Sometimes I do despair at the words and deeds of my fellow believers… the latest thing to make me go ‘oh dear, oh dear, oh dear’? The Creation Museum opened in Kentucky and the exhibits showing man living in the Garden of Eden 6000 years ago alongside dinosaurs (who were killed off in the Great Flood). http://www.creationmuseum.org/
P's account was a story to console, to reassure to remind the Jews in exile in Babylon of their religion of their covenant with Yaweh at a time when many were turning to the religion of their captors. It stressed that rather than humans being created as servants for the gods, playthings in a cosmic chess game that Yahweh made man in his own image – and that when He saw what he had created it was good. In other words that man had intrinsic value, was special… which is a beautiful idea.
Most Christians accept that the Bible is inspired by God but written by men, it is not then as in Islam the divine word of God, a single authoritative text. It is a beautiful rich collection of history, poetry, philosophy, law. Because it a catalogue of writing compiled over centuries it is absolutely chock-full of contradictions and of contradictory images of God – from the wrathful vengeful ever-present “jealous God” (Exodus 20) to the God of love nowhere better encapsulated than in the sacrifice of his only son for the sins of mankind.
If you’re a literalist I can see how these contradictions challenge the very essence of your belief, since if the Bible does contradict itself, if the world isn’t 6000 years old then on what is your faith built? But for me faith isn’t about what it does or doesn't say in the Bible but instead is built on that other meaning of faith -- 'trust', that and on the amazing grace so beautifully articulated in the hymn by John Newton. For me that means a faith which can comfortably teach the story of Adam and Eve to children alongside the story of evolution; and that is a story of a time 65 million years ago when dinosaurs ruled the world. A time when there was no Fred (or Adam) Flintstone.
With ammunition like that it’s no wonder that Dawkins can sell so many millions of books.
How to respond? By challenging the view that the Bible is both a literal account of creation and the Word of God. Anyone who knows even a rudimentary history of Christianity knows that the present shape and form of the Bible came about as a result of many debates and discussions about what to leave in and what to leave out (e.g Coucil of Rome and the Gelasian Decree) – in other words the subjective choices of early spiritual and political leaders. Hence why there are so many Gnostic gospels (the ones that didn’t make the cut) and why the Catholic Bible and Eastern orthodox Bible contain books you won’t find in your standard Protestant/Anglican bible.
In addition the books of the Old Testament, derived form the Jewish torah are not historical accounts in the modern sense of historical narrative, nor were they written in the order that they necessarily appear in the Bible. Much of the Old Testament is written as a form of Hebrew poetry with its emphasis on parallelism hence why there are multiple creation stories in Genesis.
While there is ongoing debate many historians argue that Genesis had multiple authors and that much of what appears are oral (hi)stories passed down from much earlier generations which draw on a rich storehouse of Mesopotamian legends as old as 3000 B.C. Tales of Eden-like paradise appear in Egyptian, Persian, Indian, and Babylonian myth as do forbidden trees, serpents and floods. Much of Genesis is also a family story a story tracing the patriarchal ancestry of the Jewish people. There are even references to Polytheism or at least other gods in the Old Testament (e.g. Exodus, 15:11; Jeremiah 2:28 – or the reference to “in our image” in Genesis 1:26). You can conveniently explain this away if you are a literalist, but I’m not -- for me its part of the tale of how the faith of the Jewish people emerges from the polytheist traditions of Mesopotamian civilization.
Most scholars accept that there are at least two creation stories in Genesis, an earlier one -- the so-called 'J' account of the southern jewish kingdom of Judah who called God, Yahweh (Genesis 2:5-14) and a later one 'P', ironically inserted first, written by the preistly Pentateuch during the Babylonian exile (Genesis 1-2:5). The 'J' story clearly drew on oral histories and shares similarities with other Eastern creation accounts. While 'P' may have been one person or several but this account should be read as an anti-imperial story.
The 7 day creation story was not literal but a stark contrast to the Babylonian creation story. Unlike the Bayblonian creation which had to be recreated every year in spectacular rites, the Jewish creation was complete. Unlike the Babylonian cosmos where the Gods fought each other Yaweh was obliged to fight no-one since he was the only God. For example the sea was not a terrifying Goddess Tiamat that had to be appeased but instead "the raw material of the universe". (Armstrong, 2007, p.28). Similarly the sun, moons and stars were simply "lights in the dome of the sky to give light to the erath" (Genesis, 1: 15). In P's account Yaweh did not assert his supremacy by fighting other gods but simply spoke a command and "one by one the components of our world came into being" (ibid.)
How to respond? By challenging the view that the Bible is both a literal account of creation and the Word of God. Anyone who knows even a rudimentary history of Christianity knows that the present shape and form of the Bible came about as a result of many debates and discussions about what to leave in and what to leave out (e.g Coucil of Rome and the Gelasian Decree) – in other words the subjective choices of early spiritual and political leaders. Hence why there are so many Gnostic gospels (the ones that didn’t make the cut) and why the Catholic Bible and Eastern orthodox Bible contain books you won’t find in your standard Protestant/Anglican bible.
In addition the books of the Old Testament, derived form the Jewish torah are not historical accounts in the modern sense of historical narrative, nor were they written in the order that they necessarily appear in the Bible. Much of the Old Testament is written as a form of Hebrew poetry with its emphasis on parallelism hence why there are multiple creation stories in Genesis.
While there is ongoing debate many historians argue that Genesis had multiple authors and that much of what appears are oral (hi)stories passed down from much earlier generations which draw on a rich storehouse of Mesopotamian legends as old as 3000 B.C. Tales of Eden-like paradise appear in Egyptian, Persian, Indian, and Babylonian myth as do forbidden trees, serpents and floods. Much of Genesis is also a family story a story tracing the patriarchal ancestry of the Jewish people. There are even references to Polytheism or at least other gods in the Old Testament (e.g. Exodus, 15:11; Jeremiah 2:28 – or the reference to “in our image” in Genesis 1:26). You can conveniently explain this away if you are a literalist, but I’m not -- for me its part of the tale of how the faith of the Jewish people emerges from the polytheist traditions of Mesopotamian civilization.
Most scholars accept that there are at least two creation stories in Genesis, an earlier one -- the so-called 'J' account of the southern jewish kingdom of Judah who called God, Yahweh (Genesis 2:5-14) and a later one 'P', ironically inserted first, written by the preistly Pentateuch during the Babylonian exile (Genesis 1-2:5). The 'J' story clearly drew on oral histories and shares similarities with other Eastern creation accounts. While 'P' may have been one person or several but this account should be read as an anti-imperial story.
The 7 day creation story was not literal but a stark contrast to the Babylonian creation story. Unlike the Bayblonian creation which had to be recreated every year in spectacular rites, the Jewish creation was complete. Unlike the Babylonian cosmos where the Gods fought each other Yaweh was obliged to fight no-one since he was the only God. For example the sea was not a terrifying Goddess Tiamat that had to be appeased but instead "the raw material of the universe". (Armstrong, 2007, p.28). Similarly the sun, moons and stars were simply "lights in the dome of the sky to give light to the erath" (Genesis, 1: 15). In P's account Yaweh did not assert his supremacy by fighting other gods but simply spoke a command and "one by one the components of our world came into being" (ibid.)
P's account was a story to console, to reassure to remind the Jews in exile in Babylon of their religion of their covenant with Yaweh at a time when many were turning to the religion of their captors. It stressed that rather than humans being created as servants for the gods, playthings in a cosmic chess game that Yahweh made man in his own image – and that when He saw what he had created it was good. In other words that man had intrinsic value, was special… which is a beautiful idea.
Most Christians accept that the Bible is inspired by God but written by men, it is not then as in Islam the divine word of God, a single authoritative text. It is a beautiful rich collection of history, poetry, philosophy, law. Because it a catalogue of writing compiled over centuries it is absolutely chock-full of contradictions and of contradictory images of God – from the wrathful vengeful ever-present “jealous God” (Exodus 20) to the God of love nowhere better encapsulated than in the sacrifice of his only son for the sins of mankind.
If you’re a literalist I can see how these contradictions challenge the very essence of your belief, since if the Bible does contradict itself, if the world isn’t 6000 years old then on what is your faith built? But for me faith isn’t about what it does or doesn't say in the Bible but instead is built on that other meaning of faith -- 'trust', that and on the amazing grace so beautifully articulated in the hymn by John Newton. For me that means a faith which can comfortably teach the story of Adam and Eve to children alongside the story of evolution; and that is a story of a time 65 million years ago when dinosaurs ruled the world. A time when there was no Fred (or Adam) Flintstone.
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