{"id":615,"date":"2008-01-26T22:46:23","date_gmt":"2008-01-27T04:46:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/2008\/01\/26\/class-notes-on-creation\/"},"modified":"2008-01-26T22:46:23","modified_gmt":"2008-01-27T04:46:23","slug":"class-notes-on-creation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/2008\/01\/26\/class-notes-on-creation\/","title":{"rendered":"Class Notes on Creation"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m posting some excerpts of my class notes from Torah\/Former Prophets.  I do this only for those of you who enjoy sort of “peeking into” a doctoral course.  I emphatically am not<\/em> doing this 1) because I whole-heartedly agree with everything I heard; 2) because I completely reject everything and want everyone to laugh with me; 3) because everyone (or most, some, or even one other person) at this school agrees with this teacher; 4) because I want to have a big debate here.  I do it for none of those reasons.  In fact, I plan to not make one single comment.  If you’re not sure what I believe, you might start by looking at the TMC doctrinal statement<\/a>.  Otherwise, see points #1, #2, #3, and #4 above.  These notes are not complete, and I leave out parts of the discussion because of the nature of the blog.  Again, my goal here isn’t to give you enough to convince you of a position (one way or the other), but to give you a taste of some things that I heard and to provoke your thinking.  We now begin…<\/p>\n

The Professor highly recommends James Houston, I Believe in God the Creator<\/i>. Wonderful book; well written. His emphasis is that Gen 1 is not focused on creatio ex nihilo<\/i>. That is shocking to many. It is almost a staple in evangelical circles that Gen 1 is about creation ex nihilo<\/i>. Professor is going to argue that exegetically this is not the case at all. Houston says that even if this were true, that’s not the point. There is nothing in Gen 1 that requires ex nihilo \u2013 this is a statement of the church. What it does say is creation per verbum<\/i> \u2013 creation by word. This is more far satisfying exegetically. Not how much creation was done in time as that it was done by the word of God. <\/p>\n

Houston acknowledges the possibility of theistic evolution. Theistic evolution is not an anti-Christian view. Because after all it is theistic. That means that God is behind the evolutionary process. Professor would have thought when he graduated from DTS in 1968 and began teaching at Western in 1970 that you couldn’t be a theistic evolution and be a Christian. He was pretty sure that was the case. Houston argues against theistic evolution as a good idea because while the theism is commendable it is a distant theism and not a present theism and doesn’t matter in people’s daily lives. <\/p>\n

Rad, Gerhard von. \u2013 when you alphabetize a bibliography, do it this way. von is an archaic sign of a family that is noble, from feudal times; honorific, and not really a name. von Rad \u2013 Lord of Rad. Alphabetize under Rad. But the same thing should be true in Dutch names, but the tendency is to alphabetize under “V”. Dutch name with de \u2013 that’s done under D. von rad is someone you really should read, not because of his understanding of origin of Bible text but because of his often unbelievably wonderful insights into meaning. <\/p>\n

In 1983 there was a meeting of inerrantists, convened by Int ‘l Council of Biblical Inerrancy, in Chicago, and overall theme was hermeneutics. More than 2,000 participants, and all believed in inerrancy. At end of day, moderator (possibly Walter Kaiser) asked for a raise of hands because there was a lot of heat in the interchange of how many are in basic agreement on presentation on main paper, and also young earth view. Professor watched hands and he would guess 2\/3 were for progressive creation view and only 1\/3 for young earth view. He saw Henry Morris sink in his chair and start tearing. So Professor went over and invited him to lunch. When Professor asked him at lunch, he teared up again. Morris said that he believed these people didn’t believe the Bible. He said that they don’t believe the Bible is inerrant because if they don’t believe the Bible the way I do, then they don’t believe the Bible. This in Professor’s view is the biggest problem with young earth creationism \u2013 take it or leave it. This is Bush vs. terrorism. They believe that it is not a point of view, but the point of view. <\/p>\n

The most important word in Genesis 1 is elohim<\/em> (God). The most important word other than God is bara<\/em> (created). There has been a lot of misstatement about this word. It is stated so loudly and strongly by so many people that to say that it isn’t true is to make someone think that you don’t know what you ‘re talking about. The word bara<\/em> is stated by many to be created out of nothing (and they say it in Latin to say it strong). Word bara<\/em> is used in topic sentence for the story of creation. Word bara<\/em> is also used most significantly with reference to creation of man as male and female. V. 26 \u2013 alternation between asa<\/em> and bara<\/em>…Gen 1 describes Creation of man by using asa<\/em>, but in v27 bara<\/em> is used three times. If bara<\/em> means to make out of nothing, then it means that man was made out of nothing. <\/p>\n

Where did we ever come up with creation ex nihilo<\/em>? It was not an exegetical decision. It was a Bible reader making a theological decision. Logically, creation must mean out of nothing, therefore since bara<\/em> was used, that is what bara<\/em> must mean. Not a lexical or exegetical decision, but purely theology. Eisegesis. Exegesis is not an evil act, but an innocent act of reading the Bible the best you can and in advertently bringing something outside in. <\/p>\n

Years ago, Professor went to a evangelical gay and lesbian seminar at Denver Seminary. A guest prof at summer school had someone come and speak positively about homosexuality. By the time it took place it was on a Saturday 9-5 in the chapel with no administrator having any idea about it going on. But someone called a reporter and it was covered in the Rocky Mountain News: Denver Seminary invites gay and lesbian leaders to inform their students of the advantages of gay and lesbian lifestyle. <\/p>\n

So Professor attended part of it, and a speaker was addressing Romans 1:26. He said that since homosexuality is the way that god has made me and it is my nature, this passage has nothing to do with me or anyone else on the platform. When we engage in homosexuality, that is our God-given nature. What this passage is against, he said (with a straight face) is heterosexuals experimenting with homosexual encounters because they are going against their natures and that is against God. So if you are a straight person, you cannot commit homosexuality. He said, if we were to engage in heterosexual relations, in marriage or out, that would be against our nature and condemned by God. Professor: that is metagesis \u2013 you don’t like it so you change it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m posting some excerpts of my class notes from Torah\/Former Prophets.  I do this only for those of you who enjoy sort of “peeking into” a doctoral course.  I emphatically am not doing this 1) because I whole-heartedly agree with everything I heard; 2) because I completely reject everything and want everyone to laugh with\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-phd-coursework"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}