Monthly Archives: May 2015

The meaning of man

Posted on 29/05/2015 by Jon Garvey

I’ve been thinking about the best approach to covering more themes from John H Walton’s important new book, The Lost World of Adam and Eve. For myself, I think I prefer to pick on particular ideas in it that may be fruitful. If one of the other Hump writers should wish to do a full review, I’m sure that would complement anything say.

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The oldest religion

Posted on 26/05/2015 by Jon Garvey

One of the common apologetic themes back in mediaeval and early modern Christianity was that the antiquity of Hebrew religion over the alternatives – in particular the Greek pantheon – gave it de facto legitimacy. That argument has, of course, worn thin in the light of both archaeological and historical studies. But the reconstruction of an historical Adam which I’ve been describing in the last couple of posts, based on the excursus by N T Wright in John Walton’s new book gives it a new theological (as opposed to apologetic) impetus.

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Knowledge falsely so-called

Posted on 24/05/2015 by Jon Garvey

In my last post I began with the picture of Adam’s (and through him, of mankind’s) intended role in God’s creation of sacred space, as suggested in various writings by J H Walton, G K Beale, J R Middleton and, in an excursus to Walton’s new book, N T Wright. This was my abridgement of Wright’s treatment: This leads me to my proposal: that just as God chose Israel from the rest of humankind for a special, strange, demanding vocation, so perhaps what Genesis is telling us is that God chose one pair from the rest of early hominids for a special, strange, demanding vocation. This pair (call them Adam … Continue reading →

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The Lost World of N T Wright

Posted on 21/05/2015 by Jon Garvey

I’ve already suggested that we ought to do a full review of John Walton’s important new book, Lost World of Adam and Eve here. But since it consists of 21 propositions, it’s maybe less daunting to make a cautious start by mentioning the “excursus” in Proposition 19 by celebrated New Testament scholar N T Wright.

Posted in Adam, Creation, Science, Theology | 2 Comments

The mystery of artificial selection

Posted on 18/05/2015 by Jon Garvey

Things have been quiet on The Hump for the last week because I was on holiday in one of the most beautiful places on earth (not counting here), close by the second biggest natural harbour in the world. You guess. I caught the end of a piece on TV there that led me to further reading, about Robert Bakewell, the father of selective breeding of livestock.

Posted in History, Science | 2 Comments

Infinite libraries without books

Posted on 08/05/2015 by Jon Garvey

My attention was caught by a piece about a New York guy, Jonathan Basile, who has tried to “create” an online instantiation of the fictional Library of Babel imagined by author Jorge Luis Borges in a fantasy tale of 1941. I’ve mentioned Borges before in a reference from Michel Foucault’s book, or else I confess I’d never have heard of him, still less read him.

Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Science | 2 Comments

Order, unorder and the boundary between

Posted on 06/05/2015 by Jon Garvey

In my last post  I explored the theological concepts of order, unorder and disorder in creation, as outlined in John Walton’s book The Lost World of Adam and Eve. The concept is a useful one in making sense of much biblical teaching, as well as in the general sense of showing how it is not biblically necessary for everything in the universe to be perfectly optimal in order to be part of God’s “good” creation. Indeed, the Bible itself suggests that such perfection was always a future intention.

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Order, unorder, disorder

Posted on 04/05/2015 by Jon Garvey

Edward Robinson’s recent piece on The Hump about John H Walton reminds me that we ought to do a proper review of his excellent and important new book, The Lost World Of Adam and Eve at some stage. This does for the Adam and Eve story what his earlier books did for the Genesis 1 creation narrative, whilst updating and expanding his previous ideas in the light of further study and both scholarly and popular feedback.

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