How about reading the creation-narrative as functional rather than simply informational—as why rather than what.
This functional reading of the text makes more sense to me. Here’s distinguished OT professor Eugene Merrill on the matter:
The tensions between light and darkness and the waters and dry land, while not in themselves and as natural phenomena indicative of any imperfections in the work of the Creator, play their role metaphorically in later revelation and are suggestive of the basic cosmic struggle between good and evil that will become apparent in the postfall world. The imagery is carefully chosen in that story, written long after the event, functions polemically against pagan mythological ideas of creation in which darkness and the deep are major elements, but also as a useful way of speaking of the life and death conflict between good and evil, which is a major theme in Scripture. (Everlasting Dominion, pp. 130-31, emphasis added)
When the creation-narrative is read as functional rather than as informational, questions of whether the days were solar or there’s a gap at 1:2—become irrelevant.
Why distinguish the creation narrative in this way? For example, I do not believe you would be willing to treat Jesus, the crucifixion, or the resurrection as metaphors.
What is the criterion by which you decide whether a passage in Scripture is to be viewed metaphorically (or in your terminology, functional) or as literal (or in your terminology, informational)?
Theo,
I’m not arguing an either/or. Instead, I think we need to see the creation-narrative as both, what and why.
TC,
The idea that Gen 1 is a polemic against mythological creation accounts has been around a while, and it has a lot going for it. (The starting point for that approach is H. Gunkel’s Schopfung und Chaos). Merrill makes a lot of sense to me here.
I don’t quite understand the drive that some people have to force the biblical creation account to be something it isn’t claiming to be – namely, a scientific, informational account of how things happened.
Along the same lines, Theo, if we can’t tell the difference between metaphorical and literal passages, then should we just read them all as literal and factual until explicitly told otherwise? The thing about figurative language is that it is by nature elliptical – you’re never told explicitly, but there are ways to decide. If I have time, maybe I’ll find some examples to demonstrate.
Doug, I fully understand your point, but once you make that point, do you have any beef with those who say that it is obvious that the resurrection narrative is metaphorical?
No, I thought I was missing something else. Yes, from what I’ve read in others like Walton, I’ve come to agree with the functional view of the creation-narrative rather than it just being informational.
Thanks for the Tilling link. Ken Hamm’s statement is reckless, indeed.
I was going to mention this by Walton but you may already have seen it. On a more general level you may wish to check out Carr’s Reading the Fractures of Genesis pp. 62ff.
Yes, I enjoyed Walton’s analysis of bara’ and so on. Thanks for the links. Where do you get them?
Well, I am glad to see Doug give positive comments on Merill’s book – given he is a developing Hebrew Bible Scholar and all. Now I will for certain want to look into it more.
TC- I too agree with the functional take – it was to remind both Israel and those who read the Hebrew Scriptures just who is in charge! No?
Brian, that’s Merrill’s take. He spends a great deal in the creation narrative proving just that.
It’s a great read!
TC, it’s not uncommon for evangelical Bible scholars like Merrill to be well-known among members of ETS, for example, but completely unknown to the members of SBL (unless they’re also part of ETS). Therefore, some Jewish Bible scholars, for example, likely don’t know him or his work at all. That’s what I was thinking of, anyway.
Thanks, Doug. Now I get it: academic vs theological, Walton vs Gunkel. Does make sense!
I ordered Walton’s new book (The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate), should be here soon!
Richard, I’d love to get that one! Let me know of its contents.
TC, you can view the contents online here. I’ll post a review of it when I’ve read it.
Richard, I’m looking forward to your review. Thanks.
The table of contents intrigues me.
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TC, I’m not sure I understand your question. Do you want elaboration on what it is that I don’t understand about creationists or elaboration on why the biblical account isn’t claiming to be scientific? I thought Merrill answered the latter, so I’ll answer the former.
I guess I understand where they’re coming from – a desire to preserve the truth and integrity of the text, but I think they’re making too much of the issue. I’m thinking of creation apologists like Ken Hamm who is quick to point out the ambiguity inherent in the scientific evidence touted by evolutionists but absolutely insists that there’s only one right way to read Genesis – as a literal scientific account of how it happened. There can be no ambiguity in his interpretation because the Gospel itself is what’s at stake. I was thinking along that line because of your final sentence – how irrelevant those issues become if we realize the theological, rather than scientific, perspective of the text.
Chris Tilling brought up this issue a couple of weeks ago and had good insight on it, I thought. http://www.christilling.de/blog/2009/06/i-dont-usually-get-involved-with-this.html
Theophrastus,
I understand that there’s a bit of a danger with slippery slope. Once you start saying the text doesn’t really mean this or that because it was metaphorical, etc., then it gets easier to gut the text of anything that one doesn’t like-things the Bible calls sin, for example. I would disagree with an interpretation of the resurrection as a metaphor since the NT elsewhere explicitly rejects that possibility. Context is important. The worldview of the original audience is important. John Walton’s newest book is on this subject (creation and genesis 1). It will be going on my to-read list. http://bit.ly/7uqcR
Brian, just to be clear, I wasn’t giving an unqualified endorsement of Merrill’s book. I have little knowledge of it beyond TC’s quote here. I agree with what I read in this quote on this particular topic. I haven’t looked at the rest of the book – besides looking at the back, the table of contents, and some Amazon reviews just now. From that little snippet, I’d say it looks worth reading if you’re interested in OT theology. I’m sure I would find something to disagree with if I read the whole thing.
I was slightly amused by the blurb on the back that claims Merrill is “considered among the most outstanding Old Testament scholars in the United States today.” Marketing hyperbole, to say the least. It really depends on what you define as OT scholarship. I was amused because I’m quite sure that I know at least one prominent Bible scholar who would have no idea who he is at all.
“one prominent Bible scholar who would have no idea who he is at all”… hmm! Would that be a Bible scholar at all?
At any rate, I’ve found some disagreements myself (I’ll share them in my official review).
Doug, I see your point. But don’t you consider someone a real Bible scholar who consults the significant works of the past and present? Wouldn’t Merrill be in the present as an OT contributor?
TC, yes and no – and this brings up the issue of theological vs. academic biblical studies (that I don’t really want to get far into at the moment). Basically the truth of the claim that Merrill’s among the most “outstanding” OT scholars today is in the eye of the beholder.
I’m not trying to say Merrill’s contribution isn’t valuable because I think it is important. But, you can do academic biblical studies without acknowledging his existence or his work because it’s faith-based. Right or wrong, that’s often what happens to evangelical Bible scholarship. It exists in a separate world. I could write an entire dissertation on creation and never mention Merrill or Walton and the committee wouldn’t bat an eye. Skip over Gunkel or Levenson or von Rad, on the other hand, and I’d get criticized for it.
Ideally, that shouldn’t be the case, but it really comes down to audience – evangelical scholars write for a theologically defined audience, secular biblical scholars do not preference a certain theological perspective (usually). The latter group doesn’t read the former because they have to sift through too much theology to get to what might be valuable for their research.