Re: Are there guidelines for accommodational interpretation?

----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Seely" <PHSeely@msn.com>
> I agree that Paul thought of Adam as a historical figure, and his readers
> would think of the Adam in the Garden of Eden. The scientific problem here
> is that if this is literal history, Adam's culture dates him to c. 5000
> BC, which is at least some 30 to 50,000 years after homo sapiens sapiens
> appeared on earth, and lots of these humans existed around the earth at
> that time. Fischer and McIntyre recognize this problem and have devised
> concordist explanations as to how Adam could still be literal in spite of
> the Pre-Adamites.
>
> The problem I and most biblical scholars have with the Pre-Adamite
> solution is that the Bible does not really allow for Pre-Adamites. Adam is
> THE first genuine human being in Scripture. I sympathize with Fischer and
> McIntyre (at least they are recognizing the scientific data), but
> virtually no scholarly commentary on Genesis (or any other book of the
> Bible) accepts pre-Adamitism. Neither does Paul (cf Acts 17:26). I
> conclude that the literal Adam in both the OT and the NT is an
> accommodation to the anthropology of the times at least in Jewish culture.
>
> I do not think this means that each of us does not go back to some first
> parents who sinned the first sin, and no matter how we see it, we are all
> still sinners so the truth of the gospel is not imperiled if Adam is not a
> literal historical figure. Also, please be aware that some capable
> conservative theologians quite apart from following accommodationalism
> have seen the Adam story as not literal, but conveying theological truth.
> See James Orr, The Christian View of God and the World, 1897, p185, Clark
> Pinnock, The Scripture Principle, 1985, p116-117,
> John J. Davis' paper on Adam in Inerrancy and Common Sense (Grand Rapids,
> Baker, 1980) and Donald Bloesch, Essentials of Evangelical Theology, 1982,
> Vol. 1, p106.
>
> Paul
>
> PS Paul's parallel of Adam with Christ is not strictly literal. In the
> biblical account, sin did not come into the world through one man (Rom
> 5:12), but through one woman (Gen 3:6).
>
>

My problem with this, and the original question of this thread is that it
seems too convenient to adopt an accomodationalist stance every time the
scriptures do not seem to agree with scientific truth.

Are there some boundaries drawn around accomodational interpretation? Is
there some clue within the Biblical text that tells us this? Are you in
your second paragraph saying that there really was an historical Adam, but
it was further back in history than Genesis indicates? Are you saying that
Paul was right about there being one man, but was wrong about when that one
man lived? That might fit with the scientific evidence, but it strikes me
as nothing more than speculation. There needs to be a stronger foundation
to this method of interpretation it seems to me. This interpretation could
be correct but at the end of the day there is really nothing to hang your
hat on.

Second you make the claim that Adam is THE first genuine human being in
scripture. That is a loaded statement. What does it mean exactly?
Perhaps the first genuine human being was the one that was first exposed to
the Law. This is what McIntyre says, before that Man did not have the image
of God. So it is possible that a Neolithic Adam was the first genuine human
being, what needs better exegesis, and a better explanation is what exactly
does that mean when you say genuine human being.
Received on Mon Jun 12 17:23:27 2006