Which did God create first, man or animals?
Posted on Oct.18, 2008. Filed in Genesis. Average rating: 5.6 / 10 (Rate It).
The Bible begins in Genesis 1 with an account of God creating the world in six days and then resting on the seventh. Genesis 2 then gives a second Creation narrative. These two narratives differ concerning the order in which God created man and animals.
In Genesis 1, God creates animals and then humans:
And God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.’ And it was so. God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good.
Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’ So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. [Genesis 1:24-27 (NRSV)]
In Genesis 2, God creates man and then animals as possible helpers for him:
… when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up — for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground; but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground — then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being…
Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.’ So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever man called each living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner. [Genesis 2:5-7, 18-20 (NRSV)]
So in what order did God create life? Did he create man before or after the animals?
N.B. All posts are written in a style sympathetic to the claim of Biblical error, even in cases where the author ("Errancy") disagrees with the claim. See the About page for the site's philosophy.
75 Comments Ratings Email a Friend
Inerrantist Responses
To suggest a response to this claim of error, please use the comments section below.
Rate this Claim of Error
How serious a problem for inerrancy do you think this is?
Average rating: 5.6 / 10
You must be logged in to rate errors.
March 5th, 2009 on 1:52 pm
Unfortunately, I can’t see how to deal with this dilemma without getting into a fairly detailed analysis of the creation. So here goes.
The story of the seven days of creation gives a chronological account of God’s _speaking_. It is not intended to give a chronological account of how creation came to be as a result of God’s speaking.* To be sure it links the coming to be with the associated words of creation, so it is topically arranged in that way. Thus Man is God’s final word on creation (at least His final word here on Earth). Man may or may not be the very last thing on Earth that gets created.
The second account begins with a misty and muddy Earth, and the very first thing that God creates to bring order to this is Man. All other things are created either to be Man’s charges or to serve Man’s purposes. Finally a co-equal helper is made for Man to help him in all the work God has given him. Once again, the goal here is not to give a chronological account of the events of creation, but to explain Man and Woman’s role in it. Man may or may not be the very first thing on Earth that gets created.
Since neither account is necessarily chronological in terms of the order in which things come to be, it is not possible for them to conflict on a point of chronology.
There are a lot of questions I’m leaving to one side here for the sake of space and real relevance. In particular, I’m not going to talk about creation v. evolution except to say that I don’t think that what I’ve said so far really does much to harmonize evolution with the Bible.
—————————
*It is conceivable that God’s work is ‘done’ at the end of seven days in the sense that everything has been created and all the laws have been commanded that are necessary for all of the things that God has spoken to come to be. (In saying this, I do not intend to claim that laws of nature somehow constrain events without God’s constant support and maintenance.)
April 8th, 2009 on 12:12 am
WisdomLover, that sounds like an ad hoc hypothesis. I don’t think that rational persons would NATURALLY come to that conclusion. Such contortions result from a priori insistence on scriptural veracity.
April 8th, 2009 on 12:57 pm
dr_mouse:
On natural readings
The distinction between what is ‘natural’ and what is a ‘contortion’ is very slippery. Nor does it have much bearing on the more fundamental question of what is true.
What seems natural to one person may seem very unnatural to another simply because they’ve seen different arguments. Science is full of examples of this. A rational person who had never seen the arguments for heliocentrism might view it as a contortion and view geocentrism as the ‘natural’ conclusion.
Which Hypothesis is Ad Hoc?
That there are two accounts, one that ends with Man and one that begins with Man can hardly be in doubt. (Indeed, that’s the whole basis of this alleged inconsistency).
That neither account is strictly chronological is also not a stretch. The Bible is not supposed to be a science textbook. It is supposed to be God’s revelation of Himself to Man for the purpose of redeeming Man. To be sure, the Bible portrays God’s redemption as a plan that is worked out in history. But I don’t think that that requires that we adopt a strict chronological view of cosmogonies.
Perhaps I did not quite get why the two accounts place Man where they do. Perhaps you have a better reading?
Now, consider the following conjunction of claims:
1. The Genesis accounts were written by more than one author and later compiled by an editor.
2. Item 1 explains how you can have a seeming contradiction of chronology in such a short space.
This is, very roughly, the standard liberal view of the passages in question. And it is fine as far as it goes. But when conjoined with the following claims, it becomes implausible in the extreme:
3. Each author and the editor viewed the accounts as chronological because that is their natural reading.
4. As such, the seeming contradiction (the presence of which is explained by multiple authors) is a real contradiction.
An editor is just like an author or any other normal person in not wanting to contradict themselves within a few sentences. If the editor who put the passages together thought they were contradictory, he would have done something to mitigate the contradiction. Indeed, an editor is probably more careful about this than an author.
Is Inerrancy Held A Priori?
The short answer is “Of course.” If by a priori you mean that we have a deductive argument that we bring to the reading of Scripture (this is not to say that there may be a posteriori elements behind the premises of that argument).
To put it another way, inerrantists do not hold the view they do because they believe the Bible reads with the rigourous consistency of Whitehead’s and Russell’s Principia Mathematica (only more so, since there are no mistakes).
Even the most traditional thinker on this subject will agree that the Bible is a compilation of several author’s works, over a long period of time, written in multiple languages, over a broad range of subjects, written in many literary forms. No one could expect to pick up a work like that and read it without having to scratch their heads now and then.
Inerrantist’s believe that they have good and adequate reasons
1. To believe in God.
2. To believe that God revealed himself through Scripture by inspiring men to write.
3. To believe that God would not inspire these men to write in a way that would deceive them or their (diligent) readers.
Errancy has posted a couple of good links on this subject to the right. See especially the “Reasonable Faith” entry and the Chicago Statement.
April 8th, 2009 on 4:00 pm
WisdomLover,
Despite the veneer of erudition, your reasoning is obfuscating the most salient facts. It is not such a “slippery” slope as you imagine, unless you are relying on special pleading, in that you suggest some esoteric knowledge or special “revealed” insight. If this is the case, I have no appeal to you.
While objective certainty on many issues may be a suspect notion, we can – and furthermore must -reasonably rely on intersubjective agreement. The legal system does this in many ways: “What would a reasonable person do under these circumstances?” So I am referring to a person without a personal investment in the outcome, without an emotional need to believe. In other words, only someone with an inflexible commitment to scriptural veracity would see the contradictions in the apologetic way you have described. If you had no particularistic faith in the Bible, you would consider your own argument a bit of a stretch, eh? Followers of the Quran engage in similar rhetorical gymnastics in order to preserve that which is precious to them.
In such case, any reasonable argument (that is universally recognizable) is wholly without force and futile.
April 8th, 2009 on 5:42 pm
I’m sorry. Did you have a specific criticism of my argument to make?
April 8th, 2009 on 8:51 pm
WisdomLover,
Why so dismissive? Evasion by glib dismissal is hardly good form or good faith.
I was contending with your approach which assumes a harmonization or reconciliation between clearly inconsistent narratives is needed. This is “needed” only because one has discounted the possibility that stories are speculative, imagined, or fabricated, and a natural healthy aspect of the human experience. Thus, an ad hoc hypothesis is constructed to account for variations that an uninterested observer would see as indicative of inconsistency, and therefore NATURALLY perceive fallibility.
Do you deny the general proposition that there are certain rational observations that are universal and that transcend cultural prejudices? We can all stipulate certain realities, right?
Would this same level of special consideration be given with another religious narrative (most cultures have creation myths) or with any other ancient document for that matter? Of course not. One would assume that such expressions of human speculation are always subject to variation and losses in transmission. This should apply even for the most credulous; who believe that in its erstwhile pristine state the message was impeccable.
Your statement that the existence of multiple authors accounts for the appearance of discrepancies implicitly introduces error by suggesting that (even if of divine origin) the message was mediated by humans with all their attendant fallibilities. Unless, you throw in yet another ad hoc hypothesis: God made sure that despite allowing enough human influence to create the illusion of inconsistency, he would not let so much humanity influence the text that it became suspect; and then hid this from all but the uninitiated (special pleading).
Furthermore, your definition of inerrancy seems a bit of an equivocation. My understanding is that inerrantists assert that the “Word of God” is wholly without error. Your definition is rather novel, I think. You may argue that the contradictions and inconsistencies are inconsequential, but they are nonetheless present. Are they not? Dismissing their importance, as you know, is not the same as denying their existence. That is an entirely separate argument.
April 8th, 2009 on 9:37 pm
I’m still not seeing a specific criticism of the position I articulated. So let me ask some pointed questions.
Do you think that the first account of creation is a strict chronological account and that the days mentioned are all 24 hour time periods?
Do you think that the second account of creation is a strict chronological account?
If you do believe that both are strict chronological accounts, how do you account for the fact that both ended up in the same book right next to each other?
April 8th, 2009 on 9:45 pm
The redactors weren’t necessarily too concerned with inerrancy themselves.
April 8th, 2009 on 10:38 pm
Thanks for getting right to the heart of the issue with those questions, WL. I’m still working out how best to read the Creation narratives, but for what it’s worth here’s where I’m at (please forgive the loose usage of literary terms):
There’s a continuum of positions here, with a straightforward literal reading at one end, a subtle semi-literal reading in the middle, and an ahistorical allegorical reading at the other end. Of course, you can adopt one approach for one Creation narrative and a different approach for the other.
I take Genesis 1 to be a Creation narrative, reading it sufficiently literally that I do take it to be asserting that things came into existence in the order described (but not so literally as to exclude either an old Earth or theistic evolution).
However, I take Genesis 2 to be a story about man’s place in Creation, his rights and responsibilities to it, reading it sufficiently allegorically that I don’t take it to be asserting that things came into existence in the order described.
So my answers to your questions are: (1) Yes, but not 24 hour ‘days’; (2) No; (3) N/A. I don’t think that the Bible asserts the surface chronology of Genesis 2, so I don’t think that the Bible is contradictory concerning the order of Creation of man and animals.
I am still thinking this through, however; working out what are the truth-conditions of texts like these isn’t easy, particularly given our cultural distance from whatever literary genre they belong to.
April 8th, 2009 on 10:57 pm
I’m not arguing that the redactor (if that theory is true) was concerned with inerrancy. I am arguing that he was concerned with consistency, or, at the very least, he was interested in minimizing the appearance of inconsistency.
By the theory, the whole point was to unify the various traditions. If the Jews, in their various J, P and E (and whatever else) factions, generally viewed the Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 accounts as strict chronologies, putting the accounts right next to each other wouldn’t be a very good way of unifying them.
I don’t think you are going to find a very plausible account of why two incompatible chronologies would be placed right next to each other by a redactor or by Moses when the book being written/edited purports to be the Word of God.
This is what leads me to think that at least one (and perhaps both) of the accounts was (were) never intended to be a strict chronology.
Note that I am not arguing here against the redactor theory, per se. I’m merely pointing out that redaction is a process carried out by a human who has normal human concerns about consistency.
April 8th, 2009 on 11:15 pm
Errancy,
I am open to a chronological reading for one of the accounts, and if one of them is to be chronological, it is certainly the first.
But I also think that the Genesis 1 account is a theocentric, not a geocentric account. It is primarily an account of God’s creative acts, and only secondarily an account of the happenings in the created order. As such, the Divine acts may occur in chronological order at fixed time intervals. The results of those acts may play themselves out at varying rates over long time periods.
It is worth noting that the view that only one of the accounts is chronological is enough to undercut the problem at hand. If account A is chronological, and account B is not, then A and B cannot conflict on a point of chronology.
April 8th, 2009 on 11:16 pm
“I take Genesis 1 to be a Creation narrative, reading it sufficiently literally that I do take it to be asserting that things came into existence in the order described (but not so literally as to exclude either an old Earth or theistic evolution).”
This is not going to fly. Genesis 1 places the creation of plants before the creation of the sun. I assure you, that is not consistent with evolution.
April 9th, 2009 on 8:13 am
Okay, agreed: if Genesis 1 asserts that plants preceded the Sun, then there’s a problem.
April 9th, 2009 on 11:14 am
Well, it seems obvious to me that Genesis 1 is chronological. It tells you what happens on day 1, then what happens on day 2, then what happens on day 3, et cetera. It could hardly be more clear that the account is in chronological order.
We get plants in verse 11, on day 3.
We get the sun in verses 14-16, on day 4.
So Genesis 1 is just false.
April 9th, 2009 on 11:48 am
Of course, Genesis has an internal chronology that places plants before the Sun. My hesitation over saying that it’s therefore false relates to its genre.
The truth-conditions for a document depend on what it asserts, and what a document asserts depends not only on the propositions that it contains but also on its genre. A document can contain false propositions without containing false assertions.
For example, Animal Farm contains many propositions about events on Manor Farm. Because it’s a work of fiction, it isn’t asserting that these propositions are true, and so isn’t false because they aren’t. Arguably it does make certain assertions about the Russian Revolution, however, and so would be false if the Russian Revolution didn’t happen in the way that it suggests (e.g. if Trotsky’s role were nothing like Snowball’s).
Let’s say that Genesis 1-2 contains two Creation myths. To decide whether these myths are true or false, we first need to have some idea what are the truth-conditions for Creation myths, what kind of assertions myths like these are making. That’s not a question that I’m confident answering.
April 14th, 2009 on 10:58 am
During the first interval, God said let there be light. Immediately, all the natural laws and initial conditions needed for light to inevitably exist were enacted. After some unspecified time lapse, TL1, light came into existence.
During the second interval, God said let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters. Immediately, all the natural laws and initial conditions needed for this expanse to inevitably exist were enacted. After some unspecified time lapse, TL2, this expanse came to be.
During the third interval, God said let there be dry land, seas and vegetation. Immediately, all the natural laws and initial conditions needed for dry land, seas and vegetation to inevitably exist were enacted. After some unspecified time lapse, TL3, dry land, seas and vegetation came to be.
During the fourth interval, God said let there be the sun, moon and stars. Immediately, all the natural laws and initial conditions needed for the sun, moon and stars to inevitably exist were enacted. After some unspecified time lapse, TL4, the sun, moon and stars came to be.
etc.
Now, even if the intervals mentioned occur in strict sequence, the creatures that they mention may come to be in a different sequence. Supposing that each interval is 24 hours from hour zero, the third interval, when God commanded that there be dry land etc., happened between hours 48 and 72. The fourth interval, when God commanded that there be a sun, moon and stars occurred between hours 72 and 96.
But in terms of when the sun appeared relative to the plants, this is of little importance. If TL3 is, say, 10 billion years and TL4 is, say, 5 billion years (I’m making these numbers up…they have no significance other than that one is more than 24 hours longer than the other), then the plants came into existence 5 billion years (minus 24 hours) later than the sun etc.*
Now, I am not arguing that this reading that I have been suggesting since post one is the only one that the text allows. But by the same token, it is a fine reading. And, here is the main point, a strict creationist reading is no better.
To get a contradiction here, either with Genesis 2, or with an old earth hypothesis, or with the chronology of the appearance of life on this earth as suggested by radiological dating methods, you’re going to need something like a strict creationist reading.
——————-
*Though in truth, new moons and stars are coming into existence all the time. And new species of plants are coming into existence all the time. The third and fourth words of creation are still going into effect.
April 14th, 2009 on 11:13 am
No. There are no such “unspecified time lapses”. We are told that on the third day God created plants, and saw that it was good. And then we move on to the fourth day.
Your reading is extremely unnatural. Nobody would make such a reading if they were unaware that the natural reading of Genesis 1 asserts things that are false.
April 14th, 2009 on 11:44 am
I too find it very difficult to separate the timeline of God speaking from the timeline of things coming into being.
The pattern in Genesis 1 is this:
To me, that suggests that there was X on the Nth day. Any other reading is going to be strained.
April 14th, 2009 on 2:04 pm
“Your reading is extremely unnatural.”
Is it?
If you are writing a very brief history of a king, let’s say his name is Bob, and it is your agenda to show how powerful and effective that King Bob was, how do you proceed?
I can tell you exactly how I would proceed. I would arrange the major edicts of Bob in the order he made them.* My history would express them in that order. After each edict was expressed, I would include commentary to indicate that Bob had pulled off what he commanded and that it was good thing that he did so. Only after I had made it clear that King Bob had succeeded in achieving what he commanded would I move on to the next of his edicts.
So:
Now, if you think Genesis 1 is a strictly chronological, proto-scientific, account of the origin of the world. Then my reading is clearly not ‘natural’. But Genesis 1 is not such an account. It is the account of how the Sovereign God achieved everything He set out to do in the creation of the world. And it is a perfectly natural reading (the only possible reading?) for that kind of account.
“Nobody would make such a reading if they were unaware that the natural reading of Genesis 1 asserts things that are false.”
Assuming that I ‘really’ believe a strict chronological reading, which claim is it that you suppose that I believe false? That is, which claim is it you think drove me to my unnatural reading? I can assure you, it’s not that the plants predate the sun on such an account. Plants need light, not the sun. Is it too cute to point out that light was in the world on day one? :)
—————–
*In the case of the human king, Bob, I would probably have to edit this list to eliminate the edicts he didn’t quite pull off and the ones that didn’t work out so well. This worry does not arise for God.
April 14th, 2009 on 2:27 pm
Here’s another account of Bob’s reign:
Do you see any difference in meaning between your account and mine?
April 14th, 2009 on 3:04 pm
“That is, which claim is it you think drove me to my unnatural reading? I can assure you, it’s not that the plants predate the sun on such an account.”
You’re surely aware that the sun has existed for about 4,500 million years; and plants for about 450 million years.
Or at least, you’ve certainly hinted that you broadly accept the conclusions of modern science.
April 14th, 2009 on 5:48 pm
“Do you see any difference in meaning between your account and mine?”
I don’t really see a big difference, no.
Neither requires a strong commitment to the chronology of achievement, but only to the chronology of command. If I wanted to read a chronology into the achievements I could do so no less easily, and perhaps more easily, with yours than yours than with mine.
I mean, I could say he must have given the first command on day one. He achieved it on day two and then gave his second command. He achieved that on day three and then gave his third command…
I think the big question is this: Is the author of Genesis trying to tell about earth and how it came to be? Or is he trying to tell about God and His mighty power in creation? If it’s the latter (and it is), then may account (or yours) is correct, and there’s no real commitment to any particular chronology.
April 14th, 2009 on 6:12 pm
“You’re surely aware that the sun has existed for about 4,500 million years; and plants for about 450 million years.”
But, you see, if I’m not concerned about light before the sun, why should I be concerned about plants before the sun?
God has put in place a lawful apparatus and made us so that we can thrive under its regularity. I’m fully aware that this may, lead to numbers similar to what you mention if we run our equations backward. Nothing about the real age of things follows from this.
Obviously, if (contrary to fact) I were a creationist, I would just say that God created the Earth with a star that appears mature. I have many problems with 6-day creationism, but this is not one of them.
April 14th, 2009 on 10:01 pm
Do you see a difference between “they got married and she became pregnant” and “she became pregnant and they got married”? Perhaps you’re just less sensitive to these things than I am. :)
I’ve never thought to read Genesis 1 in any other way than as having God speaking, what he commanded coming to pass, and then the day ending. I give you full marks for creativity and attention to detail, but I do still think that the reading is strained. Sorry.
April 14th, 2009 on 10:24 pm
“I’m fully aware that this may, lead to numbers similar to what you mention if we run our equations backward. Nothing about the real age of things follows from this.”
What?
April 15th, 2009 on 1:31 am
“What?”
OK. That was a bit cryptic.
The laws of nature that ‘govern’ all of the material world are, ultimately, mathematical equations. For example, the laws that govern radiological dating are, ultimately, mathematical equations regarding nuclear decay processes. We discover things about the past by using these equations and current measurements to extrapolate into the past.
So, we assume that the Sun is ten times older than kingdom Plantae because we’ve carried out various mathematical extrapolations into the past based on current measurements.
But the fact that we can extrapolate into the past does not imply that there was a past to extrapolate into (any more than our ability to extrapolate into the future implies that there will be a future to extrapolate into.)
For all I know, God made the plants first and then made a sun that would end up appearing old because the equations we use to ‘date’ the sun result in a false extrapolation into a past that never existed.
Please bear in mind, by the way, that this is how I could argue. I am by no means claiming that this is true. All I’m saying is that my quarrel with creationism is not on this front.
If you want to know, my main problem with creationism is that it smacks of the same kind of blind literalism that you see with ‘left behind’ pre-millenialism. So it’s primarily their interpretation of the Bible that I have a problem with (that, and the fact that they have an annoying tendency to make adherence to 6-day creationism a test of orthodoxy, rather than, say, adherence to the apostle’s creed).
April 15th, 2009 on 2:23 am
“Do you see a difference between “they got married and she became pregnant” and “she became pregnant and they got married”?”
Of course. I also see a difference between “They got married and she became pregnant” and “They got married and she became a certified public accountant.” Sometimes “and” reads as “A happened and then B happened” and other times it reads as “A is true and B is also true”.
But, if you go back and look at my response, you’ll see that I’m not insisting on “and then” or “and” any more than you are.
My account was that Bob ordered the changing of the lights, and he achieved that, and that was the first day of his reign. Then he ordered the separation of the trash, and he achieved that, and that was the second day, etc.
I was claiming that this is how you would write a short history intended to show that Bob was an effective king. And my point was that, for all that, Bob’s achievements may have played out over many long years during his reign.
You changed the account so that the claims of success come immediately after the change of days rather than immediately before. This was presumably to show how to do it so that readers wouldn’t ‘naturally’ adopt a chronological (mis)reading.
But don’t you see that by moving a claim of success after the change of one day, you thereby place it before the change of the next day? So you still have a chronological account.
So how do you avoid a chronological reading of the achievements in the history of Bob?
The glib answer is that, as a reader, you don’t adopt such a reading. No such reading is warranted whether it be of WL’s history of Bob, or of Errancy’s. Such a reading is quite clearly not intended by either author.
Tell me truly, are you saying that if I gave you my history of Bob, you would really think that I was saying that Bob swapped out the lights on his first day on the throne, separated all the trash on his second day (and so on)?
Now, I am sensitive to the fact that this may be a novel reading of the text. How could the text have waited thousands of years for WL to finally see what it obviously means?
Four items are worth noting though. First, we really (can) have no idea (given our current information) how the original readers would have seen this. Second. there are plenty of readings of the text that are (a) not strict chronologies and (b) ancient (pre-dating old-earth science by centuries). Third, some of the biggest names in Christianity and Judaism hold these views (e.g. Augustine and Maimonides). Fourth, this account is far less metaphysical or allegorical than other non-chronological readings. I am simply saying that we should read it as if it were a short history of the power of an ancient King. Is that really a stretch?
April 15th, 2009 on 7:50 am
“Tell me truly, are you saying that if I gave you my history of Bob, you would really think that I was saying that Bob swapped out the lights on his first day on the throne, separated all the trash on his second day (and so on)?”
As we read, we interpret, and among our interpretative tools is the principle of charity.
I would first read your account as describing what Bob accomplished on each day, then recognise that on this reading it makes claims that are both implausible and known by its author to be implausible, then look for an alternative reading that gives more credit to its author and find your intended reading.
The difference between your passage and Genesis 1 is this:
My understanding of how long it would take Bob to implement his environmental policies (and my assessment of the author’s knowledge of this) clashes with the apparant timeline of the account. This prompts me to go looking for an alternative reading with an alternative timeline.
Consider the same story but with simpler projects:
In this version of The Acts of Bob, the first reading (i.e. the reading that has Bob’s will being accomplished within the day) doesn’t break down (Bob could move his desk and get an ergonomic chair within the day). There’s therefore no justification for going looking for an alternative reading with an alternative timeline.
Similarly with Genesis 1, my understanding of how long it would take an omnipotent God to speak things into being (and my assessment of the author’s knowledge of this) doesn’t clash with the apparant timeline of the account (God could speak things into being in a single day, particularly if a “day” is just a period of time). There’s therefore no justification for going looking for an alternative reading with an alternative timeline.
For the principle of charity to kick in, we would need reason to believe that the author of Genesis 1 knew that things didn’t come into being in the order commanded, so can’t have meant to say what he seems to say. I can’t see any reason for thinking that.
April 15th, 2009 on 9:40 am
“For all I know, God made the plants first and then made a sun that would end up appearing old”
Yes, and you could claim that God made all of us last thursday, complete with false memories and holes in our socks.
But I wouldn’t expect God to so deceive us.
April 15th, 2009 on 2:48 pm
“But I wouldn’t expect God to so deceive us.”
It would be a deception if God created us last Thursday etc., and told us nothing about it. Since God is no deceiver, we have a priori reasons to believe that this is not the case. But it would not be a deception if he created us last Thrusday etc. and then told us about it.
But if the creationist reading of Genesis 1 is correct, we’re not in the position of Thursday’s Child who’s left without a clue. We have been told by God what He did. If we want to continue inferring into a past that we’ve been told does not exist, I guess that’s really our problem.
With that said, as I’ve been stressing throughout this thread, I don’t accept the creationist reading of Genesis 1.
While I’m not absolutely married to my “Brief History of a Powerful King” reading, it seems obvious to me that something like that is more plausible than any proto-scientific reading. That is because I think that the Bible was not written to be a science book. I think that it was written to tell about the greatness and goodness of God
BTW, even if my reading of Gen. 1 is novel, this attitude about how to read the Bible, Gen. 1 included, is not. It dates back at least to Augustine. He, at least, cannot be accused of torturing the Bible to fit with the results of modern dating methods.
April 15th, 2009 on 3:56 pm
“But if the creationist reading of Genesis 1 is correct, we’re not in the position of Thursday’s Child who’s left without a clue. We have been told by God what He did.”
He tells us one thing and gives us excellent evidence for a different thing? That would be absurd.
April 15th, 2009 on 4:01 pm
“my understanding of how long it would take an omnipotent God to speak things into being…doesn’t clash with the apparent timeline of the account”
What we see in the Bible is that God rarely if ever acts with all the speed and alacrity with which He could act. “Fiat lux” may be the only contrary case. Everywhere else we see Him acting over time through means. So while he could have brought the plants about instantaneously, I don’t think that that’s what we should expect to happen from the Bible.
April 15th, 2009 on 4:27 pm
“He tells us one thing and gives us excellent evidence for a different thing? That would be absurd.”
It might be absurd if He had no more reason for doing so than you or I would. Unfortunately (or fortunately), I am not privy to all of God’s reasons.
April 15th, 2009 on 6:44 pm
“Unfortunately (or fortunately), I am not privy to all of God’s reasons.”
A common meme, deployed when faced with things in one’s religion that don’t make sense.
April 15th, 2009 on 8:08 pm
Sorry if I sound annoyed. But it’s frustrating to argue against someone who says they should be allowed to disregard the evidence!
April 16th, 2009 on 1:19 am
“A common meme, deployed when faced with things in one’s religion that don’t make sense.”
My reply to the absurdity charge is a common reply. It is not particularly religious. It’s a common reply for good reason. When faced with circumstances where one does not have adequate information, how else should one proceed, except to not jump to any conclusions.*
In particular, you drew the conclusion that the following is absurd:
1. God’s told us X.
2. God gave us evidence which, in the absence of the declaration mentioned in #1, would be excellent evidence for not-X.
My claim was that we don’t have enough information to draw the conclusion that #s 1 and 2 constitute an absurdity. Whether they do depends on God’s reasons for acting as 1 and 2 describe. But that is information that we lack. Now, I must also freely admit that this, by itself, does not show that 1 and 2 are not absurd.
To show that 1 and 2 are not absurd, I’d either (a) need to be able to provide a sketch of the reasons for God’s actions in 1 and 2 (and those reasons would have to be rationally adequate to avoid the absurdity charge), or (b) I’d have to have a powerful reason to rule out absurdity on God’s part and so assume that there are reasons, unknown to me, for God’s actions, and those reasons provide a rationally adequate answer to the charge of absurdity.
I don’t think I have (a), I do think I have (b) (His being God and all that). So, bottom line, I don’t think that 1 and 2 do constitute an absurdity.
Obviously, if one could show that God could have no reasons that would provide a a rationally adequate answer to the charge of absurdity, then I’d have to re-examine my assumption that God cannot be guilty of absurdity.
But I doubt that that argument is forthcoming.
WL is “someone who says they should be allowed to disregard the evidence”
I’m not trying to disregard the evidence. I am trying to include all of the evidence. One piece of evidence that I’m including is that, if the creationist reading of Gen. 1 is correct, then God has warned us that the earth isn’t as old as it might seem in the absence of such a warning.
BTW, no need to apologize about tone. You’re trying to convince me of something you sincerely and thoughtfully believe. I’m doing my best to repay that high compliment.
I should apologize for taking us down this rabbit hole that led to remarks that frustrate you. Perhaps I should have left well enough alone and insisted that I don’t accept the creationist reading of Gen. 1 (or, to be bit more precise, I don’t accept it as the only unambiguously plain and orthodox reading of Gen. 1).
—————–
* Provided that no crucial action is waiting on the conclusion, and it is better to draw even the wrong conclusion than none.
April 16th, 2009 on 1:25 am
“Obviously, if one could show that God could have no reasons that would provide a a rationally adequate answer to the charge of absurdity, then I’d have to re-examine my assumption that God cannot be guilty of absurdity.”
Or, obviously, I’d have to re-examine whether 1 and 2 actually hold. If I were a creationist that might lead me into some interesting paths. Since I’m not…not as much.
April 16th, 2009 on 1:07 pm
1. God’s told us X.
2. God gave us evidence which, in the absence of the declaration mentioned in #1, would be excellent evidence for not-X.
This amounts to a claim that, where the Bible and the evidence disagree, the Bible is correct. Whereas (if the evidence is strong enough) the correct conclusion to draw is that the Bible is wrong.
It seems like you’ve reached a position where you could never be persuaded of the wrongness of even a part of the Bible, regardless of evidence. Is that not so?
April 16th, 2009 on 1:58 pm
Let me remind you once again that we came to this straight based on a great big supposition: that the creationist reading of Gen. 1 is correct. A supposition I deny.
With that said, I will address the points you raise.
Inerrancy, as you may well know, is a position one holds for what might be called a priori reasons. (I think I covered this in my second or third post above.) Because one believes that God exists and inspired the Bible and is trustworthy and so on. As such, it is going to be something that is difficult to approach via a posteriori means. Both the inerrantist and the errantist are liable to make infelicitous remarks in the exchange.
With that in mind, there are then several ways I could be persuaded of the wrongness of the Bible. I could be given arguments against the existence of God that I believe are more powerful than those I already endorse in favor of His existence. I could be given arguments against the inspiration of the Bible that are more powerful than those I already endorse in favor of the inspiration of the Bible. And so on. These would all have to be carefully examined premise by premise (I just don’t know another way to proceed).
In the case of apparent factual errors in Biblical claims, I may also reply that I’m flummoxed by them. This falls short of a straightforward admission of error. But it also is no defense of the claim. As the number of cases where I’m flummoxed pile up, I might tend to re-examine my assumptions. Especially the assumption of inspiration. But no one factual difficulty is liable to move me.
This a priori aspect of inerrantism is probably why we get along better when we are talking about internal contradictions than when we are talking about what the Bible and science have to say to each other. We’re both working from an a priori footing.
July 17th, 2009 on 7:29 pm
The first step in creation, is to come up with an idea, design it and speak it into existance. (God, in his mind, has created the potential for earth to bring forth living creatures)
“And God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.’ And it was so.”
The second step, is the actualize the design or idea, into physical existance.
” when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up — for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth,”
The lord had to put the creation into action, to give it the physical existance (even though the idea and design had already been made in step 1)
“then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being…”
“So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man”
God may have come up with the idea for animals first, but he actualized his creation of man before he actualized the animals.
July 21st, 2009 on 1:33 am
I’m not sure that I agree with your general principle, bell girl, in all its specifics about how things are created. For example, it may often be as you say that creation occurs by first creating the potential for something within one’s mind. But I would allow the possibility that there are other modes of creation.
With that said, I do basically agree with you about separating God’s creative acts (what you are calling His design of things) from how those acts play themselves out in history (what you are calling His actualization of things).
Here’s a little analogy. If I carefully aim a tank’s gun at an ant and pull the trigger, I render it inevitable that the ant will die. Nevertheless, there is a time lag, be it ever so small, between my pulling of the trigger and the death of the ant. If I arrange to pull the trigger at just the right moment, it might even be that I pulled the trigger on Monday, but the ant didn’t die until Tuesday.
Now, someone asks the question “When did WisdomLover kill the ant?” A perfectly reasonable answer is “Monday”. Yes, the ant’s death actually happened on Tuesday, but the killing act that rendered the death inevitable occurred on Monday. I’d go so far as to say that the killing occurred not even so late as when I pulled the trigger, but when I formed the intention to pull the trigger under circumstances where that intention would lead inevitably to the death of the ant.
I think that’s basically what’s going on here. God’s creative acts occur at one time (and in a certain order), but the things he creates blossom into recognizable existence at another time (and, possibly, in a different order).
July 21st, 2009 on 6:39 am
I would adjust your analogy a little bit, based on how I view creative acts. First you decide to kill the ant, then you choose the time to actualy pull the trigger. This may be moments or days or years later depending on the circumstances.
July 22nd, 2009 on 3:35 am
Fair enough, provided that the decision or intention to kill the ant renders the death inevitable. Then I think it makes real sense to say that I killed the ant in 2009 even though the ant didn’t actually die until, say, 2059.
I think that fits well with what I’ve been trying to argue for in earlier posts: that God’s creative acts may well have occurred in succession over six time periods (possibly days), even though the things that those activities rendered inevitable may have appeared in full flower at various times and at various rates.
July 22nd, 2009 on 10:25 am
<>
I wouldn’t say the ant died in 2009.. I would say the creation of the plan and methodology for the death were complete (and it was good). The actual death occurs in 2059 when the ant dies.
July 22nd, 2009 on 12:51 pm
Right. The death occurs in 2059, but the killing occurred way back in 2009 when the death was rendered inevitable by the decision to kill.
In the same way, the plants come to be billions of years after the sun, even though they were created the day before when their existence was rendered inevitable by God’s decision to create them.
August 15th, 2009 on 6:39 pm
The problem stems from the fact that the biblical account is chronological – both versions. What we have then in the discussions from WisdomLover is an erudite attempt to make both accounts fit. By what token can any impartial reader state that the first account is better than the second? WisdomLover is hampered by his inerrantist view and so must go through verbal semantics to try to make sense of the irreconciliable differences of both accounts.
But before you start you must ask yourself a number of simple questions before analysing the text.
1. Do you believe this is the revealed word of God?
2. If so do you believe that God has the following characteristics: omniscience, omnipresence and is eternal hence timeless?
If your answer to 1. is yes then you must apply the highest standards. Would you be equally as uncritical if the book stating it was God inspired was say the Qu’ran or the Bhagavad Gita and yet appeared to have such glaring inconsistencies? Apply the same standard, be critical – why? because God has given you the ability to reason.
Consider then the second question. If God is omniscient (all-knowing) then His knowledge would include scientific foresight and He would also know that if his revealed word was written it should be written so that even a child picking up his commandments could see no inconsistency. And therein lies your dilemma. If the Bible was the Word of God it would not require these semantics as expressed by WisdomLover who to shore up his belief must resort to dreaming up improbable solutions to the dilemmas thrown up the inconsistencies and inaccurancies between the revealed Word and science and even simple logical reason.
August 17th, 2009 on 3:14 pm
TC,
I see in paragraph one that you’ve answered the first two of my questions from item #7…you believe that both the Gen 1 and Gen 2 accounts are chronological. You did not answer the third question: If you believe both accounts are chronological, how did they come to be placed immediately next to each other in the text? When read as strict chronologies, they are clearly inconsistent (Man comes last in the Gen 1 account and first in the Gen 2 account). What would motivate an author (or editor), whether divinely inspired or not, to contradict himself in such a short space?
Of course, I do believe the Bible is inspired and that God has all the properties that the Bible attributes to Him including the ones that you mention. I’m not quite sure what this has to do with how to read a text. My inclination to discount a reading that involves clear contradiction applies to all texts including the Bible, Locke’s Second Treatise on Government, and the U.S. Army Guide on Helicopter Maintenance. It has nothing to do with the properties of God.
My standard is this: The authors of the text I’m reading are not idiots and are, in fact, probably quite a bit smarter than I am on the text’s subject matter. (My tendency to discount readings that require me to say that the authors obviously contradicted themselves is a consequence of this.)
I’m not terribly familiar with the Koran, but I do I apply this standard to the Bhagavad Gita. As you may or may not be aware, the Gita itself is largely a discussion of wisdom, self-control, and spirituality. It makes very few (if any) claims that could remotely be interpreted as scientific or historical. But it is part of a larger work called the Mahabharata which is a description of the conflict between two royal houses culminating in the great battle of Kurukshetra. (Krishna puts forth the teachings of the Gita when the Pandava hero, Arjuna, expresses doubts on the verge of the battle.) This battle may well have occurred in history. But the account of it in the Mahabharata in includes many fantastic events. For example, at one point Arjuna, decapitates an enemy, Jayadratha son of Vrddhaksatra, with an arrow. The arrow carries the head miles away and deposits it in Vrddhaksatra’s lap. Do I then discount the Mahabharata as nonsense for that reason? Do I so much as attribute error to it?
No way.
The arrow and head story was not intended as a description of the natural behavior of heads and arrows. Either it was symbolic in some way or it involved some literary form in epic poetry, perhaps it describes how the Pandavas treated their dead enemies, or it was a moral lesson about making oaths and curses (both Arjuna and Vrddhaksatra had made them), or it was intended as a description of a miraculous event, or…. Under no circumstance would I assume that the authors so plainly misunderstood what arrows can and cannot do.
Let us now turn to the point you make in the final paragraph. You argue that if the Bible is really the Word of God (who is omniscient etc.) it would be written in a certain way “so that even a child picking up his commandments could see no inconsistency”. I really have no idea how you come to that conclusion. It’s one thing to say that God cannot break a promise, or deceive. These follow from his moral attributes. But it strikes me as the height of arrogance to say that you know how God must reveal Himself. He is free to reveal Himself in whatever way He deems, in His Omniscience and Perfect Rationality, best.
Finally, since you characterize my account as an ‘improbable’ solution, I’ll ask this question. Which is more ‘probable’, that Genesis 1 was intended as a proto-scientific account of how things came to be, or that it was intended as an account of God’s power in creation? Because, from my perspective (and Augustine’s and Maimonides’), the idea that Genesis is trying to be some kind of science book is a complete non-starter.
August 17th, 2009 on 3:31 pm
“If God is omniscient (all-knowing) then His knowledge would include scientific foresight and He would also know that if his revealed word was written it should be written so that even a child picking up his commandments could see no inconsistency.” [TheCrucible, comment #46]
The idea that God should have written the Bible in such a way that it couldn’t be misunderstood seems to be fairly common among atheists, but it puzzles me too. I guess that Christians with a high view of the Bible are supposed to be committed to something like the following reasoning:
(1) The Bible is the word of God.
(2) God is perfect.
Therefore:
(3) The Bible is perfect.
(4) The more idiot-proof the Bible is, the better.
Therefore:
(5) The Bible is completely idiot-proof.
Is that it, or is there some other reason for imposing this standard on a divinely inspired Bible?
August 17th, 2009 on 10:34 pm
I think you’ve got the gist of it Errancy. Obviously, it may be possible to offer an argument like this with more nuance and sophistication. Still, it seems that there are three problems with this line of reasoning:
A) The inference from 1 and 2 to 3 is suspect. There may be limitations in human language that make it impossible to have a perfect Bible (and I suppose that also depends on what you mean by “perfect”).
B) Item 4 is probably false.
C) The inference from 3 and 4 to 5 is suspect. At most you can infer that the Bible is as idiot-proof as it’s possible for a work of its nature to be.
October 5th, 2009 on 1:47 pm
On 5 March 2009 WisdomLover claimed “The story of the seven days of creation gives a chronological account of God’s _speaking_. It is not intended to give a chronological account of how creation came to be as a result of God’s speaking.”
How does he arrive at this very conclusion?
What gives WL the right to make such an unnatural reading of the text as so clearly presented within the first few chapters of Genesis?
I suspect that WL is none other than your typical inerrantist apologist who needs to contort what is clearly present to fit the fact that he must espouse that there are no contradictions in the Bible.
WLs “explanation” is a novel approach as any plain reading of the text is an account of how the Hebrews believed creation came into being.
What we must remember is that the Bible is not the work of a few authors. In fact it is the result of many authors, redactions, alterations, plagiarism, pornography, fantasy and flatly contradictory accounts of the same events.
The account in Genesis of creation can be seen clearly to be the accounts given by two different authors. In the first account God is always referred to as YHWH. In the second accound a mere few passages later as LORD God. A simple reading also shows that both tales have stylistic differences in their telling of the creation. Why? Well its pretty simple there were two different accounts circulating amongst the Jewish tribes. The Hebrews sang many of their original hymns and stories. Many which grew in the telling and many which lost much in their retelling. It was not until these verses were written down that they lost their fluidity. That does not mean that there were no further alterations to the “revelation”. In fact many of the prophets of the OT complain of such alterations.
WL argues that it is incomprehensible that the two accounts are from two different authors because some future editor ould have sought to remove the apparent contradictions
“An editor is just like an author or any other normal person in not wanting to contradict themselves within a few sentences. If the editor who put the passages together thought they were contradictory, he would have done something to mitigate the contradiction. Indeed, an editor is probably more careful about this than an author.”
What this argument fails to recognise is that for the early redactors of the OT they did not actually know which version was correct. Such scribes placed much more importance on what they considered to be holy scripture and so placed both versions together. Editing of the Word of God was punishable by death and as written material was at a premium it would have taken a very brave scribe to seek to alter the verses of the oldest scriptures. Once written material became more prevalent and there were many more scrolls of “Holy Scripture” in circulation scattered across many countries there was less stigma in the Scribes and the Pharisees seeking to iron out the contradictions. With no centralised church and no authentic “Bible” the possibility of many of the editting and rewriting described earlier became more easy. It is difficult to say what if anything remains of God’s original revelation to the prophets, what is man-made, what is interpretation and what is frankly outright lies.
History as they say is written by the winners. The early Hebrews and Jews were prone to making exagerated claims of their God-inspired victories and claiming that God told them to carry out some of the more vile and heinous crimes witnessed within the pages of the Bible. With few people of other tribes being either interested in their writings or few educated elders of the Jewish nations who held ALL the different scriptures, I can easily see how the Bible that we have today is as riddled with differing and sometimes contradictory accounts.
WL’s explanation is weak. I mean no disrespect to WL as he/she(?) obviously has an opinion as to how the text can be read to try to minimise the contradictions in the accounts of creation but I doubt they hold any water with anyone coming to the Bible with a skeptical viewpoint.
October 5th, 2009 on 2:01 pm
“Finally, since you characterize my account as an ‘improbable’ solution, I’ll ask this question. Which is more ‘probable’, that Genesis 1 was intended as a proto-scientific account of how things came to be, or that it was intended as an account of God’s power in creation? Because, from my perspective (and Augustine’s and Maimonides’), the idea that Genesis is trying to be some kind of science book is a complete non-starter.” [WisdomLover Aug 17 2009].
My question to you is why not?
The Jews of that time believed the world to be flat. Their knowledge of the world was limited to the Middle East, mainly Assyria, Eygpt, Palastine and the surrounding regions. They had not discovered Europe, nor were they familiar with rational scientific thought that we have today. The rigorous scientific techniques we use today to formulate and test theories was nowhere near as extensive in those times. That does not mean to say that there were no men of science, or men and women who could by using their God given intellects could not make some sense of the world around them. And your perspective, that of Maimonides and Augustine come from one common starting point – namely that the Bible is inerrant.
October 5th, 2009 on 3:51 pm
What this argument fails to recognise is that for the early redactors of the OT they did not actually know which version was correct. Such scribes placed much more importance on what they considered to be holy scripture and so placed both versions together. Editing of the Word of God was punishable by death and as written material was at a premium it would have taken a very brave scribe to seek to alter the verses of the oldest scriptures.
-The Crucible
So your contention is that the Jews who compiled the Old Testament believed that some stories that they put in without change were incorrect, but they were afraid to change them because they were the Word of God. They apparently had no qualms about including in the Scriptures stories that were not the Word of God, and in fact conflicted with the Word of God. Also, all these sacrosanct words were ‘fluid’ until they wrote it down.
I think there’s something wrong here, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.
——————————–
WL: “The idea that Genesis is trying to be some kind of science book is a complete non-starter”
TC: “My question to you is why not?”
More TC: “…They had not discovered Europe, nor were they familiar with rational scientific thought that we have today. The rigorous scientific techniques we use today to formulate and test theories was nowhere near as extensive in those times.”
New comment by WL: “That’s why not.”
In fairness, TC adds this: “That does not mean to say that there were no men of science, or men and women who, by using their God given intellects, could not make some sense of the world around them.”
My question to TC is this: “Perhaps you are right. Let us assume that you are. Do you think that those men and women wrote the Bible? Should we add S to Y, E, D and P and attribute Gen 1 to S?”
——————————–
“What gives WL the right to make such an unnatural reading of the text as so clearly presented within the first few chapters of Genesis?” -TC
I think that my reading as a brief declaration of the power of an ancient King such as you might have in contemporaneous Hittite literature is far more natural than any proto-scientific reading, so I don’t think I require any special ‘right’ to read the text this way.
A reading isn’t rendered ‘natural’ or ‘unnatural’ simply because a skeptic declares that it is. The fact is that a proto-scientific account of creation would have virtually no parallel in contemporaneous literature.
No doubt, I do come to this discussion with a belief in inerrancy. But is it not true that you, TC, come to it with a prior belief in Biblical errancy. Does that not explain why you are so willing to insist, against all principles of charity in reading, that the Biblical author(s) contradicted themselves in the space of a few lines.
October 5th, 2009 on 4:11 pm
“Which is more ‘probable’, that Genesis 1 was intended as a proto-scientific account of how things came to be, or that it was intended as an account of God’s power in creation?” [WL #47]
Again I return to the theme of omniscience. Why would such an omniscient God allow this contradictory version to be revealed? God would recognise that those who come to his Holy Revelation would come seeking truth, wisdom and the path to meaning and purpose in life. I agree that we should give the Bible the opportunity to be re-interpreted in the light of science and history but I certainly don’t take an a priori stance that the Bible is inerrant. Such an approach would hamper and color the discovery of the “truths” proported by any book claiming to be “Holy Scripture”.
This does not mean that the Bible has to be “idiot-proof”. Only that it should allow a reasonably intelligent reader to discover God without requiring him to throw all intellectual integrity to the wind.
What I often find most interesting in discussions with inerrantists is their unwillingness to actually read the scripture!
October 5th, 2009 on 4:18 pm
Let us actually look at Genesis 1.
1. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Pretty straight-forward. Here is a possible account of creation as purported by the OT writers. Nothing controversial in this verse.
2. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters”.
Bit more difficult. First we are told that the earth was without form and void. Looking at this verse in the light of the latest theories about the creation of the universe namely the Big Bang theory and that of the recurring universe, you could perhaps make this fit. “earth” could be interpreted as matter. If this verse was God’s revelation to Man of the Big Bang well given that they would not have really understood it as we do, its a pretty good verse which does not contradict the theories we have today. Note I use the word theory. I am not s arrogant as to suggest that this theory is fact. Its a very good theory and it helps to explain much of what scientists find in their understanding today. This theory may change or be modified by it is accepted as likely to be the best model of the expanding universe that we have today.
3. And God said Let there be light; and there was light.
Again no problem. Big Bang theory states that the universe started from a very small compact, highly dense quantum of matter which exploded in a mighty cataclysm ejecting what makes up much of what we see today. Note here dear reader that I am giving the Bible credit where it is due. This is how a critical unbiased reader should approach the text. My “interpretation” of verse 2 may be open to debate and I am happy to discuss it. Should anyoone offer me a better/alternative explanation then I am happy to listen and give it due consideration. In a way I am allowing the Bible to have its a priori inerrant stance, but that does not mean that when it is wrong I won’t reject it. Lets move on.
4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
Hmm. Quantum physics tells us that the space-time continuum came into existence after the first event. On a metaphysical level, the division of light and darkness could be interpreted as the division between time in the space-time continuum and the event horizon of the expanding universe beyond which time has no meaning. Again this is my interpretation and I welcome any views. I very much doubt that this was how it was understood by the OT Jews as these theories just did not exist then. Having said that it does not mean that God could not reveal eternal truths which would only be fully appreciated by later generations.
5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
Do we interpret Day and Night as a 24 hour day or give it some indeterminate period? Bible bashers who believe the world to be 4000 odd years old would count it as one 24hr day and claim that the compression of the creation into such a small period is a miracle, but I think dear reader that we can interpret is as a much longer period during which the primordial universe was taking shape. Given that current theories give the solar system a life span of some 5 billion odd years, the universe before the existence of stars must be older. I am willing to give the OT text of Genesis the latitude to be interpreted as some indeterminate period of time. The Night/Day dichotomy may not fit exactly with the space-time continuum /event horizon dichotomy but so far there is very little to cause me any problems.
October 5th, 2009 on 4:31 pm
6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters
7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
More difficult to interpret. There may be both allegory and science behind these verses. I am happy to accept both. If the division of the firmament and the making of the Heavens refers to the current theories concerning dark matter and the visible universe well wow how amazing! If it refers only to God’s creation of Heaven – then I see no contradiction here.
Note, there is another reference to a day having gone by. A second indeterminate period of time may have elapsed whilst God creates Heaven. What is clear however is that this appears to be chronological. First God creates Light, then He creates the Heavens.
October 5th, 2009 on 5:27 pm
“Also, all these sacrosanct words were ‘fluid’ until they wrote it down.
I think there’s something wrong here, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.” WL #52
The OT most certainly did not exist as one story extant. OT history is a collection of stories told over 2500 years. Most were sung or told. And the Jews sang loud and proud. But any story told through a chain of narrators over time evolves – chinese whispers, maybe the conceit of the narrator who thinks he can tell the story better. For instance there must be a million versions of Cinderella, I tell many versions to my children. No two versions are exactly the same yet the story-teller is the same. That is the limitation of oral narrative. Now some languages lend themselves to poetry and a ballad may remain largely unaltered if the verses are terse. If I believed the story was the revealed Word of God, it is likely that I would be much more careful but that dooen’t preclude the possibility of conceit or error. Hence narrative always remains fluid until such time as it is written down. If I were to read Disney’s version of Cinderella to my children, well the story would be the same, every time-but is Disney’s version a faithful version of the original author? Now given that the history of the Jews/Hebrew nations was punctuated by much bloodshed, with many of the intellectual elite being actively killed in their wars, given that they were scattered over many nations often held in captivity, many traditions may well have come into existence. The Jews may conceivably have altered many of their songs to match with contemporaneous thought. This is a charge that I do not level-it is leveled by the prophets of the OT themselves. Until such time as their stories and songs were written down, it is likely that their narrative was subject to change.
As for not being able to quite put your finger on it – let me ask you this question. Without the words of this discussion written down and available for you to look over, is it likely that you could relate word for word exactly what we have been discussing over the period of a few short posts? I know that I couldn’t. In a similar manner why do you find it so impossible to accept that the history of the OT Jews was in the first instance an oral tradition which subsequently was redacted into a written one and therefore open to the possibility of changes?
On reading the Bible it also becomes quite obvious that the authors of the stories are speaking from some point in the future looking back towards events which had already happened. When viewed from that point it becomes clear that it is easy for the writer to alter history to fit his/her narrative whilst still retaining some semblence to real historical events. How is this possible and how did he get away with it?
Let us look at historians today – to tell history accurately you need to have truthful eye-witness accounts. What is most likely is that we have a some mosiac of some of the fragments of what actually happened if the tellers of the tales were first hand witnesses. The stories become much more questionable as the story is told second or third hand. From this point forward it is mere speculation and good story-telling. Broadly speaking the story may be true, but true in every respect down to the smallest jot – I doubt it.
The “revelation” also needs to be challenged. If there is no-one to challenge it over time with the death of the author, contemporaries alive at the time of the events, it is conceivable that what was once written as an account becomes accepted as “Holy Scripture”. If you doubt me look to the Gospel of Luke. Nowhere does the author declare that the narrative he is relating is revelation. Yet today it is accepted as Gospel Truth! Who is to say that Luke got everything right? What if he was using some artistic licence in his retelling of the story of Jesus? Can you honestly say that it is revelation when the author himself hesitates to say as much?
October 5th, 2009 on 5:41 pm
My question to TC is this: “Perhaps you are right. Let us assume that you are. Do you think that those men and women wrote the Bible? Should we add S to Y, E, D and P and attribute Gen 1 to S?” WL# 52
Honestly, WL I don’t know who the authors of Genesis were. What does become clear from a reading of the text is that there was more than one author, more than one narrative and that is why I can see quite clear contradictions. You do not seem to see this, or maybe you are unwilling to open your mind to what most people see. If the Koran were to say that Jesus was the Messiah, would you accept the Koran as the Word of God – (by the way it does)? Why not?
Maybe it is because I come to the Bible with no axe to grind or preconceived ideas. I have been reading it for years and listening to possible solutions for years. Your explanations do not seem quite right to me – no disrespect intended friend.
October 5th, 2009 on 5:44 pm
“The fact is that a proto-scientific account of creation would have virtually no parallel in contemporaneous literature.” WL #52
Why would there have to be?
Why could God not have produced something which had no parallel?
Would that not give it greater authenticity because there could be allegation of plagiarism?
October 5th, 2009 on 10:44 pm
TC-
You’ve written far more than I can take the time to adequately respond to. It is all very thought-provoking. Thank-you for taking the time to write it.
I would like to repay you with a few comments on the highlights.
Let me start by agreeing with you. I have no doubt that the OT contains large sections that are the result of compilation of various oral traditions. We probably agree more than disagree about the claims that you made in post #56 in particular. This is true even if tradition is correct and Moses is the editor.
But let me turn to the point about fluidity. What I was trying to get at is that, since the stories were fluid prior to being compiled, the editor(s) who compiled them had the opportunity at that point to make any necessary harmonizations.
To use your Cinderella example, when Disney plotted his cartoon he had the opportunity to make a choice about the fate of the step-sisters’ toes. He chose not to have them cut off their own toes in an effort to fit into the glass slipper (I think that was a good choice). Given that, what you would not expect is to have him plot the story as he did, but then at the very end include a scene where the stepsisters are missing their toes.
Let’s now turn to the bit about the alleged scientific character of Gen 1. You’ve now agreed, I think, that if Gen 1 is a scientific account, it would be without parallel in contemporaneous literature, but a brief history of the power of an ancient King would not be without parallel. My point was to answer the charge on unnaturalness leveled against my account of Gen 1. It seems to me that that charge is now answered.
Honestly, go back and look at my account of King Bob in post 19 and tell me that you would naturally read it as a chronological account of events in Bob’s Kingdom. At best it’s a chronological account of Bob’s commands intended to show Bob’s power. That’s what Gen 1 is. That’s the sort of thing you might see in Hittite literature of the day.
BTW, Errancy’s answer to King Bob was that he would read it as I do in the case of Bob because Bob is not omnipotent, but as chronological in the case of God because God is omnipotent. Had the acts of Bob been changed to include things easily within Bob’s power like ordering the rearrangement of furniture, then he would read the story of Bob as chronological as well.
It has now occurred to me that this response is inadequate. The point of the story was to prove Bob’s effectiveness as a King. And the point of Gen 1 is to prove God’s power in creation. As such starting from an assumption of omniscience misses the point of the story. Just as stories of Bob’s feats in furniture rearrangement are not likely to impress those who read that accounts of those feats.
It’s because God can create the world at all, whether in 6 minutes or 6 days or 6 billion years, that we know that He is omnipotent. That is the point of the story.
October 6th, 2009 on 10:27 am
“But let me turn to the point about fluidity. What I was trying to get at is that, since the stories were fluid prior to being compiled, the editor(s) who compiled them had the opportunity at that point to make any necessary harmonizations.” WL#
Friend the root of the problem with editing is this – you make an assumption that the editor(s) had ALL the different narratives at hand and that their common goal was to come to a unified coherent compilation of God’s revealed Word. That each new revelation was diligently written and brought to the Temple elders for some form of ratification. That the wisest of these fellows then sat down and ironed out any problems to ensure there were no inconsistencies between what was offered and what they already had accept as revelation.
These assumptions show a shocking lack of honesty on your part. The Bible did not come into its current form until the Council of Nicea in 400AD. Even then the “accepted” texts were subject to a beauty contest. Even at this stage no-one dared to openly change the writings for fear that they would damn their souls. Certain texts were definately challenged and if their tradition was found to not concur with the 400 year old ideology of early christianity they were destroyed. This is why there was a fundamental three way split between the early church fathers – the trinitarians from the Western Churchs, the Eastern Churches and the Unitarians.
This whole or nothing uncritical acceptance of the texts in their entirety is why there are conflicting stories in the bible, which is nothing more than a simple compilation of the texts. It was not until decades later when the “Authentic” Bibles having become more widely available were seriously studied, that the worms started to come out of the woodwork. This is what gave rise to the entire science of apologetics. It also explains why there are entire passages found in newer manuscripts which were not in older manuscripts. Footnotes, appendices, writings scribbled in the margins were later absorbed into the main text and accepted many years later as revealed truth. It is only now with the discovery of older manuscripts and serious critical bibilical study of the passages that slowly the Church has started to accept that certain passages are weak if not outright fabrication.
History, even biblical history tells us that the assumption of editing (though possibly taking place widely) did not preclude the possibility of different and competing oral/written narratives. The Jewish nations were constantly struggling for possession of land, power and dominance, both within and without. They were under constant threat from the surrounding world powers of their times – who also had their Gods and their traditions. As such they were scattered over vast geographical regions often with little to no access to the traditions of the other tribes. As their writings multiplied the Levites who made up the Priestly order made attempts to gather together such scrolls as came into existence but not successfully and who knows how many were destroyed because they challenged the orthodoxy – again this was a charge levelled by the OT prophets, not by me. With the emerge of trading between the nations the possibility of absorbing non-hebrew traditions also increased substantially.
Much like the Priests of today, they only told the unwashed masses the messages that they wanted heard so that they could control them and were quick to gloss over the difficult portions. This is why Jesus was so successful in his discussions with the learned men of his time. Because he had the ability to drag out their inconsistencies and make them look foolish.
Today, now after the invention of the printing press and the internet, we have access to huge sources of information cheaply. Many of the masses have the rudimentary abilities of reading and writing. This allows us to look at the texts and use our innate intelligence to see contradictions when they are clear. This most certainly was not the case during the OT/NT and even early church periods – such abilities were restricted and censored to remain with the elite. Open criticism of the “Word of God” was punishable by death. Scholars were few and far between. Editing as proposed by you is unlikely to have happened because of the fear of discovery. It also became more difficult once the orthodox church came into existence. It is for this reason that the Talmud came into being. The Talmud is the earliest form of Jewish apologetics.
I do not discount the possibilty of editing, but I do not agree with you dear friend when you make the suggestion above. Either you lack knowledge or honesty. I hope that it is the former and not the latter.
Let me take you back to the Cinderella scenario.
I stated that even when I tell the story to my children I make changes, maybe unconsciously, maybe consciously and my telling of the tale is very different to the original. You agree that Disney’s version is not faithful either. So, though there may be a grain of truth in the telling of the story, it is surrounded by additions, insertions, conceit and who knows maybe even fundamental facts have been missed and so lost. If this parallel is extended to the Bible, it leads us to understand that it is prima facie a book which may contain fundamental truths, but also contains additions, alterations, man-made inventions, fabrications etc.
Now my questions to you with regards to Genesis are these:
Can you honestly say exactly when the two different narratives were put together?
Can you definitively say who the authors were of the two different accounts?
Can you honestly say that you know why there are inconsistencies?
I suspect the answer is no, unless your going to take the discredited approach by saying that it was all written by Moses or edited by him. If that is your belief (and I think you have hinted it is as much), I fear friend that you have very much to learn about history and reality.
October 6th, 2009 on 11:03 am
I’m reluctant to add any more to what’s already a sprawling discussion, but have to pick up on this: “The Bible did not come into its current form until the Council of Nicea in 400AD.” [The Crucible]
In a Q&A session following a lecture at Stanford University, Bart Ehrman gave to the question “To what extent were canon and textual problems discussed at Nicaea?” the answer “Not at all.” [video of the lecture, about 7.20]
Perhaps he’s wrong, but I’d like to see some evidence before taking your word for it. Where did you get the idea that the canon was formed at Nicaea?
October 6th, 2009 on 11:39 am
“Can you honestly say exactly when the two different narratives were put together?”
No.
“Can you definitively say who the authors were of the two different accounts?”
No.
“Can you honestly say that you know why there are inconsistencies?”
Loaded Question. Since I don’t think it makes sense to view either account as strictly chronological (though the first account is quasi-chronological), I don’t think that there are inconsistencies.
“I fear friend that you have very much to learn about history and reality.”
One thing I do not need to learn is that the Jewish canon was settled at the council of Nicaea, since it was not.
I also realize that whoever the editor was or editors were (and no, I don’t insist on Moses, though I’ll never rule him out either…it’s too often been the case that scorned tradition turns out to be right), the various items were brought into the canon over many long years.
But there was a moment, was there not, when some one or some group of individuals decided to put Genesis 1 right before Genesis 2. I don’t know whether Genesis 2 was already written down and they decided to put Genesis 1 before it or whether Genesis 2 was appended to a pre-existing Genesis 1. I suppose scholars that immerse themselves in discussions of Y (or J), P, E and D would have something to say here. I believe that they’d identify Genesis 2 as the older work (by a good four centuries). It probably is.
But I don’t know when the two accounts were put together. I’m sure that it was well before AD 400. Just to be infuriating, I’ll say that it might have been in 1444 BC. Whenever it was, if you are right, the editor(s) combined Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 knowing that one of them was false (since, according to you, both are chronological), and therefore not the Word of God. Is that not a consequence of your view?
October 6th, 2009 on 8:04 pm
Certainly Jewish canon came into being long before the council of Nicea. It was not my intention so suggest that it was. The books of the NT were canonised at this symposium and the OT scriptures accepted and arranged in the order we have today.
I cannot understand how you can so categorically state that scorned tradition turns out to be right. As you do not have these traditions you make this statement from a point of ignorance. Who is to say that had these texts remained extant that we would not see a different picture of Christ and Jewish history. As neither you nor I have these texts to analyse, what we have left is what I stated earlier – a body of texts which broadly concur.
An analogy would be if you were to take two sides of an argument, publish only one, suppress the other and call only the published side Gospel Truth.
Regarding the two accounts of Genesis, I fully agree that there probably was some point in history when both traditions were merged. There may even have been much soul-searching, but as I stated earlier without access to the original author or his contemporaries, the compilers had no way of knowing which was right and which was wrong. Certainly for them to have come together as they are, the compilers must have given each the same merit even with their differences. And if the two traditions were separated by a span of 400 years well the question then arises how the second tradition came into being? There is one theory that states that one of the accounts of Genesis actually was copied from the Babylonian mythology of creation and was brought out by the Jews after their spell of captivity in Babylon came to an end.
Interpretation of the Revelation was then broadly confined to the development of the Talmud.
Given that there is no one who actually knows who the authors were or when the traditions came into being or even when they were compiled, we have no way of saying what the intentions were of the authors, whether they were making it up, copying it or were really God-inspired. Certainly every civilization has sought to make sense of its place and purpose.
October 7th, 2009 on 4:13 pm
Here’s what I said:
“I don’t insist on Moses (as the editor of the Torah), though I’ll never rule him out either…it’s too often been the case that scorned tradition turns out to be right”
Here’s what you said, TC:
“I cannot understand how you can so categorically state that scorned tradition turns out to be right.”
I don’t think I ever said categorically that scorned tradition turns out to be right.
My claim was “scorned tradition has too often turned out to be right (for me to reject the Moses-as-Torah-editor hypothesis)”. I was expressing my (healthy) respect of tradition. There are three aspects to this:
1) I respect and do not scorn what tradition says, even if tradition has sometimes been shown to be wrong.
2) We have often rejected and even scorned at one time what tradition says only for us to find out later, and often to our sorrow, that tradition was right and our rejection of it foolish.
3) In light of 2, tradition has earned the respect I have for it mentioned in 1.
Because scorned tradition has too often turned out to be right, I am reluctant to take what it has to say off the table (and, in fact, will give it the benefit of the doubt whenever that is possible).
Here’s something else you said, TC:
“As you do not have these traditions you make this statement from a point of ignorance.”
In the case of Moses as editor of the Torah, we certainly do have the tradition. It’s many long centuries old. It was held with virtual unanimity until the 17th century. It was held by people who were far closer to the original writings than we are today. The Documentary Hypothesis is, by comparison, a Johnny-come-lately theory that’s really only just over a century old (though there are traces of the theory that date back a century earlier).
But I admit that I am ignorant. The documentary film “The Making of the Torah” was, sadly, not found among the ruins at Qumran (or anywhere else). So we don’t know how the Torah was assembled. In light of this, is the following claim really unreasonable?
The most likely theory is that the Torah was assembled per the Documentary Hypothesis, but that is not even close to certain, and for all we know it was assembled by Moses, nor can we discount the possibility that everyone is completely wrong about how it was assembled.
Let us now return to the the main topic. You said this:
“And if the two traditions were separated by a span of 400 years well the question then arises how the second tradition came into being?”
Which is a very provocative question. Let us assume that the Yahwist Genesis 2 account is the older account and has already been hardened into a proto-Torah. Let us also assume that everyone takes your view about Genesis 2. That it is obviously chronological and that there is no other way to read it with honesty. How does a conflicting chronological account even get started? Doesn’t it just get rooted out as heresy? It seems that, if the Yahwist account can only be read as a strict chronology, we don’t even get to the point that some redactor or other is considering where and how to include the Priestly account of Genesis 1 (assuming, as you do, that the Gen 1 account is also unambiguously chronological).
October 11th, 2009 on 12:09 pm
WL I’m pretty certain I’ve already given a reply to this concept of two different traditions in numerous of my responses. Now either you are failing to read these, (which I doubt) or you are deliberately avoiding the explanations given so as to avoid having to face the reality of how the Bible was composed.
As to scorned tradition, the point which you so adeptly failed to address was the publishing one side of an argument case only. Without the other traditions to view you are only seeing one side of the argument. It is for this reason that many respected biblical historians and scholars distance themselves from the many claims made by inerrantists. It is because history grows in the telling and without access to the actual personalities, historians, authors etc. can only speculate about how what why where and when unless there is solid evidence to support a theory or an account.
Earlier you stated “We probably agree more than disagree about the claims that you made in post #56″. Yet our discussions do not seem to show much agreement. So which of the statements in post 56 do you actually agree with and which do you reject?
You then proceed to ask in your last post “How does a conflicting chronological account even get started? Doesn’t it just get rooted out as heresy?”
And I’m pretty certain a gave a good account of this also. For a tradition to be rooted out as heresy you have to have a centralised body which examines all claims to divine revelation. Given the history of the Jews, this was never truly formulised and so many traditions false and true came into being which may not have been examined for many years during which time they had already gained a life of their own. Let me give you an example. Today there are numerous stories of the events surrounding the bombings of the Twin Towers on 9/11. We have video evidence of the events as they occurred. Scraps of information have come together to help us get a better picture of the personalities of the men behind the bombings. A multitude of books, articles, cartoons, etc have been presented which have conflicting explanations. On the basis of flimsy evidence, two wars are being fought to destroy the “axis of evil”. Yet even today with the best technology, the most educated literate people different accounts exist, some which will be debated for many decades. And as we get further and further away from the events it becomes more and more difficult, if not impossible to learn what truly occurred and how much is fact and how much fiction. Apply the same logical thought processes to the accounts of Genesis and it does not become hard to see how two different and maybe even conflicting accounts could be accepted as tradition and one not being called heretical. One account may have been considered heretical but without access to the personalities who were closer to the events on the ground what we have now is mere speculation.
Now one hypothesis offered by biblical historians is that one of the Genesis accounts closely resembles the creation mythology of the Babylonians who held a portion of the Hebrews in captivity. It is conceivable that the Hebrews on their return from exile brought this account along with them. It is also conceivable that it became a tradition without it being deemed heretical. Now you do not seem to see any controversy in the verses of the two accounts. It is entirely possible that the Hebrews rationalised the same way as you. But that doesn’t make it correct.
October 11th, 2009 on 3:32 pm
I’m going to skip over most of the beginning of you post, TC, because it seems to me I would be re-hashing points already made. I think my last post explained pretty well where I think the DH fits in all of this.
Your 9/11 analogy is flawed for two reasons. First, the conspiracy theorists are crackpots and everyone with sense knows this. So even now, that heresy is getting rooted out. Second, the Gen 1 account, according to DH, came along 400 years after the Gen 2 account (not 400 minutes).
“It is also conceivable that it became a tradition without it being deemed heretical. Now you do not seem to see any controversy in the verses of the two accounts. It is entirely possible that the Hebrews rationalised the same way as you.”
Yes. Exactly. Now, I don’t know that this is correct. As I said before, I don’t think its reasonable to take off the table the thesis that nobody has given anything resembling the correct account of what happened. But even you admit this as a possibility of how the newer account got included next to the old one.
But this last comment by you is quite telling:
“But that doesn’t make it right.”
If what the Hebrews themselves believed about the two accounts doesn’t establish what the accounts say. Then nothing can.
So we’re left in this situation. TC says both accounts are chronological and even the individuals who originally adopted those accounts as sacred writ cannot gainsay TC.
October 11th, 2009 on 5:12 pm
WL so far you have failed to address many of the questions I have asked. Though this is not the first instance. You were equally as glib in April #4. Why so dismissive friend?
October 12th, 2009 on 3:25 pm
TC-
It is not my intention to be dismissive. But I cannot give you a long discussion on every question you ask or every point you raise. I wish I could, but I simply don’t have enough time. As such, I have to confine myself to what I take to be the highlights. And if I think I’d be repeating points I already expressed well, I’ll just refer you back to them.
Even my comment in April (I believe my ‘glib dismissal’ was actually in item #5, item #4 was by dr_mouse), was not meant as a glib dismissal. I honestly had no idea where dm was going with his comment and how it engaged with my argument. It seemed more like dm was trying to refute my argument by characterizing me as some sort of blind, pseudo-intellectual boob.
Now, it’s fine if dm has that opinion of me. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and sometimes I think that about myself as well. But I simply don’t know how to answer it as an argument. On similar occasions, though not on this blog, I have pointed out that refutation by insult doesn’t actually work. Sometimes I’ve coated that reply in acid. But I didn’t do that this time, instead I drilled down in item #7 to those three questions.
I think those 3 questions have led to a lively debate here by a number of participants. Almost all of the comments since then have been useful. So I think that was a good move in this instance. Neither post #5 in reply to dm, nor post #7, nor my latest post in response to you were ever intended as a glib dismissal.
If I may, I would like to highlight what I think has happened so far. Since I’m doing the highlighting, I will, of course, appear in a good light in all respects ;-)
1. You charged me with having a naive view of how scripture was compiled and that is why I was having trouble seeing how two conflicting chronological accounts could be placed next to eachother. I haven’t yet convinced you that I do not have a naive view. Now, I am certainly no expert in this field. And your expertise probably far exceeds mine. So nothing is more likely than that my views are naive.
2. During this dialog, many important points about the compilation process postulated by the DH theory were clarified. For example, that the pieces of the OT were not gathered all together and put into the OT canon under the direction of a single editor or group of editors all at once. These points were largely brought forward under your guidance TC.
3. To avoid having my naivete about the process do undue harm to my arguments, I have tried to remain agnostic about the details of how the OT was compiled, I even left open the possibility that the DH was wrong and tradition was right all along about it being Moses I think there is still some confusion between us about this point (This is the whole “scorned tradition” thread where, I think, we have largely been talking past each other).
The only thing I have tried to maintain is that the human beings who did the compiling would (1) have an ordinary human concern about consistency and (2) believe that they were participating in the compilation of God’s Word. I want to maintain these two propositions whether the Torah was compiled over 2500 years by many editors (as is likely) or 25 years by 1 editor (as tradition teaches)*.
4. There was initially a charge of unnaturalness to my reading of Gen 1 that I think, at least in our discussion, can be put to rest on the basis of reasons that I won’t repeat here but which you can see in #52 (toward the end), #58, #59 (near the middle), #65 (toward the end) and #66 (near the middle). This seems to me, to be among the most important points we’ve been discussing. Because If my reading of Gen 1 can pass the ‘naturalness’ test, then there is really no reason at all to be troubled by the alleged contradiction posted above.
—————————–
* I know, I know tradition doesn’t really say how long it took Moses to write the Torah, let alone saying that it took 25 years. Poetic license, OK.
October 13th, 2009 on 8:34 pm
Thank you WL for responding to my last post. I do not suggest that you are naive. Far from it. It would seem that you are widely read and your knowledge probably exceeds my own. History however has a way of recording events as they would like to be seen by the author. My discussions with you to date have been to clarify the rationale for why serious scholars advocate the many authors over many years approach. They do so because the text shows evidence of assembly, because there are stylistic changes etc. On that basis there lies the undisputed probabilty of tampering with text. I will get to it again in later posts but I needed to articulate my understanding because the simple 1 editor approach as often advocated just doesn’t hold water intellectually.
At the end of one of your recent posts you stated “TC says both accounts are chronological and even the individuals who originally adopted those accounts as sacred writ cannot gainsay TC.”
Well the argument could be turned on it’s head and articulated as this “WL says the stories are not chronological and even evidence to the contrary cannot gainsay WL”
We are at a stand-off friend. Why? Because you adopt an a priori approach: that of inerrancy. On the other hand I do not hold such a fundamental belief. I am prepared to but the scripture to the test as advocated by 2 Timothy.
October 17th, 2009 on 12:49 pm
“We are at a stand-off friend.”
I don’t think we need to be. I will explain.
As a preamble, I will affirm the DH for the sake of argument. As I said before, it is probably true. Furthermore, the affirmation enables us to safely isolate and ignore a number of issues that, I think, lead away from the main topic of this thread. Accepting DH, does not automatically imply that inerrancy is false. Nor does it automatically imply that Scripture was not inspired. It does imply that the Redactors were inspired as well as the original authors of J, E, D and P.
Given this assumption, I think that the dominant DH view is that the Gen 1/Gen 2 kerfuffle arises from the final JED+P redaction that led, ultimately, to the Torah (circa 400 BC).
Now, to the standoff.
I think the cases you identify are different. To explain, let us identify this claim:
The Thesis of Double-Chronology:
Both Gen 1 and Gen 2 were strictly chronological accounts.
I will call this claim DC for short.
My problem with your position is that you seemed to be saying something like this:
The JED+P redactors might have rejected DC, but even if they did, they were wrong.
You argued that I hold a parallel yet opposed view. Thus the standoff. For the cases to be parallel, I’d have to hold something like the following view:
The JED+P redactors might have accepted DC, but even if they did, they were wrong.
The views can be broken down further. Thus the first view (the one I attribute to you) becomes:
TC-1) The JED+P redactors might have rejected DC.
TC-2) If JED+P redactors rejected DC, they were wrong.
And the second view (putatively mine) can be broken down like this:
WL-1) The JED+P redactors might have accepted DC.
WL-2) If JED+P redactors accepted DC, they were wrong.
But I don’t actually accept the views attributed to me.
Starting with item WL-2, I reject it completely. If the redactors of the Torah believed that Gen 1 and Gen 2 are both chronological, they would not be interpreting it wrongly. If the redactors did accept DC, that would be a very serious problem for inerrancy. We are probably in total agreement here, right? That is why I have been at great pains to argue that the redactors did not accept DC.
I will accept item #1 in a limited sense. Yes, that’s a possibility. Is it plausible? Probably not.
Why not? The reasons may look familiar.
Because the JED+P redactors would have a normal concerns about consistency and pious concerns about altering sacred text. Notice, that I am not arguing from inerrancy, nor even from the lesser (but implied assumption that DC is false). I’m basing my argument totally on the concerns of normal human writers. If both passages are read as strict chronologies, they are contradictory. The redactors would have been adding P to an already extant and well hardened JED that they viewed as sacred. Any contradictory doctrine in P would have to be harmonized. I am not saying that humans never err and contradict themselves. Of course they do. But the contradictions are usually more subtle than saying that Man came after the animals just a few lines prior to saying that Man came before the animals.
For similar reasons, it is also unlikely that the authors of P would have understood the Gen 1 account as contradictory with the Gen 2 account (thus they would be taking at least one account as non-chronological). It is true that the authors of P would have had only JE, but that is immaterial to the Gen 1/Gen 2 issue, since Gen 1 is pure P and Gen2 is pure J. So JE is as good as JED in this case. The priestly authors would not even have gotten started on a chronological account that conflicts with Gen 2 if they viewed Gen 2 as chronological.
There is this possibility. The JED+P redactors viewed Gen 2 as chronological and incorporated Gen 1 viewing it as non-chronological. While the P authors viewed Gen 2 as non-chronological and, as such, had no problem thinking of Gen 1 as chronological. So the Redactor’s views and the Priestly views are conflicting. Now, I don’t think this is a problem with inerrancy. If true it shows that even at the inception of the Torah, there were differences of opinion about how to interpret Gen 1 and Gen 2. But both interpretive schools held the view that at least one of the accounts is non-chronological. That view is enough to resolve the inconsistency.
October 22nd, 2009 on 12:51 pm
Your summary is good but it overlooks many significant factors – especially those of established tradition and of fluidity. It is something which you appear to ignore because it proves fatal to your reasoning.
Bear in mind we are talking about people who believed truly and frevently that their tradition was revealed by God. If you take the time to read the OT you will see that the punishments for editing were nothing short of brutal and terminal. Now if two traditions of creation were bought side by side and one authority was commanded to unite them whilst under the supervision of both parties, then there is little else that can be done other than write them one after the other. If editing were to openly take place there would have been war between the two camps who each held a different tradition with the edited camp declaring that their revelation was being dimissed or at worse belittled.
What evidence do I have for this view? Well look to Bible OT itself and to a similar passage in the NT which states that anyone adding to taking away from the Word of God would be written out of the Book of Life. The threat in the OT is far more severe. So these people took their holy texts very seriously. By the time of redaction, there would most certainly have been written scrolls carrying each tradition – hence the loss of fluidity in tradition which I alluded to earlier. So the redactor(s) had no choice but to compile both traditions together when bringing both traditions into one scroll. The final scroll would have been poured over by both parties to ensure that there was no editing and then copied with each party having one copy. And that is the point of editing – to edit you must have the ability to edit. The redactors had no choice – on pain of death and possible for fear of condemning their everlasting souls – but to transcribe the scrolls accurately.
If you doubt me take a look at the outcome of the Eucumenical councils which were held to debate the controversy over the genealogy of Jesus. Two genealogies exist and both do not agree! Why was one not edited to match the other? Well again the answer is pretty simple – those responsible for compiling the final version of the NT did not know which was right and which wrong. And so two inconsistent genealogies exist. Now by the time of compilation they were both written and had become tradition – some authorities cite the final compilation to have taken place some 400 years after the death of Christ. As the original authors had long since passed away, the councils could not question the “authenticity” of each of the Gospel traditions. There was no-one to question to say “Look here old boy, how did you arrive at this genealogy? Who told you this? What documents do you have to prove your version?” Matthew’s version is interesting because there is strong evidence that the author of Matthew had access to many of the scrolls of the OT. Anyone with an hour or so can sit and read Matthew’s version with a Strong’s Concordance and arrive at which scrolls the author had to refer from. Interestingly Matthew conveniently omits some generations to make his aesthetically pleasing 3 x 14 generations from Abraham to Jesus – which should make you question his rationale. Luke’s version differs significantly. So here again we have two different and contradictory narratives which the redactors could not/would not amend – except on pain of death, eternal damnation and possibly all out war. Today those who have little understanding of church history try to reconcile the two narratives by saying that one is the genealogy of Jesus from his “father” Joseph and the other from his mother Mary. It is a weak argument and it is why serious biblical scholars reject it – especially when you take into account history. I do not doubt there was not much heart-wrenching amongst the Church Fathers about the accounts and they may have sought to rationalise the contradictions in their own ways – but that does not men that there are no contradictions. It is these contradictions which has given rise to the entire science of apologetics.
So you see friend, you come to Genesis with an assumption. It is basically that the redactors would have the concerns of normal human writers and so would have sought to edit one version to make both agree if they believed the accounts to be chronological. But we are not talking about normal people or normal books – this is the BOOK OF GOD and you don’t play fast and loose with it. If you do – you’ll end up dead. Normal books no problem, but Holy Scripture – no. If you read any of the many apologetics written by Hebrew scholars which form the Talmud and other writings, you will witness a lively and interesting discussion about how to interpret the texts.
Let us for a moment accept your propositions:
1. That the account of Genesis is “(t)he story of the seven days of creation” and “gives a chronological account of God’s _speaking_. It is not intended to give a chronological account of how creation came to be as a result of God’s speaking.* To be sure it links the coming to be with the associated words of creation, so it is topically arranged in that way.”
2. That the authors viewed one account as chronological and the other as non-chronological.
3. That the you “believe the Bible is inspired and that God has all the properties that the Bible attributes to Him”
You still run into a problem – and that problem is the one of scientific forethought. I only barely touched on it, as so far I have been explaining why the two versions can exist side by side and be inconsistent. If anything, God should know how He put together creation. And since God cannot lie, it is strange that He seems to have got the order wrong in both accounts when looked at in the light of science. Whatever happened to omniscience?
Your first hypothesis is alluring – because there is a lot of God saying this and saying that. But there is also a lot of creating happening, taking place and being completed within one day. It seems convenient that you give more weight to the speaking but not the to actualization of the events. Shame the sequence of events breaks down half way throught the story, which is why I have problems with the narrative being God-inspired. I have no problem accepting it as the word of man. The original revelation/inspiration would have been right. The fact that it is wrong scientifically, gives far more weight to the DH and fluidity scenarios I have been postulating.
October 23rd, 2009 on 5:51 am
I think, if you are right about the penalties of adding to the text, redaction becomes impossible. Wouldn’t the war start the minute someone said, “Hey let’s merge P with JED”.
Also, before P was even written, the writers of P had JE, which, if chronological, would have already ruled out a contrary chronology. So the P-partisans would already have reconciled P with JE while P was still ‘fluid’ (if they felt any reconciliation was necessary).
Also, I do not think that the only way that the partisans could have resolved the chronology problem (if there ever was one…which I doubt) requires that the partisans edit the texts.
Look at it this way, if Rabbi Jedidiah is under the impression that Gen 2 is chronological and the very Word of God, and Rabbi Priestly is trying to convince him to include Gen 2, then Rabbi Jedidiah is just going to have to view Gen 1 as non-chronological if he agrees to include Gen 1. Otherwise he would be agreeing to include in the Word of God, something he would have to believe is not the Word of God (in virtue of being contrary to it). That is the very thing that would get you written out of the book of life.
By parity of reasoning, Rabbi Priestly, if he viewed Gen 1 as strictly chronological, would have to look at Gen 2 as non-chronological to even consider making the suggestion of merging the texts…even if he is so in the tank for P that he views P as the very Word of God and the text he looks at with suspicion is J.
Now, as I mentioned above, it is possible that both factions arrived at a modus vivendi where they agreed that one of the passages is not chronological and agreed that they don’t know (or, at least, would not declare) which one isn’t chronological.
So, no editing would occur in that case, but it just goes to show that it was OK with the redactors (who are way closer to the texts than any scholar will ever be) to view at least one of the accounts as non-chonological. Because of this, I take it as proven that a non-chronological reading of either passage cannot be unnatural simply because it is non-chronological. The redactors of the Torah themselves held the view that one account was non-chronological.
Furthermore, even if the accounts are both strictly chronological and, thus, inconsistent, and even if they both had to be included without editing, the redactors still could have placed the accounts differently or even artfully interleaved them (as, by the theory, they did with J, E, P and D all over the Torah) to lessen the impact of the contradiction.
Let’s now turn to the scientific issue. That really isn’t the main topic of the blog article that errancy posted way, way, up there somewhere. But it has surely been discussed. Here’s a pithy selection from your last post:
“Your first hypothesis is alluring – because there is a lot of God saying this and saying that. But there is also a lot of creating happening, taking place and being completed within one day. It seems convenient that you give more weight to the speaking but not the to actualization of the events.”
If by “convenient” you mean that it resolves the difficulty with an old earth hypothesis, I suppose that is true.
But I gather you mean to suggest that it is also a strained and unnatural reading adopted only for the sake of reconciling the view with science.
Let me first talk about my motivations for the view. I’ll start saying I am not a creationist, but I can assure you that my beef with a creationist interpretation of the passage is not that it conflicts with science. As I said, to Amtiskaw’s great consternation, I’m perfectly comfortable with what he considers an outrageous view about the history of the world (that God created it with the appearance of age, then warned us, through Gen 1, not to let appearances deceive us).
And I would hold that view if I really thought that Gen 1 read as a strict chronology. My reasons for believing the Bible to be inspired do not include its wonderful lessons in astrophysics or biology. As I’ve already mentioned, I do not believe that it tries to teach many lessons in those fields.
My motivation for holding my view is that I think Gen 1 is not about science, but about the Power of God. Also, it reconciles Gen 1 and Gen 2.
At first, I wasn’t even sure that it would reconcile Gen 1 with evolution. My words were in post #1 were: “I’m not going to talk about creation v. evolution except to say that I don’t think that what I’ve said so far really does much to harmonize evolution with the Bible.”
It wasn’t until post #16 after Errancy and Amtiskaw had been going back and forth for a bit that I realized that you might use this interpretation to harmonize the text with an old earth hypothesis.
Enough about my motivations. They are really irrelevant to the question of whether the reading is a good one anyway. I could be giving a good reading for bad or even evil reasons. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve sinned right in the middle of doing something good.
The important question is whether this is a strained or unnatural reading. For reasons already given, I don’t think you can call it strained simply because it is non-chronological. Furthermore, considering my ‘King Bob’ analogy, it is not unnatural in its own right, but, in fact, quite plausible.
Why the emphasis on the Words of God rather than the coming to be of the created order? Because God is the important figure in the account; the creative order is there just to show God’s power. Just as Bob was the important figure in the King Bob story, the lights and the landfills were playing a supporting role. The passage is about God’s power first and earth and earthlings second.
October 26th, 2009 on 10:37 pm
“I think, if you are right about the penalties of adding to the text, redaction becomes impossible. Wouldn’t the war start the minute someone said, “Hey let’s merge P with JED”.” WL
Intriguing – did you miss the entire paragraph I wrote about the controversy concerning the genealogies of Christ and the fact that both don’t match? How in earth did they get into the final “authorised” version of the NT?
Maybe there was a war? Who knows – there is certainly a lot of infighting amongst the hebrew (as recorded in the OT). Maybe the only compromise was to say “well we don’t actually know which version is right but as we are pulling together the traditions let us record them one after the other and let God guide us and future generations”?
One thing you overlook friend, regularly, is that these traditions arose from oral traditions before finally being written down. Many traditions were centuries old before the made it to animal hide, papyrus, clay tablets etc. Centuries old before they came to be considered before any council of Rabbis made up of Rabbi Jedidiah and Priestly. Now think of this carefully. If one of the tribes did not have access to the other tradition then as far as they are concerned it IS a CHRONOLOGICAL account. As far as they are concerned Rabbi J and Rabbi P both believe they have the story of creation. The only time it becomes a problem is when the two are bought side by side. As to the suggestion of “artful interleaving” -again you miss the point entirely. Editing in the manner you are suggesting was punishable by death and/or eternal damnation. This is why there exists much literature about the texts.
Let us bring the story forward to today and give an analogy. We are now able to look at the Bible in the light of science and amazing insights into the processes of creation, evolution, physics, mathematics and after having discovered many ‘lost traditions’ etc.. Why hasn’t any clever body of eucumenical clergy got together with the best brains of humanity, relooked at the Bible and published a scientifically, historically correct version with the verses cleverly juggled around to get over the controversies? It is certainly possible isn’t it? Would it be accepted by the God-fearing believers who number in the many millions? Not on your nelly. Such a council would be laughed out of existence today – a few centuries ago they would have been burnt at the stake. This is why there was no “artful interleaving”. But let us also not forget that many attempts have been made to re-write the Bible to minimise these inconsistencies. First there arose the Age of Denial, followed by the Age of Apologetics and today we have the Age of Reintrepretation. There are hundreds of differents translations. In English alone we have the Tisdale Version, the Douay Version, the King James Version, the Authorised Version, the Revised Version, the NSV, the RSV, the Living Bible, the Gideons Bible, the Seventh Day Adventist Bible … need I go on? Which version do you trust? Which version is an accurate translation of the manuscripts which remain? And by the way did you know that none of the original manuscripts remain extant? So there is no way of knowing if what is considered Holy isn’t just really a good story told by a poet long ago!
You wrote “As I said, to Amtiskaw’s great consternation, I’m perfectly comfortable with what he considers an outrageous view about the history of the world (that God created it with the appearance of age, then warned us, through Gen 1, not to let appearances deceive us).”
I’d be very interested in you pointing out the passages in the OT where God makes that statement. Or perhaps you are suggesting that God is a bit of a practical joker and decided to throw in dinosaur bones just for a laugh?
I suppose we could go around the houses with this all night and never really come to any consensus. You read Gen as an analogy of God’s ability to create the universe. What is intriguing in this interpretative approach, is the fact that the Supreme Creator (as far as you are concerned) actually couldn’t be bothered enough to get the story of his own creation right!?
This is where we part ways friend, because I give God far more credit. If we are to be led to believe that God “inspired” the writers of the Bible so that every jot and tittle is His words with the writers themselves having no say in the matter, then any possibility of His getting His revelation recorded incorrectly makes a mockery of that belief. What you are also saying is, is that God is so limited in his writing ability that He cannot relate a believable, scientifically correct account of His Creation and that he has to have two stabs at it and still gets it wrong!
Why couldn’t an All-Knowing God reveal the Creation order in a manner which would not lead so many of His sheep astray?
You really expect people to believe that God is incapable of revelation which can’t tell us about His power first, the order of creation and Man’s place in His creation without mucking it up?
Why couldn’t God reveal Genesis so that believers don’t have to resort to irrational thought?
I have read your King Bob analogy and whilst this is a clever rationalisation about edicts from human beings, it does not apply to the Creator who I reiterate is Omniscient etc. etc.
I also find fault in your analogy about the killing of an ant. Its a good attempt at rationalising what if andd separating the two events by seconds falling on different days. It remains flawed however because the ant does not actually die until he gets squished. What if we were to change that to say someone eating a hamburger which five decades later is the cause of a thrombosis leading to heart failure. Yes the poor chap was a goner the day he ate that hamburger, but he got to live for another 50 years. In such an analysis thought the prime cause for his death was that fateful hamburger, he actually died 50 years later. From the point of view of any outside observer this gentleman actually died the day his heart gave up, not the day he ate the hamburger.
Of course I understand your rationale for abandoning the arguments against science, rationality etc. – it is simple – you know that that is a lost cause, so of course the only retreat is that of loose interpretation and the retreat into irrationality.
Friend, I think we have probably iterated our respective positions sufficiently for many readers to come to their own understanding of Gen 1 and 2. You postulate an interpretative account which concentrates only on God revealing that He started the universe and all life, and inspired the writers to faithfully record His words – you ignore history, science, rationality to shore up your position. It is eloquently delivered and you use a number of analogies which in themselves are very good, but which each have tragic flaws.
I on the other hand ask alot of awkward questions as I give God greater credence in His abilities as the Divine Creator. Hence, I reject your interpretation, as I feel it fails to address many shortcomings, which I have highlighted above. As far as I am concerned both the OT and the NT may well contain the Word of God, but they also contain much that isn’t.
I am happy to let this discussion lie and for each of us to hold our respected views. If your view does not give you sleepless nights – then I am happy for you, friend. I on the other hand don’t accept views which ignore both the qualities of God, history and science.
October 27th, 2009 on 5:11 am
TC-
Here are some remarks on some of your points. They are not in any particular order except that they seemed the easiest to craft a well-worded response. It’s all I have time for. No doubt I will miss some of your points.
——————————
On the Genealogies
“Intriguing – did you miss the entire paragraph I wrote about the controversy concerning the genealogies of Christ and the fact that both don’t match? How in earth did they get into the final “authorised” version of the NT?”
I didn’t respond to this for two reasons. First, because there’s already been a thread on it on this very blog. (A thread, I might add, where I did a very poor job arguing for inerrancy. You might like to look at it for a good laugh.)
Second, did you notice how the Church Councils didn’t put the Matthew and Luke genealogies right next to each other but kept them in their separate books. Even the books aren’t next to each other. I’m not saying that the genealogies are incompatible. But I think that we are dealing with a case of the church fathers wanting to avoid the appearance of conflict. Don’t you think that JED and P might have been kept in separate books if the redactors thought there really was a conflict?
——————————
On the Difficulty of P Assuming an Incompatible J
“One thing you overlook friend, regularly, is that these traditions arose from oral traditions before finally being written down. Many traditions were centuries old before the made it to animal hide, papyrus, clay tablets etc. Centuries old before they came to be considered before any council of Rabbis made up of Rabbi Jedidiah and Priestly.”
But you see, the DH is an actual theory that makes actual claims. It is not merely something to be used to club ’stupid traditionalists’ over the head with. The actual claims of that theory include the claim that JE (let alone J) was extant on hard copies centuries before P. P would be in a state of oral ‘fluidity’ in a time when J was fixed. J was also in use by the author(s) of P. Gen 2 is pure J, and Gen 1 is pure P. So I’m not ignoring anything. I’m relying on this dynamic of DH. If anything it seems that you are ignoring the consequences of the theory.
——————————
On Interleaving
“As to the suggestion of “artful interleaving” -again you miss the point entirely. Editing in the manner you are suggesting was punishable by death and/or eternal damnation. This is why there exists much literature about the texts.”
Well, we don’t really know whether or how any of this redaction actually happened (it’s not like there are minutes to the Third Redactor’s Congress or some such). So we certainly do not know what kind of penalties were attached to editing or interleaving. That is entirely your conjecture…though I’m sure that you can cite reputable scholars who agree with you.
One thing we do know, though, is that if the DH is true, there are all sorts of artful interleavings in the Torah. Again, DH is a real theory, not a totem against fundamentalism.
——————————
On the the Councils
“Why hasn’t any clever body of eucumenical clergy got together with the best brains of humanity, relooked at the Bible and published a scientifically, historically correct version with the verses cleverly juggled around to get over the controversies? It is certainly possible isn’t it? Would it be accepted by the God-fearing believers who number in the many millions? Not on your nelly.”
Heard of the Jesus Seminar? I don’t agree with them, but there are more than a few mainline denominations that at least accept their project (though some may not accept their conclusions). My own denomination, the LCMS, holds the view that the canon is open. Books might still be added or removed based on the criterion of apostolicity.
——————————
On Re-Writing Scripture
“But let us also not forget that many attempts have been made to re-write the Bible to minimise these inconsistencies. First there arose the Age of Denial, followed by the Age of Apologetics and today we have the Age of Reintrepretation.”
I honestly don’t know what you are talking about here. What are these Ages? When did they occur? What are these attempts to re-write the Bible you are talking about?
——————————
On Translations
“There are hundreds of different translations. In English alone we have the Tisdale Version, the Douay Version, the King James Version, the Authorised Version, the Revised Version, the NSV, the RSV, the Living Bible, the Gideons Bible, the Seventh Day Adventist Bible … need I go on? Which version do you trust?”
What? Because a book is translated a lot it somehow becomes less reliable? You have got to be kidding.
Obviously, the same criteria that go into ‘choosing’ any translated work would go into ‘choosing’ a Bible translation. This is not deep intellectual difficulty. There are a lot of translations of Plato’s Republic. How would that be a problem if I was trying to determine what Plato really said? If I know no Greek, aren’t multiple translations actually very helpful?
BTW:
- There is no such thing as the Gideons Bible.
- There is no such thing as the Tisdale Bible (there is a Tyndale Bible).
- There is no such thing as the Seventh day Adventist Version of the Bible.
- The Authorized Version is the same thing as the KJV.
- The Revised Version is a modernized version of the KJV (from the 19th century).
- The Living Bible is not a translation of the Bible and does not claim to be.
- The RSV and Douay are real translations of the Bible distinct from the KJV.
But I don’t deny that we do have a wealth of translations in English. Many of them are quite good.
——————————
On the State of the Manuscripts
“And by the way did you know that none of the original manuscripts remain extant? So there is no way of knowing if what is considered Holy isn’t just really a good story told by a poet long ago!”
Of course I knew that. But as far as the NT goes, since there’s a fragment of a copy of Matthew that dates to about AD 65, your poet would have to have written quite a long time ago, but not very long after the actual events.
——————————
On Divine Infallibility
“I give God far more credit…Why couldn’t God reveal Genesis so that believers don’t have to resort to irrational thought?”
There are a couple things to say about this passage.
1) It seems that you are back to requiring an idiot-proof Bible.
2) Since my claim (from post one I think) is that God was never trying to write a science book, he cannot have had two tries at a scientifically correct account and “gotten it wrong” both times. The idea that God mucked anything up comes from your assumption that He was trying to give a scientific account. A view that I reject and that is not implied by the texts.
——————————
On King Bob
“I have read your King Bob analogy and whilst this is a clever rationalisation about edicts from human beings, it does not apply to the Creator who I reiterate is Omniscient etc. etc.”
The problem is that Gen 1 is arguing toward Omnipotence, Omniscience etc. Those are not premises in the argument of Gen 1, they are the conclusions of the argument.
——————————
On the Ant/Hamburger Analogy
“Yes the poor chap was a goner the day he ate that hamburger, but he got to live for another 50 years. In such an analysis thought the prime cause for his death was that fateful hamburger, he actually died 50 years later. From the point of view of any outside observer this gentleman actually died the day his heart gave up, not the day he ate the hamburger.”
Just as a point of clarification, you are assuming that had our poor fellow not eaten the burger he would not have had the heart attack 50 years later. If not, your case does not map to mine (that’s what all that talk about inevitability was about)
Even with that assumption, of course everyone would say that he died 50 years later. I say that. But the death is comparable in my analogy to the created order’s coming into existence. The issue is not when he died, but when he inadvertently killed himself, that’s what God’s act of creation would be analogous to.
So, when did our poor coronary victim inadvertently kill himself? When he ate the hamburger, or 50 years later? I think you could make a case either way, but I’m inclined to think that it’s when he ate the burger. And I think a lot of folks would agree with me. I don’t know whether this gives my account of the inadvertent suicide the ever elusive property of ‘naturalness’.
——————————
On Your Evaluation
“You postulate an interpretative account which concentrates only on God revealing that He started the universe and all life, and inspired the writers to faithfully record His words – you ignore history, science, rationality to shore up your position.”
On the first half of your evaluation. Yes, my interpretation of Gen 1 does have that concentration. I hold the radical view that the Bible is about God, so perhaps I don’t view this as a defect.
As for the second half of your evaluation, when did I ignore history or science? According to you I was twisting the text in order to make it fit with an old earth hypothesis. Wouldn’t that be the opposite of ignoring history and science?
And I’m not sure how one ignores rationality, unless one does not argue but appeals to feelings to get his/her point across. I don’t believe I did this very much if at all. I think I’ve generally argued for what I’ve said here. I may, of course, have made mistakes in my reasoning. Nothing is more likely. But I don’t think that amounts to ignoring rationality.
——————————
On the Status of this Discussion
At this point, I am quite content to let the conversation lie. Though if you’d like to have the last word, I promise to read whatever you choose to write.
October 31st, 2009 on 8:01 pm
Here is my response dear friend to your last posting and specifically to answer the questions you pointedly ask.
“Don’t you think that JED and P might have been kept in separate books if the redactors thought there really was a conflict?”
Unlike Matthew and Luke (which were two texts and entire books in their own right), the same cannot be said of the two creation accounts. One can see that these number only a very few verses. As it is unclear when the original versions of Genesis came into being into its entirety, it is also unclear as to how many minor scrolls/narratives were drawn together to bring the “Book of Genesis” into being. The fact that the church fathers did not “interleave” the genealogies is because that would have meant heavy editing which I think we have already established was unacceptable. Genesis on the other hand is a collection of stories which runs from the creation of the world to the descent of the children of Israel into Egypt, tells the stories of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah’s Ark, the Tower of Babel, and the biblical Patriarchs. This is why you have the stories set one after the other in some chronological order. As to why they did not keep them in separate books, I do not know – logic would suggest that the canonisation occurred to prevent the loss of the traditions.
Regarding DH
“The actual claims of that theory include the claim that JE (let alone J) was extant on hard copies centuries before P. P would be in a state of oral ‘fluidity’ in a time when J was fixed. J was also in use by the author(s) of P.”
J was also in use by the author(s) of P? It may be true. There is however contrary evidence that the second chronology of Genesis was derived from Babylonian creation mythology due to its marked similarity. One thing we do see about DH is that where similar stories are told, the differing tradition or retelling is recorded also but without interleaving. Why? Because the editors were wont to play fast and loose with what they considered Holy Revelation.
I am not an advocate of DH. It is one of many theories about the composition of the OT – I am prepared to consider all possibilities and apply logical, rational and even skeptical thought to them. On an equal basis, the original inerrantist view, when it was presented to me in my youth just did not hold water as it was not logical and breaks down under rational questioning. One only has to study the history of any event to know how difficult it is to get to the truth – what is missing is, of course, all the events which were not recorded and hence lost. What each of the theories of the compilation of the bible do bring to the table is evidence of the piecemeal compilation and accretion of smaller units into the texts was we read them today. These harmonize quite well with approach I have advocated.
They don’t harmonize with the inerrantist approach which makes the claim that the OT (esp. the Pentateuch was written/edited by Moses).
On Interleaving
“Well, we don’t really know whether or how any of this redaction actually happened (it’s not like there are minutes to the Third Redactor’s Congress or some such). So we certainly do not know what kind of penalties were attached to editing or interleaving. That is entirely your conjecture…though I’m sure that you can cite reputable scholars who agree with you.”
Would you say the Bible itself is good authority?
Deuteronomy 4:2:
“Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish [ought] from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.”
Revelation 22:18-19:
“For I testify … If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city …”
Sound pretty damning to me. Much like yourself, if I had the time I could cite authorities, but would you accept them? It would also make for an uninteresting discussion. I have not asked for any evidence from you, I have simply accepted your position on the basis that you have arrived at you current understanding from having read from a variety of informed sources – some may be right and others just off the mark, some may even be fundamentalist claptrap. I am sure that you delineate between what seems right and wrong. Similarly, my interpretation comes from what I have read. I don’t claim they are totally correct, as any view point is only a single side of the coin. This is why it so interesting to talk with yourself as your viewpoint is different to mine.
What is actually telling is your admission that no-one actually knows how or when the redaction took place. Even those who advocate DH and its variants are not dogmatic, they forward their understanding for critical review, but their theories take into account history and are likely to be closer to reality than much of what I have heard from inerrantists. By the way do you believe in the DH? From your posts it is unclear what you believe. If you do believe in the DH it is incompatible with inerrancy.
On the rewriting of the NT
Yes, I have heard of the Jesus Seminar – They, however did not write a new version of the Jesus story to remove the inconsistencies within the different books of the NT. Rather they advocate a skeptical approach to the historical and mythological Christ. I don’t know why you are relying on them to bolster your argument. If any thing their position undermines your position considerably. So friend I think my original position still stands.
BTW, I did not think the LCMS held the view that the canons are open. Certainly there is evidence to suggest the contrary view. Much of the viewpoints espoused are very hard line fundamentalism, to the the extent that the Pope is demonised as the very “Anti-Christ” himself. You may not hold these views or you may, but I see no evidence that the LCMS has such liberal views as to the openness of the canons.
On the Ages
Sorry friend, I was being somewhat flippant. The Age of Denial, Apologetics and Reinterpretation are a summary of the positions of what the churches and its believers have adopted. The periods overlap and are not definate. What is true, however is that the early church denied any viewpoint that conflicted with its own. Many scientific minds were ridiculed and persecuted only for their scientific theories to be later accepted. Any interpretation of the Bible which did not concord with church dogma was equally brutally subjugated – hence the age of denial. I believe that is where the seeds for the LCMS actually started. The age of apologetics continues today with more fundamentalist scholars coming forward to bolster biblical inerrancy. It may well have started way back when biblical inconsistencies were originally discovered. Certainly the earliest form of apologetics can be found in the Talmud. The age of reinterpretation also continues today as it did throughout history. As we discover more and more of the laws of science and build upon theories till they become fundamental “facts”, the scripture has been looked at again and again to see if it fits with what we now know. Inerrantists have had to reintrepret the scripture to accord with these.
On Different Versions
“What? Because a book is translated a lot it somehow becomes less reliable? You have got to be kidding.”
I agree with you that as more translations come into being, more light is shed on how to interpret the Scripture. However, in my many discussions I have often had those speaking to me reject various translations as “not worth the paper they are printed on”. They stick to the one which suits them. Now what is important is when one translation omits passages which appear in another. Why would they do that unless the passages where not authentic? And that is the nub of the point of different versions. If you place your entire faith on a certain passage and then find out it is fabrication, well that should make you both question your faith and the infallibility of the Bible.
Bear in mind that a translation is not a literal word by word transliteration and so there remains much scope for re-invention to suit the translator’s own preconceptions and prejudices.
On the State of the Manuscripts
“…as far as the NT goes, since there’s a fragment of a copy of Matthew that dates to about AD 65, your poet would have to have written quite a long time ago, but not very long after the actual events.”
Okay, let’s say that this view is correct. But that only accounts for one book out of 66. And since you have already admitted that you have no idea who, when or how the OT came into existence, Matthew’s compiltaion does not really affect my argument, as its not even in the OT.
If Matthew was written circa 65-70AD, it is highly likely that the author of Matthew was not even alive at the time of Jesus’s ministry. That then makes the author a second hand witness. Someone who only knows about Jesus what he has been taught, not what he himself had witnessed. That does not mean that I refuse to also consider the contrary view that he was alive during Christ’s three year ministry. I just think it is unlikely.
On Divine Infallibility
You did not answer any of my questions. Why? Too difficult? Or perhaps you don’t want to consider the implications of such a viewpoint?
My question to you was why couldn’t an omniscient God not get the order of his own creation correct whilst still revealing his omnipotence? Unless of course the story of revelation is not God-inspired.
It does not require the Bible to be idiot-proof, just correct.
Thank you again friend for taking time to respond as you have.