Wednesday, July 3, 2013

BLOGGERS BELIEF - DR SUJIN PAK

I stumbled upon a site called BIOLOGOS which is a go to site for those looking to back up their religion with science, or at least attempt to, and it does so in much the same way as AIG with one big difference; they believe that evolution is a product of creation. 
BioLogos is a community of evangelical Christians committed to exploring and celebrating the compatibility of evolutionary creation and biblical faith, guided by the truth that “all things hold together in Christ.” [Col 1:17]
In essence this is an online magazine with one of it's features being the blog page, which is where I found Dr Sujin Pak. Dr Pak is the author of The Judaizing Calvin: Sixteenth-Century Debates over the Messianic Psalms which was published in 2009, she got her PhD in Theological Studies from Duke University.

Sujin's writing flows very nicely so her blog is easy to read and follow. I have chosen to talk about her 3 part blog called Pre-modern Readings of Genesis 1. The blog is written as matter-of-fact as possible about her own personal belief, as is her right, but not from her own personal belief. In other words her own thoughts are not revealed in her writing making this an excellent article based blog rather than an opinion column. This is a great place to start if you want to back up your own beliefs of creation with the musings of ancient scholars. One could call her blog one big argument from authority but it's not, it's her account of what we thought we knew 1600 years ago. 

She hits upon a key part of Christianity and that is the interpretations set forth by many in the past that have, in turn, split off from the original belief system bringing rise to the many, many sects of Christianity we see today. Dr Pak also covers some of the obvious questions that need to be answered by fundamentalist Christians such as the meaning of day, why was there light before the sun and moon were created and what is gods image we were created in.

The blog suggests that Dr Pak didn't intend to answer those questions with any more clarity than past philosophers or even to come up with any evidence of the existence of god, instead she has illustrated that the questions we have about Genesis 1 are not new and have, in fact, been plaguing biblical scholars for centuries.  In other words, join the club.


I write this blog because it is a passion of mine to explore the myth of god and along the way even I learn some cool stuff but it takes a lot of time and energy to write this blog.  If you enjoy reading this blog please make a donation by clicking the DONATE button on the right so I can put more time into creating a better blog.

Thank you all
Justin 
 











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