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  • From: "Elli Elliott" <ellielliott AT email.msn.com>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Adam etc
  • Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2000 12:01:32 -0700


Debbi Gaunt asked:
<snip>When Paul discusses OT characters - I'm thinking of Adam, Abraham
etc -
should one assume that he believes that these were specific, identifiable
individuals about whom the scriptures provide accurate historical
information?<snip>

Others have replied with a simple "yes." I would have to differ here. On
the one hand, before the Enlightenment, the concept of "accurate historical
information" was not necessarily the same as what we think of now. Paul
would have accepted the stories in scriptures as "fact" without conceiving
"fact" as a question in the way we do. On the other hand, Paul also sees
the figures of Adam and Abraham as in some sense typological as well as
historical figures. But again, for Paul there would not necessarily be any
conceptual distinction between typological and historical.

Elli Elliott (ellielliott AT msn.com)
Pastor, Zion United Church of Christ, Sterling, Colorado
PhD, New Testament & Early Christianity, Loyola University Chicago








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