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| Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > Theological Q&A > Genesis 1-11 / Myth or History? Lots of Reading! | Forum Quick Jump
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SeanG
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 278
| Posted 3/18/2003 8:40 PM (GMT -6) |   |
My question is reflective of the rules of interpreting myth and non-myth in the Bible. I ask that if you do not wish to read the articles posted below, that you do not participate in this discussion. I am one who loves to read and debate issues that are very important, and Genesis 1-11 is very important. Marriage is defined, the reason for Jesus is laid out, homosexuality is condemned, etc., etc.
Should Genesis Be Taken Literally?
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/1231.asp
Genesis 1-11 – Mythical or Historical? (long)
http://www.apologeticspress.org/defdocs/2001/dd-01-11.htm
Creation Ex Nihilo in Genesis 1:1 (in-depth… this is a study of the first few lines of Genesis)
http://www.lifefebc.com/febc/BurnBush/V3N2A6.htm
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This site is offered as a resource for the serious student of hermeneutics (lots of free stuff too!)
http://hermeneutics.kulikovskyonline.net/
Lots of articles for those who wish for more (audio refutations of the gap-theory and framework hypothesis)
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/genesis.asp
SeanG!"I quote others only the better to express myself." Michel de Montaigne | | Back to Top | | |
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scott_jorgenson
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 271
| Posted 3/19/2003 7:46 AM (GMT -6) | | Sean,
You raise the bar impractically high for participation in this thread. The first paper you list is in the form of an HTML document ~37Kbytes in size. The second paper is ~55K and the third is ~34K. I'm not clear whether you consider the additional 2 links you listed to also be prerequisites or not, but they hide many tens of other documents.
Sean, not all of us have the hours of time to spend on debating you that you have :-) If you would rather take one narrow, specific claim at a time, in the far more manageable approach that I have consistently been demonstrating in this forum, that would be much more practical. Or if you would rather keep it at a high-level, without insistence on reading at least ~120K of cites, that would work too. I trust I've demonstrated to you by now my thorough familiarity with what you and your sources have to say, so its not as if I'm ignorant and in need of requisite background reading to debate these issues.
So as it is, I can't invest the time to read your 3 papers, let alone every one of the articles behind the other 2 links, none of which I'm 80% certain will say anything I haven't heard (and heard countered) before in my years of looking into this as a layman, just so you will allow me to be heard here :-) So I guess I for one won't be participating.
Scott
PS. Also, as one who is sick and tired of hearing Christians of my persuasion denounced as "so-called Christians", "professing Christians", "Churchians", "helpers of Satan", etc, I will never read any paper written in such polemical terms. For example, the 3rd hyperlink you listed, and also some (though not all) articles sponsored by Answers in Genesis. I am not a snake in the grass, nor are the hundreds of thousands of Christ-confessing scholars, theologians and scientists from whom I take my views. Yet regrettably I am not mature enough in Christ that I can keep down my anger and hurt at reading inerrantists' writing calling us as much for the 627th time.
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SeanG
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 278
| Posted 3/19/2003 10:18 AM (GMT -6) | | This is a debate a fellow and I were involved in; I will post the relevant responses I gave to him on the problem interposed on Genesis 1 and 2. I am piecing this together from a few responses, so excuse the roughness, and even though this is in response to Scott in another forum, I wish to pick up the discussion here. I will separate the letters by a line of @ symbols.
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Is the Bible Allegorical, or Literal?
Although some view the Bible as allegory, I believe a literal interpretation is the only interpretation that does justice to the facts [for example, see links when you get to letter two]. There are several reasons for accepting the Bible literally. The Bible purports to be the Word of God (by the way, no other text in history makes this statement). Over and over we find such phrases as “the Word of the Lord came unto Moses,” “God spoke,” “thus saith the Lord.”
When God spoke, it was in real-life situations, not in a mythological never-never land as in the mythical narratives. The Bible views itself as a non-fiction book. When the writers cite other persons or events in Scripture, they cite them as real, not imaginary, or allegorical, as in myths. For example, Jesus referred to Jonah (Matthew 12:39) as a sign of his resurrection. The write of Hebrews cites many great Old Testament men and women of faith (Hebrews 11) as examples to the believer. Nowhere is the story of Abraham or Samson looked at in any way but factual.
The nature of God, as revealed in the Bible, makes it clear that He has the ability to communicate with people. Since God created mankind for the purpose of establishing a relationship, it naturally follows that He would use an understandable method. Consequently, we do not need to look for some strange hidden meaning to what Scripture says for it is very plain. There is no double-talk or weasel-wording in Scripture. The message is clear. This leads to another question that need to be explained…
Is Everything in the Bible to be Taken Literally?
When I say that I take the Bible literally, I do not mean that figurative language is absent from the Bible. However, to interpret figuratively we must find good reason in the passage to justify doing this. Some types of writing by their very nature tend to exclude the possibility of figurative language. These include laws, historical writings, and philosophical writings. For example, “Martin Luther was like a bull in a china shop.”
A good rule for interpretation is, “If the literal sense makes good sense, seek no other sense lest you come up with nonsense.” The words of a given text should be interpreted literally if possible. If not possible, one should move to figurative language. Usually there are clue in the text or context itself, unlike myth.
Sometimes there will be a definition explaining the metaphor. For example, when the Book of Revelation speaks of the dragon (Revelation 12:9), the dragon is defined to the reader. Knowing the culture to which the text was written also will help, for the more one knows about language and thought forms of a particular period, the better chance one will have to determine how to interpret a given passage (for instance, John 8:58).
Many have built a straw-man argument out of the teaching of literal interpretation, alleging that we have to take everything in the Bible literally, e.g., “the trees of the field shall clap their hands” (Isaiah 55:12). The Bible contains definite types of figurative language, including metaphor, simile, hyperbole, and anthropomorphism. But all of these are easily detectable and separable from the literal text itself.
This is the entire prelude to your questions on the Bible and contradictions in its text. You brought up Genesis 1 and 2. This is a great example of a contradiction that seems apparent, but upon careful study using the rules of language, you will see that in fact it is speaking of the same creation event. I will send it along next, till then, God bless.
SeanG!
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The only way you will be able to see if in fact there is a discrepancy in Genesis 1 and 2 is to take your time and fully read what I wrote and follow the links to their respective stories. Take your time, please.
Hebrew scholars of standing have always regarded this to be the case. Thus, Professor James Barr, Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Oxford, has written: “Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1-11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that:
(a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience
(b) the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story
(c) Noah's flood was understood to be world-wide and extinguish all human and animal life except for those in the ark.
Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the ‘days’ of creation to be long eras of time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the flood to be a merely local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by any such professors, as far as I know.”
(Excerpted from http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c024.html – a great synopsis of why Genesis chapters 1-11 are to be taken historically. The Bible interprets the Bible; it is not open for preference of what an individual says it means to them. This is a must read, if you disagree with this thesis, then you have thrown out all of Biblical hermeneutics for the past 3,000 years that no scholar would do [except those “scholars” who subscribe to the liberal redaction criticism philosophy. In addition, is Genesis 1-11 poetry or myth?)
(Read http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c022.html for yourself. All these questions you have, or reservations you hold, have been answered. It’s just that YOU have to take the time to investigate them).
Genesis 2:19 – How can we explain the difference in the order of creation events between Genesis 1 and 2?
Problem: Genesis 1 declares that animals were created before humans, but Genesis 2:19 seems to reverse this, saying, “the Lord God formed every beast of the field… and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them,” implying Adam was created before they were.
Solution: Genesis 1 gives the order of events; Genesis 2 provides more content about them. Genesis 2 does not contradict chapter 1, since it does not affirm exactly when God created the animals. He simply says He brought the animals (which he had previously created) to Adam so that he might name them. The focus in chapter 2 is on the naming of the animals, not on creating them. Genesis 1 provides the outline of events, and chapter 2 gives details. Taken together, the two chapters provide a harmonious and more complete picture of the creation events. The differences, then, can be summarized as follows:
Genesis 1
i) Chronological Order
ii) Outline
iii) Creating Animals
Genesis 2
i) Topical Order
ii) Details
iii) Naming Animals
Genesis 2, then, does not present a creation account at all but presupposes the completion of God’s work of creation as set forth in chapter 1. The first three verses of Genesis 2 simply carry the narrative of chapter 1 to its final and logical conclusion, using the same vocabulary and style as employed in the previous chapter. It sets forth the completion of the whole primal work of creation and the special sanctity conferred on the seventh day as a symbol and memorial of God’s creative work. Verse 4 then sums up the whole sequence that has just been surveyed by saying, “These are the generations of heaven and earth when they were created, in the day that Yahweh God made heaven and earth.”
Having finished the overall survey of the subject, the author then develops in detail one important feature that has already been mentioned: the creation of man. Kenneth Kitchen, in his book Ancient Orient (p.117), says the following:“Genesis 1 mentions the creation of man as the last of a series, and without any details, whereas in Genesis 2 man is the center of interest and more specified details are given about him and his setting. Failure to recognize the complementary nature of the subject-distinction between a skeleton outline of all creation on the one hand, and the concentration in detail on man and his immediate environment on the other, borders on obscurantism.” Kitchen then draws on the analogy of Egyptian inscriptions like the Karnak Poetical Stela of Thutmose III, the Gebel Barkel Stela, and those royal inscriptions from Urartu that ascribe the defeat of the nation’s foes to their patron god, Haldi, and then repeat the same victories in detail as achieved by the reigning king of Urartu. Kitchen then adds:“What is absurd when applied to monumental Near Eastern texts that had no prehistory of hands and redactors should not be imposed on Genesis 1 and 2, as is done by uncritical perpetuation of speculations of a nineteenth-century systematization of speculations by eighteenth-century dilettantes lacking [I think he just bagged you John, but I could be wrong?], as they did, all knowledge of the forms and usages of Ancient Oriental literature.” Quite clearly then, Genesis 2 is built on the foundation of Genesis chapter 1. In fact, Genesis 2 presupposes Genesis 1. This distinction is very clear when the rule of language that is applied to all other ancient histories is applied to the Genesis account. However, all too often a different standard is applied to the Bible, one, that, no one would apply to any other writing of antiquity. [This is not written to be debated, I merely answered, in detail, your supposed contradiction in Genesis 1 and 2.] For more information, look into this debate on this exact subject that appears at TrueOrigins.org: http://www.trueorigin.org/9807.htm
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John responded again, and so I replied again… this is not the entirety of the response, but the pertinent part.
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Genesis 1 and 2 Revisited
Excerpted from the book I have on order for you
2B. Documentary Assumption
Since no author would have reason to repeat the same story twice, the repetition of certain narratives (parallel accounts) indicates more than one author at work. Also, since one author could hardly be charged with giving us obviously contradictory details, those stories in which such discrepancies occur are the work of a redactor or editor who wove together two different accounts of the same story (interwoven accounts).
Rollin Walker speaks for this view (A Study of Genesis and Exodus, p. 24), as cited by O. T. Allis: “Toward the question of the precise historical accuracy of the stories of the book of Genesis and Exodus we ought to take somewhat the same attitude that the editor of the books took when he gave us parallel and conflicting accounts of the same event, and thereby confessed that he was not sure which of the two was exactly right.” Otto Eissfeldt lists no less that nineteen allegedly repetitious or contradictory accounts.
3B. Basic Answer
Supposed double and triple accounts of the same story are actually different stories with similar details. Concerning the dual accounts of certain stories in the Pentateuch, Raven notes that “these accounts are not really parallel. Some of them are merely similar events, as the two instances in which Abraham lied concerning his wife and the same action taken later by Isaac. The redactor must have considered these quite distinct. In other cases there is a repetition from a different standpoint, as the account of the creation in Genesis 2 is from the standpoint of the God of revelation and providence. Sometimes the repetition is characteristic of Hebrew style, which often makes a general statement by way of introduction and then enlarges upon it.”…
1C. The Creation Story
…Kitchen continues [I will list kitchen main writings at the end of paper]: “The same may be said of the order of events. In Genesis 2:19, there is no explicit warrant in the text assuming that the creation of animals here happened immediately before their naming (i.e., after mans creation); this is eisegesis, not exegesis. The proper equivalent in English for the first verb in Genesis 2:19 is the pluperfect (“…had formed…”). Thus the artificial difficulty over the order of event disappears.”
SeanG!"I quote others only the better to express myself." Michel de Montaigne
Edited by - SeanG on 03/19/2003 3:21:32 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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scott_jorgenson
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 271
| Posted 3/19/2003 1:43 PM (GMT -6) | | Sean, I'm not sure if you're looking for a reply from me on this, since by the ground rules you laid out at the beginning of this thread, I would have to rule myself out (see my previous post). Be that as it may, here are a couple of responses.
First, I hope you've noticed by now that I agree with you on the literal sense of Genesis. I agree the author intended to mean "all the land in the world" when speaking of "the earth", for example; that is what his listeners would have understood him to mean; that is what God would have realized and anticipated in inspiring the passage. In contrast, neither the author, nor his listeners, nor God intended "the earth" to serve as a code-word for lower Mesopotamia or anything less than "all the land in the world." And similarly for "day", the order of creation events, the duration of the Flood, etc, etc. In fact, I go further than you in accepting the literal sense, in reading the cosmological references of "earth", "waters", "firmament", and so forth in terms of the ancient cosmology (a flat earth consisting of land supported over the sea with nothing underneath; the sky as a roof in which the astronomical objects are embedded; a sea above the sky) - I wonder why you likewise aren't so faithful to historical-grammatical interpretation.
In all this, I see God accommodating his revelation of concern - concerning him, his nature, and man's position - to the genre of common understanding of the day - ancient Near Eastern cosmology and legend - just as his revelation everywhere else in the Bible is accommodated to people's culture and times. Since God is not teaching on such things, but rather exploiting, taking at face value and adapting to them to teach on the things of importance to him (faith and practice), God is not unfaithful or errant in this. Rather he is wise, to ensure his message is most receptive to his listeners and not burdened with distracting corrections to the science and history of the day.
Second, on the specific issue of Genesis 2:19 and whether the pluperfect, "had formed", is intended: I think it highly unlikely because:
- It breaks the flow of the context - every other surrounding passage has the verb commonly translated into the perfect tense, and the presence of the "waw" consecutive between such passages reinforces the sequential-in-time nature of the narration. (I realize this in itself is not definitive, since there are other examples of a pluperfect in combination with a waw-consecutive in the Old Testament - but those examples are exceptions to the norm and have other clues which indicate them and which are not present in 2:19.)
- It violates the expectation set in 2:18 where God decides he will make a helper for Adam - not bring before Adam an already-made helper, but make one not yet made. To try to salvage this situation by rendering "The Lord God said" in pluperfect form too is something no-one has done to my knowledge and only adds to the above problem.
That these are very reasonable points is reflected in the fact that every Bible translation I'm aware of (besides NIV and its derivations) has used "formed", not "had formed", in Genesis 2:19. Again, the scholarly consensus prefers the perfect form. Indeed, it appears the only reason to translate it as "had formed" is out of undue concern for total factual inerrancy between Genesis 1 and 2-3. But considering the stylistic differences between the accounts, all suggesting separate provenance (eg "God" and "Lord God", God as spirit and word versus God as anthropomorphism, etc), there's no reason to insist on consistency in all the details. The perfect tense "formed" is thus not only natural to the context, but also consistent with the hypothetical documentary origin of Genesis 1-3 that is independently indicated by style.
But as I've said before, the documentary hypothesis is not central to the view I'm representing.
Scott
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