Its been a while since I've posted on this blog. I will try to be more active as this coming school year begins.
I have started to read Dr. Scot McKnight's entries on Dr. John Walton's new book, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate. I hope to read this book myself, as I have read some of Walton's work before, and I have been impressed.
Here is a link to McKnight's first entry; be sure to read it:
http://blog.beliefnet.com/jesuscreed/2009/08/genesis-one-1.html
Is Genesis one ancient cosmology, according to Walton? If so, what are the implications?
The answer is yes, Genesis one is in fact ancient cosmology, and the implications are huge, especially since Christians rely on a misinterpretation of Genesis one as science!
There are two big issues in the Church that I would like to deal with.
One is the whole "science vs. religion" debate. The truth is, this debate is so misunderstood by Christians, that Christians have pushed intellectually gifted young people away from Christianity and into atheism. The conflict between evolution and Christianity has been fabricated by Christians. There is, in reality, no way evolution can in any way destroy Christian faith. However, it has, based primarily on scientific interpretation of Genesis one by Christianity. The conflict between evolution and Christianity is a self-made problem (by Christians!). **By the way, I have not said that I (1) support evolution or (2) believe evolution to be true. However, we should note that there are many Christians who believe in evolution.
The second is homosexuality. The church is in shambles over this issue, parts of the church being almost homophobic and other parts falling apart because they are welcoming homosexuality into the pulpit. The biblical stance is quite clear regarding homosexuality, as both the OT and NT state that it is incompatible with the Christian life.
I hope to write on both these issues on this blog in the near future. For now, I would like to leave you with the question above, is Genesis one ancient cosmology, and what are the implications? I would like to ask another question, what is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah doing in Genesis? Why is it there? What is its function?
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From a general perspective and having not truly studied the book of Genesis, I believe the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is part of one of the major "sections" of Genesis. I see the first part of Genesis as the creation and the second as the fall of man, and then the story of the patriarchs, and finally Joseph. Sodom and Gomorrah is included in that second section, the fall of man. It starts with Adam and Eve's fall from God and then we see the disease of sin spread in a world-wide fashion. The tower of babel and Sodom and Gomorrah shows how deep and corrupt mankind has become since the fall and how far mankind has come from the purpose of creation as established by God in the first section of Genesis. What is interesting, though, is that both the tower of Babel and the story of Sodom and Gomorrah occur after God's judgement on the world (the flood) and both stories inter-mingle with the story of Abraham, making it not quite as distinct a story. I am not sure what the implications of that is. But generally speaking, I think that it is included to show the depravity of mankind.
ReplyDeletesorry...I said something wrong in my comment above. Oops. The tower of bable is the end of the section of Genesis that deals with the fall of mankind, and Sodom and Gomorrah is intermingled with the story of Abraham. What I meant was that since Sodom and Gomorrah isn't distinctly in the section of the fall of man and included in the story of Abraham, I am not sure what the implications are...meaning, it probably has more of a purpose than just the drepravity of man, but I'm not sure what that is.
ReplyDeleteActually, you have made a very important observation. The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is in the section of Genesis about Abraham. That is a good starting point for beginning to understand this text.
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