How I understand Genesis

[Daniel]

In my last blog, How I Study Genesis, I discussed how I approach Genesis and the assumptions and expectations I have when I do so. But I have been asked what I get in a macro and micro level from it. So I thought I would bore you (or maybe frustrate you) with an answer to that question.

I think many today are down in the weeds when it comes to studying Genesis. And that comes across with the question that assumes both a macro and micro level of revelation from the text. While I do see limited benefit from verse by verse and word by word study, I think it often is more of a distraction than a help.

As I said in my prior blog, the creation accounts in Genesis is a brief introduction to a lengthy book that itself is an introduction to the Torah. It isn't that there is nothing to learn from it, but we can't expect the same level of detail we have from the chapters and chapters followed by more chapters of the encounter with God at Mt Sinai. So, for me, the macro view is probably going to be broader than most people would tend to put it in the circles that I discuss in.

For me, this isn't a case of precise and clear words building logical points in each verse. I see this communication of broad truths at a high level. Chapter 1 introduces us to God. Chapter 2 introduces us to the man that He made in His image and established a covenant relationship with. Chapters 3-4 tell us that we wrecked that. These stories are the building blocks for the information to come. And it is these broad theological truths that are authoritative and infallible, not necessarily the minute and precise cosmological and geographic elements within the stories.

To me, the details of Genesis 1 are like the details of the Good Samaritan story. The exact details are not the real point. The truth communicated with the story doesn't even depend on it being actual history. It really wouldn't change much if we found out that it was a parable or a modification to a common story of the day. Its purpose is not historical precision.

If I were forced to take it more minute than a chapter/story level, I would say that Chapter 1's big picture is about God, and the elements of the story are primarily about His provision and sovereignty. He is over all of creation, and the elements in the creation are there for man, not something that man is subject to.  He is responsible for the air, sea, and land and all that is in them.  In specific, He is responsible for all the kinds of animals and plants that a Jewish shepherd or farmer is familiar with.   

A secondary theme is that of building a temple or place for Him to inhabit and dwell with man. This is what ties in with the overall theme of the Torah.  Our supremely sovereign God created us and our world as a place where He could create a relationship with the people of Israel and their direct ancestors.  He is special and they are special.  He is faithful, they are not.  But He is forgiving.

And it is this theme that really sets early Genesis apart from the beliefs of the other cultures around them.  It is the new revelation that is given in the context of what people already believed or “knew”.  Its purpose is not to teach that background context.  And that background “everyone already knows that” stuff is not what the original audience would have been expecting.  New teaching or new revelation might start with some basic summary stuff of a common shared foundational understanding, but then NEW stuff is built off of that.  And that is why the earlier you get into the introduction of a book that itself if an introduction, the more broad of a summary kind of foundation it becomes.  The further you get into the Torah, the more the point becomes the detail level stuff.  

Unfortunately, our modern eyes tend to glaze over with the later level of detail (all those laws and such), and we tend to flip Genesis and the Torah on its head making the opening summary the climax of the story and the pinnacle of precise detail that can be studied down in the weeds at a verb tense and word root level for some spiritual truth.  And, to me, that totally distorts the intent and context and distorts it into what WE want it to be, not what it was intended to meet the expectations of those it was original written to.

In short, I don’t think we can get infinitely deep in examining the details and trying to pull a lot of physical or historical information from it.  In fact, when we TRY to do that, we get into all kinds of issues where the details, if expected to be taken at face value, reflect the cosmological beliefs of the day, not reality. So we are best by not even going there.  If we say that THAT is what is being taught, it leads to serious issues.

So what I end up believing the text to be teaching is the broad-brush stuff that most of us would probably agree with.  The Devil (and Ken Ham) are in the details of early Genesis, but that isn’t the point.  It’s intent was to lay a broad foundation for further teaching and to do so in a way that differentiated the God of Israel and the People of Israel from anything around it.

[Marv]

Daniel, I wasn't going to comment on this post, but evidently it comes as a response to a comment of mine on your other post. So I guess a word or two is in order.

 

It comes down to this: you say you've studied this book for umpteen years, and you present this and that of your thoughts about it. Still... the one thing you don't appear to have done is exegete it.

 

You're sort of responding here to my question about understanding... Sort of...

 

This thing is a section of writing. A document. A discourse. A text. What a text does is convey verbal meaning. That's its bread and butter. Its reason for existence. Its role and function. Meaning is put in. Meaning can be drawn out.

 

So I'm asking you, given that you've studied and studied the thing, what is its verbal meaning?

 

Oddly, you characterize the words as weeds. Well, I'm just not sure how you can come to conclusions about the whole without consideration of the parts. I don't ask you to comment on every word. I really didn't even ask you to comment on it at all. I just point out that in all our discussions I've hardly seen you deal with the actual words and phrases and sentences. Only with vague generalities and potentialities.

 

This has NOTHING to do with: clarity and precision and logic, pulling historical or physical detail, etc. Just pulling out that which the author put in.

 

Also, I'm not asking you to do anything at all quickly or right now. I understand you have some challenging days coming up right now.

 

But as you, if ever you think about it, remember...

 

I'm not asking anything about (a) the events of creation (b) the age of earth or universe (c) historicity or truthfulness or anything of that sort. Only meaning.

[Daniel]

If that is only a word or two, can I ask what you REALLY think when you are not limited like that? :)  Here's my initial thought on your comments.  Some genres are better for exegesis than others. Others have limited benefit from that.  I don't believe that early Genesis benefits from too closely looking at the details.  Not only do I not think that was its intended purpose, but the more you get down into the exegesis of the details of it, the more issues you discover.  To me, that is a huge red flag that perhaps we shouldn't be doing that.  It isn't like digging into the Sermon On The Mount, for example.

[Scott]

Marv -

 

It comes down to this: you say you've studied this book for umpteen years, and you present this and that of your thoughts about it. Still... the one thing you don't appear to have done is exegete it.

 

Exegesis is very important. You probably do that better than most of us, or all of us, here, due to your extensive studies of the languages. But exegesis is one part. Exegesis does not necessarily always tell us how to interpret and understand it in light of other factors. I can exegete Mark 16, the final chapter of his gospel, all day long. But it doesn't help if I don't engage with certain realities like, say, that vs9-20 were very likely not originally part of the text. That is acknowledged by most Christians today. So it doesn't seem like a biggie. But when you get into Genesis, it isn't simply exegeting a text that tells us what is going on particularly there or in the larger setting.

 

I can very much understand that Genesis 1 is quite clear in its exegesis - it is a clear creation account within a 6-day framework. I can agree with that, though I think other things are going on there. But Genesis 1's presentation of a 6-day creation, gathered from exegesis, doesn't necessarily answer all the questions - about the text or outside the text.

[Marv]

Daniel, surely, surely, SURELY, you are joking.

[Daniel]

Joking about what?  What am I wrong about this time?  

[Marv]

Daniel and Scott,

 

Do it well, do it poorly...

 

A piece of written communication is made to be read and the meaning put into it extracted.

 

Believe it. Disbelieve it. Apply it. Ignore it. Compare it. Discuss it. Paraphrase it. Translate it. Ponder it. Expand it. Explain it. Preach it.

 

Whatever you do WITH it, you first have to interpret it.

 

The only--LEGITIMATE--way to do this is observe the words and phrases and clauses etc. All the discernible structures. All the ways the author folded his/her thought into encoded symbols.

 

What can keep a person interested in a certain text from doing this? Fear that pet theories will not sustain examination of the actual textual data? Hopefully that is not it. But it if it is, that is mere self-deception and deception of others in so far as one teaches and writes on one's pet theories.

 

Scott,

Frankly, I cannot imagine you disagree with me. But what does the ending of Mark have to do with this or what I said earlier. Of course you want to determine what the actual original text was.  Of course, you can still read and understand additions to the text.

[Marv]

This:

 

Some genres are better for exegesis than others. Others have limited benefit from that.  I don't believe that early Genesis benefits from too closely looking at the details.  Not only do I not think that was its intended purpose, but the more you get down into the exegesis of the details of it, the more issues you discover.  To me, that is a huge red flag that perhaps we shouldn't be doing that.

 

Unfathomable!

[Scott]

Marv -

 

I admit, Daniel poorly worded that. But let me take a stab at wording it a little better.

 

We want to study the details of Gen 1. I read Gen 1:1 alone and it is "loaded", full of all types of tidbits. Of course, the "loaded" comes from then springing into the rest of the canon, thinking theologically outside of the text (though starting with the text), possibly thinking philosophically and/or scientifically about some items, etc. So the details, the iotas of Gen 1:1 (if there are actual iotas in the Septuagint of Gen 1:1) are very important. But, the details might not help us interpret what is intended in the greater communication of Gen 1. We start there, but do not ever end there. Of course, this is a paradigm one has to work with, one Daniel and I seem open to - that things outside the text can be (but might not be) helpful in interpreting the text. I'd say that, for you, an OEC (correct?) also allows for things outside the text to helpfully inform them that when they head into the text of Gen 1, we are not getting from the details that God took actual six, 24-hour cycles to create. Something of a pattern is being set, something "bigger" is going on here. The details remain important to exegete and ponder and preach. I will preach Gen 1 until my heart runs out. Just as I will preach the realities of Adam and Eve until my heart runs out. That is what the text gives us. But these details in the text do not necessitate that this is how it all played out literally in time and space. If we exegete the details alone, and stop there alone, we might not form a fully helpful theology. Hence why I see prima scriptura as better, not so much sola scriptura. If I only have Gen 1, I'm probably sticking with YEC. But that is not the only thing I have, and I believe God is very pleased with this reality. So I start with Gen 1, but I do not, will not, stop there. This is, I believe, why people slowly began to let go of the reality that we can accept good science that says this big ball of gas called the sun was central to our solar system, not planet earth. For me, the details of Gen 1 are quite obvious as to what is central - the earth, with the sun, along with the moon, those 2 greater lights, are somewhere out there.

 

All the ways the author folded his/her thought into encoded symbols.

 

Careful now. I sense egalitarianism in our midst. You know only strong, hairy men wrote Scripture.

[Marv]

I appreciate your admission of Daniel's poor wording... LOL.

[Marv]

Scott, but on a serious note... Trying to respond coherently to this last comment, because I think we're on the verge of something. Hmmm. Might have to resort to numbers... LOL. To help me keep a few strands distinct.

 

1. When you study you begin by observing. As you say LOTS to observe. What you can observe with a text are its parts, letters, words... heck, you know. You really cannot look TOO closely, observe TOO much. The more you do, the better you'll be able to work with them.

 

2. Then you work at interpreting these. First thing you understand is that they form structures and refer to entities to actions to qualities etc. And they form together via language to convey semantic content, meaning. This is a rich and fascinating procedure, employing the genius of human language codes to derive the meaning from these little ink marks (or marks on your screen).

 

3. Then there's the intertexuality, tying in with--as you say--the rest of the Canon, with theology, etc, what have you.

 

4. If it's meaning relates to events in the past, you can correllate it with things other people have written in regard to history. If it relates to the structure of space or the function of physical objects and living things, then by all means you can correllate what it says with what other people have written in the realm of science. Cool. Very cool.

 

5. BUT you can't do any of this (in #5) if you don't know what the semantic content of the text is, i.e. what it means, i.i.e. (?) what the author intended to convey by the words he/she wrote down on the paper. Indeed, it may be that you'll only have a preliminary understanding, but you have to have an understanding of the meaning to relate to other people's meanings or you've got nothing.

 

6. It may help you to understand what the author means to consider general knowledge, your shared experience. So maybe your knowledge of animals, for example, tells you when an author refers to a "kid" he means a baby goat not a baby human.

 

7. What seems a little like this, but isn't, not at ALL, is to fold in your own opinion about WHAT IS, and try to tell yourself and others that this is what the author meant. To take an example with Genesis 1, maybe my opinion is that animals existed for millions of years before any sentient human beings--Adam, for example--did. I can't simply say that my opinion has some bearing on what the author--Moses perhaps--intended to convey by the word yom. I.e. that he meant to communicate vast ages by the use of that word. Unless he shared my opinion and meant to convey it--which chances are he didn't and he didn't--then he likely intended to convey something else with that word--someting more like a day that is not an age.

 

8. Now given this scenario, I don't have to share the author's opinion. If I read his text, coming with an opinion of my own, I can either change my opinion and adopt his/hers, or I can keep my opinion and consider him/her to be in error.

 

9. What I can't do--LEGITIMATELY--is tell myself that the text PROBABLY conforms to my opinion, because after all my opinion is the same thing as reality. So if I think yom has an extended sense of "age" I'd better have some valid reason for deciding this, either the language of the text clues us in, a later reference takes it that way, or we have reason to believe that the author himself shared this idea of "age." What doesn't count for a valid reason is my opinion being my opinion. I may think this is the truth--fine--but I have no rationale for believing that this is what the author meant.

 

10. This is especially true if I can reasonably assert that the author had no way to share the knowledge that I have or reason to hold the opinion that I hold. Or if elsewhere the author refers to it in such a way that it serves as confirmation that in all likelihood he did not share my knowlege or opinion.

 

11. If I procede otherwise, and act AS IF the author wrote what he/she wrote in such a way that it correlated with my opinion or my knowledge, I am only deceiving myself and if I say so to others, I am leading them into an untruth.

 

12. Now I used the example of day/age not because I think you hold it, but just as a convenient example. Whatever you want to do with the text, that's your business. But at the bottom, we are either going to extract the author's intended meaning accurately or else we are going to play games and read extraneous ideas in their out of our own heads. For me, what we're looking for is a CLEAN interpretation of the text--before we can do anything with it. That's all I ask.