The Pesher of Paul

Originally published in my column on Adventist Today

“The pesharim are commentaries upon prophetic texts, which apply the biblical writings to the history and life of the community. The commentators aim to demonstrate the fulfillment of biblical prophecies in their own time, especially with respect to reward and punishment, and they assert the imminent doom of their opponents in contrast to their own salvation. This “contemporizing” interpretation, or application, of the text is called “pesher,” a term related to dream interpretation.” (The Virtual Qumran)

Pesher is a method of interpretation used as a solution, usually to a contemporary situation. There are several methods of Midrash (exposition) interpretation techniques. These methods of rabbinic exegesis can range from clever and fanciful, to simple plays on the number of letters in a word, but what they most have in common is to bring the Biblical text to deal with some element of contemporary thought that the expositor is interested in talking/writing about. (See the article on Jewish Interpretation here for examples)

Once clued into this concept it is not difficult to see it is used fairly commonly in the New Testament. If you are like me you have often wondered how the Apostle Paul could say in one place that sin came from the woman and in another that sin came from the first man. Roman 5:12 “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned” (All texts NIV). 1 Timothy 2:14 “And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.”

The verse from Roman 5:12 has taken on a life of its own, in particular when it comes to those who hold that there was a literal recent 6 consecutive 24 hour day creation.  All death must have therefore come after the sin of the one man, therefore the fossil record and dates cannot possibly be true. and there can be no other methods allowed to explain the how of creation.  The problem with this is that we are taking the “Pesher” of Paul to a conclusion that is not his intent. His application of the verses is to entirely different subjects. Take a look at the context of 1 Timothy 2:12-13: “I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve.”

The Pesher there is certainly questionable; does the creation order really have anything to do with the ability of a woman to teach or speak or have any authority? This is a common conclusion given our modern standards of interpretation and the product of years of debate and study by Christians, philosophers and scholars.

Paul was certainly in good company. For example, Clement of Alexander, when writing about the Mosaic prohibition of eating swine and certain birds says “The sow is the emblem of voluptuous and unclean lust of food…. The eagle indicates robbery, the hawk injustice, and the raven greed.” There is a reason behind his application of a particular bird to a particular human characteristic. “Clement of Alexandria and Philo represent two adherents to the Alexandrian school, which believed that each word in the Biblical text was chosen for a precise reason.” Against their view was the “Adherents to the Antiochene methods of interpretation include the following: Eusebius of Caesarea, Diodore of Tarsus, Theodore of Mopsuestia, John Chrysostom and Basil of Caesarea” (The explanation of the Antiochene school is more varied and too complex to describe here, see the article Antiochene Methods of Interpretation)

The fact is we interpret things much differently because of the battles between the various schools of thought in the Christian church, from the Early Church Fathers on. Just as knowledge in most all areas of mankind has advanced so too we have advanced in methods of interpretation and analyzing written works. When we re-examine Paul on the subject of Romans 5, we can see that he is not saying there was no sin before the first man, but is instead working on his contemporary theme that Jesus brings reconciliation and that Adam was the pattern of the one to come.

Romans 5:14 “Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come.” But it is not a pattern as we typically understand; it is a reverse image pattern. It is a contradistinction between the failure of Adam and the success of Jesus. Romans 5:15 “But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!”

The subject is not “there was no death before Adam sinned”. Instead, the subject is the reconciliation provided by Christ, contrasted to the failure of Adam (and all human beings). The powerless man was reconciled by the gift of God in that even when we were yet His enemies, God, through the incarnation of Jesus, reconciled us back to Himself. When we take the text out of this context and purpose and assign it a significance that it should not have we revert to methods of interpretation that cannot be reconciled to the age of reason.

There are Jewish expositors that could take any text and cleverly manipulate it to work for their own purposes. I dare say Adventism still has those kinds of people and those who use those techniques, but they ignore the reason and science so necessary to really create a comprehensive hermeneutic. There is an art and science to Biblical interpretation.
 

The problem of 19th century prophets

The August 2013 issue of Adventist World includes an article by Ellen White which they entitle Infidelity in Disguise. It appears to be some kind of edited work with most sentences ending in ellipses and reported to have first published in Signs of the Times, March 20, 1879. You can read the article by clicking the link above I am mainly going to deal with the last paragraph which says:

“The secret things belong unto the Lord our God; but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever.” Men professing to be ministers of God raise their voices against the investigation of prophecy, and tell the people that the prophecies, especially of Daniel and John, are obscure, and that we cannot understand them. Yet some of these very men eagerly receive the suppositions of geologists, which dispute the Mosaic record. But if God’s revealed will is so difficult to be understood, certainly men should not rest their faith upon mere suppositions in regard to that which He has not revealed. . . . In [God’s] providence men, beasts, and trees, many times larger than those now upon the earth, were buried at the time of the flood, and thus preserved to prove to man that the inhabitants of the old world perished by a flood. God designed that the discovery of these things in the earth should establish faith in inspired history. But men, with their vain reasoning, make a wrong use of these things which God designed should lead them to exalt Him. They fall into the same error as did the people before the flood—those things which God gave them as a benefit, they turned into a curse, by making a wrong use of them."

 She begins by quoting Deut 29:29 which is Moses recitation of the covenant with Israel, about being brought out of Egypt etc. It is most certainly not a statement about scientific understanding. As we learned about germs and viruses we were not learning of the secret things of God. It would be foolish to think that when we learn about geology we are again trying to learn the secret things of God. I don't know of any scientific discipline that God revealed to his children, this is simply a statement of absurdity put in to make the whole thing seem somehow more deep and religious.

Then she moves on to those of us...most everyone really who find the prophecies of Daniel and John the Revelator to be obscure. About the only people that don't think the apocalyptic books are obscure are those who have their own version of interpretation. And so far of those not one has predicted anything to occur based upon the writings of Daniel and the book of Revelation. Those predictions that have been made have all be disproved, which caused some like the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Seventh-day Adventists to make some of their incorrect predictions appear to be fulfilled in spiritual or heavenly realms where we have no access.

The Mosaic record which she finds to be disputed by geologists is but a tiny part of what is by tradition attributed to be the writing of Moses but that tradition is not based upon any facts. But still it is only a tiny fragment of the Genesis story concerning Genesis 1 and 2 and the account of the flood. None of which is written in anything close to a record of geology. In fact the practice of testing theories and ideas is far less supposition then the supposition that Moses even wrote the book of Genesis.

But what really made me want to write this article is this part:

In [God’s] providence men, beasts, and trees, many times larger than those now upon the earth, were buried at the time of the flood, and thus preserved to prove to man that the inhabitants of the old world perished by a flood. 

Really!? Why would finding them indicate the reality of a world wide flood? She earlier referred to "Bones of men and animals are found . . . showing that much larger men and beasts once existed. . . ." Actually there have never been bones of men that have been found to be larger then men today. And the larger animals besides the dinosaurs are usually of the era of the ice age. In fact if you look we have evidence of Wooly Mammoths who appear to have been quickly frozen in place and covered with ice. If that was to show that they died in a flood of water they would be far different in the contents of their stomachs then what we have.These ice age giants are much more recent in the geological column then dinosaurs so there is little reason to think that they are the evidence of some world wide flood.

It really is time to realize that our 19th century prophet was a person of her time. With a limited understanding and limited knowledge. She may well have believed in the hoaxes of the late 1800's such as Cardiff Giant. It is likely that she did believe it as she did come out of the Methodist movement as Wikipedia says:

 The giant was the creation of a New York tobacconist named George Hull. Hull, an atheist, decided to create the giant after an argument at a Methodist revival meeting about the passage in Genesis 6:4 stating that there were giants who once lived on Earth.^[1]

She likely incorporated that into her thinking about Adam and Eve as she wrote: "Adam's height was much greater than that of men who now inhabit the earth. Eve was somewhat less in stature;"  Patriarchs and Prophets, pg. 45 "He was more than twice as tall as men now living upon the earth... Eve was not quite as tall as Adam. Her head reached a little above his shoulders." -- Spiritual Gifts, Vol. 3, pg. 34

^{We can do better and we must do better. Not only must we be more critical in understanding the Bible but we must be more critical in our assumptions about people who claim to speak for God. Once we understand that even sincere people can be confused about the facts we can see that such confusion is not limited to modern times. That we must use more then just accepted traditions as our evidence and reason for believing.}

Bill Maher, stranger to reason

Here is a good view into the mind of a political liberal. It is sad and disturbing but likely thought of by those with limited thinking capabilities to be funny.  Bill Maher said the following on his HBO show:

BILL MAHER: But I bring up the old tale of the poisoned apple -- no, not "Snow White," that's a fairy tale - because the Adam and Eve story is taken literally by half the country and it's no coincidence that the type of tree which god forbade Adam and Eve eating from was the Tree of Knowledge. Rick Santorum homeschools his children because he does not want them eating that f--king apple. He wants them locked up in the Christian madrassa that is the family living room not out in public where they could be infected by the virus of reason. If you're a kid and the only adults you've ever met are mom and dad, and then they're also the smartest adults you've met, why not keep it that way? Why mess up paradise with a lot knowledge? After all, a mind is a terrible thing to open.

You could read that and think it was just an attempt by a mediocre comedian to make a joke. Until you see he includes reason into the equation and ends with a call for an open mind afterall. For what he thinks is reason is simply misinformation. He begins the account by mentioning a poison apple, no poison apple is in the Biblical story; in fact no specific fruit is mentioned at all. Then he intentionally misnames the name of the tree. The name  of the tree in Genesis being the tree of knowledge of good and evil. To him it is the tree of knowledge. God simply did not want Adam and Eve to have knowledge any knowledge apparently. But of course the story is much more relevant than Maher’s misinformation. God did not want them to eat of the fruit and learn what evil was.

Then Maher moves to Rick Santorum who home schools his children. In Maher’s created world if they go out in public they will be exposed to the virus of reason. Reason really, does he know what reason is. Is reason ever the product of intentional misinformation and lies. Do Santorum’s children never go out in public or hear any other voices? What about the Christian Madrassa? That is clever right, a Christian “Muslim school”, that is what madrassa means a Muslim school. Reasonable?

Possibly to the political liberal it is because they can’t argue from facts so they resort to the type of argument Bill Maher uses. And amazingly enough HBO pays him to produce this kind of material! And even more amazingly people watch him and some people think he has some intelligence. This perhaps is true if one does not look very close at anything he says; but if you actually do use reason. Well he does not do too well.

Traditon and the God that kills so Adam isn't naked

With the following I am beginning a new blog which moves away from the limiting tenancies of Adventism and denominationalism. For a while I will post the articles from the new blog here also. I have not decided if I will continue to cover Adventism as I have on this blog. Maybe just one more entitled : "you can't get there from here".

As we will see as this blog progresses there are so many ideas in Christianity that are simply accepted because of tradition or perhaps simply accepted because people never questioned an idea or belief. Much of them are origin ideas that color the Christians thinking in matters that range far from the original idea.

A good example of this is to be found in this comment from my article on Jimmy Swaggart’s Study Bible, the comment is as follows:

“i don't have his bible but i know from the bible that they did animal sacrifices back then.. because of God killed one.. to make there garments. thus starting the animal sacrifices because God covered them with animal so in turn they covered there sins they did and do back then till Jesus came for all.”

If one were to question the above comment they would have to ask did God actually kill an animal or animals just to make garments? Does it not take a good deal of processing before one skins an animal before that skin can be used successfully as clothing? Was this the same God who just spoke the universe into existence and now He has to kill in order to make clothes for humans? Was God really the very first being in recorded Jewish/Christian history to kill another living creature? If this was meant to be the first sacrifice why did the story not emphasize the killing as sacrifice idea rather then just making it about how God provided garments for Adam and Eve? And finally why does not any other part of the Bible reference this incident as emblematic for the sacrificial system?

Those are all very reasonable questions but I bet the writer of the above comment has not thought about even one of them. Reason is not the enemy of faith, in fact reason encourages faith because then there are reasons for the faith. The reverse however is not usually true; faith is often the enemy of reason. Because then they say if I had a reason to believe something why would I need faith. That is the problem that the traditionalist and the Fundamentalist have when they deal with what is written in the Bible. Their faith is in fact their tradition, their belief is not evidence based but tradition based, to question their tradition is to question faith in their minds. That however is not how the entire Bible lays out faith. Faith in God was based upon the multitude of stories that fill the Bible, the evidence of the Messiah, as Jesus came and lived among us. Those stories, the very pages of scripture are evidence to base ones faith upon.

Blind faith is exactly what it says, a faith that is not seen, a faith without evidence, a belief without reason. It cannot be reasonably explained to anyone it is accepted or rejected based upon nothing because it stands on nothing. As Gandhi said: “Faith... Must be enforced by reason...When faith becomes blind it dies.” Unfortunately that is not quite true because it does not die it instead becomes a vice. A more accurate quote by Ray Cove would be “If you don't have faith in your people in the field, you are lost. If that faith is blind faith, then it is not faith at all, just maladministration.” Blind faith is very problematic.

So how do we answer the traditionalist? We must take them back to their source material and ask them to explain their presuppositions. That is why this is a blog rather then simply an article. The subject is simply too vast, it is too vast for one book, with such a vast field of thought to engage in not every possible objection can be covered or every possible explanation given. Thus this is a conversation, a dialog that continues and evolves as we learn more and as we examine more implications. For our friend who believes that God was the first to kill we can answer fairly simply by going to the source. Because the Genesis story never once says that God killed an animal to make the garments for the people.

As the Exposititor’s Bible Commentary says: “The mention of the type of clothing that God made--"garments of skin [`or]," i.e., tunics--is perhaps intended to recall the state of the man and the woman before the Fall: they "were both naked [`arummim], and they felt no shame" (2:25). The author may also be anticipating the notion of sacrifice in the slaying of the animals for the making of the skin garments, though he has given no clues of this meaning in the narrative itself.”

Tunics that is coverings, it does not say animal skins that is the from the early English translations. When you look at the text and then the interlinear of the words here is what we see using the King James with the

Strong’s numbers following the word:

Adam 120, wife 802, Lord 3068, God 430, coats 3801, skins 5785, clothed 3847

When you look at the word skins 5785 we see that it includes man’s skin also:

5785  `owr (ore); from 5783; skin (as naked); by implication, hide, leather:

KJV-- hide, leather, skin.

5783 says:  `uwr (oor); a primitive root; to (be) bare: KJV-- be made naked.

It is not all that hard to see that God made tunics to cover the skin of the people and thus they were clothed. You don’t have to kill anything with such an interpretation. You don’t have to have God kill an animal and then perform a miracle to immediately make the skin usable for sewing or to become supple and move about comfortably in.

Remember “animal” is not in the Hebrew, just skins and skins can have varying meanings. It could be the cover layer of something else, wool is the covering layer of a sheep, various barks or leaves could be considered to be coverings, a snake sheds its skin, so there are other options available.

All we have is the quick aside in the story that God had seen their nakedness and covered them. God cares, He assists them even when they disobeyed He maintained their interests at heart. It is a simply line in a simple story that people want to pour so much meaning into that it eventually loses the initial meaning.

After this we have to consider what the author was trying to say. Was he trying to reference sacrifices and just did not know how to create the implication very well? Was he trying to express his idea of how God could have done things, without the conception of God that the Bible progresses through. Say for example God in his estimation could kill anything and anyone with impunity and it would not matter because God is the ultimate power and as such can do what He wants and the character…the very essence of God…how He acted and how He loves would be of little concern in his story. God cared enough to cloth them it did not matter how he did it.

We have a lot of questions and perhaps not a lot of answers. The people with all the answers like the original commenter seem to have none of the questions. They don’t know how to ascribe original meaning to the text or application to the present but they do have the answers that their traditions maintain. I prefer the method of the late A. Graham Maxwell who would constantly ask “what does this say about God”.

If that is you, stay tuned to this blog as we explore past the traditions.

Response to objections of death before Adam

In the Fall 2010 issue of Adventist Today J. David Newman presents his article entitled: Death Before Sin – No

I thought I would take some time to counter a few of his statements.

So Christian evolutionists say that death is natural and normal, while the Bible says that death is an enemy. “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. ...The last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Cor. 15:22, 26, NIV). And it will not exist in the new earth (Rev. 21:4).

This is one of those techniques which frankly we see all the time right now during the political ad season. Blanket statements which seem so certain but are in fact really misinformation. Take the above as the example. The Bible says that death is an enemy. Does that mean that all death is the enemy? After all when I eat my apple or pull up my carrot and eat them I am in fact killing the fruit or for my carrot the whole plant. The Genesis story talks about eating of the fruit of the Garden that means the cessation of life for at least the fruit, or perhaps the nuts which after all are the seeds which if their life cycle was to complete they would grow into a new tree. So actually even in the Genesis story death is not treated as an enemy. At least not until it concerns the human being. And after all that is really what the text quoted above is about. It is not about plants, animals or bacteria it is death that is the enemy of Human beings, those individuals who are capable of understanding the consequences and lost opportunities that make death our enemy.  Death as the enemy of man is the concern and that is the death that will not exist in the New Earth. That statement in Revelation is not really meant to indicate that all things we know will cease to exist and all laws of the universe will change. Perhaps they will but that is not very likely the intent of a statement that reads:

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." (Rev 21:3-4 NIV)

Newman then quotes the texts from Paul in Romans chapter 5 about how through one man sin entered the world, strangely missing the literary device Paul uses contrasting Jesus as the one man that brings life with Adam the one man who brought death because everybody in the family of Adam dies, which includes Jesus who died but stopped the death cycle by promising resurrection. It is a literary device because of course death still reigns everybody still dies, the hope of resurrection is still future for all the rest of us. So we see that being overly literal when we read these texts is not the wisest course.

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned--(Rom 5:12 NIV)

Newman uses the above text but is Paul consistent here or is he using it as part of his literary comparison? According to most conservative scholars Paul also wrote 1 Timothy and it says:

And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. (1 Tim 2:14 NIV)

We must therefore ask if Paul wrote both of these verses which is true? My answer is that Paul uses what will fit the comparison or point he is trying to make. He is not bound by the kind of literalistic view that subsequent traditional Christians have placed upon his writings. To Paul we all sin and we all die, the cure for one is the cure for the other. It is simple and pragmatic. We can’t really argue about it we don’t see anyone who does not sin nor do we see anyone that does not die; salvation, the healing; heals both. Death cured by resurrection and sin cured by reconciliation but you have to alive to be reconciled. The cure to sin is meaningless if you are still dead. Resurrection to a life filled with sin and misery is not a terribly appealing idea either; just doing it all over again and again, the two are intimately connected in Paul’s usage.

Newman asks:

If death were taking place in the world before Adam, and if Adam was simply the end result of the evolution of human beings, why would death be an enemy? And why would it need to be destroyed?

In the above I answered Newman’s second question as to why death would need to be destroyed. What about the previous question? This is a purely philosophical question which could probably be answered many ways depending upon ones presuppositions. The most common would be that death that was leading to the human being capable of individual understanding and reasoning to things beyond himself was not the enemy just as the death of my apple or carrot are not my enemy. Death only becomes the enemy when we understand the larger issues involved to thinking individuals. After all is the hawk grabbing up a mouse evil because the hawk lives upon the flesh of the mouse. Is the hawk sinning because Adam sinned? Or if we looked at it from a six day creationist viewpoint who made the hawk behave the way it behaves, who created it with the talons and beak made to rip flesh? Some I am sure would say that Satan did it. That being a popular excuse when all explanations fail but at least we have to admit that such an idea is not presented in the Bible.

Newman than uses the argument that is so very popular among traditional Adventists, the argument those of us who read the various discussion forum of Adventists see often.

This subject is very important, because it impacts how we look at Jesus, at the cross, and at the whole question of sin. If science explains where we come from, then the same science tells us that people do not come back from the dead, and that Jesus may have lived and died on a cross but could never have come back to life again. The same people who believe in Christian evolution also believe what the Bible says about the end of this age—that one day death will no longer exist—even though that is not what science says. So why accept what science says for the beginning of this world but not accept what science says for the end of this world?

In fact science does tell us that ordinary people don’t come back from the dead on their own. It says nothing at all about what would or could happen if there was a God, a supreme being with all power and knowledge involved. Again science tells us what would happen to a man hung on a cross but not what would happen if God came down and became a man and was hung on a cross. Science can tell us nothing about God resurrection Himself if He came as a man and died on a cross. It does not even try to tell us these things. Science has the limitation of only being able to really study what exists now. What the evidence we have now says. Granted there are scientists who will produce theories about things that happened and are not currently observable or without much evidence. For example some scientist will produce theories about what happened in the first 10^th of a second after the big bang. But like a lot of science those theories come and go, science obviously changes it grows and expands and corrects itself but it does not attempt to explain the Christian Atonement.

Ultimately Science never tries to tell us what will happen if there is a supreme being who wants to step into our time and space and do something. So why accept what science says for the beginning? Because there is evidence for the beginning, we look at that evidence we compare different observations and see a lot of evidence which is very compelling. Why not accept what science says for the end of this world? Because there is precious little evidence about the end of this world since it has not happened yet, if there were multiple big bangs in a collapsing and expanding universe all the evidence from a previous end of the world would be gone so all that is left is various speculations and speculation is not science. This is Newman’s most important point and it is totally contrived and meaningless.

I will conclude by discussing the following quote:

If Adam and Eve were not historical figures, then we have no information on how we became sinners. If human beings gradually evolved from the Neolithic man to Homo sapiens, at what stage did they become sinners? If other humans existed along with Adam and Eve, how did they become sinners? Who, then, did Christ save?

This is another commonly held Traditional Adventist idea. It tends to ignore the reality of what we as human do since recorded history which is we hurt each other and often ourselves. Pragmatically we understand we are sinners; is it all that important to know which of our ancestors was the first to realize or to be accused of being a sinner? It does not change the reality of where we are one bit. I suppose it is about as useful as asking where did God come from. We don’t have any idea so we say He always was, fine then why not say humans were always sinners. Historically it certainly works; actually this wanting to know the beginnings of everything generally does not work for anyone. We have a whole Adventist sub doctrine about how Satan was once Lucifer and how sin began in him. It is not from the Bible, it is not from Jewish religion it is based upon early church traditions. Jesus was more pragmatic and simply said of Satan that he was a liar and murderer from the beginning. He did not see a need to invent a back story, just give the present reality. Surely the present reality of being sinners is enough. As for who then did Christ save? He saves whoever He wants and whoever will accept His salvation. I think I can trust Him on that issue, and I only see problems when I try and say who God saves or not, being that I am not God it would only be speculation based upon lack of knowledge and I am enough of a scientist to know that such speculation is not good for science or religion.

The Psychology of Adam and Eve, a tough question

Not long ago I was thinking about one of the problems that exist when we hold to a literal interpretation of the Genesis creation account. We normally think of these as the physical problem with the creation account, such as what was light on the first day, or how could it be that the sun, moon and stars were not created until the fourth day. Those are of course large problems for a literal view of the Genesis creation account but there is another science which comes into play in the story. A somewhat softer science but still a very important consideration; that is the psychology of the first humans.

We have for quite some time now as a culture realized that human beings need time to develop reasoning skills. It is of course not just time that is needed it is experience and knowledge of life that take up that time till a human being is thought of as a responsible person. We have in America set that time frame as 18 years and then the person is classed as an adult. Some countries my have less, some more. The Jews have a tradition of a boy moving into manhood at age 12. The different ages for the acceptance of the age of reason my vary and they may be somewhat arbitrary but they have a good number of years of life experience and learning in common before the person is classed among those called of the age of reason or adults or independently  responsible individuals.

Now back to the creation story. Man, Adam and Eve in the story were created. What was their psychological level of maturity? Those years of experiences that humans go through to reach the age of reason were not there for Adam and Eve. Yet the greatest test of their loyalty was placed upon their inexperienced shoulders. But of course we don’t know what level of experience they had perhaps experiences were implanted in their minds. Surely they were not created as adult sized infants. After all the in the story they seem to be able to walk and talk and carry on conversations, something that normally requires years of training and experience before the average child becomes proficient.

But that is a problem when we are about to test someone…because if God is going to test them and God is the one that gave them the knowledge or artificial experience He is not really testing them but testing the information He implanted into them. Now of course if God did not give them any knowledge or experiences then they were in no ways capable of understanding their world at all and their lives for at least a few years would be filled with learning the very basics of life. Perhaps God would have been their instructor during these first years of life but we really have no idea because the story does not say anything about the origins of their knowledge and experiences. But most anyway you look at it if you delve into their psychology they were either on their own and very immature and inexperienced or they were implanted with knowledge and experience or they were trained by God.

If they were trained by God or God implanted the knowledge into them then the fault lies as much or more with God as with Adam or Eve if they fail the test God lays out for them. If they were simply unknowledgeable and inexperienced then the fault lies entirely with God for placing them in a situation that they could not hope to function as individually responsible people. The idea of God plunging the entire world into sin because of the choices of two totally inadequately knowledgeable people would make God out to be entirely insensitive and cruel. 

It seems to me that just on the psychology of the situation it is entirely impossible to accept the story as literal. Because it would destroy the whole idea of God before it even builds up the idea of God. At least to the modern mind, though to the ancients it seems that they had no real need for their gods to behave properly or intelligently or fairly even, just read the stories of the gods of the nations around Israel to see that for yourself. The question we have to ask is; do we have to ignore what we know to accept and ancient story or does the story have uses or interpretations that work beyond the realm of ancient understandings. If we believe in progressive revelation of God then we don’t have to accept the literal story and we don’t have to pretend that what does not make sense makes perfect sense. Instead we can apply what our knowledge and experience adds to the understanding and the methods we use to interpret the Biblical texts.

But if you choose not to go there, and choose to believe in the literal story, do you have an answer for the psychological development of Adam and Eve? I would love to hear some conjectures on that idea.

Does Christianity fall without the fall

At the Meeting I attended presented by Jonathan Gallagher there was a point that was mentioned that very much reflected the following statement by Keafan (an atheist I assume) on the Spectrum blog. The idea is basically that without the literal Adam and Eve story Christianity falls apart.

[...]Anyway, I agree that christians who dismiss the recent creation event of Genesis cannot honestly claim that Jesus is still relevant without the literal Adam, Eve, Tree of Knowledge of Good & Evil, the introduction of sin by them, and our "fallen" state of that origins story. If they believe evolution over long periods of time what, EXACTLY, have we "fallen" from that would need a Savior?

Jesus compares the end of time as like the "days of Noah". John claims that Jesus IS the creator. Paul appeals to the actions of Adam to prove his Jesus. The whole Great Controversy theme Bevin seems to approve of is contingent on the Garden, Adam, and Eve actually existing as historical, literal things.

As Ross is quoted as saying: "If Adam and Eve aren't real people and the fall isn't a real event in history, then there's not a good reason to believe that Christ rose from the dead and every thing else."

Without the Fall the whole theory of salvation from the consequences of that Fall are ridiculous.

Posted by: keafan (not verified) | 30 September 2009 at 1:38

http://www.spectrummagazine.org/blog/2009/09/17/creation_fiddling_while_rome_burns

As I stated in the conversation at the meeting which Jonathan Gallagher held in Olympia Wa., (at some point they said they would post the talks, you can read the written presentations at: http://pineknoll.org/ ) We are in trouble if our concept of God is dependent upon getting people to believe the Genesis story which is very scientifically untenable. Even before the advent of Darwin the Christian thinkers did not hold to the simplistic creation story of Genesis. Once people in the 1700’s began to look at the rocks and later the fossils in the rocks they realized that there are many layers of rocks, and different kinds of rocks. So they developed the theory known as Neptuneism, the idea being that there were a succession of many worldwide floods (related idea known as catastrophism) of which Noah’s flood is simply the most recent. Each succession as the water evaporated left a different type of rock strata. Ultimately with the different strata there were different fossils. Each time there was a worldwide flood God created life again and repopulated the world (successive creation). Thus was produced the special creation view that Darwin was taught and which with his observations of volcanism he determined not to be necessary. Further it took away the Natural theology aspects since without the need for special creation it took away the need for God’s interaction with the world. Nature was not so perfectly balanced, why did not God create rabbits in Australia since when they were brought there they did wonderfully? Natural selection saw a ruthless struggle for survival, so instead of the natural theology showing how wonderful the character of God is because of the beauty and harmony of creation we see a nature that uses chance and cruelty. Challenging God’s justice and love.

The idea of the fall to a world of chance and cruelty does not let God off the hook for making the world filled with chance and cruelty, because man sinned does not logically equate the creation of ripping and tearing teeth. Natural theology (as nature revealing the character of God) was never a reality, at best it was once a reality in a brief perfect world (if one accepted the story as literaly), but those who came up with the idea of natural theology were not looking at any kind of perfect world. So we really don’t do ourselves a lot of favors by positing everything upon some perfect unknown world. It leads to the simplistic sin changed the world perspective but then you have to ask what is sin that it can produce all this chance and cruelty? When we look at the natural world around us and then at what we think sin means: that is selfishness or rebellion or even the classics, missing the mark or sin is lawlessness none of those things would really effect the natural world. The thinking world yes because an attitude of sin may make thinking creatures behave in ways that could be described as chance and cruelty but they would not be genetic, they would not leave their records in the fossils and the rocks of the world. You would have to go to something a lot more powerful. Which in religion pretty much leaves you with a God or a devil? Biblically speaking there is no indication that the natural world is the result of some creation of the devil. The natural world is seen as the creation of God.

Those pointing to the literal young earth creation story of Genesis still have no real answers for the problems mentioned above. Faith is their answer, not faith in God but faith in their perceived interpretation of the Genesis stories. That God told people the stories and that God intended the people to forever and always hold the stories as literally historically true.

So as we deal with thinking people we can’t simply say this is what the Bible says, "yes it makes no sense but you need to believe it because the whole Christian world view depends on it". No it does not. The Christian view depends upon the reality that mankind is selfish, that we hurt each other and that we make stupid choices and if we could find ourselves some short cut to knowledge of good or of evil or power we would take it. The Adam and Eve story presents a reality of thought that requires no need for it to be actual history: no need to be a complete refutation of the reality that science demonstrates.

We all know stories can teach important lessons or ideas, they don’t have to be true, they don’t have to involve actual people and events to stimulate, inspire or teach something to the listener. We don’t have to have a literal Garden of Eden or a literal worldwide flood to point out the human condition, the tendency for humans to become destruction or wicked. The stories indicate that there is more to life than our wants and desires. That human beings have the capability to extend themselves to think higher, to live with better morals, to pursue better goals. That is where God comes into our thinking. The stories of Jesus present these ideas in the form of incarnate God living with us. However this is more than just stories because the witnesses to Jesus life actually shared what they had heard and seen and even under persecution never recanted their testimony. Jesus does not depend upon the story of Adam and Eve. It stands in the history of mankind, more than as some story handed down from some bygone age when the world was somehow perfect. It stands in historical time and in an historical place with actual historical people recording the points that the authors thought important or they best remembered. though clearly they were not written as simply historical accounts, history is often built upon whatever historical writings we can obtain.

Certainly the New Testament and Jesus referenced the Genesis stories. God as creator, with little attention to how God creates after all who can really explain how God can create. The stories are used just as every culture uses their stories…to teach or remind people of lessons or values. Adam and Eve become the symbol of marriage of a man and a woman. The Genesis story never says they were married but they become the perfect symbol man and woman meant to live together to create the family. Noah and the flood are mentioned again to make whatever point the author in the New Testament or Jesus was trying to make. A shared culture gives people shared stories and that commonality allows them to communicate quickly and efficiently. Noah and the flood tell of a world filled with people of violence and wickedness. The old stories don’t have to change either. For example in America at one time you could say Miami was the murder capital of the country, then later it is Detroit, or Washington D.C. Ancient shared culture stories don’t change, Noah and the wicked people who necessitated the flood are always linked together, deliverance from the wicked by God is always linked, the rainbow and the promise of are God linked. That is the power of a story.

Without the fall story are we in any different reality? No the reality is simply what is, the fall does not make our reality, it does not make our religion. It is a teaching tool of our religion. It is a powerful shared story that has cultural relevance in many ways. It was never meant to dictate our understanding of the natural world, the understanding of God (who was kind of mean in the story, break on rule and your banished) the understanding of creation and the universe. After all the God in the Genesis story is not too much like the God of the New Testament, neither is the God of much of the Old Testament too much like the God of the New Testament. God is progressively understood as we progressively assimilate knowledge. We simply can’t go back to the most primitive understanding and let it rule over our knowledge of years later with so many areas of increased knowledge. What we do is reinterpret the stories, because the stories still have that cultural familiarity; they still are capable of being used as teaching tools. But they don’t dictate our understanding they were never meant to do that and it is highly unlikely that they ever did that in either the Jewish or Christian religions (at least until fundamentalism).

We are at that uncomfortable place where we have to once again reinterpret our beliefs. Strangely enough it has happened so many times in human history and Christian history that we should be a little more used to it by now. No doubt if not for our love of tradition we would be better able to handle the changes but there always seems to be some who get comfortable with an idea or five and cling to them tenaciously.

They read penal atonement even when it is not there

A week or two ago I got the following comment on the post Jimmy Swaggart’s Distorted Bible Commentary as the comment has some significance in light of the recent Sabbath School lessons on the Atonement I thought I would use it here as a demonstration.

The comment says:

Hi, I also have a Jimmy Swaggart's Expositor's Study Bible and I am very well pleased with it. As to your comment that there is no biblical evidence of a sacrifical system mentioned to Adam and Eve, what about the Lord's displeasure with the "covering" of fig leaves, where He had to kill an animal for a covering that was acceptable to him. There something had to shed its blood in order for God to be pleased with a covering for Adam and Eve, which was a type of Christ, in that humankind has forever tried to cover up their sin with things that were unacceptable, but only the blood of Christ will satisfy the requirements that God made for the redemption of mankind. I respect your opinion, as I hope you do mine, but anyway we both have given each other food for thought. Keep in touch.

The point of that section on Jimmy Swaggart was just how much people read into the Genesis story to try and make sense of it. In this case God was displeased with the fig leaves? What the text says:

(Gen 3:7 NIV) Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

(Gen 3:8 NIV) Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden.

(Gen 3:9 NIV) But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?"

(Gen 3:10 NIV) He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."

(Gen 3:11 NIV) And he said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?"

If you read the text does it appear that God is upset that they have created a new style of dress? No, He was concerned that they somehow found out they were naked and that they tried to hide from Him.

Then the comment is made that God had to kill an animal for a covering that was acceptable to Him. This is the same God who just a page earlier created the universe out of nothing. But now He has to become the first being recorded who kills a living creature, and for what noble purpose? To create a covering for the only two people in the world. Don’t forget that you simply don’t kill an animal and skin it and sew it together and have a garment, the skin has to be treated before that or it would be like wearing armor. So God has to kill the animal and then perform a miracle to make it workable as clothes. Actually the word used in the Hebrew just means a covering of skin, conceivably the skin of plant material such as a papyrus or some other material. They would all have the same problem in that just taken from a plant or an animal or an animal’s wool they would require something else done to them to make a decent garment or a miracle. But the assumption that an animal was killed by God to make clothes is not the only way of looking at the text.

God had to kill (shed blood) for God to be pleased with a covering for Adam and Eve. This the commenter asserts is a type of Christ, of course the Bible knows nothing of this first set of clothing being a type of Christ let alone record that Adam and Eve were told that the killing of the animal was to point to something that was to happen thousands of years in the future to please God, to satisfy God’s requirements.

This is what the Penal atonement theory has done to Christianity we have made God out to a good deal illogical and pretty cruel on top of that. It makes people seek to hide from God by claiming they are covered by the blood. The blood that God demanded, not the life freely given to show man the kind of person God is but the kind of person that God is who demands blood before He can forgive. Totally different from the Biblical idea of forgiveness and frankly totally different then the picture of God revealed by Jesus Christ.

But as long as people read their penal atonement theory into the Bible in places like Genesis they will always think they have a firm foundation. But the foundation is merely fantasy. But when the fantasy is accepted and embraced by tradition it tends to perpetuate itself. It would be helpful for many of these people to simply read the stories without out inserting all their preconception (the whole problem with Swaggert’s Bible) they should try to imagine themselves in the place of the people who originally heard these stories. Then they would see just how far different their interpretation is from what ancient Israel would have thought and then they can expand their horizons and ask how did we get to the place where we have inserted this particular meaning into the story, is it appropriate or not, does it make sense or not. That is what Bible study is about.

Rewriting Genesis 3:6

There are many people in the Adventist church who no longer trust the information that is supplied in the Sabbath School Lesson Study Guide. For quite a while it has tried to exhort Traditional Adventist views even when they have to stretch the truth. As the new Quarter begins with the topic of marriage, the authors naturally begin with the story of Adam and Eve, even though there is precious little about their relationship, speculation has always been the main way people deal with the first chapters of Genesis and the Lesson Study Guide continues the tradition. The Lesson Study Guide for July 4 writes:

Read Genesis 3:1-6. Several elements in the narrative suggest that Eve was alone when she succumbed to the temptation. (1) The serpent addresses only the woman. (2) Adam seems absent and is not mentioned till Eve gives him the fruit. (3) Adam is cursed only for listening to his wife and not for listening to the serpent.

Several versions of the Bible and certain commentaries suggest that Adam was with Eve at the time she was tempted (Gen. 3:6). The Hebrew has several words that may be translated "with." Two important ones are etzel and im. The latter is used in this passage.

Etzel is the preposition that is used to denote location beside or next to something. (See Gen. 39:15, 18.) By contrast, im denotes relationship. "Immanuel" in Isaiah 7:14 and 8:8, 10 begins with the preposition im and means "God with us." It is a relational position and not geographical. Genesis 3:6 therefore does not strictly demand that we see Adam positioned beside Eve when she is tempted. Adam used the same preposition in Genesis 3:12 to remind God about the woman He had put with him. It is a relational "with." Had he been with her, she might not have succumbed. "The angels had cautioned Eve to beware of separating herself from her husband while occupied in their daily labor in the garden; with him she would be in less danger from temptation than if she were alone."—Ellen G. White, Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 53.

The most obvious problem is that the vast majority of English language Bibles include “with her” the few that don’t have “with” still imply the idea. For example the (TEV) “So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, and he also ate it.“ The second problem is that in the Hebrew the word for “with” is not used. The Lesson Study Guide falsely claims that the Hebrew “im” (Strong’s # 5973) is used in the passage in Gen 3:6. The word “with” is used in English to translate the thought from the Hebrew into our language, it is not a Hebrew word used in the original text. Even the use of “im” given by the Lesson Study Guide is inaccurate as the “im” they address is a root used in the Hebrew word for Immanuel but just like our English words, the root for Butterfly is butter but the connection to butter and butterfly is not substantially the same, it is merely some aspect of butter, namely a color which in many butterflies would not even be similar to the type of butterfly one may encounter. The Lesson Study Guide asserts that the use of “im” is relationship oriented rather then location oriented because they are using the root word used in Immanuel rather the way “im” is used by itself in a Hebrew text. When used as the Lesson indicates it would appear the way it does in the actual first use of “im” (Update According to the Englishman's Concordance, according to this lexicon the first use is in Gen 18:23 " destroy the righteous with the wicked?") in the Old Testament used in Gen 48:12 “And Joseph brought them out from between his knees, and he bowed himself with his face to the earth.” (KJV) (Where Joseph introduces his little children to Jacob.) The following is how Strong’s Lexicon defines the word:

5973 `im (eem); from 6004; adverb or preposition, with (i.e. in conjunction with), in varied applications; specifically, equally with; often with prepositional prefix (and then usually unrepresented in English): KJV-- accompanying, against, and, as (X long as), before, beside, by (reason of), for all, from (among, between), in, like, more than, of, (un-) to, with (-al).

The Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, popularly used in the first century includes the word for “with” in the text. The Greek is meta From The LXX: meta; a primary preposition (often used adverbially) transliterated spelling Meta (met-ah') meaning; with, after, behind. As with the Hebrew it is not restricted to relationship usage.

What about the Lesson Study Guide’s “elements” that suggest that Eve was alone, despite the overwhelming scholarship of Bible translators? The elements, as are so much of the Genesis account, subjects of speculation. The story is very brief and details are very few. Rather than assuming that the intent of the story is to tell us that Eve was alone because the serpent only talks with Eve, we could also speculate the authors intent was to show the weak nature of a woman, (see 1 Timothy 2:14) this is what happens when man is silent and lets the woman direct conversation. While these are both speculative the idea that makes women appear weak is most contextually consistent with the curses subsequently given, (Genesis 3:16 “he will rule over you.") as well as the historical evidence of the Patriarchal system which is found throughout Genesis and the Old Testament.

One could also speculate that the reason for Eve being the only one to talk to the serpent was because in a perfect world there was no need for one to look after the other. No patriarchal worldview, a woman could actually speak for herself and think for herself. A woman did not need to have man’s permission to talk. This is a very empowering feminist ideal but contextually and culturally not likely the reason. Maybe the reason for the conversation between Eve and the serpent is because it would be a more direct literary device to write the account that way. The reason why the Lesson Study Guide needs to stretch the truth so far is very likely that they are attempting to make the actual Biblical account correlate with the account that Ellen White wrote. Even though there is nothing in the Creation account about Adam and Eve having conversations with angels or having any knowledge of Satan or offering sacrifices, those areas of omission are not as troublesome as having the Biblical account specifically go against the account written by Ellen White.

It would seem that even though the Lesson Study Guide tried to create a fictional word usage to reconcile Ellen White’s version with the Bible they have still left themselves in an untenable position. Now the first sin was not eating the fruit but Eve’s disobedience in not following the instructions of God delivered to her by the angels to remain by Adam’s side. Even worse, God would then be punishing Adam for ignorance because if he was not with Eve he would have no way of knowing about the source of the fruit Eve gave him. I applaud the Lesson Study Guide for being willing to deal with this discrepancy rather then ignoring it as has been done for many years. But very clearly they have overstepped logic and common sense.