| |
This lesson will explore the various tools that will be employed to
interpret and understand the text as well as the major issues
involved in biblical interpretation.
Overview of Genesis 1-11
If you walked up to a random person on the street and asked them to
think of a well known story from the Bible, there is a good chance
that the story named would be found in the opening chapters of
Genesis. The Creation, Adam and Eve, Eve and the Serpent, Cain and
Abel, the Flood, the Tower of Babel -- all of these are found in
the first eleven chapters of the Bible. These same stories have over
hundreds of years been etched into the collective memory of Western
civilization through art, literature and even music. Not only are
they popular, however, they are also foundational to an
understanding of the message of the Bible and thus Judaism and
Christianity and are vital to Islamic tradition.
In this lesson we will explore some introductory issues related to a
proper and informed approach to Genesis 1-11. It is important
to bring certain tools and assumptions to the text in order to
appreciate the message and depth of Genesis 1-11. The wrong
set of assumptions about what these chapters intend to communicate
can easily lead to misunderstandings and misinterpretations. In
particular, there has been a good deal of confusion about the
relationship of Genesis to modern science. It is not uncommon to
hear rumblings from time to time about the controversy surrounding
the teaching of evolution or creation in public schools.
Question 7: Are such
debates necessary?
Question 8: What
does Genesis teach about the creation of the universe?
Question 9: Can we
read Genesis 1 as we would a science text book?
We will attempt to spell out the answers to some of these questions
in this lesson. Additionally, we will then explore the basic
principles of a literary reading of Genesis 1-11.
Question 10: What
effect does genre have on the meaning of a text?
Question 11: What is
genre?
Question 12: What can
we learn about Genesis 1-11 by paying close attention to the
way in which
the stories have been constructed?
Question 13: What
role do literary devices play in the telling of stories?
Question 14: What is
the relationship between Genesis 1 and history?
Question 15: Do these
chapters intend to be read as literature or history?
Question 16: Or is
that very question unnecessary?
These questions, too, will also be explored within this lesson.
The following lessons will focus on the major story units within
Genesis 1-11. The book of Genesis in its entirety is made up of
50 chapters. These 50 chapters can be divided into
three basic sections. The first eleven, the topic of this
course, are a compacted overview of history from Creation to the
time of Abraham, who is the father of the people of Israel. The
next major section, Chapters 12-36 record the lives of
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob the patriarchs or founders of Israel.
Chapters 36 50 tell the story of Joseph, the son of Jacob, who
is sold by his brothers into slavery. Chapters 1-11 are sometimes
called the Primeval History because they deal with events
that go back to the very beginnings of the universe and mankind. For
the sake of brevity, we will refer to these chapters by that
designation.
Chapter one begins, naturally, with the story of Creation.
Chapters two and three revolve around Adam and Eve in the Garden
of Eden before and after the temptation by the Serpent. Chapter
four tells the story of Cain and Abel. Part of chapter four and
all of chapter five relate two contrasting genealogies that
illustrate the spread of humanity. Chapters six through nine
tell the very familiar story Noah and the Flood. Chapter ten
again employs genealogies to demonstrate the spread of humanity
following the Flood. Chapter 11 closes the Primeval history
with the story of the Tower of Babel. All of these stories are well
known, but their familiarity may obscure their deep and abiding
truths regarding the nature of humanity and our place in the
universe. Hopefully as we look carefully at these stories, those
truths will not be obscured to us.
Science and Genesis One
In the 1920s the most famous trial in American history, perhaps
until the OJ trial, took place. In Dayton, Tennessee John Scopes
was put on trial for teaching evolution in a public school. His
trial was from beginning to end an exercise in public relations. Two
of the most famous men in America agreed to be the main attorneys
for the trial. The defense enlisted the services of Clarence
Darrow; the prosecution hired William J. Bryan. Darrow
was the most respected lawyer in the country. Bryan had been the
standard bearer for the Democratic Party, three times running for
President. In the end after all of the theatrics and media
attention, Scopes was convicted. But in reality the trial was a
defeat for those who wished to keep evolution out of the public
schools. Darrow successfully humiliated Bryan who had agreed to take
the stand as an expert on the Bible. A literal reading of the
Bible was successfully portrayed as a backward, unscientific
approach to reality. Science was clearly triumphant. The trial sent
conservative ("fundamentalist") Christians into cultural oblivion; a
fate they did not escape until late in the twentieth century. The
trial also sealed the ascendancy of science as the measure of all
truth.
But was the whole matter based on a misunderstanding of what the
text of Genesis was intending to communicate? The problem
with the fundamentalist is that they approached the text with the
same assumptions shared by the modern critics, most importantly,
that all true language must be scientific. The modernists recognized
the non-scientific quality of Genesis and declared it untrue.
The fundamentalists recognized the truthfulness of Genesis
and declared it scientific. But both equated truth with scientific
use of language. We must guard against a denial of either the truth
of Genesis or the artistry of Genesis. Truth need not
be contained in strictly scientific descriptions of reality.
It is our position that Genesis intends to communicate
critical truths about the nature of reality and of God, but it does
not intend to relate a scientific description of how God created the
universe. Furthermore, we believe that attempting to find in Genesis
scientific descriptions of God's method of creation and timeframe
for doing so is not only to misread the text, but to miss out on
significant and profound explorations of human nature and the nature
of God.
Question 17: We speak
of how Genesis intended to be read, but is it possible to
enter into the mind of the author?
Certainly not with absolute certainty, but with a high level of
probability we believe certain conclusions may be safely arrived at.
For one thing we should note that what may be called the dialect of
science, is the way science employs language to describe its
observations of the physical world and as such, is a fairly recent
development in the course of human history. Secondly, we should
realize that the concerns of the original audience of Genesis
would have been very different from our own.
It is likely that they were much less concerned with the mechanisms
of biological development than they were with the nature and
attributes of the God they worshipped. Thirdly, there are
indications in the text itself, hints left by the author that signal
to the reader that Genesis 1 is a consciously symbolic work
that employs language artistically and not scientifically. Again
this is not to impugne the truthfulness of the creation account in
Genesis 1 (or for that matter the accounts of Adam and Eve in
chapters 2 and 3), but to recognize how Genesis
communicates in order to appreciate the truths it does articulate.
Literary Interpretation
Over the last couple of decades new approaches to Bible narratives,
which emphasize the literary characteristics of the stories, have
been developed and applied with good success. We will try to put
some of these new approaches into practice and hopefully come to
fresh understandings and new insights.
Literary critic Adele Berlin has said, "Before we know what
the text means, we must know how it means."
In other words, before asking what the meaning of the text is, we
should ask how the text intends to communicate this meaning.
Question 18: What tools and devices is the author employing to get
the point across? Literary criticism tries to give appropriate
attention to the methods that the Hebrew story tellers used to
convey their meanings.
Story v. Discourse
One important distinction to make is between what some scholars have
called story and discourse. Story is equivalent to the events
being described, the raw material of the text. Story refers to the
actual events as they happened in space and time. Discourse
is how the story is told, what we have before us in the text. To say
it in other words, discourse is the story embodied in words.
If you think of any random event in your life, say your first date
you can easily see what is meant. Your first date, whenever that
was, is the actual story with all that happened on that hopefully
happy occasion. But when you got together with your friends to tell
about your date you were no longer in the story but moved to the
level of discourse. Discourse is how you presented the story to your
friends.
Question 19: What did
you leave out?
Question 20: What did
you include?
Question 21: What did
you emphasize?
Question 22: What
dramatic devices did you use to make the story more interesting (or
less interesting if necessary!).
There is meaning not only in the events themselves, but in the
telling as well.
How the author tells the story, what devices he employs, how he
orders his material, these features of the text will reveal the
meaning of the text to us so we will attempt to pay close attention
to them.
Every Word Counts
Hebrew narrative is sparse in its use of words. Every word is chosen
carefully to convey the intended meaning. Nothing is there by
accident.
Question 23: Why does
the author choose certain words?
Question 24: Why does
he repeat certain words?
Asking such questions will give important pointers toward the
meaning of the text.
Author's Point of View
It is the author's point of view that we are after. But this is not
always on the surface. It is embedded in the characterizations,
scenic depictions, structures, etc. of the story.
Question 25: How are characters described?
Question 26: How are actions portrayed?
Question 27: What comparisons and contrasts are drawn?
Answering these and other questions like them, which focus our
attention on the literary features of the text, will provide a
helpful guide to the central message of the stories of Genesis
1-11.
Bibliography
Berlin, Adele. Poetics and Interpretation of Biblical Narrative.
Eisenbrauns, 1994.
Dillard, Raymond & Tremper Longman III. An Introduction to the
Old Testament. Zondervan, 1994.
Larson, Edward. Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and
America's Continuing Debate over
Science and Religion. Harvard University Press, 1998.
Waltke, Bruce. Genesis. Zondervan, 2001
STOP: Term Paper. Your term-paper assignment should consist of
a 2,000 word typed double spaced submission. Topic How were Adam
and Noah alike/different? Did Adam ever repent? Did Noah ever sin?
How did Eve and Mrs. Noah support/harm their mates lives? Why did
Adam and Noah never try to get anyone else around them to repent of
their transgressions against the Creator? Or did they? Where their
children blessings or curses to their lives? You must turn in an
outline, and at least five rough draft paragraphs addressing the
issues above with your mid-term. The final paper must be submitted
before you take your Final Exam!
|
|
