The book of this title is by Steven Boguslawski (see biblio. info at end of this post). From the title, one might expect a book full of “quotes on jews,” but actually, it is a theological Continue reading…
Biblical
Ken Ham and his associates regard the Mosaic commandment against incest Continue reading…
One Blood, a book by Ken Ham, C. Wieland, and D. Batten (see detail at bottom) is a creationist attack against “racism.” Continue reading…
There are a variety of topics in our current discourse, such as racial linguistic reference, and the question of the desirability of integration in church or state, to which our disputants often have a ready argument: “there will be no race in heaven; therefore we should operate as if that were the case now.” As will prove to be the case again and again, both the major and minor premises of modern truisms are generally dubious. Here I wish to analyze a premise that functions as the “minor” in that argument, and is taken as “obvious” even by intelligent people today. Namely, the idea that “there will be no race in heaven.” Continue reading…
In the comments section to a previous post, somebody asked if Continue reading…
The following article was part of the Minority Report of the Committee to Study the Framework Hypothesis for the Presbytery of Southern California of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, October 15-16, 1999. It is also found in Kenneth L. Gentry and Michael R. Butler, Yea Hath God Said: The Framework Hypothesis/Six-Day Creation Debate (Eugene Oregon: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2002). Continue reading…
Framework hypothesis advocates are sensitive to the related charges that their interpretation of Genesis 1 is novel and that this novelty is, at least in part, due to making concessions to modern scientific timelines of the age of the earth. The charge of novelty is a serious one. If the framework view is so apparent in the text of Genesis 1, as some advocates have contended,1 how could the church have missed it for so many years? This is tied to the next question: why is it that this view of the text did not arise until after the arrival of modern geological, astronomical and biological theories of the age of the earth?
In response to these questions, the framework proponents trump Augustine as an example of an early advocate of the view. Henri Blocher, for example, contends, “… the framework theory, is not, as is too often imagined, an innovation of the modern age. Augustine…constructed a brilliant and startling interpretation of the days in De Genesi ad litteram.”2 Lee Irons is even more adamant. “The framework interpretation in its modern form builds upon Augustine’s view and is in fundamental continuity with it.”3
The claim that Augustine’s interpretation is a precursor of the framework hypothesis is highly contestable, but for the sake of argument, let’s assume that Augustine’s interpretation of Genesis 1 is indeed a forerunner to this view. This granted, the claim that the framework hypothesis is novel is proved false and the suspicion that it arose in order to allow the Bible to comport with modern scientific dogma is less credible. Continue reading…
Advocates of the Framework Hypothesis recognize that considerations of the literary structure of Genesis 1 is not in itself sufficient to establish their conclusion that the narration of the six days of creation in Genesis 1 is topical and figurative rather than chronological and literal. They, therefore, have put forth a supplementary argument based on considerations from Genesis 2:5. Meredith Kline is the originator of the argument, but many others have picked up on it. Mark Futato summarizes it thus:
The ["Because It Had Not Rained"] article demonstrated that according to Gen 2:5 ordinary providence was God’s mode of operation during the days of creation. Since God’s mode of operation was ordinary providence, and since, for example, light (Day 1) without luminaries (Day 4) is not ordinary providence, the arrangement of the six days of creation in Genesis 1 must be topical not chronological.
Kline and Futato contend that Genesis 2:5 provides an important insight into how we are to understand the creation week. Since, on this interpretation, God used ordinary providence (rain) to maintain earth’s vegetation, we should infer from this that ordinary providence was the modus operandi of the creation week. That is, God’s ordinary way of maintaining his creation obtained during the period of his creation of the heavens and earth and was only punctuated at certain intervals by his creative fiats. This being the case, it is obvious, for example, that the creation of light on one day and light bearers on another is a violation of ordinary providence. And so we are not to read Genesis 1 as a chronology of God’s creative works, but as a “semi-poetic” topical arrangement of how God fashioned the world in its present form. Continue reading…
