Creation vs evolution - again.

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Permalink Reply by Matt Osgood on December 16, 2008 at 7:44pm

I guess I might as well go first...

I used to be around 1/2 cos 'that was what the Bible said'. Then I learned that cosmologists tell us the universe is unimaginably vast, and that light takes 13 billion years or thereabouts to get from the furthest quasars, which means the universe is at least that old. I'm not convinced by any of tentative arguments advanced by young earth creationists as to why the stars appear that way (e.g. Friedmann curved space), and I don't want to believe that God is a deceiver who made the universe look older than it actually is. That doesn't seem to square with the God of the Bible.

Then I started learning a bit more about Hebrew poetic structures, and learned that Gen 1 is structured in a poetic way:
It starts with the phrase 'formless and void' and then through the 6 days God gives form and then filling to the different aspects of creation.
Day 1 - form to light and darkness
Day 2 - form to the waters above and the waters below
Day 3 - form to the seas and land
Day 4 - filling of light and darkness with sun, moon and 'he also made the stars' - great line!
Day 5 - filling of waters above and below with birds and fish
Day 6 - filling of land with all creatures

So... it looks quite poetical, and that means I'm happy to interpret it with at least a measure of poetic licence. My other problem with a literal reading of Genesis is - what was the earth rotating around on days 1-3 before the sun was made? Sure I have no doubt God could keep the earth in orbit with no sun, but why? What's special about 23 hours 56 minutes (approx length of our days)? How did evening pass and morning come when there was no sun?

And so on. Anyway. So I'm about a 5 now. I'll shut up and let someone else have a go...

Permalink Reply by Nathanael Lewis on December 16, 2008 at 9:35pm

Hi. Your position can be challenged on a number of points. As a bit of background, I am a theology graduate from St Andrews university, my degree focused mainly on the Old Testament, with a bit of archaeology and theology thrown in, and I have a decades long interest in this issue. I'm definitely a 1.
The Hebrew poetic structures thing - um, no. Yes, Genesis 1 is very structured and rhythmic, but that is not what makes Hebrew poetry. Hebrew poetical form is the parallel line structure, which Genesis 1 emphatically does not have. You seem to be importing western / english literary constructs into a totally different literary environment. Yes, I know it's not just you, other people, theologians etc try variations on this argument, but I don't think it can wash. The hebrew literary style used in Genesis 1 is the same one used throughout the prose of the bible - the vav-consecutive, which indicates a historical-narrative genre. This applies even though there is a great deal of careful structure in Genesis 1. The structure is irrelevant in fact, because it is common in the bible (and other Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) literature) to use very intricate structures and forms - chiastic structures are particularly common. For instance the flood narrative, while being entirely historical in it's literary genre, is highly and intricately structured, as are many of Jesus parables, whole sections of Jesus teaching - particularly in Matthew, but not exclusively in that gospel, as well as a lot of the epistles (Jude springs to mind here, although it is a very particular kind of structure). It was an aide-memoire and the standard story / history / teaching device that was used almost universally. So having a close-knit structure in Genesis is no indication of poetic genre, but the use of the vav-consecutive style is a clear indication of a normal narrative-historical genre, just like the rest of the OT history.
The earth did not need to be rotating round anything - it just needed to be spinning on it's axis in an environment where there was a 'differentiated light source' - ie there is light coming from one point or distinct direction, which is exactly the situation that applied from day 1 when God separated the light from the darkness - the light had to be to one side, and the darkness in another area of the sky. Ergo, with a spinning earth - night and day.
Good call on the God as deceiver thing - exactly right.
On the starlight and time problem, I think that a lot of people are following John Hartnett in his application of the Israeli cosmologist Carmeli's cosmology and work on extending the theory of relativity into new ground. Btw he's is doing a week long speaking tour of the UK at the end of April 09 - worth going to hear if he's near you. Also, check out his books - Dismantling the Big Bang is an excellent introduction, and certainly gave me a much more coherent understanding of the history of the cosmological discipline in general, as well of the issues over cosmological evolution vs young earth creationism and the 'old' universe. Also his 'Starlight, Time and the New Physics' setting out his own theory - which is way more than Friedman space time - not sure whether it includes it or not (haven't finished reading through it yet).
Oh, and back to Genesis and the literary practices of the ANE, we can actually know who wrote what bits of Genesis 1-36, and maybe even right the way through to the first few verses of Exodus. Abraham and co (descendants and ancestors) would have been brought up with Mesopotamian (and antecedant) literary cultures, and Genesis fits the pattern. Thus instead of being guided by our modern chapter divisions (we all know, I guess that, they are late additions, but we are still deeply conditioned by them, so that we automatically divide off say chapters 1-3 as a unit, as you did - as I'm going to show, this is false), we can see the structure that the Genesis passages were originally written in. Genesis 1.1-2.4a is a distinct document (the only one without an author / owner / commissioner being mentioned), and then 2v4b to 5.1 is all one document, written by Adam himself (the bible explicitly states that this was written). Thus to divide off chapters 1-3 is doubly invalid. You can correctly point to the differences between 1.1-2.4A and the later passages (even though both sections use the historical narrative 'vav-consecutive' style), but you can't in any way justify splitting off Genesis 2-3 from the following material - they are indivisibly one unit, in the same style. Even without knowing the literary background we can see this - the story flows straight on, with Eve in chapter 4 in hope saying that her firstborn was 'the man' in direct reference to the promise in Genesis 3.15. So, if it's one document in the same style, where does the mythology / poetic lift off and the historical begin? The answer is, 'Nowhere', it's all the same narrative-historical style, and in no way is it poetical or mythological or non-historical.
Now, I know that I've not really explained how exactly we can know this ANE literary stuff - I'll save it for another time, but just to pique your curiosity, did you know that :
Noah did not write a single word about 'his' flood?
And that the greater part of Genesis was actually written by Ishmael and Esau, not Isaac and Jacob, as we might expect, although the latter two did add addedums to their older brothers writings?
Interested? Come back for more.....

Permalink Reply by Nathanael Lewis on December 16, 2008 at 10:05pm

Because in day 1 it clearly talks about God seperating light and darkness, and that implies one part of the sky where light came from, and another where it doesn't. Not something to get hung up on, but it seems the most logical and elegant and simple explanation.
True on the stuff about how Genesis can be understood among cultures of all scientific ability, children etc. However, if you use that to try to say (as some do) that this then means that we don't need to take seriously the fact the he reveals himself as creating in 6 days, then I disagree most strongly. After all, it's easy in Hebrew to convey the idea of creating over huge long periods - there are several words for 'age' and 'eternity' that could be used to convey millions of years etc.
I would submit that the use of the vav-conjunctive style is what makes us able to say that Genesis is 'literally' true. God didn't need to explain to us how to make a universe, but the fact that he has chosen to do so in the way that he has is something we need to take seriously. After all, if the truth was otherwise, he could easily invent language to describe it in a way all could understand, but he has chosen to reveal it the way he has - maybe because the God of truth tells it like it was..... More than anything, it's a character and glory of God issue, rather than an ages and individual word meaning issue

Permalink Reply by Daniel Read on December 16, 2008 at 10:24pm

Because in day 1 it clearly talks about God seperating light and darkness, and that implies one part of the sky where light came from, and another where it doesn't. Not something to get hung up on, but it seems the most logical and elegant and simple explanation.


I think, at this point, there is simply a clash of worldviews between those who want to start with the account of Genesis and work out from there (twisting everything else so as to fit in with that) and those who might wish to start with some other evidence. Nat - I'm sorry, but your explanations are only "the most logical and simple" ones if you've already decided to give primacy to the biblical account of creation, in a literalistic sense.

I am intrigued, however, as to whether (and by what means) I'll get shot down if I suggest that the first 11 chapters of Genesis are a set of "tribal stories", some of which may be based roughly on real people or real occurences (but containing lots of "truth").

Mind you, I don't think the book of Job is history either....

Permalink Reply by Nathanael Lewis on December 17, 2008 at 9:24pm

Well, by the literary customs of Mesopotamia, they were actual written down as family / personal history, not tribal oral stories handed down. The same literary pattern turns up from Genesis 1 to Genesis 36.
On clash of worldviews - there's far more twisting that goes on from the other point of view.

Permalink Reply by Daniel Read on December 17, 2008 at 10:50pm

OK... written down on what, by whom, and when? Do you have the surviving documents somewhere?

Permalink Reply by Nathanael Lewis on December 17, 2008 at 11:53pm

Not surviving documents in terms of the original clay tablets, no. Let me explain. The practice was to write on clay tablets, inscribing them with a stylus, and then baking the clay hard. Whereas we use a title page at the front, they used colophons - ie document title and author / owner / commissioner at the bottom, sometimes also with date (usually 'in the year King X dug Y canal' or something similar). The title was usually the first few words of the document. Now, if you wanted to link more than one document together, you started the new tablet and in the first line or two put the title of or a unique phrase from the previous document as a 'catch phrase'. Thus if you wanted to record a new chapter in a history you would start a new clay tablet using the title of the previous one at the start. Now Genesis 1-37.1 follows this pattern almost exactly. The key phrase is 'toledoth xxx' variously translated (eg Genesis 5.1) account of / history of / generations of Adam (or whoever). Basically in early times all history was family history, and the phrase could mean all of these things.
Thus we can see where each document starts and finishes, what it's title was, who wrote it (in all cases but one, the first) and sometimes there is even phrases that are a rough dating. The 'catch phrase' turns up very consistently at the right places throughout.
So we get Genesis 1.1-2.4a - entitled 'Heavens and Earth' - no author given, but possibly a date -'in the day / time they were created'.
Genesis 2.4b - 5.1a 2.4b repeats the title 'Heavens and earth' and takes history on from there. 5.1a states that it is the 'written history of Adam' or 'book of Adam's account'. It deals with events up until just before Adam's death.
5.1b to 6.9a. Starts with a catch phrase quoted from Genesis 1 again, to link it in with the original starting document. In the early period, tracing family descent was important (we see this continued in the OT and NT, and among ancient royal lines in all civilizations) - so the author (Noah, see 6.9) gives his line of descent from the author of the previous tablet - hence the genealogy, and then gives a brief account of conditions in his own time as he wrote.
6.9b to 10.1 - it starts with a key phrase giving the three sons of Noah, which is the title of this document, and they are the authors. That one phrase gives the title, the authors, and links it in with the previous author and tablet quoting 5.32
It's interesting that repeatedly in the story of the flood information is frequently repeated with variations 3 times, implying that each son independently verified the key facts as eyewitnesses.
10.1b to 11.10a is an addendum by Shem (see 11.10a) giving the descendants of himself and his brothers at the time he wrote, and an account of the tower of Babel incident.
11.10b to 11.27a is a genealogy from Shem to Terah, written by Terah. It ends in the same way way that Noah's does (if we exclude Noah's account of moral conditions at the time of writing) with the birth of his sons.
11.27b to 25.12 This is the account of the life of Abraham, written by Ishmael (not Isaac as we might expect). It is much longer - my guess is that this reflects their move from Mesopotamia to the Levant area and just possibly a switch in writing materials - perhaps to scrolls - but keeping the literary conventions of their forefathers. In any case it ends with Abraham's death. I think that the oldest son had the duty of keeping the history family up to date, even if, as in this case, the birthright had gone elsewhere. The logical time for keeping the family history up to date was at a fathers funeral, when the family met together. Copies could be made for each son, so we probably have Isaac's copy, but Ishmael is the author / originator of it.
25.13 to 25.19a is a brief addendum by Isaac, written after Ishmael's death, where he gives Ishmael's 12 sons and a brief account of his brothers death.
25.19b to 36.1 This was written by Esau, and is the account of Isaac and his sons up until Isaac and Rebekah's death. Same pattern as before - elder son writes the history, even though he doesn't have the birthright, and again, it happens at the logical place - at the family get together at the fathers funeral. Jacob / Israel has a copy, but Esau is the author (attesting to the birthright going to the rival brother, as Ishmael did before him).
36.2-9 is an brief addition by Esau giving his sons at the time and the reason he and Jacob moved away from each other. It uses the catchphrase 'Esau, that is Edom' to link it to the last tablet by quoting 36.1, the title. The phrase 'living in the hill country of Seir' maybe a rough dating to say where the semi-nomadic author was living when he wrote this tablet.
36.10-37a This tablet is called 'Esau the Father of the Edomites in Seir' tagging it in with the last line of the previous tablet, and is written by Jacob. It is possible that here later information has been added in, but this is not certain. In any case it lists Esau's descendants, their political structures and leaders and their close relations with the Horite clans. 37.1 may be a similar rough dateline, stating that it was written by Jacob when he was in Canaan.
After that is the account of Joseph, and all the Mesopotamian traits drop away to be replaced by - surprise surprise - Egyptian style literature.
Now, have a quick look back - there is a clear chain of ownership and descent with fit into family history and events. Not one document (with the possible exception of the last one, though that is debatable) contains any information after the implied time of writing. For instance, Adam's tablet doesn't record anything after his death, and nothing that he wouldn't have known. There is a clear chain of testimony going through history - something that historians in a lot of fields would be desperate for, not to mention the crystal clear adherence to Mesopotamian literary practice. It also explains the repetition of phrases around each 'these are the generations of' marker phrase.
So in a way, we do have the surviving documents - not the literal first copy clay tablets, but the documents are sitting there in Genesis....

Permalink Reply by Nathanael Lewis on December 18, 2008 at 12:39am

Why superstition? Do you mean supposition?
Why would experimental science have anything to say about history and literature? We don't try and apply experimental science to the accounts of Ceasar or Herodetus, do we?
Can I make the point that it's not linguistic style, but literary convention, which is a very different kettle of fish.
In terms of Genesis and the books of Moses, the scholarly concensus has been for a long time that there are different documents woven together with the originals only being teased apart with various theological and linguistic style characteristics as evidence. This is the JEPD theory. I got it at school and university. I remember my OT lecturer stating that P was very precise and factual, while E was not - then assigning a verse in the flood story in the middle of 'E' to be 'P' because it was vague'. That kind of linguistic divining of authorship I have no truck with. The ideas about the authors of Genesis I've stated come from a guy called Wiseman. Basically, the JEPD theory arose because OT scholars in the 18th and 19th century applied modern western european literary conventions to ancient near eastern (ANE) documents - wondered why the bible used different names for God, and repetitions etc. Thus they concocted their theory on authorship. However, it is important to note that they had absolutely no other ANE documents at the time. These only started to be dug up after the theory was well established. In actual fact, repetition with variation and the use of different names for the same deity are routine and widespread in ANE literature, but by now the theory had stuck. What Wiseman did was to say, Let's have a look at these documents we are digging up and actually compare the bible an ANE document, with other documents and see what we find. The parallels are very close - that's why I say with such a degree of certainty. It's not like books such as Judges or Ruth or Kings where authorship is nowhere given. We pretty much have close to their signatures on the documents in the case of Genesis 1-36.
The reasons I talked about 'I think the oldest son...' etc was because I have recently been surveying some stuff on the internet, and saw some people who basically got into a twist over this theory - they thought that Isaac and Jacob should have been the ones to have written the histories as the chosen sons with the birthrights etc, and they complicated matters. I started thinking about the social customs of the time, and that was the answer I came up with - it wasn't from Wiseman (as far as I remember).
In general, I am VERY aware of the debates over authorship of books in the OT and the NT, including ones that are very clearly ascribed in the text, like Paul's pastoral epistle, since I took a theology degree from a secular university (St Andrews). But that's another debate. The reason why in this case I come across as being so certain is that I am certain. After all, it's a first principle of literary criticism that you look at documents in their time and genre, and when the pattern and parallels are as clear cut as in this case..... Put it this way, in any other field that OT, a literary match-up of this detail would have scholars wagging their tails like Pavlov dogs.... but because there was already a theory entrenched in academia, it isn't really even looked at in this way - it's ignored, most OT scholars aren't even aware of it. (For another reason why the JEPD theory became entrenched, one argument at the time was 'writing wasn't invented until after Moses' time, which we now know is complete rubbish) Wiseman was an amateur from outside the field, an RAF man on duty in Iraq (although his son became a professional Assyriologist of the highest calibre). However, his literary reasoning and historical logic was anything but amateur....

Permalink Reply by Daniel Read on December 18, 2008 at 12:36pm

And to think we scientists stand (below) accused of "suppositions, extrapolations, theories, wild guesses and shots in the dark" ;-)

So... yes, interesting theory, Nat. I can't pretend to be an expert in this area, though I honestly find it difficult to see how you can distinguish in this way between it being written down on clay tablets and (for example) oral tradition. Those linking statements could, to my amateur eyes, be just as easily a way for the tribe to remember easily what story follows what ("we end this story with this line, we start the next with one that connects to it"). I'm not sure it matters - I am quite prepared to accept that these stories, whenever they were written down, were intended to be read perhaps as "family history". The boundaries between stories you indicate look to be in about the right place. Much of the text does contain material (such as genealogy) which has the ring of family history.

I can't see how you deduce the authorship with such certainty.

The problem, for me, comes when you make the jump from "this is family history" to "this is exactly what happened". Historians are rarely so bold as this, with any eyewitness accounts. Let me just list a few of the problems I have with this:

- Verses like Genesis 6:4
- Stories of hundreds of animals shut up in the ark together (surely the tigers eat them all??)... OK, I exagerate a bit, but.... also big tall towers and the tale of how we end up with so many languages.
- first there's Adam, and Eve, but then all of a sudden their sons seem to have lots of wives to choose from?
- you seem to want to think of it all as eyewiteness accounts... but there's no (human) eyewitness for the first chapter
- people living to a very grand old age

I can probably think of more, if I try. Now, I'm sure you can trawl the internet and find interesting "theories" for all of this, but, please, don't be silly. It stretches credulity.

And, then, you take one more step, which is to say because all of this happened exactly like it is written, I am going to use this as "evidence" by which to decide between scientific theories. You also seem to rule out any observations we can make which contradict the biblical account.

I am sorry, but these two steps are far too much weight to put on the shaky shoulders of a bit of textual analysis.

Permalink Reply by Paul Kent on December 17, 2008 at 3:34pm

The VSL (variable speed of light theory) would explain that phenomena of things seeming older than they are...

seeing as physics as we understand it has one major constant (that being the speed of light) all our calculations would be out if, at one time, the light had moved faster.

Studies have been done, but never proven, that under significant amounts of energy (such as that presumably in the creation of the universe.. There may even have been a big bang when God created the universe..) Light actually travels faster than it's current speed...

so.. Where I am on this whole subject is... It doesn't really bother me. I believe God created the world, whether it's by 6 day literal creation or by some other means, we don't know and probably never will conclusively..

Permalink Reply by Nathanael Lewis on December 17, 2008 at 9:26pm

Won't know conclusively - unless we accept what God said about it....
VSL - I think that the problem with VSL (which sounds the same as or similar to the c-decay idea Barry Setterfield popularized a while back) is that as far as we can see the value of c (ie the speed of light) is connected to various other cosmological forces and if one changes we would see evidence of changes in them all, and we don't.
The gravitational time dilation models seem to avoid this problem....

Permalink Reply by Daniel Read on December 17, 2008 at 10:46pm

I'm getting kind of tempted to set a few basic physics questions for people on here, just to see how well people answer them. Because I'm kind of suspecting that there are a few people talking a load of nonsense about stuff they know little about. Sorry, but it's true - I don't know much about the literary customs of Mesopotamia, but I'm quite good at physics.

Changing the speed of light at times close to the big bang doesn't solve the problem. Our own galaxy is about 100000 light years in diameter, which means that we receive light from stars from within our own galaxy that was emmitted (say) 50000 years ago.... much, much later than the "big bang" (i.e. the speed of light is fixed by this time) but much older than the Earth is supposed to be, by the biblical account taken "literally".

Nat - do you even understand what you mean by "the gravitational time dilation models" ?

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