Walton stresses that we moderns should seek to avoid unwittingly imposing our ‘modern’ way of thinking on ancient peoples. Yet he intuits that only natural way for a human person to make an account of material origins of the cosmos, regardless of that person’s particular focus of interest, is to specifically mention such universally trivial things as mere matter.
Lazar Puhalo (‘Theology made simple: The Meaning of The Fall of Man.l’. Theology made simple: The Meaning of The Fall of Man.l - YouTube) seems to have this intuition in spades, in that he seems very confident that any Divinely true account of material origins of the cosmos, no matter how short-and-sweet its focus, necessarily mentions such things as the specific atomic elements, the particulars of ‘atomic structures’, gravity, and so forth.
Walton rightly points out that mention of any such universally trivial physics would undercut the clear functional focus of Genesis 1. But Walton reasons that, since the text does not include any such trivia, that the ancient narrator was not addressing material origins.
So Walton may as well claim that, when a bride-to-be regales her wedding guests of how her dress was made, she only naturally will begin by detailing the trivial fact that her dress is made of the same most trivial substance as that of cow dung, road gravel, and the longest hair in your left nostril.
I’ve seen people make this claim before regarding the polemical elements in Genesis 1, and they miss the point. Somethings do dispel common beliefs yet we’re not intended to be that way, for other elements in Genesis 1 it seems they were intended to be polemical. For example taken out of context there is no reason why the sun and moon were called ‘greater light’ and ‘lesser light’ rather than ‘sun’ and ‘moon’ respectfully. It does however make much more sense when you realise that the names of the sun and moon were the names of Pagan gods in the Middle East. By avoiding their names, the author of Genesis is trying to deliberately avoid mention of pagan gods, likewise the Babylonian Tiamat is reduced to ‘Tehom’.
Also I was originally unconvinced by Walton’s functional hypothesis yet now find it hard to disagree with, consider:
1- Temples in the ANE were considered microcosms of the cosmos.
2- God’s temple is called his ‘resting place’ in Isaiah 66.
3- God takes up rest at the end of the creation narrative.
4- In ANE creation narratives the gods take up station in their temple at the end of the narrative.
5- God resting is therefore him taking up station in his temple.
6- The temple is the whole universe, as stated before temples were seen as representations of the universe.
7- It took 7 days to assign the functions of a temple.
8- The seven days of creation therefore represent the ‘functions’ of creation.
Here again you misunderstand Walton, Daniel. What I read in Lost World of Genesis One is that ancient texts show that ancient peoples, including the Jews, believed that some organ other the brain was the seat of emotion and thought.
I, too, agree with Walton on this. There is no reason to doubt it.
My own main issue is that Walton, in his aim at this temple principle, restricts the text to non-Material-Origins. This is like saying that any normal account of an actual wedding must be an account NOT of an actual wedding, since such an account is normal TO a wedding. Nobody goes around telling of their wedding by including in that telling the fact that it was a materially real wedding. Everybody KNOWS that an actual wedding is materially real!
Consider the natural, essential prime account of the material assembly of a child’s first bike. Such an account focuses only on basic functions, not on material science. This is especially true if the child has never before encountered anything like a bike. So the account does not bother with mere material issues. Nor does it burden the child with any fine details. It simply satisfies the child’s initial level of interest, and this explicitly only of function. Such an account is prime in that it is short-and-sweet. It is The Essential Account in that it is simply sweet. In short, such an account of a bike is for the human rider. It is NOT for the metallurgist, the physical dynamics expert, or what have you. This does not mean such an account is not of a materially real bike.
Walton cannot deny that such an account is the only natural account strictly for the rider. He also cannot deny that it is an account of the material assembly of the bike. In fact, a normal child’s first question about the material origin of a bike is one that, though it focuses on function, does not preclude finer material issues. This is how the human being thinks. Function is the first concern, and only when that is satisfied does the human care about such things as materials engineering and the finer points of functional integration.
Walton believes that any interpretation that allows the text to address material origins is thereby imperfect in terms of central life-affirming values. But any number of different kinds of analogies easily can be found for rebutting this material/life dichotomy regarding Genesis 1. In the mechanical kind, there is the relation between, say, auto mechanics and driving, piano practice and musicality, gunsmithing and skeet shooting. Of course, Genesis 1 is not a material object, but an account; so it preludes the kinds of involvement that these other things most naturally encourage. Therefore, what those such as Walton actually gain by way of this dichotomy is only that, in their rejecting the account’s value for material origins, many of its other values are left to come to the fore in their minds. This has obvious life-affirming advantages over an approach to the account that would render it as much as possible in terms of life-indifferent physics and large-scale structure of the universe. Nevertheless, the principle of these analogies seems to stand untouched: a concern for material origins in Genesis 1 does not inherently reduce or obscure the account’s other values.
[quote=“Reggie_O_Donoghue, post:24, topic:36670”]
taken out of context there is no reason why the sun and moon were called ‘greater light’ and ‘lesser light’ rather than ‘sun’ and ‘moon’ respectively. [/quote]
Yes there is (I mention it some months ago in another thread). Assuming that the account is materially real, then a likely normal Divine creation of a fully functional adult human is a creation that allows such an adult to express all those functions, including capacity-and-drive to develop a language. It may be easiest for our minds to simply allow that God would have created such an adult with a complete, ready-made language.
But if God wants a relationship with us, then He would have best accomplished that partly through the human conversational capacity to develop a language from human biosemantic and enviro-semantic scratch. This is not a Blank Slate mind attempting to develop of language from a blank slate kind of scratch. Rather, it is a human embodied mind, in a completed terrestrial environment, with God as first conversational companion.
On that view, the fact that Genesis 1 does not describe the Greater, Lesser and Many Tiny lights by way of ‘proper’ names is explained by the early stages of human language development in which these lights had not yet, in human history, been given any such names.
[quote=“Reggie_O_Donoghue, post:24, topic:36670”]
It does however make much more sense when you realise that the names of the sun and moon were the names of Pagan gods in the Middle East. By avoiding their names, the author of Genesis is trying to deliberately avoid mention of pagan gods, likewise the Babylonian Tiamat is reduced to ‘Tehom’.[/quote]
That is plausible. But then what of the Hebrew word translated ‘stars’ in v. 16? In that case, isn’t the ‘proper’ naming issue a bit ambiguous?
And what of naming, in general? Isn’t it most naturally descriptive, rather than personification-al? The native American’s who, in their own language, named the large lake in what is now south central Massachusetts did not give it a Personified name, but a very to-them-functional one. This is the normal way of naming, and this is exactly what Genesis 1 seems to do. It does not even concern the reader with whether or not the Sun is the largest light in the cosmos in ‘objective’ terms, but rather with the lighting and warmth for the Earth and its inhabitants.
On that last note, Walton fails what is normal, by conflating a concern for material origins with that for such things as trivially universal physics (just because many of my fellow YEC’s are foolishly happy to do so). This conflation is quite deeply made by one Lazar Puhalo, who seems very confident that any Divinely true account of material origins of the cosmos, no matter how short-and-sweet its focus, necessarily mentions such things as atomic elements, ‘atomic structures’, gravity, and so forth. Walton, in regard to the pair of subjects in Genesis 1:1, intuits something similar for any merely human account of the Divine acts of material creation of the cosmos: that all humans, no matter their particular focus of interest thereto, only naturally would, at the very least, include in such an account some initial mention that matter, as such, is created.
Your choice of wording helps make my point. Something is above that seat. If our lower backside is our seat, something crucial about us is above it. Namely our organs of sight, hearing, etc, and imagination. You are presuming, without any sure evidence, to reduce some unknown group of humans to being senseless about their heads in relation to their imagination and thinking. You may as well just say it outright: “I Chris Falter, believe that the ancients who wrote Genesis 1 had no perception whatever that even their inner monologue was even partly being conducted inside their heads. This, despite that I, Chris Falter, admit that they knew that their mouths were part of their heads as opposed to their torsos.”
If Walton thinks this, he is wrong. And he is wrong by grossly simplifying the already scant-and-specious evidence of “what the ancients thought” about the head. He does this in order to help support his not-implausible thesis: “Genesis 1 is purely about Nature’s life-support functions, rather than both about those functions and about material origins.” In its own terms, this thesis is not implausible. But Walton finds that this thesis is only completable by deducing that all common ancients necessarily lacked any accurate sense about their heads in relation to their own personal thoughts.
I have never thought that. You lump me in with those who do think that. I am very aware that Walton very clearly acknowledges that the doctrine of creation ex nihilo is rooted in Scripture. I have deliberately and many times listened to him actually saying so, on the recordings of his talks.
I did not even imply that documents are useless as evidence. In fact, documents can be decisive. But this is quite different from what you seem to me to be saying in favor of documents: that they are the sole critical basis upon which to reason as to both:
(a) what their authors believed about something, and
(b) what aaaaalllllll demographics believed about that something.
…and even then you over-simply their belief, by thinking that, since they presumably believed x1, they had no sense about x2 , and, or, they denied x2. By the time I was seven, I had become fairly convinced that people who ride bikes without falling over were using a special, bike-riding telekinesis-levitation. This did not mean that I did not allow that they might well not be. In fact, on the contrary. But it was just that I had failed to image what they could be using instead. Because I was doing exactly all that I was told as to how the contraption is operated: pedal hard, and steer.
When I am being assassinated by 1 million paper cuts, the perpetrator usually has the kindness to hold my hand.
You cannot simply trash information derived from documents - - without you providing some supporting evidence for why there is some reason to think there were rival views, and rival perspectives and so forth.
Simply pronouncing that we must dismiss what the documents say - - “because we gotta” - is just foolishness.
So, let’s see how many elements can I enumerate by counting fingers:
The “fall on your sword” quality of choosing John Walton’s theme to resist at full force and full volume. [This is some kind of world-shaking paradigm? I’m minimally interested in Walton’s paper.]
Your constant attacks on the minutia of the discussion without advancing any replacement ideas. [I don’t even try to push past your dismissals. Now I dismiss your dismissals as soon as I see them. Makes for short reading!]
The vast percentage of your narratives having nothing to do with what you think is true - - being totally consumed by attacking ideas for what they cannot be.
Can’t you find some Atheist group to validate your intellect? They would love your ‘Forensic Stylings’!
Aristotle was just such a senseless dunce, according to you. Perhaps this article from Neuroscience, Aristotle on the Brain, can help solve some of your difficulties. There is actually quite a bit of evidence what ancient people thought about it, despite your personal incredulity.
I don’t know whether or not the gods of the stars were referred to by the name ‘stars’ in their respective language. (correct me if they were) So that may be a false equivalence.
I find it interesting that the word ‘Brain’ never occurs anywhere in the Bible, and the head is never mentioned in conjunction with thought, whilst the Heart, Kidneys and Intestines are.
Yes, and the Egyptians had no word for it either, judging from the Edwin Smith surgical papyrus. Here’s a little bit from that article:
The Edwin Smith surgical papyrus was written in 1700 BC, but experts believe it is a copy of an original text that was written even earlier in 3000 BC. The exact age and origin of the papyrus will probably never be known, but it is still a fascinating snapshot of how people thought about the brain almost 5,000 years ago.
Or it might be more accurate to say the papyrus reveals how they didn’t think about the brain, since ancient Egyptians from this period didn’t have a word for the organ. The hand, heart, and eye each had their own unique words, but the word used to indicate “brain” is made up of four glyphs: “vulture,” “reed,” “folded cloth,” and a final suffix that means “little.” The glyphs represent sounds that added up to a word that roughly translates to “skull-offal,” not exactly the most respectful name the Egyptians could have given the brain.
Sorry to double up on you, but it’s also worth mention that the Bible routinely uses the heart to represent the center of a person’s being, where thought and decision take place. Interestingly, when used in this sense, “heart” is virtually synonymous with “soul” and “spirit”.
Verse 16 is:
Gen 1:16 "And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day,
and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars [H3556] also.
Strong’s H3556, כּוֹכָב kôwkâb, ko-kawb’; probably from the same as H3522 (in the sense of rolling) or H3554 (in the sense of blazing); a star (as round or as shining)…
The term kokawb is used 36 times, all to mean “star”. And it doesn’t appear to mean any proper name, let alone the proper name of a foreign god.
I’m not saying that you must agree with me on the matter. You have your reasons not to. I’m not challenging that.
I’m simply trying to show you (through my admittedly poor ability to do so) why I think you are vastly oversimplifying the issue.
You are constructing a conclusion about what the common ancient person perceived of their own heads from nothing but what you have presumed must be that of some royal line relative to their own priests’ practice.
Just to begin with, do you deny that the ancient Egyptian royalty had a basic sense of the fact that a person can lose consciousness simply by being hit on the head hard enough?
The incredible expense of original ancient Egyptian mummification, along with that of the accompanying tombs, points to a belief that the quality of eternal afterlife depended at least partly on how well the body of the dead was preserved. But the priests who oversaw the process of preservation could not keep the skull intact at the same time as preserving the brain.
And, the brain, without its blood, still involves more fluid than does the blood-drained torso organs.
So the priests rationalized something to the effect that they felt it better to have to discard the brain (by having to pull it out through the nose) than to cut open the skull to remove, intact, an organ that, to them, was far more mysterious than it was functional.
They could see basically how the heart worked. And, they knew how the entrails worked. And they could preserve all the torso organs without the kind of damage to the torso that would have been required of the skull in order to preserve the brain.
They surely realized that there was a protective function of the skull. But they had to make a ‘judgement call’. So they made that call very heavily in favor of their mere, admittedly ignorant reasoning about everything.
Peter Harrison explains the principle issue very well:
[W]ereas for a thinker like Aristotle, who had known nothing about th[e] Christian Doctrine of the Fall [of humanity from a biologically perfect state within a perfectly hospitable natural world]…[Aristotle] had a very [self-confident] approach to [learning of] the natural world, and thought that, basically, [his own] rational intuitions, and [his own] observations about nature, they were basically [accurate]. But if you [accept] (…) that there’s an imperfection to human reason[ing capacity] and there’s an imperfection to the senses, then you need to interrogate much more closely both what our reasons tells us and what our senses tell us. And, in essence, the experimental approach to the natural world, which says, “We need to interrogate nature under very specific conditions; we need to do it repeatedly, we need to have large bodies of individuals [doing experiments]”, all of this is really based on a theologically motivated scepticism [of our reason and senses]. And so (…) [to think of] the Enlightenment (…) as (…) the triumph of reason [over all supernatural belief], what we see [during that time] in England is [actually] a deep scepticism about what reason [and our senses] can tell us; And that the Scientific Revolution, in so far as it’s based on the Experimental approach to Nature, is actually deeply sceptical about what it is that [unaided human] reason can deliver.
( ‘PETER HARRISON SCIENCE RELIGION AND THE ENLIGHTENMENT’. StJohnsTimeline, Youtube, Nov 16, 2011. Time code 13:55+ https://youtu.be/Qp67uHdsPsQ?t=835 )