Are these the false prophets God warned us about?

[Burrawang]

@Marshall

A child might take it that way, but that’s far from the only way to read it. Even many children know better than to take a story literally when it has talking animals and magic fruit.

Dear Marshall,
thank you for your considered response to the text you selected.
In the document that you attached, you ask the question:
Is the creation week a royal chronicle, a liturgy, a polemic, a temple text?
And you answer with:
Yes! It’s a poetic liturgy for the prosaic work week.

I believe that it is as clear as crystal that the creation and Global Flood events are written as accurate history. I agree wholeheartedly that God profoundly used the Creation Week event in Six Days of Work and One Day of Rest as an example of how we all should conduct our time here on Earth in this present age.

@Marshall

A child might take it that way, but that’s far from the only way to read it. Even many children know better than to take a story literally when it has talking animals and magic fruit.

Well, I for one, have no problem believing that Satan deceptively reasoned with Eve and convinced her to disobey God. It is for Eve just as it is for ALL of us, the act of disobeying God’s explicit command that results in sin and the penalty of death. I do not know what was contained in the fruit of the tree itself, except that the act of disobedience to God by eating it resulted in the process of death.

And I believe it likely that within 1,000 years of that act of disobedience, they both had died.

Angels are very powerful beings, who worship and minister to Jesus. They help us at crucial times throughout our lives and fight against the forces of darkness that are present here on Earth at this present time.
The fallen angels are I expect similarly powerful and capable of many things that we humans do not fully understand, but they’re defenceless against the Lord Jesus and the power of His Blood shed on the cross for us all.

I accept that your statement, “Even many children know better than to take a story literally when it has talking animals and magic fruit” is what you honestly believe, and on the face of it in our day to day lives here in the present, we don’t experience "talking animals or “magic fruit”.
But just because we don’t experience those one off events now, it doesn’t logically follow that they never occurred.
We don’t see many things that were one off events in the Holy Bible.
We don’t see God speaking the creation instantly into existence now, we don’t see Global Floods now, we don’t see people like Daniel in hungry Lion’s dens not being eaten, we don’t see people like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego being thrown into a fiery furnace and not being burnt.
We don’t see the dead being raised four days after they died, we don’t see water being instantly made into wine, we don’t see people blind from birth being instantly healed, we don’t see people walking across the water, we don’t see people commanding storms to be quiet, yet I believe ALL of those to be REAL EVENTS.

Two Questions Marshall:
1.) Using your own reasoning here, are you claiming you don’t believe the above listed events are REAL EVENTS that Truly happened?

2.) Or do you cherry pick only the events that contradict the Theistic Evolution worldview, and pretend they’re ridiculous on grounds of incredulity?

God Bless,
jon

[Marshall (Marshall Janzen)]

@Burrawang

In the document that you attached, you ask the question:
Is the creation week a royal chronicle, a liturgy, a polemic, a temple text?
And you answer with:
Yes! It’s a poetic liturgy for the prosaic work week.

That’s a quote mine. It purposely creates a false impression about what I said.

@Burrawang

Using your own reasoning here, are you claiming you don’t believe the above listed events are REAL EVENTS that Truly happened?

When something is described as a miracle, I take it as one:

• “Then the Lord opened the mouth of the donkey, and it said to Balaam…” (Num. 22:28)
• “Daniel then said to the king, ‘O king, live forever! My God sent his angel and shut the lions’ mouths so that they would not hurt me’ ” (Dan. 6:21–22)
• “Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead” (John 12:1)

When something unnatural just happens without mention of a miracle, it helps me know the genre of what I’m reading:

• “The trees once went out to anoint a king over themselves. So they said to the olive tree, ‘Reign over us’ ” (Judg. 9:8)
• “For you shall go out in joy and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands” (Isa. 55:12)
• “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God say…’ ” (Gen. 3:1)

[Tim_nz]

I’ve been a lurker on this forum for several months now – and have previously had no inclination to participate. However, having tracked down the Barr letter due to it coming up on another forum, I think it’s worth getting the context of the full letter:

THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
23 April 1984

David C.C. Watson, Esq.,
1300 N. Cross
Wheaton Illinois

Dear Mr Watson,

Thank you for your letter. I have thought about your question,
and would say that [probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of
Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe
that the writer(s) of Genesis 1-11 intended to convey to their readers the
ideas that (a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the
same as the days of 24 hours we now experience (b) the figures contained
in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from
the beginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story (c)
Noah’s flood was understood to be world-wide and extinguish all human and
animal life except for those in the ark. Or, to put it negatively, the
apologetic arguments which suppose the `days’ of creation to be long eras
of time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the flood to be
a merely local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by any such
professors, as far as I know.] The only thing I would say to qualify this is
that most professors may avoid much involvement in that sort of argument
and so may not say much explicitly about it one way or the other. But I
think what I say would represent their position correctly. However, you
might find one or two people who would take the contrary point of view and
are competent in the languages, in Assyriology, and so on: it’s really
not so much a matter of technical linguistic competence, as of appreciation of
the sort of text that Genesis is.
Perhaps I might mention that I have another book coming out soon,
Escaping from Fundamentalism, SCM Press London, which has some discussion of
these questions. Westminster Press in Philadelphia are doing the American
edition, perhaps with a different title, I don’t know. It comes out in this
country on 1st June.
Thanks again for your letter and all good wishes,
Yours sincerely
James Barr [signed]

[Source]

The source also provides the following six footnotes:

Notes:

1. The address “1300 N. Cross” was not clear and may be wrong.
2. The square brackets around “[probably … know.]” enclose the part of letter usually quoted by Young-Earth Creationists, e.g. Should Genesis Be Taken Literally? By Russell Grigg, Creation Ex Nihilo 16(1):38-41, Dec. 93-Feb.1994. Ham K., et al., “The Answers Book,” [1990], Answers in Genesis: Acacia Ridge Qld, Australia, 1997, reprint, p.90, omits the “probably” and finishes with “ark”.
3. Note Barr’s tentative “probably, so far as I know” and “as far as I know”.
4. Also Barr concedes that “most professors … may not say much explicitly about it one way or the other”.
5. And Barr further concedes that there may be other professors who “are competent in the languages” yet “who would take the contrary point of view”.
6. Finally, Barr concedes that “it’s really not so much a matter of technical linguistic competence”, but “of appreciation of the sort of text that Genesis is”. This last qualification specifically defeats the Young-Earth Creationist argument that Barr was only offering a neutral, expert linguistic analysis of what the Hebrew words mean. The fact is that Barr was offering his private interpretation based on his prior assumption of what he thinks “the sort of text that Genesis is”!

I felt the last footnote was particularly important in the context of people attempting to cite Barr as an authority on this topic, so I have highlighted it.

[Randy]

Thank you!

It’s interesting that he writes as an evangelical against excessive fundamentalism, too.(judging from a quick review of the description and comments on the Amazon page)

Escaping from Fundamentalism Paperback – June 18, 2012

by James Barr (Author)

[3.6 3.6 out of 5 stars ](javascript:void(0)) (7)

4.0 on Goodreads

37 ratings

See all formats and editions

---

This is a pastoral rather than a controversial book. Its main aim is not to show fundamentalists that they are wrong, but rather to help those who have grown up in the world of fundamentalism or have become committed to it but in the end have come to feel that it is a prison from which they must escape. Escaping from Fundamentalism: Barr, James: 9780334003854: Amazon.com: Books

[rsewell (RON SEWELL)]

@Burrawang

it’s not that I am being dogmatic for a literal interpretation, it is that the text itself is a faithful historical description by God Himself, Who inspired the author to write exactly what he wrote.

Sorry, but you do not get to speak for God.

[Tim_nz]

He also wrote Fundamentalism:

James Barr has never been an uncontroversial writer, and this book, eirenic though its purpose was, has proved no exception. It was widely noticed on its first appearance and led to a lively discussion, not least in evangelical circles. At the same time it was welcomed by reviewers as an important contribution to the nature of biblical criticism. ‘This books breaks much new ground,’ said British Book News, ‘and will be welcomed by many who are interested in the intellectual basis of a biblical faith. Indeed, it is a measure of the author’s coverage and penetration of a variety of issues that the book can be taken as, among other things, a useful introduction to modern critical methods of biblical scholarship.’ The Scottish Journal of Theology remarked: ‘One of the most urgent theological tasks in the field of biblical studies is to expose and evaluate the hidden presuppositions of the methods used, and this is necessary alike in liberal and conservative circles. Professor Barr’s book is an important contribution to this task, and it is to be hoped that response to it will further clarify the issues that he raises.’ Not all the responses were in fact favourable. Professor Barr was accused of having an outdated view of fundamentalism, of attacking positions which are being quite rapidly abandoned, and neglecting promising new developments. In this second edition of his book, he has added a long prteface discussing these criticisms at length. Noting and commenting on the new developments, at the same time he points out that if anything, in many areas fundamentalism is becoming even more regressive. The debate is obviously by no means over, and critics of the first edition may well have to think again. James Barr’s sequel to this study, Escapting from Fundamentalism, is also published by SCM Press. James Barr was Professor of Hebre Bible at Vanderbilt Divinity School.

[Terry_Sampson]

• What a great book cover!!!

[Terry_Sampson]

Questions for Jon:

1. Geology: What specific features in a geologic formation would convince you that the Earth is older than a few thousand years, or that a global flood never occurred?
2. Fossils: What specific features in a fossil would convince you that it is a transitional form between humans and a proposed common ancestor with other apes?
3. Genetics: What specific genetic features would convince you that humans and other apes share a common ancestry?
4. Ark “Kinds”: What specific biological or genetic features would convince you that two species belong to the same “kind” Noah brought onto the ark, and what features would convince you that they do not belong to the same “kind”?

[Burrawang]

@Marshall

When something is described as a miracle, I take it as one:

Hi Marshall,
thanks for your reply, it’s appreciated!

When I read the creation account, I understand that God speaking the creation immediately into existence out of nothing is a supernatural miraculous event:

*1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. *
*2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. *
*3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. *
4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
Genesis 1:1-4

When God created on each day of creation, the subject being created came immediately into existence out of nothing. God said, and it was so. It was a miraculous event. It has only occurred once so far, but there will be another miraculous creation event when God creates a New Heaven and a New Earth in the future.

In as much as it is a supernatural miraculous event, the creation does not differ from the creation immediately into existence out of nothing, for example, of the loaves and fishes that fed the five thousand. The same Creator, the same result, something immediately appeared out of nothing. God willed it, and it was so.

It is clear that the intention of the writer of Genesis is describing real events that occurred, in today’s parlance, historical narrative.

The creation out of nothing of everything that has been made is a miracle. There is no other way to describe it that I know of.

*1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. *
*2 The same was in the beginning with God. *
*3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. *
4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
John 1:1-4

The clear and concise miracle of creation as written and as the author intended the creation account to be read, as a miraculous event of real history, is refuted only by atheists who subscribe to naturalism and by those people who believe the ‘deep time’ and ‘evolution’ mythology of mankind’s naturalistic philosophy that seeks to deny what is ever so clearly written in the Holy Bible as real history.

The Bible contains all types of literary genres, from Historical Narrative, to Law, to Poetry, to Wisdom Literature, to Prophecy, to Gospels, to Letters (Epistles), and to Apocalyptic Literature.

But it is abundantly clear, or at least, it should be abundantly clear to well educated intelligent people that Genesis squarely falls into the Historical Narrative category.
No ifs or buts, it is clearly an account of real history, that accurately describes the order that God created, and informs us about the Global Flood of Noah’s day as well as many other things that are real history.

God Bless,
jon

[Burrawang]

@rsewell

@Burrawang

it’s not that I am being dogmatic for a literal interpretation, it is that the text itself is a faithful historical description by God Himself, Who inspired the author to write exactly what he wrote.

Sorry, but you do not get to speak for God.

Dear Ron,
I most certainly am not speaking for God, I am saying what is self evident.

In the Beginning there were no human witnesses to see God create.

Hence the ONLY way that the author of Genesis could possibly know what occurred in the beginning is through being inspired by God Himself, Who was present at the Creation and the Flood, Who is an eyewitness to ALL that He Himself created, as He is the Cause of everything that has been made.

God Bless,
jon

[rsewell (RON SEWELL)]

@Burrawang

I most certainly am not speaking for God, I am saying what is self evident.

Now you are speaking for God and everyone else.