From The Vault: Genesis and ANE Creation Myths

In the modern time period probably no other book has continually engendered controversy and argument than the first book of the Hebrew and Christian Bibles. It has been argued as God’s record of his creation of the universe documenting the origins of humankind, and in contrast, an ancient religious myth written by ignorant people that did not understand the universe or the world they lived in. With two such diametrically opposed views it is not very hard to see why the conversation concerning Genesis has been so enduring and at times caustic. However, to present only these two views of Genesis would create a false dichotomy, and would be unfair to the number of competing views that lie in between. Therefore, before one can state their own position regarding Genesis it is necessary to look at the different views regarding this ancient account.

Positions

There are four major categories that can be used to identify the different positions taken in the Creation and Science debate, and the diverse understanding of the opening chapters of Genesis:[1]

1. Narrow Concordism: The biblical account is read literally as a premodern source of scientific information that will harmonize with modern science.[2]
2. Broad Concordism: Read the biblical account less literally in an attempt to arrive at a broad agreement between science and the Bible.
3. Evangelical Non-Concordism: Believes that Genesis teaches religious truth not physical truth; it is doctrinal and not historical,[3] therefore, the opening chapters of Genesis are to be seen as theological truth not as scientific truth.
4. Non-Concordism: Genesis is an irrelevant origins myth that is incompatible with what we know of the world through science today.[4]

Of importance in stating these four positions is the recognition that there are many people who do not fit into only one definition; some are in between certain positions, and some would use categories from different positions to substantiate specific beliefs that may fall outside of the general label they would identify themselves with.

Ancient Writing or Modern Science?

Sociologists in attempting to understand other cultures have two terms to rate the success or failure of such a study. The first term is ethnocentrism, which is the practice of judging another culture by the standards of one’s own culture. The second is cultural relativism, which is the practice of judging a culture by its own standards. In a very real sense to begin a study of Genesis the reader will have to practice cultural relativism, textual relativism, and historical relativism. The aims, practices, and purposes of writing in the ancient Near East were much different than today, and to understand the author’s intent, as near as possible, one must analyze the writing styles, beliefs, and accepted literary devices of the time, not later ones.

The first step in being relative to the book of Genesis is to look at contemporary origin stories. Genesis is written in what Simkins calls a “high-context society” and therefore he states, “It would be difficult, if not impossible, to reconstruct the proper scenarios or cultural understandings for adequately interpreting creation in the Bible. Too much information is assumed, and the biblical data are too fragmentary. Fortunately, we are aided by numerous creation myths from the cultures surrounding ancient Israel.”[5]

ANE Creation Accounts

Among the extant documents are creation myths from Babylonian, Akkadian, Sumerian, and Egyptian societies e.g. Enuma Elish, Hymn to Atum, and Atrahasis. While there are some broad similarities in the different creation accounts there is also a radical dissimilarity, and it is within this dissimilarity that it may be possible to identify some of the purposes of the Genesis account. The first difference is one of theogony; as opposed to the Genesis account “one cannot speak of a Mesopotamian view of the creation of the cosmos without speaking of the view of the creation of the gods: In Mesopotamia cosmogony is intertwined with theogony.”[6]

A second major difference is also found in the competing cosmogonies; the Mesopotamian cosmogonies have a propensity to highlight the ordering of the cosmos over its creation, and it is difficult to find anything of the cosmos created by a god.[7] In contrast, the primeval history of the Hebrews can be seen to present a God creating ex nihilo. A third difference is the ease in which the God of the Hebrews creates the cosmos as opposed to the chaos and conflict of competing cosmogonies.

In view of these differences, which are but a few among many, some commentators maintain that the Genesis creation account is a polemic against the competing religions of the time, and should be understood not as a scientific record but as a direct rebuttal to the opposing myths of other cultures. Day one to four dispense with the gods of the pagan pantheons, days five and six dispel the notion of divinity within the animal kingdom, and finally it is made clear that humanity is not divine while still enjoying a special relationship to God.[8]

Recognizing the intent of the author of Genesis in its ancient setting is of the utmost importance for one very simple reason: we can begin to stop forcing modern agendas on the text and try to understand what the original author was trying to communicate to his original audience.[9] In identifying the genre of Genesis the question should not be: how do I hear this story, but how did the ancient Israelites hear this story? And if one of the first priorities in effective reading and comprehension is genre identification then “modern science” is an impossible label to identify Genesis with as it did not exist at the time of its writing. One may as well look through the Pentateuch for Moses’ speculation on String Theory while wondering what word processor he was using.

The goal in approaching the text in this manner is not one of averting science, but of letting the text speak for itself. It is here that one may come to a weakness of the evangelical non-concordist position. If the main goal becomes to separate science and faith, and assert that they never have anything to say to each other, it would create a false dichotomy. While it can be argued that Genesis does not provide modern scientific answers it should not be claimed that theology, faith, and Genesis have nothing to say to modern science e.g. who is responsible for the universe, ethics, value of people, etc. If the genre of a text identifies itself as science then we shall have to deal with it scientifically, if it claims history then we shall have to deal with it historically. However, if the genre of the text identifies itself as theological polemic then we shall have to deal with it theologically, but even theological polemic may have something to say to science. This can be the difficult part, possibly admitting the theological and symbolic genre of a text; however, “the texts are still talking about the real world and its history in their own way.”[10] We must learn from past examples of people demanding literal science from the text e.g. the abuse that Galileo suffered for his heretical theories. There is a deep reservoir of truth contained in the Genesis account, but to tap into that truth one must recognize the nature of what they are delving into.

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[1] Tyler F. Williams, Genesis: Theology of Creation, and Science Lecture. (Taylor University: REL 221, January 29 2007), 5. All definitions will be taken from this lecture while recognizing that there are other terms used.

[2] John F. Haught, Responses to 101 Questions on God and Evolution (New Jersey: Paulist Press, 2001), 10.

[3] Henri Blocher, In the Beginning: The Opening Chapters of Genesis (trans. D. G. Preston; Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1984), 20.

[4] Denis O. Lamoureux, Beyond the Evolution vs. Creation Debate Hand-Out (Taylor University: Stencel Hall, January 30 2007), 2.

[5] Ronald A. Simkins, Creator and Creation: Nature in the Worldview of Ancient Israel (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1994), 47.

[6] John H. Walton, Ancient Israelite Literature in Its Cultural Context: A Survey of Parallels Between Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Literature (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995), 25.

[7] Ralph Korner, ANE Creation Accounts Lecture (Taylor University: REL 211, January 18 2007), 1.

[8] R. Kent Hughes, Genesis: Beginning and Blessing (Wheaton: Crossway, 2004), 26.

[9] Clark Pinnock, “Climbing Out of the Swamp: The Evangelical Struggle to Understand the Creation Texts,” Interpretation 43 (1988): 147.

[10] Ibid., 148.