Maybe this has been asked before, but I didn’t see a post when I searched for this particular question. There are other reasons as well, but a side conversation in the “Takes on a Bible Study” thread concerning the inspiration for the Temple sort of prompted me asking this.
For those of you here that embrace that parts of the OT were written as a response to Babylonian exile… How have you come to use or value those passages? Take the creation narrative and Adam and Eve, for example. If these events are not literal in any way, but rather made up for the sake of combating the ideologies and religion of Babylon, I could see someone taking that bit of information and concluding “Well, then that’s just people making up stuff about God, and who knows if they’re right?”
I have come to embrace many of these as not literal, but this question arose for me, and it is giving me something to wrestle with. Honestly, it makes it hard to take most passages seriously, as my critical side says, “A human made this up, not God.” It’s not that simple in reality, I know, but fabricating fake stories and passing them off as real events makes it hard to distinguish what is trustworthy and what isn’t—including the more myth-like stories that are supposed to tell us about God’s character. Is this His character? Is it what someone wanted His character to be for “morale”?
As Christians trying to align ourselves with God as He truly is (to the best of our limited ability), we discourage people from forming a useful or preferable god to fit their agendas. But is this what the early authors were doing? How do you that acknowledge the human, exile authorship of some bible books and chapters justify taking them seriously as truly testifying to God’s character and will? Do you find those passages to be trustworthy for truth about anything?
This question is hard to put into words, but I hope it makes sense.
The first thing you have to do is decide how you want to view the inspiration of the authors that wrote the Bible. Then:
But God could have inspired the author to use existing creation myths for His purpose which would make the story “true.” If you decide people are “just making up stuff” you have a pretty low view of inspiration.
The modern definition of “truth” doesn’t match the definition of the original audience. They were much more concerned with the authority of the writer.
This is a challenge for those who want the bible to be an inerrant answer-book. But if we are willing to see the Bible as the story of God’s people, including their perspectives, opinions, messy lives - everything … then it isn’t a problem, but instead, it’s a record of perspectives for us to learn from. In many ways, this is rather freeing, then - to be able to read scriptures without always thinking we need to have our analytical “decoding” glasses on to make sure we “get it right”. There is truth to learn, to be sure; and there are many wrong and distorting things we can (and have) done with it. But many of those wrong and distorting things have come from the very folks who are at highest pains to see it as an ultimate answer-book. So we already know that their concern to “get it right” has not done them any favors in moving toward Christ-like spiritual discernment.
Once we free ourselves of this mis-use of sacred texts, we no longer have to agonize about why it is seemingly so glib in attributing cruelties and genocides, etc. to God. We see that it is people being people then, as they are now, and knowing that their choices and perspectives were (thank God!) not the end-all be-all for everyone to follow.
There’s a disconnect here that comes from framing the issue in a modern paradigm: we have the notion that things have to be literal to have meaning, but that idea was utterly alien to the ANE situation of the Torah. To understand that I recommend some Michael Heiser videos (especially those I recently recommended to someone here) as well as Tim Mackie ones; I can work with the difference but I get bogged down trying to explain it.
To an ancient Israelite, indeed to most humans through history, there’s nothing “fake” about the Creation accounts even if the events never happened; they would look at you and say that those accounts are more true than a mere recitation of events.
I don’t fit that stance; I stick with those scholars who point out that there is an ancient core to Genesis that goes back beyond Moses, and what happened in Babylon (and other times along the way) was editing – the evidence for that editing is heavy, and editing doesn’t negate inspiration; after all, the scripture doesn’t say that the authors were inspired, it says that the scriptures were.
Which by the nature of the beast it can’t be. Ancient writers purposely put in (apparent) contradictions, puzzles, and other conundra for the purpose of getting the reader to think, and that kind of content doesn’t make for an “answer-book”.
This is correct. Is the text inspired? Is the whole more than its parts? Does scripture interpret scripture? Does the text have multiple meanings (polyvalence)?
To the OP, as one example, I think if the story of Adam and Eve was codified into scripture during the exile it will take on added meaning . Israel (Adam and Eve) was exiled form the garden (the promised land). I just don’t think that excludes other meanings or that we have to resort to either ors (false dichotomies). How to interpret scripture is quite complex if you want to dig into the weeds. For example, did Israel really sin to get exiled or did they just think they must have sinned otherwise their nation and also in their thinking, their God, could not be deposed by rival nations and lesser gods. Or were they just invaded by superior powers?
Thinking you are being invaded and displaced because you sinned can be true but also end up blaming victims and may be like a person who gets cancer wondering why God is punishing them or allowing them to be punished in such a way. Jesus of course touched on this with the man born blind from birth which can be a tough story (neither he nor his parents sinned!). In the end, Biblical interpretation is very difficult at times when you are not a wooden fundamentalist. <insert argument for God/Jesus choosing and leaving behind an authoritative Church as opposed to an army of individuals armed with sola scripture>
I have never come across or thought of this It will need some deeper consideration. The most immediate objection is the fiery sword denoting that they would never return. Clearly that is not the case. However it does throw up some interesting Theology.
Scripture can be understood on many levels and the above is just an example of a facet I had never considered. I think we need to broaden our understanding away from the simple and literal and embrace the complexity of Scripture and realise that our lives are too short to truly understand all of it.
I call Wright an “unusual Jew” because Wright was raised Christian, became a scholar of the Hebrew Bible, and later converted to Judaism. That gives him an interesting vantage point. Unlike many Christian Old Testament scholars, he reads the Hebrew Bible primarily as Israel’s Scripture rather than as the first part of the Christian canon pointing toward Christ.
You might find Jacob Wright’s Why the Bible Began interesting if not helpful. He argues that much of Scripture reached its present form during Israel’s national crises, especially the Exile. Rather than treating the biblical authors as simply inventing stories, he explores how they preserved older traditions and reshaped them to explain Israel’s relationship with God after catastrophe. It won’t answer every theological question about inspiration, but it does provide a thoughtful historical framework for understanding why Scripture took the form it did.
It’s important that I said “added” meaning. I don’t think the garden story was necessarily written or created during this time as an allegory for the exile. It could have been modified or expanded as such but I think it is an older story. However, if I were alive during the Exile and thought our sin was the cause of it, the connection to this well known story in my cultural world would be obvious to me. The garden of Eden would be the Promised land/Jerusalem temple and Adam and Eve are Israel. East of Eden could also relate to Babylon which was in the east. The angel blocking the way could be an older detail or signify that you can’t get back home on your own.
I don’t expect a 1:1 correspondence between events as it is an added meaning. A local sin and loss of home expands to the national level. I mean, in one sense the whole story of the Bible could be seen aa wanting to return home. Notice this verse: Exodus 26: 31 “Make a curtain of blue, purple and scarlet yarn and finely twisted linen, with cherubim woven into it by a skilled worker.
The angel blocks the garden/temple/sacred space (the temple veil has cherubim on it) and when Jesus dies the veil is torn granting access back to Eden. Lots of symbolism here.
Today We have Lucy, the supposed first Human by some. I believe( For I can Believe) the First Humans(Male and Female) were given the ingredient to Pray. I don’t think any other creature can pray, the Praying Mantis isn’t Praying. In turn We Believe We are are Praying to a Supernatural Power giving Us the Belief in a God or Many God’s
As For the Fruit of the Knowledge of Evil, this is where We have a Dis-Agreement or not knowing if it’s God’s hand in an Event or Evil. We may think God is Sovereign and why an occurrence Happens may be by God and We think it’s Evil, when it could be God’s Hand.
I have a highly controversial opinion of the Event of WWII, were the Germans Evil or was it God’s hand? One of the Results of the Post War was The Jewish People were given back the Land of Israel, was this God’s final Purpose of WWII?
This is all about whether an event is determined by to be By God or By Us.
During the recent ASA meeting, the Sunday sermon by Sean McDonough entitled “Sunken Gardens” gave his impressions on the recurrent theme in the Bible of Creation, Counter-Creation (fall and empire), De-creation (judgement), and Re-creation. This is repeated many times with Adam and Eve, Babel, Israel in Egypt, the Exile, and in the life of Jesus, as well as our personal lives. Hopefully, the ASA recorded and will post it, as it was a great perspective. Anyway, it brings a lot of these stories together into a common theme, lending meaning to them.
I’ll answer for myself first and go back to read the rest of the replies second.
You can’t base your beliefs on how someone else might misuse or twist it.
Hold on, now. Remember the original audience would’ve immediately recognized the Creation stories, the Flood, Babel, and even the long lives of the genaeologies as a riff on widely known Babylonian myths and royal propaganda. The stories in Gen. 1-11 weren’t regarded as “real” events until the myths that inspired them were forgotten over the ensuing 400-500 years following the Exile.
On your second question, “Is this God’s character?”, remember that Israelite scribes and prophets had been scribbling down stories of the patriarchs for hundreds of years before the Exile. Isaiah 1-39 was written about the 8th century BC. There’s enough info about God’s character in that book alone to guide the later authors/editors of early Genesis.
They are trustworthy in the same sense that Nehemiah or Malachi are trustworthy, being written after Exile.
Jesus told many stories. We call them parables, but Jesus did not start them with disclaimer that they were fabricated for the purpose of delivering truth not historical facts.
The fact that there are two creation stories in the first 2 chapters of Genesis with different orders and methods of creation is clear evidence in scripture that the early chapters of Genesis are not literal history.
It is a very difficult issue. Do you really want to open the door as to the fact that Genesis was written by 3 (4) separate authors?
If so, how do you do this and still respect how Jewish people feel about their Torah?
Closer to your point, Nobody lives in a vacuum; I don’t think anyone would argue that, at the very least, the individuals who composed the Old Testament had to be marginally aware of these other stories.
Now, does that mean they copied them? No.
Does that mean that none of the events described actually happened? Equally no.
We simply cannot rule either way, with any certainty, truth or not, because we were not there at the time.
Does the possibility exist that certain portons of what we have, depicted actua
