You know, the Creationism stuff is a really good example where we tend to assume
that the Bible and the biblical writers were writing what they write to answer our questions.
Okay.
Amen! Brother.
Like they're writing to us.
No, they're writing to the people that were alive when they were alive.
So, take us back 3000 years, maybe even 5000 years. And we are before the Greeks,
and we're not platonic. And get us into, you know, in your book you've talked about
how the writers of Genesis, in particular,
had a view of God that I don't know, that we are that familiar with.
Yeah.
Help us unpack that.
A lot of this discussion can sound really complicated, but it's actually really simple.
You know, if you're someone living 5,000, you know, 10,000 years ago or whatever,
you have some really simple beliefs. You wonder about,
and you point this out in your lectures too, you know, all these this big picture stuff;
how did we get here? who's responsible for this? I know I'm not and my wife isn't,
you know, my maid or my brother, he's not.
So there's got to be something else going on here. And so if you can't attribute,
if you can't get answers from what you experience with your senses,
you're very naturally going to gravitate to something beyond you.
So you have this assumption, something bigger than me is responsible in some way
for all this stuff, including me, it's a very simple thought, but it's equally profound.
But it's very simple. And you have another thought, Well, you know, in this world,
life is kind of better if it's organized. You know, it just kind of works better
as opposed to chaos. So I'll bet that whatever other entities, deities, whatever,
that inhabit this spiritual world, this other world, this otherness.
They're smarter than us. So if we can see that order is good. They probably can, too.
They would probably prefer order and hierarchy, than just pure chaos.
So again, it's a very simple thought.
And, you know, the ancient person is going to be thinking in these modes,
and so they're going to try to describe how it is they're conceiving these things
through the vocabulary they have, and the vocabulary they have is naturally linked
to what is accessible with their five senses, the things that they experience.
So they're going to be using metaphors, like the planting metaphor
for where babies come from. Now they know what sex is, obviously,
but they're going to use a planting metaphor because they're used to that.
You put something in the ground, it grows, okay. You know, life comes from the earth.
Well, you know, I put the seed in this woman and life comes, she has a baby.
So it's a very natural metaphor for how we get this baby.
Why do we have these weird laws in the Old Testament about seminal emissions,
and menstruation and blood, you're rendered ritually unclean?
Well, it's because if you lose enough blood, you're gonna die. Okay,
and if you die, then you're not alive. So that God is the source of life.
So we're going to view blood and the thing that makes babies as something from God,
that God gives us so that we stay alive. Lifeforce versus death.
And since life is associated with the Deity, if you lose one of these fluids,
you can't enter his presence for a while. Okay, these are really simple, ritualistic thoughts,
that reinforce a certain set of ideas. Now, when it comes to the unseen world.
You know, circle back to your question here, we assume that
we have this other reality and that it's organized.
And so what the biblical writers do, and not just biblical writers,
but the ancient Near Eastern people who have given us their literature,
is they organize that other world. They use typically metaphors of royal court language
in Divine council court. God is a king. The king has courtiers, he has an entourage.
The family members get the most important positions.
There's just this kind of thinking and so when the biblical writers are describing
how this other world runs. They're going to use the language at their disposal.
What else would they use? Language that isn't at their disposal?
I mean, it just doesn't make any sense.
They're not downloaded with some special knowledge to be able to express this.
I always get into this when we talk about creation and evolution. I'm on the BioLogos side.
And this is why I was interested in... honestly, I don't see any problem with your view Perry.
Good, that's good.
I don't care if you front load the design, it doesn't matter to me. Okay.
Because credit is given where it's due. That's good. Okay. But we tend to,
and the creationism stuff is a really good example where we tend to assume
that the Bible and the biblical writers were writing what they write to answer our questions.
Okay.
Amen! Brother.
Like they're writing to us.
No, they're writing to the people that were alive when they were alive.
You know, otherwise... this is what I call, a lot of Christians have what I call
The X-Files view of inspiration.
That is that the Prophet wakes up one morning and he's making breakfast
and all of a sudden, he's zapped, and his mind goes blank,
he uses loses the use of his arms and hands. And something happens and he wakes up
and he looks down and there's a scroll there. And he goes,
"man, I can't wait to read what I just wrote."
I have said to many audiences, if you strip the humanity
out of this doctrine we call inspiration, you undermine it.
Because what you actually find in the text doesn't conform to this picture.
If everybody's getting downloaded with advanced knowledge, well, then
why isn't there a biblical Hebrew word for brain?
You know, like, is the seed of emotions and rationale.
Why do we hit kidneys and heart and all that? Why is that?
We make these assumptions about what's going on and they just don't hold.
If the Holy Spirit's behind the prophet, whispering in his ear every word,
I'll put a comma there and now use a semicolon. This dictation, or sort of pseudo dictation,
because lots of people want to deny that they view the dictation view,
but there really isn't much distinguishable from it.
But then why do we have in the first three verses of Ezekiel,
a change from the first to the third person?
The Holy Spirit can't make up his mind who he is?
Am I the first person or I'm the third person? It just doesn't make any sense.
And literally, every page of the Bible has something that defies
a mechanistic X-Files view of inspiration, all of it. And that's a serious problem.
So, what we have with the Bible is; is an ancient document.
It describes the world of the writers in the language they have at their disposal.
It describes their conception of the other world, using their own language,
and their own experience, their own metaphor to express certain ideas.