In 1872, while conducting research in the basement of the British Museum, George Smith translated an ancient Babylonian tablet that contained references to Utnapishtim, the survivor of the worldwide Flood, and to Gilgamesh who sought to attain from him the secret to eternal life. Newspapers around the world reported the astonishing discovery of the Gilgamesh Epic and the first ever reference to the Flood outside of Scripture. Since then, scholars have documented worldwide Flood stories from cultures around the world. Creation accounts have been found, as well. As these new archaeological discoveries during the last 150 years have uncovered such evidence, new questions have arisen about the origin and nature of the Creation and Flood accounts in the Bible. Is the biblical account of Genesis 1–11 simply borrowed from the ancient Near East? Does it contain mythical elements common to the other accounts? If the Genesis account is dependent in some way on the earlier accounts from Mesopotamia or Egypt, what are the implications historically and theologically? How does one explain the similarities and differences found in the different accounts? How do these accounts speak to the question of cosmology, or the origin and structure of the universe? Is the Bible also to be considered a mythological text like those from Egypt and Mesopotamia? These and other questions will be the topic of this week’s study as we explore the Bible against its Near Eastern and Egyptian environment.
Part II: Commentary
Illustration
Galileo Galilei concluded that the sun was the center of the solar system, with the earth and the other planets revolving around the sun (heliocentric worldview). But there were others in the Catholic Church who taught that the earth was the center of the universe (geocentric worldview). This led to a trial by the Inquisition in which Galileo was forced to recant and was placed under house arrest until his death in 1642. The Galileo affair has often been cited as an example in which the Bible holds back science. But this raises several questions. Did the church’s interpretation, which was used to condemn Galileo, really derive from the Bible? Was Galileo opposed to the Bible in favor of science? In fact, the Catholic Church had adopted a cosmology based on Greek Aristotelian philosophy and Ptolomy’s mathematics, which it then tried to defend on the basis of the Bible. Galileo responded by defending his interpretation on the basis of the Bible, as well. First, he asserted that God is the author of both nature and the Bible. If properly understood, they would be in harmony. Second, Galileo pointed out that later interpreters can err. Then he stated that the language used in the Bible is adapted to the common person and should not always be taken in a literalistic way. Finally, he argued against the consistency of the literal reading of Joshua’s insistence that the sun stand still over Gibeah (Josh. 10:12), in light of the prevailing Ptolemaic view that the earth always was still and stood in the center of the universe, because in that case the day would have been shorter, not longer (Richard J. Blackwell, Galileo, Bellarmine, and the Bible [South Bend, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 1991], pp. 68, 69).Today there is no doubt which interpretation was correct. But it took the Catholic Church over 350 years to exonerate Galileo, which it did in 1992.
The lesson for us is that the Bible interpreter must not read the Bible through the lens of the cosmologies of the ancient Near East, Egypt, Greece, or the latest modern worldview. When there are difficulties of understanding, then careful consideration of the context, language patterns, and sense of the biblical passage is important.
Scripture
Does the Bible contain an antiquated view of cosmology? For centuries, critical scholars thought that Genesis 1 reflected the ideas of the ancient Babylonians. Thus, they insisted that the term tĕhôm, “deep,” derived from the name Tiamat, the goddess of the primeval ocean world in the Enuma Elish epic. The epic depicts the Babylonian god Marduk slaying Tiamat in mortal combat. Today it is recognized that tĕhôm is simply a term for a large body of water that is completely nonmythical. In fact, it is “impossible to conclude that tĕhôm ‘ocean’ was borrowed from Tiamat.”—David Toshio Tsumura, “Genesis and Ancient Near Eastern Stories of Genesis and the Flood: An Introduction,” in I Studied Inscriptions From Before the Flood: Ancient Near Eastern, Literary, and Linguistic Approaches to Genesis 1–11, ed. Richard S. Hess and David Toshio Tsumura (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1994), p. 31. To suggest that Genesis 1 reflects a pagan conflict between the gods is to read into the text something that the text actually combats. The description of the passive, powerless, and unorganized state of the “deep” in Genesis 1:2 reveals that the term is nonmythical in content and antimythical in purpose.
The term rāqîa‘ is sometimes translated “firmament,” from the term firmamentum in the Vulgate Latin translation of the Old Testament, which gives a false impression that the firmament is a solid metal dome. However, the term rāqîa‘ is better rendered “expanse,” as can be seen in Psalm 19:1 and Daniel 12:3. Likewise, does rain literally come through the “windows of heaven” (Gen. 7:11, Gen. 8:2)? In other passages, barley (2 Kings 7:1, 2), trouble and anguish (Isa. 24:18, 19), or blessings (Mal. 3:10) come through the “windows of heaven.” These expressions are clearly non-literal and serve as metaphors in the same way that the saying “windows of the mind” is used today. If the Bible is read and interpreted on its own terms, it is usually not difficult to detect and recognize such language. Attempts to read into Scripture some kind of three-storied universe with a metal dome containing windows held up by pillars with an underworld below is to take that which is intended as non-literal within the context of these passages and to interpret it literally. In fact, the Bible writers intentionally separated themselves from such mythical ideas that blended the realm of the gods and humans. We can refer to this intention as a polemical approach to the myths of the ancient Near East and Egypt.
Creation by the Word. “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light” (Gen. 1:3). This mode of Creation is in direct contrast to the ancient myths. In Enuma Elish, Marduk creates by gruesomely splitting Tiamat. In the Atra-Ḫasis epic, humankind is created from the flesh and blood of a slaughtered god mixed with clay. In Egypt, creation of man comes as the result of self-generation or emanation from the gods. But in Genesis there is no hint of deity in humanity itself. Humans are separate creatures from God.
Sea-Creatures. On the fifth day of Creation (Gen. 1:20–23), God created the “great whales” (KJV) or “great sea monsters,” as more recent translations (RSV, NEB, NASB) render the Hebrew term. In Ugaritic texts, a related term appears as a personified monster, or dragon, who was overcome by the goddess Anath, the creator god. But God’s totally effortless Creation of these large aquatic creatures, as expressed through the verb “create,” stresses effortless Creation and exhibits a deliberate argument against the mythical idea of creation by battle or combat.
Seven-day Week. “And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done” (Gen. 2:2, ESV). In Egyptian cosmologies there is no finality to creation. Rather, the cycle of recurrent creation of the sun god Amun-Re takes place daily. This concept of life and death is so intrinsic to Egyptian thinking that death itself is seen as part of the normal order of creation. A Twenty-First Dynasty funerary papyrus shows a winged serpent with the caption “death, the great god, who made gods and men”—a “personification of death as a creator god and an impressive visual realization of the idea that death is a necessary feature of the world of creation.”—Erik Hornung, Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt (Ithica, NY: Cornell University Press, 1982), p. 81.
The exalted conception of the Genesis account of Creation presents, at its center, a transcendent God who, as supreme and unique Creator, speaks the world into existence. The center of all Creation is humankind as male and female. The Genesis cosmology unveils most comprehensively the foundations on which the biblical world reality and worldview rest. Genesis gives us a picture of totality that sets the entire tone for the rest of Scripture. Scripture is able to speak about the events of the end because He who made all things at the beginning is still sovereign over His creation (see further Gerhard F. Hasel and Michael G. Hasel, “The Unique Cosmology of Genesis 1 against Ancient Near Eastern and Egyptian Parallels,” in The Genesis Creation Account and Its Reverberations in the Old Testament, ed. Gerald A. Klingbeil [Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 2015], pp. 9–29.
Part III: Life Application
The idea that the Bible is an antiquated book with little relevance to the major questions of the twenty-first century is prevalent in our culture today. The evolutionary worldview derives, in large part, from the mythical idea that there is no distinct boundary between humans, the natural world, and the world of the divine. These are all one. In Hinduism, we evolve through reincarnation into another life form when we die. God is in all and is all. According to Hinduism, there are 33 million gods as personified through nature. This concept goes back to ancient Egypt where there were 22,000 gods and where death and life were perceived as part of the great circle of life.
1. Why is it important for us as Christians to understand that we were created in a perfect, sinless state at a time when death did not exist? Why is choice, as described in Genesis 3, important? How was the wrong choice of one man, Adam, made right in the choice of the Son of man, Jesus Christ?
2. How does an evolutionary theory of millions of years of the death and dying of one species after another in a holocaust of pain provide any hope for the future? If death was always the other side to life in this universe, could there ever be an existence without death?
3. How is the Bible’s teaching on life and death completely different from that of the other major world religions? In what way does Christ’s physical death and bodily resurrection make all the difference in the world? Share why you have hope today in the promises found in Scripture.
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Key Texts: Job 26:7–10; Genesis 1–2; Genesis 5; Genesis 11; 1 Chron. 1:18–27; Matt. 19:4, 5; John 1:1–3.
Part I: Overview
In 1872, while conducting research in the basement of the British Museum, George Smith translated an ancient Babylonian tablet that contained references to Utnapishtim, the survivor of the worldwide Flood, and to Gilgamesh who sought to attain from him the secret to eternal life. Newspapers around the world reported the astonishing discovery of the Gilgamesh Epic and the first ever reference to the Flood outside of Scripture. Since then, scholars have documented worldwide Flood stories from cultures around the world. Creation accounts have been found, as well. As these new archaeological discoveries during the last 150 years have uncovered such evidence, new questions have arisen about the origin and nature of the Creation and Flood accounts in the Bible. Is the biblical account of Genesis 1–11 simply borrowed from the ancient Near East? Does it contain mythical elements common to the other accounts? If the Genesis account is dependent in some way on the earlier accounts from Mesopotamia or Egypt, what are the implications historically and theologically? How does one explain the similarities and differences found in the different accounts? How do these accounts speak to the question of cosmology, or the origin and structure of the universe? Is the Bible also to be considered a mythological text like those from Egypt and Mesopotamia? These and other questions will be the topic of this week’s study as we explore the Bible against its Near Eastern and Egyptian environment.
Part II: Commentary
Illustration
Galileo Galilei concluded that the sun was the center of the solar system, with the earth and the other planets revolving around the sun (heliocentric worldview). But there were others in the Catholic Church who taught that the earth was the center of the universe (geocentric worldview). This led to a trial by the Inquisition in which Galileo was forced to recant and was placed under house arrest until his death in 1642. The Galileo affair has often been cited as an example in which the Bible holds back science. But this raises several questions. Did the church’s interpretation, which was used to condemn Galileo, really derive from the Bible? Was Galileo opposed to the Bible in favor of science? In fact, the Catholic Church had adopted a cosmology based on Greek Aristotelian philosophy and Ptolomy’s mathematics, which it then tried to defend on the basis of the Bible. Galileo responded by defending his interpretation on the basis of the Bible, as well. First, he asserted that God is the author of both nature and the Bible. If properly understood, they would be in harmony. Second, Galileo pointed out that later interpreters can err. Then he stated that the language used in the Bible is adapted to the common person and should not always be taken in a literalistic way. Finally, he argued against the consistency of the literal reading of Joshua’s insistence that the sun stand still over Gibeah (Josh. 10:12), in light of the prevailing Ptolemaic view that the earth always was still and stood in the center of the universe, because in that case the day would have been shorter, not longer (Richard J. Blackwell, Galileo, Bellarmine, and the Bible [South Bend, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 1991], pp. 68, 69).Today there is no doubt which interpretation was correct. But it took the Catholic Church over 350 years to exonerate Galileo, which it did in 1992.
The lesson for us is that the Bible interpreter must not read the Bible through the lens of the cosmologies of the ancient Near East, Egypt, Greece, or the latest modern worldview. When there are difficulties of understanding, then careful consideration of the context, language patterns, and sense of the biblical passage is important.
Scripture
Does the Bible contain an antiquated view of cosmology? For centuries, critical scholars thought that Genesis 1 reflected the ideas of the ancient Babylonians. Thus, they insisted that the term tĕhôm, “deep,” derived from the name Tiamat, the goddess of the primeval ocean world in the Enuma Elish epic. The epic depicts the Babylonian god Marduk slaying Tiamat in mortal combat. Today it is recognized that tĕhôm is simply a term for a large body of water that is completely nonmythical. In fact, it is “impossible to conclude that tĕhôm ‘ocean’ was borrowed from Tiamat.”—David Toshio Tsumura, “Genesis and Ancient Near Eastern Stories of Genesis and the Flood: An Introduction,” in I Studied Inscriptions From Before the Flood: Ancient Near Eastern, Literary, and Linguistic Approaches to Genesis 1–11, ed. Richard S. Hess and David Toshio Tsumura (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1994), p. 31. To suggest that Genesis 1 reflects a pagan conflict between the gods is to read into the text something that the text actually combats. The description of the passive, powerless, and unorganized state of the “deep” in Genesis 1:2 reveals that the term is nonmythical in content and antimythical in purpose.
The term rāqîa‘ is sometimes translated “firmament,” from the term firmamentum in the Vulgate Latin translation of the Old Testament, which gives a false impression that the firmament is a solid metal dome. However, the term rāqîa‘ is better rendered “expanse,” as can be seen in Psalm 19:1 and Daniel 12:3. Likewise, does rain literally come through the “windows of heaven” (Gen. 7:11, Gen. 8:2)? In other passages, barley (2 Kings 7:1, 2), trouble and anguish (Isa. 24:18, 19), or blessings (Mal. 3:10) come through the “windows of heaven.” These expressions are clearly non-literal and serve as metaphors in the same way that the saying “windows of the mind” is used today. If the Bible is read and interpreted on its own terms, it is usually not difficult to detect and recognize such language. Attempts to read into Scripture some kind of three-storied universe with a metal dome containing windows held up by pillars with an underworld below is to take that which is intended as non-literal within the context of these passages and to interpret it literally. In fact, the Bible writers intentionally separated themselves from such mythical ideas that blended the realm of the gods and humans. We can refer to this intention as a polemical approach to the myths of the ancient Near East and Egypt.
Creation by the Word. “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light” (Gen. 1:3). This mode of Creation is in direct contrast to the ancient myths. In Enuma Elish, Marduk creates by gruesomely splitting Tiamat. In the Atra-Ḫasis epic, humankind is created from the flesh and blood of a slaughtered god mixed with clay. In Egypt, creation of man comes as the result of self-generation or emanation from the gods. But in Genesis there is no hint of deity in humanity itself. Humans are separate creatures from God.
Sea-Creatures. On the fifth day of Creation (Gen. 1:20–23), God created the “great whales” (KJV) or “great sea monsters,” as more recent translations (RSV, NEB, NASB) render the Hebrew term. In Ugaritic texts, a related term appears as a personified monster, or dragon, who was overcome by the goddess Anath, the creator god. But God’s totally effortless Creation of these large aquatic creatures, as expressed through the verb “create,” stresses effortless Creation and exhibits a deliberate argument against the mythical idea of creation by battle or combat.
Seven-day Week. “And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done” (Gen. 2:2, ESV). In Egyptian cosmologies there is no finality to creation. Rather, the cycle of recurrent creation of the sun god Amun-Re takes place daily. This concept of life and death is so intrinsic to Egyptian thinking that death itself is seen as part of the normal order of creation. A Twenty-First Dynasty funerary papyrus shows a winged serpent with the caption “death, the great god, who made gods and men”—a “personification of death as a creator god and an impressive visual realization of the idea that death is a necessary feature of the world of creation.”—Erik Hornung, Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt (Ithica, NY: Cornell University Press, 1982), p. 81.
The exalted conception of the Genesis account of Creation presents, at its center, a transcendent God who, as supreme and unique Creator, speaks the world into existence. The center of all Creation is humankind as male and female. The Genesis cosmology unveils most comprehensively the foundations on which the biblical world reality and worldview rest. Genesis gives us a picture of totality that sets the entire tone for the rest of Scripture. Scripture is able to speak about the events of the end because He who made all things at the beginning is still sovereign over His creation (see further Gerhard F. Hasel and Michael G. Hasel, “The Unique Cosmology of Genesis 1 against Ancient Near Eastern and Egyptian Parallels,” in The Genesis Creation Account and Its Reverberations in the Old Testament, ed. Gerald A. Klingbeil [Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 2015], pp. 9–29.
Part III: Life Application
The idea that the Bible is an antiquated book with little relevance to the major questions of the twenty-first century is prevalent in our culture today. The evolutionary worldview derives, in large part, from the mythical idea that there is no distinct boundary between humans, the natural world, and the world of the divine. These are all one. In Hinduism, we evolve through reincarnation into another life form when we die. God is in all and is all. According to Hinduism, there are 33 million gods as personified through nature. This concept goes back to ancient Egypt where there were 22,000 gods and where death and life were perceived as part of the great circle of life.
1. Why is it important for us as Christians to understand that we were created in a perfect, sinless state at a time when death did not exist? Why is choice, as described in Genesis 3, important? How was the wrong choice of one man, Adam, made right in the choice of the Son of man, Jesus Christ?
2. How does an evolutionary theory of millions of years of the death and dying of one species after another in a holocaust of pain provide any hope for the future? If death was always the other side to life in this universe, could there ever be an existence without death?
3. How is the Bible’s teaching on life and death completely different from that of the other major world religions? In what way does Christ’s physical death and bodily resurrection make all the difference in the world? Share why you have hope today in the promises found in Scripture.