Carl Krieg : Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

First, who is he:

Dr. Carl Krieg

Carl received his BA from Dartmouth College, MDiv from Union Theological Seminary in NYC, and PhD from the University of Chicago Divinity School. He is the author of “What to Believe? the Questions of Christian Faith”, and “The Void and the Vision”. As professor and pastor, Dr. Krieg has taught innumerable classes and led many discussion groups. He lives with his wife, Margaret, in Norwich, VT.

Second, what did he state? In what context?

Your question is whether Paul was a literalist, and to answer that it helps to unpack the various dimensions involved. First, we can ask what the author of the Yahwist narrative in Genesis had in mind. Did that person intend that the story be taken literally, and if not, what does it mean? Second, what did Paul have in mind when he used this story? What was he trying to show? And thirdly, are we obligated to agree with the Yahwist and/or Paul as we seek to understand who we are and who God is?

Let’s start with the last question. The focal point of the Christian life is Jesus of Nazareth, who he was, what he taught, what he did, and how we today walk in that path. What the Yahwist thought millennia ago may be helpful in that enterprise and what Paul thought also may be helpful. Whether or not Paul was a literalist is set within the context of whether we are literalists, and if not, can we disagree with Paul, whatever he says? Put otherwise, is the Bible the absolutely inerrant and authoritative word of God? Historically, we should note that this concept of biblical inerrancy initially arose after the Reformation in the period known as Protestant Orthodoxy, and was a factor in the Thirty Years war, in which about 8 million died.

It is possible that some Protestant sects from splitting from Rome up to developing a theology called Lutheran Orthodoxy or Anglican Orthodoxy or Calvinist Orthodoxy momentarily lacked Biblical inerrancy, and so that it arose again within that period.

I'd like to see some solid proof of this even momentary lack, if so. Perhaps he was thinking of Calvin doubting historicity of book of Jonah. I seem to recall such a claim from part of Reflections on the Psalms, my least favourite work by C. S. Lewis, which I laid aside. Deducing from one such "genre transfer" an overall genre transfer of Biblical history in general is at least hasardous.

But saying it initially arose then is claiming Catholics before and just after the Reformation were not Biblical inerrantists, which we clearly were.

And saying it was a factor in the Thirty Years War (whatever the number of battle causalties and innocent victims) is a fudge factor.

If Lutherans and Catholics and Calvinists in the Thirty Years War all believed Biblical inerrancy, it was at least not a factor in dividing them from each other. It was of course a factor in making the divided area of knowledge one of objective knowledge, one one could seriously quarrel about. If they hadn't so believed, they would have been making war about some other area they believed objectively real, like Capitalists, Fascists and Communists have killed quite a lot more of each other during the last century.

If the war was about revealed religion being objective and yet divided, as to its claims, it is at least as arguable the Reformation caused the relevant division and therefore the war. CMI just mentioned Calvin as inerrantist about Genesis 1. Council of Trent did not contradict him, since the position he argued against was that of St. Augustine, which was minoritarian among Church Fathers. We do need to take all Church Fathers seriously in taking Genesis 3 as a literal event of historic type of occurrence and type of our knowledge of it. Which is what the question is about.

And we have no use for the Academic inerrancy that would make the Yahwist a literal historic person, distinct from the Elohist.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Visitation of the Blessed Virgin
to Elisabeth
2.VII.2020

PS, as to source, go to this link and scroll:

https://progressingspirit.com/2020/07/02/even-in-2020-gratitude-is-my-religion/

scroll past "Even in 2020, Gratitude is my Religion
Column by Rev. Fran Pratt on 2 July 2020"

Down to the "Question
In looking at how the Jews see the Adam and Eve story – that it was a story of taking responsibility and moving out of innocence etc. How does this reconcile however with Paul ( a Jew) in Romans Ch5 where he appears to take on a more traditional even literal approach with Adam and Sin entering in , The Fall etc. ?"

and to the "Answer
by Dr. Carl Krieg"

That's it./HGL

PPS, the view here attributed to "the Jews" refers to Modernist Jews (probably extending past Liberal into Conservative), I don't think Torah Emesh writer Roger Pearlman would agree./HGL