4) Yom can
mean “day.” Most often it does. And an ancient Israelite would’ve read Genesis
1 as literal 24 hour periods. I’m not denying that. But yom can also mean a
period of time, an age, forever etc. For the sake of argument… let's assume it
means literal six day creation and that Adam and Eve ARE Genesis
1:26 and that dinosaurs are included in Genesis
1:20-25 making man and dinosaurs cohabiting together... Why is the order of
creation flipped in Genesis 2 from the order of creation in Genesis 1? Genesis
1 creation order=Vegetation (Day 3) -> Animals (Day 6) -> Mankind, male
and female (Day 6). Genesis 2 creation order=Man (Day 6) -> Vegetation (Day
3) -> Animals (Day 6) -> Woman (Day 6). So in Genesis 1, vegetation is
created 3 days BEFORE animals and *THEN* mankind is created but Genesis 2 has
Adam created BEFORE both vegetation or animals. He then names all the animals.
Then and only then is Eve created. Let that marinate for a second. Again, if
you are going to insist that Genesis 1&2 are an accurate scientific or
literal historical account of human origins you need to address the text.
As a point of focus, remember
that I am interacting with a real person over at the Faithlife forum who thinks
that the traditional interpretation of Genesis 1-2 is wrought with problems. He
has outlined 12 points that I responded to in brief on the Faithlife forum. As
a point of interest, he never interacted with my response as far as I can tell.
If he did, I missed it. In this point (4), he surmises that Genesis 2 is attempting
to do the same thing that Genesis 1 is attempting to do: Provide a
chronological account of the beginning. I believe he is dreadfully misguided.
What he fails to realize is that Genesis 1:1-2:3 constitute one literary unit with
an entirely different goal than Genesis 2:4 which begins a separate unit. This
second literary unit does not have the same goal as the first one. The marker
is the famous toledot that begins in v. 4. We can clearly see the
Chiasmus: A “heavens” B “earth” C “created” C “made” B “earth” A “heavens.” It
is used elsewhere in Genesis and it always announces a new section of
narrative. [Wenham, Genesis] This pericope seems to have an altogether
different purpose than Genesis 1.
From the start, the point is made
that Yom can mean “day” and most often, it does. But it is also true that Yom
can mean something other than a 24-hour period. However, it is not the case
that Yom can mean different things within the same context. “In any
coherent discourse, thoughts are expressed in association rather than
isolation.” [Kostenberger & Fuhr, jr., Inductive Bible Study] The meaning
of words and phrases in any language is determined by their use within a very
specific context. In Genesis 1, Yom means a 24-hour period. The context
and construction are very simple and straightforward. In Genesis 2, Yom does
not mean a 24-hour period of time. The context and construction are very simple
and straightforward. In Genesis 2, Yom refers to an indefinite time. “In
the day when God created man” emphasizes God’s act to create man. We may use
similar expressions, such as, “back in the day.” We know that in that context,
day does not refer to a 24-hour period but to some period of time in the past.
Notice that the real issue
is apparently that in Genesis 2, man is created before vegetation and the
animals while in Genesis 1, he is created after vegetation and the animals.
First, there is an issue with the word vegetation. The implication is that
there is a direct contradiction between Gen. 1:11-12 and Gen. 2:5-6. The
problem is that the vegetation of Genesis 1:11-12 is not the plants of Genesis
2:5-6. Gen. 1:11-12 refers to dešeʾ, ʿēśeb, and ʿēṣb pĕrî: grass, eatable plants
or grass, and fruit trees. Gen. 2:5-6 on the other hand refers to śîaḥ haśśāde,
and ʿēśeb haśśāde. Safarti rightly points out that ʿēśeb haśśāde refers to any
non-woody, edible plant which requires human cultivation, including cereal
crops, rice vegetables, and herbs. What this means is that Gen. 1:11-12 is not referring
to the same thing that Gen. 2:5-6 is referencing. This means that the problem
is not actually a problem after all. The real problem is that we are talking
hermeneutical apples and oranges, so to speak. From this we conclude that
Genesis 2 does not flip the order of creation between man and vegetation after
all. The integrity and validity of the traditional interpretation of Genesis
1-2 remains intact.
According to some, the another
problem that the traditional interpretation of Genesis 1-2 is that the creation
of man and animals are also flipped. However, there is no reason to think that
Genesis 2 specifically references when the animals were created. Let’s take a
look at it and hopefully you will see what I mean. Now out of the ground the Lord
God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and
brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man
called every living creature, that was its name. Rather than interpreting wayyiṣer
as an waw consecutive intended to give the chronology of creation, it
seems most reasonable to take it to be a pluperfect. Bruce Waltke makes this
very point in his superior work on Hebrew Syntax:
The use of wayyqtl to represent pluperfect
situations can be seen as a subvariety of epexegetical use, but it has been
controversial. Driver denied such use apart from instances occurring at the
beginning of a narrative or paragraph. He tried to explain the exceptions to
this rule as due to a redactor who joined originally distinct literary units
together without regard to formal unity. But W. J. Martin and D. W. Baker have
argued otherwise. Driver seems inconsistent here, since he allows for the
epexegetical use of waw-relative,
which may entail a pluperfect situation. Moreover, wayyqtl in the received text, the object of our grammatical
investigation, must be understood to represent the pluperfect. David Qimhi in the
early period of Hebrew studies already pointed out this use.[1]
The arrangement may be explained
on the supposition, that the writer, who was about to describe the relation of
man to the beasts, went back to their creation, in the simple method of the
early Semitic historians, and placed this first instead of making it
subordinate; so that our modern style of expressing the same thought would be
simply this: “God brought to Adam the beasts which He had formed.”[2]
In fact, they go on to observe, “A striking example of this style of narrative
we find in 1 Kings 7:13.”[3]
Essentially the best method is to allow the clearer text of Genesis 1 to put up
guardrails for Genesis 2. This is in keeping with the principle that Scripture
interprets Scripture.
The real issue here has more to
do with presuppositions than it does the actual syntax of Genesis 1-2. The
problem with the traditional interpretation of Genesis 1-2 is not that it
violates grammar, is poor exegesis, or fails to adhere to good interpretive
principles. The problem is that the traditional method ipso facto
rejects the possibility that there are errors and contradictions in the
autographa. Those who are heavily reliant on the historical-critical
method insist that the Bible be treated like any other book. This means that we
can supposedly follow the evidence wherever it leads without embracing or
having to defend a specific presupposition. But this viewpoint has been
thoroughly debunked as naïve and quite impossible. The pursuit of neutrality is
a pursuit in futility. McCartney and Clayton write, “But if the Bible is indeed
coherent and divinely authored, we should be able to draw from it this
principle: the Bible is its own best interpreter, not only in a general sense,
and not only with respect to the passages specifically quoted and interpreted
later in the book. What we need to understand is that Christian belief begins
with the presupposition that the autographa contains no errors or
contradictions. Any belief that contradicts that belief ought to be purged from
the community everywhere it is discovered. We purge that decision though
instruction, discipleship, and even discipline up to and including
excommunication if necessary. This means that the belief that the Scripture as originally
recorded contains errors and contradictions should be viewed as leaven and dealt
with accordingly. Of course the consequences of this view are sweeping.
Professors would be terminated along with pastors. Members would be asked to
affirm this belief on a regular basis or resign their membership. If they
refused, excommunication would ensue. It is a hard pill to swallow, but the
hardness of that pill is more a product of a postmodern culture than it is
anything else.
[1] Bruce K. Waltke and Michael Patrick
O’Connor, An Introduction to Biblical
Hebrew Syntax (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 552.
[2] Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament, vol. 1
(Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996), 54.
[3] Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament
(Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996).
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