Friday, June 01, 2012
The creation dream
What’s the source of Gen 1? Liberals assume it must be a redacted pagan myth. However, there’s no extant creation myth that resembles Gen 1.
Sometimes Bible writers narrate events which they themselves observed. Sometimes they incorporate written sources. Sometimes they use informants.
But, of course, Gen 1 is narrating a series of incidents before any human observer existed. Humans come on the scene sometime on Day 6.
Direct revelation would be the obvious source. However, revelation has different modalities. Dreams are one mode of revelation. Perhaps Gen 1 is a recorded dream. Let’s consider some possible evidence:
i) Except for Balaam's two oracular dreams (Num 22:7-21)–which are rather anomalous, given his pagan pedigree–Genesis is the only book of the Pentateuch that contains recorded dreams.
ii) By my count, Genesis contains no fewer than a dozen oracular dreams: 20:3-7; 26:24; 28:10-17; 31:10-13; 31:29; 37:5-7; 37:9; 40:9-11; 40:16-17; 41:1-4; 41:5-7; 46:2-4.
iii) Two dreams contain imagery that echoes Gen 1:
a) Jacob’s dream about a flight of steps, rising from the earth below to the heaven above, with God at the top of the staircase, involves the same hierophanic cosmography as Gen 1.
b) Joseph’s dream of the sun, moon, and stars evokes the fourth day.
In addition, for Joseph to see the sun, moon, and stars means his dream was set both during the day (for the sun to be visible) as well as night (for the moon and stars to be visible). So that also evokes the day/night, morning/evening motif.
iv) An inspired dreamer is a seer. He recounts what he saw in his dream (e.g. 28:12; 31:10,12; 37:9; 41:22).
This echoes the theme of God seeing the work of his hands (1:4,10,12,18,21,25,31).
v) Some dreams in Genesis are theophanic dreams, where God himself appears to the dreamer. Where God is the speaker–just as God is the speaker in Gen 1. In Gen 1, God is both seer and speaker.
vi) When a dreamer recounts his dream, he typically relays it in the first-person. When a narrator recounts a character’s dream, he relays it in the third-person. For instance, see the alternation in 41:1,17.
So Gen 1 could be a third-person report of a revelatory dream.
vii) Finally, some oracular dreams are quite prosaic–while others are symbolic or allegorical (e.g. 37:7,9; 41:1-7).
Thoughts on a 25th wedding anniversary
Today is our 25th wedding anniversary; here is a
photo of Beth and me from that day, June 1, 1987. We are both a little worse
for the wear, but she still looks to me to be the same woman I married. Somewhere,
there is a proverb about a homely man and a beautiful wife. I’ve often joked
that we are the personification of that proverb. When I was in my early 20’s, I
traveled with a handicapped Christian singer named Jeff Steinberg. Life on the road is
lonely, and during those years, I wanted to be married more than anything. Beth
is the wife that God gave me.
It’s true, the time goes by quickly. I can’t believe it’s
been that long. I’m 52, and I have been married almost half my life, although, it’s
virtually all my adult life. The good times seem to go past very quickly; the
bad times drag on. We have six children, and I was present at the (conception! and)
birth of every one of them. Beth had been in the U.S. Army before we met. At
9/11, she, being a long-time housewife and mother of five, wanted to “do
something”. She joined the Army Reserve, thinking that this would not entail
overseas duty. At one point she signed a longer re-enlistment, and not a week
later, she was “involuntarily transferred” to a unit that was headed to Iraq.
That was January 2003.
She served six months in Iraq, from April-October 2003.
She was in the 203rd MI BN, the “weapons intelligence” group that
was supposed to track down and catalog the “weapons of mass destruction”. There
were no WMDs, but she was exposed to plenty of other weaponry, including
ordinance and tanks, which contain depleted uranium, and thus a low level of
radiation. We can’t prove it, but we think it’s very likely that her exposure,
either to DU, or to benzene from (diesel fuel) burning trash and waste, that
caused her recent bout with leukemia. Military service and leukemia form the
book-ends that have shaped the second half of our 25 years.
In spite of the quickness of it, I’m eager to put these last
10 years behind us. Marriage is a gift; that we seem to have more time is
another gift. It is hard to describe the feeling I have. To be sure, it has
been difficult. And there is certainly a sense that we want more time together.
We have spent far too little time alone, it seems. We’re going to do some of
that this weekend, Lord willing.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Aborting Gay Females
Since feminists are OK with abortions aimed at females, would gay feminists be OK if a woman wanted to abort a gay female baby, if one day we can determine a "gay gene"?
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2012/05/31/sex-selection-is-new-front-in-abortion-battle/
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2012/05/31/sex-selection-is-new-front-in-abortion-battle/
Self-loathing feminists
All my life I've heard feminists say pornography promotes violence against women. It “commodifies” women by reducing them to body parts. Treats them as sex objects. And, of course, the same complaint is made in spades about prostitution.
Compare that with Greta’s profile (see below). It is only demeaning to women when straight men commodify women? It’s not demeaning to women as long as lesbians commodify women?
Greta Christina has been writing professionally since 1989, on topics including atheism, sexuality and sex-positivity, LGBT issues, politics, culture, and whatever crosses her mind. She is on the speakers's bureaus of the Secular Student Alliance and the Center for Inquiry. She is editor of the "Best Erotic Comics" anthology series, and of "Paying For It: A Guide by Sex Workers for Their Clients." Her writing has appeared in multiple magazines and newspapers, including Ms., Penthouse, Chicago Sun-Times, On Our Backs, and Skeptical Inquirer, and numerous anthologies, including "Everything You Know About God Is Wrong" and three volumes of "Best American Erotica." She lives in San Francisco with her wife, Ingrid.
Keeping the troops in line
“Sure, atheism may have better arguments and evidence. But religion is always to going to win on the death question. A secular philosophy of death will never comfort people the way religion does.”
I’ve heard this idea more times than I can count. And here’s the weird thing: It’s not just from religious believers. I hear it from atheists, too. It shocks me how easily non-believers concede the ground of death.
Maybe because, when atheists are talking to other atheists in private, they feel it’s safe to let their guard down and admit what they really think, rather that putting on a false front to support the cause. For a few unscripted moments they can drop the act and allow themselves to be themselves.
Of course, Greta is here, with her metal-edged ruler, to smite them for this lamentable lapse in unit cohesion and keep them on message.
Self-violence against women
Feminism has a slogan about violence against women. Violence perpetrated by men. But what about women who do violence to themselves?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/06/mexico-vampire-woman_n_845032.html?view=print&comm_ref=false
The Nazi generation
German males who survived WWII lived under a constant cloud of suspicion. If you were above a certain age during the war, there was always the tacit, and sometimes explicit, accusatorial question, “Where were you?” “What were you doing when the Nazis were in power?”
Some of them had good answers. Many did not.
The contemporary Roman episcopate faces a similar quandary. You have a whole generation of bishops tainted by varying degrees of complicity in the abuse scandal. Some of them escape close scrutiny because they oversee less prominent dioceses. But when they’re promoted to higher-profile venues, they sweater under the spotlights. The scandal overshadows them wherever they go. This entire generation of Roman bishops will have to die off before the cloud of suspicion dissipates.
"O, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial"
Do ecclesiastical scandals uniquely discredit the church of Rome? One objection to this tactic is that it seems to be double-bladed. After all, Protestant churches aren’t scandal free.
i) There's a sense in which I agree, but I draw a different conclusion–because I apply the reasoning at a different level. Yes, it does cut both ways. If a Protestant denomination were guilty of the same abuses, that would discredit said denomination. I'm happy to apply the same yardstick in both cases.
ii) There is, however, a fundamental difference. In Roman Catholicism there's a one-to-one correlation between Roman Catholic theology and the Roman Catholic Church, whereas in Protestantism, there's a one-to-many relationship between Protestant theology and Protestant denominations.
Roman Catholicism regards its own denomination as the one true church. You can't detach the theology from the church which produces and attests the theology. Catholic theology doesn't stand on its own. It rises for falls with the claims of the sponsoring denomination. For Catholic dogma is not independently verifiable. It must be authorized by the Magisterium. So it can't rise any higher than its source.
By contrast, Protestant theology is detachable from any particular Protestant denomination. Portable. Like the relationship between abstract universals and concrete particulars.
iii) And this isn't just theoretical. As a matter of fact, conservative Protestants draw that distinction in practice. We think some Protestant denominations are apostate denominations. They've liberalized in theology, ethics, or (usually) both to the point where they cease to be Christian.
iv) Protestant denominations are fleeting, disposable vehicles. Not the destination. Not the goal, but a temporary means to the end.
v) In addition, a Catholic apologist can’t turn tables without contradicting himself. On the one hand, when Catholics attack sola scriptura, they accentuate the internal divisions within Protestantism. The mythical “33,000” denominations.
But when they accuse Protestant churches of corruption, they lump us altogether. So which is it?
If you’re going to accuse Protestants of comparable abuses, you have to specify which leaders or denominations in particular are the culprits. You can’t count us as one when paralleling Catholics scandals with Protestant scandals, then count us as many when attacking sola scriptura.
vi) Finally, the alleged parallel breaks down in one other respect: The Bible isn't committing sexual abuse. The Bible isn't corrupt. That's quite different from institutional abuse.
So these aren’t comparable authorities. That’s equivocal.
Pre-Adamites
In the long run, however, I am not convinced that all—or even most—of these readers will feel comfortable following Collins. Collins's synthesis requires an ad hoc hybrid "Adam" who was "first man" in the sense of being either a specially chosen hominid or a larger tribe of early hominids (Collins is careful not to commit himself to either option). Although I am sympathetic to Collins's efforts to blaze such a path (and he is not alone), I do not see how such an ad hoc Adam will calm doctrinal waters, since the Westminster Confession of Faith leaves no room for anything other than a first couple read literally from the pages of Genesis and Paul, and therefore entails a clear rejection of evolutionary theory.
Further, this type of hybrid "Adam," clearly driven by the need to account for an evolutionary model, is not the Adam of the biblical authors. Ironically, the desire to protect the Adam of scripture leads Collins (and others) to create an Adam that hardly preserves the biblical portrait. Evolution and a historical Adam cannot be merged by positing an Adam so foreign to the biblical consciousness.
I happen to agree with the general thrust of what Enns is saying here. But his criticism is ironic. His objection doesn’t cut against either old-earth or young-earth creationism.
What he’s doing, intentionally or not, is to dynamite the harmonistic strategies of Christian theistic evolutionists. There are ingenious ways of combining a “historical Adam” with macroevolution and common descent. But the result is an artificial construct. The “Adam” it yields is not the Adam of Genesis (or Romans or 1 Corinthians).
So his criticism leaves both young-earth and old-earth creationism intact. What it discredits is the mediating interpretations of theistic evolutionists. In that respect, his objection is nearsighted. A case of friendly fire, where he’s shooting his comrades.
"Beating up on homosexuals"
Yes, male homosexuality is set forth as being a capital crime, like a number of family relations crimes. In terms of the sentence given it, it is more heinous in God's sight than certain kinds of incest and period violation. But for those of you who like to beat up on homosexuals, note that it is not the most heinous. The most heinous is taking both a woman and her mother. There, the punishment is not just death, but death by fire.
I’m unclear on why TFan has cast the issue in punitive terms. Who-all is he referring to?
In the contemporary culture wars, social conservatives don’t ordinarily propose legal punishments for homosexuals or homosexual conduct. Rather, they oppose treating homosexuality as morally equivalent to heterosexuality. They oppose homosexual marriage and homosexual ordination. They oppose forcing homosexual membership onto private organizations like the Boy Scouts–because that violates the Constitutional right of free association. They oppose homosexuals in the military. They oppose hate-speech laws against Christian ethics. They oppose homosexual propaganda in the public school curriculum. They oppose affirmative action for homosexuals. They oppose efforts to strip away conscience clauses for religious organizations.
None of this involves taking punitive measures against homosexuality. There’s a difference between criminalizing an activity, decriminalizing an activity, and elevating said activity to a civil right.
The actual state of the debate is two steps removed from prosecuting homosexuals.
Quest for the historical Muhammad
Muslim apologists are fond of citing Bart Ehrman–although even he defends the historicity of Jesus. But historical skepticism is a double-edged sword:
http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/300131
http://spectator.org/archives/2012/05/25/in-search-of-muhammad/print
http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/300131
http://spectator.org/archives/2012/05/25/in-search-of-muhammad/print
While “radical skepticism” in historical investigation strengthened the historical foundations of the Bible and Christianity, it undermines “apostolic succession”
I’m continuing to have an ongoing discussion with an individual named Nick Trosclair, at the tail end of old Green Baggins thread, on the topic of Apostolic Succession. The discussion has prompted me to go back and collect some links where I worked through the accounts of both F.F. Bruce and Roger Beckwith on what you might call “the authority structure of the earliest church”.
Nick Trosclair seems to me to be a “traditionalist” Roman Catholic, someone who grew up believing that Christ founded something like the Roman Catholic Church, that there have always been popes and bishops (which maybe didn’t quite look like medieval popes and bishops, but the authority structure was similar), and that the Roman Catholic Church has proceeded triumphantly, per Christ’s promise that “the gates of hell will never prevail”, and it is today what it was back then.
Now that historical research has really shattered that view, he is having trouble accepting the historical account (even though Joseph Ratzinger and the official Roman Catholic Church have incorporated it into their thinking), and he wants to chalk it up to “radical skepticism”.
Well, not only “apostolic succession” but the life and death of Christ, the Bible, and all of Christianity, have been subjected to the same kind of “skepticism”, with the result that Christ, the Bible and Christianity all rest on firmer historical evidence than ever before. The fact that “apostolic succession” and “papal suggestion” are radically undermined, just speaks to the overall weakness of the Roman Catholic claims to authority.
Here’s my most recent exchange:
I’m not saying it was “ad hoc”. I’m saying that the essential structure of presbyters, over a period of 150 years or so, lost its essentially Jewish flavor and adopted essentially what was a Gnostic/pagan structure. You can follow that through these four links, where I track F.F. Bruce’s account (and others, I think) along with Roger Beckwith’s account (references are contained within):
Elders Teachers Chairs 1
Elders Teachers Chairs 2
Elders Teachers Chairs 3
Elders Teachers Chairs 4
This is not a radical skepticism. In 1960, Joseph Ratzinger even accepted this historical account as valid. His point was that the structure change came before the “canon” of the New Testament. Doctrinally, even Rome between Vatican I and Vatican II and the Anglican Prayerbook acknowledged the historical differences.
The history behind this is not attributable to “radical skepticism”. The history is not in question, in its broad outlines, as well as in many of the details. It is well documented. Yes, individuals like Brown and Sullivan (whom you don’t like) report on the structure:
Change in teaching on holy orders.
See also:
Roman bait-and-switch on orders
But the doctrinal and theological import of all of this is that the “Episcopal structure” was optional, not integral, to “the church that Christ founded”. The Reformers were right and justified to challenge it and even get rid of it when it would not uphold Biblical teaching (substituting its own “Tradition” as somehow being the correct “interpretation” of genuine Biblical teaching).
And keep in mind, when you talk about “radical skepticism”, that Christianity as a whole, including the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the validity of the Old and New Testaments, all have gone through this “radical skepticism” and have survived and even thrived. On the other hand, the “Episcopal structure” and especially the early papacy have not survived. As I’ve noted above, teachings on these things have, even in their official, “doctrinal” forms, undergone “modification”.
All along, you’ve mischaracterized what the “method” is. Apostolic authority does not strictly mean “an Apostle wrote it”. These men were also authorized by Apostles to carry their message. But that authorization certainly does not imply “apostolic succession” as Rome teaches it today.
Note, it is “the message” which constitutes “the succession” – the message, not necessarily the messengers. It is the “apostolic testimony”. I’ll go into this in more detail, but see Luke 1, just for example: Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they [the many accounts] were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. 3 With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, … so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught”. The “account” is what’s paramount. The Gospel message.
Right, and the account I’ve given shows just precisely how “fluid” they are.
No, I’m suggesting the office of “bishop” as it existed in the late second century, was a development of the second century, in no wise integral to the presbyterial structure of the New Testament church (as was outlined in the “Elders Chairs” links above.
It does not surprise me that the writers of the fourth century were clouded by earlier development. The fourth century is much less useful in determining what when on in the first and second centuries, compared with what the first and second century writers wrote.
Nick Trosclair seems to me to be a “traditionalist” Roman Catholic, someone who grew up believing that Christ founded something like the Roman Catholic Church, that there have always been popes and bishops (which maybe didn’t quite look like medieval popes and bishops, but the authority structure was similar), and that the Roman Catholic Church has proceeded triumphantly, per Christ’s promise that “the gates of hell will never prevail”, and it is today what it was back then.
Now that historical research has really shattered that view, he is having trouble accepting the historical account (even though Joseph Ratzinger and the official Roman Catholic Church have incorporated it into their thinking), and he wants to chalk it up to “radical skepticism”.
Well, not only “apostolic succession” but the life and death of Christ, the Bible, and all of Christianity, have been subjected to the same kind of “skepticism”, with the result that Christ, the Bible and Christianity all rest on firmer historical evidence than ever before. The fact that “apostolic succession” and “papal suggestion” are radically undermined, just speaks to the overall weakness of the Roman Catholic claims to authority.
Here’s my most recent exchange:
The witnesses who speak of Apostolic Succession reveal that it was essential to the structure of the Church and not an ad hoc structure….
Given what I know about our Lord and his promises, it’s hard for me to believe that he would make the Apostles shepherds over His Body, then have them bestow that authority (as shepherds) to other men, and then within three generations have those shepherds UNIVERSALLY misunderstand the very nature of that Church over which they guided as true shepherds Do you believe that the Church as a whole had an identity crisis at the end of the 2nd century and fabricated the idea of Apostolic Succession? The protestant skepticism on this topic reminds me of the epistemological skepticism of Descartes, Hume, and modern philosophy in general.
I’m not saying it was “ad hoc”. I’m saying that the essential structure of presbyters, over a period of 150 years or so, lost its essentially Jewish flavor and adopted essentially what was a Gnostic/pagan structure. You can follow that through these four links, where I track F.F. Bruce’s account (and others, I think) along with Roger Beckwith’s account (references are contained within):
Elders Teachers Chairs 1
Elders Teachers Chairs 2
Elders Teachers Chairs 3
Elders Teachers Chairs 4
This is not a radical skepticism. In 1960, Joseph Ratzinger even accepted this historical account as valid. His point was that the structure change came before the “canon” of the New Testament. Doctrinally, even Rome between Vatican I and Vatican II and the Anglican Prayerbook acknowledged the historical differences.
The history behind this is not attributable to “radical skepticism”. The history is not in question, in its broad outlines, as well as in many of the details. It is well documented. Yes, individuals like Brown and Sullivan (whom you don’t like) report on the structure:
Change in teaching on holy orders.
See also:
Roman bait-and-switch on orders
But the doctrinal and theological import of all of this is that the “Episcopal structure” was optional, not integral, to “the church that Christ founded”. The Reformers were right and justified to challenge it and even get rid of it when it would not uphold Biblical teaching (substituting its own “Tradition” as somehow being the correct “interpretation” of genuine Biblical teaching).
And keep in mind, when you talk about “radical skepticism”, that Christianity as a whole, including the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the validity of the Old and New Testaments, all have gone through this “radical skepticism” and have survived and even thrived. On the other hand, the “Episcopal structure” and especially the early papacy have not survived. As I’ve noted above, teachings on these things have, even in their official, “doctrinal” forms, undergone “modification”.
No. I’m saying, given your method, you should reject them as inspired unless you can prove that they were commissioned by Christ to write an inspired text. Given your rejection of an authoritative Church and the methods you have presented, I do not see another option.
All along, you’ve mischaracterized what the “method” is. Apostolic authority does not strictly mean “an Apostle wrote it”. These men were also authorized by Apostles to carry their message. But that authorization certainly does not imply “apostolic succession” as Rome teaches it today.
Note, it is “the message” which constitutes “the succession” – the message, not necessarily the messengers. It is the “apostolic testimony”. I’ll go into this in more detail, but see Luke 1, just for example: Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they [the many accounts] were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. 3 With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, … so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught”. The “account” is what’s paramount. The Gospel message.
It does not matter what term you use, the fact is that bishops/presbyters (I know the terms were fluid early on) were shepherds over the whole Church.
Right, and the account I’ve given shows just precisely how “fluid” they are.
Again, are you suggesting that the office of bishop was no longer part of the Church in the 2nd – 21st centuries?
No, I’m suggesting the office of “bishop” as it existed in the late second century, was a development of the second century, in no wise integral to the presbyterial structure of the New Testament church (as was outlined in the “Elders Chairs” links above.
the fact that St. Jerome believed in Apostolic Succession and explicitly stated that the bishop alone can ordain.
It does not surprise me that the writers of the fourth century were clouded by earlier development. The fourth century is much less useful in determining what when on in the first and second centuries, compared with what the first and second century writers wrote.
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