Wednesday August 8 2012

Read Genesis 3

 

For those who held to alternate views/interpretations of Genesis 1-3, the majority of people I surveyed said that Genesis 1-3 is not literal history because it’s poetic. The general argument seems to concede that as poetry the chapters are conveying to us a truth about God and creation but need not be taken literally.  When, for example, Isaiah mentions the new exodus he clearly states that ‘the trees of the field will clap their hands.’ (Isaiah 55:12) And of course, any intelligent reader can see that to believe trees will clap their non existent hands is ludicrous.  The same conclusion is held for Genesis.  “Science” has proven evolution to be true and thus any intelligent reader can see that God did not create the world directly by His authoritative word - not in 7 days and certainly not about 6 thousand years ago.

 

Yet such an argument really doesn’t stand up to investigation. Psalm 119 is largely poetry. The Hebrew stanzas each start with successive letters of the alphabet (more clearly poetry than Genesis) and have 8 lines each.  Yet few of us would argue that these verses need not be taken literally. As a test, read Psalm 119 and mark in red the literal bits and mark in blue the non literal bits. You’ll be amazed at how much red is in Psalm 119!  Romans 11:33-36 is poetic, picking up on the Old Testament. Again, no one would dream of arguing that these verses need not be taken literally or believed for their plain and contextual meaning.  If we are going to change our interpretation method for just one section of Scripture alone (ie Genesis 1-3), we need to have very clear and precise guidelines as to why we are changing our methods and what in the text compels us to change our methods. The only reason I have ever heard to explain such a change is that science has “proven’” evolution to be true – that in itself is a blatant lie!

 

If you were to read the Hebrew of Genesis 1 – 3 many times you would find that though it contains some poetic pieces (1:27-29, 2:23 perhaps) there is little ‘poetry’ within the chapters.  More correctly, Genesis 1-3 should be seen as stylised writing – writing with a high and somewhat complex structure, repetition and different angles.  But to write off a piece of writing as non literal simply because it is stylised is as ludicrous as writing off current newspapers with their highly stylised headlines and articles or even TV interviews, again which are highly stylised. Psalm 119 and Romans 11 stand as cases in point.

 

As one reads through the Hebrew of Genesis 1-3 there is absolutely nothing that would even slightly suggest that the chapters are fictional tales conveying some non fictional truth. There is nothing to even hint that the writer is reinterpreting mythology from the surrounding nations. There is nothing to suggest that these chapters, contrary to the rest of the chapters, are poetic interpretations of some truth. This becomes more evident as you realise that Genesis 1-3 forms the start to the Pentateuch (Genesis to Deuteronomy) which is a history of the people of God, the narrative (not the poetic interpretation) of their beginnings.  The book also forms part of the Torah, the Hebrew Law, which again, is literal and not poetic.

 

Yet if the chapters were fictional tales with truth applied, several issues are immediately raised for concern. Unless the specific point of the story is told to us (as in Aesop’s fables) then we are left bereft of any meaning or value to the story.  There is no exactness to the message conveyed.  My interpretation would be as valid as any other ‘outlandish’ interpretation.  One needs only to think of the many nursery rhymes in English and the host of ‘truths’ that they might contain. As we push this modus operandi into the New Testament we can easily remove the virgin birth of Messiah, the miracles He performed, His actual death and the physical bodily resurrection of Messiah.

 

Secondly, if Genesis were poetic story telling that need not be taken literally, then by extension of the argument the more poetic bits need to be taken even less literally.  If Genesis 1:27-29 is more poetic than the rest of the chapters (which is apparent in the Hebrew) then perhaps we really can’t argue that mankind was created in the image of God.  It’s poetry, so literal interpretations don’t hold!  Perhaps then too, God didn’t bless humanity and give them rule over all creation.  We can dismiss that bit too because it’s highly poetic. Evolution certainly does not allow for human superiority or rule.  Adam’s poem to his new ‘wife’ means that she really wasn’t ‘bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.’ She probably wasn’t even created by God! She was, under the theory of science and evolution, born of a human-ape-like creature. The problem can be summed up quite succinctly. Poetic interpretations can host a variety of interpretations, none of which can be any closer than the others to the intended true meaning of the poem.

 

Put bluntly, Genesis 1-12 is not poetry. If you doubt this, go learn Hebrew and read it for yourself. You’ll be quickly convinced.

 

Prayer:

¨ Pray for the believers who believe in evolution and may be seeking to be friends with the world or seeking to look intelligent in the eyes of the world. If this is true, pray for repentance and a growing faith in the truth of God’s Word, its reliability and inerrancy.

¨ Pray that believers in your church would be equipped to share the Word, to defend it and to bring many to faith in Christ by preaching it faithfully.