Dr. Otto J. Helweg, P.E.
Dean Emeritus, College of Engineering and Architecture, NDSU
U.S. address: 33 Crystal Lane, Maumelle, AR 72113
Over Seas address: PO Box 2343, Kigali, Rwand
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Closure to the Responses
Dr. Otto J. Helweg
I understand the concern both responders have to defend the inspiration of
the Bible. I can also understand the difficulty they have believing I accept
the Bible as God's Word when our hermeneutical approaches are so different.
I do appreciate the editor, Dr. Snelling, placing the disagreements into perspective
by saying, "... we nonetheless accept and treat one another as brethren
in the Lord, our salvation not being dependent on what we believe about the
days of Genesis..." There are so many people who need to hear the Gospel,
that we need to be careful not to allow minor controversies absorb too much
of our time and effort. Of course what one person may consider minor another
may consider major.
Having said this I will address some of the responses of Dr. Shackleford. First,
he believes I use "liberal hermeneutical approaches to undermine Biblical
Authority." The basic issue is how to interpret the various passages of
the Bible. I believe we should look to the Bible as much as possible to see
how it interprets itself. Consequently, I attempt to use a Biblical Hermeneutical
approach that enhances the authority of the Bible,; even though Dr. Shackelford
believes it does the opposite.
Dr. Shackelford believes both the how and who are important in
the creation narratives. I maintain that there is NO how statement in
Genesis One. I would also argue that there is no how in Genesis 2-4,
but to deal with that would go beyond the scope of this response.
Dr. Shackelford writes that my approach "has the distinctive hollow ring
of liberalism." Depending on how one defines the theological spectrum,
I would classify myself as "Biblical." Others have called me "conservative-evangelical."
Dr. Shackelford uses "liberalism" as a pejorative term which introduces
the logical fallacy of petitio principii (begging the question) into
this argument.
The accusation that I have "succumbed to the temptation of seeking to retain
the façade of an authoritative science at the expense of an authoritative
Bible" depends, again, on one's hermeneutical approach. As I concluded
in my article, I subscribe to the "two book" hypothesis. That is,
the Bible is the book of God's Word and the universe is the book of God's works.
Both of these have the same Author and do not contradict each other. I would
argue that unless Dr. Shackelford believes the earth is flat, he also uses this
approach. I believe the Bible itself hints at the possibility of creation interpreting
the Word in Psalm 19:1 and Romans 1:20. This position also has the support of
many Christian scholars through out the history of Christianity.
We clearly disagree on how Augustine would treat this matter. Dr. Shackelford
writes, "Augustine would never have supported a science that was hostile
to the Biblical revelation." However, neither would he have supported an
interpretation of a Biblical passage that was opposed to the obvious facts in
science. For example, in Augustine's, The Literal Meaning of Genesis {1}
(Certainly, as Dr. Shackelford states, before the scientific era), he wrote:
| "Now it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear
a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense
on these topics [cosmological issues]; and we should
take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people
show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn." {2} |
Moreover, Augustine explicitly rejected interpreting
(yÔm) as meaning a 24-hour
day in Genesis 1, though for different reasons than given in my article.
While Augustine, like most of us, would not leap into allegorizing a passage,
nor would he, like most of us, accept some "fact" of physical science
that was contrary to Scripture, he would interpret Scripture in the light of scientific
facts where appropriate.{3}In fact, this hermeneutic
did not originate with Augustine, but he quotes Tertullian{4}
and is, in turn, quoted by Thomas Aquinas in Summa.{5}
Augustine shows a refreshing tentativeness in his interpretation of the whole
creation narrative. It seems he is not dogmatic on any issue that is not central
to salvation and faith.
What Dr. Shackelford calls "the plain sense of Scripture" I would call
"superficial sense of challenging passages that require analysis in greater
depth to fully grasp their meaning." Following Dr. Kaiser and others,{6}
we should approach God's Word as a target where the Gospel is like the bull's
eye, clear and not requiring any sophisticated analysis in any language. However,
as we more toward Genesis and Revelation, the sense becomes less clear and the
rules for hermeneutics more important.
My sense is that Dr. Shackelford still believes I take the Daniel 8:26 passage
out of context. I argue that I was explicitly quoting it in context, as I had
to use the whole vision of Daniel in order to show the singular nouns referring
to a long period of time. The fact that they are also possibly used to refer to
24-hour days in verse 14 only strengthens my argument that the phrase "evening
and morning" refers to different periods of time in different contexts. In
fact, it has been suggested that Daniel had the Genesis use of "evening and
morning" in mind when he wrote his pericope.
Dr. Shackelford writes that "these modifications" to orthodox Christian
interpretation were never given credibility until Darwinism and the Age of Reason."
This statement does not stand the test of historical analysis. The writings of
Tertullian, Augustine, Aquinas, and others clearly demonstrate otherwise. Moreover,
the misinterpretation of the Bible has been occurring since the writings of Paul
(cf. II Peter 3:16).
Finally I do not understand Dr. Shackelford's concluding statement, "There
seems to be something about the prideful heart of man that seeks to force reconciliation
between the Bible and science..." Omitting the word "force," the
work of the Christian apologists consists (to a large extent) in doing just that.
If the heavens do, indeed, tell of the glory of God (Psm. 19:1), we should use
this truth to reach non-Christians for Christ. If God is BOTH creator of the world
AND giver of His Word, we should work to understand how they fit together. This
is the calling God has given to Dr. Hugh Ross and his organization, "Reasons
to Believe." Even if some articles do not exactly agree with our theology,
we should not label this endeavor "Reasons NOT to Believe." While I
might disagree with some of the aims of the Creation Science Foundation, I would
not accuse it of undermining the faith.
It is important for creationists (those who support the young earth and/or the
24-hour interpretation of
in Genesis One) to understand that their discomfort with old earth creationists
and theistic evolutionists is matched by a reciprocal discomfort (embarrassment)
on the part of the vast majority of Christian scientists. While this may not change
our hermeneutical approach to Scripture, it may enable us to disagree in love
(Jn. 17:21-23).
Dr. Fouts's response is more technical with the exception of his opening paragraph.
In it he hypothesized that the editor of Facts and Faith did not publish his response
to my article because it disagreed with my thesis. This is not the case. It is
not the policy of Facts and Faith to decline articles just because they disagree
with their beliefs. In fact they have published articles by young earth creationists
as well as others. The purpose of the publication is to reach a broad audience
and highly technical articles or articles they do not believe informative are
usually not accepted.
The first technical point of Dr. Fouts is that the Genesis One narrative is not
poetic. He did mention the NIV which does interpret it as poetic, so there obviously
are many scholars who would disagree with Dr. Fouts on this account. Remember
that the NIV required that the translators be evangelical Christians, one of the
few translations to do so. This was not the case for the KJV.
However, I would point to Egyptian poetry of that period and give examples of
similar poetic structure.{7} The repetition of phrases
IS a main characteristic of Egyptian poetry and it would be logical for Moses
to use this as not only was he trained in the literature of Egypt, but the people
of Israel, who had lived in Egypt for centuries, would be familiar with it. Even
then, I would not classify it as pure poetry, but narrative in a poetic structure.
If this is correct, we cannot read the creation narratives as mere historical
accounts. They are much more significant than that.
Concerning the interpretation of we
will have to "agree to disagree." Dr. Fouts claims the 
construction "often is simply translated idiomatically as 'when.'" While
this may be, according to Brown, Driver and Briggs,{8}
when the 
is followed by an
infinitive it may form a periphrasis for the gerund, though in English, it is
commonly rendered by a verb and conjunction. They gave no instances of the
prefixed to a noun assuming temporal significance.{9}
We both can find scholars to support our respective translations. I would cite
Gleason Archer for one who would support my exegesis.{10}
The third technical point concerns the "evening-morning" phrase. While
Dr. Fouts agrees it is in the singular (and I apologize for the mixed up transliteration
of the Hebrew in my article, which he correctly pointed out) he disagrees that
it can point to a long period of time. While I agree that the singular phrase
is used as a collective, does this not prove my point? I fail to see why this
precludes the phrase in Genesis One to refer to an indefinite period. I would
further argue that my thesis is strengthened precisely because the Daniel 8:26
passage does refer to Daniel 8:14 where the phrase is prefixed by 2300. That is,
the phrase may refer to 24-hours days OR a long period of 24-hour days. Finally,
while not offering Augustine as a Hebrew scholar, even he interprets the evening-morning
phrase in Genesis One as other than referring to a 24-hour period.{11}
Both responders have referred to "the simple meaning" of scripture.
Having lived in the Middle East for over ten years, I can see, perhaps better
than most, that we, in the "West" tend to read the Bible from our narrow
cultural perspective. It is one thing to study the Greek and Hebrew languages,
but it is quite another to understand the culture in which these words were given.
I have seen many examples of Westerners (American, Europeans, etc.) come to the
Middle East on business, know the language, but completely miss the meaning of
conversations because they did not understand the cultural matrix underlying the
communication. Again, while the Gospel is so clear that one does not have to know
any Jewish culture nor original languages (unlike the Koran, for instance), when
we deal with the more obscure or difficult passages, we must use the more powerful
tools and insights. Even then, we must often be tentative in our interpretations
and can ill afford to be dogmatic.
There is no doubt that God could have created the universe in one second, let
alone six 24-hour days. The issue is, DID HE, or DOES THE BIBLE REQUIRE that interpretation.
I believe the answer to both questions is "No!" Because God did not
tell us how He did it, but gave that as part of our task (to subdue the earth,
Gen. 1:28), we look to science for the answer (God's works). This approach, in
no way, weakens the inspiration and authority of God's Word, but, on the contrary,
strengthens it.
{1} Augustine, 1982, The Literal Meaning of Genesis,
J. H. Taylor (transl.),Newman Press, Ramsey, New York, p. 43
{2} Ref. 1, pp. 9, 103 ff, 134 ff.
{3} Ref. 1, p. 45.
{4} Tertullian, De iciunio,
10.5 (CCL 2.126B:ML2.1017A).
{5} Aquinas, Thomas. 1952,
The Summa Theologica, Vol 1. From: The Great Books Series, Fathers of the English
Dominican Province, rev. Daniel J. Sullivan (transl.) Encyclopaedia Britannica,
Chicago, Part 1, Question 69, Art 1. p. 359
{6} Kaiser, W.S. and Silva,
M., 1994. An Introduction to Biblical Hermeneutics, Aondervan, Grand Rapids,
Also, Dr. William LaSor, Fuller Theological Seminary, verbal communication.
{7} Allen, J. P. Genesis
in Egypt, Yale Egyptological Studies 2:New Haven, 1988, pg 33, Appen. A, etc.
{8} Brown, F, S. R. Drive,
and C. A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford:
London; 1962, pg 91
{9}ibid. BDB translate
the infinitive verb 
,
which precedes
in Gen.
2:4 "when they were created," rendering 
as
a temporal conjunction.
{10}
Archer, G. L. A Survey of Old Testament Introductions, Moody Press:Chicago;
1964 and personal communication.
{11} Op. Cit. Page 135