tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87712869134477491122024-02-20T21:32:29.564-05:00But These Things Are Written"But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name" (Jn 20:31).Patrick Chanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16095377877712197984noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8771286913447749112.post-36460352308466214122013-09-14T12:21:00.002-04:002013-09-14T12:21:33.680-04:00Abraham in Egypt<br />
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">10 Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land. </span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Because Palestinian agriculture was dependent on seasonal rainfall, the region was susceptible to famine in time of drought. By contrast, the Nile gave Egypt a more dependable source of irrigation. Of course, prolonged drought can also affect river levels, but as long as it snows in the mountains or rains upriver, there's a steady source of irrigation. </span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">11 When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, “I know that you are a woman beautiful in appearance,</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Since Sarah was about 65 at the time, some commentators puzzle at how she was still so alluring. Unfortunately, commentators can be a bit obtuse:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">i) Sarah died at 127 (Gen 23:1). So in relation to her overall lifespan, she was only at the midpoint. It's like the difference between dog years and human years. A 15-year-old dog and a 15-year-old boy are the same age, but the dog is elderly while the boy is on the cusp of manhood. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Since the patriarchs and matriarchs lived longer, this raises the question of whether they aged at a steady rate, only more slowly–or whether they remained youthful for a long time, before the aging process accelerated towards the end of life. We don't know.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ii) Also, women with high cheekbones typically retain a more youthful appearance (e.g. Marlene Dietrich, Dolores del Rio, Sophia Loren, Lena Horne). Ninon de Lenclos (1620-1705) was famously alluring into old age. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">iii) At the time of writing, most folks had a normal lifespan (Ps 90:20). The youthful longevity of Moses is considered exceptional (Deut 34:7). So Sarah's preservation would have been just as striking to the original audience as it is to a modern reader. </span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> 12 and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me, but they will let you live.</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">As the subsequent narrative bears out, Abraham's fears were well-founded. That's a mitigating factor. </span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> 13 Say you are my sister,</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Since Sarah was his stepsister, this is true–but deceptive. For she was also his wife. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Incidentally, since the Mosaic law forbad marriage between stepsiblings, this reflects the historical accuracy of the patriarchal account. The narrator didn't retroject later developments into an earlier period. </span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared for your sake.”</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">A man's sister is eligible in a way that a man's wife is not. </span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> 14 When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. 15 And when the princes of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house.</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">She was so stunning that male admirers couldn't contain themselves. Kings have a habit of abducting any woman who appeals to them. Although Abraham is prescient, he didn't bank of Sarah coming to Pharaoh's attention. That puts him in a bind, for he's in no position to refuse Pharaoh. Only God can extricate the couple from their dire predicament. </span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> 16 And for her sake he dealt well with Abram; and he had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels.</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">In effect, a dowry. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Critics claim the reference to donkeys is anachronistic. Keep in mind that the evidence for details like that from 4000 years ago is bound to be haphazard and sparse. Even so, there is corroborative evidence (Kitchen 2003). </span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">17 But the Lord afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram's wife.</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">This is the real point of the story. Because of God's promise, he miraculously intervenes to protect the matriarch. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> <i>18 So Pharaoh called Abram and said, “What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? 19 Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her for my wife? Now then, here is your wife; take her, and go.” 20 And Pharaoh gave men orders concerning him, and they sent him away with his wife and all that he had.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">To some extent, Pharaoh is understandably miffed. He was misled. At the same time, kings typically presume to have the first pick of any woman who catches their fancy. They have multiple wives and mistresses. So Pharaoh is a hypocrite. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Consider, moreover, what Pharaoh would have done to the couple had he not been spooked by Abraham's God! Fear restrained him. He's used to calling the shots. Now, however, God cuts him down to size. Indeed, Pharaoh arranges safe passage for the troublesome couple. </span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Excursus 1: The ethics of deception</span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">i) Commentators usually judge Abraham harshly for his subterfuge. Perhaps they are right. However, we need to guard against the temptation of judging the account by considerations outside the account. We need to judge the action by the narrator's perspective, rather than superimposing our own scruples on the text. The narrative contains no editorial comment condemning Abraham. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Of course, narrative theology usually teaches by showing rather than telling. So the narrator might obliquely condemn Abraham's behavior. But that needs to be exegeted from the text rather than assumed. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Nothing in this story, or Genesis in general, or the Pentateuch generally, indicates that deception is inherently wrong. Indeed, the Israelites sometimes resort to a ruse de guerre. And Exod 1 seems to commend the deception of the Hebrew midwives. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ii) On the face of it, Abraham is saving his own skin by putting his wife at risk. If so, that's contemptible.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">At the same time, that impression is somewhat shortsighted. If Abraham is murdered, then he'd be in no position to protect his wife. Sarah would be truly defenseless at that point. So perhaps he feels that this compromise gives him some leverage. He can procrastinate with suitors, stalling for time until he and Sarah are able to leave. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">iii) Some commentators fault Sarah for colluding with Abraham. However, it's unrealistic to think Sarah would defy her husband. She's not a proto-feminist. In a patriarchal culture, this is not a marriage between equals. When Vashti defied her husband, he deposed her (Esther 1).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">iv) The main point of the story is how God protects the matriarch when Abraham is at a loss.</span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Excursus 2: Triplets</span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Gen 12, 20, and 26 contain striking parallels. What are we to make of that?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">i) Undoubtedly the narrator wants the reader to notice the similarities. To compare and contrast these three accounts. These are complementary accounts of independent events (Alexander 1997).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ii) There are significant dissimilarities as well as similarities. So these aren't just variations of the same event. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">iii) In terms of the two episodes involving Sarah, similar circumstances produce similar results. A beautiful woman has the same effect on men, regardless of time and place. If she finds herself in the same situation, you can expect a similar outcome. That's not artificial. That's predicable. That's realistic.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Isaac probably learned the same ploy from his father. So that's not coincidental.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">iv) Coincidences do happen in real life. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">v) In addition, the narrator is recording what they have in common. So that makes them seem more alike. He's not including all of the differential details. </span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">References:</span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Alexander, T. D. <i>Abraham in the Negev: A Source-Critical Investigation of Genesis 20:1-22:19</i> (Paternoster 1997), 32-51.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Kitchen, K<i>. On the Reliability of the Old Testament</i> (Eerdmans 2003), 338-39.</span></div>
stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16547070544928321788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8771286913447749112.post-56391901791731248232013-09-14T12:18:00.005-04:002013-09-14T12:18:46.623-04:00The call of Abraham<br />
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">27 Now these are the generations of Terah. Terah fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran;</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">This may reflect the birth order, in which case Abraham was the firstborn. Or it may reflect their order of importance. Abraham may be in the emphatic first position because he is the central figure in the succeeding story , whereas his brothers are tertiary characters. </span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">and Haran fathered Lot. 28 Haran died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his kindred,</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Because Lot is orphaned, his grandfather (Terah) looks after him. After his grandfather dies, his uncle (Abraham) looks after him. This prepares the reader for the complicated relationship between Abraham and Lot. </span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> in Ur of the Chaldeans.</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">i) The reference is disputed. Some scholars think this refers to a famous city in southern Mesopotamia while other scholars think it refers to a city in northern Mesopotamia. For interpretive purposes, there's not a whole lot riding on the correct identification. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ii) Some scholars regard "of the Chaldeans" as a later scribal gloss. </span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> 29 And Abram and Nahor took wives. The name of Abram's wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor's wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran the father of Milcah and Iscah.</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">The names seem to be related to lunar deities. Both Sumerian Ur and Haran were centers of the lunar cult. Abraham was born and bred in a polytheistic and idolatrous culture. His father was pagan (Josh 24:2). </span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> 30 Now Sarai was barren; she had no child.</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">That will be both an opportunity and a burden as the narrative proceeds.</span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">31 Terah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife, and they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan, but when they came to Haran, they settled there.</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">No explanation is given for the move. Several mundane motivations are possible. But the underlying reason is the providence of God, directing events behind the scenes.</span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> 32 The days of Terah were 205 years, and Terah died in Haran.</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">That's the age given in the Massoretic text. According to Philo, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Pentateuch Targum, he was 145 when he died. That may preserve the original reading (Schnabel 2012; Waltke 2001).</span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">12 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Vv4-5 raise the question of when Abraham was called. Was he called in Ur or Haran? Was his father alive or dead when he was called? </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">i) It's possible that God called him when he was living in Ur. Indeed, that might be why his father moved the family. Pagan Mesopotamians were into divination and oneiromancy. Revelatory dreams (Husser 1999; Noegel 2007). If Abraham told his father that God had spoken to him or appeared to him in a dream, instructing them to go to Canaan, Terah might have taken that very seriously. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ii) It's possible that God called him when he was living in Haran. It's unlikely that Abraham felt free to strike out on his own as long as his father was alive. But when his father died, Abraham suddenly had a decision to make. He could remain in Haran, return to Ur, or go to Canaan. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Left to his own devices, he might have gone back to Ur or stayed in Haran. If Terah's plan was to make a new life for his family in Canaan, and he died on the way, then the incentive for the original destination would be lost. So that would be an opportune time for God to make his will known to Abram. </span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> 2 And I will make of you a great nation,</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">The seed of promise is both corporate and individual. At one level it refers to Abraham's physical posterity, through Isaac. At another level, it typifies the elect, within the biological lineage. Finally, it has a Messianic referent. This picks up from Gen 3:15, and begins to unfold in the narrative arc of Pentateuchal history (e.g. Gen 27:29; 48:8-12; Num 24:7-19). The promise is both backward looking and forward looking (Sailhamer 2008). </span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">The ill-fated builders of Babel sought the same thing. But they sought it through their own strength. </span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">God blesses others through Abraham. The passive voice ("shall be blessed") is probably the correct rendering (Grüneberg 2003).</span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">4 So Abram went,</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Abraham's unquestioned obedience is striking. God is commanding him to leave behind his ancestral home and his extended family. For many people, that's their psychological center. They'd feel emotionally lost without the physical and social environment they grew up with. For many people, having kids is a compensation. But Abram and Sarai are a childless couple.</span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">If we accept the Massoretic text for 11:32, then 12:4 seems to conflict with the chronology of Acts 7:4. However, this assumes that Terah was 205 when he died, and Abraham was his eldest son. Both assumptions are questionable. And if either assumption is mistaken, then there's no conflict. See comments on 11:27 and 11:32. </span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> 5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. </span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">At this stage, Lot is the heir apparent. Later, Ishmael will be the heir apparent. Only when Isaac is born and Ishmael is banished will the promise kick in. </span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">When they came to the land of Canaan, 6 Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7 Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him.</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Oak trees were valued as shade trees. In addition, they were often incorporated into pagan rites (cf. Deut 12:2; 1 Kgs 14:23; 2 Kgs 16:4; Jer 2:20; Hos 4:13). The oak tree or terebinth of Moreh means "teacher, diviner, or oracle giver." There may be an element of syncretism in Abraham's route. The emancipation from his heathen upbringing is gradual. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">At the same time, the fact that he built his own altar, rather than using an extant pagan altar, shows that God was weaning him from heathenism.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">God "appearing" to him is stock language for a theophany. A visible manifestation of God. Based on other examples in Genesis and the Pentateuch, this is probably an angelophany or apparition of the Yahweh Angel. </span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> 8 From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord.</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">This picks up from Gen 4:26. Abraham leads corporate worship with his small, but growing household (cf. Gen 13:4). That's a counter to his heathen surroundings.</span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> 9 And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negeb.</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Abraham's travels outline the borders of the promised land. As such, his journey prefigures the Conquest. </span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">References:</span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Grüneberg, K. <i>Abraham, Blessing and the Nations : A Philological and Exegetical Study of Genesis 12:3 in Its Narrative Context</i> (BZAW 332; De Gruyter 2003).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Hamilton, V. <i>The Book of Genesis: Chapters 1-17</i> (Eerdmans 1991), 362-65. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Husser, J. <i>Dreams and Dream-Narratives in the Biblical World</i> (Academic Press 1999).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Kitchen, K. <i>The Reliability of the Old Testament</i> (Eerdmans 2003), 316-18.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Millard, A. "Where was Abraham's Ur? The Case for the Babylonian City," <i>BAR</i> 27:03, (May/Jun 2001), 52-7.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Noegel, S. <i>Noctural Ciphers: The Allusive Language of Dreams in the Ancient Near East</i> (American Oriental Society 2007). </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Sailhamer, J. <i>Genesis</i> (Zondervan, rev. ed., 2008), 151-55.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Schnabel, E. <i>Acts</i> (Zondervan 2012), 367n16.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Waltke, B. <i>Genesis: A Commentary </i> (Zondervan 2001), 201. </span></div>
stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16547070544928321788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8771286913447749112.post-59873466958924715982013-09-08T13:19:00.001-04:002013-09-09T12:45:28.403-04:00The tower of Babel<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>10 These are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Sons were born to them after the flood.…32 These are the clans of the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies, in their nations, and from these the nations spread abroad on the earth after the flood.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">The Table of Nations apparently represents the known world, from the standpoint of the narrator. It seems to lack a consistent classification scheme or selection criterion. That's probably because the narrator is constrained by the facts on the ground. Real life is messy. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">In general, the descendants of Shem reside in the countryside (as pastoral nomads), the descendants of Ham live in cities, while the descendants of Japheth occupy islands and coastlines (Kitchen 2003). </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Gen 11 is bookended by two genealogies of Seth. This portends a fork in the line of Seth–between those whose orientation is into Babylon, and those (e.g. Abraham) whose orientation out of Babylon (Sailhamer 2008).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>11 Now the whole earth had one language and the same words.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Some linguists deny that extant languages are reducible to a single Ur-language–although Chomsky has postulated a universal grammar. As a result, some scholars think this is referring to a lingua franca (Gordon 1971; Hamilton 1990). However, if the extant human race descends from the survivors of the flood, then at one time the language spoken by the eight passengers on the ark was the mother tongue of all humanity.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">This also has some implications for dating the episode. It had to take place before widespread migration and geographical isolation led to the evolution of multiple dialects and languages. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">This account is not an etiology for the origin of linguistic diversity, but a set-up for what follows. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i> 2 And as people migrated from the east,</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">In Pentateuchal usage, the eastern direction is ominous. Away from the Garden. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i> they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. </i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Shinar is Sumer, in southern Mesopotamia. Since the ark landed in northern Mesopotamia, that's consistent with human history up to this point. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>3 And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Because Mesopotamia is rich in clay, but poor in rock, settlers adapted to the natural resources.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i> 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Cities have a dubious connotation in the Pentateuch. They concentrate evil, like Sodom and Gomorrah. God summons Abraham out of settled life in the city. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i> and a tower with its top in the heavens,</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">There's some dispute about the identity of the tower. Many scholars think this is a ziggurat (Walton 1995). A ziggurat was a sacred mountain. But that identification creates a potential problem for dating the episode. The ziggurat developed in the third millennium, which may be too late (Wiseman 1983).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The Hebrew term doesn't specify a ziggurat. It's more often used for watchtowers or citadels. So this could be referring to a fortified city (Hoerth 1998). And that dovetails with the way Canaanite cities are described (Deut (9:1). On the other hand, the setting is Babylonian rather than Palestinian. So that, along with the stereotypical terminology, may favor a ziggurat. Still, the reference is cursory. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">It's possible that the depiction is deliberately anachronistic. Perhaps the narrator is intentionally updating the past, to telescope a longer period or make it more familiar to his audience. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">The description is reminiscent of "Jacob's ladder" (Gen 28:12), which may indicate its symbolic function. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Due to uncertainties regarding the date of the incident and the identification of the "tower," it is prudent not to center one's interpretation on the assumption that this was a ziggurat (Mathews 1996). </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i> and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” </i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">To some extent their desperation is understandable. Due to mortality and dislocation, life is fragmented and fleeting. Our existence lacks continuity. We are scattered to the four winds. It's terrifyingly easy to be lost in time and space. This reflects the homeless motif in Scripture. Because our primal parents were banished from the Garden, we are born in exile–far from our ancestral home. In a fallen world, human existence is nomadic. Impermanence is our lot. Places change. Loved ones die. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">But their attitude is wrong in two respects:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">i) They defy God's postdiluvial mandate to fill the earth (Gen 9:1). </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ii) They seek security in themselves rather than God. God alone is our dwelling-place in all generations (Ps 90:1). What time, space, and death have scattered, only God can regather. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">They have learned nothing from the flood. History repeats itself. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower,</i> </span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">This belittles their vaulted aspirations. From a God's-eye viewpoint, their boastful city and proud tower is an anthill. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>which the children of man had built.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">"Sons of men" hearkens back to Adam and his fatal legacy. Dust to dust (Gen 3:19).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i> 6 And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and there confuse their language,</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Man proposes, but God disposes.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i> so that they may not understand one another's speech.” </i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Cooperation requires communication. If they can't understand each other, they can't collaborate. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>8 So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">The ants are scattered, like a burning anthill. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i> 9 Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">A play on words. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i> And from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">God forces them to fulfill his mandate. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">There's something almost fatalistic about this story. They achieve the very thing they fear by striving to avoid it. Poetic justice. Today's utopia is tomorrow's dystopia. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>References:</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Gordon, C. <i>Before Columbus </i>(Crown 1971), 107, 165-66.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Hamilton, V.<i> The Book of Genesis: Chapters 1-17</i> (Eerdmans 1990), 350-51.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Hoerth, A. <i>Archaeology & the Old Testament</i> (Baker 1998), 196.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Kitchen, K. <i>The Reliability of the Old Testament</i> (Eerdmans 2003), 430-438, 592-597.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Mathews, K. <i>Genesis 1–11:26</i> (B&H 1996), 470-472,476. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Sailhamer, J. <i>Genesis</i> (Zondervan, revised ed., 2008), 143.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Walton, J., “The Mesopotamian Background of the Tower of Babel Account and Its Implications,” <i>BBR </i>5 (1995), 155-75. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Wiseman, D. J. <i>Nebuchadrezzar and Babylon</i> (Oxford 1991), 68-73. </span></div>
stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16547070544928321788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8771286913447749112.post-18027367031710776062013-09-06T17:30:00.000-04:002013-09-06T17:30:01.654-04:00The curse of Ham<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Noah uses scarce resources to give thanks to God. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i> 21 And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma,</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">That's an idiomatic expression for an acceptable offering (cf. Exod 29:18; Lev 1:9; 3:16; Num 15:3).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Sin is second nature for fallen man both before and after the flood.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">"Said in his heart" is anthropomorphic.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i> Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. 22 While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Some take the interruption of the seasons to imply the global extent of the flood (Wise 2002). However, that argument either proves too much or too little. For by parity of argument, it would also mean the diurnal cycle ("day and night") was in hiatus during the flood. Yet the flood is measured in units of days. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">In principle, one could say it's phenomenological language. But that undercuts the global interpretation. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">In principle, one could say diurnal intervals were assigned to the flood account after the diurnal cycle was restored, like going back to correlate a past event with a calendar date. However, that explanation could be applied to Gen 1 as well. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>9 And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. 2 The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered. 3 Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">This apparently alludes to hunting. Wild animals have no natural fear of man. But if they are hunted, they learn to keep their distance. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">By the same token, this may mean the injunction takes for granted the butchering of livestock before the flood. What is new is hunting. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>4 But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">This carries over into the Mosaic covenant. No reason is given for the prohibition, so we can only guess. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Before the age of refrigeration, exsanguination might be a safety precaution. Or it may be that the specter of drinking fresh blood inevitably carries pagan associations. That drinking blood is a way of possessing the victim's "life force," viz. vampirism, cannibalism. </span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">5 And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">6 </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">“Whoever sheds the blood of man,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> by man shall his blood be shed,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">for God made man in his own image.</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Capital punishment for murder is both permissible and obligatory. It also epitomizes poetic justice. This is a transcultural norm, grounded in the nature of man. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, 9 “Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you, 10 and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark; it is for every beast of the earth. 11 I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” 12 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: 13 I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” 17 God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Some commentators think this is an etiology for the origin of the rainbow, because there was (allegedly) no rain before the flood. But that's a dubious inference:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">i) The scope of Gen 2:5-6 is, in all likelihood, local rather than global. Concerning the conditions within the garden, in contrast to conditions outside the garden. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ii) Circumcision is a sign of the Abrahamic covenant while the Sabbath is a sign of the Mosaic covenant. Yet that doesn't mark the origin of circumcision or the Sabbath. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">iii) When God ascribes a special significance to a preexisting custom or event, that defines or redefines it in contrast to pagan appropriations. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>18 The sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (Ham was the father of Canaan.) 19 These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the people of the whole earth were dispersed.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Noah is a new Adam. All extant humans trace back to Noah (and through Noah to Adam). At a minimum, the flood was anthropologically universal. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>20 Noah began to be a man of the soil,</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Although this means he was a farmer, it may also be a play on words, connecting Noah to Adam, via the "soil" motif. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i> and he planted a vineyard.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Some commentators take this to be an etiology for the origin of viticulture and viniculture. But that's unnecessary. This may well be a carryover from prediluvian husbandry. Know-how is preserved in the minds and memories of individuals. It survives physical dislocation. Handed down from the older generation to the younger generation. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i> 21 He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">A classic exposé of the human condition. Living in a social world sunk in depravity, Noah was righteous and blameless for 600 years. And he survived the greatest natural disaster in human history. Yet after having gone through all that, he disgraces himself.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Some men fail by succeeding. Success is their downfall. Some men fail to achieve their dreams while others fail by achieving their dreams. Noah is not the last man to live too long for his own good. </span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> 22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. 23 Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned backward, and they did not see their father's nakedness. 24 When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, 25 he said,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">“Cursed be Canaan;</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers.”</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Due to the terseness of the account, as well as the studied vagueness of a key term, it's difficult to nail down what happened. That's probably deliberate. The narrator is being about as discreet as he can be without sacrificing accuracy.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">i) According to patristic and rabbinic tradition, Ham did something heinous. However, it's not clear from the account itself that Ham did anything wrong. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Readers infer that from Noah's reaction, but Noah's viewpoint isn't normative. The narrator's viewpoint is normative. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">It's possible that he is shifting blame because he's embarrassed. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ii) By the same token, the curse is Noah's malediction rather than God's malediction. And it is nonbinding on God. God is under no obligation to enforce Noah's rash malediction. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">iii) It's possible that Ham dishonored his father. Perhaps telling his brothers refers to lewd gossip. But the text doesn't say that. It may simply mean Ham didn't know what do to in that unexpected situation, so he consulted his older, more experienced brothers. And once he turned to them for advice, they took over. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">iv) It's also unclear what he saw. Does the "nakedness of his father" simply mean he saw his father expose himself? Or is that a euphemism for conjugal relations? Did he watch his parents making out in a drunken orgy? If so, that would be voyeuristic. But the terminology isn't that specific. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">v) After Noah begins to shake off his hangover, he is incensed with Ham, yet his curses Canaan (his grandson) instead. Why?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Forebears personify descendants. The ancestors of people-groups. To curse a man's posterity is a way of hitting a man where it hurts, insofar as he "lives on" in his posterity. That's how he leaves a mark on the world. How he's remembered. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">It may seem unjust to curse Canaan for Ham's transgression. Perhaps it <i>is</i> unjust. Once again, this isn't God speaking, or the narrator, but Noah. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">vi) But this also foreshadows hostilities between the Israelites and the Canaanites. Even if Noah is overreacting, God sometimes makes providential use of dubious human words and actions to further his own agenda, viz. the oracles of Balaam, Jacob's sons selling their brother into slavery. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>28 After the flood Noah lived 350 years. 29 All the days of Noah were 950 years, and he died.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Unlike the legendary hero of the Mesopotamian flood story, on whom the gods confer immortality, Noah dies of old age. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>References:</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Wise, K.<i> Faith, Form, and Time</i> (B&H 2002), 181.</span></div>
stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16547070544928321788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8771286913447749112.post-53637769696167691702013-09-01T20:00:00.000-04:002019-04-27T19:55:45.144-04:00Noah's flood<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i><b>5 </b>The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">A classic statement of total depravity. Leaves little more to be said: "<i>every</i> intention of the thoughts of his heart was <i>only</i> evil <i>continually</i>"</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i> <b>6 </b>And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">What theologians call anthropopathism: ascribing distinctively human emotions to God. It's a vivid way of expressing God's moral disapproval. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i> <b>7 </b>So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.”</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">This is a topic sentence. The flood account is quite repetitious. So we will encounter many variations on this statement. The repetitious style is both for emphasis, and shaping the account. Repetition is also characteristic of oral literature. Something written for the ear. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i> <b>8 </b>But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">This introduces the theme of the remnant. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i><b>9 </b>These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">"Righteous" is a legal term while "blameless" is a ritual term. Both have religious connotations. Noah is righteous and blameless compared to his contemporaries.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i><b>11 </b>Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence. <b>12 </b>And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. <b>13 </b>And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Although "all flesh" could denote all biological organisms, here it refers to human beings. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i><b>14 </b>Make yourself an ark of gopher wood.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">i) We don't know what kind of wood that is. Presumably a type of wood used in ancient shipbuilding. Cypress is often proposed, but that's just an educated guess. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">ii) The "ark" foreshadows the basket that the mother of Moses put her child in (Exod 1-2).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch. </i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Pitch is a sealant used to waterproof the ark. Some critics of creationism cite this as evidence of fossilized animals before the Fall. However, the Hebrew word isn't a technical term for a petroleum product. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>This is how you are to make it: the length of the ark 300 cubits, its breadth 50 cubits, and its height 30 cubits.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">i) This is usually translated into feet as 450x75x45, assuming that a cubit is about 18 inches. If so, the ark would be 50% longer than a football field. Enormous for a wooden ship.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">ii) Although most commentators agree on the length of a cubit, at least one bucks the conventional wisdom:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">"Cubit" was a measurement derived from the length of the elbow to the tip of the fingers. It varied in length among the peoples of the Near East, including the Hebrews (e.g. Deut 3:11; Ezk 40:4; 43:13). Most scholars work with cubits measuring 50 cm. per cubit, but this cannot be verified since it is a modern approximation based on circumstantial evidence (Mathews 1996). </span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Since we're dealing with cubic feet, if the cubit was smaller, the ark would be significantly smaller. Proponents of a global flood favor a larger ark whereas proponents of a local flood favor a smaller ark. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Critics of the ark allege that a wooden ship that large (esp. lengthwise) would lack structural integrity. I'm not qualified to comment on that. If so, that would be evidence for a smaller cubit. Of course, whatever the text says is true. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i><b>16 </b>Make a roof [or skylight] for the ark, and finish it to a cubit above, and set the door of the ark in its side.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The wording is a bit obscure, but it seems to suggest clerestory. A skylight would be useful, both for illumination and astronavigation. Even if the ark was rudderless, a skylight would give the passengers a sense of where they were–judging by the constellations. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i> Make it with lower, second, and third decks. </i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The architectural design of the ark appears to be a symbolic microcosm of the world, from a phenomenal viewpoint (e.g. Exod 20:4; Deut 4:18). </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i><b>17 </b>For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall die. <b>18 </b>But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons' wives with you.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">This is the first explicit covenant in Scripture, although there are covenantal ideas in Gen 2.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i> <b>19 </b>And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ark to keep them alive with you. They shall be male and female.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">i) Critics of the (global) flood raise logistical objections. There wasn't room for every species. How did animals cross natural barriers? How did species adapted to diverse ecological zones survive in the ark? </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">However, that's anachronistic. It takes our current status quo as the frame of reference, then projects that back into the past. But the text itself doesn't make any particular assumptions about prediluvian biodiversity or biogeography. Critics are introducing extraneous assumptions into the text. Even on a global interpretation, the text doesn't invite that treatment.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">ii) On a local interpretation, the ark would sample representative local "species." And they'd be nearby. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i> <b>20 </b>Of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground, according to its kind, two of every sort shall come in to you to keep them alive. </i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">i) Noah doesn't have to fetch the animals: they come to him. Like the ravens feeding Elijah (1 Kigs 17:2-5), God guides the animals to Noah.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">ii) One local flood proponent thinks this refers to livestock. Unlike wild animals, livestock would be very hard to replace if you had to start from scratch by domesticating wildlife all over again (Custance 1979). But even though that's logical, it doesn't seem to be the logic of the text. The text is hearkening back to the taxonomy of Gen 1, which doesn't single out livestock. Rather, the objective is to preserve the same kinds of animals we find in the creation account. The only distinction the text will draw is between clean and unclean animals, not between livestock and wild animals. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i><b>21 </b>Also take with you every sort of food that is eaten, and store it up. It shall serve as food for you and for them.” <b>22 </b>Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Critics of the (global) flood ask how it would be possible to meet the specialized dietary needs of some species. But, once again, that's anachronistic. And that's even less of an issue for a local flood proponent. </span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>7 </b>Then the Lord said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation. <b>2 </b>Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate, and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate, <b>3 </b>and seven pairs of the birds of the heavens also, male and female, to keep their offspring alive on the face of all the earth.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>6 </b>Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters came upon the earth. <b>7 </b>And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood. <b>8 </b>Of clean animals, and of animals that are not clean, and of birds, and of everything that creeps on the ground, <b>9 </b>two and two, male and female, went into the ark with Noah, as God had commanded Noah. <b>10 </b>And after seven days the waters of the flood came upon the earth.</span></span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">i) Critics imagine a numerical contradiction between the single pairs in Gen 6 and the seven pairs in Gen 7. However, that simply reflects a synoptic/resumptive-expansive compositional technique in which the narrator begins with a general statement, changes the subject, the circles back to fill in details. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">ii) Critics also think this is anachronistic, because the kosher laws were not in place until the Mosaic covenant. But that objection is flawed on several grounds:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">a) This probably foreshadows the kosher laws.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">b) The kosher laws could simply codify a preexisting custom.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">c) In any event, the distinction here is not between ritually edible and inedible animals, but sacrificial animals (Gen 8:20-21).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i><b>4 </b>For in seven days I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground.” <b>5 </b>And Noah did all that the Lord had commanded him.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The flood account repeatedly uses seven, multiples of seven, or forty. The fact that the narrator constantly juggles these figures suggests the account is fairly schematic. These aren't exact figures. Real life isn't that symmetrical. So the account is a stylized history rather than a prosaic chronicle. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i><b>11 </b>In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">i) The "windows of heaven" are a figure of speech for rainclouds. Ancient Jews were certainly used to seeing rainfall from clouds. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">ii) It may also invite an analogy with the "skylight" in the ark.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">iii) The "windows of heaven" and "fountains of the deep" are synonyms for the "waters above" and "waters below," alluding to the creation account (Gen 1). </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">iv) The water is "below" or "under" the <i>land</i> (not <i>earth</i>) in the sense that dry land is above sea level–except in case of coastal flooding or rivers at flood stage. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">v) On a local interpretation, the floodplains of the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys are suggestive:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Mesopotamia supplies a natural locale for a flood tradition. Both cuneiform documents and archaeological research provide abundant testimony to periodic inundation of the flat alluvial valley between the Tigris and Euphrates. Torrential rains coupled with seasonal cyclones, and the early melting of the snows in the mountains of Anatolia, have from time to time combined to cause rivers to burst their banks and turn the land into hundreds of miles of lake (Sarna 1989).</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">In the case of Noah's flood, this would be a deluge of unprecedented severity. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">vi) On a global interpretation, what's the source of water? Flood geologists propose various mechanisms. If, however, we stick with the natural resources in the narrative, Gen 1:9 is suggestive. If natural barriers to flooding were miraculously breached, then the dry land might be inundated by coasting flooding. This doesn't require extra water. And by the same token, reversing the process would drain the excess water. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">What makes the dry land dry is relative elevation. Higher than sea level. Most land is under water. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i><b>12 </b>And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The repeated accent on rainfall is more consistent with a local flood. Rainwater would make a negligible contribution to a global flood, which is why flood geologists minimize the rain factor and focus on alternative flood mechanisms. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">In addition, the waters above and below aren't necessarily, or even probably, two independent sources of water. Torrential or sustained rainfall causes rivers to overflow their banks. So the steady rain is likely the primary source of the floodwaters. The swollen rivers are a secondary source. That's the effect of rainfall and snowmelt–which turns placid rivers into raging torrents. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i><b>17 </b>The flood continued forty days on the earth. The waters increased and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. <b>18 </b>The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the face of the waters. <b>19 </b>And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. <b>20 </b>The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">What mountains are alluded to? It's important for a modern reader to guard against reassigning the ancient landmarks to modern world geography. The original audience didn't have that frame of reference.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The depth of the flood and the height of the mountains are correlative. But according to the narrative, rainfall makes a very significant, or even primary, contribution to the rising waters. So the high-water mark is indexed to the amount of rainwater. Water rises on a floodplain as rivers overflow. Rivers overflow due to rainfall from storms. The question is how high the water could rise considering the source. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Given where the ark lands (Gen 8:4), the flood extends upward and outward to the foothills of Urartu (i.e. the Armenian tableland). It submerges the mesas. The general elevation is a mile high in relation to sea level, but ground level (i.e. the plateau) is the immediate frame of reference. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">If debris like downed trees (from mud slides) were snagged in a narrow valley, blocking the outlet, that would cause the runoff to backup like a clogged drain. So the ark could float upstream. </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">By the same token, that would contain the floodwaters, representing the outer limits of the deluge. The mountain range above and behind the foothills would be a natural barrier. That's how I visualize the description, given the various clues in Genesis. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i><b>24 </b>And the waters prevailed on the earth 150 days.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The narrative has a 7-40-150-40-7 symmetry. To some extent that represents a literary arrangement. And the same time, that tracks the natural cycle of a flood. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i><b>8 </b>But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">i) Wind would have no effect on a global flood. If the whole surface of a spherical earth was submerged, wind would just move the water around and around. But if the flood were local, wind action in a downstream direction might facilitate drainage (cf. Exod 14:21-22). </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">ii) Of course, the "wind" backshadows the "wind" in Gen 1:2 while foreshadowing the Red Sea episode (Exod 14:21; 15:10). However, commentators are frequently more interested in tracing intertextual parallels than discussing the practical function of the wind in Gen 8:1. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i> <b>2 </b>The fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained, <b>3 </b>and the waters receded from the earth continually. At the end of 150 days the waters had abated, <b>4 </b>and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. <b>5 </b>And the waters continued to abate until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">i) Notice that the scene is relayed from an observational perspective (8:5). How it would look to a passenger. So the vantage-point is local. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">ii) </span>Gen 8:5 recalls Gen 1:9:</span></span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">And God said, “Let <b>the waters</b> under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let <b>the dry land appear</b>” (1:9, NRSV).</span> </span></i></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><i><b>The waters</b> continued to abate until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, <b>the tops of the mountains appeared</b> </i>(8:5, NRSV).</span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The "mountains" are roughly equivalent to the "dry land." These two verses are mutually interpretive. </span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">How should we visualize this scene? Seems to me that where the ark ran aground would depend on whatever the ark happened to be floating above at the time floodwaters were receding. From what I’ve read, the land of Ararat is a hilly region with many narrow valleys. So, for instance, the ark might be caught in the eddy of a steep mountain cove or box canyon. The sides would ring the ark, like a toy boat in a bathtub after you pull the plug. The elevation would vary, depending on the location of the cove. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">If the ark came to rest in a steep mountain cove, Noah wouldn’t be able to see above or around the surrounding hillsides. Indeed, that would be a good reason to release the raven and the homing pigeon.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i><b>6 </b>At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made <b>7 </b>and sent forth a raven. It went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth. <b>8 </b>Then he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground. </i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">These are realistic details: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">The use of birds which could be released for determining the presence and direction of land (<a href="http://biblia.com/bible/esv/Gen%208.6-12">Gen 8:6-12</a>) is not a folkloristic invention, but reflects actual navigational practice…A cage full of homing pigeons is not a bad method of direction finding (Gordon 1971).</span> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">James Hornell [“The Role of Birds in Ancient Navigation”] shows that several ancient peoples used birds for the purpose of finding out whether there was land within a navigable distance, and in what direction. Hornell adduces references to the practice of carrying aboard several “shore-sighting birds” among the ancient Hindu merchants when sailing on overseas voyages contained in the Hindu <i>Sutta Pitaka</i> (5C BC), according to which these birds were “used to locate the nearest land when the ship’s position was doubtful.” The same practice is mentioned in the Buddhist<i> Kevaddha Sutta</i> of Digha, written about the same period (Patal 1998).</span> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">In traversing their seas, the people of Taprobane [Ceylon] take no observations of the stars, and indeed the Greater Bear is not visible to them; but they carry birds out to sea, which they let go from time to time, and so follow their course as they make for the land (Pliny).</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">One of the first Norwegian sailors to hazard the voyage to Iceland was a man known as Raven-Floki for his habit of keeping ravens aboard his vessel. When he thought he was nearing land, Raven-Floki released the ravens, which he had deliberately starved. Often as not, they flew "as the crow flies" directly toward land, which Raven-Floki would reach simply by following their lead (PBS).</span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Returning to Genesis:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i><b>9 </b>But the dove found no place to set her foot, and she returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took her and brought her into the ark with him. <b>10 </b>He waited another seven days, and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark. <b>11 </b>And the dove came back to him in the evening, and behold, in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. <b>12 </b>Then he waited another seven days and sent forth the dove, and she did not return to him anymore.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Olive oil fueled the menorah (Exod 27:20; Lev 24:2-4). </span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>13 </b>In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried from off the earth. And Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry. <b>14 </b>In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth had dried out. <b>15 </b>Then God said to Noah, <b>16 </b>“Go out from the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons' wives with you. <b>17 </b>Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth—that they may swarm on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” <b>18 </b>So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him. <b>19 </b>Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out by families from the ark.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>20 </b>Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. <b>21 </b>And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. <b>22 </b>While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” </span></span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Gen 8:22 is a classic statement of ordinary providence. Human existence is characterized by a measure of natural stability and predictability, which makes it possible to plan ahead. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Although God continues to exact mass judgment during the subsequent course of OT history, these fall short of universality until the Day of Judgment.</span></span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">References:</span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Custance, A. <i>The Flood: Local or Global</i> (Zondervan 1979). </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Gordon, C.<i> Before Columbus </i>(Crown Publishers 1971), 77.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Mathews, K. <i>Genesis 1:11:26</i> (Broadman 1996), 364n26.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Patai, R. <i>The Children of Noah: Jewish Seafaring in Ancient Times</i> (Princeton 1998), 10-11.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Pliny,<i> Natural History</i>, 6.24.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Sarna, N. <i>The JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis</i> (JPS 1989), 48.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/secrets-of-ancient-navigators.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/secrets-of-ancient-navigators.html</span></a></div>
stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16547070544928321788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8771286913447749112.post-56982039371522943002013-09-01T19:49:00.001-04:002019-04-27T19:54:01.989-04:00Introduction to the flood<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Before commenting on the specifics of the flood account, a few preliminary observations are in order:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">i) A basic purpose of the grammatico-historical method is to read a text from the past through the eyes of someone from that time and place. To set aside our modern preconceptions, our modern points of reference, and assume the viewpoint of the author and his target audience. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">When reading the flood account, our default perspective is to begin with the present, then extrapolate back in time and space from the present to the past. We take our view of the world as our frame of reference. We unconsciously (or even consciously) map that onto the ancient text. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">But this is backwards. We have to ask ourselves what the landmarks would represent to the ancient audience. What was their sense of scale? What was their frame of reference? What was their geopolitical center and circumference? </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Modern readers tend to have one of two reactions when reading the flood account. Either they say, "A global flood is impossible, therefore the flood must be local!" or, "A global flood is impossible, therefore the Bible must be wrong!"</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">But we can't prejudge whether the account depicts a local or global flood based on considerations extraneous to the text. We have to construe the text on its own terms, consistent with narrative clues, intertextual parallels, Pentateuchal usage, and the background knowledge of the original audience–insofar as we can reconstruct their cultural preunderstanding. That's grammatico-historical exegesis in a nutshell. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The narrator wrote to be understood. So we have to ask how the target audience would likely understand his references. We need to clear our minds of our modern cultural conditioning.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">What might be "worldwide" from the viewpoint of the original audience might be more limited from our own vantage-point. This wasn't written to readers living in North America. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Conversely, what's impossible in a closed universe is not impossible–or even improbable–in a theistic universe. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">ii) Some critics say there's no evidence for a global flood. Some critics also say there's no evidence for a local flood within the ancient Near Eastern timeline of the narrative. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">However, the narrative doesn't give a calendar date for the flood. The closest it comes to dating the flood is to correlate the onset of the flood with Noah's age at the time of the flood. But we don't know Noah's birthdate.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">iii) Christians need to avoid two opposing mistakes when reading the account. On the one hand, some Christians discount a global interpretation in advance because they think a worldwide flood is unscientific. However, we have to let the text speak for itself. We can't gag the text due to extraneous concerns. It means whatever it means. The converse error is to superimpose our modern map of the world onto the ancient text.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Let's consider the major arguments for the global flood interpretation. In so doing, we're simultaneously considering the arguments for the local flood interpretation, inasmuch as these are logical alternatives:</span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">1) Universal quantifiers</span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Flood geologists appeal to universal quantifiers in the flood account to prove the universality of the flood. But that's inconclusive:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">i) Even flood geologists exempt marine life, despite the universal quantifiers.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>ii) </b>In Pentateuchal usage, universal quantifiers can have a geographically restrictive scope. Let's take some examples:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b><i>12 </i></b><i>Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts, that they may come upon the land of Egypt, and eat every herb of the land—all that the hail has left.” </i><b><i>13 </i></b><i>So Moses stretched out his rod over the land of Egypt, and the Lord brought an east wind on the land all that day and all that night. When it was morning, the east wind brought the locusts. </i><b><i>14 </i></b><i>And the locusts went up over all the land of Egypt and rested on all the territory of Egypt. They were very severe; previously there had been no such locusts as they, nor shall there be such after them. </i><b><i>15 </i></b><i>For they covered the face of the </i><b><i>whole earth</i></b><i>, so that the land was darkened; and they ate every herb of the land and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left. So there remained nothing green on the trees or on the plants of the field throughout all the land of Egypt (Exod 10:12-15, NKJV). </i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Exod 10:15 mentions the "whole earth," but in context it is clearly referring to the land of Egypt. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>This day I will begin to put the dread and fear of you on the peoples who are under the </i><b><i>whole heaven</i></b><i>, who shall hear the report of you and shall tremble and be in anguish because of you (Deut 2:25). </i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Although this mentions people-groups "under the whole heaven," in context this is clearly selects for Israel's neighbors. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>For who is there of </i><b><i>all flesh</i></b><i>, that has heard the voice of the living God speaking out of the midst of fire as we have, and has still lived? (Deut 5:26).</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Although this mentions "all flesh," in context it is clearly selects for humans in particular, not biological organisms in general. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Moreover, </i><b><i>all the earth</i></b><i> came to Egypt to Joseph to buy grain, because the famine was severe over all the earth (Gen 41:57). </i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Although this mentions "all the earth," in context this is clearly referring to people from famine-stricken lands surrounding Egypt. They didn't come from Iceland, Hawaii, Zimbabwe, Japan, Paraguay, or the Yukon to fetch grain from Egypt and take it home. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b><i>1 </i></b><i>Now the </i><b><i>whole earth</i></b><i> had one language and the same words. </i><b><i>2 </i></b><i>And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there (Gen 11:1-2).</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Although this mentions "the whole earth," in context it is clearly referring to immigrants from somewhere west of Sumer. They didn't ford the Amazon, cross the Rockies, or sail across the Pacific or Atlantic oceans to get there. That's not what's in view. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Now no shrub of the field was yet in </i><b><i>the</i></b><i> </i><b><i>earth</i></b><i>, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not sent rain upon </i><b><i>the earth</i></b><i>, and there was no man to cultivate the ground (Gen 2:5, NASB). </i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Taking the "earth" in a planetary sense makes this harder to harmonize with Gen 1. Since the word (eretz) can mean "land" as well as "earth," and since the context is arguably local (i.e. the garden of Eden), some translations (e.g. ESV) rightly opt for "land" (i.e. land of Eden) rather than "earth." </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the </i><b><i>whole land</i></b><i> [eretz] of Havilah, where there is gold (Gen 2:11).</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the </i><b><i>whole land</i></b><i> [eretz] of Cush (Gen 2:13).</i></span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Although both verses say the "whole earth (eretz)," they mean "earth" in a local sense. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Behold, a people has come out of Egypt. They <b>cover the face of the earth</b>, and they are dwelling opposite me (Num 22:5,11).</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Clearly the newly-liberated Israelites didn't occupy the entire globe. Indeed, at that time they were confined to the Sinai desert. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>And they shall <b>cover the face of the earth</b>, so that no one will be able to see <b>the earth</b> (Exod 10:5, NKJV).</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Clearly the plague of locusts was directed at the land of Egypt, and not the planetary earth. </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Indeed, the plagues of Egypt provide striking comparison. Like the flood, these utilize natural disasters as a form of divine judgment. And they also employ categorical language. Compare these statements back-to-back</span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Fifth plague:</span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b><i>3 </i></b><i>Behold, the hand of the Lord will fall with a very severe plague upon your livestock that are in the field, the horses, the donkeys, the camels, the herds, and the flocks…</i><b><i>6 </i></b><i>And the next day the Lord did this thing. All the livestock of the Egyptians died, but not one of the livestock of the people of Israel died (Exod 9:3,6).</i></span></blockquote>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Seventh plague:</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b><i>19 </i></b><i>“Now therefore send, get your livestock and all that you have in the field into safe shelter, for every man and beast that is in the field and is not brought home will die when the hail falls on them.” </i><b><i>20 </i></b><i>Then whoever feared the word of the Lord among the servants of Pharaoh hurried his slaves and his livestock into the houses, </i><b><i>21 </i></b><i>but whoever did not pay attention to the word of the Lord left his slaves and his livestock in the field.</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b><i>22 </i></b><i>Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward heaven, so that there may be hail in all the land of Egypt, on man and beast and every plant of the field, in the land of Egypt.” </i><b><i>23 </i></b><i>Then Moses stretched out his staff toward heaven, and the Lord sent thunder and hail, and fire ran down to the earth. And the Lord rained hail upon the land of Egypt. </i><b><i>24 </i></b><i>There was hail and fire flashing continually in the midst of the hail, very heavy hail, such as had never been in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation. </i><b><i>25 </i></b><i>The hail struck down everything that was in the field in all the land of Egypt, both man and beast. And the hail struck down every plant of the field and broke every tree of the field (Exod 9:19-25).</i></span></span></blockquote>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Tenth plague</span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b><i>29 </i></b><i>At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock (Exod 12:29).</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Even though the terminology in the fifth plague appears to be all-inclusive, it makes exception for subsequent plagues. For if all the livestock perish in the fifth plague, there'd be no leftover livestock to perish in the seventh plague. And if all the (remaining) livestock perish in the seventh plague, there'd be no leftover livestock to perish in the tenth plague. So the universal quantifiers are hyperbolic. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Another problem with pressing universal quantifiers is that, taken strictly, this suggests a flat-earth:</span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall die (Gen 6:17).</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered (Gen 7:19).</span></span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">If all creatures and all mountains are literally<i> under</i> the sky, then that conjures up the image of the earth as a floor under the ceiling of the sky. But flood geologists usually regard this depiction as phenomenological. How the world appears to an earthbound observer, looking up at the sky. From that local perspective, the "earth" is underfoot while the sky is overhead. If the earth is round, then it's not under the sky, but surrounded by sky (Poythress 2006).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The fact that universal quantifiers don't always have a universal range of reference doesn't mean they never have a universal range of reference. It just means they don't have a default range of reference. Their intended scope must be contextually determined. </span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">2) The depth of the flood</span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Flood geologists measure the depth of the flood by the height of the mountains (Gen 7:19-20; 8:5). But there are problems with that appeal:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">i) The appeal is equivocal. Flood geologists don't think the prediluvian mountains were the same as the postdiluvian mountains. They think the postdiluvian mountains were higher (Snelling 2009). But in that case, they can't use index mountains (e.g. Mt Ararat) to gauge the depth of the flood when the "mountains" lack a consistent referent. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">ii) What mountains is the text referring to? All the mountains of the <i>whole</i> world? But that violates grammatico-historical exegesis, for that identification relies on information that wasn't available to the original audience. They knew nothing about the Alps, Andes, Rockies, or Hindu Kush–to name a few. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The ostensible audience for the flood account is Jews who resided in the Nile Delta before they were liberated. They had been there for generations. About 400 years. The newly-liberated slaves have some exposure to mountains in the central and south Sinai peninsula. They hadn't seen any mountains or foothills in Mesopotamia. Neither had their parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents. So their frame of reference is pretty limited. In reading a text from the past, we need to project ourselves into the situation of the original readers. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Of course, if the flood <i>was </i>global, then it would be global despite the geographical ignorance of the ancient reader. These hermeneutical constraints pose no constraints on the objective nature of the event. It was whatever it was. But they do constrain what we are entitled to impute to the text. Even if there may be more to it than that, we are not at liberty to substitute different landmarks based on modern world geography. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">All the mountains of the <i>known</i> world? If so, that automatically shifts the narrative viewpoint to a local perspective. The "world" geography which the original audience was familiar with. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Also keep in mind that Gen 8:5 parallels Gen 1:9. That's the intertextual frame of reference. </span></span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">3) The duration of the flood</span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">i) Flood geologists say a local flood wouldn't last a year. But that objection cuts both ways. If that's too long for a local flood, then it's too short for a global flood. In the case of a global flood, there's nowhere for the water to go. So the waters would never abate. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Of course, flood geologists postulate special drainage mechanisms, but that expedient loses the simple appeal to the duration of the flood to determine the scale of the flood. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ii) In addition, flood geologists tend to assert that a local flood wouldn't last a year, rather than explaining why that's the case. I'm no expert, but if a floodplain is enclosed by natural barriers (like hillsides), and there's a logjam downstream, wouldn't that be like plugging a bathtub? What if the water backs up because more water keeps gushing in, but there's no outlet </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">(which generates counter-currents)</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">? </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Likewise, isn't the drainage rate related to the gradient?</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Once the surface of the land there [Mesopotamia] had been inundated, the comparatively high water table could sustain a flood for a considerable period of time (<i>NIDBA</i>).</span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The Mesopotamian alluvial plain is one of the flattest places on earth. The surface of the plain 240 miles (400 km) inland from the head of the Gulf is less than 60 feet (20 m) above sea level,25 and at An Nasiriyah, the water level of the Euphrates is only eight feet (<3 m) above sea level, even though the river still has to cover a distance of more than 95 miles to Basra (Fig. 1). Once As Samawah and Al ‘Amarah are passed, the waters of the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers are lost in an immense marshland-lake region (Fig. 1), where water flows very slowly to the Persian Gulf. During spring this whole region—from the Euphrates east to the Tigris—can become severely inundated.26 The level surface of the plain and shallow river beds of the Euphrates and Tigris, which offer the right conditions for irrigation,27 can also cause immediate, widespread flooding. And, however difficult it is to get water to the land via irrigation canals, it is just as difficult to get it off the land when it floods.28 Before any dams were built (before ~1920), about two-thirds of the whole area of southern Mesopotamia (Babylonia) could be underwater in the flood season from March to August.29 </span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://bibleapologetics.files.wordpress.com/2007/04/carol-hill-flood-hydrology-2.pdf">http://bibleapologetics.files.wordpress.com/2007/04/carol-hill-flood-hydrology-2.pdf</a></span></span></blockquote>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">4) The size of the ark</span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Flood geologists say the ark is too large for a local flood. But that objection cuts both ways. If it's too large for a local flood, then it's too small for a global flood. It doesn't seem big enough to accommodate every kind of bird or land animal.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Flood geologists field that challenge by postulating explosive postdiluvial speciation, but that expedient loses the simple appeal to the size of the ark to determine the scale of the flood.</span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">5) The purpose of the ark</span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Flood geologists say the ark would be pointless if the flood was merely local. With advance warning, Noah's family could evacuate the flood zone ahead of time. And animals outside the flood zone would repopulate the flood zone. However, that objection is deceptively simple:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">i) Strictly speaking, the ark is unnecessary to protect Noah's family and the animals during a global flood. God could miraculously protect them, the way he miraculously shielded Daniel's friends in the furnace (cf. Dan 3:19-27). </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">ii) The ark is emblematic as well as utilitarian. A floating temple. As one scholar observes:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The three stories of the ark correspond to the three stories of the world conceptualized as divided into the heaven above, the earth below, and the sphere under the earth, associated especially with the waters (cf. e.g. Exod 20:4; Deut 4:16ff.; Rom 1:23)…Clearly, the window of the ark is the counterpart to "the window of heaven," referred to in this very narrative (7:11; 8:2). Appropriately, the window area is located along the top of the ark, as part of the upper (heavenly) story (Kline 1989). </span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Moreover, the covering of the ark (Gen 8:13) prefigures the hide covering of the tabernacle (Exod 26:14; 36:19; Num 3:25).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Furthermore, the ark foreshadows an incident in the life of Moses, when his mother put him in a watertight basket, by the riverbank, where the Egyptian princess used to bathe. </span></span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">6) The purpose of the flood</span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Flood geologists say a local flood is inconsistent with the stated purpose of the flood: to execute judgment on all sinners, as well as animals. However, there are some tensions in that argument:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">i) Animals aren't sinners. So destroying every animal is secondary to the primary purpose of the flood.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">ii) It isn't necessary to submerge mountain ranges to kill off the animals. If the floodwaters rose to the tree line, anything above the tree line would eventually perish from starvation or exposure. </span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">7) Fossil distribution</span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Flood geologists say an anthropologically universal flood is equivalent to a geographically universal flood, given the global distribution of human fossils antedating the flood. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">However, that argument cuts both ways. For the age of those fossils is much older, according to conventional dating techniques, than flood geologists are willing to concede. In addition, flood geologists routinely contest the identification of "early human" fossils.</span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">8) Widespread flood traditions</span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Flood geologists appeal to widespread flood traditions to corroborate a global flood. But that's difficult to assess:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">i) There's a difference between universal flood traditions and traditions of a universal flood. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">ii) Cultural diffusion can account for common, far-flung traditions. As the survivors of the flood migrated from Ararat to other parts of the world, they thereby disseminated the story of the flood. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">At the same time, we also need a critical edition of flood traditions. We need sources with dates. James Frazer is not a reliable resource. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">iii) Conversely, it's striking that we don't have flood traditions from Egypt or Ugarit, even though we do have flood traditions from Mesopotamia that are clearly reminiscent of the Genesis account. That evidence points to a flood centered in Mesopotamia. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">iv) Appealing to flood traditions around the world to multiply attest a global flood generates a paradox. If the flood was global, then you can't have truly independent local reports by observers from different parts of the world who witnessed the flood firsthand at the time it overlook their part of the world. For, in the nature of the case, those observers perished in the flood. The only witnesses who lived to tell the story were the eight passengers on the ark. Even if there were humans in North and South America at the time, they didn't survive to share their experience or pass that along to posterity. All flood traditions, if authentic, trace back to the same point of origin. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Of course, flood geologists don't assume that postdiluvian islands and continents correspond to the prediluvian islands and continents. I simply use "North and South America" to illustrate a principle. They can function as placeholders. </span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">9) The rainbow</span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Flood geologists contend that if the flood was local, then God has often broken his promise to never again flood the earth (Gen 9:8-17). However, that argument simply revisits the issue of how we should construe eretz: does it mean the (planetary) earth, or does it mean the "land"? </span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">10) The flood and the parousia</span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Flood geologists contend that Peter's comparison between the flood and the Parousia (2 Pet 3:3-7; cf. Mt 24:37) implies the universality of the flood. If the day of judgment is universal, so is the flood. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">i) But that's equivocal. The day of judgment isn't just a terrestrial event. Fallen angels will also be judged.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">ii) Moreover, Peter's usage is more qualified. As one commentator notes: </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The phrase "ancient world" may suggest that Peter is thinking here of a universal flood that submerged the entire globe. But in the latter part of the verse, Peter uses the word we translate "world" again (kosmos), but this time he qualifies it as "the world of the ungodly people"…As often in the Bible, "world" refers to human beings rather than the earth itself (Moo 1996). </span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">iii) Furthermore, the Parousia involves time as well a space. It terminates fallen world history. It makes an epochal change from the fallen world order to the new world order. </span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">11) Population explosion</span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Flood geologists contend the longevity and fecundity of the prediluvians would result in a population explosion, leading to mass migration (Snelling 2009). </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">i) However, that's, at best, a possible inference from Genesis. Genesis never says anything about a population explosion or mass migration.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://biblia.com/bible/esv/Gen%202.10-14">Gen 2:10-14</a> situates Eden somewhere in Mesopotamia. So that would be the epicenter of human population. Man would migrate from that focal point.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">And the ark lands in northern Mesopotamia (<a href="http://biblia.com/bible/esv/Gen%208.4">Gen 8:4</a>). That would be consistent with a flood that originates in Mesopotamia. The diluvial point of origin would correspond to the human point of origin. The scope of the flood would correspond to the biogeography of human dispersion at that stage of human history, where man radiates out from Eden, but is still confined to the ancient Near east–which would also be consistent with the Table of Nations (Gen 10).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">ii) In addition, the genealogies don't indicate a population explosion. Prediluvians only begin fathering children at an advanced age, and few offspring are recorded. Of course, it's quite possible that the genealogies are very selective. However, some creationists reaffirm the 6000-year-age of the earth by defending closed genealogies. </span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">12) The "fountains of the deep"</span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Flood geologists contend that this phrase indicates "vast geological disturbances" that are inconsistent with a local flood (Snelling 2009). </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">i) This appeal is circular. Because rainwater is inadequate to supply a global deluge, flood geologists have to make the "fountains of the deep" the major source of floodwaters. So they don't really construe the extent of the flood from the "fountains of the deep." Rather, they construe the "fountains of the deep" from the extent of the flood. They take the universality of the flood as axiomatic, then interpret the "fountains of the deep" accordingly, since that's their only recourse.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">ii) They overinterpret the "fountains of the deep" by reinterpreting that phrase according to their postulated flood mechanisms. That's not exegesis. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">iii) Commentators generally regard the phrase as poetic. It clearly alludes to the creation account. It represents the "waters below" in contrast to the "waters above." Based on passages like Deut 4:18, this probably carries the mundane sense that lakes, rivers, and oceans are lower than dry land. That's what makes the dry land dry. It's higher than bodies of water. Swollen rivers overflowing their banks would be quite consistent with this usage. It could also include spring water. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>Cyclonic Storms</b>. The “Land of the Five Seas” refers to the lands encompassed by the Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea, Caspian Sea, Red Sea, and Arabian Sea.1 This entire region is (and has been for thousands of years) controlled by the Asiatic pressure system.</span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>Storm Surge</b>. There is the possibility that a storm surge (in addition to rainfall and snow melt) may have helped maintain flooding in the southern part of Mesopotamia. Storm surges are where a low-pressure meteorological system causes high winds and tides, which can drive sea- water inland for hundreds of miles.</span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://bibleapologetics.files.wordpress.com/2007/04/carol-hill-flood-hydrology-2.pdf">http://bibleapologetics.files.wordpress.com/2007/04/carol-hill-flood-hydrology-2.pdf</a></span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">In conclusion, we didn't live during the time of Moses. What was common knowledge for the original audience isn't common knowledge for you and me. Likewise, we didn't live just before, right after, or during the flood. Given our distance from the original event as well as the historical horizon of the original audience, I think the most prudent course of action is to make allowance for both local and global interpretations of the text.</span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">References:</span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Kline, M., <i>Kingdom Prologue</i> (1989), 156.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Moo, D., <i>2 Peter, Jude </i>(Zondervan 1996), 103n5.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Poythress, V., <i>Redeeming Science</i> (Crossway 2006), 127.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Snelling, A. <i>Earth's Catastrophic Past</i> (ICR 2009).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">"Flooding," <i>The New International Dictionary of Biblical Archaeology</i> (Zondervan 1983), 194.</span></span></div>
stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16547070544928321788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8771286913447749112.post-85600628708847297702013-08-27T18:52:00.001-04:002015-03-04T14:59:22.201-05:00The Nephilim<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>6 When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. 3 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” 4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown (Gen 6:1-4).</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">What is entirely unnatural is the attraction these fair creatures held for the sons of God and the resultant marriages and births of superhuman warriors, the Nephilim. Interpreters have made every effort to explain this text in some way other than the plain and obvious meaning of the words before us. Such interpretive efforts have included theories of human marriages between the faithful Sethites and the wicked Cainites, or dynastic rules and their polygamous marriages and ruthless offspring, or otherwise demonic and/or angelic interpretations. However, the clear sense of the text is simply that of preternatural beings (i.e., not entirely supernatural creatures but certainly not wholly natural either) fathering semi-human offspring of great exceptional military strength, and perhaps of great stature. Such divine-human unions are attested in other cultures of the world, including Babylonian, Egyptian, Ugaritic, Hittite, and Greek. The Gilgamesh Epic attributes Gilgamesh's prodigious energy and power to his parentage, and the fact that he is two-thirds divine (Arnold 2009).</span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">This is a useful foil. I'll use his set-up to contrast his interpretation with my own.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">1) That's easy for Arnold to say. Given his liberal view of Scripture, it doesn't cost him anything to impute to Scripture an interpretation which he considers factually false or even preposterous. But for Christians who take the authority of Scripture seriously, we can't be so cavalier. Of course, Arnold pays a price. He just doesn't know it, given his compartmentalized faith.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">2) It's antecedently unlikely that the narrator would suddenly endorse pagan mythology, given his polemical theology–which often skewers pagan mythology. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">3) If you use something like the Epic of Gilgamesh or Hesiod's Theogony as your frame of reference, then, of course, Gen 6:1-4 is mythological. But that's a reference frame you're bringing to the text, not reference frame you're getting from the text. That interpretation is the artifact of what you read into the text, not what you read out of the text.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">4) Moreover, v2 isn't even consistent with Arnold's pagan comparisons. In that literature, high gods and low gods don't marry women. Rather, they seize them by force, then dump them. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">5) The fallen angelic interpretation is just as extraordinary as the mythological interpretation. So why would that avoid the "plain and obvious" sense of the text? It's not like that's a rationalistic or naturalistic interpretation. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">6) Notice the implicit premises in Arnold's argument:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">i) The<i> bene ha elohim</i> are low gods.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ii) The Nephilim are demigods sired by low gods. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">But syllogism is dubious:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">7) First of all, there's the identity of the<i> bene ha elohim</i>. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">i) This is the only occurrence of that phrase in the Pentateuch. So, frankly, we're at a loss to know for sure what the narrator meant by that. Commentators turn to Job and the Psalms for linguistic parallels. But is that reliable? Job's Hebrew is idiosyncratic. And the Psalms are poetic. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ii) In the OT, "son" can be used abstractly or figuratively, viz. "sons of Belial" (Deut 13:13), "sons of valor" (Judg 18:2), "sons of fire" (Job 5:7), "son of the dawn" (Isa 14:12).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">8) Conversely, <i>elohim</i> can sometimes be used as an adjective as well as a noun. Indeed, it's striking that commentators who render <i>bene ha elohim</i> in Gen 6:2 as "divine beings" are also inclined to render <i>ruach elohim</i> in Gen 1:2 as "awesome wind," or <i>el gibbor</i> in Isa 9:6 as "great hero." They translate the terminology down when they wish to demote orthodox interpretations, and translate the terminology up when they wish to promote heterodox interpretations. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">9) It's unclear from the syntax if the Nephilim are offspring of these unions. They could be contemporaries of the "sons of God(s)." </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">10) Moreover, Arnold is using Num 13:33 to gloss the Nephilim in Gen 6:4. But that identification is dubious. For one thing, the Nephilim in 6:4 would perish in the flood. Since the Pentateuch is a literary unit, with the same narrator, their postdiluvian survival would be inconsistent with his storyline.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">11) Furthermore, the description of the Nephilim in Num 13:33 comes from the spies who are looking for an excuse to retreat. So their description is hyperbolic. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">12) There's also the question of whether this pericope goes with the preceding genealogy or the succeeding flood account. If it goes with the genealogy, then there's less reason to think anything extraordinary is in view.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">13) For many scholars, "mythical" is a synonym for whatever they deem to be impossible or unbelievable. "Mythical" is the measure of their secular education and experience. If nothing out of the ordinary has ever happened to them, then anything miraculous or paranormal is "mythical." </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">14) There's nothing prima facie mythical about "heroes of old" or "men of renown." That hardly selects for demigods. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">To me, that suggests someone like Nimrod (Gen 10:8-12). Indeed, both passages employ the same designation (<i>gibbor</i> [10:8-9]; <i>gibborim</i> [6:4]). Of course he's postdiluvial, but he's the type of individual that 6:4 is referring to. Explorers. Conquerors. Warrior-kings. Founders of ancient empires. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">In a sense, Arnold is half-right. It's a familiar theme. But Arnold has the order wrong. Historical figures can morph into legendary figures, then mythical figures. Ambitious, ruthless, adventurous young men who are bent on conquering the world. Making a deathless name for themselves. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">A modern counterpart would be the Conquistadors. In relation to the New World (i.e. Latin America), they were the "heroes of old." Don't let the positive connotations of the English word "hero" throw you. It doesn't mean the good guy. It means heroic. Rapacious men can do heroic deeds. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">15) This, in turn, might throw light on the "sons of God(s)." Let's assume (ex hypothesi) that the "sons of God(s)" fathered the "heroes of old." </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">If a son has a famous father, the son is known in association with his well-known father. Likewise, if your father is a king, that makes you a prince. You are born into a socially high status (unless you're the bastard son of a royal mistress).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">But it can work in reverse. A famous son will retroactively elevate the social status of his father. No one would remember who Jesse was if his son hadn't been a great king of Israel. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Assuming that the "sons of God(s)" in 6:2 are fathers of the "heroes of old" in 6:4, they might come by that honorific title after the fact. They could be ordinary men who fathered extraordinary sons. Sons whose fame confers status on their fathers. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">The prediluvian world was waiting to be explored and colonized. An opportunity for prediluvian counterparts to Napoleon, Alexander, Tamerlane, Cortés, Pizarro, and Genghis Khan to make their mark on a wide-open world. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">And for their insolence, God either reduces their lifespan or expedites the flood (depending on how we construe Gen 6:3). </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">16) One scholar thinks this may be a polemic against cult prostitution, where men had sex with a priestess who represented a goddess (Wenham 2003).</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">That's interesting, but it doesn't seem to fit the wording of the text:</span><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">i) The text uses stock marital terminology. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">ii) If it was alluding to cult prostitution, we might expect it to refer the "sons of Adam" and the "daughters of goddesses" rather than the "sons of gods" and and "daughters of Adam." </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">iii) The wording is too generic to specify cult prostitution. If that's the subtextual target, it's pretty oblique. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">17) Finally:</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">i) There's nothing in Gen 6:1-4 about the "sons of God" coming down from the sky, much less their banishment from heaven. No descent. No heaven/earth contrast. That's reading 1 Enoch back into Genesis. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">ii) In Pentateuchal usage, divine fatherhood/sonship is employed metaphorically (e. g. Exod 4:22-23; Deut 14:1; cf. 1:31; 8:5; 32:6). I think it best to construe Gen 6:2,4 in the same figurative sense. </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>References:</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Arnold, B. <i>Genesis</i> (Cambridge 2009), 89-90.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Wenham, G.<i> Exploring the Old Testament, Volume 1: A Guide to the Pentateuch</i> (IVP 2003), 27.</span></div>
stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16547070544928321788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8771286913447749112.post-73274901258520451922013-08-27T12:42:00.002-04:002013-08-27T22:32:36.754-04:00Genesis and genealogies<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>5 This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. 2 Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created. 3 When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">This is significant because it demonstrates that the image of God is transmitted through procreation. If we didn't have this statement, along with Gen 9:6, the reader might be left to wonder if the image of God was unique to Adam and Eve. But this shows the reader that the image of God is shared by all of Adam's posterity.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>21 When Enoch had lived 65 years, he fathered Methuselah. 22 Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters. 23 Thus all the days of Enoch were 365 years. 24 Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">This doesn't explicitly say that Enoch eluded death. However, that seems to be implicit in the studied contrast between the usual obituary notice ("Thus all the days of X were Y years, and he died") and the absence of that refrain in Enoch's case. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">If so, this is highly significant. It means that hope of immortality wasn't necessarily or essentially tied to physical access to the tree of life. Of course, Enoch's case is quite exceptional. But exceptional in a typological sense. Faith is the route to immortality. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>I) The function of genealogies</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">The Biblical genealogies became very significant and controversial in church history for two reasons. One, because these were used to date the origin of the world. In addition, many modern readers find the ages of the prediluvians incredible. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">It's important to keep in mind that using the genealogies to construct a timeline for world history is not their original design. That doesn't mean there's anything inherently wrong with using the genealogies to extract general chronological information. After all, Biblical archeologists often ransack the Bible for information in their historical reconstructions. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">But before we turn to that application, we need to consider their original function. Genealogies function as bridging devices to transition between one historical episode and another. They also place individual episodes within a larger narrative framework or continuous storyline. Finally, the genealogies track the progressive fulfillment of the seed of promise motif (Gen 3:15). </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>II) Open or closed? </b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Are the genealogies of Genesis open or closed? By "open," are they selective? Do they skip over some descendants? </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">By comparing different genealogies in Scripture, William Henry Green concluded that the genealogies were open. Green's basic analysis has been supplemented by subsequent analysis. For instance, scholars have pointed out a 10-generation pattern. In addition, Gen 5 & 11 both terminate in 3 sons. The combination of 10+3 is improbably symmetrical if the genealogies are closed. Scholars have also documented the emphatic 7th position in genealogical lists. As one scholar noted:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Biblical genealogists, as is argued here, oftentime display a definite prediliction for placing in the seventh-position personalities of importance to them…Minimal alterations were made in inherited lists of ancestors in order to place individuals deemed worthy of attention in the seventh, and, to a much lesser extent, fifth position of a genealogical tree.</span> </blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">At the outset, the following cautionary statements should be made: 1- This method of attracting attention to specific individuals is but one of others available to Biblical writers3; 2- It should be emphasized that this procedure, which might almost be regarded in terms of a 'convention', was neither universally applied, nor slavishly followed; 3- The origin and development of this 'convention' could but be guessed at, since we have no comparative material from Israel's neighbors to control our speculations. It is not unlikely, however, that this procedure was promoted within intellectual circles, most probably among individuals who shared a desire to instruct. When organizing their lists, such individuals often had a didactic purpose in mind. The context in which their lists were placed, however, to a great extent determined a framework in which to work. Thus a certain equilibrium was achieved between the genealogist's eagerness to teach worthy lessons and the disciplining exigencies of a narrative. With their freedom somewhat constrained, genealogists, therefore, concentrated their didactic effort on one, or at most, two positions in a genealogical tree.In view of the prediliction that Semites in general, and Hebrews in particular, had for the number 'seven' and its multiples, the favoring of the 'seventh-position' should prove understandable (Sasson 1978).</span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">I think there's compelling evidence that Genesis uses open rather than closed genealogies. They are selective and schematic rather than continuous and complete. For that reason alone, I don't think the genealogies supply <i>exact</i> intervals. To that extent, Usher's chronology flounders on faulty assumptions.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">However, that, by itself, is not a fatal concession for young-earth creationism. Indeed, many young-earth creationists grant the fact that the genealogies are open rather than closed. I'll have more to say on this issue in a moment.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>III) The Longevity of the Prediluvians</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">i) Many readers balk at the longevity of the prediluvians. They disbelieve, or find it hard to believe, that human beings could live that long. However, it's important to keep in mind that from a theological standpoint, the longevity of the prediluvians is not an isolated or anomalous phenomenon. According to Gen 2, unfallen man, although he was mortal, was created with the potential for immortality. Eating from the tree of life would either confer immortality or at least rejuvenate him. Likewise, Scripture teaches the resurrection of the body. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">So, according to Scripture, it is possible, in principle, for a human body to live forever. Indeed, that's more than a hypothetical possibility. That will actually be realized. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Of course, unbelievers will deny this. However, Christians shouldn't balk at the ages of the prediluvians. How can you believe the saints will live forever if you don't even believe someone can live for 900 years? </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ii) One commentator raises the following objection: "Paleoanthropologists have not yet uncovered any ancient skeletal remains that even remotely approach such advanced ages" (Youngblood 1999). However, I have two problems with his objection:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">a) Youngblood doesn't bother to explain how paleoanthropologists would be able to determine the age of prediluvians from skeletal remains. If, say, they aged very slowly, could you tell that from skeletal remains? </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Don't we generally determine age of death from skeletal remains by comparison with normal lifespans? So what would be the frame of reference in the case of prediluvians? By definition, they fall far outside normal standards of comparison. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">b) Strictly speaking, Gen 5 doesn't say prediluvians in general lived that long. It's possible that those lifespans were confined to the line of Seth. If so, what are the odds that skeletal remains would even survive the ravages of time, much less be fortuitously discovered, by archeologists, given such a small initial sample group?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">One might object that restricting the extraordinary longevity to the prediluvian line of Seth is arbitrary. However, there's something "arbitrary" about God singling out the line of Seth in the first place. But God selecting one individual or kin-group while excluding another is a major theme in the Pentateuch.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">iii) Another problem with trying to cut the prediluvians down to size is that we have a steady decrease in longevity from the prediluvians through the patriarchs to the Mosaic era and beyond. For whatever reason, it starts high, then drastically lowers over time. Don't we need to interpret the ages consistent with that overall trend? Otherwise, we're depressing the pattern. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">iv) Another "solution" is to say the names stand for dynasties rather than individuals. But there are problems with that:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">a) It fails to distinguish between linear genealogies, which trace through one descendant per generation, and segmented genealogies, that include more than one descendent per generation. Moreover, even segmented genealogies name each individual descendent.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">b) It doesn't work for Enoch, where it's clearly describing a unique individual experience.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>IV) Are the figures artificial? </b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">i) Some scholars argue that the figures are artificial. For instance, in his commentary on Genesis, Umberto Cassuto noted that the ages of the prediluvians in Gen 5 were divisible by 5, sometimes with the addition of 7. If true, that's striking. However, I have some reservations about his analysis:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">a) This assumes the numbers in the Massoretic Text were transmitted with absolute accuracy for centuries on end. But numbers are highly susceptible to mistranscription, and once a numerical error creeps into the text, it's difficult to detect and correct. This is a problem with all those "Bible code" books that presume to discover subtle numerical patterns hidden in the text. There's no margin for error in their calculations. The transmission of the text must be exact. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">b) Unlike some numbers, such as 7 or 12, no special numerological significance attaches to the number 5 in Biblical usage. So it's not obvious to me why the narrator would be using multiples of 5 for symbolic reasons. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">c) If those aren't the actual ages of the prediluvians, why did the narrator assign those ages to the prediluvians? Cassuto's analysis fails to explain why each prediluvian is assigned that particular age, rather than some other age. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">d) Assuming that the ages are multiples of 5, sometimes with the addition of 7, does that mean these are artificial figures? Or does it mean these are round figures? Rounding the ages to make them divisible by 5 doesn't make them imaginary. That might be a mnenomic device. The occasional addition of 7 indicates the narrator was constrained by objective data, not just making it up whole cloth. Otherwise, why not make them all neatly divisible by 5? If he has to add 7 in some cases, that indicates the figures are not artificial. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">One might argue that 5 plus 7 equals 12, which is a figure with numerological significance in Scripture. However, the alternation between ages that use 7 and ages that don't seems random. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">e) If the ages symbolic, shouldn't that be a consistent numerological pattern in the genealogies of Genesis? What about other genealogies in Genesis? </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ii) An even more ingenious explanation was proposed by Barnouin, who correlates the ages of some prediluvians with the synodic periods of the seven "planets." However, I have reservations about his analysis:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">a) As with Cassuto's analysis, this assumes the absolute accuracy of our extant Hebrew manuscripts.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">b) There are 10 prediluvians in the Gen 5 genealogy, but Barnouin only finds astronomical correlations for a handful. That randomness suggests to me that his correlations are coincidental rather than intentional.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">c) Why think the original audience for Genesis would even recognize these patterns? And even assuming they were detectable, why would they be significant to the original audience?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">The approaches of Cassuto and Barnouin both seem to be rather ad hoc. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>V) From gaps to geological ages</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">In his classic, seminal essay, Green was very optimistic about the value of his analysis in harmonizing Scripture with geology. For instance:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">And it is to be observed that the Scriptures furnish no collateral information whatever respecting the period covered by the genealogies now in question. The creation, the Flood, the call of Abraham, are great facts, which stand out distinctly in primeval sacred history. A few incidents respecting our first parents and their sons Cain and Abel are recorded. Then there is an almost total blank until the Flood, with nothing whatever to fill the gap, and nothing to suggest the length of time intervening but what is found in the genealogy stretching between these two points. And the case is substantially the same from the Flood to Abraham. So far as the biblical records go, we are left not only without adequate data, but without any data whatever, which can be brought into comparison with these genealogies for the sake of testing their continuity and completeness.</span> </blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">If, therefore, any really trustworthy data can be gathered from any source whatever, from any realm of scientific or antiquarian research, which can be brought into comparison with these genealogies for the sake of determining the question, whether they have noted every link in the chain of descent, or whether, as in other manifest instances, links have been omitted, such data should be welcomed and the comparison fearlessly made. Science would simply perform the office, in this instance, which information gathered from other parts of Scripture is unhesitatingly allowed to do in regard to those genealogies previously examined(Green 1890).</span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">i) A basic problem with Green's analysis is that you can accept his premise, but reject his conclusion. The fact that the genealogies are internally open doesn't mean you can fill the blanks with corresponding geological, prehistorical, or historical epochs. Green doesn't show how they correlate. There's a twofold challenge:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">(a) Intercalating additional intervals within human history–within the genealogical gaps; (b) intercalating additional intervals before human history. An obvious problem is that Green is trying to harmonize the genealogies with 19C science. Let's compare the sequence in Genesis with the sequence posited by modern mainstream science:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Big Bang (14 billion years ago)<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Creation</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Solar System (9 billion years ago)<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> Day 1</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Earth (5 billion years ago)<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Day 2</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Precambrian (<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>4.5 billion years ago)<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Day 3</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Paleozoic (1.5 billion years ago)<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Day 4 </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Mesozoic (250 millions years ago)<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> Day 5</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Cenozoic (60+ million years ago)<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> Day 6</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Stone age (c. 10,000 BC)<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Day 7</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Copper age (4000-3000 BC)</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Bronze Age (3000-1200 BC)<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> The Fall</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Iron Age (1200-600 BC)</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Prediluvian civilization</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The Flood</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The Patriarchal period</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">How do gaps in the genealogies correlate with cosmic history or earth history according to mainstream science? I don't see that Green has solved the problem he posed for himself. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ii) In addition, it's not just a matter of making room for modern scientific claims. Not just extra time, or empty intervals of time, but what events fill those intervals. Mainstream science has a detailed narrative of what was happening during those chronological slots. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Green's solution is too facile to meet the challenge. It requires drastic, unforeseen theological concessions that I doubt he'd be prepared to make. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>References:</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Green, W. H. "Primeval Chronology, "<i>BibSac</i> 47 (1890), 285-303. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Sasson, J. "A Genealogical 'Convention' in Biblical Chronology?" <i>ZAW</i> 90 (1978), 171-85.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Youngblood, R. <i>The Book of Genesis</i> (Wipf & Stock, 2nd ed., 1999), 73. </span></div>
stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16547070544928321788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8771286913447749112.post-69311904351704184212013-08-26T13:04:00.002-04:002013-08-26T13:04:21.551-04:00Cain & Abel<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>4 Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord.” 2 And again, she bore his brother Abel. </i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">It's sometimes said that Gen 3 doesn't really teach the Fall of man. Doesn't really teach original sin. That's a later reinterpretation of the text from church history.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">i) To begin with, Bible teaching is often incremental. Even if Gen 3, all by itself, didn't teach original sin, it may record that turning-point in history. The full significance of that event will then become more evident as Bible history unfolds.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ii) Indeed, the story of Cain and Abel vividly illustrates the dire consequences of the Fall. The moral freefall is almost instantaneous. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Unlike the garden of Eden, where delicious food lay within arm's reach, life outside the garden forces people to have more than one source of subsistence. A mixed economy is a buffer in hard times. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i> 3 In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, 4 and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, 5 but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. </i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">i) The narrator doesn't tell us why God accepted Abel's offering, but rejected Cain–leaving it up to the reader to draw his own conclusions. Some commentators try to explain the differential factor in objective differences between the type of offering. For instance, one scholar has proposed that Cain's offering was unacceptable because the ground was cursed. However, one problem with that explanation is that vegetative offerings are part of the Mosaic cultus. So there's nothing inherently unacceptable about vegetative offerings from a religious standpoint.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ii) I think God is using reverse psychology. By spurning Cain's offering, Cain's reaction exposes his underlying attitude, which is why God rejected his offering. Although Cain's reaction takes place after God spurns his offering, it unmasks a preexisting attitude. And that's why God snubbed him in the first place. What happens afterwards is the explanation for what happened before. In a sense, the effect precedes the cause, but that's because God reads his heart.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>6 The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.”</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Temptation is personified as a demon or predatory animal that waits outside to pounce the moment you open the door. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>8 Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">i) Because Adam and Eve forfeited the tree of life, they were condemned to die of old age. Yet the first fatality isn't due to natural causes, but murder. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ii) Murder is one of the worst sins, but fratricide is an aggravated form of murder. Evil accelerates at a terrifying pace. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">iii) For parents to outlive their kids is a great tragedy for parents. In a way, that's more punitive than their exile from Eden. Sin has unintended consequences. This is one reason we need to obey God. We can't foresee the chain-reaction which sin may trigger. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i> 9 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother's keeper?” 10 And the Lord said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. 11 And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. 12 When you work the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength. You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.” </i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">This illustrates the homeless motif in Scripture. Our first parents are banished from Eden. Then Cain is banished from the human community. Social alienation is one consequence of sin. Loneliness. Emotional isolation. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>13 Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is greater than I can bear. 14 Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden. I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.” </i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Cain is the first sociopath. He has no conscience. No remorse. No sense of guilt. No concern for others. Having murdered his own brother, he plays the victim, wallowing in self-pity. This vividly exemplifies the moral blindness of sin. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>15 Then the Lord said to him, “Not so! If anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.” And the Lord put a mark on Cain, lest any who found him should attack him.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Critics find this anachronistic. Where were all the humans who were going to avenge Abel's murder? </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">i) However, the text looks ahead to explosive population growth. Large, extended families. Keep in mind that the prediluvians had extraordinary lifespans, so a single breeding pair could lead to exponentially expanding families. Indeed, the narrator will clarify the proleptic reference in the genealogies that follow (e.g. Gen 4:17,25-26; 5:4).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">In addition, until humans began dying of old age, Cain had no way of knowing how long humans had to live. He has no precedent, no sample group. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ii) We should also keep in mind that this is Cain speaking, and not the narrator. Cain's fears may be unjustified. He may be paranoid. He's not a stable individual–to say the least. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">iii) But this also foreshadows the avenger of blood. If not in Cain's lifetime, certainly at a later date. </span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> 16 Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">17 Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch.</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Unbelievers love to dust off the old chestnut: where did Cain get his wife? At this stage of human history, you had interbreeding. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Unlike parental incest, which is intrinsically wrong, sibling incest is not intrinsically wrong. Sibling incest is imprudent over the long-haul since interbreeding depletes the gene pool, leading to birth defects. But it's not inherently immoral. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i> When he built a city, he called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch. 18 To Enoch was born Irad, and Irad fathered Mehujael, and Mehujael fathered Methushael, and Methushael fathered Lamech. 19 And Lamech took two wives. The name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah. 20 Adah bore Jabal; he was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. 21 His brother's name was Jubal; he was the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe. 22 Zillah also bore Tubal-cain; he was the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron. The sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">This records the abortive origins of civilization. Urbanization. Art. Technology. Because Cain can no longer make a living as a farmer, since his farmland is accursed, he has to change careers. And he feels the need to create his own city of refuge, a fortified settlement to protect him from his imagined pursuers. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Critics challenge how this can be correlated with the stone age, copper age, bronze age, iron age, &c. We need to keep several things in mind:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">i) We need to distinguish between invention and cultural diffusion. Every invention is initially local. Know-how may or may not be disseminated in space and time. Some innovations occur in geographically isolated pockets where there is no cultural diffusion. It may be forgotten in a generation or so, then rediscovered somewhere else, at a later date. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">By the same token, you can have multiple discoveries by independent inventors. Innovations don't all happen at the same time or place. Therefore, it's artificial to arrange "progress" in a single timeline, for "progress" isn't that linear. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ii) Add to that the random nature of what trace evidence survives, as well as what fraction of surviving evidence is found by archeologists.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">iii) Moreover, we'd expect these technological breakthroughs to be obliterated by the flood. Postdiluvial society would have to start from scratch.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">For an alternative explanation, see Collins.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">iv) Narrative compression is a common technique in the historical writings of Scripture. Gen 4:17-21 may be a case in point. Consolidating events in a shorter timespan than was actually the case. That's not fictitious. Rather, it's a way of covering a lot of ground in a short space. Genesis doesn't presume to offer an exhaustive world history. It's narrowly selective. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">v) Liberal commentators routinely dismiss the many "etiologies" of Genesis as legendary folklore. However, there really is a first time for everything, so there's nothing inherently suspect about saying so. </span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">23 Lamech said to his wives:</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">“Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say:</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">I have killed a man for wounding me,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> a young man for striking me.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">24 </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">If Cain's revenge is sevenfold,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> then Lamech's is seventy-sevenfold.”</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Another example of the moral freefall. Polygamy, and the cheapening of life. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>25 And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name Seth, for she said, “God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him.” </i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">That contains a miniature theodicy. Seth was the replacement child. He took the place of his murdered brother. Abel's death was tragic. Yet Abel's untimely demise made room for Seth. Absent Abel's premature death, Seth would not exist. What was evil for Abel was good for Seth. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">We are shortsighted creatures. We think we can imagine ways the world might be better. But "improvements" have unforeseeable long-range consequences. A short-term good may be offset by an long-term evil. A short-term evil may be offset by a long-term good. Only God can balance out all the tradeoffs. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>26 To Seth also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. At that time people began to call upon the name of the Lord.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">The inception of organized religion. A religious community. A community of fellow believers. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>References:</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Collins, J. <i>Did Adam and Eve Really Exist?</i> (Crossway 2011), 113-14.</span></div>
stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16547070544928321788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8771286913447749112.post-13516821589391269442013-08-25T17:49:00.001-04:002013-08-25T19:58:52.733-04:00The Fall<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>3 Now the serpent</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">i) The Tempter makes an abrupt appearance, without any preparation. That may be in part because the reader is supposed to pick up clues from other parts of the Pentateuch. That may also be because "snakes" had preexisting cultural connotations which the narrator could trade on. More on both momentarily.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ii) Although the Hebrew word is a common name for snakes, the word also has occultic overtones with pagan divination (Hamilton 1991). That's lost in translation, so the modern reader can be thrown off by the deceptively ordinary sense of the English word.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">iii) In the ancient Near East, venomous snakes were objects of fear and veneration. In fact, fear gives rise to veneration. You try to placate what you fear. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">iv) Ophiolatry and ophiomancy were commonplace in the ancient Near East. "Snakes" often stood for numinous entities. The Tempter, with his sinister, preternatural abilities, is clearly associated with the symbolic universe of "snakes" in paganism. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">v) There are Pentateuchal examples of this. Take the confrontation with the Egyptian magicians in Exod 7:8-12. That's a direct affront to Egyptian religion. Pharaoh's crown contained an image of a spitting cobra. That was the royal emblem of an Egyptian snake-goddess. Likewise, the bronze serpent episode (Num 21:8-9) is a polemic against serpentine sympathetic magic (Currid 1997; Currid 2013).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">So the Tempter is not an actual reptile, but a personification of a malevolent supernatural agent. The narrator uses serpentine symbolism to evoke familiar occultic connotations. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">vi) Gen 3 doesn't unmask the identity of what lies behind the emblematic serpentine imagery. That awaits further revelation. However, in addition to various "earthlings" like humans and animals, the Pentateuch also refers to angelic "extraterrestrials" (as it were). So there's another class of rational agents. Creatures which, unlike Gen 1-2, aren't composed of earthly elements. Even at this early stage of progressive revelation, it's a short step from the serpentine Tempter to fallen angels. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">vii) The narrative function of the Tempter is explain the origin of suffering and death in human affairs. Since the garden comes direct from God's hand, there's nothing in man's nature or man's environment to explain the downfall of Adam and Eve. Rather, the catalyst must come from an outside agent. From something or someone interjected into the garden. An alien influence.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">That, of course, doesn't explain the ultimate origin of evil. It pushes that question back a step. But it's not the purpose of Gen 3 to explain the ultimate origin of evil. Gen 3 is focused on the fate of mankind.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> <i>was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">The Hebrew syntax is ambiguous. Is this including the Tempter in the animal kingdom (comparative construction), or excluding the Tempter from the animal kingdom (partitive construction)? The context must decide. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” </i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Although this is the first time the Tempter has put in an appearance, notice that he's been eavesdropping on conversations between God and Adam in the garden. Invisible surveillance. Biding his time for an opportune moment. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’”</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Eve is too unsuspecting to appreciate the danger of conversing with this deceptively innocuous stranger. She allows herself to be drawn into his net. She's no match for his fiendish sophistication. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i> 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">A half-truth is more persuasive than a baldfaced lie. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i> 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Sin makes them acutely self-conscious. When the devil makes an offer, there's always a catch. What he said was true–in a twisted sense. Consuming the fruit did make them wise–wise like the devil, rather than wise like God. God-like knowledge without God-like virtue. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>8 And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">There's a question as to how to render the Hebrew. This might describe a stormy theophany of judgment: <i>"The the man and his wife heard the thunder of the Lord God going back and forth in the garden in the wind of the storm"</i> (Niehaus 1995; Sailhamer 2008). That would certainly fit the context. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i> 9 But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">God poses rhetorical questions to elicit a confession. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i> 10 And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” 11 He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” 12 The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” 13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">They shift blame. </span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">14 The Lord God said to the serpent,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">“Because you have done this,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> cursed are you above all livestock</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> and above all beasts of the field;</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">on your belly you shall go,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> and dust you shall eat</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> all the days of your life.</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">i) Some Christians take this to mean the "snake" was originally bipedal. Since Exod 4 & 7 describe the metamorphosis of snakes, we can't rule out that interpretation. However, that interpretation makes assumptions about the identity of the "snake." Treating the "snake" as a natural animal. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">In addition, it reduces the curse to an etiological fable. How snakes lost their legs. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ii) Another interpretation views this as a stock imprecation against venomous snakes (Walton 2001). That involves a contrast between a snake poised to strike, and a snake facedown. For instance, a cobra, with its short, backset fangs, raises itself to a vertical position to strike. Conversely, vipers, with their long retractable fangs, strike from a coiled position.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">That interpretation also dovetails with the imagery of the next verse. Snakes usually bite the lower extremities. </span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">15 </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">I will put enmity between you and the woman,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> and between your offspring and her offspring;</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">he shall bruise your head,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> and you shall bruise his heel.”</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">i) Once again, the narrator is using serpentine imagery to personify something or (especially) someone else. This is not an etiological fable about the origins of ophiophobia. For one thing, it's not as if venomous snakes are only hazardous to women. So there's no reason women would be singled out if that's what's in view.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ii) Traditional Jewish and Christian interpretation regards Gen 3:15 as a Messianic prophecy. Liberals scholars reject this, both because they deny predictive prophecy, and because they think the "seed" is collective rather than singular. But that's simplistic.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">iii) The "seed" is both collective and singular. The oracle is diachronic. It forecasts a history of perennial conflict between two warring parties. Two representative groups. And this will come to a head in a climactic context between two individuals. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">iv) It's a mistake to interpret Gen 3:15 in a vacuum. There's a Messianic seed of promise motif in the Pentateuch (Alexander 2012; Sailhamer 2009). There's also a raging conflict between the people of God and their enemies. Between the faithful and the heathen. Between true believers and idolaters. That threads its way through the entire Pentateuch and beyond. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">v) Some commentators think a "bruised head" is mortal injury whereas a "bruised heel" is an irritant. But in context, the "bruised heel" represents envenomation. And this was long before the age of antivenin. Back then, a venomous snake-bite (unless it was a dry bite) was fatal. Keep Num 21 in mind when you read Gen 3:15. In the symbolism of the passage, these are two well-matched opponents. The outcome could go either way. Christians know how the story ends, but the original audience did not. So it's more suspenseful for them. </span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">16 To the woman he said,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">“I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing;</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> in pain you shall bring forth children.</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">i) This translation is somewhat misleading. For one thing, the Hebrew isn't confined to childbirth, but covers the whole period from conception to birth. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ii) In addition, Scripture frequently uses labor pains metaphorically. To think the curse is mainly about birthpangs reduces it to an etiological fable. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">iii) Apropos (ii), I think this is a lead-in to chap 4. It anticipates the birth of Cain and Abel, the first murder (indeed, fratricide), and Cain's punitive banishment. Due to the fall, pregnancy is now a time of mixed emotions. Hope and apprehension. In a fallen world, you don't know how your kids will turn out. It may end in tragedy. Heartache and heartbreak. Had Adam and Eve stayed faithful, that would not be the case. </span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Your desire shall be for your husband,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> and he shall rule over you.”</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">This predicts for domestic strife, as husbands and wives try to domineer each other. We see examples of this play out in the patriarchal narratives. Spouses who undercut each the rather than supporting each other. </span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">17 And to Adam he said,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> and have eaten of the tree</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">of which I commanded you,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> ‘You shall not eat of it,’</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">cursed is the ground because of you;</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">18 </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> and you shall eat the plants of the field.</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Some Christians think this refers to drastic ecological changes. But in context, this looks ahead to the expulsion from Eden. Life was easy in the garden. Conditions outside the garden are far less hospitable. </span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">19 </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">By the sweat of your face</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> you shall eat bread,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">till you return to the ground,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> for out of it you were taken;</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">for you are dust,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> and to dust you shall return.”</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Death marks the reversal of Adam's creation. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>20 The man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">This confirms the fact that Adam and Eve were the first human breeding pair. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i> 21 And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">This brief statement is provocative. What's the significance of God's action?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">i) It might simply mean that, given their shame, God was putting them at ease. Judgment tempered by grace.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ii) It could be in preparation for the harsher conditions they would face after God banished them from the garden.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">iii) The terminology is also used in the Mosaic cultus (e.g. Exod 28:39-41; Lev 7:8; 8:7,13), so it may foreshadow the tabernacle. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>22 Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” </i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">i) In a fallen world, death is both a blessing and a curse. Loss of loved ones and the indignities of old age are a curse. But immortality in a fallen world would also be a curse. That is graphically illustrated by the rest of the Pentateuchal history, with its litany of suffering and depravity. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ii) Man was created mortal, but with the opportunity to become immortal. However, Adam and Eve took the tree of life for granted. By consuming what was not permitted (the tree of knowledge) rather than consuming what was permitted (the tree of life), they lost both at one stroke. They forfeited immortality for themselves as well as their posterity.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">iii) Yet that was God's plan all along. In the long run, a redeemed world is greater than an unfallen world. Indeed, Gen 3:15 already provides a glimpse of better things to come. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>23 therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. 24 He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">i) The eastern orientation is another link to the tabernacle (Exod 27:13).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ii) The description suggests the garden was enclosed by natural barriers. Perhaps a narrow river valley, like a deep ravine or gorge. By the same token, the river might be subterranean before it surfaced in the garden. There'd only be one way out–downstream. So there'd only be one exit to guard. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">iii) Cherubim seem to be a class of warrior angels. Statuary cherubim symbolically guarded the ark of the covenant. So this is yet another prefiguration of the tabernacle. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">iv) The fiery whirling "sword" conjures up the image of a fire devil. That foreshadows the pillar of fire in the wilderness. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>References:</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Alexander, T. D. <i>From Paradise to Promised Land</i> (Baker, 3rd ed., 2012), chap. 9.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Currid, J. <i>Against the Gods</i> (Crossway 2013), chap. 9.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>_____, Ancient Egypt and the Old Testament</i> (Baker 1997), chaps. 5 & 8. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Hamilton, V. <i>The Book of Genesis: Chapters 1-17</i> (Eerdmans 1991), 187.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Niehaus, J. <i>God at Sinai</i> (Zondervan 1995), 155-59.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Sailhammer, J. <i>Genesis</i> (Zondervan, rev. ed., 2008), 87-88.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">_____, <i>The Meaning of the Pentateuch</i> (Eerdmans 2009), 321-323; 587-590.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Walton, J. <i>Genesis</i> (Zondervan 2001), 224. </span></div>
stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16547070544928321788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8771286913447749112.post-89126684641333876492013-08-24T13:08:00.003-04:002015-04-23T02:04:09.627-04:00East of Eden<br />
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">4 </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">These are the generations</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">of the heavens and the earth when they were created,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">i) Some commentators think the chronology of Gen 2 contradicts the chronology of Gen 1. Even if that were the case, it would simply mean the narrator arranges the events in a topical sequence in one or both accounts.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ii) However, Gen 2 doesn't directly track Gen 1. Gen 1 is a global creation account whereas Gen 2 is a local creation account. Gen 1 is more cosmological whereas Gen 2 is more anthropological. Gen 2 takes Gen 1 for granted, but narrows the focus to the divine preparations for man's ancestral homeland. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">5 When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, 6 and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— </span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Scholars puzzle over the water source in v6, but in context I think we should construe vv5-6 in reference to vv10-14. River water supplies a natural source of irrigation for wild plants bordering a narrow strip along the river banks. What biologists call a riparian zone. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">"Edenic" is a popular adjective. Many folks have a preconception of paradise. For some, "Edenic" is a tropical island. But what was Eden really like?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Landmarks change over the millennia. Place-names may change, or be forgotten. Rivers may change course, or dry up. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">However, to judge by the text, and what geographical correlations we are able to make at this distance, Eden was not a lush tropical paradise. Rather, it seems to be hot and dry, situated somewhere in the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys. Vegetation would crowd along the river banks, but quickly thin out from there. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Or perhaps we should envision a marsh extending from the river banks. Marshy ground is potentially arable, but it requires cultivation. Drainage (Tsumura 1989).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">I once lived in the San Luis Rey river valley. It had verdant growth along the river banks, but the surrounding countryside was rocky and dusty, except when it rained. After a heavy rain, barren patches of land would suddenly burst forth with vegetation. I expect Eden was less like a tropical paradise and more like stretches of the Rio Grande river valley. The ancient Jordan river valley supplies a biblical counterpart–as does the Nile river valley (Gen 13:10).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Its situation in a river valley insulates the garden from the vicissitudes of seasonal rainfall, ensuring a measure of stability. It's a good location, but there's room for improvement. It allows the human inhabitants to further cultivate the area beyond the indigenous green zone skirting the river banks. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>7 then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">i) Many scholars regard "Adam" as a pun. The Hebrew word, both as a generic name for mankind as well as a proper name for the first man, puns the Hebrew word for soil. But I don't see how that's a play on words, any more that Leonardo da Vinci's surname puns a town in Tuscany. Yes, his proper-name derives from a place-name, because his birthplace was near the town. It's just a conventional way of connecting him to his place of origin. That's historical. Indeed, my own surname (Hays) is derives from a place-name in Normandy (La Haye-du-Puits). Likewise, the fact that Adam is named after the soil, from which he was constituted, doesn't make his name a pun–as if this is a literary device or etiology with no factual basis. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ii) Many commentators, including conservatives, consider the depiction of God in <a href="http://biblia.com/bible/esv/Gen%202.7">Gen 2:7</a> to be anthropomorphic. No doubt Scripture contains many anthropomorphic depictions of God. But is 2:7 anthropomorphic? For one thing, if God actually made Adam and Eve by an act of special creation, how else would the narrator express that idea except by using idiomatic verbs normally employed in human manufacture? That’s the vocabulary he has at his disposal.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">In addition, the depictions of God in Gen 2-3 dovetail with Pentateuchal angelology. The Pentateuch contains many angelic apparitions, including the Angel of the Lord. The Angel of the Lord is a theanthropic angelophany. Indeed, it’s arguably a Christophany (although the point I’m making in this post doesn’t turn on that identification).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">I classify the depictions of God in Gen 2-3, not as anthropomorphisms, but angelophanies. The Angel of the Lord (a theanthropic angelophany). </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">In the Pentateuch, angels do rub shoulders with men. Occupy time and space. Interact with their physical surroundings. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">iii) Finally, it’s instructive to compare Genesis with the Gospels:</span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature (<a href="http://biblia.com/bible/esv/Gen%202.7">Gen 2:7</a>).</span></i> </blockquote>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man (<a href="http://biblia.com/bible/esv/Gen%202.21-22">Gen 2:21-22</a>).</span></i> </blockquote>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue (<a href="http://biblia.com/bible/esv/Mk%207.33">Mk 7:33</a>).</span></i> </blockquote>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village, and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, “Do you see anything?” (<a href="http://biblia.com/bible/esv/Mk%208.23">Mk 8:23</a>).</span></i> </blockquote>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man's eyes with the mud (<a href="http://biblia.com/bible/esv/Jn%209.6">Jn 9:6</a>).</span></i> </blockquote>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (<a href="http://biblia.com/bible/esv/Jn%2020.22">Jn 20:22</a>).</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Seems to me that Jesus has a modus operandi that’s very reminiscent of God in Gen 2. Jesus isn’t afraid to get dirt under his fingernails. If Jesus doesn’t mind getting grubby, up-close-and-personal, when he performs a miracle, why assume God’s method is different in Gen 2?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i> and the man became a living creature. </i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">The traditional rendering ("living soul") is misleading because the "soul" in Christian theological usag, connotes the incorporeal mind or consciousness of humans which survives death, whereas the usage here is physical. This doesn't mean humans are simply brains in bodies. Rather, it merely means that at this nascent stage of human history and progressive revelation, questions regarding the afterlife and the intermediate state, which give rise to reflections on the immortal "soul," haven't yet arrived. The perspective of chapter 2 is prelapsarian. At this juncture, death is still hypothetical. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>8 And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">God provides the first humans with an instant orchard to supply their immediate nutritional needs. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i> The tree of life was in the midst of the garden,</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">i) This doesn't mean the tree of life had inherent rejuvenative properties. It's a concrete symbol. God assigns a consequence to eating the fruit. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ii) In addition, the tree of life prefigures the menorah. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i> and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">What is meant by "the knowledge of good and evil"? Perhaps we're asking the wrong question. Perhaps what matters is not what kind of knowledge the tree objectively represents, if any, but what kind of knowledge Adam and Eve imagine it represents. The tree is a cipher. That's what makes it a test. What it signifies to them. What they project onto the tree.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>10 A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. 11 The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. 13 The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. 14 And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">i) The garden wasn't a mythical or legendary utopia like Shangri-La, El Dorado, or the Garden of the Hesperides–but a real place. It was situated somewhere in Mesopotamia. The Tigris and Euphrates are still extant, although their courses have changed over the millennia. Modern archeology has tentatively identified the other two rivers (Hill 2000). </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Although the reference to precious gems and metals might make it sound like a fabled paradise, these, too, refer to real places renown for goldmines and lapis lazuli. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ii) In addition, the reference to precious gems and metals foreshadows the tabernacle furnishings and priestly vestments. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. </i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">"To work it and keep it" are double entendres. On the one hand, they connote farming techniques. On the other hand, they connote priestly service in the tabernacle. The garden was a natural tabernacle (cf. Num 24:5-6). </span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">i) Because Adam and Eve were brought into being as mature adults, God endows them with innate knowledge and language. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ii) Some readers are puzzled by why God didn't strike Adam dead on the day he sinned. Of course, the narrator would be aware of that. But "in the day" is an idiomatic synonym for "when." Adam will die, not as soon as he eats the forbidden fruit, but sometime thereafter. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” 19 Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. </i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">In context, Adam isn't naming every kind of creature on earth, but every kind of creature that frequents the garden. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Why was Eve made from Adam’s side?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">i) The general reason is to stress the unity of man and woman. They were made for each other because they were made from each other. Like two halves a whole. That much is clear from the account itself, which stresses the fittingness of Eve, in contrast to the animals, to be the man’s companion and counterpart. The “one flesh,” “bone-of-my-bones” bond. Men and women have a natural, built-in rapport.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ii) But over and above the general reason may be a more subtle and specific reason for the choice of Adam’s side rather than some other part of his anatomy. As one scholar notes:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">As we have already observed, the language of the garden scene is found in the tabernacle description; the term sela, here rendered “ribs,” appears frequently in the construction setting of the tabernacle, there translated “side.” (Mathews 1996).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">So the narrator may be comparing the woman to a living tabernacle.</span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> 23 Then the man said,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">“This at last is bone of my bones</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> and flesh of my flesh;</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">she shall be called Woman,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> because she was taken out of Man.”</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Gen 2 makes women central to the life of men. That's in striking contrast to pagan literature (e.g. the Iliad, the Epic of Gilgamesh), where a man's chief companions are other men. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>Excursus 1: Special Creation</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">The account of how Adam (v7) and Eve (vv21-22) were made is the locus classicus for the special creation of man, in contrast to the theory of macroevolution by common descent. And that's fine as far as it goes.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">However, it's not as if the case for special creation comes down to three brief verses in Gen 2. Rather, the entire outlook of Gen 2 (as well as Gen 1) is at odds with evolution, whether naturalistic or theistic. In evolution, developments occur through a series of mechanical causes. If there is a God, he lies behind the automated system. He operates through natural processes.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">In Gen 2, by contrast, the perspective is irreducibly supernatural. Personal agency rather than mechanical causation drives the action. God pops in at strategic turning-points to make things happen. And this isn't confined to Gen 2. It pervades the Pentateuch. Theophanies and angelophanies. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Of course, the Pentateuch also has a doctrine of ordinary providence. Many things naturally occur. To some degree the natural order is like a machine. But the manual override is often used by God and other spiritual agents. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">To make room for evolution, you can't just reinterpret Gen 2:7 or 2:21-22. You have to reinterpret the entire chapter. Indeed, you have to reinterpret the Pentateuch. You must treat the way in which the Pentateuch depicts interaction between men and spirits as systematically fictitious or mythological. And, of course, it doesn't stop with the Pentateuch, or the OT. You have the same situation in the Gospels and Acts.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">There are, of course, some radical theologians who are prepared to go that far. However, this is no longer a question of exegesis. Not a question of what it meant to the narrator or the target audience. Rather, this involves imposing an outlook onto the text that's fundamentally alien to the text. Accommodating evolution involves wholesale replacement of the narrator's perspective with an essentially secular perspective. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>Excursus 2: Animals and Man</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Recently, an increasing number of professing believers has decided to jettison the historical Adam. The clincher has been the degree of similarity between humans and chimpanzees.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Now, the specific comparisons have been challenged by Intelligent-design theorists. However, it’s still the case that humans are more like chimps than salamanders.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">According to evolution, we account for the similarity based on common ancestry. As a rule, similarity reflects affinity. Degrees of similarity mirror degrees of kinship. Organisms that are more alike are more closely related while organisms that are less alike are more distantly related. By “related,” I mean in terms of common ancestry.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Is there an alternative explanation consistent with special creation? Take the principle of plenitude. According to Christian thinkers like Leibniz, Aquinas, and Augustine, God made a world with maximal diversity. God made a world which would combine as many variations as possible.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">(In addition, Aquinas thinks organisms have a hierarchical arrangement–from highest to lowest.)</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Although that’s theological, there are secular versions of the principle, viz. the multiverse and the modal realism of David Lewis.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">And on the face of it, the natural world does look like just about every conceivable strategy is represented. So this isn’t just an abstract postulate.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Now, assuming that organisms range along a continuum (i.e. degrees of similarity or dissimilarity), it’s inevitable that humans will be more like some animals, and less like others. And if that’s the case, then there may well be one animal that humans are more like than other animals.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">That isn’t due to common ancestry, but graded diversity. If God made a full-spectrum world, then humans will resemble some creatures more than others–for the world was designed to exhibit a wide range of biological similarities and dissimilarities. Every feasible or compossible permutation will be represented.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Incidentally, when I speak of a scale (spectrum, continuum) of diversity, I don’t mean that in strictly linear terms. That’s an incidental connotation of the spatial metaphors. I don’t think all organisms can be arranged according to a single principle of continuity and discontinuity. In comparing two organisms, they may be alike in one or more respects, but unalike in other respects. My argument doesn’t require linearity.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">To take a comparison, consider all the different styles of chess sets. Some chess sets are more alike, while others are less alike. That’s because humans value artistic diversity. And the world we inhabit seems to reflect God’s artistic diversity.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Another example is musical variation. Classical composers would demonstrate their ingenuity by ringing the changes on a particular theme. Notable examples include Pachelbel’s Canon, Handel’s The Harmonious Blacksmith, Bach’s Goldberg Variations, Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations, Brahms’s Variations on a Theme by Haydn, and Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">I’m reminded of Paul’s statement about “the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known…” (<a href="http://biblia.com/bible/esv/Eph%203.9-10">Eph 3:9-10</a>).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">As Hoehner says, this carries the connotation of “most varied.”</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">This is not an ad hoc alternative. It’s a comprehensive explanation, based on one overarching principle. That’s economical. It antedates the creation/evolution debate, so it’s not a stopgap that was pressed into service to stave off the Darwinians. And there’s no presumption that God wouldn’t, shouldn’t, or didn’t design a world with maximal variation.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>References:</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Hill, C., "The Garden of Eden: A Modern Landscape," <i>Perspectives on Science and the Christian Faith</i> 52 (2000), 31-46.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2000/PSCF3-00Hill.html">http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2000/PSCF3-00Hill.html</a></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Mathews, K. <i>Genesis 1–11:26</i> (Broadman 1996), 216.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Tsumura, D. <i>The Earth and the Waters in Genesis 1 and 2</i> (JSOTS 1989), 119-21. </span></div>
stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16547070544928321788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8771286913447749112.post-23814688400402307012013-08-23T13:09:00.004-04:002013-08-23T13:09:40.880-04:00Very good<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>20 And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.” </i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Unlike paganism, which divinizes nature by ascribing spontaneous generation to the four elements, the initial production of aquatic life requires a divine command (Cf. Exod 7:3). </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>21 So God created the great sea creatures</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">What do the "great sea creatures" refer to?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">i) Some scholars think they refer to marine creatures like sharks, whales, and giant squid. One problem with that identification is that ancient Israelites weren't a seafaring people, so that wouldn't be relevant or even intelligible to the original audience.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ii) As emancipated Egyptian slaves, they might be painfully familiar with Nile crocodiles. Technically speaking, those are freshwater rather than marine species. But the narrator may not be concerned with that distinction. Nile crocodiles are huge ambush predators and notorious man-eaters. The experience would be unforgettable. In Bible times, the habitat of crocodiles extended to Palestine and Mesopotamia (Blaiklock 1983).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">There is a species of crocodile (the saltwater or estuarine crocodile) that's at home in both inland freshwater and coastal marine habitats. Yet its distribution lies outside the Mideast. But its distribution may have been more extensive in earlier times. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">However, the plural suggests a wider reference than one kind of "sea creature." Which brings us to another interpretation:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">iii) Other scholars think this is an allusion to mythical sea-monsters or "chaos monsters." If so, that's an example of Scripture's polemical theology, where Scripture polemicizes against pagan concepts. In this case, it would be cutting them down to size. In paganism, the chaos monsters are godlike beasts that threaten to unhinge the natural order. Animate forces that wreak havoc with the natural order, unless they are contained. They rival the gods. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">If that's what Genesis is alluding to, then by placing them within the creation account, the narrator demythologizes them (just as he demythologized the celestial luminaries) by reducing them to mere creatures, however impressive, but utterly subservient to God. On one interpretation, Job 40-41 is an expanded example of polemicizing against chaos monsters. There are other fleeting references in Scripture (Ps 74:13-14; 104:25-26; Isa 27:1; 51:9). </span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> And God saw that it was good.</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">In what sense is the creation said to be "good"? God is commending his own actions. Whatever God does is good because he does it, whether in creation or providence. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">This also affirms the goodness of the material world. Matter isn't evil. Physical existence isn't imprisonment. </span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> 22 And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23 And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">24 And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so. 25 And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">26 Then God said, “Let us make man</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">What's the significance of the first person plural? </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">i) The traditional Christian explanation is a Trinitarian interpretation. God is talking to himself, but since God is Trinitarian, introspection has a plural dimension.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">The problem with that explanation is that it's too theologically advanced for the original audience. At this introductory stage of progressive revelation, they lack the necessary background for that reference to be intelligible. However, I think the Trinitarian interpretation has a grain of truth. I'll return to it momentarily. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ii) Some scholars think this is a rhetorical device: interior monologue. The narrator depicts God in the act of self-deliberation.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">In general, there's nothing wrong with that explanation. There are biblical examples of interior monologue (e.g. 1 Sam 27:1; Ps 42:5). However, even though that might explain the first-person form, it fails to explain the plural form. Yet it's the plural form that calls for explanation.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">In fact, we have examples of divine interior monologue in Genesis (Gen 2:18; 18:17). But there the narrator employs the singular form. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">iii) Another explanation that's become popular in modern scholarly circles is that God is addressing the angelic heavenly court. That's an attractive proposal, and it may be correct, but there are problems:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Gen 1 is notably silent on the creation of angels. So Gen 1 hasn't laid a foundation for that referent. It would be very abrupt to assume an allusion to the heavenly court when Gen 1 hasn't even said anything about the existence or origin of angels. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">In fairness, one might defend the angelical interpretation by noting that the context of Gen 1 includes the entire Pentateuch. Certainly the Pentateuch mentions angels. Indeed, there are several references to angels in Genesis alone.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">On the other hand, there's nothing in the Pentateuch that clearly refers to the angelical heavenly court. Those all occur outside the Pentateuch. Perhaps the closest we come to it is "Jacob's ladder." </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Since, moreover, Gen 1 is a creation account, if angels are the point of reference for God's plural address, I think we'd still expect the creation of angels to be mentioned. Gen 1 does explain some things in reference to other things, but it does so by building on earlier fiats. God is said to make one thing at an earlier stage, and that, in turn, is a point of reference for a later development. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">iv) In Gen 1, there are arguably two divine agents in play: God and God's Spirit. In Scripture, "spirits" are personal agents, and the "Spirit of God" is a divine agent. So, in context, it would make sense if this is a dialogue between God and God's Spirit. This isn't fully Trinitarian, but it's a first step in that direction. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Some might be tempted to include God's word. However, in Gen 1, God's word isn't presented as a personal agent. Rather, God is a speaker. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">The notion that God's word is a personal agent will, of course, be developed in the course of Scripture, but we're not yet at that point. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i> in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Man is the "image" of God in the sense of God's representative and viceregent on earth. </span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">27 </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">So God created man in his own image,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> in the image of God he created him;</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> male and female he created them.</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Gen 1 is heteronormative. Transgender and homosexuality are decadent aberrations. </span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">29 And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Based on vv29-30 and 9:3, some Christians think all animals were originally herbivores. But there are problems with that interpretation:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">i) The wording is permissive, not proscriptive. It doesn't prohibit carnivory. Rather, it speaks to divine provision. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ii) We should avoid a false dichotomy between carnivory and herbivory. Both carnivores and herbivores depend on flora to survive. Herbivores eat plants while carnivores eat other carnivores or (especially) herbivores. So carnivores are equally dependent on flora. It's just a distinction between direct and indirect dependence.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">iii) The language is hyperbolic, since some vegetation is inedible.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">iv) It singles out wild animals, ignoring livestock. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">v) It singles out land animals, ignoring aquatic creatures. But many aquatic creatures are carnivorous or hematophagous, viz. sharks, orcas, lampreys, piranha, barracuda, jellyfish, sea snakes, moray eels, tiger fish, vampire fish. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">vi) Apropos (v), some creatures straddle ecological zones. How would the narrator classify semiaquatic creatures like ducks, frogs, otters, turtles, anacondas, seals, crocodiles? How would their diet fit in? </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">vii) The passage ignores carnivorous or hematophagous bats and insects, viz. ticks, fleas, mosquitoes, dragonflies, centipedes, vampire bats.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">viii) The narrator uses taxonomic nomenclature that normally denotes wild plants. If the passage is prohibitive, that would place a ban on farming. Were Adam and Eve not allowed to farm the land? Likewise, if the passage is taken to forbid meat-eating, then does it also forbid horticulture? Would it be sinful for Adam and Eve to cultivate seedless grapes and watermelons? </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ix) Gen 1 is an account of origins. It describes creatures which would be familiar to a reader living after the fall and after the flood. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Many predators are specially designed to capture and consume prey, while prey are often designed to elude capture. If, however, all creatures were initially herbivorous, then the origin of many major lifeforms took place at a later date. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">x) Judging by the taxonomic nomenclature, Gen 9:3 probably refers to hunting game species in particular rather than a meat diet in general (Walton 2001).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>2 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2 And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">i) The traditional chapter break is an editorial mistake. Most scholars think the pericope extends from Gen 1:1-2:3. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ii) In what sense is God said to rest? </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">a) It means cessation from creation. He's done making the world. That's a finished product. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">b) "Rest" is a loaded word. "Rest" is chosen because that word connotes the Sabbath. Foreshadows the Sabbath. More than foreshadows: this is the prototypal and archetypal Sabbath. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">c) It also evokes the cosmic temple motif. A temple is the "house of God." After completing the temple, God takes up residence (as it were). So "rest" in this context doesn't imply inactivity, but activity. God is no longer active in the construction phase because that's over with. God is now active in the world, because there is a world for God to be active in. A theater of divine action. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Of course, this doesn't mean the physical world is literally God's dwelling-place. We're dealing with a theological metaphor. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">iii) I think that also explains the absence of the diurnal refrain ("dusk and dawn"). Some scholars take this to mean the seventh day is endless, but I think it simply means day seven breaks the cycle of the divine workweek. And it terminates divine action in that regard. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">In fact, the diurnal refrain after each day and between each day already signifies divine rest, for the interval between dusk and dawn is nighttime (whereas the interval between dawn and dusk is daytime). The difference is that on days 1-5, God completes a day's work, whereas–on day 6, God completes a week's work. That represents a complete cessation of God's creative labors, unlike the temporary breaks on days 1-5. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">In addition, God's creation workweek is unrepeatable whereas man's work week is repeatable, precisely because God's unique action sets the pattern for man. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Far from being continuous, it's discontinuous–for the sabbath is a buffer between the last workweek and the next workweek. By definition, it's "set apart" from other days. But the sabbath is ended by the resumption of the workweek. The creation account doesn't go that far since the point of the creation account is to explain the origin of the cycle. Once the cycle is in place, it will repeat itself. Periodicity is implied by the goal of the process. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">To say it's endless due to the absence of the diurnal refrain would prove to much, for that would also mean it has no inception as well as no termination. No dawn or dusk. But that's more than proponents wish to claim for the seventh day. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>References:</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Blaiklock, E. M. "Crocodile," <i>The New International Dictionary of Biblical Archaeology</i> (Zondervan 1983), 140.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Walton, J. <i>Genesis</i> (Zondervan 2001), 342-43. </span></div>
stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16547070544928321788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8771286913447749112.post-34403676611133973202013-08-21T13:08:00.000-04:002013-09-12T00:45:20.286-04:00From first day to fourth day<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. </i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">1) It's often said that Gen 1 takes God's existence for granted. There's no effort to prove his existence. That's true, but misleading. The narrative audience for Genesis is the Exodus-generation. The Exodus-generation witnessed firsthand how God miraculously delivered them from Egypt and sustained them in the wilderness.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">2) Gramatically speaking, there are basically two ways to construe Gen 1:1-3:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">i) You can construe v1 as a statement of absolute creation. Nothing preexisted God. God made the world at the beginning of time. Time and space take their point of origin in God's creative fiat (v1). </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">In addition, v1 marks the first creative fiat. That's the initial phase of the six-day creative process. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ii) Conversely, you can construe v1 as a temporal clause (viz., "When God began to create"). By the same token, you can construe v1 as a topic sentence prologue which summarizes the creative process. On that view, v1 stands outside the six-day creative process. In addition, creation doesn't begin until v3. God is terraforming a preexistent earth, with preexistent waters. God is the finisher rather than the Creator. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">One argument for the second interpretation is that, in normal usage, the merism (heaven and earth) refers to the world as a finished product. However, it would be fallacious to read that back onto Gen 1:1. It normally refers to the world as a finished product because that's the status quo once God made the world. But that's premature at this preliminary stage of creation. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">3) Although both these interpretations are grammatically viable options, both interpretations aren't theologically viable options. Interpretation (ii) would make this a fairly pagan creation account. It wouldn't clearly distinguish this from pagan cosmogonies. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">There's a reason why pagan creation myths take preexisting matter for granted. That's because, in heathenism, matter is ultimate. Nature is ultimate. The gods themselves are the product of an antecedent natural process. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">In addition, as one scholar notes:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Since the "earth" commands the attention of the whole report in vv3-31, are we to believe that the account gives no word on the origins of its focal topic when it is the very subject of origins that drives the narrative (Mathews 1996)?</span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Once again, we need to keep in mind the narrative audience for Gen 1. That would be the Exodus-generation. They were liberated from Egypt. Egypt was an influential source of paganism. Gen 1 stands in contrast to pagan cosmogonies. The one true God of Israel stands in contrast to the gods of the pagan pantheon. The God of Israel has no antecedents or coexistents. As one scholar puts it:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">For the first time in the religious history of the Near East, God is conceived as being entirely free of temporal and spatial dimensions (Sarna 1989).</span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">To be sure, liberals don't think the ostensible setting of the Pentateuch reflects the actual date of composition. They think the narrator has archaized the present. But even if the setting were a historical fiction, the ostensible narrative audience is still the interpretive frame of reference. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Of course, Christians ought to believe the self-witness of the text. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>2 The earth was without form and void</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">This describes the primordial state of the earth when God made it on the first day. At this stage, the earth is barren and desolate. Lifeless and inhospitable. There's nothing "chaotic" in this description. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>and darkness</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Darkness is not a preexisting something, but a negative state. The absence of something position. The absence of light.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Gen 1 lays great emphasis on the light/dark, day/night motif. For a reader who lived in preelectric times, what was the significance of light and dark, day and night?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">i) Darkness evokes fear and apprehension. For one thing, there were dangerous nocturnal predators (e.g. <a class="lbsBibleRef" data-reference="Ps 104.20-22" data-version="esv" href="http://biblia.com/bible/esv/Ps%20104.20-22" style="color: #cc6411; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Ps 104:20-22</a>).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ii) Likewise, you could get lost in the dark. That might easily happen to those who had to travel on foot (e.g. <a class="lbsBibleRef" data-reference="Jn 12.35" data-version="esv" href="http://biblia.com/bible/esv/Jn%2012.35" style="color: #cc6411; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Jn 12:35</a>).</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">iii) Apropos (ii), a day was a unit of distance. How far you could travel by foot in a day (e.g. Gen 30:36; 31:23; Exod 3:18; Num 10:33; 11:31; 33:8). </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">iv) Conversely, the major sources of light were sunlight and firelight. In that respect there’s probably an intertextual connection between sunlight and agriculture (<a class="lbsBibleRef" data-reference="Gen 1.14" data-version="esv" href="http://biblia.com/bible/esv/Gen%201.14" style="color: #cc6411; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Gen 1:14</a>; <a class="lbsBibleRef" data-reference="Gen 8.22" data-version="esv" href="http://biblia.com/bible/esv/Gen%208.22" style="color: #cc6411; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">8:22</a>). Sunlight was necessary for farming, and farming was necessary for food and wine. Keep in mind that wine was often substitute for water in a dry climate.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">v) The Pentateuch also describes certain types of sacred fire, light, or firelight. There’s the Shekinah, the burning bush, the pillar of fire, the perpetual flame (for burnt offerings), and divine lightning that consumes offerings. These reflect the presence of God or the revelation of God. The accent on light in Gen 1 sets the stage for these examples.<br /><br />vi) In the ancient world, certain celestial phenomena were interpreted as omens (signs, portents, prodigies).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>was over the face of the deep.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">The surface of the primordial earth was submerged in water.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">i) This involves puns and mixed metaphors. The Hebrew designation (ruach) can mean wind, breath, or spirit. The narrator is exploiting the polyvalent connotations of the word (Averbeck 2005):</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">i) "Wind," as a natural metaphor which goes with water. Without dry land, there's nothing to constrain wave action. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ii) "Breath" is a natural metaphor for the spoken word. That suits God speaking the world into existence.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">iii) In addition, "breath" is a synecdoche for biological life. When organisms die, they "expire." </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">This foreshadows God's creation of Adam, in the next chapter.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">iv) The agency of God's Spirit in making the world foreshadows his agency in making the tabernacle (Exod 31:3). </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">v) "Hovering" is a protective, avian metaphor, which foreshadows God's provision for the wilderness generation (Deut 32:11-14). </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">vi) Apropos (v), this may be a theophany that trades on ancient Near Eastern iconography, representing the winged solar disk (Niehaus 1995). </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. </i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">This probably foreshadows types of sacred light in Exodus, such as the pillar of fire, the burning bush, and the menorah. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">In the creation account (Gen 1-2), "day" (yom) has three different senses:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">i) Daylight or the daylight hours, in contrast to night.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ii) A solar day.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">iii) An idiomatic synonym for "when" (e.g. 2:4; 5:1).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Days aren't simply units of time, but units of light. It's easy for modern readers to overlook that fact because we're accustomed to artificial lighting. We regulate our lives by technology. But natural lighting would be far more significant to an ancient reader. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">"Evening and morning" means dusk and dawn, sundown and sunup. They demarcate daytime from nighttime. The diurnal cycle is already in place on the first day of creation–which presumes a functioning solar system. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>6 And God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” 7 And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. 8 And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">This is just a distinction between rainwater (above) and lakes, rivers, ponds, oases, and the sea (below). Although some scholars think the Hebrews believed in a three-story universe, ancient Hebrews were perfectly capable of seeing rainclouds emit precipitation. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>9 And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">i) This alludes to mountain formation. As land rises, the water lowers. Coastlines are borderlines between surf and turf. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Theoretically, if the process were miraculously reversed, that would flood the earth. No additional water would be required to submerge the earth. Seawater would be sufficient, if natural barriers like mountains and hills were breached. And if the process (mountain formation) were miraculously repeated, that would be a drainage mechanism for the flood waters. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ii) Some scholars think the ancient Near Easterners believed there was only one continent, encircled by one ocean. However, ancient mariners were in a position to discover other land masses. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">iii) The "earth" has more than one sense. Global or local, depending on the context. It can denote the "planet," or the surface of the earth, or the "land" is a localized sense. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>11 And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so. 12 The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">This illustrates the interplay between miracle and providence, primary and secondary causality. God's initial fiat creates the conditions for a system of second causes. He creates the fruit trees from scratch, but once they exist they have the internal capacity to reproduce on their own.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">The imagery may be influenced by the way vegetation seems to explode out of nowhere when the desert is inundated by a flash flood from a cloud burst. Something the wilderness generation had occasion to observe. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. 16 And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. 17 And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18 to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">i) On the face of it, the fourth day is out of sequence. For the diurnal cycle is already functioning as of day one. As a matter of common experience, the narrator (and his audience) knew that daylight normally comes from sunlight. So this is probably a deliberate anachronism. To that degree, the creation account is nonsequential. As one scholar puts it:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">These two days are not related to each other chronologically but that they refer to the same event–the creation of the sun. Indeed, this wool seem to be implied in 1:17-18 where it is stated that God set the sun "in the expanse of the sky…to separate light from darkness" (the latter phrase, in fact, is quoted directly from 1:4). In other words, we are told in Genesis 1:4 <i>that</i> God separated light from darkness and in 1:18 <i>how</i> he did it (Youngblood 1999).</span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">ii) This is likely intended to foreshadow the tabernacle. The "expanse" is analogous to the ceiling of the tabernacle, while celestial luminaries are analogous to the menorah. Put another way, the narrator is using architectural metaphors to prefigure the tabernacle. Alert the reader to similarities between the natural world and the tabernacle as a sacred microcosm of the world (cf. Beale 2008; Hodge 2011).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">iii) "Seasons" could refer to agricultural cycles, holidays, or both. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">iv) The narrator demythologizes celestial luminaries. In paganism, these were gods. That gave rise to astromancy. But in Gen 1, the celestial luminaries are demoted to creatures of the one true God. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">v) On the syntax of day four, see Collins.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>References:</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Averbeck, R. "The Holy Spirit in the Hebrew Bible and Its Connections to the New Testament, M. Sawyer & D. Wallace, eds. <i>Who's Afraid of the Holy Spirit</i> (BSP 2005), 23-25.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Beale, G. K.<i> The Erosion of Inerrancy in Evangelicalism</i> (Crossway 2008), chaps. 6-7. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Collins, J. <i>Genesis 1–4</i> (P&R 2006), 56-58.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Hodge, B. C. <i>Revisiting the Days of Genesis</i> (Wipf & Stock), 56-67.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Mathews, K.<i> Genesis 1–11:26</i> (Broadman 1996), 142. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Niehaus, J. <i>God at Sinai</i> (Zondervan 1995), 150-53.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Sarna, N. <i>The JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis</i> (JPS 1989), 5.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Youngblood, R. <i>The Book of Genesis: An Introductory Commentary</i> (Wipf & Stock, 2nd ed., 1999), 27.</span></div>
stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16547070544928321788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8771286913447749112.post-61508211298442064072013-08-20T17:07:00.001-04:002013-08-20T17:07:29.695-04:00Introduction to Genesis<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Genesis is formally anonymous. However, the authorship of Genesis is inseparable from the authorship of the Pentateuch. The Pentateuch is a literary unit. So it would be artificial to consider the authorship of Genesis in isolation to the authorship of the Pentateuch as a whole. Other Pentateuchal books indicate Mosaic authorship. That, in turn, reflects back on Genesis. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">This is reinforced by the fact that Genesis introduces many motifs which prefigure later developments in other Pentateuchal books. This implies the Pentateuch (or at least the "final form" of the Pentateuch) was the work of one hand. That would account for its thematic unity, and the author's apparent foresight–which is creative hindsight. Although he actually wrote the Pentateuchal books in chronological sequence, in his mind's eye he had the entire narrative arc in view. He mentally wrote the Pentateuch backwards, beginning with the denouement, and working back to events leading up to the denouement. Compositionally speaking, he knew where he was going before he got there. The process of execution is in reverse order to the process of planning. The Pentateuch is essentially one book with one continuous story.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">It's possible that Moses had a scribe take dictation. After completion, the text would be deposited in the ark of the covenant. Mosaic authorship allows for post-Mosaic scribal updating here and there. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Liberals are alert to apparent anachronisms in the Pentateuch that seem to point to a later date, but that cuts both ways. They ignore anachronisms that point to an earlier date than their theory postulates, viz. the nomadic wilderness setting of Exodus–Deuteronomy. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">In commenting on Genesis, I'll refer to the author as the "narrator" rather than Moses, because that's the role that Moses is assuming in Genesis. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Depending on whether we favor the early or late date for the Exodus, Genesis was written in the early to mid-2nd millennium BC. Interpreting the book doesn't depend on which date we choose, especially since all events in Genesis considerably predate the time of composition. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Assuming Mosaic authorship, Genesis was written to emancipated Jewish slaves in the Sinai desert. It filled in the backstory of their history as a people-group. It clarified the identity of the one true God. The God who delivered them from Egypt was the same God who made the world, saved Noah, and guided the patriarchs. The God who delivered them from Egypt isn't a local God or tribal God. He is not one God among many. Rather, he is the Creator of the world. All other concrete entities are creatures. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">It's possible that Moses made some use of oral or written historical sources in Genesis. However, his knowledge of certain events was presumably the result of direct revelation. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Genesis is a flashpoint of controversy in the debate over the relationship between science and Scripture. Christians have a duty to believe whatever God tells us in his word. In case of conflict, Scripture trumps science. And there's a necessary place for defending the claims of Scripture.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">However, exegesis shouldn't be distracted by extraneous issues. Exegesis shouldn't be shaped with a view to modern debates. An interpreter ought to try as best he can to clear his mind of modern concerns and assume the viewpoint of the original author and his target audience. When reading Genesis, we need to ask ourselves what would be significant to the original audience? What would stand out for them? We need to imaginatively project ourselves into their situation. Check our own concerns and preconceptions at the door. Leaving modernity behind is, in turn, the best way to revise and correct our prejudices in the clarifying light of God's word. We need to adjust our perspective to the narrator's perspective. See the world afresh through the eyes of the narrator, rather than superimposing our cultural reference points onto the ancient text.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Commentators use comparative ancient Near Eastern literature to interpret Genesis. To some extent this can be useful, but it's easily overused. The first task of a commentator is to interpret the text before him, not compare it to another text and use the other text as the frame of reference. Even if we assume that the narrator is interacting with common ancient Near Eastern conceptions, the question at issue is what that means to the narrator, and not what it might have meant to the authors and editors of comparative literature. We must interpret Genesis on its own terms, according to the narrator's own vision.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">In addition, using comparative literature to interpret Genesis assumes we know how to interpret the comparative literature. So the exercise can quickly devolve into vicious circularity. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">In my opinion, many scholars fail to put themselves in the situation of the narrator and the immediate audience. Fail to experience the world as someone living in the ancient Near East would experience the world. Their world was not a literary construct. There are many things that even prescientific peoples would be aware of. The methodology of scholars is often backwards. Instead of viewing ancient Near Eastern art or and literature through the world the author experienced, they view the world through the art or literature. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>For further reading:</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Hess, R. "Language of the Pentateuch," T. D. Alexander & D. Baker, eds. <i>Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch</i> (IVP 2003), 491-97.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Mathews, K. <i>Genesis 1–11:26</i> (Broadman 1996), 42-46. </span></div>
stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16547070544928321788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8771286913447749112.post-38859782408719542002011-01-31T10:30:00.000-05:002013-08-21T22:28:56.925-04:00Children of the dawn<b>Lk 1:46-55; 67-79</b><br />
<br />
<blockquote>
<i>46And Mary said,<br />
<br />
"My soul magnifies the Lord,<br />
47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,<br />
48for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.<br />
For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;<br />
49for he who is mighty has done great things for me,<br />
and holy is his name.<br />
50And his mercy is for those who fear him<br />
from generation to generation.<br />
51 He has shown strength with his arm;<br />
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;<br />
52 he has brought down the mighty from their thrones<br />
and exalted those of humble estate;<br />
53he has filled the hungry with good things,<br />
and the rich he has sent away empty.<br />
54He has helped his servant Israel,<br />
in remembrance of his mercy,<br />
55 as he spoke to our fathers,<br />
to Abraham and to his offspring forever."<br />
<br />
67And his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying,<br />
68 "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,<br />
for he has visited and redeemed his people<br />
69and has raised up a horn of salvation for us<br />
in the house of his servant David,<br />
70 as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, 71 that we should be saved from our enemies<br />
and from the hand of all who hate us;<br />
72 to show the mercy promised to our fathers<br />
and to remember his holy covenant,<br />
73 the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us<br />
74that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies,<br />
might serve him without fear,<br />
75 in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.<br />
76And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;<br />
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,<br />
77to give knowledge of salvation to his people<br />
in the forgiveness of their sins,<br />
78because of the tender mercy of our God,<br />
whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high<br />
79to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,<br />
to guide our feet into the way of peace."</i><br />
<i></i></blockquote>
<b>Exposition</b><br />
<br />
Mary’s hymn is a study in continuity and contrast. A study in continuity: his steadfast love for his people, from one generation to the next. In the keeping of his word. In his remembered promise. In his abiding covenant with the patriarchs, and their posterity. <br />
<br />
God is unchanging in purpose because God is unchanging in nature. God is the only constant in a fleeting world. Generations come and go, but God remains the same. What time, space, and death have scattered, he shall regather–on behalf of his elect. <br />
<br />
His steadfast love is manifested in mighty deeds as well as weighty words. God’s providence, undergirding God’s promise. A God who says what he will do, and does what he has said. Crowned by the long-awaited birth of the Messiah. <br />
<br />
But also a study in contrast: between the humble and the haughty. The lowly and the lofty. The poor in spirit and the self-sufficient. The fate of the faithful and the fate of the faithless. God exalts the lowly and lowers the lofty. God is strong where we are weak. Those who win today will lose tomorrow, while those who lose today will win tomorrow. <br />
<br />
For Zechariah, the Messianic age is a second Exodus. A greater Exodus. As God once visited his captive people in the person of his Angel, God now visits his people in the person of his Son. As God long ago brought light to his people by the pillar of fire and the radiant Shekinah, he now brings light to his people by the Shekinah Incarnate, who leads them anew to the promised land (e.g. Josh 24:14).<br />
<br />
<b>Application</b><br />
<br />
The heathen were children of the night. Living and dying in darkness. They stumbled on the starlit path of dim, blighted nature. <br />
<br />
The Jews were children of a harvest moon. They saw by the lunar light of God’s promise and providence. The silver beams of the silver age of redemption, and the harbinger of a dawning day.<br />
<br />
Christian believers here below are children of the dawn. They dwell in light and shade. In the snug, dappled light of the rising sun. Breaking over the frosty hills. Fanning forth into the valleys below. The first flush of a new day. A spring day. An everlasting day. Yet the rising sun casts shadows, long shadows. Advancing day alongside remnants of receding night. Tears and laughter intermixed. <br />
<br />
But above and beyond, the saints shall be children of the day. Dwelling in the noontime brightness of the equatorial sun. The undying light of God’s hoped-for, longed-for restoration. <br />
<br />
<b>Prayer</b><br />
<br />
Thank you, Father, that you have made us children of the dawn. That you have graced us to walk in the aurorean light of the Easter morn. Even though our life below is often overshadowed by sin, illness and death; by hardship and heartache; by longing for what we once had, but have no more; or what we long for, but never had; our path is brightened by shafts of heavenly sunshine that thaw the heart, heal the knees, cheer the soul, and light our eyes a way out of lingering shadows into the fullness of the greatness of the goodness of the consummation to come. <br />
<br />
By the love of God, the grace of Christ, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Amen.stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16547070544928321788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8771286913447749112.post-92833226129300512010-12-19T13:39:00.000-05:002013-08-21T22:28:40.065-04:00Prayer for the prayerless<b>Lk 1:8-23</b><br />
<br />
<blockquote>
<i>8Now while he was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty, 9according to the custom of the priesthood, he was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense. 10And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense. 11And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. 12And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him. 13But the angel said to him, "Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. 14And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, 15for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. 16And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, 17and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared."<br />
<br />
18And Zechariah said to the angel, "How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years." 19And the angel answered him, "I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. 20And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time." 21And the people were waiting for Zechariah, and they were wondering at his delay in the temple. 22And when he came out, he was unable to speak to them, and they realized that he had seen a vision in the temple. And he kept making signs to them and remained mute. 23And when his time of service was ended, he went to his home. </i><br />
<i></i></blockquote>
<b>Exposition</b><br />
<br />
Because there were too many of them for every priest to burn incense in the sanctuary, casting lots was used to narrow the field. In addition, casting lots eliminating favoritism. It was purely a matter of chance who was chosen by lot. Not bribes or nepotism or other kinds of preferential treatment. <br />
<br />
Here’s a classic case of a random event. Random by design. So what are the odds that Zechariah would be the sanctuary at just the time that Gabriel appeared to him? This event was once-in-a lifetime opportunity. Indeed, few Jews, including priests, ever encountered an angel, or burnt incense in the sanctuary. The conjunction to two improbable events renders the conjunction all the more improbable.<br />
<br />
But therein lies the unspoken irony of the event. Behind this seemingly chance encounter is the unseen, all-seeing hand of God. Although human hands visibly cast the lots, the invisible hand of God also cast the lots. He directed the lots to choose Zechariah. Unbeknownst to them, they played with loaded dice that day. <br />
<br />
Some miracles can be outwardly indistinguishable from ordinary events. They seem perfectly normal. They employ natural media. They dissolve into the mundane surroundings. <br />
<br />
Sometimes God is never nearer than when he seems to be far-gone. Very present when he appears to be utterly absent. <br />
<br />
The angelic apparition was a stereotypical miracle. Conspicuously supernatural. <br />
<br />
Yet in this encounter there are two miracles in one. We tend to focus on the conspicuous miracle, to the neglect of the inconspicuous miracle. <br />
<br />
God moves in our lives in so many little, daily, unobtrusive ways. In small things as well as large. In quiet things as well as loud. <br />
<br />
Zechariah prayed for a son. No doubt Elizabeth also prayed for a son. But when the moment came, when his prayer was answered at long last, when the answer came from the lips of an angel, no less, Zechariah is surprised. More than surprised–incredulous.<br />
<br />
No doubt there is some irony in this. Why pray for something if there’s no expectation that God will hear your prayer? If, when he does, indeed, hear your prayer, you react in disbelief?<br />
<br />
Of course, prayer often has more to do with desperation than expectation. We pray, not necessarily because we expect God to answer our prayer, but because prayer is our last resort. We have done all that’s humanly possible, but it’s not enough. We turn to God when we are powerless. Caught on the ledge of the cliff. <br />
<br />
And, indeed, it is wrong to make demands on God, as if he owes us something, as if we can boss him around. Expectancy of that kind is irreverent. Out of place. <br />
<br />
So why did Gabriel’s statement take Zechariah by surprise? If I were guessing, I suppose Zechariah stopped praying for a son long ago. For years, he and his wife prayed for a son. Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. <br />
<br />
But when no son was forthcoming, when Elizabeth was well past her child-bearing years, they got tired of praying. At least Zechariah did. He lost hope. He lost heart. He gave up. At that point prayer seemed futile. Mocking his inmost desire. <br />
<br />
When Gabriel spoke to Zechariah, Zechariah had forgotten that worn-out prayer. Zechariah forgot about the prayer, but God had not forgotten. God remembered the prayer that Zechariah had long forgotten.<br />
<br />
God answered his prayer. But what is more, God answered a forgotten prayer. Although Zechariah ceased praying, God never ceased hearing. <br />
<br />
So Gabriel must remind Zechariah of his own long-forgotten prayer. For as Gabriel explains, these things come to pass in due time. God’s time. <br />
<br />
Not all our prayers are answered. We frequently pray foolish prayers. Shortsighted. Misguided. To get whatever we ask for would be a curse rather than a blessing.<br />
<br />
We pray for what we think is best, but the how and when are up to God. If he does answer a prayer, the timing and the circumstances lie with him, and often transpire in ways we could never foresee. <br />
<br />
Zechariah asks how he can be sure. That question echoes the prologue, where Luke is writing Theophilus to inform and confirm him in the faith. <br />
<br />
For the reader, it’s ironic to see a man questioning an angel. Demanding a sign. Demanding proof. For the angelic apparition is, itself, a sign from God!<br />
<br />
This is the same angel who spoke to Daniel so many centuries before. The same angel who stands before the face of God.<br />
<br />
Yet Zechariah is so blinded by years of aching, enervating disappointment–so blinded by his tiresome, predictable routine under the sun–that when something unpredictable occurs–when even an angel from heaven comes down to him and speaks to him–he finds it hard to break the spell of his ingrained, heartbroken pessimism. He doubts the indubitable. <br />
<br />
And this from a man of faith. A man of God. A true believer. Zechariah is not an unbeliever. Not a nominal believer. Not like those who fell in the wilderness. <br />
<br />
But like a tree in winter, he has withdrawn into a subsistent spiritual existence to survive the bitter conditions. He never lost his enduring faith in God. But he lost his youthful joy in the Lord. The birth of John will restore his joy. Bring light and delight to a battle-weary saint. <br />
<br />
<b>Application</b><br />
<br />
Like Zechariah of old, what sustains us in the yawning, pale gray stretches of our journey are the rare and unforeseeable, yet tiny timely glimpses of eternity. Like dappled moonlight, broken by the overhanging trees, we walk in alternating pools of light and shade. When we seem to be lost in the dark, a white beam of starlight, piecing the wind-blown branches, momentarily illuminates the blackness ahead. Then the breeze blows again, and the path darkens again. Darkens behind us, after we pass. <br />
<br />
<b>Prayer</b><br />
<br />
Thank you, Father, for remembering our unremembered prayers. For answering us long after we cease to ask, or hope, or dare. <br />
<br />
Thank, you, Father, that nothing happens by chance. For each uneventful thread, in our little lives below, is woven into the surpassing tapestry of your eternal plan for the saints in glory. <br />
<br />
By the love of God, the grace of Christ, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Amen.stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16547070544928321788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8771286913447749112.post-5686133547592114842010-12-12T11:30:00.006-05:002013-08-21T22:28:22.509-04:00A people prepared<b>Lk 1:5-17,24-25</b><br />
<blockquote>
<i>5 In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, of the division of Abijah. And he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. 6And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord. 7But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years.<br />
<br />
8Now while he was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty, 9according to the custom of the priesthood, he was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense. 10And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense. 11And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. 12And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him. 13But the angel said to him, "Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. 14And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, 15for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. 16And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, 17and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared."<br />
<br />
24After these days his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she kept herself hidden, saying, 25"Thus the Lord has done for me in the days when he looked on me, to take away my reproach among people."</i></blockquote>
<b>Exposition</b><br />
<br />
Herod the king and Zechariah the priest. Inhabiting the same physical space, yet realms apart. Herod, the impious worldly king–and Zechariah, the pious, otherworldly priest. Outwardly they coexist in the same parcel of time and space. Yet Zechariah’s outward existence is a shadow cast by God’s invisible light.<br />
<br />
Outwardly, Zechariah and Herod trod a common path upon the earth. Neighbors in life and death. Yet imperceptibly they were moving apart, day-by-day and year-by-year, in opposing destinations, toward a looming eternity.<br />
<br />
Herod was a man of power while Zechariah was a man of prayer. Herod was a creature of the day while Zechariah was a creature of the morrow. Herod was bounded by what is while Zechariah was emboldened what might be. Herod was an old man running out of time while Zechariah was an old man embarking on the infancy of an everlasting heritage. <br />
<br />
Elizabeth, his wife, was barren, but like other barren women before her–such as Hannah, Rachel, Rebekah, Sarah, and Manoah’s wife–God later favored her with a son. The grace of God counteracted the disgrace of man. No longer was she the object of reproach. <br />
<br />
Both Elizabeth and Mary find favor with God. Like Rebekah, they drink from God’s hidden wellspring. They counterbalance one another, just as Jesus and John the Baptist counterbalance one another.<br />
<br />
In a way, women like Rachel, Rebekah, Hannah, and Sarah prefigure Elizabeth. God foreshadows the future by prophetic events as well as prophetic words. <br />
<br />
Yet over and above this embodied oracle of things to come, such precedent reminds the reader of God’s sustaining providence for his people of all times, at all times. Grace is repetitious where the need is repetitious. Because these women had to endure a common deprivation, God blessed them with a common compensation. <br />
<br />
At the same time, there’s a catch. God gave Elizabeth and Zechariah a son. That brought them joy. <br />
<br />
And yet their son–their only son, their only child–would later die at Herod’s hands. Their son to die at the hands of Herod’s son. The Baptist had a remarkable birth, calling attention to his remarkable vocation. And his untimely demise.<br />
<br />
Not all childless women are favored like Elizabeth. But by the same token, not all mothers will outlive their children. Elizabeth had him so late, to lose him so soon. <br />
<br />
Zechariah was a man of prayer, amidst a people of prayer. Prayer is a river. The river feeds into the sea, while the sea feeds into the river. The river fills the sea. The seawater rises, to form clouds, which snow on mountains, which melt in spring, replenishing the river, replenishing the land, replenishing the sea.<br />
<br />
Like a water cycle, prayer has a cycle all its own. We speak and we receive. We are blessed by what we receive, so we give thanks. And thanksgiving is, itself, a blessing. A blessed blessing. Blessing upon blessing–as God’s buoyant sunshine turns our heavy petitions into wafting clouds–which rain upon our parched hearts, causing the desert to bloom. <br />
<br />
God answered Zechariah’s prayer. Some prayers go unanswered, just as some seeds never germinate. But what we never sow, we never reap. If we scatter seed, some may take root and flourish. But if we never seed the fallow ground with patient prayer, the ground will never bloom–except for thorns and thistles. <br />
<br />
A prayerful people are a patient people. An expectant people. A hopeful people, and a trustful people. A people with one foot in the future. Stepping, by faith, into the unseen horizon ahead. <br />
<br />
Yet they also have a foot in the past, as a foothold leading up to the future, just over the summit. A foothold firmly planted in God’s past promises. A foothold firmly planted in God’s past providence. Which are, in turn, the pledge and prefiguration of God’s coming kingdom. <br />
<br />
As the incense ascended, the angel descended. While Zechariah burnt incense in God’s temple below, an angel came down from his temple above. The hidden ceiling between the outward token and the upward reality became deliquescent for a little time in a little place. <br />
<br />
Are we a “people prepared”? Many men grumble about the silence of God. About his absence in their lives–as they perceive it. They don’t see him, or feel him, or hear him.<br />
<br />
But are they even prepared to meet their God? Have they set the table, should their dinner guest arrive unannounced? If God came to us, would we even know the day of visitation? Or would his passing come and go unnoticed. Some people can’t wait. They cram their lives with busywork. <br />
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Do we set our clocks by heaven’s time? If we are there when he is not, if he is there when we are not, then God will seem to be remote. If we wait at the right place at the wrong time, we will miss the Lord. If we wait at the wrong place at the right time, we will miss the Lord. <br />
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Are we overlooking God because we stare in the wrong direction? God might be nearby, but he seems far away because we stare out the window when we ought to turn around. <br />
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Mary Magdalene went looking for Jesus. And she found him. Yet she saw him without seeing him, and heard him without hearing him. Sight without insight. Sensation without perception. She could see with her eyes, but her mind was blind (Jn 20:1-16). To a darkened mind the day is night. <br />
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When Jesus came for the first time, Anna and Simeon were prepared, but many others were oblivious. The missed him, not because he came too late, but because he came too soon. In truth, he was right on time, but his arrival was premature to <i>them</i> since they were not expecting him.<br />
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Men murmur that God is taking too long. They tire of waiting. But suppose they wait for someone who came and went? It’s not that God is late; no, they are late–like the parable of the wise and foolish virgins (Mt 25:1-13). <br />
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If Jesus came again, would we be ready? If your watch is running fast, then everybody seems to be running late. If your watch is running slow, then everybody seems to be ahead of schedule. <br />
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<b>Application</b><br />
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Like Zechariah the priest, we, too, inhabit two worlds at once. We inhabit the fallen, dying, earthly world. We live side-by-side with the ungodly. <br />
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Yet we also live in God’s pervasive, but unseen presence. We live before the face of God. We live in the present, but we live for the future. We live in the present, but we grow out of God’s past providence and God’s past promise. We live in the present, but we grow into God’s consummation. <br />
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<b>Prayer</b><br />
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Thank you, Father, for preparing us for yourself. Zechariah was a man of prayer, amidst a people of prayer. And you made us a prayerful people. You gave us faith to live by faith. We live in the backward glance of your faithful providence as we trust in the forward reach of your crowning promise. We rest in all you have done as we hope in all you will do. It matters not if we hear you as long as you hear us.<br />
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By the love of God, the grace of Christ, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Amen.stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16547070544928321788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8771286913447749112.post-53361124745977049032010-11-14T16:34:00.009-05:002010-12-19T13:41:51.199-05:00Ministers of the word<span style="font-weight:bold;">Luke 1:1-4</span><br />
<blockquote><span style="font-style:italic;">1 Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished[1] among us, 2 just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, 3 it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account[2] for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.</span></blockquote><span style="font-weight:bold;">Exposition</span><br />
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Come away with me in time, to another time, in another land. Come away with me as we go travel back, backward in time, in century before century, like hill behind hill, to the middle of first century AD, to catch the echo of the birth and life and death, rising and ascending of the Son of God.<br />
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Backward in time to the dry, distant, and wind-swept road between Jerusalem and Emmaus, where the yearning, yellowing words of Moses, and the psalmists, and the prophets found their long-sought fulfillment; where barred hearts and captive eyes were opened to the light of day, and a holy flame was lit within–like a burning bush inside the souls of men (Lk 24:13-48).<br />
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Backward in time and place to the corner of a small, commonplace room where Luke is sitting, reminiscing, and writing on a scroll the collected and connected account of all that he’s seen, read, and heard–when the long longing of the ages came of age. As fire lights fire, from branch to branch, and tree to tree, that same uncontainable fire pushes out to warm and revive a sunless world. <br />
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<span style="font-weight:bold;">Application</span><br />
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Like Theophilus, we, too, rely on our scout to lead the way. He has been where we wish to go. He has seen what we look forward to.<br />
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Like Luke, we live in the budding age of fulfillment. When God’s promises begin to blossom. At time’s turning point, between the Consummation and the Fall. <br />
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Like Abraham, we left Ur behind. Taking what we could for the journey ahead. Like Abraham, we live in baited expectation. Having left, we haven’t arrived. We wait for the better country (Heb 11:16), in a land beyond the stars. Each day takes us further from a doomed and dying world. Each day bring us closer to our hoped for, heart-felt destination. Step-by-step and day-by-day we press ahead, as God comes to us and for us by his Word and Spirit. <br />
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<span style="font-weight:bold;">Prayer</span><br />
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Thank you, Father, for giving us life and birth and breath on the Easter side of Golgotha. Thank you that we were born during the journey, after our forebears made their painful way across the mountain pass. Thank you that we are blessed to tread the gentle descent, where Eden river surges to the shore of the sea. <br />
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Thank you, Father, for lending us another pair of eyes and ears. To see through the eyes, and hear through the ears, of others who went before us. To touch Jesus through their hands, and hear him speak to us today as he once spoke to them before. <br />
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Thank you, Father, for making their certainty our certainty. Thank you for bringing his deific words, through their inspired words, to our expired ears–so that we may overhear the healing words of life from the lips of the only Lord of life. That we may live with him and die with him, die in him and live in him–forevermore. <br />
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By the love of God, the grace of Christ, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Amen.<br />
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[1] “Accomplished.” Luke’s choice of this term is probably meant to evoke prophetic overtones.1:1 anticipates 24:25-27,45-47. Prophetic words, as well as paradigmatic events, which were now fulfilled in corresponding events. Indeed, the fulfillment is still in process (e.g. Acts)–as part of one overarching and ongoing narrative, from creation to consummation. <br />
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[2] “Orderly account.” The phrase is somewhat ambiguous. However, we should try to understand what he intends, not merely by threshing all the senses of isolated Greek words, but by how actually executes his design in the course of the Gospel (as well as Acts). Luke has an eye for patterns. Promise and fulfillment. God’s recurring providence in the life of his people. That’s the common thread which strings together the various events. <br />
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In preparing my exposition of Luke, I’ve consulted the following works:<br />
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<span style="font-weight:bold;">Commentaries</span><br />
<br />
Bock, D. L. <span style="font-style:italic;">Luke</span> (Baker 1994-96).<br />
<br />
Evans, C. F. <span style="font-style:italic;">Saint Luke</span> (Trinity 1990).<br />
<br />
Fitzmyer, J. A. <span style="font-style:italic;">The Gospel According to Luke</span> (Doubleday, 1981-85).<br />
<br />
Green, J. B. <span style="font-style:italic;">The Gospel of Luke</span> (Eerdmans 1997).<br />
<br />
Henry, M. <span style="font-style:italic;">A Commentary on the Whole Bible: Volume 5: Matthew to John</span> (Revell n.d.).<br />
<br />
Johnson, L. T. <span style="font-style:italic;">The Gospel of Luke</span> (Liturgical 1992)<br />
<br />
Marshall, I. H. <span style="font-style:italic;">The Gospel of Luke</span> (Eerdmans 1978).<br />
<br />
Nolland, J. <span style="font-style:italic;">Luke</span> (Word 1990-93).<br />
<br />
Ryle, J. C. <span style="font-style:italic;">Luke, Volume 1</span> (Banner of Truth 1986).<br />
<br />
–––––. <span style="font-style:italic;">Luke, Volume 2</span> (Banner of Truth 1986).<br />
<br />
Stein, R. H. <span style="font-style:italic;">Luke</span> (Broadman 1992).<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight:bold;">Monographs</span><br />
<br />
Bailey, K. <span style="font-style:italic;">Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels</span> (IVP 2008).<br />
<br />
Barnett, P. <span style="font-style:italic;">Finding the Historical Chris</span>t (Eerdmans 2009).<br />
<br />
Bauckham, R. <span style="font-style:italic;">Gospel Women: Studies of the Named Women in the Gospel</span>s (Eerdmans 2002).<br />
<br />
_____, <span style="font-style:italic;">Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony</span> (Eerdmans 2006).<br />
<br />
Beale, G. & D. A. Carson, eds. <span style="font-style:italic;">Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament</span> (Baker 2007).<br />
<br />
Bruce, F. F. <span style="font-style:italic;">Jesus and Paul: Places They Knew</span> (Nelson 1984).<br />
<br />
_____, <span style="font-style:italic;">The Pauline Circle</span> (Eerdmans 1985).<br />
<br />
Gathercole, S. <span style="font-style:italic;">The Preexistent Son: Recovering the Christologies of Matthew, Mark, And Luke</span> (Eerdmans 2006).<br />
<br />
Keener, C. <span style="font-style:italic;">The Historical Jesus of the Gospels</span> (Eerdmans 2009).<br />
<br />
Maier, P. <span style="font-style:italic;">In the Fullness of Time: A Historian Looks at Christmas, Easter, and the Early Church</span> (Kregel 1997).<br />
<br />
Ryken, L. et al., eds. <span style="font-style:italic;">Dictionary of Biblical Imagery</span> (IVP 1998).stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16547070544928321788noreply@blogger.com