Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Jerry Shepherd <jshepherd53 AT gmail.com>]

Hi Rolf,


I want to respond to what you wrote to Ted here.  Again, this is not a
forum to discuss theology, religion, and science.  And I will not be doing
that, as such, here.  But I do want to respond because I, for one, do not
believe that you have identified the “real issue.”



The real issue has nothing to do with belief in a self-revealing God, the
inspiration of the Bible, or the clash of science and creation as taught in
Genesis 1.   I am an evangelical.  I believe the Bible is inspired by God.  I
will even go so far as to use all three “i”s: inspired, infallible,
inerrant.  But I think it is also important to relate these understandings
to authorial intention and genre.  I do not believe the author (either the
divine or the human) was intending to give an historical account of the
exact processes of creation.  And I believe the genre is something other
than CNN on-the-scene reporting.  As I mentioned in another post, I take
the account as being symbolic and impressionistic, rather than literal or
photographic.  I do not take the account as mythological, but I do regard
the account as being of a piece with the assumed cosmography of the ANE.  I
also take the account as being polemic in nature: i.e., “It wasn’t your
conflicted, flawed, petty gods who created the universe; it was our God,
the only true God, the God of Israel.”  So nothing you’ve listed
constitutes the real issue.  The issues are linguistic and generic.



Blessings,

Jerry Shepherd
Taylor Seminary
Edmonton, Alberta
jshepherd53 AT gmail.com