Re: [asa] The Barr quote

Randy -

Others have already responded to your comments below but for my 2c worth om
2 points -

I assume that by "humanly inspired" you mean something like "inspired" in
the same sense that we say Shakespeare or Einstein was inspired. I'm not at
all sure that Barr would go so far as to say that all world class OT or
Hebrew professors would deny any distinctively divine inspiration of
Genesis. In any case, this is an issue something that doesn't lie within
the realm of expertise just of OT or Hebrew scholars. It's really in the
area of systematic theology.

(In the past it was all too common for understandings of the Bible to be
forced into traditional dogmatic molds. Today I think there's the opposite
tendency - to let biblical scholars dictate to theology. Some may think
that that's appropriately protestant but it can be dangerous. E.g., the
understanding that the OT is to be read in light of the NT is crucial for
proper Christian theology but it's not something one can get by studying the
text of the OT alone.)

On the last point, it would be important to distinguish between the times
when the various documents making up the present Book of Genesis were
written & the time of their final redaction when our present canonical
Genesis came into being. Many scholars would give a 5th or 6th century BC
date for the latter while holding that parts of Genesis are considerably
older. E.g., a widely (though not monolithically) held view is that the 2d
creation story can be dated around the 10th century BC.

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

----- Original Message -----
From: "Randy Isaac" <randyisaac@comcast.net>
To: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Sunday, May 18, 2008 10:41 PM
Subject: Re: [asa] The Barr quote

> In light of all your comments, is it accurate to say the following?
>
> Barr and "any professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class
> university" believe that the authors of Genesis 1 fully believed and
> intended a message of creation in six 24-hour days. With this, the typical
> YEC agrees.
>
> Barr & co. apparently would also believe the following with which the
> typical YEC would not agree:
> --the world was not in fact created in six 24 hour days so that the Bible
> is in error
> --the Genesis passage is humanly inspired but not divinely inspired
> --the message that God created the world in six 24 hour days is not God
> telling us what actually happened
> --Genesis was written in 5th or 6th century BC by Hebrew scribes

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Received on Mon May 19 06:40:43 2008