No such argument was made. Genesis 1/2 are not mythological because I want to, or Psalms are not songs because I want to, or Isaiah is not prophetic, because I want to. Its their nature independent of my wanting.
Its not just a metaphor, Gen 1 is a mythological drama and Gen 2 is a mythological story/narrative.
The division of the drama into symbolic number of days with the number 7 representing perfection in Jewish thinking, repetition of the division part "and it was evening and morning..." its all a literary device used to structure the scenes. Speculation what exactly did every sentence mean for the original audience in Babylon is quite futile today, though. First, I am no expert on bronze age mythology and the Jewish form of it, second, I doubt real experts have all the answers. It was too long time ago.
I know only about some elements - for example the uncreated, primordial waters symbolize eternal chaos (Leviathan is a zoomorphic alternative symbol of the same primordial chaos). God is depicted as someone who tamed the chaos/waters, creating land and giving borders to waters, creating the cosmic order with sun, moon, stars, preparing the creation for a man to rule over it. Dust in Gen 2 symbolizes mortality, number 7 I already mentioned.
If you are interested in more details, try to find it in some good Bible Dictionary or maybe there is some good lecture online or in some theological journal. For example John Walton has some interesting presentations:
Agreed. Genesis and Psalms are different genres. As I already said several times, Psalms are songs and Gen 1/2 are mythological texts. But both genres are non-literal, thats what they have in common.
Ok finally at 30 minutes into the video after droning on about “cultural river” he finally starts to talk about Genesis 1. He spends 15 minutes talking about how “it’s not a house story it’s a home story”, doesn’t quote not one single verse from Genesis 1 or actually any verse at all from the entire Bible. Then he just finished with the empty claim that “the Bible has no opinion about the age of the earth” and doesn’t present any sort of evidence or explanation about how he came to that conclusion. He just throws it out there and moves on to Genesis 2. Anyone who doesn’t believe me start the video at 30 minutes, that’s where he starts talking about Genesis 1 and he stops at 45 minutes into the video so it’s only 15 minutes and you can see for yourself that this guy just makes empty statements with no explanation of what the scriptures actually say. He doesn’t explain any Hebrew words or phrases used in the Bible or explain what they meant at the time, nothing. He just babbles on about it’s not a house story it’s a home story then concludes that the Bible has no opinions on the age of the earth. Doesn’t explain the 7 days at all or what they were supposed to represent. Then he talks about Genesis 2 about how man wasn’t really created from dust because you can’t use the excuse that God is able to do that. He says that explanation doesn’t apply. Then he says that Adam was born from a woman based solely on his claim that God can’t create man from dust. Well if we follow along with that reasoning Jesus can’t be born from a virgin, He can’t walk on water, He can’t come back to life after being dead for 3 days. Then he says Adam & Eve weren’t actually called Adam & Eve because the Hebrew language didn’t exist yet. Now this statement isn’t really a big deal from a doctrinal perspective but I would consider it an unsupported statement that is carelessly inserted into the discussion for the purpose of discrediting the validity of the creation account. That’s the only purpose for making this claim is to create errors in the creation account. In this particular case he’s creating a strawman argument that has absolutely zero evidence to support it. The English language didn’t exist when words like prognosis or kosmos were coined either but they were used for over a thousand years before the English language was developed. Anyone who studies linguistics knows that many words, especially names are often carried over from older languages to newer ones. Furthermore nobody knows how far back the Hebrew language was used and as a proclaimed Hebrew scholar he knows this. Just because the oldest Hebrew literature we’ve found dates back to 1,000 BC doesn’t mean that’s when the language began. We haven’t found any literature that predates these manuscripts that we can accurately attribute to being of Jewish origin. What this is, is nothing more than an unsupported claim created to present errors in the creation account that may or may not have even existed, but he doesn’t present this as a possibility he presents it as a fact because his whole agenda in this entire video is to show how the creation account cannot be taken literally.
Then at 50 minutes into the video he again attempts to discredit the validity of the creation account by claiming that it doesn’t teach that Adam was made from dust. He mentions Genesis 2:7 and points out that the word “from” isn’t in the text before the word “dust”. Then concludes that Adam was not made from dust of the earth but instead was “made dust of the earth” in that man will eventually become dust. He completely fails to mention Genesis 3:19 though.
”By the sweat of your face You will eat bread,
Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return.”“
Genesis 3:19 NASB1995
Right here God specifically states that Adam was taken from the ground and that he is dust and he will return to the ground and he will RETURN to dust. It’s obvious from this statement that the correct interpretation of Genesis 2:7 is that Adam was made FROM dust of the earth since it says he was made from the earth, it says he is dust, and that he will RETURN to dust. Adam can’t RETURN to dust if he was not created FROM dust. Again this guy makes another false statement to lure people into the mentality that the creation account cannot be taken literally by making a false claim. Now don’t forget this guy is an “expert” in Hebrew language and culture. I find it extremely hard to believe that he accidentally overlooked Genesis 3:19.
Now at this point in the video they go to answering questions from the audience so this is where he actually loses control over the discussion and has to address the questions of the audience.
At 1 hour 8 minutes into the video he is asked about the first 5 days of creation that he didn’t even address when he was discussing the creation account. I mean how do you discuss the creation account and not even mention the first 5 days of creation? He says he didn’t have time earlier in the video, that’s because he literally spent the first half hour talking about “cultural river” and only spent a measly 15 minutes discussing the creation account. His whole premise on all 5 days is that “God did not create anything materially”.
So this is at 1 hour 8 minutes into the video he talks about day one of creation and only mentions that God created light. He never once says anything at all about the creation of the heavens and the earth. His tactic to avoid this subject is going to backfire later in the discussion because someone does ask about it later in the questions.
The next problem I see was when he mentioned on day 3 that dry land emerged, at this point he still hasn’t said anything about the earth being created yet.
I didn’t have too much of a problem with his explanation of day 4 but I definitely did with his explanation of day 5. So in his explanation of day 5 he says “day 5 is about population not the creation of anything materially”. Well let’s examine day 5.
”Then God said, “Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens.”
God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind; and God saw that it was good. God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” There was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.“
Genesis 1:20-23 NASB
Verse 21 specifically says that “God CREATED the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind.”
He completely failed to mention ANYTHING about the fact that it specifically states that God CREATED the sea creatures and birds. He just pretends that it’s not even in the passage and says absolutely nothing about other “than this is just God bringing things into order not actually materially making anything”.
Well according to science, if we’re trying to reconcile science and the creation account, the earth was already populated by animals for millions of years before Adam because scientists claim they’ve been finding fossils that date back way farther than 300,000 years. If God didn’t create the animals on day 5 then the earth was already populated with animals on day 5. So he’s just pulling this “population” excuse out of thin air, there’s nothing that supports it, not the Bible and certainly not science.
Now at 1 hour 25 minutes someone finally asks about Genesis 1:1 and the creation of the heavens and the earth. This is the part he’s been avoiding THE ENTIRE VIDEO. Now he has no choice but to explain it. And his explanation is, “the word create doesn’t mean to materially make something, it means to bring to order”. So now what he’s actually done is completely removed God’s title as Creator from the Bible. The word “Bara” has been translated and defined by numerous Hebrew scholars and “order” is not listed in the definition for the word in any concordance or lexicon. The Hebrew word for “order” is Shalab not Bara. This is precisely why he has been avoiding this aspect of the discussion the entire video is because it’s nonsensical and he knows it. He knows that this explanation is so ridiculous that he has to avoid it at all cost. I mean here we are at 1 hour and 12 minutes into the discussion and he hasn’t even mentioned the word created or what it means throughout his entire discussion about the creation account until he’s actually forced to? How do you discuss the creation account and not explain what the word create means especially if your position is such a radically different definition that is not supported by any concordance or lexicon? What this indicates is that he was not forthcoming about this information and the only reason he even mentioned it was because he was trapped. He’s an author trying to sell books and he knows that radical statements such as this ruins his integrity as a Hebrew scholar when it’s not substantiated by other Hebrew scholars. Check the lexicons and concordances, do a Google search of Bara means order, you won’t find anything to support it.
Another thing he constantly does throughout the video over and over and over is say that the Bible doesn’t make scientific claims so it can’t contradict science if it doesn’t make scientific claims. Well that’s not true at all, I agree that the Bible doesn’t make scientific claims, but it absolutely does make historical claims and historical claims can and do in fact contradict science. So again he sets up a strawman argument then proceeds to knock it down and pretends as if he has made a viable point when in fact what he’s actually done is more of a slide of hand by creating a false narrative then explaining how it is an incorrect conclusion.
Ok so my last point is at 1 hour 25 minutes into the video. So someone asked how he can explain how Jesus’ resurrection doesn’t contradict what science teaches us and his explanation was that “the resurrection is not a scientific claim, it’s a historical truth”. Wow notice how on the resurrection all the sudden he admits the existence of historical truth in the Bible but throughout his discussion about the creation account he never applies this logic. He’s always dismissing the historical aspect of the creation account by saying it’s not making a scientific claim but he doesn’t dare do that with the resurrection of Christ because he knows that he might as well just throw all the books that he’s written into a bonfire. What he’s done here is another slide of hand by switching the narrative from scientific claim to historical truth. He’s not viewing the resurrection of Christ through the same philosophical lens that he viewed the entire creation account through.
I watched the rest of the video but wasn’t able to take notes but I think I’ve made enough points here to depose this guy of having any credibility in this discussion. I’ve included time stamps for anyone who might question my commentary on this video and I’ll include a link below to make it easy to find.
