John in your comment on the Forked Tongue post the other day, you mentioned that giant of theological insight Gordon Cheng.
A post on the Anglican blog reminded me of another giant: John Dixon. He who looks deeply into Genesis 1 and finds hidden clues to its not being direct revelation of events that make sense in this world.
Dixon looks past the obvious structure of Genesis 1: the sequence of days, the 'five-fold formula' and the order of events, to say that the resoundingly obvious intent of the author is not to be found in what he has clearly written, but in is in some structure below the surface...something the church has missed for millenia...I don't think so!
But the great irony in Dixon's and similar appraoches that think the sub-surface of the text carries its main message is that their sub-surface 'code' fails to address the lexical-grammatical content of the text and says nothing about the direct content which the 'code' ultimately sets to one side! It doesn't help us with reading the text because it doesn't really explain why the author wrote 'A' to communicate 'B'. The text turns to dust in the hands of such exegetes.
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So, people like Dixon are saying: we know what Genesis 1 means (doesn't mean) because of a hard to find underlying literary framework. To which I say. No I know what Genesis 1 means becuase of its unremitting, driving, obvious chronological structure that is easy to find, understand and interprets directly and meaningfully in the world in which we live!
I hope to post something tomorrow continuing the theme of understanding the Word of God.
I also hope that people like John Dickson will seriously consider their position.
Sam Drucker
Fat chance, Sam; because its THEIR position...
One lives in hope!
Sam Drucker
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