However, the latter can be helpful as well. The former category of evidence is the most important since The Bible is the uniquely inspired Word Of God (2 Timothy 3:16) and therefore needs to speak for itself. This evidence comes from within the biblical text itself as well as from the Ancient Near Eastern literature. I think this interpretation of The Bible’s opening chapter is the most plausible, and in this article, I would like to go into the evidence that supports it. This interpretation is defended in depth in John Walton’s book The Lost World Of Genesis One and also in John Walton’s Genesis 1 As Ancient Cosmology. On the 7th day, God “rests” in His temple, as gods did once the inauguration of their temples was finished. And this “function” wasn’t a scientific function (as obviously, the stars would be burning even before this inauguration occurred), but their function relative to the service of mankind, His image bearers. The 7 days were days of God not bringing material things into existence, but ascribing function to everything that exists. The Cosmic Temple interpretation of Genesis 1 says that just as temples in the Ancient Near East were microcosms of the universe, Genesis turns this around and makes the universe a macrocosm of a temple. The Bible was inspired in Hebrew, not in English, and therefore some Hebrew words may carry meanings or connotations that get lost in translation. Another way is to look at the original language of The Biblical text itself. A survey of Ancient Near Eastern literature can give you clues into how ancients would understand things such as what the sky is made of, the shape of the Earth, what the entrails are for, and so on. One way of stepping into the shoes of The Bible’s ancient audience is to read the literature that was written during that time period. When looking at any passage of scripture, we need to ask “Is this how an ancient would understand this phrase?” If not, we can dismiss that as an accurate interpretation. Or as Michael Heiser often says on The Naked Bible Podcast, “We need to have the Israelite in our heads as we interpret The Bible”. We need to step into his world and think like he thinks”. As my hermeneutics teacher put it “We need to get into the shoes of the author. What this means is to interpret Bible passages the way the original author and audience would have understood it. One of the widely accepted principles of biblical hermeneutics is to interpret The Bible in its cultural context. It was written to Israel, in their language, in their culture, with their background. While The Bible was written for us, it was not written to us. Both are concerned with finding concordance with science rather than letting The Bible speak for itself. Old Earth Creationists (OECs) such as Hugh Ross are guilty of the former, with Young Earth Creationists (YECs) like Ken Ham doing the latter. Instead many attempts look at what modern science has to say and then either reinterpret Genesis in light of science or try to bend science to a particular interpretation of Genesis. However, I have noticed that the majority of attempts to interpret Genesis 1 have neglected to take the book’s ancient cultural background into consideration. There are many different interpretations of this chapter that have been proposed over the centuries, and I don’t pretend to be doing anything different here. Genesis 1 is perhaps one of the most controversial and hotly debated passages in the entire Bible.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |