tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post2292297524604196347..comments2024-03-27T17:15:37.606-04:00Comments on Triablogue: Revisiting the Days of GenesisRyanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17809283662428917799noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-69993212621023780392012-12-05T21:13:59.486-05:002012-12-05T21:13:59.486-05:00Hey Steve, thanks for the write up.
Let me clari...Hey Steve, thanks for the write up. <br /><br />Let me clarify a couple things where I think maybe there was some confusion. <br /><br />First, I try to do in the book the first option you suggest, which is to show common ANE ideas and thinking as a backdrop for Genesis (Walton does this in his latest book as well). I do the same with other biblical texts, so, for instance, I don’t use Ezekiel or Daniel as a background for Genesis 1, as though the author knows those texts, but to show the conceptual framework under which the author of Genesis is likely working. As such, I don’t pinpoint Enuma elish as some sort of framework for the text either. In fact, I’ve noted often, as you have here, since the time of my thesis over a decade ago, that Ee is a unique account and not at all similar to other ANE accounts, and that Genesis is not using it as its prototype. The author is likely aware of the text, but it makes no difference to my interpretation if he does know of it or not. It employs common imagery seen throughout the ANE, so I quote it a few times for that purpose, but not because I think the author of Genesis is interacting with it directly in some way. Some scholars do believe that, but that idea is fading. I do think that the author is interacting with Atra-hasis in this way, but I don’t develop this at all in the book.<br /><br />Second, I agree with you that one can’t jump from serpent imagery to donkey imagery. There may be some sacred connection of a donkey itself, but I haven’t gotten a chance to read Ken Way’s book about sacred donkeys yet, so I don’t know. It’s never been a subject I pursued. But my analogy was with talking animals in general as signifying something supernatural. Granted, there is a limited amount of talking animals in literature that don’t fall under the category of allegory, but from what we do have, it seems that it signifies the presence of some supernatural being—the difference here, of course, is that the donkey is signifying the presence of another being, where the talking serpents usually signify that the serpent is a supernatural being. But I agree that this would need to be developed further in order to really prove the analogy concrete.<br /><br />Finally, I do think that concepts to which the language refers and the language itself cannot be separated and still be understood well, so the question concerning whether the interpretation is dependent upon the text itself or concepts within the culture displayed throughout other texts would have me simply answer, “Yes.” I think the concept of Genesis 1 and 2 as creation described as two temples, one from the view from above and one from the view from below, is important to understand the entire theological argument of the book, without which, the message becomes, not lost, but less potent (i.e., it lacks color). Yet, modern readers would have a hard time seeing those temples without understanding the background literature. Hence, I would say it’s both/and. The interpretation is dependent upon the text when the text has been interpreted in light of the concepts to which its language refers. That’s something I try to note in the beginning of the book when I say that learning Hebrew needs to be understood as more than grammar and lexicographical glosses, but as that which references an entire world that may have different concepts than we do.<br /><br />That’s not to say that it would not have been discovered without it, as I seem to remember some years ago reading a church father who noted the temple imagery and thought how interesting it was that he did so without the aid of ANE literature as a backdrop.<br /><br />I hope that clarifies my intentions with some of those things. Thanks again for the comments. <br />B. C. Hodgehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02828477115799852133noreply@blogger.com