Genesis in Symbol and Substance

Genesis in Symbol and Substance

By Ron Corson

Once my 7-year-old son came to me after watching a video about the Creation and the Garden of Eden. He stood beside me wrapped in a blanket since he as most of my children have determined clothing is not necessary at home. As I was cleaning the table, he said, "if they had not eaten the fruit of that tree then we would all live forever". I told him that is right and asked him why did they eat the fruit of that tree. He looked back at me blankly, so I said the real problem was that they, Adam and Eve did not trust God. They thought they knew more than God did, they rejected God by their actions, but it was their attitude that caused the problem, not the tree or its fruit. As you can imagine the light did not go on over his head, he has enough respect not to tell me I was crazy. Yet, the look on his face told me that to him, it was the act of eating from the bad tree that caused us all to have to die. However, as with most of the Bible, understanding the substance behind the stories can lead to far greater understanding the then literalism that a child sees.

In the last century there has been much written about the first chapters of Genesis. Much has dealt with the literal or figurative nature of the seven days of creation. Even with all that has been written there is a great divide which remains between the different proponents of each idea. Whether a Genesis day is 24 hours or 1000 years is not the focus of this article. Instead, the focus is on the substance behind the things written in the first few chapters of Genesis, that is, how to look for the meaning within the story. As with most stories the goal may not be to present a precise time line and sequence of action of our beginnings. But to express to the listener in general terms how we are in the situation that we see around us now.

The first six days of creation are quite easily understood. In fact, it is stated in the very first verse.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Gen 1:1

 

The steps in the process are listed as on one day something was created and it was good, and the next day something else was created. It is a simple formula which reemphasizes the central thought of the chapter, that God created everything we see. How it precisely was done is not indicated energy changed to matter or creation from nothing to something simply by the will of God. It is of little importance for even in a society as technologically advanced as ours today is, it is a mind-boggling idea. Would it be any more understandable to the hunter or the shepherd of ancient Israel? Still the substance remains; God created the Heavens and the Earth.

The story continues that after all we see was created man was added to the scene. The story does not concern itself with details, how did man learn to talk, was he created with knowledge or did he have to learn the multitudes of things which humans have to learn to live. Man is given dominion over all he sees. This is demonstrated in the small but amazing detail which tells us that man gave names to all the animals. No small task even if man only spent one second on each animal. (Scientist speculate that only 10% of the species that have ever lived are currently alive.)

The story has told us so far that God created the Heavens and the Earth, Sun and moon, plants and animals and mankind. That is the substance, the how’s and why can still be debated as vigorously as anyone wants to debate them. What it has done is to set the stage with everything that mankind sees around them.

Now of course a problem occurs, the problem is clear to all people, we are not living in a paradise where mankind rules all of nature. The story moves to tell us how we arrived at the current situation. It has presented us with a God created world which is good, however now the focus changes to man, God the prime mover thus far steps back from the action.

Adam means, "man" in the symbol we see him as the representation of all men. Eve means life-giver literally the first woman, the representation of all women. Our focus is to look at the substance of the story, what is the story trying to tell us as well as those who first heard the story. The story is often viewed as historical, but as we look at the story do not remove the possibility that there is symbolism which can lead more to the expression of concepts rather then merely lessons from their failures.

Before we continue with the story Gen. 2:10-14 diverges to give a geography lesson. The topography mentioned might have had significance to the ancient Israelites or it may have not. We are left with little explanation for this aside in the story. Possibly it is to set Eden in the geographic center, whatever the names indicate they are of far latter origin then the Eden story. We shall for this time ignore the two different accounts of the creation often identified as the account of chapter 1 and the account of chapter 2, and work as if it is one story.

 Gen 2:9 And the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground--trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Gen 2:16 And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; Gen 2:17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."

 

As we move to the man portion of the story God has set two trees in the Garden, one of life and the other of the knowledge of good and evil. No directions are given for the tree of life, only a restriction for the tree of knowledge of good and evil. There are certain religions which from this tiny amount of information given so far have determined that if the first man and woman had not eaten of this tree mankind would not know good as well as knowing evil. To them, it was necessary for mankind to fail the test. This is here pointed out not to make fun of their teachings but rather as a warning not to jump on something and makes claims that are ill supported. It is a call to look to the substance.

When most Christians read this story they often interpret the events in the light of scripture written latter. This is normal and appropriate for us, but it may also be useful to look at the story the way one hearing it for the first time would think about it. As the story was most likely heard in the format we see now sometime after the exodus from bondage of the children of Israel. To them it would not be a dramatically different story from the ones that the religions around them taught. Order from chaos is a main feature of many ancient myths. Even what we may think is the most unusual aspect of the story, the talking serpent, is not unusual. Talking animals are also common in many ancient myths. We cannot say where the stories began if the myths are distortions of the actual history, or if the myths influenced the Hebrew creation story. We could hide behind a claim that God would never condone the use of myths but that is merely a prejudice we have placed on God. God has always had a tendency to reach people where they were, in the effort of bringing them to where He wants them to be. No one can read the Old Testament from beginning to end without noting how people’s views of God grew and changed. From a God appeased by sacrifices to a God who loved and redeemed. From Warrior God to Redeemer God, God was not changing but people were changing. They moved from the angry God to a God of love.

In the story, God has set before mankind the choice between life and death. Life is shown in the Tree of Life, Death is revealed in the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil. For the latter tree brings death. If the tree of Life defines itself as Life, then the other tree defines itself likewise. It was against God's will for man to experience the Tree of knowledge of good and evil, this tree represents rebellion against God. The distrust, which says that what God has told us, is not for our good, we know more than God. A God who withholds from us good is selfish at the least and evil at worst. These words are the words the serpent used to tear apart the relationship between God and man. Now out of this chaos God created life so in substance the Tree of Life represents God. The Tree of knowledge of good and evil in substance represents the rebellion against God. What we today like to call sin.

In the story there is a talking serpent; the substance of the serpent is that of an adversary, someone opposed to God, planting thoughts of distrust about God. In the story the serpent gives rise to the questions about God's goodness. It is the voice of doubt, the voice of self-exaltation, the voice of human sinfulness and rebellion.

After Adam and Eve eat the fruit of the forbidden tree, they realize that they have done something wrong. The symbol is that they notice they are naked, they would have no reason to feel ashamed at the way they were created except for now they know they are no longer good as they were declared when created. The nakedness symbolizes their inability to hide from God the wrong they have committed. Even after their actions are discovered the first man and woman pass the blame to others. Adam blames both God and the woman ("the woman you put here with me"), Eve blames the serpent. It is here that we see the consequences given for the actions. The consequences like the other elements in creation are things which we see around us everyday.

The serpent is cursed above all creatures and doomed to crawl on its belly. By using it as the symbol of temptation and rebellion every time a person who has heard the story of the creation and sees a snake the story is remembered. The natural fear which people have of snakes because of their silent stealth and poisonous danger is described as enmity between both the serpent and the woman's offspring. Man will crush the serpent’s head and the serpent with strike man's heel. After the incarnation of Christ, people have looked back at this verse as Christ crushing the head of Satan. Christ as the offspring, and Satan as the ultimate adversary.
For the woman increase of pain in childbirth is instituted, again explaining something that is readily seen around us. The male will rule over you is the next curse placed upon the woman, again explaining the patriarchal society found throughout the world. To Adam the ground is cursed and will require painful toil, producing thorns and thistles. As before the curses declare to the listener things that are ever present on the earth.

The Lord makes for the couple garments of skin, a covering for their nakedness. Many people wrongly assume a sacrificial system inaugurated at this point. Assuming that God killed one or more animals to cover the people with an animal skin. But that is not really indicated it is developed by people inserting events into the story which were not there. The verse never even says animal skins and it is no simple or quick matter to make garments out of a skinned animal without proper preparation. If we are not sidetracked by inserting extra details into the story we can see what the substance of the garments is. The substance is that after the rebellion, and the finger pointing and the curses of mankind and the environment, God shows concern for the people. He covers their nakedness. Later in both the remainder of the Old Testament and again in the New Testament we will see that the covering is symbolic of forgiveness.

Man now experiences the results of evil and is no longer entitled to live in the presence of life. This is symbolized by the Tree of Life which is within the Garden of Eden. Therefore, mankind is banished from the Garden of God. Placing cherubim with a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the Tree of Life. The substance here is that mankind will not find his way back to the Life unless God once again opens the road. Man now lives separated from God. The creation story does not introduce people to the plan of salvation, redemption and reconciliation, they will be revealed later through the prophets and apostles and ultimately through Jesus Christ.

Whether we look at the story as a literal or a metaphorical story the substance remains generally the same. While those who prefer to look at the story as a literal historical occurrence in practice look to the substance of the meaning behind the events. Take for instance the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Even those viewing the story as historical, note that it was the act of disobedience which was the first sin. It was not the fruit of the tree which somehow revealed to mankind what evil was. This is an entirely proper analysis; it goes to the substance of the story. However, if you talk to the same people about the Tree of Life it is the actual fruit that is eaten which provides eternal life. They have left the substance that is that God is the creator and source of life, to a very literal view that the fruit of the Tree of Life provides eternal life. When moving to that literalistic view many unanswerable questions will arise. For instance, did God create mankind with a self-restricting mechanism to die unless they ate from the Tree of Life? Does the devil and his demons eat of the Tree of Life since they do not seem to die?

To this point, we have predominately looked at the first three chapters of Genesis in a very restricted view. Looking at the story more in the light of a thoughtful person, who knew little about the Hebrew God, yet was familiar with other religious myths, much like the Israelites. Now we shall begin an analysis using the rest of the Bible to help us understand more of what God has intended for us.

Since we have just looked at the Tree of Life let us begin there again. It has been said by some that a tree is a tree. That usually would be true only if we knew for certain what the writer meant when making his/her statement. Consider the following: 

She is a tree of life to those who embrace her; those who lay hold of her will be blessed (Prov 3:18)

The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he who wins souls is wise. (Prov 11:30)

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life. (Prov 13:12)

The tongue that brings healing is a tree of life, but a deceitful tongue crushes the spirit. (Prov 15:4) (NIV)

 

Simple metaphors are represented here in Proverbs, which should confuse few people with their intent. Aside from the verses in Genesis to which we have already alluded and those found in Proverbs, the book of Revelation is the only other place where the phrase Tree of Life occurs.

 

 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God (Rev 2:7)

On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations (Rev 22:2)

"Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. (Rev 22:14)

And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book. (Rev 22:19) (NIV)

 

As we look at these verses though they are not the simple metaphors of Proverbs they are however much more metaphor then literal when the thoughts around them are observed. Such as phrases like: leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations, and Blessed are those who wash their robes. While overall most Christians do not take Revelation too literally, it is especially noticeable when certain words or phrases are removed for the symbolic or metaphorical context and taken to be literal. This is sometimes the case when certain Christians read books like Isaiah and Ezekiel with the same results. Most often this is seen in those who hold that Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 are references to Satan. (See Lucifer Misidentified) Ezekiel gives us another excellent example of an instance where a tree is not a tree. Speaking of Egypt the verse says:

"Son of man, say to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to his hordes: "`Who can be compared with you in majesty? (Ezek 31:2)

 

The cedars in the garden of God could not rival it, nor could the pine trees equal its boughs, nor could the plane trees compare with its branches-- no tree in the garden of God could match its beauty. I made it beautiful with abundant branches, the envy of all the trees of Eden in the garden of God. (Ezek 31:8-9) (NIV)

 

The metaphor not only provides poetic beauty but it moves the listener past the world of concrete reality to the place where the meaning or the message can be seen. However it requires the listener to look past the concrete language and analyze the words in the full context of the statement.

The tradition within the Christian church has been to see the serpent as the devil, Satan. (It is not until the book of Revelation that the connection is made between the serpent in Eden and Satan, Rev 20:2) This may not have been the typical Jewish understanding since the connection with Satan is not drawn anywhere in the Old Testament. Yet, when the substance of the story is examined it matters very little if Adam and Eve were deceived by an outside being or if the thoughts of rebellion against God came from inside their own minds. The point is that trust in God had been abandoned.

Now think of the serpent used by Moses in the desert to find protection:

The people came to Moses and said, "We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away from us." So Moses prayed for the people. The LORD said to Moses, "Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live." So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived. Num 21:7-9

 

It is doubtful that people looked at the snake as a symbol of Satan, as it was lifted up. The snake was, as used in Genesis the symbol of the curse of rebellion, and how nature itself in some ways had become man’s enemy. Their rebellion here in the wilderness and the way out of their destruction lay in the hands of God. The typology of the snake lifted up by Moses is often correspondent with Christ being lifted up on the Cross.

But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself." John 12:32 (NIV)

The correspondence is that looking to Christ provides the sinner with salvation just as looking to the snake lifted up in the wilderness provided healing from the venomous snakebites. But as we look more at the substance we can see also that as the snake was the symbol for rebellion and the curse of sin, Christ is also the symbol for rebellion and sin. As the children of Israel rebelled against Moses about being led into the wilderness and even complained about the Manna which God provided, Christ stands as the ultimate result of mankind’s rebellion. Christ was lifted up, crucified by the cruel hatred so often demonstrated by humanity. In Christ, we see the ultimate result of sin; that rebellious man would go so far as to kill his or her own creator.

The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus. You handed him over to be killed, and you disowned him before Pilate, though he had decided to let him go. You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you. You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this. Acts 3:13-15 (NIV) 

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Cor 5:21 (NIV)

 

Christ brings to light the true nature of the rebellion against God. A dramatic representation of just where our rebellion takes us. Man has killed his fellow man since the very beginning of time, but Christ death shows us that we can indeed commit acts that are more horrible. But we need not be left in our own disgusting circumstances. We can repent and accept again the God who offers us life.

Then Jesus cried out, "When a man believes in me, he does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me. When he looks at me, he sees the one who sent me. I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness. John 12:44-46 (NIV)

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; John 11:25 (NIV)

 

From the Curse upon the snake in Eden... to the curse of snakes upon the children of Israel in the wilderness... to the curse of a Christ hung on a tree, all point out the rebellion of man. All should lead us to the answer to the problem, to put to death our hostility against God and accept His gift of life. We should not point fingers as did Adam and Eve in the Garden we must learn to accept our own responsibilities for our rebellion. The devil did not cause man’s fall, man did. It may well be that we do not understand the role of the adversary, but it is clear that we can not battle the adversary ourselves. As with all things concerning salvation it is through the power of God working in us that we press toward the mark, the total reconciliation with God.

 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree." Gal 3:13 (NIV)

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. Eph 2:13-22 (NIV)

 

When time is spent looking at the substance of the first chapters of Genesis it is possible to see far more then the supposed historicity they are said to contain. The story tells us far more when we do not have to worry about how creation occurred or what time frame may be involved. Problems such as who did Cain marry or just what inspired the people to present animal sacrifices no longer become problems. Our understanding of the ancient world does not have to be based on sparse information. We become free to say that we do not know all we may want to know, and yet what has been provided gives us enough information to recognize our situation. The story of the first chapters of Genesis may indeed be historic; but then again, they do not have to be. The substance behind the story is the key, what does God want us to learn from the stories is the important point.
 

So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven. 1 Cor 15:45-49 (NIV)

What is the first prophecy

I keep reading the Adventist Today Blog, though I am constantly amazed at some of the material that Stephen Foster posts. For example he has an article entitled the Purpose of Prophecy. In it he writes:

"Prophecy is the God-inspired revelation of what He wants those who claim/believe Him to know. In the 66 books that comprise the canonical narrative, the first prophecy we come to is the one which encapsulates the entire remaining narrative writ large—Genesis 3:15. It is the prophecy describing God’s plan.

Is the first prophecy the prototypical prophecy? Does it reveal to us what prophecy is all about in terms of purpose? It tells us what will happen and why; but not how it will happen. Subsequent prophecies, particularly those of the prophet Isaiah, certainly do reveal, or detail, how. (Isaiah 7:14 comes to mind for example.)"

If the first prophecy is some kind of prediction of what will happen then it is certainly not Gen. 3:15 all though that verse is frequently cited by ill informed people as being a messianic prophecy. It of course is not and is never referred to in the rest of the Bible in anyway to the Messiah. But as with much of the first chapters of Genesis people read into it what they want.  But let us assume it presents a predictive prophecy, is it the first one? No it is not we read the following in Gen. 2:17

 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not 1eat, for in the day that you eat from it ayou will surely die.”

So what if it is meant to be Stephen's prototypical prophecy. Well that is open to question. It goes back to the old canard that the first use of a word in the Bible is supposed to be the key to understanding any and all uses of that word.

When ever I read Stephen I think how sad that there are so many Adventists who think so little and talk so much. They regurgitate their traditions and don't have a clue when their traditions are errant at all because as a tradition, they rarely question what they already believe. That is the biggest problem in Adventism and in religion in general.

And then God made the sun visible on the 4th day.

I am so frustrated by the infantile nature of this quarters lessons. It is sort of like they are written by a someone in Kindergarten.  Take for instance this from Sunday's lesson:

A third possibility is that the sun was already in existence but was obscured by clouds or volcanic dust and was not visible or fully functional until the fourth day. One can compare this possibility with the planet Venus, where a similar situation occurs today.

Somehow created suddenly becomes made visible " Gen 3:16 "Then God made two great 4lights" Or what about the third possiblity that of volcanic dust...are they trying to tell us that God used natural processes, actual destructive processes in his creation? I wish they would acknowledge the obvious but they really aren't.

They of course know that the sun moon and stars made on the 4th day does not work. There would be no water on the earth without a sun anyway, it would just be a solid ball of ice. No ocean, no liquid water. They also have to know that light created on the first day is not the light of God. If as they assert God is light then He has always been light He would not have to create himself as light on the first day.

If you want to make the verses in Genesis literal...well it just does not work anyway you slice it. But foolish people keep trying.  Of course venus is not dark just because of their methane clouds the planet very likely sees the light of the sun during it's day. But sad to say the lesson quarter assumes really strange things. But really should our religion be based on strange and foolish assumptions...I think not.

Redefining Theology, Goldstein and Genesis

There was an interesting comment over on the Spectrum Magazine blog concerning Clifford Goldstein's March 2012 article in the Adventist Review, the subject of my previous article. In the comment section one atheist/former (you have to know his history of comments to know this fact it is not present in this comment) Adventist writes:

“All of you seem to have skipped Cliff's challenge: "For years I’ve been asking someone to give me a reinterpretation of the texts, based on the Darwinian worldview, that doesn’t undermine almost everything we believe: the trustworthiness of the Bible, the origin of sin and death, the character of God, and the meaning of the cross."

In the interest of not repeating the same old arguments and posts we've seen so many times before, why not seriously address his point. Cliff's argument is not with science per se; his point is that he is not willing, under any circumstance, to give up on the Christian gospel. If evolution allowed him to keep his faith intact, he would be happy to acknowledge the science behind it, if I read him correctly. The reason I think he is so angry at you is that he believes that you're eroding the ground upon which Christianity is built.”

I think this raises an important observation, Goldstein has not seen anyone produce a theistic evolutionary response that leaves in tact all of Goldstein's theological assumptions. No one really tries to answer Goldstein because it can't be done and contain all of Goldstein's assumptions that make what Goldstein considers the gospel. In brief what does his view of the trustworthiness of the Bible mean. Well he means that the first 11 chapters of Genesis are literal and historically accurate. Something no theistic evolutionary accepting Christian would accept. So to Goldstein to deny the literalness denies the trustworthiness of the Bible. But for those of us who accept theistic evolution trustworthiness is not based upon literalness.

The origin of sin and death is not really the topic of the first chapters of Genesis. Sin is not even mentioned until the story of Cain and Abel. Death is mentioned as a consequence of actions. Because of Adam and Eve's actions the tree of life is removed from their access. The story is hardly about the origin of sin and death, even Adventists seem to acknowledge that sin originated with Satan and Satan is not even mentioned in the Genesis story. He is a later addition to Jewish thought and then attributed to be the serpent of old in the book of Revelation. So even to the Adventist the subject is not the origin of sin.

What Goldstein means by the character of God I don't know, I would guess from his article he is thinking; how can God create through a system of death where animals and plants grow change and die and evolve. Apparently it is OK for God to make animals become predators upon others and virus and plants to attack and kill a host because God is upset by human sin. But he has to draw the line somewhere and he choses the evolution of nature to be somehow contrary to the character of God. Personally I don't see any problem with death before Adam and Eve, the assumption that it is not involved in the Genesis story seems wrong to me as the people in the story eat. So they are destroying cellular material and that is death. This is not a real problem unless you take the perfect world idea to it's logical conclusion, bacteria would grow and exponential rates and cover the earth in less then a week (maybe even 24 hours) if there was no death. The story is not trying to tell us there was no death, that is something people like to read into the story. Goldstein's assumptions are part of the things read into the story and he wants them maintained when they should be let go.

Last is his meaning of the cross. Goldstein is a forensic atonement person. I don't accept the substitutionary atonement, so I really would not find my meaning of the cross to be the same as Goldstein. In fact I think the substitutionary atonement theory speaks terribly about the character of God.

So can anyone do what Goldstein wants done? No, because what he wants is to find his beliefs encompassed with a totally different understanding of theology. His view is traditional but that hardly makes it correct. Traditions come and go, they are constantly adjusted and changed and just because they are traditional does not prevent their evolution. But that is what Goldstein wants; his tradition to be maintained, if not he can't accept anything else. But that really does not leave him in the position of authority in rejecting other views. It only means he won't look at anything other then the way he sees things.

The atheist commenter on Spectrum wants us to admit that the idea of evolution destroys the gospel. It does not, it destroys the fundamentalist or the traditionalists gospel. But is that really a bad thing?

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.

Glenn Beck and Daniel Lapin unique view of the tower of Babel

I have a friend who is always seems to be surprised  by my critiques of sermons or articles I hear or read. When he hears the same sermon he only appears to focus upon the things that he agrees with and discounts and maybe even forgets anything that could be troubling to a discriminating listener. I think the reason he does this is because if the sermon ends with a point that he agrees with…a point that he agrees is a good point or has had some good points somewhere in the sermon it was a good sermon. How the person got to his good point if it involves logical fallacies or simply completely wrong facts or even absurd theology, well those things don’t matter if the overall point is regarded as good. I am not like that. If the point is arrived at through false information I look at the point as being unjustified. I may agree with the overall point but if the case is not made the speaker or article has wasted my time. If you have a good point; make it with a good case and factual information rather than made up information.

Recently Glenn Beck produced a great example of this kind of false information to a good point. As I have said before I like Glenn Beck and agree with him on a lot of things but when it comes to the Bible and theology he is an absolute amateur. I have found that to be true of the several Latter Day Saints I have talked with personally. Interestingly the Latter Day Saints did better on general religion knowledge in a recent survey.

“On average, Americans correctly answer 16 of the 32 religious knowledge questions on the survey by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life. Atheists and agnostics average 20.9 correct answers. Jews and Mormons do about as well, averaging 20.5 and 20.3 correct answers, respectively. Protestants as a whole average 16 correct answers; Catholics as a whole, 14.7. Atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons perform better than other groups on the survey even after controlling for differing levels of education.”  

Of course general religious knowledge is much different from actually understanding the Bible or its stories. In this case Glenn Beck brings in Rabbi Daniel Lapin to tell us of his unique view of the story of the tower of Babel. You can read the transcript of the Glenn Beck Television show here and I will quote several sections below as I compare their version to the Bible and standard Biblical reference works.

You all know the story of the tower of Babel…well no you don’t most Adventists think that the tower was built in the hope to save the people in case God sent another flood. Of course that is not in the story and the story is really quite short so I will post the relevant verses here.

Genesis 11:1-9

1          Now the whole world had one language and a common speech.

2          As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.

3          They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar.

4          Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth."

5          But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building.

6          The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.

7          Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other."

8          So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city.

9          That is why it was called Babel-- because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth. (NIV)

From the Transcript:

[Beck says] Let's just look at the legend itself. I don't believe it's a legend. But what is it teaching? A great king says let's build a tower. What's wrong with that?
LAPIN: Right. Well, a few things are wrong with it.
First of all, he didn't actually say — according to Chapter 11 in Genesis and these nine verses really reveal this dark secret that lies at the deepest recesses of the human soul, which is our susceptibility to become slaves. It's there. It's ready. It can pounce at any moment and transform us into serfs.
And sure enough, these nine verses in Chapter 11 in Genesis, as you say, the King Nimrod doesn't say let's build a tower. He starts off with this extraordinary pronouncement: Hey, everybody, let's build bricks. And then he says let's build a city and a tower.
Now, ordinarily people would say, hey, let's build a city and a tower. A shining city on the hill, said John Winthrop. And people will say, how are you going to do it? Well, we'll make bricks. No, here, the key thing was let's make bricks.
And what's more he's not identified necessarily or early as a king. He's first identified as a hunter back in Chapter 10, verses 8-10.
Now, here's the key thing about that, Glenn — everybody was hunting.
BECK: Right.
LAPIN: Today, it's just the good guys hunt. But back then, everybody hunted. That's how you ate.
Why on earth would this one man, Nimrod, be identified as a hunter? Because he hunted, not animals, he hunted people. Not to kill them, he hunted people to seduce them into becoming his subjects and to allow him to become their master.
BECK: OK. So, he said — Nimrod, a great hunter of man, he says, let's build bricks. And then let's build a city. Why did he say let's build bricks first? What do the bricks represent?

Since Lapin begins with Nimrod and honestly the Bible says very little about Nimrod here is what it does say:

Genesis 10:8-12 Cush was the father of Nimrod, who grew to be a mighty warrior on the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the LORD; that is why it is said, "Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the LORD." The first centers of his kingdom were Babylon, Erech, Akkad and Calneh, in Shinar. From that land he went to Assyria, where he built Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Calah and Resen, which is between Nineveh and Calah; that is the great city. (NIV)

1 Chronicles 1:10 Cush was the father of Nimrod, who grew to be a mighty warrior on earth. (NIV)

Micah 5:6 They will rule the land of Assyria with the sword, the land of Nimrod with drawn sword. He will deliver us from the Assyrian when he invades our land and marches into our borders. (NIV)

That is it; the Bible says nothing else about Nimrod. Granted there are all kinds of legends about Nimrod after all The Two Babylons by Alexander Hislop has quite a bit to say about Nimrod and the dastardly influences of Nimrod upon Christianity. But then Hislop’s book is terribly inaccurate, even the mythology he uses is inaccurate. Of course most of the books that Hislop quotes are relics of history so who knows if he is quoting them accurately or not. But comparing his material with more scholarly works dealing with ancient myths the differences are profound. But that is just a side note to our story. For our purposes let’s just acknowledge that the Bible says nothing about Nimrod being a hunter of men whether as big game or politics. He is never said to even be a king in the Bible but does found a number of cities. It is often assumed that Babel is the beginning of Babylon, as the Expositor’s Bible Commentary points out:

“One ends in Babylon, the other in the Promised Land. It is hard not to see this positioning of the account of Babylon as deliberate on the part of the author of Genesis, especially in light of the continuous interplay between the name Shem (shem) and the quest for making "a name" (shem) both in the account of the building of Babylon (11:4) and in the account of God's election of Abraham (12:2).”

The writers of Genesis rather liked to imply somewhat less than complementary beginnings for the nations that surrounded the Hebrews. Aside from the confusion of the failed tower of Babel, a couple of other nations were attributed to Lot getting drunk and having sex with his daughters.

Genesis 19:36-38  So both of Lot's daughters became pregnant by their father.

The older daughter had a son, and she named him Moab; he is the father of the Moabites of today. The younger daughter also had a son, and she named him Ben-Ammi; he is the father of the Ammonites of today. (NIV)

For now we can just note the tendency, what it means…if it was true or an attempt to denigrate is up in the air depending upon your method of interpretation.

The most obvious answer to the Genesis statement about let’s build bricks is to introduce the idea of city construction. After all there is only so much you can do with building by placing stones upon stones. If you quarry and cut stones you can do much higher but that does not appear to be the intention in Genesis 11 here it explains the establishment of a city and of course the tower which many scholars think is a ziggurat. But Rabbi Lapin has other ideas.

LAPIN: Two differences between bricks and stones.
Number one, every brick is the same as every other brick. That's the whole point. They're totally interchangeable. If you want to turn people to bricks, you are able to turn them into interchangeable social economic cogs that can be just plugged around society.

The second thing about bricks is they're made by man. Stones are each unique. When we have a tradition in Western civilization that man is created the image of God, what it really means is that just as God is unique, so is every single human being is unique, just like a stone.

Don't allow other people to turn you into bricks, retain the personality of a person for which you are created.

That is quite a leap from the building of a city to stones or bricks representing people. It does not follow the story at all if one interprets the bricks as people. After all in the story as they build all having a common language what happens? God says look at these people nothing can stop them they can do anything. In the story God comes down to stop the people from being so successful. In the story as it compares the two lines we can see that it is done so that the Hebrews can be established through Abraham. God is setting back the people at the city of Babel apparently so that the line which introduces Abraham will be able to compete.

BECK: OK. So, Nimrod is a guy and he says, we want — I'm going to build — I'm going to build bricks. Was it — was it a real religious society? Because this is right after the Great Flood. Everybody is wiped off and everybody is scattered their own way. They all have their own language, right?
LAPIN: Many different languages.
BECK: And they're all — and they're all worshipping God.
LAPIN: Yes.
BECK: And Nimrod comes and there's something about — you know, he had a — he had a new idea, right? Tell me about the new idea.

Here Beck and Lapin disagree with the very story they are telling. Saying they all had their own language when the Genesis story said everyone had the same language. It never says they were all worshiping the same God. As the story says of the children of Noah, they spread through the world.

Genesis10:32  These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood. (KJV)

Who they were worshiping is not known, but it is likely that if God was upset about Babel and if the tower was actually a ziggurat it is likely that there are religious implications involved. As that was the key issue that separated the monotheists of the Hebrew religion from those around them.

BECK: OK. And the mortar that holds those bricks together.
LAPIN: Yes now, in Hebrew, mortar is very related — same word really as the word materialism. And you can actually even hear the similarity transfer into the English language. Mortar — M, T, R are the key consonants. Material — matter — same word essentially.

Now we don’t have to read Hebrew to know what word is used and how it is translated. We have numerous scholars who have written numerous reference works on these words and the word for mortar is not materialism. As Strong’s says:

2563  chomer (kho'mer); from 2560; properly, a bubbling up, i.e. of water, a wave; of earth, mire or clay (cement); also a heap; hence, a chomer or dry measure:

KJV-- clay, heap, homer, mire, motion.

See also the Brown, Driver, Briggs and Gesenius Lexicon online

Water and clay, slime that sets, cements things together. The word makes complete sense as mortar because that is the context of the story. It makes no sense as materialism. Even when you build with stones you use mortar. It is frankly a bizarre bit of reasoning if it can even be called reasoning. Ultimately with this style of interpretation we see Beck say:

This may seem like a new story to you, but a new world order is not. The very fist time that this was tried — let me bring in Rabbi Lapin. He is the president of the American Alliance for Jews and Christians.

Rabbi, the very first time socialism or communism or new world order was tried was the Tower of Babel, right?
LAPIN: Yes.
…BECK: He said, Let's make people all like bricks, all the same, not like stone. The mortar that will hold those bricks together is materialism.
LAPIN: Yes.
BECK: And we'll have this utopia. We'll build a tower that will reach the heavens.
LAPIN: Yes. You will be able to fulfill your highest aspirations in that fashion.
BECK: We're all bricks.
LAPIN: And I urge people to read the story and to listen to us, not as if we're describing some long forgotten historic event, but we're describing what is really happening today and will happen in our grandchildren's generation somewhere in the world again.
It will happen over and over again.

This conclusion… this main point I agree with but it is not really found in the story of the tower of Babel and that makes the case not made at all and it frankly makes their attempt look foolish…at least to anyone who takes the time to actually read the story and check the word usage. Not that you can’t draw lessons from the story but they are not as far fetched as Beck and Lapin submit. As the Expositor’s Commentary says:

“Although by itself the story of the building of Babylon makes good enough sense as the story of man's plans thwarted in God's judgment, its real significance lies in its ties to the themes developed in the surrounding narratives. The focus of the author since the beginning chapters of the Book of Genesis has been both on God's plan to bless mankind by providing him with that which is "good" and on man's failure to trust God and enjoy the "good" God had provided. The characteristic mark of man's failure up to this point in the book has been his attempt to grasp the "good" on his own rather than trust God to provide it for him. The author has centered his description of God's blessing on the gift of the land: "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth" (1:28). The good land is the place of blessing. To leave this land and to seek another is to forfeit the blessing of God's good provisions. It is to live "east of Eden."

 

 

 

 

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.

Creation Confusion

I recently received a fund raising letter from a group called Reasons to Believe. In it the author Hugh Ross, who I actually had formerly thought was intelligent reflected on a conversation he had with an apologetics professor who noted that he got himself into trouble when his students brought up Genesis 1 with disputes over creation days 1 and 4.

“The professor listened intently as I pointed out how other biblical creation accounts, including Job 38-39, Psalm 104, and Proverbs 8 amplify the Genesis story of God’s activities on the six creation days. Since God inspired all of these accounts, the best interpretation of Genesis 1 will be one that yields an appropriately literal and consistent reading of all these relevant Scripture passages.”

“This integrative approach reveals that God created light when He created the physical universe before rather than on day 1. He also formed the Sun, Moon, and the stars before rather than on day 4 (even before day 1). His work on day 1 involved transforming Earth’s atmosphere from opaque to translucent, allowing light to penetrate Earth’s initially thick, dark cloud cover. His work on day 4 brought about transformation of this translucent (permanently overcast) atmosphere to a frequently transparent one, allowing the Sun, Moon, and stars to become clearly visible objects for the first time.”

“Not only does this approach to the Bible’s creation accounts resolve textural incongruities but it also removes apparent contradictions between what Genesis 1 teaches about cosmic history and what the book of nature—God’s other “book” of revelation—tells us about the Universe, Earth, and Earth’s life.”

It is surprising to me that Hugh Ross or the apologetics professor would think that this application of wisdom literature would clear anything up. Apparently though, the belief that something is inspired means that the inspiration is meant to only reveal literal, historical facts. That in itself is a huge problem but what about the idea that before day 1 of creation there was on Earth an “initially thick, dark cloud cover”. Would not that assumption cause a problem with Day 2

Gen. 1:6  And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." 7  So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. 8  God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning--the second day.

Apparently working on the atmosphere was a two day job, calling it light on day 1 because He made the dark heavy clouds transparent and then on day 2 separating the mass of water into water and sky. Of course you still have the problem of day 4 with the creation of the Sun, moon and stars so maybe the atmosphere clearing was a 4 day process and it did not really clear up noticeably until day 4 when the inhabitants, none of whom existed yet, could actually see the Sun, moon and stars.

Of course this is, as per the letter, based upon the book of Job which clearly was not trying to set out the order of creation. Such passages as this:

 (Job 38:5-12 NIV)  Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone-- while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy? "Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, when I said, 'This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt'? "Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place, that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it?

Does that really sound like we are meant to take it literally? The poetry of Psalms and Proverbs won’t really supply much to the problem either. What they do is provide ways that one can read whatever ideas they want into the poetry. Naturally since they are all inspired they must also all be saying the same thing and since inspired they must be telling us the literal historical truth about creation. They are in fact in agreement. But that agreement is on the creation and the Creator, not at all about the process. Christians that try to explain the process fail in the logic of agreement even between Genesis chapter one, not to mention the differences between Genesis chapter one and chapter two. We can never get past the reality of our universe and our planet in the universe. Surely God knew that man would some day understand space and planets and distant suns and galaxies and He would have meant that His inspiration would not be held to literal understandings which were used to reveal God to a primitive people. Inspiration is not meant to indicate literalness of the account but the import of the account: the establishment of God as the first cause, not how the First Cause worked. Thus the Genesis account reveals a world just like the world we see around us, it does not and cannot tell us about a world that the author or we don’t know or understand. We are here but we don’t see God, He has chosen to reveal Himself slowly over time in a step by step process that culminated in the incarnation of Jesus Christ, inaugurating the reconciliation between God and man, the now and not yet of the Kingdom of God which will never end.

As I recall Hugh Ross is not a young earth creationist, he understands the evidence is too much against that idea but he has not realized the limitations of inspiration that is meant to relate to all people for all time. That just because at one time people believed inspiration said the earth was created in 6 days and inspiration listed genealogies that could only go back a few thousand years (Ussher’s 4004 BC date) that we must continually believe what those people believed because they lacked the scientific knowledge which would have led them to different interpretations had they had the knowledge we have. In other words they have accepted the traditions as inspiration rather than allowing the inspiration to work with us were we are today.

Without realizing how it is tradition rather than inspiration that has created the confusion of creation even someone who is not strictly trying to read the Bible as a literal document gets into trouble: making poetry behave as if it is literal by just picking and choosing choice bits of the imagery. It however does not work, the Christian religion has no need to embrace scientific materialism but it also does not need to accept tradition simply because we, like the scientific materialists, can’t explain origins. Somewhere there is a middle ground and we never get to the middle ground as long as we refuse to move from the ground we hold now. We are in a time when knowledge increases so quickly that it is hard to remember a time when we had to use a coin operated pay phone. All those phone books now sit wasting space because it is faster to look up the local business or address on the internet. We can’t live in the past in a world that advances so rapidly and we only hurt ourselves when we try to live in the past.

We need to realize that we don’t have all the answers and that some of our answers were simply wrong before and move on.