what is known from science, notably in the areas of the origins of the
cosmos, life, and humanity. He prefers to locate the meaning for these
texts in the author(s) and the ancient culture. Drawing on the classic con-
cept of dual authorship of the Scriptures, both human and divine, he sees
God as accommodating self-revelation to the beliefs of “incidental ancient
science,” that is, ancient beliefs about the nature, processes, structure,
and origins of physical reality. God did not correct those beliefs by con-
tradiction but rather used them to communicate “Divine Theology” or
“Messages of Faith.” Once a Message of Faith is perceived in a text, the
incidental ancient science used as a “vessel” to communicate it can be set
aside as not relevant for contemporary beliefs. 40 He notes that biblical
authors did indeed write from phenomenological perspectives, as contem-
porary authors sometimes do (e.g., the sun rising in the east), but the dif-
ference is that contemporary authors realize that reality is different from
their phenomenological description, whereas the biblical authors believed
that the world did work that way. 41
Lamoureux claims to view Scripture and science as “complementary,” 42
with biblical or “Divine Theology” speaking to different areas than natural
science. However, when biblical statements about physical reality confl ict
with current scientifi c fi ndings, his hermeneutics–science (as opposed to
theology–science) model seems to be one of confl ict, 43 with the fi ndings of
contemporary science being over against the beliefs of “ancient incidental
science.” Such biblical statements are to be recognized as being contradic-
tory to reality, taken as incidental to the inspired Message of Faith, and
seen as being used by the divine author in an accommodating way to com-
municate that Message of Faith to the ancient audience. 44 Thus, his her-
meneutical approach rejects the contexts both of reality and of the human
author’s intentionality for the statements of incidental ancient science and
focuses instead on the divine author’s intention as the central context for
their meaning.
A second example can be drawn from the recent infl uential work of
John Walton on Genesis 1–3. 45 In the opening “proposition” of The Lost
World of Adam and Eve , Walton claims to belong to an author-centered
hermeneutical approach. However, like Lamoureux, he holds that in the
Scriptures, “two voices speak,” that is, the voices of God and of the human
author. God accommodated revelatory communication to both the human
author and the original audience of Genesis in a “high-context” commu-
nicative setting, “in which the communicator and audience share much
in common.” 46 Walton focuses on Ancient Near Eastern literary patterns,
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