Re: Are there guidelines for accommodational interpretation?

I have already made some comments on "accomodation" in some of my recent
exchanges with Glenn. (I'm not sure anyone but Glenn & I read these
chapters in our ongoing debate but they are there!) I put "accomodation" in
quotes because I agree with Glenn that it isn't always an ideal term. Here
just a couple of further remarks.

1st, I have just begun to think about this topic recently. In my recent
PSCF article I referred to some of Paul's work but at that point had not
gone a lot further than that. The book by RC scholar Bruce Vawter to which
I referred in my recent _Covalence_ article, _The Inspiration of Scripture_
(Westminster, 1972) is of some interest here. He points out in particular
that the idea of accomodation goes well back back before Calvin - to, e.g.,
Chrysostom.

2d, I think the justification for talking about accomodation is the divine
kenosis shown in the Incarnation. I am interested in pursuing this from the
standpoint of a theology of the cross, which has been the context for most
of my theology-science work. Thus any "guidelines for accomodational
interpretation" should be evaluated in the light of the cross.

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

----- 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 20:59:59 2006