It always bothers me to see how many people don't seem to grasp that the bible was not originally written as the KJV, and is the product of a culture vastly different from our own- and thus needs to be read in the context of that culture to get the meaning the authors intended.
A good first step would probably be to start by actually READING it, and it's kind of scary just how many people can't seem to get that either....
WARNING: This is likely to be only the first in a long series of rants.
A Treatise on Genesis
Genesis 1, the first chapter of the Bible, is an account of the creation of the world- but what does that actually mean?Some consider it to be an exactly literal account, with the Earth and sun and starts being formed over six days.This view, however, does not take into account the linguistic subtleties of the text or historical context in which Genesis 1 is was written.
The most obvious issue is that the scheme of creation found in Genesis is not purely Hebrew in origin.Indeed Genesis 1 seems to have drawn, at least in part, on the Sumerian Creation Epic, the Enuma Elish.But as they say, God is in the details.The Enuma Elish, like almost all the old pagan creation epics, begins with something (typically a powerful deific being defeated in combat) being destroyed- in this case the goddess Tiamat- in order that’s its remains may be reshaped into the world.Genesis skips to the next step, that of chaotic material being looked upon by Deity, and the work of fashioning it into the world beginning, but it shres this with most other creation epics.The next few steps are in largely the same order in both the Hebrew and the Sumerian accounts: light, firmament (separation of heaven and seas), dry land, luminaries (celestial bodies), mankind, and finally the creator resting.The difference between the two accounts is not the actions, but the motivations.Marduk creates mankind in order to relieve the burden of the gods, using men to do the labors that would otherwise occupy the gods (and thus being able to rest after his creative act).In other words, Sumerian theology held that humanity was created in bondage, as slave labor for callous gods.The Hebrew version is quite different.Mankind is not an afterthought, gardeners added to the garden because the owner cares not to tend it.Instead, man is the pinnacle of YHWH’s creation, beloved of God, whom he is bequeathing his shiny new creation to, as an inheritance- as though from father to son.Humans are not slaves but stewards, given dominion over the world in trust.It’s a beautiful affirmation of human dignity and worth in the great scheme of things- that is the heart, theologically, of Genesis 1. The theological significance of Genesis 1 stems from the radical (for the ancient world) idea of mankind being beloved of God, as children, rather than as a source of labor and amusement, that many pagan legends have their deities treating humanity as.
The next issue to take into account is that the Genesis 1 Account is immediately followed by the one starting at Genesis 2:4, presented here from the ESV translation:
4 These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created,in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.
5 When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, 6 and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— 7 then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.
As you can see, this contradicts the order from Genesis 1, with Man coming before plants.It seems likely that this account, which unlike the prior one, does not echo the standard “Creation by combat” style of creation myth so common among various ancient cultures, is a Hebrew, rather than borrowed, story.While from the purely physical perspective, the disagreement between these two accounts is jarring, it seems clear that the intent of having both accounts is to present the Theological ideas in them.The ancient Hebrews were not blind to such things as contradiction and paradox, and the inclusion of these disagreeing stories suggests that even they did not regard them as truly literal factual accounts.While the theme of the first creation story is the role of mankind, the second focuses on relationships, between mane and women, and between humanity and God.
The third, and most obvious issue I will address is the findings of modern scientists.This is often a point of much contention, with many misunderstandings.I hope to clarify this subject.
First of all, Science is very much a work in progress; scientific knowledge is not “the absolute Truth”, it is “the Facts, as best we can determine them”.There are some cases which do not fit our current models regarding (biotic) Evolution and Astro- and Geo-Physics, but those models are not complete.They are changing as we learn more. However, they are the best understanding that our scientists can currently present, and should be accepted as such.It is both insulting and unfair to the hard work of scientists and researchers to cast aspersions on the authenticity and honesty of their hard work. We should accept our current Scientific Theories as what they are: our best working models of how the world functions, formulated by the work of many individuals and subject to intense scrutiny to ensure that it as accurate as possible.Disbelief in science is rejecting one of the most basic methods of inquiry and knowledge seeking, and is a sign of unwillingness to learn, not piety.Insinuations that the scientific establishment is opposing religion borders on outright paranoia- many scientist are themselves religious, and if Evolution was truly fraudulent as some have claimed, the hundreds of Christian Biologists in the US alone would have said something about it by now.
Secondly, there seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about the word Theory.Used casually, it can mean “a guess about something”.However, as used by Scientists, a Theory is a full model of how a system works, one that has been tested and which has been shown to have validity.A “guess” is called a Hypothesis.Saying “Evolution is a theory because we can’t demonstrate that it is true” is a nonsensical statement.The Theory of Evolution has just as much scientific backing as the Theory of Gravity, and rejecting it on basis of the semantic of the world “theory” is both silly and juvenile.Nor does any theory purport to present “truth”.Rather, they comprise a model that explains how a system functions, as best as can be understood by scientists, with the expectation that this understanding will grow and change as we learn more.
Last but not least, attempting to put what is not science into science classrooms is foolish.Science is essentially a methodology for discovering facts and fitting them into working models that allow us to understand the workings of the universe.If we shove that methodology aside to put in ideological material, we defeat the purpose of having science classes entirely.Certainly, not everything that is taught in science classrooms will be correct, but just as Einstein’s models superseded Newton’s, new discoveries will progress our understanding. This constant progress does not mean that science classes should feature non-scientific material.
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