(May 4, 2012 at 3:14 am)Ryft Wrote: My view takes after the exegetical model described by Old Testament scholar and professor John H. Walton of Wheaton College, ... which he introduces in The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate (InterVarsity Press, 2009) and lays out in exhaustive detail in the far more technical Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology (Eisenbrauns, 2011).
I always find it curious when it takes several thousand years for the text to be "interpreted" correctly.
I'm even more curious at how easily all of their forebears are dismissed as wrong without consequence, and such easy dismissal of features which define a faith for thousands of years.
Even more so, how heresy becomes mainstream in light of scientific advances, and taken specifically into account those very advances into the faith.
(May 4, 2012 at 3:14 am)Ryft Wrote: The Genesis account presupposes the material construction phase, as it were, in its revelation of the inauguration phase—with the building ready, the ceremony ushers in the creation of the cosmos as temple over a seven-day period culminating with God coming to rest in it and the beginning of redemptive history with Adam who was "chosen from among the animals" (to steal the title of Joshua M. Moritz's brilliant dissertation on the meaning of imago Dei).
What needs would a being such as a God have for ceremony? The concept of ritual is peculiarly human one, usually derived from a useful source and degraded into an essentially meaningless repetition of action symbolically.
This sort of behaviour makes God a curiously sentimental type, which begs the question, what symbols are being represented, and for whose benefit other than self-gratification.
(May 4, 2012 at 3:14 am)Ryft Wrote:(April 24, 2012 at 3:33 am)teaearlgreyhot Wrote: Was Noah's flood universal or local? How did men live to 900 years old? Or did they? Was the tower of Babel a real event? If so, does it account for all the languages of mankind?
Irrelevant to your question about the Genesis creation account and how evolution can be allowed.
Not entirely, merely slightly non-sequitor. Evolution certainly does not allow for 900 year old men, and Geology does not support a worldwide flood, all these things you know. Its born out of simple interest in how these biblical events are explained in context of modern science.
I have no wish to attack your point of view, and I hope you see these points as requests for clarification.
Self-authenticating private evidence is useless, because it is indistinguishable from the illusion of it. ― Kel, Kelosophy Blog
If you’re going to watch tele, you should watch Scooby Doo. That show was so cool because every time there’s a church with a ghoul, or a ghost in a school. They looked beneath the mask and what was inside?
The f**king janitor or the dude who runs the waterslide. Throughout history every mystery. Ever solved has turned out to be. Not Magic. ― Tim Minchin, Storm
If you’re going to watch tele, you should watch Scooby Doo. That show was so cool because every time there’s a church with a ghoul, or a ghost in a school. They looked beneath the mask and what was inside?
The f**king janitor or the dude who runs the waterslide. Throughout history every mystery. Ever solved has turned out to be. Not Magic. ― Tim Minchin, Storm
