Re: [asa] The Barr quote

Randy, I was not part of that discussion, but I have looked into the Barr
quote. Here is the letter.

http://members.iinet.net/~sejones/barrlett.html<http://members.iinet.net/%7Esejones/barrlett.html>

Dear Mr Watson,
>
> Thank you for your letter. I have thought about your question,
> and would say that [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 hours 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 world-wide and extinguish all human and
> animal life except for those in the ark. Or, to put it negatively, the
> apologetic arguments which suppose the `days' of creation to be long eras
> of time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the flood to be
> a merely local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by any such
> professors, as far as I know.] The only thing I would say to qualify this
> is
> that most professors may avoid much involvement in that sort of argument
> and so may not say much explicitly about it one way or the other. But I
> think what I say would represent their position correctly. However, you
> might find one or two people who would take the contrary point of view and
> are competent in the languages, in Assyriology, and so on: it's really
> not so much a matter of technical linguistic competence, as of appreciation
> of the sort of text that Genesis is.
>
> *Perhaps I might mention that I have another book coming out soon,*
> *Escaping from Fundamentalism, SCM Press London, which has some discussion
> of*
> *these questions.* Westminster Press in Philadelphia are doing the
> American
> edition, perhaps with a different title, I don't know. It comes out in this
> country on 1st June.
>
> Thanks again for your letter and all good wishes,
>
> Yours sincerely
>
> James Barr [signed]
>

In my opinion:

As the letter strongly hints and as subsequent research easily shows, Barr
is a strong critic of biblical inerrancy. Why is that relevant? *Because
Barr wanted to sell books.* Barr, is in effect, (again, my opinion) using
YECs as (in his mind) useful idiots. He wants the YEC view to be the
*only *reasonable
interpretation of Genesis so that he can disprove biblical inerrancy *by
showing how that view is obviously wrong*. Now if an OEC view is consistent
with Genesis , that makes Barr's job much more difficult.

David Heddle

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
>

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Received on Fri May 16 17:13:17 2008