To Christians who aren't creationists

[Ryft]

Sorry, who easily dismissed what forebears and their beliefs? Are you raising some kind of criticism of Walton and his work? I am lost here.

That depends. Are you claiming that Walton's view of the creation of a temple is what was understood by those most intimately associated with the writing of Genesis.

That is what Walton claims, yes. And as I indicated in quite a few places throughout my post (Msg. 68), his exegetical claim enjoys the preponderance of evidence, having not only made his case with an extraordinary wealth of historical and grammatical evidence unlike anything found in other creationist literature but also having either undercut or defeated young-earth and old-earth creationist claims with the same or additional evidence. Therefore, we are provided excellent reasons to accept his claim, and none to question or reject it; as such, I echo his claims. (In short, it is his claim, not mine, but I am compelled by the evidence to accept his claim and defend it.)

"You forget that I am an atheist," someone might say. "I cannot accept his claim because he has not even established that God exists, never mind that God created a cosmic temple, whatever that is." Indeed he has not established that; but then why would he? That was not his claim. What he established, and what we have excellent reasons to accept, was his claim that this is what the original author and audience believed and understood regarding the Genesis creation account, and therefore this is the most literal reading of the text.

Obviously I do not expect anyone to take my word for it, of course. I have not even begun to scratch the surface here of Walton's game-changing analysis, only enough to hopefully whet the appetite of those interested in what Genesis literally says (the defeated contrary claims of creationists notwithstanding) enough to read Walton's material for themselves.

The distinction between function and material seems to be a new interpretation which discards all previous Christian theology over the last 1,000 years.

It only discards all previous traditional interpretations of Genesis which thought that it regarded material origins. But since it is theologically orthodox (with respect to the nature of God, the purpose of creation, the nature of man, Adam as the federal representative of mankind in covenant with God, the fall into sin, and so forth), it does not discard all previous Christian theology—except perhaps that of young-earth creationists (who regard as fundamental to the nature of man the material creation of Adam as the first human being, and as fundamental to the nature of God that there was no such thing as death in the world prior to the fall). But there has never been a univocal exegesis of Genesis, and what Walton uncovers I think explains why—and allows there to finally be one.

It seems remarkably simple to dismiss the Christian scholars with, "They're wrong. This is how it SHOULD be interpreted."

But not at all simple to prove it. That takes considerable work. And if you read Walton's material, you will see why I (and others) think he has done it.

It is a book, not quantum mechanics. It should not be this difficult ...

Trying to discover the world view and beliefs of an ancient culture 3,000 years ago should not be difficult? You cannot be serious. There is enormous difficulty in trying to translate a culture and its ideas in order to understand its texts, lifting them from their native contexts and relocating them into our own. It is one reason why Walton argues for entering that culture instead of translating it. "We must make every attempt to set our English categories aside," Walton argues, "to leave our cultural ideas behind and try our best (as limited as the attempt might be) to understand the material in its cultural context" by entering the culture rather than translating it (Walton 2009, 11). That certainly does not take any less work than translating a culture and its ideas.

Due to the study of archaeology we have a vast and growing collection of materials by which to discover and understand the culture, period, and language of the text as the original audience understood it. But that study did not fully arise until the 18th and 19th centuries when the Society of Antiquaries in London formed, receiving its charter from King George II in 1751; Scotland formed a similar society in 1780, as did America in 1812, France in 1814, Ireland in 1849, and Germany in 1852. It is not surprising, therefore, that it was not until the modern period that we were able to finally recover "the lost world of Genesis One" and understand the text literally, that is, as its original author and audience would have.

It appears, to the casual observer, that this is merely a wide ranging interpretation of Genesis, in order to exempt the ancient myth from scientific mockery.

Hopefully the observer is not so casual as to draw uninformed conclusions. And if you want to anachronistically mock an ancient Near East culture for not having a modern scientific understanding of the world, well, all the power to you, I guess—although I am not sure exactly how "scientific" that is. Those who belong to the historical sciences, such as Walton, have a slightly different attitude.

The "ancients" (to give them a broad description) knew nothing about the cosmos, the age of the earth, geology, and the wide range of information which tells us how mind-blowingly old this universe and world really is. Each and every step towards a knowledge of this world sets the Bible further and further away from reality.

Because Genesis has something to say about such fields as cosmology and geology? I get that you have not read Walton's material, but it seems you have not even read my posts describing it. I just finished explaining how this view argues that Genesis has nothing to say about the age of the earth and what have you—and even quoted Walton directly to that effect: "The point is not that the biblical text therefore supports an old earth, but simply that there is no biblical position on the age of the earth" (2009, 95).

Additionally: "We may well consider some of the literatures of Babylonia and Egypt as mythological, but that very mythology helps us to see the world as they saw it. The Canaanites or the Assyrians did not consider their myths to be made up works of the imagination. Mythology by its nature seeks to explain how the world works and how it came to work that way, and therefore includes a culture's ‘theory of origins.’ We sometimes label certain literature as ‘myth’ because we do not believe that the world works that way. The label is a way of holding it at arm's length so as to clarify that we do not share that belief—particularly as it refers to involvement and activities of the gods. But for the people to whom that mythology belonged, it was a real description of deep beliefs. Their ‘mythology’ expressed their beliefs concerning what made the world what it was; it was expressed in theories of origins and of how their world worked. ... For the Israelites, Genesis 1 offered explanations of their view of origins and operations, in the same way that mythologies served in the rest of the ancient world and that science serves our Western culture. It represents what the Israelites truly believed about how the world got to be how it is and how it works ..." (2009, 14-15; emphasis original).

Walton's views take into account all these advances once considered heresy.

No, he has nothing to say about them at all. He enters the period and culture of the ancient Near East, which knew nothing of these advances and from which Genesis arose. The only time he addresses these advances is to argue that it is a gross error to try and make the text of Genesis concord with them. If I had the time I would reproduce the paragraphs which speak to this, but I do not; instead I would simply encourage you to read his material before you go pontificating what he was doing.

... the natural world is not for changing.

Indeed, although our understanding of it most certainly is—especially our scientific understanding which, if done properly, constantly and willfully seeks changing.

(And this is only one of the criticisms Walton levels against concordist treatments of Genesis: "Science moves forward as ideas are tested and new ones replace old ones. So if God aligned revelation with one particular science, it would have been unintelligible to people who lived prior to the time of that science, and it would be obsolete to those who live after that time. We gain nothing by bringing God's revelation in accordance with today's science. In contrast, it makes perfect sense that God communicated his revelation to his immediate audience in terms they understood" then and there [2009, 17]. Concordism is as boneheaded as it is eisegetical and anachronistic. Sorry, Hugh Ross, but that is your Achilles heel.)

While I am sure it is an impressive work, it can more or less be summarized by the old "it is symbolic" point of view, rather than claims of biblical literalism.

And this from a gentleman who has not even read it. That, I am afraid, is not impressive.

Perhaps if you bothered to draw informed conclusions, you would realize that Walton presents exactly a literal interpretation (if interpreting the text literally means interpreting it as the original author and audience would have received and understood it) and at no point argues "it is symbolic." You are reading too much ChadWooters and not enough Walton.

Where did Walton say that God had a need which ceremony gratified?

You did—if you are representing Walton's view. (I can only respond to your own statements of clarity regarding them.) The usage of the word ceremony leads inevitably to gratification through ritual.

As I tried to accurately represent, Walton described Genesis 1 as a seven-day inauguration ceremony of the cosmos as temple, what that ceremony was and what it meant. But where (in my post) is it said that God had any kind of need which ‘ceremony’ gratified? Nowhere. So that is a foreign premise you imposed on this view, not an implication you validly drew from it.

On the biblical view (and Walton's insofar as he makes his case biblically) ceremony is anthropocentric, meeting man's needs. It is not theocentric, as if God has any needs. Moreover, in precisely this context Genesis distinguishes itself from other origins literature of the ancient Near East (and serves as a polemic). Walton again: "In the Old Testament God has no needs and focuses functionality around people. We will see increasing evidence of this understanding as we move through the remainder of Genesis 1. ... In Genesis people are not put in place until day six, but functionality is established with their needs and situation in mind" (2009, 51). "[I]n Genesis creation is not set up for the benefit of God but for the benefit of humanity, an anthropocentric view. Thus we can say that humanity is the climax of the creation account. Another contrast between Genesis and the rest of the ancient Near East is that in the ancient Near East people are created to serve the gods by supplying their needs. That is, the role of people is to bring all of creation to deity—the focus is from inside creation out to the gods. In Genesis people represent God to the rest of creation. So the focus moves from the divine realm, through people, to the world around them" (2009, 69).

Moreover, even if given a "standard definition" of ceremony in "a formal dictionary way," there is still nothing about God having a need which ‘ceremony’ answers to. So the accusation you make about God and self-gratification with respect to ceremony is simply unfounded on all fronts. I grant you that ceremony is a prescribed function and even that it is prescribed by God, but prescribed for whose need and benefit? It is anthropocentric, meeting man's needs. It is not theocentric, as if God has any needs.

I assume we are working from the same premise that man evolved in the way that is at least partially understood. The claim for ancient men must therefore be taken in context of the lifespan of the human species. While I'm willing to accept the possibility that a mutation could maybe [result in] an anti-aging gene, the possibility seems remote given modern understanding of how aging works and why we die of old age. It is not a question of no evidence, but evolutionary theory does not take into (unlike what creationists seem to spout) instant macro-evolution. We know from investigations into fossilized proto-human teeth that early man had a live-fast-and-die-young type existence.

I already granted you that there is no empirical evidence for any 900-year-old humans, so that can be scrapped off the table. Why argue for something that I have not called into question?

But what you said is that evolution does not "allow" humans to live that long; that is what I called into question and asked that you argue for. If evolution does not allow humans to live that long, then you should not be willing to accept the possibility that a mutation could result in an anti-aging gene of some kind. That would imply that evolution does allow it.