Theology for the Masses

Hank March 27th, 2008

Here is an excellent post from Ancient Hebrew Poetry on the genre of Genesis 1 that might help in the discussion of the previous post on Genesis 1:1-2. However, since this deals with the genre of the text, I thought it best to post this as a separate thread. I’m curious about what all who blog here think about this particular take on the genre of Genesis 1. I found the article interesting and am still working through what the author of the post said.

The Genre of Genesis 1

(Here is a second post that deals with whether Genesis 1 is poetry or not: Is Genesis 1 Poetry?)

• Genesis
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cheapham March 3rd, 2008

“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” Genesis 1:1-2

Does the Bible, specifically Genesis 1:1-2, support a doctrine of creatio ex nihilo (creation from nothing)? Would such a doctrine have made sense to ancient Israelites/early Christians? How does Gen. 1:1-2 fit into the schema of it’s contemporary ancient mediterranean understandings of the creation of the world? If something was there, then what was/is it? Further, what is really at stake in the answers to these questions?

I’m currently reading a lot about this in one of my classes and have some thoughts…but I’d like to see what you guys have. Certainly, those familiar with Hebrew could contribute much to our understanding of what the text itself (may) say(s).

• Creationism , Genesis , God , Hermeneutics , Myth , Nature of God , The Bible , Theology , translation issues
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jr. December 29th, 2007

Here is a visual tour of the Answers in Genesis’ Creation Museum in Kentucky. I went with my dear friends Tom and Mike in August 2007. I’ll walk you through our experience exhibit by exhibit with my commentary.

Arrival

We reached the Museum in a caravan of three vehicles. Mike and I were heading on to St. Louis from there, and Tom had to return to Wilmore. I was driving a U-Haul

I was forced to park our U-Haul behind the Museum… can you guess why?

We entered the Museum and purchased our tickets - only $17 if you sign up for their email list! While I was in line, I overheard a family (the right proper nuclear family ™ - mom, dad and 3 boys) announce to the ticket-seller that this was their third visit to the Museum (open since Memorial Day 2007) and that they were seriously considering buying lifetime passes (a mere $1,000 per person, presumably adjusted for inflation). Once inside, we milled about looking at various odd displays before venturing into the bookstore.

Inside the bookstore, we found this on top of a tall bookshelf:

On the way out of the bookstore, we saw this:

Now, you can’t really tell, but it’s a bust of St. George slaying a dragon (maybe the bookshelf dino’s sister or something?). Above it is inscribed a text from the St. George legend (myth?).

We left the bookstore (to return afterwards). On our way into the Tour of Biblical History, we passed an animatronic cave-girl feeding a carrot to a squirrel while anamatronic velociraptors drank from a nearby stream:

And so, on that note, we began our journey.

Entering the Tour de Exhibits

Immediately upon entering into the Museum Proper, we were faced with a series of displays that forced the singular question upon which the Museum’s entire theology rests: Do you trust in Human Reason or God’s Word?

The choice is clear… we must follow either human reason and God’s word. But what’s the worst that could happen if we don’t choose God’s word? So glad you asked! Walk this way!

The Consequences of Following Human Reason

We next enter into an exhibit that displays the consequences of choosing Human Reason. First, a twisted hallway painted all black with news clippings pasted all over the walls. What news, you ask?

Yes, this was the “the gays are going to clone themselves” wall (abortion wall not pictured). Apparently the only possible outcome of using your brain is that you become gay, then clone babies and kill them before they reach term. Clearly, brothers and sisters, human reason is evil and bad. How are we to stand before the terror of their cultural onslaught? Fortunately, we were then able to see some heroes who preserved God’s Word for us so that we could have good and true guidance that in no way requires us to think:

According to the next display, the Jews are evil because the added Oral Tradition to God’s Word. Jesus (who, I guess wasn’t a Jew and didn’t use Oral Tradition) tried to tell them how silly they were, so they killed him. And then the Catholics came along and messed up Jesus’ teachings by adding a bunch of silly Church Traditions to it. So, last but not least, we are presented with the man who, according to the placard in front of him, saved us from the Jews and Catholics. Ladies and Gentlemen: Martin Luther himself!

Now that we’ve rescued the Bible from all those who doubt, what does God’s Word say about how we got here? Stay tuned for the next installment of pictures guaranteed to be more outrageous than the first!

• Creationism , Culture , Genesis
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jr. August 24th, 2007

In Matthew 5:21-22, Jesus equates hate, insult and name-calling with murder. For a long time, I just accepted the common explanation that Jesus is “reinterpreting” the Law, pushing for a “deeper” understanding of “what God really meant”. As I blogged several days ago, however, I am beginning to see that Jesus was reading the Law through the lens of love defined as self-sacrifice. Thus, all commandments must be reexamined through that lens. And so what of “Thou shalt not murder”?

What is murder, exactly? In his compelling analysis of the Cain and Able myth, Volf argues (quite persuasively) that Cain murders Abel because he refuses to redefine himself. Able is the quintessential nothing - he is the second son, he is a shepherd, even his name means something like “vapor”. Cain, on the other hand is strong. He is a farmer, the first son, strong and able (hahaha, get it?). For no good reason we can see, God chooses Abel. God. Chooses. Abel. Cain cannot accept this; the very fact of Abel’s existence now calls his own understanding of himself into question. And, rather than reevaluate himself, Cain chooses to remove that which caused him existential dissonance. He strikes down his brother, the Other, thereby allowing him to maintain his identity unchanged.

If we allow this story to be paradigmatic for understanding the process of murder (and I know it’s not going to be 100%, so let’s agree not to get caught up in the details), I think this sheds some interesting light on Jesus’ comments. Murder arises from a challenge to the integrity of our Selfs. So too I suggest do hate, insult and labeling. Rarely do we hate something that does not affect us; apathy is a much commoner response to these nonentities. Our hatred arises from that which is a challenge to our Selves. Consider, for example, racism in the States - the races that bore the brunt of race-based hatred (Irish, Italian, African, etc) were always those races whose proximity to the dominant culture forced those in power to question and to reevaluate their assumptions about what made them human. We have a tendency toward self-preservation and stability; it seems to be human nature to lash out in anger against that which threatens us. Insult and labeling are public means by which we can consign the Other to safe categories that no longer threaten us.

And so I can see why Jesus considers murder, hatred, name-calling and labeling to be related. They are really all symptoms of the same problem: our tendency to objectify and dehumanize that which threatens our Selfs, our identities. Jesus calls us to lay down our Selfs in favor of embracing the Other. If we cannot allow the Other into our Selfs, to challenge and reshape us, then we will never be able to allow God, who is entirely more Other than any human, to enter into us, to shape us and to change us. Perhaps this is what Jesus means when he teaches us a few verses later to pray, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,” and then follows that with, “If you do not forgive sin here on Earth, neither will your Father forgive your sins in heaven.” We are not in a place to accept God’s forgiveness, to repent, unless we can learn how to do the same down here. Only the peacemakers are called children of God.

And let’s not reduce this to cause-effect. We miss the point if we pull a magic formula, a one-to-one correlation between forgiveness on Earth and forgiveness in Heaven. Rather, we learn to be forgiven, to live as the forgiven, in the kingdom of Heaven that is coming to Earth, even as we learn to forgive sin here on Earth.

“Dead man, is it being high that makes you alive, that makes you leave behind three boys and a wife? …As the track marks work their way up your arm, my mother taught my brothers and I not to call you ‘Daddy’, but to call you ‘Father’. And I believe there is something here to be learned of Grace, ’cause I can’t help but love you.”
– “The Widow”, As Cities Burn

• Genesis , Othering
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Honzo May 12th, 2007

I came across this today at slackivist via katagrapho. Slackivist is trying to discuss the purpose of origin stories. He begins by looking at a question of why crow’s feathers are black and then looks at the ultimate answer to the question:

Q: Why are the crow’s feathers black?

A: Courage and helping others are good. Remember that every time you see a crow.

Fred then suggests that the same thing happens in Genesis.

Q: Where do rainbows come from?

A: Selfishness is destructive — to you and to every living creature. Remember that every time you see a rainbow.

Again, the answer isn’t directly related to the apparent question because the apparent question isn’t really what the story is about. This may seem complicated, but if you read these stories it’s quite obvious. They’re not subtle about it. Their message is not some hidden meaning that needs to be decoded. It would be very difficult, in fact, to read or hear such stories without taking away the meaning they are meant to convey.

Thoughts? I can’t really give any of my own analysis of anything until next week (note the question posing nature of all most posts the last few months). Is this a good way to approach the book of Genesis? What are the pros? What are the cons? What are the ramifications/implications of each? Can one maintain inspiration and view some of the Bible stories in this manner? Once again, merely saying it is a Liberal Christan idea only sidesteps the issue. There may be things of value in Liberal Christianity. There may be things that desperately need to be changed in Conservative Christianity. Don’t just sling mud, help us understand the issues.

• Archeology , Genesis , History , Science
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Honzo January 31st, 2007

When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up–for the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground– then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. (Gen 2.5-8)

I am unconvinced with the literal version of Genesis one and two. There are lots of issues here, none of which I want to explore here in depth, at least in the post. There is no way that the earth was created in six 24-hour periods about six or seven thousand years ago. The empirical evidence simply does not support that conclusion. The particulars do not make sense either. Where did the light come from in Gen 1:3? It was not from Sola, because Sola is formed several days later in Gen 1:14, nor was it from God, because it would have always been there. Then there is the minor issue of there being two creation stories back-to-back. In the first one, man is formed after the plants are brought forth; while in the second, man is crafted before the plants. In addition, in the Gen 2 creation story, the text says that the creation of the heavens and earth only took one day.

There have been many a word typed and shouted in trying to formulate a picture of science that admits a young earth and a consistency between the stories in Genesis one and two. However, I have not heard a version that can successfully do this.

What is my larger worry here? That, by maintaining these views, the church is driving people away from the good news of Jesus Christ.

In light of this, the first two stories in Genesis, in the whole Bible are myths and not literal word-for-word accounts of what physically happened. What do I mean by myth? I am not typing of a made up story that are completely false. Instead, I refer to a story, not an historical account, one that is true on one or several levels, even though it is not a historical “video-camera” account of what happened.

Ok, if the two stories are logically inconsistent and, based on the empirical evidence that we have, also not consistent with the leading theories of the origin and development of the universe and earth; then what do we do with them?

As I have stated before, I favor the divine fiat theory. I came across five other views over at Open Source Theology. Here are the five other ways to view this problem: Open Source Theology:: Genesis 1 as “True Myth”.

1. Genesis 1 fits within a literary genre of creation myths, but only Genesis 1 gets the story right.
2. Genesis 1 is a myth that eventually proves to be verifiable as truth.
3. Genesis 1 is a myth whose truth is to be found in the moral and metaphysical lessons it teaches.
4. Genesis 1 is a myth written by God.
5. Genesis 1 is part of an all-encompassing myth created by God that includes not just the Biblical text but also the “real world.”

They discuss these alternatives and talk a lot about the notion of real myth and what that means. I would recommend checking the article out and I hope you either share how you view the creation stories here or over there. I think this issue is of tremendous value and needs to be reconciled with our larger world-views. I maintain that both the earth is as old as it seems and that God inspired a true writing of Genesis one and two. Now, how exactly that works out, I don’t know - but damn I want to know.

LINKS:

• Open Source Theology:: Genesis 1 as “True Myth”.
• Answers in Genesis
• Institute for Creation Research
• Young-Earth Arguments: A Second Look

• Genesis , History
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