Hey Mitchell, thanks for your response!
Can I ask how you first found value in Christianity and the Bible?
One of the main problems I see with the view “Adam and Eve were the first modern humans 10,000-6,000 years ago” is that it implicitly says that other hominids living at the same time as modern humans weren’t “real humans.” This is hard to believe when it comes to species like the Neanderthals, seeing that they used tools and I believe also made cave art, and the fact that they seem to have had offspring with modern humans on several occasions in our genetic history. If your view is correct, such actions would seem to be bestiality on the part of the “real humans.”
(Please correct me if I’ve misunderstood your view or misremembered what science has discovered about the early hominids.)
I have trouble with viewing Genesis the same way I see the parables of Jesus, as I described to another poster above.
You’re right that the existence of predators poses quite a challenge to a literal interpretation of Genesis and Romans about death before the fall. So it warrants some rethinking. But the idea that God’s original plan for creation was a world in which animals would prey on each other and natural disasters would run rampant doesn’t sound “very good” at all, even if the ecosystem gets balanced in the meantime.
(Sorry for not responding with the quote feature, I’m on my iPad and still learning the interface).
Hey Ralph, thanks for asking! I definitely used to love Jesus wholeheartedly, but recently it’s been more difficult – mostly because it’s hard to love someone that you’re not sure is really there. But I’ve been praying and trying to seek Him in whatever way He will be found.
As a sometimes Ipad user myself, I feel your pain. I’ve finally figured out how to “touch and hold” (a ‘persist-touch’) to begin the selection of text, and then try to move the tiny blue knobbies then visible to include at least all (and probably more) than the text I wanted to include. Then I trim it after the quote has been safely embedded. (I don’t know about Ipads generally, but on my Ipad mini - all fingers are “fat fingers”). So … yeah … it is so much easier on PCs.
I think one of the most damaging things I have seen in the conservative homeschool culture (I homeschool my kids and was homeschooled myself until sixth grade, though my parents weren’t all that connected to “Christian” homeschooling like it exists now) is the idea that the Bible is the object of our faith. That’s just wrong. The object of our faith is God, specifically God made human in Jesus to redeem our broken humanity and reconcile us to himself through his Sprit. We put our faith in a person who relates to us, not a collection of writings whose propositions we mentally assent to. Faith in the Bible is allegiance and commitment and putting your ultimate hope in the eventual fulfilment of the promises God has made, not mere “belief” that certain facts about the world are true. (Even the demons believe what is true about God and the work of Christ, it’s just they rebel against the kingdom he came to establish instead of signing up to be ambassadors for it. James 2:19)
It seems to me that this “faith in the Bible” mentality is a really hard obstacle for some people to get past when they are shifting their faith paradigms. But it is a really important question to settle in your own mind. What is your faith in? My faith is in the person of Jesus, whom I know and experience. I love the Bible and want everyone to have access to it. (I live in rural Mexico and work in minority language Bible translation.) But the Bible’s job is to reveal God, not be a god. If God is the one my faith is securely placed in, then I can reevaluate my interpretations of passages that reveal him, and I can admit things about the inadequacy of human language and the limitations of human cultural perspectives, and it doesn’t threaten my faith.
Long story. A lot of links to portions of this can be found here.
Well science shows that most of the lines that we have traditionally drawn between animals and humans simply are not there or are at most a quantitative difference. Animals use tools. Animals do art or the definition of art is too subjective. I do not see solid difference in this. There really is only one valid candidate for a difference and that is language – not communication but a language with all the Turing complete representational and abstraction capabilities that equal and surpass that of DNA itself making it another possible medium for the life process (these are lines which are well defined).
Now I would be thrilled to find that some animals do have kind of language, but if some do, it is likely much more limited than this. It is also true that considerable evolutionary adaptation is a part of our development of language over a 100,000 years, but that really only prepares the setting for bringing the human mind to life by this communication we had from God – for ideas have a greater power to transform human existence faster than mere genetics. So the difference I am talking about is not just a capability for language but also what we have done with, making ourselves a mental life (including an inheritance passed to the next generation) that rivals our physical life.
Depends on what makes the transition from animals to human beings. If it is like I have suggest a matter of thought and inspiration rather than genetics then our very ideas of relationships and marriage are a part of that transition.
One should have trouble viewing Genesis the same way as any of the other diverse types of literature in the Bible also. It isn’t a parable, but it isn’t just history or a science text either. Any telling of events from so long ago before the specialization of human activities into history, law, science, religion, and entertainment has a recognizable mythical character from the mixing of all these together in an oral tradition. The Bible itself shows that some of the elements of the story are symbolic rather than literal.
The things God did or told the Israelites to do in the rest of the Bible doesn’t sound “very good” either… not to mention many of the realities of life which has been the greatest criticism of theism since Epicurus in the third century BC (known as the problem of evil and suffering). The result is that I couldn’t believe in Christianity without evolution, because it shows quite conclusively that life simply could not exist without death and suffering because that is how it develops. Thus the flaws you are seeing really come from Deist notion of God as a watchmaker designer rather then the Biblical role for God as a shepherd – a role accepting that self-organization, learning, adapting, and struggling against death and suffering is all part of the very nature of what life is. So the truth is that the Bible with all its moral horrors and the stark realities of evolution fit together like a hand in a glove, and it is trying to make Genesis into a Candyland dream of children which is ultimately incoherent.
P.S. It has been claimed that natural language is not Turing complete, whatever natural language may be. But the proof that human language is Turning complete and surpasses DNA is quite simple. These things are both themselves described and explained in human language. That would be impossible unless language has all the same functionality as these things. Indeed you could say that human language has something more fundamental which includes the ability to learn, develop, and explain things like Turing completeness and DNA.
If they meant it to be taken literally then why is it not written like all the rest of the historical and biographical narratives? Why does it flow with the rest of ancient Mesopotamian mythologies?
Read the entire story of Adam and Eve, or Cain and Abel. Or even Noah. What is it? 1-3 chapters? Now read the entire story of Moses, or Jacob or Jesus? What is that? A few books worth? Why was the story of Adam and Eve 2 chapters instead of of 100?
One question to ask yourself is why did you think that the human authors would have been able to step outside their worldview like this? Is your view of inspiration that God dictated Scripture? Don’t let people tell you that re-evaluating your understanding of inspiration necessarily entails some kind of all-or-nothing acceptance or rejection of the Bible. Again, the vast majority of Christians globally are not committed to verbal plenary inspiration. That’s a relatively new modernist theological construct, and it’s not really compatible with what we now understand about human cognition and language production and processing.
Your point about how the YEC viewpoint makes the original creation seem like a “candyland” is interesting. I kind of agree with you that the EC viewpoint makes better sense of the harsh realities of life. Still, the YEC view has the advantage of saying that a perfect creation was the ideal that got corrupted later, while the EC view has creation corrupted from the beginning.
I’d like to get some more information on your view of the difference between Adam and the other early hominids (like his parents, or the Neanderthals). Like, do you think the only visible difference was a full grasp of Turing- complete language? (Or maybe you don’t believe in a historical Adam and Eve at all?)
I think they can, having had similar thoughts as you at a similar age. I did not have some of the resources like this website available, but still managed to hold it together into what I feel is a better founded faith that I can take comfort and confidence in, though the conflict with some of those outside my understanding still causes difficulty.
I think that reading more is a help, and something readily available to you. I would suggest staying with some of the books by John Walton, whose Lost World of Scripture goes a long way toward helping you understand how the Bible came to be, as well as his other Lost World books. Peter Enns has a nice little book on How the Scripture Really Works that gives insight as to the purpose behind the writings. N.T. Wright is always good, and I would recommend his Surprised by Hope, and his Surprised by Scripture regarding biblical interpretation. If you want a little more interaction with science and faith, I recently read The Bible & Ancient Science : Principles of Interpretation - by Lamoureux which gives a view by someone who is both a Ph.D. in science and theology.
If you like me were raised in a monolithic denomination, it may be a little surprising how faithful learned Christians dedicating their lives to God can have different takes than the party line you grew up with. Each little sub-culture in Christianity has its pet authors, and you have to look up and around to discover a fuller world of truth. There are bad ones out there also, but stick with those with a proven track record to get your bearings. If you are like me, there may be even some anger felt towards your prior limitations of experience in your church. I think some is perhaps a little healthy in motivation to seek truth, but ultimately we should give grace to those doing the best they could in their own cultural stream.
I mean, it’s very different from those other mythologies in key respects, notably that it only involved one God and there was no war or sex involved in the creation. Just pure creative will.
First of all, thanks for the article/video links earlier on, I appreciated the perspectives shown.
I don’t believe God inspired Scripture through direct dictation, since he obviously utilized the individual writing styles and vocabularies of the human authors he used. But I also believe that part of the inspiration process involved leading the human authors to “step outside of their worldview” in what they wrote. For example, the idea that Jesus Christ was the Son of God was completely foreign to the apostle Paul until God inspired him to write the truth. Similarly, there’s no in principle reason why God couldn’t have inspired whoever wrote Genesis 1 to describe the earth as a globe suspended in space with animals evolving over billions of years under His direction. Worldview shifting? Yes. Impossible? Obviously not.
That said, I recognize that God had no in principle reason why He would correct the ANE cosmology of the Biblical writers. I think it’s possible that God accommodated to them because He wanted the primary focus to be on them understanding their relationship to Him as creator, and not wanting them to be distracted by side scientific details that wouldn’t be fully understood for thousands of years.
The thing I’m still having trouble with is when the Bible seems to be clearly affirming something incorrect. Like when it affirms an ANE Flat-earth cosmology or a literal six-day timeline of creation. I can kind of understand the perspective that Genesis 1 is just supposed to be symbolic theological myth, but it’s still uncomfortable to call anything in the Bible “mythology.”
(P.S. Why is verbal, plenary inspiration incompatible with modern cognition understanding?)
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Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
26
What an astounding story you must have, from home schooled YEC to EC in a couple of years. I’m a fiercely rational man. Now. It’s taken over 50 years. And I’ve never had a higher view of scripture. Of its space needle claim towering over the landscape: incarnation. Without that it’s myth. Still the best myth by a country mile if there were no incarnation; it’s absolutely brilliant. The OT is full of brilliance, let alone the NT. If it’s a man made artefact, there is nothing to touch it.
And I want to believe, that at least in it’s claim above all others, it’s true.
But trying to make any of the infinitely lesser claims, claims that may not have been believed as such by their writers and by Jesus, fit with the untouchable magisterium of science is an insult to both. A&E literally never existed. Not in the 770–126 ka Chibanian. We have no idea if they existed before the 597 BCE Babylonian Exile as mythical archetypes. And when, later, much later, they began to exist as literal rather than archetypal figures in the minds of some.
So there is nothing to be sceptical of scripture about, apart from its interpretation and its great claim. The greatest of all human history to come.
The short version is that it sees words as “containing” meaning. Modern communication theory has moved away from that model to one in which meaning-making is a cooperative enterprise that involves words and linguistic structures triggering context-based inferences.
Also when we translate from the original language, we aren’t trying to find “equivalent” words. We are trying to trigger the same inferences about meaning that would have been triggered by the text in the context shared by the author and the original audience. That’s never going to be an exact match because of the nature of language and the fact that we rely on tons of implicit knowledge (our worldview) to process meaning.
Sure. It’s a monotheistic mythology of a god of love. It’s still not written like the stories of Moses, Jesus or Saul. You can fight it. But it’s not written like any of the other historical or biographical accounts in the Bible. That’s why you can only find it similar to highly symbolic places like revelation or psalms.
But you can’t argue that it’s written in a way to heaven interpreted literally and just because Jesus or Paul references it does not mean they read it as a literal story or indicated that it should be understood as such. There is no way, except being badly taught, that it’s written as a actual recording of history.
The reason the Bible is saying something incorrect is because it is, if we are talking about the creation account. However, the Bible doesn’t have to contain no error for it to be truthful. The Bible is authoritative in the way it is intended to be. For example, there are no literal “pillars of the earth”, but that was used to make a point. Using culturally relevant concepts is not being dishonest, but is instead a vehicle for the message. You have to “accommodate” certain things to match your audience’s background and understanding.
We still use the Bohr model of the atom, even though it is a flawed model compared to the quantum-mechanical explanation. We use it to reveal concepts about the basic nature of atoms, not as a definite truth explaining every aspect of the atom perfectly. As long as the Bible uses potentially flawed ideas in that manner, I see no issue with using them.
I think a lot of people are too quick to impose a history/myth or fact/fiction binary on Genesis when those are probably not appropriate categories. Genesis contains theological narratives. Some are probably more grounded in factual history than others. The creation account in Genesis 1 uses very poetic language and notable careful literary structure. There are good arguments that it isn’t intending to tell how the world was created, but to assert who created it and refute specific pagan beliefs from other culture’s origin myths. The Garden of Eden account uses symbolism and imagery that is echoed elsewhere, in the design of the ark of the covenant and the layout of the temple as well as in the description of the New Jerusalem in Revelation. The account of the Flood ties in to the creation account (it is a recreation event and there are obvious parallels) and the analogical means of salvation in the face of coming judgment preached by John the Baptist. The tower of Babel provides a literary foil for the Abrahamic covenant in the next chapter. Pointing out these literary features of the narratives is not equivalent to saying “it’s just myth” or “it’s fiction.” It’s pointing out that the stories were communicating on a literary level in literary ways (through theological types, figurative language, symbols, sacred numerology, repeated motifs, etc.) and that the authors were probably more concerned with communicating what they saw as the most essential truths about God and humanity and Israel’s covenant with God then they were interested in communicating objective historical data. That doesn’t mean “it’s all just made up.” It means the telling of the history has been shaped by forms, conventions, religious commitments, and cultural norms that are different from our own modern history writing conventions.
I think this is a legit struggle. I personally don’t mind the idea that God would humor ancient ideas about biology or cosmology. The fact that he accommodated women as chattel, a pretty disturbing rape culture, polygamy, slavery, justice via death penalty, and genocidal war and conquest is far more troubling. It’s okay to wrestle with these things, they’re hard. I don’t think God is sitting back disappointed in us because we are trying our best to understand him and his ways, and some things don’t make sense to us from our current perspective.
