I’m one of those on the autism spectrum - so I can identify, I am forever trying to learn better ways to express myself.
Thank you so much for sharing your experiences! Your response really helps me understand something I’ve been confused about. Usually when I hear someone speak about a personal relationship or encounter with God, I picture audible conversations or miraculous occurrences. I frequently feel like I’m doing something wrong because I don’t experience those things. I can identify with the way you’ve described spiritual encounters, and I’m glad these types of encounters are valuable and trustworthy. I’m very grateful for your openness.
I know how that feels, I have Asperger’s and I do have a hard time brining out emotions, its hard for me to express them or be outward with them.
My relationship with God really isn’t how many people see it and while I do think I have a personal relationship with God in which I pray and meditate I see it from it from an intellectual view but I am trying to form a deeper relationship with God more then just a mere head knowledge of who and what God is. But we are all on the walk with God in one way or another and God doesn’t really care what it looks like, all He cares about is that we are seeking Him with all our heart, mind and soul.
Thanks for that wonderful post, Marshall. And to plug into the theme of resurrection that can also be part of our answer to suffering … I just finished the last of Macdonald’s sermon, “The God of the Living” - the last one in his first unspoken series. As a teaser, I’ll give this small excerpt from it below:
The accidental, the nonessential, the unrevealing, the incomplete will have vanished. That which made the body what it was in the eyes of those who loved us will be tenfold there. Will not this be the resurrection of the body? of the same body though not of the same dead matter? Every eye shall see the beloved, every heart will cry, “My own again!–more mine because more himself than ever I beheld him!” For do we not say on earth, “He is not himself to-day,” or “She looks her own self;” “She is more like herself than I have seen her for long”? And is not this when the heart is glad and the face is radiant? For we carry a better likeness of our friends in our hearts than their countenances, save at precious seasons, manifest to us.
Who will dare to call anything less than this a resurrection? Oh, how the letter killeth! There are who can believe that the dirt of their bodies will rise the same as it went down to the friendly grave, who yet doubt if they will know their friends when they rise again. And they call that believing in the resurrection!
Thank you for sharing your articles. I have read them and made some reflective points below. There are so many awesome thinkers here in this forum and you are one certainly of them - I feel a kindred kind of connection with people such as yourself, with @Christy, @MOls, @Marshall and with many others who have commented here (don’t want to exclude everyone - appreciate everyone’s comments ). I haven’t quite had that ‘sharing it all, hearing others in a similar place share back and then moving forward together’ experience in the in-depth way I am here. It’s really special.
Below are some of my reflections on your article Uniqueness of humans
Quote from article: (can’t do the quote thing here from articles, I think)
“Human language involves two kinds of sharing. First, everyone must agree what words mean and how to use them, and second, we must agree that the information we share is truthful. Without meeting both conditions, human languages could not function. This might seem to create a problem for the evolutionary explanation of the development of language. Isn’t evolution based on the natural selection of individuals or their genes in which survival of the fittest forces competition? But the evolution of language doesn’t seem to fit that pattern, since language relies on cooperation rather than competition.”
If I recall correctly, one aspect of the articles’ argument is to propose in this context that human language is one of the aspects of how the idea theistic evolution resonates.
I appreciate it being pointing out how complex and special human language is, it really is but I’m not sure I’d agree with your assessment of evolution. Many animal groups communicate to each other, many in quite complex ways - from pods of dolphins with their sonar like clicking sounds that I understand tell each other where food is and how to get it, to chimpanzees that through various hoots and nods etc, communicate on hunting expeditions how take up different positions to flush out prey. Communicative language I’d say is a form of more advanced evolution but not unique to humans. As with anything, it developed slowly and overtime. I recall it was in a book about the ancient flood story I first heard how anthropologists believe human language first came about - in the context of trade. Certain things needed to be understood in the same way as groups traded with each other, symbols were introduced and eventually blended into sounds etc and it went on from there.
In line with the general concept of how humans are unique … Charles Darwin studied the concept of sympathy and compassion - of maternal and caring emotion generally. He argues that the ability to recognise and respond to emotion in animals is a huge aspect of what helped animals look after each other and therefore more successfully survive. Connected to that, I wonder what your thoughts are in the following article
In regards to human morality. One can certainly see how cooperation and sympathy would have become the basis from which more highly developed animals would have started developing agreed aspects of “right” and “wrong” and how these agreed meanings even in animal - especially primate - communities would have interwoven/interacted with social hierarchies. I recall hearing something on the radio once about certain primate social structures and social controls related to this. There are as I understand among primates social “rights” and “wrongs”, with according punishments. I don’t know much at all about this - just that I’m pretty sure it is the case.
Such aspects of animals’ social evolution do then make the proposition of language, morality and relationships as being uniquely human very difficult to hold up, to my mind. These attributes in many ways are of course special in humans … but whether they are purely unique in us is questionable, to my mind.
This leads back to the original question in your article; what does it mean to be human? Perhaps connecting to your argument about creation and work … it is our dominance. From a biblical point of view it is supported “I give them dominion”. Indeed, we humans are the dominant - the most developed of all that God made on earth created. The true apex. While other animals may have aspects far more finely tuned and greater than ours - greater strength, greater hearing, greater sight etc - none has greater world dominating, controlling, harnessing, potential capturing and cultivating ability as us humans. No other animal comes even remotely close to us in this regard. The coexisting sum of all our parts makes us superior in dominance - and in line with that and with your others points, it is from and because of this that we act as God’s regents on the earth - we are the most closely related physical but non heavenly beings as him on this beautiful planet he created.
I’ll leave this post there and perhaps put another one up about the evolution of Adam, a fascinating article indeed
@Christopher_Michael , just a brief explanation on this, I will break down the Hebrew word for clarity to English speakers:
לְזַ֨רְעֲךָ֔ = Lezar’aka
לְ (prefix) = To
ךָ֔ (ending) = your (2nd person, male, singular - we can conclude this is reference to Abraham)
זַ֨רְעֲ (a form of זֶרַע with changed vowels due to the added grammar) = seed (singular)
The plural would be זְרָעִים (זרע – seed; semen – Hebrew conjugation tables) with ‘עִים’ ending; this is how the plural of ‘male’ nouns are typically constructed in Ancient Hebrew.
The giving of a land to a person by God implies a passing on of sovereignty over the land; Moses and other Biblical authors were critics of people self-assigning themselves as sovereigns (although Moses made himself a sort of ruler / judge at one point, by the end of his life he realised the futility in this when God did not allow him and his generation into the promised land).
There is an over-aching theme in the Bible that humans fail at being sovereigns, and YHWH is the only one and true sovereign because he is the creator of all things. He would select the sovereign to reign over his kingdom (the Israelites thought his kingdom was the land of Canaan, but Jesus revealed what the true Kingdom of God is - I won’t go further into this because it would be off-topic).
This idea of sovereign that will save the children of God from the bad sovereigns of the world (a Messiah or Saviour) is present in the writings about David and throughout the prophets. Certainly, Jews in 1st century were still waiting on the Messiah; the seed of Abraham, of David. This is the reason for the lineages repeated in the gospels; it was to make clear that the early Christians could make the claim that Jesus was the seed of Abraham, of David: the Messiah (I’ve spoken to modern Sephardic Jews who have come to believe that Christ is the Messiah through this revelation).
I would say Paul, being one of these early Christians, is correcting the Galatians, Pharisees, and others who were trying to establish themselves as sovereigns over the land, in place of the Messiah. These people essentially were the ‘antichrists’ because their sovereignty, values and rules were opposite to the kingdom that Jesus’ taught about.
Anyone else who has studied Hebrew feel free to clarify the above.
We could, and many Christians have done so in order to fit the Bible with their world-views, but we couldn’t say that is what the Paul or any of the other apostles did. I think the apostles took Jesus critic of the Pharisees (who did do the intellectual tricks and flips to manipulate the masses) seriously when he said: ‘For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will by any means disappear from the Torah until everything is accomplished (I.e. sin and death is conquered)’.
Some English translations make the ‘iota’ and ‘keraia’ in the Greek ambiguous by translating to ‘a letter’ and ‘a pen stroke’, but ‘iota’ and ‘keraia’ in the Koine (Jewish) Greek infers a ‘yodh’ and ‘tittle’ (Hebrew letter and marking: What is a jot? What is a tittle? | GotQuestions.org). Jesus was deliberately criticising the Pharisees and the Scribes for changing the Torah to suite their world views and purposes.
Note: Yes, I translated the Law as Torah, I’ve posted about this in other threads before as to why. Don’t want to go too off-topic in this thread.
Again, not saying an individual can’t interpret the Bible how they want. But, I don’t think it’s helpful as it blurs the line between Biblical worldview and other world-views. I’m Vietnamese and I have this unfortunate problem filtering through the Taoist and Buddhist interpretations that the Vietnamese Christians place on the Bible. I’m sure I have my own biases as well from growing up in Australia, but it is one of the reasons why I’m trying to learn the Ancient Hebrew to get rid of them when I read the Bible.
My question would be for this method: At what point do we start becoming ‘anti-christs’ with our re-interpretation and changing of the Biblical worldview? We can’t really ignore (or discard) the ‘negative’ parts of Jesus’ gospel, unless we want to create a new religion. This question as implications for the future of Christianity, because our contemporaries believe that Christianity is one of many religions that have ‘evolved’ over time with similar ‘memes’; what relevance does the gospel have then when I could pray to Buddha or Allah for salvation?
Yes! Exactly, why Jesus sent the Holy Spirit into our age. I actually prefer the open, forum conversation format as it allows us to be honest. Certainly, Job, King Solomon, and the Psalmists used an ancient version of this method of open dialogue to each other and to God.
One thing I would say though is that there is a distinct Biblical worldview, which if we were to take the bold journey of “extending” (I don’t like the word re-interpretating because it implies discarding the ideas of the ancients and Jesus warns us as I mentioned before not to discard the wisdom of the ancients) the process of defining this Biblical worldview would be beneficial. Essentially, this is what the Ancient Israelites did (and from what I can observe in my Jewish friends and their traditions, modern Jews do as well).
If one were to read the Bible cover to cover, one would discover two things:
The main language of the Bible is poetry: a visual language meant to inspire, not dictate facts
The main form of the Bible is polemic (I.e. criticising or attacking the cultures of the day, and even themselves!).
With point 2, I always found it funny how us as Christians choose to model the church and church behaviour on Biblical characters and kingdoms, when the Biblical authors were actually criticising the societal models and behaviours. Moses was self-criticising, the prophets were criticising the Israelite and Jewish kings, the author of Job was criticising Job and his friends, Solomon was criticising himself and his subjects, etc…
So, what you and others are doing in this thread I highly encourage. But, I say this with a warning question, how do we know what is from the Holy Spirit, and what is not?
I’ll leave that as an open question for self-reflection or another thread, as I think my post has diverged enough away from the original topic of Evolution. Thought it might be beneficial for you and others personally to clarify the Hebrew.
One last point on respecting the wisdom of the ancients: I believe it was Lucretius’ ‘On the Nature of Things’ that inspired the development of particle physics we study today. To call the Middle Ages the ‘Dark Ages’ or Antiquity as ‘primitive’ is to be blinded by the fact that these civilisations were capable of engineering and building pyramids and other marvellous structures, water and sewerage systems, mechanisms and machines, etc.
In this example of Lucretius we see that scientists were extending his ideas, not replacing them. This is my encouragement to 21st century Christians in our pursuit of extending Biblical ideas into the 21st century and beyond.
@Christy I’m not a palaeontologist or biologist, and neither was the author(s) of Genesis.
The data you have presented is new territory for the Biblical worldview, and I’m glad it has been brought up as Evolution is a big influence on society at the moment.
I don’t think we as Christians are ready to answer this question yet. Personally, I am hesitant to make any claims. Certainly, I did not make the claim that God is prohibiting anything. I am merely re-stating the idea that is implicitly presented, which is 'there was no need to kill one another for food." The author of Genesis was silent on the mechanisms and state of creation pre-Adam because the data was not accessible; but taking the Biblical worldview that God is compassionate, giver of life (not taker), and provider for life - they chose to make an assertion that the natural order of things in the beginning was that life eats vegetation. It is certainly an extended belief to other authors such as Isaiah who had a vision that the lion would eat straw like the ox.
It’s like you said, creation went from a place of protection and abundance to one of competition and scarcity. Humanity chose that and had to figure out how to survive without God’s protection and abundance, in competition and scarcity. The result was Abel became a herdsman and Cain became a farmer; I’m definitely not tie-ing meat-eating to sin (I eat meat on occasion…and so did Jesus and his disciples).
What I am saying, is look at the consequence of eating meat; the Biblical author was providing a better way (essentially, a better vision) for the human person and creation to be. They believe this to be the natural order of things that God intended; what eventuated is not of God, but rather what the creation has done.
I know BioLogos and AnswersInGenesis like to use Genesis 1-3 as the go-to text for Evolution vs Creationism, but personally I don’t think it is fruitful - we are simply seeking answers from the text that aren’t there. What might be more fruitful is framing a Biblical worldview (like the Biblical authors) by studying the scriptures in their entirety, and then make judgements on Evolution theory. I mentioned in previous reply to @Christopher_Michael that the Bible is mainly polemic, I.e. critique of the world-views of the Biblical author contemporaries; they weren’t necessarily discarding the facts / data of their day, but rather making alternative, counter-cultural interpretations of the data based on what they came to know about YHWH over the generations.
You are right; we have to separate human death and animal death (apologies, it was ambiguous in my previous post). But, really in either sense - death is just God’s breath departing the physical body (Ecclesiastes 3:19-21), since God is the source of life.
Psalm 34, I would take the ‘young lions’ metaphorically as a contrast to the ‘holy people’ in the preceding verse. And the providence is given to the ‘seekers of God’, I don’t see the implicit meaning that God provides for the ‘young lions’ in this context.
Psalm 104 is definitely referring to the literal ‘lions’ and a good case that God provides meat. However, the nuance would be that this refers to God’s abundance in the creation of prey (I.e. all animals); I’m still wary of making the claim that God purposefully gives over prey to a predator. This is in line with the phrasing, they ‘seek their food (achelam) from God’ as in they are tirelessly creeping about until there is food appearing (a bit like how God provides the ram for Abraham as the sacrifice instead of Isaac). I think this is more out of compassion for apex predators rather than it being the way it is and will always will be; in the same sense that God gave every moving thing that is alive to humans as food, after the flood. In both cases, even though creation is killing each other for food, God’s not going to send another flood to wipe out everything.
Think of this tension: some creatures will starve and die unless there are two sources of food to overcome food scarcity; the way of least suffering would be scavenging which Genesis 9:4 seems to imply (but people have taken it to mean draining blood after killing it). This is still post-Fall due to humanity though (as blamed by the author of Genesis as the reason for the flood). Of course, this is an extrapolation, as the Bible is silent on the subject.
My interpretation of the Job passage you mentioned is as above for Psalm 104.
Job is actually quite interesting; as the author is actually criticising Job and his friends for misrepresenting YHWH in the circumstances. The author’s prologue might give insight as to the force of death in this world (I.e. Job 1) that they believed was attributed to Job’s circumstances. This is certainly in line with other Biblical author’s interpretation of Satan and his evil presence/force in the world.
Definitely, the verses you’ve presented are worthy of thought and expansion (for post-Fall discussion in my opinion).
Note: I’m admit I’m not sure how to interpret the data on apex predators pre-Fall just yet; but I don’t think we can definitely use Genesis 1 as evidence that it is good or God’s will, it simply wasn’t written for that purpose. I held off in this post, but welcome continuing the conversation if others wish.
Sorry for my slowness. I usually get around here in the mornings, but this a.m. was packed. Jumping right into it:
Language is a different animal than a system of communication. (Pardon the pun.) It involves symbolic reference that animals can’t duplicate, and it includes all the “modern” features like syntax, grammar, recursivity, etc. I don’t really stake out a position on the “human uniqueness” scale, but if I did, it would be more toward the “differ in degree” end of the spectrum.
For instance, chimps possess theory of mind at the same level as human toddlers, which is “first-order” theory of mind. An example would be “A believes that B intends this.” Second-order theory of mind virtually requires recursive syntax and embedding (e.g. language): A believes that B thinks that C intends this. Third order: A believes that B thinks that C believes that D intends this. Thanks to the flexibility of language, humans can take this even farther. Consider Shakespeare’s Othello. By the end of the second act, the audience understands that Iago intends that Cassio believes that Desdemona intends that Othello believes that Cassio did not intend to disturb the peace. How many levels of intention is that? (Don’t forget the audience when you count.) Only possible thanks to language.
True, but they lack morality as we understand it. True morality requires abstraction and symbolism. An interesting article along these lines is Jane Goodall’s “Order without Law.” It’s floating around the internet somewhere.
What I characterized as “relationship” would fall under the category of “empathy” and, more broadly, “intersubjectivity.” The latter encompasses empathy and involves the sort of intention-reading and mind-reading that Othello describes. Other creatures may have the roots of those things, so that our capacities aren’t without precedent, as it were. But the co-evolution of the brain and language gave us the capacity to fully share our thoughts and emotions with others, and animals simply can’t replicate that human capacity.
That deserves more thought than I can give it at the moment. On the other hand, it sounds a little too much like Nietzsche’s “will to power” to sit comfortably. A bed of nails? Ouch!
Augustine’s view of Original Sin was his attempt to make natural evil the fault of Humanity.
The Eastern Orthodox community’s don’t see the universe in this way. They ignore Original Sin, and they see humanity as INCLINED to SIN … because of how they HAD to be created. Eastern Orthodox are content with the idea that the only way humanity will grow and learn a perfect moral sense is if they learn to cope with their sinful inclination.
This is how the Orthodox deal with the inevitable theodicy of a single supreme being.
As you and @Jay313 have been discussing:
I’ve thought of a big aspect of humans being made in the image of God is our sense of morality, and moral responsibility. This includes our ability to regret our past actions and imagine alternative future outcomes. Thinking, “I should have,…I could have, …I would have.”
Dominance could relate to humanity being made in the image of God in the sense that God gave made us to be stewards. So we have the responsibility to take care of His creation, which is also a moral responsibility. Dominance divorced from care, kindness and stewardship would be sin
Good thoughts. I’ll hit morality in a second, but connecting the last bit to evolution, you’ve touched on one of the primary ways that our brains differ from other primates and all previous hominins. The main features of human brain evolution are the expansion of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and, more recently, globularity.
The PFC houses the working memory, which is the conductor of the brain’s orchestra. Working memory is what allows us to consider alternative future outcomes. All mammals have a version of the PFC, but ours is greatly outsized. Compare the sloped forehead of previous hominins and primates to a modern-day human and it’s easy to spot.
Regret for past actions brings globularity into play. The globe-shaped skull of modern humans only appeared within the past 250,000 years or so. What it involved was a “rewiring” of the human brain into its present configuration. The result was greater accessibility to memory, which now could be stored in multiple locations.
Michelle’s point about morality isn’t incompatible with understanding the image of God as a “vocation” to represent him on Earth. As Enns’ article points out, in the ancient Near East the statues of gods in temples served as visible representations of divine power and presence, and the king was considered their living representative on Earth, exercising their authority. By its nature, understanding the image of God as a vocation implies an extended period of apprenticeship. Toddlers don’t suddenly begin to practice carpentry. Likewise, if God intended humanity to serve as his image, we could not perform that task until we acquired the necessary knowledge and experience. This implies a process.
The “cultural mandate” of Gen. 1:28 grants humanity the authority to subdue and rule the earth as God’s representatives. Since any attempt to represent God must reflect his goodness, justice, and mercy, humanity could not perform its God-ordained task without mature moral knowledge.
I cover a lot of this stuff in my podcast/blog. You should check it out sometime, @Randy. Here’s the starting point:
Hi Marshall, thanks for your reply (and I relate to family life and time constraints). I love your focus on hope, even for the poor animals that suffer. That said, it does in a way seem odd to me for God to create a system so focussed on the need for death (and associated suffering) and then put in place invisible systems we can’t detect to lessen that suffering. If we are to take meaning out of creation as Jesus did in his observations, I’m not sure where that would lead us. But then on that, it is curious Jesus says not even a sparrow falls against the Father’s will … so maybe there is something to God encompassing and sustaining all life and the experiences they have. Something to continue to muse over.
Thanks again Marshal (responding now to your post about Matthew and Paul’s use of scripture and whether there would be scope for us Christians in the 21st century who have our backs up against the wall re science and faith, to apply some of those principles).
You know, sigh, I’ve just listened to episode 100 of the ‘Bible for Normal people’ podcast and have kind of felt like I’ve been karate chopped right in the throat (or punched in the stomach, pick your analogy) … based on the discussion right in the last 10 minutes. This was basically proposing Genesis as a whole book is not historical fact at all but a theological commentary (or whatever the term they used was). What they said certainly has the ring of truth to it (and it’s a fun podcast). But this is extremely disorientating for me to hear - makes me feel “what the heck is true or real then?” - if the nature of inspiration is so profoundly disconnected from actual historical reality it suggests God who inspires it really has no interest in revealing history but just … well, what really? Spiritual principles? By saying things that never happened kind of as though they did happen? Um, isn’t that kind of lying?
I’m processing these implications … which to some extent merge with what you and the majority of people understandly say about “you can’t just conveniently merge Genesis and science”. Peter Enn from that podcast’s view of scripture is one I respect … but is so far removed from anything resembling historical grammatical that it just becomes like someone recounting a dream - a dream of what they think happened or wanted to happen and who they think God is and how they want things to have meaning. And obviously we can’t rely on dreams to guide us in real life - not when push comes to shove anyway. And if we believe this is inspiration … how is it not arrogant for us to say the Australian Aboriginal dreaming stories were not true or other people’s stories were not true - everything becomes relative and subjective when divorced from historical reality.
Obviously I’m ranting. But also at the same time responding (and trying to keep up with this forum, which I love and is worth me continuing to invest time in). Processing the idea of the Bible being so “other” to actual historical facts … its kinda stressful. If I hadn’t had those words of that other song highlighted to me the other day (Faces), I’d be throwing my hands up in the air and close to packing things up with regard to faith right now.
Ha, while I was writing - the first song that came on out of my 1000s that could be shuffled was “love will always win” - but then, that could just be coincidence? I feel possibly not though … but I don’t know. Anyway, just wanted to record that
I feel the same. Yet, I think you may find @DOL Denis Lamoureux’ work a bit more encouraging. Whereas I find enns a bit more skeptical, Or cynical, I think he does that in order to get the worst possible picture, and encourage those who really doubt. Lamoureux, on the other hand, portrays a much more hopeful picture. I think they both come from the same point of view, but with a totally different attitude. I took His Coursera course Online, and he emphasized how God was not lying… Lamoreaux has doctorates in theology from Regent University as well as an evolutionary biology, and is still working with dental Evolution. He also has a doctorate in dentistry. I can’t think of anybody who has better education credentials than he, including Dr. Enns. Yet, they are friends, I think… Dr. Lamoureux is actually a Pentecostal, and believes that he experiences Miracles every day. I do think that you put excellent questions, and I feel just the same. Thanks for your excellent discourse. @jstump May want to step in here as well.
There are no greater ethical implications of the God in Heaven manipulating evolution on Earth as compared to the same God manipulating the atmosphere and oceans and land masses on earth to create storms and tidal waves and volcanoes.
If you accept that Heaven can intervene into Earth’s atmosphere and hydrosphere and lithosphere then why not also the biosphere?
Hi Christopher, been keeping up on this thread from my wonderful wife @MOls.
I hope you have patience and have some trusted sound Christians friends who you can also wrestle with some of these things with in person.
There is no shortage of scholars with all kinds of ideas about the bible. Especially over the last few hundred of years a lot of these ideas seem to keep coming back in various incarnations.
I was mentioning to my wife that at seminary we read a lot of scholars who took very liberal/loose/figurative/spiritual/neo-orthodox/etc views of Scripture and their arguments can sound very sound and authoritative. But we were blessed not only to have the training in the original languages to check some of the claims, but were also surrounded by solid christian professors, equally scholarly, who knew that there were other, generally more reasonable, ways to look at the same data.
You challenge is getting:
and not having the professors and community around to help you.
In any case, just through I’d add my encouragement. Be patient and humble in that none of us will fully understand some of these early Genesis questions in this life – I think that is OK. But also be wise in that there are many who claim to have some special knowledge on how the bible works or should be interpreted that should make you uncomfortable.
Thank you @J_Ols - it’s a blessing being part of this community here, one where m I’m able to kind of sound board things out. Very helpful
Thanks to you and everyone in fact contributing
I hope the discussion remains enriching. To use some good old ‘Christianese’, I’ve definitely been feeling ‘held’ these last 3 weeks or so. This has been the time since my previous “cognitive dissonance bubbles” about YEC vs actual nasty Evolution finally popped. My recent two posts have been me reeling about another one popping today - the
“Genesis 1-11 might have all elements of myth and such (albeit very meaningful and theologically rich myth) - but come that magical chapter 12, we’re in history town, baby - history time has cometh”
(obviously it wasn’t quite like that, but yeah).
I considered that part (12-50) of Genesis to be far more deeply historical (and yes for anyone massive thinking - I have read probably most of the amazing book “History of Israel” by John Bright (his work in some ways planted many seeds that are spiriting here). So, that bubble burst today and realising “ahhh, yeah - hmm, I reckon that is pretty well true … how Peter Enn notes the manner in which Israel’s enemies are characterised in Genesis - is anachronistic and in no real way actual history”. Ouch [Bubble burst].
Connected to this … I’ve been thinking, quite a bit actually, about this book called “History of the Kings of Britain” (I learnt about in a podcast called “Our Fake history” - in a series investigating the myth vs truth of King Richard. It’s a good podcast (non spiritually focussed) - I’d recommend it . This book written in the 12th century is pseudo historical. I’ll include the link
My thoughts are (major rant warning, I currently refuse to say ‘trigger warning’ but - potentially that too, ) … I kind of hang my head in sadness and almost shame as I say this here … how, really, if what Enn says about Genesis is true - how on earth is the Bible even different from psedo history? Pseudo historic writing says
“this amazing thing happened”
but … um, one investigation … it didn’t happen.
And really (sigh, sadness, shame) - how is the Bible not an “ancient near Eastern religious pseudo historical narrative with elements of narrative, poetry and wisdom”? And while such reading can indeed be fascinating and informative … so can so much else. But we’re talking about something we are saying God has his finger prints all over here, i.e. the Bible. God - master and creator. God,is using pseudo history? Really? I mean - that is a bit sad, yeah? Is there not enough real history to teach us from?
I am very confident there is no one reading thinking:
“Great, pseudo history. Gotta get more of that in my life. Get it in my soul - hook me up“.
No. Pseudo history can be confusing at best and even creepy at worst.
(Edit) That said, I have just remembered something I’ve been thinking a bit about lately … how author of the Shak Paul Young was asked if his book was based on a true story … he said it was but not in a purely chronological historical way - detailing that the book condensed years and years of God’s work in his life and some terrible experience/s into one unit. The follow Peter Enn logic and still have hope - I cannot see how this is the only way of seeing the Bible (but how God is presented there is sometimes so, so nasty compared to how he is in the Shak).
It’s a weird and unique experience all this - maybe like a free fall of some kind that is very much disconcerting … but, it’s also kind of interesting, Hopefully not ‘interesting’ in the way that (Movie reference here) the music the team heard coming from a distant planet in Alien Covenant was “interesting”. I fear my following the ‘sound I’m hearing’ could be disastrous like it was for them … but I have a faith it won’t be [and warning for the faint hearted, that movie can get pretty nasty gory in some places, it’s definitely not a ‘nice’ movie].
I suppose in all this … my concept of God has definitely shifted. Which doesn’t really feel nice. I’ve swallowed the Matrix red pill and it tastes awful and has opened my eyes to a sad, cold reality far far removed then the blue pill option. I am thinking about some of the anthropological elements to the “concept of God”, as it must have first developed and then shifted and evolved at different times and cultures.
One more movie analogy to close … if you will so indulge me. It’s referencing something said much earlier on this thread … and it is that this weird state I’m in is not, I feel, unlike the character of Rey (Star Wars) being in the mirror room in whatever Episode it was (7?). The room where she was trying to find out the truth of her identity … but couldn’t see past herself. All she could see was herself, multiplied. I feel like I’m trying in a similar kind of way - to find that hidden truth. I’m sensing something significant and deeply meaningful is there … but I can’t see it.
I’m also sensing that I will - like Rey, probably not like the answer when I come to it [cave man voice: me, gene, use’d be in mon-key ha har) … but like Rey … I hope I will come to terms with it, hopefully in the really special and deep way like she did.
[Waking startle moment] Lookk at mee, mining meaning about the Bible using a Star Wars narrative … thats a bit sad
Well … it’s certainly a journey - a 21st century pilgrims progress journey even. On that … it would be proper amazing if someone wrote a 21st century pilgrims progress! Please … someone write it!
So, back to @J_Ols - I’m saying thank you again for taking the time to message me and I indeed intend to dig into the words of who @Randy suggested - Lamoreaux (think he was on the Bible for normal people podcast and has a book about evolution and faith?) and others.
And thank you to everyone here for coming along on the journey
) … I kind of hang my head in sadness and almost shame as I say this here … how, really, if what Enn says about Genesis is true - how on earth is the Bible even different from psedo history? Pseudo historic writing says