Another Example of Christians Who Reinvent Their Faith.
John Walton's book, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2009) is getting a lot of attention on the web, most notably because he's an evangelical who accepts the mythical status of the creation accounts in Genesis, accounts which were adapted by the Israelites from their neighbors. Here again, rather than abandon one's faith because of this, Christians are reinventing it as they are being forced by the findings of scholarship to change their minds. Christians repeatedly do this in every generation.
10 comments:
I don't see why they don't just throw the whole book they call the bible away. If it doesn't say what it means or mean what it says, what good is it?
It should be common knowledge by now that the heavens and earth were not created in 6 days. That men didn't live 930 years. That the whole world wasn't wickedly populated in a mere 1,656 years. That there was never a worldwide flood that destroyed all life on the planet except the people and animals in a box (ark).
No evidence of an Exodus. No evidence of Joshua's conquest of Canaan.
And, far from being a land flowing with milk and honey, the promised land has been a land flowing with blood and prone to drought and famine.
The generation that supposedly wandered in the wilderness for 40 years until they all died were better off than those who crossed the Jordan.
Hey, they at least had clothes that didn't "wax old" and had plenty of food and water. What more could a desert nomadic tribe ask for?
The poor folks who crossed the Jordan died by the sword, famine, drought, plagues and by the hand of their God for a thousand years.
The whole book is foolish, stupid nonsense and it is so obvious that even children and morons can see it. Unless, of course, they get brainwashed by adults and guardians who should know better.
Since they cherry pick and make the book say whatever they want it to say, why not toss it and preach whatever they want to without a book? That's what Rev. Jim Jones did, wasn't it?
Christians don't worship a God, they worship the Bible. And, just like any other idol, they have to clean it up and polish it once in a while.
Good show. I wouldn't mind seeing some sort of "range of beliefs" census among self-labeled "Evangelicals" so that we can get a sense of whether Evangelical necessarily equates to Fundamentalist and how prevalent the milder Evangelicalism might be. I'm doubting this writer would have previously fallen into the outright Fundamentalist camp. What I'm wondering is whether this is really a new wave of adaptation among Evangelicals or whether we're just taking for granted that more of the Evangelicals are also Fundamentalist than really are.
That said, if they are indeed more universally integral (Evangelicals = Fundamentalists) than I'm thinking may be the case, then we can hope that more open thinking and a willingness to adopt a more malleable theology would become contagious. Of the 20 or so Amazon reviews, only one was negative. That one low rating appeared to be the common sort of fundamentalist, the sort who is totally impervious to evidence. I wonder what sort of background would apply to the other 19 reviewers.
To see James McGrath's review of Walton's book, here is part one, and here is part two.
"Gradualism" is OK. If they want to change gradually, that is OK with me, because it is far better than anchoring down and running a madrashah - way better !
This may be new for Evangelicals, but many mainstream Christians have always read the early parts of Genesis figuratively. Here's Origen from Contra Celsus, 2nd century:
And with regard to the creation of the light upon the first day, and of the firmament upon the second, and of the gathering together of the waters that are under the heaven into their several reservoirs on the third (the earth thus causing to sprout forth those (fruits) which are under the control of nature alone, and of the (great) lights and stars upon the fourth, and of aquatic animals upon the fifth, and of land animals and man upon the sixth, we have treated to the best of our ability in our notes upon Genesis, as well as in the foregoing pages, when we found fault with those who, taking the words in their apparent signification, said that the time of six days was occupied in the creation of the world.
And Augustine in the fourth century:
With the scriptures it is a matter of treating about the faith. For that reason, as I have noted repeatedly, if anyone, not understanding the mode of divine eloquence, should find something about these matters [about the physical universe] in our books, or hear of the same from those books, of such a kind that it seems to be at variance with the perceptions of his own rational faculties, let him believe that these other things are in no way necessary to the admonitions or accounts or predictions of the scriptures. In short, it must be said that our authors knew the truth about the nature of the skies, but it was not the intention of the Spirit of God, who spoke through them, to teach men anything that would not be of use to them for their salvation.
Understanding the mythical nature of Genesis has nothing to do with modern scholarship; the fundamentalists and evangelicals are the ones who have tried to reinvent the meaning of Genesis; now, they appear to be coming back to the ancient understanding.
While Genesis might be seen as metaphor for more and more Christians, at some point Genesis has to be taken literally since Jesus is listed as a direct descendent of Adam in a span of about 4,000 years.
Is Jesus biologically related to metaphorical people (Adam, Noah, etc.)? If Genesis is metaphor, then is Jesus' family tree metaphor? An invension of the Evangelists? What else might they have simply made up? What if the resurrection is a metaphor?
What methodology do Christians use to determine whether something is metaphor or not? Jesus healing people, exorcising demons, and spending Saturday dead is just as absurd as the Genesis story of creation, so why not reject the entire book?
John, you are a thorough modernist to fail to understand just how flexible world views can be. Unfortunately (or more so, fortunately), these are post modern times.
Absolutely right, deusdiapente, Genesis has to be literal or the rest of the Bible means nothing.
Take for example the testimony of Steven in Acts and of Jesus' testimony of "as it was in the days of Noah" (Luke 17:26) and the genealogy of Jesus by Luke. More importantly the words of Paul in Romans 5:12.
Absolutely right, deusdiapente, Genesis has to be literal or the rest of the Bible means nothing.
Nonsense. It only has to be true.
The author of Luke and steven believed that Genesis was historically true. Whether or not it is always literal or metaphorical (and nothing is always one way or the other as language is not basically literal anyway as language itself is just as basically metaphorical as it is literal as metaphors are deeply and even subconsciously intertwined with our conceptualizations as george Lackoff and Mark Johnson have proved in "Metaphors we Live by") it always reflects the truth of what happened. But of course to futher complicate things, ancient history is not written like modern "enlightenment" history anyhow.
The geneology of Luke need not be thoroughly literal to indicate the truth that they were intended to indicate, that Jesus is the Messiah not just of Jews but of all humanity. How the apocolypse of Noah actually played out (as has been historically demonstrated, the middle east was entirely flooded at one time), Jesus point remains as valid that the day of the Lord, the day of judgement will come with most of society having barely prepared for it.
Is a less historical interpretation (by the standards of modernism on what constitutes history) of genesis completely problem free? I don't know, and that doesn't matter. No view is problem free and research continues on and that is the thrust of this book, to solve problems with a less literal view of genesis.
By the way John. I must admit that you do influence me. This book is on order from Amazon. Thank you much.
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