The myth explanation

They are my own words. Have you found an error in this summary?

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I wasn't really looking for errors. I have recently finished a book on church history and found it fascinating, since I've never really studied it much before. Many of your comments seem to gel with what I read. One of the things that struck me is how much our personal beliefs today, even on issues such as origins, are influenced by events and people of the past.

Micaiah said:

ie. You consider the first chapter of Genesis to be poetry.

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Personally, I consider it to be Epic Mythology.

Micaiah said:

I wasn't really looking for errors. I have recently finished a book on church history and found it fascinating, since I've never really studied it much before. Many of your comments seem to gel with what I read. One of the things that struck me is how much our personal beliefs today, even on issues such as origins, are influenced by events and people of the past.

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Very true.

Micaiah said:

ie. You consider the first chapter of Genesis to be poetry.

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Yes.

Poetry, of course, can be about real events, but the organization of the material does not require a literal interpretation of them.

The organization of the material in Gen.1:1-2:4a seems clearly designed to build up to the Sabbath. It also imitates the organization of creation in the Babylonian story. The comparison of this story to the older polytheistic story makes it a powerful diatribe against the Babylonian gods, demoting them from divinity and replacing them all with the one God of Israel. This was much needed in an age when the power of Babylon was ascending or at its peak, for it was commonly held then that political power was based on the power of the nation's gods. This writer is affirming that the true power rests with the God of Israel in spite of the political eclipse of the nation.

gluadys said:

Yes.

Poetry, of course, can be about real events, but the organization of the material does not require a literal interpretation of them.

The organization of the material in Gen.1:1-2:4a seems clearly designed to build up to the Sabbath. It also imitates the organization of creation in the Babylonian story. The comparison of this story to the older polytheistic story makes it a powerful diatribe against the Babylonian gods, demoting them from divinity and replacing them all with the one God of Israel. This was much needed in an age when the power of Babylon was ascending or at its peak, for it was commonly held then that political power was based on the power of the nation's gods. This writer is affirming that the true power rests with the God of Israel in spite of the political eclipse of the nation.

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SHow how Genesis is Hebrew poetry. Provide evidence of your assertion, with the Hebrew, since that is the original language and poetry in Hebrew is very much different than in English.

Critias said:

SHow how Genesis is Hebrew poetry. Provide evidence of your assertion, with the Hebrew, since that is the original language and poetry in Hebrew is very much different than in English.

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Do you read Hebrew?

A bit. How about you?

Critias said:

A bit. How about you?

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I know the alphabet and a few words and phrases that are commonly explained in biblical study helps. I don't know much of the grammar or syntax, so I can't read it at all.

Will get back to you on Genesis 1.

Critias said:

SHow how Genesis is Hebrew poetry. Provide evidence of your assertion, with the Hebrew, since that is the original language and poetry in Hebrew is very much different than in English.

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OK, here goes.

I understand there are two principle features (there may be others I am unaware of) which characterize Hebrew poetry.

One is the use of echoing couplets i.e. two lines in which the second echos or amplify the thought in the first.

A typical example would be these verses from Psalm 66

You visit the earth and water it,
you greatly enrich it.
The river of God is full of water;
you provide the people with grain for so you have prepared it.
You water its furrows abundantly settling its ridges,
softening it with showers and blessing its growth.
You crown the year with your bounty;
Your wagon tracks overflow with richness.

Interesting, I just noted as I wrote these that there is a second parallelism here as well. There is an alternation throughout these verses of water/abundance like this:

You visit the earth and water it,
you greatly enrich it.
The river of God is full of water;
you provide the people with grain for so you have prepared it.
You water its furrows abundantly settling its ridges,
softening it with showers and blessing its growth.
You crown the year with your bounty;
Your wagon tracks overflow with richness.

vs.9-11

The other characteristic feature is chiasmus. I won't give an example as it would be considerably longer, but this is a passage in which a beginning thought is carried through to the middle of the passage, then parallel thoughts are added in reverse order to the end of the passage so that the end is an echo of the beginning.

The first creation account in Genesis does not contain either of these features in classic form, so on technical grounds can be considered not to be Hebrew poetry. At the same time it does contain many poetic features and can hardly be considered prose either.

It is written to be singable, i.e. suitable for liturgical chant. It has a structure foreign to prose, with many repetitive elements comparable to antiphonal refrains. Notable among these are:

God said: "Let..."
And it was so.
God saw that it was good.
And God called...
There was an evening and a morning, the ...th day.

There is also the parallelism of the days:
Day One & Day Four
Day Two & Day Five
Day Three & Day Six.

We also have the chiasmic feature of the end echoing the beginning:
1:1 "In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth..."
2:4a "These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when God created them."

It would seem that the writer has created a unique poetic form.

One reason for this may be that the writer is taking his basic framework from the Enuma Elish. He uses the creation account from that epic in order to refute its polytheism and exalt the God of Israel. So he is constrained by his purpose of staying with its chronological and hierarchical framework. And by its epic quality. There does not seem to have been a tradition of epic poetry in Hebrew culture. (A Hebrew scholar may have an example I am unaware of.) I am guessing (and I stress "guessing") that what we have hear is an amalgam of Babylonian epic with Hebrew poetic convention to produce something unique that is poetry, but not classical Hebrew poetry.

One thing to keep in mind here is that the normal order of a Hebrew narrative is: Conjunction-Subject-Verb-Object.

When you are talking about it being singable, are you thinking in English or Hebrew?

Why do you think the writer may be taking the framework from the Enuma Elish?

Also, have you look into the verb usage showing consecutive action? Also have you looked into the usage of the perfect verb to begin the narrative and the imperfect verbs to continue? This type of style strongly suggests a narrative writing.

Also, it cannot be a Parable because to be consistent with the Biblical text, Parables are either told to be so in the beginning, as Jesus often did, or they begin with a simile.

The parallelism you are speaking of is not the parallelism used in the Hebrew language. The Hebrew language uses parallelism such as overt, contrast, completive, etc. An example is Psalms 1:1; notice walk, stand, sit. That is called a triple parallelism.

Notice Proverbs 27:6, it employs contrastive parallelism by stating "Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful."

Psalms 46:1 uses completive parallelism by stating "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in need."

The repetitions in Genesis have none of the forms of Hebrew poetry.

I agree, Genesis is epic, so is Revelations, but Jesus Christ is coming back, it is not figurative for a different meaning other than His return.

And thank you for at least presenting Genesis how you see it, without science being added into it. It is quite a refreshing change of pace.

The parallelism you are speaking of is not the parallelism used in the Hebrew language.

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You seem to speak as if there was no room for originality in poetic technique in Hebrew. There was a time in the West when it was thought that poetry had to rhyme to be "true" poetry. This is no longer the case (though there are still a few diehards who think otherwise) and it was never really true in anycase, because there was always "blank verse" (unrhymed but metered verse) and what are often called "nonce forms": singular forms that were created for one poem only. You seem to assume that poets aren't allowed to sometimes break the rules. We are; after all, we invented the rules.

Actually, the translation of the Psalms into English is perhaps a good example: they were not translated into English metres such as iambic pentameter, but into an approximation of the original form. (Contrast Chapeman's Homer: from unrhymed Greek hexameter to rhymed iambic pentameter.) It is entirely possible that, in adapting the structure of the Enuma Elish, the writers of Gen 1 were being creative withthe usual strictures of Hebrew paralellism for polemical purposes.

Part of the job of a poet is to stretch the form, to reinvent it if neccessary.

And Revelation is not epic (it's not a synonym for "wow, amazing", it's a very specific literary form with its own rules); it is "apocalyptic": two different literary forms entirely (epics are set entirely in the past, for starters.)

Critias said:

One thing to keep in mind here is that the normal order of a Hebrew narrative is: Conjunction-Subject-Verb-Object.

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While poetry may vary that order, I would assume that poetry can also use that order.

When you are talking about it being singable, are you thinking in English or Hebrew?

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Hebrew. In fact it is sung in synagogue worship.

Why do you think the writer may be taking the framework from the Enuma Elish?

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His order of creation is the same, except that he attributes all of creation to God rather than to the Babylonian pantheon. He is taking the works of the gods and claiming them all for God, thus divesting the gods of divinity.

Also, have you look into the verb usage showing consecutive action? Also have you looked into the usage of the perfect verb to begin the narrative and the imperfect verbs to continue? This type of style strongly suggests a narrative writing.

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I have always been told that the first verb in the text is imperfect and would be correctly translated as "was creating". The NRSV uses this translation and I assume the Hebrew scholars understood Hebrew.

However, I don't grant that a series of verbs showing consecutive action implies narrative writing. Epic poetry and ballads which tell a story would also include this feature.

Also, it cannot be a Parable because to be consistent with the Biblical text, Parables are either told to be so in the beginning, as Jesus often did, or they begin with a simile.

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Correct, it is not a parable and I never claimed it was.

The parallelism you are speaking of is not the parallelism used in the Hebrew language. The Hebrew language uses parallelism such as overt, contrast, completive, etc. An example is Psalms 1:1; notice walk, stand, sit. That is called a triple parallelism.

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This is just more detail about parallelism. I was being brief.

The repetitions in Genesis have none of the forms of Hebrew poetry.

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Doesn't need to to be poetic. I agree it is not classic Hebrew poetry. That doesn't mean it is not poetry or at least poetic prose.

I agree, Genesis is epic, so is Revelations, but Jesus Christ is coming back, it is not figurative for a different meaning other than His return.

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I don't see evidence of Genesis being epic poetry, but I will accept correction from someone knowledgeable on the subject. Revelations is not epic; it is apocalyptic writing. Apocalyptic writing is by definition highly figurative. Nothing in apocalyptic writing is not figurative.

Just a correction, gluadys, as regards narrative. Narrative is story: it's not a literary form as such. Narratives can be told in verse, prose or dramatic form. Narrative also, of course, doesn't imply factuality: fiction is as narrative as history. Also, it doesn't have to be consecutive in detail: the use of flashback, for instance, in film scripts, is still narrative.

Even if Gen 1 were narrative, it wouldn't neccessarily mean that it was factual. The parables were narrative in form (though that doesn't mean Gen 1 is parable.)

artybloke said:

Just a correction, gluadys, as regards narrative. Narrative is story: it's not a literary form as such. Narratives can be told in verse, prose or dramatic form. Narrative also, of course, doesn't imply factuality: fiction is as narrative as history. Also, it doesn't have to be consecutive in detail: the use of flashback, for instance, in film scripts, is still narrative.

Even if Gen 1 were narrative, it wouldn't neccessarily mean that it was factual. The parables were narrative in form (though that doesn't mean Gen 1 is parable.)

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Yes, I actually had that in the back of my head and forgot to add it. A ballad, for example is a narrative in poetic form.

In fact the whole question of whether Gen. 1 is poetry, poetic narrative or narrative prose misses the point entirely. Any of these literary forms could be referring to literal fact but none of them are a sure-fire indication of literal fact.

Modern novels are narrative prose, and if you took a scene from one of them without noting the source, nothing would distinguish it from a newspaper article describing a real event.

By the same token real events are sometimes described in verse. The function of a poet laureate is to commemorate historical events in this way. And Americans have a perfect example of that in their national anthem, which describes a historical scene during the Revolutionary War.

gluadys said:

While poetry may vary that order, I would assume that poetry can also use that order.

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I can agree with this, but the problem is there is no evidence of the Hebrew language doing such.

gluadys said:

Hebrew. In fact it is sung in synagogue worship.



His order of creation is the same, except that he attributes all of creation to God rather than to the Babylonian pantheon. He is taking the works of the gods and claiming them all for God, thus divesting the gods of divinity.

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That is a stretch to say the Enuma Elish has the same order of creation. It doesn't cover what Genesis covers in detail. It doesn't talk about the creation of the heavens and earth, but talks about them already being there.

Anyone can read it here and see if it matches as well as Glaudy's thinks with Genesis.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/ane/enuma.htm

Could you show me how you see the order of creation in Genesis matching up with the Enuma Elish? Enuma Elish spends no more than 9 lines about pieces of creation, not creating.

But, I assume you see it differently. So maybe you can help me see it as you do?

gluadys said:

I have always been told that the first verb in the text is imperfect and would be correctly translated as "was creating". The NRSV uses this translation and I assume the Hebrew scholars understood Hebrew.

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Genesis 1:1 is an example, the first verb is bara and it is a perfect verb. In Hebrew, it means to create. I don't have a NRSV with me at the moment, so I looked online at one at it translates bara as "created".

gluadys said:

However, I don't grant that a series of verbs showing consecutive action implies narrative writing. Epic poetry and ballads which tell a story would also include this feature.

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But, we are talking about the Hebrew language in the ancient Hebrew times.

gluadys said:

Correct, it is not a parable and I never claimed it was.

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I didn't think you were, but I threw it in because I know others here do.

gluadys said:

This is just more detail about parallelism. I was being brief.



Doesn't need to to be poetic. I agree it is not classic Hebrew poetry. That doesn't mean it is not poetry or at least poetic prose.

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If this is your claim that it can still be poetic prose, you would have to show evidence of things written that fit this in Hebrew around the time of its writing.

I haven't seen anything, but maybe you have?

gluadys said:

I don't see evidence of Genesis being epic poetry, but I will accept correction from someone knowledgeable on the subject. Revelations is not epic; it is apocalyptic writing. Apocalyptic writing is by definition highly figurative. Nothing in apocalyptic writing is not figurative.

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Well that is my fault, I was thinking of large or grand event, same with Revelations.

Now, in it is written in Revelations that Jesus Christ will come judge. You said nothing in apocalyptic writing is not figurative and that Revelations is apocalyptic writing. So, my question to you, will Jesus actually judge all mankind, as Revelations says, or do you think that is not the meaning of what is written?

gluadys said:

By the same token real events are sometimes described in verse. The function of a poet laureate is to commemorate historical events in this way. And Americans have a perfect example of that in their national anthem, which describes a historical scene during the Revolutionary War.

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Just had to correct this... It was covering the War of 1812.

LewisWildermuth said:

Just had to correct this... It was covering the War of 1812.

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Ah. I never knew that.

but the problem is there is no evidence of the Hebrew language doing such

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I don't understand this; the Hebrew language doesn't "do" anything. People (writers and speakers) "do" things with the language. Besides, if Genesis 1 is a poem, then there is evidence of the Hebrew language "doing" precisely that.

Genesis 1 has been considered by Jewish cantors to be a singable poem for thousands of years; it is sung in synagogue and was probably sung in the Temple. If Jewish people think it's a poem, and Jewish people wrote it, then I would say it's up to them to decide what kind of literature it is.

A poem is a poem because a poet or a community of readers says its a poem, not because it conforms or does not conform to a set of rules decided by a bunch of literalists 2000 years later.

artybloke said:

I don't understand this; the Hebrew language doesn't "do" anything. People (writers and speakers) "do" things with the language. Besides, if Genesis 1 is a poem, then there is evidence of the Hebrew language "doing" precisely that.

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With all your deduction skills you cannot understand this? I am rather suprised.

If you actually go look and study Genesis in Hebrew, you will see that it is not a poem.

As many TEs accuse yec's of not looking at the evidence, you are not looking at the evidence of Genesis.

artybloke said:

Genesis 1 has been considered by Jewish cantors to be a singable poem for thousands of years; it is sung in synagogue and was probably sung in the Temple. If Jewish people think it's a poem, and Jewish people wrote it, then I would say it's up to them to decide what kind of literature it is.

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So anything that is sung, is automatically not history and is a poem or poetic or myth? Do you want to stand by this claim?

Throughout Jewish history, Genesis has been read as a historical narrative. There are a some who read Genesis as a historical narrative and allegorically, but only to find out what Jesus has to say within the text.

artybloke said:

A poem is a poem because a poet or a community of readers says its a poem, not because it conforms or does not conform to a set of rules decided by a bunch of literalists 2000 years later.

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Really? Care to back up this with actual evidence when concerning Genesis?