How I Became a Humanist #12: How to Read and Understand the Bible #4

You'll meet people today who don't like Mark Twain, because sometimes he uses the work n***** in his books.  Of course, Twain was anti-racist for his time, but it can be hard for people to understand this because the word is so jarring to most modern ears.  It's easy to judge Twain by our standards today.  It's easy to forget that his books were written a particular point in time, and that to understand what he means, we have to understand his time to some degree.  This is true of all literature.  All literature is written in time by people from that time, at least originally to people from that time.

Let's talk about Genesis 1-3.

In many churches, Genesis chapter one immediately raises questions concerning science and religion.  "What does Christianity teach about evolution?"  Christians disagree about this, with Evangelicals usually stating that the earth was created in six days and more importantly believing that humans are not apes.  Theological liberals tend to believe in evolution and don't think the Genesis 1 narrative ought to be taken literally.

For now, I'm not interested in writing about evolution as a topic.  Instead, I'd like us to imagine reading this text before Darwin and any of his immediate predecessors.  In fact, I'd like us to imagine reading the text during the era it was written, a time before monotheism was common.  Normally, I've had people read the text before, but today I'd rather people follow along in the text as they read.  I'll point things out as we go.  To see everything well, you'll need a literal translation for this text.  I recommend using an NASB.

The first thing I want to do is to take a look at the days of creation.  I'll list them here, feel free to check it out for yourself.  Notice how the items in column A tend to match the items to their right in column B.


       Column A                                                                   Column B

DAY 1). Light and Darkness                                            DAY 4). Sun, Moon, and Stars

DAY 2). Sky and Ocean                                                  DAY 5). Birds and Fish

DAY 3). Land and Plants                                                 DAY 6). Animals and Humans

We don't normally see the days laid out like this, but take a good look.  In Genesis 1, God creates an environment and then fills it with stuff.  He paints the background, then animates it.  The days in each column correlate with one another to make this point.  One might think that the plants on day three are an anomaly, but that's only because we as removed from hunting and farming.  You can't have animals and humans without have plants first.  It's a different way of thinking than what we're used to, but the logic follows throughout the text.

Let's look at a few other things.  As you read through the text, notice the all-inclusive language.  In the NASB, the word "every" appears 11 times.  The word "all" also appears several times in the text.  It's important to the writer than the readers of the text understand that "God made everything!"  This message is lost on us, because most of us either believe in one God or zero Gods.  We don't understand why someone would bother to tell us that God created everything.  This wasn't true when the text was written.  Polytheism was once the religion of the day.  In polytheism, one god might have created the sky and another god might be responsible for the sea.  One god is responsible for the moon and another for trees, etc.  (For it's time, this was an incredibly controversial story, even among the Israelites who often worshipped Ba'al and other gods).

We see further evidence for this in the term Greater and Lesser Light.  A dynamic translation fails us here, using the term Sun, Moon, and Stars, but if you know anything about polytheism, you know that people used to worship these thing.  Their names were the names of Gods.  If you're attacking polytheism, you probably don't want to refer to these terms by the names of God, because you don't want your audience to think you're saying, "God created other gods."  So, in Egyptian, you wouldn't say, "God created Ra (the sun)."  You'd say God created the Great Light, removing the false god's name.  To a polytheist, referring to the Sun as a great light would have been more controversial than saying Happy Holidays during Christmas is to some American Evangelicals.  What's happening in this text was incredibly controversial for the time it was written.  Apparently it worked, since most of us aren't polytheists.

-You might ask, "would these be the names of gods in Hebrew?"  Yes, because Hebrew was a dialect of Phoenician.  In fact, El wasn't just worshiped by the Israelites.  El was the head of the pantheon throughout the Levant (what most Christians think of as Palestine).-

Genesis 1 was originally intended to defend monotheism in a polytheistic world.  What does that say about whether we should apply the text to the discussion concerning evolution?  You might expect me to say that it means that we shouldn't do it.  Clearly, I wouldn't do it.   But, I don't know that it's fair to expect this from every tradition of Christianity.  A text can have more than one meaning.  Even if the most important meaning isn't a literal one, that doesn't mean that one shouldn't also interpret the text literally.  Instead of saying that Evangelicals shouldn't interpret this text through the lens of evolution, it's better to say that they should be aware of the text's original context.

Zeus and other Gods.  In ancient times polytheism was the norm.  This is one reason why the Jews like the Persians (they too were monotheists).

My hope in writing this is that readers will understand that the historical context of the Bible matters when we read it.  The writers and original readers were asking different questions than we are.  Understanding that will help us access meanings in the text we might not otherwise have access to.  However, I can't fairly say that people shouldn't find more than one meaning in a set of scriptures or that people can't see meaning there that I don't.

I do hope that I have at least bridged some understanding between theological liberals and conservatives in writing this post.  They don't take the same approach when interpreting scripture, but if you can understand why the other party is interpreting it differently the conversations go a lot better.  It becomes easier to see each other as people seeking the truth, rather than heretics who have no concern for the truth whatsoever.  It's also easier have conversations if we understand each other's perspectives.  

Proud of Our Beliefs

During a lecture at my second visit to the Baha'i Center, I got a strong sense that Baha'is are proud to be Baha'is.  There is a lot of good that comes with this.  They are proud to fight prejudice, to work towards justice and to be inclusive towards other religions.  Still, I found them oversimplifying other religious perspectives almost to the point of absurdity.  This may sound like a harsh criticism, but

1. I don't blame them for this.  Oversimplification is inevitable.
2. They were generous in their oversimplifications, which isn't always the case.

As a group, they seemed to agree that Christianity doesn't teach against racism or for a unified humanity.  To be fair, Baha'u'llah's writings are clearer on these issues than Paul's.  Nevertheless, there was a further assumption that God hadn't been working directly against racism through religion before God's revelation to Baha'ullah (in the mid 1800s).  I couldn't help but think of the Quakers I'd visited only hours before or the Sikhs I visited years ago.

One of many Baha'i Texts (It's worth reading)

My guess is that the Baha'is knows of both groups.  It's hard to be religiously aware and not know about the Sikhs, due to their being confused with Muslims.  And Quaker history (even their focus on the equality of all people) is American history canon.  Nevertheless, the information didn't seem to factor into the conversation.  Neither did Paul's declaration that Jews and Gentiles were one in Christ - a proclamation against both ethnic and cultural divisions (Ephesians 2:11-22)

The Baha'is can't be expected to know all of these facts any more than I can know all the things that might challenge or provide nuance to my beliefs.  Even what they do know may be difficult to incorporate into their current narrative.  Most of us are bad at using the information we know to challenge our most firmly held beliefs.  Consider all the creationists who have gone to zoos and see that at least anatomically that apes look very much like humans.  They have arms, thumbs, breasts, elbows, and knees.  They lack tails.  You even find them behaving like we do. They relax and daydream.  They nurture their children.

Creationists will see all of these things and still tell you that the people who think we are related to apes through evolution have no basis for the assumption.  My point isn't that creationists should concede by this evidence alone, rather it is that they should concede that a reasonable person could take these features as evidence.  I don't mean to single out creationists.  We are all somewhat blind to evidence that doesn't support our assumptions.  We find it hard to see evidence we're not looking for, and we usually only look for evidence that validates our beliefs.

Look at the fingers, the pensive look, the hairless face, the brow and front facing eyes.  Look at the very human-like ears.

Knowing our human limitations, we should strive both for humility and curiosity.  We should be aware that there is information we're inclined to miss due to current belief commitments, and we should intentionally ask if we know things that might challenge our beliefs.  This gets a little easier with time.  More than anything, we should go easy on one another.  We're all blind.  Looking down on one another for it only adds to our list of vices.