As far as the God and Evolution series is concerned, its intent is to examine THEOLOGICAL questions that come up when talking about God and evolution. This is how it all fits: The stuff on Genesis is meant to strictly be an examination of the text, with a few comments here and there about how one could still hold to evolution in light of what is revealed in God's word. The God and Evolution series is specifically meant to deal with theological and philosophical issues that come up when this topic is discussed. With that said, I now want to move on and talk about Genesis.
If you have been listening to the podcasts, you've heard me say that we can categorize Genesis is ancient historiography. All this means is that Genesis is an ancient way of writing history. To write their history, the people in the Ancient Near East used myth, genealogies, and legend. I've said this in the podcasts, and I will say it again: myth in the ancient world does not mean fiction. It is a writing style that uses exalted, figurative, and poetic language to present historical realities and theological truths. While Genesis is the word of God, it is also the word of man. This means while God inspired the writers of the text, He did not lift them out of their cultures or change their writing styles. To suggest that God should have communicated in the way that we do in the 21st century is cultural imperialism. One culture is not better than the other. We also have to remember that though the Bible was written for us, it was not written to us. Genesis is a book, that though it departs radically from the theology of the day, nonetheless, uses all the elements of ANE themes and writing styles.
One of the things that we see in the ANE cultures is that ancient cosmology is function oriented. This raises the question, "what does it mean for something to exists?" To us here in the 21st century, when we usually refer to somethings existence, we are speaking in material terms. For example, if I asked you what it meant for the device to exists that you are reading this post on, you would probably say that it exists because it is material- you can see it, touch it, hold it, etc. Our focus is solely material when it comes to existence.
Yet there are other ways to refer to existence. For example, in his book, The Lost World of Genesis 1, John Walton uses the example of a company. What do we mean when we say a company, like Apple, exists? Does it exist when it has filled out all the appropriate papers to file as a corporation? Does it exist when it has a building? Maybe, in some sense. However, it is probably better to refer to the business "existing" once it starts to do business. In this sense, existence is related to function, not material.
The question of what it means for something to exist is a question of ontology. Ontology is basically the concept of what it means for something to exists. It explores the quality and understanding of what it means for something to be here. In our day and age, we have mostly a "material ontology," yet we can understand the idea of "functional ontology" in the example of the company.
This distinction is paramount when it comes to the origins account that is presented in Genesis 1-2. Is it about material origins or functional origins? We have a material ontology, but is it right for us to try and read that into the Genesis account? It depends. We have to examine and see if the ancients had a material ontology or a functional one. Once we do that, we can determine what the focus of Genesis is.
If we are going to understand Genesis correctly, we need to first seek to grasp what it meant to "create" something in the ANE cultures. What did it mean for them to say that something "existed"? What counts as a "creative act"? What we will see is that the people in the ANE believed that something existed, "not by virtue of its material properties, but by virtue of its having a function in an ordered system." (John Walton, The Lost World of Genesis 1, pg 24). By "ordered system", Walton is not speaking in scientific terms, but in human terms- in relation to society and culture. What this means is that in a functional ontology, the sun does not exists by virtue of its material properties, but in how it functions for mankind and human society, (Walton, The Lost World, 24). What this means is that in the ANE context, in order to bring something into existence, it must be named and given a function within an ordered system. This means that something could be there physically, but not exists in ANE terms until it was assigned a function.
To help us understand this way of thinking better, Walton uses the example of a computer. When we think of "creating" a computer, we know that there are many stages in this process. At its most basic level, we understand the the electronics have to be made and manufactured, such as the keyboard. This is the material phase of production. After the computer has been assembled, and the software installed,we would then say that the computer "exists". However, its existence is meaningless if it is not functioning. It does not fulfill its purpose until it is plugged in and turned on, and set up so it can be used. So we have two modes of existence, the material and the functional. In our 21st century mindset, we are focused on the material aspect. We view things through the lens of science, and are solely focused on material origins. The ancients were concerned with the second aspect. They were not concerned with material origins, but functional ones, since in their mind, something did not exists until it was assigned a function. Unless something served a purpose, it did not exist. Therefore, to the ancients, the "creative act" is to assign something its function within an ordered system (Walton, 25). This doesn't mean that the ancients were not aware of the physical properties of something, it just means that they did not place priority on it when it came to what it means for something to "exist".
We see this concept in both Sumerian and Egyptian texts. Creation starts in a non functional manner, and is then given its function by naming and separating. The creation stories also begin with primeval waters, in which things then start to emerge. The idea that these primeval waters convey is that creation is in a state of "non order", or "non existence". Therefore, things must be named, separated, and assigned a function for them to "exist". Therefore what we see is that when all the ANE texts are examined (including Genesis), all of these elements point to a functional cosmology rather than a material one. This means that nothing material is actually being made.
I'm not going to try and get overly technical and long winded by quoting all the various ancient texts that present this. If you want to investigate this in detail, I recommend John Walton's book, The Lost World of Genesis 1.
In closing, I want to emphasize this: The approach taken by Walton and myself (and among a growing number of scholars) is the best way to understand the text literally. If we are going to interpret the text "literally", we have to know what the words and concepts "literally" meant to the original audience. Seeing that they shared common view of functional ontology, if we are going to interpret Genesis "literally", we must not strip the text of this concept and make it refer to material origins. Did the ancients believe that the gods also made the material of the cosmos? Would the author of Genesis believe that Yahweh was responsible for the material? Absolutely they would have. Nothing can be thought to be without the gods. However, they show little, if no interest in material origins. It simply was not a concern of theirs.
In the next post, we will look at the word "create", as well as the role of Genesis 1:1.