The Lost World of Genesis One-Session 11

I want to start today by talking a bit about how we approach the Bible and the the subject of origins. I understand that this is a subject that strikes at the core of our understanding of what we think the Bible actually is to us as modern people who believe in the message and mission of Christ. But here is the deal. If we have the wrong starting point. Everything that follows from that point ultimately flows back to how we view communication. Both from each of us to one another. And from us to God. And most importantly from God to us. I wand to list a few quotes from scholars which I think are helpful to frame our orientation and helps to continue to have the proper perspective.

Effective communication requires a body of agreed-upon words, terms, and ideas, a common ground of understanding. For the speaker this often requires accommodation to the audience by using words and ideas they will understand. For the audience, if they are not native to the language and cultural matrix of the speaker, this means reaching common ground may require seeking out additional information or explanation. In other words, the audience has to adapt to a new and unfamiliar culture. --John Walton, Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament (Baker Books, 2006), 19-20.

The Bible belonged to the ancient world in which it was produced. It was not an abstract, otherworldly book, dropped down out of heaven. It was connected to and therefore spoke to people in that ancient culture. The encultured qualities of the Bible, therefore, are not extra elements we can discard to get the real point, the timeless truths. Rather, precisely because Christianity is a historical religion, God’s word reflects the various historical moments in which it was written. As we learn more about this history, we should gladly address the implications of that history for how we view the Bible and what we should expect to hear from it. -- Peter Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament (Baker Books, 2005), 17-18

The framers of creation in the Bible inherited a treasure trove of venerable traditions from their cultural neighbors. Instead of creating their accounts ex nihilo, the composers of Scripture developed their traditions in dialogue with some of the great religious traditions of the surrounding cultures, particularly those originating from Mesopotamia and Egypt, as well as those of their more immediate Canaanite neighbors. -- William Brown, Seven Pillars of Creation: The Bible, Science, and the Ecology of Wonder (Oxford University Press, 2010).

The early chapters of Genesis accurately present two accounts of cosmic and human origins in the language and ideas of the ancient Hebrews. These texts should not be removed from their ancient context and read as if they refer to the process of cosmic or human origins in 21st century scientific terms. They speak in terms of an Ancient Near Eastern perception of the world, and should be interpreted within that setting. When we discern the meaning of the texts in their ancient context, we find that they constitute a worldview statement about God and his relationship to the world, and about humans and their relation to God and the world. This basic worldview statement transcends its ancient cultural setting, and commands the attention of God’s people in all places and all times. Adapted from Richard Carlson and Tremper Longman, Science, Creation, and the Bible. Reconciling Rival Theories of World Origins (InterVarsity Press, 2010).

I would like to add one more quote of my own. Now I am no scholar. But I think this is sound logic.

If I am faced with learning or hearing something that seems new. I need to ask myself. Are there gaps in my knowledge that are preventing consideration? Is it possible that something, although new to me, is actually something that is really old, and very widely known. I just haven’t done my homework.

The quotes speak to the heart of basic Christian exegesis. Which literally means “to pull out of”. It is not the job of the Holy Spirit to impart divine knowledge to us. The job of the HS it to help illumine the text. The meaning of the text (whatever that means) is something that is rooted in the language, culture and history of it’s original writer’s and intended audience.

“Functional Cosmic Temple” Offers Face-Value Exegesis

As discussed in chapter three when we explored the word bārāʾ, the word

literal

can have different meanings to different people. Mostly people use the word to express that they want to understand what the text “really says.” The question is, what criteria make that determination? Certainly the meanings of words and the grammatical and syntactical framework are of importance. But grammar, words and sentences are all just the tools of communication. Usually our search to find out what a text “really says” must focus on the intended communication of the author and the ability of the audience to receive that same intended message. Words, grammar and syntax will be used adequately by a competent writer or speaker to achieve the desired act of communication. The same words can be used in a straightforward manner, or be used in a symbolic, metaphorical, sarcastic or allegorical way to achieve a variety of results.

As readers, we want to know how the author desired his communication to be understood. I referred to this in chapter three as the

“face value”

of the text. If a communication is intended to be metaphorical, the interpreter interested in the face value will want to recognize it as metaphor. If the author intends to give a history, the interpreter must be committed to reading it that way. In other words, interpreters have to give the communicator the benefit of the doubt and treat his communication with integrity.

Interpreters have come to Genesis 1 with a variety of approaches. Increasingly those who are uncomfortable with the scientific implications of the traditional interpretation have promoted a variety of ways to read the text so as to negate those implications. For example, some have suggested that the text is only theological—indicating that God is the Creator and the sabbath is important. Others have indicated that the text has a literary shape that makes it poetic and should not be taken as any sort of scientific record. While it is easy to affirm that important theology is the foundation of the account and that it has an easily recognizable literary shaping, one can still ask, is that all there is? Those who have championed the “literal” interpretation of the text have objected that these approaches are reductionistic attempts to bypass difficult scientific implications and claim that by pursuing them the text is so compromised that it is, in effect, rejected.

In the cosmic-temple interpretation offered in this book—which sees Genesis 1 as an account of functional origins—we find a different sort of resolution to the problems faced by the interpreter. I believe that if we are going to interpret the text according to its face value, we need to read it as the ancient author would have intended and as the ancient audience would have heard it. Though the literary form of expression and the theological foundation are undeniable, I believe that study of the ancient world indicates that far more is going on here than that.

Scholars in the past who have compared Genesis 1 to other ancient literature have sometimes suggested that the biblical text intends to be polemical—to offer a view in opposition to that of the rest of the ancient world. Again, it cannot be denied that Genesis offers a very different perspective than other creation texts in a number of ways. Here there is only one God, and there is no conflict to overcome. Since Genesis allows only one God, the account does not explain other gods being brought into existence and thus it breaks the close association between the components of the cosmos and the gods. All of this is true, and could be viewed as polemic. But it must also be noticed that the author of Genesis 1 is not explicitly arguing with the other views—he is simply offering his own view. His opposition to other ancient views is tacit.

The view presented in this book has emphasized the similarities between the ways the Israelites thought and the ideas reflected in the ancient world, rather than the differences (as emphasized in the polemical interpretation). While we can never achieve deep levels of understanding of how an ancient Israelite thought, we can at least see some of the ways they thought differently than we do. In this small accomplishment we can identify ways that we may have been inclined to innocently read our own thought patterns into texts whose authors did not share those thought patterns. If the Israelites, along with the rest of the ancient Near East, thought of existence and therefore creation in functional terms, and they saw a close relationship between cosmos and temple, then those are part of the face value of the text and we must include them in our interpretation.

In contrast, a

concordist

approach(that there must be agreement between the narrative of Genesis 1 and the modern account of world origins offered by science) intentionally attempts to read an ancient text in modern terms. Concordist interpretations attempt to read details of physics, biology, geology and so on into the biblical text. This is a repudiation of reading the text at face value. Such interpretation does not represent in any way what the biblical author would have intended or what the audience would have understood. Instead it gives modern meaning to ancient words.

The rationale for this sort of reading involves several factors. First, these interpreters identify the ultimate author of Scripture as God. Therefore they feel justified in suggesting that reading the text scientifically yields God’s intention even if the human author knew nothing of it. How do they determine the divine author’s meaning if not through the human author? Their answer often derives from the idea that “all truth is God’s truth.” Therefore if we believe that physicists, biologists, geologists and other scientists have a bead on truth, that truth can be attributed to the divine author. Thus they might conclude that if the big bang really happened as a mechanism for the origins of the universe, it must be included in the biblical account of the origins of the universe. So concordists will attempt to determine where the big bang fits into the biblical record and what words could be understood to express it (even if in rather mystical or subtle ways). In this way the concordist is looking at modern science and trying to find a place for it in the biblical account with the idea that science has determined what really happened, so the Bible must reflect that. Other concordists rewrite science so that the correlation with the Bible can be made comfortably. In this way, concordism can be seen to be very different than wrestling with the face-value meaning of the text.

The problem with concordist approaches is that while they take the text seriously, they give no respect to the human author. The combination of “scientific truth” and “divine intention” is fragile, volatile and methodologically questionable. We are fully aware that what we call “scientific truth” one day may be different the next day. Divine intention must not be held hostage to the ebb and flow of scientific theory. Scientific theory cannot serve as the basis for determining divine intention.

God has communicated through human authors and through their intentions. The human author’s communication is inspired and carries authority. It cannot be cast aside abruptly for modern thinking. The human author gives us access to the divine message. It has always been so. If additional divine meaning is intended, we must seek out another inspired voice to give us that additional divine meaning, and such an inspired voice can only be found in the Bible’s authors. Scientific theory does not qualify as such an inspired voice.

We have neither the right nor the need to force the text to speak beyond its ken. This is not only important on a theoretical level, it is observable throughout the text. As mentioned in chapter one, there is not a single instance in the Old Testament of God giving scientific information that transcended the understanding of the Israelite audience. If he is consistently communicating to them in terms of their world and understanding, then why should we expect to find modern science woven between the lines? People who value the Bible do not need to make it “speak science” to salvage its truth claims or credibility.

The most respectful reading we can give to the text, the reading most faithful to the face value of the text—and the most “literal” understanding, if you will—is the one that comes from their world not ours. Consequently the strategy we have adopted for reading the text as ancient literature offers the most hope for treating the text with integrity. We are not trying to bypass what the text is saying, nor to read between the lines to draw a different meaning from it.

Concordist approaches, day-age readings, literary or theological interpretations all struggle with the same basic problem. They are still working with the premise that Genesis 1 is an account of material origins for an audience that has a material ontology. Modern inability to think in any other way has resulted in recourse to all of this variety of attempts to make the text tolerable in our scientific naturalism and materialism.

Our face-value reading in contrast, does the following:

1. recognizes Genesis 1 for the ancient document that it is;

2. finds no reason to impose a material ontology on the text;

3. finds no reason to require the finding of scientific information between the lines;

4. avoids reducing Genesis 1 to merely literary or theological expressions;

5. poses no conflict with scientific thinking to the extent that it recognizes that the text does not offer scientific explanations.[1]

[1] Walton, J. H. (2009). The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate (pp. 101–106). Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic.