Contradictions In Genesis

[Joshpantera]

http://contradictionsinthebible.com/category/genesis/

 

Here's a lengthy article about the problems with Genesis and it's creation account(s). There's a lot of confusion about creationism vs science. As you will see, there's nothing in the Bible (nor the myths that the Bible writers used to make their own creation myths) that gives any viable literal explanation for how the universe came to be, nor how life came to be on the earth. In fact, ideas like creation ex nihilo simply don't exist in the old myths, not in the Bible nor it's predecessor mythology. And that spills over into the error of thinking that the Bible is talking about a fixed beginning for the universe. 

 

I'll explore the implications of the article with others if they care to read and comment further. 

 

Thanks for reading. 

[Guest]

I didn't read the whole thing yet, but thanks for posting! Very interesting to read the parallels between the first account in Genesis and earlier creation myths. And it brought to mind the time when I mentioned to my family that Genesis doesn't even claim that God started with nothing, that it says there was already chaos, darkness on the face of the deep, etc. And my husband responded with the fact that it says elsewhere in the Bible that he created all things. Presumably he was referring to Colossians 1:16, “For by Him all things were created."

[sdelsolray]

When I studied this I found that the "two source" explanation (and related evidence) for the two creation accounts to be simple, quite plausible and likely correct.

[readyforchange]

I didn't read the whole thing yet, but thanks for posting! Very interesting to read the parallels between the first account in Genesis and earlier creation myths. And it brought to mind the time when I mentioned to my family that Genesis doesn't even claim that God started with nothing, that it says there was already chaos, darkness on the face of the deep, etc. And my husband responded with the fact that it says elsewhere in the Bible that he created all things. Presumably he was referring to Colossians 1:16, “For by Him all things were created."[/size]

Psalms 74:12-17 is actually a third creation account in the Bible. Psalms 74:12-17 describes Yahweh dividing the sea and crushing the head of the sea monster Leviathan. This is a similar type of chaos imagery in the Enuma Elish, the Bablyonian creation story. Copies of the Enuma Elish are found on tablets that pre-date the Genesis creation account by several hundred years. The earliest copies of the Enuma Elish would pre-date the Biblical timeline of when Moses would have existed. As I understand it, there is a strong consensus amongst Biblical scholars that the first Genesis creation story was written by the Priestly source during the Israelites' captivity in Babylon, where they were likely influenced by the Enuma Elish and used it as inspiration.

 

In the Enuma Elish, the Bablyonian God Marduk defeats the sea monster Tiamat by splitting her in two, and Tiamat's body is then used to create heavens and the earth's waters. This may be a good website for further background - http://www.ancient.eu/article/225/

[readyforchange]

http://contradictionsinthebible.com/category/genesis/

 

Here's a lengthy article about the problems with Genesis and it's creation account(s). There's a lot of confusion about creationism vs science. As you will see, there's nothing in the Bible (nor the myths that the Bible writers used to make their own creation myths) that gives any viable literal explanation for how the universe came to be, nor how life came to be on the earth. In fact, ideas like creation ex nihilo simply don't exist in the old myths, not in the Bible nor it's predecessor mythology. And that spills over into the error of thinking that the Bible is talking about a fixed beginning for the universe. 

 

I'll explore the implications of the article with others if they care to read and comment further. 

 

Thanks for reading.

I think your summary is also supported by how Genesis 1 begins.  Most Bible translations of Genesis 1:1 state "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.", as a complete sentence.

 

But as I understand it, the Hebrew actually reads more like the way the NRSV translates Genesis 1:1, which is where the action of Genesis 1:1 is already underway: "In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, 2 the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light." (NRSV)

 

Have not read back through the website, so it might state this as well.

[Geezer]

Genesis is a story written by an ancient culture, that lacked scientific knowledge & technology, that attempts to explain how life came to exist. It contains similarities with other ancient culture creation stories. It's a story & that is all it is.

[Joshpantera]

It's hard to imagine why in this day and age, knowing what we know about the Bible and what we know about the scientific method - that we're still facing so much debate on the topic. It reminds me of that old movie where a couple Japanese soldiers were stranded during the war. Years after the war had ended they thought the war was still going on. Someone had to inform them that the war was long over and the fighting was completely in vein.

 

That's the state of fundamentalist christianity now...  

[srd44]

Hey everyone, thanks for giving my work some thought. Glad your enjoying it. It's still humbling to think that as a biblical scholar my main goal in bringing modern biblical scholarship to a public audience (especially on the topic of Bible contradictions, or as scholars like to say, varied sources that went into the composition of the Bible) was to get fundamentalist to actually. . .  well recently my pet phrase is, be honest to the texts, authors, and their varied beliefs, worldviews, ideologies, etc. Most visitors to my blog, however, have been atheists and de-converts looking for real scholarship to substantial their views, or as some of my de-converts have expressed themselves: "To have a single place where the bible is given its full respect as an ancient work yet critically and honestly examined, all the while providing clear, concise, and accurate reasoning on the passages"; "a detailed and substantiated examination of the Bible that doesn’t have an agenda behind it and only seeks to explain what is in it."  So I appreciate very much being able to share my still growing knowledge about this coripus of ancient texts to you all. Thanks for your support!

 

Concerning Genesis' opening, and contradictory, creation accounts, I have recently published a book that goes into much greater detail, culturally, textually, linguistically, thematically, rhetorically... discussing the many variations in this two narratives.Genesis 1 and the Creationism Debate: Being Honest to the Text, Its Author, and His Beliefs (https://www.amazon.com/Genesis-Creationism-Debate-Honest-Beliefs/dp/1498231322/). Notice the subtitle: One of my aims was really to call out BS on Creationists/fundamentalists who claim to believe in the text and the creation therein described. I demonstrate with the text of Genesis 1 that what is depicted is an origins account as the author and culture perceived their world. Well, no need to write; here's an excerpt from the Introduction

 

The author of Genesis 1, for example, composed a creation narrative that explained how the world as he and his culture perceived it came into existence. And this author and his larger ancient Near Eastern culture perceived their world as surrounded by water—water above the sky, which gave it its blue color, and water below the earth upon which it rested. They perceived and accepted as “truth” that the sky held back the waters above it, that the moon produced its own light, that the day itself was the source of daylight and not the sun, that human beings were essentially of the divine as opposed to the animals of the earth, and that the seventh day was inherently created holy and consecrated by the creator deity at creation. These beliefs about the nature of their world, these culturally conditioned “truths” as it were, shaped the composition of this author’s creation story so that the god of Genesis 1 is portrayed creating the very world that its author and culture perceived—a moon that produced light, the creation of light separate from the sun, an explanation of how earth emerged from the waters below and became surrounded by the waters above, and how these waters were kept in place by the sky which the creator deity specifically made for this purpose, an explanation of why the seventh day after each new moon and each consecutive seventh day thereafter were inherently sacred, and so forth.
 

 

The books chapters are:

1) Genesis' Two Creation Accounts

2) The Seven-Day Creation Account and the Priestly Writer (this chapter adds more textual support by looking at about two dozens words that only appear in Gen 1 and other material written by the same author, the Priestly writer. It also looks at Priestly themes in Gen 1 and other parts of the Torah like Leviticus)

3) Creations and Sacred Time (this chapter looks closely at "God's" holy 7th day from the new moon and argues that according to our priestly author this sacred 7th day was as much a law of the cosmos to be observed eternally as gravity is for us post-Newtonians, and no Creationists believes this)

 

The task that I implore my interlocutors with is quite simple actually---just being honest to the text, and this means being able to recognize and acknowledging these authors' competing beliefs, messages, and worldviews and the cultural influences that shaped them. I think the book does a good job in maintaining this, but I am biased on this after all, so you should take a look yourself.

 

The last chapter of the conclusion ends on this note:

 

So in the end the challenge that Creationists, Fundamentalists, and literal Evangelicals face is deciding whether they wish to be honest to these ancient texts and the beliefs and messages of their authors by simply acknowledging them, and acknowledging also that we in this century no longer believe in the same beliefs and worldview, or be honest to centuries-later interpretive claims and beliefs about these texts which represent the concerns and beliefs of later readers rather than those of the individual authors of these texts. And if being honest to these texts, their authors, and their beliefs and messages leads us to conclude that our most cherished beliefs about these texts, indeed what have become cultural “truths” for many, are not supported by the texts themselves when read on their terms, then
that is the conversation that we as a culture must embark upon, openly, honestly, and courageously.

 

I'd be more than happy to discuss this book or its contents with any of you. Thanks again. -- Steven

[Tsathoggua]

It's hard to imagine why in this day and age, knowing what we know about the Bible and what we know about the scientific method - that we're still facing so much debate on the topic. It reminds me of that old movie where a couple Japanese soldiers were stranded during the war. Years after the war had ended they thought the war was still going on. Someone had to inform them that the war was long over and the fighting was completely in vein.

 

That's the state of fundamentalist christianity now...  

 

I agree wholeheartedly! It is frustrating that so many folks prefer an ancient myth over the findings of science.

[Joshpantera]

Hey everyone, thanks for giving my work some thought. Glad your enjoying it. It's still humbling to think that as a biblical scholar my main goal in bringing modern biblical scholarship to a public audience (especially on the topic of Bible contradictions, or as scholars like to say, varied sources that went into the composition of the Bible) was to get fundamentalist to actually. . .  well recently my pet phrase is, be honest to the texts, authors, and their varied beliefs, worldviews, ideologies, etc. Most visitors to my blog, however, have been atheists and de-converts looking for real scholarship to substantial their views, or as some of my de-converts have expressed themselves: "To have a single place where the bible is given its full respect as an ancient work yet critically and honestly examined, all the while providing clear, concise, and accurate reasoning on the passages"; "a detailed and substantiated examination of the Bible that doesn’t have an agenda behind it and only seeks to explain what is in it."  So I appreciate very much being able to share my still growing knowledge about this coripus of ancient texts to you all. Thanks for your support!

 

Concerning Genesis' opening, and contradictory, creation accounts, I have recently published a book that goes into much greater detail, culturally, textually, linguistically, thematically, rhetorically... discussing the many variations in this two narratives.Genesis 1 and the Creationism Debate: Being Honest to the Text, Its Author, and His Beliefs (https://www.amazon.com/Genesis-Creationism-Debate-Honest-Beliefs/dp/1498231322/). Notice the subtitle: One of my aims was really to call out BS on Creationists/fundamentalists who claim to believe in the text and the creation therein described. I demonstrate with the text of Genesis 1 that what is depicted is an origins account as the author and culture perceived their world. Well, no need to write; here's an excerpt from the Introduction

 

The author of Genesis 1, for example, composed a creation narrative that explained how the world as he and his culture perceived it came into existence. And this author and his larger ancient Near Eastern culture perceived their world as surrounded by water—water above the sky, which gave it its blue color, and water below the earth upon which it rested. They perceived and accepted as “truth” that the sky held back the waters above it, that the moon produced its own light, that the day itself was the source of daylight and not the sun, that human beings were essentially of the divine as opposed to the animals of the earth, and that the seventh day was inherently created holy and consecrated by the creator deity at creation. These beliefs about the nature of their world, these culturally conditioned “truths” as it were, shaped the composition of this author’s creation story so that the god of Genesis 1 is portrayed creating the very world that its author and culture perceived—a moon that produced light, the creation of light separate from the sun, an explanation of how earth emerged from the waters below and became surrounded by the waters above, and how these waters were kept in place by the sky which the creator deity specifically made for this purpose, an explanation of why the seventh day after each new moon and each consecutive seventh day thereafter were inherently sacred, and so forth.

 

 

The books chapters are:

1) Genesis' Two Creation Accounts

2) The Seven-Day Creation Account and the Priestly Writer (this chapter adds more textual support by looking at about two dozens words that only appear in Gen 1 and other material written by the same author, the Priestly writer. It also looks at Priestly themes in Gen 1 and other parts of the Torah like Leviticus)

3) Creations and Sacred Time (this chapter looks closely at "God's" holy 7th day from the new moon and argues that according to our priestly author this sacred 7th day was as much a law of the cosmos to be observed eternally as gravity is for us post-Newtonians, and no Creationists believes this)

 

The task that I implore my interlocutors with is quite simple actually---just being honest to the text, and this means being able to recognize and acknowledging these authors' competing beliefs, messages, and worldviews and the cultural influences that shaped them. I think the book does a good job in maintaining this, but I am biased on this after all, so you should take a look yourself.

 

The last chapter of the conclusion ends on this note:

 

So in the end the challenge that Creationists, Fundamentalists, and literal Evangelicals face is deciding whether they wish to be honest to these ancient texts and the beliefs and messages of their authors by simply acknowledging them, and acknowledging also that we in this century no longer believe in the same beliefs and worldview, or be honest to centuries-later interpretive claims and beliefs about these texts which represent the concerns and beliefs of later readers rather than those of the individual authors of these texts. And if being honest to these texts, their authors, and their beliefs and messages leads us to conclude that our most cherished beliefs about these texts, indeed what have become cultural “truths” for many, are not supported by the texts themselves when read on their terms, then

that is the conversation that we as a culture must embark upon, openly, honestly, and courageously.

 

I'd be more than happy to discuss this book or its contents with any of you. Thanks again. -- Steven

 

Thanks for joining the discussion, Steven!!!

 

Not having read the book yet, I'm not sure if you've addressed the issue of correspondence in the creation account. I think that it was originally a Jewish source that brought this aspect of the creation account to my attention: 

 

Day 1 - Light, expanse of heavens >>>>>>>> Day 4  -  Sun, Moon and stars to inhabit the light and heavens.

 

Day 2 - Separation of Sea and Air >>>>>>> Day 5 - Sea and Air Creatures to inhabit the Sea and Air.

 

Day 3 - Emergence of dry land >>>>>>> Day 6 - Land creatures to inhabit the dry land, tale ending with man.

 

Day 7 - Rest from creating. 

 

Now it's more than apparent that a detailed system of correspondence was used in the format. The writer sets up three environments of existence, and then proceeds to add inhabitants to each of the three environments of existence in the same order. Day 1 corresponds to Day 4, Day 2  corresponds to Day 5, Day 3 corresponds to Day 6, and finally the 7th Day is the odd man out, so it's deemed as a day of rest from creating. 

 

My own thoughts are that the writer set out to make a creation account which conformed to a 7 part process.

 

It could have just as easily been a 6 day creation with no mention of 7. I've read and listened to many lectures about the esoteric from Manly P Hall and others. And this sort of gives some insight as to the significance of the number 7 in the ancient world. In his astrotheology series, MP Hall discusses the ancient mystery of 5 and 7. The ancients observed the fixed stars but also the 5 visible wandering planets and 2 luminaries. There were 7 celestial spheres that were different from the stars. And in time the number 7 became sacred and there were plays on the numbers 5 and 7 because of this. The loaves and fishes story in the NT actually ties back into this ancient mystery school content. And of course the idea of 7 heavens must come from this as well, as in Paul getting caught up to the 7th heaven and so on. The ideas of 7 Chakras, 7 Stations of Mithra, and 7 just about anything break down to the five planets and two luminaries. 

 

Hall did not address the creation account in Genesis in depth, but it became obvious to me that the writer of Genesis 1 must have started out with the already sacred number 7 in mind. And that's why the environments are 3, the inhabitants are 3, leaving 7 as the odd day out with nothing to do aside from marking a day of rest. I'm curious if you've noticed or addressed the issue of the correspondence between days in the creation account. And how the whole thing corresponds to pagan mythology via the sacred 7 format. 

 

Now keep in mind, I was raised Seventh Day Adventist (who take the 7 day creation literally, to the point of seeing salvation boiling down to worshiping on Saturday instead of Sunday) so the issue of the 7 day creation is CENTRAL to trying to get through to my friends and relatives who are still brain washed into thinking that SDAism is absolute truth. Indeed, the issue of creationism and it's effect on society hits very close to home with me. I myself rejected it by age 15, I'm now 40. Decoding and demystifying things like Genesis, Daniel and Revelation have been a major preoccupation of mine over the last 25 years...

[Joshpantera]

I've started a parallel discussion at booktalk.org which can be found here: http://www.booktalk.org/genesis-1-and-the-creationism-debate-t26529.html

 

Steven, the folks at booktalk love having authors come and discuss their books with the community. So hopefully you can chime in there as well and answer questions. I'll be making sure that you get the exposure that you deserve for tackling this issue. 

 

There's an old thread entitled YEC put to rest, where I went round and around with an apologist for over 40 pages on this issue. If any one is curious to see how that went, it can be found here: http://www.booktalk.org/young-earth-theory-put-to-rest-t8061.html 

 

The thread was eventually locked, but it's still available for viewing. I wanted to experiment with holding an apologist's feet to the coals just to see what happens - how many ways an apologist can possibly react when held down hard on the issue of contradiction in Genesis. 

[srd44]

My own thoughts are that the writer set out to make a creation account which conformed to a 7 part process.

 

Now keep in mind, I was raised Seventh Day Adventist (who take the 7 day creation literally, to the point of seeing salvation boiling down to worshiping on Saturday instead of Sunday) so the issue of the 7 day creation is CENTRAL to trying to get through to my friends and relatives who are still brain washed into thinking that SDAism is absolute truth. Indeed, the issue of creationism and it's effect on society hits very close to home with me. I myself rejected it by age 15, I'm now 40. Decoding and demystifying things like Genesis, Daniel and Revelation have been a major preoccupation of mine over the last 25 years...

 

Josh, That's a good observation. In my book I don't really deal too much with the structure---focused more on language, themes, and overall messages and worldview. However, I do go through great lengths arguing what you here suggest---the author preconceived his narrative to be a 7-day creation account. It could not have been in 1 day like Gen 2, nor 3-day, etc.

 

Why the 7th day (so my focus is a bit different than yours) is because the Priestly guild responsible for writing this creation account needed a creation narrative to ground the holiness of the 7th day in the created order of the world, and that's precisely what Gen 1 does. Look at my blog post, Sabbath and the Creation of Sacred Time, which was an early draft of part of my book.

 

"Thus according to the elite priestly guild that penned Genesis 1:1-2:3, the creator god not only created the things of the visible world as seen through the perspective of our ancient Israelite scribe—daylight, skies to hold back the waters above, dry habitable land with tamed seas, the luminaries to distinguish between day and night and to function as signs indicating the fixed dates of Yahweh’s festivals, the animals of the earth after their kind, and man in his own image—but additionally he created specific lunar dates and intervals of time as sacred! These were embedded into his creation; they are as much a part of the created world as earth’s animals or the skies above."

 

In the last chapter of my book, Creation and Sacred Time, I spend some time explaining our priests concerns for the 7th day and their beliefs on the matter. Although you are correct to identify Saturday as the date of the Sabbath, and not Sunday, this too is actually incorrect. For if we were to believe in the priestly worldview portrayed in Gen 1, Sabbath is a lunar date---the 7th day after the new moon and each consecutive 7th day until the next new moon starts the counting over again. It was this date, or dates, that our author has God proclaim holy and must be keep holy on penalty of death (Ex 35:1-2; Num 15:32-35). And frankly no one, particularly Creationists, believe that Time is parceled off into sacred and common days that were established at creation and whose observance MUST be keep, and whose dates are determined by the moon, the calendar that God created according to our priests, not our man-made calendar.

 

I go on to argue, with support from this ancient cosmology and the beliefs of its author, that Creationists that do not uphold this sacred time (and Gen 14 notes other sacred festivals that were to be keep on penalty of death and which were also identified by the moon; see Lev 23), are actually profaning Creation and its God---again per our text and the beliefs expressed in. My book demonstrates, in other words, that no one in our modern world believes in Gen 1.

[Joshpantera]

That is a very keen insight, Steven. I've read somewhere in your blog last night that you're versed in Joseph Campbell. One point that I've taken from his scholarship is that the Jews and Muslims started out as lunar, not solar. Desert nomads traveled at night and rested by day. Then eventually come into the agricultural regions and get mixed up with solar mythology and then mixing of the two occurs thereafter. Your treatment of the lunar cult aspect of the priestly guild makes a lot of sense. 

 

The author almost certainly preconceived the 7 part process of creation. And most people think it's the other way around, the creation happened in 7 days therefore the festivals and Sabbath conform thereafter. But it's obvious that the festivals and holy days already existed and that the writer wished to portray a creation account that accounted for these already existing customs. My thoughts, of course, are that all of it comes from mythological tradition. The Jews utilized the same sacred 7 that other cultures were utilizing. It's not unlike the Chakra system in the East. They applied it to lunar mythology. It became a tradition and after a long time some priest writes Genesis 1 making use of it. 

 

You've given me something interesting to discuss with Adventist's, who, as you note, incorrectly observe the Jewish Sabbath every Saturday instead of the prescribed lunar calendar. Just another blatantly stupid aspect of SDAism to add to the ever growing list. 

 

Something else that I came across was from Alexander S. Holub in his book, "The Gospel Truth." He wrote that El was a semetic deity associated with the planet Saturn and the priests demanded worship on Saturn's Day. And the Sabbath on Saturn's Day is something that I've considered. SDA's reject Sunday as a Catholic heresy against God, which is unbiblical and the work of Satan trying to deceive the world into worshiping God on the Sun's Day, a pagan day. I've pointed out to some folks that worshiping on Saturday simply breaks down to an argument against two different pagan holy days, one for the planet Saturn and the other for the Sun. Either way, you're engaged in some form of pagan rooted worship thinking that you've somehow dodged it, when you actually haven't.

 

To dodge pagan worship, quite simply, is to stop worshiping things in the first place!

 

No matter what it is, nature directly, nature via personified Gods who represent natural phenomena, all worship IS nature worship in some directly related way. Via Campbell, even worship of a universal and transcendent God is nature worship because the transcendent mystery of the metaphor - thought of as "the source, end, and supporting ground of all life and being" - is simply the existence of everything, which, once again breaks down to the existence of the universe, world and nature itself.  

 

All theistic belief, whether conceived of as transcendent or otherwise, has it's root in pagan mythology and nature worship. I think one of the main points to take away from all of this is that we're not required to worship nature, the transcendent, ourselves, or anything else. We can simply appreciate it. We can enjoy it. We can feel our interconnection to it all. But there's no good reason to grovel before nature or the idea of transcending all human thought and categories of conceptualization. That's what these people are doing by groveling before Yahweh, or Zeus, or any other metaphor - groveling before a symbol that represents nature and it's deep mystery factor. That's what these politically motivated priestly guilds were doing in ancient times - directing common people to worship and grovel before nature as unworthy beings begging for mercy, via the priesthood who set themselves up as the mouth piece for the gods.  

[srd44]

All theistic belief, whether conceived of as transcendent or otherwise, has it's root in pagan mythology and nature worship.

That's what these people are doing by groveling before Yahweh, or Zeus, or any other metaphor - groveling before a symbol that represents nature and it's deep mystery factor.

 

I'm less convinced by such broadly stated theses. Perhaps I'd be more persuaded uf we softened this to indirect influence. Although I enjoyed my Campbell days now decades ago (I think I must of read everything he wrote), I take a much more academic view on many things now. For instance, while yes we can classify Gen 1 in the larger context of creation myths and understand them collectively and culturally as man grappling with his world and its origins as he/his culture perceived them, I am now much more interested in looking at specific cultural, historical, or in the case of Gen 1, authorial (here priestly) influences and come at them in an attempt to understand these aspects of the myth.

 

So even conceptualizing Yahweh as a symbol of nature in the sense that his followers were worshiping nature . . . I'd now have to see more data to support such a claim. Certainly there are numerous biblical passages where Yahweh is portrayed as controlling agriculture, fertility, and of course life/death. The stoics who really brought Zeus to the level of Nature, were also really looking at the rational or logos in Nature rather than natural phenomenon. Again, modern religions can certainly be traced back to, or are built upon previous pagan practices and further back on more naturalistic forms of religion. I think it was either Freud himself or Frazer that attempted to trace all religion back to taboos, and didn't Durkheim attempt to find a sociological root?

 

When, another example, I read the book of Revelation, or look at how Zeus is portrayed in later Greek thinking, the deity often becomes a symbol for cosmic justice. Faced with injustices, persecution, etc. books like revelation sought to find (even if imperceptible in their present plight), a cosmic plan of justice, so that their present injustices were now reinterpreted as part of a larger just process that still remained mysterious to them. Anyhow, those are some of my thoughts on the matter.

[LogicalFallacy]

Hi Steven, as others had said, welcome to this very interesting discussion.

 

The stoics who really brought Zeus to the level of Nature, were also really looking at the rational or logos in Nature rather than natural phenomenon

Would you care to expand on this term/concept of "logos"? I understand that in the New Testament when in the gospel of John, 1:1 says "In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was with god, and the WORD was God" The original Greek manuscripts used the word "Logos" not "Word", so I'm interested in what it means and how the concept you describe may tie into what the New Testament authors are portraying.

 

Thanks

 

LF

[Joshpantera]

 

All theistic belief, whether conceived of as transcendent or otherwise, has it's root in pagan mythology and nature worship.

That's what these people are doing by groveling before Yahweh, or Zeus, or any other metaphor - groveling before a symbol that represents nature and it's deep mystery factor.

 

I'm less convinced by such broadly stated theses. Perhaps I'd be more persuaded uf we softened this to indirect influence. Although I enjoyed my Campbell days now decades ago (I think I must of read everything he wrote), I take a much more academic view on many things now. For instance, while yes we can classify Gen 1 in the larger context of creation myths and understand them collectively and culturally as man grappling with his world and its origins as he/his culture perceived them, I am now much more interested in looking at specific cultural, historical, or in the case of Gen 1, authorial (here priestly) influences and come at them in an attempt to understand these aspects of the myth.

 

So even conceptualizing Yahweh as a symbol of nature in the sense that his followers were worshiping nature . . . I'd now have to see more data to support such a claim. Certainly there are numerous biblical passages where Yahweh is portrayed as controlling agriculture, fertility, and of course life/death. The stoics who really brought Zeus to the level of Nature, were also really looking at the rational or logos in Nature rather than natural phenomenon. Again, modern religions can certainly be traced back to, or are built upon previous pagan practices and further back on more naturalistic forms of religion. I think it was either Freud himself or Frazer that attempted to trace all religion back to taboos, and didn't Durkheim attempt to find a sociological root?

 

When, another example, I read the book of Revelation, or look at how Zeus is portrayed in later Greek thinking, the deity often becomes a symbol for cosmic justice. Faced with injustices, persecution, etc. books like revelation sought to find (even if imperceptible in their present plight), a cosmic plan of justice, so that their present injustices were now reinterpreted as part of a larger just process that still remained mysterious to them. Anyhow, those are some of my thoughts on the matter.

 

 

I mean that the followers of Yahweh were involved in nature worship, by default, without consciously knowing what they were doing. I'm funneling the worship aspect of the god down to bare roots and looking at what it is at the very bottom. In the face of the Jewish disdain for nature worship, they're nonetheless worshiping on Saturn's Day, worshiping a god of the mountain who also appeared as a cloud by day and fire by night, and who was eventually considered both transcendent and immanent, making the god essentially existence itself, omnipresence. I was just loosely pointing out that people who worship something, anything at all, it can be broken down to some type of nature worship. 

 

Steven, it looks like there's plenty of interest in your book over at booktalk.org. That may give you some more exposure.

 

http://www.booktalk.org/genesis-1-and-the-creationism-debate-t26529.html

[srd44]

Hi Steven, as others had said, welcome to this very interesting discussion.

 

The stoics who really brought Zeus to the level of Nature, were also really looking at the rational or logos in Nature rather than natural phenomenon

Would you care to expand on this term/concept of "logos"?

 

In stoic terms, the logos was the "law" of nature---its rational, reason. Everything in nature is harmoniously in tune with the logos and the goal of stoic philosophy was that man too must align himself to this logos. Zeus later came to symbolize it as it took on the definition of cosmic justice. I think most scholars see the Stoic's idea of logos going back to the pre-Socratic Heracletuc' logos. I used to be conversant with this literature. . . so long ago. 

 

There have been attempts to interpret John's logos in this manner, but I don't think it works. I understand John as targeting more the other side of logos, word, account, even reasoned argument, and I might say specifically as "promise."

[Storm]

In reading this thread, both of you (Joshpantera and Dr. DiMattei) have demonstrated that our overall understanding of beliefs and worldviews come from multiple sources.

 

Taking into account the era from which the the Creation account is written and the mindset and understanding of those people and the audience that the account was written for is an integral part of understanding what they are referring to. Also, understanding the culture and region from where these particular views came from, and how the influences of other people and worldviews bleeds into the views expressed by the author of this particular creation account is important as well. Its also important to understand the evolutionary reason behind why we have beliefs and why our common natural instincts lead us towards worship nature, simply because there is so much we don't know about it.

 

In spite of the vast amount of knowledge we have at this point in time, there is still so much about our world that we don't understand or cannot explain. It gets even more unexplainable the farther back into history you go, which leads to the understanding as to why nature worship is so prevalent in our history, because to the average human, it represented mystery and miracles, which appeared to them to be the work of some higher being.

 

When you look at all of this from a multi-disciplinary viewpoint (Sociology, Psychology, Ancient History, Religious history, etc) this all comes into a much more clear focus than if you simply look at it from just one perspective: a good example would be evolution. It works across many disciplines and there is a mountain of evidence from all of these disciplines that gives it its strength as the most likely explanation.

 

In much the same way, when you look at the creation account, understanding the language, the culture and beliefs of the author(s) and intended audience, the influence of outside cultures, and the way humans think and process the stimuli from their environment , how they form beliefs and work towards reinforcing those beliefs, the picture just gets more clear.

 

I appreciate this thread and how it is helping me as i slowly piece together a better understanding of the religion I left, and look forward to more discussions of this nature.

[LogicalFallacy]

Great post Storm, that really sums up this subject well.

 

I think like most things, looking at a subject in an isolated fashion is kind of like walking with blinders on. However looking at it from various viewpoints means you get a greater depth of understanding.

 

Thanks to Josh and Steven for their input - I'm not posting an awful lot here, but am reading and its very interesting.

 

Steven, my church interprets Johns 'logos' as divine being (God) So essentially he is saying in the Beginning was God, (So this is a reference of John back to Genesis 1:1)... and God came and dwelt among us (Jesus). Therefore essentially Jesus is God. Based on what you said above this seems to be a misunderstanding of the Greek "logos" in the context in which John was using it?

[Joshpantera]

From my understanding, John is making use of Philo of Alexandra's use of the term Logos, who was taking the term from Platonism. So it goes from Greek, to Jewish, to eventually Christian usage. And the book of John is the most mystical Gospel.

 

I've read theories on the book of John being a way to try and proselytize Gnostics (those familiar with Platonic ideas like the Logos) into the Orthodoxy by way of making use of familiar mystical terminology and symbolism. In my opinion, this sort of speculation is going in the right direction for possibly decoding the original meanings and intent...

[srd44]

Steven, my church interprets Johns 'logos' as divine being (God) So essentially he is saying in the Beginning was God, (So this is a reference of John back to Genesis 1:1)... and God came and dwelt among us (Jesus). Therefore essentially Jesus is God. Based on what you said above this seems to be a misunderstanding of the Greek "logos" in the context in which John was using it?

 

There is a great deal of debate about how John's logos should be, or originally was, understood. I haven't been conversant in this literature fro some time since I have been more dedicated to source-critical scholarship on the Pentateuch. Yet, I still initially think that "word" is most likely the correct understanding, and then again specifically the word as a promise of Jesus' coming.

 

John is pretty interesting if you compare him next to Matthew's and Luke's anxiety to make sure Jesus gets the proper messianic pedigree via their genealogies, etc. John seems to be less interested in this and would seem to bypass the whole debate by pushing the time-frame back further, back to creation. Saying that "the promise of Jesus" was there in the beginning sort of devalues the need to prove Jesus' messianic pedigree. I think there might be support for this reading in Acts' use of the expression logos theou, "word of God."

 

In either case, let me chime in another point here, and I've reproduced it from yet another post of mine, where I'm discussing that any understanding of Genesis through John is being dishonest to Genesis 1 and the beliefs of its author:

 

"So we’re not attempting to support an interpretation of Genesis 1 through the beliefs and interpretive claims of the author of the Gospel of John; nor are we attempting to interpret Old Testament Laws and Covenants through the theological convictions of Paul; nor are we attempting to understand the sacrificial cult through the perspective of the author of Hebrews; nor are we attempting to understand Scripture however conceived through the subjective belief claims of the author of 2 Timothy 3:16; nor prophecy through Matthew, and so on and so on. Rather, we are attempting to understand—and the first part of understanding is acknowledging (the core of the problem)—the belief claims of the authors of these texts on their own terms—not on the terms of later readers. When we get to the New Testament we will examine the beliefs of these later readers-now-writers and what cultural influences shaped their beliefs. And likewise, we will not be imposing the beliefs of the author of Leviticus for example onto our interpretation of the author of Hebrews’ beliefs. Each text merits equal consideration, on the terms of its author and its cultural underpinnings.

 

So readers insisting on a subjective-based reader-focused hermeneutic that interjects Jesus into the text of Genesis 1 for example, and then proceeds to allegedly discuss “the text” of Genesis 1 through this interpretive framework are guilty of not reading Genesis 1 on the terms of this text’s author. They are reading it on the terms of the author of the Gospel of John, or the terms of their own faith traditions, or the terms of their own subjective beliefs. Thus, this is not a difference in reader-oriented approaches. This is a conflict between a subjective-based hermeneutic that has predefined the nature and meaning of the texts in accord with later theological convictions, AND, a methodology that seeks to start with the text and its observable textual data and objectively draw conclusions from it, that is from our object of study. One cannot tease Jesus out of the text of Genesis 1. He is not there, nor is he in the beliefs nor message of the author of this text. This is an objectively supported conclusion drawn from the terms of the text. It is being honest to this text and the beliefs and message of its author. The only way one gets Jesus out of an “interpretation of the text” is to change its author to God and then to engage speculatively and speciously in theology, not textual criticism. But again, we are doing objective based textual analysis here. Recognizing the beliefs of the author based on his composition and the hows and whys behind it."

 

http://contradictionsinthebible.com/being-honest-to-the-texts-of-the-bible/

[Jeff]

...and then you realize what? maybe 90% of church people have no idea that this kind of discussion is even a topic. They're just thinking "wow that Paul, John, etc came up with cool stuff derp"

 

It was so stunning to me when I recognized some philosophical language in James from a class I was taking. I was like "hey, he totally ripped that off!" The author obviously had learned that from some education in his lifetime.

I tried to tell someone about it but they hadn't had any philosophy themself and the jolt I felt was completely lost on them.