Genesis 2 (continued)

This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made earth and heaven.

Thus begins the textual account of what we know as the biblical story of Genesis--the line of ancestors through which ancient Israel was originated.

Remember that the verses above Genesis 2:4 comprise a song--equivalent to a modern children's Christmas song--that ancient Israeli men, women, and their families must have recited regularly. This song recounted the days of the week, established God as the creator of everything--including us--and encapsulated in verse form the position that humanity held in the larger order that God made out of the emptiness of non-existence. (It is of some note, I think, that the Bible's terminology describes the earth as "void" or "empty"--a metaphor which I think would have been the most apt one that ancient cultures could find to describe the "nothing" out of which God created stars, galaxies, and human beings.) This song also established an order in the heavens and on Earth which has been routinely broken over the past 6000 years, thanks to the continual depredations and idiocy of human civilizations--an order in which humans and animals lived in harmony, without the competition for habitats and food that we have seen ever since.

It is a standing assumption in a lot of Christian seminaries that Genesis 1 and 2 represent a classic case in point of the Bible--the infallible word of God--contradicting itself. As you, I hope, are beginning to see, this assumption rests on 2 false premises: (1) that the two narratives--Genesis 1:1-2:3 and Genesis 2:4 onward--serve the same purpose and (2) that indicating a contradiction within the text does, by necessity, negate the claims of divine authorship associated with the Bible.

Personally, I think this perspective--and the arguments it has generated--is evidence of a postmodern, indeed post-Christian, tendency to read the Bible as we would read The Wall Street Journal. While perhaps a practice with some merit, given the spiritual decay occurring in the United States, reading the Bible in this way does not allow it to speak to us in the same way it spoke to the ancient Israelis who read it, weeping at the extent of their sins. They read the Bible as more than a text, more than an "account"--to them, the Bible not only was a repository of cultural, spiritual, and sacred knowledge, but it was a fundamental, conclusive statement of who they were as a people.

As for divine authorship, I think that no further argument need be made than to point out that wherever the Bible appears, spiritual awakening and ferment result--indeed, wherever the Bible is read, it seems to inspire one of two responses: (1) reconciliation with God or (2) denial and abandonment of even the concept of God. My question to you today is this: Why would a collection of texts 2000-4000 years old either utterly attract or utterly repel you if the God it celebrates were not its author?

Would you be so convicted--whether as a secularist or a believer in Christ--about the Bible's possible origins (and their implications) if it were a text on the order of Hansel and Gretel?

As we continue with Genesis 2 and 3, I want you to think not only about what this text meant to the ancient Israelis but also about what it means to you, personally. Do you think there might be some sort of message in this text for you, and if so, what do you think it is?