Just have to notice…although your assessment of Benjamin87’s view is reasonable, the way you stated it is…well…a tad arrogant. Especially in the midst of a blog where so many posts are just some hunch or other.
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Noted. You can’t type tone. In my head I was more bemused than superior, but I see how you are reading it. I confess to being quite jaded because of the number of people who regularly show up here having done zero actual research in an area but think they have a brilliant idea that is going to change the landscape of the whole discussion. I don’t think failing to be impressed by this is arrogance, more just someone who is tired of rampant mansplaining in general. (I’m not intending to label Benjamin a mansplainer, I’m just giving the context of what I expect from people most of the time, based on my experience.)
Quoted for truth.
Or some have suggested all those things we ourselves are what God has withdrawn from that there might be otherness and true others with whom He could relate.
Don’t worry, Christy we haven’t given up on you. Paradigm change is coming. 
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Probably not, considering that the opening Creation account is an edited form of the Egyptian creation story – it doesn’t seem to me that God would use that approach (unless somehow the Egyptians had it almost right). That pretty much means that the account isn’t an effort to objectively report on events but is meant to teach theology.
Theology. Evening to morning actually describes a night. That’s significant because to the Egyptians night was an element of darkness and chaos and thus an enemy of existence; it was something the gods had to fight every time the sun went down to make sure the Sun on his heavenly barque made it through the underworld in order to start a new day. But the way the Genesis writer tells it, there’s no battle; the night isn’t an enemy, it’s just part of what YHWH-Elohim made, a counterpart to day.
Yes, but why would we think it was dreams? Generally in the Hebrew scriptures the writer tells us if the information came from a vision or a dream or an angel; this has no such announcement.
I’ve always thought it was from the point of view of angels watching from heaven.
What “thick primordial atmosphere”? I don’t see that in the text!
Are you importing that from modern science, or what?
BTW, note that the sun and moon aren’t even named. That’s a big theological slap in the face to Egyptian mythology/theology where Sun and Moon were two big players!
I could imagine that if I could figure out why God would use the Egyptian creation story as His framework in visions or dreams.
But the point is correct; the idea of the account is to declare that it wasn’t any Egyptian god(s) that made the world, it was YHWH-Elohim.
That is a useful understanding! It also happens to fit with one of the literary genres the writer used, the ‘royal chronicle’, which involves a king establishing his rule through mighty acts.
That’s especially true if you read it the way that some ancient Hebrew scholars did; they concluded from Genesis 1 that:
- the universe is ancient beyond counting
- the universe started out smaller than a grain of mustard (idiom for “the smallest possible size”)
- it expanded extremely rapidly, which made the fluid that filled it spread thinner and thinner
- when the fluid was thin enough that light could shine, God commanded light to exist
- the earth, while much younger than the universe, is still incredibly ancient
The first time I read that I about fell out of my chair because though it comes from back around the time of William the Conqueror it reads like a layman’s summary of the Big Bang (and scientists thought they discovered that!).
That’s not so much a theory as a matter of, "Hey, the form of Genesis 1 matches this common literary form really well!', which pretty much makes it fact.
I still love that discovery because the last thing to be done in an ANE temple before the deity ‘rested’ was the installation of the idol/image, which in Genesis is us!
No – it isn’t just the seven-day framework, it’s also what happens in them and the fact that days four through six constitute filling up the spaces established in days one through three, plus that installing an image is the culmination of a temple inauguration just before the deity comes to ‘rest’ in the temple.
The opening with the waters covering the earth and dry land appearing matches the first part of a temple inauguration which is establishing the site. There’s a Babylonian temple inauguration account that starts out describing the hill chosen for a temple as useless and “unshapen” (which doesn’t mean it didn’t have a shape, it just means the shape wasn’t useful), then moves on to shaping the hill to build the temple on. The Genesis writer does the same, describing the earth as useless and unshapen, i.e. “formless and void”.
Personally I think Walton isn’t taking the Hebrew grammar of verse 1 fully into account, and that he’s a bit too caught up in “good” equating to “functional” so he neglects the fact that the account is nevertheless still about material creation.
Only if you read it from a modern worldview that is inherently scientific. An ancient Israelite wouldn’t have thought that at all but would have recognized the form being employed the moment the account reached “God rested”, if not before.
“Usurped”? I don’t get what you mean there; it sounds like you mean the things were created then switched to have a religious function. The point is that the entire world was built as a temple to/for YHWH-Elohim from the start, and that mankind is the image in the temple.
But it is different! For starters, all the other stories have darkness and light and (frequently) matter already existing, and the gods emerging somehow from those, but the Genesis writer is declaring, No, YHWH_Elohim made those also! All the other stories have the gods battling to establish their domain and throwing in humans as almost an afterthought; Genesis says no, YHWH-Elohim didn’t have to battle anything, He just commanded, and mankind is the centerpiece not an afterthought. All the other stories have multiple gods with multiple motives and tasks, Genesis says No, those are entities made by YHWH-Elohim to serve Him. Along with being temple inauguration, the first Genesis Creation account is heavy-duty polemic that overturns everything almost the entire Fertile Crescent believed.
Those for whom it was written knew it was inspired because it came from someone authorized to speak for Yahweh – that’s all that was needed back then. Those whose gods were not Yahweh wouldn’t believe it was inspired no matter what.
None of that is relevant. There are other biblical theologies and doctrines drawn from the Creation account given by Moses and we have an entire culture who based their genealogy on the lineage back to Adam and Eve.
Abraham came from UR of the Chaldees into Egypt, a journey of about 800 miles? Im not buying into the Jews copied their spiritual knowledge from Ancient Egypt…we may as well also believe Sumerian, Mayan, ancient far eastern religions…Australian Aboriginals…the list is endless and that makes such a notion frankly, quite ridiculous. It is nothing more than an attempt to falsify Christian beliefs by secularists and that is dangerous territory for any so called Christian to insert into their world view. Id suggest anyone who wishes to do that kind of thing should convert to Bahai faith!
The bible clearly tells us that God spoke to Abraham directly…it wasn’t given through 3rd parties. If one is going to make the claim God mislead Abraham, or lied to him, then the entire story is a fable and Abraham a fool!
How he (Abraham) could have possibly drawn his own lineage from Egyptians is ridiculous…a lineage that was clearly passed on down through the family line Isaac, Jacob, Jacobs 12 sons- inc Joseph who introduced it into Egypt, down to Moses and so on.
The trouble is, we only know of the entire Gospel because of Moses…he was the first one to record it (if we take the canon order to be appropriate).
Christ during his ministry referenced ancient writings…so if you are going to make the claims above about creation, those same claims apply to the gospel.
The whole lot becomes nothing more than a fairytale.
I keep trying to remind you guys of this but it is not considered when asking questions like this in some kind of attempt to get around the historical account of Genesis.
You have individuals coming here also claiming Moses amd the Exodus werent real, noah wasnt real…despite Christ and Peter specifically naming both patriarchs and the events they are famous for.
Consistency must apply there…it must if your claim/belief is to have any credibility.
There is a trend here on these forums…individuals are spending a great deal of time trying to come up with seemingly rational ways to explain away the Creation and Flood accounts. All sorts of workarounds are being attempted and rarely do any two of them even agree. That alone should be enough to put this entire theological nonsense to bed once and for all…however, individuals are so consumed by the need to align with secular naturalisms science, they refuse to admit they are wrong and that the natural reading of the bible is the only consistent theological and doctrinal method! I so hope for that lightbulb moment on these forums…i really do as it would produce some decent theology here and add such a richness to the faith. For example, the fact many hardly even consider the Tabernacle/Sanctuary here is amazing to me…that is the most wonderful illustration of both the timeline/order and how Salvation actually works. What we instead find is individuals making the absurd claim it was all done away with at the cross or that it was simply a copy from the paganism of ancient Egyptians. How any Christian could betray the gospel via that claim i dont understand.
Its such a shame that individuals do not attribute much importance on the very obvious design of the Tabernacle in that:
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the Altar of Sacrifice is the first element in the Tabernacle…not the last.
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Christs death is the beginning…its not the end. It isn’t the end because we are all still here!
Try Dr. Michael Heiser, Tim Mackie, and . . . can’t remember the other name, but they have him on “Ring Them Bells” on YouTube every now and then (heck, just look for their stuff on Genesis). I say this because they actually have advanced degrees in the language and literature of the Old Testament and ancient near eastern literature.
“Monotheists”? Not in the modern sense they weren’t! They believed that other gods were real, that other gods were powerful. The showdown in Egypt wasn’t just for the sake of the Egyptians, it was to show the Israelites just Who this YHWH-Elohim was Who had made them His people. There’s a misconception that the Israelites stayed pure from Egyptian influence during those centuries, but that misunderstands how ancient nations worked, especially Egypt where everything was tied to religion. The only thing the Israelites back then knew was that their God was the Elohim of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and that they had been promised a land of their own!
What was really radical was the claim made in Genesis that all those gods of Egypt – and by extension of all the notions – were entities that YHWH-Elohim created, a message that would have slammed home to the original audience every time something in the Genesis account that the Egyptians considered a god was mentioned. That wasn’t the sort of tale told around campfires, it was a challenge to every other deity of every other nation, not just the normal brag that “My god is tougher!” but a declaration like, “You gods are tools!”
Then Genesis isn’t the place to start. Genesis wasn’t written for outreach/evangelism, it was written to tell the Israelites who they were and Who this YHWH-Elohim was Who had made them His people. And science wasn’t something they would have cared about; in fact objective history wouldn’t have meant anything to them.
I read Genesis in its context, which was to tell a people who knew no more about their God than that He had called their fathers and to tell them who He considered them to be. It was written in forms that would have made the most impact on them, not in forms that would satisfy the scientific urges of people several millennia later. To understand Genesis you need to read it as if you had just come out of Egypt where the gods were considered to be in control of everything and you needed to know Who this YHWH-Elohim Moses was talking about was.
None of the Bible is going to satisfy the scientific itch our culture has engrained in us – but it does have something that could never have come from people, and that is Jesus: no human could have managed to stage the emergence of a Messiah who tackled all three of the great spiritual rebellions in the OT, who fulfilled gobs of prophecy, and who not merely fulfilled those things but got executed for it – and returned from the dead. That – no, HE is where it all comes together.
It’s both, which is where IMO Walton goes off the rails.
You’re assuming it must be about facts. But given the two types of literature that first Creation story is and the three functions it has, facts as we think of them were secondary. Certainly we can expect the broad themes to be correct, including how the command “Bring forth!” seems to resonate with what we know about how life arose (and continues to do!) – a reason that a number of people I knew in university who due to studying evolution ended up Christians – but the writer wasn’t concerned with anything scientific.
That is an element of the MSWV (modern scientific worldview); it was not part of the definition of truth in the ancint Hebrew/ANE worldview.
Ah, there’s the key! In the Egyptian accounts, light was not created; it pre-existed the gods. The Genesis writer is allowing that light was there early, but denying it had self-existence; it, too, was a creature of YHWH-Elohim.
I get a kick out of the matter of the sun; the Genesis writer doesn’t even name it! That’s a direct insult to the number-one Egyptian deity.
To shift that to a worldview statement:
The Bible doesn’t have to have accurate scientific background knowledge to be true or to convey God’s message. God alone provides its authority
To put it another way, requiring someone to learn and understand a different worldview in order to get a message aimed at them is inefficient to the max.
Genesis wasn’t aimed at us, so we shouldn’t expect it to speak in our terms. We are reading other people’s mail and have to understand what it meant to them if we are to make any sense of it at all.
Yeah. In medieval times, many people were certain that the Bible agreed with their facts – that everything was made up of air, earth, fire, and water; that the earth stood still and everything went around it; that the world actually had four corners . . . .
Those medieval philosophers would have agreed with you – and then stated as a fact that everything is made up of just four elements, air, earth, fire, and water.
A fact may be an absolute truth, but what you think is a fact may in fact not be.
That’s easy: do what Jews after the Exile did, and go to the Messiah. The obvious difference is that now He has come.
So God has to live up to your measure?
There’s a hidden arrogance there, the certainty that what you consider to be facts actually are – plus that the Holy Spirit was obliged to satisfy modern curiosity.
Do those tell us of an Incarnate Word of God Who was crucified and rose again?
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I recently saw a photo of Jonathan Roumie wearing a T-shirt with the Flannery O’Conner quote: (to this effect): “If the scriptures are only symbolic, then to hell with it.”
I would really love to have an answering T-shirt made that says “If all the scriptures are is factual, then to hell with it.”
And if people can’t see both of those messages working together in complementary fashion, then they are missing something important. It isn’t some contest between competing truths. What I draw from both messages is that either one in isolation (or even seen as a competing choice) leaves the reader spiritually bereft of some of the Bible’s most valuable lessons.
And to add one other purely pedantic note … hell is where the bible belongs. People in heaven don’t need it.
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Because the Bible is not all written in the same genre. The first Creation story uses two genres at the same time, the second Creation story uses another genre, much of Genesis through chapter 11 is mythologized history with interruptions of theological genealogy . . . . and each has to be read according to its form; they can’t all be slushed together.
What makes the opening eleven chapters of Genesis stand out is that they come from an ANE context yet go against the flow over and over, indeed nearly continuously. They use the same forms but boldly apply those forms to informing the people of Israel, “All your neighbors are wrong”. Ancient religions took pot-shots at each other; Genesis launches massive barrages that overturn the very foundation of ANE mythology and cosmology and religion.
“Any other creation story” . . . is boring (believe me, I’ve read a few in the original). Genesis sticks out like a trebuchet in a soccer match.
It does – it declares that they’re all wrong. It also – in ways not obvious to a modern reader – declares that YHWH-Elohim is at war with all the others gods because He made them and they were rebellious servants. Not a single other ancient religion came close to being so daring.
You actually contradicted yourself there: the second statement sets out your personal requirement for deciding what you will consider to be true.
But let’s look at that phrase “if it’s making claims about reality”. Let’s assume that Genesis is doing that – the question then becomes, “What reality?” The writer(s) obviously had no concern for the modern scientific understanding of reality, so the key is to understand what reality they were addressing.
Christ arose – that’s the only reason that matters.
In fact several legal scholars plus some philosophers down the centuries have set out to show that Christianity was bogus, but ended up concluding that under their legal systems Jesus could be “convicted” of having risen from the dead.
“Masterpiece” is an understatement! The writer was absolutely brilliant.
Reminds me of my first Hebrew professor. He had us bring our brand new copies of the Biblia Hebraica to class still in the wrapper they came in. Before we removed the wrapping, he told us, “This is God’s Book. We believe it because it tells us about Him – there is no other standard”.
Define “wrong”.
How you define it almost doesn’t matter because nearly any definition is going to involve setting up a standard of truth higher than the inspired scriptures, which th scriptures would call idolatry.
But you’re probably using a MSWV definition of one sort or another. Which sort doesn’t matter because they’re all wrong. I learned in philosophy class that the critical definition of truth – i.e what is and isn’t “wrong” – is the one drawn from the system of thought at hand, not imposed from outside. When it comes to the Hebrew scriptures, that means the definition has to come from those scriptures and/or their historical context – and the critical thing about that is that that ancient definition of what is “wrong” had little to do with being historically or scientifically correct. In fact, if a truth was important, back then it almost had to be told mythologically because that was how important truth was communicated.
Nope – it depends on the genre. For example, genealogies back then weren’t required to list all the actual ancestors, they could leave out “bad apples” for example, or skip generations to make a point, and even stick in totally mythological figures as a way of saying how great someone was. You have to take the portions according to the genre.
I knew a couple of guys in university who never touched the Bible, they only heard Christian songs and those songs resonated. They came to Christ without ever opening a Bible. I also new someone at a church who only hear someone’s testimony, and that brought them to Christ without ever having opened a Bible.
This deserves an “Amen!”
Only if you demand that the Holy Spirit had to conform things to a MSWV. The Genesis account is valid on its terms, not that of modern science.
Hmm – sounds like imposing your personal standards on God.
I would say it depends on the circumstances.
Tough – I’ve experienced a couple and witnessed several, including a lawnmower that ran with a bone-dry gas tank and a gal who really should have been in the hospital standing up from the communion rail totally healthy.
You and the Apostle Paul (cf. Romans 7).
Yes. Back then the definition of whether something was true was who it came from – or rather, Who it came from. If the source was a true spokesman for Yahweh, then the story or whatever was considered true.
That’s the perspective of the entire Old Testament, and we should keep it in mind.
No one here has said that, so why are you bringing it up?
Why do you make up things no one has said and attack that as though it has any relevance?
Um . . .no. Not even close. All we have in the Hebrew scriptures are pointers to the Gospel, not “the entire Gospel”.
And Moses isn’t even necessary – entire tribes have become Christian without ever hearing a word of the Old Testament.
That’s not how literature works.
Yes, it is, and I pray for the day when you will actually read the Bible that way – reading it for what it is, not for what your MSWV needs it to be.
But you reject tons of biblical theology constantly!
It is one illustration of many. And as an illustration, once the real thing arrived it was no longer necessary.
Christ’s death is the end – He said so, from the Cross. That it is the end is why we are still here! And that it is the end is why there is a new beginning.
True – and not all that pedantic.
Really and yet it was on these forums earlier this year that the claim was made that the design of the Old Testament Tabernacle was copied from Egyptians?
Come to think of it, wasnt it YOU who articulated the affirmative view in the discussion?
And therein lieth exactly what i am talking about.
Again…
Look at this image of the Old Testament Tabernacle…Do you not understand “WHY” the Altar of Sacrifice is the first element there and not the last?
Its because the Sacrifice represents payment for the wages of sin is death!
Christs atonement on the cross was the “FIRST” stage of Salvation - illustrated by the symbolism of the Altar of Sacrifice!
That is fundamental proof that the illustration of the tabernacle, the explanation, was never done away with at the cross. We always knew that the blood of sheep and goats doesnt save anyone.
The Tabernacle ritual was inserted into daily life for the Israelite’s for the purposes of education of the people so they understood how salvation works. By itself, this ritual did nothing for salvation…thats what the book of Hebrews Chapter 4 clearly tells us.
4 because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
The Laver is the second element in the tabernacle…after the Altar of Sacrifice. Without the forgiveness of sin, the washing away/cleansing, there is no salvation!
The Old Testament Tabernacle explains salvation right up to the very end…the last chapters of the Book of Revelation when Satan and all evil is thrown into the lake of fire!
The literal event for which the symbolic “Priestly laying on of hands onto the scapegoat” has not happened yet…the responsibility for sins has not yet been thrust onto him [Satan] and his demise/final judgment carried out…that is still in the future! That is standard Judo/Christian theology and all Christians should have a very deep knowledge of this…its interwoven in the Gospel…the two are inseparable without destroying the fabric.
So what? That makes no difference whatsoever – there’s no spiritual knowledge involved in a building.
That altar was bypassed – Christ wasn’t a daily sacrifice, He was the Atonement sacrifice, which is inside the Tabernacle, not outside.
Your sanctuary theology is bad Christology – it says that Jesus was wrong on the Cross. “It is finished” doesn’t mean “I did part of the job; there’s more to com”, it means that the job is DONE.
I’d say “Nonsense” except that’s too light a term – all the sin of the world was laid on Jesus, there is no need for it to go elsewhere. He was the sinless “goat” who didn’t just figuratively carry away the sin of the world, He actually did it.
You really don’t understand that Christ’s work was all completed at the Cross, do you? that the Resurrection was the Triumph of the Conquering One, and the Ascension the affirmation that nothing was left to do?
No, it isn’t – in fact it is very, very close to heresy because it says that Jesus lied on the Cross. “τετέλεσται” (teh-TEH-less-tie) is what the Savior said: “It is now and forever totally and completely finished”.
Satan isn’t the scapegoat, he’s Azazel, the one to whom the scapegoat was sent. Jesus was the scapegoat, and He was sent to Satan on the Cross; Satan received Him in what he supposed was triumph, but this scapegoat didn’t perish in the wilderness as Azazel’s prey, He defeated Azazel and returned from the wilderness. John said, “Behold the Lamb of God who is taking away the sin of the world!”, so there’s no sin left to stack on Satan anyway; it was taken away on Christ.
Nope – knowledge of the sanctuary service isn’t even necessary, according to Jesus:
“Come to Me all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
According to our Lord, knowing that we are “weary and burdened” is enough – and I’ve seen people come to Christ based on no more than that.
- Repetition of an opinion does not make it a fact.
- Research News (Vanderbilt University)
- " Study shows that repeated statements are more often judged to be true, regardless of a person’s age or prior knowledge".
- “… the illusory-truth effect … believing something to be true if it’s repeated often enough, even when it is false.”
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There is nothing in the text or its context to imply that Genesis 1-2.4a is a vision (or an allegory, for that matter).
It makes perfect sense as a myth with a theological message - perhaps as a Jewish reply to Babylonian (and other ?) creation-myths. Especially as other myths and passages in Genesis 1-11 appear to be intended as anti-Babylonian satire & polemic.
As for what is meant by “mythology”, I have found this, written with Greek mythology in mind, very enlightening:
"In Greek mythology, “[w]e may distinguish three basic ingredients:
(1) saga, based on something like historical fact;
(2) folk tales and fairy tales;
(3) imaginatively created stories, often with a psychological, anthropological or religious basis.
As examples, we may take:
(1) the war against Troy itself and the names of many of the characters;
(2) the three tasks of Bellerophontes in [Iliad] VI.179-95, on completion of which he was rewarded with the princess and half the kingdom;
(3) how Thamyris the poet challenged the Muses at singing, and was punished for his presumption [Iliad] II.594-600.
All this material coalesced into a great body of information about the past; and that is what we call Greek mythology…”
- from: M. M. Willcock, Homer, Iliad I-XII, p.XI. (Bristol Classical Press, 2001).
STM that much of the Old Testament can - accurately and appropriately - be regarded as Jewish mythology, as being made of those same three ingredients.
The Abraham-saga is “based on something like historical fact” - by that, I take Willcock to mean a story that has verisimilitude: that is, it has likeness to historical reality, without having that reality; as when a fictional person is put in a real historical setting (which is one way of writing an historical novel).
The Tower of Babel story seems to qualify very well as an example of an “imaginatively-created story”.
The Old Testament can fairly be described as “material coalesced into a great body of information about the past”, of very various character. That parts of the OT intersect at some points with recognisably historical data, does not in the slightest make those parts of the OT any less mythological; just as the real existence of Argos, Mycenae, or Thebes does not make the mythological heroes associated with those cities any less mythological.