Hi All, Contributing to this discussion again, I'd like to reiterate that a lot of the opposition to George, Yigal, Nir, and myself has focused on what are considered by some to be merely isolated mythological elements within a literal account. But I think it is important to note that we are not talking about individual pieces of the account, but rather, its whole orientation. The entire account is of a piece with the cosmological orientation of the ANE. Just like other ANE accounts, the Genesis 1 narrative begins with chaos, without feeling the need to explain where that chaos came from. The first three days of creation, then, describe the process by which God brought order out of that chaos, turning disorder into order: separating between day and night, separating between waters above the sky (vault, dome) and waters below the sky, and separating between waters below and the dry land. In the flood narrative, then, this ordered creation, returns to the chaotic conditions of 1:2, the rejoining of the waters above the sky (the floodgates of the heavens opening up) to the waters below the sky (the springs of the great deep), the water covering the dry land, and the inevitable confusion of day and night which these conditions would cause. As the waters finally recede, things return to their created state at the end of Genesis 1, thus yielding the pattern of creation, de-creation, re-creation
To be sure, the ancients were keen observers of the sun, moon, stars, and planets (travelers). But these astronomical observations were still made within an orientation that was both flat-earth (though aware that there was some curvature), and earth-centered (geocentric). They were not Copernicans before Copernicus. And this goes for the entire Old Testament. For those who have theological concerns, this is, of course, not a theological forum. But I would add that, at least within my theological tradition, this understanding of Gen 1 does nothing to detract from my own confession of God as creator. Rather, it accords nicely with my understanding that God has revealed himself both progressively and accommodatively, and that the Scriptures are both a divine and human text. Blessings, Jerry Shepherd Taylor Seminary Edmonton, Alberta Jerry Shepherd [email protected] _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
