Evaluating other texts about Creation

Text evaluation and the interpretation of Genesis

Elements of Genesis 1 are often interpreted against the background of other Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) cosmological/creation texts. This is a very different choice to one that confines itself to inter-textual interpretation and which respects the integrity of inspiration. Are any of these comparative texts appropriate? How should we evaluate the sources?  This article will look at the issue and argue that uncritical usage of such texts is methodologically unsound and that intertextual analysis is the primary method of biblical interpretation.

E. C. Kaiser writes,

“…the basic teaching of all of sacred theology is inseparably connected with the results of our hermeneutics; for what is that theology except what Scripture teaches? And the way to ascertain what scripture teaches is to apply the rules and principles of interpretation. Therefore, it is imperative that that these rules be properly grounded and that their application be skilfully and faithfully applied. If the foundation itself is conjecture, imagination, or error, what more can be hoped for what is built on it?”[1]

It is always desirable to place writings in a context. Is the writing exegetical, philosophical, allegorical or mystic/apocalyptic?  When was it written and who was the intended audience? Failure to follow methodological discipline will result in questionable conclusions. To these basic conventions of good scholarship, we might ask if the particular writing is normative. In other words – does it represent a consensus view of a common culture or is it a sectarian position?  Was there even a consensus viewpoint?  It is possible that no homogenous tradition existed at the time that a particular piece was written.

E. D. Hirsch spoke[2] to this issue warning of “three relativistic fallacies. The three still apply to thinking about the writers of the past. The first is the fallacy of the inscrutable past” (p. 39). He basically warned about assuming only a few people can actually sympathize with the past and, therefore, really know it. Accepting this fallacy undermines all historical investigation and few actually want to go there. The second is “the fallacy of the homogeneous past” (p. 40). This assumes that all who lived in a certain age shared a common perspective imposed by culture and worldview. Accepting this confines all writers to their ages so that they cannot think, speak, or write differently from their age as it is perceived by the interpreter. Hirsch’s third fallacy is equally powerful: “the fallacy of the homogeneous present-day perspective” (p. 41). Today, there are a wide variety of perspectives within any culture and across cultures.

These are methodological warnings and they can be used to guide one’s own study of comparative texts but, more importantly, also how they are interpreted and used by commentators.

Evaluating Ancient Sources

Perhaps we can achieve some success in interpreting Genesis 1 in the context of other ANE cosmologies as they are nearer in time to the Genesis material. The obvious and usual place to start is with Egyptian, Babylonian, Ugaritic and Sumerian creation myths as these are most of the locally relevant material. However, the difficulties in understanding such texts that we will encounter are that these other ANE cosmologies are not uniform and they need to be reconstructed from disparate sources (i.e. we have different stories from different tablets).[3] There is also the question of dating the texts and their traditions in relation to the date of Genesis 1. Further, such texts are not necessarily written to explain the origins of the cosmos, but the origins of the gods, or as an explanation of how conditions on earth have come about through the interaction of the gods with each other and the earth. Finally, the cosmology that they present or presume has notable differences from that we might construct from Genesis. For example, the standard work on Mesopotamian Cosmology[4] offers the analysis that “Mesopotamians believed in six flat heavens, suspended one above the other by cables. When it came to interpreting the stars and the heavens, the Mesopotamians were more interested in astrology (i.e., what the gods were doing and what it meant for humanity) than they were in cosmology.”[5]

In contrast with other ANE cosmologies, some have argued that Genesis acts as a polemical corrective[6] and demythologizes the physical world from the “world of the gods”.  The sun and the moon (gods to the ancient Babylonians, Egyptians etc.) are not even named in the Genesis account and only make their appearance (they are not said to be created) when they are introduced on the fourth day.  Therefore, the sun and the moon are excluded (as ‘gods’) from any creative activity – even from the introduction of light!  This would have been challenging at the time when Gen 1:1-2:4^a was composed, whether we take this to be by Moses (the traditional Jewish view), or in the Exile (a scholarly view). Genesis is subordinating the common ‘gods’ of the sun and moon to mere physical objects.

Genesis 1 is unique

Looking at other texts, we can say that Genesis 1 is unique. How then can we evaluate the creation account when we have no like-for-like sources? The only way to evaluate Genesis is on its own terms – through intertextual exegesis.[7] Ancient Near Eastern texts can provide some ideas but we need to take care as we cannot simply transfer these ideas uncritically to Genesis. A good example of this mistake is to take differing ideas about the structure of the sky and uncritically transfer one (or more) of these to interpret the Genesis ‘firmament’, completely overlooking the context of God-manifestation set by Ezekiel 1 for the use of this term.[8] Context contributes meaning but texts have a reciprocal relationship with their contexts and are equally capable of creating meaning.

Two illustrations of this point about meaning can be given. The first is that interpreters are either too literal or too poetic in their reading of Genesis and overlook the simple phenomenological language. The second is that interpreters don’t see how the intertextual usage of a term (within the immediate context and more widely) defines the meaning of a term.

The use of phenomenological language

Interpreters ignore phenomenological language at their peril. Phenomenological language is not metaphor or simile, it is the language of perspective and observation and it is timeless and therefore cross-cultural. The science behind the language might change but the language itself remains valid. When a biblical author speaks of the ‘sunrise’, he is providing what we now recognize as a phenomenological description of an event. The sun does not ‘literally’ rise. The rotation of the earth creates the experiential phenomenon which we call a sunrise. The reality of the sun and the earth, along with their spatial relationship and relative movement, creates the phenomenon of the sunrise. When a weather reporter speaks of the time of sun rise we do not conclude that the reporter believes that the sun revolves around the earth. The word ‘sunrise’ is as irrelevant to a geocentric conception as it is to a heliocentric one. Taking the Bible literally or at face value in such situations means accepting the phenomenological description. Scriptures have been understood throughout history in all cultures because they describe things the way they appear. Phenomenological language is not a vestige of primitive thought – it is the discourse of observation.  The interpreter must also be careful not confuse phenomenological language with poetic or literal description.

Intertextual Definition

Instances of the need for careful intertextual definition are plentiful. This is the business of exegesis. Two examples are given here:

(1) A facile interpretation of Gen 1:17 would be to say that it reflects Mesopotamian cosmology and that it says the stars were ‘set/fixed’ in the firmament of heaven composed of solid stone like jasper.[9] The Hebrew is the common !tn which is ‘give/set’. The idea of ‘fixing’ is not within the semantic range of !tn – if the Hebrew wanted to express ‘embedding’ or ‘fixing’ it would use ~yaiwlmi  as in Exod 25:7, “and stones to be set  in the ephod, and in the breastplate”. Instead, elsewhere, where translators have discerned the sense of ‘to set’ for the verb ‘to give’, it has been in such contexts as the following:

I set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Gen 9:13 (RSV)

Then he took curds, and milk, and the calf which he had prepared, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree while they ate. Gen 18:8 (RSV)

And Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Behold, I have set you over all the land of Egypt.” Gen 41:41 (RSV)

This pattern of use for ‘to give/set’ shows that the Fourth Day summary statement is not about a physical cosmology—it is about what God is doing for the human being that he is soon to create, and what he is doing is to set the sun and the moon for times and seasons (a function).

(2) The stars are set in the ‘firmament’ which is the Hebrew [yqr (raqia).  This is then called ~yImv (samayim) – ‘heaven(s)’. The choice of this term for that which separates the waters is clearly based on the Hebrew for ‘waters’ which is ~yIm (mayim). This play on words in turn shows that Gen 1:1 is a title statement introducing the creation account because only in vv. 6-8 does God make the heavens.

The common proposal is made that the raqia is a solid dome or vault, reflecting ANE cosmological ideas (Egyptian and Mesopotamian ideas are different).[10] However, the intertextual data would suggest that the raqia is a phenomenon seen in relation to God’s presence:

When the reality of God’s presence is revealed in visions that penetrate the cloud(s) (‘the waters’; the ‘dark waters’), we get a mention a ‘firmament’:

And I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the colour of amber, out of the midst of the fire. Ezek 1:4 (KJV)

And the likeness of the firmament upon the heads of the living creature was as the colour of the terrible crystal, stretched forth over their heads above. Ezek 1:22 (KJV)

And when they went, I heard the noise of their wings, like the noise of great waters, as the voice of the Almighty, the voice of speech, as the noise of an host: when they stood, they let down their wings. Ezek 1:24 (KJV)

And above the firmament that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone: and upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness as the appearance of a man above upon it. Ezek 1:26 (KJV)

If we go to ANE texts to understand the firmament, we ignore the context of God-manifestation set by Ezekiel. This context opens up the Genesis account in a way that cuts through the debate between old and young earth creationism. The firmament that separates the living creatures from the throne is reflected on earth in the firmament that separates God’s presence in the dark waters of v. 2 from the waters of the deep. There isn’t an identity between the two firmaments but a relation of representation; they both represent separation.

This intertextual line of thought settles, in turn, the question of whether the firmament is a physical structure to be correlated with an ANE conception about the sky. Any of the physical structures on offer in the ANE myths are a cover over land and water and are unrelated to separating the localised presence of God in waters from waters. The firmament that divides the waters in Genesis therefore can only be an ‘expanse’, a meaning that some translations choose and one which falls within the range of the related verb.[11]

Conclusion

Genesis 1 is a unique revelation[12] and this is evidenced by its polemical and demythologizing nature. Therefore, Genesis 1 requires interpreting on its own terms employing semantic and intertextual analysis rather than comparative analysis with other (reconstructed) ANE cosmologies of varying quality, written for different purposes. Unlike ANE creation myths, there is no theomacy or theogenic element in Israelite cosmology, so why should we turn to such accounts to explain Genesis? They are only helpful by way of comparison and contrast, but even then care must be taken as Genesis reserves the right to radically redefine ancient conventions. As always, context is king – and any deviation from this truism leads to spurious results. Primary sources require accurate evaluation – if that does not occur we are dealing with “scholarship” that is deliberately tendentious and therefore without interpretive value.

[1] Walter C. Kaiser Jr., “Legitimate Hermeneutics” in A Contemporary Guide to Hermeneutics (ed. D. K. McKim; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), 111-141 (113).