Re: [asa] Does ASA believe in Adam and Eve?

*George said: What you seem to to be suggesting is that the scoffers in
question are arguing for the uniformity of nature & against miraculous
interventions.*

Phil -- is that what you were suggesting? I didn't take it that way.

It seems to me that the scoffers are deriding the idea of a God who
personally returns to judge. The scoffing isn't about God's ability to
destroy the earth, or generally about God's ability to do miracles in
contrast to the uniformity of nature, it's about the belief in a personal
God incarnate who will come to the world specifically to judge.

If the scoffers are Greeks, it seems to me that their scoffing would be in
line with the sort of scoffing that evidently occurred against Christians
about the notion of the resurrection of the body. Their view of God or the
gods was that of detached, distant, arbitrary force, not of a God whose
character is consistent and judgment is sure. They could not conceive of a
God who would become man, die, rise again bodily, and keep a promise to
return to raise his followers and judge those who reject him: *"the gods
cannot be trusted to keep their word. Forget the gods. Give up this
foolishness and take your luck as it comes like everyone else."*

Or, if the scoffers are Jews, their scoffing would be in line with the
rejection of Jesus as Messiah. They could not conceive of a messiah who
would first suffer and die and then rise again to return later. If
Jesus died, he was dead, and not the messiah. They scoffed at the Christian
community's eschatological hope: *"your messiah is dead -- where is this
coming you speak of? Why hasn't it happened? It hasn't happened because
he's rotting in the grave."*

Whether they believed in some notion of the uniformity of nature isn't the
point -- and as you suggest, they probably didn't.

The reason Peter chooses the flood is that it is *the* typological example
of God's judgment from the Jewish perspective. Peter's discussion of the
flood in chapter 2 in fact echoes almost precisely Jesus' use of the flood
as a type in Matthew 24 and Luke 17.

Or Phil, did I miss your point?

On 3/30/07, George Murphy <gmurphy@raex.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> Phil et al -
>
> I think your argument is the best has been presented here against my
position. What you seem to to be suggesting is that the scoffers in
question are arguing for the uniformity of nature & against miraculous
interventions. I'll leave it to the historians to decide how likely that is
~ A.D. 100. I would have to ask why the author has chosen the flood as a
counterexample instead of many of the other miraculous interventions that
could be gathered from the OT. Why the flood, which is at least in some
ways comparable to the destruction of the world that he's arguing for,
instead of some other disruption of the regularity of natural process such
as (e.g.) Elisha's floating ax head.?
>
> On your following post: It's worth noting Herodotus' qualification when
he reports the circumnavigation of Africa: "which I do not myself believe."
>
> Shalom
> George
> http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/

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Received on Fri Mar 30 21:01:26 2007