Hebrew Professor and the Gap Theory

[a-seeker]

 

I can no longer find the exact post but the quote is this:

 

There are people out there for whom this is a real problem.  Why should they trust the Bible at all?   If the first eleven chapters are nothing more than a myth or at best is a lot of stories with incorrect information about man’s origins, why should they trust the Bible in any other claim it makes?  In some cases they are thinking,  "If God is wrong about my origins, why should I believe Him when He tells me about my sin?"

 

 

I believe it was from Shiloh; if not, I apologize.  Here are my thoughts

 

“Nothing more than myth.” We need to define myth a little more closely.  There are myths (like the best of the Greeks’) which tell an unhistorical truth in the guise of a historical narrative: these “truths” are often either a universal phenomenon or a universal experience.  Thus the perennial alternation between summer and winter is explained by the story of Demeter and Persephone: that happened only once, yet the reality it captures is (according to the Greeks) infinite.  The story of Orpheus losing his wife by looking back for her just as they were reaching the exit from Hades tells a similar experience: what it means to hold on to something too tight that you lose it.

 

When it is said that Genesis is “nothing more than a myth” I believe something like that kind of myth is in mind; I believe this because no one who understood the full range of myth could possibly say “nothing more”.  “Mere myth” is what is in mind.  Of course Genesis has been explained as mere myth: that the story of the fall records nothing of the past but rather sets up as history what is really a universal experience in every man—the rise and fall of every man.  Some parables approximate this kind of genre by giving a universal moral truth in the form of a short narrative.

 

No one on this site (to my knowledge) is claiming Genesis is “mere myth”, in the sense that nothing of historical value is being conveyed.  Here is how I see the mythopoeic element at work in Genesis.  Genesis 1 conveys history—that is, it teaches historical, concrete truths:  God did create the universe, He did create man as no other creature on earth, man was made in harmony with God, and man did sin thereby losing those privileges—but it is history told through a particular lens: that lens is experience of the Hebrews, both cultural and immediate: the chief cultural elements at work being the temple ideology prevalent in those days; the immediate experience chiefly being the Exodus event with special significance given the parting of the Red Sea and the construction of the tabernacle—(as to the first, note how important “separation of water” is in both Genesis 1 and the flood narrative). No one with intimate knowledge of the Bible and its culture could miss (except by deliberate obscurantism) the parallels.  The fact is, myth remains one of the most powerful genres of literature; it brings to mere narrative what mere narrative could never generate on its own.  “Nothing more than myth”?  I would say “nothing less”.  Myth, this kind of myth, is far more powerful than "a bunch of stories".  It is far more powerful than a mere scientific description of creation.

 

So much for the definitions of myth.  Other problems arise here.

 

There is what might be called an empirical problem. I am in a Bible study; I have presented my ideas to the men in my group.  They have no problem with it—in fact, they have all (18 or so) said their appreciation of Scripture has deepened.  They continue to believe in Jesus and his resurrection; they believe that God speaks through Genesis.  They hail Scripture as God’s word.   But how can this be?  On the above reasoning they should abandon it?  Why don’t they? The reason is, people do not fall away from the faith merely because of a logical jump from a non-chronological, non-literal, reading of Genesis to the conclusion that the Bible as a whole is false.  The cracks were already there long before they met these notions.   The fear that anything but YEC can produce rock-solid faith is exposed as chimerical by the mere existence of Christians who revere God’s word, believe in Jesus, and yet are not 6-day creationists.  YEC is not necessary to salvation; if it were, He would have told us (note, I am saying he would have told us it was necessary for salvation: Paul, or someone, would have said, “If you believe in your heart….that Christ is Lord….and OEC is false….then….saved”.  If YEC is the only obstacle standing between reverence for Scripture and the claims of science, then I and numerous others are walking contradictions.  Whether YEC is better exegesis is a different question.  But refutations against OEC or other readings must then be made by exegesis; not on the pragmatic grounds of potential spiritual abandonment.

 

There is a logical difficulty here as well:  the question posed above is, “why should I believe this (say, the resurrection) if that (say, creation, flood etc.) is mythical or anything other than pure history?”  The implied answer to this question seems to be, “We shouldn’t.”  The implied conclusion, “Therefore, everything must be purely literal.” There are two problems with this kind of reasoning.  First, why shouldn’t we believe the resurrection, or the reign of David, or the multiplication of bread by Jesus, was intended as purely literal?  Why should the mere fact that one section in Scripture contains mythic elements suddenly render everything else mythical as well?

 

 Do not get me wrong.  I can appreciate the emotional fear that asks the question.  I can even sympathize with the emotion that clings to the answer.  But my intellect cannot embrace it as rational. No honest thinker could. The space between the premise, “Genesis 1-11 is mythical” to the conclusion “everything else therefore must be mythical” is so great that no turn of logic could ever cross it.  And yet people are crossing the gap in a single leap.  Why?  I propose that fear is the driving force, not reason.  Here is the real logic that I see operating.  The real premises are 1) Everything but a chronological reading of Genesis rattles my faith; 2) I don’t like my faith being rattled.  Therefore (the conclusion) Genesis must be chronological and literal, for only that reading will put my nerves at ease.  You see of course the problem. The logic is based entirely on fear and is therefore vitiated from the start.  We call Genesis 1 literal because we can’t deal with the problems that arise if it were not.  It is like claiming a ladder is safe because we are afraid of falling; we claim Genesis 1 is mere narrative because we do not like the doubts that arise when it is suggested otherwise.  Our apparent “trust” in Scripture turns out to be nothing more than a kind of incantation; we have lulled ourselves into a dogmatic, and self-induced, hypnosis.  Genesis becomes objectively literal because our subjective “trust” requires it.  In a word, we are saying, “Hey Genesis! My faith in Scripture as a whole depends on your literalness; therefore you are literal!”

 

However, there may be a deeper spiritual problem involved here: note that the Bible above is equated with God.  OF course, it is God-inspired.  But God’s word is intended to bring us into a relationship with Him.  There will be no Scripture in the Kingdom of God to come.  The answer to the hypothetical question above, “….why should I believe him when he tells me about my sin?” is, “Ask Him.”  This may seem naïve; it is not.  The crisis described above is between man and Scripture---where is the Holy Spirit, not the Holy Spirit as dictating Scripture, nor even as aiding exegesis, but as working in the life of the Christian? When do we bring the question, “Why should I believe any of it if Genesis is not what I think?” to the Holy Spirit and allow Him to answer?  If a man’s relationship with Christ is nothing more than his relationship with Scripture manifested in a constant attack on anything other than YEC, then I am afraid that man is engaged in something not unlike idolatry—the worship of Scripture may be higher than the worship of false gods; but it is still the worship of something less than God Himself.

 

 

clb

Q:“Nothing more than myth.” We need to define myth a little more closely.  There are myths (like the best of the Greeks’) which tell an unhistorical truth in the guise of a historical narrative: unQ

 

Are you sure it is in the guise of a historical narrative?  Can you consider a god in the form of a swan impregnating a woman "the guise of a historical narrative"?  On the guise scale of 0-10, where would this be rated?

 

Sorry, not everyone seems to have the same definitions so it gets a bit confusing: by historical narrative I mean "something that happened once in the past".  That is, the perennial seasons which alternate every year is set in a historical (it happened a long time ago) narrative (involved characters and a plot).

 

does that clarify?

 

clb

[Guest shiloh357]

 

The reason we know that some passages are prophetic even though they are not indicated as such in the immediate source text is because there is later indications of their fulfilment.   The Bible refers back to a text when that proophecy has been fulfilled at a later time.

 

Genesis 1 is not prophetic because you have NO references to it as prophetic.   You have no references in the Bible point back to Genesis 1  and say, "this is how this text is fulfillled."    Since the Bible never treats Genesis 1 as "foreshadowing" any claim that it foreshadows something else is not exegesis and is not based on a solid and sound interpretative approach to the text.

 

I don't believe I said Genesis was prophetic. Just using prophecy as an example.

 

It would be true if a text were allegorical or figurative in some other way.  The Bible would let you know.  The Bible doesn't leave it up to you to decide that.

 

So...with prophecies, we can use text from a different time and author to verify, but we can't do the same with foreshadowing?

 

Foreshadowing would really be no different.  The Bible doesn't leave it up to you to decide that "A" is a foreshadowing of "B." 

 

Something else I would point out to you is that when the Bible uses foreshadowing and typology, it is always about Jesus and some aspect of either His first advent, His ministry in the Church or His Second Advent and millennial rule.

 

One sure fire way to know when people are misusing these kinds of things is when they use them to point to something other than Jesus.  The Bible is always pointing to Jesus.  Every book of the Bible is a picture of the coming of Jesus in some way.  Everything in the Bible is either point toward the cross, or pointing back to it.  It is either point to Jesus as the author and finisher of the faith for the Church or it is pointing to Jesus final triumph over Satan. 

 

The Tabernacle intentionally parallels Creation and is a shadow of the Temple, which is a shadow of Heaven, which has even more similarities to the first Creation...and so on.

I see a very clear pattern here.

 

No, the Tabernacle  deson't parallel Creation.  The Tabernacle foreshadows Jesus' redemption of man.  The Tabernacle and its services in every way point to Jesus not to creation, not to heaven, not to the temple or anything else.  The message of the Tabernacle is God's plan of redemption pictured in the coming of Jesus' and His earthly ministry and death on the cross.

 

You have the pattern backwards and you are reading into what you want to impose on the text of Genesis. Again, you are not doing exegesis.

[a-seeker]

When Shiloh says the Bible “would tell us”, does he mean that somewhere in Scripture we would read words to this effect: “Everything I have just told you is a parallel to other parts of Scripture or your own cultural background?”  Or, more to the point, “Now, Hebrews, I am going to address 21st c. readers for a bit…21st c. readers, when I said this to the Hebrews I was making a reference to elements in their experience—let me explain those elements.”  In other words, we demand a footnote or parenthesis specifically for our benefit.

 

 

 

What I mean is if the author meant to include cultural parallels, they would be in the text itself.  The cultural parallels that you have tried to draw up really only work if we assume that Moses was not the author, that the author of Genesis was written much later.    The reason is that Moses was not alive when the temple was built and so could not have made those parallels.  

 

Moses wrote the book of Genesis and he wrote it long before there was any temple or temple culture/mindset to parallel it to.   If you are going to use cultural parallels as an interpretative, exegetical tool, then those parallels have to be in the source text and should have been obvious to the original audience standing near the foot of Mt. Sinai.

 

The purpose of interpretation/exegesis is to lead out the meaning of a given text.   The cultural parallels are interesting but are not "interpretations" and do not serve as "meaning" when trying to understand what the text is actually meaning to convey.

 

 

A couple things: I am not obliged by Scripture to believe that Genesis was fully written by Moses or even at all--where in Genesis does it say, "and Moses wrote all these things down"?

 

But that is moot point; I build no case on it.

 

Moses wrote the book of Genesis and he wrote it long before there was any temple or temple culture/mindset to parallel it to.   If you are going to use cultural parallels as an interpretative, exegetical tool, then those parallels have to be in the source text and should have been obvious to the original audience standing near the foot of Mt. Sinai.

 

Are you maintaining that the Temple of Solomon was the "first" temple to any god?  There were other temples (to pagan gods) and they were a part of "their" culture.

 

Should have been obvious to the original audience??  I am saying it WAS obvious to them.  (Did you read my post above at all Shiloh?  The parallel between the World Trade center and obvious allusions?  At all?)

 

But most of my exegesis is based not on the temple but on the tabernacle---which Moses was very involved in building.

 

Again, the Temple itself is based on the tabernacle.  Is this mere coincidence?  Am I allowed to see a connection there, or is it pure coincidence?

[a-seeker]

 

 

The reason we know that some passages are prophetic even though they are not indicated as such in the immediate source text is because there is later indications of their fulfilment.   The Bible refers back to a text when that proophecy has been fulfilled at a later time.

 

Genesis 1 is not prophetic because you have NO references to it as prophetic.   You have no references in the Bible point back to Genesis 1  and say, "this is how this text is fulfillled."    Since the Bible never treats Genesis 1 as "foreshadowing" any claim that it foreshadows something else is not exegesis and is not based on a solid and sound interpretative approach to the text.

 

I don't believe I said Genesis was prophetic. Just using prophecy as an example.

 

It would be true if a text were allegorical or figurative in some other way.  The Bible would let you know.  The Bible doesn't leave it up to you to decide that.

 

So...with prophecies, we can use text from a different time and author to verify, but we can't do the same with foreshadowing?

 

Foreshadowing would really be no different.  The Bible doesn't leave it up to you to decide that "A" is a foreshadowing of "B." 

 

Something else I would point out to you is that when the Bible uses foreshadowing and typology, it is always about Jesus and some aspect of either His first advent, His ministry in the Church or His Second Advent and millennial rule.

 

One sure fire way to know when people are misusing these kinds of things is when they use them to point to something other than Jesus.  The Bible is always pointing to Jesus.  Every book of the Bible is a picture of the coming of Jesus in some way.  Everything in the Bible is either point toward the cross, or pointing back to it.  It is either point to Jesus as the author and finisher of the faith for the Church or it is pointing to Jesus final triumph over Satan. 

 

The Tabernacle intentionally parallels Creation and is a shadow of the Temple, which is a shadow of Heaven, which has even more similarities to the first Creation...and so on.

I see a very clear pattern here.

 

No, the Tabernacle  deson't parallel Creation.  The Tabernacle foreshadows Jesus' redemption of man.  The Tabernacle and its services in every way point to Jesus not to creation, not to heaven, not to the temple or anything else.  The message of the Tabernacle is God's plan of redemption pictured in the coming of Jesus' and His earthly ministry and death on the cross.

 

You have the pattern backwards and you are reading into what you want to impose on the text of Genesis. Again, you are not doing exegesis.

 

Now that is very interesting.

 

You are saying that, if all I had were Genesis -Dt. (I know nothing about Jesus)  I would obviously see that one day a man who is also God would be born, crucified, risen, and that by all that I will be saved?

 

By the way, Jesus is the New Creation--that is, if the tabernacle points to the New, it probably looks back and points to the old.

 

But for real, I would love to see you exegete the Pentateuch and get me to Jesus.  Don't worry, you can even presume to teach me.  I won't tattle.

 

clb

 

Oh, if you promise not to tell on me, I'll do some exegesis on Genesis 1-3 to show how it to points to Jesus.

Edited February 27, 2014 by ConnorLiamBrown

[Guest shiloh357]

Are you maintaining that the Temple of Solomon was the "first" temple to any god?

 

No,  How you could you possibly get that from any of my comments??? 

 

 

 

Should have been obvious to the original audience??  I am saying it WAS obvious to them.

 

 Which is a baseless assumption on your part.

 

 

 

But most of my exegesis is based not on the temple but on the tabernacle---which Moses was very involved in building.

 

Again, the Temple itself is based on the tabernacle.  Is this mere coincidence?  Am I allowed to see a connection there, or is it pure coincidence?

 

You are reading a connection between the Garden of Eden and the Tabernacle/Temple into the Genesis 1.  You are running off assumptions about the audience that have no basis in fact, only in your imagination.

 

[Guest shiloh357]

 

When Shiloh says the Bible “would tell us”, does he mean that somewhere in Scripture we would read words to this effect: “Everything I have just told you is a parallel to other parts of Scripture or your own cultural background?”  Or, more to the point, “Now, Hebrews, I am going to address 21st c. readers for a bit…21st c. readers, when I said this to the Hebrews I was making a reference to elements in their experience—let me explain those elements.”  In other words, we demand a footnote or parenthesis specifically for our benefit.

 

 

 

What I mean is if the author meant to include cultural parallels, they would be in the text itself.  The cultural parallels that you have tried to draw up really only work if we assume that Moses was not the author, that the author of Genesis was written much later.    The reason is that Moses was not alive when the temple was built and so could not have made those parallels.  

 

Moses wrote the book of Genesis and he wrote it long before there was any temple or temple culture/mindset to parallel it to.   If you are going to use cultural parallels as an interpretative, exegetical tool, then those parallels have to be in the source text and should have been obvious to the original audience standing near the foot of Mt. Sinai.

 

The purpose of interpretation/exegesis is to lead out the meaning of a given text.   The cultural parallels are interesting but are not "interpretations" and do not serve as "meaning" when trying to understand what the text is actually meaning to convey.

 

 

A couple things: I am not obliged by Scripture to believe that Genesis was fully written by Moses or even at all--where in Genesis does it say, "and Moses wrote all these things down"?

 

Ah, now it begins...  The Bible ascribes all five books of the law to Moses:    2 King  21:8, 1 Chron. 15:15, 1; 22:13, 2 Chron 24:6; 33:8; 34:14, Neh. 1:8; 8:14; 10:29, Mal. 4:4, Matt. 8:4; 19:8; 22:14, Mark 1:44; 7:10; 10:4, Luke 5:14; 20:37; 24:27, John 1:45; 5:46; 7:19; 7:22; 8:5, Acts 3:22; 15:21; 26:22, Rom. 10:5; 10:19, 2 Cor. 3:15, Heb. 9:19

 

But if you don't feel obliged to believe the Bible, I guess it demonstrates a fundamental and irreconcilable rift in how we approach the Bible.

 

You are saying that, if all I had were Genesis -Dt. (I know nothing about Jesus)  I would obviously see that one day a man who is also God would be born, crucified, risen, and that by all that I will be saved?

 

There are a number of Messianic prophecies contained in the Law of Moses.  The Law of Moses, begining in Genesis is the seed for all New Testment theology.  There was enough information contained in the Law of Moses for the Jewish people to recognize the Jewish Messiah when He came.   You might not have known all of the nuts and bolts, but there was enough light for a Jewish person to walk in that they would have been able to see the Messiah in the Law of Moses.

 

We tend to run off of the assumption that the Children of Israel had no idea why they were doing what they were doing and that assumption may very well be false.

 

 

By the way, Jesus is the New Creation--that is, if the tabernacle points to the New, it probably looks back and points to the old.

 

Where does the Bible say that Jesus is the new Creation??  The Bible makes no such claim.  And what you do mean when you say that Jesus is the New Creation?

[Sheniy]

Where does the Bible say that Jesus is the new Creation??  The Bible makes no such claim.  And what you do mean when you say that Jesus is the New Creation?

I think he was referring to 2 Corinthians 5:17 "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!" But I think this is referring to us as believers in Christ.

 

Still...I see his point.

[Guest shiloh357]

 

Where does the Bible say that Jesus is the new Creation??  The Bible makes no such claim.  And what you do mean when you say that Jesus is the New Creation?

I think he was referring to 2 Corinthians 5:17 "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!" But I think this is referring to us as believers in Christ.

 

Still...I see his point.

 

What point is that?

[Sheniy]

Where does the Bible say that Jesus is the new Creation??  The Bible makes no such claim.  And what you do mean when you say that Jesus is the New Creation?

I think he was referring to 2 Corinthians 5:17 "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!" But I think this is referring to us as believers in Christ.

 

Still...I see his point.

What point is that?

I was getting to it, but I would like to back it up with scripture. I have some in mind, but I can't remember where they are. That means I need to do some digging.

[a-seeker]

A couple of  things:

 

You maintain (I think) that Moses wrote Genesis and Exodus....and at least most of the Pentateuch.

 

You maintain that it is terrible exegesis to look for any connections between one book written by the author (Exodus) and another (Genesis).  There is no way that these books will "refer to each other" in any way?  Is that right?  I am sure it isn't because it sounds ridiculous, but I am completely unsure that I know what you think legitimate exegesis is.

 

Again, Paul is frequently looking back to the Old Creation and then to the New, or the old Adam and the new ADam (Jesus).  The authors of the Bible are often in communication with each other, so to speak.

 

I maintain that it is not bad exegesis to see if there are "echos" of themes in Exodus heard throughout Geneseis. Once I looked, I found them.  I posted them.  They were removed, twice.  I invited you to discuss them one on one.  You declined.

 

clb