Regardless, we can use Gilgamesh if you want. What do you think? Was Gilgamesh the historical king of Uruk or is he a myth?
Both.
I have no reason to reject that there was some king named Gilgamesh and something miraculous happened to him. The conflict only occurs if said text denies the Gospel in some way.
Have you read it? It is easily available on line and not all that long. I have a nice translation by Stephen Mitchell. The resemblance to Genesis is more in theme than in plot. I don't think it can be related to the Gospel in such as way as to make "denial" a possible category.
The Lutheran view of sola scriptura is not as restrictive as you describe. One reason people go to that extreme (I think) is because it's an easy position to defend. Once one steps away from the extreme, the door is open.
Neither is the classic Reformed view. Solo scriptura is really a fairly recent innovation.
I will say that I think you take too much liberty with the opening that door provides for considering external data. In fact, you give the impression of preferring external data to the Bible
I would say it is not a matter of preferring external data to the bible as preferring to interpret the bible in a way that does not demand the rejection of external data that has been quite solidly established. If the world we experience, and science is pre-eminently a mode of experiencing the world, is not the same world as the one God created, then what is the relevance of the bible at all?
- whether you mean to or not. (In past discussions when I've pressed you on this, it further appears you retreat to a "you don't understand" position that for me turns into a frustrating "whack-a-mole" thing). Anyway ...
Sorry about that. I'll try to avoid it in future. But not easy sometimes.
Umm. OK. My intent is not to bash science, so to me it appears you only addressed half the issue. The questions basically begin from: Does God communicate with us? If so, how? Can those communications be corrupted?
I can only address such questions theologically. Theologically, the first and most basic communication from God is creation itself. This is the one revelation given to all, whether or not they have ever heard a preacher or prophet or come in contact with any scripture. This is the aspect of orthodox Christianity which I think the solo scriptura contingent has lost and so its focus is out of balance.
But while general revelation can communicate the divinity and power of the Maker, it tells us nothing of how to relate to the Maker. It doesn't deal with issues such as sin, atonement, redemption, what happens after death. So we also affirm by faith that God has communicated as well with chosen human beings who bring such knowledge to us.
As to the means of such communication we are usually left in the dark. Some speak of dreams and visions. Or we get representations such as the burning bush or Elijah's still small voice. Even having had a significant spiritual experience personally, I can't convey in words what it was or what I learned--and most mystics will tell you that the only meaningful thing they can communicate about God is "not that, not that, not that".
Can the communication be corrupted? Some say, no: it is protected by the Holy Spirit. I am not so sure. Any communication which must be filtered through a human mind will take on the colouring of that mind. It may be that since the Holy Spirit must, to some extent, cooperate with the human speaker, that some things cannot be revealed through that person, because he or she is too resistant to it. So even if what is revealed is not corrupt, it may be unbalanced because of what could not be communicated. I think the only way out of this conundrum is to assume the Holy Spirit is so forceful that the human speaker is merely a puppet like that of a ventriloquist---and that, to me, somehow demeans God.
Then, of course, there is the passage from spoken word to written word. And still further on, the sifting out of which texts will be preserved and revered as divine revelation.
And all this comes before the crucial step: how does the communication get interpreted by the hearer/reader? This last is certainly a locus of possible corruption. It is why various church bodies have considered how to distinguish the wheat from the chaff. So you have the development of such practices as the Wesleyan quadrilateral
And? If Christianity is a lie ... (1 Cor 15:19).
Precisely!
What I was poking at was an attitude of: I want to stay Christian, so I'll just change how the Bible is interpreted to fit human wisdom. I'm sure you'll object to that, but let me point out that I was not specifically poking at that issue.
Human wisdom is only a problem when it is wrong. After all, scripture exhorts us to become wise. As for re-interpreting scripture, read the gospels and look up every citation or allusion to the Old Testament. Might help as well to read some Jewish commentaries on the same passages. Christians are so accustomed to reading the Old Testament in light of the New we often don't appreciate how different the Jewish and Christian understanding of the same passage is. Then consider how Protestants interpreted Scripture differently than Catholics. In Reform theology it is considered a duty of each generation to re-interpret scripture for its time.
This was a long section, and I had trouble putting my finger on what you were trying to say. I'll repeat that I think Genesis is history and allegory, so I agree on the allegory part, but I think we disagree on the history part.
What confuses me is that you seem to be saying the same thing - that when Moses first heard this message from God he took it as history. Given that God was speaking to Moses, and knew how he would receive it, why should we assume anything different?
I'm not trying to snip a quote and trap you. I'm saying I'm confused. It sounds as if you're agreeing that Moses would have taken Genesis as history, but then you also seem to disagree that it is history.
Basically, what history was for Moses is not what history is for us. We have expectations of history grounded in modern notions of positivist truth that would be foreign to Moses. So while it would be correct to say Moses took the stories we find in Genesis as history, his very understanding of history allows for history to be metaphorical in ways that moderns find disconcerting.
As far as Jews using numbers in thousands of years before Ussher, I'm not sure that's too relevant. I'll agree with you that Jewish conceptions of time equated "thousands of years" with "something really big". So, they might just as easily have said millions as thousands. But that's not the point. I don't agree with YEC anyway. Rather, it just seems to me people try to make too much of that. For example, I might say, "Wow! That is the best apple pie I've ever tasted!" That is not a scientific statement. What I mean is, "This pie is good," and I'm using hyperbole to convey my great pleasure. However, when I deliver an engineering presentation and I state, "This is the optimal design," it would be erroneous for someone to conclude that since I exaggerated about the pie, I always exaggerate and therefore it is an exaggeration to say the design is optimal.
I think you missed the point on this. The Jewish and early to medieval Christian commentators who interpreted the Genesis account in such a way that they pinpointed the beginning of creation as nearly 6,000 years previously were not just using hyperbole. For them, it was a calculated number. But the number was calculated on the basis of the biblical metaphor that in God's eyes a thousand years is like a day. Six of God's days therefore is 6,000 years. Now to the modern mind, making a calculated conclusion from a symbolic metaphor just does not make sense. But in their context it did.
Bishop Usshur showed himself to be a modern thinker when he tied 6,000 years to a measurable quantity like the number of generations and their length as recorded in the genealogies. That is the kind of "empirical" evidence we moderns like and understand.
What is interesting to me is that in spite of the two methods coming up with the same age, they actually represent two quite different concepts of creation.
You pique my curiosity. I'd like to know the basis for the disagreement, at least if it is any more than a gut feeling, but I sense this is not the direction you want to take the conversation, and that's ok too.
That's why I spent so much time asking questions in the science forum about "Does this fit with biology?" If people didn't realize that I was asking them if an alternative interpretation of the data is valid, they were naive. I doubt I'm the guy to make much come of it, but the alternative interpretation is there is someone decides to dig into it.
Obviously, there are different answers for different cases, so unless you are ready to be specific there is nothing to discuss.
Regardless, I'll say again my motivation for posting in this thread was not another rip at evolution. It was to look at the thought processes people go through as they're considering the issue ... which, I guess, is a diversion from the OP, so I can step aside if no one's interested.
It is an interesting psychological study, but I can't say that I have much taste for psychology.
