Dr. Randall Buth refutes accusation made against me on CARM
On one of CARM’s discussion boards, “En Hakkore” accused me of misrepresenting and misunderstanding Dr. Randall Buth the author of chapter 5 in the book “Biblical Hebrew and Discourse Linguistics”. My position in my DVD series is that the Hebrew grammar in Genesis chapter 2 shows that the garden of Eden and the animals spoken of in chapter 2 were created after Adam’s creation.
Yesterday I received an email back from Dr. Randall Buth confirming that I do indeed understand his writing correctly and this is how the grammar of Genesis 2 reads and that the NIV incorrectly applies a pluperfect wayyiqtol rule when translating Genesis 2:8 and 2:19 to make these refer to a past event. Instead the verbs in these two verses should be translated as they are intended as sequential within the account in chapter 2.
Dr. Buth also brought up something that is very important in understanding scripture. He commends a “willingness to let the text be whatever it is and not to sub-ordinate it to “presuppositionalism”.
When we assume that God created both male and female animals at the same time, we are then forced to take a passage that shows that the animals were created after Adam (Genesis 2) and make this passage refer to the exact same animals that were created in Genesis 1. Dr. Buth says that we need to just let the text be whatever it is. What the text “is” is a sequential creation of animals after Adam’s creation in Genesis 2.
CARM and especially the vice president of CARM have been quick to try to accuse me of false teaching without ever going to the source of the material that I quote. This is unacceptable for an organization whose goal is to present an apologetic reasoning for the Christian faith. Rather we need to do what the Bible tells us to do:
1 Thessalonians 5:21 (ISV) Instead, test everything. Hold on to what is good