Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: creation

  • What Could Be More Dangerous than Liberalism?

    If you let your eyes wander up to the header you’ll see that my tag line includes the word “liberal” and not in a negative light. I’ve even written about being a liberal charismatic believer. So if you’re wondering how I can use both labels at once, follow the link. But in certain circles, “liberals” make good enemies, you know, the kind of enemies that you know will help make other people your friends—the enemy of my enemy is my friend, right?

    And so Adrian Warnock points to a post by Micah Fries, titled simply Fighting with Scripture. In this post he speaks of the joys of being Southern Baptism following the conservative resurgence, and how nice it is to know that those around him embrace infallibility and inerrancy. In this portion of the universe, the old enemy, liberalism” has been laid to rest and it is easy to ridicule, at least in these sanitized domains. Now my point here is not to beat up on Southern Baptists. I do not consider those who believe in biblical inerrancy to be either worse Christians or scholars than those who do not. In fact, I hope that more moderate and liberal theologians will read and engage with conservative scholarship. I do like to make the point that those of us who see biblical inspiration differently are not the enemies, and may have something to contribute as well.

    Just a couple of lines from the post:

    Liberalism, of course, reduces God’s word, and in doing so attempts to make a mockery of those who would dare take that word at face value. It assumes a position of great authority, in fact it could be argued that it assumes a position of greater authority than scripture itself as it attempts to “rectify” the “errors” found in the bible.

    When I see “of course” in a sentence like that I must confess that it gets under my skin a bit. You see, I don’t think I “reduce God’s word.” Rather, I attempt to understand God’s word as clearly as possible. I don’t “make a mockery of those who would dare take that word at face value,” in fact, I try to avoid mockery. (There are those who assume that disagreement, especially vigorous disagreement is mockery. I’ll just have to live with that.) But still, the issue here is not whether to take “God’s word” at face value. The question is just what that face value is.

    Let’s illustrate this for a moment from Genesis, the great controversy these days. I’ve just edited, and my company has published, a book titled Creation in Scripture by Herold Weiss. It takes a look at the various ways in which creation is discussed in scripture. What it taught me as I edited it was how much more there was to the “face” of what the Bible has to say about creation than most people realize. There are major texts in scripture that are rarely part of this discussion. Many people who try to discuss creation see a “face” of God’s word that is like viewing a large mountain through the trees. You see a little bit of the mountain where light gets between all the trees. But the mountain is more than what you see in that way.

    And how do I get the face value of scripture? Do I read Genesis 1 & 2 as a 21st century citizen of a scientific era? Do I try to get into the perspective of someone from the ancient world? The face looks considerably different depending on which of those perspectives I take.

    My intent here is not to demonstrate what particular view is better, but rather to show that the simple statement that “liberalism reduces God’s word” is somewhere between inadequate and false. It’s inadequate in the sense that it doesn’t do justice to what moderate and liberal students of scripture do when studying. It’s false because very often the liberal interpreter is actually seeing more of the “face” from which the “value” is derived.

    This reminds me of my discussions with KJV-Only advocates. They refer to any word or phrase that is present in the KJV but not in a modern version as something that has been removed from scripture. In vain does one point out that the best Greek manuscripts do not have the word or phrase in question, and that one might just as well say that the KJV added it to scripture. What are you taking as your standard? More importantly, how are you using and applying that standard?

    In order to have valuable discussions of these points we need to state the questions a different way. Conservatives, moderates, and liberals understand scripture differently. We need to discuss passages on that basis, and examine our hermeneutic first. It’s often valuable to take a passage that is slightly less controversial and ask how we look at that passage. We may well continue to disagree (doubtless in many cases we will), but perhaps we would have a better understanding of why and how.

    I share the concern of the authors I linked with reference to legalism, though I don’t think the accusation that it is “adding to scripture” is the best way to address it. I suspect legalism is more a matter of where we place things in our thinking and acting. Having just taught from Ephesians 2 and done preparation to teach from Ephesians 3, I see a fairly clear relationship between grace and action. It’s not that legalists do too much, though some do, it is that they place rules and their actions in the wrong place in their relationship to God. Grace, God’s grace, comes first.

    In pursuing correct theology, I think we often fall into the same danger. We make theology our works and become legalistic in terms of what people should believe. But placing barriers of knowledge and belief ahead of grace is just as damaging as placing barriers of action. We can get into the position of earning God’s favor through getting things right just as easily as through doing things right, and often with even greater damage.

    Legalism will not be defeated by making sure people’s theology of grace is thoroughly correct and orthodox. Legalism is defeated by grace in action. God’s grace, and yes, God’s grace displayed through God’s people.

  • Quote of the Day: God’s Word and Our Words

    Creation: The Christian DoctrineI’m working on editing Creation: the Christian Doctrine by Edward W. H. Vick. It’s quite an enjoyable task. I regularly learn new things while reading Dr. Vick’s work. In this case he’s talking about knowledge of God. He has already contrasted this with knowledge of the natural universe. We, as finite creatures, cannot by normal means understand the transcendent. Only as God acts and reveals himself can we attain such knowledge.

    It is because God has expressed himself and continues to express himself that God is known. A clear distinction is to be made between the divine reality, the form by which God is expressed, and the knowledge human beings acquire of him.

    …

    So we, the human creatures, cannot by observation, sensation
    and deduction, arrive at a knowledge of God. We use such methods in our successful search for knowledge within the cosmos, but they are not the ways that we can come to a knowledge of God. But as God reveals himself and the Word is grasped, the human can understand the expression by which the revelation is made possible and expressed. We never transcend the limitations of our language, even in speaking of the revealing act of God. We are creatures and our language is anthropomorphic. But that does not mean that there are not poorer and better ways of using our language! The very use of language should remind us that God is transcendent.
    He is Creator. We are creatures. Without the Word, we would know nothing of the transcendent God.

    (Creation: The Christian Doctrine, pp. 54-55, forthcoming from Energion Publications.)

    Vick develops these ideas further in his earlier books History and Christian Faith (distributed by Energion) and From Inspiration to Understanding: Reading the Bible Seriously and Faithfully.

  • What Makes a Doctrine (of Creation) Christian?

    I put “of creation” in parentheses, because the question might be answered in similar ways for other doctrines. What follows is a short quote from a book, Creation: The Christian Doctrine by Edward W. H. Vick, my company is about to release. I’m doing a number of “final” things on it right now. This caught my eye.

    The Christian doctrine of creation is not simply an explanation of the origin of the universe. It holds that God is transcendent and free, that the creatures are contingent and free, that the ongoing world of history and events in the world are purposive, that within that human history the purpose of creation is being revealed, that the Redeemer is the Creator. It also teaches that the creation reaches its fulfilment at the end, at the eschaton.

    All statements of faith are statements about God and his activity.

    Christian statements about God are at the same time statements about Jesus Christ.

    The Christian doctrine of creation results from addressing these questions: What is the meaning and significance of Christian faith? How are we to understand that faith? What is entailed in the fellowship with God that constitutes Christian faith?

    Note that Dr. Vick continues in great detail. The whole book is a bit over 130 pages (it may vary by a page or two once formatting is complete), and is intended as a companion volume to Creation in Scripture by Herold Weiss.

    What do you think?

  • No Apologies for Believing the Bible

    Mark Kellner (Adventist Review, Dec. 8, 2011) says he makes no apologies for believing the Bible. That’s great. Neither do I. (Jan M. Long responded to this at some greater length than I am on the Spectrum Magazine blog, to whom a tip of my hat.)

    I don’t usually pick on my former denomination (I grew up and was educated in the Seventh-Day Adventist Church), but in this case, Kellner seems to make a very common mistake. He fails to distinguish the way he understands the Bible to mean from what the Bible says.

    In this case, he’s particularly concerned with the creation story. Now I understand that this is a very controversial issue on which we can quite easily, and even reasonably disagree. (I note that I consider it much easier to disagree reasonably on the meaning of the biblical text than on the scientific evidence.) But here’s how Kellner phrases it:

    One of the more popular fallacies being floated these days is that the Creation account found in Genesis is an allegory, a “celebration,” much in the way the ancient Hebrews took seven days to mark the inauguration of a temple.

    Nonsense. Either the Creation account is true, or we can all sleep in next Saturday morning.

    But believing the creation story is something other than a historical narrative doesn’t make it less true. If that were the case, we would make many of the Psalms less true than the books of Samuel and Kings, for example, and the parable of the trees (Judges 9:8-15) would be a gross deception. Most of us would regard those other passages as quite true, but true in a different sense than a historical narrative.

    I regard Genesis 1:1-2:4a as liturgy. Liturgy is not less valuable than narrative history. It is valuable in a different way. It conveys different truths in a different way.

    Of course the line about sleeping in next Saturday morning applies particularly to SDAs, who worship on Saturday, and would, based on a number of scriptures, see this as a celebration of creation. On the other hand, an SDA who believed that Genesis 1 was liturgy could celebrate creation next Saturday with every bit as much validity as any other act of worship. I doubt that Jesus was born on December 25th, yet I won’t mind commemorating it on that date. The liturgy may not represent historical detail, but it commemorates a core element of my faith.

    So the Bible may be true or not, but the decision as to whether the Bible is true doesn’t guarantee the same result for my interpretation of it—or anyone else’s.

  • Book Review: Learning God’s Story of Grace

    A great deal of the Bible comes to us in the form of stories, and even the parts filled with propositions have their background in the story of God’s action in history. I believe this is central to the way we should read and apply scripture, and thus I am delighted to have the opportunity to review the book Learning God’s Story of Grace by Elizabeth Reynolds Turnage.

    But first, disclosures. Elizabeth took both Greek and Hebrew from me, and the publisher provided me with a free review copy of the book. I want to thank both author and publisher for this opportunity.

    Including front and back matter, this book is just 128 pages. It’s spiral bound, which is helpful in a book which is likely to be used as a workbook. It is divided into seven lessons plus an epilogue. Each lesson (except for one) is divided into activities for five days. I might have preferred a few more notes on working as a group, which is clearly the place to use this material. Nonetheless, readers should have no problem either leading or participating in a small group using this study.

    The approach begins with engaging a passage of scripture (you can find the details on page 14), and ends with living and then praying the story, thus making it part of your life. From my own experience with small groups, this latter part will be the most challenging as people often shy away from directly moving to action and prayer from what they learn in scripture. Combining both living and praying drives the student to truly make the scripture story part of his or her own life.

    The first lesson uses Psalm 78. I must admit that using that Psalm gives any work on Bible study bonus points. Following that Elizabeth takes on the creation story, but not in the way you might expect. She bypasses all the debates we may have about technical details and brings the story right into our lives. This theme runs through the rest of the book, tying creation with the new creation. I’m reading two manuscripts on creation for my own company, both to be released next year, and each of those authors emphasizes that for a doctrine of creation to be truly Christian it must be Christ-centered, and join creation and new creation.

    At the same time as she leads students through an approach to Bible study, Elizabeth also leads them through the overarching story of scripture, the story that contains all the rest of our stories.

    I believe that any Bible student, Sunday School class, or small group would benefit from this study. Much of it is extremely simple in its intellectual content, and rightly so, but at the same time it is very challenging as a spiritual discipline. It is so easy to become very educated on complex details of theology without making it part of one’s own life. This book provides an antidote to that problem.

    I enthusiastically recommend this little book to those who want to let God’s Word change their lives.

     

  • Careful Where You Point Your Bible

    At the beginning of the month I wrote a post about pointing texts at yourself first. I think it’s important to do so both in order to avoid misinterpretation or unbalanced emphasis, but also because in communicating the message you will do better in expressing something that has convicted you first. The temptation, of course, is to major on the texts that don’t get under my own skin, but which tell other people what they need to change. But I think that’s a dangerous course of action.

    Coincidentally, I received some e-mails shortly after I posted that. The person in question was not responding to my post, but rather to my position on Bible versions (he is KJV-Only) and on the creation/evolution controversy (he’s a young earth creationist). Though I do reserve the right to post e-mails that are sent to me, I’m going to leave this individual anonymous.

    We went through one exchange of e-mails, i.e. he e-mailed me to tell me I was wrong, though providing nothing but his own statements to back that up, and then I responded to that e-mail. I mentioned that I would normally carry on a private correspondence on a topic such as this only through one exchange, but that I’d be delighted to carry on the discussion in public. That’s my policy when someone’s question isn’t personal or at least unique. I also gave a few references dealing with why I hold the positions I do, though again, these are all available through my various web sites.

    Having engaged in all of several paragraphs of communication, he then quoted 2 Peter 3:3-7 at me (and I use the preposition deliberately) and extracted from it the following terms:

    “there shall come … scoffers … willingly …ignorant” (I couldn’t say it any better.)

    Now admittedly my views on creation and evolution are somewhat controversial, but being called “willingly ignorant” by a KJV-Only advocate is, shall we say, special.

    And herewith ends another example of how not to communicate!

  • Book Review: Genesis Unbound

    Sailhamer, John H. Genesis Unbound: A Provocative New Look at the Creation Account. Sisters, OR: Multnomah Books, 1996.

    Note (January 11, 2017): I just discovered while writing about Dr. John Sailhamer’s death, that there was a new edition of this book published in 2011, shortly after I wrote this review.

    My interest in this book was aroused when I read a review from Andrew Kulikovsky of Answers in Genesis. I made some preliminary comments on that review in my post titled Unbinding What Rules?, and set about getting a copy of the book, which is out of print, via Interlibrary Loan. I must confess my biases, and admit that getting an unfavorable review from someone at AIG made it more likely that I’d read the book! That said, I’m very glad I took the time to get a copy and read it.

    The Book

    The book contains 239 pages of text and seven pages of notes, but no indexes. A scripture index would be particularly helpful. (As a publisher myself, however, I know not to blame the author for this.) The author writes clearly and in plain English. Though you will find many references to Greek, Hebrew, and even occasionally another language or so, there is nothing that cannot be followed without knowledge of those languages.

    In fact, the language is plain to a fault, and the explanations may seem just a bit redundant if you have studied this topic. As I read, however, I kept in mind that most readers would not have made a particular study of this topic as I have, and thus what appears redundant to me will contribute to clear understanding for others.

    I don’t feel any need to avoid “spoilers,” as Dr. Sailhamer sets out precisely where he’s going in the introduction. He then proceeds to do precisely as he said. In the first section, running through page 34 he lays out the controversy about Genesis, the reasons for it, and its importance.

    In the second section, which runs through page 96, he examines a number of general themes in Genesis 1 & 2, opening up some additional perspectives, and building the background information you will need to understand the material that follows.

    In the third section, through page 156, he goes through the creation account day by day, explaining his understanding of the details of the creation days as well as of Genesis 2 in relation to Genesis 1.

    In the fourth section, he examines how we got to this point and why the various schools of thought about Genesis exist, and why our English translations tend to reflect these same ideas. Here he introduces us to ancient and medieval commentators, and to their views of Genesis. This latter section is the most important part of the book, though it could not stand alone without the previous discussion.

    I think anyone with a solid grasp of the English language who will take the time to read carefully can grasp the arguments in this book. There are certain elements of the argument that are based on knowledge of the languages, and in those cases you can only go back and check Dr. Sailhamer’s work if you can use various lexical aids, such as a source language concordance. Nonetheless, the argument is clear enough even without that.

    I appreciated the lack of anathematization of opponents. In discussions of Genesis there are way too many accusations of heresy, atheism, obscurantism, and so forth. Sailhamer is clear about what he believes is right and wrong, but he manages to express this without the kind of vitriol that one often finds in such books.

    Overview of the Thesis

    Since the author has chosen to put his cards on the table (and I borrow his metaphor here), I will go ahead and lay out my summary of it for you.

    Sailhamer sees three major schools of thought regarding Genesis, in particular amongst evangelicals, but these probably also cover mainline and Catholic positions fairly well. These are young earth creation, old earth creation, and theistic evolution. In addition he acknowledges ruin and restoration or the “gap” theory, though he doesn’t spend as much time on it as he does on others.

    He accuses each of these views of using science to interpret the Bible in their own way, i.e. of forcing their particular worldview and cosmology onto the text of scripture rather than letting the text speak for itself.

    In place of those views, he proposes Historical Creationism, which he defines on pages 44 & 45. Historical creationism holds he Genesis account to be historical, but interprets the details somewhat differently. Genesis 1:1, rather than being a title, a summary of what is to follow, or even an introductory clause, is the account of the creation of the universe, “heavens and earth” being a merism expressing the concept of “universe.” The following days describe the preparation of the promised land and the Garden of Eden for human habitation and the creation of human beings to live there.

    Sailhamer cites extensive parallels of language and theme in the creation account and references to the promised land, and believes that he can locate the Garden of Eden there. He is not giving some explicit location within the promised land, or even telling us anything about the size of the garden. He is simply claiming that the garden was located in the promised land.

    Thus once ‘erets is translated “earth” in “the heavens and earth” (presuming one doesn’t go all the way and just use “universe”) it should be translated as “land” throughout the remainder of Genesis 1 & 2. I think anyone who reads Hebrew will recognize that this is possible, and anyone who has studied the concepts and imagery of creation in the Old Testament will recognize the extensive parallels that exist in creation, the exodus, the exile and return, and so forth.

    As he goes through the days of creation, Sailhamer then deals with specific details of what actually happened on each day. For example, he does not see the heavenly bodies as created on the fourth day (Genesis 1:14) but rather as being designated to their purpose in serving soon-to-be-created humanity.

    He can thus both take the days of creation as literal 24 hour periods, while at the same time accepting that the earth itself is very old. The planet, as such, was created in Genesis 1:1, while a seven-day creation week prepared the land for human beings, and included the special creation of humankind.

    He rejects any notion of ruin and restoration, thus avoiding the linguistic problems with translating Genesis 1:2 as “And the earth became…”, a mistranslation that results from simply counting occurrences of a Hebrew word (hayah) without considering tense or syntax. His view is similar, however, in where it places the creation week, though not in the details and the scope. Most ruin and restoration creationists would see the creation week as a recreation of the entire earth, and not a preparation of a local land.

    Sailhamer sees this as more in accord with science, even though he avoids basing his interpretation on meeting the requirements of current scientific evidence. I think this latter point is one of the major weaknesses of this view, as I will discuss below. Throughout the book, there are discussions of specific scientific issues, such as the age of the earth, the age of humanity, the relationship (or not) of the hominids to modern humans, and so forth. Sailhamer believes that human beings were specially created without dependence on prior genetic material and thus are not related to the hominids (p. 171).

    The Positives

    I often stop people in classes and conversations when they say something like “We don’t take that literally around here.” It’s a sentence I hear quite frequently in my home church, a United Methodist congregation. What I always ask is this: “Just how do you take it?” The problem is that too many people think that questions about the Bible may be settled with an answer to the question “Is it literal?” But one will find that there are many gradations and types of “not-literal.”

    In this book Sailhamer has made it clear that one also cannot simply answer the question the other way either. Just because someone takes a passage literally doesn’t mean that they take it correctly, even if it is intended literally. We bring some baggage to the process and we have to deal with that fact if we are to let the text speak to us on its own terms rather than forcing it to fit into ours.

    Out of the three camps (four if you include Ruin and Restoration), all but theistic evolutionists would claim that they are taking Genesis 1 & 2 literally in some way, yet they agree on very little regarding what the account actually says.

    Sailhamer takes the task of letting the text speak very seriously, even where this requires clearing some thorns and thistles out of the way. He primarily supports his view by referring to other texts and the usage of biblical words in their various contexts. He does not neglect syntax, and barely brushes by etymology. All this makes for good reading.

    I should refer here to his handling of Genesis 2:19, which I also mentioned in my previous note. Sailhamer dismisses the NIV translation “had created” with a simple “…the Hebrew text doesn’t contain the proper verb form for such a translation” (89). I would refer, however to some potential counter-examples, including 1 Kings 13:12, which presents a clear, contextual pluperfect (wayir’u, “had seen”). One should note the context, however, and the sequence of thought, which indicate that this is not one of those rare instances where the wayyqtl form can be used for the pluperfect. Waltke cites three examples.1

    Overall this book is probably the most challenging and fascinating work on Genesis that I have read, even though ultimately I find myself in fundamental disagreement. Or perhaps I find it so useful precisely because it challenges many of my approaches so fundamentally, and, I confess, effectively. While agreeing with a book is nice, I prefer a book with which I disagree, and yet find profitable.

    Negatives

    I’m going to leave the issue of overarching approach to scripture to my own response in the next section. I’m limiting myself here to the portions of the book that many will find frustrating.

    Sailhamer has bent over backwards to be fair to the various views, yet he has failed to accomplish the impossible. (Shocking, isn’t it?) I think advocates of any of the opposing views would find fault with his summaries of their viewpoints. In terms of young earth creation, I think Kurt Wise or Todd Wood would be eager to deny that they allow science to determine their reading of Genesis, and with some justification. Both see the current evidence for evolution to be very strong, yet they believe that the Bible teaches a young age for the universe (thus their preference for young age over young earth), and they are willing to place their faith in God’s word as they understand it, and wait for science to catch up.

    On the other hand, the implication that theistic evolutionists believe God had limited involvement in the process of creation simply because he uses a mechanism such as biological evolution to accomplish his purposes. I personally believe that God is directly involved in the movement of every subatomic particle, and that an infinite God has no need to diminish his attention to what we humans see as great matters in order to supervise small ones.

    That said, I must again say that Sailhamer is fairer to his opponents than the vast majority of writers on this divisive topic, so perhaps this negative is more of a positive!

    I was more disappointed with the various scientific excurses, which do not, in my view, reflect the best in scientific thought on those topics. In addition, the scientific explanations showing how science would support Historical Creationism seem to me to detract from the original argument–understanding the text on its own terms. I do understand the desire to show that this interpretation does not contradict major scientific evidence. But these excurses on science are all subject to extensive debate and the science has advanced even since the date of publication. It’s interesting to note that one of the defects Sailhamer sees in other views is that they depend on the current cosmology. If his view is correct, for example, those who reconciled Genesis with the Ptolemaic universe were wrong. Might it not be the same for any reconciliation to current science on human origins or the origin of life itself?

    I referred earlier to one more issue, the reading of Genesis 1:14 which Sailhamer discusses extensively (131-135). He states that Genesis 1:14 clearly has a substantially different meaning than Genesis 1:6. He is trying to establish that the sun and moon and other heavenly bodies were created in the beginning (Gen. 1:1), and thus could not be created on the fourth day. After several readings, I can’t see an adequate syntactic warrant for this. It’s possible I have misunderstood the argument.

    Response

    The reason this book, good as it is, did not ultimately convince me, is that my disagreement is at a more basic level, one which would probably be beyond the scope of a book this size. The first point is that I don’t take Genesis 1 & 2 literally, and I don’t fall into the trap of failing to specify how I do take it. But more on that in a moment.

    One of the great features of this book is Sailhamer’s discussion of ancient and medieval commentators on the text. At the same time, he begins this discussion with Ptolemy on the one hand and with Hellenistic Jewish efforts to accommodate the Torah with Greek thought, particularly cosmology. I would go further, and look at the relationship between Genesis and ancient near eastern literature. While I agree that Genesis 1 was not copied from Sumerian sources, I do not agree (and did my research on this for my MA) that the cosmology and other symbols are not present and are not related. Of course, I must confess that if I were writing a book, the opposite criticism would likely be levied-that I had neglected the later commentators and cosmologies.

    At the time I completed my degree I saw no direct relationship between Genesis 1-2 and Mesopotamia, but since then I have become convinced that Genesis 1-2 is a direct challenge to the theological views represented in that material. (Note again that I’m not claiming direct relationship, but again that’s beyond the scope of this already rather long review.) The very absence of such things as conflict between the gods, of a great windstorm, and of the contempt for humans is very telling.2

    But what of the cosmology? Can one maintain that Genesis 1-2 is divine in origin, while claiming that it reflects the cosmology of the time? I think so. I’d refer to my 2005 blog post, The One Ended Cord. If God is to communicate with humans in language that we can understand, he must use our language. That does not mean simply language that we have in our lexicon. It must be language as we can understand it.

    In my view, God chose not to teach us new cosmology in Genesis 1, but  rather to declare his involvement in creation and the fact that he is ultimately the creator of everything and involved in everything, and to do so in a context we could understand.

    Since our understanding of cosmology has changed and will likely continue to change, we need to see that message in new forms, translated in terms of cosmology, if you please. We could wish that God had spoken in terms of our cosmology, but since we don’t know the future, we do not know what will be discovered next week, next month, or next year that might change all that. I see the cosmology in which the creation story is clothed as no more ultimately important than the specific language in which the story is spoken. It is the medium, not the message.

    Thus I disagree as to the type of literature we’re dealing with. It is not narrative history. It is not intended to relate a series of events in a historical sense, not because somebody was too stupid to figure it out, but because we are all too ignorant to understand an actual narration of God’s creative activities. God, who inspired the story, knows precisely what happened. Me? Not so much.

    So what do I call this? Well, I see Genesis 1:1-2:4a as liturgy, though doctrine packed liturgy. I think it works well as such and it frames the remainder of the story in that fashion. This is as good a place as any to discuss those extensive parallels I referenced at the beginning of this review, which I think Sailhamer has established so thoroughly. I would see those referenced as specifically shaped by the Genesis story, relating God’s redemptive power to his creative power. In other words, the relationship is reversed. These stories do not refer to Genesis or use it’s language and imagery because Genesis was specifically about the promised land; the promise of the land and God’s redemption and provision as repeated through biblical history, are couched in terms of creation because the creator God is also the redeemer God.

    Conclusion

    I suggest reading this book. There are too many narrow readings of Genesis, and too few challenges to our various supposed orthodoxies on the topic. There are many ways of looking at these issues, and you need to be acquainted with a variety of them in order to speak intelligently on the topic. Dr. Sailhamer has made it easier for me to take another step toward speaking intelligently, for which I am grateful.

    [updated 2:42 pm to correct embarrassing misspelling of author’s name]

    1 Bruce K. Waltke and M. O’Connor. An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax. Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 1990, 33.2.3.

    2 Gerhard von Rad. Genesis. Old Testament Library. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1972, 63-67.

  • N. T. Wright on Genesis 1-3

    Some excellent thoughts at the BioLogos Foundation blog Science and the Sacred.

  • Todd Wood – the Evolutionist?

    A few weeks ago I mentioned that I had started reading Dr. Todd Wood’s blog (using the title Another Honest Creationist). The reason I call Dr. Wood honest (as opposed to some other creationists) is that he acknowledges that young age creationism relies on the Bible and specifically on a particular understanding of the early chapters of Genesis.

    I find it difficult to believe that someone can be a young earth or young age creationist on any other basis. The scientific evidence is simply much too strongly against it. Dr. Wood, like Dr. Kurt Wise, admits that there is substantial evidence for evolution, yet they accept young age creationism because that is what they believe the Bible teaches. I disagree on their interpretation of Genesis, but I can respect their stand and their honest statement of their reasons for taking it.

    Of course some other young age/earth creationists don’t like this approach. They believe that there really is no evidence for evolution and that there is some sort of conspiracy amongst scientists to pretend that evolution is true even though, they say, it is not.

    One of these, Joseph Mastropaolo, offers a $10,000 prize for evidence of evolution, and sends e-mails out to people and then if they don’t respond, he puts them on a list on his web site.

    All of this is fairly standard stuff in the creation/evolution debates, althought Mastropaolo’s twist of requiring his opponents to put up $10,000 of their own money, thus making this all more of a bet than a prize is interesting. I think that the prize offering thing is generally the last resort of those whose pockets are empty, but it’s all pretty common.

    But what’s humorous is that Mastropaolo sent an e-mail to Dr. Wood asking him to put up some evidence and then added him to the list of non-responding evolutionists.

    He says:

    170. Dr. Todd C. Wood, of Bryan College, who wrote, “There is evidence for evolution, gobs and gobs of it.” Upon request and with the incentive of unlimited $10,000 grants for his Center for Origins Research, he did not send any evidence. Can it be that there is no scientific evidence to support evolution? Can it be that Todd C. Wood uses brass and bluff like the other 363,000 anti-science evolutionists worldwide? (12-30-09)

    So a young age creationist who is working on building evidence for creationism is now an example of an evolutionist. Who ever would have imagined it?!

  • Those Gritty Physical Metaphors

    The gospel for Proper 14B is John 6:35, 41-51.  This isn’t an exposition of that passage, but something that passage brought back to my mind.

    Jesus starts with the bread metaphor.  Now for many of us, comparing spiritual food to bread comes quite naturally.  We’ve read this in the gospel many times, and we’ve heard it in churches.  Such expressions as “fresh bread for the people” or “break the bread of life” are still quite common.  But at the end of this passage Jesus touches on a theme that will become much more common through this gospel and is harder to take:  his flesh (v. 51).  This metaphor gets quite heavy in verses 52-58, as Jesus tells people they must eat his flesh and drink his blood.

    The metaphorically challenged get some kind of cannibalism out of all of this.  Yet even many Christians are uncomfortable with strong “blood” metaphors these days.  “Are you washed in the blood of the lamb” is a song lyric that is less popular than it used to be.  We want soft metaphors.

    We are also often less anxious to compare the physical and the spiritual.  There’s the saying, “so heavenly he’s of no earthly good.”  The problem with that is that if we read Jesus correctly, being of no earthly good is not, in fact, very heavenly.  Sure, we know what that saying means.  There are many people who are very “spiritual” and don’t really comprehend the things of this earth, or at least so it appears.  But I’m going to suggest that if you don’t comprehend the things of this earth, you’re not going to comprehend the things of heaven.

    I have a friend who has led many mission trips.  He’s all about providing dental care to needy people.  He gives generously of time and resources to make it happen.  But once when I was on a mission trip with him, he told me and others that he didn’t think he was very spiritual.  Now in the sense of soaring off into heavenly places over a hymn or a praise song, I would agree he’s not.  But if Matthew 25:31-46 is to be believed, he may well be the most spiritual person of us all.

    The doctrine of creation tells us that God is the creator.  The greatest thing that heaven has done in relation to us is physical.  Now somebody is sure to point me to salvation as the greatest thing.  But that is another instance of the same sort of thing.  Salvation, recreation, was a restoration of what was supposed to be in the physical universe. No matter how spiritual we make God, if we stick with scripture, he is the creator of the physical universe.  Nobody could be more “heavenly” than God, yet God creates and uses the physical.

    Those who think we should retire “blood language” as out of date and out of tune with the modern age should consider what the idea of eating human flesh and drinking human blood would have sounded like to a Jewish audience in 1st century Judea and Galilee.  It would have been very shocking language then.  And the fact is that sometimes we need shocking language to make us take a subject seriously.

    You see, we are not sort of spiritual beings who need a little elevation; we are fallen beings who need serious intervention to restore the image of God and bring us back to our spiritual place.  Sin isn’t a mild infection; it is a virulent, deadly plague.  Shocking language is needed about our shocking condition and activities.

    And sin occurs here on earth, in the physical universe.  A few shocking physical metaphors are, I believe, good for our souls!