Re: A profound disturbance found in Yak butter.

In a message dated 5/30/2006 6:39:58 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
glennmorton@entouch.net writes:
I actually find this argument for a theological polemic a bit weak. If shmsh
and
yrch are both deity names, wouldn't it be more effective to have those names
created in the middle of the week? I mean, wouldn't that be more directly
damaging to their status as other religions?
Glenn, I don't think this is necessarily so. The pagan religions that I know
about all have deities being created throughout time rather than at its
beginning. In fact, most religions worship the 2nd or 3rd generation of gods
rather than the 1st or 2nd. Jupiter defeated the Titans who were the 2nd
generation after the primeval chaos and sky. Anu defeated the monsters sent by his
mother the sea goddess, etc. To say that shmsh and yrch were created in the
middle is probably not a polemic against worship of shmsh and yrch, at all.

However, I think the reasons for saying "big light" and "little light" go
beyond a simple avoidance of any pagan names. As you know, the text is obviously
structured with the first three days dealing with "formlessness" wherein God
gives the various realms of creation their form, and the last three days
dealing with "emptiness" ("void") wherein God populates the same realms in the same
exact order. So Days 1 & 4 deal with Light and Darkness; Days 2 and 5 deal
with waters and sky; Days 3 and 6 deal with Land and Garden.

After Day 1 separates light from darkness, then the parallel Day 4 must
populate discrete "lights" in the realms of light and darkness. The Big Light
rules the day and the Little Light rules the night -- so each realm that had been
separated from one another on Day 1 gets a ruler. These rulers must be
"Lights" (not material objects) simply because the parallel structure of Days 1 and
4 is dealing with "Lights" (not material objects). Hence, Moses avoids using
the word for the objects and uses the word for the phenomena "Lights" because
that is what the text is talking about. It wouldn't make sense to say "And
God put a giant chunk of rock in the sky to rule over the night, and an even
bigger ball of burning gas in the sky to rule over the day." It wouldn't make
sense because the problem God was dealing with was that the surface of the
waters was dark and needed light -- there was no problem with there being an
absence of balls of burning gas. So the structure of the text requires "lights" not
material objects to be consistent. (also, the reasons listed for God making
the Big and Little Lights are so that people can see them and thereby tell
time -- no reference to gravity or tides or warmth. It is all consistently
dealing with the phenomena of "light".)

This truly is a polemic against polytheism because God created them by simply
saying the word -- like an oriental ruler who speaks from his throne and the
entire realm goes into motion to accomplish his will, so God "speaks" (i.e.,
wills it) and without entering into the system of nature to do it Himself it is
done. I think this is a partial answer to your (Glenn's) question. The
Genesis account -- regardless of how we work out the details -- presents God as
transcendant over nature rather than as a participant within nature. All the
pagan religions have gods who are part of nature and "create" by cutting off
body parts from one another to make mountains, etc. But God simply speaks and
then within the system of nature it occurs. This is a truly awesome and
beautiful thing, and I think this is a reason to see the Bible as truly different
from all the other religions of the world. So at least this is a start to
answering your questions, Glenn, IMO. I don't think we should ever lose sight of
the fact that the Bible is truly elegant and awesome in the presentation of
God's relationship to nature.

Phil Metzger
Received on Tue May 30 19:40:49 2006