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Starkman
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1747
| Posted 3/20/2005 12:25 AM (GMT -6) |   |
Starkman: I used to think this also, but the theology, regardless of the historicity of the account, is clear: man fell from paradise. You can't miss that. So, whether the boy who cried wolf—analogy our good brother Scott likes to use—is an historical account or not is beside the point. The language of the account, does, in fact, convey exactly what it is supposed to.
Jeff: I can't see that. Whether or not carnivory, for example, was originally intended by God is entirely dependent upon the historicity of the text.
I disagree. Whether or not carnivory was intended is not something God has had to historically address. When God addresses something, He can do so in the literal or mythological. In other words, historicity of the text does not determine truth. That God has made a point IS the truth. And if I find that a truth He establishes is conveyed through the mileu and context of a people many years and ages removed from my way of thinking, the truth is no less valid; the authorial intent is not sacrificed because a text is unhistorical or it is mythological genre. What does change, however, is how we define "authorial." Now that is huge!
Starkman: An historic nature of the account is only necessary to explain the metaphor of what really happened at creation and in the garden, not, however, to explain a theodicy; that is self explanitory within the theology of the text, regardless of whether the account is historical or not.
Jeff: If it's so self-explanatory whether or not it's historical, why do Scott and Meph not believe it? Neither of them, as far as I can tell, agree with Doc's theodicy - that carnivory is contrary to God's original benevolent purpose.
Perhaps because the text doesn't say, or rather, doesn't intend to historically communicate detailed information about pre- and post-fallen consumption. Again, if the author's point is to communicate a theological understanding of man in relationship to God via mythology—the cultural way of communicating much in those days, particularly within the religious or divine themes—then we are reading into the text information that wasn't meant to be there when we insist that the account just has to be literal. (Before we even get to exegesis, there is the issue of pressuposition to be dealt with first!)
Please, understand that it might very well have been that carnivory was not God's original benevolent purpose, but that's not what Genesis is directly teaching. It is teaching a relationship disturbance; the author, perhaps, seeing the use of carnivory as a means to further communicate the point.
Let me point out that it is pretty tough to present every animal that ever lived as herbivorous when the teeth are dead give-aways that they are carnivorous. When one does attempt this feat, all kinds of theories come to the forefront, but are, in my opinion, far from sufficient to document either a ground for a pre-fall or pre-flood herbivore existence or of a sudden (no evidence to prove a) transition from heribore to carnivor: There's the lion that wouldn't eat meat, or the carnivor fish that also eats vegatables. As if these are somehow proof that all animals, despite their teeth, are actually herbivores.
The point is that the text of Genesis is not, in my opinion, meant to be read as a historical documentary: "Yup, this is how it happened. Exactly. To the tee." Additionally, when we do take a literal stab at Genesis, it is still very difficult to make sense out of the information we have been given without having to fill in the gaps, the details, the missing information. We find it very easy to skirt around the issue of light being made well before the sun by...yup, theologizing it in order to maintain a historical literalness: The explanation, we are told, is, "Isn't it obvious that God make light without a sun; HE is the light?" But that's not the issue: the literalness of the account is the issue, and, I'm sorry, but light usually comes from something like, say, a sun, and is not "created" by the Creator who is light (for why does one create something one is?). This approach has already removed us several steps from the "literal" account that is being espoused as a documentary of how the universe (or even our own galaxy, for that matter) really came into existence. Way too much effort in theologizing has to come into play in order to make this all work within a fully historical setting. The game is not over and won that simply. IF it were, we wouldn't be having this conversation, would we!
Starkman: Now, if we do not hold to the account as literal, then, yes, I would submit we are at a loss to explain what really happened; the details and actual historicity of the fall. But though we may not possess a literal account, this neither negates a mythological interpretation of the text (in the utilitarian sense of the word) nor dillutes the theology. Thus, there is no eisegeting here.
Jeff: As long as one says that a) authorial intent is not important to do true EXegesis or b) Genesis 1-11 SEEMS non-historical, I would give him/her the benefit of the doubt that he/she is doing SOME kind of textual exegesis. But I have no idea how such a hermeneutic could exegete as opposed to eisegete. Hence, I, personally, would be pretty uninterested in their interpretations until they gave me a detailed explanation of how it DOES work. Recently, Meph asked Scott how to "tease" the meaning out of the text once authorial intent is abandoned. That implies Meph doesn't know how, particularly well. Moreover, Scott conceded a lack of detailed understanding himself. Those concessions simply prove my point as far as I can tell.
Again, this was one of my main arguments against Scott when conversing about these same issues. And then I realized, rather abruptly, that in regard to the point of the Genesis account the thelogy DOES NOT CHANGE just because the text may not be literal (again, remember the boy who cried wolf). I don't have to have every answer accounted for or believe in a literal, historical setting to get the gist of the author's intent. Exegesis is the extraction of the meaning of the text, particularly based on what the writer meant to say and how he expected his readers to understand him. I mean, without much effort or exegesis, I can know that the writer does not mean that God has fire literally coming out of his mouth when he is said to judge a nation in this manner, or that God does not have wings simply because I am brought to shelter under them. Once we establish the genre and style, and we determine that the text is literal or not, we can then do exegesis with a more concentrated effort on what's being communicated without any need to confine ourselves to the idea that exegesis can only take place if the text is literal.
What then is the author of Genesis saying when he says that the serpent deceived Eve? Is he trying desperately to tell us, "Dude, there was this talking snake. I'm telling you, the thing talked. The boy was slick, slicker than a dog. You have got to believe that this literally happened the way I'm telling you it did. Hek, I would have told you the date and time, too, but I didn't get that information"? Or might he instead be trying to make it clear that an enemy of God was sowing some seriously bad seed in the mind and heart of the human race, and the author uses two figures of the human race that encompass the whole (since we are either men or women) to make the point? (Very simple and far from an even decent theology...you get the point, though, I'm sure.)
Finally, you said, Moreover, Scott conceded a lack of detailed understanding himself. Those concessions simply prove my point as far as I can tell. No, that's not true, anymore than it would be true if you yourself were unable to decifer the meaning of a text and conceded such. All Scott has conceded is that some things are theologically hard to work through, but that for all regardless of one's approache to scripture.
Starkman: I do hold that at some point man fell from perfection, but I am at a real loss, with only two to three chapters in Genesis as an explanation, to attribute the culturally rich style of the genre toward a telos affording us an accurate historicity. I don't think the author was interested in that (though he could have if that is what he wanted to do), and I don't think he had to be interested in this. I think he was much more interested in the theology, which is, most certainly, inspired and accurate.
Jeff: But that's like saying since the end of Luke is radically shy of the detail of Acts 1, that the end of Luke is not historical. That argument just doesn't fly. There is simply no doubt that all biblical writers chose precisely those historical details that served their literary ends
No, not at all. Here, let me state back to you what you've just said: because I cannot confine a fully developed and complete explanation of the creation and fall events to the historical, therefore Luke must not have written historically. This is obviously falacious. Luke, as is fairly obvious, is quite interested in giving an historical account in his writings; he prefaces his first book by saying so, and leaves one to conclude the same in the preface of his second book. Genesis, however, makes no such claim as to being a historical account of how it really happened. Further, the style—the genre—directs us, I believe, away from a literal/historical interpretation.
Futher, you state that there is simply no doubt that all biblical writers chose precisely those historical details that served their literary ends. I would say that there is simply not doubt that some biblical writers chose precisely non-historical details that served their literay ends. You see, it works both ways. Jeff, you're already presupposed towards a literal conclusion. All I am saying is that to think like this is both unnecessary and, in several cases, it exegetically puts one into confining and awkward positions, the very thing you are trying to avoid.
Hey, did it all happen exactly as it is given us? Maybe. BUT...maybe not, and there is good reason to thnk not, without compromising any of the theology. We will simply have to wait and see!
Starkman: As I noted, somewhere in time, however, man did go awry; that we know. Knowledge of the details is not necessary. That he did is clear; the theology would be useless in Genesis if man has not gone awry.
Jeff: My point exactly. You know it the same way Doc knows it. Because nothing that follows make sense otherwise. But that's not the same as knowing it exegetically from Gen. 1-3. I don't see why this is hard to see. Jeff, how else did I not see the necessity of a Fall in Genesis if it was not by exegesis? It just wasn't complicated exegesis, that's all. As I said, some things are just pretty obvious...which leads me to the next part of this post:
I'm interested in using a hermeneutic consistently from one text to the next. That's all I'm saying. I'm NOT saying that some things are not OBVIOUS if Christianity is true. But that doesn't get us very far, because all of us can see the obvious without much effort at all. Heck, we don't need teachers for those things. If you're only interested in the obvious which we all agree on regardless of hermeneutics, then what in theology is there left to debate about? But if you agree that there's plenty left to debate about, isn't a consistent hermeneutic required so that we all end up debating by the same rules? And don't think I'm ruling out the role of philosophy. But philosophy has it's rules, too, for fair and productive debate. Do you, or do you not agree that the obvious theology of Genesis is that man was in a state of relationship that got rather..."bad," that he "fell" out of this relationship and it screwed things up royally betweem God and man? I mean, can we agree that there is no real need to debate this simple, broad but poigant point? As a Christian, I completely believe that mankind was in a perfect relationship with God ("perfect" meaning without sin but not completed; completion would come later, perhaps, by eating of the Tree of Life). Man did not heed God's word and, instead, chose to heed his own words instead. Man was ostracized from relationship with God in a horrible an pitiful way. I mean, this is the basics of the Fall of mankind. This is the obvious. This is the theology that,at least in my opinion, that cannot be missed. Without this nothing else makes too much sense. However, I don't have to believe that there was a literal serpent or a literal Tree of Life (or of the Knowledge of Good and Evil) for the theology to stand. Those symbols make the point quite clear: eat of the one tree, you're doomed, dude! Eat of the other, and life gets sweet for eternity. But...if I were to see how things really went, I'd end up with the same theology. It just might not have been so obvious! That's the best I can explain it.
For good conversation,
Starkman
Post Edited (Starkman) : 3/19/2005 11:31:14 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 3/20/2005 9:49 AM (GMT -6) | | Starkman: Whether or not carnivory was intended is not something God has had to historically address. When God addresses something, He can do so in the literal or mythological. In other words, historicity of the text does not determine truth. That God has made a point IS the truth. And if I find that a truth He establishes is conveyed through the mileu and context of a people many years and ages removed from my way of thinking, the truth is no less valid; the authorial intent is not sacrificed because a text is unhistorical or it is mythological genre. What does change, however, is how we define "authorial." Now that is huge!
Jeff: I agree with everything you're saying here. It's just that authorial intent must be inferred from legitimate evidence. Even Scott admits that Moses may have understood Gen 1-11 historically. He does not dogmatically assert that Moses took it in the way he, himself, takes it. Now THAT is what is huge. Because it basically means what Ken Ham etal have said for years: People treat the text metaphorically because they think modern science and history has disproved the historicity of that text. Many of them explicitly admit that it SEEMS to be historical but for what we know NOW about science, etc. But how is modern science and history legitimate evidence for determining the intent of the author of Gen. 1-11?
Starkman: Please, understand that it might very well have been that carnivory was not God's original benevolent purpose, but that's not what Genesis is directly teaching. It is teaching a relationship disturbance; the author, perhaps, seeing the use of carnivory as a means to further communicate the point.
Jeff: Bro, what I asked for before is what I will ask you now. How do YOU, personally, know that the origin of carnivory from the Fall was not intended to be addressed by the author of the Gen. 1-11? How does that hermeneutic of yours rule that out? That's the question no one can answer - even Meph, the brilliant one!!
Starkman: Let me point out that it is pretty tough to present every animal that ever lived as herbivorous when the teeth are dead give-aways that they are carnivorous. When one does attempt this feat, all kinds of theories come to the forefront, but are, in my opinion, far from sufficient to document either a ground for a pre-fall or pre-flood herbivore existence or of a sudden (no evidence to prove a) transition from heribore to carnivor: There's the lion that wouldn't eat meat, or the carnivor fish that also eats vegatables. As if these are somehow proof that all animals, despite their teeth, are actually herbivores.
Jeff: If you want to actually debate this aspect of the question, I'm game to start another thread for it. My only point here, is that NONE of what you said explains how you know the author of Gen. 1-11 didn't mean to address the origin of carnivory.
Starkman: The point is that the text of Genesis is not, in my opinion, meant to be read as a historical documentary: "Yup, this is how it happened. Exactly. To the tee."
Jeff: Bro, I'm perfectly fine with you or anyone else having an opinion. What I'm interested in is how YOU, personally, know either a) that authorial intent is not relevant to exegesis or b) what WAS the intent of the author of Gen. 1-11. Not WHAT you know about the authorial intent, but HOW you know it. If you just keep telling me WHAT without the HOW, why should I believe you over Glenn Morton?
Starkman: Additionally, when we do take a literal stab at Genesis, it is still very difficult to make sense out of the information we have been given without having to fill in the gaps, the details, the missing information. We find it very easy to skirt around the issue of light being made well before the sun by...yup, theologizing it in order to maintain a historical literalness: The explanation, we are told, is, "Isn't it obvious that God make light without a sun; HE is the light?" But that's not the issue: the literalness of the account is the issue, and, I'm sorry, but light usually comes from something like, say, a sun, and is not "created" by the Creator who is light (for why does one create something one is?).
Jeff: God said "let there be light." Presumably that means He brought it into existence, not that He WAS the light.
Starkman: This approach has already removed us several steps from the "literal" account that is being espoused as a documentary of how the universe (or even our own galaxy, for that matter) really came into existence. Way too much effort in theologizing has to come into play in order to make this all work within a fully historical setting. The game is not over and won that simply. IF it were, we wouldn't be having this conversation, would we!
Jeff: You may be right. Maybe God can't make light without "something like, say, a sun," but how do YOU, personally, know that?
Starkman: Again, this was one of my main arguments against Scott when conversing about these same issues. And then I realized, rather abruptly, that in regard to the point of the Genesis account the thelogy DOES NOT CHANGE just because the text may not be literal (again, remember the boy who cried wolf). I don't have to have every answer accounted for or believe in a literal, historical setting to get the gist of the author's intent. Exegesis is the extraction of the meaning of the text, particularly based on what the writer meant to say and how he expected his readers to understand him. I mean, without much effort or exegesis, I can know that the writer does not mean that God has fire literally coming out of his mouth when he is said to judge a nation in this manner, or that God does not have wings simply because I am brought to shelter under them. Once we establish the genre and style, and we determine that the text is literal or not, we can then do exegesis with a more concentrated effort on what's being communicated without any need to confine ourselves to the idea that exegesis can only take place if the text is literal.
Jeff: But HOW do you establish that the genre and style of Gen. 1-11 is not historical? Scott and Meph say the biblical writers probably DID think it was historical. What is it that YOU know that THEY didn't? You see, I know HOW people infer that God doesn't have a physical mouth or wings. That one is easy. That's why no one is debating that one.
Starkman: What then is the author of Genesis saying when he says that the serpent deceived Eve? Is he trying desperately to tell us, "Dude, there was this talking snake. I'm telling you, the thing talked. The boy was slick, slicker than a dog. You have got to believe that this literally happened the way I'm telling you it did. Hek, I would have told you the date and time, too, but I didn't get that information"? Or might he instead be trying to make it clear that an enemy of God was sowing some seriously bad seed in the mind and heart of the human race, and the author uses two figures of the human race that encompass the whole (since we are either men or women) to make the point? (Very simple and far from an even decent theology...you get the point, though, I'm sure.)
Jeff: I get the point. The question is HOW, hermeneutically, do we answer "What then is the author of Genesis saying?" HOW, indeed, do YOU, personally, know that Satan, possibly as a Cherubim, did not have the appearance of the dragon-beast (remember, he had legs then)? After all, other Cherubim are said to have the appearance of animals.
Starkman: Finally, you said, Moreover, Scott conceded a lack of detailed understanding himself. Those concessions simply prove my point as far as I can tell. No, that's not true, anymore than it would be true if you yourself were unable to decifer the meaning of a text and conceded such. All Scott has conceded is that some things are theologically hard to work through, but that for all regardless of one's approache to scripture.
Jeff: Again, it is one thing to know that Gen. 1-3 teaches some kind of "fall" because later revelation demands that. It is another thing to say that YOU KNOW what parts weren't intended to be historical by the author. Since Scott and Meph admit that the biblical writers/prophets, including Christ, seemed to have taken that text historically, your argument has no weight. I really don't think you're understanding Scott (maybe it's me). Scott says that God APPROPRIATED text that He never inspired and used SOME aspects of it for theological ends. That's different than what I see you saying.
Starkman: Genesis, however, makes no such claim as to being a historical account of how it really happened. Further, the style—the genre—directs us, I believe, away from a literal/historical interpretation.
Jeff: Explain HOW the genre directs us away from a historical interpretation. That would be nice. It would also save us a lot of time. Question: Do you or do you NOT believe that Christ and the apostles took Gen 1-3 as history? And if they did, why did they, in your opinon?
Starkman: Futher, you state that there is simply no doubt that all biblical writers chose precisely those historical details that served their literary ends. I would say that there is simply not doubt that some biblical writers chose precisely non-historical details that served their literay ends. You see, it works both ways. Jeff, you're already presupposed towards a literal conclusion.
Jeff: You're right, bro. In a purely statistical sense, I DO expect a literal over figurative text. But when the text makes no sense literally in it's context, I start looking for figurative interpretations. That's the way induction works. All I've ever heard as arguments against a historical Gen. is modern scientific arguments. You did the same in your post. You have not yet explained HOW an inductive hermeneutic would lead naturally to the belief that Gen. 1-11 is not historical.
Starkman: All I am saying is that to think like this is both unnecessary and, in several cases, it exegetically puts one into confining and awkward positions, the very thing you are trying to avoid.
Jeff: I'm not about trying to be unconfined and free of awkward postions. I'm about trying to know, inductively, what a text was intended to say. You see, there are some texts which, understood properly (i.e., according to the author's intent), are pure nonsense. It is the inductive science of hermeneutics that is to "generate" the meaning of a text, not our own personal fear of being confined or feeling "silly." Once THOSE motivations enter in, no objective interpretation can be done.
Starkman: Hey, did it all happen exactly as it is given us? Maybe. BUT...maybe not, and there is good reason to thnk not, without compromising any of the theology. We will simply have to wait and see!
Jeff: No, I don't HAVE to wait and see. There is another alternative. Precisely because just "MAYBE" it happened "as it is given us," I will believe until proven otherwise or provided an inductive hermeneutic that allows another interpretation. And I agree that there are good reasons "to think not." But the problem with allowing THAT fact to rule my faith is that there are also good reasons to "think not" about every other competing paradigm. In the absence of compelling proof to the contrary, I'm content to feel ackward and confined, just as those who embrace other paradigms do. After all, why is faith a duty/virtue if it can only make you feel comfortable?
Starkman: Do you, or do you not agree that the obvious theology of Genesis is that man was in a state of relationship that got rather..."bad," that he "fell" out of this relationship and it screwed things up royally betweem God and man? I mean, can we agree that there is no real need to debate this simple, broad but poigant point? As a Christian, I completely believe that mankind was in a perfect relationship with God ("perfect" meaning without sin but not completed; completion would come later, perhaps, by eating of the Tree of Life). Man did not heed God's word and, instead, chose to heed his own words instead. Man was ostracized from relationship with God in a horrible an pitiful way. I mean, this is the basics of the Fall of mankind. This is the obvious. This is the theology that,at least in my opinion, that cannot be missed. Without this nothing else makes too much sense. However, I don't have to believe that there was a literal serpent or a literal Tree of Life (or of the Knowledge of Good and Evil) for the theology to stand. Those symbols make the point quite clear: eat of the one tree, you're doomed, dude! Eat of the other, and life gets sweet for eternity. But...if I were to see how things really went, I'd end up with the same theology. It just might not have been so obvious! That's the best I can explain it.
Jeff: I believe that when Greeks believed Paul's gospel message, they were saved without knowing or believing ANYTHING about a fall. But once you see how Paul and the other NT writers took the fall narrative historically, you have to conclude with the obvious points you are agreeing to. My contention is that for fair and productive debate and teaching, we need inductive hermeneutical rules. What one believes in private is their own concern. When Meph says that getting universalism from the text will be a no-brainer, he is demonstrating how easy he thinks it is to prove things. I think induction is more confining and constraining than that. And it's supposed to be. Otherwise, everybody will end up being motivated by fear of confinement and looking silly and applying very non-inductive, unconstrained, hermeneutics that can generate pretty much anything they want to believe.
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Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 3/20/2005 11:11 AM (GMT -6) | | | Scott: I was thinking, for example, of the insistence on the criticality of young-earth creationism (YEC) by groups like Answers in Genesis and Institute for Creation Research. While careful to say that YEC is not essential to salvation, and that one can be a Christian and reject YEC, they are also very plain that YEC is an essential component to be a "good Christian" - ie one mature in Christ, with a sound worldview, and (for example) trustworthy of teaching and leadership. In their view, one cannot be a good Christian without rejecting mainstream science and history and embracing YEC. This erects a barrier to the gospel which drives away basically all of those knowledgeable about how secure the footing is underneath mainstream science and history. This isn't just hypothetical; I see this reaction in some of my non-Christian friends.
Jeff: I haven't read where the YEC folks say talking Gen. 1-11 historically is a sign of maturity. I always thought they thought it was a different view of hermeneutics and, consequently, a different view of faith. But a new convert has that same kind of faith that they are talking about. But you are right, the YEC position is a "barrier" of a sort to some people.
The problem is, your view and other concordant views are a barrier to other people. Take Glenn Morton; he's an evolutionist but insists that Eve had to literally be taken out of Adam. He was contemplating atheism until he thought of his own unique concordant approach. Then there are people who share the view of Thomas Huxley: "If we listen to many expositors of no mean authority, we must believe that what seems so clearly defined in Genesis . . . as if great pains had been taken that there should be no possibility of mistake . . . is not the meaning of the text at all . . . A person who is not a Hebrew scholar can only stand aside and admire the marvelous flexibility of a language which admits of such diverse interpretations." Your view would be a barrier to them. Then there are those like Weinberg, Davies, Dawkins, Denton, etc. who find the scientific view utterly incompatible with the view of God's benevolence as portrayed in the theodicy of Gen. 1-3 and elsewhere. Your view would be a barrier to them, also.
So your point proves too much, as far as I can tell. The bottom line is, The cross is a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to the Greek. No getting around that one.
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scott_jorgenson
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Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 271
| Posted 3/21/2005 1:19 PM (GMT -6) | |
jefscott said...
...
The problem is, your view and other concordant views are a barrier to other people.
...
So your point proves too much, as far as I can tell. The bottom line is, The cross is a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to the Greek. No getting around that one. Indeed.
But I, and most others who accommodate theistic evolution (TE) through whatever understanding of Genesis, are perfectly willing to admit the possibility of other approaches. I've yet to hear or read one TE criticize another's Christ-likeness for being a concordist rather than an ahistoricist, for example. We TE's each might think the approach we prefer is the better one, for various reasons; but we don't make any such approach into what would be essentially a fundamental doctrine of the faith, calling into question the sincerity of Christian commitment on the part of those who disagree.
Thus those who are left cold by our various TE takes on Genesis are not, by us at least, driven away from faith to nearly the same degree as I believe you see happen with the YEC witness. With most YEC leadership, though, it is "my way or the highway", so that once YEC is rejected there is little opportunity left open in peoples' eyes for anything other than the highway away from God.
Yet you are certainly right in bringing up 1 Corinthians 1:23. To a certain extent, I believe YEC can drive away honest inquiry; but to another extent such seekers may not really be seeking in heart and spirit anyway, and instead merely using YEC as an excuse for their predilection to skepticism. Only the one who knows the heart, knows. I would be happy if there were fewer such excuses as self-insistent YEC, however.
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scott_jorgenson
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Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 271
| Posted 3/21/2005 2:02 PM (GMT -6) | | Keith (Starkman) and Jeff,
I've enjoyed reading your exchange over the last few postings. Since my name has come up a few times, especially over the issue of authorial intent and historicity, I'd like to add a few comments.
First, I agree that the ancient community in which Genesis 1-11 circulated, right up to Jesus' times, probably by-and-large took the stories as history in some sense (as well as other things - for example, parable, eventually seen as suitable for midrash by the rabbis). But I suspect they took them as history in the same way other ancient pre-modern cultures seem to have taken their own primordial legends as history: ie, not quite as history in the same detached, documentary, just-the-facts-of-what-actually-happened style that we moderns insist upon.
I suspect the Hebrews took Genesis 1-11 as history in the same way, for example, that the Babylonians took the Enuma elish as history. Because of the outright absurdities that would be involved - believing the mountains really are giant female breasts, for example - we can safely know that the Babylonians didn't interpret their account as unadorned historical fact, even though references elsewhere to Marduk and his triumph over Tiamat suggest that they believed still that the events related in Enuma elish somehow, in some sense, actually happened. The conclusion seems to be that the ancients interpreted their mythologies and legends as a quasi- but not fully-historical genre the likes of which we have no parallel today - and that is why it is so hard for us to get a grip on understanding this. But is it really so hard to recognize that peoples so far removed from us culturally would be so different from us - peoples more removed from us culturally than are any other contacted societies today?
Second, I do not advocate "abandoning" an understanding of authorial intent when trying to tease out the teaching point God gives us in a passage. But such intent should be seen for what it is: a starting point, not the ending point. We start by discerning the authorial intent - ie the historical-grammatical (literal) meaning of a passage - and then we digest that with the sum total of the rest of scripture seen in the light of Christ (God's greatest revelation and the fulcrum of creation and history). We also reflect on it with our reason and inform such reflection with our experience and the experience of others in the community as passed down to us. I'm talking about the Wesleyan quadrilateral here, basically.
In contrast, that ending with authorial intent gives a deficient understanding of scripture should, I think, be obvious whenever trying to integrate across a number of passages in different books of the Bible. The authorial intent in 2 Samuel 24:1 is to communicate that God in his sovereignty and wrath incited David against him so that God's punishment might be meted out. The authorial intent in 1 Chronicles 21:1, however, is to communicate that Satan incited David to conduct the census. In neither case is the literal meaning that God in his sovereignty allowed Satan to tempt David; that is a theological theory we apply in an attempt to harmonize the passages, and we are able to develop such a theoretical harmonization only in light of the witness of the rest of scripture as informed by reason, experience, and tradition - namely, as I was saying above. But the fact that those passages even need harmonizing in the first place is the dead give-away that interpretation does not end with exegeting the historical-grammatical meaning, the author's intent behind it, or etc.
Scott
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Starkman
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1747
| Posted 3/21/2005 4:09 PM (GMT -6) | | It takes some work for the traditionalist (said in a positive sense) to see what Scott is bringing out here about II Samuel and I Chronicles. We are so quick to defend a preconceived concept of the Authority of scripture that we forget the reality of the essence of down-to-earth writing. I agree, Scott; in that the author of Chronicles is not the least bit interested in our modern approach to scriptural inerrancy and infallibility, there is no reason to defend an apparent disharmony. The author is simply stating a (theological) perspective about the event, particularly about David's spiritual condition before God.
The same approach in thinking is prevalent within the traditionalist when twenty-first-century evangelicals approach Genesis with the traditional perspective; not with defending against contradiction, but in assuming a mindset that is not in conjunction with the author's. Jeff, you asked me "but how do I know...?" in regard to pre- post-fall carnivory and other related issues. Let's take the Garden, for instance. First, serpents do not talk! I do not know why you suggest the serpent had legs by this time, but walking serpents do not talk either. It will not do to say, "Well, remember, this was pre-fall." There's no pre-fall evidence of talking snakes to suggest the theory as true (and I would hardly see it as compromise or illegitimate to ask for concrete evidence outside of scripture. Talking donkeys in scripture, by the way, won't suffice either, as those are the exceptions).
Further, Trees with fruit on them that give off spiritual decay or growth, or anything thing spiritual for that matter, are really hard to find these days...as in, I see no reason to believe that the author is trying to get us to believe there really was such a thing. Again, if there was, fine. But the account in Genesis, like much apocalyptic writing, isn't written to cause one to take to the literal (with, however, the exception as to how Scott as addressed the matter in his post above mine).
I guess what I'm saying is that the "obvious," at least to me, has became...obvious only when I learned that ancient cultural thinking (as evidenced by the Enuma elish) was not the same as our thinking. Even taking the cultural apect out, there is simply enough in the creation text to warrant a symbolic or metaphorical interpretation. I just don't see it as demanding too much calorie-burning effort to discover this unless... one has already been taught, as I was, that Genesis MUST be literal and cannot be anything else; it has to be, because it's not authoritative if it is not literal and it then contradicts Jesus...
(neither of which I believe to be true. The NT treats the the creation account as authoritative, but neither explicitely nor dogmatically teaches the creation account as literal. Jesus can refer to Adam and Eve as authoritative for instruction, which He did, but without concern for the historical literality. Paul, too, may have thought some, or all, of the creation account to be literal; he doesn't say. He does, however, treat all of it as authoritative. If this is bothersome to many, and indeed it is, we only have to realize, as some of us have been trying to present, that it all hinges on the author's intent, NOT the inspiration, which is already a given. It is the the purpose of the author—as evidenced I believe, by what looks to be a mostly non-literal account—in which we will find a much more bigger picture than the literal can paint in these passages.)
I know the traditional mindset (again, in a postive sense, as we all have mindsets): I was a traditional evangelical for many years. I know the feeling, the emotions, the framework of thought, the context for the apologetics and the hermeneutics, so would hardly knock my heritage. I think, though, that the subjects of creation and the Fall are bigger than our traditional approach. I think these subjects are far more than we will ever be able to digest in terms of what a literal approach can serve. And I think that taking a step or two back from twenty-first-century thinking will at least give a person the chance to ponder the riches found in considering this bigger picture.
"On to the next," to quote the grandfather in You've Got Mail...
Pre- or post-fall carnivory. Nature itself suggests many animals have always been carnivores. And again, it won't do to suggest a pre-fall environment having changed the course of animal teeth and carivorous habits. Pre-fall evidence does not suggest, as far as I have found, concrete proof that mosquitos never used to suck blood (oh, and anybody got any proof that a vampire ever drank anything else???). Trying to explain away these overt issues, I think, can only lead towards a closed mind. Look, this is not a challenge to the resurrection of Christ, salvation by grace or anything like that. It is a simple request that the creation account, which would be considered anything BUT literal in any other context, be given some thought as to why it must be literal in Genesis. If the Genesis account was never intended in the first place toward contributing a documentary of the historical and veritable account of creation, then we are already misaligning ourselves and are disjunctive with the text. This isn't to be taken lightly. The idea of the account not being literal should not be jettisoned without thinking of the ramification of NOT considering that the text just might have another intention in mind than being a literal construction of the universe; the style of the Genesis account and what this style suggests—that the text is not, therefore, to be taken so literally—causes me to evaluate the text with this presuppositional hermeneutic in place.
Finally, let me add that if Genesis turned out to be absolutely 100% historical, GREAT! Man, I'm there, dude! And, if to the satisfaction of many non-traditionalists, Genesis turned out to be (perhaps only partly) symbolic, GREAT! I'm there, dude! Neither the authorial intent nor the theology are compromised in either setting. Not in the least. But...to find peace with this statement, it means that we need to appreciate BOTH the mythos and literal-historical possibilities of the text and flavor our definition of "authorial" with the appropriate accomodating seasoning of interpretation. (By the way, I like what NT Wright had to say about biblical authority. I forget where on this board someone refered to it. I think it was in the universal thread...one of them, at least). (http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Bible_Authoritative.htm)
Just for the record...
I have not allocated all of the Genesis account to the mythos-legend. What I am trying to do, however, is consider a bigger picture which, in my mind, transcends the literal. That's the theology! In doing so, I have found that the literal must step aside in many cases or, in my opinion, the theology can become confined. It doesn't change, but it isn't relaxed. At any rate, that's my take!
Got to run,
Starkman
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Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 3/21/2005 9:31 PM (GMT -6) | | Scott: But I, and most others who accommodate theistic evolution (TE) through whatever understanding of Genesis, are perfectly willing to admit the possibility of other approaches. I've yet to hear or read one TE criticize another's Christ-likeness for being a concordist rather than an ahistoricist, for example. We TE's each might think the approach we prefer is the better one, for various reasons; but we don't make any such approach into what would be essentially a fundamental doctrine of the faith, calling into question the sincerity of Christian commitment on the part of those who disagree.
Jeff: I've never had much discussion with theistic evolutionists. But I remember Phillip Johnson talking about how they gave him lot's of grief when he first started his talks to colleges. He said they were insistent upon "confining" God's means to natural causes lest they be charged with appealing to the god-of-the-gap. But maybe they were only talking about their professional approach. Personally, I'm as tolerant of different private opinions as you can imagine. But when it comes to teaching and debate, I don't see where tradition and experience can buy us much on the Genesis question. The creation is a singularity no matter how you look at it. Our experience isn't necessarily relevant when trying to "confine" it's possibilities.
Scott: ...I agree that the ancient community in which Genesis 1-11 circulated, right up to Jesus' times, probably by-and-large took the stories as history in some sense (as well as other things - for example, parable, eventually seen as suitable for midrash by the rabbis).
Jeff: But what evidence do we have that Christ and the apostles took it as parable? Especially given the fact that neither Christ nor Paul had nice things to say about the scribes of their day who presumably wrote the likes of the midrash?
Scott: I suspect the Hebrews took Genesis 1-11 as history in the same way, for example, that the Babylonians took the Enuma elish as history. Because of the outright absurdities that would be involved - believing the mountains really are giant female breasts, for example
Jeff: I don't find it hard at all to believe that some original generation of that tradition may very well have believed the mountains were somehow remnants of breasts, just as others may have believed some body of salt was Lot's wife. Other's may have NOT believed either.
Scott: - we can safely know that the Babylonians didn't interpret their account as unadorned historical fact, even though references elsewhere to Marduk and his triumph over Tiamat suggest that they believed still that the events related in Enuma elish somehow, in some sense, actually happened. The conclusion seems to be that the ancients interpreted their mythologies and legends as a quasi- but not fully-historical genre the likes of which we have no parallel today - and that is why it is so hard for us to get a grip on understanding this.
Jeff: I can't help but believe that part of what makes it hard to understand is that it was taken in different ways by different people thru time. Which is why that kind of evidence is really weak, to me. The real question is, given that Jesus and the apostles saw Gen 1-11 as historical, why would I believe, e.g., that Paul didn't believe there was a serpent that deceived Eve? How can I know that Paul thought THAT part was metaphorical? After all, Christ said He saw Satan fall as lightning. How could Paul KNOW that Satan couldn't appear as a Serpent/Dragon? Or that Satan might have been a cherubum with an animal appearance (or features) like other biblically-described cherubim.
Scott: But such intent should be seen for what it is: a starting point, not the ending point. We start by discerning the authorial intent - ie the historical-grammatical (literal) meaning of a passage - and then we digest that with the sum total of the rest of scripture seen in the light of Christ (God's greatest revelation and the fulcrum of creation and history).
Jeff: How does the light of Christ "shed light" on the meaning of Gen 1-11? If anything, the fact that Christ gave His followers the power to tread upon serpents alludes to the possibility that Gen is correct about an original herbivorous animal kingdom, as Doc believes.
Scott: We also reflect on it with our reason and inform such reflection with our experience and the experience of others in the community as passed down to us. I'm talking about the Wesleyan quadrilateral here, basically.
Jeff: But how does anyone's experience limit the possibilities of God's creative power in the original creation? Or the meaning of a text that was written thousand's of years prior to OUR experience? Especially since you argued "that peoples so far removed from us culturally would be so different from us."
Scott: In contrast, that ending with authorial intent gives a deficient understanding of scripture should, I think, be obvious whenever trying to integrate across a number of passages in different books of the Bible. The authorial intent in 2 Samuel 24:1 is to communicate that God in his sovereignty and wrath incited David against him so that God's punishment might be meted out. The authorial intent in 1 Chronicles 21:1, however, is to communicate that Satan incited David to conduct the census. In neither case is the literal meaning that God in his sovereignty allowed Satan to tempt David; that is a theological theory we apply in an attempt to harmonize the passages,...
Jeff: It is not, for me, a theological theory. It is giving the benefit of the doubt to the accuracy of the texts (based upon Christ's and the apostles' high respect for the authority of those texts). Then, working inductively, we see that Job provides a very plausible deductive reconciliation.
Scott: ...and we are able to develop such a theoretical harmonization only in light of the witness of the rest of scripture as informed by reason, experience, and tradition - namely, as I was saying above.
Jeff: I honestly don't see where experience and tradition were relevant at all. It was simply knowing Job and recognizing the explanation it provided to the "apparent" contradiction.
Scott: But the fact that those passages even need harmonizing in the first place is the dead give-away that interpretation does not end with exegeting the historical-grammatical meaning, the author's intent behind it, or etc.
Jeff: I would say the authors' intents were accurate since they're not contradictory. A Hebrew, who would have been familiar with the idiom in Job, would never have troubled over it. It is we, in our ignorance, who have to learn those idioms inductively. But learning a metaphorical idiom that can elucidate what the "cursing of the ground" means (or whether it means anything) in Gen is MUCH trickier. Tricky because it is the literary precedent! So tricky that I'm not convinced there IS an idiom that explains it non-historically.
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Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 3/21/2005 10:45 PM (GMT -6) | | StarkDude (Keith, hereafter): the author of Chronicles is not the least bit interested in our modern approach to scriptural inerrancy and infallibility, there is no reason to defend an apparent disharmony. The author is simply stating a (theological) perspective about the event, particularly about David's spiritual condition before God.
Jeff: An accurate theological perspective as far as I can tell.
Keith: Jeff, you asked me "but how do I know...?" in regard to pre- post-fall carnivory and other related issues. Let's take the Garden, for instance. First, serpents do not talk!
Jeff: Fine if you don't want to allow for the donkey talking. But how the donkey can count as an exception, but not the serpent is beyond me. But it is also possible that the Serpent (Dragon?) was merely the appearance of a cherubum - Satan!
Keith: I do not know why you suggest the serpent had legs by this time...
Jeff: According to the account, the serpent didn't crawl on his belly until he was cursed. That makes it reasonable to believe that before he had legs. But it may only be a metaphorical reference to Satan.
Keith: Further, Trees with fruit on them that give off spiritual decay or growth, or anything thing spiritual for that matter, are really hard to find these days...as in, I see no reason to believe that the author is trying to get us to believe there really was such a thing. Again, if there was, fine. But the account in Genesis, like much apocalyptic writing, isn't written to cause one to take to the literal (with, however, the exception as to how Scott as addressed the matter in his post above mine).
Jeff: The genitive can imply causation in a very lose sense - like the "abomination of the desolation." Not a problem for the natural idiomatic usage of language at all.
Keith: Jesus can refer to Adam and Eve as authoritative for instruction, which He did, but without concern for the historical literality. Paul, too, may have thought some, or all, of the creation account to be literal; he doesn't say.
Jeff: I think the genealogies are the strongest evidence that they took it historically. And I can't imagine what would count as evidence that they took it otherwise. If you have any, I'm interested in it. The Eden account leads right into the subsequent biblical history and all genealogies thereafter assume a real historical link right back to Adam. Luke even says that Adam was the son of God - a phrase used of angels because of their direct creation by God.
Keith: It is the the purpose of the author—as evidenced I believe, by what looks to be a mostly non-literal account—in which we will find a much more bigger picture than the literal can paint in these passages.)
Jeff: It looks non-literal for the same reason the miracles of Christ and the apostles would look ridiculous to some unbelievers - because it's way beyond our own experience.
Keith: I think, though, that the subjects of creation and the Fall are bigger than our traditional approach. I think these subjects are far more than we will ever be able to digest in terms of what a literal approach can serve. And I think that taking a step or two back from twenty-first-century thinking will at least give a person the chance to ponder the riches found in considering this bigger picture.
Jeff: I've been waiting for the detailed explanation of how your hermeneutic generates that picture. When are you gonna give it up? Moreover, your view rules out other riches that could be true if it IS historical.
Keith: Pre- or post-fall carnivory. Nature itself suggests many animals have always been carnivores.
Jeff: Really? How does nature suggest it?
Keith: And again, it won't do to suggest a pre-fall environment having changed the course of animal teeth and carivorous habits.
Jeff: Taking Gen 1-11 at face value, I would assume that carnivory did not come into being until well after the Flood, and it may have taken millions of years and theistic evolution for it's development.
Keith: Pre-fall evidence does not suggest, as far as I have found, concrete proof that mosquitos never used to suck blood (oh, and anybody got any proof that a vampire ever drank anything else???).
Jeff: For all I know, mosquitoes evolved from some nicer flying insect. Can you prove otherwise?
Keith: Look, this is not a challenge to the resurrection of Christ, salvation by grace or anything like that.
Jeff: Never said it was.
Keith: It is a simple request that the creation account, which would be considered anything BUT literal in any other context,
Jeff: I agree it is the context that makes it seem so. As well as how it is referenced in other contexts.
Keith: If the Genesis account was never intended in the first place toward contributing a documentary of the historical and veritable account of creation, then we are already misaligning ourselves and are disjunctive with the text.
Jeff: Yep.
Keith: This isn't to be taken lightly.
Jeff: You're right. For at least one of us is dead wrong.
Keith: The idea of the account not being literal should not be jettisoned without thinking of the ramification of NOT considering that the text just might have another intention in mind than being a literal construction of the universe;
Jeff: My mind is so open my brains are about to fall out. You just haven't provided any evidence that the author's intent was non-historical. Remember, I believe debate requires inductive rules. Private opinion is not what I'm concerned about here.
Keith: ...the style of the Genesis account and what this style suggests—that the text is not, therefore, to be taken so literally
Jeff: WHOA!!! Where was the evidence for that conclusion?
Keith: ... we need to appreciate BOTH the mythos and literal-historical possibilities of the text and flavor our definition of "authorial" with the appropriate accomodating seasoning of interpretation.
Jeff: How can we determine if ANY of it is historical based on your view? Was Luke wrong in saying that Adam was the son of God? Couldn't that mean that Adam was directly created by God like an angel? And if so, why is it any harder to believe that God created Eve from Adam's side? And if so, the whole thing sounds non-literal to the modern mind. So where you gonna stand with respect to Luke? What was he saying? What was HIS intent?
Keith: I have not allocated all of the Genesis account to the mythos-legend. What I am trying to do, however, is consider a bigger picture which, in my mind, transcends the literal. That's the theology! In doing so, I have found that the literal must step aside in many cases or, in my opinion, the theology can become confined.
Jeff: But bro, every take is confining in at least one sense - EVERY TAKE rules out every other take that is logically incompatible with it. Your view rules out Doc's theodicy about carnivory, for example. There's nothing wrong with being confined - to the TRUTH! The only question is, how do we find truth? What hermeneutic gets us there?
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scott_jorgenson
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Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 271
| Posted 3/22/2005 12:25 PM (GMT -6) | |
Scott: ...I agree that the ancient community in which Genesis 1-11 circulated, right up to Jesus' times, probably by-and-large took the stories as history in some sense (as well as other things - for example, parable, eventually seen as suitable for midrash by the rabbis).
Jeff: But what evidence do we have that Christ and the apostles took it as parable? Especially given the fact that neither Christ nor Paul had nice things to say about the scribes of their day who presumably wrote the likes of the midrash?
Jesus and the apostles were part of a community which took Genesis as both historical (albeit probably quasi-historical, as I went on to explain what I meant by that) and parabolic. Therefore it is reasonable to infer that Jesus and the apostles may have taken it the same way, absent any evidence otherwise. Evidence of their disagreement with the "scribes, Pharisees and teachers of the law" on personal morality and the authority of Jesus as Messiah does not count - indeed Jesus seems to have criticized those authorities, not for their understanding of scripture, but for their application of it to their present circumstances.
Scott: I suspect the Hebrews took Genesis 1-11 as history in the same way, for example, that the Babylonians took the Enuma elish as history. Because of the outright absurdities that would be involved - believing the mountains really are giant female breasts, for example
Jeff: I don't find it hard at all to believe that some original generation of that tradition may very well have believed the mountains were somehow remnants of breasts, just as others may have believed some body of salt was Lot's wife. Other's may have NOT believed either.
"...the mountains were somehow remnants of breasts..." - my point exactly. They clearly aren't today, so if they nonetheless are in some way, it is clearly not in the straightforward and literal sense. But neither is it in a purely metaphorical (read imaginary or fictional) sense, for the way the account is later reflected on by the community seems to belie that. It is, as I said, according to a genre we no longer have today - best called "mythological" or "legendary", so long as it is understood that those terms are not a downplay or derogation but an attempt to attach a convenient label to this strange and foreign pre-modern genre.
Jeff: I can't help but believe that part of what makes it hard to understand is that it was taken in different ways by different people thru time. Which is why that kind of evidence is really weak, to me. The real question is, given that Jesus and the apostles saw Gen 1-11 as historical, why would I believe, e.g., that Paul didn't believe there was a serpent that deceived Eve? How can I know that Paul thought THAT part was metaphorical? After all, Christ said He saw Satan fall as lightning. How could Paul KNOW that Satan couldn't appear as a Serpent/Dragon? Or that Satan might have been a cherubum with an animal appearance (or features) like other biblically-described cherubim.
I don't believe I've ever said Paul considered those things to be merely fictional and illustrative. He believed those things to be quasi-history and parable, most likely, and thus as part of that he most likely believed those things, in some sense, actually happened: that there was a first man Adam, a first woman Eve, and a serpent who tempted them with the tree of knowledge. Whether he believed those things were exactly and literally historical the same way we would today if we said they were historical is not so certain; but that he believed they, in some manner, happened in real history seems likely to me.
But this doesn't matter to the authority of the text, anymore than it matters that Paul also was almost certainly a geocentrist who furthermore probably (though not quite as certainly) thought the earth is a flat disk of dry land floating on the surface of the deep. He simply would have reflected his community in this respect, taking the biblical allusions to such things (in Genesis, Job, Isaiah, Psalms) at face value. It doesn't matter, since God's teaching point does not end with the author's literal meaning, as I go on to defend.
Scott: But such intent should be seen for what it is: a starting point, not the ending point. We start by discerning the authorial intent - ie the historical-grammatical (literal) meaning of a passage - and then we digest that with the sum total of the rest of scripture seen in the light of Christ (God's greatest revelation and the fulcrum of creation and history).
Jeff: How does the light of Christ "shed light" on the meaning of Gen 1-11? If anything, the fact that Christ gave His followers the power to tread upon serpents alludes to the possibility that Gen is correct about an original herbivorous animal kingdom, as Doc believes.
Scott: We also reflect on it with our reason and inform such reflection with our experience and the experience of others in the community as passed down to us. I'm talking about the Wesleyan quadrilateral here, basically.
Jeff: But how does anyone's experience limit the possibilities of God's creative power in the original creation? Or the meaning of a text that was written thousand's of years prior to OUR experience? Especially since you argued "that peoples so far removed from us culturally would be so different from us."
From scripture we see how the literal meaning is not always the teaching point, whether it be in the parables or in the various theological tensions between Paul and James, or John and the Synoptics, or 2 Samuel and the Chronicler. From experience (that is, incorporation of extrabiblical knowledge) we see the unlikelihood of the Genesis accounts being literally historical. From tradition (ie the communal experience) we see the attempts, going way back to Augustine and Basil, to grapple with what (if anything) Genesis has to say about what the creation process was actually and literally like. With (hopefully Spirit influenced) reason we put this all together to come to a theory that harmonizes modern science with scripture. It is the same kind of process we use in coming to grips with any other biblical difficulty. It just isn't as boxed-in as you might seem to think it needs to be.
Scott: In contrast, that ending with authorial intent gives a deficient understanding of scripture should, I think, be obvious whenever trying to integrate across a number of passages in different books of the Bible. The authorial intent in 2 Samuel 24:1 is to communicate that God in his sovereignty and wrath incited David against him so that God's punishment might be meted out. The authorial intent in 1 Chronicles 21:1, however, is to communicate that Satan incited David to conduct the census. In neither case is the literal meaning that God in his sovereignty allowed Satan to tempt David; that is a theological theory we apply in an attempt to harmonize the passages,...
Jeff: It is not, for me, a theological theory. It is giving the benefit of the doubt to the accuracy of the texts (based upon Christ's and the apostles' high respect for the authority of those texts). Then, working inductively, we see that Job provides a very plausible deductive reconciliation.
In other words, you start with the presupposition that the author of 2 Samuel and the Chronicler must have agreed with one another, but just expressed themselves differently. And then you look for some way to rationalize that presupposition in light of the text which plainly goes against it. Now, note that I don't disagree with the theological harmonization of the passages, which sees Satan as a free mediator for evil who nonetheless is under God's sovereignty. I do disagree with the presupposition, though, and the idea that in harmonizing the passages we are not theologizing to God's teaching point but instead are just extracting what the original authors meant.
If the original authors had really meant that God allowed Satan in his freedom to tempt David in his freedom to call for a census, then it seems most reasonable to me to conclude that each would have said so. Elsewhere the writers seem quite capable of clearly getting their point across, after all. In my opinion, their composition teachers would have been justified in giving them failing grades for not having done so in this matter, each having instead communicated less than what they really meant.
It seems more reasonable to me, and faithful to the text, to conclude that each author had a different understanding of how evil is outworked in this world. The author of the older Deuteronomistic histories (Deuteronomy/Samuel/Kings) viewed God as sovereign over everything, and had no problem seeing God as the direct authority behind both fortune and misfortune. Indeed neither Satan nor any kind of personified free evil makes any appearance anywhere throughout the Deuteronomistic books. (The closest the Deuteronomist comes to this is with the lying spirit of 1 Kings 22 - but this spirit acts, not freely, but at God's direct and specific impetus - contrast with God's and Satan's relationship in Job.) The Chronicler, coming later in Israel's theological reflection (read: God's progressive revelation), at a time when evil was beginning to be recognized as personified and free, simply saw the story of David's census differently, and laid all the blame for the temptation behind it at Satan's doorstep.
The easiest and plainest conclusion, then, whether we like it or not, is that the authors didn't agree. We should deal with that: reflect upon what it means for how God revealed teaching, inspired scripture, what part man played in that, and so forth. When we do, I think it fits well with a recognition of the humanity in scripture, and thus fits well with what I have been saying about Genesis vis-a-vis modern mainstream science, and such modern evangelical dogmas as total factual inerrancy for that matter.
Scott: ...and we are able to develop such a theoretical harmonization only in light of the witness of the rest of scripture as informed by reason, experience, and tradition - namely, as I was saying above.
Jeff: I honestly don't see where experience and tradition were relevant at all. It was simply knowing Job and recognizing the explanation it provided to the "apparent" contradiction.
Scott: But the fact that those passages even need harmonizing in the first place is the dead give-away that interpretation does not end with exegeting the historical-grammatical meaning, the author's intent behind it, or etc.
Jeff: I would say the authors' intents were accurate since they're not contradictory. A Hebrew, who would have been familiar with the idiom in Job, would never have troubled over it. It is we, in our ignorance, who have to learn those idioms inductively. But learning a metaphorical idiom that can elucidate what the "cursing of the ground" means (or whether it means anything) in Gen is MUCH trickier. Tricky because it is the literary precedent! So tricky that I'm not convinced there IS an idiom that explains it non-historically.
As I related above, there is no awareness of the theology of Job anywhere in the Deuteronomistic books. No mention of Satan, no personification of free evil. Woe is attributed to God. There is therefore nothing to suggest that the author of 2 Samuel understood the insights from Job (if that book had even been finalized yet, or disseminated throughout and accepted by his community), let alone agreed with and incorporated them. If he had, we would expect that to show more in his work, like we find (relatively speaking) with the Chronicles.
Again, this is not to attack the validity of the theology that harmonizes the passages. This is not to attack the process of reconciling biblical difficulties by appealing to teachings from other contexts. And it certainly is not to belittle the Bible, as if I were some skeptical atheist. It is only to point out that, when we harmonize like this, we should recognize that we are going beyond the authorial intent, the literal historical-grammatical meaning of each respective package, to synthesize a broader and more satisfactory understanding - an understanding which we come to recognize - the more stable and reliable it becomes as validated by our reason, experience, and the communal experience - as God's teaching point.
Thus the teaching point may lie beyond the exegetical meaning of any particular passage. And that ties back with the idea that the literal historicity of Genesis is not particularly consequential to the theology we get from it, as Keith has been saying.
I hope I don't sound like I'm beating up on you. I'm not so much trying to persuade you, as trying to lay out the case for other readers here who may be struggling with these issues and who might benefit (as I have) from this sort of understanding. Thanks for letting me do this.
Best regards,
Scott
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Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 3/23/2005 7:48 AM (GMT -6) | | | Scott,
Thanks for the response. I don't have much time this week, so I'll have to respond one bit at a time.
Scott: Jesus and the apostles were part of a community which took Genesis as both historical (albeit probably quasi-historical, as I went on to explain what I meant by that) and parabolic. Therefore it is reasonable to infer that Jesus and the apostles may have taken it the same way, absent any evidence otherwise. Evidence of their disagreement with the "scribes, Pharisees and teachers of the law" on personal morality and the authority of Jesus as Messiah does not count - indeed Jesus seems to have criticized those authorities, not for their understanding of scripture, but for their application of it to their present circumstances.
Jeff: I agree that it's reasonable to believe He "may" have taken it the same way. But that's different than saying it's reasonable to believe He DID take it that way. Christ specifically told the Saducee's they "erred," not knowing the scripture. He told the Pharisee's that they subverted the scriptural commandment to give precedent to their tradition. He said they were supposed to take every jot and tittle to get the right interpretation. And so forth. Paul, too, says "where is the scribe of this age?" Then we see Luke call the Bereans "noble" for testing Paul by reading the scriptures for themselves to test his counter-traditional views of the messiah.
And even IF there was a quasi-historical view at the time, was there only ONE such view? How do we understand HOW they came to these views? Do we know how their hermeneutic worked? Without this kind of knowledge, the diverse views of the NT world is no more help to us than will be the views of Glenn Morton, me, or you to one a thousand years from now if they don't know WHY we had those views. They will just be mutually exclusive views. Similarly, we like the Bereans are left to "search the scriptures" for ourselves to see whether those things are so.
Scott: "...the mountains were somehow remnants of breasts..." - my point exactly. They clearly aren't today, so if they nonetheless are in some way, it is clearly not in the straightforward and literal sense. But neither is it in a purely metaphorical (read imaginary or fictional) sense, for the way the account is later reflected on by the community seems to belie that.
Jeff: Where can I find a good book about this?
Scott: It is, as I said, according to a genre we no longer have today - best called "mythological" or "legendary", so long as it is understood that those terms are not a downplay or derogation but an attempt to attach a convenient label to this strange and foreign pre-modern genre.
Jeff: I think we are agreed, then, that WE don't know how to tease out the meaning of those texts with THAT supposed genre. I say "supposed" because I'm not convinced they weren't just like us, having many different views of the same texts - and for the same reason: that there was no such single obvious genre that explained it. Those more literal in their ideas of the supernatural probably took it more literal just like happens today.
Scott: I don't believe I've ever said Paul considered those things to be merely fictional and illustrative. He believed those things to be quasi-history and parable, most likely, and thus as part of that he most likely believed those things, in some sense, actually happened: that there was a first man Adam, a first woman Eve, and a serpent who tempted them with the tree of knowledge. Whether he believed those things were exactly and literally historical the same way we would today if we said they were historical is not so certain; but that he believed they, in some manner, happened in real history seems likely to me.
Jeff: But if we don't know how to tease out QUASI-historical meaning from plain 'ole historical meaning, where does that get us? And how can we KNOW he had such a QUASI-historical view since the historical view probably made perfectly good sense to him as it does to us until science defies it?
Scott: But this doesn't matter to the authority of the text, anymore than it matters that Paul also was almost certainly a geocentrist who furthermore probably (though not quite as certainly) thought the earth is a flat disk of dry land floating on the surface of the deep. He simply would have reflected his community in this respect, taking the biblical allusions to such things (in Genesis, Job, Isaiah, Psalms) at face value. It doesn't matter, since God's teaching point does not end with the author's literal meaning, as I go on to defend.
Jeff: This sounds like circular reasoning to me. If those parts of Gen 1-3 that virutally scream out a theodicy are to be taken as parts that must not be true history, then you are effectually saying that there can be NO teaching point about theodicy in that text. But how do you know that? Especially since other biblical writers use Gen or allude to it to make just such points?
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scott_jorgenson
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Date Joined Dec 2002
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| Posted 3/23/2005 1:00 PM (GMT -6) | |
jefscott said...
...
Jeff: This sounds like circular reasoning to me. If those parts of Gen 1-3 that virutally scream out a theodicy are to be taken as parts that must not be true history, then you are effectually saying that there can be NO teaching point about theodicy in that text. But how do you know that? Especially since other biblical writers use Gen or allude to it to make just such points? Jeff, basically I cannot understand why you keep insisting that if there is to be any theodicy in Genesis 2-3, then Genesis 2-3 must be historical, ie recording actual past spacetime events. Certainly one form of theodicy - we might call it Augustinian since he was the first to fully articulate it at length - is based on the historicity of Genesis 2-3, but that is not the only possible interpretation of Genesis 2-3 which yields a theodicy. As I've tried to articulate here, I fail to see how viewing Genesis 2-3 as, in terms of its canonical function, an Everyman parable - concerning us, the first humans, and everyone in between - cannot yield a theodicy at least as satisfying as the Augustinian, original-sin, fall-from-paradise idea. Canonically Genesis 2-3 serves as an existential parable about man's freedom to fall away from God, his persistence in doing so, the effect this has upon us in sundering our relationship with God, and so forth; and from that we can derive our theodicy just as well as if its narrated events had actually happened at one time and place only in past history. It can do this for us through the medium of story, just as can any other parable, even though source- and form-critically it is ahistorical legend and probably germinated out of the kind of indigenous ANE mythology from which the Hebrews were called.
You asked about books to look into. Joseph Campbell was a great popularizer of postmodernism's insights into how legend worked legitimately in the ancient world, on their own terms, as sort of a quasi-historical and parabolic vehicle for transporting all kinds of social values, teachings and etc. I'd start with him to get the general idea. For applying such insights to Genesis, though, I hear Walter Brueggemann is good (perhaps his Genesis commentary). My personal recommendation is Conrad Hyers' The Meaning of Creation though: short, accessible, but scholarly.
Regards,
Scott
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Similitude
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| Posted 3/23/2005 9:13 PM (GMT -6) | | |
Scott, since you have responded before I finished addressing your last post, I'll respond to this one first and finish the other later.
Scott: Jeff, basically I cannot understand why you keep insisting that if there is to be any theodicy in Genesis 2-3, then Genesis 2-3 must be historical, ie recording actual past spacetime events.
Jeff: I'm not arguing that the historicity (is that a word?) of the text is necessary to the existence of a theodicy therein. I'm trying to understand how we could infer the proper theodicy IF it is NOT historical. I know how to make sense out of the theodicy if it IS historical. I don't know how to, otherwise. If we concede (as I think you did in the "theistic evolution" thread), for example, that Paul thought physical death historically entered the world because of the historical sin of one historical man, and yet deny that Gen. 1-3 is historical (even the part about the entrance of physical death), we are not, then, just "starting" with authorial intent and working forward - we are controverting authorial intent. In which case, authorial intent is LESS important than experience and tradition per the quadrilateral you advocate. This seems counter-intuitive to me. Do we do this with any other text? And if not, what makes it right to do so with scripture? And how could I know that it was right?
Scott: Canonically Genesis 2-3 serves as an existential parable about man's freedom to fall away from God, his persistence in doing so, the effect this has upon us in sundering our relationship with God, and so forth;...
Jeff: How do we know that the ground was not cursed as an "effect" of that "sundering"? How do I hermeneutically know which effects are not historical? Now if you say science indicates which parts cannot be historical, we are again saying that experience and/or tradition takes precedence over authorial intent - that authorial intent is only valid when tradition and experience don't trump it. But all people have different traditions and experiences. You, yourself, say God doesn't care whether people believe the Genesis account historically. But that is problematic because they will believe a theodicy which you are claiming is false. That theodicy will in turn affect how they interpret other verses, etc.
Scott: ... and from that we can derive our theodicy just as well as if its narrated events had actually happened at one time and place only in past history. It can do this for us through the medium of story, just as can any other parable, even though source- and form-critically it is ahistorical legend and probably germinated out of the kind of indigenous ANE mythology from which the Hebrews were called.
Jeff: How could a non-historical approach which is based upon a scientific view that those events never happened lead to the same theodicy of, say, Greg Boyd? Here's what Doc said recently:
Doc said...
Before Augustine, this was the way of explain so called "natural" evil.
Gen. 1:29-31, The original creation was non-carnivorous, free of all violence.
Gen. 3 14ff. The original creation was devoid of sweat, thorns, thistles and death.
Rom 8:21 The entire CREATION Groans for the manifestation of the childeren of God.
Bottom line: Nothing operates the way it was supposed to. Its ALL under demonic corruption, down to the very laws of physics that produce death (entropy).
Only when we don't take the angelic and human rebellion seriously are we prone to blame creations evils on God.
Scott: You asked about books to look into. Joseph Campbell was a great popularizer of postmodernism's insights into how legend worked legitimately in the ancient world, on their own terms, as sort of a quasi-historical and parabolic vehicle for transporting all kinds of social values, teachings and etc. I'd start with him to get the general idea. For applying such insights to Genesis, though, I hear Walter Brueggemann is good (perhaps his Genesis commentary). My personal recommendation is Conrad Hyers' The Meaning of Creation though: short, accessible, but scholarly.
Jeff: Thanks for the recommendations. I'm facing a possible layoff right now and don't want to spend the money yet. But if I make it through, I'll check them out. Which do you think will deal the most with the ANE genre per se? Thanks again!
wjsPost Edited (jefscott) : 3/23/2005 8:28:52 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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scott_jorgenson
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Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 271
| Posted 3/24/2005 2:55 PM (GMT -6) | | Jeff,
You asked several questions, but since my time is limited, I'll focus on what they mostly seem to revolve around.
You say you don't know how to make sense out of a theodicy that isn't grounded in Genesis as history. I take it you mean such a theodicy that is grounded in an initially-perfect creation, subsequently cocked-up by human (and perhaps demonic) rebellion - thus allowing us to allegedly absolve God from responsibility for suffering and lay it on humanity's (and perhaps Satan's) doorstep instead.
I don't see, though, why such a theodicy is so especially compelling. It still falls back on the same freewill defense that has God, out of whatever purpose or necessity, withholding his power to overrule human and demonic freewill and institute his perfect world by force.
Now don't get me wrong: I don't knock that basic freedom-of-will/freedom-of-creation defense at all, and indeed I accept it as the most intellectually satisfying answer for "why God lets bad things happen" (though it is not the most emotionally satisfying answer - for there is no emotionally satisfying answer, and thus ultimately there is no wholistically satisfying answer to the question, which is just what Job learned). I just don't see why, if we accept this defense, we must nonetheless insist on an initially perfect creation, or think that we gain anything substantial from believing in such a fleeting past "golden age". Its not as if it really exonerates God any bit more, because he still has the power to coercively set things right and return us now to the idyllic garden, and yet - for freewill reasons - he cannot or will not do so.
So it comes to this: without a historical Fall, we have God exercising his restraint (ie restraining, whether out of purpose or necessity, his ability to coercively see to it that bad things never happen) for 100.0% of human history, ie ever since the very beginning of time. While in comparison, with a historical Fall, we have God exercising such restraint for 99.999% of human history, ie ever since almost the beginning. Now, who cares about this minor technicality of a distinction? What about it should make us favor the latter over the former understanding?
An ahistorical theodicy goes like this: So that love may be possible, God must make the creation truly 'other' and free - and thus the reality of evil and suffering is a necessary byproduct built-in from the beginning. God knows this is hard for his creation to endure, and so that is why he participates in it with us, in the figure of Christ, and promises to redeem it all in the eschaton, when the necessity for creaturely other-ness and freedom will be finished due to the work of Christ. Now, this theodicy fits with the biblical witness - once genre and accommodation to legend are taken into account - at least as well as a theodicy based on a historical Fall event. But the former fits far better than the latter with the scientific witness (which suggests that - unless God or someone has covered-up the scientific evidence indicating otherwise - never has this universe existed without attendant entropy and chaos, and never has life existed without attendant death, and never has sentience existed without attendant suffering).
God be with you in your layoff situation!
Scott
Post Edited (scott_jorgenson) : 3/24/2005 2:03:10 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 3/24/2005 3:08 PM (GMT -6) | | Scott:
You say you don't know how to make sense out of a theodicy that isn't grounded in Genesis as history. I take it you mean such a theodicy that is grounded in an initially-perfect creation, subsequently cocked-up by human (and perhaps demonic) rebellion - thus allowing us to allegedly absolve God from responsibility for suffering and lay it on humanity's (and perhaps Satan's) doorstep instead.
I don't see, though, why such a theodicy is so especially compelling. It still falls back on the same freewill defense that has God, out of whatever purpose or necessity, withholding his power to overrule human and demonic freewill and institute his perfect world by force.
Maybe I can answer this one somewhat.
The theodicy ultimately won't work if it's not true that SOMEHOW human beings were seen as viceroys of God's authority...and that their historical first sin, in some respect, RE-EMPOWERED Satan to be the "god of the world"
For the theodicy to be biblically adequate, it has to square with Paul and Jesus's view of the world, which has that whole world captive not JUST to human sin, but Satan and demonic powers and principalities. Remember the Christus Victor view. As N.T. Wright well argues, Paul seemed to believe that Jesus's work truly was a REVERSAL of Adam's screw up that gave Satan such reign. There has to be SOME LINK between the initial sin of human beings and the ELEVATION of Satan's status. This is how the "viceroy" idea came up.
To not posit a historical Adamic fall is to take away the HISTORICAL grounding for 1) why it was important for Jesus to be the "Second Adam" and 2) HOW Satan could come to be the "god of the world" in the face of God's overall authority.
A possible thing to say is that Satan's fall happened...but not the literal Adamic account. Forget the whole viceroy/"Pandora's Box" thing.
My thoughts.
"I've been converted three times. The first was to traditional Christianity; the second to honesty and the third was to the Love of God and man (humanity) The third was the real conversion. The first two were preliminary."
--Nels Ferre, a theologian speaking of his spiritual journey with the Triune God
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One Love
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| Posted 3/24/2005 7:06 PM (GMT -6) | | More on this.
This is why I felt the historical Adam/Eve discussion so important. Traditionally, Satan gained (or REGAINED) authority over creation because of the Adamic couple's fall into temptation. Paul, most definitely, believed this.
But to believe this, we have to believe that the infinitely intelligent God truly placed the trust and authority of ALL of Creation into the hands of two flesh-bound, naked, primative human beings...against a supernatural being who was arguably the GREATEST and MOST POWERFUL of all the angels who HELPED God create the cosmos! Further we are asked to believe that God genuinely thought that the Adamic couple WOULD stay without ANY sin...EVEN THOUGH Satan and other angels had already fallen by then. Given what we know about early human history and pre-homo sapiens species, does this make any sense to YOU, dear reader? Placing the care of a box of fatal virus strains in the hands of a friggin 6 year old would be less absurd!
But look at the way that some Jewish thought pondered what Adam was like! Go back to the "Some Jewish Views on Adam"
Look at some of those portrayals...
Far older, and blended with Babylonian mythology (Isa. xiv. 12), is the story preserved in Adam and Eve, the Slavonic Book of Enoch, xxxi. 3-6 (compare Bereshit Rabbati, ed. Epstein, p. 17; Pire R. El. xiii.; Chronicle of Jerahmeel, xxii.; and Koran, sura ii. 34; xv. 30), according to which all the angels were commanded by Michael the archangel to pay homage to the image of God; whereupon all bowed before Adam except Satan, who, in punishment for his rebelliousness, was hurled from his heavenly heights to the depth of the abyss, while his vacant throne was reserved for Adam, to be given to him at the time of the future resurrection. Henceforth, Satan became the enemy of man, appearing to him in the guise of an angel of light to seduce him (compare II Cor. xi. 14).
Does this match up with what we now know about human origins?
It's absolutely ludicrous if you think about it too long. But it's familiar. Go read Pandora's Box again.
"I've been converted three times. The first was to traditional Christianity; the second to honesty and the third was to the Love of God and man (humanity) The third was the real conversion. The first two were preliminary."
--Nels Ferre, a theologian speaking of his spiritual journey with the Triune God
Post Edited (MephEternal) : 3/24/2005 6:16:29 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Starkman
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1747
| Posted 3/24/2005 9:42 PM (GMT -6) | |
MephEternal said...So, things get different when we are talking about the "historical" Adam and Eve?? Let's face it. We have a LOT more evidence for the general plausibility of the historicity of Jesus's birth, death, and resurrection...than we do of the general historicity of the Creation narratives.
Ah, but we have all the evidence in the world, literally, that the theology of the Creation narrative is plausible!
Starkman Post Edited (Starkman) : 3/24/2005 8:46:01 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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markporter
Fire over Oxford
Date Joined Oct 2003
Total Posts : 263
| Posted 3/25/2005 7:16 AM (GMT -6) | | MephEternal said...
More on this.
This is why I felt the historical Adam/Eve discussion so important. Traditionally, Satan gained (or REGAINED) authority over creation because of the Adamic couple's fall into temptation. Paul, most definitely, believed this.
But to believe this, we have to believe that the infinitely intelligent God truly placed the trust and authority of ALL of Creation into the hands of two flesh-bound, naked, primative human beings...against a supernatural being who was arguably the GREATEST and MOST POWERFUL of all the angels who HELPED God create the cosmos! Further we are asked to believe that God genuinely thought that the Adamic couple WOULD stay without ANY sin...EVEN THOUGH Satan and other angels had already fallen by then. Given what we know about early human history and pre-homo sapiens species, does this make any sense to YOU, dear reader? Placing the care of a box of fatal virus strains in the hands of a friggin 6 year old would be less absurd!
OK, now I think this is a bit of a caricature - Firstly for a historical interpretation you don't have to accept the whole two human being thing as fact, for me it's however big the human race was at the time - they're symbolic of that. Do I think he would give them that much trust and authority? Sure I do, I don't see why not, humans have an incredibly important place in God's plans for the world. Do I think he thought they would stay without sin? Well Sanders in his book reckons the fall was an incredibly implausible thing to happen, and I think that maybe that's true, maybe the fall of Satan too was incredibly implausible. Do I think he pitted them directly against the full power of a super-being without any help from him? No - I don't think they were exposed to the full power of Satan and I think they had a lot of help from God.
Mephi said...
Does this match up with what we now know about human origins?
Now hang on a minute Mephi - how much do we actually know about human origins? Incredibly little! Yeah ok, so we've got various fossil stuff that we've dug up, but how comprehensive a picture does this give us? How many huuuuuge gaps are there where pretty much anything could have happened? (at least in relation to God stuff) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 3/25/2005 8:24 AM (GMT -6) | | Markporter:
OK, now I think this is a bit of a caricature - Firstly for a historical interpretation you don't have to accept the whole two human being thing as fact, for me it's however big the human race was at the time - they're symbolic of that. Do I think he would give them that much trust and authority? Sure I do, I don't see why not, humans have an incredibly important place in God's plans for the world. Do I think he thought they would stay without sin? Well Sanders in his book reckons the fall was an incredibly implausible thing to happen, and I think that maybe that's true, maybe the fall of Satan too was incredibly implausible. Do I think he pitted them directly against the full power of a super-being without any help from him? No - I don't think they were exposed to the full power of Satan and I think they had a lot of help from God.
Hmmm...how much of a caricature do you think that it is? Remember, both Jesus AND Paul believed in a literal Adamic couple. This is REALLY obvious with Paul in Romans. Just saying that the story represents however many human beings were on the earth at the time will NOT square with Jesus and Paul's assertions.
Next, I've always thought Sanders' take on sin was nonsensical. He has always taken sin to be the ultimate irrationality...and that's how he comes up with that. (He mentioned that in "God Who Risks" and the "Universal Salvation" books). But hey, let's forget about how counterintuitive THAT idea actually is when tied to the idea of a "freely made decision". Let's go with it for a while. So God truly believed that, given the grand scope of his program filled with FREE BEINGS, that absolutely NO ONE would sin? That literally NO free being would screw up and deviate from God's perfect standards?? Hmmm... Ok, let's even give God that. So Satan and about 1/3 of the angels actually fall into this "incredible implausibility". So, after this, the infinitely intelligent God (who incidentally had to see this possibility coming before Creation was created) genuinely believes that it's still "incredibly implausible" that Satan and those angels could EVER dupe any human beings into sinning?? Do you see how silly this gets, man? Really.
Finally, with respect to them having a LOT of help from God and not being exposed to Satan's full power. Heh. Surely, you've GOT to admit that the odds were not in Adam and Eve's favor. In the story, it doesn't look like the serpent had to do too much AT ALL to get the couple to sin. Just plant the idea in their heads. But hey, it you want to make it some titanic struggle where they resisted the serpent's wiles for decades, and God helped them every step of the way, then fine. Let's read all that in. The fact of the matter is that they STILL fell into sin and God would have seen this coming a mile away...if indeed God is infinitely intelligent.
Tell you what, man. You believe whatever you want. I can't buy it.
************************
Markporter:
Now hang on a minute Mephi - how much do we actually know about human origins? Incredibly little! Yeah ok, so we've got various fossil stuff that we've dug up, but how comprehensive a picture does this give us? How many huuuuuge gaps are there where pretty much anything could have happened? (at least in relation to God stuff)
I just don't see us seeing such glorified pictures of early human history as some of the Jewish, Moslem, and Christian views of Adam seem to hold. That's all.
"I've been converted three times. The first was to traditional Christianity; the second to honesty and the third was to the Love of God and man (humanity) The third was the real conversion. The first two were preliminary."
--Nels Ferre, a theologian speaking of his spiritual journey with the Triune God
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Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 3/25/2005 8:43 AM (GMT -6) | | Meph: Next, I've always thought Sanders' take on sin was nonsensical. He has always taken sin to be the ultimate irrationality...and that's how he comes up with that. (He mentioned that in "God Who Risks" and the "Universal Salvation" books). But hey, let's forget about how counterintuitive THAT idea actually is when tied to the idea of a "freely made decision". Let's go with it for a while. So God truly believed that, given the grand scope of his program filled with FREE BEINGS, that absolutely NO ONE would sin? That literally NO free being would screw up and deviate from God's perfect standards?? Hmmm... Ok, let's even give God that. So Satan and about 1/3 of the angels actually fall into this "incredible implausibility".
Jeff: I think there is another way of looking at the "implausibility" argument. If Satan was created in the creation week (and I don't see why we would believe otherwise from the text), the probability of him wanting to usurp the glory of the "Most High" THAT quickly would truly be implausible. Thus, the odds that, having set his powers against measly little humans, he would get them to sin is VERY HIGH. But had Satan NOT fallen, it is conceivable that future humans might have eaten of the tree of knowledge and died instantly without any termination of the "Very Good" conditions for those who remained "faithful." Then, the earth would have eventually filled up and the eschaton would have arrived, possibly with an incarnation of Christ without need of suffering.
Apart from the scientific difficulties, do you think this argument makes any sense at all?
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One Love
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| Posted 3/25/2005 9:03 AM (GMT -6) | | Jefscott:
I think there is another way of looking at the "implausibility" argument. If Satan was created in the creation week (and I don't see why we would believe otherwise from the text), the probability of him wanting to usurp the glory of the "Most High" THAT quickly would truly be implausible. Thus, the odds that, having set his powers against measly little humans, he would get them to sin is VERY HIGH. But had Satan NOT fallen, it is conceivable that future humans might have eaten of the tree of knowledge and died instantly without any termination of the "Very Good" conditions for those who remained "faithful." Then, the earth would have eventually filled up and the eschaton would have arrived, possibly with an incarnation of Christ without need of suffering.
We're probably gonna have some issues here. I don't believe in a literal week-long creation. Neither does Sanders. So, I can't even grant the main premise of your argument, because Sanders (who makes the "implausibility" argument) doesn't either.
But if one DID want to believe in a week-long creation of all things, I guess someone could try to use this for the implausibility idea. But it would only work so far. It would (for the sake of argument) deal with the implausible TIMING of angelic sin, but not with the idea of the human viceroys.
"I've been converted three times. The first was to traditional Christianity; the second to honesty and the third was to the Love of God and man (humanity) The third was the real conversion. The first two were preliminary."
--Nels Ferre, a theologian speaking of his spiritual journey with the Triune God
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