Re: Are there guidelines for accommodational interpretation?

Jack -

Allow me to revert to your previous post instead of responding directly to
your remarks below. You said, among other things, "To make the claim that
'well Paul just got it wrong' undermines the entire message, maybe even the
entire Gospel." A great deal depends on what you mean by "Gospel." The
"gospel" as meaning the fundamental Christian message (law and gospel in
their narrow senses) is that you & I & all people are sinners & that
salvation is given freely in Jesus Christ. The gospel in the narrow sense
is the latter part of that statement. But in neither the broad nor the
narrow sense is the existence of Adam as an historical individual necessary
for the message.

I do not mean to suggest that the question of the sin of the 1st humans is
unimportant. That's what my recent PSCF article is about. Nor do I want to
take lightly the questions that are being raised about the limits of
accomodation. But we should not make the consequences of accomodation seem
more drastic than what they in fact are.

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

----- Original Message -----
From: "jack syme" <drsyme@cablespeed.com>
To: "Paul Seely" <PHSeely@msn.com>; "Travis Marler" <tmarler@hotmail.com>;
<dopderbeck@gmail.com>; <gmurphy@raex.com>
Cc: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Monday, June 12, 2006 5:23 PM
Subject: Re: Are there guidelines for accommodational interpretation?
.....................................

> 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 17:42:56 2006