In defense of Genesis

Great Debates
141

Two separate issues are involved in such a discussion. Biblical archaeology is not the same as Middle East archaeology.

Christian groups from around the world for two centuries have poured enormous resources into examining sites that might prove the “truth” of the Bible. Therefore a disproportionate amount of money has gone into a small number of favored sites. What we call history, however, involves all the sites, all the cultures, all the interactions and movements. More recent work has been much broader and deeper, but getting funding is often difficult. Some sites have been so worked over by enthusiastic amateurs that nothing more can be done.

Modern archaeology tries to spend much more time figuring out the small details of everyday life, rather than the kings and prophets. (IANAA, but I am a member of the AIA and regularly attend talks.) The insights are fascinating, much more so than figuring out how many imaginary people left at an unknown time for mythical reasons without leaving a single trace.

142

Do we have contemporaneous Egyptian records?

And do we even know when “contemporaneous” is (i.e. when the events of Exodus were supposed to have occured)?

143

Esther is absolutely regarded as factual by “the most Orthodox” of Jews.

144

My ignorance of Orthodox praxis keeps getting exposed today, I suppose I should stop talking. In my defense I will say that I heard that from a Conservative rabbi.

145

That could work. And it does seem like something energized the Hebrew tribes to take over the Holy land.

Some.

And there are guesses. Asimov conjecture that the Pharaoh of the Oppression is Ramses II, and of Exodus Merneptah. Mind you Asimov cheerfully admits there is no extra-biblical evidence of the Exodus. Certainly the 600K++ could not have occurred but a smaller number could have happened without much notice, as the shit really hit the fan for poor Merneptah. Maybe not the Plagues but the Peoples of the Sea were worse. Mass migrations occurred during that period, and another 20K would not be noticed.

146

Man, I am seeing an ad at the bottom of the page that seems to be selling a t-shirt, “‘normal’ isn’t coming back. jesus is.” Nice targetng.

147

Words fail me.

148

Not so much, we have contemporaneous artifacts, but the big picture of Egyptian history that our current view of it is based on comes from Mantheo, a 3rd-century BCE Egyptian-Greek. The artifacts are generally used to fill in details within that framework. That said, there are those who consider Mantheo’s reconstruction of Egyptian history to be inaccurate.

We certainly know when the Bible (as interpreted by the Talmud) says they occurred - the year 2448 from the creation of the world, which by the Jewish dating system works out to 1312-1311 BCE.As for where it fits into Egyptian history, that part is very much in question. Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, in “The Torah Anthology”, accepts the standard chronology and identifies the Pharaoh of the Exodus as Hemhoreb of the 18th Dynasty. Rabbi Alexander Hool, in his book “Pharaoh”, rejects the standard chronology of Egypt and instead interprets some of the dynasties which are generally accepted as consecutive as instead ruling concurrently in different parts of Egypt. He says that the Pharaoh of the Exodus was Thutmose III of earlier in he 18th Dynasty.

149

I’m an atheist but I’ll take a shot at this.

The point of Genesis was telling people what God did. Telling how God created the first men and woman explained that God was the origin of the human race. Telling how God created hundreds of other people in a similar manner wouldn’t have added anything to the explanation. Once you understood that people originated from God, you didn’t need the details of how many individuals God created in order for the human race to have enough genetic diversity.

I’ll note there are two separate narratives about the creation in Genesis. It’s the second one that related the names of Adam and Eve and describes the serpent and the fall.

The first narrative is a lot less detailed:

Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.

This accords with the idea that God created a bunch of humans and not just two of them.

Now to re-establish my atheist credentials, I’ll point out the two separate narratives of creation contradict each other.

The first narrative explicitly says God created all the plants of Day Four, all of the animals on Day Five, and human beings on Day Six. The second narrative explicitly says God created a human being (Adam) first and then created plants and animals.

150

Exactly. The compilers didn’t want people to believe anything specific in the way we think of facts and history today. They wanted to display the glory of God, the primacy of God, and have the tale of God’s bounty spread to all who would read or listen.

Only later - much later - did people care about what happened off-stage.

151

Where does it explicitly say that?

~Max

152

And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Genesis 1:25-27

And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
Genesis 2:18-19
https://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/accounts.html

153

Seems like a question of translation, since it is not always clear the ‘forming’ in Genesis 2:19 took place after God said “it is not good that man should be alone”.

Also, “an help meet”?

~Max

154

Here’s the part with the numbered days;

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

6 And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

9 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.

11 Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.

14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

20 And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” 23 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.

24 And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

27 So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

155

Or, we could just accept the scholarship that says Genesis has, at least, two authors; the Yahwist source and the Priestly source?

156

And a really crappy editor (no one will ever see this, so, fuck it) who should be fired.

157

Yeah, Max, there’s really no plausible way to argue those aren’t two separate narratives.

158

Seriously? It’s the first page.

159

First hit on Google:

David Rolph Seely, assistant professor of ancient scripture, Brigham Young University. The Lord, after creating Adam, saw that he was alone in the garden, and declared, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.” (Gen. 2:18.) As indicated in a footnote to Genesis 2:18 in the LDS edition of the Bible (note 18b), the Hebrew term for the phrase “help meet for him” ( ‘ezer kenegdo ) literally means “a helper suited to, worthy of, or corresponding to him.” The King James translators rendered this phrase “help meet”—the word meet in sixteenth-century English meaning “fitting” or “proper.” It might be clearer if there were a comma after “help”—“I will make him an help, meet for him.”

The American Heritage Dictionary further explains: “In the 17th century the two words ‘help’ and ‘meet’ in this passage were mistaken for one word, applying to Eve, and thus ‘helpmeet’ came to mean ‘a wife.’ Then in the 18th century, in a misguided attempt to make sense of the word, the spelling ‘helpmate’ was introduced.” (Second college edition, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1982, p. 604.)

160

Sure, but more like two sets of authors. Maybe three, even.