Nov 01 2007
In The Beginning
Okay, so this is the first video where I actually dive into scripture. Understand that there have been volumes written on each chapter I am gonna look at, and I am dedicated to making a video no longer than six minutes. Be gentle. There is a ton that I am not able to cover due to time, so for further reading on the subject, I highly recommend these books:
Genesis 1-4 by Collins
He Gave us Stories by Pratt
Far as the Curse is Found by Williams
Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture by Goldsworthy
If there are any questions or discrepancies, please feel free to post here and I will do my best to answer.
How do you explain the different order of creation from Genesis 1 to Geneis 2?
Genesis 1
1. Heaven and Earth and light were made.
2. The firmament [a dome over Earth] was constructed and the waters divided.
3. The waters gathered into seas — and then came dry land, grass, herbs and fruit trees.
4. The sun and moon. He made the stars also.
5. Fishes, fowls, and great whales.
6. Beasts, cattle, every creeping thing, man and woman.
A watery chaos is divided by the dome (firmament) of the sky. The waters under the dome are gathered and land appears. Lights are affixed in the dome. All living things are created. The story pictures God building the cosmos as a supporting ecosystem for humanity. Finally, humanity, both male and female, is created, and God rests.
Genesis 2
1. The heavens and Earth.
2. A mist went up from Earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.
3. Created a man out of dust, by the name of Adam.
4. Planted a garden eastward in Eden, and put the man in it.
5. Created the beasts and fowls.
6. Created a woman out of one of the man’s ribs.
It begins by describing a desert landscape, no plants or herbs, no rain; only a mist arises out of the earth. Then the Lord God forms man of the dust of the ground, creates an oasis-like Garden of Eden to support the “man whom he had formed.” In this story, God creates animal life while trying to provide the man “a helper fit for him.” None being found, God takes a rib from the man’s side and creates the first woman. These two creation stories clearly arise out of different histories and reflect different concerns with different sequences of events. Can they either or both be literal history? Obviously not.
Is one literal and one not? How do you know which one?
Also what was this dome over the earth that the stars were supposed to be hung upon? Where has it gone?
Noogatiger, all really great questions! As I said in the video, there are some textual issues that appear in the English that make my assertion about Chapter 1 and Chapter 2’s time frame references confusing. Again, I would direct you to the book Genesis 1-4 by Collins. I have not read a more authoritative book on the issue, and it comes from a guy who helped translate the ESV.
As I shortly answer what he does in significantly larger detail with much better explanation, the poetic form with which chapter 1 and chapter 2 are written is different. Because these features only show up in the Hebrew, the emphasis gets lost in the english. In chapter 2, God’s action focuses on the events of the sixth day. As I said in the video, the pericopes are divided by Chapter 2:4. That means the poetic construction begins with 2:5, the heavens and earth are already created and there is a mist over the earth. Then God acts. He creates man, gives a cultivated garden among the already created x,y,z, creates all the animals, and culminates in the creation of woman. All of those events Chapter 1 describes as occurring on the sixth day, but there is significantly greater detail in Chapter 2.
In short, they are both literal. Our understanding of what they are literally talking about needs revision (as I said in the video, we CANNOT look to this text for answers about dinosaurs).
Ultimately, you are asking the right questions. I may not answer them very fully, but if this is a major sticking point for you, all I can do is point you to someone that knows intimately the features of the text in its original languages. Again, Genesis 1-4 by Collins.
Mike,
Why do you think Moses wrote the Torah? What do you think of the Documentary Hypothesis, and why do you think Mosaic authorship makes more sense than multiple authorship?
Well, they both can’t be literal.
The order is:
Genesis 1:
1Heaven, Earth, Light
2. Firmament: This dome over the earth.
3. Water, dry land, plants and trees.
4. Sun, moon, stars.
5. Fish, fowls, whales
6. Beasts, cattle, every creeping thing,man and woman.
Genesis 2:
1. Heaven and Earth.
2. Water and dry land.
3. Man
4. Plants, garden.
5. beasts and fowls
6. Woman
So, if one is literal and one is poetic, how do you know this. Is there someting that says, this one is literal this one poetic. Or is there something which says this one is the literal order and the other telling is leaving out some details? They just seem to be two completly different contradictiing stories to me.
In Genesis two he clearly states that he creates man, then creates this garden for him as if there is nothing else but desert outside this garden. Now that is implied granted, because no other mention is made of plants and animals. Either way man was the last thing created in the first story, but created before the plants and animals in the second.
Also you didn’t mention that Dome above the earth that the stars were to be hung upon, what is that?
HIS,
Great questions and it kinda highlights a specific issue that I neglected to mention. Certainly, Moses couldnt have written ALL of the Torah because at the very least Deut. 34 records his death, and it wasnt like the Legendary Black Beast of AHHHHH in Monty Python. There are a few other selected passages that speak of a time period after the events recorded, but those inclusions are rare to the overall composition of the first five books. On the whole, the internal evidence of the pentateuch leads to an indication that at the very least the author was a member of the first/second generation of the exodus community. The fact that Jewish tradition and the rest of the biblical authors considered the first five books to have been written by Moses (Jesus Himself remarks on this), and the fact that there is no evidence to the contrary (on the whole) leads me to the belief that Moses wrote these books.
Now as far as Documentary Hypothesis, this is no different than the source criticism of the NT Gospels. I am always suspicious of these hypotheses because they are circular arguments. I say that because any fragment someone might find of an “original” document or source that was then compiled would look exactly like the texts that we have today with no real way to distinguish them (that is, the source would look like the compiled versions). Also, the history of this type of argument stems from a guy named Lord Herbert whose motivation behind this type of hypothesis was simply that he didnt like certain things the bible said. Now the benefit of this approach is that it does make us ask critical questions regarding the text that we might otherwise overlook, so for that I appreciate the position.
Briefly, I think Mosaic authorship makes more sense than multiple authorship because of the thrust of each narrative among the whole. Each narrative has a specific focus regarding God’s work of creation and redemption among man as it is focused through the lineage of Abraham. This narrative coherence, or meta-narrative, seems to be aimed at the exodus people as an audience, and Moses would have been the prophet to speak these words. As we continue to work through several key texts in the first five books, this case (I believe) will become more convincing, although I recognize that I am asking you to more or less take my word for it at this point? I guess just bear with me for the sake of argument.
Noogatiger,
We are either missing each other or I am not explaining my position very well, so for that I apologize. Let me take another stab. The original tongue of the first 5 books of the Old Testament was Hebrew, and in translation as well as numbering (chapter and verse), features of the original Hebrew text get lost. In the Hebrew, the first narrative of creation extends from 1:1 to 2:3 and the second narrative goes from 2:5 to 2:25. We know this because the style of writing changes from (if memory serves) exalted prose to poetic form. This places verse 2:4 smack in the middle, indicating its importance to the audience. This verse tells us that Yahweh, the personal redeeming God of the Jews, is also the creator of the heavens and the earth. Then the second narrative begins with the new poetic style to tell us what happened on the sixth day (which, event-wise, is the same thing that the first narrative tells us happens on the sixth day). The talk about plants or rain or whatever in the Land indicates what was currently in the Garden before God did anything.
This Land doesn’t refer to the whole earth, but rather what was in the specific Land God would give Adam and Eve as the Garden. The point here is that God established a land for Adam and Eve to possess, take care of and protect. Before God cultivated and created this Land, it was basically a desert. That is the main thrust of what is said in this narrative. But the focus on God establishing a land and a people is the basic theme for the entire meta-narrative I just mentioned in my comment above to HIS. God consistently creates a land and a people with a mission for the glory of His own name. By zooming in on the sixth day in the second narrative, Moses makes it clear to the Exodus audience that they are now going to inherit the new land that God promised to Israel through Abraham, His new people. Now, as far as the order of events on the sixth day differing from the first narrative to the second, it has never really bothered me that they were different, so I haven’t done the most reading on that issue. I admit that I cannot answer authoritatively on that one, but would again point you to Genesis 1-4 by Collins. He wrote a whole book on just those chapters, so he certainly addresses very specific issues as that.
Now, to your other question about the dome. I could speculate that it is referring to the 90% of our universe made out of dark matter that we can perform no experiment to determine its existence other than to notice that the spin of the galaxies necessitates it, however to do so would impose my views on the text in such a way that was not intended by the author. I could even assert while I am at it, that Moses mentioned special relativity by his linking the first day to the creation of space. In the Talmud the rabbis comment on that very assertion, but once again it is an imposition on the text, because that is not a concern of the text or its original audience. All in all, I don’t know what the dome refers to, but I don’t know that I am supposed to. I think the emphasis is on the fact that not only did God create everything, He also created the framework in which all things rest.
Again, I believe that both narratives are literal, but our understanding of what literal means in relation to these texts needs revision.
Do you think Moses wrote Numbers 12:3 ?
“Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.”
How could a humble man write this about himself?
Jeffodist,
I havent had the opportunity to interact with you yet, so allow me to welcome you to the blog! Thanks for your interest in my video:)
You raise a good question, and it kinda gets at HIS’s question also (#3). I have no problem saying that there are specific instances of verses that perhaps Moses did not write. The verse you pointed out is one that has always made me chuckle to myself, because it seems slightly ironic, doesn’t it? So while I maintain that in general, we can attest Mosaic authorship of the first five books of the bible, we must recognize that specific verses like this one, verses regarding Moses death, and editorial comments that explain something was named such and such and remains that way until this day, are inclusions.
A couple of points need to be made regarding these inclusions. For one, Moses dictated. A verse like the one you pointed out could have easily been an editorial comment made from the scribe. Two, these inclusions are obvious enough and infrequent enough that we notice them. That means that they necessarily differ from the main body of the text enough that we can say, “this is an inclusion.” So while we can say these few examples came from other sources, they give us no reason to claim multiple authorship of the rest of the corpus. Does that make sense?
Did you have any other thoughts regarding this concept? He Gave Us Stories by Pratt is a good read for more on the Mosaic authorship issue, and it reads pretty easy too.
Thanks again for your question, and be sure to let me know if you have any more.
Mike,
Funny, I think the internal evidence is clear that it has multiple authorship. By the way, this is not something new. I had no problem with multiple authorship while I was a Christian, although my churchbuddies sometimes treated it as heretical. I have no idea why - I always thought this was short sighted of them. I mean, if Scripture is inspired, what does it matter who wrote it? But looking at the text, I see multiple authorship implied everywhere, to the point where when I now read the text of the Torah, it is just obvious to me. It stands out as if the text were highlighted with different colors.
Are protestants now accepting Jewish tradition as canon? The Torah is anonymous. It has no attribution for an author. There is no first person narrative, nor any internal hint that it was written by Moses, or any clue *who* wrote it. All we have is *tradition*, which you and I both know, we reject or accept tradition based on whether we like it or not. As for Jesus mentioning Moses as the author - you know even as a Christian I had no problem with multiple authorship and Jesus mentioning Moses as the author. Like you said, this was the tradition back in the day, and commonly accepted among the people. When Jesus is giving a discourse to his detractors, is he going to go off on some wild tangent about the authorship of the Torah? We do the same thing with Shakespeare for instance. Modern scholarship knows good and well he may not have written a lot of what was attributed to him, yet we still quote ‘Shakespear’. We attribute things to fictional and legendary characters all the time. I dunno, even if Jesus was all-knowing, I just don’t think that makes a difference one way or the other.
I am not sure how that is circular. The documentary hypothesis is based on writing style, names of God (usually YHVH vs El or Elohim), emphasis on locality, and repeated laws and stories. Once you know what to look for, it is not that tough to pull them apart.
?
Lord Herbert? Sorry, .. who is he?
The documentary hypothesis was first popularized by Julius Wellhausen, and was first extensively written about in his book ‘The Prolegomena of the History of Israel’. You can download the whole book for free on Google Books. Like all theories of this sort, the documentary hypothesis has been refined and added on since then, but this book is really the genesis of it. Lord Herbert?
I have to disagree for much the same reason. Besides the above mentioned problem of two creation stories, single authorship has to explain why the Noah story is so long, repetitive, back-peddling and contradictory. It has to explain why Moses climbed the mountain twice and returned with two seperate but different 10 commandments. Why is Noah given his name (rest or comfort) because he ‘gave relief from our work and the toil of our hands’, then immediately aftward told to build an ark to save his family from a genocidal flood? Why is the law repeated in Deuteronomy? Why are there two seperate but nearly identical geneologies given with slightly scrambled names? (Gen 4,5) Why are entire nations personified and characitured (Israel, Esau, etc)? Why does the narrative switch names of God from YHVH to Elohim and back, and when it does the entire narrative structure changes along with it? There are many, many more problems like this that the Documentary Hypothesis answers.
Looking forward to your next video.
thanks for the educational and interesting video, Mike.
It is very cool to see/read entires and responses getting down to the nitty-gritty of the Bible.
HIS,
The reason Mosaic authorship is important is because the nature of the author and the original audience gives enormous insight into the very questions you ask. We will address Noah after we look at Genesis 3, so stay tuned (and once again, I really appreciate your interest in these videos). But I will try to briefly answer briefly some of the questions you have asked that I dont plan to specifically cover in the videos.
It is important that Jesus attributes Mosaic authorship to the Torah because he does a whole lot of correcting Jewish tradition, but He doesnt on this issue. The reason that it is so important for Christians to have read and know the Apocrypha and Pseudopigraphica is because Jesus is constantly using the language of it, but using it in such a way that challenges the assumptions made by the teachers of the day. So the fact that He comments on Mosaic authorship without saying something like “Which we attribute to a work that wasnt really written by him” is significant.
Lord Herbert was a guy who started the type of argument where you remove authority from certain parts of books (read: higher critical thought). In many ways he was a major contributor to Deism. I didnt mean to claim he fathered the specific form of Documentary Hypothesis, although looking back at my comment, I can see the ambiguity in my statement.
Now, to your rapid fire questions. I am unfamiliar with a couple, but the others I will speak to. The Law is repeated in Deuteronomy (literally meaning “second law”) because it was given to the second generation of exodus people on the plains of Moab, intended as instruction for them how they should live life in the land they were about to receive. The differences in lineage occur in 4/5, as well as 10/11. The reason is because one is a general genealogy, the other is a specific genealogy focused down the line of Seth. In 10/11, the first lineage is general, the other is a specific genealogy from Shem. Moses is showing how the original promise of God given in Genesis 3:15 is refined through the specific lineages up to the Israelites. From Seth to Noah, Shem to Abraham. This is also why the general genealogies stop when they get to the origin of the people that the Israelites were encountering in their wonderings. The theme of the people God has made for Himself and the land He has established will come up over and over and over.
Now, the change between YHWH and Elohim is significant as you mentioned because the personal name of God had not been revealed until