Board index ‹ Specific Bible verses, texts, and passages ‹ Genesis

[Purple Sabbath]

So, if the story was written in the Bible the way you worded it, it would make a lot more sense. Why is it more confusing and somewhat misleading when presented to us supposedly by God?

[jimwalton]

Remember that though the Bible was written for us, it was not written to us. This part was written 3300 years ago, but its oral tradition goes back about 4000 years. It's a different culture of a different era and written in a different language. The people of that day and region would have understood it perfectly. By our time, we live in a completely different culture, and we need some research to make it clear.

It's no different even today of translating Chinese culture to American. They have different values and perspectives than we do. We have cultural markers (Babe Ruth, McCarthyism, Monica Lewinsky, Chicago pizza) that are second nature to us, but would have to be explained to a foreigner. We have signs that say "No Standing" that would make a foreigner go "Huh??", because we know they're about no parking, not about no standing.

God allows his word to be translated and retranslated so that people of other times and cultures might understand (as opposed to the Qu'ran, which is NEVER to be translated). Cultures and languages change, so we do the requisite research, and we get it.

The Bible is multi-layered. On the one hand, it can just be read and basically understood with simple reading by normal people. On another level, it can be studied with all the depth you want to give it, and then it yields up even more treasures. A story like this one requires a little bit of interpretive work to understand what a ziggurat was (since we don't build them, and haven't for millennia) and how they expected it to work. With that little bit of research, the story comes more clear.

[Sure Breeze]

> The Bible is full of "first event" stories.

Can I do that? Can I write a book that says 10,000 years ago, this happened and a God named "Sure Breeze" fixed it and that this was a lesson and it's up to the world to follow his example? Can that be proven wrong?

> first I would say that "literally" is a poor choice of term and is inadequate for any conversation about the Bible

It's not because I'm making a specific point. Let's forget about rest of the Bible. Let's only focus on Noah and Babel. Global claims are written and—when taken literally—are false. When the claims are read as local events then that's fine, though I feel like the point is lost. God chose to punish a trivial part of the planet with a flood? Okie dokie. A small tower fell and people split afterwards? Alright.

> We have to understand the writing from the point of view and intent of the author.

I think you more or less said what I said. Excellent, I'm glad we agree. Why do you think these examples are still not trivial? People in a small area were bad, God sent a flood to kill everyone, allowing one small good family to escape. God said he won't do it again. Is this any kind of a point? Floods continue happen, people die.

> But the text doesn't insist Adam & Eve were the first hominids.

It does, it says God created man named Adam/Eve in Genesis 2.

Gn. 2.15: The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.

Where does this they weren't the first or only?

> I am often disappointed in the knowledge level of Christians about their own Scriptures.

I think a lot of the meaning behind Christianity when things are read literally.

[jimwalton]

> Can I do that? Can I write a book that says 10,000 years ago, this happened and a God named SsurebreC fixed it and that this was a lesson and it's up to the world to follow his example? Can that be proven wrong?

My point was not that it proves it's true, but that's why God judged these people but not future people for the same infraction. God used the first incident to show us his judgment on the attitude and behavior, so that we understand. The Bible is a theological interpretation of historical events. As such, the theological interpretation can't be proved right or wrong by science, because it's not a scientific question, any more than whether I prefer chocolate over vanilla can be proved in a lab.

> Global claims are written and - when taken literally - are false

Then you didn't read what I said. First of all, it was their theological perspective (as far as they knew, all the known world was flooded, so they spoke the truth). Secondly, it was their geographical perspective. They thought the world was a flat disk about 3,000 miles in diameter. They were speaking the truth. As you read the text it has many cultural references and language of limited scientific understanding (for instance, the "firmament," the "windows of heaven" in Gn. 7.11). It's OK, they were speaking in their world and to their world. If Noah built a boat, and there was a flood so severe that all he could see in any direction was water (none of the local mountains were visible), he would easily and clearly say that the whole earth had been flooded and that every living thing had been killed. It was obviously hyperbole; he had not taken a walk over the region to confirm that was truly the case, but it was true as far as was observable. It was true by every scientific measure available to the one who experienced it.

> When the claims are read as local events then that's fine though I feel like the point is lost.

The point wasn't lost at all. God judged those he intended to judge (but not others, which might have been unfair). The people Noah knew of that were hopelessly corrupt were killed. God accommodates their understanding of geography and the world in the genres and literary devices in which they speak. God's intent is not to school them in geography, but in morality. He accommodates their limited view of the earth, but that's incidental to the message. The message (God judges sin, he favors righteousness, and he is the sovereign) comes through loud and clear.

> Why do you think these examples are still not trivial?

Because they are clear examples that God is a righteous judge who will not turn a blind eye to wickedness, and that God demands that people see him for who he is and not who they wish him to be.

> It does, it says God created man named Adam/Eve in Genesis 2.

I take Genesis 1 & 2 to be a functional account of creation (the role and function that the different pieces of the cosmos play) rather than an account of material creation (how the material universe came to be). The ancients presupposed material creation; their cosmogonies (Atrahasis Epic, Babylonian Creation Epic *Enuma Elish*), were about how the cosmos functioned. I take Genesis the same way. Genesis 2.5-6 describes an undeveloped and nonfunctioning world where there is no productivity under the control of humanity. The chapter traces the progress from non-order to order. God assigns to humanity the roles of caring for sacred space (Gn. 2.15, priestly words, not agricultural ones). God provides sprouting food, and the humans are assigned the role of having a relationship with God by "working and caring for" what He has made. Humanity brings order out of chaos, in the image of God, just as God did in chapter 1. It also describes bringing function to what is non-functional.

So the man and woman of Gn. 2 were not necessarily the first hominids, but possibly representatives of the homo sapiens species that were spiritually capable and morally culpable, and so they are now capable of a relationship with God and of making moral decisions, and that's what Gn. 2 is about.

> I think a lot of the meaning behind Christianity when things are read literally.

I disagree. A lot of the meaning behind Christianity is the concepts of its theology when read according to the intent of the authors. "Literally" is a fairly useless word in this context.