Baggins v. Sauron

A while back, a hobbit who pastors a PCA church in the Shire did a post on the suspension of Peter Enns. This has generated over 400 comments.

http://greenbaggins.wordpress.com/2008/03/28/on-peter-enns/

I’m reposting my comments here (plus a comment by Manata). Since there’s a certain back-and-forth in combox debates, I’ve regrouped my original comments in a topical arrangement to make it easier to follow. I’ve made some other minor editorial changes.

Paul Manata also made a number of comments which are well-worth reading.

I. Seely

steve hays said,
April 10, 2008 at 7:40 pm

Paul Seely said,

“Paul M. recently directed me to a different websitge offering Steve Hay’s criticism of my views. Hays attempted to refute my position without bothering to get the facts from my papers, which he knew of.”

That’s an odd complaint on several grounds:

i) Seely himself didn’t even bother to cite his own papers when he original posed his question to other commenters under #209.

At that time, he felt that his own summaries, which he supplied in comment #209, were a sufficient basis for commenters to answer his question.

Is he now of the opinion that his original summary of his own position was so defective that you have to read through his papers before you can answer his question? He didn’t lay down that precondition under #209.

ii) Moreover, when he did get around to citing his papers, he introduced his papers with the following concession and caveat:

“Towne (211)_You are quite right that my argument in #209 ‘hinges on the statement: “Since people in biblical times believed the sun was literally moving…’…If you will read those papers, even though I did not specifically address the movement of the sun, you will find a plethora of evidence from both ancient literature and anthropology that Peoples in OT times, including the educated, did not distinguish between the appearance of the universe and its factual nature.”

So Sealy admits, on the one hand, that his argument hinged on ANE belief in geocentrism,” while he also admits, on the other hand, that his papers don’t actually addressed that specific issue— even though this argument “hinges” on that specific issue.

Hence, as he himself as framed the issue, his papers are irrelevant to the assumption on which his argument hinges.

iii) Not only do his papers fail to establish his specific assumption, they also fail to establish his general assumption: to wit, that people in Bible times were committed to naïve realism. Where do his papers show that the ancients ever believed that mountains were smaller at a distance, or that oars are actually bent by water?

When he makes sweeping statements about how people in Bible times didn’t distinguish between appearance and reality, it only takes few counterexamples to falsify his universal claim.

iv) There is also a lack of intellectual clarity in the way he relates his general claim to his specific claim. At one point he says that his argument for naïve realism hinges on his argument for universal ANE belief in geocentricism, yet he has also indicated that naïve realism was the reason that people in Bible times believed in geocentrism, as well as a flat earth and a solid sky.

I suppose the most charitable way of clarifying his intellectual confusion on this point is that he meant naïve realism to be the constitutive principle, while belief in geocentricism, &c. would supply evidence for naïve realism.

v) His papers also fail to rebut a number of my contentions:

a) As I explained in some detail, it’s simplistic to claim that appearances single out geocentrism or a flat earth or a solid dome. To the contrary, the appearances point to a more complex model which is at odds with Seely’s blanket assertions.

b) His papers fail to rebut the evidence I cited regarded the stylized and symbolic dimension of Biblical cosmography. Even if he were right about the “firmament,” that misses the point.

c) His papers fail to address his selective appeal to scholars when they happen to agree with him—as if he has all the scholars on his side.

Those are just a few of the points at which, both in his papers, and his direct reply to me, is unresponsive to my answer.

Remember, I didn’t initiate this challenge. Seely is the one who posed these questions to commenters at Green Baggins.

When, however, his challenge is answered, he acts offended. And he gave Paul Manata the brush-off as well, when Manata also responded to Seely’s challenge.

We’ve responded to Seely on his own terms. Were his questions sincere or insincere? If sincere, why does he react in this fashion?

“Worse still he later complained that I did not offer any examples. The amazing thing is that he said this immediately after quoting me offering a specific example.”

That’s a clear misrepresentation of what I said. I systematically ran through his putative examples and showed that they were unsuccessful in establishing his claim.

“Worse still he concluded with slanderous accusations.”

How is what I said “slanderous”? Several commenters, both here (in the thread at Green Baggins) and at some blogs supporting Enns, have been trying very hard to come up with one Scriptural example or another which would embarrass the inerrantist and make him stand down from his commitment to inerrancy. That’s trivially easy to document. Consider one of Seely’s own statements here:

“In order to make the doctrine of a scientifically inerrant Bible stand up, Old Princeton/Westminster have given us such answers as the Framework hypothesis, day-age concordism, and the local Flood. But, are these the real meanings of the biblical text or creative impositions upon the text? Or if the stories are real history, how can we believe against all of the scientific evidence the world was created in the space of six days or that a Flood less than 10,000 years ago destroyed all but eight humans?”

Look at how he’s framed the alternatives. If the “stories” in Genesis are “real history,” then how can we believe them given all of the scientific evidence to the contrary? Aren’t various attempts to defend a “scientifically inerrant Bible” a “creative imposition on the text”?

Isn’t Seely admitting that, on his own view, the Bible is scientifically errant? That these stories, to the extent that they conflict with all the scientific evidence to the contrary, aren’t “real history.”

Or consider Seely’s Pickwickian statement that “I agree with much of what you say. An accommodated human opinion should not be considered evidence that Scripture is errant, because it is not God’s opinion; he is just accommodating the human opinion.”

How does that salvage the doctrine of inspiration? By that dichotomy, every assertion in Scripture could be accommodated to errant human opinion, yet this shouldn’t be considered evidence that Scripture is errant, for God wouldn’t share the errant, inscripturated opinions of Moses or David or Isaiah or Matthew or Luke or John or Paul.

Yes, I’d say that that’s instilling a spirit of doubt in the Word of God. And I’m more concerned about slandering the Holy Spirit when we deny the plenary inspiration of Scripture.

steve hays said,
April 15, 2008 at 8:22 am

Paul Seely said,

“The Gen 1/Enuma elish and Gen 6-8/Gilgamesh/Atrahais parallels.”

Seely is conflating two distinct issues.

1.I don’t think anyone disputes genuine parallels between Gen 6-8 and Gilgamesh/Atrahasis.

This, however, doesn’t mean that Gen 6-8 is a bowdlerized version of the Mesopotamian accounts.

Since, according to Genesis, the ark came to rest in northern Mesopotamia, the survivors of the flood would have resided in Mesopotamia. It’s therefore unsurprising if Mesopotamian culture retained a traditional memory of that historic event.

The accounts would be parallel because they are reporting the same event—as well as sharing common, ANE literary conventions.

The Mesopotamian versions would be somewhat garbled and legendary accounts of the same historical event because they’re idolatrous and uninspired.

2.However, that explanation is unavailable in the case of the Enuma Elish. Those who think the Elish is genuinely parallel with Gen 1 also believe that the world is billions of years old. Depending on whether they subscribe to theistic evolution or old earth creationism, they also identify Adam with some hominid that came on the scene, at the latest, around 200,000 years ago.

Given that timeframe, it wouldn’t be possible for the Enuma Elish to preserve an authentic oral tradition of what really happened when man was made or the world came into being.

Therefore, assuming, for the sake of argument, that Gen 1 is literarily dependent on the Enuma Elish or some earlier version thereof, Gen 1 would have zero historical content.

If the myth was unhistorical, and you demythologize a myth, then the demythologized version will be equally unhistorical.

It would be nice Seely laid his cards on the table at this point. Is Gen 1 the record of a historical event, or is it the record of an unhistorical myth?

steve hays said,
April 15, 2008 at 12:23 pm

If Seely thinks there are genuine parallels between Gen 1 and the Enuma Elish, then it would be helpful to observe him demonstrate that claim by directly quoting those portions of the Enuma Elish which are parallel, along with the matching verses in Gen 1, so that the reader can see what, exactly, he is referring to. Why doesn’t he show us what he means, by presenting a direct, verbatim comparison?

steve hays said,
April 16, 2008 at 9:03 am

Paul Seely said,

“steve hays (365) gave several quotations from one of John Walton’s books, which appear to contradict Enns’ position. A closer look, however, shows that either there is no real contradiction of Enns, or the writer is mistaken.”

i) You and others were making facile claims about parallels between Gen 1 and the Enuma Elish. I simply posted some material which drew attention to the equivocations and disanalogies in this facile comparison.

You are now introducing qualifications which you didn’t volunteer in your original claim. It betrays a certain lack of candor on your part when these qualifications have to be forced out of you.

The average Christian reader doesn’t have access to standard reference works. Therefore, he’s dependent on people like you for his information. When you are selective and one-sided in your presentation of the evidence, that misleads the reader. It should not have been necessary for Manata and me to present the other side of the argument. You should have done that yourself.

ii) I also quoted two scholars (Currid, Walton) whom you quoted to support your interpretation of Gen 1:6.

iii) When the experts disagree, what is a layman to think?

“Kitchen’s last argument, which is similar to one that Walton makes, overlooks the very important similarity of the splitting of the tehom on the 2nd day to the splitting of Tiamat in Eluma elish, and the making of first the sky , then the earth, and then the heavenly bodies. But, it is not just these similarities which tie these two traditions together. It is the fact that no other ANE story has a splitting of the primeval Deep. In fact, it is difficult to find any other creation story anywhere in the world that has these similarities.”

Gen 1 doesn’t speak of “splitting” the tehom. You’ve carried that over from the Enuma Elish.

Where does the Enuma elish have timemarkers to say which action is first, second, third…in the sequence of events? Where does the Enuma elish present a chronology of events?

“And it should not be overlooked that the dissimilarity is fundamentally theological,while the underlying events often coincide with E.e. or other Babylonian sources.”

That’s an assertion. You need to document that assertion by actually quoting from the Enuma Elish or “other Babylonian sources” so that a reader can see for himself what they allegedly have in common. All you’ve done is to *summarize* what you think they have in common.

“There is no reason to have to belabor all this.”

To the contrary, there is every reason to belabor all this. When you make specific claims, you need to furnish specific evidence commensurate with your claims.

“Enns is scarcely alone in seeing similarities between Gen 1 and E.e. or Gen 6-8 and Atrahasis-Gilgamesh. And as to borrowing, he has accepted it only indirectly. He has set forth a perfectly reasonable scenario of Abraham beginning with theologically corrupted traditions and then having them transformed by revelation. Those corrupted traditions are not to be identified with the E.e. account and the Gilgamesh account as we have them today; but there is a relationship between the traditions and the later accounts.”

That’s one of those beautifully unfalsifiable claims that we often get in higher criticism. The critic postulates a hypothetical source on which a Bible writer was dependent. This hypothetical source is conveniently unavailable for direct inspection. So we can’t actually check his claim against the putative point of reference.

Putative similarities are treated as evidence for some sort of literary dependence. However, dissimilarities never count against the theory since the dissimilarities are relegated to the hypothetical source document.

“One would think from the way some talk that Gen 1 has no relationship at all to Enuma elish. The splitting of the primeval waters links the two accounts together, as does the order of events.”

i) The theme of creation by division isn’t limited to the primeval waters in Gen 1. It also involves light from dark, day from night, and (by implication) land from sea.

ii) You haven’t shown a common order of events. You merely asserted a common order of events. Your summaries assume what you need to prove

If you claim a parallel, then you need to actually quote from both documents (Gen 1, Enuma Elish), so that a reader can see that the putatively parallels involve the same *kind* of events, in the same chronological order (with timemarkers to indicate the relative sequence).

steve hays said,
April 17, 2008 at 6:33 pm

Paul Seely said

“If you want more details, read Davis or Heidel’s The Babylonian Genesis.”

I’ve read Heidel. On pp128-29, he gives a précis of what he believes to be the sequential parallels. What he fails to do, and what you fail to do, is to quote the relevant portions of the Enuma Elish where these parallels occurs.

I myself have gone back through his translation, and when I attempt to locate the parallels in the actual text, these are not analogous events. All we have is the sort of loose parallelomania we find in Frazer et al.

You have failed to document your claim. Indeed, you don’t even make an effort to document your claim. All you give us are your tendentious summaries of the evidence in lieu of giving us the actual evidence.

You *tell* us there are parallels without *showing* us there are parallels. Fine. I accept your tacit admission that you can’t begin to actually prove your case. You resist repeated invitations to make good on your claims.

As Neusner is wont to say, you don’t know what you can’t show.

steve hays said,
April 18, 2008 at 7:40 am

Paul Seely said,

“As for actually addressing the question of sequence, Davis presents his case very much like the web article mentioned by Paul M. If you want more details, read Davis or Heidel’s The Babylonian Genesis.”

To the contrary, Davis admits that “The Babylonian story knows nothing of a division into days whereas the Hebrew account is distributed within a framework of six days,” J. Davis, Genesis & Semitic Tradition, 7.

If the Enuma Elish lacks a temporal framework, then the events contained therein also lack a clear temporal sequence.

steve hays said,
April 20, 2008 at 6:32 pm

Paul Seely said,

“Point i: the same comments could be made about your and other critics’ posts.”

That’s because Manata and I have to provide a counterballast to your slanted sampling of the evidence.

“And you are splitting hairs for no good reason. In both accounts a large body of water is divided into two parts, does the fact that one account says, ‘split’ and the other says, ‘divide’ make any difference to the substance?”

Yes, it does. Here are two standard translations of what you regard as the key passage in the Enuma Elish:

“He split her open like a mussel(?) into two (parts),” A. Heidel, The Babylonian Genesis, 42.

“He split her like a shellfish into two parts,” J. Pritchard, ed. The Ancient Near East, 1:35.

The choice of the verb (“to split”) is tied to the mythopoetic image of splitting a body in two the way you’d split a shellfish.

That idea is nowhere present in Gen 1:2.

What you’ve done is to *create* a parallel rather than *find* a parallel.

“John Davis saw this commonality of splitting the waters as evidence that the two accounts were related.”

I don’t know why you keep plugging John Davis. This is a very antiquated piece of scholarship. It was originally published way back in 1894. Surely you don’t think his very dated monograph represents the last word in comparative Semitics.

I think the only reason you introduced it into the discussion was as a tactical maneuver to show that Enns is operating with the tradition of Old Princeton.

“If you want more details, read Davis or Heidel’s The Babylonian Genesis.”

Fine. Here’s a detail from Heidel: “As far as Semitic grammar is concerned, tehom represents an older and more original formation than does Tiamat” (100).

“Or Pope and other commentaries on Genesis.”

Fine. Here’s what a standard commentary on Genesis (1:2) has to say:

“Even if the etymological equivalence of tehom and Tiamat be granted, this still does not demonstrate that the biblical Creation story has a Babylonian background. For one thing, many ancients believed in a primeval watery mass out of which the orders of creation emerged, whether these ancients were the Egyptians with their concept of the god of the primeval waters—Nu—who is the source of all things, or the Greek philosopher Thales. Second, the ‘deep’ of Gen 1 is so far removed in function from the Tiamat of Enuma elish that any possible relationship is blurred beyond recognition. The ‘deep’ of Gen 1 is not personified, and in no way is it viewed as some turbulent, antagonistic force,” V. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis: Chapters 1-17, 110-11.

“Strong negative arguments may be sounded regarding the linguistic relationship between Heb. tehom and Babylonian Tiamat. Much more likely is the correspondence between Heb. tehom and Ugar. thm (dual, thmtm, plural thmt), ‘deep,depth(s),” or even earlier Eblaite ti-a-matum, ‘ocean abyss’,” ibid. 111.

“But, as far as I’m concerned, the issue is settled: kinship there is.”

Who needs proof when you can resort to truth by stipulation! That’s a real timesaver.

“If you work at it you can find and see his parallels.”

The burden of proof is not on me to make your case for you.

steve hays said,
April 21, 2008 at 8:50 am

Paul Seely said,

“There may well be influence from Egypt upon Genesis 1; but, the dividing of the primeval waters found in Gen 1:6,7 will forever link that chapter to the Babylonian creation tradition found in Enuma Elish because the splitting of the primeval waters is found only there in ancient Near Eastern literature, and virtually only there in all the creation stories in the world. Further, the splitting of the Tehom in Genesis, which is not the normal Hebrew word for sea,is cognate with Tiamat, the name of the sea in Enuam Elish.”

There are two basic problems with this claim:

i) Seely is so obsessed with seeing a parallel between Gen 1 and the Enuma Elish that he misses the true, intertextual parallel between the creation account and the flood account. The reason that Gen 1 accentuates the watery motif is to draw attention to the historical parallel between creation (1:2,6-10) and the reversal of creation during the flood (7:11; 8:2).

ii) Ancient Israelites were perfectly aware of the fact that rain comes from rain clouds. Seely’s interpretation imputes to the author and his audience a primitive naïveté which is belied by Scriptural statements to the contrary:

“Preponderantly the OT describes the process of rainfall much as we do, that is, as a concomitant of lightning, clouds, and thunder (Gen 9:14; Judg 5:4; 1 K 18:45; Isa 5:6; and even poetic passages such as Job 26:8 and Ps 77:18[Eng.17]), Hamilton, ibid. 1:123.

“The ‘expanse’ is the visible atmosphere or sky (Gen 1:8), characterized by the layer of clouds that contain the water above it (1:7; Ps 148:4). The older translation, ‘firmament,’ gives a false impression of the nature of the expanse. Phrases such as ‘hard as a mirror’ (Job 37:1 and ‘like a canopy’ (Isa 40:22) are merely highly picturesque ways of describing it,” R. Youngblood, The Book of Genesis (2nd ed.), 29.

steve hays said,
April 22, 2008 at 9:35 am

Paul Seely said,

“Pt i Genesis’ intertextual parallel of the split waters with the flood account in no way refutes the fact observed by John Davis that in both Gen 1 and Enuma Elish, there is “an abyss of waters shrouded in darkness and subsequently parted in twain in order to the formation of heaven and earth’.”

i) The Enuma Elish doesn’t speak of primeval darkness.

And even if it did, we’d expect a creation account, whether mythical or otherwise, to describe the creation of luminaries—which presupposes their prior absence.

ii) Anyway, you’re missing the point. Gen 1:2 doesn’t require an extratextual explanation, for an intertextual explanation is close at hand.

Your procedure is to arbitrarily isolate Gen 1:2 from other parallels within Gen 1 (i.e. other examples of creation by division), as well as between Gen 1 and Gen 6-8. Having thus artificially narrowed the frame of reference, you claim that the only way to account for Gen 1:2 is through literary dependence on some extratextual source.

But separation is a recurrent motif in Gen 1. And, as Wenham points out, the literary and theological function of this motif is to foreshadow the distinction between ritual purity and impurity.

It has a completely different function than the myth of Tiamat. You keep superimposing that extraneous grid on Gen 1 in defiance of its internal structure and intertextual parallels.

“There is no necessary conflict between the solidity of the firmament and fact that the clouds dump rain.”

To the contrary, these are two very different ways of depicting rainfall. In one case, rain comes from visible clouds—in the other case it comes from an invisible sea above the firmament, channeled through sluice gates. They involve two very different models of the world.

“Yes , and one similarity is that all of them believed the sky was solid, as I documented in my paper on the firmament.”

Actually, the OT uses different, literally incompatible metaphors for the sky. It’s a solid dome. A tent. A scroll.

“He is assuming that the words, “in the firmament” necessarily imply embedded in the firmament. This is a false assumption since the cup ‘in Pharaoh’s hand’ (Gen 40:13) was not embedded in his hand, hence his conclusion is fallacious.”

That comparison reinforces his argument, not yours. A cup doesn’t move itself. For the cup to move, the hand must move the cup. So even if the celestial bodies are in the solid sky the way a cup is in a hand, the celestial bodies couldn’t move unless the sky rotated.

“Gary, I apolgize for taking time to answer hay’s attempts to obscure the Bible in order to save a fundamentalist view of inerrancy.”

It obscures the Bible to deny that Gen 1 is a bowdlerized version of a pagan myth?

One doesn’t need to be a “fundamentalist” or inerrantist to reject trumped up comparisons between Gen 1 and the Enuma Elish. As Stanley Jaki observes,

“Rather willful should seem interpretations of ancient ‘creation’ stories, where they are raised to the status of cosmogonies. They invariably contain far less than what is read into them time and again…One wonders whether anyone, wholly unfamiliar with Genesis 1, could have ever summarized in such a way the contents of Tablets IV and V which alone deal with the ‘creation’ of the world in Enuma elish,” Genesis 1 Through the Ages (Thomas More Press, 1992, 17-18.

steve hays said,
April 23, 2008 at 9:59 am

Paul Seely said,

“First of all, ‘ALL Scripture is inspired’ Therefore if myths or legends are included in Scripture, they are inspired.”

In a perfunctory show of mock piety, Seely prefaces his explanation with a face-saving appeal to 2 Tim 3:16. But he then extends this to myths or legends. Yet myths and legends are falsehoods. So, his position reduces to saying that God inspires falsehoods. Scripture teaches inspired falsehoods.

I’m not entirely clear on the difference between inspired falsehoods and uninspired falsehoods.

“In the case of Gen 1-11, I would say Gen 1 and 6-8. as the examples Enns uses, are ancient traditions which Israel accepted as historical but revised the theology.”

So the Bible writers sincerely believed that these stories were historical. The Bible writers intended to teach history, but we know better.

“They were appropriately accommodated by God because (1) they were accepted as valid before Moses incorporated them—just like the custom that a man could divorce his wife for any reason whatsoever.”

i) Seely likes to lean on this example. But his appeal suffers from a fatal equivocation. The Mosaic divorce law is not an accommodation to falsehood. The divorce law doesn’t assert something to be true which is really false. It doesn’t assert something to be a moral absolute which is actually immoral.

ii) To know what falsehoods God accommodated in Scripture, Seely would have to enjoy direct access to the mind of God outside of Scripture. He would need to know God’s ulterior intent apart from Scripture. What is Seely’s source of information? Is God telling him which Scriptural assertions are true, and which Scriptural assertions are accommodated errors?

“And (2) it would have caused stumbling and rejection of the theological correction Moses incorporated if they had been changed to reflect our views (of science and history) as to what ought to have been said—just as was the case with the custom of easy divorce. The absolute truth about the creation/Flood just as the absolute truth about divorce simply could not be told to a rude and ignorant people.”

So Seely adopts a double truth theory. In the pulpit, preaching to the rude and ignorant masses, he speaks as if these myths and legends are true. But in the privacy of his study, he believes them to be false.

“Well, today science has made it clear. At the time of Old Princeton, it may not have been a breach of the knowledge of geology to say that Gen 1 could be harmonized via the day-age theory or that Adam could not be dated except by the genealogies and they could be stretched 20,000 years, or that the Flood account could be harmonized via a local Flood theory. Today, however, if we give to science the same respect as did Hodge and Warfield and apply our knowledge of science to Gen 1-11, science makes it clear that none of those old harmonizations hold water. So far are the scientific facts from agreeing with Gen 1-11, ‘Creation science’ has invented its own private science to agree with Genesis; and WTS can barely speak of science at all without emphasizing the noetic effects of sin (on scientists, not themselves). If we follow Hodge and Warfield by interpreting Gen 1 and 6-8 in the light of modern science including what we know of the ANE, two things are evident: These chapters do not agree with modern science, but they do agree with the worldview of the times.”

For Seely, a commentator must submit his commentary to The Ad Hoc Committee On Facts. Since, by Seely’s own admission, the facts change from one generation to the next, a commentator doesn’t know in advance which interpretation is the factual interpretation.

Hence, if a commentator is prudent, he will want to have a fallback option in case The Ad Hoc Committee On Facts overrules his interpretation. So the prudent commentator will submit a draft copy with multiple-choice interpretations, such as:

1.The Young-earth interpretation of Gen 1.
2.The Old-earth interpretation of Gen 1.
3.The Theistic Evolutionary interpretation of Gen 1.
4.The Demythological interpretation of Gen 1.
5.The Mythological interpretation of Gen 1.

1.The Resurrection narratives are inerrant stories.
2.The Resurrection narratives are errant stories.
3.The Resurrection narratives are legendary stories.
4.The Resurrection narratives are mythical stories.

1.Jesus is the omniscient Son of God.
2.Jesus is the kenotic Son of God.
3.Jesus was a Cynic philosopher.
4.Jesus was a psychic.
5.Jesus was a space alien.
6.Jesus never existed.

The far-sighted commentator has a scripted series of rotating interpretations for every contingency. That way, he can whip out whichever interpretation falls in line with the fashionable facts of the day.

If The Ad Hoc Committee On Facts says that miracles represent a throwback to an antiquated and superstitious worldview, he can reinterpret the miracles of Jesus as accommodated errors.

If The Ad Hoc Committee On Facts says that Paul’s views on sex and gender are unscientific, he can consign that bit of Pauline teaching to accommodated error.

If The Ad Hoc Committee On Facts says the Parousia reflects an obsolete, triple-decker view of the universe, then he can relegate the Second Coming of Christ to accommodated error.

An ambidextrous commentator should be able to tailor a suitable interpretation for every eventuality.

“Applying all of this to Enns’ statements, we conclude that his ‘myth’ is an inspired accommodation, and the principles of Old Princeton demand this conclusion.”

Notice that this has nothing to do with what God demands, or Scripture demands. Like a good defense attorney, Seely knows how to game the system. You treat tradition as case law. As long as you’re able to find a precedent somewhere in your tradition, you can then get your client off on a technicality.

For folks like Seely, God has ceased to be a living reality. It’s just a case of learning how to work the system. Knowing where to find the escape-clauses in the contract.

“How else, for example, could you interpret the Flood account in the light of the scientific facts, which at this point in history falsify it, except by regarding it as an accommodation to the views of the times?”

How does Seely’s methodology different from that of John Spong or Rudolf Bultmann? We must save the Bible from itself. Man has come of age. Our task is to make Christianity relevant to modern man.

“You could play turtle: Inside my shell of faith there is no problem.”

Doesn’t Seely play turtle? Isn’t he arbitrarily selective about what parts of the Bible he credits?

“But, where is the answer that can accept ALL the facts…Are they willing to face and incorporate ALL of the facts.”

I don’t have any problem with accepting all the “facts,” although something is not a fact just because Seely says so. He is very selective in his appeal to the facts. And his philosophy of science is puerile.

And the one little fact he leaves out of his grand synthesis is the fact that God has spoken.

We’ve reached the point where an adequate reply to Seely would call for a full-blown defense of Gen 1-11. That’s beyond the scope of the combox. I’m offer a few concluding observations:

1.Seely is rehearsing all the stock, liberal objections to the historicity of Gen 1-11. His view is functionally indistinguishable from the way in which unbelievers typically attack Genesis.

The only difference is that he tacks on a bit of face-saving verbiage about divine accommodation. That makes his position more nominally pious than Rudolf Bultmann or Victor Stenger, but his interpretations and conclusions have the same cash value.

2.There are two ways viewing Christian apologetics.

a) On one view, the duty of apologetics is to first ascertain what the Bible teaches, then defend whatever the Bible teaches. This is the evangelical view of apologetics.

b) On another view, the duty of apologetics is to rescue Christianity from the Bible. We must try to salvage a residual core of Christian faith from an error-ridden text. This is the liberal view of apologetics.

Bultmann was a classic exponent of (b). He didn’t see himself as an enemy of the faith. Rather, he viewed himself as a Christian apologist. He thought he was doing the Christian faith a favor.

3.Seely, through his selective, one-sided emphasis, has convinced himself that Gen 1-11 is indebted to pagan mythology. Manata and I have cited a lot of counterevidence by top scholars to deconstruct his specious parallels, but Seely is committed to his thesis.

4.Seely has a very naïve view of what science can prove. He betrays no awareness of the realist/antirealist debate in the philosophy of science. For example:

http://www.lps.uci.edu/home/fac-staff/faculty/stanford/publications/Oxford%20Handbook.pdf

5.Seely lectures us on modern science as if we were suddenly transported to the 21C from the Middle Ages. But all of us are the heirs of modern science. We don’t believe the Bible out of scientific ignorance. Does Seely think that Vern Poythress is a scientific ignoramus?

6.Seely likes to belittle creationism. But creationism isn’t all of a piece. Kurt Wise and Ken Ham aren’t interchangeable.

And it’s not an all-or-nothing proposition. I think that OEC exegesis is sometimes better than YEC exegesis.

7.Seely also likes to belittle fundamentalists. But Seely construes the imagery in Gen 1 with the same wooden literality as Tim LaHaye. Seely’s hermeneutical approach is no different than the backwoods preacher he so disdains.

He disregards the emblematic nature of the imagery at various points, where Moses is using architectural metaphors to signify sacred space and sacred time. Scholars like Currid, Beale, and Walton have all documented that feature.

8.In his unwitting way, I think Seely has rendered a service to the cause of Christianity by ripping the mask away from I&I and showing us just what, without the pious makeup, the alternative that he, Enns, and others of their ilk really amounts to.

II. Jorgenson

steve hays said,
April 15, 2008 at 2:48 pm

Scott Jorgenson said,

“Here’s why it seems unlikely to me that Genesis 6-8 inerrantly preserves the historical events of an actual global flood, while Gilgamesh and Atrahasis preserve a corruption of those same events. There are dozens if not hundreds of flood legends from across many of the world’s cultures, but the pattern we observe is that the stories which are most parallel to Genesis 6-8 are the ones whose authors were closest in geographical, historical and cultural proximity to the authors of Genesis 6-8. This strikes me as quite a coincidence unless there is some literary relationship between the two. Everybody else forgot what the flood was really like except the ancient Hebrews and, just coincidentally, their Mesopotamian neighbors? Very strange indeed.”

I already anticipated that argument. It’s not a strange coincidence if the survivors of the flood disembarked in Mesopotamia (e.g. the mountain chain of Ararat). There’s where they would have initially settled. That’s completely consistent with what Genesis says. You’re behind the curve.

“Rather the position is that Enuma elish is an expression evolved from pagan cosmogonic and theogonic traditions, and it is those traditions behind Enuma elish that Genesis 1 addresses.”

Enns claims the parallels are more specific. They involve (according to him) a common sequence of events (I&I, p26).

Sounds like you’re just winging it with your canned answers rather than addressing what I specifically said or Enns specifically said.

steve hays said,
April 16, 2008 at 9:44 am

Scott Jorgenson said,

“Steve: I don’t see how the Mesopotamians having settled in the area while the rest dispersed, would cause them to retain better memory of the specifics of the flood than all the rest but one (the Hebrews). I realized you had suggested that; but it seems a non sequitur to me.”

i) Well, to go back to your original statement, many cultures will have their share of flood “legends” simply because they happen to reside on a natural flood plain, like a river valley. If their respective legends don’t have much in common, that’s because they were never referring to a common event in the first place. So your frame of reference is very questionable.

ii) Differences can also depend on how soon after the event it was committed to writing, and what records have survived.

iii) Cross-cultural diffusion can also revise the original account, such as the transmutation of Greek mythology into Roman mythology. There is more opportunity for cross-cultural diffusion if some descendants of the survivors (of the flood) migrate to far-flung regions of the globe—in contrast to a more homogenous civilization.

steve hays said,
April 20, 2008 at 4:04 pm

Scott Jorgenson said,

“I am unclear whether you consider the historical flood event to have been global in extent or local. What is your position on that?”

That’s not an easy question to answer. The temptation of a modern reader, in reading the geographical markers in the flood account, is to unconsciously translate or transfer these to his modern map of the earth.

But the original audience didn’t have the same mental map. So it’s easy for a modern reader to overinterpret the scope of the flood.

At the same time, the flood was clearly meant to eradicate the human race.

“In other words, the global flood would have leveled culture, and there would be no reason to suppose that Mesopotamia would have retained the most accurate memory of the global event (despite subsequent local flooding), while remote cultures’ memory of the deluge was obscured by such subsequent local flooding.”

i) I didn’t say that local flood traditions would obscure the memory of a global flood. What I said, rather, is that you need to establish that all these flood traditions are traditions of a global flood rather than a local flood.

Your argument is that we have legends of a global flood from cultures all around the world, but only two of these traditions are significantly parallel. You haven’t established all these flood traditions, or even many of them, are, in fact, traditions of a global flood—in contradistinction to traditions of a local flood. Therefore, you can’t use that as a benchmark to single out the parallels between the Biblical account and its Mesopotamian counterparts.

ii) Memory is reinforced by physical proximity to the event. Peoples who moved away from the site where the original survivors disembarked would lose that mnemonic reinforcement.

“Out-migrants from the ark would encounter no other cultures with which to cross-pollinate and pollute their own memories of the global flood; they would be moving into empty ruins.”

That’s simplistic since migration often takes place in successive waves of immigration, with intervals of stasis and internal development in-between.

“Each people-group’s surroundings would eventually fill with peoples of other kinds, yes; but the same is true for those who remained near the ark in the first place.”

You need to establish that Mesopotamia underwent the same dislocation. Were the people who stayed behind subject to the same degree of cross-cultural diffusion?

“Early proto-writing systems are known from China and the Indus Valley which are generally contemporaneous with the earliest Mesopotamian proto-writing.”

You’re equivocating. The question at issue is not the origin of writing, but when a particular event was committed to writing.

steve hays said,
April 20, 2008 at 9:28 pm

Scott Jorgenson said,

“Steve (403), if all cultures worldwide derive from Noah and thus have the Noahic Flood in their background, I can’t see that it matters whether their individual flood stories later reflect that Flood or local flood events. You say we need to establish that, but it is irrelevant. If their stories reflect the Noahic Flood, then the question becomes why they do it less ‘accurately’ in comparison with Mesopotamian sources. But if they reflect local events, then the question becomes why the Mesopotamian stories don’t as well. In either case, the same basic question exists: why of all the world’s flood accounts do only the Mesopotamian ones bear closest resemblance to Genesis 6-8.

i) Why might two or more flood accounts be dissimilar? One obvious explanation is that they differ because they are reporting different events (i.e. different local floods in different localities).

ii) Why might two or more flood accounts be similar? One obvious explanation is that they resemble each other because they are reporting the same event.

Another reason for some similarities is if they share common literary conventions.

iii) It is, of course, possible that two or more flood accounts are similar due to some direct or indirect literary dependence. That would be the liberal explanation of Gen 6-8.

Either a (ii) common historical source or a (iii) common literary source.

“And the most natural, least-question-begging answer to that, considering also the geographic and cultural proximity of Mespotamia and the Hebrews, is that they are literarily related, reflecting common local traditions, and that any common historical event behind them is not one shared by all of the world’s people.”

If you favor simplistic explanations that overlook other relevant variables.

“This is indeed the answer that we would apply in any other case and it is only because of prior commitment to total biblical inerrancy and historicity that we are debating this.”

And the only reason you’re debating this is because of your prior commitment to extrabiblical evidence over biblical evidence. So you have your presuppositions, and I have mine.

But Christian presuppositions have more explanatory power than secular presuppositions. For example, evolutionary psychology has a suicidal tendency to cut its own throat.

“But what reason is there to suppose that Mesopotamians were subject to less flux in tradition than out-migrants, considering the geographic crossroads of empire which Mesopotamia occupies?”

At best, that objection would result in a stalemate between your explanation and mine.

At the same time, migration is an inherently destabilizing force. After a few generations, immigrants often assimilate to the challenges of their new environment.

“What reason is there to suppose that the Chinese and especially Vedic flood stories (committed to writing in the early- to mid-1st millenium BC at the latest - some argue for much earlier dates - and reflecting earlier oral traditions) were too late to have been able to capture the historical events of the Noahic Flood, while the ANE stories were not?”

i) If one account committed an event to writing some 1500 years later than another, then it could well be less accurate for that reason alone.

ii) In any case, this assumes that Chinese and Vedic accounts are reporting the same event as Genesis or Gilgamesh, rather than an unrelated, local flood.

“Incidentally, radiocarbon dating demonstrates that people were scattered all over the earth long before the ~2900 BC date of the Noahic Flood. An anthropologically-universal flood at the time of Noah would have to have been a physically global flood.”

Dating techniques tend to be beset by circular assumptions or extrapolations that exceed the evidence. To take one example:

How are they calibrated? Although the equipment used to date radio-active materials has become more sophisticated through time, basic problems originally discovered by Willard Libby, inventor of the C14 dating method, still hold true. Calibrated using known dates of Egyptian tomb artifacts, it has proven somewhat accurate back to about 2000 BC. But there are problems for radio carbon dating older than 5000 BP (Before Present). Dates earlier than that cannot be calibrated since there is no historical material older than 5000 BP. Furthermore, as Libby made clear in his publication, all “dates” higher than 5000 years BP are not absolute dates, but only the measure of residual C14. Dendrochronology does not help, either, since under certain conditions trees can grow two and sometimes three rings a year. (Libby, 1965, ix, for an application to Mesopotamia, see Mallowan 1968, 7-8).

Max Mallowan reported in Cambridge Ancient History that Early Dynastic I in Mesopotamia should begin about 2000 BC. However, C14 tests were in great opposition to this which created problems for radio carbon dating older than 4000 BP (Before Present). While developing the C14 method, W. Libby himself said: “The first shock Dr. Arnold and I had was that our advisors informed us that history extended back only 5000 years. We had initially thought that we would be able to get samples along the curve back to 30,000 years, put the points in, and then our work would be finished . . . We learned rather abruptly that these numbers, these ancient ages are not known; in fact, it is about the time of the first dynasty in Egypt that the last [earliest] historical date of any real certainty has been established” (Libby 1958, 531). “The larger group of scientists which question specific dates . . . are probably closer to the actual fact. That is, some radio-carbon dates do not indicate the age of the phenomena described for the samples, even though such dates represent true determinations of the quantities of radiocarbon in the samples” (Libby 1965, 144).

http://www.ancientdays.net/flood2.htm

“Overall, how much special-pleading is necessary? How much overthrow of established scholarship, history and science becomes required to support total historicity of Genesis 6-8, let alone the rest of Genesis 1-11? This is certainly no modest project inerrantists are engaged in when it comes to Genesis 1-11.”

Since our exchange has been limited to Gen 6-8, your tendentious question is too vague to merit a reply.

steve hays said,
April 21, 2008 at 8:09 pm

Scott Jorgenson said,

“Steve (406), if I understand you correctly, you’re suggesting that the world’s flood accounts are so different from the Mesopotamian and Genesis accounts because they are related neither as common history nor as common story/tradition. Rather they are simply unrelated.”

I haven’t taken a position on that. I’m simply answering you on your own grounds. To judge by your repeated reaction, that’s a novel experience for you.

This is how it works. You cited various flood accounts from around the world as a frame of reference. I merely pointed out that your comparison was based on certain assumptions which you need to validate for your comparison to be cogent. For some reason, that elementary point of logic leaves you flummoxed.

“If that’s so, then I’m again puzzled: how can one say it is in everyone’s background, and then fail to be puzzled at why none of the rest of the world’s flood stories reflect it as well?”

I didn’t say if they do or don’t. I merely pointed out that many cultures have flood accounts because the cultures in question reside on flood plains. These are probably dissimilar because they describe dissimilar events.

Hence, for your comparison to work, you would need to separate out the flood accounts which share a common historical referent from those that describe local, geographically isolated events.

“How can it be said, as I believe you did, that all the rest of the world’s accounts aren’t referring to the Noahic Flood but instead are referring to purely local stories or events.”

I didn’t commit myself to that position. I’m answering you on your own grounds. Your comparison is predicated on certain assumptions which you need to validate. One obvious way of accounting for different descriptions is if, in fact, they describe different events—just as one obvious way of accounting for similar descriptions is if they describe the same event.

“And yet something coincidentally happened in the ANE to keep their stories anchored to the Noahic Flood rather than be likewise diluted?”

Of course, that’s a deliberate misrepresentation of what I said. I didn’t attribute the commonality to “coincidence.”

“In response to that, I noted some speculative ideas from you.”

Once again, I’m responding to you on your own grounds. Your whole argument is speculative. It is predicated on the speculative assumption that all these flood accounts ought to be more-or-less parallel since they ought to be denoting the same (global) event.

“Mesopotamians having more physical reminders (interesting).”

Why you think that’s “speculative,” you don’t explain. Living in physical proximity to an event (in this case, where the survivors of the flood disembarked) can be reminder of the event.

Maybe you’re one of those people who thinks the gov’t should award research grants to sociologists to study commonplace things which everyone already knows to be the case, such as double-bind experiments to see if men have a predilection for blond bombshells.

“Less cultural osmosis (quite unlikely I would think, considering the centrality of the Fertile Crescent in history)”

Why is that unlikely? France is a cultural crossroads. Yet French immigrants to America quickly assimilate to the dominant culture. They are less “French” than their French forebears, who remained in the homeland.

In any case, I’m simply pointing out that your comparison is predicated on questionable assumptions.

“And a quicker commitment to writing (yet still a thousand years or more after the Flood, plenty of time for the ANE memory to disintegrate as much as the rest of the world’s I would think).”

You suffer from a serious inability to follow your opponent’s argument. I didn’t state this as a fact. Rather, I made the commonsense observation that the sooner an event is committed to writing, the more likely the account is to be historically accurate. Therefore, when you compare flood account A to account B to account C and so on and so forth, you need to make allowance for that differential factor.

“If you know of any mainstream scholars not fully pre-attached to total biblical historicity and inerrancy who are convinced by this, please let me know. I don’t.”

I don’t share your bigoted and viciously circular dismissal of anyone who doesn’t already agree with you.

“Actually, you may refer to any non-fundamentalist-apologetic resource on the subject.”

i) Once again, I don’t share your bigoted and viciously circular dismissal of anyone who doesn’t already agree with you.

ii) But, to answer you on your own grounds, Richard Milton (Shattering the Myths of Darwinism, 2nd ed.) is an agnostic scientist who challenges conventional dating schemes.

“Contrary to your statement…”

This isn’t *my* statement. If you paid attention, you would see that I was quoting David Livingston, who was quoting other sources. Follow the link.

“Anyway, it seems to me that there is a troubling pattern here. First we begin with archaeology and comparative literature, which suggest that Genesis 6-8 is not historically inerrant but instead dependent (along with Atrahasis and Gilgamesh) on common Mesopotamian traditions (perhaps with a historical core, perhaps not). To deny this, we must plead-away that conclusion by appealing to speculations about local landmarks serving as physical reminders and what-not.”

David Livingston is an archeologist. So is John Currid, whom I also quoted. I could cite others, who disagree with Seely, such as Alfred Hoerth, Director Emeritus of archaeology at Wheaton.

Indeed, I’ve quoted a number of top scholars in the field of comparative Semitics in support of my position. (So has Manata.)

For you to insinuate that you have a monopoly archaeology and comparative literature is patently false given the documentation to the contrary which I’ve been providing.

“But next (at least, if we are going to uphold at least the anthropological universality of the Flood) along comes the science of radiocarbon dating, which again suggests the same thing: that Genesis 6-8 is not historically inerrant (in at least that respect, because people were spread all over the world by the ostensible time of the Flood). So now it is the accuracy and validity of radiocarbon dating which we must second-guess and deny.”

Once again, I’m merely answering you on your own grounds. Anyone can go to a YEC site like creationscience.com, answersingenesis.org, or icr.org and do a search of dendrochronology, ice-core dating, C-14 dating, and radiometric dating. Kurt Wise has also criticized conventional dating methods in print.

Remember, you brought this up, not me. Speaking for myself, since I’m a temporal metrical conventionalist, I don’t think that natural objects have any intrinsic age to begin with, so my own position tends to transcend this entire debate.

One other point: a tree is not a clock. It wasn’t designed to tell us the time.

Now, I have no objection to our trying to redeploy natural processes for chronometric information. But that’s a purely human, secondary application—like using the nose as a platform for a pair of glasses.

Let’s not confuse the nature of our application with the nature of the object. And let’s not assume that natural objects must conform to our expectations when we put them to a use which has absolutely nothing to do with their actual function.

“This is simply ad-hoc and Enns does well to decry this kind of thing in his book. It is not scholarship; IMHO it is lawyering of the kind that convinced the jury that OJ Simpson was not guilty. I’m sorry, but there it is.”

That’s a very ironic criticism considering the fact that your own center-left theology is an ad hoc intellectual compromise. You only believe the parts of the Bible that happen to be believable to you, which may vary from one year to the next.

III. Supporting material

steve hays said,
April 14, 2008 at 7:14 pm

“As we have seen above, there is no piece of literature extant from Mesopotamia that presents itself as an account of creation. Therefore, there is nothing comparable to the creation account of Genesis in terms of literary genre. The similarities between the Enuma Elish are too few to think that the author of Genesis was in any way addressing the piece of literature we know as Enuma Elish.”

—John Walton, Ancient Israelite Literature in Its Cultural Context: A Survey of Parallels Between Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Texts (Zondervan 1990), 34.

“We are terribly ill-informed regarding the history of either Mesopotamian or biblical creation accounts. This makes the argument based on chronological sequence null and void. We cannot say for certain that the traditions preserved by the Israelites are any less ancient than the traditions preserved by the Babylonians,” ibid. 36.

“The only evidence that can be produced to support the case for Israelite borrowing is the similarities we have already identified. These are hardly convincing, in that most of the similarities occur in situations where cosmological choices are limited. For example, the belief in a primeval watery mass is perfectly logical and one of only a few possibilities. The fact that the Babylonians and Israelites use similar names, Tiamat and tehom, is no surprise, since their respective languages are cognates of one another,” ibid. 37.

steve hays said,
April 14, 2008 at 7:45 pm

“We must question, however, whether the position that the Bible demythologizes Mesopotamian legends takes into account all the critical data bearing on the issue. First of all, the common assumption that the Hebrew stories are simplified and purified accounts of Mesopotamian legends is fallacious, for in ancient Near Eastern literature simple accounts give rise to elaborate accounts, and not vice versa,” J. Currid, Ancient Egypt and the Old Testament” (Baker 2001), 29.

Second, there are no examples from the ancient Near East in which myth later develops into history. Epic simply never transfigures into historical narrative. And, clearly, the creation and flood accounts in Genesis are presented as direct history with no evidence of myth,” ibid. 29.

“Third, the contrasts between the Mesopotamian and biblical accounts are so striking that they cannot be explained by a simple Hebrew cleansing,” ibid. 29.

“But despite the reiterated claims of an older generation of biblical scholars, Enuma Elish and Gen 1-2 in fact share no direct relationship. Thus the word tehom/thm is common to both Hebrew and Ugaritic (north Syria) and means nothing more than ‘deep, abyss.’ It is not a deity, like Ti’amat, a goddess in Enuma Elish. In terms of theme, creation is the massively central concern of Gen 1-2, but is a mere tailpiece in Enuma Elish, which is dedicated to portraying the supremacy of the god Marduk of Babylon. The only clear comparisons between the two are the inevitable banalities: creation of earth and sky before the plants are put on the earth, and of plants before animals (that need to eat them) and humans; it could hardly have ben otherwise!” K. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Eerdmans 2003), 424.

steve hays said,
April 14, 2008 at 9:06 pm

“The story of creation in the Bible forms the first part of Genesis, and the best known Mesopotamian account is that found in the composition known to the Assyrians as enuma elis (‘when above’) from its first two words…This account is typical of others and shows that, apart from individual details, the Mesopotamian creation stories have little in common with the early chapters of Genesis,” T. Mitchell, The Bible in the British Museum (Paulist Press 2004), 79.

steve hays said,
April 21, 2008 at 9:50 am

From Vern Poythress:

Skeptical readers of the Bible have sometimes tried to force a technical meaning onto Genesis 1. They have ascribed to the Bible an erroneous, primitive “science.” For example, some have claimed that the Bible teaches that rainwater is held in check by a solid barrier of sky. The water comes down from heaven when God opens “the windows of the heavens,” which are conceived of as solid plates that he moves aside. But the ancients knew well enough that rain came from clouds:

. . . the heavens dropped,

yes, the clouds dropped water (Judg. 5:4).

The clouds poured out water; . . . (Ps. 77:17).

. . . the clouds that bring the spring rain (Prov. 16:15).

If the clouds are full of rain,
they empty themselves on the earth, . . . (Eccles. 11:3).

I will also command the clouds
that they rain no rain upon it (Isa. 5:6).

In 1 Kings 18:44 Elijah’s servant sees “a little cloud like a man’s hand,” indicating the coming of rain.

The whole language about windows (Gen. 7:11; 8:2) is a colorful metaphor, as one sees from the fact that in Malachi 3:10 God opens “the windows of heaven” to pour down a blessing. In 2 Kings 7:2 the captain postulates that the Lord would “make windows in heaven” to supply grain. Literally understood, this is inconsistent with the windows already being there to provide rain! Such language does not provide a quasi-scientific theory but a colorful picture. Some time ago I myself heard an acquaintance (not a Bible scholar) describing an experience in which, as he said, “the heavens were opened” and a strong downpour descended.

With this in mind, we may go back to the account of Noah’s flood in Genesis 7–8. At the start of Noah’s flood, Genesis 7:11-12 says that “the windows of the heavens were opened. And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights.” Even though people knew that rain came from clouds, they did not necessarily know what supplied the clouds with water. And the amount of water that fell during Noah’s flood was truly remarkable. It is therefore pictured as being like someone who opens a hole in a ceiling and pours down bucketfuls. Later on, in Genesis 8:2, “the windows of the heavens were closed,” terminating the downpour. The second part of the verse explains the same thing without using the picture of windows: “the rain from the heavens was restrained.”

We can receive further illumination by asking what are these “heavens” to which Genesis refers? In Genesis 1:6 God made “an expanse” (KJV “firmament”) and then called it “Heaven” (1:8). (The words heavens and heaven in English translate the same Hebrew word, shamayim.) Later on, in verse 15, the heavenly lights are “in the expanse of the heavens” (Hebrew shamayim). That is, they are in the sky. The word for “heaven” in Hebrew can denote the sky (as it does in Gen. 1:15; see also Gen. 15:5). It is the location from which rain comes (as in Gen. 8:2). The land of Canaan “drinks water by the rain from heaven” (Deut. 11:11). If God is angry, he will “shut up the heavens, so that there will be no rain” (Deut. 11:17). In blessing, “The LORD will open to you his good treasury, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season . . .” (Deut. 28:12). See also 2 Samuel 21:10; 1 Kings 8:35; Psalm 104:13; Isaiah 55:10; and Jeremiah 10:13.

The same word for “heaven” can also denote the invisible heaven where God is surrounded by angels: “Look down from your holy habitation, from heaven, and bless your people Israel . . .” (Deut. 26:15). “Listen in heaven your dwelling place” (1 Kings 8:30). But in Genesis 1:15 it refers to the sky, and it is natural to take the earlier reference in Genesis 1:8 the same way. The waters below eventually come together to form “Seas” (Gen. 1:10). The “waters above the heavens” are then the source of rain, as they are in Noah’s flood and in the passages in Deuteronomy and elsewhere. No technical scientific explanation is being provided.

In fact, in God’s speech to Job he points out that Job does not know the mysteries about rain, snow, and hail (Job 38:22, 25-30). Making “the waters above the heavens” into technical language flies in the face of God’s own statements about the limitations in ancient knowledge. The Bible is describing what an ordinary person could observe about the sky overhead and the rain coming down.

Sometimes it is said that the language in the Bible arises against the background of ancient “cosmology” that postulated underlying waters, then solid earth, then a solid “firmament” dome for the sky, then the sea above the firmament (Paul H. Seely, “The Firmament and the Water Above. Part I: The Meaning of raqia‘ in Gen 1:6-8,” Westminster Theological Journal 53 [1991]: 227-240; Seely, “The Firmament and the Water Above. Part II: The Meaning of ‘The Water Above the Firmament’ in Gen 1:6-8,” Westminster Theological Journal 54/1 [1992]: 31-46; Seely, “The Geographical Meaning of ‘Earth’ and ‘Seas’ in Genesis 1:10,” Westminster Theological Journal 59 [1997]: 231-255; Seely, “Noah’s Flood: Its Date, Extent, and Divine Accommodation,” Westminster Theological Journal 66 [2004]: 291-311).

For one thing, the ancient Near East did not have one unified “ancient cosmology” but several accounts—Sumerian, Babylonian, Egyptian, and Hittite—contradicting one another at points but nevertheless with some similarities. Genesis 1, as we have observed, does show some similarities to these accounts, but it repudiates the pagan accounts in favor of a monotheistic alternative.

Now, for the sake of argument, let us suppose that from these mixed pagan accounts we can distill a core of assumptions that were also shared by ancient Hebrews. The Bible nevertheless describes things that Hebrews (and eventually other readers) could see for themselves. To suppose that the text teaches detailed technical cosmological views is to confuse the text with the totality of what its readers may have believed.

Moreover, a modern cosmological interpretation of the ancient accounts may sometimes impose on the texts a preoccupation with physicalism that does not belong to this kind of literature within the ancient cultural milieu. For example, the idea that the firmament is literally solid is disconfirmed by the statement in Genesis 1:17 that God set the lights “in the expanse [firmament] of the heavens.” If the lights in heaven were literally embedded in a solid, they could not move in the way that they obviously do. Perhaps some ancient people could see the obvious, as well as be skeptical about alleged physicalistic implications of pagan cosmogonic stories.

http://www.frame-poythress.org/Poythress_books/NAllPoythressRedeemingScience20061017.pdf

Paul M[anata] said,
April 15, 2008 at 10:59 am

“This sort of maximalist position would see the biblical authors as working directly from Mesopotamian exemplars as they carried out theological transformations. Though this sort of conclusion is common, the summary of comparative literary studies of Genesis 1-11 offered by R. S. Hess in the introduction to ‘I Studied Inscriptions from Before the Flood’ demonstrates that [the maximalist's] conclusions are far from universally held. D. Tsumura’s introduction in the same volume details the rejection of dependence on the Babylonian materials by such well-known Assyriologists as W. G. Lambert and A. Sjoberg….Nevertheless, given the complexity of the transmission of tradition and culture in the ancient world literary dependence is extremely difficult to prove. Walton, Dictionary of the Old Testament Pentateuch, T. Desmond Alexander and David W. Baker (eds). IVP:2003.”

“The similarities between Genesis and Enuma Elish are too few to think that the author of Genesis was in any way addressing the piece of literature we know as Enuma Elish.” Walton, Ancient Israelite Literature in its Cultural Context, John H. Walton, Zondervan: 1989, p.34

“Reconstruction of a process whereby Babylonian myths were borrowed by the Hebrews, having been transmitted by the Canaanites, and ‘purged’ of pagan elements remains imaginary. It has yet to be shown that any Canaanite material was absorbed into Hebrew sacred literature on such a scale or in such a way…However, it has yet to be shown that there was borrowing, even indirectly. Differences between the Babylonian and the Hebrew traditions can be found in factual details of the Flood narrative (form of the Ark; duration of the Flood, the identity of the birds and their dispatch) and are most obvious in the ethical and religious concepts of the whole of each composition. All who suspect or suggest borrowing by the Hebrews are compelled to admit large-scale revision, alteration, and reinterpretation in a fashion that cannot be substantiated for any other composition from the ancient Near East or in any other Hebrew writing. If there was borrowing then it can have extended only as far as the “historical” framework, and not included intention or interpretation. The fact that the closest similarities lie in the Flood stories is instructive. For both Babylonians and Hebrews the Flood marked the end of an age. Mankind could trace itself back to that time; what happened before it was largely unknown. The Hebrews explicitly traced their origins back to Noah, and, we may suppose, assumed that the account of the Flood and all that went before derived from him. Late Babylonian sages supposed that tablets containing information about the ante-diluvian world were buried at Sippar before the Flood and disinterred afterwards. The two accounts undoubtedly describe the same Flood, the two schemes relate the same sequence of events. If judgment is to be passed as to the priority of one tradition over the other, Genesis inevitably wins for its probability in terms of meteorology, geophysics, and timing alone. In creation its account is admired for its simplicity and grandeur, its concept of man accords well with observable facts. In that the patriarch Abraham lived in Babylonia, it could be said that the stories were borrowed from there, but not that they were borrowed from any text now known to us. Granted that the Flood took place, knowledge of it must have survived to form the available accounts; while the Babylonians could only conceive of the event in their own polytheistic language, the Hebrews, or their ancestors, understood the action of God in it. Who can say it was not so?” Millard, “A New Babylonian ‘Genesis’ Story”, in “I Studied Inscriptions from Before the Flood”: Ancient Near Eastern, Literary, and Linguistic Approaches to Genesis 1-11, Richard Hess and David Tsumura (eds.), Eisenbrauns: 1994. p.126.

“In the study of material on Genesis 1-3, consideration should be given to G. F. Hasel’s essays on the methodology and problems of applying the comparative approach to the first chapter of Genesis. In few other passages of the Bible have so many facile comparisons been made with ancient Near Eastern myths and so many far-reaching conclusions posited. Hasel provides observations on fundamental distinctions in the creation accounts, with a strong focus on an antimythological apologetic for Genesis.” Hess, “One Hundred Fifty Years of Comparative Studies on Genesis 1-11_, in “I Studied Inscriptions from Before the Flood”: Ancient Near Eastern, Literary, and Linguistic Approaches to Genesis 1-11, Richard Hess and David Tsumura (eds.), Eisenbrauns: 1994. p.19

“So, Genesis 1 and ‘Enuma Elish,’ which was composed primarily to exalt Marduk in the pantheon of Babylon, have no direct relation to each other…It is not correct to say that ‘Enuma Elish’ was adopted and adapted by the Israelites to produce the Genesis stories. As Lambert holds, there is ‘no evidence of Hebrew borrowing from Babylon’. Sjoberg accepts Lambert’s opinion that ‘there was hardly any influence from the Babylonian text on the Old Testament creation accounts.’ …Along the same line, Sjoberg as an Assyriologist warns Old Testament scholars that ‘it is no longer scientifically sound to assume that all ideas originated in Mesopotamia and moved westward.’ …It is difficult to assume that an earlier Canaanite dragon myth existed in the background of Gen. 1:2…Shea suggests that ‘it is possible to view these two separate sources [Adapa and Genesis 2-3] as independent witnesses to a common event’…Niels-Erik Andreasen also thinks that ‘parallels do indeed exist between Adam and Adapa, but they are seriously blunted by the entirely different contexts in which they occur.’…” Tsumura, “Genesis and Ancient Near Eastern Stories of Creation and Flood, “I Studied Inscriptions from Before the Flood”: Ancient Near Eastern, Literary, and Linguistic Approaches to Genesis 1-11, Richard Hess and David Tsumura (eds.), Eisenbrauns: 1994. p.31.

“Nevertheless, the differences between the biblical and the Mesopotamian accounts are much more striking that their similarities; each of them embodies the world outlook of their respective civilizations. In Genesis there is a total rejection of all mythology…[Differences include:]…Cosmogony is not linked to theogony. The pre-existence of god is assumed–it is not linked to the genesis of the universe. There is no suggestion of any primordial battle or internecine ware which eventually led to the creation of the universe…The primeval water, earth, sky, and luminaries are not pictured as deities or as parts of disembodied deities, but are all parts of the manifold work of the Creator…The story in Genesis, moreover, is nonpolitical: unlike Enuma Elish, which is a monument to Marduk and to Babylon and its temple, Genesis makes no allusion to Israel, Jerusalem, or the temple.” S.M. Paul Ency. Judaica, s.v. “Creation”, 5:1062.

For us and for our Salvation

Available here.

This little book--172 pages including epilogue, glossary, appendices, and notes--makes for a great weekend read.

A Christian historian, the prolific Nichols discusses how the doctrine of Christ came about in the early church. What could be a boring presentation of those events is presented in a lively, engaging way. Nichols clearly has a heart and a passion for this period (the development of the doctrine of Christ) in history. After all, as the Nicene Creed (325), and the title of this book puts it: the correct doctrine of Christ was needed, given, and defended "For us and our salvation."

If you've ever wondered what went into the forming of the best expression of Christology, viz., the Chalcedonian creed (451), this book will bring you up to speed. The background debates and issues are fascinating. Nichols traces debates about the person of Christ from the time of the apostles up until the 6th ecumenical council (Constantinople III, 680). (Protestants haven't historically recognized councils other than Nicene and Chalcedon as authoritative, but, historically, this council is lumped in as one of the 7 ecumencial councils.) We can see various heroes of the faith dealing with one faulty view of Christ after another. They didn't battle these views for fame or glory (indeed, many of our heroes just wanted to live the quiet life of the philosopher), they battled them because they saw that our very salvation was at stake. Over and over again these faulty views (heresies) affected our salvation in some way. Without a savior, man is lost. Thus, without a correct view of the savior, of a savior who could really save, to be tautological, man was lost. "What becomes evident in all of these heresies is the stumbling block and scandal of the person of Christ" (p. 114). And when the person of Christ is affected so is the (saving) work of Christ. So, a proper understanding needed to be laid out, "For us and for our salvation."

These heroes of the faith dealt with views of Christ that minimized or destroyed his humanity, his divinity, or both (of which Docetism, Arianism, and Eutychianism are respective representatives). It is interesting to note that many of the heresies, especially many of the early ones, attacked the humanity of Christ. This is interesting in light of the claims of many pop "historians" seeking to undermine traditional Christianity (e.g., Dan Brown, Da Vinci Code). They paint the picture that the early church was concerned solely in establishing ("inventing," in their words) the divinity of Christ. But this is far from the truth. And, besides, without a human Jesus, the orthodox argued that human salvation could not be accomplished. So, orthodox Christians have always been concerned to treasure and defend the humanity of Christ. It has been the (neo) Platonists, Gnostics, and Docetists who have denied the humanity. This is ironic since those like Brown seek to put up the Gnostic texts as those the church suppressed in order to hide Jesus' humanity. In actuality, they are the ones who suppressed it. The Gnostics were also chauvinists too. This fact delivers another blow to the fictitious history painted by Brown et al.

But, the church also had to deal with those who sought to undermine the deity of Christ as well. This challenge came in many forms. (It is possible, for our purposes, to broadly place these forms under the title: Arianism.) But, again, the heroes of the faith noticed that if Christ was not human and divine, salvation could not be accomplished. Thus, the orthodox expression of Christ came to be given at Chalcedon. It was there, thanks in part to Leo (b.?-d. 461), that we have the sophisticated expression of Leo's "two natures, one person” view. Jesus was the God-man. He had a divine nature and a human nature, and these existed in one unified person. The fancy expression for this is the "hypostatic union."

Is all of this just relegated to the pages of history? Can this book be relevant for me today? In the epilogue Nichols writes,

"The Nicene and Chalcedonian Creeds provide the church with the orthodox understanding of the person of Christ. These creeds were not the result of ivory-tower theologians debating subtleties. They grew out of the rough and tumble of controversy and even the persecution that plagued the church. They are the work of the wisdom, patience, and courage of many forgotten figures such as Ignatius, Iranaeus, Basil of Cesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, Flavian of Constantinople, and Leo the Great. These men suffered exile, beatings, the smudging of their character, and even, in the cases of Ignatius and Flavian, death for full-throttled commitment to the church getting it right on the person of Christ. And they endured it all because they knew that the person of Christ as everything to do with the church's true treasure of the gospel. Christ is the God-man, they all contended, for us and for our salvation" (p. 143).

After asking how this is relevant for us, Nichols traces the periods of history after the great Creeds and shows how these types of errors (either Docetism or Arianism) came up throughout the history of the church. We see it in our own time too with Jehovah's Witnesses, The Da Vinci Code, and Islam (there are others too). Reading this book, and, even better, reading the heroes themselves, will prepare you for dealing with various heretical views of Jesus. As a wise man once said, "There is nothing new under the sun" (Ecc. 1:9).

If you do not have the time, desire or interest to make a trip to the bookstore or library in order to read the actual works of the above listed men, a unique feature of Nichols books is that every other chapter consists of readings from the heretics and the orthodox of the period. Nichols presents the debates and history surrounding them in a colorful way in the odd numbered chapters. After each odd numbered chapter, the next chapter is a chapter consisting of the words of the men themselves. Rather than boring (as some might think), these chapters are fascinating mainly because of the preceding chapters where Nichols made the historical debates come alive. As you read these men's words you feel like you're there with them; perhaps even cheering them on (Nichols makes use of the analogy of a Western in this book: good guys, bad guys, and even a corrupt sheriff!) as they write to defend the doctrine of Christ, "for us and for our salvation."

To the Emergents: Does God Love Everyone Savingly?

INTRODUCTION: Many emergent church proponents are quick to emphasize their belief that God loves everybody savingly or salvifically. A big part of this is their assumption that the historic position of the Christian church may be wrong when it comes to the question of followers from other religions always being automatically damned to hell for their lack of faith in Christ. Of course, this isn't the technically correct reason why people are consigned to hell, but that's for another blog post (Proverbs 16:4; Romans chapters 1-3; 9:6-23; 1 Peter 2:8). The idea of the narrow way really rubs them raw; which is the idea that you cannot get to the True God apart from the Jesus Christ revealed in the pages of the New Testament (Matthew 7:13-15). Because some of the emergents outright reject the propositional truths of Scripture in part or altogether for the sake of preserving "epistemic humility" because they believe that they can't really know anything about God with certainty (except, they believe they can know that particular statement with "certainty"!), they cannot form a consistently biblical soteriology either.

DISCUSSION: Inclusivistic emergents believe that God will show saving mercy to everyone at the Great Day of Judgment, thus promoting a belief that will always be avant garde to the postmodern mind, a form of the false teaching known as universalism. This is seen in the writings of many a popular emergent church leader, but since Spencer Burke immediately comes to mind because of my familiarity with some of the things that he's said in this area, read his brief quote here, "I don’t believe you have to convert to any particular religion to find God.” (Heretics Guide to Eternity, 197). Before we move on, consider a similar statement made by the well known emergent leader Brian McLaren,

"Although I don't hope all Buddhists will become (cultural) Christians, I do hope all who feel so called will become Buddhist followers of Jesus; I believe they should be given that opportunity and invitation. I don't hope all Jews or Hindus will become members of the Christian religion. But I do hope all who feel so called will become Jewish or Hindu followers of Jesus. Ultimately, I hope that Jesus will save Buddhism, Islam and every other religion, including the Christian religion, which often seems to need saving about as much as any other religion does. (In this context, I do wish all Christians would become followers of Jesus but perhaps this is too much to ask. After all, I'm not doing such a hot job of it myself.)". [Brian McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004), 264.]

Aside from the fact that McLaren wrongly assumes that everyone who has some type of nominal association with a church can be legitimately considered a Christian, what about his implied universalism above? Where is there room for the Biblical understanding of God's wrath and anger against vain idolaters? (Psalm 31:6; Romans 1:18-32) Nowhere to be found for sure.

The logical conclusion of what was promoted by Billy Graham's slogan popularized 50 years ago, "God loves the sinner but hates the sin" has now been taken to the next step by many an emergent thinker. You see brethren, ideas have consequences. That's why if you combine a popular yet unbiblical slogan like Graham's steeped in an Arminian approach to God's love that has no degrees but instead can be likened unto peanut butter since you "spread it on far and wide" and then you become familiar and accepting of the inclusivistic ideas of many within the emergent church movement, then you set yourself up to conveniently reject the biblical concept of God's wrath and hatred for sinners. In sum, if you have mixed the wisdom of God with the wisdom of the world then you have nullified the cross (1 Corinthians 1-2; Galatians 2:21). This is because where no wrath exists, no sin has occurred and if there is no sin, then everybody is saved by whatever means they think is acceptable for them and the cross was a useless historical event. Worse yet, God would be a liar, contra Titus 1:2 and Hebrews 6:18.

Let me say that I wholeheartedly agree with Jesus that there is a general non-saving love or beneficence that God shows to all His creatures, including God-haters (Psalm 145:9-10; Matthew 5:44-45). However, I do not confuse God's general goodness and creaturely love for all of His creation with His saving love as it pertains to His own eternal salvific purposes for His elect. There is a large and wide chasm between these two precipices that can never be bridged by idolatrous religions as it pertains to the universalistic/inclusivistic declarations made by some of the major voices for the emergent "conversation". For all Godlovers, we must respectfully but strongly disagree with these modern ideas of God's love for biblical reasons (Psalm 5:5; 7:11; 11:5; Romans 9:13). May the truth of the Holy Scriptures be the torch that we use to light the way through the dark maze of heretical and unorthodox teachings that seek to undermine the exclusivity of the claims of Christ!

UPDATE 4-23-08: After speaking with several friends about a lack of clarity in some of the wording of this article as it was originally published on 4-22, I have taken the liberty to revise and update it to better reflect a what I believe to be a more biblical understanding of the love of God. I apologize that your comments have been deleted, but I wanted to get rid of the video I posted on the original article, and to do so, I had to delete the original post. Thanks for your understanding. DS

Adversus Reppertus

Here I’m reposting some comments I originally left over at Victor Reppert’s blog.

[Reppert] "But what are we asked to believe if Calvinism is true? We are asked to believe that God decreed the deeds of everyone before the foundation of the world. The Holocaust, the killing fields of Pol Pot, the 9/11 attacks, and the entire content of Dawkins' The God Delusion were all decreed before the foundation of the world."

What's the moral difference between saying that God decreed the Holocaust and saying that even though God foresaw what would happen if he did x, and could have prevented it had he refrained from creating the conditions which precipitated the Holocaust, that he went ahead and created the sufficient preconditions in full knowledge of the inevitable outcome, although it was within his power to do otherwise?

If you're going to appeal to moral intuitions, then how would the moral intuitions of an atheist regard your alternative as any improvement over Calvinism?

"The CD was made in eternity and plays out in time, just as it was intended."

What is your alternative?

i) That God had no intentions for the world? That he had nothing specifically in mind when he chose to create the world?

Or:

ii) That God had intentions for the world, but the world didn't turn out the way he intended it to be? The outcome caught him off-guard?

"The deeds that are sinful are nevertheless deserving of everlasting punishment for the humans who perform them, even though the creatures who perform them cannot do otherwise, given those decrees."

Bracketing my commitment to Scripture and Calvinism for the moment, and just working from raw intuition, I don't find your objection morally problematic.

Are you claiming that agents are blameless in case they couldn't do otherwise even if they wouldn't do otherwise?

Intuitively speaking, freedom to do otherwise, if morally relevant at all, is only relevant in case the agent would have done otherwise.

And if he wouldn't do otherwise, then it makes no difference if he could do otherwise.

Even this would need to be glossed. To do otherwise doesn't necessary mean that an agent chooses good over evil. Rather, he might choose a different evil.

So, for your intuitive objection to have any traction whatsoever, you need to demonstrate that, according to Calvinism:

i) The damned would have done otherwise if given the chance (whatever that means), and

ii) They would have chosen good over evil.

"God could have decreed that no one ever sin, or God could have decreed that everyone receive the saving grace of Jesus Christ, but apparently it results in greater glory to himself if he damns, probably, the vast majority of the human race, especially those where the Gospel hasn't reached."

Depends on what you mean by "results in greater glory." As Wilhelm a Brakel explained a long time ago, what this means is not that God is the beneficiary, but that the elect are the beneficiaries. It doesn't add anything to God's glory. It is better to be fallen, and then redeemed, than to be unfallen.

Josh Hickok said...

"The obvious answer is that there is another (free) agent involved that brings evil about."

How does that exculpate God if God could prevent another (free) agent from bringing that about? If you put a woman in a jail cell with a rapist, and you knew the outcome (which is predictable), would that let you off the hook because another free agent carried out the deed?

Remember, we're working off of pure moral intuition now.

alan rhoda said...

"I'm a whole lot more confident that my deepest moral intuitions are sound, than I am that Scripture (as we have it today) is inerrant."

If your last ditch argument against Calvinism is that Calvinism is Scriptural, but Scripture is erroneous, then I appreciate your concession. It doesn't come down to how we interpret Scripture. That's a red-herring.

To reject Calvinism, you must also reject the witness of Scripture.

Canonical criteria

1. Traditional discussions of canonical criteria focus on ecclesiastical or rabbinical criteria. The high-church argument is that we need an authoritative church to impose unity on the books of the Bible. The implication is that Scripture is, in itself, an arbitrary anthology. Deny the authority of the church, and that snaps the string holding these books together.

But that extrinsic solution reflects the self-reinforcing attitude of the high churchman. Because he automatically defaults to Mother Church to solve all questions, he never takes the time to examine the Bible from the inside out.

If we didn’t have a standard edition of the Bible, if we just had pile of books, could we arrange these books in a logical order?

2. In general, I think this is a two-step process:

i) How were books of the Bible originally received by their target audience?

ii) Our own canonical criteria should reproduce the original grounds for their reception.

3. There’s a sense in which “canonicity” is, itself, an ecclesiastical concept. So we need to define our terms. Is there an equivalent concept in Scripture?

4.One of the ecclesiastical criteria for canonicity was conformity to the rule of faith. That’s a rather “Catholic” criterion.

From a Protestant perspective, there’s a fundamental sense in which this is backwards. The Bible is the rule of faith. The Bible is the judge of tradition, not vice versa.

5.On the face of it, this procedure might seem to be circular. If we identify the Bible with the rule of faith, then how can it function as a criterion of canonicity? You would have to have a Bible for the Bible to be a canonical criterion. But, in that event, how could you use the Bible to judge which books comprise the Bible?

6. But this facile conundrum is more apparent than real.

i) For one thing, you could have a part/whole relation. We see that in Deut 13 & 18, which presents criteria for false prophecy:

a) A prophet is a false prophet if his prediction is false.

b) But even if his prediction is true, he is still a false prophet if his prophecy functions to incite rebellion against the Mosaic covenant.

So a Biblical book (or corpus) like the Pentateuch could function as a canonical criterion for other canonical “candidates.”

Therefore, it’s not the whole Bible judging the whole Bible.

ii) In addition, the question of whether the Bible has a procedure for determining its own canonicity frames the issue in a question-begging way.

For that reflects an ex post facto outlook, as if you had a two stage process:

a) First the canon of Scripture is written.

b) Then some body, after the fact, must approve the canon of Scripture.

But this is artificial. It’s true that Jews, after the completion of the OT, and Christians, after the completion of the NT, reexamined the question of whether we should exclude some books or include other books.

And there’s a sense in which a Protestant, when he considers the traditional canon, is doing the same thing.

Yet we need to distinguish between this ex post facto reflection, and the grounds on which the books of the Bible were received by the target audience.

And, as I’ve already said, our ex post facto outlook should reproduce the original grounds.


7. Meredith Kline, in The Structure of Biblical Authority, tried to break free from ex post facto criteria for the canon, and derive canonicity from the Bible itself.

I think it’s possible to build on his work. There are areas in which I think we can improve on his argument.

Kline argues that canon and covenant are correlative. God has a written contract with Israel. The covenant was the rule of faith.

8. But this brings us to another point. There was no formal process or procedure for canonizing the Pentateuch. That would be historically artificial in the highest degree. God imposes his law on Israel. He doesn’t put it up for a vote.

The reception of the Pentateuch was immediate. Moses was God’s prophet. And challenges to his authority were swiftly and sternly punished by God.

9.The correlation between canon and covenant is true as far as it goes. And it lays a firm foundation. But the thesis becomes overextended when Kline tries to apply the treaty form beyond Deuteronomy or Exod 20-22.

i) To his credit, he does a good job, up to a point, in showing how the Prophets relate to the Torah. The Prophets are prosecutors of the covenant lawsuit.

That’s true as far as it goes. But it’s reductionistic. For the prophets are prospective as well as retrospective. They don’t merely call on Israel to look back at the Exodus and the Law. They also look forward to something beyond the Mosaic status quo. To the Messianic age.

The prophets occupy a paradoxical position. On the one hand, they are outsiders in the sense that they are challenging a decadent religious and civil establishment.

On the other hand, their authority comes, in part, from the Mosaic covenant. They are pulling rank on covenant-breakers.

At the same time, their authority also derives, in part, from a special commission. God calls them. God inspires them.

So it isn’t entirely reducible to the Mosaic covenant. They have a special vocation.

ii) There is also a sense in which you could treat Genesis as an extended historical prologue. And there’s no doubt that Genesis anticipates the Mosaic Covenant.

But that’s not all it does. It also looks beyond the Mosaic covenant. There’s a Messianic motif which writers like Sailhamer and T. D. Alexander have done a good job of tracing out.

So Kline’s argument is valid to a degree, but reductionistic.

iii) Once again, there’s a sense in which the Historical Books document Israel’s compliance or noncompliance with the Mosaic covenant. That’s the raw material for the prophets to indict Israel for nonperformance.

And this is not only a useful way of relating the Historical Books to the Pentateuch, but a way of relating the Historical Books to the Prophets. So the coordination operates on more than one plane.

Yet the analysis is reductionistic. Just as the Prophets are prospective as well as retrospective, the Historical Books are prospective as well as retrospective. There’s an unfolding Messianic theme in the Historical Books as well.

Not only does this involve a linear development, but a parallel development, for several Messianic motifs come into play.

Moreover, there’s a literary device which unifies the preexilic Historical Books. The next writer in line will incorporate the ending of the previous book in the opening of his sequel. So these writers stand in conscious succession.

Furthermore, although some of these books are anonymous, there’s a generic sense in which the Historical Books are in-house literature, produced by royal scribes or royal historians. This would give them an automatic entree into the canon.

It’s also only natural that you’d have post-exilic Historical Books. From the viewpoint of the Restoration, these would reflect on God’s justice and mercy, fidelity and providence.

iv) Kline’s analysis breaks down with the Psalter. I think there’s a better way to integrate the Psalter into the OT canon:

Basically, the Psalter is a poetic version of prosaic revelation regarding history, law, and messianism. It covers the same ground as the Law, Prophets, and Historical Books, but it does so in a lyrical mode adapted to the worship of Israel.

As with the Historical Books, the Psalms are in-house literature. The founding author (David) was both a king and a prophet. Other Psalmists are official employees of the religious establishment. Instant canonicity.

v) Kline’s analysis also falls apart with the Wisdom literature. I think there’s a better way to integrate the Wisdom literature into the OT canon.

To begin with, “Wisdom Literature” is a modern scholarly classification. I don’t have a problem with that classification, but looking at these books from within, I’d distinguish Job from Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Canticles.

Bracketing Job for the moment, the Wisdom Literature is another case of in-house literature. The founding author was a king and a sage. Although Solomon isn’t technically a prophet, his inspired wisdom is the functional equivalent.

With one exception, the other contributors were also official insiders. Inspired royal scribes. Indeed, part of a dynasty.

With that royal patronage, recognition would be immediate.

I’d also add that in his attempt to assimilate the Wisdom Literature to the Mosaic covenant, I think that Kline misses their true purpose.

There’s a domesticity to the Wisdom Literature. The Pentateuch and the Historical Books tend to focus on a nomadic existence, followed by a period of conquest.

But what was life like after the dust settled? During periods of comparative calm and stability?

Of course, ancient Israel always had to fight for her existence, but the Wisdom Literature accentuates a peacetime lifestyle rather than a wartime life style. An urban lifestyle. Day to day living. What did Israelites do at home, when they weren’t on the battlefield?

So there’s a focus on social life. The bread-and-butter issues. Friends and neighbors. Marriage. Child-rearing. Domestic disputes. Aging. Coming of age. Doing business. Life at court. Government corruption. Economic disparity. Temptation and betrayal.

It’s a window into the ordinary and perennial. And I don’t see that this literature requires a special justification for its place in the Scripture of Israel.

vi) Of course, the provenance of Job is obscure. My guess is that this coincides, more or less, with Solomon’s international court. There would have been God-fearers in OT times. Courtiers, resident aliens, or trading partners who came to know the true God through their contact with the Chosen People.

An interesting case in point is Prov 31. This wasn’t written by an Israelite. But the Queen Mother of Lemeul was a God-fearer. I assume that Job represents a similar case.

Aside from the sapiential motifs, which it shares in common with Ecclesiastes and Proverbs, I think that Job has less in common with other OT books than it does with Revelation—in the NT.

Both books distinguish between heaven and earth. Both books deal with apparently inscrutable suffering of the righteous. Both books pull back the veil to show that history is controlled from the throne room of God. Even though life here-below may seem to be inexplicable in success of the wicked and the suffering of the righteous, there is an overarching purpose, which is ordinarily undetectable, and the scales of justice well be righted at the end.

vii) Kline’s thesis is even more strained when he tries to subsume the NT to the treaty form.

There is a generic sense in which the Gospels and Acts parallel OT historical narratives. The Gospels are to the Pentateuch what Acts is to Joshua.

And there are times, like 2 Corinthians, when an Apostle resumes the prosecutorial role.

In general, thought, it’s inevitable that missionaries like Paul would supervise their churches through pastoral correspondence. That doesn’t have to answer to some literary precedent in the OT. That’s a practical necessity.

The Apocalypse is too complex to shoehorn into one genre. To some extent, John is heir to Daniel, Ezekiel, and Zechariah. But with the inscriptional curse (22:19), he is also heir to Moses.

To a Jewish reader, that would be a breathtaking comparison. Indeed, a sacrilegious comparison unless the Jewish reader were a Christian.

There’s a sense in which all of the NT writings are in-house writings. The NT church was a familial, tight-knit community. There was a built-in constituency for this literature. I think each book would enjoy immediate acceptance by the immediate audience to which it was directed. Known writers writing to a known audience—even if, at this distance from the events, we can’t always reconstruct the provenance of a particular document.

This is why the history of the NT canon can be misleading. It doesn’t reflect the immediate reception of a NT book, but subsequent disputes by later readers in distant localities. Same thing with rabbinical squabbles so many centuries after the fact.

Plenary inspiration

Sceptics sometimes point out that many Bible writers don’t claim to be inspired. The standard reply is 2 Tim 3:16.

But while this is fine as far as it goes, reliance on 2 Tim 3:16 can cause us to overlook other lines of evidence.

1. Paul makes a number of lofty claims about his apostolic authority. Why don’t the other apostles make similar claims?

The reason that Paul emphasizes his apostolic authority because he’s something of an outsider. He has to establish his credentials. He’s often under fire.

The only reason the other apostles don’t speak the same way about themselves is not because they have a lower view of their office, but because they don’t have much occasion to defend themselves within the church. Their apostolic authority is rarely challenged.

2. Moreover, there are more oblique ways in which an apostle might claim to be inspired.

i) Jn 14-16 carries an implicit claim of inspiration for the Forth Gospel.

ii) The Apocalypse, with its inscriptional curse (Rev 22:19), is self-consciously written in the tradition of Moses (with everything that implies).

3. NT writers don’t generally make an explicit claim to inspiration because they aren’t starting from scratch. Rather, they have the literary precedent of the OT. They are self-conscious heirs of the OT. They are already writing in a traditional, scriptural genre.

4. Here’s another line of evidence:

i) Many OT writers don’t explicitly claim to be inspired. Yet we know how NT writers treat OT writers. NT writers are very promiscuous in their appeal to the OT. They quote, cite, or allude to all parts of the OT, regardless of the author or genre. They treat all parts as equally normative. It’s absolutely authoritative throughout. It’s sufficient to quote any OT passage to settle an argument (assuming your interpretation is correct). So the plenary inspiration of the OT is the presupposition undergirding the NT appeal to the OT.

ii) A more explicit example of the same pattern is the way in which the author of Hebrews cites the OT. He attributes any OT statement to God, even if a human writer was the immediate speaker.

iii) The NT is analogous to the OT. It uses some analogous genres (e.g. historical narrative). And the NT writers have analogous roles to OT writers. For example, an Apostle is midway between a covenant mediator (e.g. Moses) and a prophet (e.g. Isaiah). Likewise, Luke is the equivalent of the Chronicler.

Sweet will be the flower

Please forgive me for my feeble words on the topic of trusting God in the midst of suffering and trials in the believer's life. What little suffering I've been through in life has been so light in comparison to many believers that I wondered if I ought even broach the topic in such inexperience and likely naivety. Nevertheless, I'll try, and if God would so bless it, I hope the following might at least be of some encouragement to believers facing difficulties and trials, whether small or great. And if anything I've said is amiss, please feel free to correct me. I wouldn't want my brethren to have false ideas -- and especially not during a difficulty or trial. Thanks.

In the midst of our trials, God is trustworthy. The bud may have a bitter taste, but sweet will be the flower.

As Christians, we can trust the Lord because of who he is and what he has done for us. Who is he? What is the character of our God? God is sovereign and has control over the most minute details of our lives. God is wise and knows what's best for us. And God is so good and loves us so much as his children. Thus, because God is sovereign, wise, and good, we can trust him.

What has he done for us? We can consider what he has done for us in our own lives. We can consider what he has done in the lives of those we know. We can consider what he has done for other Christians around the world we don't personally know but have read about. We can consider what he has done for the saints in the past as we read their biographies. We can consider what he has done for the saints in the Old and New Testaments, which are recorded for our edification.

But most of all, we can consider the most wonderful thing he has ever done and could ever do for us when we survey the wondrous cross of Jesus Christ, when we consider how the Father gave up his only Son in order to save sinners. God loved us so much that he was willing to allow his dear and precious only Son Jesus Christ to die so that we would be saved. When we consider this, when we give serious thought to this, how can we not trust such a God? After all, "He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?" (Rom. 8:32). What more could God have done to demonstrate his love for us than to give up his only Son to die for our sins? Is there anything more we can think of that God could've done to demonstrate his love to us? If God was willing to give up his Son Jesus Christ to show us he loves us, if God was willing to sacrifice his very Son whom he loves with a love which we will never be able to fully know, then of course he is willing to do anything else for us which he deems for our good, because "anything else" he does for us would be less than giving up his Son. We can trust God.

Of course, this is not to say that we deserve anything from the Lord. Even if nothing else "good" were ever given to us again in this life, we have Christ, and he is more than enough. We were sinners, without hope and without God in this world. But God spent his holy wrath on his Son Jesus Christ so that he would not have to spend it on us. We are saved from eternal death and condemnation because Christ stood in our place and died for us. As my pastor rightly says, anything short of hell is infinitely more grace than any of us deserve. Thank God for his grace toward us sinners in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior!

Moreover, not only can we trust God, but we must trust God if we desire to glorify him in all things. If we do not think we have enough "faith" to trust God's word and do not trust it, rather than simply trusting God's word, we are not somehow being humble but we are being the direct opposite: we are being proud. If we do not trust God's word, then we do not trust God himself who spoke those words to us. And if we do not trust God himself, then we do not honor him as the faithful and true God as he has revealed himself in his word. And if we do not honor him as such, then we make God to be less than God. Thus we impugn God as God by our unbelief. We must trust God and his word if we seek to honor and glorify him in all things.

We must not ultimately trust other people because people are like grass, and the best of men and women are but lovely flowers growing in the grass. They might have much wisdom and knowledge, much strength and beauty, and much else we could rightly admire and respect. But even the best fail us. In the end, the grass withers, and the flower falls. Only the Lord our God is eternal and only the word of the Lord remains forever (cf. 1 Peter 1:24-25).

We must not trust our ever changing circumstances, but we must trust our precious Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who never changes, who abides forever, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and who will never leave us nor forsake us. For he who promised is faithful (cf. Hebrews).

We must not trust our subjective feelings which constantly change, but we must trust the objective reality that is God's revealed word. We must not trust our feelings which can pass from happiness to sadness or from peace to anger or from gratitude to complaint from one moment to the next, but we must trust God's word which never passes away. We must not trust our feelings because they can change at the smallest whim, perhaps due to what we ate for breakfast or someone looking at us the wrong way, but we must trust God's word because the Lord has spoken it and it is firm. After all, God is not a man that he should lie. Nor does he ever change his mind. Rather, God has spoken, and he will accomplish what he said he would do (cf. Num. 23:19).

Thus, when our feelings about a particular circumstance(s) or person(s) or whatever else seek to overwhelm us, rather than listening to our feelings and giving in to them, we must talk back to them, as David did throughout the Psalms, such as when he argued with his soul: "Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God." Rather than listening to himself and his feelings (which caused him to be "cast down" and "in turmoil within"), David talked back to them, and told himself to "hope in God," to trust the Lord, because the Lord alone is faithful and true.

On a more practical level, then, the first question we must ask ourselves when we read the truth and promises in the Bible is not, "How do I feel about God's truth and promise?" but "Do I trust God's truth and promise?" Once we first trust God's word, then we put God's word in its rightful place of preeminence in our lives, and we likewise put our feelings in their place after the word of God. Our feelings will often and later follow. But we must first trust God's word, no matter how we feel, because it is the truth.

Again, our feelings do not reflect reality but rather what God tells us in his word reflects reality.

Therefore: choose to trust God and choose to trust his word.

Now, if I recall, it was Martin Luther who once said music was God's greatest gift to people after the Scriptures (or something along those lines). So, by way of further encouragement, I want to mention how I love the hymn "God Moves in a Mysterious Way" by William Cowper. His words stir my heart to trust in God through the difficulties of life, through its many pains and sorrows, through its achingly real, palpable heartbreaks and sufferings.

What's even better, Sovereign Grace Music has done a beautiful rendition of Cowper's hymn. I would commend it to my dear brothers and sisters in Christ. You can listen to a sample of the song here.

And here are the complete lyrics:

God Moves

Verse 1
God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform
He plants His footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm
Deep in His dark and hidden mines
With never-failing skill
He fashions all His bright designs
And works His sovereign will

Chorus I
So God we trust in You
O God we trust in You

Verse 2
O fearful saints new courage take
The clouds that you now dread
Are big with mercy and will break
In blessings on your head
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense
But trust Him for His grace
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face

Chorus II
So God we trust in You
O God we trust in You
When tears are great
And comforts few
We hope in mercies ever new
We trust in You

Verse 3
God’s purposes will ripen fast
Unfolding every hour
The bud may have a bitter taste
But sweet will be the flower
Blind unbelief is sure to err
And scan His work in vain
God is His own interpreter
And He will make it plain

In addition, some people might benefit from John Piper's sermons on both Cowper as well as his friend John Newton. These sermons are, in my opinion, such a refreshment and encouragement to God's people, especially to those who are weary and fainting, to the heavy-hearted pilgrims journeying homeward to the Celestial City, where they look expectantly for Christ their first love to wipe away every tear from their eyes, and to shine his face upon them again. I often find Piper's sermons, particularly the biographies in the series "Men of Whom the World Was Not Worthy," to be healing medicine for wounded souls.

May the grace of our Lord God in Christ Jesus be with you, dear brothers and sisters.

The Warrant To Believe

Martin said:

Actually, whilst it may not be readily apparent, every man relies on a warrant to believe - although since, no man fully grasps all the implications and nuances of the gospel when they first believe, the details of the warrant may vary from person to person. But every person who puts their faith in Christ, must have reason to believe that God would show them mercy else they wouldn't do it would they? So, it seems to me that the matter of a warrant to believe *is* important. If someone who is considering the gospel happens to have heard of election and predestination then thay may well have questions about how can they put their faith in Christ if they can't be sure that He died for them? To say, in effect, 'believe, then you'll find out' seems to me to be unsatisfactory because it would not be answering that person's question.

TF replied:

It is sufficient warrant that man is commanded both to repent and believe. In other words, a command from God is sufficient ground, even if we have no reason to suppose that God will justify those who do believe.

Furthermore, it is also a sufficient response to someone who protests, "What if I am not one of the elect?" to say

"While it is true that God will have mercy on whom He will have mercy, nevertheless seize hold by faith of the promise that those who come to him he will not cast out. Do not come to God demanding your share of Christ's blood, but begging God that you might be adopted as one of His sons, and share in the benefits procured by Christ."

Here! Here!

Martin, this confuses assurance with the warrant to believe. The question, as TF has plainly stated so well," is "What constitutes the warrant to believe?"

Put another way, "What impels the Gospel call?"

The scope or sufficiency of the atonement does not impel the Gospel - Amyraldians and Arminians frame it that way.

The ability of man does not frame the call - Arminians frame it that way.

Questions about their personal election and predestination do not impel the Gospel - hyperCalvinists frame it that way.

And notice the subjectivity of the way it is framed. If a man says, "If I am not able, I will not convert," he is substituting his autonomy as an excuse for his unbelief.

If he asks how he can know he is elect, he is saying he will believe, if God will subjectively reveal it to him that he is elect. That's an excuse not believe.

If he says, "I will only believe if I know a priori that Christ died for me," he's trying to excuse his unbelief by asking for a subjective warrant.

And all of these would ultimately amount to a violation of Sola Scriptura at some point, because God is being called upon to engage in continuing revelation, especially for the man who asks to know if he is elect before he believes. If he really wanted to convert, he would just do so. So the impertinence of that question inculpates him. Sure, he may have a real question, but the answer is not to look for assurances, the answer is to be found in simply doing what God says to do.

The command itself impels the call - the Bible frames it that way, period. And this - and only this - is truly objective. Questions about whether Jesus died for me, whether I am elect or not, or if I have the ability to comply are really irrelevant, for they are impertinent.

Why? It's like being presented with a "Tablet of Stone." God says, to wit, "Repent and believe,sinner, and you will be saved." That's a command - not just an "offer," a command, according to Acts and 1 John. He says in effect, "Trust me; trust my command, trust my promise to save you." God says this, and we have an objective warrant. That, Martin, is the warrant to believe that the Bible gives.

To all sinners who hear the call:

God does not say, "Believe because Jesus died for everybody."

God does not say, "Believe because you are elect."

God does not say, "Comply because you are all able."

He says, "Do this, and you will live."

It's very simple, and I think He does this to draw attention to the fact that if we start asking those questions, we are, at some level asking for personal, subjective assurances when we are still "children of wrath." God's children have every right to know these things - for they belong to our assurance, but assurance is given as a gift to us after we are converted, not before, for "children of wrath" have no such right. They have no "right" except condemnation. God gives this command, makes this "offer" indiscriminately, and He makes it equal for us all thereby. There are no special qualifications or rules for the elect vs. the reprobate. They are all, when confronted by the preaching of the Gospel, given the same command, presented with the same offer. It's man who tries to add these assurances, and that panders to the self-interest of sinners. This offer will call the elect; it will reveal the reprobate by inculpating them.

Speaking personally, I think saying this has done a lot of harm in Baptist churches in particular, for their pews are lined with unregenerate "members," yet they say they affirm regenerate, not mixed, membership. Presbyterians believe in mixed membership, yet in my personal experience these days, they do better with regenerate membership than us Baptists have in many years.

And it's perfectly logical. If we ask, "How can I know...?" We're asking an epistemological question. I can know, because God made a promise in His Word - Jesus said that He will not cast out the ones who come to Him, not because I have a subjective sense of assurance before I convert that tells me that Christ died for me or I am one of the elect or that I have the ability to do this (eg. Libertarian Freedom). I can know if I do what God says I should do,because that's the means that God has licensed. So, we are driven not to subjective assurances and feelings or attempts to divine God's secret decrees or figure out if we are truly able, but to God's Word itself, and thus to His promises, and to the centrality of Christ Himself.

I have frequently asked General Redemptionists and others to find me a single text of Scripture that says that we are appeal on the basis of "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for you," or "Jesus died for you." To date, nobody has been able to demonstrate the offer. One Roman Catholic at Beggars All tried recently but found not a one. For all the farrago of words, he finally said, that it was the general drift of the New Testament. If that's true,then where's the actual argument? Where's the text that teaches it? It's merely an assertion.

We can simply say that God has made a single once for all time atonement for sin in Christ, and that the way to know if our sins are covered is to turn to Him and Him only. He will not turn such an one away, not ever.

By the way, at the level of logical argumentation to say that we are to frame the call as "Jesus died for you" is confusion. It confuses the nature of the atonement with the way a person knows if atonement has been made for his sins in particular. That confuses, for all intents and purposes ontology (the nature of a thing, in this case the atonement),thus the ontological question, with epistemology (the way a person knows a particular truth), thus the epistemological question. The way to know (the epistemological question) if Jesus died for you (the nature of the atonement for any person) is to repent and believe the Gospel. It's really simple.

I agree with Dr. Frame that logic is a reflection of God's mind, indeed one of His attributes. The Gospel call issued from the Reformed pulpit is quite logically framed. The Arminian call is confused at best.

So, if a person says,

"Am I able?" The answer is, "It is irrelevant, for if you do not believe, you will be damned."

"Did Jesus die for me?" The answer is, "It is irrelevant, for if you do not believe, you will be damned. The scope and sufficiency of the atonement will do nothing but inculpate you if you do not believe."

"Am I elect or reprobate?" The answer is "Knowing this beforehand is irrelevant to your obligation to do as God says, " for the answer will not matter if you do not comply with God's command.

The Gospel call is given such that all who comply with it will be saved, period. None will be turned away. God is faithful to keep His promises. So, the answers to these questions, if asked before one complies, are irrelevant to doing what God has said you must do. Comply with what God has said, and then we can talk about the answers. Your eternal soul does not hang on subjective assurances given before you comply with the Gospel call as it is given universally. It hangs on what you do when and where confronted.

So, if anybody comes here today and does not know Christ, this is the call to you:

God has said that we are all condemned at His judgment bar for the love of our own wickedness, for things we have done and left undone. Yet God has made a perfect atonement for sin for the ungodly in the Person and work of Jesus Christ, God the Son incarnated in human flesh, crucified, dead, buried, and resurrected on the third day according to the Scriptures. That is the Gospel. Your consequent responsibility is to cast yourself on the mercy of God to come to Christ with the empty hand of your faith, for He is now commanding all men everywhere to repent and turn to Christ. Repent of your wickedness, and place your faith in Christ and Christ only, not a Church, not a philosophy, not Calvinism, not Arminianism, not Catholicism, Orthodoxy, not Baptistery, not Presbyterianism, not Lutheranism, or any other visible organization, not your baptism, not your ecclesiology, not your congruent merits, not your prayers, not "Holy Tradition," nothing else but Christ only and His sole and sufficient merit. He will, as John 6 says plainly, in no wise cast you out. We'll talk theology afterwards. Do this, and you will live.

And for believers it is this:

To our Arminian friends with whom we so often disagree, I encourage you, of course, to take a closer look at how you frame the Gospel when you present it. That said, while these discussions between us and you all often get heated, my challenge to you, and to the Reformed folks as well, is to remember that unbelievers and apostates read our blogs too. Take time to engage them and confront them with the Gospel call from time to time. In the past several months, if you can't tell from comboxes here and there, this has been a particular conviction of mine - to do it myself and to call others to do so.

To my (Quasi)Amyradlian brothers, particularly those of you who have a habit of posting on the atonement, common grace, etc. and nothing but - your work in historical theology in particular, is duly noted, and I thank you for reminding us of the universality of the Gospel call. However, I ask you to remember, the scope and sufficiency of the atonement are no warrant that impels the Gospel call. My challenge to you is to practice what you preach and engage the apostates and unbelievers yourselves and confront them with the Gospel call that you remind us so well is universal. Yes, it is, and all men are required to obey it when they hear it. While these discussions are so often heated between us, remember that the answers to questions about the nature of the atonement as you see it or I see it are really irrelevant to the unregenerate, and there are many on the blogs. What's relevant is their need for Christ. I urge you to put your obvious gifts to better use if you are not already doing so, by engaging these folks with those of us who are doing so already. Not to do so is, I honestly think, particularly to get snippy about it when told this, not a good testimony for you. Practice what you preach to the rest of us. We would welcome your help. We need your help. Beat your swords into plowshares and sow with us a harvest. We can meet behind the barn occasionally - not continually- to discuss these issues about which you continue to devote so much time and attention.

To all believing bloggers across the board, preach the Gospel, in season and out, pray for those you regard as apostates and unbelievers, whether you are none other than Dr. Tom Ascol, Dr. Vern Poythress, Dr. James White, or a slug like myself. What we do here does make a difference. We are not here to talk to ourselves or win arguments or be liked (goodness knows we at Tblog aren't here to be liked). We are here,ultimately, to help each other and others grow and to preach the Gospel to the lost through our writing.

Filed Under F for Frivolous

I recently ran across a blog entry where an atheist mentions numerous physical altercations that have transpired between various religious groups reaching back hundreds of years. The author made sure to tell, "Paul Manata and Victor Reppert may want to take note; or better yet, J.P. Holding and James White; or J.P. Holding and Steve Hays." Obviously linking our debates with pen to debates with the sword. Not sure how valid an inference that is, but . . .

It seems clear that this is meant as some kind of atheologetic. It means to function as some kind of reason we should be shaky toward our beliefs. The structure of the argument is not all that clear, though.

At any rate, I've already made mention of the inherent problems in this tactic as used against Reppert, Holding, Hays, White, or myself. It seems to ignore that atheists, indeed, all systems of thought, debate amongst themselves too.

Another problem with the argument is the argument. It invokes some kind of Principle like this:

[P] If you disagree with someone else about some statement(s) S, then both sides should give up their systems of thought (including S).

One problem with [P] is that I disagree with it. Therefore, the one who pushes [P] needs to drop [P].

But maybe that is too high a price to pay. So we have this Principle:

[P*] If you disagree with someone else about some religious statement(s) S, then both sides should give up their systems of thought (including S).

Is [P*] a religious statement, though? How is it known? It doesn't seem necessarily true. Perhaps it's known by intuition? If [P*] is a religious statement, then since I disagree with it, it is, again, self-refuting.

But perhaps [P*] is not a religious statement. I suppose a finer specimen of special pleading will never be found in all of mankind’s history.

Besides the above, this blog piece tried to make use of a pop atheist Quip that goes something like this:

[Q] Every religious person denies the existence of other gods, I just go one step further and deny theirs.

But [Q] is problematic on several fronts:

i) It's not clear everyone is being honest here. We are frequently told that the definition of an atheist is someone who does not deny God's existence, rather they lack a belief in God's existence. If this is so, then [Q] equivocates since theists (like me) don't "lack a belief" in, say, Allah.

ii) Seems Pyrrho could make a similar claim:

[Q*] Every person denies the truth of some claims, I just go one step further and deny all truth claims.

iii) This quip comes in usually at the beginning of the argument (cf. various atheist/theist debates). But this is sophistic and unwarranted. I do not just "deny" the claims of other religions. I have reasons for my denials. I also have reasons for the truth of mine. Thus [Q] could only function as an argument from parity by first showing why my religion was false.

But if my religion was false, then the quip is trivial. Of course people deny what is false.

iv) Furthermore, it's not just "one step further." The atheist is painting a false picture. Almost all religions (at least the main competitors) believe in the existence of a deity.

Thus, our debate may be roughly likened to a debate about a dog in the room viz. what kind of dog is it?

I may deny all the other claims as to what kind of dog is in the room.

We don't deny the existence of a dog, we deny the kind of dog that it is.

But, it is not "just going one step further" for me to deny the existence of the dog altogether!

Or, if you will, my math class and I may debate about who gave the right answer to a math test. But, it is not "just going one step further" to deny that there is a right answer altogether (i.e., the existence of a number that fills in the blank). We are agreed on that.

v) Thus, this famous quip may just well win the prize for the most overrated piece of atheological rhetoric since the claim that belief in God is just like belief in a celestial teapot.

Groothuis on Expelled

Prof. Douglas Groothuis has written a good summary review of the film Expelled.

His piece "Intelligent Design and the State University: Accepting the Challenge" is worth reading as well.

Why ID is not Creationism

With the relative success of Expelled, Intelligent Design is back in the news again. It is therefore perhaps a bit helpful to have a quick overview of some of the differences between Intelligent Design and Creationism.

First, I should note that we must define how we are using the term “Creationism” in this essay. Most atheists define the term as equivalent to Young Earth Creationism, but this is too narrow. On the other extreme, one could say that anyone who believes in any sort of creation would be a Creationist, but this is so broad that you could even fit Darwinists who believe in a naturalistic creation of the universe (via quantum mechanics at the Big Bang, or whatever) into the definition.

Instead of those two extremes, for the purposes of this essay I will define a Creationist as a Christian theist who believes that God created the world and all the various “kinds” of plants and animals in it at some point (YEC or OEC is irrelevant, and this definition allows for variations within kinds to stand). Note that this definition is very arbitrary. It excludes alternate religions, and would not include theistic evolutionists either (as the variations in kinds—which may include differences between such creatures as zebras and horses, wolves and dogs—are not significant enough to establish Darwinian descent of all species from a common ancestor). While some may disagree with this definition, it is useful to demonstrate the distinction between Intelligent Design advocates and Creationists in general, especially in American culture where Christian theism is the dominant alternative to Darwinism. In any case, the focus of this essay is more on Intelligent Design than it is on Creationism, so this definition of Creationism ought to be sufficient to establish the point clearly enough.

Virtually every atheist would like to link Intelligent Design with Creationism since the religious views of Creationists would legally exclude them from public schools. However, even some Creationists (as defined above) link themselves to Intelligent Design. Indeed, often it is only the ID advocates themselves who separate themselves from the Creationist view point. Speaking as a Creationist, this is dangerous for Creationism, and not just because it allows Darwinists to exclude ID without sufficient cause.

Consider this example. Suppose that the universe is 15 billion years old. Furthermore, suppose that Darwinism, as understood by Richard Dawkins, is entirely correct. Further suppose that there exists a star several hundred light years away from us that has a planet rather like Earth on it, where over the course of time, beings equivalent to humans evolved. Suppose this planet was formed ten billion years ago (when the universe was five billion years old), life evolved until these human-like creatures came into existence after another five billion years. By then, these human-like creatures had developed a flotilla and launched out into space to conduct a science experiment on another planet. They traveled for one billion years (nowhere near the speed of light) and found Earth, four billion years ago. Over the course of the next few billion years, this species of human-like creatures seeded life, introduced retroviruses to reprogram DNA, and shaped the flow of evolution until the year 1945 when, seeing an atomic bomb detonate to end World War II, the human-like species decided to get out of Dodge. As a result, by the time the space program ramped up, these guys were no longer watching the planet, having fled back toward their distant star system.

Now suppose that this just-so story is actually true. This would not fit Creationist accounts…but it would fit Intelligent Design accounts. In fact, one need only ask a simple question: if the above did occur, how would we set about to prove it?

This question is actually one that Darwinists never bother to consider, since they assume by default that such a thing could not have occurred. But the above just-so story represents no religious viewpoint, it is completely materialistic, and it assumes all Darwinistic theories. If it actually occurred, how would we be able to verify it? It’s a natural and materialistic occurrence, and if science has anything meaningful to say then it ought to be able to answer the question.

Firstly, we must note that since these intelligent human-like creatures left we cannot go up into space and see them now. They are gone, and for all intents and purposes no longer exist within our realm of observation.

Science does deal with this sort of thing all the time with sentient beings. You may observe a bear on a migration route one year and not on the next year and then again on the third year. That you did not see the bear the second year does not mean the bear did not exist that year. So when dealing with sentient beings, it is quite possible that they do not wish to be seen or happen to be somewhere other than where the observer is.

So how then would we try to determine whether they had been here or not? If we cannot currently observe them, then we look for artifacts. This is how we know that the Roman Empire existed, for instance: historical references and items recovered by archaeology. We excavate ruins and read old books to find evidence that they used to exist, etc.

But we’ve already said that these human-like creatures are scientists working to keep their experiment pristine. They would not want contamination to occur, because that would ruin everything for their experiment.

What is left to examine then? Can we conclude that it would be impossible to verify the existence of these creatures? No, for there is one other thing that we can look at.

These creatures were conducting their experiments on life itself. They were introducing retroviruses to change DNA to shape evolution, to grow a particular species. They seeded life on the planet in the first place. That means that what we look for is this: evidence that what is here cannot have arisen naturally, but instead can only be explained by the actions of an intelligent agent.

Because the intelligent agent was actually involved in the way life happened on Earth, things occurred on Earth that would not have occurred otherwise. If this story is true, then life cannot be the same as it would have been without these intelligent actors involved.

Now here is the key for the Darwinist to consider. If we are to say that science has no way of differentiating between the materialistic and naturalistic theory that I proposed above and Darwinism, how potent is science after all? That is, if science works, it ought to be able to differentiate between a world that is designed and a world that is not designed.

The ID proponent says that science can and does differentiate between what occurs naturally and what occurs due to intelligent agents. Oddly, for all its talk about the power of science, it is Darwinism that believes science to be impotent on this issue. But IDers have no problem saying that science is able to detect design, even when the designer is materialistic.

The designer need not be an omnipotent God. In fact, the designer need only be as intelligent as we currently are. After all, it is certainly within the realm of human intelligence to be able to create a space flotilla with its own self-contained farming system, to use atomic power to move us (at nowhere near the speed of light, mind you), to take enough people to keep the population going, and for us to use Darwinian theories to seed new life on another planet, introducing retroviruses when we wish to make alterations, etc. We could theoretically do these things and construct an intelligently designed world.

Suppose we did just that. That would not be Creationism. It would be Intelligent Design, but not Creationism. And that’s the major difference between ID and Creationism.

Creationism requires that the Intelligent Designer be God, specifically (as I’ve defined Creationism above) the God of the Bible. ID has no such requirement. The designer could just as easily be a human-like organism that evolved on a different planet six billion years ago who then traveled to our planet to seed life. Of course, IDers do not rule out the possibility that the designer is the Christian God; but He is not a requirement for Intelligent Design. Nor does ID have to identify the designer in order to be scientific: it is enough to show that some kind of design must have occurred (just as one can rule out natural causes for the death of the body in the hotel room without knowing who the murderer—the designer of the death—is).

This is why Creationists are libel to misstep with all the success of ID. If we allow ID to do all the heavy work without working out the issues ourselves, then we have not advanced Creationism at all. Even if ID utterly guts Darwinism, that would not prove the designer of our world is God. That ID is currently sympathetic with Creationists in no way implies that this relationship must always remain, and Creationists should be aware of this fact.

There is a difference between Intelligent Design and Creationism. To use the dead body illustration yet again: Darwinists claim that Bob Jones died naturally; Creationists claim that Bob Jones was murdered by Jim Smith; and Intelligent Design advocates merely point out that some unnamed person killed Bob Jones. While there is overlap between the ID and Creationist accounts, it is a mistake (both on the part of the Darwinist and on the Creationist) to assume they are the same.

Stop Yer Blubbering

Victor Reppert said, "I like this line from this post."

What line from what post? This one:

Paul's "great sorrow and unceasing grief" was for the salvation of his fellow Jews. Do you not think that echoes the same attitude of Christ Jesus? Certainly Paul is familiar with Calvinism, is he not? At least, Calvinists believe that he taught Calvinism. If so, then how could Paul have "great sorrow and unceasing grief" in his heart for those whom God has not chosen to save? Those who die in their sin do so by the predetermined counsel and kind intention of God's will. Stop your blubbering, Paul.

i) It's always a sure sign of erudite scholarship and detailed exegesis when one uses the word "blubbering."

ii) Where's the argument that Calvinists cannot be sorrowful (on earth) that friends, family, or others will be lost? Why would one think we couldn't be? Is this just another Calvinist straw man?

iii) Since Reppert has indicated his strong leanings towards Universalism, I'm surprised he didn't see this counter:

Paul's "great sorrow and unceasing grief" was for the salvation of his fellow Jews. Do you not think that echoes the same attitude of Christ Jesus? Certainly Paul is familiar with Universalism, is he not? At least, Universalists believe that he believed in Universalism. If so, then how could Paul have "great sorrow and unceasing grief" in his heart for those whom would ultimately be saved? Those who don't get saved today will get saved tomorrow. No one is going to be lost. Stop your blubbering, Paul.

Historical Hair Conditioning

The telling of this story has helped, I trust, to make the basic question simple and plain. You know pretty clearly now what sort of God it is of which I am speaking to you. If my God exists it was He who was back of my parents and teachers. It was He who conditioned all that conditioned me in my early life. But then it was He also who conditioned everything that conditioned you in your early life. God, the God of Christianity, is the All-Conditioner!

As the All-Conditioner, God is the All-Conscious One. A God Who is to control all things must control them "by the counsel of His will." If He did not do this, He would himself be conditioned. So then I hold that my belief in Him and your disbelief in Him are alike meaningless except for Him. --Cornelius Van Til, Why I Believe in God

Puzzled?

Reppert had posted a couple of blog entries on an "Arminian" exegesis of Romans 9 as referring to corporate over against individual election (as many scholars have pointed out, this is a false dichotomy).

When no Calvinist responded, he stated that,

It's slightly puzzling to me that as concerned as Calvinists are with exegesis, that when I link to an Arminian exegesis of their leading proof text, they don't respond.

Who said Romans 9 "was our leading proof text"? Anyway, since his posts are not exegesis of his own, then I'll respond in kind (it should be noted that most of these men have Ph.D.s and are respected scholars, almost all the rest have either a Th.M. or an M.Div., and so are trained exegetes):

Dr. Steve Baugh on Romans 9

Matt Slick on Romans 9

Rev. Lane Keister on Romans 9

Dr. John Piper on Romans 9, part 1

Dr. John Piper on Romans 9, part 2

Thomas Schreiner, "Does Romans 9 Teach Individual Election to Salvation?" in The Grace of God, the Bondage of the Will (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 1995), ed. Thomas Schreiner and Bruce Ware, p. 91.

Dr. Schreiner's response to Abasciano's critique of the above paper

Rev. Grover Gunn on Romans 9

Rev. W. E. Best on Romans 9

Dr. Daniel B. Wallace on Romans 9

Dr. R. Scott Clark on The Israel of God

Series on Romans by Dr. Michael Horton

Romans 9 by Bob Deffinbaugh , Th.M

Dr. John Piper, The Justification of God: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Romans 9:1-23, Baker, 1993

Dr. Robert Peterson on Romans 9, part 1

Dr. Robert Peterson on Romans 9, part 2

An Exegesis of Romans 9 by Dr. James White

Dr. James White on Romans 9, part 1

Dr. James White on Romans 9, part 2

Critique of Arminian Hank Hanegraaff's take on Romans 9 by "Dr." Gadfly.


More could be listed for sure. Definitely more books could (should?) have been listed as well. Systematics texts. Ad infinitum . . . But that wasn't my purpose. My purpose was to unpuzzle one Dr. Vic Reppert! :-) When you put Victor's source up against these it will be clear which position has done the more scholarly job exegeting the text. Pretty much a no contest.

(HT Monergism.com for many of these.