MattBrown said...
Starkman raises an interesting point...is a tornado which occurs in a barren field in Kansas and does no harm to creation really evil? Though the tornado is surely not part of God's original design, putting harmless and evil in the same sentence seems weird.

 

Either way I think the barren field tornado would be more likely attributed to chance than demons. Unless demons work to effect everything they can to cause damage...perhaps they were hoping the tornado would travel 1 mile south to the nearby farmhouse. Or perhaps a baby demon was just having fun.

Matt, sir...

Where does Genesis teach that a tornado was surely not part of God's original design? That's not even hinted at or insinuated in the text. Further, there is little, if any evidence at all, that things are much different today (looking at this from a geological perspective, as I understand it) than were thousands and thousands of years ago.

Maybe we can't come up with an immediate satisfying theodicy to explain a tornado in the middle of Kansas, but such an unsatisfying theodicy should not cause us to read into the text what is not there.

I feel, anyway...

Starkman

Starky Sir,

Where did you read that Adam had a broken leg?  But then again, I surely never read that it wasn't part of God's original design.  Nor, did I find any evidence in the text that he didn’t have a cell phone, laptop or hot tub either.  Tornado in paradise? Yea I suppose being in the middle of a funnel cloud could’ve been kinda’ like their own little amusement park.

par·a·dise [pérrə dss, pérrə dz]

n

Post Edited (sparknheart) : 4/21/2005 12:05:03 AM (GMT-5)

So no Fruity Pebbles, no Terrestrial Paradise. I guess the Wesleyan Quadrilateral is out of the question! 

Post Edited (sparknheart) : 4/20/2005 11:04:10 PM (GMT-5)

Matt: First off, thanks for responding. It is good to know that someone is actually interacting with me, even if they don’t agree.

Starkman: Where does Genesis teach that a tornado was surely not part of God's original design? That's not even hinted at or insinuated in the text. Further, there is little, if any evidence at all, that things are much different today (looking at this from a geological perspective, as I understand it) than were thousands and thousands of years ago.

Matt: I follow from Romans that death came into the world as a result of sin. I also know from Revelations that in the end, in the eternal state (regardless of details) the creation will be made new. I make the huge assumption that things need to be made new because they are broken now and need fixing because they were good as he created them. It may be a stretch from just Genesis but it seems very reasonable using the NT to help interpret. I could also go to the Hebrew for Eden which seems to have something to do with delight/pleasure. And I know that Hebrew names do usually stand for things. Add that to God calling it good and I make the insinuation in the text that before the fall there was no death, pain, suffering or crying. Therefore, no tornados or tsunamis.

Starkman: Maybe we can't come up with an immediate satisfying theodicy to explain a tornado in the middle of Kansas, but such an unsatisfying theodicy should not cause us to read into the text what is not there.

Matt: If you are saying tornados/tsunamis did exist prior to the fall, does that mean Adam/Eve could have died? Or do you assume God would have saved them?

And what do you (or anyone) think of my reasoning below of how much of “natural evil” came about as a possibility?

Matt in previous post: Now with Gen 3 and the ground curse. (I am assuming that God does the cursing.) Here God again chooses to "let go" so to speak, thus cursing the ground. God's action is to choose to merely step back from total control of the creation and allow it to run its course. Perhaps the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics comes in here http://www.secondlaw.com/ . You could say God grants creation free will, in a non-personality, a-moral sense. This "letting go" is also a neutral action...now that humanity has chosen rebellion and disharmony; God is just giving them what they are asking for...space and freedom FROM God over the dominion of creation. This is given out of respect for humanities choice to run, not meant to pour out natural disasters. 

Genesis 2:10-12 (NRSV) 

    A river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four branches. [11] The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; [12] and the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there.

Exodus 28:9-12 (NRSV) 

    You shall take two onyx stones, and engrave on them the names of the sons of Israel, [10] six of their names on the one stone, and the names of the remaining six on the other stone, in the order of their birth. [11] As a gem-cutter engraves signets, so you shall engrave the two stones with the names of the sons of Israel; you shall mount them in settings of gold filigree. [12] You shall set the two stones on the shoulder-pieces of the ephod, as stones of remembrance for the sons of Israel; and Aaron shall bear their names before the Lord on his two shoulders for remembrance.

Ezekiel 28:13 (NRSV) 

    You were in Eden, the garden of God;

        every precious stone was your covering,

    carnelian, chrysolite, and moonstone,

        beryl, onyx, and jasper,

    sapphire, turquoise, and emerald;

        and worked in gold were your settings

        and your engravings.

    On the day that you were created

        they were prepared.

Ezekiel 36:35 (NRSV) 

    And they will say, "This land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined towns are now inhabited and fortified."

Isaiah 51:3 (NRSV) 

    For the Lord will comfort Zion;

        he will comfort all her waste places,

    and will make her wilderness like Eden,

        her desert like the garden of the Lord;

    joy and gladness will be found in her,

        thanksgiving and the voice of song.

Isaiah 55:13 (NRSV) 

    Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress;

        instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle;

    and it shall be to the Lord for a memorial,

        for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

Post Edited (sparknheart) : 4/21/2005 10:21:48 PM (GMT-5)

Ezek 28 is HIGHLY theological - a statement of contrast with what was in right relationship with God and is no longer.

Ezek 36 - restoration of relationship. I hardly doubt that the writer was really saying that one day the land will be exactly as Eden. This is relationship at heart!

Isaiah 51 and 55. Same exact issue: restoration of relationship without having to read the metaphor as literal.

Hi Starkman.

Starkman: Adam and Eve were not divine, in glorified bodies or outside of the human element. There is no hint in Scripture that they morphed into something after the Fall other than what they were before the Fall. External and non-biblical evidence does not support such an idea either.  The Couple were human. Plain and simple. They did not possess eternal life; the account suggests quite the opposite. God did not come around after the Fall and remove their immortality; after the fall He prohibited them from moving into immortality.

Matt: I follow what you are saying. However, my question is, do you believe in a historical Adam and Eve? Because if you do not, then (IMHO) all postulation about anything pre-fall, especially physical conditions of the human body or the environment don't make sense. If there was no Adam then any discussion about Adam getting a broken leg or dying in a natural disaster cannot be asked in the first place. (Even though I do think there is a world of difference between tripping and breaking a leg and a tsunami wiping out a species.)

Hi Starkman...like always you have some challenging and insightful things to say.

I think the theology behind the Gen narrative is of primary importance. I am no longer in the confines of the fundamentalism I grew up in.

However I still have a high (theologically conservative) view of the scriptures. I need to know that they are accurate and authoritative. I know from the Hermenutics thread you place yourself "somewhere there is a center" of the spectrum.

I am not saying it all has to be literal to be real. I am just thinking that it is a slipery sloap; if we disregard Gen as non-historical (when it seems to be presented as historical) then what of the gospels? I don't know where you stand on the issue but many in the theologically liberal camp (like the Process View guys) say the NT is not historical or an accurate account of Jesus. They deny any supernatural/miracles, and most importantly they deny the resurrection. To me the gospels are presented as written historical, and would have been understood to the audience as historical and accurate.

I think (like the theological conservatives) that the water to wine really happen, YET, I also think (like the theological liberals) that there is a bigger way more important meaning and message to the story.

The issue of Gen 1-3 begs the question of your thoughts on the whole of Genesis (and the Torah). When does the history start, is Abraham a real person? Is Moses? Did Josiah or Ezra make it all up to teach us some spiritual lessons like many scholars contend?

But I am getting way off topic...natural evil right?   We are talking about how Gen 1-3 relates to what is commonly know as natural evil. How natural evil relates to "the fall". Is the fall real, and if so to what extent did it result in tsunamis?

Most followers of a Good Heavenly Father need an explanation, however faith-based, to explain or excuse "natural evil", a theodacy or whatever you-all call it. It wish I could buy into determinism but I just don't think it is in any way consistent with a Good Heavenly Father, nor do I think it is scriptural. The best alternative seems land somewhere in Gen 3, somewhere with the fall and/or the cursing of the ground. Sure, the details of how this works is complex. Yet, I think this is one of the (God given) meanings and messages and important implications behind the story. I think the story can provide real answers and truth to the vexing mystery of natural evil (which we will never be able to fully understand this side of eternity).

Starkman.

This is all very interesting. On the one hand you have a point about the style of writing for the ancient Near East. I agree that the primary goal of Genesis is theological, to convey a meaning/message. And I also see you point on the NT gospel stuff so I will detract that objection because the era and writing style was different.

Hey Matt,

As to the Torah, I do know that there are scholars who are quite skeptical about many incidents in the Torah. Many do not believe there is conclusive or even strong evidence of a global flood. Many do not believe the exodus happened as it is purported (evidence suggests there were very few who would have been participants in an "exodus"). Many believe that there were various writers and contributors to create a final redaction of the Torah; that Moses wasn't the final author. Regardless (and I have no idea how much of this may be true or not), I believe that God has overseen the whole process to insure that His theological truth has been communicated—there doesn't have to have been a global flood for me to understand the theology of that portion of the text. I don't care if the exodus wasn't as we read it. None of that makes any difference to me, because none of those things are critical in order for me to make theological sense of it all.

I can't document it, but I do recall reading some Jewish thinking on the subject of the Torah. Two things become evident: the emphasis was not on the historicity of the text, but on the historicity...of the theology. Man, they'd argue ferociously about the doctrine behind the doctrine, the theology behind the theology. I could see that the issue was theological truth and doctrinal precision in what appeared to be a Torah accepted as, quite possibly, not 100% factual. That simply wasn't the point (but I'll leave that conclusion ultimately to the scholars). Further, the Jewish thinkers embellish the accounts with their own theologies in order to work the the passage more elaborately. Amazing. (Meph gave us a link somewhere on this board about Jewish thinking regarding Adam, but I can't recall where that post is). And, just like Matthew's use of Isaiah and Hosea in application to Jesus's life, there was nothing seen wrong for Jewish Torah debators to embellish the text in order to make their points.

Finally, Matt, it is very important to realize that ANE people held strongly to the story as their truth and their herritage. If you were steeped in a raising that centered all your traditions upon one group of people, chosen by God and called for His purposes, you would treat it all as God-given truth, but you would not do so with or in a 20th century mind frame: one that demands archeological, geopraphical and scientific verification that it is all accurate history as passed down. Rather, you would hold tightly to your traditions, regardless of whether serpents talk, because the truth...the truth...of God having spoken is dear to you. And where did God ultimately speak? In the unique theology of an ANE people called Israel. That everything recorded be fact is unnecessary; that God did, in fact, choose Israel, was paramont in importance. In short, God's speaking to Israel was not in modern scientfic, archologically proven factual history, but in the sweet taste of the theological fruit found in their own mindset of the day.

Matt, they just didn't think or live out their religious beliefs back then as we do today. Not, at least, in our traditional evangelical thinking about how God speaks. One cannot help read, for instance, Cyrus H. Gordon's works and see how the research of ANE life compared to our ideas about ANE gives cause to re-evaluate our thinking about those old days. I'm currently going through, again, his book, "The Bible and the Ancient Near East." He had his moments, I think of presupposition-getting-in-the-way, but his over all work is enlightening and very challenging.

Well, I've rambled on enough here.

Got to go home now!

For ANE thinking,

Starkman