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Re: More than you ever wanted to know. . . .



I will make a one-time foray into this thread. My experience with
religious threads in physics groups is that things get pretty chaotic
quickly, and the one thing that everybody agrees on is that we're not
supposed to be having this discussion here anyways.

Sr. Margaret Clarke wrote:

about biblical scholarship. (Well, you guys started it!)

Although a lot of amateur theologians have spent a great deal of effort
trying to find astronomical events correlating to those mentioned in the NT,
most serious scripture scholars believe that the events recounted in the
infancy narratives of MT and LK are not historical (the census, the star of
Bethlehem, the visit of the wise ones, the massacre of the innocents, etc.)
but allegorical. There is plenty written about this.

While it should be no surprise to anybody that there are scipture
scholars who believe the above, this paragraph should raise a few
eyebrows. Compare it with the following statement from sci.physics a
few years ago (quoted to the best of my recollection).

"though most physicists have concluded that the many worlds
interpretation is nothing more than fanciful mathematics, most serious
students of the subject who truly understand many worlds consider it to
be true"

I do not wish to diminish the authority which Sr. Clarke has on which to
speak about the subject, but I don't think that should intimidate
anybody into silence either.

... Sorry if I have stepped on any literalist toes,

I think there are many more than three classes of viewpoint (amateur,
serious scholar, and literalist) to be considered. This is one place
where it is refreshing to hear literalists speak - I generally hear
something like "according to most conservative evangelical
scholars...". On the one hand you may say "if that's who you're going
to quote, of course that's what you'll hear", but I find it refreshing
to hear the bias of the scholars stated up front rather than to have the
authority of others challenged.

My own take is that attempts to reconcile Biblical accounts with
astronomony are anything but "literalist". In fact, the attempt to do
so is rooted in having mainly rejected the Biblical account at the
outset. Take the star for example. A "star" which leads the wisemen
from afar and eventually stops right over the spot 'where the child was'
is obviously not an astromonical "star" but something much closer which
was labelled a "star" by the observers. There is no reason for a
literalist to be looking to reconcile this account with astronomy.

And herein lies the basic problem for scholars of any type. The Bible
provides an account of the work of God. The majority of it is
"providence", some of it is miracles. We can seriously study whether
accounts of a providential nature are backed up by other histories,
astronomy etc, but providence doesn't prove that God was behind it.
Miracles provide a proof of sorts, but only to those directly involved.
How is anybody today supposed to make any serious study of a miracle
that was supposed to have occured 2000 years ago? What is generally
done is more or less like this: we can't say anything about the miracle,
but we can say if the story has been an incorrect interpretation of
something else. So we study and study to try and find some other
explanation that is pretty similar to the story. If we succeed there
was no miracle, and if we fail there was no miracle.... does anybody
start to see a basic problem here?

The darkening of the sun is a good example. Perhaps this was an
eclipse, perhaps not. God could darken the sun as a miracle, or
providentially arrange for and eclipse when S/He wants one. So if there
was an eclipse at the right time, then those who believe say it was
providence while those who don't say it was coincidence. If there
wasn't an eclipse, those who believe say it was a miracle and those who
don't say "you can't prove that". So as interesting as it may be to
look for the appropriate eclipse - it does nothing towards helping bring
together opposing points of view.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Doug Craigen "Technology with purpose"
http://www.dctech.com