Yesterday
I read John Walton’s Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology (Eisenbrauns 2011). This is
the scholarly version of his The Lost World of Genesis One.
Walton has written on these themes fairly often, so there’s
a certain sense of déjà vu in reading his new monograph. I don’t like to repeat
myself, but to the extent that he repeats himself, some of my criticisms will
be repetitious.
i) However, before we get to that, the new book does have
some useful material. For instance (146-52), he defends the traditional
rendering “Spirit of God” rather than “mighty wind,” which is popular among
some modern, liberal translations of Gen 1:2.
ii) Unexpectedly (155-61), he denies the common claim that
raqia denotes a solid dome. He argues that raqia denotes empty space. A spatial
buffer or airy cushion between earth and sky.
He still believes that Hebrews carried over the ANE
conception of the sky as a solid dome, but he associates that with the Hebrew
word for “sky” rather than raqia.
iii) A basic problem I have with his general analysis, and
this is true of other works which take the same approach, is a methodological
flaw. OT scholars and other scholars in cognate disciplines (e.g. Egyptology,
Assyriology, Sumerology) emphasize artistic and textual representations of the
world. The meaning of words. Coins, pottery, reliefs.
That’s fine up to a point, but that needs to be
counterbalanced by another consideration. For we need to project ourselves into
the physical world in which ancient people actually had to live and survive.
What was the world like which they experienced on a regular basis?
Ancient people didn’t live in paintings or texts. They had to live in the real world, just like us.
It’s important not to reconstruct an ancient cosmography
purely from texts and artifacts that’s clearly at odds with the external world
which the ancients actually perceived.
iv) Walton says:
Similar views of the structure of the cosmos were common
throughout the ancient world and persisted in popular perception until the
Copernican revolution and the Enlightenment. These ancient perceptions were not
derived from scientific study (modern scientific techniques, of course, were
not available to the ancients) but expressed their perception of the physical
word (89).
The problem with this claim is that Walton fails to consistently
apply that criterion. Rather, he attributes certain views to them in spite of
what they could or did perceive. For instance:
What kept the sea from overwhelming the land (88)?
This assumes ancient people thought there was some natural
barrier, like a seawall, that kept the ocean in place. But is that realistic?
Ancient peoples of the Levant lived on the Mediterranean
coastline. Suppose you walk down to the beach, where earth and sea meet. There
you stand, right on the shoreline. What do you see? Is there something that
keeps the sea from overwhelming the land?
Well, there’s nothing like a retaining wall. The beach is
almost level with the water. Indeed, that’s the definition of sea level.
The only thing that keeps the sea from flooding the land is
the fact that the dry land is generally higher than the ocean. The difference
in elevation may be gradual, or there may be cliffs. But it doesn’t require an
artificial cosmography to account for that phenomenon.
Hasn’t Walton ever gone for a walk along the beach? The
seaboard isn’t fundamentally different in modern times. It doesn’t require
modern science to see how the ocean and a coastal plain (for instance) match
up. That’s something you can see for yourself, using your own eyes.
In general, people believed that there was a single,
disc-shaped continent (88).
Did they? Weren’t ancient mariners in a position to know
that wasn’t the case?
Take the Levant. Take the Mediterranean. Instead of the sea
surrounding the land, you have the land surrounding the sea. Ancient Mediterranean sailors were
certainly acquainted with the general shape of the Mediterranean Sea in
relation to the general shape of the surrounding landmasses. The sea didn’t
encircle the land; the land encircled the sea.
Scholars like Walton bury their heads in ancient texts and
facsimile drawings. They don’t pull their heads out of books to see what the
ancients inevitably saw.
Precipitation originated from the waters held back by the
sky and fell to the earth through openings in the sky (88-89).
Really? But surely that’s not what ancient people actually
observed. For instance, take the common phenomenon of rain clouds on the
horizon. The rest of the sky is clear. You can see the clouds releasing sheets
of rain, against the background lighting.
Also, it’s not uncommon to observe the cloudbank approaching
the observer. As it passes over the observer, it deposits rain.
So rain isn’t seen coming directly from the sky, through
sluice gates in a solid dome. Rather, the rain clouds are distinct from the
sky. You can see clear sky above the clouds and around the clouds. So the rain
is clearly localized in the clouds.
Not only is this something ancient people were in a position
to see from time to time, but we have a literary description of this very
phenomenon in Scripture:
41 And Elijah said to Ahab, “Go up, eat and drink, for there
is a sound of the rushing of rain.” 42 So Ahab went up to eat and to drink. And
Elijah went up to the top of Mount Carmel. And he bowed himself down on the
earth and put his face between his knees. 43 And he said to his servant, “Go up
now, look toward the sea.” And he went up and looked and said, “There is
nothing.” And he said, “Go again,” seven times. 44 And at the seventh time he
said, “Behold, a little cloud like a man's hand is rising from the sea.” And he
said, “Go up, say to Ahab, ‘Prepare your chariot and go down, lest the rain
stop you.’” 45 And in a little while the heavens grew black with clouds and
wind, and there was a great rain. And Ahab rode and went to Jezreel (1 Kgs
18:41-45).
v) Walton says:
The stars of the Egyptian sky were portrayed as emblazoned
across the arched body of the sky goddess, who was held up by the god of the
air. In another Egyptian depiction, the Cow of Heaven was supported by four
gods who each held one of her legs. She gave birth to the sun every day, and
the sun traveled across her belly and was swallowed up by her at night (89).
And did they portray the world that way because that’s how
the world appeared to them when they looked up at the sky? Have you ever seen that?
Mesopotamian imagery refers to “breasts of heaven” through
which rain comes (92).
And is that because ancient Mesopotamians could see heavenly
breasts emitting rain? That might be a great adolescent fantasy, but it’s hardly
empirical.
vi) Walton says:
Finally, the earth was believed to be undergirded by
pillars… (97).
Metaphors such as locks, bolts, bars, nets, and so on were
used to express the means by which the sea was kept in its place (97).
Why does Walton admit that these are metaphors, but act as
though the ancients thought there were literal sluice gates in the vault of
heaven or literal pillars supporting the land?
And, of course, it’s not as if people living on the coast
saw locks, bolts, bars, or nets keeping the sea from overflowing the land.
vii) Walton says:
Another perception in the ancient world is that a great tree
stands in the center of the world, sometimes referred to as a “World Tree” or a
“Tree of Life.” The idea that a cosmic tree is at the center of the world is a
common motif in the ancient Near East…The tree is often flanked by animals or
by human or divine figures (96).
Biblical texts that share some of these ideas are Daniel 4
and Ezekiel 31 (96n271).
And was that depiction based on observation? Did the
ancients actually witness a cosmic tree at the center of the world? Keep in
mind that Walton also says:
As previously mentioned, from a sociopolitical perspective,
it was commonplace for peoples of any area to see themselves and their land or
their capital city as being located at the center of the earth (95).
So if they took the cosmic tree literally, then that would
be readily observable. They would live within eyeshot of the cosmic tree.
But, of course, no one had that experience. So this must be
an intentionally symbolic depiction of the world. And if the cosmic tree was
symbolic, why take other types of imagery literally? Walton isn’t consistent.
viii) Walton says:
Often, the transition from the precosmic condition to the
activities involved in creation is the separation of heaven and earth (35).
Keep in mind, though, that in Gen 1, separation has an
addition function, for it prefigures different types of cultic separation in
the Mosaic law. So that’s not a
carryover from ANE cosmology.
ix) Walton says:
The raqia and the sehaqim are pieces of ancient cosmic
geography that have been rendered obsolete by modern cosmic geography because
we have learned, through science, of the evaporation/condensation cycle (160).
Isn’t 2 Kgs 18:41-45 an example of the
evaporation/condensation cycle?
