Reddit reviews The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate
We found 47 Reddit comments about The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Answers in Genesis is basically a young earth, six day creationist group. Their founder, Ken Ham, is a questionable fellow (just google him), but is unquestionably bad with science.
I would be hard pressed to promote anything from AIG. I don't envy your predicament.
Having said that, a book on the subject I really recommend folk read is Walton's The Lost World of Genesis One. Corny title, amazing book.
I believe in and subscribe to evolution. The science is undeniable.
You probably realize that there are good and strong Christians who take different positions about creation and evolution. There are 5 main positions:
At the same time, there are 6 different ways to define “evolution.” Only #6 is completely contrary to Christianity.
So how can the Bible and evolution go together? Very easily if we take Christian position #5 and evolutionary positions #1-5. As long as we keep God as the central and necessary sovereign intelligence, power, person, and morality in the process, I don’t see where it’s a problem.
I subscribe to the interpretation of Genesis 1-2 laid out by Dr. John Walton in “The Lost World of Genesis 1” (https://www.amazon.com/Lost-World-Genesis-One-Cosmology/dp/0830837043/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=john+walton&qid=1564575785&s=gateway&sr=8-2). Briefly reporting, in it he asserts that Genesis 1 is about how God ordered the cosmos to function, not how He manufactured it. Certainly God created the universe (as taught in other verses in the Bible), but that’s not what Genesis 1 is about.
The first "day" is clearly (literally) about a *period* of light called day, and a *period* of light called night. It is about the sequence of day and night, evening and morning, literally. Therefore, what Day 1 is about is God ordering the universe and our lives with the function of TIME, not God creating what the physicists call "light," about which the ancients knew nothing.
Look through the whole chapter. It is about how the firmament functions to bring us weather (the firmament above and below), how the earth functions to bring forth plants for our sustenance, how the sun, moon, and stars function to order the days and seasons. We find out in day 6 the function of humans: to be fruitful and multiply, to rule the earth and subdue it. Walton contends that we have to look at the text through ancient eyes, not modern ones, and the concern of the ancients was function and order. (It was a given that the deities created the material universe.) The differences between cultures (and creation accounts) was how the universe functioned, how it was ordered, and what people were for. (There were large disagreements among the ancients about function and order; it widely separates the Bible from the surrounding mythologies.)
And on the 7th day God rested. In the ancient world when a god came to "rest" in the temple, he came to live there and engage with the people as their god. So it is not a day of disengagement, but of action and relationship.
In other words, it's a temple text, not an account of material creation. There was no temple that could be built by human hands that would be suitable for him, so God ordered the entire universe to function as his Temple. The earth was ordered to function as the "Holy Place," and the Garden of Eden as his "Holy of Holies." Adam and Eve were given the function of being his priest and priestess, to care for sacred space (very similar to Leviticus) and to be in relationship with God (that's what Genesis 2 is about).
You probably want to know about the seven days. In the ancient world ALL temple dedications were 7-day dedications, where what God had done to order his world was rehearsed, and on the 7th day God came to "rest" in his temple—to dwell with his people and engage with them as their God. That's what the seven days mean.
Back to evolution. Therefore Gn 1-2 make no comment on *how* the material world came about, or how long it took. We need science to tell us that. We need Gn 1-2 to tell us what it's there for (God's temple) and how it is supposed to function (to provide a place of fellowship between God and humans, and to bring God glory as an adequate temple for his Majesty).
Feel free to discuss this. For those who have never heard these ideas, it takes a little adjusting. But they make a whole lot of sense to me.
This was what first made me start the process of deconversion. I had for a long time held that some form of theistic evolution must be true. I had read Francis Collins, and John Walton books, and thought my reasoning was logical.
The tiny seeds of my eventual deconversion were planted however in a discussion/debate with my mother-in-law. She is a staunch creationist, doesn't think anyone who believes in evolution can possibly be a christian. We had a long discussion about the issue, and she kind of came around to my point of view--or at least didn't think I was going straight to hell anymore. But in the course of this conversation, she off-handedly made some comment about evolution meaning there was always death. We didn't really talk about the subject any more than that.
But it kept popping into my mind over the coming days. And for some reason, I had never considered this idea before. Months later, after much research, reading and considering, I came to realize that I could find no acceptable explanation for what "the fall" was, if it was a merely symbolic event. If there was always sickness and pain and death from day one, then the world was always "fallen". And without a fall, my understanding of who Jesus was and what he did was on VERY shaky ground. So it was the beginning of the end for me.
Here's my reading list on Reformed Perspectives on Creation. I don't agree with everything written by all of the authors, but they are all worth reading. The also aren't all written from a Reformed perspective, but many of them are. If you are looking more for a Scientific perspective I'd particularly recommend Collins, Jelsma, and Haarsma since those are the ones written by scientists instead of theologians. If you didn't see it already, I also listed a number of other resources by Collins yesterday in the post about his AMA.
>in the opinion of modern scholars
In the opinion of some modern scholars. The opinions to which you give voice are hardly universal and they're trending toward a minority among contemporary scholars. Such views were much more widely held at the beginning of the 20th Century, for instance, than they are today.
Among the scholars to which you can refer to good scholarship and a less Modernist point of view are N.T. Wright and Scott Hahn. Both are (as far as I know) well regarded scholars of the Bible. There are others but those are the two that spring to mind.
>the disciples didn't really believe Jesus was God (if he existed)
I think this is false on the face of it, and even Bart Ehrman concludes that it was their belief in the resurrection that convinced Jesus' disciples that Jesus was God in the years immediately following the crucifixion. See here for a radio interview with Ehrman about his book, How Jesus Became God.
Ehrman courted the disfavor of his atheist admirers in one of his other recent books, where he took aim at the Jesus mythicists, arguing that Jesus was definitely an historical character.
Again, I would refer you to N.T. Wright and his works on the historicity of the Bible.
> the Bible is a collage of stolen myths
Once again, this is just flatly false and is only believed by the most extreme "scholars" in the Jesus Mythicist camp (as far as I know).
>My second question: is there a term for someone who studies Biblical topics in general? As in one who studies ancient near-east cultures, comparative mythology, languages, Biblical source documents, Jewish literature, archaeology, and other "Biblical Humanities"? That's what I like.
I don't know about a "term", but check out Scott Hahn, the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, this book (if you can find it), and especially (for this question), I would recommend John Walton and his books, The Lost World of Genesis One and Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible.
Unclean by Richard Beck
The Language of God by Dr. Francis Collins
The Lost World of Genesis One by John H. Walton
Birth and Death: Bioethical Decision Making by Paul D. Simmons
The Authenticity of Faith by Richard Beck
Beyond The Firmament by Gordon J. Glover
All of these were required reads for me as I pursued a biology degree at a Christian university. I hope these help, and I wish you the best! If you have any questions about any of the books, please feel free to ask!!
> I cannot reconcile it with realistic interpretations of scripture
John Walton is a very well known Old Testament scholar who has written two books on why the literalistic interpretation of Genesis is incorrect and dishonest as the proper way to read Genesis (that is, the way that the ancient Israelites would have read Genesis). Surprisingly, he also criticizes the way that scientific minded Christians have forced a reading of Genesis to automatically fit with the evolution narrative. He doesn't touch on any science at all in his exposition and sticks to the text, so I would highly recommend checking it out.
I can't say one single piece of evidence (or a single study) convinced me, but I can summarize the various pieces of evidence as biogeography - the fact that we see similar (related) creatures living in the same geographic area and even some creatures on different continents with similar features in places where plate tectonics would lead us to expect similarities - and genetics, most notably the human vitamin c gene, which is defective.
The evidence for evolution is not measured in single studies, but in the weight of the collective evidence. For an overview of the collective evidence across many fields, this book by Jerry Coyne lays out the general case for the factuality of evolution. If you read it you do need to be ready for some Dawkins-esque posturing - he wrote a book on why faith and science are incompatible, but the information in the book is very good. For a basic summary, this Khan Academy page does a good job.
Finally, institutions like the Biologos institute convinced me that it's Biblically okay to believe in Theistic Evolution (Evolutionary Creation? Whichever one posits God's active involvement in creation via evolution.). The final "nail in the coffin" was The Lost World of Genesis One by John Walton.
Although it may seem wild at first, I subscribe to John Walton's cosmic temple inauguration explanation. He looked closely at ancient Near Eastern literature and the Hebrew text with emphasis on the Hebrew word for "create" (bara). He discusses two types of ontologies, one material and one functional. Material creation would be what we're most familiar with, like creating a table. An example of functional ontology would be creating a meeting.
Walton makes a convincing argument that Genesis 1 is an account of God's functional creation. He took one week of 24 hour days to inaugurate his material creation, which we can observe components of scientifically but don't have a scriptural description.
I believe Adam and Eve existed but were not the first homosapiens. They were the first to be created in God's image. I also believe (not scripturally, but from our best scientific theories) in the big bang and evolution.
A good analogy would be the creation of a university. The building could take years to build. Faculty and staff would need to be interviewed and hired. Class schedules would need to be designed. The university is functionally created on the first day of class when everyone shows up and fulfills the design.
If you're interested, here is The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate
Recommended reading:
https://www.amazon.ca/Lost-World-Genesis-One/dp/0830837043/ref=sr_1_1?gclid=Cj0KCQjw9pDpBRCkARIsAOzRzitJQir5J_NG8yPgD4EH9IdTpm2wn2OiiZRiSHo5vBbYxZKZC926mBoaAnnaEALw_wcB&hvadid=208286115110&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=20114&hvnetw=g&hvpos=1t1&hvqmt=e&hvrand=10241583889775154648&hvtargid=kwd-316623507001&hydadcr=22462_9261645&keywords=the+lost+world+of+genesis+1&qid=1562708990&s=gateway&sr=8-1
And no, it wasn't something I read because I wanted my beliefs confirmed. It actually contradicts my views on Genesis and I'm having to think about them.
Of course "six days" means "six days." The question is what does a "day" mean for the writer(s) of Genesis. Is it a period of 24 hours or not? All evidence from the surrounding passage suggests that the writer wouldn't have meant a literal 24 hour period.
I'll simplify it. What do I mean when I say to someone "I've been stuck in traffic for a year!"? Do I mean a literal period of 356 (and a third) days? No, I'd certainly hope not. How'd you know that? Context of what I was talking about. Now reread the rest Gen 1-12 with this in mind. But also read the scholarship of the people who get paid to investigate this sort of thing.
Also, as to my Hebrew qualifications, I'd rather this not become a fight about whether I'm more or less qualified than you. That's an illogical way of arguing (ad hominem). Instead, since you're well versed in Hebrew, let's also presume that you're well versed in Old Testament scholarship. So here's a better way to go about things: let's list some scholarship. I'll start. Here's a tenured Old Testament professor who's studied Hebrew for about 40 years professionally. He teaches at a fairly conservative Christian college in the United States which has a reputation for being the Harvard of the Christian education world. He's written a book called The Lost World of Genesis One which supports everything I've mentioned. But don't buy his theological position just because of his tremendous qualifications. Read the book because of that. Make up your own mind as to the success or failure of his argument. This is how intellectual discussions work.
A friend of mine just recommended this book to me yesterday! This is the book's description on Amazon:
In this astute mix of cultural critique and biblical studies, John H. Walton presents and defends twenty propositions supporting a literary and theological understanding of Genesis 1 within the context of the ancient Near Eastern world and unpacks its implications for our modern scientific understanding of origins. Ideal for students, professors, pastors and lay readers with an interest in the intelligent design controversy and creation-evolution debates, Walton's thoughtful analysis unpacks seldom appreciated aspects of the biblical text and sets Bible-believing scientists free to investigate the question of origins.
It sounded quite interesting. Basically, the author compares the content from Genesis chapter one to other nations' writings on the origin of the world. He also writes that our modern thinking today views the creation story as the creation of the material world, but the original readers would have seen Genesis one as the creation of the functional world. More about organization and function of things, not origin of things.
Again, I have not read the book yet, but plan on it. It does use The Bible but compared with other theories and civilizations I believe. Just thought I'd share since I just found out about this book yesterday!
I may reply more to you later, but as a quick reply, you may be interested in the work of a couple of professors, both of whom acknowledge evolution as the mechanism behind the creation of life.
One is C. John Collins, professor of Old Testament at Covenant Theological Seminary. He believes in a literal Adam and Eve and his book is Did Adam and Eve Really Exist?: Who They Were and Why You Should Care.
The second is John Walton, professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College. He does not believe in a literal Adam and Eve and his book is The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate.
BioLogos.org deals head-on with this controversy in a polite and open manner. Seriously, they rock.
The Language of God, by Francis Collins, is a great starting point for the science-end of the issue.
The Lost World of Genesis One, by John Walton, is a great starting point for the Bible-end of the issue.
The Bible Project's podcast episode Science and Faith handles this issue wonderfully, as per the norm with Tim Mackie.
There are loads of other places you could go, but these are great starting points that can lead you to other sources of information. They were very helpful for me.
I'd highly recommend John Walton's The Lost World of Genesis One, Thom Stark's The Human Faces of God, and Pete Enns' The Evolution of Adam. It seems like you're using an extremely literal reading of Genesis, and it might help to look at the text in the context of its time and culture.
The academic work of John Walton is what makes the most sense to me.
A really good talk by Tim Mackie from the Bible Project sums it up incredibly well.
WARNING: Long post ahead!
I admire your desire to avoid confirmation bias and develop a stronger and more reasoned system of beliefs. I also appreciate your honesty in admitting that in some sense, you wish that Christianity could still be true. The pain you are experiencing from questioning long-held beliefs is very familiar to many folks on this sub.
You're not alone. And you should definitely not give up. :)
However:
>>I will follow the evidence wherever it leads.
I'll warn you up front that if you do this, you will probably be led away from any sort of belief in Christianity. Christianity is a religion whose truth or falsehood hinges upon specific historical claims. If Jesus either (1) did not exist, or (2) existed but was not divine and did not resurrect from the dead, then Christianity literally cannot be true. And having walked the same path you're on, I found that the evidence led me to abandoning Christianity. I'm an engineer myself, and eventually I had to accept that the historical evidence just doesn't support Christianity.
With that being said, I've been reading the other posts and discussions here thus far, and it sounds to me like you're stuck between two difficult options: (1) a genuine desire to be intellectually honest, no matter the cost, and (2) facing the difficulty of abandoning a belief system which has been a major part of your marriage and your family. If you want to walk the line between the two, I would recommend that you adopt a rationalistic form of classical Deism or Theism. Accepting a "minimalistic theism," as you put it, might be pragmatically very useful. It could help smooth out any potential conflicts you might have with your spouse and children. At this emotionally difficult time, that could be very beneficial to both you and them. It could also help your family start to look at religious belief in a more rational light, just as you do.
If you haven't already, take a look at some of the best Christian apologists out there --- John Lennox, William Lane Craig, Gary Habermas, Alvin Plantinga, and the like. I didn't find them convincing, but reading their arguments could probably help you develop a more intellectually rigorous belief system.
Also, take a look at some books written by theistic evolutionists, such as Evolutionary Creation: A Christian Approach to Evolution by Denis Lamoureux, and The Lost World of Genesis One by John Walton. These scholars have had no difficult reconciling science with theism, and they might help you in your quest to develop a minimalist theistic belief system.
Finally, this process can be long and painful, and you shouldn't rush yourself through it. Take your time.
And as always, please use this sub for questions and support when you need. If you have more questions, or want to discuss this further, let me know.
I suggest you take a look at these two AMAs from this past year:
Notable comment from the thread with further resources:
>My biggest recommendations would be:
> [The Language of God*](http://www.amazon.com/The-Language-God-Scientist-Presents/dp/1416542744/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1400689255&sr=8-1&keywords=The+language+of+God), by Francis Collins (the founder of BioLogos; a great treatise about how science and faith can work together)
[John Walton] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_H._Walton) is an OT scholar and professor at Wheaton College. I just finished the [Lost World of Genesis One] (https://www.amazon.ca/Lost-World-Genesis-One/dp/0830837043/) this week and would highly recommend it.
He argues that the creation account concerns functional origins rather than material origins. To show this he considers a few Hebrew words in Genesis 1, specifically bara (translated as 'create') and tohu and bohu (translated as 'formless and void'). He contends that bara primarily concerns function-giving instead of material creation, and that tohu/bohu refer to an unproductive/nonfunctional state instead of an empty one. His analysis relies heavily on considering ancient near east culture and how they would have interpreted what's writtten in Gen. 1, claiming that a truly literal approach to reading the Bible is found through understanding what it meant in the world that it was first written.
Of course he goes into a lot more detail, and discusses a number of other topics related to the Gen. 1 debate. If you're like I was before reading it, these kinds of arguments will be pretty foreign to you, but I found them to be pretty persuasive and certainly worth a read.
>Christians who don't believe in YEC, are you mostly in the Age Gap boat, where you feel that evolution is compatible with Scripture, and you don't take portions of Genesis literally (or some other combination that makes room for deep geologic time)?
I find gap theory fairly unconvincing. I don't think Genesis 1 is actually concerned with giving a scientific chronology of creation, but has more theological interests. My take is generally something like the "poetic framework" view, though I find John Walton's approach very informative. In general I find Biologos a useful resource for examining the origins debate from a Christian and scientific perspective.
>I'm mainly asking out of curiosity, because there seems to be a fair amount of "evidence" on both sides, but I also think that both evolutionists and creationists take a fair amount of truth from evidence on faith rather than facts. What is the main deciding factor in your belief either way (specifically, evidence that points to the truth of your belief other than that the Bible says that it happened)?
There seems to be an overwhelming amount of evidence to indicate that life has common ancestry, earth has a deep geological history, and the universe has an even older history going back to the big bang.
Either God created the universe to appear old, or it really is old.
You should definitely stay in the faith. From what you've said you're the ideal person to be a Christian. Jesus came to save sinners, not the perfect. If you feel like you don't pray enough, remind yourself that there's no gold star for praying, and that God never says he'll punish anyone for not praying enough. You're right that being a Christian isn't always easy, but it really is worth it. And yes, it can be difficult, but it's also freedom and true life. I know personally that feeling like a hypocrite sucks, but it's worth staying with it. I went through about 5 years of flirting with atheism and feeling trapped but I'm so glad I stayed. There are answers to your doubts, very good ones. But it can take a bit of searching to find good ones.
Re. Reading the Bible, I think your instinct to be careful in your interpretation is really helpful, but that doesn't mean the only options you have is reading everything as 100% literal (as in, this is what I would've seen if someone was there with a camera) on the one hand, and 100% allegorical (as in, this is kind of like Lord of the Rings in that it makes a nice point but is really just fantasy) on the other.
If you're thinking of Genesis in particular, there's a long history of reading it as not necessarily referring to 6 literal 24hr days (for example St Augustine). [The lost world of Genesis 1] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0830837043?ie=UTF8&tag=thebiofou06-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0830837043) by John Walton is a good place to start if you want to understand the way in which Genesis fits its Ancient Near Eastern context.
On the bigger topic of archaeology, slavery, what's the point of Genesis, why is the OT so wierd, is there a way between literalism and allegoricalism? etc. Inspiration and Incarnation
by Peter Enns is by far the most helpful thing I've read.
TL:DR
Keep going! Read Atheist Delusions, The Lost world of Genesis 1 and, Inspiration and Incarnation. Don't give up, there's plenty of really good answers out there. Christianity is life and freedom. You may not feel it now but the more you look into it, the more you'll see it. At least, that's my experience.
Genesis is not a Gospel. It's the first book of the Old Testament (and therefore the Bible). Beyond that, I don't know what a "a know-it-all/always right" is. It's certainly not something I'd write.
As for the things you quote: Genesis was written to a
bronzeiron age culture. That doesn't mean they were idiots. They could ask the exact same questions -- and certainly would have. They also had practical knowledge and common sense; they understood God wasn't telling them to eat poison berries. So Genesis is saying something else; it's not giving a play-by-play scientific description of the origins of material existence. It's very likely talking about God's establishing an order to creation and placing man in the divine economy.John Walton has two books on this idea, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate and The Lost World of Adam and Eve: Genesis 2-3 and the Human Origins Debate (with N.T. Wright). I've read both, and they're a good introduction to a better contextual understanding of Genesis and its purpose as Scripture. I personally prefer something with a little more theological and (modern) cosmological depth to it, but they're aimed at a general audience and in that respect I think they're worth reading.
EDIT: bronze -> iron.
The Lost World of Genesis One is a very interesting book written by a Bible-believing Christian for Bible-believing Christians that discusses the theology of Genesis 1.
It mentions evolution in passing, but primarily discusses what a 7 day creation week means from a scriptural/historical point of view.
It's a very readable and interesting book. I don't agree with all of it, but it is certainly a well argued view point.
Well, that's the common idea among leading Hebrew scholars.
Here are a few other good articles.
No Contest - Why the Argument Over Genesis?
Book Review: Walton’s The Lost World of Genesis One
Personally, I recommend the whole book. Walton is one of the leading, if not the foremost, Old Testament scholars of our time.
The Lost World of Genesis One
The resource I used was The Lost World of Genesis One by John Walton.
To understand the biblical creation account, you have to put it in its cultural context. God inspired the story to tell them that he, alone, was responsible for creation. He didn't give them a science textbook to explain how the cosmos worked; he gave them a story that aligned with their view of the cosmos, and their view was completely different than our view.
For example, the people in that area, at that time, saw the cosmos as: earth (the realm where we are, not a planet), with "waters" above and below. They put "waters" there because the seas they were familiar with represented the unknown and chaos.
If you want more (lots more) information about this, look for John Walton's talks and books:
An intro:
http://biologos.org/resources/videos/john-walton-on-understanding-genesis
A detailed talk—the whole thing is good, but here's where he talks about the cosmology:
https://youtu.be/3a5Fcyb9tD0?t=613
His popular book:
https://www.amazon.com/Lost-World-Genesis-One-Cosmology/dp/0830837043
And Google will return lots, lots more.
The problem here is that your co-worker will never acknowledge evolution's merits because he cannot say that the Bible is wrong or false in any way. Infallability and inerrancy are two core beliefs of fundamentalists about the Bible, and in his view, Genesis is very clear about what happened six thousand years ago.
If you want to convince him that it's OK to look to science for explanations of how the world came to be without giving up his beliefs about the Bible's inerrancy and infallibility, you'll have to tell him about a reasonable alternative explanation of Genesis 1 that still allows room for the reader to look to science for answers regarding the origin of the world.
Here's is a fantastic presentation by Dr. John Walton, a theologian, who interprets Genesis 1 in a different way than a lot of Christians are used to. Walton argues that the creation described in Genesis was not describing the material origins of the world, but rather the functional origins, which is more consistent with the way Ancient Israelites would have understood the concept of "creation" (he explains it all in the video). I heard John Walton talk about this in person (and read his book, The Lost World of Genesis One), and it was what finally made me more comfortable with evolution as a legitimate science, having come from a fundamentalist background myself.
It's from a Christian author and theologian who is sympathetic to the Christian view, and it's on YouTube, so it's free!
Regarding your second question, some would argue (rightly, I believe) that a literal interpretation requires analyzing the text as it would have been understood for its contemporary audience. This requires translating culture along with the obvious language translation. The ancient cultures (not just Jews, but Akkadians, Sumerians, Egyptians, etc.) were much more concerned with existence/creation from a functional perspective (something exists because it has purpose), in contrast to modern thoughts that they deal with the material nature.
I'm presently reading The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate by John Walton, and would definitely recommend getting your hands on it if this topic interests you. While you can take this with a grain of salt, Walton doesn't appear be using an escapist argument to avoid disagreement between other "literal" (e.g. 6,000 year old earth) interpretations of Genesis and modern science. He makes a compelling case for his form of literal interpretation, and the Christian/genome-scientist Francis Collins has come out in support of it.
I've heard good things about this book, which may help.
https://www.amazon.com/Lost-World-Genesis-One-Cosmology/dp/0830837043
Let's stick to the firmament for a bit. Your authors are quite wrong on a number of counts.
Here's the definition of the Hebrew word from my condensed copy of BDB, considered the definitive Hebrew lexicon:
רָקִיעַ n.m. extended surface, (solid) expanse (as if beaten out) — firmamentum
First, there's a few places in the Bible where the firmament is shown as clearly solid:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=job%2037:18;%20Job%2022:14&version=HCSB
(Note the verb translated "spread out" is the verb form of the word translated as firmament. In every use in the OT it means to beat out a solid thing. Here's two other uses of the verb form.)
A bunch of guys got to go up there and see God on top of the firmament:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ex%2024:9-10&version=HCSB
Also Ezekiel's vision clearly shows his views of the solid dome God lives above:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ezekiel%201:22-25;%2010:1-2&version=HCSB
At minimum this makes the claim that they didn't know of this cosmology seem silly. The same is true of the claim that it wasn't a common cosmology. We have good evidence for the summerian and canaanite and other groups.
One of your other sources claims the Bible has birds fly in the firmament. That's not true, and it doesn't read that way in any modern translation, only those derived from the KJV. The verse in Genesis literally says "flies in front of the face of the firmament of the heavens". The word face is also used for the surface of the earth and other solid things, and a better translation is really "flies in front of the surface of the firmament of the heavens."
Consider also where the fire comes from to burn up Elijah's offering, where the chariot of fire goes up to, Jacob's ladder, etc.
There's tons more evidence, and if you want a book by a conservative Christian scholar on the issue, check out this one.
He also wrote The Lost World of Genesis One where he deals with how he thinks this information should be used to change our understanding of the goal of the writers of Genesis. An essay version of the main points of his book is here.
Interesting looking book. Here's a U.S. Amazon link, for all you 'muricans out there.
>Yes, there should be no there. Why would a benevolent god shield a few animals in a garden while the rest were susceptible to diseases and cancers and genetic disorders. Not to mentions the necessity of ending the life of another animal to eat is pretty miserable too. Both living things want to keep living but neither have sinned to warrant their own deaths.
I think you're kind of feeding into OP's assumption here, that suffering = result of sin. I'm arguing that isn't the case.
What Genesis 2-3 could be referring to is that time when God started revealing Himself to creation in a direct way, at a time when it was deemed humans were ready to respond. A fascinating part of the book The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate by John Walton was that some parts of the story seems to indicate that the adam (literally , "the human") was given priestly tasks. Perhaps it was the role of these first pair to start dishing out information on God, and people would come to Eden to meet with God. Certainly we get that impression from the rest of the Bible: that God isn't content with only a few knowing about Him, but that the whole world should come to worship (and of course, this kind of finds its climax in Christ, in the story of the Bible).
> Advice recall, In Genesis it implies God doesn't want them to live forever if they know the secrets of the world. So are you saying had they not eaten the first fruit they would have lived forever?
I would rather say, if they continued eating the second fruit. But eating the first fruit (from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) disqualified them from access to the second.
Now whatever that first tree represented is still up in the air. There's a number of good guesses. My personal favourite is that it's an idiom for "wisdom without reference to God". Kind of like how we might say "we searched high and low". We don't mean there's only two places we looked - it's everything inbetween. So too this first tree might be a metaphor for living without God, and instituting moral decisions without God's authority. It was, in effect, a mutiny.
Chapters 1-11 sorry.
“If the creation account was meant to be taken literally(which I think is more likely) then I believe it's incorrect.”
That’s the million dollar question, how did the original author of genesis intend readers to understand genesis 1. One book(or books) I would recommend on this subject is The Lost World Series by John Walton where he writes about interpreting Genesis in the Ancient Near Eastern context.
The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate https://www.amazon.com/dp/0830837043/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_etO6CbG3VQCRK
John Walton's the Lost World of Genesis One seems to be what you're looking for. He argues that Genesis 1 needs to be understood culturally rather than literally.
If I remember correctly, Keller's view on Genesis was influenced by Meredith Kline so reading him could be helpful. Kline helped popularize the [Framework interpretation of Genesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framework_interpretation_(Genesis)
A lot of this comes from a fairly accessible book called "The Lost World of Genesis 1" by John Walton. You can get it here: http://www.amazon.com/Lost-World-Genesis-One-Cosmology/dp/0830837043/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1314164889&sr=8-1
It's a great read.
I'm not here to support Christianity, but I would rather there be more Christians supporting science education in our schools and with their families. You can point out that there are many Christians that have found ways to reconcile their faith with science. Try redirecting him to the BioLogos Foundation or this book where the Christian author argues that Genesis isn't intended to provide a historical creation account.
Christians feel safer learning from other Christians. This might get him to open up his mind a little bit.
Depends on what you mean by "literal." I'm partial to John Walton's approach. He argues that Genesis one is describing the assigning of functions in the temple opening ceremony of the cosmos, NOT the material creation of the universe. If that is so, and with the insights pointed out by mynuname regarding the logic behind the structure of the assignments, there is no scientific problem. This reading is "literal," but it is with an awareness of the historical context in which Genesis was written. For more on this see: http://www.amazon.com/The-Lost-World-Genesis-One/dp/0830837043
You made me think of this book ... http://amzn.to/1tiQWlZ (John Walton)
I would encourage you to read “The Lost World of Genesis One” by Walton.
it’s worth it.
Well said, I read a book on Genesis 1 recently that went into the other early far eastern text and how they speak to creation and all the books were more focused on the functionality or purpose of the creations not the actual creation itself. I.E. They didn't seem to care how the trees were made, it was more important to know whom made them and what they purpose was for, in this sense science is helping reveal to us more the why and how.
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link to the book just to source it. I obviously paraphrased the entire book in one sentence which does not do it justice
https://www.amazon.com/Lost-World-Genesis-One-Cosmology/dp/0830837043?SubscriptionId=AKIAILSHYYTFIVPWUY6Q&tag=duckduckgo-d-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0830837043
>To me, the most obvious explanation for why you don't think Genesis should be taken literally is that you understand that it can't be literally true and so you conclude that it wasn't intended to be so. On the other hand, you want to believe in Jesus and the gospels, so you believe that they're true, and then decide that they must have been written as truth. If this isn't the reason for your position, then please tell me what your actual reason is.
Could you be a little more condescending here? How is this the "most obvious explanation"? This is the most obvious explanation if you take me to be an idiot or intellectually dishonest; I do not appreciate those implications. Charity will ensure that our discussions are fruitful.
If we are going to interpret the Bible, then we must discern how different genres should be interpreted. The Bible has a plethora of different genres: narrative, poetry, song, genealogy, letters, apocalypse, law, prophecy, etc. We need to understand the nature of these genres so we can read them right. Otherwise, we are going to produce absurd ideas. For example, if we read the newspaper thinking that it's a love poem, we will probably become frustrated.
Genesis 1 has a lot of poetic elements to it. It is a story of how God created the universe and assigned function to everything. It should not be difficult to see the poetic nature of this chapter. For example, Days 1-3 depict God creating various containers; Days 4-6 depict God filling the containers. On Day 4, he creates sun, moon, and stars, which corresponds to Day 1 - light and dark. Day 5 has fish and birds which fill the sky and sea (Day 2). Day 6 is plant and animal life and humans, which fills the land made on Day 3.
Anyway, the story is much more a story about God than about the mechanics of creation. It is not a historical narrative. Thus, trying to interpret this like we would a historical narrative is an unfortunate category mistake. I've found John Walton's The Lost World of Genesis One to be a helpful deconstruction of this chapter.
Now, the Gospels are a different genre. They are biographies of Jesus Christ, and they focus on what he did. These are quite similar to other, secular biographies that we have from the same time period. Furthermore, fiction from that time is not written like the Gospels. The Gospels demonstrate eyewitness sources. To say that they were not to be intended as actual history is to say that the writers effectively invented a brand-new genre of realistic fiction. Mythic writings in this time were not like the Gospels. For example, contrast the Revelation or 1 Enoch (apocalyptic literature) with the Gospels. One should easily be able to tell the difference.
The point is, we should realize that the Bible has different genres, was written over the course of hundreds of years, and is a diverse document. As it sounds silly to question if the epistles were written to actual people because the Psalms are worship music, the idea that Genesis 1 is not intended to be historical implies nothing about the historicity of the Gospels. If you are interesting in a full understanding of the different texts, I would recommend Fee/Stuart's How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, and How to Read the Bible Book by Book. They are helpful introductions to the topic of Biblical Intepretation.
Would this book be useful?
The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate
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Are you talking about what John Walton argues in his creation book, which name escapes me at the minute? Or something else? And it may be Walton's argument on a theological level, not necessarily this is how the ancient Hebrews viewed vocabulary.
EDIT: Found the book
I think that your instincts are right on - that you're right to think that the defense given for these positions does not cut it. And you are absolutely not the first person to notice this. I will say that I once believed as your pastor (was it a pastor or youth pastor?). But I've since really examined a lot of my beliefs and come to different conclusions. I think this is happening more and more.
I would encourage you to check out different churches, but I'm guessing because of your age that this might be difficult to do? If that is the case, I would encourage you in the meantime to do some reading. On evolution, I would recommend the following:
The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate
The Evolution of Adam, What the Bible Does and Doesn't Say about Human Origins
On the topic of homosexuality and the Bible, while it might seem to be selfish of me, I'm going to recommend a blogpost I wrote on the subject. There are books out there on this subject - I, however, arrived at my conclusions through much google searching and reading information from many, many websites. So I can't pick a book I haven't read and recommend it.
What if I told you scriptures are not a scientific tome, but rather a generalized explanation of a relationship between a divine being and people, how we should live with one another, care for one another, and help one another?
And that study of Science is there to help us understand the world we live in, and further the aforementioned goal of living with one another, caring for one another, and helping one another?
And that Scriptures were never intended to be a scientific tome, or even be referenced as a scientific tome?
John Walton, "Lost World of Genesis.", and "Lost world of Adam and Eve"
Anyway, I'm not saying you're wrong, but suggesting that perhaps the people who do have the position you correctly point out are very confused about what they have been taught about their scriptures.
They are totally compatible.
Here are some resources, though they may be a bit complicated:
http://biologos.org/
https://www.amazon.com/Lost-World-Genesis-One-Cosmology/dp/0830837043/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469110955&sr=8-1&keywords=the+lost+world+of+genesis+1