JOHN WALTON on Genesis 1

Old Testament Scholar and conservative evangelical John Walton presents the clearest and most coherent explanation of Genesis 1 that I have come across. In this talk he makes the case for reading the text of Genesis 1 in the way it was intended – and does so in a highly lucid and entertaining manner. Very readable!

…the text has no interest in the physical, material cosmos. That’s just not what it’s talking about. That doesn’t mean that God didn’t also create the physical material cosmos, but that’s not what the ancient mindset is concerned about. That gets back to us wanting the text on our terms. We want to know about about the physical cosmos because that’s our ontology, that’s our world, that’s our concepts. That’s what we want to know about. We can’t indulge ourselves in that way with the Genesis account. Again, there’s no question that God did those things, but that’s not what this text is about. God makes it work.

From Minor Thoughts: Why Didn’t God Call the Light, Light?, a paraphrase of a talk by John Walton (Minor Thoughts also offers the MP3 file). John Walton is Professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College and author of the NIV Application Commentary on Genesis.

I’ve been looking at his ideas for my study project on the temple metanarrative, and I’m really looking forward to getting my hands on his book ‘The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate’ (read reviews at Amazon.com).

What literal readers of Genesis 1 miss out on

Genesis 1 really does contain the most marvellous poetry.

I’ve been studying it again recently as part of the Radical Network course (after two terms studying the hermeneutics of Genesis 1-3 last year!), and finding that there’s always more to discover…

Genesis 1 is a fine example of Hebrew poetry, full of patterns and structure. For example, many people will already be aware of the ‘forming and filling’ framework, but for those who aren’t:

The first three days are days of ‘forming’ or separating. They introduce the structure and divisions of creation: light from darkness – day / night (1), waters below from waters above – earth / heavens (2), and dry land from the sea (also plants on the land). The second three days correspond with the first three, but are days of ‘filling’: sun, moon and stars (4), birds in the air and fish in the sea (5), animals on the earth and, finally, humans (6).

This pattern is introduced in verse 2, which states that the earth was tohu vabohu (‘formless and empty’).

It has been suggested that the two sets of three verses also correspond to ‘dominions’ and their ‘rulers’, or ‘creation kingdoms’ and ‘creature kings’, for which there is some evidence.

However, on recent re-reading what jumps out at me is the way in which the poetry builds up to the creation of humanity, with the function and blessings given to the creatures paralleling not so much each other, but the specific roles given to humanity. It seems so obvious once you’ve seen it!  The lights of day 4 and the birds and fish of day 5 are clearly setting out the pattern for humanity’s role of ruling and multiplying (or even, again, forming and filling):

Day 4: God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night… to govern the day and the night”

Day 5: “Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens.” … God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.”

Day 6: ”Let Us make man in Our image … and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” … God blessed them; and God said to them, “ Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

The rule of humanity over the created world is paralleled by the rule of the lights over the day and night, and God’s blessing of fruitfulness and his command to fill the earth is set up on day 5 with the fish and birds.  Notice also that humanity if given dominion not just over the land creatures, but over the fish and birds as well (deliberately subverting the pattern).  Interestingly, humanity is not specifically said to rule over the sun and moon, but in giving the lights the role of ’signs’ (v.14) , they are clearly intended to serve humanity.

Verses 26-30 are clearly the climax of the passage. It might even be seen that the whole creation account is designed to parallel the creation of humanity and man’s God-given role of ruling / separating and multiplying / filling. This is perhaps hinted at in God’s intention to create humanity in his own image (too frequently have we tended to interpret this idea outside of the context of Genesis 1).  In the same way as God we are here to bring order and fruitfulness where there was previously chaos and emptiness.

And I’m confident there’s more to find…

The Cleansing of ‘Heavenly Things’

What are the ‘heavenly things’ of Hebrews 9.23, of which the earthly sanctuary and vessels of worship are merely copies? What are these things that must be purified by a ‘better sacrifice’ (that is the blood of Jesus, the High Priest, himself, not the ineffectual blood of goats and bulls, 10.4)?

On the Day of Atonement, which is being referenced here, the High Priest offered a bull as a sin offering for himself and his household (Lev 16.6,11). He then offered two goats, with one being sacrificed and the other sent away bearing the sins of the people (the ’scapegoat’).

The first goat is offered to the Lord “as a sin offering” (Lev 16.9) for the people (Lev 16.15) and its blood is sprinkled on and in front of the mercy seat (LXX, ‘hilasterion’, c.f. Rom 3.25). Interestingly, this sacrifice is to make atonement for three specific things: the holy place (16.16), the tent of meeting (16.16) and the altar (16.18). See also the summary in verse 20. The necessity of this atonement is explained in verse 16: “He shall make atonement for the holy place, because of the impurities of the sons of Israel and because of their transgressions in regard to all their sins; and thus he shall do for the tent of meeting which abides with them in the midst of their impurities.“

Thus, this goat is offered up to make atonement not for the people directly, but for the sanctuary (and its parts), that is, to reconcile it in some way to God. Clearly, it is this sacrifice, offered year after year, which makes it possible for the sanctuary to be kept holy and acceptable to God. But the question remains, what are the heavenly (‘true’) equivalents requiring purification in Hebrews 9? We know that Christ has entered the “greater and more perfect tabernacle… [that is] not of this creation” (9.11), and it is this tabernacle which he purifies with his blood.

So, where is this perfect tabernacle, this true sanctuary? Can this be God’s heavenly dwelling place – or his future dwelling place with his people? Heb 9.24 says that Christ did not enter a holy place made of hands (a mere copy of the true one) but entered heaven itself. So what does it mean for the heavenly temple itself to be cleansed (9.23) by the blood of Jesus?

It is worth noting that according to Heb 10.19 it is not God who required the blood of Jesus in order to find a way into this ‘greater’ sanctuary, but the people of God (cf. Eph 2.13-18). Both the heavenly things and our own consciences are mentioned as being cleansed by his blood (9.23, 10.22. See also 1 Peter 1.2). Can this mean that the heavenly tabernacle in view is the people of God themselves, the living temple of Eph 2.21 (“a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit”)?

Or is it simply that a way has been made for us into that sanctuary, now cleansed by the blood of Jesus, where, as Paul says, we are able to offer our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God (Rom 12.1)?

Comments and ideas welcome!

Schrödinger’s cat: an epic poem

I came across the wonderful The story of Schroedinger’s cat (an epic poem) in the
Straight Dope archive – brilliant!

An excerpt…

The effect of this notion? I very much fear

‘Twill make doubtful all things that were formerly clear.

Till soon the cat doctors will say in reports,

“We’ve just flipped a coin and we’ve learned he’s a corpse.”‘

BILL BRYSON and the Mysteries of Life

I’ve recently been listening to Bill Bryson’s ‘A Short History of Nearly Everything‘ on audiobook. Superb. It’s simultaneously an overview of the various scientific disciplines and a entertaining history of science, with its many colourful personalities.

I love science and finding out about the world, uncovering mysteries which lead to deeper mysteries. There are so many wonders out there – from the glories of space to the complexity of cells and the magic of quantum particles. As a Christian I love having my brain and imagination stretched, to celebrate and be thankful. There are so many bits of this book where I just went ‘wow’ – and others where I couldn’t wait to ask God what he was up to there!

What comes across in the book most distinctively is Bryson’s wonder – at the universe, our planet and most of all, at life. He seems almost overwhelmed at times by the sheer quantity and adaptability of life, it’s fruitfulness and diversity. Life is everywhere – at least on planet Earth! One of his repeating themes is the fragility of life and the unlikelihood of us being here.  He explains the anthropic principle early in the book (which states that the (or our) universe is necessarily ‘fine-tuned’ to us, else we wouldn’t be here to observe it were so) and he clearly wants to be convinced, but I was surprised how often he emphasises what an amazing number of remarkable coincidences have led to our existence here and now. Again and again he keeps coming across reasons why we shouldn’t be here!

The last chapter of the book is all about the extinctions that mankind has caused and he concludes like this:

I mention all this to make the point that if you were designing an organism to look after life in our lonely cosmos, to monitor where it is going and keep a record of where it has been, you wouldn’t choose human beings for the job.

But here’s an extremely salient point: we have been chosen, by fate or providence or whatever you wish to call it. As far as we can tell, we are the best there is. We may be all there is. It’s an unnerving thought that we may be the living universe’s supreme achievement and its worst nightmare simultaneously.

…If this book has a lesson, it is that we are awfully lucky to be here – and by ‘we’ I mean every living thing. To attain any kind of life at all in this universe of ours appears to be quite an achievement. As humans we are doubly lucky, of course. We enjoy not only the privilege of existence, but also the singular ability to appreciate it and even, in a multitude of ways, to make it better. It is a trick we have only just begun to grasp.

We have arrived at this position of eminence in a stunningly short time. Behaviourally modern humans have been around for no more than about 0.0001 per cent of Earth’s history – almost nothing, really – but even existing for that little while has required a nearly endless string of good fortune.

We really are at the beginning of it all. The trick, of course, is to make sure we never find the end. And that, almost certainly, will require a lot more than lucky breaks.

Bill Bryson in ‘A Short History of Nearly Everything’.

Waiting by TERRI CHURCHILL

i am here.

i’m in this place, waiting for you.

i’m waiting like those wise men,
following a star like a fool.

i’m waiting like jonah
covered in the slime and scale of the sea,
deep in the belly of darkness
hoping for a rescue.

i’m waiting like your mother
pregnant with fear and love.

i’m waiting like our first parents
in the stillness of the garden
listening for your footsteps.

i’m waiting like you did
on the day I was born and
you spoke my name into the world
and said I was good.

what a surprise to find you
already here
so quiet–
waiting for me.

From the Animate booklet, part of the Animate series on Imaginative Prayer at Woodland Hills Church. These look like great resources.

RICHARD BAUCKHAM on the Divine Strategy

On 1 Corinthians 1.26-29:

At Corinth – and Paul certainly does not mean only at Corinth – God singled out the poor and the powerless, choosing to begin his work with them, not because God’s love does not extend to the cultural and social elite, but actually for the sake of the wealthy and the powerful as well as for the poor and the humble. God’s love has to reach the strong via the weak, because the strong can receive the love of God only by abandoning their pretensions to status above others. Only when they see in God’s choice of those without status that status counts for nothing in God’s sight can they abandon the arrogance and the vested interests that prevent their right relationship both with God and with others. …

In this passage and its context Paul does something rather remarkable. In the first place, by echoing the Old Testament, he identifies a consistent divine strategy, a characteristic way in which God works, to which the origins of the church at Corinth perform. … This is the God who habitually overturns status, not in order to make the non-elite a new elite, but in order to abolish status, to establish his kingdom in which none can claim privilege over others and all gladly surrender privilege for the good of others. … God raises the lowly and brings down the exalted. God himself not only inhabits the highest heaven, but comes among the humblest of his servants on earth (cf. Isaiah 57.15)

Paul not only sees this as God’s usual strategy in human affairs; he also recognises it paradigmatically in the cross. The claim that God is to be encountered and salvation found in a crucified man – a man stripped of all status and honour, dehumanised, the lowest of the low – is the offence of the cross. This is the real scandal of particularity – not just that God’s universal purpose pivots on one particular human being (though that was stumbling-block enough for the philosophically educated in Paul’s day and the Enlightenment rationalists of our own), but, much worse, that God’s universal purpose pivots on this particular human being, the crucified one. 

No wonder the rulers of this age did not recognise him. …For those who see God in the image of their own power and status there could be no recognition of God in the cross. And yet the Christ who thus demeaned himself to the depths of human degradation, as Paul says in Philippians 2.6-11, is the one God has exalted to the throne of the universe so that every knee should bow and every tongue confess that he is Lord…  God defined his own kingdom when he exalted the crucified Christ. …

This means that as well  as the outward movement of the church’s mission in geographical extension and numerical increase, there must also be this (in the Bible’s imagery) downward movement of solidarity with the people at the bottom of the social scale of importance and wealth. It is to these – the poorest, those with no power or influence, the wretched, the neglected – to whom God has given priority in the kingdom, not only for their own sake, but also for all the rest of us who can enter the kingdom only alongside them.

Richard Bauckham, Bible and Mission, pp.50-54

[Sorry for the long excerpt - I just thought it was excellent stuff]

THOMAS A KEMPIS on Deeds Inspired by Love

…to help someone in need, a good work may sometimes be left, or a better undertaken in its place. For in so doing, the good work is not lost, but changed for what is better. Without love, the outward work is of no value; but whatever is done out of love, be it ever so little, is wholly fruitful. For God regards the greatness of the love that prompts a man, rather than the greatness of his achievement.

Thomas à Kempis, Imitation of Christ, ch 15.

NT WRIGHT on Transformation through Worship

This brings us to the first of two golden rules at the heart of spirituality. You become like what you worship. When you gaze in awe, admiration, and wonder at something or someone, you begin to take on something of the character of the object or your worship. …

 So what happens when you worship the creator God whose plan to rescue the world and put it to rights has been accomplished by the Lamb who was slain? The answer comes in the second golden rule: because you were made in God’s image, worship makes you more truly human.  You discover more of what it means to be fully alive. …

 Conversely, when you give that same total worship to anything or anyone else, you shrink as a human being. …when you worship an idol—you may well feel a brief “high.”  But, like a hallucinatory drug, that worship achieves its effect at a cost: when the effect is over, you are less of a human being than you were to begin with. This is the price of idolatry.

NT Wright, Simply Christian, 127

Facebook Passion

This made me laugh!

Facebook Passion

I love the fun details, the in-jokes and the photos! Can you spot the dinosaur…?