The Lost World of Genesis One (4 page)

Before we begin moving through the remainder of the proposi tions that make up this book, one of the issues raised in the list
above should be addressed immediately. That is, there is no concept
of a "natural" world in ancient Near Eastern thinking. The dichotomy between natural and supernatural is a relatively recent one.

Deity pervaded the ancient world. Nothing happened independently of deity. The gods did not "intervene" because that would
assume that there was a world of events outside of them that they
could step into and out of. The Israelites, along with everyone else
in the ancient world, believed instead that every event was the act
of deity-that every plant that grew, every baby born, every drop
of rain and every climatic disaster was an act of God. No "natural"
laws governed the cosmos; deity ran the cosmos or was inherent in
it. There were no "miracles" (in the sense of events deviating from
that which was "natural"), there were only signs of the deity's activity (sometimes favorable, sometimes not). The idea that deity
got things running then just stood back or engaged himself elsewhere (deism) would have been laughable in the ancient world because it was not even conceivable. As suggested by Richard Bube,
if God were to unplug himself in that way from the cosmos, we
and everything else in the cosmos would simply cease to exist.'
There is nothing "natural" about the world in biblical theology, nor
should there be in ours. This does not suggest that God micromanages the world,' only that he is thoroughly involved in the
operations and functions of the world.

As a result, we should not expect anything in the Bible or in the
rest of the ancient Near East to engage in the discussion of how
God's level of creative activity relates to the "natural" world (i.e.,
what we call naturalistic process or the laws of nature). The categories of "natural" and "supernatural" have no meaning to them,
let alone any interest (despite the fact that in our modern world
such questions take center stage in the discussion). The ancients
would never dream of addressing how things might have come into being without God or what "natural" processes he might have
used. Notice that even the biblical text merges these perspectives
when Genesis 1:24 says, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures" but then follows up with the conclusion in the very next
verse, "So God made the animals."5 All of these issues are modern
issues imposed on the text and not the issues in the culture of the
ancient world. We cannot expect the text to address them, nor can
we configure the information of the text to force it to comply with
the questions we long to have answered. We must take the text on
its own terms-it is not written to us. Much to our dismay then,
we will find that the text is impervious to many of the questions
that consume us in today's dialogues. Though we long for the Bible
to weigh in on these issues and give us biblical perspectives or answers, we dare not impose such an obligation on the text. God has
chosen the agenda of the text, and we must be content with the
wisdom of those choices. If we attempt to commandeer the text to
address our issues, we distort it in the process.

As we begin our study of Genesis 1 then, we must be aware of
the danger that lurks when we impose our own cultural ideas on
the text without thinking. The Bible's message must not be subjected to cultural imperialism. Its message transcends the culture
in which it originated, but the form in which the message was
imbedded was fully permeated by the ancient culture. This was
God's design and we ignore it at our peril. Sound interpretation
proceeds from the belief that the divine and human authors were
competent communicators and that we can therefore comprehend
their communication. But to do so, we must respect the integrity
of the author by refraining from replacing his message with our
own. Though we cannot expect to be able to think like they
thought, or read their minds, or penetrate very deeply into so
much that is opaque to us in their culture, we can begin to see that
there are other ways of thinking besides our own and begin to identify some of the ways in which we have been presumptuously
ethnocentric. Though our understanding of ancient culture will
always be limited, ancient literature is the key to a proper interpretation of the text, and sufficient amounts of it are available to
allow us to make progress in our understanding.

TECHNICAL SUPPORT

These are sources where I have dealt with these issues in more
depth:

"Ancient Near Eastern Background Studies." In Dictionary for
Theological Interpretation of the Bible, edited by Kevin J. Vanhoozer et al., pp. 40-45. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic,
2005.

Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing
the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible. Grand Rapids: Baker
Academic, 2006.

Genesis. New International Version Application Commentary.
Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001.

"Interpreting the Bible as an Ancient Near Eastern Document."
In Israel: Ancient Kingdom or Late Invention, edited by Daniel I.
Block, pp. 298-327. Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2008.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR SOMETHING to exist? It might seem
like an odd question with perhaps an obvious answer, but it is not
as simple as it may seem. For example, when we say that a chair
exists, we are expressing a conclusion on the basis of an assumption
that certain properties of the chair define it as existing. Without
getting bogged down in philosophy, in our contemporary ways of
thinking, a chair exists because it is material. We can detect it with
our senses (particularly sight and touch). We can analyze what it is
made from. These physical qualities are what make the chair real,
and because of them we consider it to exist. But there are other
ways to think about the question of existence.

For example, we might consider what we mean when we talk
about a company "existing." It would clearly not be the same as a
chair existing. Does a company exist when it has filed the appropriate papers of incorporation? Does it exist when it has a building
or a website? In some sense the answer to these would have to be
yes. But many would prefer to speak of a company as existing
when it is doing business. Consider what is communicated when
a small retail business frames and displays the first dollar bill from the first sale. As another alternative, consider a restaurant that is
required to display its current permit from the city department of
health. Without that permit, the restaurant could be said not to
exist, for it cannot do any business. Here existence is connected to
the authority that governs existence in relation to the function the
business serves. It is the government permit that causes that restaurant to exist, and its existence is defined in functional terms.

The question of existence and the previous examples introduce
a concept that philosophers refer to as "ontology." Most people do
not use the word ontology on a regular basis, and so it can be confusing, but the concept it expresses is relatively simple. The ontology of X is what it means for X to exist. If we speak of the
ontology of evil, we discuss what it means for evil to exist in the
world. The ontology of a chair or a company would likewise ask
what it means when we say they exist. How would we understand
their existence? What is the principle quality of its existence?
The view represented in our discussion of the chair would be labeled a "material ontology"-the belief that something exists by
virtue of its physical properties and its ability to be experienced
by the senses. The example of the company might be labeled a
"functional ontology."

In a discussion of origins we need to focus on the ontology of
the cosmos. What does it mean for the world or the cosmos (or
the objects in it) to exist? How should we think about cosmic ontology? When we speak of cosmic ontology these days, it can be
seen that our culture views existence, and therefore meaning, in
material terms. Our material view of ontology in turn determines
how we think about creation, and it is easy to see how. If ontology
defines the terms of existence, and creation means to bring something into existence, then one's ontology sets the parameters by
which one thinks about creation. Creation of a chair would be a
very different process than the creation of a company. Since in our culture we believe that existence is material, we consequently believe that to create something means to bring its material properties into existence. Thus our discussions of origins tend to focus
on material origins.

All of this probably sounds like a silly discussion to many people. Of course something exists because it has material properties;
of course creation means to give something material properties!
Many would be inclined to ask in their exasperation, what else
could it be? But our example of a company above has already
alerted us to another possibility. Is it possible to have a cosmic
ontology that is function oriented and see creation (bringing
something into existence) in those terms?

Even staying in the realm of English usage we can see that we
don't always use the verb create in material terms. When we create
a committee, create a curriculum, create havoc or create a masterpiece, we are not involved in a material manufacturing process.
Though a curriculum, for instance, eventually takes a material
form, the creation of the curriculum is more a process of organizing ideas and goals. To understand what it means to "create" a
curriculum, we would have to decide what it means for a curriculum to exist. What would be the ontology of a curriculum? Whatever our answer might be, these examples should suggest that
there are alternate ways of thinking about creative activity, even
in our culture. If a curriculum's ontology is functional, then creating that curriculum involves function-giving activities.

With that background in mind, we need to return to the question of cosmic ontology. Most of us never consider alternative ontologies. Our culture has given us our beliefs about what it means
for the cosmos to exist (material ontology; existence is material;
creation is a material act) and many of us would not realize that
these beliefs are the result of a choice. It is a testimony to the pervasive influence of culture that this material ontology seems so obvious as to prevent any thought that it is open to discussion.