From my point
of view, it is impossible that the first 11 chapters from the book of Genesis
represent an accurate description of what had happened at the beginning of the
existence of our universe and of humankind. There are much too many
contradictions in the first 11 chapters of the book of Genesis and the stories
found there are obviously mythological in their character and not scientific or
historic. For me, that doesn’t mean the loss of my faith in God because it isn’t
based on the factuality of all stories from the Bible, but it stands on a
personal experience with Him. At the same time, the conclusion that the book of
Genesis cannot offer a solid base for the understanding of our world carries
important consequences.
If one doesn’t
believe that the biblical record of the book of Genesis is scientifically
accurate what remains from the Christian teachings about salvation? What happens
with an authentic Christian faith if one accepts that the universe had come in
place through the Big Bang and human beings evolved from other forms of life? If
Adam and Eve aren’t historical personages and they didn’t disobey God everything
changes in the Christian doctrines.
If Adam and Eve are not real personages but only legendary ones, how did
humankind come into existence? The answer would be that humankind has a common
origin with all forms of life and up to a point all developed in the same
direction through the evolution of species. Human beings took another path under
the influence of the internal and possibly external factors and we became what
we are today.
It isn’t
impossible that the original evolution of humankind would have been determined
by contact with an extra-terrestrial civilization. It is wrong to affirm that
human beings have evolved from “monkeys” because they started to evolve from
much more primitive forms of life together with the entirety of biological
nature. Between human beings and the most evolved primates there are many common
points and the genetic resemblances are astonishing, but our unique ancestor is
to be found farther in the past. We have evolved together with all nature from
the first living organisms on Earth which appeared billions of years ago.
After hundreds
of thousands of years of evolution of the first humanoids, God had chosen to
reveal Himself to humankind. Who were the human beings to whom God had revealed
Himself for the first time? It couldn’t have been Adam and Eve because they
didn’t exist in real life, and also it couldn’t have been Noah, another
legendary personage. We have to take it that Abraham would have been the first
human being to whom God would have revealed His existence directly, if we take
the life of Abraham being less mythological and more real than that of his
predecessors from the book of Genesis.
After
concluding that the narratives of creation from the book of Genesis are too
absurd and contradictory to be the representation of real facts, one has two
possibilities. One is to consider the first 11 chapters of the book of Genesis a
series of mythological stories which weren’t inspired by God and which don’t
have any relation to reality and any spiritual meanings. The other one is to see
the accounts of the creation not being faithful to reality but being full of
spiritual meanings and being inspired by God as parables, not as historical
facts. In the first case the book of Genesis has to be judged in connection with
the universal mythological context at the time in which its narratives have been
written, and in the second case one has to figure out how and when God had
inspired these parables to humankind and what are their spiritual meanings. The
problem of the multiple authorship of the texts still remains and has to be
solved together with this analysis.
If someone
concludes that the book of Genesis is a series of parables and not the exact
description of historical events, that conclusion will shake considerably the
foundation of the Christian faith such as it had been laid by the official
religious institutions which insist on biblical accuracy and factuality.
The faith in
God is still not restricted but the biblical narratives and the interpretations
given to them by the classical theistic views are in doubt.
The Christian
official doctrines teach us that Adam and Eve, two real personages and the first
human beings created by God, disobeyed Him, and their disobedience was a sin
with consequences for all humankind. We all are sinners and need redemption
through Christ’s sacrifice in order to be saved. In point of fact, because God
didn’t directly create the earth, the light, the sun and the stars, Adam and
Eve, or plants and animals on Earth, the original sin is a myth. Not being real,
Adam and Eve didn’t disobey God and they committed no sin.
We cannot deny
the possibility that the universal Consciousness of existence per se would
create things within the reality of existence, but if He created our universe He
surely didn’t do it in the way which is described by the book of Genesis. All
absurdities and inconsistencies found in the creation stories from the book of
Genesis are peremptory arguments which support the affirmation according to
which that part of the Bible is not a collection of writings about facts but a
compilation of myths.
Without
original sin, without human nature being degraded beyond recognition by the sin
as the classical theism maintains, without the theory which states that human
beings cannot by themselves separate good from evil and without God as a direct
Creator of humankind, the entire Christian theology looks very different from
what we know it to be.
God didn’t
create humankind as it is. He only, at best, had created the right conditions
for the apparition of intelligent life somewhere inside the cosmos, on our
planet. Nevertheless, life on Earth took its particularities from the way in
which it evolved during millions of years and not directly from the way in which
it would have been created by God.
There are
several possibilities regarding the relationship between God and the world and
His quality of Creator, from which one has to choose and which would determine
and define one’s religious faith.
The theist
creationist view:
God is the
Creator of the entire existence. He created all that is; the universe with the
celestial bodies and the earth with all that it contains including humankind.
God had created all these either in six literal days (young creationists) or in
six historical periods, each much longer than a physical day. God isn’t
responsible for the evil in the world and the responsibility for what goes wrong
lies with an angel created by Him and who disobeyed Him, and this is Satan. If
God had created Satan and he could have destroyed him but He didn’t, He cannot
be exonerated of any responsibility for the evil in the world.
The theist
evolution view:
God was not
directly involved in the origin of life. He created the building blocks and the
natural laws but at some point He stepped back and let His creation take over.
He let it do what it does and life eventually emerged from non-living material.[1]
Once they are
set in place the laws of nature determine the apparition of life from inorganic
matter and through evolution the emergence of human beings. This vision doesn’t
exclude God’s intervention during human history or miracles. In this view, the
revelation from God also has an important function to fulfil.
God is
partially responsible for the evil in the world because He initiated the
existence of the life on Earth. God didn’t create the universe, the earth, the
sun, the life on Earth or the humankind directly. God only created matter and
the laws of nature and they were working by the power of their inherent
potential. God cannot be responsible entirely for death and suffering on Earth
because they are determined by how things are and how they evolve. Death and
suffering are the price to pay for the existence of intelligent life in
biological form, for the union of spirit and matter and even God has paid this
price in the Person of Christ.
God didn’t directly create the carnivorous animals and they emerged on Earth
through evolution, consequently killing other animals wouldn’t have been His
idea but was unavoidable for the apparition of an ecosystem which could have
supported intelligent life.
God
also isn’t responsible for the natural disasters because they are part of the
natural world which permits the apparition of life on Earth.
The deist
view:
In the deist
view, similar to the theistic evolution principle God created the building
blocks of creation and the laws of physics but He didn’t generate this universe
or humankind directly. Once set in place nature works its way and what resulted
on our planet is humankind. The difference with the theistic evolution view is
that in the deistic vision God’s miracles or revelation are excluded. All we can
know about God comes through rationality and through the study of nature. This
is a natural religion with no place for the supernatural in the course of the
development of natural phenomena. God had intervened only when He set in place
the all necessary ingredients for the existence of the universe but after that
He completely retracted from His creation.
Christian
Deists believe that it is never “God’s will” for anything “bad” to happen to
human beings. These bad things may be caused by accident or by human action but
are never determined by God. For example, an illness may be caused by an
accidental infection or may be caused by a person choosing to ingest unhealthy
food or liquids. God does not make a person sick or well by intervening in
matters connected to his or her health.[2]
The
panentheistic view:
God is one
with the universe but is greater than it. This is similar to the consciousness
which is more than the sum of all cells of the brain. The following quotation
summarises well what panentheism is:
“Panentheism
is essentially a combination of theism (God is the supreme being) and pantheism
(God is everything). While pantheism says that God and the universe are
coextensive, panentheism claims the God is greater than the universe and that
the universe is contained within God. Panentheism holds that God is the “supreme
effect” of the universe. God is everything in the universe, but God also is
greater than the universe. Events and changes in the universe affect and change
God. As the universe grows and learns, God also increases in knowledge and
being.”[3]
The
whole is greater than the sum of its parts. God is responsible for the evil in
the world only in direct proportion with His involvement in its development. God
being a complex Reality and not a simple one, He influences the world from the
top down and in this way He is a Creator. It is wrong to understand causation
only from simple to complex because there is also causation from what is more
complex to what is simpler. Consciousness influences matter and energy.
If someone
rejects the factuality of the first 11 chapters of the book of Genesis he or she
cannot hold a theistic creationist view of God any more. The theistic
creationist view is inextricably bound with a literal reading of the first 11
chapters of the book of Genesis. In the Bible God is the Almighty Creator of the
universe, of the heavens, the earth, humankind, the animals and plants. In the
book of Genesis God would have created everything directly, not indirectly
through evolution, not intermediated by nature. As a matter of fact, the natural
world, meaning plants and animals, would have been created after the creation of
man in Genesis chapter 2. In this situation, there is no place for a common
ancestor for all living beings and God would have created nature randomly in an
order which doesn’t have anything to do with our reality such as it is described
by modern sciences. The order of creation from Genesis chapter 2 is absurd,
hence irrational, and disqualifies completely the value of the texts.
The book of Genesis isn’t a book of science or of history and at the best can be
understood as a series of parables but with a mixed message. In these parables,
the details are presented in an irrational order and for this reason they
contradict each other and the spiritual meaning can be the opposite of what is
commonly preached. For example, in the story of Adam and Eve the serpent isn’t a
malefic personage but a good one who tells the truth, contrary to God who isn’t
exact in all His statements.
The serpent wanted to bring knowledge
to humankind contrary to God who tried to prevent humankind getting it. The
parable of the tree of knowledge isn’t only about human beings’ obedience to God
as it is usually presented but is also about the importance of knowledge for
humankind and the conflict generated by it. In my view the latter interpretation
is much more important than the former but the idea of disobedience to God which
in the parable is an act of courage is interpreted as the original sin. Pursuing
knowledge even against God’s will is what gives humankind a heroic dimension and
its special status, and which differentiates it from animals which couldn’t
consciously disobey Him. Nevertheless, even if they didn’t disobey God, animals
were also punished through the waters of the Flood and their only chance to
survive was the knowledge acquired by humankind in building the ark.
Adam and Eve
were in a way less than human when they were created by God because they
couldn’t have known the difference between good and evil. The first two human
beings became human only when they ate from the tree of knowledge, but this
human dimension would have been gained in contradiction to God’s will.
The courage of
humankind was falsely interpreted and perverted by religions in the biggest
possible sin and that without keeping a proper balance. The initial meaning of
the story of Adam and Eve didn’t condemn in any way human behaviour toward
knowledge and saw God as an authoritarian divinity who wanted to keep knowledge
only for Him, because if human beings got it they would have become like Him.
God’s attitude toward humankind is criticised by the parable because He is
described as changing His words told to them, in contrast with the serpent who
spoke only the truth. The parabolic messages of the book of Genesis give a
particular image about God different than what is preached about Him. If in
reality God would have created humankind in His likeness, He wouldn’t have
become upset when human beings eating from the tree of knowledge became like
Him, knowing the difference between good and evil. It is absurd to create
humankind in God’s likeness but, at the same time, stopping them from being like
Him, knowing good and evil. This is a contradiction contained by the book of
Genesis.
Many parables
from the first 11 chapters of the book of Genesis don’t make any spiritual sense
unless we understand God as a Force hostile to humankind, the existence of whom
explains some disasters on Earth. God had created humankind and declared it good
and the entire creation would have been qualified as very good, but after a
while He regretted His creation and destroyed the majority of the population of
the earth together with all animals and almost all plants. He, again, was sorry
for the destruction of the earth through the Flood and He promised that another
Deluge would not happen. In spite of the mayhem that would have been produced by
the Flood, it didn’t solve any problems. The violence of all flesh would have
been greater after the Flood than before it, because when the Deluge was gone
meat consumption was allowed.
If the first
11 chapters of the book of Genesis don’t make any sense neither as a description
of real events nor as parables with a high spiritual message; what remains is a
pure interest in the way in which they used mythological symbols which can also
be found in other mythologies or stories of creation from the ancient world.
The biblical
narratives are not as original as is commonly thought because they contain
motives widely found in other Near-Eastern mythologies and other religions of
the world such as the motives of the serpent, of the tree of life, of the number
seven, of the primeval sea, chaos and so on. The biblical accounts used many of
these symbols in a relatively new perspective but the latter don’t appear for
the first time in the book of Genesis. The internal inconsistencies and the
resemblances to other religions show that the narratives from the book of
Genesis are not a unique revelation from the heavens and surely not a discovery
from the point of view of facts.
The serpent
has a mixed symbolism in the biblical accounts. On the one side, it is the
symbol of evil, of the devil who is the old serpent, but on the other side Moses
had been asked by God to raise a serpent in the desert as a symbol for Jewish
salvation. In other words, in Moses’ times the serpent symbolised Jesus because
whoever saw him would have been healed.
“In the Gospel
of John 3:14–15, Jesus makes direct comparison between the raising up of the Son
of Man and the act of Moses in raising up the serpent as a sign, using it as a
symbol associated with salvation: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the
wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in
Him should not perish but have eternal life.” [4]
In many
religions of the world the serpent is an important symbolism of wisdom:
“Because of
its herbal knowledge and entheogenic association the snake was often considered
one of the wisest animals, being (close to the) divine. Its divine aspect
combined with its habitat in the earth between the roots of plants made it an
animal with chthonic properties connected to the afterlife and immortality.
Asclepius, the god of medicine and healing, carried a staff with one serpent
wrapped around it, which has become the symbol of modern medicine.”[5]
Sometimes the
symbolism of the serpent is mixed with another mythical symbol which is the
tree:
“In many myths
the chthonic serpent (sometimes a pair) lives in or is coiled around a Tree of
Life situated in a divine garden. In the Genesis story of the Torah and Biblical
Old Testament, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is situated in the
Garden of Eden together with the tree of life and the Serpent. In Greek
mythology Ladon coiled around the tree in the garden of the Hesperides
protecting the entheogenic golden apples… Similarly Níðhöggr (Nidhogg Nagar) the
dragon of Norse mythology eats from the roots of the Yggdrasil, the World Tree.
Under yet another Tree (the Bodhi tree of Enlightenment), the Buddha sat in
ecstatic meditation. When a storm arose, the mighty serpent king Mucalinda rose
up from his place beneath the earth and enveloped the Buddha in seven coils for
seven days, not to break his ecstatic state.”[6]
In connection
to Buddha, the symbolism of the serpent and of the tree is completed with the
symbol of the number seven found also in the book of Genesis.
Another
reference to the symbolic number seven is the one referred to by Joseph
Campbell:
“It has been
suggested by Joseph Campbell that the symbol of snakes coiled around a staff is
an ancient representation of Kundalini physiology. The staff represents the
spinal column with the snake(s) being energy channels. In the case of two coiled
snakes they usually cross each other seven times, a possible reference to the
seven energy centers called chakras.” [7]
In other
Near-Eastern religions such is the Egyptian one, the serpent is also very
present:
“In Ancient
Egypt, where the earliest written cultural records exist, the serpent appears
from the beginning to the end of their mythology. Ra and Atum (“he who completes
or perfects”) became the same god, Atum, the “counter-Ra,” was associated with
earth animals, including the serpent: Nehebkau (“he who harnesses the souls”)
was the two headed serpent deity who guarded the entrance to the underworld. He
is often seen as the son of the snake goddess Renenutet.”[8]
In Gnosticism
the symbol of the serpent is important but in another sense than in orthodox
Christianity:
“The image of
the serpent as the embodiment of the wisdom transmitted by Sophia was an emblem
used by gnosticism, especially those sects that the more orthodox characterized
as “Ophites” (“Serpent People”). The chthonic serpent was one of the
earth-animals associated with the cult of Mithras. The Basilisk, the venomous
“king of serpents” with the glance that kills, was hatched by a serpent, Pliny
the Elder and others thought, from the egg of a cock.”[9]
The tree of
life is a symbol found in the book of Genesis but also in other mythologies all
over the world:
“A stylized
tree with obvious religious significance already occurs as an art motif in
fourth-millennium Mesopotamia, and, by the second millennium B.C., it is found
everywhere within the orbit of the ancient Near Eastern oikumene, including
Egypt, Greece, and the Indus civilization. The meaning of the motif is not
clear, but its over- all composition strikingly recalls the Tree of Life of
later Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Buddhist art. The question of whether the
concept of the Tree of Life actually existed in ancient Mesopotamia has been
debated, however, and thus many scholars today prefer the more neutral term
“sacred tree” when referring to the Mesopotamian Tree.”[10]
The motif of
the tree of life is not original or unique in the Bible and doesn’t
particularise this book from any other texts in the ancient world – quite the
contrary; it is proof that the book of Genesis belongs to a wider cultural
tradition.
The number
seven is also an important symbol which is used by the book of Genesis. Number
seven recurs throughout religious texts as a special number. The Babylonians
divided weeks into seven days. Having this close relationship with the calendar
the number seven gained a religious significance over the time.[11]
In her book “A Four Thousand Year History” Patricia Fara writes:
“Seven has
always been a very special number. Sanskrit’s most ancient holy book, the Rig
Vega, describes seven stars, seven concentric continents, and seven streams of
soma, the drink of the gods. According to the Jewish and Christian Old
Testament, the world was created in seven days and Noah’s dove returned seven
days after the Flood. Similarly, the Egyptians mapped seven paths to heaven,
Allah created a seven-layered Islamic heaven and earth, and the newborn Buddha
took seven strides.”[12]
The book of
Genesis isn’t in any way original by using the principle of creation in seven
days. The primeval sea and the chaos are another two symbols already referred to
in this study which are also used by the book of Genesis. The Bible utilises the
same symbolism as other religions and its description of creation is not a
unique revelation coming from the sky, in which some unknown facts had been
discovered by humankind.
Probably the
most striking resemblance between the book of Genesis and almost all religions
on Earth is the idea of the sacrifice of animals for religious rituals. Almost
all religions of the world use sacrifice as a means to appease gods. The book of
Genesis doesn’t make an exception to this norm based on the principle that God
hasn’t been happy with humankind. In order to obtain God’s benevolence human
beings in the O.T. had to atone for their sins by making offerings to Him.
In other words,
the book of Genesis utilizes the same symbols which were used by the narratives
coming from cultures other than Jewish and which didn’t have the pretention to
be inspired by God. These symbols reflect a cultural influence and not a divine
inspiration.
[1] www.gotquestions.org/theistic-evolution.html
[2] www.christiandeistfellowship.com/christiandeist.htm
[3] www.gotquestions.org/panentheism.html
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpent_(symbolism
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpent_(symbolism
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpent_(symbolism
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpent_(symbolism
[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpent_(symbolism
[10] The
Assyrian Tree of Life: Tracing the Origins of Jewish Monotheism and Greek
Philosophy Author(s): Simo Parpola Source: Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol.
52, No. 3 (Jul., 1993), pp. 161-208 Published by: The University of Chicago
Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/545436
[11] www.humanreligions.info/seven.html
[12] www.humanreligions.info/seven.html
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