The hermeneutic auction
First there’s Daniel Harrell’s essay for BioLogos explaining that Adam and Eve were really truly. The introduction (perhaps written by someone else – it’s not clear) says “science does not rule out the possibility of a historical Adam and Eve.” Wull, yes it does. A historical woman and man who were the only humans on the planet and lived about 4 6 thousand years ago? Yes it does. So does history.
Anyway, Harrell explains that we can decide that Eve and Adam were really truly in a different way from being created all of a sudden by god and then filled up with fake DNA to trick everyone.
Can we use “formed” and “breathed” to mean created through the long and continuous history of biological evolution (as were the other living creatures in Genesis 1)? If so, then perhaps “the Lord God formed the man” could be read emphasizing the novelty and uniqueness which humans inhabit.
Yeah, we can; sure. It’s a silly way to say that, but hey, whatever floats your boat.
But pesky sciency Richard Dawkins and Jerry Coyne and PZ Myers said it’s silly to bother working out a way to say that Adam and Eve are really truly.
So the president of BioLogos, Darrel Falk, wrote to Dawkins to tell him he’d misunderstood. Dawkins answered to say oh no I didn’t. He didn’t, too. He was saying the second option, partially quoted above, was silly, not that the first one was. Of course the first one is – the first one is just “it was just like it says here on the page.” The point is that the contortionist one is silly too.
Now Darrel Falk is all weary and washed out, because here he is offering the middle ground and all these people stomp their foot and say No! we don’t want your damn middle ground.
He wants us to see there is middle ground between saying Adam and Eve were really truly in just the way the bible says, and saying there were no such people as Adam and Eve. He wants to make it a matter of negotiation and adjudication and splitting the difference, rather than a matter of getting it right. What should we do, bargain away a bit at a time? They lived five thousand years ago. Ten thousand. A million. No? Five hundred thousand? Sold! They were part of a group of forty humans. Sixty. A hundred. A hundred thousand. No? Ten thousand? Sold! They had parents and grandparents. They had ancestors going back ten generations. They had ancestors going back a thousand generations. No? Fifty? Sold!
And then that’s what goes in the textbooks, and that becomes the consensus? Or what? What’s Darrel Falk looking for? What kind of middle ground is he talking about? Epistemic? Political? Both at once?
It won’t do. Either way it won’t do. Even if it’s just political, it won’t work, because it will be so obvious when all the sciencey types go right on saying humans began to split from other apes some 6 million years ago whenever they’re not doing politics.
Another cunning plan breaks down.
House of Reason vs. House of Religion
What this episode proves, beyond a doubt, is that science/religion accommodationism leads to nonsense, and that House of Religion organisations like Biologos are simply trespassers in the House of Reason, a trespass which is bound to lead to the crazy distortions and delusions of the hermeneutic auction. Surely, Dawkins’ response is decisive:
Why indeed should anyone imagine otherwise? The interesting thing is that, since the whole question of accommodation has been hotting up over the last year or two, the suggestions from the House of Religion are becoming, if anything, more and more ridiculous. Just shows to go ya! The whole enterprise is doomed from the start, as you and Jerry and PZ and Dawkins, etc. etc., have been saying from the start.
The hermeneutic auction – I have to change the title. Brilliant, Eric!
You ought to register that as a domain name, Eric. The best I can come up with would be epistemic eBay!
Even if the idea of death coming after the “fall” were metaphorical in the sense that individuals realize we are going to die, it is almost certain that this realization of individual mortality arose in the human lineage before Homo sapiens appeared on the scene. The Genesis authors, if fed revelations from YWHW, would have known this. Then again, they got so many other things wrong that one has to wonder why people waste their time on apologetics.
Oh, goodness, this is giving me belly laughs! It’s always the middle-grounders, the accommodationists, who come out looking desperately silly. And pathetic. Yes, the fundamentalists are vile, but they are, at least, not pulling any punches.
The religious folks who resort to apologetics do so because (as Dan Dennett has pointed out) it would offend their sense of intellectual integrity — whatever remains of it — to make the stark and simple affirmation that various kooky bits of scripture are literally and historically true. So they lay a heavy gloss on the bit of scripture, dress it up with misdirection, strained “metaphors,” Humpty-Dumptyist re-definitions of words such as “form” and “breathe,” a little hand-waving, and a few scientific-sounding terms dropped here and there. Then they can speak or write the end product, the apologetic, and look themselves in the mirror with less embarrassment.
I won’t do a horrible massive cut-and-paste like a I did last time on this topic, but you really must read the comments on the original Biologos page. There is no more compelling evidence that accommodationism is a sham than the words of the people themselves, the people Chris Mooney et al. think can be “reached” (whatever that means; has to do with cookies, probly).
OK, just one snip to whet your appetitite:
Here. Have some more:
http://biologos.org/blog/on-living-in-the-middle/#comments
“Another cunning plan breaks down.” It really is Baldrick-esque, isn’t it? Funny piece, OB, made me laugh.
I apologize for suggesting that BioLogos was a home for the scientifically literate superstitious. It’s a home for evangelical blowhards. “Yeah, so I ran into these two atheists on the way over here. I bet they thought they were going to get the best of me, but they won’t soon forget the beating I gave them. Hey, gimme a shot of that blood.”
The four thousand years ago must be an ambit claim, because it’s well known that they were created in 4004 BC (in October IIRC). I.e. pretty much exactly 6000 years ago.
I don’t know why you’re knocking the middle-grounders. If one friend says the habitat of polar bears is the Arctic and another friend says it is the Antarctic, surely any reasonable person can resolve the dispute by compromising on the equator. Who needs facts?
‘ If one friend says the habitat of polar bears is the Arctic and another friend says it is the Antarctic, surely any reasonable person can resolve the dispute by compromising on the equator.’
That would explain ‘Lost’ then.
Hahahahahahahahaha Dave.
Oh dang Russell, you’re right, what was I thinking – I forgot my Bishop Ussher.
What it shows is how little the so-called “middle ground” exists. Scrutinise those supposedly inhabiting it closely enough and you’ll find they’re closer to one of the margins – and that cuts both ways, of course.
On the evening of 22nd October in the year dot, so the story goes. But, since 6000 years is about as arbitrary a number as you can find for the date of creation, 4000 years will do just as well, James Ussher notwithstanding.
Welll, except that 4000 years ago falls well within Recorded History whereas 6000 years ago things are more safely blurry. I think I transposed 4000 BCE and 4000 years ago while typing.