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Very good "White Paper" by Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York, entitled "Evolution, Creationism, and Christian Laypeople."  In the paper Keller addresses the issues of the genre and resulting interpretive options for Genesis 1 and 2, the possibility of accepting evolution and the Biblical version of creation, and Adam & Eve as sources of the Fall.  It is definitely worth a read.  Here are some excerpts:

The way to take the Biblical authors seriously is to ask ‘how does this author want to be understood?’ This is common courtesy as well as good reading. Indeed it is a way to practice the Golden Rule. We all want people to take time to consider whether we want to be taken literally or not. If you write a letter to someone saying, “I just wanted to strangle him!” you will hope your reader understands you to be speaking metaphorically. If she calls the police to arrest you, you can rightly complain that she should have made the effort to ascertain whether you meant to be taken literally or not. 

The way to discern how an author wants to be read is to distinguish what genre the writer is using.  In Judges 5:20, we are told that the stars in the heavens came down and fought against the Syrians on behalf of the Israelites, but in Judges 4, which recounts the battle, no such supernatural occurrence is mentioned. Is there a contradiction? No, because Judges 5 has all the signs of the genre of Hebrew poetry, while Judges 4 is historical prose narrative. Judges 4 is an account of what happened, while Judges 5 is Deborah’s Song about the theological meaning of what happened. When you get to Luke 1:1ff., we read the author insisting that everything in the text is an historical account checked against the testimony of eyewitnesses. That again is an unmistakable sign that the author wants to be taken ‘literally’ as describing actual events. 

This does not mean that the Biblical author’s intent and the genre are always clear. Genesis 1 and the book of Ecclesiastes are two examples of places in the Bible where there will always be debate, because the signs are not crystal clear. But the principle is this--to assert that one part of Scripture shouldn’t be taken literally does not at all mean that no other parts should be either. 

 and

When Paul speaks of being ‘in’ someone he means to be covenantally linked to them so their historical actions are credited to you. It is impossible to be ‘in’ someone who doesn’t historically exist. If Adam doesn’t exist, Paul’s whole argument—that both sin and grace work ‘covenantally’—falls apart. You can’t say that ‘Paul was a man of his time’, but we can accept his basic teaching about Adam. If you don’t believe what he believes about Adam, you are denying the core of Paul’s teaching. 

You can read the entire work here via the BioLogos website.

The one major caveat I have with the article is that Keller seems to think that Genesis 2 is a narrative that is more "natural" and seems to imply that it corresponds more naturally with evolution.  The reality is that this is only felt in the English translations.  In the Hebrew of Gen 2:18,29 the natural reading is that God created the animals after he had created Adam.   The English translations often go against the typical Hebrew syntax (and my guess is that it has to do more with theological positions rather than solid arguments from Hebrew syntax).

The bottom line is that the Hebrew Bible does not see the world from a modern, scientific point of view but is grounded in an Ancient Near Eastern cosomology.  It isn't going to fit with modern models, nor does it present a view of the universe that corresponds to our post-Copernican view.  There are more difficult issues in Genesis 1-3 than 6 literal days or possibilities for evolutionary interpretation.  As I have brought up before, the raqia--or dome, frimament--in the sky that was commonly accepted as reality by ancients in Near East presents us with intepretive issues on how an ancient text is authoritative for us today. 

“I went into church and sat on the velvet pew. I watched as the sun came shining through the stained glass windows. The minister dressed in a velvet robe opened the golden gilded Bible, marked it with a silk bookmark and said, “If any man will be my disciple, said Jesus, let him deny himself, take up his cross, sell what he has, give it to the poor, and follow me.”

Søren Aabye Kierkegaard
"And I looked around and nobody was laughing"

Christmas Eve is a great time for the Church to remember that God didn't need wealth or power to save the world, but it is through the giving away and emptying of wealth and power that salvation arrives.  How helpless and foolish to the world it must seem.

It is also a good time for us to repent of following the ways of the world rather than the Way of Christ.

(HT to Jim West on the Kierkegaard quote)

From the sermon SCRIPTURAL CHRISTIANITY, preached at St. Mary's, Oxford, before the University, August 24, 1744 (emphasis added):

9. But it did not satisfy him [the early Christian], barely to abstain from doing evil. his soul was athirst to do good. The language of his heart continually was, "`My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.' My Lord went about doing good; and shall not I tread in his steps?" As he had opportunity therefore, if he could do no good of a higher kind, he fed the hungry, clothed the naked, helped the fatherless or stranger, visited and assisted them that were sick or in prison. he gave all his goods to feed the poor. he rejoiced to labor or to suffer for them; and whereinsoever he might profit another, there especially to "deny himself." he counted nothing too dear to part with for them, as well remembering the word of his Lord: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me" (Matt. 25:40).

10. Such was Christianity in its rise. Such was a Christian in ancient days. Such was every one of those who, when they heard the threatenings of the chief priests and elders, "lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and were all filled with the Holy Ghost. The multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul:" So did the love of him in whom they had believed constrain them to love one another! "Neither said any of them that aught of the things which he possessed was his own but they had all things common:" So fully were they crucified to the world, and the world crucified to them! "And they continued steadfastly with one accord in the Apostles" doctrine, and in the breaking of bread, and in prayers" (Acts 2:42). "And great grace was upon them all; neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, and laid them down at the Apostles' feet: And distribution was made unto every man according as he had need." (Acts 4:31-35.)

My grandfather passed away in 1991. He was 87 years old. He spent his entire life on one farm, dying within yards of where he was born. He never finished high school. As a matter of fact, I think he only finished 7th or 8th grade before he went to work in the coal mines of southeastern Oklahoma. He worked hard all of his life and died with a hammer in his hand. The farthest he ever traveled from home was a trip to Nashville...beyond that, West Texas was about the only long trips he ever took (and those he only took to see his children and grand-children). The highest official positions of honor he held was serving most of his life on the hometown school-board (for a school that ran about 400 students K-12) and being a 32nd degree Mason. My grandfather was a nobody in the world's terms:  He didn't achieve much, wasn't wealthy, wasn't institutionally educated, wasn't famous, he didn't "change the world".

He was the greatest man I've ever known.

My grandfather was brilliant and not just to me. I remember people from my hometown--including the highly educated school superintendant--coming to sit beneath the pecan trees near my grandfather's house to get advice from him. He was not only intelligent, he was wise. He was a faithful husband.  He was a great dad and even better grandfather. His friends knew they could trust him.  Someone who knew him told me once,  "He's one of two men I've never heard anyone say any cross word about".   My grandfather didn't desire fame, wealth, status, or power, so he never had reason to use people. As far as I can tell, his only motivation in life was to be a good, hard-working man.

There's a contentment found in such a life that is rare in this American culture.   It's not enough for us anymore to simply be a good man (or woman).  We must achieve. We must accomplish. We must build. We must pursue pleasure. All the pursuits that left Qohelet feeling that life is lived in vain.

In our culture we are not content to live in our "starter home" for more than a few years.  We are not content with the salaries we make.  In our culture we are not content with the relationships we have.  We are not content to be followers but are obsessed with being leaders. In our culture we are not content to be a "nobody" in the world's eyes, rejecting the pursuit of rank, fame, or power for ourselves.  To be content in such ways in our culture is a sin.  

Our culture cries out:  "Come to me all you who are heavy laden, and I'll give you more. Don't you know you should be doing more?"

(modified from a post that was originally on liquidthinking.org in 2004)

Caravaggio's 'Inspiration of St.Matthew'

To me the complexities of Scripture bring out God's wonder more rather than obscure him or cause me to question His (or the Scripture's) validity. The Mysterious God that is always present and, yet, at times is also seemingly and frustratingly absent in my life, seems to be the same God at work in the Scriptures, where Psalmists praise him for being an ever present help and lament his hiding and silence. The different perspectives on Jesus, faith, the resurrection, community, law, etc. in the Scripture seem to correspond to the different experiences we all have due to God's revealing himself individually to each of us.

Rembrant's The Evangelist 'Matthew Inspired by an Angel'

Woodcarving of Paul and Scribe

trust the Scriptures as God's revelation, I must also trust the process within the Body that brought it about.

Dictating a letter to a scribe.

For example, when Paul "writes" to the Galatians it is actually Paul, Timothy, and the brethren with him. They are "writing it" together to multiple communities within the region of Galatia (which also brings up the prospect that there was more than one autograph--no single original version of Galatians). He is also using a secretarial scribe to write.   Ancient letter writing wasn't like our contemporary process. Different people had input in a texts writing. Then they were copied for other churches. Then they were compiled. Then they were canonized. Then translated. All of this was done through community. It's pretty amazing.

Biblioblogs Discussing Inspiration and Inerrancy In The Past Few Weeks:

• http://bibliahebraica.blogspot.com/2009/04/israelite-origins-and-biblical.html
• http://peterennsonline.com/2009/04/21/gods-word-in-human-words-by-kent-sparks-part-two/
• http://exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com/2009/04/inerrancy-historicity-maximalism-and.html
• http://biblicalstudiesorguk.blogspot.com/2009/04/alan-m-stibbs-on-witness-of-scripture.html
• http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.com/2009/04/bart-ehrman-and-dan-wallace-on.html
• http://ancienthebrewpoetry.typepad.com/ancient_hebrew_poetry/2009/04/wittgenstein-on-the-perfections-of-biblical-narrative.html
• http://narrativeandontology.blogspot.com/2009/04/dynamic-of-holy-scripture-verbum-and_24.html
• http://thepietythatliesbetween.blogspot.com/2009/04/dissecting-and-assessing-pair-of.html
• http://ancienthebrewpoetry.typepad.com/ancient_hebrew_poetry/2009/04/mcgrath-reads-the-bible-like-his-fundamentalist-friends-.html
  
• http://www.google.com/reader/view/?tab=my#stream/user%2F03724433282628287332%2Flabel%2FBiblical%20Scholarship
• http://thegoldenrule1.blogspot.com/2009/04/how-to-do-history-two-different.html
• http://bibliahebraica.blogspot.com/2009/04/apologists-bible-scholars.html
• http://scotteriology.wordpress.com/2009/04/25/why-biblical-scholars-and-conservative-theologians-will-always-disagree/

6:30 Tuesday, April 21st

Cigar Box Bar next to Bass Pro shop in Broken Arrow

The Topic:  Atonement

I've been talking to my studens about the History of Western Thought, and how the measurability of nature led to a confidence in the objectivitiy of natural science at the same time that things like the Reformation and the Wars of Religion caused growing religious skepticism in Western thinking.   From the rational and empirical perspective, Thomas Hobbes' view that talking about God was literally "non-sense," since God cannot not perceived with the senses, was more profound than anyone in Hobbes' day realized. 

While I understand that social and civic religion is still important in some ways in our country, and that there is an awareness of the need for spirituality in one's life (at least the image of the "deep" person), it is easy to see the real place and nature of religion's status by where the magazines are at Barnes and Noble:

Note that the religious magazines are on the bottom and on the floor for all intents.  And even though you can't really tell from the photo, the bottom shelf is actually slightly recessed.  That's an interesting marketing statement, especially here in Tulsa.  I'm guessing the Barnes and Noble hasn't done their local demographics very well. 

Look at the topics of the magazines in that bottom section.  Anything interesting? 

Let's see, there's Christianity Today with a story about resurrection.  Another on Children's Ministry and, of course, one on Leadership in the church.   There's Shambhala Sun and Hinduism. But please note the Pirates book in the background and the Faerie Magazine in the foreground. 

Where did I put that Flying Spaghetti Monster Magazine?

(Thanks to Aubrey for the pic!)

I was having a conversation recently with a friend about the ongoing conflicts within Chrisitianity (and our culture) about interpretations of Genesis, particularly the creation accounts, Adam and Eve, the "fall" etc.  The on-going issue is should these stories be taken literally, figuratively, or mythically.  Of course, the intelligent design vs. evolution debate comes into play here, as well as issues of "original sin" and New Testament doctrines found in Paul's writings which are seemingly built upon Adam being a person in history.  My friend, who doesn't necessarily ascribe to a particular view on these matters, asked me, "What did the ancients think?  Did they see it as happening literally?"  To which I answered, "Yes . . . typically."  However, I also pointed out that they saw the raqia, the solid dome in the sky holding back the waters above it, as being real, too.  So I'm not sure if the issue is one of "what did the ancients think about this".

What I really wish is that as brothers and sisters in Christ we would quit using "Biblical" as an adjective to beat each other up or deny another's faithfulness.  Here's the reality, someone who believes in 6 literal days of creation and a literal Adam and Eve are certainly "biblical" in their understanding and approach.  However, someone who sees descrepancy in the Genesis 1 and Genesis 2-3 accounts or who sees "mythical" elements in the story can also be "biblical" in their understanding.  The Bible can be (and has been) interpreted in a very wide manner, and anyone who says that it can't clearly has not read the Bible very much and isn't familiar with the history of its interpretation.  Historically, the Bible is a canon, the "yard-stick" Christians use to measure true doctrine and teaching.  It is the background story of God and His people which becomes the source and authority for us to live out our story today by asking, "How do our lives continue this story and remain true to it?"  Unfortunately, it is also a very complex collection of books that were written over a long period of time by different authors.  And for Western Christians, it doesn't help that it was written by people in cultures vastly different from our own.   A recognition of this complexity should lend itself to much grace on our part to fellow Christians who are simply seeking to understand the text and coming to different conclusions than our own.

I know all this makes some people nervous, and some want a few simple, readily agreable explanations of Bible difficulties, especially so we can easily support our particular beliefs and doctrines.  In reality, the Bible is often vague and open to broad interpretation when it comes to even some the most basic doctrines.  Maybe the God who "hides himself" (Is. 45.15) is okay with the mystery of it all.