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Tag: Genesis

  • 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.

  • Unbinding What Rules?

    A while back Dave Black linked to a review of Genesis Unbound by John Sailhammer.  The review is by Andrew Kulikovsky and is on the Answers in Genesis site, titled Unbinding the Rules.  The interesting thing for me about this review is that despite being very negative, it made me much more anxious to read Sailhammer’s book.

    It’s hard to evaluate some of the criticisms without having read the book itself, but I’m going to comment on one, and write a bit more after I’ve gotten my hands on a copy of the book itself.  The one issue is the translation of Genesis 2:19.  To state the problem simply, there is a difference in translation between the NIV (continued in the NIV2011, ESV agrees) for example, and the NRSV amongst others.  To illustrate:

    Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. (NIV2011) So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, (NRSV)

    The translation arises from the perceived need to reconcile the order of events in Genesis 1 and 2, since in 2:19 the animals would be created after human beings rather than before as in Genesis 1. Using a past perfect in English solves this problem.  The question, of course, is whether such a translation is legitimate.

    Regarding this, Kulikovsky says:

    According to Sailhamer, the rendering ‘ … now the Lord God had formed …’ for Genesis 2:19, is faulty because ‘the Hebrew  text doesn’t contain the proper verb form for such a translation’  (p. 89). This is a very surprising statement from a Hebrew  scholar. Firstly, Sailhamer seems to be confused over the  aspectual identification of the clause ‘had formed’—this is actually indicative of a pluperfect not a perfect. Secondly, the standard grammars1,4 stand against Sailhamer on this, as do modern translations such as the NIV.

    I was rather surprised to see this, because the standard grammars say no such thing, and the NIV and ESV are pretty much isolated amongst modern versions in this translation.  The NLT, also evangelical, translated “formed” for example.  I had recently been investigating this issue to see just what support the NIV had for their rendering, and had found very little such support.

    The footnotes, unfortunately, are duplicates of previous references, and simply point to Gesenius-Kautzsch (with the latter name misspelled), and to Waltke-O’Connor without referencing any particular page or section number in either grammar.  There are only two  direct references to Genesis 2:19, and only one provides a translation of the first part of the verse, which he translates “YHWH God formed …” (11.2.11d, p. 213), but there he is discussing the translation of the preposition min.  There are, of course, substantial discussions of Hebrew verb tense, but I cannot discover which would provide Kulikovsky with support for his view.  Sailhammer’s statement is hardly surprising; it’s pretty standard.

    I would note that I have found cases cited in which the waw-consecutive form can be translated with an English past perfect.  They are very rare, and not too similar to the case of Genesis 2:19.  I’ll provide some references when I read and comment on Sailhammer’s book.

  • Quote of the Day – on Genesis 15:6

    … In the Tanakh, faith does not mean believing in spite of the evidence.  It means trusting profoundly in a person, in this case the personal God who has reiterated His promise.

    (from The Jewish Study Bible: featuring The Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation, page 35.)

    I think that’s an excellent statement of what faith is and is not, and might also tie the usage of faith between James 2:23 and Galatians 2:15ff as it relates to Paul’s use of Genesis 15:6 starting in Galatians 3:15.

  • Interpreting the Bible IV – Scientific Statements

    In my daily reading I encounter many different types of literature, each of which relates to the science I know in a different way. For example, I might read a newspaper, in which case the question is just what is an article about. Is it about art? I will look at it through one set of glasses. A report on a scientific discovery? My expectations change substantially. I might read a book of fantasy, in which case I expect very little relationship to real science. If I read a science text, however, I am going to judge it very critically on how well it conveys scientific information.

    In each of these cases, what constitutes a “mistake” is going to differ greatly. “The sun sets in the west” is very proper in popular speech, in art, or in poetry. It’s questionable in a story about science, and in general would only be used as an example of how inaccurate popular speech can be in a science text.

    If one criticized a poem for its scientific inaccuracy for such a statement, one would be viewed as odd. Viewing the Bible that way is pretty standard. Now I’m not denying here that the Bible has different types of literature in which scientific statements might be seen differently. What I will say, however, is that the Bible has nothing in it that qualifies even as a popular news story about a scientific discovery. It certainly has in it nothing close to a textbook on a scientific topic.

    Yet many people expect a specifically scientific type of accuracy when they read the Bible. I believe this comes to some extent from the modern view of scientific knowledge as the best type of knowledge available. We want scientific proof that God exists or that miracles happen, because we believe that’s the best category of evidence available. We think the Bible should talk about science in some way, because science (in the modern science, not the older “general knowledge”) is the best type of knowledge there is.

    Of course, God may have a different idea. Personally I would argue that God does talk about science, and he does so in the fabric of the universe. We hear that message through scientific study. I don’t want to get into the details of such a view here; suffice it to say it exists.

    But we still must be careful in saying that the Bible does not make scientific statements. I’ve gotten into trouble on this before, because people often hear that as “The Bible doesn’t say anything correct about the physical world.” That’s not the case and it’s not my point. What I mean is that the Bible doesn’t make statements either with scientific precision, i.e. intended as testable hypotheses properly qualified, nor does it attempt to advance specifically scientific knowledge.

    Now there’s a lot of room for disagreement there. Just how precisely must the Biblical statements agree with a modern scientific view? Laying aside the question of whether the modern scientific understanding of any topic is correct (what will people think of our current knowledge in another 200 years, not to mention 2,000 or 4,000?), one can at least divide that between those who believe that the Bible need not agree with scientific knowledge in any particular way (though it may) or those who believe that where the Bible makes a statement that impinges on science in any way, it must be accurate.

    Let’s take a quick example, which I already mentioned previously. We know that the Bible is not a mathematics text, yet it almost accidentally mentions the ratio that is PI, though not providing us with a number calculated to any decimal places in 1 Kings 7:23:

    Then he made the molten sea; it was round, ten cubits from brim to brim, and five cubits high. A line of thirty cubits would encircle it completely. (NRSV)

    I know of some Biblical critics who are embarrassed that people bring this up as an objection to the Bible, and well they should be, because it really causes nobody any actual problems. On the other hand, it illustrates what I am talking about quite nicely.

    There are several things that one might think about this statement:

    1. The writer is using approximations in his numbers
    2. The brazen sea isn’t precisely round, but perhaps oval, another type of approximation
    3. These are not builder’s plans, and thus the precise number is unnecessary
    4. There is no particular reason for the writer to provide us with the value of PI

    All of which are quite possibly true. Some others have brought up issues such as measuring from the outside or the inside of the rim. I would note that Biblical Hebrew doesn’t have an easy means of expressing decimal places, and fractions are a mite wordy. So what is the difference here? PI is 3.1416, which is itself rounded from 3.14159, which is rounded from… Why do I choose a particular precision? I do so according to my need, in this case my need to show how we approximate numbers on a regular basis.

    One could quite reasonably read the passage as “The sea was round, about 10 cubits across and about 30 cubits around the rim.”

    My point? The precision of our statements of such topics depends on the need. I heard a similar example yesterday in a store. One of the clerks was giving directions. He said, “You turn right and then go 2 or 3 miles, and you’ll find Walmart on the left.” Is he giving lousy directions if Walmart is 3.3 miles? 2.7? 1.9? Actually, if he follows the directions he’ll find where he’s going.

    Now compare this to directions I got about a year ago to find someone’s house. I was told to turn right and then check my odometer, because I needed to go precisely 1.1 miles and turn right on a road that didn’t have a clear road sign. I did so, and at 1.1 miles I turned right onto the specified road, and only saw the sign with the road name on it after I made the turn. The clerk’s directions were good for his circumstances, but would have failed for mine. On the other hand, giving a precise number to the tenth for finding Walmart would simply be distracting.

    To get back to Genesis 1, if one assumes it is intended as a scientific treatise, one should be concerned with things like how days would be calculated before the fourth day when the sun was created. (Though I would note that one does not have to conclude from the text that the sun was actually created on the fourth day; it might be a case of revelation.) One might also be concerned with what “day” was before the fourth day. After all, the sun is created to “rule the day” suggesting that “day” already existed before the sun was there. But now I’m descending into silliness.

    If, on the other hand, Genesis 1 is liturgy, there is no reason to expect a logical and scientific progression in the events. But between these views we have any number of senses in which Genesis might be heard as a form of narrative history, in which case, while it need not make scientifically precise statements, it could well make statements that would impact scientific data. For example, if the story says, “the sun set,” even if we allow the non-scientific nature of the way of indicating the end of the day, if there is no sun, the statement would be false–no sun, no setting.

    In each case one must look at the particular genre and the nature of what the author is trying to communicate within that genre (witness my two instances, both of giving directions, but with different requirements), in order to determine what type of statements to expect, and the precision one must expect of them. A man describing the temple has no need to communicate the precise value of PI, while someone celebrating God’s creation of the world has no need to describe orbits or solar fusion.

    Now I personally believe that not only does the Bible not make scientific statements as I have described, but that it speaks its message into a context of the knowledge of the audience. In other words, as God wishes to communicate things about his order, his control of creation, and his plan for humanity, he doesn’t distract them by saying that they don’t understand yet that the world is a sphere (though they did think it was round like a dinner plate), that the earth revolves around the sun rather than the reverse, or that stars were light years away.

    Those points, as interesting as they would be to us today, would be a distraction. In fact, I would suggest that they would completely take over the more important message that the Bible has to deliver.

    We think scientific knowledge is the most important; God doesn’t agree, and he communicated according to his priorities, not ours.

  • Bill Arnold on the Composition of Genesis

    I have written quite a bit about this topic on this blog, and am also doing a series related to it on my Threads blog, so I was glad to see another summary article (HT:  Dr. Platypus).  Most lay people are not well acquainted with critical theories about the Pentateuch, as they get the briefest of descriptions followed by either a dismissal from one side or an assertion of scholarly consensus on the other.

    Bill Arnold’s article is very useful for several reasons.  He outlines the overall theory very well along with traditional dating of the various sources.  He discusses some of the possibilities for the history of those sources, and alternative dating.  He does take up some non-traditional views, but in several cases (looking at the dating of P, and some of what he says on H), I happen to agree.  It’s always nice for the non-specialist to find some fine scholar agreeing with his much less sophisticated opinions!  I was convinced by the linguistic arguments from Dr. Jacob Milgrom in his Leviticus commentary from the Anchor Bible series, whose praises I sing from time to time.

    Having said all that, I commend the article to those who would like to know more about this topic.

  • The Bible Does Not Contain Science

    Jason Rosenhouse has a post at EvolutionBlog responding to an essay by Owen Gingerich in Frye’s Is God a Creationist?.

    In that essay, Gingerich makes some interesting claims, suggesting some special advance information provided by God in the words of Genesis 1. Rosenhouse quite correctly comments and then asks:

    It’s people like Gingerich I don’t understand. He cherry picks two verses that he wants us to take very seriously. In verse three we find that God begins by creating light, and, hey!, that’s kind of like what modern cosmology says. Then he turns to the end of the stroy and tells us we should ruminate on the verse that asserts we were created in the image of God.

    And the twenty-three verses in between? Where the Bible enumerates, in great detail, a sequence of events that is utterly fictitious? Well, just ignore that part.

    And right there is my major problem with several approaches to apologetics in Genesis 1-11. There is a common thread of trying to preserve the idea that God somehow provided scientific knowledge ahead of time, and described the origin of the universe in ways that would not have been known to the ancient world in which this literature first appeared.

    Sometimes, as in young earth creationism, interpreters take Genesis at face value as narrative history (I discuss what I believe the actual genre is here, and then demand that reality conform to their view. When reality fails to play nice, they simply deny it, or claim that in the future we will find out they were right all along.

    At other times, old earth creationists try to find ways of reconciling the statements of the first 11 chapters of Genesis with science, not in the strict sense of scientifically worded statements, but in the sense that as a narrative history, they don’t contradict science. Rather, they can be viewed symbolically as going along.

    Finally, we have the approach of Gingerich, which is to claim glimpses of great scientific ideas in the prose of the chapter. Admittedly, this requires reading past a great deal, and requires some imagination, but that has not prevented numerous people from trying and from publishing what they believe they have found.

    When I deny scientific content in Genesis, I am frequently confronted by someone who has read somewhere how closely aligned Genesis is with science, and they will point to some area of agreement. But these areas of agreement, even if one has the imagination to accept them in the first place, are very small, very narrow, and are surrounded by areas that are puzzling at best from the scientific perspective.

    I would apply here a standard I demand in comparative literature and comparative religion: Compare both the similarities and the differences. I also use a related requirement to search out what is regarded as critical within either the piece of literature or the religion in question. For example, to an evangelical Christian who believes firmly in salvation by grace received through faith, and regards that as central to his faith, the fact that another religion teaches love is only a minor point of similarity. It doesn’t make the two religions equal.

    So in comparing Genesis 1 and 2 to science, it is not valid so simply list points of contact without also listing points of dissimilarity. One interesting thing here is that those who point out that “let there be light” is in one of many ways similar to the big bang do not also note the spirit of God, or God’s wind moving across the waters before the light appears. One has to posit a strange mix of symbol and literal physical data to make this work.

    When Genesis is compared to scientific data as we know it on a broad basis, looking for both similarities and dissimilarities, it doesn’t come out so well. In addition to looking at both, it’s a good idea to look for accidental similarities, such as information that would be common knowledge anywhere. A reference to sunrise and sunset in two distant cultures would not be regarded as evidence that they had communicated, for example, because both would have observed the same phenomenon.

    To support the claim that the Bible contains science, one would need to find statements of physical fact stated in a well defined and testable way, in other words, statements made the way scientists might make them. You may believe I am putting too high a standard here, but to use such a thing as evidence one must eliminate other explanations, especially more plausible ones.

    If one thinks that the “waters” in Genesis 1:2 make some sort of statement of the place of H2O in chemistry, an implausible suggestion on its face, one should also consider the place of the waters or the deep in related ancient near eastern creation myths. Is it more probable to assume that the statement came from an unknown chemistry, or that God chose to cryptically convey information, information that would not be recognized until it was discovered in other ways, or that the waters here come from the same pool of mythological symbols used throughout the ancient near east?

    For me, this issue settled into place when I started to read this material in the context of ancient near eastern literature. It is not surprising that even one of my professors in graduate school, a Seventh-day Adventists school and fairly strong on young earth creationism and associated interpretation, was extremely concerned that I would not see Genesis as coming directly from God in its current form.

    Reading Genesis as ancient near eastern literature worked. It fit. I didn’t have to explain numerous loose ends. It was also something that the original hearer and/or readers might well have understood. There really wasn’t anything left to explain.

    Over time I learned to read Genesis again as theology, and specifically as theology suited to its time. It expresses, in the context of ancient near eastern cosmology, the relationship between God and the universe. Even that expression is time and culture related.

    Now I don’t expect atheists to like my position that much better. I know that they generally look down on views of inspiration that don’t result in error free texts with hard knowledge. After all, why couldn’t God get it right? But I think a better question is why would God get it “right” in that sense?

    Spirituality involves communion with God, and the Bible reflects that communion as experienced by my community and its antecedents. Every piece of scientific information people claim to have gotten from the Bible can be found elsewhere, better expressed, and more reliable. But as a Christian this is the core of the experience of my community.

    That doesn’t provide me with the means to convince others that my (or our) scriptures are better than others. That would have to work through the lens of the community. But the attempt to find scientific data is sure to be a failure.

    Doubtless the Bible will get some facts about the physical universe right, but unless those facts are more than incidental, they demonstrate nothing, and high claims for them can only result in a negative judgment on the text in which they are found.

  • Genesis Links

    I started collecting links through clips on my bloglines account (yes, the blogroll is public), and one thing I’ve found is that I collect a remarkable number of links and I comment on only a few of them. There have been a number of good posts on Genesis recently, and I want to provide links even though I won’t have time for more than a sentence or two in comment. These all relate to creation or the flood and related issues, so we’re really talking about the first 11 chapters.

    From James McGrath, I found Doctor Who: Journey’s End, Creation’s End, God’s End?, which discusses some of the difficulties of the flood story. Reflecting on the flood story’s origins he says:

    But when an ancient Israelite author tried to co-opt that story (which was too familiar and could not simply be discarded) into monotheism, it created the ultimate theological conundrum. How does one account for a single God both destroying the world and saving humanity? . . .

    You’ll have to go read the entire post to get the picture. He also links to a number of other good posts and discussions here, though unfortunately I haven’t had time to get involved.

    Moderate Christian Blogroll member Monastic Mumblings shares a good quote on Genesis.

    Those cover it pretty well for now.

  • Sermon Today on Genesis 1:1-2:4a

    I want to recommend another sermon from the senior pastor at our new church, Pensacola First UMC, Dr. Wesley Wachob. I should note that they usually post audio from a different service than the one I attend, and he doesn’t follow a precise written text, so there may be some difference.

    There were two reasons I wanted to commend this sermon. I’ll go with the lesser one first. I always appreciate a sermon in which the relationship between science and religion is discussed. Dr. Wachob very clearly stated that Genesis 1:1-2:4a is not science, but theology. He also rejected the term “mythology” and I would agree with him for the precise passage, but there is material in Genesis, 2:4b through the end of chapter 4 in particular, that carries most of the literary characteristics of myth. Nonetheless he also called Genesis 1:1-2:4a liturgy which is what I believe it is. He only spent a minute or two on this.

    The second point is really more important, however, from my point of view. He preached a solid sermon with a spiritual lesson from Genesis 1:1-2 without making it a debate about historical and scientific issues. Some people have a very hard time preaching from this chapter. They spend all their time either affirming or denying it as narrative history. Dr. Wachob makes application to daily life and practical Christian living.

    There’s a link to the audio on the Pensacola First UMC site here. Look at the left hand side of the page toward the end of the pastor’s message.

  • Literary Types in Genesis 1-11

    Pardon me for using “types” where “genre” would be more precise, but I frequently do so in teaching in order to avoid having to explain details. Further, “genre” doesn’t maintain the same meaning across all critical disciplines.

    In my previous post on the historicity of Genesis 1-11, I wrote as though one could establish a single literary category that would cover all 11 chapters. But those who have studied this passage will realize this is not so. At a minimum, Genesis 5 and 11:10-32 (genealogies) differ from the remainder. Chapter 10 is also in a category of its own, and its relationship with the rest of the book could provide some interesting discussion.

    I personally accept the general outlines of source theory, and thus see a combination of multiple sources in both the stories of creation and the flood. But those fault lines, as interesting as they are, are not what I’m talking about now. Whatever one believes about the background, somebody, somewhere felt that the material fitted together.

    If we assume that the person who did so was not an idiot, then they probably had some idea how things connected. Assuming that blatant chronological issues are the result of oversight is questionable at best. The author or final redactor, whichever you prefer, probably understood the text in such a way that it didn’t blatantly contradict itself.

    Because of this, it would be worthwhile to see the difference between Genesis 1:1-4a, which I would see as liturgy, and Genesis 2:4b-25, which is much closer to myth in its literary character. Which of these is more likely to be concerned with chronology? Well, Genesis 1 seems to say more about it, but Genesis 2 is more likely to have that as a concern based on its form. Even myths are concerned with sequence.

    So we can identify at least four types of literature, liturgy, myth, genealogy, and a more generalized tribal genealogy along with some geography in Genesis 10. In deciding historicity we need to address each of these types. I do acknowledge that others might disagree on the categorization, which is precisely how it should be. Those are the questions of which good historical study of the Bible is made.

  • Historicity of Genesis 1-11

    I think those of us who are not all that conservative, as in moderates and liberals, do everyone a disservice with the admonition, “Don’t take it so literally.” Unless, of course, we break down “not literally” a bit further. The word “literal” has gotten muddied in the public understanding, and is often taken to mean “true,” so “not taking it so literally” is “not taking it so truthfully.” But more importantly, literal is (or should be) a fairly narrow category and “not literal” involves quite a number of possible types of literature.

    But there’s another question that non-scholarly readers of the Bible have pretty regularly: Just what is it that I’m supposed to get out of this? I’ve heard this many times teaching groups of United Methodist laypeople, well educated folks, but not Bible scholars. They’re pretty well convinced they shouldn’t take it too literally, but they are often uncertain where to go from there. Then they hear anyone who doesn’t take it literally condemned as one who doesn’t believe the Bible at all.

    To narrow that down again, just what historical information might one get out of a non-historical passage of scripture? In the case of Genesis 1-11, I have frequently noted that it is not narrative history. But “narrative history” is not necessarily equivalent to “no historical value at all.” There is more of a continuum (one of my favorite words) of possibilities for historical values, and a number of twists and turns.

    For example, I could say that a book is a work of fiction. Does that mean that it has no historical value? Consider these examples:

    • A fantasy novel/series, not set in the real world, such as Lord of the Rings
      One might extract information on the time of the writer, but vanishingly little information about the real world. Even extrapolating to the time of the writer based on his themes would be a difficult proposition.
    • A generic novel set in the real world, Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged
      This book is intentionally set in an indefinite future (from the time of writing) with generic titles for government officials such as head of state rather than president, for example. There are incidental references to real historical figures, numerous references to real places, but also numerous references to things that don’t exist. One would get a very skewed view of the United States if this is one’s source. Yet one would find historical data embedded in it.
    • A novel set in a realistic historical period, Rand’s The Fountainhead, for example.
      I’m distinguishing this category from historical novel in that presenting historical information is not part of the author’s intent, yet the setting is intended to reflect a specific period.
    • A historical novel
      Often a fictional story intended to present a realistic view of a period of history. While the actual characters and character-specific events are fictional, the background and the major historical events are generally intended as accurate.
    • A biography
      Generally this is intended as true, yet dialog and information about the subject may limit the general historical value.
    • A history with a mission
      Portrayal of a period of history intended to present a particular philosophy of history, or the viewpoint of a particular group or something similar.
    • An objective (wishfully) history
      In this case, the author intends to write a sequence of events from an objective point of view in order to correctly portray those events, not accomplish some philosophical goal. Absolute objectivity is impossible, I believe. I’m speaking about the intent.

    That gives a kind of summary of some of the levels of historicity that one might find. Consider the gospels briefly. It is fairly common in a course in the gospels (or one particular gospel) to note that the gospel writers did not set out with the intent of writing history. They are presenting a picture of Jesus. Many things that an objective historian (remember: intention!) might present are subordinated to the picture the writer is trying to portray. Some people here this comment as a statement that the gospels contain no historical information, or no reliable historical information. That is certainly never my intent in making the statement. I’m simply pointing out that we should expect the needs of the historian to be thoroughly subordinated to the needs of the biographer and even more so to the theologian.

    So let’s briefly look at some historical options in Genesis 1-11 now that we have some loose collection of ideas to which to compare.

    The first option, of course, is to regard this portion of scripture as narrative history. Many Christians have done so. This assumption leaves a number of details to be discussed. How detailed is that history? Is it chronological? This latter question can come in two parts: 1) Is it intended as sequential or descriptive in another sense? and 2) Is it intended to portray the passage of time accurately?

    Young earth creationists (YEC) would answer that it is narrative history, that it is intended to be sequential, and that the passage of time is intended as an accurate portrayal. This involves two aspects of the text. First, we have the days of Genesis 1 & 2. In the YEC position, these are literal, 24 hours days. But secondly we have the years in the genealogies of Genesis 5 & 11. Here the YEC position is that the years are real years, are accurately portrayed, and that there are no gaps in the genealogies, in other words they are complete.

    That’s a substantial number of claims. I would simply note that if you start from level ground, looking at the story in the context of ancient near eastern literature, none of these things is obvious. Nonetheless it is not my purpose to evaluate, so much as to point out the possibilities.

    Old earth creationists (OEC), differ from this in that while most of them would hold that the sequence is intended as true, the flow of time in the narrative is not even. For example, between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:6 there would be nine billion+ years, while between Genesis 1:6 and 1:11 there would be a bit less than 4 billion years, while starting with verse 14 we have some difficulties with sequence. The genealogies are assumed to contain gaps so as to provide a longer history following Adam and Eve.

    Some OECs read the passage more symbolically, i.e. it contains valid historical information, but this information is presented in the form of symbols. Thus sequence, consistency of timing, and referent can be adjusted substantially while still maintaining that there is historical content.

    Finally, Christians who accept evolution, but not all theistic evolutionists, most commonly see the passage as mythology, i.e. God presents truth through the medium of the cosmology and the way in which such information was presented in that culture. Now one might think this means there is no historical information in the passage, but again that is not the case. It will still present information about how the world was understood in its time, and how the authors understood themselves and their relationship to God. That is historical information, even though that is not what is intended.

    Note that there are some Christian theistic evolutionists who would also see these passages symbolically and find some sense of a presentation of the way it happened in the passage. Thus there are a variety of views on the historical content of the material, and those views don’t precisely match. I have been extremely brief here and probably have left some holes. Hopefully readers will quibble with me in the comments to some can get filled in.

    Two additional notes:

    1. I don’t regard any of this as an issue with inerrancy. I know folks who accept Biblical inerrancy who have no problem with the idea of regarding a passage as symbolic or as myth, provided that one is assuming that was the way God intended it to be presented. Then the portion that would be inerrant is whatever message God intended to present in that medium. I don’t accept inerrancy, but I like my debates over the topic to relate to actual disputes!
    2. I distinguish here Christian theistic evolutions as there are numerous other options for those who are theists but not Christians, including ignoring the Bible completely. Deistic views of evolution similarly have no need of discussing how Genesis is understood. This is strictly a Christian or Jewish enterprise, and is different in nature for each of those groups.