Re: Are there guidelines for accommodational interpretation?

Thanks for that response, I am printing out the tower of Babel article as I
type this.

I found your article titled "The First Four Days of Genesis in Concordist
Theory and in Biblical Context" earlier today, along with"The Relationship
between Science and Scripture in the Thought of Robert Boyle" by David L
Woodall, on the ASA websight, so hopefully these articles will give me some
insight.

Overall I agree that scripture should be interpreted in the context of who
wrote it, and who it was written too. It is hard for us sometimes to
interpret scripture correctly because of our sinful natures of course, but
also because we are so far outside the context that it was written.

But as for the historicity of Adam, there is more than one instance, by more
than one author in both the OT and the NT that suggests that Adam was an
historical figure. To just say, well they didnt know any better, in order
to make our understanding of Genesis easier, as we understand Genesis in
light of our scientific knowledge seems arbitrary. Maybe Adam was historic,
and neolithic, and we need to rethink what original sin means, etc. But I
cant really say that any other interpretation, by John McIntyre, Dick
Fischer, or Glenn Morton is without its own problems.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Seely" <PHSeely@msn.com>
To: <asa@calvin.edu>; "jack syme" <drsyme@cablespeed.com>
Sent: Saturday, June 10, 2006 8:26 PM
Subject: Re: Are there guidelines for accommodational interpretation?

> Jack wrote,
> <<I can accept this as accommodation, the ancients likely had no
> conception of
> cosmology as we do today.
>
> But George also claims that even though Paul thought of Adam as a
> historical
> figure, there is no reason for us to do so. George makes the claim that
> Paul's understanding, even though it was incorrect, was an accommodation
> based on the understanding of Judaism at the time. Also, in the 666
> thread, he claimed that even though John expected that the end of the age,
> was going to occurr in the first century, he was mistaken.
>
> I have trouble being convinced of this accommodationalist position.
> Perhaps
> because, as inspired writers, Paul and John should have known better. The
> ideas of Adam being historical, and the end times being a first century
> event, certainly seems to be something that Paul and John could
> understand,
> which seems, to me anyway, not the case with the author of Genesis 1.
>
> Is there any book or article that explains this method of
> interpretation?>>
>
> You have raised an important question, which I can only begin to answer
> and cannot claim that I have the full answer.
>
> You have no problem with accepting the ancient cosmology in Genesis as an
> accommodation, and this is in keeping with my answer to Wayne Dawson,
> which may interest you (Is there any way to falsify accomodationalist
> interpretations?)
>
> But, you ask, is it legitimate to say Paul's belief in a historical Adam
> is an accommodation? I was troubled by the way George phrased this, but
> since a historical Adam, that is, a Neolithic and probably Chalcolithic
> person is set forth as the very first genuine human being, I think this
> reflects ancient science, and hence is open to being a legitimate case of
> accommodation. In spite of that, just as we can gather from Genesis 1 that
> God created the sky even though it is not solid, we can gather that the
> first man sinned the first sin, or for our friends in genetics, that
> sinfulness can be tracked back to the first group of human beings.
>
> Having said that, I must add that I follow Jesus and Calvin in believing
> that even some pre-embedded cultural ideas about other matters than
> science are accommodated in Scripture. Jesus spoke of the laws of divorce
> in Deut 24:1-4 as being written for the sake of human hardness of heart, a
> concession or accommodation to sinfulness. Most see slavery and polygamy
> in the Bible as also being accommodations. What Jesus introduced was that
> some statements in the Bible could be accommodations to man's sinfulness,
> and interestingly I think no one pursued this line of thinking more
> diligently than Calvin.
>
> So, now what do we do for a guideline? I think we go to the teaching of
> Jesus as the canon within the canon. I also think there is such a thing as
> hearing the Holy Spirit. This still leaves grey zones, but the truth is,
> Grey zones were always there.
>
> Though not being a formal answer to this issue of guide lines, one might
> draw insight from Calvin's use of accommodation as laid out in the end of
> my paper, The Date of the Tower of Babel and Some Theological
> Implications"
> as well as from the articles named in the footnotes, and from Peter Enns'
> book, Inspiration and Incarnation. Peter Enns, Ph.D.(Harvard) is professor
> of OT at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia.
> My paper on the Tower of Babel is online at
> http://www.occasioncameras.com/creationdays/pdf/seely.babel.wtj.2001.pdf
>
> Paul
>
>
>
>
>
Received on Sat Jun 10 20:54:28 2006