Don

http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Genesis-heritage-Biblical-Israel/dp/0805202536/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

http://www.amazon.com/Paradigms-Pilgrimage-Creationism-Paleontology-Interpretation/dp/1894667328/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240928289&sr=1-1

are 2 books I recommend on Gen/origins interpretation.

See Nahum Sarna’s “Understanding Genesis” for a good discussion of the polemical nature of Gen 1. An example is that the sun and moon are created by Elohim and not “gods” as was thought by some at the time. Since we live in a culture that EASILY discards the notion that the moon and sun are gods, it can be hard to see how radical the claim in Gen 1 was at the time it was written. To see that, one contrasts with the alternatives.

Each book of the Bible was written to people where they were at at the time it was written. 1900 or more years later, it is ALL TOO EASY to inject our different cultural assumptions into the text and not even realize we are doing it. You know about this possibility for gender verses, but it is true for the whole Bible. The question is not whether we will use cultural defaults to fill in gaps in ANY narrative, the question is WHICH cultural defaults will we use. If we use the 21st century Western cultural defaults, it might be correct sometimes, but can easily be wrong other times.

I also believe that God meant what he said and said what he meant; this does not mean we will always agree on the MEANING of what he said. Just as a simple example, we know that words have a range of meanings; if you pick A within the range of meanings and I pick B, we might both be acting in faith and yet understand the text differently. I agree that the non-egals add to the Gen origins accounts by seeing male leadership implied.

1. I agree God has given us what we need to know in Scripture for faith and practise.

2. As I stated, one sees the polemic in Gen 1 in contrast to the other polytheistic origins stories. These provide the cultural background for the Gen origins stories. I am far from being the first to claim this. This is what egals claim for some verses, asking to see the cultural contrast; this is what I do for Gen origins stories also. It is not reading into the text to notice this contrast, in either case.

3. On you being wrong, I am NOT saying that the way you understand the origins texts is impossible, just that it is not required by the text, that other interpretations are also possible. Or to put it another way, I believe both young earthers and old earthers are striving in their own ways to be faithful to the text. As I also mentioned Schroeder claims to be both. A simple example of an interpretation choice is: how long is bara/create? The Bible’s usage of bara shows that it may take a loooong time to bara/create something and that is the choice I make in Gen also; you might choose a short time and that is allowed also; my point is both are faithful possibilities.

4. I try my best to read every portion of Scripture as it would be understood by the original readers, not just the “gender” verses. For the Torah of Moses, I believe these original readers would be the early Israelites.

5. I also accept God’s word on the matter of creation. I believe what we see had a beginning and did not always exist and that it is at least 6700 years old. This eliminates a lot of alternatives.

6. One method of trying to interpret Scripture is to “interpret literally, except where it cannot”. The problem is that “where it cannot” differs among believers. My faith says we see thru a glass darkly and faithful believers can believe differently about origins and end times.

I see part of the reason for differences is that the origins narratives do not say everything we might wish them to say, so people fill in the gaps in different ways. And also that someone reads them in A way but thinks it is the ONLY way, but it turns out that this is in turn build on their unstated assumptions. It is similar to the egal/non-egal debate in some ways, many simply do not see how the others get to where they get.

On the Gen 1-2:3 pericope, I see this as primarily an a(poly)theistic polemic which was SO SUCCESSFUL that it is hard for us today to see it as such, but this can be seen when contrasted with the historical pagan origins stories. It attacked the existing pagan worldviews in repeated ways, claiming all their “gods” were bogus, that Elohim did it all. That is, the very idea of polytheism was wrong, which was an astounding claim at the time, as it seemed so “obvious”. It further claimed humans were the pinnacle of creation and the 7th day was a day of rest for Elohim, serving as an example for Jews to do so later in the Torah. It packs quite a bit into a few words, that is, it is highly compressed.

I also see the Gen 1 pericope as saying a lot LESS than others think it says. In this I go along with the ideas in “Paradigms on Pilgrimage”. It is giving a word picture that is being sketched in over the creation days like the script of a movie, but the word picture is for an early Israelite, not a modern like us with questions that would never have been asked by an Israelite.

The Bible uses phenomenological language to describe things, that is, it describes things by appearances and not necessarily (scientific) realities. This allows the Bible to speak to ALL times, as everyone knows how to use phenomenological language as it is so convenient. We know this caused some problems between church and some early scientists, and essentially everyone agrees NOW that the church a few 100s of years ago misunderstood some texts as describing physical reality when actually the texts did not.

On Young Earth and Old Earth, it is useful to see that Jews, who have the origins stories in their own language and have studied them for a long time, date this calendar year as year 5679 plus 6 creation days. They do this so that a Jew can ascribe whatever time they wish to a creation day, whether it be 24 hours or much longer. Gerald Schroeder is a Jew who does both and while one might think that is not possible, one should read what he has to say on it.

The point of my mentioning this is when Cheryl assumes a young earth in some of her arguments, she goes where people who believe in an old earth do not go in their interpretation/understanding.

I have read The Gospel of Ruth and recommend it.

FWIIW, I see problems in the Gen accounts that must be glossed over to be a young earther (to modify Cheryl’s quote), but this forum and esp. this thread is not about discussing this subject.

The book “Paradigms on Pilgrimage” by Godfrey and Smith gives both a Biblical and scientific understanding that is closest to my own. It also has the best I have yet found explanation of the Gen 1 imagery. It describes 2 former YEC’s who were “dragged kicking and screaming” into dropping their YEC paradigm, one on a Biblical basis and the other on the basis of science.

God inspired the gospels attributed to Matt, Mark, Luke and John; and they are all describing the same person Jesus; but the merging of accounts needs to be done VERY carefully. I dislike verse stitching across pericopes even when it might appear to work, because there are so many times it does not work.

On Genesis, my sis is a Young Earth Creationist and I am not, but we both accept the other as believers. I am not sure what you are, but I accept you as a believer and hope you also accept me. My sis and I obviously view some Gen. verses differently.

On literally true, if something is poetic, taking it literally means taking it as poetry; yet I agree that other believers can differ from me on what is poetic and what is not.

What I think happens too often with Gen 1-11 (AKA Gen Prehistory) is that A way of reading it is claimed to be THE ONLY VALID way of reading it.

On create and form, elsewhere in the Bible these are processes that can take time; however, some of the Gen readings exclude this potential. I do not see Adam being created twice. I also do not want to get too far away from the thrust of your blog.

I see Gen 1-2:4, Gen 2:5-4 and Gen 5 as 3 origins stories. They each have their own purpose and are not necessarily meant to be meshed together into 1 story, altho the 1st and 3rd do so easily. God could have inspired 1 comprehensive story, but did not.

By claiming something that happened in Gen 2 happened on day 6 of Gen 1 implies a merging of the stories that goes too far in my reading. That is, I try assess each story on its own for the point(s) it is making. I do use parts of other stories to make points in a story, such as the God-given name of the man and woman being Adam, yet I do not try to combine them into a single chronological narrative.

Create and form are not synonyms, create is something only God does, form is something a human does with a pot. Obviously, they are related, but are not identical.

Gen 6:7 says God will wipe off “the Adam/human he created”.

You depend a lot on the way you merge the stories in Gen 1 and Gen 2, but there are other ways to treat these stories, for example, I do not merge them.

I think Adam was created in Gen 1 and formed sequentially in Gen 2. I do not mix creation with forming, since each are distinct ideas. So while it may be correct to say “The woman was formed after the man.” it is not correct to say the woman was created after the man.”

Chris,

Fair enough.

One can criticize from a topical approach, but one cannot simply lift verses from their immediate context and string them together like propositions in a proof in Euclid. One needs to discuss each verses INSIDE its pericope for its meaning first, BEFORE going on to a discussion of a topic taught throughout the Bible.

I agree that the argument INSIDE a pericope can be logical. What I disagree with on a basic level is the idea that one can string verses from various pericopes together as if they were propositions in Euclid’s Elements. This may even happen to work sometimes, but is not a valid method of exegesis. Instead, read each teaching unit’s text as a unit for what it says.

The idea of treating verses (which were added much later) like propositions in Euclid is preposterous. As the Bible was written by Hebrew thinkers, think like a Hebrew, not a Greek.

1Ti 6:3 If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness,
1Ti 6:4 he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions,
1Ti 6:5 and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain.

For example,
http://www.sacred-destinations.com/turkey/ephesus-artemis.htm

“That the Ephesian Artemis was distinct from the Greek Artemis is clear, especially in light of the cult image of Artemis Ephesia.”

There was syncretism due to the names, this does not mean they were the same.

The reason I bring this up is because it is the attributes of Artemis of Ephesus (namely motherhood and fertility) that Paul may be addressing in 1 Tim, not the Greek Artemis. To confuse the 2 is a mistake I made when I first started studying this area.

Gengwall,

My studies indicate that Artemis of the Ephesians was a different “goddess” that the Greek Artemis, the latter is the goddess that mapped to the Roman Diana. In other words, there were 2 different goddesses with the name Artemis and only 1 mapped to Diana. What the KJV says is not relevant.

It is a source of confusion when doing 1st century studies, this is why I brought it up.

I think the term “Dianic” is in error. It is Artemis of Ephesus. And this is not the same as the Greek Artemis which is the Roman Diana.

1 Tim 2:8-10 is targeted to Ephesian men and women, altho it is phrased generally; the implied target is men and women at Ephesus who are NOT doing these things and should follow Paul’s advice.

Sometimes there are 2 ways some text can be understood. This might imply a pun and be deliberate but it might also imply we do not know enough of the specific context to decide. Both possibilities are allowed by faithful exegetes.

If it is 1 deceived woman or a group of deceived women in Ephesus does not make much difference in the APPLICATION as far as I can see; the key thing is that the situation was specific to Ephesus.

Scholars are not sure WHAT to make of the change from singular to plural, this is not expected. I do not see why the mixture of singular and plural forms PROHIBITS it being a group, assuming the singular is being used as a description, which is one of the options according to Wallace. Just because something sounds wrong in English does not mean it is wrong in Greek.

What MIGHT be happening is Paul is discussing the members of a group as each individual making her choices as an individual, that is, each stands or falls based on their own choices, which is as it should be, the group does not stand or fall as a group.

It also MIGHT be one woman, for example, just because I say “All men wearing red hats step forward.” does not mean there are men wearing red hats, perhaps there are men, perhaps there is a man, perhaps there are no men that qualify. We can discard the latter case for 1 Tim 2, as at least ONE qualified, but I do not see how we can be SURE about more than this.

As you might surmise, I do not believe in the perspicuity of ALL Scripture, at least for me today. I do believe Timothy knew what Paul wanted, but we are not Timothy, in many ways.

As I see it, there is another possibility for “they”. IF the anarthous “she” earlier in the pericope is referring to a group via the descriptive option for such nouns, then the “they” is also referring to that group, in the plural in this case.

Those are some great insights. The Greek definite article is sometimes used in places where it is not considered good English when translated, and so is omitted in some cases, yet can be crucial to understanding. While an anarthous noun (one with no article) in Greek has a range of possibilities, a noun with the definite article does not.

I emend 1 Tim 2:15 to say if they (each) …, as salvation is by individuals, in community for sure, but by each individual’s choice.

Based on Wallace’s 3rd option for an anarthrous noun of it describing a group of at least 1 member, I see it as POSSIBLE that there were a (small) group of (deceived) women that Paul wants taught and while being taught to not teach. This possibility does not change the application for today, whether it was one woman or a small group of women.

Chris,

Thanks for pointing out the terms Wallace uses. You point out another option for aner/gyne, namely husband/wife. One context clue is when both are mentioned, altho this is not conclusive.

Given that we are not Timothy (an understatement but a true one), I think we need to be gracious and not dogmatic on our understandings of some puzzling passages in 1 Tim. Some text is simply not as clear as we might wish and believers can come to different conclusions and still be faithful. Given this, I do not use such verses to restrict half the believers, as I do not see it as a requirement to do so.

gengwall,

In Greek the presence of the definite article makes the noun definite, but the absence of the definite article does NOT necessarily make the noun indefinite, see Wallace “Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics”. There is no indefinite article in Koine Greek, so there are 3 basic possibilities when the definite article is not used:
1. The noun is definite, even tho the article is not used to mandate this.
2. The noun is indefinite.
3. The noun is describing a group, of 1 or more that meet the quality.

The decision about which is the best fit is decided by context and there can be disagreement among scholars in some cases.

One should see the close connection between the land and the people on the land. When God charged the man to guard the garden, God is charging the man to guard all the things IN the garden, not just the dirt or just the dirt and trees.

Doug: Hmmm…I can’t think of any. It seems to me that all laws were repeated.

This is a claim that needs to be demonstrated and not just claimed as “seems to me”. That is, if you believe this to be true, go thru every command and find its repeat. Then you have an anomaly with 1 Tim 2:12. But if there is a single command anywhere else, you do not and have failed to show your claim.

FWIIW, I cannot tell whether Chris is egal or non-egal, as he does not say and simply stating how one side views something is not the same as agreeing with that side.