbeck
       Glenn, I think you and Phil are talking past each other here. If you think it's crucial to hang on to inerrancy (and interesting discussion in its own right), I think what Phil suggests could be entirely consistent with inerrancy. Inerrancy allows for copying errors in later manuscripts or misinterpretations based on presuppositions that are later read into the text. Millard Erickson, in his Systematic Theology, defines inerrancy as follows:
        "The Bible, when correctly interpreted in light of the level to which culture and the means of communication had developed at the time it was written, and in view of the purposes for which it was given, is fully truthful in all that it affirms."

      Erickson fleshes out this definition with some important principles, among them that the text's cultural setting, the purposes for which the text was written, and the pervasive use of phenomenological language to report scientific matters and historical events means that we should not impose modern expectations of precision on the text.

      You seem to be suggesting that the "mountains of Ararat" mean a specific mountian range or inerrancy is violated. Based on what Phil is saying (and many others have said the same kinds of things), I don't think that's necessarily so.

       
      On 3/7/06, glennmorton@entouch.net < glennmorton@entouch.net> wrote:
        for Bill and David O.

        Bill Hamilton wrote:

>>>Suppose the flood was so shallow that the ark only drifted a short distance before it ran aground, but that the flood covered such a wide area and the water was so wild that no one would dare leave the ark. Furthermore, who says the journey began near the Persian Gulf? Suppose it began above Jabel Judi (the place where Carol Hill ( http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2002/PSCF9-02Hill.pdf)proposes the ark landed), ran aground near Jabel Judi and stayed there til the flood subsided. <<<

        Would such a flood really have lasted a year? By the way, Bill, where are the flood sediments? This discussion reminds me a bit of when trying to get YECs to say where the flood sediments are in the global flood. They are all over the place with inconsistent layers bing the flood deposits. With the Mesopotamian flood, no one has sighted any widespread flood deposits, yet everyone knows that Mesopotamia is where the flood was so they must be there. Unfortunately, it is all a sham because there are no flood deposits in Mesopotamia.

        But also, as I have noted lately, evidence doesn't seem to much matter in apologetics. If there are no flood deposits or evidence of it, we still believe the flood was there.

        **

        Phil Metzger wrote:

>>>

        Your arguments about deposits seem pretty strong. So I have a problem: how could the ark go to the mountains of Ararat unless there was a sufficient quantity of water in northern mesopotamia, enough water to make the deposits? If it wasn't for that ONE phrase in the Bible "in the mountains of Ararat" then there would be no problem, because then the ark could have gone somewhere else. So I look up what "Ararat" means and discover that Ararat (Urarutu) probably didn't even **exist** at the time of Moses when the text was written, since the kingdom of Urarutu didn't form until the 900's BC, after King David. In fact, (going partly from memory here) the other 2 or 3 references to "Ararat" in the Bible are from parts written after that date, such as the reference in Isaiah. If the word Urarutu didn't exist at the time of Moses, then either it is a mistranslation of RRT or else the word RRT is itself a gloss by later scribes after 1000 BC who mistakenly thought the ark went to Ararat and were trying to interpret an older geographical place name that was no longer well known. It is possible (and not unlikely IMO) that in place of "RRT" was originally a different name, one that referred to the Zagros mountains along the Persian gulf. If this **single** word is indeed a gloss, then **all** the problems with a mesopotamian flood seem to be resolved, aren't they? Basically the whole edifice of regional mesopotamian flood was built upon that one word, RRT, which in truth couldn't have meant Ararat in the first place, at the time it was written by Moses.<<<

        Except for seeing mountains. But, the problems you recognize now are the ones that I see. And I guess I have a big problem with throwing out the Biblical data points I don't like. If I had my druthers, the Bible would simply say,

        In the Beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And God told Abraham to leave his country.....

        I would throw everything between Genesis 1:2 and 12:1 out. Thus, I could claim that all that was a gloss, a big mistake. Then we could have a reasonable bible which wouldn't require us to do intellectual headstands to understand it. So, when people start throwing out those inconvenient parts, why stop with one or two facts? Go whole hog and get rid of all the nonsense and fix that early genesis account.

        Now, to me, throwing things out is really just an ad hoc solution. It works, no doubt, but it is a wee bit inelegant.

>>>Example, suppose I find a document that is supposedly ancient, purporting to have been written by George Washington and describing the journeys of Christopher Columbus. It tells us that Columbus visited Disney World. Obviously that part of the text can't be correct, since Disney World didn't exist at the time of Columbus nor at the time of George Washington. Likewise, the part of the text naming Uraratu can't be correct because it didn't exist at the time of Noah nor at the time of Moses.

        Thoughts?<<<

        I would say if a document purportedly by GW mentions Disney World, you could reasonably say it is a fake. It isn't true. One wouldn't wax eloquent about how it teaches the true theology and how the errors are an accommodation to the knowledge of Washington's day.

>>>>Also, I have a question about the geologic map of Mesopotamia that you have on your website. Apparently this is a map that only shows the exposed geologic units, not naming all the units that lie beneath them. Well, in that case I would not expect to see flood deposits away from the river. That's because the eaolian deposits have had plenty of time to cover them. I would really expect the flood deposits (if they exist) to be a few meters beneath the shifting sand dunes.<<<<

        I have a couple of maps of Iraq. The one I referenced in a previous note here a couple of days ago, I sketched out the flood deposits of Iraq. That is the skinny fluvial sediments which follow the river courses.

        Now, as to exposed sediments, there is a problem with this. The flood was quite recent. More recent than most of the other deposits. And when a geologist makes a map, he doesn't map the soil which covers the bed rock. The maps are usually of the bed rock. And, I would still contend that even if there were buried fluival sediments beneath the aeolian, they would have been found and talked about in geology circles because so many people believe the flood of NOah was in Mesopotamia. The fact that there are no such discussions in the professional literature says loads about their non-existance.

         
Received on Tue Mar 7 14:59:23 2006