The Cosmology of Genesis 1 and the Old Testament’s Pre-Scientific Worldview
Posted By MSH on January 15, 2010
Naked Bible readers will remember I got into this issue several times during the discussion on inerrancy. It’s current again for me for two reasons. One is N.T. Wright has chimed in on the subject in this video, which I offer for the curious (I’m not inclined to care what Wright says on this subject since he’s not a Semitist). The second is that I just wrote a journal review of John Walton’s book, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate
Walton’s thesis is straightforward: since our modern scientific culture is just that—modern—our cultural context would have been utterly foreign and incomprehensible to the biblical writers. For Walton, any attempt to embed modern science into Genesis 1, whether by traditional, literalist creation science or other approaches by Christian scientists involving evolution or modern Big Bang cosmology, amounts to imposing a foreign culture onto the text.
Walton unfolds this general thesis by offering eighteen “propositions,” each of which forms a chapter. . . . The first proposition (“Genesis 1 is Ancient Cosmology”) is arguably the most crucial. Walton knows full well that many of his readers will object to his thesis, having equated biblical inspiration, authority, and inerrancy with the question of whether Genesis 1 is scientifically coherent in its literal exposition. He patiently and clearly explains why this is ill-advised and perhaps even impugns God’s decision to dispense revelation when He did at the time in which He did. The danger lies not in making Genesis palatable to modern science, but in changing the intended meaning of the inspired text itself. Walton writes:
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 turn it into modern cosmology, we are making the text say something that it never said. . . . 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. . . . If God aligned revelation with one particular science, it would have been unintelligible to people who lived prior to the time of that science. . . . 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 (p. 17).
Walton brings analogies to the reader’s attention that reinforce the coherence of his thesis. For example, when the Old Testament speaks of the “mind” and refers to the seat of emotions and intellect as the heart, liver, kidneys, and intestines, modern science cannot be aligned with such a notion. As Walton notes, “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. . . . Consequently, we need not try to come up with a physiology for our times that would explain how people think with their entrails” (pp. 18-19).
While I would quibble with Walton on certain points, as someone who is trained in Semitics, this reviewer sees Walton’s work as an essential primer on the realia of Genesis 1 and a much-needed corrective to the inconsistent hermeneutics found in apologetics material on origins. Frankly, this is a book that needed to be written and was long overdue. Walton shows us that we are far better off to focus on how a creation with a lone external, independent, intelligent Cause conforms much more lucidly to the findings of modern science than to resist letting the Bible be what it is.
I hope Naked Bible readers avail themselves of Walton’s book. It’s just the sort of expose on this issue that is needed for sharpening the inerrancy discussion.
Comments
18 Responses to “The Cosmology of Genesis 1 and the Old Testament’s Pre-Scientific Worldview”
Leave a Reply
Please note: Comment moderation is currently enabled so there will be a delay between when you post your comment and when it shows up. Patience is a virtue; there is no need to re-submit your comment.
Indeed, I was planning to get his book for this upcoming summer. Since I got myself many presents for the holidays, Im going to wait for awhile. The other book I may get with this one is Genesis 1-4: A Linguistic, Literary, and Theological Commentary (John Collins).
I also noticed that when a scholar write an official review of a work, it is always written in the third person, I presume this is the standard writing style for composing a published review.
This cosmology is getting interesting for me in the first and last books of the Bible, with regards to Genesis cosmology i was looking at Dr David Neimans site on his thoughts on biblical cosmology and Etiology. This is interesting will you blog about this for us to pop some questions at you ? Once we read the book that is.
It’s good to know there is another option out there ! and one that fits to the ancient world view and doesn’t try to fit science in, or fit the Bible in with science.
Michael, this is a subject I’ve done some digging on, but not from a particular evangelical or political stance. I hope [because I have huge regard for your work] that you are NOT saying that we should disregard real science in our consideration of biblical origin accounts or vice-versa. Eh?
It seems to me, thus far after years of watching the subject matter, that if we can just let real inquisitive science speak – navigating through the minefield of western manipulation – it continues to ratify what incisive readings of scripture indicate. To angle my comment another way: I won’t confuse the Physics commentary of a trained Semitist/Semiticist with that of a noted Quantum Physicist, nor vice-versa.
@blop2008:
on the third person: yep, for the most part.
@Cognus: no, I’m not saying we shouldn’t care about science. I don’t believe that anything the Bible actually affirms in this area would be contradictory to science (e.g., the earth was created by an external intelligent creator –many scientists would have no problem with that). However, the list of items one could make as to actual “claims” is pretty short. Lastly, I think quantum physics echoes secure exegetical comments one could make about Genesis 1:1-3, but I wouldn’t say Gen 1:1-3 TEACHES quantum physics.
I bought this book through Amazon.com and devoured every word. It is amazing and so relevant. It is such a well thought out premise and the examples so clear and eye-opening, that I pray it becomes required reading in seminaries throughout the land just so I can hear the combined sound of synchronized forehead slapping and “doh!”s as the pieces finally connect. It was obviously written for the average christian minister but the bibliography, notes and references should be enough to keep the academia highlighting and flipping pages furiously into the night. 5 stars!
I listened to a few lectures on cosmology. Do you agree that the genesis account could be described as polemic in relation to all the other ANE cosmologies such as Ugarit that have many gods as the forces behind phenomenon such as wind, sun, moon and sea, (the sea was particularly interesting with the reference to leviathan, in Ugarit). Was the writer in Genesis just saying No its not all these gods there is only ONE God and it Him that controls and created all ?
would this be the shema
in the face of pagan culture and cosmology ?
@Jonnathan Molina:
yep; good stuff.
You guys are increasing my desire to get it.
@Nobunaga: That’s my view in a nutshell, though see some of my other responses.
Never thought of it that way before, this is very interesting.
So the writer of Genesis was sort of like the Apostle Paul in Mars Hill, standing against the pagan ideology of the day and basically telling them they have it wrong with all the Idolatry and then going on the explain Who God is by creation and the things that are made. I’m looking forward to this book it’s pretty short too just the kind i like
@Beverly:
had not heard that — and (to my shame) I didn’t know you can get instant notification via Twitter for things like these posts. Very cool.
[...] Naked Bible faithful already know that I liked John’s book, despite some quibbles. Vern Poythress of Westminster Seminary [...]
Dr. Heiser has the review been published yet? Will you let us know when it does and add a link? Thanks.
@Jonnathan Molina: not yet; and they don’t put them online.
[...] John Walton’s recent book The Lost World of Genesis 1, positively reviewed by me here and (soon) in print, has popularized this view. As I noted in my review, I think Walton’s [...]
As someone is familiar with Semitic thinking in general and Genesis in particular, why do you think none of the rabbis saw what Walton sees so obviously. My question is, how come Jewish and Christian writers missed the fact was before their eyes. Most of them made the mistake of thinking that what Genesis is describing is the actual creation of the physical universe. Since I have not read Walton’s book I do not know if he answers this question. What do you think?
I would not presume the rabbis missed all this, for one thing. Cosmologically, they weren’t moderns. BUT, the comparative textual material (Mesopotamian texts, Egyptian stuff, Ugaritic stuff) was long gone (under ground) and had long died out (the languages were lost) that would have done more to prompt the observations. But there were vestiges that emerge in second temple texts, or conscious and unconscious transmissions of some ideas, though not at the level of detail we now have. One example would be astronomical / astrological material, certain “son of man” motifs, apocalypticism (Daniel 7 follows the thematic flow of the Baal cycle, and the son of man imagery and motifs are informed by Canaanite thinking. The rabbis’ knowledge in these areas is at times seen in their apologetic responses against it, seeking to preserve their own (later) traditions.