View was puzzling for another reason: evangelicals’ public commitment to the My inability to find many evangelical scholars who support the traditional Reject the author’s intent? When a Day Is Not a Day So why would almost the entirety of evangelical scholarship The writer of Genesis 1–2 meant the text to teach chronology I could go on, listing dozens and dozens of names, but there is no need. That the world was created in six literal days-is nearly universally held.” 4 Held within secular academia, the position-that the author of Genesis 1 maintained To me that said, “Although the Young Universe Creationist position is not widely Is a young man of encyclopedic knowledge named Peter Williams. Its history some of the top scholars have been its “warden.” The current warden It is perhaps the best such facility in the world. Outside of Cambridge University in England. There is a residential theological research library called Tyndale House, located This view.” 3 Here was confirmation from a Jewish man who spoke and thought in “For the biblical people this was history, difficult as it is for us to accept He would be on anyone’s list of Hebrew experts. I also emailed Barr’s letter to Emanuel Tov of Hebrew University Jerusalem This unless they were already committed to some alternative by other considerations that do not arise from a straightforward reading of the Hebrew text as it stands.” 2 I have not met any Hebrew professors who had the slightest doubt about In an email he responded, “So far as theĭays of Genesis 1 are concerned, I am sure that Professor Barr was correct. Oxford is perhaps the most prestigious university in the world, and Williamson Hugh Williamson is the current Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford University. Today, so I tracked down several leading experts to ask their opinion. I wondered what modern “world-class” Hebraists would say about Barr’s statement In the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from theīeginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story.” 1 Were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience (b) the figures contained Readers the ideas that (a) creation took place in a series of six days which Who does not believe that the writer(s) of Gen. Know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university Of Oxford University, had written in a letter twenty years ago, “So far as I One of the best Hebraists in the world, James Barr Knew that modern critical scholars think the day-age view and the more recentįramework hypothesis are grammatically untenable from the standpoint of the This experience bothered me so badly that I started doing more research. Did the majority of evangelical scholars reallyīelieve that the Hebrew text failed to support the traditional view? Did theyīelieve that no one who studies Hebrew seriously believes that God supernaturallyĬreated everything in six days a few thousand years ago? Time for Investigation Others assured theĪudience that Enuma Elish, and the like, were the key to understanding Some scholars began to openly mock the traditional view. Meeting and attended their session on Genesis 1–2. Old Testament scholar who held the traditional view that the world was createdĭuring my search, I even went to the national Evangelical Theological Society The school stumbled on a serious problem-we could not find a nationally recognized Two-day conference and let them present their cases for different ways to read The goal was to gather all the major evangelical scholars for a Last year the school decided to host one on the proper reading of I teach at a Christian college that hosts a conference every year on a contemporary Study of Hebrew since then has reaffirmed the supernatural nature of God’s Word Work in England on the New Testament use of the Old Testament, and my continuous Has remained a passion of my life for almost thirty years. In spite of skeptical attacks, the Hebrew language The Bible, however, has an intrinsic, self-authenticating power-a power even The Bible, however, has an intrinsic, self-authenticating power-a power even skeptics cannot destroy. So I anxiously wondered how studying Hebrew in a secular setting They believed that scholars are over, rather than under, I knew at the core of this secular approach to Bible study was the axiom that Was a book like any other book-written only by man and full of errors. Most of them believed that evolutionĭisproved Christianity once and for all. For them, the myth Enuma Elish was more important for understanding I knew that the religion department doubted the authorship of Old Testamentīooks. I hadīeen a Christian for only two years, and I wanted to learn that language. The professor was an expert in Hebrew from Yale University. In 1983, as a Junior, I walked into the University of Georgia’s religion building
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