Tag Archives: Lost World

Genesis, Pentateuch

The Lost World of the Flood

This is the third review for the Lost World Series. The present title focuses on Genesis 6-11 with the subtitle, Mythology, Theology, and the Deluge Debate. This title is co-authored with Old Testament scholar, Tremper Longman III, with special contribution from geologist Stephen O. Moshier. The Lost World project aims to bridge the cultural gap between the world of the Ancient Near East (ANE) and the (post)modern West. Given that a broad introduction to Walton’s project was provided in the first review, I will spare the reader of re-treading the same pathways. This title does not suffer from the same extreme pitfalls that the first two did. Unlike the first two, I’m genuinely open to the central interpretative claim. However, like the first two, there is no shortage of theologically suspect remarks.

Summary

The book is broken into 4 parts with 17 propositions. While the short, discrete chapters help with readability, separating them by parts helps even more. This textual cartography provides additional structure within which the reader may orient herself while traveling through the argument.

  1. Method: Perspectives on Interpretation The first 6 propositions establish the broad interpretive assumptions. In some ways, much of the rest of the book emerges out of what is established here. The methodological die is cast, rendering the remainder somewhat predictable. Drawing on literary conventions from ANE literature, Longman and Walton argue that biblical authors use hyperbole and exaggeration for rhetorical effect. In particular, the flood as global catastrophe is one such example.
  2. Background: Ancient Near Eastern Texts While this part does not play a decisive interpretive role, Longman and Walton establish the flood motif within ANE literature. They argue that there is not an obvious relationship of dependence between the biblical flood story and those from the ANE. 
  3. Text: Understanding the Biblical Text Literarily and Theologically Here Longman and Walton claim that Genesis describes a local flood using universalistic hyperbolic language; that is, Genesis genuinely describes a global flood, but that this is strictly rhetorical. The point of the rhetoric is to link the flood event into a cycle of sin and judgment captured by the following events.

Adam: Exile from the Garden:: Cain: Exile from Family and God:: 
Mankind: Flood:: Ham: Curse:: Babel: Scattering

  1. The World: Thinking about Evidence for the Flood This section engages stereotypical apologetic paths taken by Christians eager to vindicate the biblical flood account. They argue that neither does geology nor do the ANE flood stories support a global flood. This section concludes with some reflections on the relationship between science and religion.

Evaluation

Strengths

This is the most persuasive of the Lost World series, probably due to Longman’s influence. While I don’t always agree with Longman, I’ve observed in his work a higher level of scholarship and care with the biblical text. The greatest strength is that the basic interpretative strategy is workable. While I am not fully persuaded that this is the best way to make sense of the Genesis flood account, the fact that other biblical texts are demonstrably hyperbolic constitutes a workable exegetical hypothesis.

There are a few other stray remarks that I believe could be useful in trying to make sense of the Bible within its ANE context:

  1. Longman and Walton offer solid insight into the naming of Noah. “He named him Noah (nh) and said, “He will comfort (nhm) us in the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the LORD has cursed.” (Gen 5:29) Aside from the wordplay between Noah’s name and the word comfort, this is a peculiar prophecy. Does it mean the curse will end? Does it mean that Noah himself will offer the relief? Longman and Walton persuasively argue that Noah is not himself bringing comfort, nor even that the curse will be completely lifted. Rather they argue that Noah brings mankind to God’s place of rest on the other side of judgment. Facing the total corruption of mankind and the torment that comes from living in a society filled with injustice, Noah brought comfort by carrying the human race out of corruption through the judgment of the flood. The bizarre scene that follows signals that whatever comfort Noah provided was temporary.
  2. In Proposition 3, Longman and Walton have a nice discussion of the nature of literal and metaphorical. Literal and metaphorical are heavily context dependent terms. In the biblical debate, historical narratives are literal in some sense, many psalms are metaphorical in some parallel sense. The problem is that ordinary language is suffused with imagery, meaning historical accounts may include ostensibly figurative language. If we do not properly attend to such figures of speech or idioms, we could end up with bad interpretations.

    To illustrate, many idioms are referred to as dead metaphors, such that competent speakers of the given language need not understand the figurative aspect to use it properly. A simple biblical example of a dead metaphor comes from the phrase the son(s) of… (See text notes for 1 Sam 2:12, Neh 12:28, Mark 2:19; see also Carson’s Jesus the Son of God, chapter 1.) ‘Son(s) of X’ is used to mean those among the X group. Of course, it can denote reproduction, but it is often used in contexts where it’s obvious that parent-child relations are absent. Furthermore, it’s also not exactly a classical metaphor either because of its common usage. A contemporary example includes the way we use ‘blueprints’ to mean any kind of instruction or pattern. This metaphor is doubly dead since few architectural firms use literal blue prints (cyanotype) typical of early twentieth century architectural drawing reproduction.

Criticism

My concerns with this title are in some ways more superficial. I think the basic strategy of the book succeeds as an acceptable interpretation of the Genesis flood. So, the concerns I have with this text are not so much with issues fundamental to the goals of the study. That said, I do think some stray remarks made throughout the text are unwise and at times irresponsible. In other words, these are not theologically superficial; otherwise, I would have simply ignored them.

In the early chapters of the books, Longman and Walton establish their method and interpretative assumptions. They offer anachronism as an example of figurative rhetoric used in Genesis: 

The early chapters of Genesis contain a number of obvious anachronisms to everyone but to those who refuse to pay any attention to the evidence we have from the ancient world. An illustrative but not exhaustive list includes the following:

  1. the care of domesticated animals occurring in the second generation of humanity (Gen 4:2-5)
  2. the construction of the first city in the second generation of humanity (Gen 4:17)
  3. musical instruments in the eighth generation (Gen 4:21)
  4. bronze and iron making in the eighth generation (Gen 4:22)

We point out these anachronisms because they suggest that we must remember that real events are being rhetorically shaped for theological reasons. The biblical authors are not interested in describing these events as we might view them in a videotape presentation.

Lost World of the Flood, pp. 28-9

This is a strange passage for several reasons.

  • In his other books, Walton allows that Adam and Eve are not the first humans or the only people on the planet. Even more strange is that Longman and Walton cite W.H. Green’s seminal treatment of genealogies later in the book (108), indicating that they know these are incomplete genealogies. If either of these assumptions is true, then the above examples cannot be anachronisms since they don’t tell us anything about the chronology of these generations.
  • This passage does not play by the dialectical rules. They say these anachronisms are “obvious … to everyone but to those who refuse to pay any attention to the evidence we have from the ancient world.” Ouch! What a barbed statement! Aside from the sharp language, this passage is question-begging. The goal should be to persuade me that the Genesis accounts cannot be properly understood without rhetorical intervention. But for me to see that these are anachronistic, I would need to have already accepted the chronology provided by extra-biblical sources and sciences—which is exactly what’s under debate. Moreover, at the very point where they could have persuaded me (explaining how these genealogies are “rhetorically shaped for theological reasons”), I’m left with silence—no explanation, no elaboration, no citation, just naked assertion. I’m open to persuasion, but not when the argument is circular and bordering on a straw man. I’m left simply thinking that unless I adopt their view, I’m an anti-scientific fool.

Again, Longman and Walton claim without argument that the Bible could have supported a steady-state model of the universe:

[I]n the days when we believed in a steady-state universe, people could easily have gone to the Bible to find confirmation of that science. But today we no longer believe steady-state to be true. Today we might think we find confirmation of the big bang or the expanding universe, but someday we may no longer consider those to be true.

Lost World of the Flood, p. 8, emph. added

Easily? Why don’t they provide any examples of people who did this before Hubble’s discovery of the red shift? What passages might support a steady-state universe to defend that claim? It’s true that people are creative in making the Bible say almost anything, but I have never heard of anyone claiming that the universe could be steady-state in the face of Gen 1:1.

Finally, one of the more unfortunate remarks made by Longman and Walton is as follows:

The ancient world as a whole has different ways of knowing than we do. One of the expressions of this is that they do not have a line between myth and history.

Lost World of the Flood, pp. 18-9

Something is already amiss when making a statement about the epistemology of the entire ancient world. While the different cultures of the ancient world are probably closer to one another than they are to us, the subsequent statement is extremely misleading. The ‘they’ of the second statement is meant to refer to the cultures of the ancient world, but it is far from true that all of them lack a line between myth and history. For example, in the fifth-century BCE, Thucydides’ adopted a highly self-conscious historiographical method in writing The History of the Peloponnesian War. As it concerns biblical thought, consider the following passage:

For we did not follow cleverly devised stories [mythos] when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.

2 Peter 1:16-18 (NIV)

Peter explicitly distinguishes his own eye-witness testimony from mythos, the Greek word from which we get the English ‘myth.’ What’s especially striking about Peter’s sensitivity to myth is that he consistently refers to the flood. The force of the citations indicates that he does not view them as “cleverly devised stories.” (1 Peter 3:20; 2 Peter 2:4-10, 3:3-7) Now, Longman and Walton aren’t claiming that Genesis is myth in opposition to history; nevertheless, such a free blending of these concepts seems at odds with Peter’s (ancient) remarks.

Concluding Remarks

I appreciate that Longman and Walton resist treating the text as itself indicating a local flood. No doubt there are times when biblical authors use universal language to refer to a more limited domain (cf. Gen 41:57, Acts 2:5, Rom 1:8)—a common phenomenon in language where context specifies the range of such expressions (see this article’s opening sentence). I find myself resistant to arguments for a local flood because the Genesis account is so pervasively global (see esp. Gen 7:19-20). Longman and Walton opt for a local flood by signaling that the language, while unmistakably global, was hyperbolic. I’m genuinely open to this interpretation.

My one hesitation is that in the case of the hyperbole in Joshua’s conquest accounts, the textual evidence for treating the universal language as hyperbolic is internal to Joshua (cf. Josh 10:33, Josh 16:10). In the case of the flood, there is no counterevidence in Genesis suggesting that it was local after all. Even canonically, the language attributed to the flood has a distinctively global flavor. In 2 Peter 3:5-7, Peter compares the flood to creation and the final judgment—unmistakably global events. While Longman and Walton do address the New Testament authors, they claim that they echo the hyperbole of their Scriptures. The specter of hermeneutical unfalsifiability looms: if the flood was in fact global, how would we know?

This suggests that the geological evidence bears considerable weight in this interpretation. But Moshier’s geological section of the book focuses on debunking “flood geology,” a parallel to young earth “creation science.” Like Moshier, Hugh Ross’ arguments in Navigating Genesis against a global flood are aimed at dubious assumptions about the flood that I would not accept. Here is what I would expect to see if the flood were global:

  • The global flood would be extremely ancient—on the order of hundreds of thousands to millions of years ago. The rebuttals I’ve read of a global flood assume a young earth creationist chronology.
  • A global flood would have been sensitive to climate differences; i.e. the water would freeze where appropriate. The text does not preclude that the flooding precipitation was snow.
  • The animal pairs are strictly representative (according to its kind), not every single animal species (cf. Gen 1:21, 24-25).
  • The “springs of the great deep” are immense. One of the biggest gripes in these discussions is an apparently inadequate supply of water for a global food. Recent research indicates that the supply of water on earth is at least double what is currently on the surface. This water is trapped in rock, but the point is that the terrestrial supply of H20 is much greater than was known even 10 years ago.
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Biblical Creation, Genesis, Pentateuch

The Lost World of Adam & Eve

This is the second in the Lost World series. The present title focuses primarily on the historical Adam with the subtitle, Genesis 2-3 and the Human Origins Debate, and a contribution from New Testament scholar NT Wright. The goal of the Lost World project is to bridge the cultural gap between the world of the Ancient Near East (ANE) and the (post)modern West. Given that a broad introduction to Walton’s project was provided in the first review, I will spare the reader of re-treading the same pathways. This title is an extension of Walton’s overall program which has the following shape: the biblical text is a product of the ANE; when Genesis is properly interpreted based on its ANE context, there is no (substantial) conflict between modern scientific theory and the biblical text. While the specifics are different, the errors found in the first of the series are repeated here. I will attempt to highlight those that are novel.

I. Introduction
II. Summary
III. Evaluation
III.A. Strengths
III.B. Criticism
III.B.1. On Theistic Evolution
III.B.2. Lost World in Debate
III.B.3. Hermeneutics: Strained Specifics
III.C. Special Discussion: Prioritized Doctrine

Summary

Like the first, this title is broken into discrete propositions that move along a primarily logical path:

  • Propositions 1-4 retread the work found in The Lost World of Genesis One, viz. that Genesis 1 is an account of functional origins, not material origins. The creation is God’s cosmic temple.
  • Prop. 5 Walton argues that the goodness God ascribes to the created order is specifically about the created order functioning in the way that he ordained. Walton hereby makes room for the created order containing pain and predation while still being good.
  • Prop. 6 Walton describes the variety of ways that the Hebrew word adam is used in Gen 1-5. The word adam is not simply a proper name (as implied by its use in the genealogies), but also a generic word for mankind. In other words, throughout Genesis 2, the expression ha’adam appears, typically translated “the man.” 
  • Prop. 7 Walton argues that Genesis 2 is a sequel to what was written in Genesis 1, not a parallel account focusing on the creation of man. If true, this allows for other humans to pre-date the man described in Genesis 2. This is also meant to explain Cain’s reference to others in Gen 4:14. 
  • Props. 8-12 Here Walton argues that key features (Adam, Eve, the trees, the serpent) are archetypal. He clarifies that this is not archetypal instead of historical, but simply that these figures within these narratives are meant to represent something larger than the specific individuals. This allows Walton to focus on the priestly function of Adam and Eve; i.e. this is primarily focused on functional, not material origins.
  • Props. 13-18 develop the framework of Order, Non-order, and Disorder. These derive from the wider ANE literature and are visible within the biblical text. Order and disorder are (respectively) positively and negatively valued, whereas non-order is neutral. Once this vocabulary is in place, he uses it to retell the biblical narrative, e.g. that God’s ordered creation is good, that the Serpent’s lies introduce disorder and wickedness, and that Jesus’s resurrection inaugurates the restoration of order. This allows for death and predation to be simply aspects of non-order, predating the fall. While Adam and Eve would not have died in Eden given their access to the Tree of Life, their natural state was mortal. In other words, their exile from Eden was tantamount to death.
  • Props. 19-21 provide a classic statement of theistic evolution. Adam and Eve were different due to the spiritual role God gives them, not because of any special creation event. Other humans existed, and not all humans descended from Adam and Eve. These claims depend primarily on scientific arguments. The biblical arguments he offers are only to say that none of the usual passages used against theistic evolution (e.g., genealogies, Acts 17:26) succeed. NT Wright contributes to this section by claiming that Paul’s concern with Adam is the way that Christ succeeds where Adam failed, and that God’s primary goal in Christ is the restoration of all creation. Therefore, Paul’s discussion of Adam is not concerned with material origins and permits the type of interpretation Walton gives.

This title has a distinct conclusion and summary where Walton addresses the practical impact of adopting his approach to these issues. 

Evaluation

In some ways this title’s strengths are greater in that he seems to have adjusted the force of his rhetoric. In other ways, his interpretative approach is as clumsy as ever.

Strengths

Given Walton’s peculiar concessions, I was surprised when he explicitly and wisely eschews the ‘myth’ label. Like C. John Collins, he thinks the word is too ambiguous; like me, he thinks it’s too freighted with negative connotations. Likewise, I was pleasantly surprised that he defends the existence of a historical Adam and Eve. His reasons mirror those of Craig’s: Adam features in genealogies and plays an indispensable theological role. I also appreciate his discussion of archetypes, even though I believe the word ‘archetype’ is slightly misleading. Either way, Adam and Eve’s primacy in creation places them at the source of a number of theologically significant categories: their call to have dominion and be fruitful and multiply is a (defeasible) call for all (cf. Gen 9:1-2); their marriage is the model for all marriage (cf. Matt 19:3-9); sadly, Adam and Eve’s sin is transmitted to all, including its consequences (Romans 5:12ff). For me, the archetypal nature of Adam and Eve follows from their historical primacy. For Walton, the archetypal nature is distinct, and for that reason, I think somewhat unstable.

There are two more aspects of this title about which I am slightly ambivalent, but which are mostly good: the discussion of order, and NT Wright’s contribution. The role that order, non-order and disorder play in ANE literature provides a window into the fact that some aspects of nature are, so to speak, morally neutral. God brings order in creation, the Serpent brings disorder through deceit, but there are some things that are simply non-ordered. By multiplying and having dominion, humans are to introduce order to other parts of the creation that are yet unordered. As GK Beale puts it, Adam and Eve are to expand the boundaries of Eden. Those non-ordered portions of creation are to be ordered by God’s Image(s). My only reluctance about this framework is that (as usual) Walton attempts to do too much with it and ignores or dismisses concepts native to the text.

The primary thrust of N.T. Wright’s contribution is valuable: Christ redeemed the whole cosmos, not just me and my sin. But like Walton, Wright tends to overstate things. What he gets right is that Christ’s kingdom will involve the restoration of all creation (Romans 8:18-23), the reconciliation of all things in heaven and on earth (Colossians 1:19-20). King Jesus succeeds where King Adam failed (cf. Luke 3:38-4:13). So, I appreciate Wright drawing our attention to the full picture of the New Testament’s portrait of Jesus and the kingdom he’s inaugurated. What I don’t like is that in his efforts to draw our eyes to the bigger picture, Wright starts to deny that parts of the New Testament teach certain things about salvation. Richard Averbeck’s review on this title capably addresses this issue. As it concerns human origins, Wright complains that our focus has shifted from Adam’s vocation to his existence—right in line with Walton’s exaggerated contrast between functional role and material origins. Wright doesn’t deny that Adam existed, but by saying the focus should be on vocation rather than existence, he lines up with Walton’s brand of theistic evolution.

Criticism

On Theistic Evolution

At the highest level, this title attempts to make the case for theistic evolution. I want to offer a few preliminary remarks before making an argument against common descent and for de novo creation of Adam. First, I think large portions of evolution are compatible with a biblical account. Second, suppose I end up in heaven and God says, “Look, man, I used natural selection to bring about all of life. You were wrong.” I would be a little surprised, but it’s not unthinkable. Many clever theologians stay faithful to the core of Christianity while embracing evolution—more in the Special Discussion below.

To begin, here are some observations about the Genesis account: 

  • Some observe that Adam is made from the dust (2:7), but so are the animals (2:19).
  • Some observe that God breathes (naphach) into Adam so he becomes a “living being” or, more literally, a breather (nephesh); but all the animals are also so described (2:19; cf. 1:20, 21, 24). 

These imply that the de novo arguments from Genesis for humans and animals rise or fall together.

Here are three arguments from biblical concepts for de novo creation of Adam. None of them directly depends on the origin accounts of Adam and Eve. They depend primarily on functions, roles and morals; that is, they directly confront Walton by conceding his (dubious) claims about material origins for the sake of argument. 

a. Adam’s Father

In Jesus’ genealogy, Adam is listed as ‘Son of God.’ (Luke 3:38) Just as Jesus was born of the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:35), to describe Adam as a ‘son of God’ in this context implies that Adam’s creation is sui generis, and directly from God.

b. Honor Your Father and Mother

  1. God’s Image-bearers (so, Adam) are meant to rule over the animals (Gen 9:1-11; cf. Gen 1:28).
  2. Children are to honor their father and mother (Ex 20:12); that is, their father and mother are de jure leaders of their households. 
  3. If Adam descended from non-human primates, he would have to rule over and be ruled over by his parents. While this isn’t an outright contradiction, it is unstable.

If Adam came from God, then only God stands above Adam in the created order. This interpretation is in keeping with what we find in the rest of Scripture (Cf. Psalm 8:5-9, NASB).

c. Where’s the Line?

There is a significant conceptual hurdle for anyone attempting to reconcile common descent with a biblical worldview. In Scripture, humans are presented as different from animals in kind, evolution presents this as a difference in degree. Any attempted harmonization will feel necessarily ad hoc. The following are hard to explain if Adam and Eve are only distinguished by their priestly function: (i) the sharp ethical difference in the killing of animals and of humans (Gen 9:2-6); or, (ii) the radical prohibition against bestiality (Lev 20:15-6), especially for the first humans and pre-human primates. Without a difference in the ordering of creation itself, it’s virtually impossible to account for what’s inherently wrong with such behavior. We’re left with little more than revulsion.

As I mentioned, the advantage of the above arguments is that they undermine Walton’s position using claims he’d accept. These arguments also show that the traditional doctrine concerning human origins saturate Scripture. Neither an exegetical wiggle here nor a historical trick there in the first chapters of Genesis suffice to permit the conclusions proffered by Walton.

Lost World in Debate

One of the more irritating problems with this title is that he doubles down on some of his flawed claims from Genesis One. The present title was written six years later and does not seem to account for the intervening criticism. In the previous title, Walton says, “To the author and audience of Genesis, material origins were simply not a priority.” (Walton 2009, 95, emph. original) In a review that same year, C. John Collins observed that Adam’s formation from the dust is an account of material origins. In the present title, Walton explicitly denies this (see Prop 8). Here is his best attempt to interpret what a material origin would be:

 The most basic way to think about dust would be to view it as part of the chemical composition of the human body. That approach immediately has several drawbacks. First, the Israelites would not be inclined to thinking in terms of chemistry. They would have no means to do that, and therefore had something else in mind as they considered this detail. Second, we would have to consider it flawed chemistry from our vantage point, in that dust could hardly be considered the primary ingredient of the human body.

Lost World of Adam and Eve, p. 72

The above passage shines light on the fact that by ‘material origins,’ Walton has a scientific account in mind. But we’ve already established that the Genesis accounts are not meant to be scientific. So, either (i) Walton’s supposedly bold claim that the ANE didn’t prioritize material origins turns out to be obvious, since there’s no way that chemical composition was in view; or (ii) his interpretation of material origin is a blatant straw man, because no one would reasonably claim that Adam was composed of literal dust. Even Ken Ham would say that Adam is like the rest of us: composed of flesh, bone and blood (Gen 2:23). I’ve always assumed that Gen 2:7 was an artful way of indicating that Adam is both a material being (dust) and a spiritual being (breath). Exactly how God brought Adam about is not required for this to be an account Adam’s material origin (cf. Jesus’ use of mud in John 9:6-7). Of course, Walton says this is all archetypal. Seeing that Walton would deny such a naked example of material origins, it’s clearer than ever that no account from the ANE could count for him as a material origin.

Hermeneutics: Strained Specifics

A couple specific parts of this title demand closer scrutiny: Walton’s discussion of Melchizedek (Gen 14:18-20), and the discussion of the Serpent (Gen 3). Beginning with Melchizedek, Walton claims that he is portrayed as a priest-king of a Canaanite god:

Melchizedek is a priest … of “El Elyon,” which is a generic identification of deity as best we can tell. It is left to Abraham to affirm that, in his opinion, Yahweh is El Elyon—Melchizedek makes no such claim.  

Lost World of Adam and Eve, p. 97

“As best we can tell” is an irresponsible way of putting this given that many scholars do not share this loose interpretation of Melchizedek’s God. First, El and Elyon are both applied to Yahweh elsewhere (Exodus 15:2, 2 Sam 22:14) and in Num 24:16 set in parallel with obvious application to Yahweh (cf. Num 24:10-14). If Melchizedek is a true priest of Yahweh God (as I believe) the reason that he is not so-called is that Yahweh is God’s unique covenant name. Second, while the narrator does not directly connect Melchizedek’s God to Yahweh, Melchizedek’s blessing does connect his God to Abraham’s. Finally, Abraham unwittingly tithing to a pagan god is unthinkable. For all of Abraham’s scandalous behavior, his loyalty to Yahweh is unshakable.

Walton’s discussion of the Serpent is even more bizarre. Most of what he says depends upon ANE symbolism. Here is an annotated list of quotes:

  • The Israelite reader would have thought of the serpent as a sort of disruptive free agent with less of a thought-out agenda. (Walton 2015, 134) 
    This is a hard sell. The Serpent’s words are directed primarily against God, first by questioning (3:1) then explicitly denying his word (3:4,5). Furthermore, the curse issued by God in 3:15 portends an age-spanning conflict of epic proportions between the Serpent’s seed and the woman’s seed. The Serpent is not some mischievous Loki or Puck. His role in human history is represented first as cataclysmic and then as ominously continuous until his head is bruised by the Seed of the woman.
  • The Old Testament does not give the Serpent an ongoing role. (ibid.)
    Contrary to this bald statement, the Serpent (nachash) does appear again with an arguably identical denotation.

    Isaiah 27:1 (NIV) In that day, the LORD will punish with his sword—his fierce, great and powerful sword—Leviathan the gliding serpent, Leviathan the coiling serpent; he will slay the monster of the sea.

    In fact, a compelling interpretation of ‘Leviathan’ in Job 41 links this Dark Personality to the Satan of Job 1:6.
  • When we examine the text closely, we discover that the text never suggests that the serpent was in the garden… we must note that Adam and Eve’s tasks in the garden do not necessitate their constant presence. (ibid.)
    This is technically true but strains the text to imagine otherwise. Every reference to location is in the garden (2:8,9,15; 3:8,23) and the natural chronology implies that the fruit of the tree (in the garden) is consumed immediately after speaking to the Serpent.

These remarks fall afoul of a few biblical hermeneutical principles.

  1. Historical and cultural background is to enhance and clarify, not to subvert or confuse a text. ANE cultural background can be helpful and even surprise. But the final result of introducing the historical and literary context must be compatible with the words themselves.
  2. God’s reveals his plan in stages. Later revelation advances, sharpens, or clarifies earlier revelation. This interpretative approach means that any interpretation of an earlier text must be minimally compatible with later texts, and if they cover the same topic, the later more narrow interpretation is “contained” in the earlier.
  3. Scripture interprets Scripture. The Bible is a complex intertextual document with many internal references constraining how freely earlier literature is to be interpreted. 

Against (1), Walton’s use of the ANE tends to confuse, not clarify. Against (2), Walton offers interpretations that are not just limited compared to later revelation, they are bordering on incompatible. Against (3), Walton observes that the New Testament has a more developed notion of Satan, and that’s true. The problem is that the New Testament’s notion depends on interpreting the Old Testament in the “traditional” way, not in those ways that depend heavily on ANE literature (Cf. John 8:44, Gen 3:15). The best explanation for Walton’s strange approach is addressed in what follows.

Special Discussion: Prioritized Doctrine

Throughout, Walton constantly hedges using modal expressions: possible, would, could, may, might. On the one hand, with such a difficult topic, it’s wise to exercise caution when offering an interpretation. On the other hand, one is left with a tepid feeling: the reader has no sense that this is the best explanation of all the phenomena, only that it is acceptable. This peculiar approach came into crystal clarity in the final chapter, which leads to this special discussion.

In the final chapter, Walton expresses concern for the price Christians will pay by placing science and Christianity at odds. He writes:

[W]hen we tell the young people reared in a Christian faith that there is a war between science and faith and that if they accept certain scientific conclusions, they will be abandoning the Bible, they often believe us. Then, when they are confronted with a very persuasive presentation from of an old earth or a case for common ancestry from the genomic record, they decide that the Bible must go. They have heard their revered pastors tell them that people who believe in evolution cannot be Christians…

What if we could tell them that their scientific conclusions did not make a difference and that they could still believe the Bible, could still be in relationship with Christ, could still be members in good standing in the church?…

Think, then, of our children and grandchildren. When they come home from college having accepted some scientific understanding about human origins that we do not find persuasive, are we going to denounce them, disinherit them and drive them from the doors of our homes and churches? … Let us pray together that we can chart a path of faithfulness and stop the hemorrhaging.

Lost World of Adam and Eve, pp. 209-10

This basic idea is laudable. Like Walton, I hope to preserve (and advance) Christian faith. I think that part of that project involves showing that wooden interpretations of the Bible or science that place them in opposition benefits no one: there is no war between science and faith. Like Walton, I believe that such outrageous responses to belief in evolution are unloving and unbiblical. Jesus speaks to the woman at the well with uncommon respect and care, even though it’s obvious from her reference to Mt. Gerazim (John 4:19-24) that she does not hold to a biblical faith (see esp. 4:22). 

That said, I have concerns with the above discussion and how it animates Walton’s project:

  1. On the most cursory level, Walton is committing a sequence of fallacies. The first is an ad misericordiam (appeal to pity)—we can’t lose our children or grandchildren! The other is that Walton’s whole discussion begs the question against the rigid fundamentalist. Even though I have no sympathy for fundamentalism, anyone who would disown their child over this presumably believes (however wrongly) that how one interprets Genesis is non-negotiable. Finally, it seems that Walton conflates the range of acceptable interpretations with the range of acceptable doctrines. More on that in the next point.
  2. The answer to the college student’s doubts is to articulate and defend the concept of prioritized doctrine: some Christian teaching is essential, some important, some neither. For example, Paul’s phrase “of first importance” in 1 Cor 15:3 signals that biblical teaching comes in gradations. While I consider doctrine surrounding human origins important, I don’t believe it’s essential. So, I agree with Walton that Christians who unreluctantly accept evolutionary theory shouldn’t be cast out as pariahs. Helping them understand the range of acceptable doctrines will give them room to ask questions and explore answers. That said, the range of acceptable doctrines is not the same as the range of acceptable interpretations, even if they interrelate. That we proverbially say, Right doctrine, Wrong passage, shows how easily these can break apart. The liberty afforded by non-essential doctrine seems to have led Walton into exegetical liberty, which does not follow.

Much of this explains why Walton so aggressively teases apart almost every word, thoroughly missing the forest for the trees. If the goal is to spare those struggling with doubt rather than to zero in on the best interpretation, the interpreter will offer a handful of possible interpretations and a string of potentially relevant cultural factors. The problem is that exegesis (of any text) has its own goal: to determine the meaning. Possible interpretations are relevant for this purpose, but skillful readers desire to close in on the best interpretation, no matter how elusive it is. If we imagine this as a game of chess, it’s as if Walton offers a bunch of legal moves but has forgotten that the point is to mate your opponent. Finally, as Christians who revere the Bible, we want to know the mind of God and serve him faithfully. Bearing in mind what I said about doctrinal priority, I fear that Walton’s approach places confused believers in the driver’s seat, rather than urging them to approach God’s Word with humility and curiosity.

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Biblical Creation, Genesis, Pentateuch

The Lost World of Genesis One

John Walton has released a series of Lost World books. I aim to review most of them in preparation for a series of courses on the Pentateuch. The present title focuses on Genesis 1 with the subtitle, Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate. The central concept behind the book is a familiar hermeneutical one: readers of any text–much more Scripture–are responsible to enter the author’s world as much as possible. We live in the (post)modern world, the Bible is from the ancient world. As it concerns Genesis, we’re approaching a document that’s from the second millenium BCE. While it’s a bit misleading to say that the Bible’s world is lost, our work is still cut out for us. Walton’s desire to bridge the cultural gap is laudable; however, Walton’s work leaves much to be desired. I would have said that the topic outstrips Walton’s expertise, except that he also makes claims about Genesis that are readily refutable. The biggest flaw with this book is not that he’s completely wrong, but that he overstates his case. 

I. Summary
II. Evaluation
II.A. Where Walton Succeeds
II.B. Criticism
II.B.1. In Brief
II.B.2. Philosophical Flaws
II.B.3. Scientific Flaws
II.B.4. Exegetical Flaws
II.B.5. Concluding Assessment

Summary

The book is broken into 18 propositions that move along a primarily logical path:

  • Proposition 1 orients the reader hermeneutically: Genesis is an ancient literature, not natural science. 
  • Propositions 2-6 introduce the central feature of his interpretation. To do this, he articulates the difference between functional and material ontologies. Ontology means the study or principle (-logy) of being (ontos). So, functional ontologies are systems of objects determined by their social purpose or function. Material ontologies are systems of objects understood as strictly material or physical stuff. The famous, ancient Ship of Theseus puzzle shows that debating the priority of material over social function is not new. Walton’s central contention is that Genesis 1 describes functional origins, rather than material origins. 
  • Propositions 7-8 connect the dots from the functional concepts to the cosmic temple concept. Walton argues that the purpose of the cosmos was for God to establish a dwelling place, a temple.
  • Propositions 9-12 apply the foregoing directly to the text of Genesis 1.
  • The final portion of the book (props. 14-18) addresses some of the more politically charged components of the discussion. What is appropriate to teach in schools? Does intelligent design qualify as a science? 

Evaluation

Where Walton Succeeds

Walton’s book is not without strengths. The book’s discrete digestible chapters make for an easier read. Each chapter is also concluded with a short bibliography dubbed, Technical Support. Walton’s not just presenting his own views in a vacuum. He has support and wants you to check his work. 

Walton succeeds in helping his readers realize that Genesis is an ancient document and should be treated with appropriate care. No doubt, much of this type of hermeneutical orienting is for a popular audience. Walton probably imagines a reasonably literate person with some basic understanding of evolutionary biology and physical cosmology; that is, anyone who has taken some high school science. Given the wide availability of the biblical text, such a person could easily pick up a Bible and start reading it without training. Walton’s warning is well-needed and should be well-heeded by such a reader of Genesis. If Genesis 1 is read cold, a sensible assumption is that it presents a rival scientific text. Since astronomical and paleontological data contradict the Genesis-as-science interpretation, many toss aside Genesis and the rest of the Bible rather than investigate whether this interpretation is appropriate. I respect Walton’s request that we slow down, read carefully, and try to place Genesis within its literary context. Even as one who has read Genesis 1 many times, each careful re-reading has yielded fresh surprises.

Finally, Walton continually resists a God-of-the-Gaps presentation of God’s relationship to nature. The God-of-the-Gaps model essentially treats God as a mere explanatory posit to carry us until scientifically respectable explanations squeeze him out. Believers in God are placing themselves in dangerous territory if they adopt a God-of-the-Gaps approach. I stand with Walton in resisting some of the “irreducible complexity” and design arguments that carry with them a strong God-of-the-Gaps odor. Any time we place God in as an explanatory place holder, it is an invitation to natural scientists to find the natural cause. Even theistic scientists would be motivated to search for an explanation. By rejecting the God-of-the-Gaps, we embrace the idea that the whole working order bears witness to God, not just the superstitious spiritual mortar between the natural bricks. For Bible-believing theists, adopting a God-of-the-Gaps approach is unwise because it is not biblical. The Biblical God represents himself as the architect of natural law (Jeremiah 31:35-36, 33:19-22) which means that he stands behind all natural causal activity. 

Criticism

In Brief

Almost all of my criticisms amount to witnessing some degree of clumsiness on Walton’s part. I can’t tell whether that is due to a genuine lack of care, or due to his overstating things for rhetorical effect. When writing for a popular audience, authors tend to elevate their rhetoric more than when interacting with academic peers. As I conclude below, my fear is that the project itself requires some sleight of hand. What’s unclear is whether Walton has fallen for his own tricks. Either way, in what follows, I plan to examine philosophical, scientific, and exegetical errors.

Philosophical Flaws

Walton’s presentation of the radical divide between functional and material betrays both philosophical and historical confusions. He develops something like the following narrative: 

In the ancient world, they only cared about functional origins. In the modern world, we only care about material origins. Many of the problems in reading Genesis can be avoided by recovering the “lost world” of functions.

This sounds like an unsympathetic reading, except that he makes statements as extreme as this:

To the author and audience of Genesis, material origins were simply not a priority. To that audience, however, it would likewise have been unthinkable that God was somehow uninvolved in the material origins of creation. Hence there wouldn’t have been any need to stress a material creation account with God depicted as centrally involved in the material aspects of creation.

Lost World of Genesis One, Emph. Added, p. 95

On the modern view he writes:

[I]t can be seen that our culture views existence, and therefore meaning, in material terms. Our material view of ontology in turn determines how we think about creation.” (Walton, 22)

Lost World of Genesis One, p. 22

It is not hard to see that such exaggerated claims will give way to counterexamples. Both modern and ancient people speak of functional and material origins. One of the first examples of a modern (so, material) object that Walton develops is of a chair. The problem is that a chair is a human artifact with a very strict function. It is much more than mere wood. It’s a device employed by humans for sitting. Likewise, in the Babylonian Enuma Elish, the god Marduk made the heavens from parts of the defeated sea goddess Tiamat’s body. The heavens are formed to resemble a palace (their function), but they are from Tiamat (their matter). Walton’s clean divide between past and present, functional and material does not survive scrutiny. This is too bad because a tempered form of this is accurate.

Much of this discussion would have been improved had Walton interacted with Aristotle’s four causes: material, formal, efficient, and final. Consider a bronze statue of Socrates. 

  1. The material cause is the material out of which it is made (bronze). 
  2. The formal cause is the shape of the statue (Socrates-shaped). 
  3. The efficient cause is the initiator of the sculpture (the sculptor). 
  4. The final cause is the purpose of the statue (honoring Socrates). 

Much trouble would have been saved if Walton had simply availed himself of this clear and well-developed framework for understanding the very issues he’s discussing. Many of his examples seem to have been cooked up cold and bear little relationship to an ironically ancient philosophical history. Drawing on this framework, Walton is claiming that the Genesis 1 account is focused on the final cause (the function/purpose of the universe) and the efficient cause (God), whereas our culture ostensibly concerns itself with material causes. I would also say our culture is concerned with formal causality given the place of mathematical language in scientific discourse.  

What’s especially too bad is that Walton is on to something. Scientific discourse in the 21st century is primarily oriented around formal and material causes, especially the physical and biological sciences. The social sciences are different since their primary objects of study are the purposes and activities of persons and institutions, i.e., efficient and final causes. There are interesting historical questions regarding the way that natural scientific practice has so narrowly oriented itself, but that’s what we’re facing today in the natural sciences. If people have been taught that this is the proper way to understand origins for the majority of their education, it’s no surprise that they stumble over the focus on efficient and final causes found in Genesis. What I resist is the idea that ancient literature (let alone Genesis 1) doesn’t address material or formal causes. So, Walton is correct to draw our attention to these final causes (“functional origins”). He just goes too far.

Scientific Flaws

The popular nature of this work makes it difficult to pin down what’s wrong with his approach to science, but one gets the impression that Walton has not read or interacted with much professional philosophy of science. Most of what he says about science is sloganized from the works of Karl Popper and the Vienna Circle; viz., science only concerns the demonstrable and the falsifiable. Thinkers such as Quine, Kuhn, and Lakatos repudiated this approach to science as long ago as the early 1950s. Each of those thinkers demonstrated in different ways that the clean lines between science and the rest of human knowledge are not so clean. All of these thinkers were die-hard naturalists, but resisted the science-as-falsifiability thesis for a variety of persuasive reasons, not least of which that scientific practice doesn’t conform to this portrait. It would be too much to expect Walton to have expert familiarity with such debates, except that his argument depends on this assumption that there are clean lines between material and functional origins, scientific and “non-scientific” discourse.

Either way, I want to focus on a tasty analogy that he develops in Proposition 13. He describes the God-of-the-Gaps approach as like a pie: part of the pie is natural cause and effect; the other part is God’s intervention in some way. As discussed above, Walton correctly rejects this picture, noting that as science advances, God’s share of the pie shrinks to the vanishing point. Instead of pie, Walton urges us to have some cake. In this metaphor, the bottom layer of the cake comprises the natural descriptions of cause and effect in the physical world. The upper layer is the divine description of God’s activity. So far so good, except that Walton would like to have his cake and eat it too—I couldn’t resist! The interpretive work that Walton has the analogy do makes it so that there is no significant relationship between the layers. But even in actual cakes, the layers relate in significant ways (the weight of one on the other, the marrying of flavors if they’re different).

Allow me to add a couple of layers to Walton’s two-layer cake to bake an Aristotelian four-layer cake. Since Aristotle’s cake contains Walton’s two, any point I make here will apply also to Walton. Return to the statue of Socrates. The four causes of the statue, while distinct, are highly dependent upon one another. For example, a statue of Socrates made from crumpled garbage might have the same shape and maker, but would fail to honor the man. The material and final causes are connected. It’s easy to imagine Socrates in different honorable poses (say, thinking or speaking), but the sculptor would fail to honor Socrates if the statue were using the latrine or bore the likeness of Plato. So, while there is a not a relationship of necessity between these causes, there is a range of tolerance. Some materials, forms, and perhaps even makers would be incompatible with honoring Socrates. Bearing this in mind, a functional-origins-only account is a myth of Walton’s making. Materials and forms are relevant to function. My own interpretation of Genesis is that there is a range of compatible materials and forms, but that certain scientific hypotheses should at least be capable of contradicting biblical literature. What Walton presents here makes it so that no scientific account of material origins could contradict Genesis 1. In that case, science is falsifiable by definition, but cannot play a disconfirming role for the biblical text. This is not only strange but is eerily similar to Stephen Jay Gould’s famous and flawed thesis of Non-Overlapping Magisteria: science and religion operate within distinct spheres of authority. As someone with deep respect for science and religious belief, I think both are served best by permitting open conflict rather than blind acceptance.

I need to offer a brief clarification and/or qualification. On the one hand, when I speak of science above, I am talking about what is currently accepted in the scientific community. Such things can easily contradict Scripture. On the other hand, scientific method involves the testing of hypotheses and designing tools to understand the cosmos, i.e., the way that God designed the world. Assuming—as I do—that the Bible is inspired by God, properly practiced scientific method—continually applied, correcting and refining historically accepted scientific hypotheses—will eventually harmonize with a properly interpreted Bible. God designed the world to operate according to elegant laws and symmetries, and He designed the mind of humans to apprehend such laws and symmetries. Therefore, the integrity of the scientific method necessitates that the scientific community can only stray so far from God’s design. If they go past a certain point, it is because they are not actually practicing science anymore, no matter what honorifics society bestows upon them. 

Exegetical Flaws

What makes this book so baffling is that Walton is an Old Testament scholar. While scholars are not immune from error, some of his claims are not difficult to falsify. Here are a few:

  1. Walton’s claim that Genesis 1 involves a cosmic temple has merit, but there are a few oddities to it. First, the portion of the creation account that has clear temple overtones is Genesis 2. Eden has a similar structure to the temple: the center of the garden (Most Holy Place), the garden (Holy Place), and outside the garden (Court; cf. Genesis 4:1-4). The closest echo of the temple in Genesis 1 occurs in Ex 24:15ff where God takes seven days to settle on Sinai before he reveals the design of the tabernacle. So, I’m not saying that there are no temple motifs in the first several chapters of Genesis. I think there are, but not with the same bravado and interpretative totality as Walton. Second, given Walton’s confidence that Genesis 1 is no more than an account of functional origins with God establishing his dwelling place, one would expect these motifs to be more explicit in Genesis 1. What we get instead are a bunch of day’s and good’s.
  2. Expanding on the last point, rather than seeing a ton of temple imagery in Genesis 1, there is Edenic imagery in the tabernacle and temple. I mentioned the tripartite structure above from Eden. The lampstand is the shape of a tree (Ex 25:31ff), which some argue symbolizes the tree of life from the Garden. Others claim that the seven lights of the lampstand represent the seven classical planets (five planets + sun + moon; cf. Ex 27:21). The curtains of the tabernacle have dark nighttime colors with cherubim woven into them (cf. Gen 3:24). For more on this overlap, see GK Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission. Ultimately, this shows that the temple and creation share common imagery. However, Walton never addresses the explanatory possibility that the temple imagery depends upon the creation rather than the other way around (as he has it).
  3. To say that there is no priority on material origins is misleading at best. In Genesis 2:7, Adam is formed from the dust. This is a description of Adam’s material origin. To say it’s not a priority would be to undermine the power of the judgment found in Genesis 3:17-19, especially 19.
  4. There are a few sections in Genesis 1 that are clearly functional. On Day 4, the luminaries are “to give light on the earth,” Genesis 1:17 (NIV). Here, a purpose is explicit. So too on Day 6, man and woman are created for the purpose of ruling. Given the fact that there is language that explicitly indicates purpose on only certain days raises doubts as to Walton’s sweeping claims. Why is such language missing for all other days?
  5. For further discussion of Walton’s interpretation, see John Lennox’s excellent, Seven Days that Divide the World, especially Appendix B. Lennox addresses Walton’s idiosyncratic interpretation of bara (create).

Concluding Assessment

As I mentioned, Walton’s project is harmed by his overstatement of things. And yet, Walton’s project depends on the overstatement, because he tries to indicate that Genesis 1 is a functional story which one may lay over apparently any material story. Given that I reject his claim that Genesis (or other ancient literature) has no account of material origins, I think his project fails.

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