Mike Beidler ja historiallinen Aadam

Tiihosen Hannu ei ainoastaan viitannut Mike Beidlerin artikkeliin "Is there anything historical about Adam?" (God and Nature Magazin Fall 2014*) vaan kirjoitti, että rivien välistä kirjoituksessa näkyy myös Sumeri.

Poimin tähän avainkohtia Beidlerin kirjoituksesta virkistämään ajatuksiamme kysymyksestä historiallisesta Adamista, jota Junkkaalan Eero ei suotta visaiseksi kutsu!

Beidler kertoo ajattelunsa kehittymisestä
"My journey from young-earth creationism and its associated treatment of Genesis 1-11 as historical narrative akin to modern-day journalistic accounts began nearly a decade ago when I began to conduct personal research on biblical and scientific evidences for the old-earth creationist paradigm."

Kitkaa tulkitsijoiden kanssa

"the biblical texts I was reading were written to a people with whom I had very little in common culturally; thus, I found myself increasingly uncomfortable with the lengths to which some Christians went to find concordance between biblical descriptions of creation and science."

John Waltanin vaikutus

"It was at this time that I was introduced to the writings of Old Testament scholar John Walton from Wheaton College.His NIV Application Commentary on Genesis (Zondervan, 2001), along with his other works on ancient Hebrew thought and its shared cognitive environment with another ancient Near Eastern cultures (to include the assumption of a three-tiered cosmos) had a profound impact on me."

"While Walton’s works helped me discover deeper purpose and meaning in Genesis 1, I remained unconvinced that a non-concordist approach largely ceased at Genesis 2:4a."

Etiologinen lähestymistapa

"Denis Lamoureux’s Evolutionary Creation: A Christian Approach to Evolution (Wipf & Stock, 2008) helped me immensely in understanding follow-on chapters of Genesis as etiological literature. In such works, affirming present-day realities—such as the sinfulness of mankind, the toil we must endure to provide for our families, and the ever-present clash of cultures—was more important to the Hebrews than the retrojective nature of the stories by which they explained such realities."

"..with Lamoureux’s help and that of other scholars such as Paul Seely and Peter Enns, I developed the ability to distinguish the core messages of these controversial biblical passages and tease them out of the limited cultural contexts in which they were embedded." 

Jumala soveltaa tekstiä

"This process of alternately immersing myself in an ancient paradigm and then viewing that paradigm from my modern perspective led me to accept the idea that God is an accommodationist more concerned about guiding his people into a closer relationship with him than the scientific accuracy of the paradigms he uses in doing so."

Kysymyksiä nousee Raamatun äärellä

"How extensive was God’s accommodation to his people?" 

"As I began digging deeper into my biblical studies, I began recognizing scientifically inaccurate paradigms reflected through the Hebrew and Christian scriptures" 

• ancient biology such as species immutability {Gen 1:11-12, 21, 24-25) and 
• preformatism (Gen 11:30; 25:21; Luke 1:7), 
• ancient taxonomy (Lev 11:13-19), and 
• ancient botany (Mark 4:31). 

"How much of a stretch would it be that God would communicate his truths using ancient anthropology?" 

"Did it matter whether the biblical Adam truly existed?" 

"Would Adam’s non-historicity demolish the need for Jesus Christ’s historical acts of sacrifice and redemption?"

Vastauksia UT:n ajan juutalaisuusten Raamatun tulkinnasta

"I found the answer to these questions in the hermeneutical practices of Second Temple Judaism."

"I was also struggling with how various New Testament authors used the Old Testament in their defense of Jesus as the fulfillment of ancient prophecy. "

"Early biblical interpreters—including the authors of the New Testament—chose their biblical texts selectively to support their theological themes."

"At times, they even appeared to rip alleged prophecies in the Hebrew Scriptures right out of their original contexts and re-appropriate them in a manner that we today would find unacceptable (e.g., Matt 2:14-15; cf. Hos 11)"

Midrash ja pesher 

"---two closely related approaches to interpreting Scripture common in Jesus’ day." 

"In both of these, these interpreters would bring together different biblical texts in order to address contemporary issues, sometimes being extremely creative in the process (e.g., Paul’s apparently “inconsistent” use of Gen 13:14-16’s seed/offspring in Gal 3:16, 29)." 

"Such appropriations and reinterpretations of Scripture were acceptable in Second Temple Judaism and, in some Jewish schools of thought, were just as authoritative as the texts from which they were derived."

"I felt led to embrace his accommodation of non-Western, ancient ways of understanding and applying Scripture as a means of transmitting theological truth—such as Jesus’ divinity and identification as the Messiah—regardless of a biblical text’s original context."

Apostoli Paavali

Paul’s use of the Old Testament in his discussion of the first and last Adams (see 1 Cor 15; Rom 5, 8).

"Because of the radicalness of Jesus’ crucifixion and subsequent resurrection, Paul’s subsequent use of the Old Testament became solely Christ-centered, resulting in a theology developed by means of re-reading the Old Testament through the lens of Jesus."

"Such theological constructs included the clear use of Adam as an archetype representing original humanity (Rom 5:14) and Jesus as an antitype."

"in writing to the churches in Corinth and Rome, Paul was not arguing for Adam’s strict historicity, for there was no competing anthropological paradigm."

"Neither was Paul arguing to establish the reality of sin and death, for both were (and are) demonstrable givens." 

"Rather, Paul was arguing for the necessity of Jesus Christ as a remedy for humanity’s enslavement to sin. Paul was arguing that Jesus’ indisputable defeat of death gives us hope that our “eternal life” will continue beyond the grave!"

joten missä Adam?

Ei historiallinen

"I no longer believe that Adam and Eve as described in Genesis 2-3 actually existed. Just as I don’t believe certain elements of “biblical” cosmology actually exist (e.g., the firmament of Gen 1:6-8)"

"I believe a well-reasoned case can be made using both science and biblical hermeneutics that “biblical” anthropology is also inaccurate from a modern, scientific perspective."

Historiallinen

"That being said, I still embrace the concept of an “historical” Adam."  

"From a modern anthropological perspective, points in the evolutionary development of the human species parallel the biblical Adam and Eve’s: our species, at one point, was “innocent,” eventually evolved the ability to make moral decisions, but nevertheless rebelled against God’s Moral Law."

"from an archetypal perspective, the biblical Adam and Eve represent the human condition: their story is our story. I am Adam; you are Eve"

Synnin todellisuus

"We are born “innocent” (yet possessing the innate capacity for selfish behavior), we mature into an ability to make moral decisions, but we nevertheless rebel against God’s moral law. Whether one accepts the theological doctrine of Original Sin or (as I prefer) the scientific doctrine of Original Selfishness, the outcome remains identical: We are sinners in need of God."

Jeesusta tarvitaan

"Regardless of sin’s exact origin—whether via rebellion in the Garden of Eden or rebellion against God’s Moral Law as a species during humanity’s evolutionary development—I recognize that sin is still quite real. Its presence in the human species is universal. Its presence is observable and repeatable."

"And our individual and collective sin still requires a remedy: the historical Jesus of Nazareth."

Näin siis Mike Beidler.





*God and Nature is a publication of the American Scientific Affiliation (ASA), an international network of Christians in the sciences. Beidler kirjoittaa myös BioLogos sivulla