If certain passages in Genesis are of the genre ‘myth’ it does not necessarily entail 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 Forum,
Hat Tip: Ropata
Tags: Biologos Forum · Genesis · Myth · NT Wright65 Comments
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Excuse me I have to go and throw up now.
If certain passages in Genesis are of the genre ‘myth’ it does not necessarily entail that they are therefore untrue or lacking in authority.
Sure. It’s the fact that we now know the creation and the great flood didn’t happen as described that makes Genesis’ descriptions of them untrue and lacking in authority. Of course, as the bloke in the video points out, myths aren’t about providing an accurate historical account of the events described, they’re about telling you something significant and important about humanity. Why not just accept it on that basis, instead of trying to convince yourself it must be literally true?
I read Matt’s post too.
Genesis is one of the easiest parts of the Old Testament to naturalistically debunk, unless one is a literalist and argues for inerrancy.
I don’t think that then arguing that it still has some sort of spiritual validity after that is going to hold.
Paul, actually you can only debunk genesis in the way you suggest if its Genre is not myth but some kind of ancient scientific description of what occured. In other words naturalistic scientists have to make important judgements about Genre to get this conclusion, In essence the naturalist has to adopt a creationist/fundamentalist hermeneutic to begin with.
“Of course, as the bloke in the video points out, myths aren’t about providing an accurate historical account of the events described, they’re about telling you something significant and important about humanity. “
The “bloke in the video”????????. While I have sympathy with your comments this particular comment speaks volumes.
Why is it that when someone claims to find an overarching theme (valid or not), they dismiss lower-level themes?
I could look at the greater theme of Christ’s redemption and mention that those who focus on the literal actual resurrection from the death are quaint, or simplistic, or missing what God is saying.
And the same about the incarnation, surely God becoming man and joining with us in our frailty is bigger focus and those who think that a virgin can actually get pregnant are pre-scientific.
My point is not that Genesis is therefore literal (though I think it is), rather that identifying a higher theme does not actually address the dispute.
Also I find Wright’s approach here a little (intellectually) snobbish. If I were to join his group it would be because it is on the side of truth, not because it is cool.
Related to this is the frequent dismissal of the position by people with poor knowledge of the arguments. I am well read in creationism and science and the vast majority of arguments I read reveal an astounding degree of ignorance about creationism. It seems reasonable to at least represent your opponents accurately, and if you are going to argue against them extensively then you really need to have a bit a a handle on their claims.
“The “bloke in the video”????????. While I have sympathy with your comments this particular comment speaks volumes”
Strange as it may seem Matt, some people do not know who Alvin Plantinga is either 😉
(NT Wright is to biblical scholarship what Plantinga is to Philosophy of Religion)
Bethyada, I agree there is a lot of ignorance about creationism. A good book documenting the straw men on both sides is Del Ratzch’s Battle for Beginnings.
I don’t know how this point, however, addresses the arguments of John Walton, whom Wright cites. As far as I can tell, his point about temple inaurgarations taking seven days, the paralells with the temple in Genesis, his point about gods resting in temples and so on don’t seem to rely on a misconstrual of Creationism.
Matt, my comment on ignorance was tangential to the post. I don’t know if it applies to Walton or Wright. I haven’t read Wright on it, other than been aware of his dismissals. I have seen the above video before.
I have listened to Walton twice. I haven’t found written material on the net (which I prefer to audio). Though I disagree with Walton, his comments on creationism (other than dismissal) are too limited for me to assess what he knows.
Rather whenever I come across a debate at a low or even high level, those opposed to creationism do not understand my perspective. This does not make me correct, it makes them ignorant of what they oppose.
I realise you are undecided about the various theories other than thinking YEC incorrect (at least on the age of the earth and death before the Fall).
Why should we accept the opinions of modern thinkers when throughout the entirety of scripture there is a total dependence on a simple and direct understanding of what happened in the first week?
Grant, Regarding 5) the question is not whether evolution is true, the question is how Genesis should be interpreted. Should we for examine assume that the human author was addressing the kind of scientific questions we ask today when he wrote the text, or in his cultural context was something quite different going on.
Regarding 4) this seems dubious, I agree early popularisers of Darwin such as Huxley appropriated it for this purpose, but other early evolutionists included Asa Gray and even B B Warfield the father of fundamentalist views of inerrancy. However, even if its correct, its beside the point here because the issue is how Genesis is to be understood not about wether a particular biological theory is true.
Regarding 1) this addresses the question of wether Genesis is true or false. That’s a different question to wether a particular interpretation of Genesis is correct.
Regarding 3) the six days are only mentioned in two other places in the bible none of the other numerous references to creation refer to them, moreover in both places the text are used to make a moral point about work and rest not to make a historical claim. Moreover, in both one can only take them literally if one is willing to suggest that God gets tired and needs to be refreshed. The text itself also has anthromorphic elements describing of God working, stopping for the night, starting again in the morning, and then after 6 days resting and being refreshed, does not mean God literally did these things.
Regarding 2) Walton agrees the text refers to 24 hour days, that’s however not the issue. The parable of the good Samaritan refers to a road, a mugging, and a Samaritan it does not follow that the text is teach that the episode in question is a historical event. Or more close in this case, there are numerous anthromorphic references to God’s “arm” his “hand” and so forth, these words refer to hands and feet, that does not mean that the text states God literally has hands and feet.
In Walton’s position, which Wright accepts, is that the Genesis narrative has close parallels to temple imagery used elsewhere in scripture, this is argued from scripture. He argues that it was common to celebrate a temple inauguration ceremony ritually in 6 days. He also suggests that in this culture, gods were always considered to rest in a temple, and the story of the garden of eden contains allusions to the temple in Exodus. He maintains its in light of these textual issues (not scientific debates) that the text is to be examined.
Bethyada, my position is that typical defences of YEC I have read are based on questionable exegesis of the text, its not based on science. Of course, if YEC is bad exegesis, then that fact can be taken into account in addressing faith science dialogues and addressing scientific objections, but that’s a different issue.
I am currently reading Walton’s book, though do not have a fixed view on it yet.
It seems to be Genesis 1-3 contains a lot of symbolism, beginning from the obvious symbolic name of Adam, talking snakes, god walking in the garden in the cool of the day, god not being able to find adam when he hides, word plays between adams name, the hebrew word for ground, and mortality. magical trees, and so on. When one adds this to the fact that in the next chapters other human beings apparently already populate the earth so that Cain fears them one of whom Adam marries. The obviously similar motiffs to other ANE myths of the time, suggest this is not a “history” as we would use the term.
I agree with Wright that fidelity to the text means respecting the questions it is trying to answer not isegeting our scientific issues into it where the text does not warrant it.
Just in reference to:
“the six days are only mentioned in two other places in the bible … in both places the text are used to make a moral point about work and rest not to make a historical claim.”
I would like you to expand on this point if possible.
Couldn’t it be that it was using historical fact to make a moral point?
It seems to me there are two ways you can take these passages, one is you can take them as communicating a moral point in narrative or story form. God’s creative activity is anthmorphically described in terms of working in the morning stopping at night beginning again the next day and resting at the end of the week. Hence when the text states people should observe the Sabbath, because “in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth” the text is essentially referring to a command in narrative form.
The other way is to read the story as a historical account of what actually occurred, and state the text is stating do this because this is what happened in history.
The former is preferable for two reasons, first, the second makes the command a fallacy, the text is telling people to keep the Sabbath because in the past an event occurred. This is an obvious is ought fallacy. Second, taking it literally in this way raises obvious theological problems, note what the text says.
“for in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.” Exodus 31:16-17
This text does not just say God created in six days, it states on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.. This suggest God can get tired and need refreshing. Moreover, the text in Genesis has God working morning to night and then ceasing, suggesting implicitly he stops for sleep. Now in other contexts when we hear of God having hands or feet, or being grieved and so forth its understood to be anthromorphic, why would you interpret this literally here.
The third reason, is that comparision with other ancient creation stories like the Ennuma Elish ( a Babylonian creation story) suggest that the role work plays in Gods economy was a topic of theological import, other stories make the Gods lazy slops who sleep, make men to work for them and then wipe them out with a flood when they make to much noise. A text in this context which has a narrative about God working and then commands humans to rest like him as a kind of theological counter point fits this context quite nicely. A historical description of what occurred does not, people did not write histories of this sort about the cosmos at this time. Science is a western phenomena that is only a few hundred years old.
thanks Matt,
Well said.
This is from the other thread, right?
Matt, those points were carefully ordered.
1. People were rejecting the story of Genesis when Jesus was on earth. This does not only address the question of whether Genesis is true or false, but also firmly certifies the Genesis account as historical reality. Peter and Paul show quite clearly that people will go to extreme lengths to deny the simple facts in Genesis. For Peter and Paul there was no debate over “interpretation”.
2. The author of Genesis is very specific that these are six normal days. So if point 1 establishes the stories as accurate history then there is no case for anything other than 24 hour days regardless of the existence of other stories in the bible that are not historical accounts.
3. The rest of scripture is clear that these are six normal days. That there are only two other places where six days is stated explicitly is not reason to believe that other mentions of creation that do not mention six days are any evidence against six days. And nor is text used to make a moral point about work and rest evidence against the historicity of the story.
And nowhere does it say God gets tired so I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about with the rest.
4. Evolution is an idea specifically designed to remove God from the creation of His earth. A quote from Darwin, “(Lamark) first did the eminent service of arousing attention to the probability of all change in the organic, as well as in the inorganic world, being the result of law, and not of miraculous interposition.”
And this point is important because with an understanding of the motivation and reason for evolution should come our biblically based and fundamentally sound reasons for rejecting the idea. What we should never do is compromise on God’s word because men popularize an idea and then manipulate it to sound more appealing to us.
5. If you still insist that evolution is somehow viable we can look at the evidence. After stepping through each of the above 4 discussions, if you still want to believe in evolution then we can look at the evidence which overwhelmingly goes against.
But you really should just stop at number 1.
False dichotomy alert!
… there are two ways you can take these passages, one is you can take them as communicating a moral point in narrative or story form.
It could easily be both.
Strange as it may seem Matt, some people do not know who Alvin Plantinga is either.
And I would be one of those people too. Familiarity with specialists in the field of bible study or philosophy of religion isn’t a prerequisite to having an opinion on whether Genesis is a factual historical account, or the nature of myth.
Grant Dexter: really, there’s nothing atheists would like better than for Christians to try and make the credibility of the entire Bible stand on Genesis being a factual account of historical events…
Psycho, of course, but it was funny to here N T Wright one of the foremost new testament scholars in the world refered to in that way.
Grant,
1. The issue of whether what a text teaches is true or false is a different question to what its Genre is. Creationists often conflate this, but they are mistaken too. What the book Revelation teaches is true, it does not follow that there is a 7 headed beast, or that Jesus is a lamb. As to Paul, and Peter, nowhere do they address the question of the age of the earth or whether Genesis was literal in the way you said, so this is quite false. In fact in Paul’s day some Jewish exegetes interpreted Genesis figuratively and Paul says nothing at all about this. Of course book quote from the text and allude to it, but that does nothing to tell us what the Genre of the text they cite from is.
2. I addressed the “six normal days” thing above, I note the author of the song, the first day of Christmas clearly mean’t normal 24 hour days as well. Does that mean the song is intended to teach history? That I really had a true love who gave me a partridge in a pear tree? But as for the days of creation, one problem is the phrase “the seventh day” has the same meaning in the text as the rest yet it never ends in the narrative. Moreover, as I noted on day seven God rests and needs to be refreshed, apparently you think God gets tired, God also rests at night and works only during the day. This is pretty evidently anthromorphic language not to different from phrases about “the arm of the lord” or references to his hands, or eyes and so on.
3. I addressed this in my last comment above.
4. The quote from states “attention to the probability of all change in the organic, as well as in the inorganic world, being the result of law, and not of miraculous interposition” this does not say God is not involved in creating the world, it says evolution provided an account that involved law not miracle. The implict assumption you make here is that God only operates through Miracle and any operation by natural laws is independent of God. Something that has been denied by Christian theologians for millennia. I believe for example that God “knitted me together in my mothers womb” as Psalm 139 says, I also believe in the laws of embryology and gentics. Should we reject the laws of gravity hold because they explain how things fall by natural law and not miracle?
Moreover even if this quote did esthablish Darwin’s motives were to remove God. That fails to address anything for two reasons. (a) to discredit Darwins theory because of his motives is an obvious ad hominen fallacy (b) the issue being discussed is how to understand Genesis this is not the same question as whether evolution is true. People like Augustine of Hippo were discussing this question millennia before Darwin.
5. Again ignores the question, the question is not whether evolution is true ( something I said nothing about) the question is how should we understand Genesis. Is the author of this text teaching us that God took 24 hours to create the world, resting at night, and then stopped on day 7 to get refreshed. Did this same God also walk ( with feet) in the garden “in the cool of the day” ( does he get hot?). Was he also limited in knowledge so that when Adam hid from him he had to find him? Is this what Genesis teaches? Does it also teach that snakes are wise? And can talk? Does it teach that Adam took only 24 hours to name every single animal species in the world, or for plants to grow up naturally. Does it teach that animals were made before man and then in the next chapter teach the opposite? Do we really need to know what Darwin’s motives were, or about the fossil record to be able to ascertain symbolism and anthromorphic language here? I don’t think so.
Your constantly talking about evolution is what worries me with creationism, focus on addressing a modern scientific questions of our context rather than a focus on what the text was saying in it’s context.
Grant,
Do you think Newton set out to remove god from the universe when he discovered laws of gravity and motion?
Darwin was writing that letter as a Victorian naturalist, and the goal of Victorian science was to find laws that the world tick. That’s perfectly in keeping with they way most religious people saw the world at that time, and for that reason there was really very little push-back from the church at the time Darwin published The Origin.
I don’t think the origin of ideas has any bearing on their truth or falsity, but it’s kind of amusing to see someone who appears to be a YEC make this claim, since modern 6 day creationism is largely (but not entirely) the product of Seventh Day Adventists who were wedded to the literal 6 days since Ellen White was meant to have been shown the whole pageant in which Adam gets to name every animal in Genesis 2 in one of her visions.
David, we agree on something at last…..
I think the argument X can be explained by laws of nature not a miracle, therefore X is not caused by God, affects a lot of science religion debate on both sides, its odd, because the idea that God governs the world via natural law is an old theological idea and some of the most interesting design arguments today contend laws of nature themselves are evidence of design.
David, we agree on something at last…..
It had to happen eventually 😉
Like most things, the conflict between science and religion is fought mainly between extremes form either side. It’s obvious that some christian positions conflict with science, but, you really only get the conflict when either sides takes the most literal reading of the bible and runs with it.
@Psycho. I doubt that. Most people become very antagonistic when a man insists that the bible is accurate.
@Matt
1. Books of the bible that are of a prophetic or metaphorically descriptive nature are not to be used to defend the idea that Genesis is the same sort of writing. I’ve no idea why you’re accusing me of conflation when it is what you are doing.
There will be a seven headed beast and Jesus is the Lamb of God. We know what these things mean because we can read. Six days can only mean six days for the same reason. We can read.
Paul and Peter both affirm the reality of the Genesis account. They do not need to comment in depth because Genesis does that for itself. Their only motivation was to condemn those who rejected the clear meaning of Genesis. And the fact that other Jews did reject the clear teaching of Genesis is no evidence that they were right! Now if you have something from Genesis that shows us we should read it as something other than what it says then we might have something to discuss, but the rest of the bible explicitly supports six days and never contradicts six days, so I’d say you have your work cut out. 🙂
2. Are you mad? Are you really going to use a Christmas carol lyrics? Your point is utterly irrelevant as we already agreed in the other thread. There are many examples of many different styles of writing. Showing me one example of words used to convey an idea that is not historical reality is no evidence that another piece is not.
So Genesis doesn’t mention evening and morning on the seventh day. That’s kind of an argument from absence. Got anything concrete?
There is no problem with God resting and the bible never says He gets tired. It was always daytime and nighttime every time God worked, so your argument that He only worked during the day is kinda silly. And where Genesis mentions God walking around, He was indeed literally walking around. So I really don’t know what you’re trying to get at or how to respond.
4. The quote shows very clearly that the removal of miracles was a prime motivation. And there is no “implicit assumption” on my part. God does not only use miracles. In fact He rarely uses them. He is intimately involved with the physical world and it does not proceed independently of Him. We should not reject natural explanations for natural phenomena. But Genesis is very explicit on how God created the earth. And those six days cannot be explained by any physics that I know of.
And this was never an attempt to dismiss Darwin’s theory. For that I would look at evidence. This was to show that the motivation for rejecting the simple meaning of Genesis is clearly linked to a rejection of God. And Augustine and Hippo were predated in rejecting the simple meaning of Genesis, as you’ve already said, by numerous Jewish writers at the time of Peter and Paul. People rejecting the simple meaning of Genesis is no evidence that they are right. You’re going to have to come up with something a bit more concrete.
5. Is aimed at non-Christians who will always get this far. It disappoints me that you are arguing this as it means you have rejected all the best reasons for accepting what Genesis says. If you reject the simple meaning of Genesis we can look at evidence in order to utterly demolish evolution. And for a Christian, if evolution is not the explanation for origins then perhaps they will return to the bible.
@David. No I don’t think Newton set out to remove God from the universe when he discovered laws of gravity and motion. In fact he explicitly said God was in charge of his laws.
The “church” agreeing with something is no evidence for the bible saying the same thing, nor is it evidence for a scientific theory.
I think the origin of an ideas is a key factor in deciding if one is to believe the idea, but ideas can also be tested, so it’s by no means a completely settled issue. So that a Seventh Day Adventist believed something is no reason why it should not be true.
But we’re happy that you’re amused. 🙂
@Grant
with all due respect how are you determining what the simple meaning of the first 3 chapters of genesis is? Why are you assuming it says anything about how God made the world. I have always thought it was an introduction and explanation of why things are the way they are.
Also why the assumption that a contemporary western reading of the text is necessarily the correct one.
If you want to be truly literalist about it, “evening and morning’ dont make a day, they make a night being approx 12 hours of darkness. In which case the verses in English are contradictory within themselves.
Further, although the days are apparently consecutive why the assumption that they are contiguous. There is nothing in the text that prevents the days from being days of decree or fiat.
I do not for a moment believe that God has in some way deceived us by telling us a false story, but we certainly can deceive ourselves by reading into the text things it doesnt actually say about subjects it doesnt even address
Hi, Jeremy.
Until you show good reason why I should not read Genesis and simply accept what it plainly says I remain justified in doing so. Your attempts here are fairly laughable. Evening and morning are events that happen every day and reference to them in Genesis doesn’t make anything contradictory.
And likewise the assumption that the days are six normal, consecutive days is a perfectly reasonable way to read Genesis. If you have good reasons why I should not read Genesis this way, then let’s hear them.
Until such a time, Genesis remains God’s account of how He created the world and I remain perfectly justified in reading it as historical reality.
Grant, I take it you think God “refreshed” himself on day seven. I take it you think snakes are the wisest of all animals, I take it you think that if a human being hides God can’t find him and has to call out to him.
I take it you believe the sky is a solid substance that stars are placed inside this solid substance, and there is waters above it.(see Gen 1:6-8)
I take it you also think that the sun and moon are lamps.
I take it you think animals were created on day five before man on day six. ( as Gen 1’s plain meaning says) and also that after man was created God made animals and brought them to him (Gen 2).
I take it snakes can talk, and the bible insists we accept this claim despite what contemporary biologists say.
I take it that in 24 hours Adam named all the animals in the world.
I take it also you think that God was not only unable to find adam when he hid, he also apparently did not know that animals were not a suitable companion, because its only after adam has named all the animals ( in 24 hours) it becomes apparent that this is the case and so women is created.
Adam also apparently was unaware it had only been a few hours because he says “at last” when the women is created.
God also apparently walks in the garden when its cool, so not only is he ignorant, unaware of adams needs but apparently he has feet walks and makes a noise in the bushes as he does so.
But of course there is nothing in the text to suggest this is not a historical account, there is no anthromorphisms.
There is not the hebrew poetic use of repitition in the creation.
There is no word play between the word adam ( man) earth (adamah) through out the text and no poetic word plays between women (ish) and man (ishya) in the text. Nothing like that at all.
As Mike Rea points out, 2000 years from now someone in another culture may translate our writings in to their language and someone might write a history thesis on the historical records contained in books which begin with “once upon a time.”
We know that this phrase signifies a fairy tale but for the reader of the future looking only at the literal reading it may seem perfectly reasonable for them to view such texts as history given that each record begins with “once upon a time.”
Hey, Matt. Some of those things are worth talking about, but I’m not really prepared to post an explanation on all of them all at once.
Please choose a couple of those issues and we’ll see if we can’t figure this out. What are some good reasons why I should not believe what Genesis plainly teaches about the history of the world?
@Matt: “Paul, actually you can only debunk genesis in the way you suggest if its Genre is not myth but some kind of ancient scientific description of what occured.”
I think that that is what Grant is doing – not putting forward Genesis as a myth. I’m not sure if he’s a full YEC though.
Unfortunately if Genesis is a myth then it’s no more worth taking as a spiritual guide than any other myth.
Matt, there are several things I disagree with you about here. I may come back to others but for now wish to flesh out your comment Should we for examine assume that the human author was addressing the kind of scientific questions we ask today when he wrote the text
I deny this is the case, but more so I deny that questions science decides to address are by necessity scientific questions.
Science has decided it wishes to extend its domain form observables, to non-observables. I don’t intrinsically oppose this, but I find the conflation confuses people.
Consider the question Did Joshua attack Jericho? This is a simple question about history. Now one can look to documents that address this, or perhaps oral history, or one could do archaeological research by comparative pottery, or through the physics dept via carbon dating. Or one could review opinions in all these fields. Regardless of the answer, it is clear that this question is not the domain of science just because scientists happen to use scientific methods in addressing this question. The question is primarily historical, even if we gain more data from scientific disciplines than from linguists.
The origin of the universe is not a repeatable experiment. It is a question in the domain of history. The fact that scientists now are extremely interested in the question, and some dismiss documentary evidence, does not make this a scientific question.
This is clear as questions about when the world began, how did it come to exist, is it eternal, etc, all antedate the scientific method. That cultures have histories that describe their origin and duration shows that this sort of discussion interested the ancients. The origin of the human race and time since it began is completely analogous to the origin of a tribe and the tribe’s subsequent history.
Asking when the world began and how it happened is not intrinsically scientific, nor is it alien to ancients. These are not modern questions. The only thing modern is science’s claim for a monopoly on this topic.
Matt, your 8:24 comment is unhelpful. You are claiming that if one holds to a literal approach there cannot be any symbolism, or metaphor, or idiom. And if we concede these are present then somehow that means others who find metaphor in every word are being just as honest to the text.
To be clear, YEC states that Genesis is to be understood in a straight forward manner. Or that the genre of Genesis is (predominantly) historical-grammatical. Genesis 1 is read like 2 and 3 and 4-11 and 12-50.
Thus the overarching story is narrative. The story itself is in essence literal (or true as understood literally). Is is read as one may read history, not prophecy, not poetry, not apocalypse.
It is not a claim for hyperliteralism, nor the absence of metaphor or symbolism, or absence of anthropomorphisms.
For example, naming the animals is about dominion. But just as the dominion is real, so Adam really named the animals. But the narrative in no way suggests that Adam was a taxonomist, nor that he named bacteria, protozoa, or even animals of the ocean. But to say that the creationist must read this extensive classification caricature in the text is false.
Literalism does not force every word to be interpreted literally at all times. Acknowledgement of metaphor does not permit allegorising the entire text.
You believe Jesus rose physically from the dead. You think the gospels are essentially true in what they say about the history of Jesus on earth. Yet you see symbolism and metaphor in the gospels. Yet you would dismiss a liberal stating that you have to think every verse in the gospels is literally true, and if you do not you must view Jesus’ resurrection as just spiritual.
“Unfortunately if Genesis is a myth then it’s no more worth taking as a spiritual guide than any other myth.” This, simply does not follow, the fact that some piece of literature is of a certain genre does not entail that the truth value of what it asserts is the same as every or any other text of that Genre.
This is simply an invalid inference.
@Matt
So why should we take the Genesis myth as a spiritual guide in preference to any other creation myth ?
That is my point.
Or are you asserting spiritual values in the Genesis text are not present in other Creation myths ? If so then what of the spiritual values that are present in those other Creation myths that are not present in Genesis ?
Also, how are you calculating the relative truth values for each myth ?
Paul
A text teaches truth if what it teaches is the case. Myth uses the medium of story to teach certain things, if those things are the case then the myth is true. If what it uses this medium to assert is not the case its false.
”So why should we take the Genesis myth as a spiritual guide in preference to any other creation myth ?”
This seems to make the same mistake you made above, assuming that if two texts are the same Genre then there is no basis for preferring one over the other. That’s quite evidently false. I could ask the same rhetorical question about any other text, why should I prefer one historical text book over another? Why should I prefer one biography over another?
Or are you asserting spiritual values in the Genesis text are not present in other Creation myths ? If so then what of the spiritual values that are present in those other Creation myths that are not present in Genesis ?Also, how are you calculating the relative truth values for each myth ?
You seem to think Christians are commited to rejecting every other religious text or myth as false. But that’s mistaken, Islam teaches there is one God, so does Judaism, Christians affirm that on this issue what they say true. Its only where a religious text contradicts what scripture affirms that one is commited to claiming its mistaken.
So in response to your question, I am willing to accept that some non Christian myths teach truth. If what they say about articulates some true insight about the world, God, man etc then they are true. If they don’t they are false.
Interestingly with Genesis, the position I am inclined towards, holds that the early chapters are polemics, they take myths and mythical motiffs from the culture around them and rewrite them to teach a radically different point to the original. It would be irrational to accept all these myths as equally true given the fact they contradict each other.
@ Grant
Here we have to differ. To me your insistance that Genesis is about HOW God made the world is the problem. Early Genesis tells us about WHY we are here, WHY our relationships with each other and with God are in the mess they are. Why God had to ultimately step into history incarnate as Jesus Christ.
Genesis 1-3 is not a narrative history it is an explanation. I understand that is the technical meaning of MYTH ie an explanation.
The only thing we are told about how is “by the power of His word”
I specifically mentioned the ” evening and morning” thing because taken literally and in the order presented they do not actually represent a day. No need to be rude. The point being that you choose not to take the text literally but to interpret a phrase as indicative of a 24 hr day rather than what it actually says.
Just as an aside you might like to ask yourself why the Bible apparently records God as having made the universe and the earth in an instant [ no reference to any time being involved] but slowing down to take six whole days about finishing earth properly.
The latter seems seriously inconsistant given the former unless the narrative is there to teach/reveal to us things we could never discover for ourslves eg WHY
A rare to us but alternative understanding sees this phrase as encompassing the move from twilight to dawn, from obscurity to clarity, from disorder to order. ie an anti-entropic creative act. Of which six are recorded but no mention of this on the Sabbath because God had finished His creative work.
continuing..
In a way this alternative understanding of Gen 1-3 is also quite literal, it just relies on understanding the Hebrew and the nuances of that language rather than of English.
e-rev…evening, sunset, twilight
vo-ker..morning, dawn, daybreak
Bethyada and Grant, my response would be that in Genesis 2 the amount and type of obvious symbolism, anthromorphism, combined in this chapter suggests that Gen 2 is not history.
This is a story the main character of which is called “human” {adam in hebrew} whom he makes from the duat {adamah in Hebrew). Dust we know is often used in the bible as a symbol of mortality a central theme of the proceeding story. Human encounters a talking snake who is the wisest of all creatures, he faces two trees one called “immortality” and the other called “judical authority” he encounters a god who appears to be like a human being walks in the cool of the day, can be hidden from, and this god appears ignorant of the fact that animals are not a helper equal to human and so, brings every animal in the world to human to name ( a symbol of dominion) to see if they are equal to human when this god realises that no animal foots the bill. He cuts human in half taking ish, (women) from ishya (man) [ a poetic word play to emphasis equality] this and ish then utters a poetic stanza where he uses to symbolically illustrate the kinship between man and women. The women is then named “life mother”. When human and lifemother eat from the tree called “judical authority” human (adam) is cursed to work the adamah, (dust) and is then told, “dust (admah) you are and to dust (adamah) you will return emphasising mortality. He is then barred by a fiery sword from having the tree labelled “immortality”. The literary motifs and symbolism in a story make it pretty evident its not history. It could be a mythical tale about history, retelling the fall of a primal pair in mythic categories and motifs but tales like this are not history.
Please choose a couple of those issues and we’ll see if we can’t figure this out. What are some good reasons why I should not believe what Genesis plainly teaches about the history of the world?
Grant, we could start with the fact that Genesis teaches that God created a solid vault of some sort, to separate waters above the vault from those below it, it then says he put the stars in the vault. This is what the Hebrew here states. No creationist I know believes the stars are in the sky and there is a sea behind them. As historical account of what happens this makes little sense.
On the other hand when one realises a common motif of ANE myth was that there was a water god who represented the forces of chaos, and the hero gods fought against the sea god and cut it in half putting one half in the sky and the other below, then Genesis makes a lot of sense, it takes a common mythic motif and instead has the sea as an impersonal non divine thing, which one God does not have to fight with but simply divides at his command.
The latter not only makes sense it fits the context of what we know about how accounts of this Genre operated. In this Genre ( and we have lots of stories which are the same Genre as Genesis) Often people made theological points about a Gods supremacy by rewriting or reworking mythic motifs in this way.
@Matt:
“This seems to make the same mistake you made above, assuming that if two texts are the same Genre then there is no basis for preferring one over the other. ”
We are in dire danger of falling over in agreement then.
“You seem to think Christians are commited to rejecting every other religious text or myth as false. But that’s mistaken, Islam teaches there is one God, so does Judaism, Christians affirm that on this issue what they say true.”
Well, yes. I’ve read enough Christian commentary that makes that precise point. I would suggest that your view is quite liberal and reasonable and therefore something that I can almost agree with, but other Christians view the matter differently. Also do the Muslims and Jews really affirm the Triune God ? I think that the Muslims and Jews might be closer on what they view God to be ie one God not three in one.
“Interestingly with Genesis, the position I am inclined towards, holds that the early chapters are polemics, they take myths and mythical motiffs from the culture around them and rewrite them to teach a radically different point to the original. It would be irrational to accept all these myths as equally true given the fact they contradict each other.”
Indeed, I can agree with you there, but where to start ? 🙂
Matt/Mads, thanks for the link to my sadly neglected blog! I’ve had this discussion on and off for many years, it is good that people are engaged in this topic because it’s a chance for them to learn. Here’s a quote from the late Fr Stanley Jaki on the cultural context of Genesis 1/2:
“The God of the Bible is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; that is the God of the Covenant, or a God who freely binds himself to the welfare of mankind through the mediation of Abraham’s progeny… In Genesis 2 there is only one effective cause, the power of God, through which the heaven and earth and everything on earth has been formed. Yahweh God is an exclusive source of effectiveness. He is not challenged or complemented by any force or principle. He is the sole and supreme Lord of all. For all the primitiveness of the world picture of Genesis 2, it exudes a clear atmosphere undisturbed by what turns all other ancient cosmogonies into dark and dispirited confusion : the infighting among the gods and lurking in the background of an irreconcilable split between spirit and matter, good and evil.
This is not to suggest that Genesis 2 ignores evil in individual or collective history. Yet the snake, the symbolic instigator of evil, is itself utterly dependent for its existence upon Yahweh God, and so is man who is seduced into defying God’s dictate. Evil, unlike in most other cosmogonies, is here strictly circumscribed in its power and extent by God’s sovereignty and goodness…
When almost three millennia after the composition by David of Psalm 23, Kant spoke of it as the most comforting page in the Bible, he merely echoed an already hallowed sentiment…
And on a lighter note, here’s Dr. James McGrath’s Statement of Faith for Biblical Literalists
🙂
Jeremy first, then Matt. 🙂
@Jeremy, I do not believe I insisted that Genesis was all about only the how and nothing about the why. Where did you get that from? I’d not overly agree with your assesment that the only ‘how’ is “by the power of His word”, but I’d agree that is the most important aspect of the how.
I’d say Genesis 1-3 is both narrative history and an explanation. So Paul Baird is correct. When you say “myth” I’m not really going to argue with you because the description of Genesis as technically a myth does not negate the possibility of it also being historically accurate.
You’re continuing with the morning and evening thing? I do not need to hear a modern English phrase for 24 hours to understand that Genesis means normal days, nor does a Hebrew phrase that describes the end of one day and the beginning of another require me to read it in English as if it means something silly.
I’m not trying to be rude, but your argument here is lacking in every department. It might help if you quit thinking that I need to take everything literally. I don’t. Genesis says “Six days”, the rest of scripture backs that up and thus I remain wholly justified in reading the bible under the assumption that what it plainly says it definitely means.
To address your aside, Genesis 1:1 I reckon is an introduction to and preview of the rest of the chapter.
@Matt
I’m gonna leave greater minds to deal with the words and I’m going to stick with what I’m good at – rocks. 😀 To that end I am very happy to see your choice of continued discussion as it is my favourite thing to talk about. What you described I like to refer to as the cartoon version of Genesis. What I would like to suggest to you is an attempt at physical recreation of the text. Perhaps it will be as much of a revelation to you as it was to me (though I went through an Earth Science degree that made no sense at all until reading this description). Anyway – I hope you will realise that there might be yet another layer of truth to the bible that you haven’t appreciated yet. Certainly I would value your constructive input into any ideas I share.
Genesis 1.
The History of Creation
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2 The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.
4 And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness.
5 God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.
6 Then God said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.”
7 Thus God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so.
8 And God called the firmament Heaven. So the evening and the morning were the second day.
9 Then God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so.
10 And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas. And God saw that it was good.
Numbers refer to verses. In 2 we see water covering the earth. In 6 we see a “firmament” created within that water that separated the water below it from the water above. In 7 the firmament is named “Heaven”. In 9 we see that water above the firmament gathers together and dry land appears.
The dry land that appears is the firmament. The firmament called heaven. When God created the earth, He called it good. And it was. It was heaven on earth. 🙂
Okay, don’t get me wrong here, but I kind of agree with the old gentleman.
Seems to me that the Creation story is answers to simple questions.
Where did we come from, why is everything here?
Why do we live like this, from week to week?
Who died and made YOU boss?
What gives you the right to tell me what to do?
Basically it sets it out in an orderly fashion. God created all of it, divided it into day and night, divided our work periods into weeks and God is the boss, you just do what he tells me to tell you, in a manner of speaking. “You’ll understand when you’re older and have kids of your own.”
That kind of thing.
Or is that just a coincidence?
@Grant
as politely as possible
“shamayim” [transliteration since my keyboard doesnt do Hebrew] = heaven, highest heavens, sky
this word is used in two broad senses
1, sky, where birds fly, rain falls from, wind blows or further where the sun moon and stars are
2, heaven, the invisible and separate dwelling place and presence of God
I am at a complete loss as how you get from either of these senses of the word to understanding it as dry land / earth. That seems to disagree with most translation.
“Six days can only mean six days for the same reason. We can read.” Well yes i can.
“yom”… day
used through scripture in 5 main ways
1,day as in daytime ie sunrise till sunset
2, day as in 24 hour planetary rotation
3, a general unspecified period of time
4, a specific occassion or period of tme
5, used in the plural to denote years or annually
and lets not forget that to the Lord “a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day”
so which of these 6 different usages do you apply to Gen 1-3 and why? If this is an historical narrative then 24hr solar days are out, at least for the first 3 days
“Until such a time, Genesis remains God’s account of HOW He created the world and I remain perfectly justified in reading it as historical reality.”
No, this is an account of WHY
This is the problem, as long as we mistake what the text is about, Christians reading into the text things it doesnt actually say about subjects it doesnt even address, then we will be forever defending positions that dont need defending. Getting caught in a conflict between varying interpretation and forever changing science when the real problem is the fallen sinful nature of man and his broken realtionship with his creator.
@pboy
Truly radical, we are in at least partial agreement. What happened? 🙂
Well not really radical Jeremy. It was likely a good answer to basic questions at the time it was thought up and is still a good answer, if one doesn’t try to make it all ‘literal’, for people who are looking for answers like this.
Can’t get past the anthropic principle thing myself. Us looking at the workings/works of an eternal timeless mind?
Makes sense to some people I suppose, just not me.
Grant Numbers refer to verses. In 2 we see water covering the earth. In 6 we see a “firmament” created within that water that separated the water below it from the water above. In 7 the firmament is named “Heaven”. In 9 we see that water above the firmament gathers together and dry land appears.The dry land that appears is the firmament. The firmament called heaven. When God created the earth, He called it good. And it was. It was heaven on earth.
Ok three things,
First, v9 does not say “that water above the firmament gathers together and dry land appears” it states “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear”.
Second, the word firmament carries the sense of a metal dome or vault,
Third, the word is not “heaven” in the sense you use here..You’ll note the NIV uses the word “sky” where you refer to the word “heaven” that’s because the Hebrew word in Genesis is the Hebrew word for “sky”. In old English the word heaven mean’t sky, this still remains today when people talk of the starry heavens. However the English word heaven has taken on theological connatations not reflected in the Hebrew original which just mean’t “sky” so contemporary English translations have dropped it.
That the word means “sky” and not “heaven” is evident from verse 14
“14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the nd God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years,”
here its stated that the sun and moon, and stars are “in” the firmament (vault) called sky (heaven in your translation) So if your claim were correct one would have to say that there are stars in heaven, moreover seeing the earth gathered together in one place is, according to you, the firmament, the sun and moon is apparently on earth.
This is further exasperated by v 20 And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” If firmament means heave this is saying God created birds to fly through heaven. Obviously the text is referring to the sky. When you look up you see stars in the sky and, birds fly across the sky.
So you have a problem if you are a literalist, the text affirms God made a solid vault calleded sky, put stars and a sun in it, birds fly through it ( actually across the vault ) in hebrew. The sea and land are below it and “another” sea is above it. That is above the stars, and sun. Yet no creationist I know accepts a cosmology where there the cosmos is literally under the sea.
This is made worse by the fact that in Noah’s flood the “waters above” break loose upon the earth, are we to believe the whole cosmos was flooded with water which poured down to earth through the millions of light years of outer space?
Finally note the translation you cite has a heading “Genesis 1.The History of Creation” this heading is not in the Hebrew , or the greek nor is it in many translations, it’s a heading the editors of that particular translation choose to put in as a summary heading. So the text does not say its history at all.
@Jeremy – thanks for being polite. I will try to remain civil also. But I do find it difficult at times. 🙂
“Shamayim” – heaven, the abode of God. God created the earth so that He could live on it with people.
It’s clear that I think “day” in Genesis 1 means one 24 hour period. That idea is backed up by the rest of scripture and is explicit in Genesis. I know there are multiple meanings possible for most words, but I find it very difficult to be confused over the meaning for this one. But if you have good reason why I should not regard a day as a day, please share.
Your insistence that this is only an account of the why is presented without evidence and thus I am justified in rejecting it without evidence.
And science is supposed to change according to our increased understanding.
So, as polite as you are, I’m just not seeing anything challenging in your posts.
Sorry. 🙂
PS. I know why you’re suddenly in agreement with Pboy. 🙂
@Matt
Your first – So you understood what I think v9 is saying, right? And you do not agree? I think it is fairly straightforward. There was water. The water was on earth. The firmament was created within the water. Thus heaven was on earth.
Your second – the firmament was a granitic shell that covered the globe. Good enough?
Your third – Heaven can mean the abode of God as well. Verse 14 refers to the “firmament of heaven”. A very different concept from a firmament named heaven.
We can move on to Noah’s story if you can first understand (even if you do not agree) with what I’m saying here.
Thanks, mate.
“Shamayim” – heaven, the abode of God. God created the earth so that He could live on it with people.
I think you are going to have to offer some serious evidence for this, it contradicts any understanding [literal or otherwise] of this text i have previously met and rather misuses the word “shamayim”.
It also rather contradicts what the Bible says about God, eg Spirit, dwelling in unapproachable light, unseen by any man, not able to be seen by man.
“But if you have good reason why I should not regard a day as a day, please share”
Well i’ve given you one, namely the first three days apparently occurred without the sun so they were not days in the sense that you and i experience them. Matt has given you another, the seventh day is not defined so apparently continues from God finishing His work of creation until now. I hinted at the fact that day doesnt necessarily mean the same thing to God as to us, ie He is not limited in time rather time is His creation.
I must ask , where are you coming from, because so far your understanding of Gen 1-3 seems quite unusual even for a literalist?
Serious evidence? OK, sure. Heaven can mean the abode of God. That is it’s use in many places throughout scripture as opposed to meaning the sky. I assume you agree with that. God did live on earth with people at two times in history. The first instance was in Eden with Adam and Eve. God is three persons. The Father is inapproachable, but Jesus and the Holy Spirit are not. And we know from scripture that there is more than one heaven. So I’m not seeing any contradictions and that you haven’t heard these ideas before , again, isn’t much of an objection.
The first three days did not require a sun to be days as we experience them. All that is required is a light source and a rotating earth.
That the seventh day is not finished off in the same manner as the other six is fairly weak sort of evidence against the six days before that. I don’t see the connection at all.
When God is described as patient in the form you refer to it is silly to apply that to His acts within real days. And it is always very ironic when people raise Peter’s writing in order to deny the historical reality of Genesis.
Have you read 2 Peter 3?
As to where I come from … TOL. Where the truth hurts. 🙂
Grant
You write
’There was water. The water was on earth. The firmament was created within the water. Thus heaven was on earth.”
No the text states the water was divided and firmament put in place to separate them. The earth comes up from water under the firmament.
Moreover, here you are assuming the word “heaven” means the abode of God and not sky. You reasons for this are:
1. Heaven can mean the abode of God as well. This is a bad inference the fact a word can mean something does not mean it does in this context. As I pointed out in this context, the firmament is said to be the place the stars , moon, and sun are placed in and the birds fly across in context that means sky.
2. You write Verse 14 refers to the “firmament of heaven”. A very different concept from a firmament named heaven.. This is really a stretched, the slight linguistic difference in this context can’t carry the weight you put on it all and certainly you have provided no evidence to suggest the author who has just mentioned an expanse a few verses earlier and used the word “heaven” suddenly uses a radically different meaning only a few verses.
Especially given the obvious structure of Gen 1, the text begins with noting the earth is “formless” and “empty”. The first three days show forming day 1 light is separated from darkness, day 2 waters above are separated from waters below the firmament in between is named sky day 3. land rises up from the waters under the earth.
The next three days parallel this. In day 4. light and darkness are separated by sun and moon there is even an allusion to day 1 where text states that the moon and sun separate light from darkness. Day 5, has sea creatures filling the sea and flying creatures flying across the sky. Day 6 has land creatures filling the land. This parallel means that what is formed in day 2 is what is filled in day 5.
So what you are doing is making a Hebrew term mean something which is totally opposed to the context. Your welcome to call that “truth” if you like. I call it abusing the text.
“Heaven can mean the abode of God. That is it’s use in many places throughout scripture as opposed to meaning the sky”
sure but no reputable translators are using it in that way in this text.
” God did live on earth with people at two times in history.”
Jesus yes, but the Genesis text does not say God lived on earth.
I am not denying the historical reality of Genesis [God does not lie], i am however questioning your literalist understanding of it. As Matt has pointed out on previous occassions we can aid our understanding of scripture by becoming informed as to the genre, the conventions used and the audience involved. As best i understand Historical narrative as we in contemporary western culture understand it is not a characteristic of ANE writings. Its not even a characteristic of the much later Gospels . Denying this just handicaps us.
Chapter 2 orders creation differently, which is the correct historical narrative? In most English translations [ and in the Hebrew] Gen2:4 says ” in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens” so was it 6 days or 1 day?
Do these contradictions exist or do we impose them on ourselves by bringing a contemporary literalist interpretation to a text that was never meant that way?
Second, the word firmament carries the sense of a metal dome or vault,
raqiya` (expanse, firmament) is derived from raqa` (stretch out). Now something firm can be stretched out (beaten metal) as can liquids and gases.
Firmament carries the idea of solid, that is firm, but this word comes via Latin, not Hebrew.
There is a big difference between saying that raqiya` means solid and raqiya` is consistent with solid. You may argue why you think the Hebrews happened to think raqiya` was solid, but you cannot argue from the meaning of this word. This is not agreed upon and there is much Scripture that suggests that the Hebrews did not think of the expanse (nor the heavens) as solid.
http://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/Ted_Hildebrandt/OTeSources/01-Genesis/Text/Articles-Books/Seely-Firmament-WTJ.pdf
Matt, I am aware of Seely’s position. But I still think that arguing that ANE and the Hebrews thinking the expanse happened to be solid is very different from saying the word itself carries the connotation of solidity.
I see no reason to claim expanse means solid. It can describe things that happen to be solid, as can the word blue, or big.
I see good reason to question Seely because Scripture itself talks about the expanse and the heavens (which it was named) in ways that preclude solidity. See: http://creation.com/is-the-raqiya-firmament-a-solid-dome
What a fool! For an intelligent man, he surely has not taken the time to study the science refuting the ridiculous and impossible notion of evolution, nor the evidence for the young age to the earth.
See http://www.creation.com, http://icr.org or http://answersingenesis.org
Thats phenomenological language for you. In a society that didnt have flight, rocketry or telescopes, the arch /dome of the sky on a fine clear day looks as though it could be solid. Analogous perhaps to a tent only much further away..or a metal dome
The word raqiya and its root carry all these flavours’
raqiya .. an extended surface, expanse
raqa …. to beat, stamp, beat out, spread out
Which brings us to another point, reading phenomenological language too literally in a contemporary western context is just asking to misunderstand whats being read.
Hey, Matt. I know you disagree with my analysis, but do you at least understand it?
Jason, if you want to do some serious study I suggest talkorigins.org, biologos.org, reasons.org, or a university science library.
Here’s a great post from TalkOrigins called “The Sin of Imposing our Perspectives on Writings from the Past.”
[…] Always thought provoking, N.T. Wright has some interesting comments regarding how to conceive Genesis.
Hat Tip Madeleine Flannagan[…]
Any myth can have relevancy, but to claim it has “authority” remains an unproven assumption.
Read the chapter, “The Cosmology of the Bible” in the book, The Christian Delusion (April 2010, Prometheus Books). It cites Seely, John Walton, Mark Smith, and the classic work, Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography, as well as ideas about “the creator” common in the ANE.
Ed, the claim that reason is authoratative is also an unproven assumption, as is the claim that your senses are reliable.