Lecture 05: The Book of Genesis - Dr. Bill Barrick

when we left off last week we were talking about the assumptions as we approach the text of scriptures specifically have him do with historical Adam but really with all of our interpretation of Genesis 1 to 11 I explained to you that I reject the concept of an Old Earth when we come back and deal with the flood I'll be dealing with some of the evidence that would contribute toward that rejection and confirm what I believe is here in Scripture one of the key passages where I talked about was Exodus chapter 20 where we have the Ten Commandments and verses 8 through 11 and the fourth commandment where it makes specific that in six days God created the heavens and the earth and the Seas and all that are in them and that includes everything that stated in Genesis 1:1 so I don't take Genesis 1:1 as a title I don't take it as a heading I take it as part of day 1 in agreement with what God has written by his own finger or in his own fashion on the stone tablet that he gave to Moses on Mount Sinai and so I think that rules out the earth being older then the six days of creation there was no pre-existing earth nothing prior to that and we already talked about the gap theory in verses 1 & 2 I'll come back and we'll talk about summarizing some of the arguments on that too today but basically see a young earth and as I think I said last week I would say that that young earth is probably more than 6,000 years of age I would take close to 10,000 years I think that the chronologies that we deal with later in the book of Genesis and in Exodus and in Chronicles are part of what I would argue and use to extend that period of time not extending thousands of years or even hundreds of years for the genealogies in Genesis 5 in Genesis 1011 but more so adding time in the chronologies and the genealogies that are given to us in the book of Exodus and in the Book of Chronicles so another thing that I assume is a rejection of the documentary hypothesis je D P theory this is a fairly recent development in biblical studies starting with the French physician jean astruc in the late 1700s and then being refined by a number of different German theologians and exegetes in the 19th century finally culminating in the popularization of the theory by wellhausen and by others you know by W Robertson Smith in England and English where Wellhausen popularized it in Germany in or in German in Germany and so I reject that hypothesis I don't see any need for it I think it creates a great disjunction throughout the biblical text it divides it separates it confuses it makes a mess of things one of the reasons why I don't like to use bdb Brown driver and Briggs they assume that all the way through and have identified those texts that they identify a tribute to each of these so-called editors or later editions we'll come back to that in a minute unbiblical criticism when we talk about biblical criticism normally we're talking about those methodologies that are liberal in their theological bias and that are utilized to look through human means at a way to reinterpret the Scriptures and to try to solve some of the apparent problems within the text I we would associate this with a denial of the traditional doctrine of inspiration that is not caused by biblical criticism by the way the denial of inspiration precedes biblical criticism and as a foundation for biblical criticism it doesn't result as a result as a outcome of biblical criticism and biblical criticism as I said is created by the denial of the doctrine of inspiration consider these words and try to think of who they are set by if you've got that open the slide on your laptop resist the temptation to advance it so that you can be perhaps surprised at the outcome think of who this might be he says I read myself well into the prophetic in historical books of the Old Testament but at the same time I was troubled by a bad conscience as if I were beginning with the roof instead of the foundation for I had no thorough acquaintance with the law of which I was accustomed to be told that it was the basis and postulate of the whole literature now the law reading it creates a bad conscience for him in other words he becomes convicted of apparent sin in his life and yet that is creating a struggle for him then and he finds that it's not only disconcerting but confusing to him but it was in vain that I looked for the light which was to be shed from this source on the historical and prophetic books on the contrary my enjoyment of the latter his enjoyment of the prophetic books his enjoyment of the rest of the Old Testament was marred by the law it kept intruding you see with that guilt it produced it did not bring them nearer to me but intruded itself uneasily like a ghost that makes a noise indeed but is not visible and really affects nothing and then he helps you understand a little bit more of what time period I lived in what country lived in and what impacted him he says at last in the course of a casual visit in gating him in the summer of 1867 I learned through retial that Carl Heinrich Groff placed the law later than the prophets and almost without knowing his reasons for the hypothesis I was prepared to accept it I readily acknowledged myself the possibility of understanding Hebrew antiquity without the book of the Torah and in other words this is the way to get rid of my guilt I get rid of the Torah I make it a very late development in the Jewish religion it is an addition coming along later and as many argue today including those who style themselves they call themselves queer theologians they believe that you can do away with the laws having to do or being against homosexuality and lesbianism by merely attributing them to a much later period of time making them in editorial edition in fact claiming that it was added to the Hebrew Bible by corrupt priests in Jerusalem who desired nothing more than the solidify their power over the people their influence their wealth as a result and could impose the restrictions of the law upon the populace in order to gain that power over them and to retain that power over them and therefore they deny that this has any legitimacy that was caused by a socially corrupt element of the priesthood in society and therefore can be safely ignored that's the whole thing now you say well what does that do then with the issue of Sodom and Gomorrah in the book of Genesis that's in the law yes and it's in a part of the Torah part of the Pentateuch that they would attribute as being part of the holiness code which they would put at the very latest period this was Julius Wellhausen this is one of the reasons why he accepted the Jay EDP the documentary hypothesis this is one of the reasons today many socially oriented theologians and scholars biblical scholars are now returning to the documentary hypothesis in order to defend their own specific positions sociologically and that is because for a time here since the 1960s the documentary hypothesis has been weakened especially by literary criticism in which it was demonstrated that the Torah was very unified and could not be chopped up in the little and reassembled over a period of time by a multitude of different editors in compositors and so the greater that sense of the unity of the text that was brought about by literary criticism then now the sociologically concerned theologians are going back and trying to re-establish the authority and the power of the documentary hypothesis because that's one of the only ways to protect some of their views and so that is something that we need to be aware of and look at by the way if you look at the German edition of the prolegomena by Wellhausen you'll find his German equally strong if not stronger than this English translation by Sutherland black that I used today in class it is a fascinating insight into the thinking of biblical critics and especially those holding to the documentary hypothesis that really gives insight to help us understand modern biblical critics who are attempting to establish again the documentary hypothesis when we look at the history the documentary hypothesis yes Roberto feminist groups approach it the same way because it appears to them that the Torah is very chauvinistic is male dominated male oriented and also in some of their argumentation they too believe that it was a male society of priests in Jerusalem in the period of time either right after the Exile or shortly after the exile that created the law and inserted it into the Old Testament so it's more than just the gay lesbian group it is also feminist groups and there are other sociological elements and groups that have began to look at the same things okay jean astruc in 1753 really divided the torah in by looking just at Genesis he saw the different names of God Elohim and Yahweh and divided those into different documents than those produced originally by Moses and that's where we get the divine quite the criteria divine names it is used by the documentary hypothesis one of several criteria that were established and used in order to support the documentary hypothesis and then after him was Eichorn over a hunter excuse me about 30 years later who identified the same two documents really would take perhaps the first one as being mosaic it's very unclear and some of his viewpoint as to where he would draw that line and identify mosaic off-chip or deny mosaic authorship totally vilhelm the vet came along then in the next beginning of the next century and he added in the deuteronomist the D document to the pana took as a whole and then you have up felled in 1853 who identifies two different II documents Ellis documents II 1 and E 2 e 1 actually became the priestly document and then you have the Yahweh's you have the deuteronomist and then that are down there is an anonymous redactor that he felt was necessary to try to solve some of the remaining issues within the text of the Pentateuch then graph about whom wellhausen's spoken in 1866 had a historical priestly document and he had a legal priestly document one at the beginning want the end together with J E and D and then you have Coonan in 1869 getting it now more resolved down to the current view of the documentary hypothesis the J e DP theory putting the P last and latest and then we have Wellhausen taking that viewpoint and popularizing it he didn't really add much to it he didn't involve himself and the argumentation to really support it he borrowed the arguments of those who preceded him and built upon them and wrote it in a clear and lucid fashion which people could pick up and understand themselves even if they had very little scholarly training and that's why his name became associated with the hypothesis it became known as the well how's the undocumented hypothesis there well how's Ian hypothesis he was just a popularizer not the originator and not even the finalizar of it yes Jeff that's a good question Jeff why are the Germans such originators of not just this view but many other critical views I think it was because of the Reformation being centered in Germany and because suddenly due to the Reformation everyone is freed basically from the constrictions of and restrictions of the Roman Catholic Church which said basically you'll interpret it the way the priests tell you to interpret it so now we have every individual rightly capable of going to the word themselves and studying it and you have people able to do that not necessarily needing to have the original languages they were still available and many would learn them but they could work from the new translations in modern languages Luther's translation of German for example and so because of that you have a lot of people really delving into the word for the first time questioning the views of the priests and the Roman Catholic Church trying to seek truth trying to resolve some of the difficulties and problems they see in the biblical texts because there are legitimate difficulties in the text and so in trying to do that they're searching for an overarching methodology kind of a grand scheme or grand plan you might say that would help them to resolve the greatest number of issues or problems and I think that is the reason why Germany is the hotbed of biblical criticism in the nineteenth century is that that is really the Reformation has hit Europe the hardest it didn't begin there the Reformation began in in Hungary and elsewhere but it was more more popular it was heavier it was more widespread it was more systematically defended in Germany than perhaps anywhere else until you get to Calvin in France and the things that go on there and then later to England so I think it's a very logical that arose there in Germany as a result of that and also the Germans were always very fascinated with studying the details of Scripture in the biblical languages the Germans were among the first to really put together key biblical works even word study volumes that in both Greek and Hebrew that we're very helpful began to develop concordances many of the German Jews in the Jewish ghettos and communities in Germany were involved in Hebraic scholarship and Hebraic studies and a number of them were befriended by Germans who were Christian rather than Jewish and they kind of partnered together in a study of the Old Testament and actually number the Hebraic sewer Christian got their training from Jewish rabbis and so that drew another link that was primarily there whereas there weren't as many active in that way and some of the other communities in Europe okay good question let's go further as we look at this the documentary I thought hypothesis is often just seen as EJ and D and sometime as Jay EDP then in the fragmentary hypothesis it had many sources for the hexa took the six books that includes the Book of Joshua and then in addition you have the supplementary hypothesis which Franz dalish held to for a time in which you have the Pentateuch divided into an Ellis document first and then X does 20 with a question as to whether Moses added the or not and then you have the book of the Covenant that's mainly from X's 24 on the book of origins is adding Genesis 1 through 11 into it especially Genesis 1 through 3 and then a biographical section of the Pentateuch being added then the yahwist being added and then others being added along so it's just one supplement after another being added to the Torah to where we finally come up with the final Pentateuch in the supplementary a supplement aryan view and then the crystallization hypothesis is very similar and all it does it doesn't really identify all of the different areas but it has multiple I've only listed five here some of the crystallization hypothesis will have as many as 12 to 25 different steps here of crystallization where they believe that there are authors editors composers at work all the way through the history of Israel from the time of Moses all the way down to Ezra and they're constantly refining and adding adding material to the text till we have our final form of the Pentateuch today so let's go further let's talk about source criticism which is the same thing as talking about documentary hypothesis source criticism the documented documentary hypothesis are the same methodology the criteria already mentioned the one brought out by jean astruc that's the criterion of divine names Yahweh or Elohim and they base that upon the book of Exodus saying that Israel what had not been given a revelation of God as Yahweh and up to that time I think it's a misinterpretation of the text and Exodus I think it's a very plain and clear as we go back through the book of Genesis that the name of Yahweh was known and was used it's not just used in the narrative of the taxes used in the speeches that are given Eve uses the name Yahweh we have Lamech using the name Yahweh we have according to chronicles pre mosaic names of Israelites that have the part of the name the feel for ik element of yah in them that indicates a basis of Yahweh that predates Moses predates Exodus 3 and X 2 6 and so we have a lot of indications that the divine name criterion really does not fit well and cannot serve Wales or going through you have Abraham living long before Moses speaking of Yahweh specifically we have God saying to Abraham I am Yahweh the only way to get by that is to say that some editors come along and inserted Yahweh as the name of God they're changing what God really said or to say that it's all made up to begin with that those conversations are recreations like in a book of fiction maybe an urban stone novel that's about a historical figure but all the conversations are fictitional because there's no recording of their conversations and so he hypothesizes he assumes and tries to say it and he tries to keep it more or less pure within the period of time but sometimes fails and so some say that that's the same way the Old Testament is being written especially the the Torah that Moses is he went along in sir the name Yahweh where Yahweh was never used so that's the criterion of divine names the Jay document using the name Yahweh known as the yahwist as the author composer editor is dated sometime around 850 BC a few put that 100 years earlier in 950 BC the Ellis document is dated at 750 BC these are all approximations they would all tell you that and the D deuteronomist 620 BC about the time of the revival under King NeoGeo SIA it's a reason for that and then the P document the priestly document coming way late 550 to 450 BC yes I think they date the J document around 850 BC because of the work of the prophets themselves and they look at the prophets and see the name Yahweh dominating and because the prophets are in the monarch monarchical period and 850 is in the monarchical period and the L owest comes later and there I think that the reason for that is they see kind of a more universalism in the later prophets and in more attention to the Gentile nations and the prophecies against the Gentile nations and so they assumed that Elohim would have been the title for God that would be most understood and used they're representing him as the chief god the primary deity the supreme God etc also the creation material that you see in the prophets and of course Genesis 1:1 in the beginning God created bara Elohim all right the second criterion is that of doublets we're going to deal with one of those doublets if we don't get to it today we'll deal with it next Tuesday and that is they assume that Genesis 2:5 and following through the end of chapter 2 is a second creation account now by a second creation account they're not meaning there that it's looking at it looking at it the same way as the first creation account they assume it looks at it in a different way has a different content and has disagreement with the first that's one of the things you have to remember about these doublets is that they see inherent contradictions and disagreements between one account and the second account they see that in the giving of the law in Exodus 20 versus Deuteronomy chapter 5 they see that in the creation account Genesis chapter 1 verse 1 through 2 3 as opposed to 2 4 through 2 25 they see that in the Tower of Babel account in Genesis 10 verses Genesis 11 and so these doublets are not just saying oh well the second account creation is really details that weren't given in the first account but it's talking about the same creation is talking about the same details and there's no contradiction no they believe there's contradiction and that's what causes them to identify a separate and different author or editor or a compositor for it so the criterion of doublets is another one another criterion is that of linguistic distribution by linguistic distribution they're talking here about the forms of language utilized they're talking about the forms of verbs they're talking about the way verbs are used they take a look at the structure of the Hebrew and identified distinct differences at least as far as they see it between the different editors and compositors and then divergent ideas and this is really the key part the divergent ideas is what helps them affirm the divine name category it's what helps them to identify the doublets as being divergent one from another it's how the linguistic distribution is also in their thinking confirmed by the divergent ideas presented when they look for example at the giving of the ten commandments they look very closely for differences and one of the differences they see is when and where the 10 commandments appear to be given that's just 20 on Mount Sinai Deuteronomy 5 on the plain of the plains of Moab east of the Jordan River and so they're looking for that type thing that would try to distinguish and show divergent ideas and concepts and then the context in Exodus 20 as you go on through to chapter 24 you have an expression of covenant and entering into covenant relationship with God and the Covenant document is the are those Ten Commandments whereas in Deuteronomy chapter 5 it appears there's there's an expansion of the covenant that it involves all of the additional explanations and case studies and extra laws totaling nearly 600 13 by the time you have the 10 plus all of those that are given there in a context that seems that there is expansion there's development that there's other reasons than just establishing a covenant community and so they take a look at all that and say there's divergent ideas or evidence of divergent ideas in those yes they use the divergent ideas to confirm some of those because the divergent ideas is really that which dominates you you can use two totally different linguistic forms to say identically the same thing and not have a divergent meeting you can use the two different names of God and say something that is identical without have having any distinct difference in meaning and the same with the doublets for example that could even be argued but their their main focuses on what they see or interpret as divergent ideas contradictions between the two sections and then that helps them confirm that those divine names as a criterion are legitimate means okay it's a circular reasoning in a way yes right where the divergent ideas confirmed by means of the divine names right okay but the divergent ideas is more the content and more the purpose of the revelation as opposed to actually what it says or how does sin okay here's an example I mean take a look at this this is out of Martin notes book that he wrote on the Pentateuch and he says here that the Jay document for example when we're looking at Genesis 1 to 6 yeah a tribute contributes chapter 2 verse 4 B divides the verse through 4 26 also contributes chapter 6 verses 1 through 8 he doesn't identify anything in the first six chapters with the Ella list nothing for the deuteronomist but for the priestly has 1 1 2 2 4 a 5 1 2 28 5 32 32 notice here where's 5 29 it's missing and he will attribute that to either an unknown redactor or he'll treat it as a unneeded insertion and then 6 9 to 22 now this is a very small sample of what the chopping up of the text is like if you take a look at notes charts he has very detailed charts covering the entire Pentateuch and when you go through it's amazing at times you look at one verse is chopped up into three different periods of time by three different editors or authors or compositors and it makes it impossible to have a continuous reading of the text without interrupting and so you have for example Wellhausen popularized the polychrome bible which went through and gave color code to each of the different documents je D and P so there's you read through the polychrome Bible you could look at different things say oh well that doesn't really apply that's added much later etc etc and then you could also bring to bear your hypothesis as some modern theologians do to say okay you see that priestly writer there that's why we don't accept that as a legitimate revelation from the God of Israel that is sad by human means and look what it does to the text you know that's one of the ways that they popularize it they didn't really answer that they didn't really deal with it in fact they haven't dealt with it until the literary critical methodology arose in the 1960s then they began to try to respond to those and if you look at some of the books published by German authors English authors French authors American authors who hold the documentary hypothesis starting in the 1960s were especially the 1990s you find a rush try to answer that in some fashion and basically one of the answers they ended up with was that they don't need to have unity that they believe this proves disunity and therefore it destroys the authority of the text and does away with the concepts of divine inspiration and inerrancy and that's really what much of it is about is using this methodology as confirming their already previous denial of inspiration in inerrancy they've had a great difficulty in responding to those arguments great difficulty in fact so much so that a Harvard professor John Levinson John Levinson le vie I NSO n or maybe it's le ve som has written a book about it in which he says that the documentary hypothesis was so destroyed by the concepts of literary criticism that the only way the major schools having departments of religion could maintain the documentary hypothesis and claimed that it was a scholarly opinion and that those who denied it were unscholarly was because they had been in the schools long enough that they had established tenure and therefore use political means to protect their departments from any intruders who would deny the documentary hypothesis had a student at the University of Florida some years ago send me an email and say he had a professor in one of his classes on religion at the University of Florida who was saying to him that the only ones who really denied the documentary hypothesis today are extreme fundamentalists in the Christian world that everyone else accepted it and so I just sent him the references the Levinson's book I says here's a Harvard professor he in no way claims to be a fundamentalist Christian in fact he doesn't even claim to be a Christian I doubt if he is and he says that there is really a minority who holds the documentary just at the time he's writing the book it was 1990 1991 and that it has become protected in the halls of academia in big universities like Harvard because of the tenure of professors who hold to it and they make certain that they deny tenure ship to any professors on the faculty that denied the document hypothesis and they prevent the hiring of new professors and so he shows it as a politically sank sacrosanct type of area and I thought it was fascinating to read that and sent it to him he shared it with his professor and he said his professor had never heard of it was impressed that a Harvard professor was saying that and he says the last words he had in class were I've got to find some of it can respond to Levinson and as far as I know he never found anyone I don't remember what title is I've got up my shelf in my office but it's by John Levinson John is jo-ann and Levinson al Evi NSO NR Enso n all right so a very good volume to read yes I don't think they really the documentary hypothesis don't really stop to think about much of that they're not really interested that much in theology or writing theologies you have a few of them that did I mean you have Gerhardt von Rod wrote a theology of the Old Testament held to documentary hypothesis you have Auto ice felt who did the same fairly good theologies in a way having some very good material but other times being a little bit off in the way they go and an eat-in in neither one of those theologies do they really deal very much with a doctrine of inspiration and they certainly don't deal with the doctrine of inerrancy they both assume that there are errors in Scripture and they really look primarily at man-made Scripture more than say it's God given Scripture okay yes Roberto good question I'll get to that answer here a little bit later okay we'll talk more about that excellent question I'm glad to see guys they're all thinking ahead historical criticism is another area that developed in Germany and historical criticism basically asks three questions number one what does the text say happened now so far so good right the second question what actually happened now you begin to see where it's headed you begin to see that there is a prejudice here you begin to see that there's a distrust of the text here you begin to see that there's no way they believe that this is authoritative that it's inspired or that it's an arrant that historical criticism automatically assumes that the text is inaccurate or is stated in a way that is similar to the way secular historians can be that is just a matter of viewpoint and each person skewing the history the way the way they want to see it the way they want to interpret it and you know that's very easy to demonstrate from a secular viewpoint some years ago I was in Okinawa we were visiting our son in his family although by the time we got there he was already sent off to Iraq and so we just stayed and visited with his wife and two boys and spent time with them but we went to the museum the World War two museum there on Okinawa and in the museum there was a fascinating corner where they had history books and history books for all different languages Russian they were Korean they were Chinese they were German they were English they were English from America English from Britain and a number of other languages as well Japanese I I hadn't mentioned that one and as they as they went through they had him all opened up to one section that dealt with the same event in World War two and then they had highlighted each of those and then gave a Trant us translation the translation was offered in several different languages I think in German English Japanese and Chinese was offered so that you could read what was there and you could see you could compare none of them agreed with each other they had a totally different interpretation and understanding of what occurred at that single historical event during World War two and it was obvious then that each had written or rewritten the history in accord with what was in their national interest to be represented as being without fault or being involved are not being involved or whatever it was it was an amazing illustration of what historians can do and how these textbooks are actually utilized in the universities and high schools around the world to teach the history of world war two and yets very obvious that all those accounts can't be right in fact when you get through you think maybe none of them are right maybe they're all wrong well when you see that among secular histories by so called scholarly degreed respected institutions and published by highly regarded published publishers you begin to see that man you can't trust anybody and that's where they take that whole concept and carry that back to the treatment of Scripture and treat it the same way and saying those historians that wrote Scripture are no different than modern historians equally given to skewing the text to meet their own social context or political needs and that's what we're dealing with when you're dealing with the historical critic and it takes a great deal of study to really overcome that and look at it and it's one of those highest areas today in the debate that goes on even on inerrancy as a study of historiography the writing history and how that applies to writing historical texts in the biblical text itself the last of the third questions is what do theologians and readers understand happened in other words those who are discerning and reinterpreting and applying various methodologies what do we end up saying actually happened in other words there's where the authority is the interpreter rather than the text itself because the text according to this is suspect in other words this is hermeneutics of doubt the hermeneutics of suspicion applied to the study of the scripture text that's right exactly and we have to admit don't we that if it's purely a human document then yes we ought to be seeing fallen human beings in a fallen world in a text that reflects it okay they're flawed philosophical principles reality as uniform and universal if reality is so uniform Universal why do those different secular texts of history in the museum in Okinawa say such different things about literal historical events that really happened reality is accessible to autonomous human reason investigation there's we come back to what Craig was just mentioning it's not just the fact that the human authors but also that human reason an investigation can solve all the problems that we are self-contained critics and that we can supplant the Spirit of God in interpreting the text that is our reason in our investigation that is more important then accepting as given from God the way we have in the text all events are comparable by analogy that's remains to be demonstrated contemporary human experience can provide the criteria by which the past can be determined examined and interpreted that's really another way of saying the second bullet point and then form criticism came along you have arimin google and you have others that are looking at the text and this is the precursor of literary criticism literary criticism develops out of form criticism form criticism deals with the different forms or types of literature they begin to call these genre using a French term that means really kind of literature and so the primary tenets of form criticism is that quote the genres of an ancient writing must be differentiated by the various events of life from which they developed what do they mean by that that's what they call the seats in Laban the setting in life or the Mozilla song in French the the setting in life and the the scene for the setting the idea is that in ancient society before there's any written communication everything was oral and so in this primitive society there would be certain individuals that would be accepted as wiser than their peers and they would become the purveyors of the history of the clan and so they would tell the stories around the campfires especially at times of celebration perhaps after making a major kill and supplying food for their clan that as they were celebrating and eating and rejoicing around the fire the storyteller would stand and he would give a history of the clan and he embellishes as he went and sold this is the original life setting then that results in narrative histories read being written later perhaps someone was killed on the hunt and their body was brought back lifeless and the tribe is in mourning and someone who is known more or less as a priest or a Shaymin among the trot in the tribe is trying to explain to them what has happened to this individual and begins to talk about him going on into the happy hunting ground and that they need to bury him with his weapons so that he has protection so as a means of hunting for food in the afterlife etc etc well this is them the life setting for the later the theological writings that show up in books like the Bible and the same thing goes with the Prophet who sees things the diviner who uses different means of divination whether casting of lots whether it is reading the tea leaves or whether it is reading a liver then that becomes prophecy in written so the forum critic is really looking more at that foundation first first being oral and only later being inscribed and written down and that immediately tells you some of the problems with form criticism as we look at that the goal of forum critical studies to identify the purpose and function as well as the mood and content of a genre in general and specifically for the literary unit under study that's the purpose of it that's what it aims for now we can give some responses that and will along the way but where it touches us especially in the study of Genesis 1 to 11 is to identify what kind of literature are we dealing with this is from Sandy and Easy's cracking Old Testament codes this is the chart they give on page 18 and in that they've divided into three major sections and then you have ten different types of literature you have three prose in-law narrative and history notice the distinction here between narrative in history narrative is more personal like the narrative of Joseph where history is more the history of the nation of Israel like you have say in the Book of Numbers specifically I don't have to explain law to you prophecy Oracle's of salvation announcements of judgment whether it's positive or negative apocalyptic is more imagery it is very different and has a different purpose to it and then in poetry you can have laments you can appraise you can have proverbs you can have other wisdom literature such as the book of Job or the book of Ecclesiastes so these are given as 10 possible they're very clear about this these are possible these are potential 10 different types of literature in the Old Testament the first assumption is this might not be all of them the second assumption is that not every text of Scripture can be identified as being only one type of literature in many texts of the Old Testament you have a mixture of these in the midst of narrative you can have poetry and so this all works together and and so you have to be very cautious there's differences here between the laments whether they're personal or corporate praise the same way and then is it is it descriptive praise or is it another kind of praise these are all part of what we deal with so it's these are potential but the question comes is is Genesis one or Genesis 1 through 2 in the area of poetry can it fit here in a category keep in mind other wisdom leaves it wide open for other categories you wouldn't identify job or Ecclesiastes as being identical they are a little bit different and so that leaves open their category that some would put Genesis 1 into so are we dealing with poetry there how do you determine these things and is form criticism of any help to this it's why Google and others have written specifically on the creation account is because they've been attempting for centuries really to try to identify what kind of literature it is so let's take a little side trip here before we too have our break is the creation record poetry many say it is does it make a difference that's then where we really come down some years ago in the Grand Canyon we had a group of scholars and our scholars trip one of them included Michael Fignon of ETS of evangelical theological Society and as we were having one of our Q&A s along the river and we're talking about the interpretation of Genesis 1 to 11 the debate over whether the text was poetry or not came up and there were some who were arguing that it's poetic and therefore should not be taken a strict history there others saying no it's a strict history it's a narrative and should be understood as being accurate and authentic and so as we're talking about it someone mentioned that you know what if we're denying all historical facts you ality to poetry what do we do is something like Psalm 105 what do you do with something like Exodus chapter 15 you know what do we do with something like in modern poetry the charge of the Light Brigade which is very accurate in the history at depicts in fact more accurate it has claimed than some of the histories that have been written in prose by historians so is it really that easy to resolve the issue of interpreting Genesis 1 by attributing it to poetry can't poetry also teach as much history as history and by the way prose is used to produce fiction so not all prose can be taken as being historically dependable either there's a recent book by Gary Smith it's called heroic poems or heroic poetry it's a huge volume very detailed analysis in which he is looking specifically in the Old Testament he's looking at the poem in judges chapter 5 the poem of Deborah and the poem that David recites regarding the death of Saul and Jonathan and First Samuel and he compares that with Ugaritic poetry he compares it with Babylonian poetry such as the tale of Gilgamesh and then the he compares it with Greek poetry like the Iliad and the Odyssey and one of the conclusions that he reaches in this very recent volume is that this idea of saying that poetry conveys no truth conveys no accuracy cannot be trusted that it should never be used to reconstruct history or culture is absolutely falsified by the evidence I found that amazing and it's exact opposite of many in the evangelical theological society today who are convinced that you should never ever ever try to read Exodus 15 in a way that gives you any historical facts whatsoever that historical fact is available only and solely and exclusively from chapter 14 and chapter 15 is only for entertainment only for glorifying God and praising him and therefore ought not to be used to reconstruct what happened and of course part of that is saying that you know after all because it uses imagery because it uses metaphors that we really can't accurately understand metaphors and we can't strip away from the metaphor that stuff that is does not apply to actual factual event which i think is crazy we certainly do it every day and the ancient peoples did too they understood what was part of that was figurative and which was not that did not destroy its historicity so Michel Thigpen interrupted that discussion to say gentlemen I really think that poetry is a red herring issue when we're talking about Genesis one you know what a red herring is it has absolutely no bearing on the outcome and explained if you believe sincerely it's poetry you can believe it's poetry just go right ahead but that does not prove that it is non historical and inaccurate as depiction if you believe it's prose narrative you go right ahead and believe that there's no way in which that denies the historicity and accuracy of the account so gentlemen genre is a red herring issue well let's deal with a little bit further first of all let's admit Genesis 1 is a literary masterpiece it really is it is amazing you compare it to the other ancient Near Eastern legends and writings concerning creation and it stands out very clearly as very different a different tone a different simplicity a different type of accuracy or claim for accuracy it has clarity to it it has theological import to it that's unmixed unconfused and not defending one deity over another as almost every single ancient Near Eastern account does it is a literal historical account I think that can be demonstrated it has a theological foundation it is about God it's about what God is who he is what he has done and it is not poetry our my colleague at the Masters College no longer there now but Steve Stephen Boyd wrote a hundred pages establishing by Statistics and every other means how that Genesis one is actually higher in its elements of historical narrative than even second Kings chapter five and he took a variety of different historical narrative texts that no one denies historical narrative and did a full analysis of the linguistics and vocabulary involved and demonstrated beyond any shadow of doubt that Genesis one is historical narrative I find it his articles is really irrefutable and in fact I know of no one who's even attempted to refute it because they're so solid so detailed so carefully put together bolstered by detailed statistics that anyone who says it isn't has has a huge uphill task to deny it

Channel: The Master's Seminary

Views: 7,797

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Keywords: The Master's Seminary, John MacArthur, Expository Preaching, Inerrancy, Biblical Teaching

Id: -HGv_7hOF8c

Length: 55min 18sec (3318 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 25 2016