Re: [asa] The Barr quote

Barr's argument is that one must basically either take Gen. 1-11 as true
simple history or false simple history. However, he is not arguing that any
"professor of Hebrew or OT at any world-class university" is YEC; to the
contrary, to the extent such (modern) scholars would consider the OT
scripture at all, they would consider its chronology etc. to be in error --
which of course was Barr's main point. For Barr, there is no possibility of
a hermeneutic that would understand 1-11 generically as anything other than
simple history, which excludes the approach of most evangelical scholars
today.

On Fri, May 16, 2008 at 4:41 PM, Randy Isaac <randyisaac@comcast.net> wrote:

> I believe this quote from James Barr was discussed some time ago but I
> can't seem to find it or remember what the conclusion was. Can some of
> you please refresh my memory and give me the right perspective. A YEC'er who
> is in dialog with me brought up that quote as follows:
>
> "As for what competent Hebrew scholars think about chronological
> information in the Bible, here's a quote from James Barr, who at the time
> was Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford University:
> "... probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or
> Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the
> writer(s) of Genesis 1-11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas
> that:
>
> "(a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same
> as the days of 24 we now experience,
>
> "(b) the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by
> simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later
> stages in the biblical story,
>
> "(c) Noah's flood was understood to be worldwide and extinguish all
> human and animal life except for those in the ark." **"
>
>
> Obviously, the argument he was raising against me was that all OT scholars
> of repute are YEC.
>
> Randy
>

-- 
David W. Opderbeck
Associate Professor of Law
Seton Hall University Law School
Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology
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