In the post to which I was responding you laid out some points that you indicated can’t be shown to be true or myth.
I was just pointing out that truth or myth depends on how you define the points in question.
Why is it a problem to just dismiss it all as mythological (using the term you prefer)? You already understand it to be a mix of myth and “historically accurate” (a concept which didn’t exist when written).
You can do what you want but as @Jay313 said, “The burden isn’t on me or anyone else to prove a negative, which is impossible.”
Genesis 1-11 (and the rest to be honest) doesn’t read like a pure fairy tale or a history in any sense. It has elements of both and some have called it a proto-history. We simply lack the material data needed to evaluate what might be history and what might not. Which is why I said in a post back the arguments in favor of a historical Adam and Eve and a real deluge are theological (Jesus, those he appointed to pen our scripture, a high view of scripture with genealogies, Paul’s punctuality views, and Church tradition). Not all of us Christian’s just defer assyriologists working under naturalistic assumptions as the final arbiters of how to interpret our sacred scripture which is theological in nature. Dismissing it all as fiction is understandable to me but goes beyond what the material evidence can actually claim and it is certainly at odds with mainline Christianity.
Vinnie
Not just Protestants – sola scriptura is drawn from various Fathers.
When it’s based on simple biology and math, publication date isn’t terribly relevant.
True. Much of it is mythologized history.
Why? The question is whether the writer(s) intended them to be taken literally.
Which concept is an invention of the Magisterium.
if you look at the kings lifespans and you are presented with 28000 or 36000 you should get the idea that the cycles in question are not years. But they communicated in a time were the meaning came from the messenger and not the receiver. We got far to used to years as the dominant time scale based on agricultural cycles but I would think that it might have been an honour if your age was counted in days rather than longer cycles as every day was counted, not implying that you got incredibly old
Since you said the magisterium is a concept invented by the magisterium, do you likewise call sola scripture an “invention of the fathers”? Is the canon an invention of the fathers and Church as well? Or do you think the canon was “discovered?” If so, I’ll use your language and raise you a Magisterium. The Church “discovered” itself as such under the guise of the Holy Spirit the same way it “discovered” the canon.
And the function of genealogies in the ANE shows they did. Not to mention the NT authors are in line with treating them as real. Paul has a punctiliar view of sin and death as many ancient Jews did. Luke is ancient bios with some historiographic leanings and he traces a genealogy back to Adam. Any Christian is free to deny a historical Adam. It is the claim that scripture teaches a solely mythological Adam that is problematic.
Vinnie
I came to my conclusion without any reference to assyriologists. To me Genesis 1-11 just reads as myth. There appears to be a seam in Genesis between 11 and 12.
While the tower of Bable might have a trace of a historical event that doesn’t really match the whole story, is there anything else for which there is material evidence? The problem with letting someone else decide what is true is how do you determine if the true bits were just chosen to match existing dogma. IOW, which comes first, truth or dogma?
There’s actually a historical event that matches pretty much the whole story, though the order and the cause-and-effect are different. I think it was at Eridu that what would have been the biggest ziggurat ever was started, and part of the reason it didn’t get finished was multiple languages among the workers – but the workers came speaking different languages; the speculation is that somehow the people who were supposed to translate orders left the job, leaving a workforce that then abandoned the project and the city, and whatever caused the loss of translators also impacted the city enough that it was also abandoned.
Maybe more has been learned since I last looked at the topic a number of years back, but my current view is that the Genesis writer/editor took the Eridu story, applied it to Babylon, and imposed a theological twist to a commonly-known story.
The reason for the abandonment would be vastly different and not due to any god. So right there you are missing a big part of the story.
Given Eridu was abandoned and resettled multiple times during its history it would have provided a known story but the Devil is in the details as they say and it doesn’t fit Genesis except as a source for a theological story. Which is why I think Genesis does have “a trace of a historical event” in this case.
I notice no one has offered up any other possible historical event recorded in Genesis 1-11.
“It just reads as myth” is not exactly a blockbuster argument. There is little substance in that so a response of “To me it just reads as proto-history” is entirely appropriate.
As a fact literal moderner, it is hardly surprising you read it this way. It is easy to fall into this cartesian trap. History as we understand the word did not really exist until around the 19th century. The seam argument is not relevant. Genesis has multiple authors and multiple seams and one could say it simply moves from a macro-view of humanity to a more micro one focusing on a single individual and his family. At any rate, Genesis 12-50 is not history either. It doesn’t transition from myth to history. You don’t think Jacob wrestling with God looks like an old folk story about someone fighting with a river wight (the cheap shot, wanting to know the name to have power over the spirit, the wight fearing daybreak when it would need to return) repurposed to monotheism? You can argue Genesis moves closer to history and I wouldn’t disagree given the proximity to the events is closer (but it is still extremely far away from them). We see this with guys like Plutarch and his many ancient lives. He gets less historical and more artistic the further away from his time the character he is writing about it existed. I wouldn’t say the story of Jacob is pure myth and that he never existed, nor would I say its pure history and true in all its details.
I think I have been pretty clear that there is no material evidence. A lack of material evidence does not mean all the figures mentioned in the primeval history are myth. It means we lack material evidence for them just as we lack material evidence for most specific individuals and human like creatures who have lived throughout history (many many many billions of them). Claiming they were all myth and the only people who ever existed are the specific ones that we have bones for is not a good standard. This is scientism to the extreme. As noted, the arguments for historicity are more theological.
Vinnie
Exactly, it is how I came to my conclusion and isn’t meant to win any arguments. You might try reading what I wrote and jump to fewer conclusions about what you think I wrote.
Not an argument, just my personal observation. And that seam is much more obvious than any other faint seams that scholars might point out.
I was thinking more of material evidence for events that should leave traces of material evidence, such as a global flood. I agree we are never going to find a paper trail for Noah, but archeology has found traces that match parts of Genesis 12-50.
I thought we already said the flood wasn’t global if it happened? Very little in Genesis 1-11 that is potentially historical, should be expected to leave behind material evidence that we would find today. We have evidence galore of big local floods. The lack of material evidence for various figures and places is a non-issue unless you expect us to find a tree of immortality.
So your argument is since we have so many floods to chose from one of them must be correct? I have my favorite for a possible source of the myth but that doesn’t make Genesis correct except in a theological sense.
It is an issue when it comes to understanding what Genesis is trying to say and judging what you are being told Genesis means.
That is not what I have argued at all. I have argued that just because parts of Genesis read like myth, does not mean all of it is fictitious. Just because we lack external corroboration does not mean it’s all myth. These are fundamentalist-like leaps in logic. I have already stated how and why I would glean certain things from it as historical and it had nothing to do with material evidence of which I expect none. The teachings of Jesus, the teachings of those He appointed (e.g. Paul’s punctiliar view of sin and death), a high view of scripture (e.g. genealogies), authoritative Church teaching (the magisterium) and continuity with the Christian church (body of Christ) throughout history at large. The majority of these all work on tandem. The arguments for parts of Genesis being historical are mostly theological in nature. Beyond that it’s mostly generic kernels at best or a lot of myth and non liquet for the rest.
The flood is ultimately the only thing we could reasonably expect to find material evidence of and that includes a localized one but there is still the question of when and where.
Vinnie
AFAIK, there are cmpeting hypotheses about the historical background. One hypothesis connects the tower to Etenemanki, a ziggurat in the city of Babylon. Another hypothesis assumes that the tower was the same ziggurat that is mentioned in the Sumerian myth ‘Enmerkar and the lord of Aratta‘. In the latter case, the ziggurat was built or intended to be built in Eridu.
Many translations appear to have misunderstood the nature of the tower.
Ziggurats reflected an ancient belief that gods stepped from heaven to mountain tops that were places where humans could meet and worship gods. Mesopotamia had a relatively flat topography, so people built ziggurats as suitable ‘mountains’. They did not intend to build something that reached heaven. Instead, the tops of ziggurats were places to which the god could step down from heaven (or whatever their realm above the firmament was called). The tops were worship places dedicated to some local god.
The ancient ruling system was city-states: each town had a ruler and was at least partly independent. Larger domains formed when one of the town-level rulers subjucated the rulers of the nearby towns, making them vassals. In a huge building project, the vassal rulers were demanded to send material and/or workers to the building place. Some of the paid workers may have come from more distant places. The workers built as long as they were paid and there was peace. Conflicts were probably relatively common and may have formed a threat to the safety of the workers or the ability of the ruler to pay or arrange food for the workers. In such cases, the workers may have abandoned the building place and returned to their homes.
It is possible that the historical background of the biblical story is in an ambitious building project of a great ziggurat. Local conflicts could have stopped the building before the work was completed. In such a case, the builders with diverse backgrounds would have dispersed to their homes.
Assuming such a historical background, the story in the Genesis would be mythologized history that was utilized to tell a theological message. The message was real although the story is mythologized and told in a form that helped to make the message understandable in the ancient context.
I went back over your posts trying to understand your position.
This looks like you are saying the Church decides what is myth and what is truth (however that gets defined).
Based on the following, to what “material evidence” are you referring?
Did you just mean that a belief in a local flood is reasonable given the frequency with which they occur?
You appeal to Jesus as a source for what is true, but given He affirmed the historical reality of the Genesis flood how do you square that with the following?
I agree a global flood would leave material evidence, but also that a local flood doesn’t agree with Jesus or Genesis. Either Jesus wasn’t aware the flood wasn’t global or He is just using the story as known to His audience, in which case you can’t appeal to Him as a source for truth.
When almost everything in the story matches, that’s more than a trace.
Except the difference boils down to being like retelling the 9-11 terrorist story and adding that it was God’s judgment on America – the whole story is there except an interpretation.
Or “it reads like theological propaganda”, though that is more accurate than most guesses.
That’s a lesson many professional historians have trouble learning!
But which culture’s definition of “correct” are you using? So far it definitely looks like you are using a MSWV as your source of concepts and definitions. Other cultures could look at your views and laugh about how you elevate minutiae over being correct.
That “myth” doesn’t mean “fictitious” in the first place has to be kept in mind.
Translations can’t address the nature of the tower, they just deal with the words. That’s where the YEC fallacy of “what it plainly reads as” sneaks in.
Those concepts are reflected right in the story, with Yahweh “going down” and other phrases.
Given how well you described the sitz im leben, the background doesn’t have to be assumed!
Well, I try to keep the facts, assumptions and interpretations clear.
What I wrote is based on the current understanding about the ancient context, revealed by archeological excavations, ancient texts and the conclusions made by experts. That information does not tell about the particular case (the biblical story), so applying the general conclusions about the ancient context to the case is an assumption. Possible but not proven.
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