We Should Not Arrive at Conclusions Part II

I had requested a serious exegetical critique of my paper so that I might either correct or clarify my line of argument.  I am a sincere seeker of the truth who is prepared to walk away from stated positions that are demonstrated to be incorrect.  I was not seeking approval.  Yet I was expecting a higher level of engagement with him the professor than I received.  Since I had laid my cards on the table at the outset, thereby giving him an opportunity to freely challenge my position, I was anticipating a serious yet eager challenge from him.  So I was surprised and disappointed that he chose to bemoan the fact that I had already taken my stance.  The offering of successful counter-arguments, should he have chosen to provide them, would seem to me to have provided him an opportunity to correct me.  Instead, he complained about an apparent stubbornness on my part.

In light of the total absence of a direct challenge to my specific arguments that point favorably to the day-age position on the creation days of Genesis, I am quite frankly surprised at the certitude with which he holds his position.  The specific set of arguments from the original Hebrew text of the Bible that ground my position will be laid out in my next posting.  What I find most surprising of all at this point is in the opening statement in the body of his letter, namely, “I have never made a special effort to hunt around to see whether anyone has attempted to address this issue in detail. I am unaware of any serious academic commentary on Genesis that treats the question at all for the simple reason that neither those who hold to a traditional view of Genesis 1 or those who hold to a liberal view of Genesis 1 regard this as a serious question [sic].”

The answer to the question of whether there are serious Hebrew scholars who embrace the day-age position on the days of Genesis cannot be legitimately determined by a prejudice that is founded on will-full ignorance.  The Lutheran Church---Missouri Synod has historically taken a decidedly strong young-earth position on creation.  For this reason it is academically inexcusable for him to boast, “I have never made a special effort to hunt around to see whether anyone has attempted to address this issue in detail.”   Neither his decision in advance that this is not a “serious question,” nor  his candid admission that he is “unaware” of serious scholars who embrace the day-age view, can, in truth, be made to harmonize as serious academic inquiry.  The only legitimate way to arrive at the truth of the matter is to take the trouble to investigate every side of each individual argument one-by-one, which is exactly what my paper, “The Biblical Demand to Take Another Look” endeavors to do.

Worse still for the professor, his assertion of a lack of scholarship supporting the day-age position is refuted on the very first page of my paper where I include a roster of top flight Biblical scholars (adhering to the “inerrant Scripture” standard) who disagree with him.  He already had my paper in front of him as of the time of our correspondence.  That, despite his protest that he had already read my paper, he dismissed my listing of such as though it did not appear, renders his verdict that there is no serious scholarship supporting me, illegitimate.

It is not by weight of academic degrees that academic questions are answered, but by the serious level of scholastic investigation that is determined to follow the evidence wherever it actually leads.