On non-literal history

This is a question for TE's, that is a curiosity I've had for a while.

There seems to be a wide range of views on how to interpret Genesis 1-3 (or even 1-11) everywhere from pure symbolism, to allegory, to non-literal history, and so forth.

The Pentateuch/Torah is primarily a historical record. There are sections of Law and things throughout it, but the foundation of its theological message and the themes of seed and covenant all come from historical value. Even if you were to buy into this notion of "ancient historography" in that its not a literal history, but a pretty much happened mostly this way but its the message that counts and thats intact type history, how does a non historical prelude tie into or make way for any of it?

Before I give my own take on this: I just found out that Robert Farrar Capon is alive and well on Google Books. He's someone I would recommend to any YEC: he firmly believes that Adam and Eve are historical but explains this "historicity" in a theologically sound (if perhaps overly bombastic) way. The relevant text is here: The romance of the word: one man's ... - Google Books

My own take on it is that history isn't just what happened in the past, but what happened in my past. The reason I say that is because historiography has always (rightly) been focused on some things and ignorant of others. The historians rarely bother to find out, for example, what George Washington had for breakfast each day or the styles in which English peasants cut their hair; and even if they did, I certainly wouldn't bother to find out. Those facts are irrelevant to my life.

The book of Genesis however does describe events that are relevant to my life. However, it doesn't give me all the details. Again, this is consistent with historiography. Some details of events are more important than other details. We are concerned about when a particular historical couple got married; we are not as concerned about, say, the first night they actually had sex - partly because it's impossible to find out, partly because it really shouldn't matter. (Unless they had an illegitimate child, which just goes to show that all of this is highly contextual.)

What does Genesis 1-11 tell me? It tells me that God created a good world; that man began to sin; that God threatened man with the very dissolution of creation as a response, but then promised later that He would never do that; and that the fragmentation of men was the final result of their sins.

Why might the exact details of the accounts be untrustworthy? Perhaps because the exact mechanics of how all these things happened were not important. Perhaps because, in conjunction with being unimportant, those exact mechanics were difficult or impossible to understand without the later developments of science. Perhaps because God in His wisdom decided that knowing and obsessing over those exact mechanics would distract us from knowing Him and seeking His will in our lives.

So yeah, that's what I think.

There are a few reasons from my end. The language of Genesis 1-11 is strongly symbolic; it does not match the literary styles of the later historical scripture (there are multiple sources I can direct you to to explore this). The events spoken of in Genesis 1-11 are legendary; they are further separated by time from the presumed occurrence to placing down on paper than any other scripture, by far. The sheer instance of apparent symbolism is matched only by the non-literal apocalyptic literature.

As with any scripture, the literary style gives indications on how to read it. We don't read poetry like history; we don't read proverb like law. We don't read letters like the Gospels. We don't read Revelation like we read Hebrews. A book doesn't imply one single literary style, either; consider the book of Daniel, which is a mix of history and prophecy.

This is exactly why I consider Genesis 1-11 "symbolic history", delivering theological truths using ANE (ancient near east) symbology and motifs, and Genesis afterward as theological truths delivered through history, and why I don't see this view as a "slippery slope" which will inevitably lead to denial of the historicity of Jesus.

AnswersInHovind said:

The Pentateuch/Torah is primarily a historical record.

Click to expand...

What is this assertion based on? And what, precisely, does "historical" mean? To the modern mind, "history" is loaded with a lot of assumptions and presuppositions that may or may not have been relevant or existent within the minds of the authors who wrote the Torah. So is it "historical" to them, or to the modern, Western mind?

AnswersInHovind said:

Even if you were to buy into this notion of "ancient historography" in that its not a literal history, but a pretty much happened mostly this way but its the message that counts and thats intact type history, how does a non historical prelude tie into or make way for any of it?

Click to expand...

Again, the questions are potentially loaded with the biases of the modern, Western mind. To our philosophical paradigms, "literal" history is that which can be subjected to the principles of verifiability--did this happen in an objectively (used VERY loosely) determinable manner? However, was this the same assumption of those who wrote the "historical" records under question, however? Did they believe that the "histories" of patriarchs were "historical" in the sense of verifiability, or did their valuation of the accounts they wrote resolve in some other end?

Therefore, the question is not really whether the Scriptures are "historical", but rather whether the men who wrote them understood them as "historical" in light of their philosophical understanding of the world, God, and history. When we speak of "literalness", we can only do so within the purview of the philosophical biases that we bring to our search for knowledge. While this need not absolutely prevent us from coming to an understanding of the worldviews of the biblical writers, we must be ever vigilant to watch for the all-too-easy wholesale application of our subconscious philosophical biases to the texts and the assumptions underlying them.

shernren said:

Why might the exact details of the accounts be untrustworthy? Perhaps because the exact mechanics of how all these things happened were not important. Perhaps because, in conjunction with being unimportant, those exact mechanics were difficult or impossible to understand without the later developments of science. Perhaps because God in His wisdom decided that knowing and obsessing over those exact mechanics would distract us from knowing Him and seeking His will in our lives.

So yeah, that's what I think.

Click to expand...

I guess I have a hard time wrapping my mind around the mechanics not being necessary.

For example, the message of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" is not dependant on any part of that story being true because it is teaching a moral lesson and shows you in a hypothetical how not adhering to that lesson can be damaging.

But the biblical histories seem to tell us about God by showing us his actions. I believe the Bible is first and foremost a revelation of God about himself to us. IN that sense, I agree that Genesis 1 is not about the world, but about God. But if God did not do these things, what value do these statements have? It is by the mechanics of Genesis 1 that, even in allegorical interpretations, we learn about God. So the mechanics must have some value or else why would the author include them?

AnswersInHovind said:

I guess I have a hard time wrapping my mind around the mechanics not being necessary.

For example, the message of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" is not dependant on any part of that story being true because it is teaching a moral lesson and shows you in a hypothetical how not adhering to that lesson can be damaging.

But the biblical histories seem to tell us about God by showing us his actions. I believe the Bible is first and foremost a revelation of God about himself to us. IN that sense, I agree that Genesis 1 is not about the world, but about God. But if God did not do these things, what value do these statements have? It is by the mechanics of Genesis 1 that, even in allegorical interpretations, we learn about God. So the mechanics must have some value or else why would the author include them?

Click to expand...

When I tell a ten-year-old that "God keeps the sun burning", have I lied to him? (Because the sun doesn't actually burn, it fuses.)

I hope you don't think I'm trying to evade your question. I value your objection, because it was the main objection I struggled (and do still sometimes struggle) with as a TE. I'm just trying to see what words or concepts you use to describe accommodation, so that I can answer you without talking past you. Everybody has their own theological framework and it's all too easy to talk past each other.

shernren said:

When I tell a ten-year-old that "God keeps the sun burning", have I lied to him? (Because the sun doesn't actually burn, it fuses.)

I hope you don't think I'm trying to evade your question. I value your objection, because it was the main objection I struggled (and do still sometimes struggle) with as a TE. I'm just trying to see what words or concepts you use to describe accommodation, so that I can answer you without talking past you. Everybody has their own theological framework and it's all too easy to talk past each other.

Click to expand...

But I think there is a difference between not talking past, and talking contradictory to or in edification of false beliefs.

For example, if we assume that the author did carry the ancient cosmological view, (an example being water above the firmament as is being sort of discussed in another thread), it seems God's word to this person is to edify that false view of the world and to give a false account of creation. This is different from telling a 10 yearold the sun is burning. Its telling the 10 yearold the sun is a diety that lords over the earth during the day, and goes to sleep at night.

There are ways to convey something like evolution within the context of the ancient world. But there seems to be absolutley no indiciation of a progressive creation that is so popular in all the different fields of science. The creation account is one of instant, powerful, in your face creation.

depthdeception said:

What is this assertion based on? And what, precisely, does "historical" mean? To the modern mind, "history" is loaded with a lot of assumptions and presuppositions that may or may not have been relevant or existent within the minds of the authors who wrote the Torah. So is it "historical" to them, or to the modern, Western mind?



Again, the questions are potentially loaded with the biases of the modern, Western mind. To our philosophical paradigms, "literal" history is that which can be subjected to the principles of verifiability--did this happen in an objectively (used VERY loosely) determinable manner? However, was this the same assumption of those who wrote the "historical" records under question, however? Did they believe that the "histories" of patriarchs were "historical" in the sense of verifiability, or did their valuation of the accounts they wrote resolve in some other end?

Therefore, the question is not really whether the Scriptures are "historical", but rather whether the men who wrote them understood them as "historical" in light of their philosophical understanding of the world, God, and history. When we speak of "literalness", we can only do so within the purview of the philosophical biases that we bring to our search for knowledge. While this need not absolutely prevent us from coming to an understanding of the worldviews of the biblical writers, we must be ever vigilant to watch for the all-too-easy wholesale application of our subconscious philosophical biases to the texts and the assumptions underlying them.

Click to expand...

If a child tells you about a trip to disney land, you would expect a different version of the story than if you asked their parent about the same trip.

I think that the Bible should had different standards than other ancient texts because it was not written "just" by ancient men, but men under the inspiration of God. If we remove the doctrine of divine inspiration from the text, yeah, we can view it completely from this human vantage, but its not just a human work. God's word should be able to transcend philosophical bias and engage people in all eras of humanity.... and it has until the turn of last century.

AnswersInHovind said:

But I think there is a difference between not talking past, and talking contradictory to or in edification of false beliefs.

For example, if we assume that the author did carry the ancient cosmological view, (an example being water above the firmament as is being sort of discussed in another thread), it seems God's word to this person is to edify that false view of the world and to give a false account of creation. This is different from telling a 10 yearold the sun is burning. Its telling the 10 yearold the sun is a diety that lords over the earth during the day, and goes to sleep at night.

There are ways to convey something like evolution within the context of the ancient world. But there seems to be absolutley no indiciation of a progressive creation that is so popular in all the different fields of science. The creation account is one of instant, powerful, in your face creation.

Click to expand...

But I don't see how "water above the firmament" is any different from saying the sun is burning.

More to the point, suppose a culture believes that the sky is blue because there is a transparent dome over their heads with water above it. Now suppose God wants to tell that culture that He is the Creator of everything they see. Should God have to teach them about quantum physics and Rayleigh scattering to correct their understanding of the color of the sky? Or should God simply give them a list of everything they know about, and then tell them that He has created all that?

I'm not actually convinced that there is a way to accurately convey something like evolution in the vocabulary of the ancient world. (Evolution is hard enough to accurately convey today!) The idea of geological "deep time" was only invented a few centuries ago; before that, something was either a few generations old, or had lasted forever. As such, if God had told the Israelites that He had created the universe "a long time ago, in a very long amount of time", He would have conveyed the message that the universe had actually had infinite duration, and that would not only still be technically wrong, it would also have profoundly wrong theological implications.

I am curious about your last sentence. Do you think an instant act of creation is more powerful than a drawn-out one? (As far as I know, Augustine argued that creation must in fact have been instant, and the six days of Genesis were figurative; he reasoned thus: God does not need to take any time to create if He is simply verbally commanding things to be - one moment giraffes do not exist, and then suddenly they do, and they don't need to take any time to slowly "come into existence" - and so He didn't actually have to space out His act of creation, so that the six days must have been a device to organize all the things God did create.)

I for one believe that Genesis is not the last word we have on God and creation. We read in John 1:3 that through the Word all things were made, including even things that exist now that never existed before (such as computers and particle accelerators and MRSA); we read in Hebrews 1:3 that the Son sustains all things by His powerful word - note the present tense! Creation simply does not have the capacity to sustain itself, moment by moment, without being continuously brought into existence at the will of God - though as God wills creation into existence He also gives it creaturely freedom to be what it is, even giving it the capacity to contain creatures uniquely enabled to rebel against Him.

shernren said:

I for one believe that Genesis is not the last word we have on God and creation. We read in John 1:3 that through the Word all things were made, including even things that exist now that never existed before (such as computers and particle accelerators and MRSA); we read in Hebrews 1:3 that the Son sustains all things by His powerful word - note the present tense! Creation simply does not have the capacity to sustain itself, moment by moment, without being continuously brought into existence at the will of God - though as God wills creation into existence He also gives it creaturely freedom to be what it is, even giving it the capacity to contain creatures uniquely enabled to rebel against Him.

Click to expand...

At a meeting I was at yesterday there was a reference to the (at least) nine different creation accounts in scripture. Unfortunately I didn't get a list.

AnswersInHovind said:

If a child tells you about a trip to disney land, you would expect a different version of the story than if you asked their parent about the same trip.

Click to expand...

Sure, but I would not expect that either of their accounts would amount to an "objective" recitation.

AnswersInHovind said:

I think that the Bible should had different standards than other ancient texts because it was not written "just" by ancient men, but men under the inspiration of God. If we remove the doctrine of divine inspiration from the text, yeah, we can view it completely from this human vantage, but its not just a human work. God's word should be able to transcend philosophical bias and engage people in all eras of humanity.... and it has until the turn of last century.

Click to expand...

But what is it about the turn of the last century that has created such a shift? I would say it is the very doctrine of inerrancy and infallibility which many wish to defend. And why is this? Because these doctrines are borne out of the assumptions of western philosophy and its bias towards verifiability and historicity as markers of "truth." However, when applied to the Scriptures, such proofs cannot be forthcoming, yet the demands of modernism remain artificially attached. Therefore, given the failure of the inerrantists to establish their claims upon the basis of western epistemology, it is no wonder that the Scriptures have fallen out of relevance in the Western world. Yet lest we jump to conclusions and automatically blame the deconstructionists and enemies of the faith, we should turn our attentions inward and understand how our own bad philosophy has created the very conditions that many initially sought to avoid.

AnswersInHovind said:

If a child tells you about a trip to disney land, you would expect a different version of the story than if you asked their parent about the same trip.

I think that the Bible should had different standards than other ancient texts because it was not written "just" by ancient men, but men under the inspiration of God. If we remove the doctrine of divine inspiration from the text, yeah, we can view it completely from this human vantage, but its not just a human work. God's word should be able to transcend philosophical bias and engage people in all eras of humanity.... and it has until the turn of last century.

Click to expand...

I think scripture does transcend philosophical bias and engage people in all eras of humanity ... including the 19th to 21st centuries. That is why the biblical writings are still powerfully alive to us today while the Enuma Elish is not. I like the take of C.S. Lewis on this. Both the biblical and the Babylonian creation myths are myths, but the biblical version is the divinely-inspired one. It is the true myth which challenges and displaces the false one of paganism. That is why it has continuing transcendant power.

I believe God saw the necessity of accommodating to the current cosmological view because it is evident that if you make scripture concordant with any scientific view, it will necessarily be time-bound. If scripture were written to be concordant with the scientific view of our time, it would not only be incomprehensible to its first audience; it would seem to our descendants to be as "primitive" as the flat-earth, solid firmament cosmology taken for granted by the biblical authors does to us. Since any scientific reference can only concord with the science of one particular period of history, there is no reason we should clamour for it to be our period of history. For what reason should our generation claim the privilege of having scripture concord with our science?

If any generation has a claim on the concordance of scripture with its science, it is the generation to which it was first addressed.

Look at it this way: past generations cannot look into our time to relate scripture to our science. But we can look back into their time and see how they viewed the world and make the correlations between their cosmology and the cosmology of scripture. So, since God in his Wisdom, must accommodate his knowledge to ours, it makes sense that he accommodate his teaching to the understanding of the world in the generation to whom he brings his revelation. We, reading the same scripture centuries later, can also read what that understanding was and see how it was used by God to reveal spiritual truths that are as relevant today as they were then, in spite of the fact that our scientific views have greatly changed.

AnswersInHovind said:

This is a question for TE's, that is a curiosity I've had for a while.

There seems to be a wide range of views on how to interpret Genesis 1-3 (or even 1-11) everywhere from pure symbolism, to allegory, to non-literal history, and so forth.

The Pentateuch/Torah is primarily a historical record. There are sections of Law and things throughout it, but the foundation of its theological message and the themes of seed and covenant all come from historical value.

Click to expand...

Yes. The basic historical event is the Exodus: God's intervention in human history. That intervention has to be historical or Judaism falls apart.

However, that doesn't mean that events before the Exodus need to be historical. That "prelude" as you call it is, by its very nature of the Hebrews lacking written language, legendary.

how does a non historical prelude tie into or make way for any of it?

Click to expand...

For the Exodus, all that is required is to place the Hebrews in Egypt. It doesn't even require a prior covenant with Abraham. Yahweh could simply have introduced Himself to Moses and then, thru Moses, free the Hebrews. Or, if you want an ancient covenant with the Hebrews before they went to Egypt, all you need is a covenant with an ancestor. The details of the life of that ancestor are irrelevant.

As it happens, if you read Genesis 1-8 as literal history, you soon get into trouble. As people have pointed out for centuries, Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 contradict on several major points. They can't both be literal history. There are also 2 stories of the Flood in Genesis 6-8 that also contradict on major points.

It's apparent that Genesis is a compiled document from at least 2 primary sources. These are usually termed J and P. They represent attempts after the Exodus to provide a more extensive history of Israel, a "backstory" if you will. But the backstory isn't really necessary. The reality of the Exodus, the Laws, the conquest of Canaan, and the establishment of Israel are all that are necessary to establish the existence of Yahweh as the God of Israel.

AnswersInHovind said:

I think that the Bible should had different standards than other ancient texts because it was not written "just" by ancient men, but men under the inspiration of God. If we remove the doctrine of divine inspiration from the text, yeah, we can view it completely from this human vantage, but its not just a human work. God's word should be able to transcend philosophical bias and engage people in all eras of humanity.... and it has until the turn of last century.

Click to expand...

First, the theological messages of Genesis still engage humanity. Those theological messages are just as valid in modern science as they are in the Babylonian "science" in which they are set.

Second, what do you want of "inspiration"? You seem to want inspiration to transcend human limitations of the physical universe and be scientifically accurate for all time. Is that realistic? Is it necessary? Or is the only necessity that the Bible be theologically correct? After all, isn't that what the Bible is supposed to do: be a book about theology? And why are you more concerned with the Bible than God?

Remember, the Bible does not come with a glossary of new terms. So exactly how is God supposed to "inspire" humans to write about things they do not yet have words for? Even if He does, how are the people of the time supposed to understand it?

Again, your concern is with the Bible. But the Bible is relatively unimportant. God is important. The Bible helps us find God, but it does not define the reality of God or "prove" the existence of God. God existed long before the Bible. God would exist even if all the Bibles were to be destroyed.

gluadys said:

At a meeting I was at yesterday there was a reference to the (at least) nine different creation accounts in scripture. Unfortunately I didn't get a list.

Click to expand...

That sounds like a pretty heavy-duty meeting!

OTOH I think Job 38-39 would qualify as one. The remainder are probably in the Psalms, Isaiah or Jeremiah.

shernren said:

That sounds like a pretty heavy-duty meeting!

OTOH I think Job 38-39 would qualify as one. The remainder are probably in the Psalms, Isaiah or Jeremiah.

Click to expand...

Well, we weren't doing a bible study which is why I didn't get a list. But we were focusing on creation. We are plotting a massive conversion of Toronto-area Anglicans to greening their Christian practice. Kind of heavy duty, but the facilitator was terrific and very helpful.

I would agree with pinpointing Job, and don't forget Proverbs.