The Blog of Brian Collins
On Monday I presented a paper at the BJU Seminary symposium for Fall 2018 on Genesis 1:26-28. The paper is posted on the Theology in 3D website. I’m thankful for the opportunity to present the paper, and I welcome feedback.
I’m grateful to Dr. Ken Casillas for inviting me to present the paper and to Dr. Eric Newton for his insightful response.
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
As is often the case in John’s Gospel Jesus is recorded as using the same words with subtlety different meanings.
In verse 25 Jesus uses life to refer to resurrection life. So even the one who’s body is buried, if he is a believer, will live despite his death. He will be resurrected.
But in verse 26 Jesus speaks of one who lives and believes never dying. Here “lives” is probably referring to eternal life. John it is clear that eternal life is not something that believers will get in the future; it is something that believers have now.
So Jesus is saying that even if the outer man dies, the believer will live in the outer man again since Jesus is the resurrection. But more than that, the believer already has eternal life in the inner man and he will never die in the inner man.
This passage then can help shape our understanding of death at the Fall. Genesis 3:19 records the pronouncement of the coming death of the outer man. Genesis 3:7-13 records the effects of the death of the inner man: shame (3:7), separation from God (3:8), failure to love others as one’s self (3:12). Of course, standing over the entire event is the failure to love God.
Sources:
The language of inner man/outer man comes from 2 Corinthians 4:16.
Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John (i-xii), Anchor Bible, ed. William Foxwell Albright and David Noel Freedman (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966), 434.
D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John, Pillar New Testament Commentary, ed. D. A. Carson (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 412-11.
Tim Challies reviewed today a book by J. Daniel Hays on the tabernacle and temple. From Challies’s review, the book looks good, and I’ve added it to my notes on the tabernacle and temple. But according to Challies Hays makes a claim that seems to have become a commonplace among biblical scholars:
Hays begins in the Garden of Eden which so many scholars understand as its own kind of temple.
There are certainly strong connections between the garden and the tabernacle and temple, but I wonder if scholars are not being careful enough when the actually identify the garden as a temple.
I first encountered this idea when reading G. K. Beale’s book, The Temple and the Church’s Mission, part of the New Studies in Biblical Theology Series. I was less than persuaded by Beale’s argument. Later I found that Daniel Block, writing in a festschrift for Beale, also has some reservations about this thesis.
Beale’s argument for an Edenic temple can be summarized from the following headings in The Temple and the Church’s Mission (66-75): (1) “The Garden as the unique place of God’s presence,” (2) “The Garden as the place of the first priest,” (3) “The Garden as the place of the first guarding cherubim,” (4) “The Garden as the place of the first arboreal lampstand,” (5) “The Garden as formative for garden imagery in Israel’s temple,” (6) “Eden as the first source of water,” (7) “Eden as the place of precious stones,” (8) “The Garden as the place of the first mountain,” (8) “The Garden as the first place of wisdom,” (9) “The Garden as part of a tripartite sacred structure,” (10) “Ezekiel’s view of the Garden of Eden as the first sanctuary.”
I would respond as follows:
(1) The presence of God is the chief actual parallel. But to argue that God’s presence in Eden makes Eden a temple is to mistake the reality for the symbol. The temple is needed as a symbol of God’s presence because the reality of God’s presence has been withdrawn due to sin. When the reality is fully restored, then the need for the symbol passes away (Rev. 21:22). Thus when the reality was present in the past, there was no need for the symbol. Because the reality of God’s presence was found in Eden, Eden was not a temple. The symbol was not needed.
(2) Beale concludes from the occurrence of עבד and שׁמר in Genesis 2:10 that Adam is pictured as a priest since when these words “occur together in the Old Testament . . . , they refer either to Israelites ‘serving’ God and ‘guarding [keeping]’ God’s word . . . or to priests who ‘keep’ the ‘service’ (or ‘charge’) of the tabernacle (see Num. 3:7-8; 8:25-26; 18:5-6; 1 Chr. 23:32; Ezek. 44:14)” (67). However, this is a decontextualized reading of these terms. Beale concedes, “It is true that the Hebrew word usually translated ‘cultivate’ can refer to an agricultural task when used by itself (e.g., 2:5; 3:23)” (67). In the context of Adam being placed in a garden because the garden needed a man for certain kinds of plants to grow (2:5), it is contextually more likely that these words refer to “an agricultural task.” Daniel Block rightly observes, “Lacking other clear signals it is inappropriate to read back into this collocation cultic significance from later texts (e.g., Nm 3:7-8; 8:26; 18:5-6). The conjunction of verbs עבד . . . and שׁמר . . . in association with the tabernacle suggests that priestly functions were reminiscent of humankind’s role in the garden, but the reverse is unwarranted” (Daniel I. Block, “Eden: A Temple? A Reassessment of the Biblical Evidence,” in From Creation to New Creation: Biblical Theology and Exegesis: Essays in Honor of G. K. Beale, eds. Daniel M. Gurtner and Benjamin L. Gladd [Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2013], 10-12).
(3) Since the cherubim are placed to guard the garden only after Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden, their presence on the tabernacle curtains is probably an indication that the way to God is still barred for sinful humans rather than an indication that Eden was a temple.
(4, 5, 6) While it may be true that the lampstand symbolized the tree of life (I am inclined to think so), and while the lampstand and other parts of the tabernacle make use of garden imagery, this only demonstrates that the tabernacle and temple looked back to Eden. It does not demonstrate that Eden was a temple. Likewise with prophetic promise that a river will flow from the temple. Speaking of the river, Block says, “While these images derive from Gn 2:10-14, without the later adaption we would not think of looking for a sanctuary here” (13). Again, to conclude otherwise confuses the reality and the symbol.
(7) Beale says that the Garden is “the place of precious stones,” but the text places the stones outside of Eden in the land of Havilah. Rather than a temple connection, it is contextually more likely that a connection exists back to Genesis 1:28 and the blessing of human rule over the earth. The rivers are highways into the wider world and in those lands are natural resources to be harnessed, such a gold, a standard medium of exchange. Also, Block notes that Bdellium “probably does not refer to a precious stone” and that it is not associated with the high priest’s breastplate. Onyx is connected to “the priestly vestments,” but not exclusively so (13-14).
(8) Block says on this score, “As noted earlier, while the HB [Hebrew Bible] never associates wisdom with the priesthood, its significance for kingship is explicitly declared in Prv 8:12-21 (especially vv. 15-16). . . . To associate the wisdom motif with the law stored inside the Holy of Holies and eating the forbidden fruit with touching the ark is farfetched and anachronistic” (15-16).
(9) Beale’s attempt to connect the structure of the Garden with the structure of the tabernacle falters on the fact that the river does not flow from a holy of holies within the garden but from the broader land of Eden in which the garden is placed (Gen. 3:10).
(10) The argument from Ezekiel 28:18 is difficult to sustain. It seems best to understand Ezekiel as drawing a parallel between the king of Tyre and the cherub who was in Eden just as in the previous passage Tyre had been spoken of in terms of a sunken ship. Beale wishes to identify the cherub as Adam, but it is more likely that the cherub should be identified as Satan, as cherubs are angelic beings, not human beings. Finally, Beale wishes to identify the sanctuaries of Ezekiel 28:18 with Eden. Not only does the plural pose a problem (if there is precedent for identifying that courtyard, holy place, and holy of holies as separate sanctuaries, Beale does not provide it), but this profanation is connected to “the unrighteousness of your trade.” Thus the profanation of the sanctuaries is probably referring directly to the king of Tyre and not to an event that happened in Eden.
I think Block rightly captures the proper interpretation:
In my response to reading Gn 1-3 as temple-building texts, I have hinted at the fundamental hermeneutical problem involved in this approach. The question is, should we read Gn 1-3 in the light of later texts, or should we read later texts in light of these? If we read the accounts of the order given, then the creation account provides essential background to primeval history, which provides background for the patriarchal, exodus, and tabernacle narratives. By themselves and by this reading the accounts of Gn 1-3 offer no clues that a cosmic or Edenic temple might be involved. However, as noted above, the Edenic features of the tabernacle, the Jerusalem temple, and the temple envisioned by Ezekiel are obvious. Apparently their design and function intended to capture something of the original environment in which human beings were placed. However, the fact that Israel’s sanctuaries were Edenic does not make Eden into a sacred shrine. At best this is a nonreciprocating equation. (20-21)
In sum, though the tabernacle and temple looked back to the garden of Eden and the loss of the presence of God that occurred with humanity’s exile from the garden, the garden itself was not a temple. In the grand scheme of things, this is not a major difference of interpretation, but it is still worth maintaing precision in our understanding of these foundational parts of Scripture.
VanDoodewaard, William. The Quest for the Historical Adam: Genesis, Hermeneutics, and Human Origins. Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage, 2015.
VanDoodewaard provides a helpful survey of views about Genesis, Creation, and Adam from the time of the church fathers until the present. He holds to a young earth and a normal day creation, but most of the book is simply a very helpful summarizing of viewpoints.
In reading the book, I concluded that some of the criticisms that I read of this book were off mark. For instance, VanDoodewaard has been critiqued for describing his view as literal, and I did once see him describe a view positively as literalistic. But he notes toward the beginning of the book the various ways the word literal can be used and how he is going to use it.I think since VanDoodewaard expresses awareness of the various ways this term can be used and specifies how he is using it, he should not be critiqued on this point (further, reviewers should provide his working definition if they use the word in the review to describe his position).
I came to a similar conclusion regarding his discussion of racism on the part of evolutionists but not on the part of creationists. If my memory serves me correctly, he alludes to the racism on the part of some creationists, but he does not discuss it because it does not flow from their view of creation as the racism of certain evolutionists did. I think these criticisms are simply asking VanDoodewaard to write a different book than he intended to write.
I do, however, wish that he had provided more information on the motivations of those who were abandoning a literal interpretation of Genesis prior to Darwin. They obviously were not motivated by a desire to accommodate themselves to Darwinism, but they did seem to be influenced by Enlightenment thought. Knowing precisely what it was that motivated these changes in interpretation would have been useful.
Also, VanDoodewaard strongly critiqued Kuyper, Bavinck, and Schilder for acknowledging that the first three days of creation could have been longer or shorter than ordinary days, implying that this set a slippery slope for compromise in the next generation. I didn’t quite follow this argumentation, since these men were not saying (in fact, they explicitly denied) that these first three days were long ages. It seems to me that they were simply saying that since there was no sun until day 4, perhaps the first three days could have been only 18 hours long or 36 hours long. I don’t see a reason to adopt this supposition, but it seems in line enough with an ordinary day view of the creation week that I felt like I was missing the information on how this position led to compromise. Were there other aspects to it?
These quibbles aside, however, I highly commend VanDoodewaard’s work. His historical work is careful and accurate. His understanding of the issues invovled and the significance of the views taken is incisive.
Poythress, Vern S. “Correlations with Providence in Genesis 1,” WTJ 77 (2015): 71-99.
This article is the second in a recent trilogy of articles by Poythress on the opening chapters of Genesis. The heart of the article is a step through the creation week with particular attention given to correlations between God’s creation activity and normal providence. For instance, in normal providence heavy rains may cause water to cover dry land. Later the water recedes to show the dry land. This ordinary providence aligns with God’s causing the dry land to appear out of the water in creation. Or, God specially created the animals, but animals are “created” providentially though the normal processes of birth. I thought that Poythress sometimes showed real correlations between creation and providence, but other times I thought he was trying too hard. For instance, he sees a correlation between the original gift of food to eat in Genesis 1:29 and eating of plants today by humans. However, this is a stretch because God’s speech is looking beyond the creation week to the future. It’s not clear that something beyond ordinary providence was ever intended.
Poythress draws two conclusions from his observations regarding correlations between creation and providence. First, he looks at ANE creation myths and their similarities to the Genesis account. After noting that the differences between Genesis and the myths are far greater than the similarities, Poythress posits that many of the existing similarities developed as pagans shaped their creation myths from observations of a providentially ordered world—a providential ordering that God had correlated with the true creation. This is an intriguing thought, but it would have been nice of Poythress had worked through some specific examples.
In conjunction with this first conclusion, Poythress considers John Walton’s claim that the creation account is concerned with functional rather than material creation. Poythress notes that his emphasis on correlations with providence has a functional bent to it, but he denies that this means that material creation is excluded from the account. The material creation is necessary for there to be functions.
Second, Poythress concludes that the days of creation are functional days rather than a week of six normal days. He says that since God rested from creation on the seventh day, the day of God’s rest is everlasting. This seems to be to be an unwarranted assumption. God’s rest from creation may be everlasting, but it does not follow from this that the seventh day is everlasting. In addition, I’m not sure how to make sense of the claim that the days of the creation week are somehow “God’s days,” days that are only analogous to human days in normal providence. God is eternal and, as I understand eternity, there are no successive God-days for human days to be analogous to. Nor is there anything in the text of Genesis to indicate that the first week is different from succeeding weeks in human history. Just because some things in the creation week are analogous to ordinary providence (e.g., special creation of animals correlates to the birth of animals) does not mean that the water of Genesis 1 is only analogous to water in ordinary providence (as Poythress suggested of Genesis 1:2) or that the days of Genesis 1 are only analogous to ordinary days.
I found Poythress’s first conclusion intriguing but in need of further support. I found his second conclusion less than persuasive.
Faro, Ingrid. “The Question of Evil and Animal Death Before the Fall,” Trinity Journal 36 (2015): 193-213.
Faro begins her article by seeking to determine what should be considered evil. She argues that too often English speakers read the English sense of the word into Hebrew words with much broader semantic domains. Though not explicit, she seems to indicate that natural events like hurricanes, or falling off a cliff due to gravity, etc. should not be classified as evils because it is the way God designed natural laws to work in the world. Gravity and hurricanes both have good effects too. As the article develops Faro seems to extend this logic to predation as well. When she defines evil she leaves aside senses from Hebrew words such as “deficient,” “displeasing,” or “unpleasant.” He definition reads: “Evil, then, from God’s perspective is presented predominately as choices that conflict with God.”
The advantage of this approach is evident for the Christian who wishes to escape the problem of animal death. It simply redefines animal death as not evil. However, I’m not convinced of the sufficiency of this argument. The philosophers who are concerned about the problem of evil in the animal world are not thinking that the pain and suffering and death in the animal realm is evil because they’re reading narrow English senses into words with broader Hebrew senses. They’re looking at death and pain and suffering and recoiling with horror at it. In addition limiting evil to actions chosen by humans seems too narrow theologically. If God has built creational norms into his world, and if sin has disrupted these norms across the board, then it would seem that evil is anything contrary to these norms whether or not the violation is due to human choice in an immediate sense.
The latter part of Faro’s article seeks to find biblical support for the possibility of animal death prior to the Fall. She appeals to three passages: Genesis 1-2, Psalm 104; Job 38-41.
She mounts a number of arguments from Genesis 1-2. First, she says the numbering of the days of creation reveal that “the universe was not created to be eternal in its original physical form” (206). She appeals to several cross references in support: Psalm 102:25-26; Isaiah 34:4; 51:6; Revelation 6:12-14; 21:1-4. It is not clear how the numbering of the days in Genesis 1 indicates that the present earth will be destroyed. The other passages all refer to a post-Fall reality and does not speak of what would have happened had there been no Fall.
Second, while acknowledging that plant death is different from animal death, she thinks it is significant that the seed and the “cycle of plant life” is a picture of death and resurrection (206-7). It is not clear how this argument advances Faro’s point. She could be arguing that if death was not present from the beginning, God would not have built in a sign of death and resurrection into plant life. But does this does not seem to be a sound argument given God’s foreknowledge.
Third, she claims that both Adam and the animals were formed from the dust of the ground, which she says indicates they were created mortal (appealing to Genesis 3:19). Humans were to eat from the tree of life to avoid death, but animals were not to eat of the tree of life. Thus animals were created mortal, and God intended for them to die. But Genesis 3:19 presents death as a punishment for sin, not as something built into the nature of the creation. The historic position is that Adam was created immortal but was not confirmed in his immortality. This position best accounts for all of the data: death as a punishment, the possibility of receiving that punishment, and the tree of life as a sign of confirmation in immortality. Furthermore, Genesis nowhere implies that animals would have needed to eat from that tree to avoid death. Faro’s reading makes it seem as if the tree has some kind of magical power rather than recognizing that the trees are sacramental in nature.
The argument from Psalm 104 is simple. This is a creation psalm that celebrates animal predation as part of God’s wise ordering of the earth (v. 24). In response, Psalm 104 is clearly a reflection on a creation that has been affected by the Fall (v.35). God’s provision of food for animals (and humans) now includes the death of other animals. But from the beginning it was otherwise. Genesis 1:29-30 gives plants as food to humans and to animals. It is only after the Fall that God permits the eating of meat (Gen. 9:3-6; note that the passage places limitations on what animals can and cannot eat as well as humans). Whether or not Genesis 9 is establishing something new or reiterating a permission given before the Flood is open for debate, but it is clear that the shift to eating meat happened after the Fall for both humans and animals.
The passages from Job are of the same nature as Psalm 104. They refer to God providing food for predatory animals or to death among animals. Faro’s argument would seem to be that God’s wisdom is on display even in situations that include animal death. But she is able to take this a step further with Job 40—we should not claim that animal death is an evil, for to do so would be to find fault with God or to contend with him. The difficulty with Faro’s argument is that Job 38-41 is dealing with God’s wisdom in providentially ruling over a fallen world. It makes no claims about what life would ideally have been like before the Fall.
Later Faro appeals to Job to make the case that death and suffering do not “exist in the world due to human sin” alone. She notes that one of the points of the book of Job is that death and suffering have causes other than sin (here she also appeals to John 9:2). Yet, while it is true that Job’s sufferings were not caused by his own sin, it is difficult to move from this to the conclusion that the suffering he experienced was in no way connected to the Fall brought about by Adam’s sin. Were the loathsome sores that covered Job from head to foot the kind of thing that could have occurred to a man had Adam not sinned?
Faro wraps up her article by taking into account the Scripture passages that look toward a future in which animals live together in harmony. She claims, “Although animals of prey kill for food, animals are not capable of the savagery, cruelty, and terror that humanity can display. Humans, however, can teach animals cruelty, such as training pit bulls or roosters to fight and attack” (209). The human responsibility summarized in the creation mandate point in a different direction, Faro argues. She seems to indicate that part of the creation mandate is to improve animals from their original condition. The claim that animals are not capable of savagery or cruelty is a doubtful claim. Yet without this supposition Faro’s explanation fails to conform to the Creation, Fall, Redemption structure of Scripture. Key to this structure is an affirmation of the original goodness of creation.
The problem of evil as it pertains to animal death is one of the major philosophical challenges to forms of Christianity that seek to accommodate the current evolutionary consensus. Faro attempts to address this problem by claiming that animal death and suffering is actually not an evil. However, this claim rests on weak exegetical support and, at least in this article, fails to engage the philosophical/theological arguments to the contrary.
Madueme, Hans. “Adam and Eve: An Evangelical Impasse?” Christian Scholar’s Review 45, no. 2 (Winter 2016): 165-183.
Madueme reviews three books on Adam: Karl Giberson’s Saving the Original Sinner, William VanDoodewaard’s The Quest for the Historical Adam, and John Walton’s The Lost World of Adam and Eve.
Madueme finds the strength of Giberson’s book its study of the history of varied interpretations regarding Adam. He also finds instructive the chapter on racism, which recounts why belief in the historical Adam did not prevent racism, as it ought to have, namely, becuase racists held the view that non-Europeans had degenerated from a superior white race. Nonetheless, Madueme finds problems in Giberson’s account. He notes that Giberson’s use of one frequently cited book “is hard to square” with what that source actually says. Giberson also misreads the early church’s view of original sin prior to Augustine. Most significantly, Giberson holds that the Bible itself must submit to “challenge from the advancing knowledge of the present.” Thus Paul is in error. Finally, Madueme notes that Giberson critiques creationist popularizers but fails to interact with creationists who are “reputable scientists (such as Leonard Brand, Arthur Chadwick, Paul Garner, Andrew Snelling, Kurt Wise, Todd Wood) and respected theologians (such as Douglas Kelly, John Mark Reynolds, Iain Duguid, Todd Beall, John Frame).” A critic should always critique his opponents where they are strongest.
Madueme holds out VanDoodewaard’s book as an example of excellent young earth creationist writing. Madueme notes that “of the three books under review, VanDoodewaard’s is the strongest theologically.” He praises VanDoodewaard’s critique of the claim that the creationist tradition is due to the literalist hermeneutic of Seventh Day Adventism. VanDoodewaard shows a heritage with roots in Scottish Presbyterianism, Southern Presbyterianism, the Dutch Reformed, and Lutheranism (both Missouri and Wisconsin synods). Madueme’s critiques are largely that he wishes VanDoodewaard had written a different or an expanded work. He wishes VanDoodewaard had interacted with the writings of more scholars outside the Reformed tradition. He also wishes that VanDoodewaard’s argument regarding a link between the denial of a historical Adam racism also dealt with the racism that existed among literalists. Finally, Madueme wishes that VanDoodewaard had provided more social context in his historical sections. The most substantive critique has to do with VanDoodewaard’s use of the term literalistic. Madueme thinks that adoption of this term both unnecessarily plays into the hands of critics and reflects that fact that VanDoodewaard sometimes sets up a false dichotomy.
Madueme is unconvinced by Walton’s continued work in the opening chapters of Genesis. A foundational premise of Walton’s is that the creation narrated in these opening chapters is functional rather than physical. Madueme thinks this sets up a false dichotomy. Being formed from the dust can both be a literal, historical statement as well as maintain some symbolism. But Walton will only see it one way or the other. Madueme sees it particularly devastating to Walton’s thesis the concession that aside from Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15, the New Testament does not treat Adam as an archetype. This shows to Madueme that the dichotomy between first historical human and archetype should not be maintained. Madueme is also concerned that Walton’s approach amounts to an embrace of Stephen Jay Gould’s Non Overlapping Magisterium. While “Walton insists, repeatedly that we should read the Bible on its own terms without imposing modern scientific questions,” the approach is driven (though not “solely” driven, Madueme hastens to add) by scientific concerns. Finally, Madueme is troubled by Walton’s view of accommodation. “On this view, God accommodated his Word to the erroneous beliefs of the biblical authors.” Thus “the background beliefs” of Paul—even as expressed in the text—can be rejected though his “explicit statements” cannot be. But, Madueme notes, “ancient people believed in God or gods, that they exist, that they act in the world, that they engage with humanity, and so on. [Walton] is counseling readers of Scripture ex hypothesi to dismiss those portions as an incidental part of their cognitive environment. Presumably Walton would reply that his methodology only applies to those parts of the Bible that relate to scientific questions; that is, issues in cosmology, biology, and so on. But that proves my point—modern science is having an undue influence. Is this biblical scholarship with a Kantian twist, Scripture within the bounds of a naturalistic science?”
Madueme concludes that Giberson’s book has the advantage of avoiding conflict with the present scientific consensus but suffers from the fatal defect of reconfiguring Christianity in the process. He appreciates VanDoodewaard’s book but finds it too parochial. He urges evangelicals to show young earth creationists more academic respect and for these creationists to argue for their positions without attacking other evangelicals. He thinks that Walton’s book at its best shows “that evangelical biblical scholarship has the resources to engage difficult questions raised by modern science.” But, “at its worst, the picture that emerges is a theologically anemic, hermeneutical mirror dancing to the scientific consensus.”
Poythress, Vern S. “Three Modern Myths in Interpreting Genesis 1. ” WTJ 76 (2014): 321-50.
Poythress makes the case that many interpreters of Genesis 1 have fallen prey to the following three “modern myths”: (1) “The Myth of Scientistic Metaphysics,” (2) “The Myth of Progress,” and (3) “The Myth of Understanding Cultures from Facts.”
The first myth asserts that modern scientific metaphysics describes reality while phenomenological language does not. “The ‘unreality’ of appearances follows only if we have a metaphysical principle of reductionism, which says that science gets to the “bottom,” the “real” foundation of being, and that everything above the bottom is unreal in relation to the bottom. This metaphysics has no real warrant based on details of scientific investigation, but is a groundless assumption that is imposed on the investigation” (328). The example Poythress uses is biblical language about the sun rising. Those who fall prey to this myth may argue “the ancient people carried along a raft of assumptions about the cosmos, and that we now know that those assumptions were wrong. For instance, they thought that the earth was at the center in an absolute sense” (326). To which Poythress responds, “Well, perhaps they did. And perhaps they did not. Might it just be the case that the average Israelite did not worry about complicated physical and mathematical systems for describing motions of the heavenly bodies?” (326).
The second myth is the belief that modern science and technology make modern cultures superior in their understanding to ancient cultures. Poythress uses the existence of demons as a counter-example. Many modern people would dismiss their existence as unscientific. But in this case the ancient cultures would have the better understanding of reality (329-30). When interpreters in thrall to this myth interpret Genesis 1, they think they must find “some core religious message” and discard its “cultural trappings.” Poythress says, “This attitude undermines empathy, and lack of empathy hinders genuine understanding” (330).
The third myth assumes “we can study and understand a culture effectively with a dose of armchair learning about the facts” (330). Poythress finds the confidence expressed in this myth misplaced. “With the ancient Near East, these difficulties go together with the absence of direct contact. We cannot function like a well-trained field worker in social anthropology, actually immersing ourselves within an ancient culture and learning it seriously and empathetically ‘from inside.’ In addition, the ancient Near East consists of many interacting subcultures that changed over a period of millennia. The extant documentary and archaeological evidence is fragmentary. People who are richly informed by evidence, who have skills in cross-cultural thinking and adaptation, and who have innate empathy, may often make good inferences up to a point. But knowledge of such a culture as an interlocking whole remains partial and tentative” (330-31). As an example, Poythress examines the oft-made claim that the ancients believed the sky to be a solid dome. But Poythress doubts the assumption that since ancient people didn’t have our scientific understanding of the atmosphere that they must have had an incorrect scientific understanding. Perhaps they were not thinking in those terms at all. For instance he notes the Egyptians are said to believe in a solid sky held up by the gods, yet the same texts that speak in this way speak of the gods as forming the sky and air. Poythress notes, “Inasmuch as both pictures involve gods, one may doubt whether a materialistic interpretation captures the point in either case. Both pictures may perhaps be artistic representations, not quasi-scientific models of physical structure” (332, n. 24). Poythress not deny that the Bible speaks of windows in the heaven and such, but he questions the value of these images in giving insight into the Israelites conception of the physical makeup of the world. He says, “We talk about a person with a big “ego” without committing ourselves to Sigmund Freud’s theory of the ego. Likewise, might ancient discussion of the observable world creatively use the imagery of a house, with pillars, windows, doors, or upper chambers, or the image of a tent, or an // expanse?31 Could such imagery appear, without teaching a detailed physicalistic theory? Modern physicalistic readings run the danger of not recognizing analogy and metaphor in ancient texts” (335-36).
A method of interpretation that Poythress believes falls for these myths he labels the vehicle-cargo approach. In this approach ancient cosmological ideas, or ideas otherwise shown by science to be false, are merely the vehicle that carries the cargo of theological truth. The goal is to uphold inerrancy: “Consequently [upon the adoption of the vehicle-cargo approach], Gen 1 contains no errors in its teaching. In fact, its teaching harmonizes well with modern science, because when rightly understood it is not teaching anything directly about science or anything that could contradict science” (322). But Poythress is doubtful that inerrancy is actually protected: “Suppose that a modern interpreter says that Gen 1 is about theology and not specific events in time and space. This dichotomy is problematic. Theology is expressed precisely through God’s actions in events in time and space. If we make a false dichotomy in Gen 1, this same dichotomy can spread to other parts of the Bible. A principle of this kind easily becomes a wedge by which people pull away from the reality that God acts in history and speaks about history” (346). So, on Poythress’s, analysis the vehicle-cargo approach suffers fails to protect inerrancy while also, ironically, falling prey to myths similar to the ones it set out to avoid: “The vehicle-cargo approach criticizes naïve modern readings of Gen 1 for artificially projecting into Genesis ideas from modern science. It also criticizes the philosophers and theologians who resisted Copernicus, because they projected Aristotelian and Ptolemaic theories of ultimate structure—metaphysics—into Gen 1. But is it doing something analogous? The vehicle-cargo approach also projects its own brand of “metaphysics” into Gen 1, namely, the metaphysics that it has found from reading ancient Near Eastern myths” (345).
This really is a must-read article.
Yahweh is the “Judge of all the earth” (18:25). Given human wickedness this is a fearsome prospect. There is no one who will escape God’s judgment. But the promise of Genesis 12 is repeated here: “All the nations of the earth will be blessed” in Abraham (18:18). Provision is made through Abraham for all people to be blessed rather than judged. It is for this reason that Abraham is qualified for God to share with him the judgment he has planned for Sodom and Gomorrah.
In this passage, “all” and “earth” are brought together to indicate universal extent.
Earth words are used in this passage several times without theological significance (19:1, 23, 31). But in verse 25 and 28 it is clear that once again human sin has an effect on the land. A land that once could be compared with the garden of the Lord (13:10) now has not only its wicked cities with their inhabitants burned up but the vegetation as well so that the land that Lot once saw as well-watered Abraham now sees smoking like a furnace.
Sodom throughout Scripture is the illustration of human wickedness (Deut. 32:32; Isa. 1:10; 3:9; Jer 23:14; Ezek. 16:46-56; 2 Pet. 2:6; Jude 7; Rev. 11:8). It may well be that the consequences of Sodom’s sin are also paradigmatic. Peter says as much: “. . . if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly” (2 Pet. 2:6). Peter does teach that there is a judgment of fire awaiting the earth (2 Peter 2:7), though the connection he makes directly is to the suffering of the ungodly in hellfire (see also Jude 7).
This chapter touches on the promises of land, seed, and blessing. In this chapter Abraham is both a curse and a blessing to Abimelech, as Abimelech moves from an (unwitting) wrong relationship to Abraham to a right relationship with him. The subtext to the entire chapter is the danger that Abraham’s deception puts the seed promise in (which also demonstrates the promise is given not earned). Land also plays a role. The chapter begins with Abraham traveling to the land of the Negeb and then sojourning in Gerar. His traveling and sojourning in the land are indications that the land promise is yet to be fulfilled. But in verse 15, Abraham is given and open invitation to dwell in Abimelech’s land. The land is not yet Abraham’s, but this is a step toward the promise (Wenham, WBC, 2:75). This invitation will lead to Abraham’s first land-possession in Canaan (Gen. 21:15-16) (Mathews, NAC, 2:258).
Whereas the first part of this chapter dealt with the initial fulfillment of the seed promise in the birth of Isaac, the last part of the chapter deals with the land and blessing aspects of the promise. Abimelech has recognized God’s blessing on Abraham, and he presumes that that blessing will cause Abraham’s descendants to become powerful. He thus requests a covenant guaranteeing kindness. He will bless Abraham in the hope of receiving blessing.
And yet during this time Abraham is still a sojourner in the land (21:34). Not only that, he is a sojourner who has his wells taken away (21:25). The seed promise has begun to be fulfilled, but the land promise is still a distant hope.
Genesis 16 deals primarily with the seed promise, but verse 3 does note that Abram had dwelt in the land for 10 years. Wenham notes, “This comment may be double-edged. It obviously explains Sarah’s concern to do something about their childlessness, but it may also hint that the promise of the land is proving valid. The passing years should strengthen faith as the fulfillment of the promises is seen, but they also test it because that fulfillment is only partial” (Wenham, Genesis, 2:8).
In Genesis 17 God confirms the covenant that he cut with Abram in chapter 15. Whereas land was a major focus in chapter 15, here seed is the major focus. Nonetheless, land is not entirely absent. Part of the seed promise includes the promise that Abraham will be the father of kings and nations (17:6). The land promise is implicit in these promises. Indeed, directly after these promises God reaffirms the land promise (17:8). The land is designated in two ways. First, it is “the land of your sojournings. Second, it is “all the land of Canaan.” This recalls of the promises given in 13:15-17 in which Abram is told that God will give him all the land that he can see (here labeled as Canaan) and told to walk through the length and breadth of it (Abraham now seems to have sojourned in the length and breadth of it). As in chapter 13 the possession of the land is promised not only to Abraham’s seed but to Abraham himself. Further, as in chapter 13, the duration of the possession is עוֹלָם —forever.