Search results

Lots of people read lots of books. The question is whether you have studied the relevant literature and research that is germane to the current discussion. Based on your seeming ignorance of the basic issues, I'm guessing that your curriculum did not include materials that would pertain to this...

Read a book or two. There are volumes of books related to the literary structures of the Hebrew Scriptures, possibly chronologies for them, as well as "profiles" of the sources that may have had a hand in the composition, editing, and transmission of the Scriptures over the years. There are...

According to some in this thread, what Jesus actually meant to say was "The words that I speak to you are historical". :)

No, you are deliberately misrepresenting what I said. I've said several times now that I happen to think that the word "day" certainly signifies a "literal" day; e.g., it is not a "stand-in" for some other meaning, doesn't refer to an "age", and is not "code" for anything else. In other words, I...

In what sense is the creation narrative an "historical narrative"? What is the criteria you are applying? Is an historical narrative anything that in any possible way might allude to an "event" in the "past"? If so, what would be the difference, then, between "historical" narratives and...

Indeed. You would know, since the whole of your argument is a giant circle. I have as much proof for it as you do in suggesting that "Moses" was the first person to write down this information. Obviously, there's no way to directly validate the claim. However, the reasoning is based off of...

God doesn't have fingers, for God is not a material being. So no, I don't believe that.

I already explained what I think it means in my previous response. I don't think the words are confusing, or that they are "code" for something else, or that they are necessarily intended to be a "metaphor" for something else (metaphor, of course, in the modern sense of the word). Like all...

We must keep in mind, also, that the creation narrative in Genesis was not written for you or me. It was written for ancient people for whom the notions of "historicity" that you wish to impose upon the text would have not had the same meaning, given the differing philosophical assumptions and...

Bullet-proof hermeneutics :)

I've never suggested that the "number" of days should be taken as anything but literal. In other words, I don't think that "day" is necessarily "figurative" or "code" for a different period of time. My contention is that the narrative, as a whole, should not necessarily be interpreted...

Funny, as you certainly aren't bothered by allowing your own biases to determine the outcome. This is ridiculous. No one is suggesting that this is what happened. Let's take the creation myth in Genesis as an example. In its earliest form, it would have been just an oral story, passed from...

Then why bother with "proper hermeneutical methods" that you have been proposing? If you don't care about the cultural and philosophical context in which something was written, why should you care about other "contexts" like language? It seems you are being awfully selective in the methodologies...

If this is your attitude, then you completely invalidate your claims about the necessity of using "proper" hermeneutics. By ignoring the cultural/political/literary contexts of the creation narrative, you are leave a vacuum that will inevitably be filled by something; since you have divorced the...

I find it interesting that your definition of "proper hermeneutics" gives such lipservice to "context," yet you continue to insist that the broader context of ANE literature should have no bearing whatsoever upon the interpretation of the texts. Surely if you suspend your biases for even one...

You keep throwing words around like "what it says" and "plain", as if these definitions are fixed, objective, and (perhaps most importantly) KNOWN. However, this is simply not the case; what is "plain" to you as a modern, western thinker might be something entirely different to someone who does...

You keep mentioning "proper hermeneutics and exegesis." However, when challenged to define what these actually are, you go back to hopelessly circular arguments. This circularity, I would suggest, is the strongest opponent to your claims that you don't approach or interpret Scripture through any...

Yes, yes, "there haven't been any original ideas since Aristotle". Nonetheless, I'm not talking about nascent ideas; I was clear in the statement I made.

It's not irrelevant at all. The OP suggested that "Jesus argued some very left wing positions". My reply was suggesting that we cannot uncritically apply modern notions of politics and economic policy upon the Scriptures, just because our immediate rendering of the text "resembles" elements...

I suspect that most modern, western notions of political structure and economic policy would seem quite alien to Jesus (and those of his time). The thing that right and left wing politics have in common is that they are based on a common set of assumptions, all of which were probably not held by...