In Naturalism Defeated, Evan Fales attacks the biblical teaching that man is made in the image of God. One reason he gives is, “How seriously, then, should one take the testimony of Genesis 1:26-27? … There is the generally mythical character of Genesis; many of the themes in the first 11 chapters are borrowed from, or influenced by, the myths of other ancient Near Eastern cultures.”[1]
Fales’ reasoning here is not uncommon. He argues that what Genesis teaches is false because Genesis 1-11 is a myth. The latter claim he substantiates by comparing the early chapters of Genesis to various Ancient Near Eastern texts which we know to be myths. Fales contends that a comparison of the texts in question leads to the conclusion Genesis is a myth and hence what it teaches lacks authority.
In this post I want to address one aspect of this argument. The key premise I want to contest is that if Genesis is a myth and of the same genre as Ancient Near-Eastern myths then what it teaches lacks authority. Note this is a conditional claim: I am arguing that if Genesis 1-11 is mythic in genre then this would not necessarily entail that the text lacks authority. I am not, in this post, committing myself to any claim that Genesis is mythic; I am simply asking what follows if it is.
As a way of entering this question let me start by summarising a debate between two evangelical scholars, both of whom affirm biblical inerrancy. In Inspiration and Incarnation, Peter Enns compares the story of creation, fall, flood and Babel in Genesis 1-11 to various Ancient Near-Eastern texts such as Enuma Elish, The Gilgamesh Epic, Atrahasis Epic, the Sumerian Flood Story and the Sumerian King Lists. Enns argues that:
(a) these writings appear to be earlier than Genesis; and,
(b) the latter four in particular contain obvious parallels to Genesis that cannot be mere coincidence; and,
(c) these texts are myths.
In light of this, Enns argues that Genesis must be understood as a myth.
When Enns says Genesis is a myth it is important to not misunderstand his meaning here. In contemporary English the word myth is often a colloquial term for a falsehood, so that calling something a myth means it is false. In Enns’ use of the term the word ‘myth’ refers to a particular kind of genre, “myth is an ancient, pre-modern, pre-scientific way of addressing ultimate meaning and origins in the form of stories: Who are we ? Where do we come from ?”[2] Hence, by saying Genesis is a myth Enns is not committing himself to the claim that the text is false.
However, later in the same book Enns goes on to state that “the biblical account, along with its ancient Near Eastern counterparts assumes the factual nature of what it reports. They did not think, “We know this is all ‘myth’ but we will have to wait until science is invented to give us better answers.”[3] He suggests that while the text is myth, its original hearers would probably not have distinguished myth from what we would call an historical narrative.
It is worth noting that Enns is not alone in this kind of assessment. Drawing on the same literary parallels, Gordon Wenham has argued that the author of Genesis 1-11 was retelling stories that were well known in Babylonian culture. However, the author was transforming them to make a radically different theological point. These points, in fact, repudiate and at times ridicule, the very teachings the Babylonian myths were trying to teach.
Like Enns, Wenham notes several important parallels between Gen 1-11 and Ancient Near-Eastern myths and legends to substantiate this point. Wenham suggests that in retelling the Babylonian myths to make theological counter points the authors assumed or took for granted, the historicity of the folk stories in question. In The Erosion of Inerrancy in Evangelicalism, Greg Beale responds to Enns’ suggestion, “But Enns is saying more than this: the biblical writers thought they were recording history but were really recording myth … Thus one ends up with a completely inspired bible in which the narrators recorded what they thought was history, but we know they are wrong. This is tantamount to saying the biblical writers made mistakes.”[4]
Beale goes on to state that Enns sees Genesis as “a genre of divine accommodation, whereby God knew better but the Israelite writers did not. They thought they were writing true history, but God knew they were not. In this respect has Enns formulated a new version of sensus plenor?”[5]
I think Beale is correct; Enns’ position does commit him to the claim that the biblical authors made mistakes. However, I think the conclusion he tries to draw, that this claim compromises the authority of scripture is too quick. It is worth noting that Enns claimed that the biblical writers assumed the factual nature of what they reported. He explicitly states also that the genre of myth uses stories to teach answers to certain theological and existential questions. For example, questions regarding ultimate meaning and origins, such things as, who are we? where do we come from? and so on. Hence while Enns position accords errors to what biblical writers assumed, it does not necessarily entail that what the text teaches is erroneous. This may sound like a minor technical point but I am inclined to think it is important.
An example might help to illustrate this point. Let’s take as an example the well known story of the boy who cried wolf. This story, on the face of it, is simply a description of a shepherd boy who was killed after giving false alarms about wolves. Taken in a straight-forward, literal fashion it appears to relay an historical event. Now most people recognise that this story is not designed to teach us an historical event, those who retell this story do so to make a moral point about the dangers and pitfalls of repeatedly lying. The story is a powerful and graphic way of teaching this point and gives the point a vividness and power that the mere claim “don’t lie” does not have. It is also clear, I think, that no one would consider what this story teaches to be false if it was discovered the events the story described never happened (which they probably did not). This is because once the genre of the text is realised, it is evident that the text does not teach that the events happened and if it does not teach that they happened then the fact that they did not cannot render what it teaches as false.
Now, let me provide a hypothetical situation. Suppose I was researching the origins of the story of the boy who cried wolf and I discovered that at some point in the past a person heard this story and believed it to be literally true, the person believed that the events actually happened. Suppose this person was also struck by the fact that these events provided a powerful illustration of the dangers of lying and issuing false reports so much so that this person began using this story to teach about the dangers of lying. Suppose that this person’s pedagogy caught on and the story entered into cultural consciousness and that those people who heard and retold the story also believed it actually happened. Would this discovery lead us to conclude that what the story teaches is false? Again it seems clear to me that it would not. This is because whatever the original teller believed about the story, what the story teaches remains true. The original teller may have all sorts of beliefs about what was authored but unless the story was actually used to teach each of these beliefs the story is not discredited by any finding to the effect that these beliefs are false. The story of the boy who cries wolf teaches us about lying it does not teach (nor does it purport to teach us) an historical event. As such, it is shown to be false only if someone can show us that what it says about lying is false.
It is important to see the limitations of this illustration. I am not arguing that Genesis 1-11 should be construed as a fable in the vein of the story of the boy who cried wolf – I think Genesis is clearly not a fable – the point I am making is that there is a distinction between what a person assumes about a story when they tell it and what the story actually teaches. Even if a person falsely assumes the factual accuracy of the events in a story or narrative as true then that does not entail that what the text teaches is untrue. The example of the boy who cries wolf shows that with some genres the truth of what is taught stands whether or not the story used to teach this truth is historically accurate. Even if we grant that Genesis is myth or folklore, it does not follow that what it teaches is false.
[1] Evan Fales “Darwin’s Doubt, Calvin’s Calvary” in James Beilby Naturalism Defeated? Essays on Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000) 55.
[2] Peter Enns Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids MI : Baker Books, 2005) 50.
[3] Ibid 55.
[4] Greg Beale The Erosion of Inerrancy in Evangelicalism: Responding to New Challenges to Biblical Authority (Wheaton Ill: Crossway Books, 2008) 69.
[5] Ibid.
Tags: Evan Fales · Genesis · Gordon Wenham · Greg Beale · Hermeneutics · Inerrancy · Peter Enns · Selection44 Comments
A common objection to belief in the God of the Bible is that a good, kind, and loving deity would never command the wholesale slaughter of nations. In the tradition of his popular Is God a Moral Monster?, Paul Copan teams up with Matthew Flannagan to tackle some of the most confusing and uncomfortable passages of Scripture. Together they help the Christian and nonbeliever alike understand the biblical, theological, philosophical, and ethical implications of Old Testament warfare passages.
Your proposed way of rescuing the Bible from its errors rests on the very unlikely assumption that its myths purport to teach some theological point, but not both theology and history together. However, the separation is spurious, as even Enns recognizes.
In other words, your analogy between Gen 1-11 and the boy who cried wolf is a false analogy. The relevant analogy is rather between Gen 1-11 and the man who declared that ‘the boy who cried wolf’ both contains a moral truth and is a true historical account. In fact, both Gen 1-11 and man are simply wrong.
JP Holding points out in The Mormon Defenders, that contemporary language of the day attributed “image of God” language to kings as representatives of their relevant gods.
For human beings to be created in imago Dei, means that they are God’s representatives on Earth with dominion over creation. It leads logically to the dominion mandate of Genesis 1:28.
Deane:
I am not ruling out the idea that myth could not be used to teach history. Enn’s uses the category of “mythologizing history” and cites the example of the sea monster Rahab (Isa 30:7) and Tannim (Ezek 29:3 ) being used to describe historical political events. ( he also uses the Assyrain example of Sargo) As a case where where a mythic categories are used to convey historical events, these myths teach historical claims but is are not a descriptive account of what actually happened, and I think Genesis even if a myth, could teach history and arguably does teach history in this sense. The claim that God created the world or the human race is a historical claim after all.
I think however you are suggesting something different that Genesis does teach an account of what actually happened. Its unclear to me however this is correct, first there are the obvious contradictions in reading the text this way, chapter 1 and chapter 2 for example side by side have obvious tensions It seems to me unlikely that an author would have deliberately constructed an account with such obvious contradictions. Similarly I don’t think ancient people really believed that snakes actually talked, that God, walked with adam in the cool of the garden and named every animal in one day for example.
Moreover, if one takes Wenham’s view that Genesis is a kind of polemic where Babylonian stories are re-told but altered to make a different point, wouldn’t the author and audience know that the stories had been altered in this way and hence not be a descriptive account of what actually occurred.
There are other philosophical reasons I could cite as well. Swinburne for example notes the difference between what a text presupposes and what it teaches. He notes that when an author teaches something they aim to “add to the readers stock of information” hence if the text simply repeats a story ones readers already are familiar with an know, or uses a common description from the time, and then adds some new information to the text, then thats evidence that what is new is the p teaching whereas the rest is presupposition. He also argues, along contemporary philosophy of language lines that the what a text presupposes is not part of what it asserts (Swinburne Revelation p 29). There is also the arguments of Wolterstorff and Plantinga that if one believes the primary author of Genesis is God this makes a hermeneutical difference that I can’t go into in a small com box.
Got this quote from C.S Lewis from a post on another website –
ps, there is a lot of this kind of stuff coming out at the moment thanks to the internet movie Zeitgeist, which claims Jesus was based on older myths and legends (Horus, Krishna etc). These points in the movie can be easily disproved (and have been) by anyone genuinely looking into the actual ancient legends.
http://www.publicchristianity.com/Videos/zeitgeist.html
Fletch, that comment about Zeitgeist is so true. I find it fascinating that people who reject the Christian understanding of Jesus, based as it is in the recollections of witnesses, nonetheless will give ear to complete and utter unresearched poppycock as long as it seems to criticise Christianity.
G. K. Chesterton wrote a fascinating monologue on why he came to Christianity (I think it was in Orthodoxy) where he pointed out that it was its critics who convinced him it was true. When he examined their arguments he found that they flatly contradicted each other, each outdoing themselves in finding fault with Christianity. Too warlike, too peace loving, too altruistic, too greedy so on and so forth.
Deane:
To rewrite Matthews “boy who cried wolf” example… lets assume that the author himself (falsely) believed that the events actually happened, and that these events taught some great truth… and later it was discovered that the event did not happen… would this diminish the force of the moral point made in the story?
Max
I like your example, though I still note you state the author “believed the events happend” and also that the events “taught” great truths. There does seem to me to be a difference between what you believe about a story and what you teach with a story, and I am not sure Deane is grasping the distinction.
Hi Mat your blog is excellent and thought provoking as always.
My (potential) issue with what you have written could be summed up with the words “slippery slope.”
You say:
I think Beale is correct; Enns’ position does commit him to the claim that the biblical authors made mistakes. However, I think the conclusion he tries to draw, that this claim compromises the authority of scripture is too quick. It is worth noting that Enns claimed that the biblical writers assumed the factual nature of what they reported. He explicitly states also that the genre of myth uses stories to teach answers to certain theological and existential questions. For exampl, questions regarding ultimate meaning and origins, such things as, who are we? where do we come from? and so on. Hence while Enns position accords errors to what biblical writers assumed, it does not necessarily entail that what the text teaches is erroneous. This may sound like a minor technical point but I am inclined to think it is important.
Am I right in saying that your view is that it is possible for the writers of the Bible to be mistaken on what they wrote yet for the bible still to be authoritative?
That is they got the facts wrong because they are very primitive people (or whatever) yet we need to overlook those errors to the “greater theological truths” of the Bible?
Or do I have the wrong end of the stick? (forgive me and correct me if I do!)
If I have correctly interpreted the view that you are “putting out there” I would personally find it a dangerous one to hold.
Lets take this view that the bible is error ridden in terms of it’s historicity yet this doesn’t matter because we need to over look that to see it theological truths.
My question then would be what about the gospels? Could we take this approach and apply it to the gospels? For example was Jesus mistaken in his belief that Adam and Eve lived? Was the apostle Paul wrong in this? (It seems to me that both of them thought Adam and Eve existed) Or how about all the demons being cast out of people by Jesus? One could argue that Jesus wasn’t really casting out demons but the gospel writers (and Jesus’) primitive pre scientific minds did not know about modern science and mental health etc .
Speaking for me If I have read correctly what you have said I would find “this view” on the inspiration of scripture very weak and really proto-liberalism.
P.S (I do Recognize that you have not committed “this view” as the one you personally hold but rather just as a view to be put “out there”).
I was not really saying that the author did believe the events. It was an EVEN IF one were to concede what Deane is saying it would not make a huge difference.
Matt,
I think you need to distinguish how a modern reader sees Gen 1-2, to whom the contradictions are “obvious”, and how an ancient reader would read the text, where the contradictions would be anything but obvious. A modern reader tends to read the plain or literal meaning of the text, and so finds obvious contradictions between Gen 1 and 2. The ordering of the various components of creation is obviously one such contradiction that stands out to a typical modern reader. But for an ancient reader, including the person who first joined the two stories, these words are already understood within a religious hermeneutical tradition that imposes layers of tradition between reader and text. In Genesis 1, for example, God’s creation of light before the sun was noticed, but readily read within a religious tradition that offered a quite harmonistic way of interpreting it – often that the light shone from God himself, for example. The main difference between an ancient and modern reading is in this willingness to read the text via layers of harmonizing tradition. As a result, the contraditions which are ‘obvious’ to you are ‘obviously’ in harmony to the ancient reader.
As for Wenham’s claim concerning polemic against Babylon, the idea reflects out-of-date scholarship from many decades ago. The Babylonian or Mesopotamian context is just plain wrong. Genesis 1-11 reflected a monotheising climate which had long been in play during the Persian and Hellenstic periods. Gen 1-11 is not a polemic of any sort, but a response to these wider monotheistic developments in Persia and Greece.
Max – the answer would depend on the particular reader. If the moral force for one person rested on the authority of the text derived from its historical truth, then obviously yes, it would dissipate. But if its moral force derived from the moral principle which a reader derived from the passage, then, no.
Deane
You write
I think you need to distinguish how a modern reader sees Gen 1-2, to whom the contradictions are “obvious”, and how an ancient reader would read the text, where the contradictions would be anything but obvious. A modern reader tends to read the plain or literal meaning of the text, and so finds obvious contradictions between Gen 1 and 2. The ordering of the various components of creation is obviously one such contradiction that stands out to a typical modern reader.
I don’t disagree, my point in citing the contradictions was to show why its unlikely the author intended a plain reading of the text.
As for Wenham’s claim concerning polemic against Babylon, the idea reflects out-of-date scholarship from many decades ago. The Babylonian or Mesopotamian context is just plain wrong. Genesis 1-11 reflected a monotheising climate which had long been in play during the Persian and Hellenstic periods. Gen 1-11 is not a polemic of any sort, but a response to these wider monotheistic developments in Persia and Greece.
Well I disagree with the idea that Gen 1-11 were composed during ( or after) the hellenistic period. And as for this being scholarship from several decades ago. I know of Egyptologists who have offered authored studies published only a few years ago which place the text in a Babylonian context. Whereas the idea that Gen 1-11 was composed during the hellenistic period was being defended as decades before I did my undergrad, so I am skeptical of your claim of being“out of date” here.
This seems to suggest the truth or falsity of a statement and the meaning of a text depends on the reader. I think that’s false.
“Max – the answer would depend on the particular reader. If the moral force for one person rested on the authority of the text derived from its historical truth, then obviously yes, it would dissipate. But if its moral force derived from the moral principle which a reader derived from the passage, then, no.”
Really? So if someone was told that the “cried wold” story was not really historical after all, as they had always thought… then suddenly the moral of the story would have no meaning? I am skeptical…
Max,
No, it would be wrong to conclude that ‘the moral of the story would have no meaning’ for a person for whom the authority of the text derived from its historical truth. It would, rather, ‘diminish the force of the moral point made in the story’ – which was how you phrased your original question. If a reader connects moral force to historical truth, and that historical truth is seen to fail, then that is clearly the case. However, many other readers do not make such a connection between moral and historical content. So, the force of the moral point depends, as I say, on the nature of the reader.
Yeah Deane.. you already said that… almost verbatim. “See above” would have sufficed.
But I was not sceptical of your reasoning. I was sceptical of the existence of a large number of people who would throw away the “cried wolf” story when they found out it was not in fact historical… *theoretically* such a person could exist of course… that is too obvious to need stating. I am sceptical that many *actually* do.
Matthew said: my point in citing the contradictions was to show why its unlikely the author intended a plain reading of the text
And my point in distinguishing a modern reader (who sees contradiction on a plain reading) from an ancient reader or redactor (who does not see any contradiction on their far-from-plain reading) was to show why an ancient reader could accept the contradiction at the plain level of the text, and ignore it, because their hermeneutical method is rather mediated through a complex level of traditional religious interpretations. It therefore seems to me very likely that an ancient author would have deliberately constructed an account with contradictions which are very obvious to us, which were of no issue for him.
I don’t doubt that Hoffmeier, Kitchen and others still hold onto the older view, but it is simply no longer feasible. Gen 1-11 comes at the end of the composition of the Pentateuch, that is, no earlier than the late Persian or early Hellenistic Periods. But, if you hold onto the conservative view, then at least it is worth pointing out that your argument does not work under the assumptions of much other scholarship.
Oh – I think you’re right about that, Max. Most people are very adaptable concerning their beliefs.But I have struck some people who no longer hold to any moral teaching of Gen 1-2 after learning of its historical falsity, because they came from a very strict fundamentalist background – Church of Christ, etc. They end up staunch fundamentalist atheists.
Matt said: This seems to suggest the truth or falsity of a statement and the meaning of a text depends on the reader. I think that’s false.
I’m not concerned with meaning here, but with moral force. Moral force does indeed depend on the individual’s particular belief structure, as morality is relative to circumstance.
Deane… I have spoken to people who claim that the only reason people are moral is due to a fear of punishment by God, and that without that fear they would be completely amoral… if this is a sincere belief, and this like fundamentalism is a belief which can be transferred wholesale into a new paradigm, I assume that these people fall into some orgy of sin when they become atheists.
Deane
I agree that conservative scholarship does not work on the assumptions of other scholarship, baring any compelling reasons for accepting those assumptions however I fail to see any thing of substance, there, the point in this context however is that Peter Enn’s position does assume this context and I am asking whether granting his position biblical authority is compromised.
I am not sure I buy your suggestion that an ancient writer, if by an ancient writer someone who wrote after the Hellenistic period (post Plato, Pythagoras, and Aristotle) would not see contradictions the way we do. Nor do I prima facie buy that at this period people would fail to draw the distinction between myth and history as you suggest and mistaken conflate the two.
It also seems you have wedded your interpretation to moral relativism; we obviously can’t go down that path again. But obviously I am not going to accept that position as given.
Matt, I’m not saying that the ancient readers didn’t understand a contradiction in much the way we do. It’s just that they didn’t see it. The influence of their hermeneutical traditions on their reading of the text blinded them to the contradictions which existed at the level of a plain, literal reading. Any apparent contradiction was quickly explained by some deeper, spiritual – and harmonizing – meaning.
For example, many ancient readers accepted (wrongly, as we know) that light was historically created before the sun and stars. But the ancient reader had a ready explanation for that contradiction which we recognize, which allowed them to read the text as though there never were a contradiction.
The end result of all this is that your argument that Gen 1-2 must be seen as ‘myth’, rather than an historical account of the order in which God made stuff, has no good grounds. For the ancient reader saw no contradiction at any lliteral level which would have demanded a mythic reading. Instead, their reading was always already controlled by a harmonizing, spiritual hermeneutic which allowed them to view the text as a ‘historical’ account.
Deane,
Given your position that the text was written during the early Hellenistic period and in a Hellenistic context. I am skeptical of this claim. I can show you texts from Plato where he uses myths (some similar to the creation myth in Gen 2) in precisely the way I suggested. I am also aware of classical scholars who have stressed that the ancient greeks were aware that certain stories about the Olympian Gods were myths which they did not take as literal history, fact there is a discussion of this very point by Socrates just before the Hellenistic period.
So in a Hellenistic context the suggestion that there was no distinction drawn between myth and history lacks plausibility. It might have plausibility in a Babylonian context several thousand years earlier but I am not convinced what you say is true in a Hellenistic context.
Max
What if we amended the story slightly, lets say a man lives in a community where deceit and betrayal are common. The person has an encounter with God and God reveals to him his will that lying and deceit are wrong and should not be engaged in, he also commands the man to teach this divine command to the community. The man decides to do this by drawing on his community’s history and reminding them of an incident in their historical traditions of a boy who was killed crying wolf, in doing this he is able to illustrate vividly and powerfully the divine will.
We discover latter that the community’s historical traditions were inaccurate. Does this mean that the man in question did not teach the word of God to his community? I am inclined to think the answer is fairly evidently no.
Out of date scholarship?
Who are you thinking of that would date Gen. 2-3 that late? Possibly Genesis 1, but definitely not 2-3 (and I’m skeptical how they could maintain Genesis 1 as that late at this point). Outside of Lemche, Thompson, Davies and the Copenhagen school, but none have written extensively on Genesis and I can’t think of anyone still dating that late…who do you have in mind?
Out of all of the major commentaries written on the book during the last 10 years, I can’t think of anyone. Turner? No. Ross? Definitely not, he’s evangelical. Arnold? Cotter? Collins? Of course not. Of course, neither did Kidner, Waltke, Walton, Sailhammer, Currid or other evangelicals. Richard J. Clifford (upcoming Hermeneia) dates 2-3 to Ezekiel’s time and chapter 1 just afterward…both Babylonian exile. Ronald Hendel (forthcoming Yale Anchor BC) sees non-rabbinic revisions continuing past the destruction of the temple, but dates the stories themselves in 2-3 to Babylon. He says the final revisions to the Pentateuch came in the mid-5th century.
So, honest question…who do you have in mind here?
Matt,
I’m not saying that the ancient Hebrew readers of Gen 1-2 made no distinction between ‘history’ and ‘myth’. That is quite another topic.
My point is, rather, that the contradictions we see in the text were read through the lens of a tradition which harmonized the text in ways that we would not today. So where we see contradiction on a literal reading, they saw harmony according to a deeper, spiritual reading.
Yes, Ranger, out-of-date scholarship. And it is a rare thing to find a biblical commentary that is not by its very nature, as a summary of previous scholarship, at least 20 years behind the current debate.
The argument is simple. The Pentateuch is Persian. Genesis is the latest large addition to the Pentateuch. Gen 2-3 is itself, with its presentation of paradise, an obvious candidate for Persian influence (see e.g. Garbini, Blenkinsopp, Clifford).
Deane, two things,
First, if you accept that hellenistic people could distinguish between myth and history and in fact did so with regard to stories like that in Gen 1-3 ( Plato is an example) then it seems to me your original criticism of my position can be called into question. You originally wrote:
Your proposed way of rescuing the Bible from its errors rests on the very unlikely assumption that its myths purport to teach some theological point, but not both theology and history together. However, the separation is spurious, as even Enns recognizes. This original criticism claims that its spurious to separate myth and history, but Hellenistic writers did do this.
Second, this would probably take us to far a field but each premise of your argument for a late date seems to be questionable. First, you say the Pentateuch is Persian, but there are well known parallels between Gen -11 and Babylonian myths and well known parallels between Exodus- Deuteronomy-Joshua and Mesopotamian -Hittite vassal treaties all of which suggest a quite different context, and which were composed in this style during latter periods. it was these facts which motivated Enn’s position in the first place.
Second, I know of no reason for stating that Genesis is the last edition to the Pentateach , Gen 1-11 parallels materials which are much older than say the kind of Vassal treaty format we find in Deuteronomy and there are some things in the Patriarchal narratives which show awareness of ANE customs long gone by the Persian period.
Of course I accept that latter studies may have provided some answer to these claims, an this may well be more your area than mine,but on the face of it both premises seem to me questionable. Certainly, Kitchen for example gives quite a bit of evidence for each of the points I made above.
So it seems that your premises are questionable and even if they are not and the Torah is from the Hellenistic period then that would undercut your original point anyway.
Deane,
Thanks for your response and for including the scholars behind your comment. I don’t know how much of their work you have actually read, but let me respond to each as I’ve read some of each of their works recently, and they don’t exactly support your claim. Maybe you were just emphasizing for rhetorical value. As is, I’m unfamiliar with how you could justify stating that Blenkinsopp and Clifford give a post-exilic, much less Hellenistic date for the Creation narratives.
I have read much of Clifford’s work, and already commented about how he dates the texts to the time of Ezekiel. Unlike your other two scholars, he is an expert in the Creation accounts. In his “Creation Accounts in the ANE and the Bible” he dates the biblical Creation narrative to the time of Ezekiel, as he does tentatively elsewhere noting the difficulties in understanding conceptual meaning in the texts and how this influences dating. I do not have access to his earlier work with J.J. Collins (1992), but I doubt his dating schema would be different in that one work from everything else he’s written, of which I’m aware. As I mentioned above, he will be writing the forthcoming Hermeneia commentary on Genesis, so if his thinking has changed it will be evident there.
Joseph Blenkinsopp was an outstanding theologian, and long retired. His most famous writings on the Pentateuch are from 40-50 years ago actually. In fact, he has done little more than editing since 2004. I’m not sure where you are getting that he dates the Creation narratives to the Persian/Hellenic periods. Maybe he has changed in the last five years, and you are aware of some writings of his that I’m not, but in his “Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period” (2004) he specifically suggests Genesis 1:1-2:4 as a polemic written against the contemporary Babylonian myths. This was the same dating scheme in his much older (from the 60s and 70s “From Adam to Abraham” and “The Pentateuch”). I do not have access to his latest reprinting of “The Pentateuch” but I’m not aware that his dating schema changed anytime, and if it had, it went back to an exilic dating scheme before his 2004 publication.
I already mentioned that the Copenhagen school (with which Garbini affiliates), so I’m not surprised you mention him. He relies heavily on the work of Davies and Thompson in particular form the late 80s and early 90s to make his case, but takes philological skill that they are incapable of to hone in more specifically on certain ideas. With that said, he actually has said relatively little about the Creation narratives, from what I’m aware. His primary work has been in the theology of the Old Testament and the suggestion of a revised dating scheme due to what he sees as its growing influence of “Moses” in literature from the time of Hezekiah to the time of the Maccabees. In his “Myth and History in the Bible,” I’m not sure if the Creation accounts are ever mentioned, as he is much more concerned with using the Jubilees creation account to set his dating for other sections of the Pentateuch.
Anyways, it’s not like his dating scheme has been accepted by many, even among critical scholars, unless they were already firmly entrenched in the minimalist camp. Based on his argument up to this point, there is about as much reason to think that the Creation accounts date from a slightly pre-Maccabean period as there is to think that Moses wrote every word as is in the 12th cent. BCE…of course, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle…which is where most of the scholars I’ve mentioned thus far and those mentioned by Matt reside…it’s also where Clifford and Blenkinsopp reside, although you suggested otherwise.
So outside of the one scholar, I’m rather certain that you have overstated your case. Almost everything being published on Genesis (and there is about twice as much published any given year on Genesis than the rest of the Torah combined), still dates both Creation accounts to the exilic period. They may all represent “out of date” scholarship from “decades” ago, but this simply doesn’t seem to be the case from what’s actually out there and what scholars are actually writing.
Matt,
It seems you have misunderstood my point about Gen 2-3 being understood to contain ‘history’. The use of the term is confusing at the best of times, as there are so many definitions of history and myth. But what I was meaning was that the ancient reader could well understand the order of events, the six days, etc as having more or less happened as such, in Van Ranke’s conception of ‘what really happened’. For the ancient reader still believed that myth ‘happened’ in some sense, so we cannot reduce these stories to ‘moral tales’ if we are considering the ancient reader’s reception of them. Whatever the distinction between myth and history, it is very unlikely that it was seen in the quite minimal ‘what happened’ content you describe (something like the abstract, ‘God created everything’). If you choose to classify this as ‘myth’, and the classification is not really appropriate at the beginning of a history (Gen-Kings), I am just saying that this does not rule out any reader believing that it also relates what ‘in fact’ happened. My understanding is similar to Paul Veyne’s regarding Greek myth, on this.
And yes – I think your alleged ‘parallels’ do take us too far afield. But let me just say that I don’t deny that the Persian-era composer responsible for getting the Pentateuch into much like its current shape probably had all sorts of literary or oral sources at hand, some of which could well have originated in earlier periods. There is, however, nothing in the very general notion of treaty found in Deut, etc, that could not be dated to any period (and the Hittite comparison is quite remote compared to the Neo-Assyrian).
You noted you didn’t understand the reasons that Genesis was later joined to Exod-Num. It has to do with the very poor integration of the Patriarch traditions into the rest of the Pentateuch. Van Seters has explained this at length in many of his books. His 1974 book destroyed that old apologetic point that there are traditions in Genesis that correspond to ANE parallels.
Your argument, then, is made on very unlikely grounds. Gen 1-11 was formed in the latter stages of the formation of the Pentateuch, which the emerging consensus dates to the Persian Period.
Ranger, Well, you can choose to dimiss the scholars I provided. But you seem to be confusing the date of the source underlying Gen 2-3, which may or may not be 6th Century BC, with the date of Gen 1-11 and Genesis and indeed the Pentateuch, in which it appears. As far as I can tell, you correctly describe the various scholars’ speculations about the date of the sources underlying Gen 2-3. But, I was never discussing that. Instead, I was discussing the reason for dating Gen 1-11, which is part of Genesis, in the Persian Period. And this is indeed where most scholars date it (even the ones you choose to ignore, because they come from Copenhagen).
Deane,
Thanks for clarifying your position, perhaps unsurprisingly I remain unconvinced.
First, you state the with regard to Gen 2-3 an ancient writer in the Hellenistic period would regard it as history in the sense of ‘what really happened’ and that ancient readers understood myth as happening. The problem is as I pointed out, writings from before the Hellenistic period suggest otherwise. Plato is a fairly obvious example, see http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-myths/ for an overview.
I noted that Plato in the fact develops in one of his dialogues a myth very much like that found in Gen 2. So it seems we have people using myths some of the similar to Gen as a tool to convey theological truths without assuming their historicity prior to the Hellenistic period.
Second, you state There is, however, nothing in the very general notion of treaty found in Deut, etc, that could not be dated to any period (and the Hittite comparison is quite remote compared to the Neo-Assyrian). The problem is that “Conservative” scholars like Kitchen have given reasons for thinking that this is false. Surveying over 90 documents from the ANE, he notes that notes that the format used in Vassal treaties took on different literary forms in different periods and that the format of Exodus Deuteronomy and Joshua clearly fits that used in 1200-1400 this format was not used in treaties latter than this period. Treaties from the Neo Assyrian period had a quite different format.
Similarly with Gen 1-11, it has clear obvious literary parallels to the Sumerian king list, the Atarhasis Epic, the Sumerian flood tale, and the Sumerian king list. These were all composed in the 2000 BC. Kitchen again notes that after 1600 no documents of this genus were no longer composed all that occurred was simply recopied in the way we today might recopy Shakespeare or Plato.
So I don’t see any of the arguments you give actually address the “Conservative” arguments that you refer to.
Deane,
I have no idea on your background, but I’m a member of a few OT societies and have enough degrees in the field that I can at least find my way around. I also keep up with much of the discussions, so simply saying its out of date because…you say so, and one scholar agrees with you won’t cut it with me. Sorry.
Since you began your comment “I think you need to distinguish how a modern reader sees Gen 1-2, to whom the contradictions are “obvious”, and how an ancient reader would read the text, where the contradictions would be anything but obvious,” I assumed that we were discussing the Creation narratives in particular. Since the narrative was most likely added to fit the pre-existing Creation, Cain/Abel, Flood and Babel stories, its wiser to pick a story and date it or see what current scholarship says on it, instead of referring to a large and diverse section (ala Gen. 1-11). That’s what I’ve done.
I’m responding specifically to your claim that reading these stories, against a Babylonian backdrop (which is what evoked your comment) is based on decades old scholarship and out of the norm in current discussions. Since I follow the current discussions for the most part, as I would assume you do as well, I disagree and wanted to know why you think otherwise.
You have thus mentioned four scholars to support your claim:
1. Garbini
2. Clifford
3. Blenkinsopp
4. Van Seters
Clifford/Blenkinsopp are by far the most respected of the four, with Van Seters just behind. Garbini has not been nearly as well received.
1. Clifford continues to date the Creation narratives and flood narrative to the Babylonian exile, in the time of Ezekiel. Thus, he does not argue for a Persian dating of Gen. 1-11, since he sees the major stories as being exilic and polemical. He also dates certain stories in the second creation narrative to pre-exilic Canaan.
2. Blenkinsopp is retired, and only edits works at this point. He wrote the majority of his work on Genesis 1-11, nearly half a century ago. He specifically argues against what you said saying (in 2003), that Genesis 1:1-2:4 is “a polemic too obvious to be overlooked” in comparison to neo-Babylonian culture. He also dates the flood narratives to the same context. Even if he did agree with what you are saying, his major work in the field is nearly 50 years old, and thus annuls your “decades” old “out of date” argument if he is your support.
3. Van Seters has written some very engaging and interesting works, but as you yourself say, his most decisive piece against parallels comes from 1974. He restates his arguments in his 1999 Pentateuch commentary, but doesn’t expand much on his original arguments, since this was more meant to serve as an introduction. He’s much more interested in the royal history at this point and hasn’t dealt with Genesis significantly in 20 years. Even in his commentary on the Pentateuch in “The Hebrew Bible Today” from 1999 he dates D at 625 BCE, J as exilic (540 BCE) and P as post-exilic (of course Knohl has shown conclusively IMO that the majority of P dates exilic or even earlier, with only H residing in the post-exilic period on his account. Milgrom places H in the exile though as well saying that Knohl’s argument rests solely on two seemingly Persian terms that were existent before the Persian period). Van Seters sees J as a historical fiction writer creating the stories we find throughout Genesis for the most part. J includes Genesis 2:4 to the end of 4, and the bulk of Genesis 6-8 and 10-11.
4. Garbini (discussed above). I do not ignore Copenhagen (nor their English counterpart, Sheffield), nor suggested that I do, so the rhetorical move doesn’t work on me. I simply don’t believe they are that influential anymore. Fifteen years ago? Definitely, because they were new and fresh. Now? Not so much. They no longer get a free pass for being new and interesting anymore, and are receiving more and more extremely sharp criticism. Take Walter Dietrich’s (no evangelical) sharp criticism of Van Seter’s latest, which concludes with (my translation), “on the whole it seems that the allocations of the text made in his book are arbitrary for the most part and the datings are mostly unfounded.” The review is in German at RBL: http://www.bookreviews.org/pdf/7252_7892.pdf
Let’s be honest, if we’re talking about what’s being written in current scholarship, and therefore up to date, probably two out of every ten things written are by hard-core evangelical OT scholars (overstating the archaeological data), one thing is from a minimalist (denying the archaeological data) and the other seven are your Dever/Tov types in the middle who are attempting honest reconstructions.
So basically, it seems that you wrote off the Wenham/Waltke/Kidner/Enns crowd for “out of date” scholarship, and then cited only one scholar (Garbini) who in reality agrees with your view? Needless to say, along with Matt, I’m not convinced.
Matt and Ranger,
Thanks for making your views known . But, as is probably apparent to all of us, there isn’t much crossover in what we conclude about the texts, and there are some quite major fundamental disagreements. So I can’t really further engage without some very, very wide-ranging discussions on why my arguments are vastly superior. 🙂 Yet, I’m guessing none of us have the time for that.
So – ciao, and have a nice week, y’all.
Deane,
Thanks! It was fun. People familiar with recent OT literature are so rare that it’s fun to occasionally have a chat with one online.
[…] committing myself to any claim that Genesis is mythic; I am simply asking what follows if it is. -Myth, Truth, and Gesnsis 1-11 @ […]
[…] would say that such a position would lead the whole Bible’s truth to topple over. But I, and Mr. Matthew Flannagan, believe that whether or not such a “mythical” view of Genesis happens to be true or […]
if we are in gods image, how would we identify god, if he does walk amoung us?
Andre Lacocque has written a brilliant book on Genesis (centred on ch 2-4) called “Trial of Innocence”. Like the intelligent and credible biblical scholar he is, he has taken the mythical genealogy of Genesis 2-4 seriously. In fact celebration of a text like Genesis demands that it is taken seriously and also requires that allusions and cultural markers are explored all the way through to the symbolic origins. Of interest is the similarity and also difference between Mesopotamian creation myth and the Genesis creation account. Noting this as Lacocque does, provides a rich, profound and honouring reading.
Unfortunately an ‘honouring’ reading is not in evidence when we are naively determined to twist a sacred text in order to force it into the square hole of literalism, and I also find it ironic that we can be so sure that such a potent, transformative and provocative genre as the mythopoetic could never be God-breathed.
Point well made. I am a Christian who holds Genesis 1-11 as being mythological in style while making essential theological points in regards to God’s nature as well to his sovereign authority over all creation. Also I think Genesis 1-11 has much to say about man’s relation to God regardless of whether we take the story to be literal or not. I think you demonstrated superbly that Genesis 1-11 can be seen as a kind of fable while still being true. I was overall impressed with your column.
[…] that they are therefore untrue or lacking in authority. This was the argument in Matt’s post Myth, Truth and Genesis 1-11 and it is also NT Wright‘s point in this short video made by the Biologos […]
if genesis is myth,so basic principle of christianty is in vain
“if genesis is myth,so basic principle of christianty is in vain” I argue above that this claim is false.
Javad, perhaps you will find this video is a bit more accessible:
http://biologos.org/blog/meaning-and-myth/