Re: concordance & genesis (edited)

Like Don Perrett, whose post I saw this morning, I am somewhat late. By
coincidence, I wrote most of this post yesterday, without being aware of
Don's initiative. But I'm not going to modify this to adapt it to Don's
post and George's answer. So please excuse the few repetitions of
thoughts, with respect to both Don and George.

George Murphy wrote (some time ago):...
> GM: First, however, a general comment. It is all very well to agree in principle that the Bible contains various literary genres, and that not everything is historical narrative. But those who practice concordism never actually seem willing to admit that anything in the Bible that looks as if it _might_ be an historical account didn't actually happen, or didn't happen in the way described there. Genesis 1 & 2, the different parts of the flood story, the 2 accounts of Saul's 1st acquaintance with David - all of these _look_ as if they're composed of material from different sources, but the concordist immediately starts to figure out ways to "harmonize" them as historical narratives - as Peter did when I commented on the flood story. Why is this the case if one seriously entertains the idea that everything doesn't have to be historical narrative? <

PR: George is confounding two things which are quite different issues:
(1) "never actually seem willing to admit that anything in the Bible
that looks as if it _might_ be an historical account didn't actually
happen, or didn't happen in the way described there" and (2) "_look_ as
if they're composed of material from different sources". An historical
account may very well be composed of material from different sources,
such as many cases in the New Testament, where we have, e.g., four
evangelists (4 sources), but with an implied common historical origin.
Similarly, Luke in turn indicates having collected information from
various sources (1:1-3). In such cases, an attempt at harmonization
certainly is one the first rational steps required to understand what is
meant by the text. On the basis of differences between the four accounts
of the resurrection of Jesus, I certainly don't conclude that the
resurrection didn't actually happen. I agree that the Genesis flood
story might be composed of different accounts (although I'm not yet
convinced that it is), but if this is the case, it doesn't yet
definitely exclude historicity, and if it is in any way historical,
attempts at harmonization are certainly reasonable. In order to reject
the historicity of a story that looks historical, much more is required
than an impression that it looks as if it is composed of material from
different sources. (By the way, if I am talking of an historical flood,
I am thinking of a local one, like Dick Fischer).

> GM: Am I overstating the matter? Below I mention briefly the book of Jonah, & though this probably _isn't_ made up of material from different sources, there are good reasons to think that it isn't an historical account? Or will Peter & other concordists immediately start explaining that Nineveh really was as big as it says, that Jonah really said more than 5 words, that all the animals really did put on sackcloth, that the capital of Assyria really did undergo a mass conversion, &c. Or will they really consider the possibility that this isn't history. Surprise me. <

For Jonah, as well, George is overstating the matter. At least the
person of Jonah the son of Amittai is treated as an historical prophet
of Gath-Hepher in 2 Kings 14:25, which places him somewhere around the
time of the reign of Jeroboam II (782-753 BC). Niniveh was destroyed in
612 BC, and the contents of the book of Jonah are most reasonably placed
before the fall of Israel (the northern kingdom) in 721 BC. According to
Gen. 10:11-12, the "great city" of Niniveh apparently included the city
Niniveh proper, as well as Rehoboth-ir, Calah, and Resen, which are
distributed along a certain length of the river Tigris. Dur-Sarrukin and
Balawat may also have been included in "Greater Niniveh". Jonah 3:4
doesn't say the 5 words were all he said, and 3:8 doesn't say the
animals "put on sackcloth", but that the king gave the orders "let man
and beast be covered with sackcloth", which is not the same thing. I am
not in a position to comment on the extent of the awakening indicated.
But the way George formulates his argument is certainly prejudicial, not
really matter-of-fact.

The fact that Jonah clearly has a didactical thrust doesn't preclude
it's being historical narrative, at the same time. We may compare it
with its New Testament correlate, Acts 10-11:18 (introducing Peter to
the requirement of bringing the gospel to the Gentiles), which certainly
is both didactical and historical. Similarly the presence of miracles
doesn't eliminate the possibility of its being historical. Does it look
reasonable to assume that Jesus said, "as Jonah was three days and three
nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of man be three days
and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Niniveh will
arise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they
repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than
Jonah is here" (Mat. 12:40-41), while holding Jonah to be a parable?
Similar considerations apply to "This generation is an evil generation;
it seeks a sign, but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of
Jonah. For as Jonah became a sign to the men of Niniveh, so will the Son
of man be to this generation" (Luke 11:29-30). Would a purely
hypothetical "should not I pity Niniveh?" (Jonah 4:11) make sense in a
merely didactical parable?

Notice that, up to this point, I haven't indicated whether I believe the
story to be historical. But I certainly have difficulties taking it as
entirely fictitious.

> GM: & this is why it was reasonable for me to ask Peter what of theological value would be lost if Job were fiction, & why it wasn't an answer for him to ask what would be lost if it were fact (i.e., history). The situations are not symmetrical because I certainly believe that major passages in the OT are historical narrative while the practice of concordists suggests that they aren't willing to consider that some aren't. But as I said, surprise me. <

You are probably right in thinking that I consider more of the biblical
texts as historical than you do. But I was never tempted to take
Jotham's story of the trees anointing a king over them (Judges 9:7-15),
the Good Samaritan, or poor Lazarus and the rich man as historical
narratives.
 
> GM: The question isn't whether it [one of the Genesis accounts] is a sophisticated or naive historical account, but whether it's an historical account at all.
> PR I agree that there are different forms or types of text in the Bible. But if we have an apparent narrative, what are the alternatives, if it is not an historical account? Myth, legend, etc., in the modern sense of the words, are clearly out, if there is any kind of divine inspiration at all. Parable, allegory, poetical simile, etc. clearly do occur in the Bible, but if they apply to an entire story, it usually is unmistakably marked as such. Furthermore, these forms may occur in a real historical account, as well (rather than having to be applied to the whole story as such). The decision about what form of story we are dealing with must be made on a case-by-case basis. It is often a matter of judgment, and different people (even scholars) often come to different conclusions.
> GM: No, myth, legend, etc., in the modern sense of the words, are NOT clearly out, if there is any kind of divine inspiration at all. You are presuming to say what types of literary forms God could or could not have condescended to use. On what basis? <

Could there be a semantical problem here? How do theologians define
myth? In Bultmann's sense of "demythologizing" the Bible? If a
demythologization is necessary, then obviously the "myth" had no
business being in the text, because, in Bultmann's opinion, it
"contradicts what we know to be true", like fairy tales. I don't agree
with Bultmann's designating biblical miracles as "myths", but I thought
his definition of myth would be about the same as a myth "in the modern
sense of the word". But it seems that your definition of "myth" is
different. And the designation "legend" reminds me of extrabiblical
childhood stories of Jesus and others, as well as apocryphal stories,
which we know have been invented. I don't see any presumption on my part
in thinking God would not use such human inventions as "literary forms",
at least not without making it perfectly clear that the story never
actually happened.

> GM: Furthermore, you are contradicting what you said in another place - that in inspiring the biblical writers God (inter alia) "fully respects the prophet's personality including his language, culture, lack of knowledge, way of thinking, etc." If the writers' cultures, ways of thinking &c made use of mythic language, legends &c, then God could have used them. <

If you consider what I said to be contradictory, you probably have not
understood it. I have repeatedly emphasized that I believe God is
perfectly capable of using a mode of inspiration which respects the
prophet's personality and culture, while gently persuading him to
select, from his own repertory of language and thought forms,
expressions and ways of writing which are not in conflict with what God
(perhaps not the prophet) knows to be true. Of course, this would allow
for the possibility of using a myth or legend, but not without clearly
labelling it as what it is (perhaps at least introducing it by something
like "Some people tell a story saying..."). I see this as being in the
same category of statements as saying that God cannot do
self-contradictory things, that he cannot lie, that he cannot deceive a
person trusting him, etc. Would such statements be presumtuous?

> GM: Having said this, I would add that much of the use of "myth" in the Bible is in the form of what Brevard Childs called "broken myth" - i.e., not just uncritical presentation of pagan myths but use of their language to express the faith of Israel. Childs' _Myth and Reality in the Old Testament_ is a very helpful treatment including detailed study of several texts.
> & the assumption that there has to be an explicit "fiction" label on an account in order for it not to be an historical narrative has no basis. Jesus doesn't do that with most of his parables. When I give a "story sermon" I don't always tell the congregation that it didn't really happen since I can assume that they have some brains. & if the writer of Jonah wanted to tell a story to argue against tendencies toward exclusivism in Israel, he would have weakened its effect by prefacing it with "This is just a story." He could have assumed that his readers had enough sense to see that the humorous exaggerations built into the account make its historical character questionable - though of course many modern readers don't! <

Even though Jesus often doesn't explicitely label his parables as such,
the context makes it abundantly clear which stories are parables. It is
just as clear that the collapse of the tower of Siloam, killing 18 (Luke
13:4), wasn't a parable, although he mentioned it in order to press a
didactical point. And who was the "writer of Jonah", if the text itself
claims to be written by the historical "Jonah the son of Amittai"? Do
you think such a deceptive label would be acceptable in a canonical
book? Humorous exaggerations are a normal language feature; they don't,
by themselves, make a story nonhistorical (e.g. British
understatements).

> GM: Finally, the question is not just about literary forms but about the writers' use of the state of the art knowledge of the world of their time. The writer of Gen.1 wasn't just writing a story in which the sky was a dome - he thought it really was a dome. <

From what I have said before, it should be clear that I think this is a
false assumption. And even if, for discussion's sake, the writer thought
it was a dome, the fact is that God prevented him from saying this. The
text does _not_ claim it is a dome, as "expanse" is a perfectly
reasonable translation of the Hebrew "raqia^".

> PR Of course the schemes of source criticism produce radically different results. In my comments about Rofe's book I mentioned in my last post I described in what way this kind of source criticism in fact destroys the entire history of Israel, and with it all of its theological content.
> GM: There are really 2 questions that have to be considered here. 1, is there evidence of different sources in the OT texts? & 2, are the various attempts of scholars to reconstruct these sources theoretically sound? As to the 2d, I agree that many attempts are too speculative & that attempts to distribute individual words & phrases among different sources may be of little value. Attempts to understand the composition of the Pentateuch as a scissors-and-paste job are now seen by many scholars to be much too simplistic.
> But the answer to 1 is as plain as the nose on your face as soon as you give serious consideration to the possibility at all. I noted the example of the Flood narrative in addition to Gen.1 & 2, & many other examples can be given. <

As I said above, in the case of the flood narrative, I agree that there
might have been two sources combined, although I probably would date
these sources and the combined write-up to the early 3rd millenium BC,
and I don't agree with the claim that there are contradictions between
them.

> GM: Please note that I have not described the biblical narratives as "ancient _mythological_ worldviews." The flat earth with solid dome of the sky & the waters above the heavens in Gen.1 are part of an archaic cosmology but it is not mythological. In fact, the writer of that text goes to some pains to _de_mythologize it. But that was done for theological purposes, not because either the human writer or the Holy Spirit were trying to teach us any aspects of _modern_ scientific cosmology.
> PR Now this is strange! A "flat earth with a solid dome of the sky & the waters above the heavens" is not mythology? If I understood correctly, those who claim to find this "archaic cosmology" in Gen.1 think it was taken over from polytheistic pagan myths, just substituting one God for the many gods to "demythologize" it, to put it somewhat simply. If this was the writer's agenda, why did he not clearly state it? The prophets like Isaiah had no qualms at all to call pagan gods "nothings", "dungheaps", etc. and to heap ridicule on those who insisted on believing in them and their worldviews.
> GM: Nothing strange there. There is no necessary religious significance to a "flat earth with a solid dome of the sky & the waters above the heavens." It's just the way a lot of people in the ancient near east saw the world - & from the standpoint of those living in a limited part of the world, not an especially stupid way of seeing it. In the Middle Ages some (though by no means all) Christians understood the world in this way without seeing any contradiction with Christian faith. <

Again, it seems that we are understanding "myth" differently. I have
never claimed a flat-earth-solid-sky view would be in contradiction to
Christian faith. This is not at all the reason why I consider it
unlikely to be contained in the Bible. Nor have I ever thought the Bible
would teach us any aspects of modern scientific cosmology. It seems to
me that you still don't understand my motivation for what you call
"concordism". Or maybe "concordism" is a historically precharged concept
which doesn't apply at all to what I am doing. What brought me to
consider these questions of harmonizing Bible and modern scientific
knowledge was the observation, repeated in very many cases in biblical
texts, that there is an unusual amount of possible concordance between
the text and science and that virtually all claimed contradictions or
errors in the text allow of a reasonable resolution.

You call the flat-earth worldview the normal "scientific cosmology" of
those times and up to the Middle Ages. This looks to me like an odd way
of talking. Do we call alchemy the "scientific chemistry" of the Middle
Ages, or astrology the "scientific astronomy" of the Babylonians? We
know astrology, alchemy and flat-earthism to be false, and we call it
that. For us, they are myths, in the modern sense of the word, whatever
their possible religious connotations might have been. Different times
and cultures had different amounts of factual knowledge, and ours, as
well, is incomplete. We probably err in certain respects, but we
generally also have a certain amount of knowledge about the reliability
of what we know, some knowledge is very secure, some other beliefs are
very tentative. I believe a somewhat similar situation obtains for
ancient people. They were not stupid - in this I agree with you.
Therefore I think they had, in general, some quite realistic knowledge
about the reliability of their beliefs about nature. As far as the shape
of the earth is concerned, it doesn't take very much observation to
arrive at the idea of a spherical earth, particularly for inhabitants of
seashores or large plains and for observers of the heavenly bodies. It
would be very strange if Pythagoras in the 6th century BC and
Eratosthenes in the 3rd were the only ancients who knew of the earth's
sphericity. I think the belief that most of the ancients believed in a
flat earth is a modern myth.

> GM: This is archaic geography & astronomy, not mythology. It is mythological when the world was made out of the body of Tiamat or Ymir, when the stars are deities that control human lives, &c. & the writer of Gen.1 demythologizes this cosmology by, e.g., putting the creation of the "great lights" - sans names that suggest divinity - in the middle of the week to serve definite purposes, & leaving the stars as an afterthought. It's more subtle demythologizing than calling the Babylonian gods nasty names, at least as effective. <

That's one interpretation.

> GM: I would not say that Gen.2:7 simply could not be about a single first human being who was a real historical (& historic - historische und geschichtliche) figure. But internal evidence indicates that it needn't be read that way & scientific evidence suggests that it shouldn't be. <

What scientific evidence tells us is that at the time of beginning
agriculture and husbandry there were certainly many more than just a few
humans, i.e. Adam was not the first man. But science cannot tell us
whether there was an unique man Adam. I am surprised that you still seem
to suggest that I believe the Adam of Gen. 2:7 to be "a single first
human being". I believe the Adam of Gen. 2:7 to be a real historical
figure, but descended from a human race created in God's image perhaps
100,000 years earlier and biologically/psychologically evolved from
still earlier hominids.

> PR You may not remember what Armin Held and I published in PSCF 4/1999, 231: we consider Gen.1:26f to deal with the creation of humans and 2:7 with the much later call of Adam, who was not the first man. But thinking these two passages talk of the same event is one of the main stumbling blocks for Genesis interpreters. It is probably one of the two main mistakes responsible for the fact that even evangelical theologians seem to feel that the only feasible way to interpret Gen.1-2 is to accept the source-critical speculations (the other main mistake is thinking Gen.1:14ff deals with the creation of the heavenly bodies).
> GM I see little merit in the arguments of that article. The idea that these are "stumbling blocks" is mere assertion on your part. The sun, moon and stars were made on the 4th day: The statement in your article that God "caused the previously permanent cloud cover to break open" is pure speculation. You are rewriting the Bible to make it fit your notions. It is a more serious error to imagine that 2:7 is the "call" of Adam, as I note below. <

I am sorry, George, if you would really mean what you write here, I
would have to return your compliments of "mere assertion", "pure
speculation", "rewriting the Bible to make it fit your notions", and
"serious error". I hope you don't, because in such a way, no rational
discourse and discussion is possible.

> PR Adam was not the first human. And "Yahweh God fashioned [yatzar] the Adam - dust [^afar] of the ground" (Gen.2:7) need not imply that this was Adam's miraculous creation out of non-living matter, just as little as for Job, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, who use analogous metaphors, even partly exactly the same words. "I too was taken from clay" (Job 33:6). He pleads with God: "Your hands shaped me and made me ... Re-member that you molded me like clay. Will you now turn me to dust [^afar] again?" (Job 10:8-9). But he also specifies: "Did not he who made me in the womb make them? Did not the same one form [not yatzar] us both within the womb?" (Job 31:15). Isaiah 64:8 says: "We are the clay [not ^afar] and you are our potter [participle of yatzar], we are all the work of your hand". Similarly, Jeremiah (1:5) was formed [yatzar] in the womb by God. Thus, "to be formed out of dust" by God, or "formed out of clay" (as a potter does) was a customary metaphor for God's making one gr!
ow in one's mother's womb. Didn't Job, Isaiah and Jeremiah consider their own births to be historical events (in addition to whatever theological statement they wanted to make in that connection)?
> GM: If you focus narrowly on the language of Gen.2:7 you can draw parallels with the passages you mention, but reading the entire story of 2:4b-25 makes it quite clear that it is about the first humans. The creature made in 2:7 is "the Adam" - "the human" who is given the commission of all humans, to guarad & keep the earth & to know the animals. "It is not good for the man to be alone" - which he wouldn't have been if he weren't the first human. <

Adam was not told to keep the earth, but to keep or guard [shamar] the
garden. In it, he first was alone. Outside, there were various Sumerian
and other tribes, engaged in cruel warfare, idolatry, superstition and
other perversions. They were apt to immediately kill any foreign
fugitive encountered, such as Cain. Satan was preparing to lure away
this new protégé of God. Yes, Adam, brought into a new, beautiful
spiritual relationship with God, was truly alone in Eden. From time to
time, God made a new beginning in his "Heilsgeschichte": with Noah,
Abraham, Moses, David,... Before Noah, it was with Adam. The aim always
was to prepare a way for his humans to be freed from the slavery of
godlessness, sin and corruption, into which they were fallen. Adam was a
representative for all humans - before, in, and after his time - just as
Christ is the "firstfruits" of the new race of the redeemed ones - of
all times.

> GM Adam is a theological representation of the first human. This is obvious in I Corinthians 15:47: "The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven." The whole Adam-Christ theme falls apart if Adam is not understood to mean the first human. You are selling out a major part of the theological significance of the creation stories. <

Was Christ the second man, or the last man, in the sense of time or
biological descent? No. The corollary of this is that Adam need not be
the first man in the sense of time or biological descent. I Cor.
15:45,47 and Rom. 5:12-21 have nothing to do with chronology or
genealogy, but with theology. "Just as we have borne the image of the
man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven" (I Cor.
15:49). This is valid for the Abraham of almost 2000 BC and many other
Old Testament saints, just as for us. The Adam-Christ theme does not
fall apart by this, on the contrary, it is established more firmly by
eliminating false add-ons to the theme. The theological significance of
creation is not sold out by this. But it is endangered by arbitrarily
dividing between admittedly historical persons of God's Heilsgeschichte,
starting with Abraham, and those living earlier being refused historical
recognition. There is no such arbitrary division between the "Old
Testament saints' gallery" in Hebr.11, nor in the genealogy in Luke
3:23-38.

It may not be very profitable to continue this particular discussion, as
you and I apparently begin our Bible interpretation with very different
axioms, so we often arrive at very different conclusions, with hardly
any hope of finding an agreement. I nevertheless appreciate very much
the time you have taken to discuss with me! And on many theological
points we are in happy concordance.

Shalom,
Peter

-- 
Dr. Peter Ruest, CH-3148 Lanzenhaeusern, Switzerland
<pruest@dplanet.ch> - Biochemistry - Creation and evolution
"..the work which God created to evolve it" (Genesis 2:3)