And who gets to define “plain meaning”? Why, of all people, should it be some child that decides? When we want to understand original intent of the Founding Fathers within the Constitution, do we look to a random fourth-grader? Or do we consult learned Constitutional Law scholars? Why should the Bible deserve a lesser standard of care in terms of accurate hermeneutics?
I’d argue that the “plain meaning” of this scripture pericope would best be determined by (1) a native speaker of ancient Hebrew, (2) in the time of the author(s) of Genesis 1, and (3) preferably the author(s) who chose the words, phrases, grammar, and genre of that ancient text. I’d argue that those of us living today are far less suited for causally determining “the plain meaning”. (Frankly, the last person I’d look to for an authoritative “plain meaning” of Genesis 1 would be a young child! It defies all logic and scripture and even common sense.)
Also, why should anyone think that the meaning is “plain” in the first place? Not all texts are simple. Not all scripture meanings are simple. Some are very complex. Texts are often layered in their meanings. (Remember “When I was a child, I thought as a child.”) Are you confusing “child-like faith” with “child-like thinking”?
How about the “plain meaning” of Jesus’ teachings in the New Testament? Are they easily discernable? Or did the disciples complain that Jesus didn’t speak in such a way to make the “plain meaning” easily determined? In fact, when they complained to Jesus, he said that God chooses to hide the meaning from the masses. So that certainly doesn’t sound like the “plain meaning” is necessarily the objective of scripture.
When I was a Young Earth Creationist long ago, this was one of my colleagues’ favorite arguments: the child test. Is the child test a teaching of scripture? It depends upon what is meant. When the disciples were stumped by Jesus’ teachings, should they have consulted a nearby child? And when we academic types debate the exegesis of a passage at an ETS or SBL conference, should we break the impasse by surveying a group of children?
Was the lifetime I spent on Hebrew and Greek exegesis a waste of my time? Is knowing less about the Biblical text essential to understanding the meaning of a passage? Where do I find a scripture where I’m told that the child test is the ultimate determiner of meaning? Obviously, you will never find such a passage.
The child test is a modern day evangelical tradition with its roots in the Reformation, when the Reformers were declaring their revolt against the absolute authority of the Roman clergy. What came to be called the Doctrine of the Perspicuity of Scripture certainly has its merits—but only when properly understood. The Westminster Confession says:
“…those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed, for salvation, are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.”
I entirely affirm that! I do believe that those things which are essential to salvation are so clearly presented in the texts of the Bible so that both “learned and unlearned”—and yes, even a child—are capable of understanding them as led to salvation through the Holy Spirit.
In contrast, there is no claim under the Doctrine of Perspicuity that everyone—even with abundant prayer and earnestness—will be led to a complete understanding of every possible truth implication and meaning of the Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic scriptures. And no Bible passage promises me that I am guaranteed an understanding of scientific, or even chronological implications of a Biblical text, when that was not the authors’ purpose in a particular Biblical text.
If the child test were valid, I wonder why Bible translation committees don’t consult a nearby child when we find ourselves stuck at a translation impasse. Yes, the final English language rendering of a particular Hebrew or Greek sentence may seem “absolutely clear” and “without ambiguity”, but that is because those of us on the translation committees had to make a final decision as to what we think is the most likely meaning of what many be extremely difficult and obscure vocabulary and syntax—and we usually relegate the second most likely meaning to a footnote.
AN ASIDE: And, if truth be told, sometimes we were overruled by the Bible Society Board of Directors in agreement with the publisher that our preferred translation-wording was too controversial—and that our bold but risky translation would be ripped to shreds in the marketplace by those who love tradition. So, sometimes the traditional reading had to appear in the main text of the translation no matter what and the alternate translation which the majority of us insisted was a much better rendering had to be demoted to a footnote at the bottom of the page, where most people will ignore it.
That is the reality of the Bible translation world in at least some cases. It’s another example where a vocal minority, such as Young Earth Creationist “Biblical creationists”, continue to get their way and exert undo influence. That’s because Bible publishers are loathe to anger traditionalists who are most likely to declare a Bible translation “heretical” when it fails to reaffirm their favorite traditions. (One such sound bite in the news can destroy a new Bible translation’s prospects before it even has a chance to prove itself.) In contrast, other evangelicals are much more willing to allow for alternative translations and interpretations—and therefore, their reluctance to use the word “heresy” as a blunt weapon actually gives them less influence on these matters of Bible translation. Anybody who doubts what I’m explaining here should take a look at several modern translations and compare the main text of the translation to the many alternative translation notes at the bottom of most pages.
For example, notice in Genesis how the traditional use of the word “earth” continues to appear in the early chapters—even though the alternate translation notes at the bottom of those pages keeps saying “land, country, or region”. Publishers love the ambiguity of the word “earth” because traditionalists incorrectly assume that Hebrew ERETZ means “planet earth”, even while everyone with a knowledge of ancient Hebrew and 1611 KJV English understands that ERETZ/earth mainly means “opposite of sky” and can refer to the soil beneath us, as well as country/nation/region. (Most traditionalists don’t notice that once the KJV translators got beyond the early chapters of Genesis, even their 1611 King James Bible text usually renders ERETZ as “country”, “nation”, and even sometimes “wilderness” when it is absolutely obvious that ERETZ is used to refer to a particular region. Yet, when someone today points out to traditionalists the fact that Noah’s Flood was regional, all Hades breaks loose.)
No. As a “creation science” speaker and debater back in the 1960’s and 1970’s, I regularly presented “biblical creationists’ models” to the general public and even university audiences. I do understand that the traditional argument that “You think we ignore the scientific evidence but that is only because you don’t understand or have any familiarity with our literature” is a convenient and all-too-simplistic one. Yet, it is maddeningly weak due to the obvious fact that a huge percentage of the evangelical Christians and others who criticize the ways in which “biblical creationist’s” (an abused term I chafe at because lots of us are biblical creationists but reject Young Earth Creationism, for example) ignore the scientific evidence know of that reality because we grew up in and once embraced those failed arguments! Indeed, I have two other ex-YEC colleagues who post on Biologos now and then who were also once “creation science” speakers at churches and Bible conferences. I would bet that if you were to survey all of the posters here, a huge percentage have backgrounds and even personal academic experience in carefully examining the Young Earth Creationist biblical creationist position, having once embraced it themselves.
Yes, people like Ken Ham often say, “We don’t hate science. We love science!” but then he proceeds to ignore any and all scientific evidence. Indeed, in the Nye-Ham debate, Ken Ham was basically asked: What would it take for you to change your interpretation of Genesis? What would it take for you to accept billions of years of earth history and the evolution of life into the diverse biosphere we observe today? When Ham made clear that, unlike Nye, no amount of quality and quantity would make any difference to him, he left no doubt that he has no interest in nor respect for science. Sadly, a great many YEC “biblical creationists” would agree with that stance.
So you solve the problem by pretending it doesn’t exist. Then you declare anyone who interprets it differently as being a vandalizer of the text.
That too is one of Ken Ham’s favorite tactics: If you don’t agree with my tradition-based interpretation of this scripture passage, you hate the Bible and do violence to it. That’s the tactic of a demagogic politician, not a careful expositor of the scriptures. (Yes, vilifying everyone who disagrees with “us, the true Christians” plays well with Ham’s donors. It is a preaching-to-the-choir tactic that never convinced anyone else of anything other than the desperation of the preacher.)
This is the tactic of “You are not only wrong, what you are doing is dangerous!”
Are you sure that “external sources” are bad? Do you deny the doctrine of the Holy Spirit’s role in the interpretation of scripture? I would also ask you this: If God is the author/creator of the entire universe, why do you rule out God’s creation as an “external source” in helping us to understand God’s other great work of authorship, the Bible? If God created both the universe and the scriptures, shouldn’t they be in a harmony where each helps us to understand the other?
One of the first contradictions which led me to question my involvement in the Young Earth Creationist “creation science” movement was the hypocrisy of assuming that God’s Creation (the universe) could NOT be trusted to tell us anything true, while God’s scriptures were assumed immune to misinterpretation by fallen humans—or, at least, by fallen Young Earth Creationists! My colleagues pretended that entire fields of the science academy were nothing but error and evil (“because fallen man can not be trusted to interpret the scientific evidence”) but everything from the mouth of Henry Morris, John Whitcomb Jr., and Henry Morris were assumed infallibly correctly interpreted—both in matters of theology and science! Apparently “the error-prone minds of fallen sinners” was a very selective problem, making everything our opponents said horribly wrong while everything we said was “based upon the infallible truths of the Living God of the Bible!”
As I look back on the years of my life when I was a biblical creationist “creation science” activist, I can’t think of a single instance where this was true. No, everything started with our favorite cherished traditions, grounded in the histories of our respective denominations and church fellowships. Then, we looked about very selectively for anything sciencey-sounding which could be used to support our already formed conclusions about what we wanted to believe.
By the way, a few years ago I laughed aloud when one of the Board of Directors of the Discovery Institute let slip in an interview the fact that the R.A.T.E. Project had already determined all of its conclusions well before it had even gathered its funding in order to begin the very expensive “scientific investigation” into radiometric dating. I knew from my contacts within the ID and DI community that the scholars involved in R.A.T.E. were furious that an administrator had naively and innocently stated what everybody in the world already knew about their propaganda plan. The embarrassment was palpable. The end result, of course, was equally predictable. R.A.T.E. was never about science and discovery. It was about staking a position in advance (as in “We hate radiometric science because it destroys a young earth view and our many of evolution-denial arguments”) and then trying really hard to cherry-pick some kind of scientific evidence to convince donors that scientists are wrong—and therefore “we” might be right after all!
In what ways? Please give us your best examples of how “God created in 6-days 6,000 years ago” (a concept one can’t find anywhere in the Bible) “matches nature”.
If you believe there is scientific evidence for a 6,000 year old universe, let’s hear your #1 Best Scientific Evidence for it. (Obviously, if your #1 best evidence for a young earth doesn’t hold up, it’s downhill from there with your lesser categories of evidence.)
Even tree rings provide climate histories which go back over 5,000 years (and thereby, beyond the assumed date of an allegedly global Noah’s Flood in your 6,000 year schema), so the evidence from creation is against you. Likewise the varve evidence. Likewise the ice cores evidence. Likewise the ERV evidence. Likewise the geological evidence. Likewise the radiometric evidence. Have you ever noticed how “creation science” and other Young Earth Creationist advocates never mention the tremendous CONSILIENCE of the available evidence. Ken Ham & Co. never will because the greatest embarrassment of “creation science” YECism is the total lack of consilience in their alleged evidence and arguments.
Of course, that is a theological topic. I don’t think any Christians on this forum would deny that the Bible describes the Creator, and describes him sufficiently well that we humans can know how to relate to him.
You may have missed the recent posts where we discussed the two main definitions of the word “myth”, both the one usually assumed by the general public and the term used in the academy. As to the latter, Genesis 1 is most certainly a text which explains the origins of something we observe in the world. It explains the origins of the universe. That certainly qualifies it for the academic term “myth”.
Clearly not poetry? I’ve spent a lifetime trying to define what is poetry and the poetic in Classical Hebrew. So I would be very interested in how you made this determination.
Does prose narrative normally observe a 3 YOM + 3 YOM chiasmic structure? Does prose narrative normally consist of six verses, each followed by a chorus, an identically worded refrain of “And the evening and the morning was the Nth YOM”? Could you please cite some examples in ancient Hebrew where a prose passage uses such a well structured, very repetitively worded, verse-refrain coupling in a series of six—and nobody calls it poetic or at least hymnic?
Whether someone choose to call such an obvious structure of six verses, each followed by the same chorus (much like a traditional poetic hymn), an example of poetry or simply a very poetically structured pericope doesn’t really matter to me. I just know that historical prose certainly doesn’t sound like Genesis 1 sounds! Show me prose that is composed of six verses, each followed by an identical chorus, that is not considered at least poetic!
MattC, if you have genuinely studied enough Hebrew to know that Genesis 1 could not be poetic and in a hymnic structure (with inescapable chiasms), please tell me how you managed to explain how it could be historical prose. I will freely admit that I didn’t focus on this topic in my grad work, so I will freely defer to you or anyone else who has been able to illuminate the flaws in my observations about Genesis 1. (Obviously, my position on Genesis 1 is not at all original to me. Everything I’m explaining here can be found in any university textbook, even at the undergrad level class in Pentateuch/Torah.)
There are many examples of Hebrew poetry reflecting the many different elements of Hebrew poetic style and structure. If you are saying that the elements in Genesis 1 are very different from the poetic elements in Lamentations, for example, I would certainly agree. But that is like saying Lord Cardigan’s Charge of the Light Brigade can’t be English poetry because it “shows no resemblance” to the children’s poem, “Mary had a little lamb, his fleece was white as snow. And everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go.” So, MattC, I would like to know how you made your determination.
Yet, even if one could successfully argue that there are no poetic literary elements in Genesis 1 (good luck with that), that still wouldn’t demand that it be considered historical prose narrative.
Answer: Because even in the early chapters of Genesis, the word YOM/day is not used with only one meaning! We are told in Genesis 2:4:
“These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.”
Not even six/24-hour-day “Biblical creationists” believe that God made the earth and the sun, moon, and stars on same 24-hour day! Even Ken Ham & Co. admit that in “the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens”, YOM means “period of time”.
Moreover, when I was a Young Earth Creationist, I would have told you that the seventh YOM, the day in which God’s creative activity rested, was not limited to twenty-four hours but persists until the present. So my question for you is this: If you read YOM literally as requiring an exclusive meaning of a 24-hour day, do you believe God resumed his creating once the seventh day was over? Did God create more things on Day 8?
And what is “a Sabbath rest for the people of God” in Hebrews 4:9? Is that a 24-hour day as well?
The following link makes some good points. I include it not necessarily to endorse the late Gleason Archer and Norman Geisler as the last word on Hebrew lexicography and exegesis but to say that a great many “card-carrying Evangelical conservatives” have published detailed debunkings of the YEC-24-hour-day traditionalism:
http://godandscience.org/youngearth/yom_with_number.pdf
Notice in particular how they distinguish “the second YOM” from “a second YOM”. Mattc, have you ever noticed this key difference in Genesis 1 when reading the Hebrew text? Are you really so certain that the same use of YOM appears throughout the Tanakh?
The aforementioned link has a handy summary:
*"Conclusion: What does all the foregoing mean for understanding Genesis 1?
- The uniqueness of the Hebrew numbering of the creative “yom” actually supports the view that the
creative “yom” are not ordinary (24-hour) days. - The numbering of the creative “yom” does not exclude the “extended period” or “age” meaning of
the Hebrew word “yom” when referring to the six creative times. The unique numbering of the
creative times adds support for the “extended period” or “age” meaning. - There are no other applicable examples of the numbering of a sequence that is equivalent to the
numbering of the creative “yom.” Assertions which attempt to interpret numberings which read
“yom” “second” using numberings which read “in yom” “the second” are flawed."*
Because it doesn’t.
I’m curious, MattC. Have you carefully compared the exact phrasing of YOM in Genesis 1 against the other HMT passages? I find it hard to believe that you have. If you still don’t understand why I say that, please read the aforementioned linked article very carefully.
No. The fact that a given word in a Hebrew lexicon can have multiple meanings—just as most English words in an English lexicon—has absolutely nothing to do with denying " the consistency of Scripture and indeed God."
Frankly, this popular mantra from Young Earth Creationist “Biblical creationists” makes me a bit angry. I’ve actually had some Bible readers down through the years adamantly maintain that “God always uses the same word in Greek and Hebrew in only one way throughout the Bible.” In every case they were self-taught, “armchair exegetes” who imagined themselves to have discovered “truths of the Bible” which “all of those book-learning scholars have either missed or refused to acknowledge!” I remember one such man who developed an entire sermon series on how the ark of the covenant and Noah’s ark were “the same thing in terms of significance and meaning because the same word was used.” I still remember how white his face got when I explained to him that that “sameness” was an accident of linguistic history and the English language—because in Hebrew two very different words are involved. (I’ve had similar experiences explaining “world” in Greek, especially 2Peter 3:6) Yet, his face soon turned several shades of red as he began to rebuke me. You see, he was a KJV-only proponent who claimed that every word of the KJV was specially chosen by God, and because the KJV was the ultimate inspired text of scripture, even our exegesis of the Hebrew and Greek texts should be subservient to the KJV! So he informed me that my “smarty-pants” remark about these being two different kinds of arks was obviously of Satan because God in his wisdom had inspired the KJV translators to unite them under a single word, “ark”. (To him, English is the ultimate divinely-appointed language of revelation!)
MattC, doesn’t this sound sadly similar to “If you don’t agree with me on this interpretation, you not only deny scripture. You are opposing God!” Could you please explain to me how this wouldn’t be the plain meaning interpretation of most readers?
However, most of all I’m curious why you think that a God who recognizes that words in human language have more than one definition would be “inconsistent” by using those multiple definitions? Is God inconsistent because Biblical Greek and Biblical Hebrew lexicons (which are based on a study of the scripture texts) show that many words in the Bible have multiple definitions listed? Or does that simply mean that all such Biblical language lexicographers deny the consistency of God?
MattC, why does God have to live up to your or my expectations? Are you saying that God cannot use the conventions of human language because whenever he does so, there is always room for misunderstanding and ambiguity? Do you think that Jesus should have not said, “I am the door of the sheep” because (1) Jesus is not literally a door, and (2) Jesus is not the kind of “literal shepherd” who spends his time literally leading and literally grazing the literal flock of literal sheep?
MattC, do you see that that argument is a grasping at straws?
I do understand where you are coming from and what the disciples meant when they complained to Jesus, “Why do you speak in parables? Why do you say things in ways that make it so hard to understand?” And did you notice what Jesus said in reply: Easy understanding was not his primary goal! (I’ll resist the temptation to pursue this huge topic and the role of mystery in the Bible.)
I spent a lot of my life dealing with Bible translation and helping Bible translators on the field. They constantly dealt with the problem of ambiguity and misunderstanding that arose both in the original language texts of the scriptures and in the target languages they had to use to reach people for Christ. My favorite example was, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” Translating that literally into the language of an Amazonian jungle tribe would mean that Jesus was declaring himself a literal thief! Only thieves knocked on the door of a hut. If nobody responded to the knock, the thief would go in and steal. But a genuine friend would call out the name of the person who owned the hut. So the Wycliffe translators told me that they chose message over literalism and rendered the Biblical text: “Hello. I stand at your door and call to you.”
MattC, do you think my Wycliffe friends were denying the clear meaning (and wording) of the scripture? Were they denying God himself? I actually had an angry man walk up to me after a sermon where I used that example and told me that those translators were going to hell for refusing to honor the Word of God—and me too for speaking well of them. He said that God chose every word of the Bible and it was heretical and blasphemous for us to dare “change them”. (Does that mean Bible translation is evil? Should all preaching be done in ancient Hebrew and Greek?) He said that we should have translated “according to God’s law” and not “man’s law”. (Kinda sounds like Ken Ham wording, doesn’t it!) He said that the missionaries should explain to the natives how in Jesus’ culture they had very different customs than those of the “pagan jungle”! (I’m almost surprised he didn’t say “jungle savages”!) He said that people should accommodate God instead of the other way around.
Are we headed into the realm of discussing legalism? I’d say we already have been in multiple portions of this thread, whether we’ve realized it or not.
MattC, long ago I preached from the pulpit and university lectern many of the arguments you are making today. A half century of study of the Hebrew scriptures, general/historical linguistics, and science led me to abandon and apologize for my past errors. I can assure you that I still keep up with “creation science” and YEC-exegesis trends. I reject them not because I don’t understand them—but because I do. In any case, nobody has to know everything about the Young Earth Creationist brand of “biblical creationism” to identify major errors.
I can’t say it was an easy road out of YEC-ism’s brand of “Biblical creationism”. It took a lot of work. Now I realize that my former position was based not so much upon the scriptural and scientific evidence but the history and traditions of my family and church fellowship. We as humans naturally make what I like to call the Grand Assumption of Superior Luck: “I sure am thankful that, despite the odds against me, I was fortunate enough to have been born into the particular, minority subgroup within the Church that constitutes not only the ‘true Christians’ but those whose traditional beliefs are all the correct ones.” So, of course, I sincerely believed that everything I was taught at church was the “obvious” conclusion of all of the scientific evidence—as well as the correct interpretations of the Bible. (Corollary: “That’s not to say that we are inerrant in every detail of our doctrine. No, we aren’t God! But any errors there might be in our Bible interpretations involve unimportant details. So any little mistakes in our interpretations which might possibly exist certainly don’t prevent us from being the most correct of all Christians on earth. Our mistakes are still far less important than everybody else’s mistakes.”)
MattC, I look forward to your point-by-point explanation of why my rebuttals concerning Genesis 1 are flawed. I will appreciate any details you can provide.