Re: Are there guidelines for accommodational interpretation?

Thanks for your reply George.

I guess my discomfort relates to the implications of this interpretation to
what it means for the Bible to be the inspired word of God. If acceptable
interpretation of inspired scripture can be so protean, then it ceases to
have relevance.

I can accept that the author of Genesis was writing about a cosmology that
was all that he understood. And the audience that he was writing to, it was
all they understood. But the purpose of using those pre-existing
mythologies, it seems to me, was a background, or a vehicle to communicate
deeper spiritual truths.

In the case of Paul, the historicity of Adam is not part of the background,
it is actually part of the message. And if Paul was mistaken about that,
maybe he was mistaken about other things. And I guess this is the point
Glenn is trying to make, if the interpretation of the text changes over
time, why is the message of the Bible superior to any other?

Maybe God emptied himself and became a Buddha for the Buddhist, Zoroaster
for the Zoroastrians, etc.
----- Original Message -----
From: "George Murphy" <gmurphy@raex.com>
To: "jack syme" <drsyme@cablespeed.com>; "Paul Seely" <PHSeely@msn.com>;
"Travis Marler" <tmarler@hotmail.com>; <dopderbeck@gmail.com>
Cc: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Monday, June 12, 2006 5:42 PM
Subject: 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 18:02:27 2006