Re: In defense of Paul Seely

Thanks, Karl.

I feel a little stupid, because I was wondering whether a study of the hermeneutical history of Genesis 1 had been made--and realized a few minutes after sending out my note that I had one, unread, in my library. It is Genesis 1 Through the Ages, by Stanley Jaki. Jaki won the Templeton Prize in 1987 and is well-known for his writings on theology and science. As I flip through the book, his narrative strikes me as one that highlights what he sees as the deficiencies of concordism. No time to read it now.

The series you are referring to is IVP's "Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture." I have a couple of the NT commentaries but not Genesis. The volumes I have follow the same format as the medieval Bible with interlinear and marginal comments from the Fathers compiled by Nicolaus de Lyra in the 14th century, an extended edition of the Glossa ordinaria.

Bob

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: cmekve@aol.com
  To: rjschn39@bellsouth.net
  Cc: asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2006 1:05 PM
  Subject: Re: In defense of Paul Seely

   Bob-
  Very well stated. I've tried to make the same point in the past, but with notable lack of success. A hypothetical Concordist may find their cosmological science in Genesis, but their great-great...-great-grandparents would not because cosmology has changed. So then presumably our concordist predecessors would have been justified in rejecting Christianity. Concordism is always present-day oriented, which in and of itself virtually guarantees that at best it can only be right some of the time.

  Americans, and seemingly we scientists in particular, tend to be semiotically-challenged. The beauty of the "incarnated" stories so prevalent in Genesis is that although they are set in a particular cultural, their message is easily seen in almost any culture -- ancient or modern.

  IVP [not the publishing house I would have expected to do this] has published a series that collects patristic (and later?) commentaries on various books of the bible. I know they have one for Genesis, but I haven't seen it; nor can I remember the title of the series.

  Karl
  *************
  Karl V. Evans
  cmekve@aol.com

   
  -----Original Message-----
  From: Robert Schneider <rjschn39@bellsouth.net>
  To: Rich Blinne <rich.blinne@gmail.com>
  Cc: asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Wed, 7 Jun 2006 10:39:32 -0400
  Subject: Re: In defense of Paul Seely

  Has anyone published a history of the hermeneutics and interpretation of Genesis 1? It would be interesting to see how the text has been interpreted in the light of newer cosmologies over the past 2,000 years. The one that sticks in my mind from my days as a medievalist is the section in the _Summa Theologiae_ where Thomas Aquinas interprets Genesis 1 in the context of Aristotelian cosmology. In a passage in which he reviews various statements about the division of the waters, he offers the opinion that Moses did not introduce the element of air (of the basic four elements) to describe the heavens because he " was speaking to ignorant people and out of condescension to their simpleness presented only those things that are immediately obvious to the senses" (ST I, 68, 3). Here you have concordism and accomodationism united in the same hermeneutic. St. Thomas' interpretation also suggests a way in which a concordist approach to interpreting the text has its own difficulties. It has to retool when a new cosmology becomes established.
   
  It doesn't matter what cosmological models we humans construct; they all will differ from the biblical model. Historically, theologians have always sought to find a modus vivendi with the current cosmology. The commonly acknowledged theological truth, however, is that the doctrine of creation remains, even as the understanding of the nature of the God-World relationship is re-articulated in the light of new cosmological knowledge. The doctrine is not dependent upon the model, however, and that is why one can honor the cosmology of Genesis 1 for what it was, the matrix for theological truth but a matrix recognizable to its own time and place, and not insist that somehow it must be able to be consonant with every new current cosmological model historically--to become all things to all men.
   
  Bob
   
   
  ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rich Blinne" <rich.blinne@gmail.com>
  To: <glennmorton@entouch.net>
  Cc: "Ted Davis" <tdavis@messiah.edu>; "Robert Schneider" <rjschn39@bellsouth.net>; <asa@calvin.edu>
  Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2006 9:04 AM
  Subject: Re: In defense of Paul Seely
   
> On 6/7/06, glennmorton@entouch.net <glennmorton@entouch.net> wrote:
>> YOu have correctly concluded that the YECs are wrong because what they >> teach doesn't
>> concord with reality. In fact, it is just plain contra-evidential. But, >> when it comes
>> to the Bible, we then conversely claim that it teaches true theology, and >> in spite of
>> the bad data, it isn't REAAALLLLLYYYY wrong, just misunderstood.
>>
>> This illogic always amazes me.
>
> Glenn, this is somewhat of a non sequiter. Accomodationism does not
> say the data so to speak is bad. Rather, it follows the New Testament
> doctrine that the Old Testament was mysterious and thus not fully
> perspicacious. Trying to find a spherical Earth in the OT is similar
> to finding the Trinity in the OT. Calvin when interpreting Genesis 1
> resisted the temptation of saying since Elohim could be interpreted as
> plural that it taught the Trinity. Furthermore, accomodationism
> encourages efforts such as yours and Dick's to find concord and only
> parts company when the case appears overstated or where a
> falsification of a particular concord unnecessarily falsifies the
> whole. Both camps ultimately have the same goal of exegeting rather
> than eisegeting the text and in my opinion are good correctives for
> each other. The concordists call the accomodationists when they make
> the text rather than the contemporary understanding of the text in
> error and the accomodationists call the concordists when the alleged
> concord is forced and overstated.
>

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Received on Wed Jun 7 14:09:42 2006