Here’s a transcript of a recent round of email correspondence with one of my old seminary professors. This bit of whining isn’t really the start of my blog — unless it is.
17 August
Dear Dr. ___
When I was at ___ in the late 70s I greatly admired your teaching and scholarship. Since getting my MDiv I’ve had zero contact with the old school. Now I approach you with some trepidation.
I’ve been working on an exegesis of Genesis 1 (yes, another one). It’s a literal exegesis, but I suppose it manifests the “postmodern” approach in a fairly rigorous sense. It’s a close reading, but a “post-structural” one; that is, it doesn’t rely on the rest of the Bible as interpretive context. As a result, that pathway takes some unexpected turns.
Briefly, I assert that the creation narrative has a narrator, an eyewitness to the events described. The “Let there be X;” and there was X creation formula is read as a dialogue between elohim and the witness, where elohim is teacher and the witness is student. Elohim asserts a series of scientific propositions about the material universe, and the witness confirms his understanding of these propositions. In the end the witness becomes like elohim: able to make sense of the world he inhabits, able thereby to use this knowledge to subdue the earth. In essence, and ironically, Genesis 1 becomes a text about elohim creating an empirically-based natural science.
I think it’s a pretty sound exegesis, though clearly not an orthodox one. It does solve certain problems in the current creation-vs-evolution controversy, only to open a different can of worms.
I’ve written a book embedding the exegesis in a broader interpretive and cultural context, but I’m not sure if anyone besides me will find it interesting. Not being an academician or a radio talkshow host, I have no ready-made platform from which to launch publication success. So, starting this week, I’ve been lurking around in the internet looking for people who might resonate with what I’ve done. The creation science people are too dug in to their own interpretations to look at mine; the evolutionists are interested mostly in Bible studies that debunk Scriptural accuracy.
Now I’ve come across the “emergents.” Having never heard of them before, I started reading some of their stuff. It’s kind of interesting, though I haven’t yet figured out the content of their “conversation.” In this search I found a reference to your critiques. I read one of your articles online: civil, reasonable and rigorous.
So, I wonder if you’d be interested in seeing what I’ve come up with. I understand that your a New Testament specialist, but I’d bet good money that your knowledge of the Old Testament and of Hebrew exceeds mine by a long shot. Also, as a kind of spokesman for “traditional evangelicalism” in the discussion with the emergents, you might have an interest in what I at least regard as a civil, reasonable and rigorous — if perhaps heretical — treatment of a Biblical text.
I’ve posted the exegesis on a website — the Introduction Page can be found by clicking here. If it captures your interest you can read the whole exegesis on that website. The rest of the book deals with the current controversy, early church debates, creativity within the Reformation, and the ascendancy of a hedonic ethos of creativity. Following the exegesis I discuss implications for an “elohimic ethos of creation” that contrasts with hedonism and social Darwinism. I can, if you like, email you the rest of the book.
I probably will send an email also to Dr. ___, from whom I learned to enjoy the exegetical practice. What his position is regarding the emergents I don’t know — but I don’t know my own position in that regard either.
Sincerely,
John Doyle
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August 20
Dear Mr. Doyle:
Thanks for your email of 17 August. Unfortunately, so many book-length manuscripts are offered me, usually several a week, that I simply have to turn down the overwhelming majority of them. Sorry!
With all good wishes,
Yours faithfully,
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20 August
Dear Dr. ___
Thank you for your timely response, in which you graciously declined to look at my manuscript called Creating Like Gods. It’s disheartening to think that my book constitutes such an indistinguishably insignificant contribution to the sludge conduit passing through your office that it merits no personalized comment from you or your asssistant as to why my particular offering is chosen for rejection. Wrong topic? Wrong theology? Don’t know me from Adam?
Maybe you could customize your standard rejection letter a little bit; e.g. by cutting and pasting any random phrase from the writer’s petition and saying it doesn’t suit you. Try this:
Dear X,
In your letter of 17 August you say: The “Let there be X;” and there was X creation formula is read as a dialogue between elohim and the witness, where elohim is teacher and the witness is student. Unfortunately, I’m not currentlly pursuing this line of inquiry…
Or how about assigning the unsolicited manuscripts to your students for review? When I was in seminary I would have been thrilled if you or one of my other professors had asked me to preview an unpublished manuscript. You wouldn’t even have had to pay me. Frankly, as an unpublished writter I’d be thrilled to have anybody read my book, even a lowly sem student.
Sincerely,
John Doyle
