There have been a few schemes that apply a structure to Genesis 1; usually they are schemes to avoid the direct reading of the passage (e.g. the 'framework' hypothesis), but oddly, the authors of these schemes usually fail to deal with the passage's most obvious structuring scheme.
Joseph Pipa in his lecture on the doctrine of creation puts it this way:
Moses adopts a formula much more powerful and pervasive than the parallel between the days 1-3 and 4-6. It is a five-fold formula that is used fairly consistently with each of the six days, the work of each day is described by the five-fold formula:
1. the act of creation,
2. the declaration of fulfillment,
3. the statement of purpose,
4. the expression of delight and
5. the indication of time.
In each event the act of creation is described in a two-fold manner: firstly the word of creation, and that is complimented by the particular works of creation.
The word predominates as we read this chapter: "and God said", shaping the particular out of the initial 'mass' of creation.
27 April 2011
18 April 2011
Real Public Events
I've recently been listening to a lecture by Thomas, until recently, of Durham (Tom Wright: recently stepped down as bishop) 'Can a scientist believe in the resurrection?" In it he makes a couple of remarks that I'd like to use to consider how we might think about Genesis 1/the creation.
1. He says that the question of Jesus' resurrection was not a question about the internal state of his followers, but about something that happened in the real public world.
That is, the resurrection as an event was accessible to anyone who was there at the time, independently of that person's views, beliefs or prejudices.
2. He also said that the disciples' transformed world view was only explicable on the assumption that something really did happen (really = an event in material space-time which objectively occurred independently of any observers)
Here it is clear that people's approach to life and their thoughts about their own circumstances and personal trajectories through life were reoriented by something that really happened.
Christian faith is thus not some rarified 'faith in faith', but confidence in the actuality of events that have an affect upon us.
So, the creation, if not something that happened in the real public world in the terms in which God portrays it, is not something that happened meaningfully at all! If it was not accessible, in principle, to anyone who read the text, and could make sense of it, then it is not revealed, but obscured!
Then, the world view that the creation account sets out to create is one that depends on something really having happened. Not something that we are free to characterise ( and therefore characterise God) any way we please, but something that is bound to the context of the revelation; otherwise, it is not this creation that we are talking about, but some other source of the world, built on some other premise, and connected historically to some principle other than the God who has taken pains to tells us the basis for the connection between us and him from which flows the entirety of redemptive history.
1. He says that the question of Jesus' resurrection was not a question about the internal state of his followers, but about something that happened in the real public world.
That is, the resurrection as an event was accessible to anyone who was there at the time, independently of that person's views, beliefs or prejudices.
2. He also said that the disciples' transformed world view was only explicable on the assumption that something really did happen (really = an event in material space-time which objectively occurred independently of any observers)
Here it is clear that people's approach to life and their thoughts about their own circumstances and personal trajectories through life were reoriented by something that really happened.
Christian faith is thus not some rarified 'faith in faith', but confidence in the actuality of events that have an affect upon us.
So, the creation, if not something that happened in the real public world in the terms in which God portrays it, is not something that happened meaningfully at all! If it was not accessible, in principle, to anyone who read the text, and could make sense of it, then it is not revealed, but obscured!
Then, the world view that the creation account sets out to create is one that depends on something really having happened. Not something that we are free to characterise ( and therefore characterise God) any way we please, but something that is bound to the context of the revelation; otherwise, it is not this creation that we are talking about, but some other source of the world, built on some other premise, and connected historically to some principle other than the God who has taken pains to tells us the basis for the connection between us and him from which flows the entirety of redemptive history.
10 April 2011
Canards
In the most recent Southern Cross; the journal of our (Sydney) anglican diocese, a letter was published in reply to an earlier one on Genesis 1.
The earlier letter used Genesis 1 to be able to draw conclusions about life on earth; the latter letter denied this was possible, but that information could only come from outside the Bible.
Specifically, the author, one Stenning, asserted that Genesis was but poetry; and presumably could have no truth content in its own terms, and that armed with 'two books' to 'read the world' we could be content to relegate the Bible (Genesis 1) to other than concretely informative.
Both assertions are, in my view, erroneous.
Firstly, it is hard to understand how anyone could think that Genesis 1 is poetry. It is obviously not! So obvious, I'll not rehearse here what I've covered previously.
The second assertion is a little trickier, although I've touched on it previously too.
Are there two books? One of 'nature' (and that word gives the game away instantly: its not 'nature' but the 'creation' that should concern us), and the other of God's word? The so-called book of nature only becomes such, that is, nature is only 'en-booked' in the propositions formulated by people, with all the prejudices, errors and fabrication that people are prone to. Hardly something to use over against the Bible!
Reference to a second book in this context is almost invariably to off-set the biblical information about origins, and render it meaningless by comparison with modern 'majority' views. So the second book is not really the book of the creatures, to express God's power, as Francis Bacon put it, but the book of 'God cannot communicate his work of creation to us'; with us relying instead on constructions that start, not with God, but with asserting his irrelevance. This is canvassed in another recent post.
Second book reference also usually indicates a view that the Bible has no business talking about the material cosmos, and that any such talk is usually irrelevant to spiritual matters. But the Bible would have it otherwise. In the creation do we learn of the close connection and historical continuity of redeeming relationship between God and man, and that it is this world, this setting, in which we encounter God; not some other, less concrete, less do to with 'our' world, world. The pastoral implications of this can be quite dramatic, in my own experience.
The earlier letter used Genesis 1 to be able to draw conclusions about life on earth; the latter letter denied this was possible, but that information could only come from outside the Bible.
Specifically, the author, one Stenning, asserted that Genesis was but poetry; and presumably could have no truth content in its own terms, and that armed with 'two books' to 'read the world' we could be content to relegate the Bible (Genesis 1) to other than concretely informative.
Both assertions are, in my view, erroneous.
Firstly, it is hard to understand how anyone could think that Genesis 1 is poetry. It is obviously not! So obvious, I'll not rehearse here what I've covered previously.
The second assertion is a little trickier, although I've touched on it previously too.
Are there two books? One of 'nature' (and that word gives the game away instantly: its not 'nature' but the 'creation' that should concern us), and the other of God's word? The so-called book of nature only becomes such, that is, nature is only 'en-booked' in the propositions formulated by people, with all the prejudices, errors and fabrication that people are prone to. Hardly something to use over against the Bible!
Reference to a second book in this context is almost invariably to off-set the biblical information about origins, and render it meaningless by comparison with modern 'majority' views. So the second book is not really the book of the creatures, to express God's power, as Francis Bacon put it, but the book of 'God cannot communicate his work of creation to us'; with us relying instead on constructions that start, not with God, but with asserting his irrelevance. This is canvassed in another recent post.
Second book reference also usually indicates a view that the Bible has no business talking about the material cosmos, and that any such talk is usually irrelevant to spiritual matters. But the Bible would have it otherwise. In the creation do we learn of the close connection and historical continuity of redeeming relationship between God and man, and that it is this world, this setting, in which we encounter God; not some other, less concrete, less do to with 'our' world, world. The pastoral implications of this can be quite dramatic, in my own experience.
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