Re: [asa] Nakedness and the Fall of Man

Thanks Kirk.
The relationship aspect of the Godhead has been most influentially developed by Orthodox theologian John Zizioulas (Metropolitan of Pergamon) in his book "Being As Communion" and more recently in "Communion and Otherness".? His work has had a great effect on many non-Orthodox [capital O], not least Ted Peters and Bob Russell.

Karl
***********************
Karl V. Evans
cmekve@aol.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Kirk Bertsche <Bertsche@aol.com>
To: philtill@aol.com
Cc: asa@calvin.edu
Sent: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 8:58 am
Subject: Re: [asa] Nakedness and the Fall of Man

FYI, Henri Blocher has some interesting ideas in his book "In the Beginning" regarding Gen 1:27 and relationship. ?He sees the "male and female" in this verse as implying sexual union, and sees this as an analogy to the close relationship between the members of the Godhead. ?He concludes that part of being in God's image is being in relationship, just as the members of the Godhead are in relationship with one another.

Kirk

On Feb 24, 2009, at 10:31 PM, philtill@aol.com wrote:

7.? This interpretation helps to make sense of the rest of the story.? Why did the author think it was important to have Adam name animals and Eve be made subsequent to Adam?? Surely there are multiple reasons, but one reason that I think unifies the main themes of the text is that it is about human inadequacy and the need for relationships.? Man is inadequate and so he is told to find a helper, and so he examines and names the animals but finds no helper.? Animals are incapable of answering man's inadequacy.? God then provides for man's inadeqacy by making him a helper.? To be adequate in this world, man and woman need each other.? Relationship solves inadequacy.? But the author finds it important to say in the very next sentence that both man and woman are naked -- so the sexes "complete" one another in an important sense, but we do not "clothe" one another in the (symbolic) sense that we need relationship with God, too.? Th e chapter is all about the relationships we need
 to be adequate.

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Received on Thu Feb 26 16:57:00 2009