The Lost World of Genesis One (3 page)

To illustrate the idea, we must think of ways in which we are
products of our own culture. For example, we do not borrow the
idea of consumerism, nor are we influenced by it. We are consumers because we live in a capitalist society that is built on consumerism. We don't have to think about it or read about it. Even if we
wanted to reject its principles we would find it difficult to identify
all its different aspects and devise different ways of thinking. One
could make similar observations about Aristotelian, Cartesian or
Baconian forms of thought. We could speak of capitalism and the
value of liberty. We could consider self-determinism and individualism. We could analyze our sense of personal rights and the
nature of democracy. These are ideas and ways of thinking that
make us who we are in the United States. Where did we learn the
principles of naturalism or the nature of the universe? They are
simply absorbed through the culture in which we live. One can
find all of this in our literature, but we didn't learn it from our
literature-it is simply part of our culture that we absorb, often
with no alternatives even considered.

By recognizing the importance of the literatures of the ancient
world for informing us about its cultures, we need not be concerned that the Bible must consequently be understood as just
another piece of ancient mythology. We may well consider some
of the literatures of Babylonia and Egypt as mythological, but
that very mythology helps us to see the world as they saw it. The
Canaanites or the Assyrians did not consider their myths to be
made up works of the imagination. Mythology by its nature seeks
to explain how the world works and how it came to work that way,
and therefore includes a culture's "theory of origins." We sometimes label certain literature as "myth" because we do not believe that the world works that way. The label is a way of holding it at
arm's length so as to clarify that we do not share that beliefparticularly as it refers to involvement and activities of the gods.
But for the people to whom that mythology belonged, it was a
real description of deep beliefs. Their "mythology" expressed
their beliefs concerning what made the world what it was; it expressed their theories of origins and of how their world worked.

By this definition, our modern mythology is represented by
science-our own theories of origins and operations. Science provides what is generally viewed as the consensus concerning what
the world is, how it works and how it came to be. Today, science
makes no room for deity (though neither does it disprove deity), in
contrast to the ancient explanations, which were filled with deity.
For the Israelites, Genesis 1 offered explanations of their view of
origins and operations, in the same way that mythologies served
in the rest of the ancient world and that science serves our Western culture. It represents what the Israelites truly believed about
how the world got to be how it is and how it works, though it is
not presented as their own ideas, but as revelation from God. The
fact that many people today share that biblical belief makes the
term mythology unpalatable, but it should nevertheless be recognized that Genesis 1 serves the similar function of offering an
explanation of origins and how the world operated, not only for
Israel, but for people today who put their faith in the Bible.

SO WHAT ARE THE CULTURAL IDEAS BEHIND Genesis 1? Our
first proposition is that Genesis 1 is ancient cosmology. That is, it
does not attempt to describe cosmology in modern terms or address modern questions. The Israelites received no revelation to
update or modify their "scientific" understanding of the cosmos.
They did not know that stars were suns; they did not know that
the earth was spherical and moving through space; they did not
know that the sun was much further away than the moon, or even
further than the birds flying in the air. They believed that the sky
was material (not vaporous), solid enough to support the residence
of deity as well as to hold back waters. In these ways, and many
others, they thought about the cosmos in much the same way that
anyone in the ancient world thought, and not at all like anyone
thinks today.' And God did not think it important to revise their
thinking.

Some Christians approach the text of Genesis as if it has modern science embedded in it or it dictates what modern science
should look like. This approach to the text of Genesis 1 is called
"concordism," as it seeks to give a modern scientific explanation for the details in the text. This represents one attempt to "translate" the culture and text for the modern reader. The problem is,
we cannot translate their cosmology to our cosmology, nor should
we. If we accept Genesis 1 as ancient cosmology, then we need to
interpret it as ancient cosmology rather than translate it into modern cosmology. If we try to turn it into modern cosmology, we are
making the text say something that it never said. It is not just a
case of adding meaning (as more information has become available) it is a case of changing meaning. Since we view the text as
authoritative, it is a dangerous thing to change the meaning of the
text into something it never intended to say.

Another problem with concordism is that it assumes that the
text should be understood in reference to current scientific consensus, which would mean that it would neither correspond to last
century's scientific consensus nor to that which may develop in
the next century. If God were intent on making his revelation
correspond to science, we have to ask which science. We are well
aware that science is dynamic rather than static. By its very nature
science is in a constant state of flux. If we were to say that God's
revelation corresponds to "true science" we adopt an idea contrary
to the very nature of science. What is accepted as true today, may
not be accepted as true tomorrow, because what science provides
is the best explanation of the data at the time. This "best explanation" is accepted by consensus, and often with a few detractors.
Science moves forward as ideas are tested and new ones replace
old ones. So if God aligned revelation with one particular science,
it would have been unintelligible to people who lived prior to the
time of that science, and it would be obsolete to those who live
after that time. We gain nothing by bringing God's revelation
into accordance with today's science. In contrast, it makes perfect
sense that God communicated his revelation to his immediate audience in terms they understood.

Since God did not deem it necessary to communicate a different way of imagining the world to Israel but was content for them
to retain the native ancient cosmic geography, we can conclude
that it was not God's purpose to reveal the details of cosmic geography (defined as the way one thinks about the shape of the cosmos). The shape of the earth, the nature of the sky, the locations
of sun, moon and stars, are simply not of significance, and God
could communicate what he desired regardless of one's cosmic geography. Concordism tries to figure out how there could have
been waters above the sky (Gen 1:7), whereas the view proposed
here maintains that this terminology is simply describing cosmic
geography in Israelite terms to make a totally different point. (See
the next proposition for details.)

If cosmic geography is culturally descriptive rather than revealed truth, it takes its place among many other biblical examples
of culturally relative notions. For example, in the ancient world
people believed that the seat of intelligence, emotion and personhood was in the internal organs, particularly the heart, but also
the liver, kidneys and intestines. Many Bible translations use the
English word "mind" when the Hebrew text refers to the entrails,
showing the ways in which language and culture are interrelated.
In modern language we still refer to the heart metaphorically as
the seat of emotion. In the ancient world this was not metaphor,
but physiology. Yet we must notice that when God wanted to talk
to the Israelites about their intellect, emotions and will, he did not
revise their ideas of physiology and feel compelled to reveal the
function of the brain. Instead, he adopted the language of the
culture to communicate in terms they understood. The idea that
people think with their hearts describes physiology in ancient
terms for the communication of other matters; it is not revelation
concerning physiology. Consequently we need not try to come up
with a physiology for our times that would explain how people think with their entrails. But a serious concordist would have to
do so to save the reputation of the Bible. Concordists believe the
Bible must agree-be in concord with-all the findings of contemporary science.

Through the entire Bible, there is not a single instance in which
God revealed to Israel a science beyond their own culture. No
passage offers a scientific perspective that was not common to the
Old World science of antiquity.'

Beyond the issue of cosmic geography, there are a number of
other cultural and potentially scientific issues to consider concerning how people thought in the ancient world. Several questions might be considered:

• What is the level and nature of God's involvement in the
world?

• What is God's relationship to the cosmos? Is he manifested
within the cosmos? Is he controlling it from outside?

• Is there such a thing as a "natural" world?

• What is the cosmos? A collection of material objects that operate on the basis of laws? A machine? A kingdom? A company?
A residence?

• Is the account of creation the description of a manufacturing
process or the communication of a concept?

These and many other questions will be addressed throughout
this book. The answers proposed will not be determined by what
best supports what we would prefer to think or by what will eliminate the most problems. Instead we strive to identify, truly and
accurately, the thinking in the ancient world, the thinking in the
world of the Bible, and to take that where it leads us, whether
toward solutions or into more problems.