Wednesday, November 22, 2006

An argument for Genesis as historical narrative

I originally quoted this in the combox of another post, but thought it'd be worth elevating to the front page for wider reference. It's an argument from Dr. Kurt Wise in his book Faith, Form, and Time for understanding Genesis as historical narrative rather than allegory.

But should the Genesis account be taken at face value? Is it intended to convey history? What qualifies the Book of Genesis as historical narrative literature?

Genesis lacks many characteristics of non-historical Hebrew literature. Characteristics common in Hebrew allegory, such as storytellers, interpreters, interpretations, and a non-physical-world focus are absent from the Genesis text. Most of the terms of the text (like birds, plants, stars) do not seem to be symbolic. The characteristics of Hebrew poetry with its parallelism of juxtaposed couplets and metrical balance are also absent from most of the text.

Genesis does have many of the characteristics common in Hebrew historical narrative. It contains genealogical lists, for example, as well as narrative with interspersed poetic lines, an emphasis on definitions, frequent use of the direct object sign and relative pronoun, a list of sequential events separated by the special Hebrew phrase called a waw consecutive (waw is pronounced vahv and is usually translated "and" as in "And God said..." or "And the earth was..."), plus an abundance of geographic, cultural, and other verifiable details. Included are a number of other features that in Western literature may indicate non-historical, even poetic narrative (such as numerology, figures of speech, textual symmetry, and phenomenological language) but that are commonly found in Hebrew historical narrative.

The historical texts in Genesis contrast with non-historical narrative. For the most part, seamless connections join the various Genesis accounts, including those widely accepted as historical. But the short, non-historical passages within the Genesis account -- for example, Adam's response at seeing Eve (Gen. 2:23) and the song of Lamech (Gen. 4:23-24) -- as well as poetic renditions of Genesis passages found in other places in Scripture (such as in Ps. 104) contrast sharply with the historical flavor of the Genesis text, including the creation account.

Scripture itself refers to Genesis as historical. The remainder of Scripture (Exod. 20:11; Neh. 9:6; Acts 17:22-29) and Jesus Himself (Matt. 19:4-6) speak of Genesis -- including the creation account -- as if it were to be taken as history. Likewise, most of the Jews and Christians through time have understood the Genesis account to be historical. Since the Genesis account is historical narrative and reliable, its clear claim of a six-day creation should be taken seriously.

7 comments:

  1. :::SNIZZZZ!!!:::

    ReplyDelete
  2. quote: Scripture itself refers to Genesis as historical. The remainder of Scripture (Exod. 20:11; Neh. 9:6; Acts 17:22-29) and Jesus Himself q(Matt. 19:4-6) speak of Genesis -- including the creation account -- as if it were to be taken as history. Likewise, most of the Jews and Christians through time have understood the Genesis account to be historical. Since the Genesis account is historical narrative and reliable, its clear claim of a six-day creation should be taken seriously.
    __________________________________-


    Oh I get it! The genesis story should be treated as historical, because it says it is historical.

    Getting dizzy...circular gymnastic..acck!

    It is also a pretty good reason to accept the Koran. Wait, we can't do that! These rules only apply within our own frame of reference!

    This fundamentalism is hurten me brane.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh I get it! The genesis story should be treated as historical, because it says it is historical.

    Getting dizzy...circular gymnastic..acck!


    In context, this is a response to those who would allegorize the book of Genesis. It's not a naked argument to accept Genesis as history absent other considerations. There are other avenues one might pursue to authenticate the historicity of Genesis to a skeptical audience.

    This fundamentalism is hurten me brane.

    It'd probably hurt or ache a little less if you exercised it once in a while.

    ReplyDelete
  4. LOL, Patrick... Harsh. :) But well deserved. :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Patrick,

    I can't but shrug and wonder why Kurt Wise thinks Genesis is *monolithic*, and should be considered homogeneously historical or allegorical right across its face. Surely he, and you are familiar with any number of textual analysis of Genesis that divide up the book into much smaller chunks, each of which have different dispositions as to their expressive form.

    Many exegetes carve of Gen 1-11 as being primarily allegorical, then pivoting from there forward into a more historical mode. Others slice the allegory at Gen 3, identifying the genealogies as being perfectly historical, and then returning to a more allegorical mode in Genesis 6.

    Isn't Wise's working assumption that Genesis is a monolith in this regard a patently simplistic, if not deceptive approach. I suggest that the assumption that Genesis be all of one or all of the other, or even *primarily* one or the other isn't warranted.

    -Touchstone

    ReplyDelete
  6. Yes, the account of Genesis MUST be taken literally!

    That includes the description of the creation of plants BEFORE any stars (and our own sun) existed to drive their photosynthetic process!

    That includes the creation of heavier elements such as oxygen, carbon, and aluminum before any stars existed to create those heavier elements in their death throes!

    As an atheist, I am all in favor of treating the genesis account literally among Christian circles.

    It will surely accelerate the already obvious slide of Christianity into the "mythology" dustbin.

    Good work, Patrick. Keep working to bring about a post-Christian world :)

    ReplyDelete