Creation Narrative Analysis of Genesis Myth or History or Myth and History

Creation Myth Analysis

Case Study of the History of Biblical Creation Narratives

What Is Myth?

What Is History?

Manetho

Josephus

Jeroboam

Is Genesis 1:1-2:4 Myth?

Is Genesis 1:1-2:4 History?

Is Genesis 1:1-2:4 Both Myth and History?

An Analysis of the Biblical Creation Narrative of Genesis 1:1-25 and Egypt's Possible Influence on the Historical Record

God created the world in just six days, and rested on the seventh, but scholars have not rested at all over the millennia in their investigation of its account in the historical record, particularly Genesis 1:1-25. Given its importance to humankind, it is little wonder that so much attention has been devoted to how the universe was created and what place humanity has in this immense cosmos. Indeed, the creation of the universe and the origin of mankind are the subject of numerous myths around the world, with many sharing some distinct commonalities. According to S.G.F. Brandon, "The creation of the world and the origin of mankind are the themes of many myths. They are found among the primitive peoples of most lands and they can be traced back into remote antiquity."

Creation myths are of two kinds: 1) aetiological myths which concerning the beginnings of things, and stem from primitive speculation about their origins; and 2) ritual myths, which were essentially connected with various periodic ceremonies, particularly at the New Year, designed to ensure the continuation and well-being of the state or even of the world.

To this end, this study will be guided by the following research questions:

1.

Is there a positive/strong Egyptian influence?

2.

Is there another source besides JEPD?

3.

Can we consider Jeroboam the son/scribe of King Solomon as a source?

4.

Can it be positively determined the place and date of authorship?

A critical review of the scholarly and peer-reviewed literature will be followed by a summary of the research and salient findings in the conclusion.

Review and Analysis.

An Overview of JEPD Theory and Its Tenets. The Book of Genesis reports that the Holy Bible was inspired through the Holy Spirit. "For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost"; (2 Peter 1:21); also, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness."

Who wrote Genesis, though? The JEPD Theory, or Documentary Hypothesis, is taught in a number of university Bible courses today for this purpose; the technique was developed in the 19th century by Julius Wellhausen, and others, during a period when scholars believed that few people could write in Moses' time. The Documentary Hypothesis maintains that Bible's first five books (as well as Joshua) were actually oral traditions that were subsequently codified a number of centuries after Moses, by at least four or five different authors.

The JEPD acronym is derived from the following sources:

1.

Jehovist source (c.850 B.C.) for passages where the divine name is used, such as Gen 1-2:3; 7:2-3.

2.

Elohist source (c.750 B.C.) where the word Elohim is used for God, such as Genesis 2:4-3:3;

3.

Priestly source (c.450 B.C.) for verses pertaining to the temple, such as Leviticus and Gen 6:19-20; so called because of its cultic interests and regulations for priests, this source is usually dated in the 5th century BC and is regarded as the law upon which Ezra and Nehemiah based their reform, and,

4.

Deuteronomist source (c.622 B.C.) for most of the book of Deuteronomy.

Holiness source (575 B.C.) for Leviticus 17-20 is a variation on the JEPD theory.

In general, the JEPD theory used to teach that the Bible misrepresents itself and the Torah was edited into the form known today around 200 B.C.; however, there is a copy of Exodus and Leviticus contained in the Dead Sea scrolls dated 250 B.C.

Nevertheless, Louis H. Feldman points out that, "Even such ultra-pious Jewish sects as the Essenes and the Dead Sea Sect are said to have had contact with Hellenism. Thus, the Essenes' stress on the ordering of the world, even before creation, and in the divine plans points to analogies with the hymn to Zeus of Cleanthes."

These contradictions cannot be overlooked, but the challenges faced by proponents of the JEPD theory do not stop there.

Indeed, the presence of Greek documents in the Dead Sea caves would indicate that knowledge of Greek had penetrated even the most fanatical religious groups. Most strikingly, a manuscript of the Minor Prophets in Greek has been found in the Dead Sea caves. It is possible, however, that the scroll was brought by a more worldly person, who had decided to join the sect and who presented the scroll to the sect's library so that the leaders of the sect might be able to refute their opponents. In any case, as we can see increasingly as the manuscripts found in the caves are published, the library of the sect contained a wide diversity of views and not merely those of the sect itself. Moreover, the vast majority of Qumran texts are in Hebrew or Aramaic and contain no Greek loanwords.

Certainly, the historical record continues to be revised as new discoveries are made and connections between previously unrelated data emerge, but history has shown time and again that those who subscribe to certain theories, particularly those that are largely based on matters of faith, are not easily convinced otherwise. Nevertheless, there is a growing body of evidence that suggests there is less known about the people who wrote the scrolls that was previously believed. For example, in his essay, "Scroll Origins: An Exchange on the Qumran Hypothesis," Joseph A. Fitzmeyer notes that none of the scrolls or fragments that have been recovered from any of the caves nearby made any mention of the Essenes; in fact, "Essene" was a name that was derived from Greek writers like Philo, who called then Essaioi, and Josephus, who called them either Essenoi or Essaioi, or a Latin writer like Pliny the Elder, who called them Esseni. "The scrolls themselves used 'sons of Zadok' or 'the poor,' designations that do not help us to determine the identity of the people who may have produced them."

There are some scholars who maintain, though, that an analysis of the extant written record can help discern these and other important information about Genesis in general and the creation myth vs. historical debate in particular. For example, Ernest W. Nicholson suggests that the "Documentary Hypothesis," or JEPD, provides the true perspective from which to approach this most difficult of areas in the study of the Old Testament."

According to Michael Fackerell, it is possible that Moses personally wrote all the Torah on parchment as he had more than 40 years to do so; in the alternative, Fackerell suggests that scribes might have done so under his direction. "A few words might have been edited later," he says, "and Moses probably did not write of his own death. Apart from these exceptions though, the Bible writers, all Jewish teachers (Philo, Josephus, etc.), early Christian writers, and those who trust the Bible today believe the Torah (Law):

1.

Was written down in the time of Moses;

2.

Was written by Moses or through scribes under his direction; and,

3.

It is rationale to believe in it as a reliable transmission of God's word communicated through Moses.

"The JEPD theory denies all three points."

According to Bernard J. Holm and James Westfall Thompson, "The boldest conception of ancient Jewish history has come from the fertile mind of Julius Wellhausen (1844- 1918)."

Wellhausen accepted the hypothesis that the Priestly Codex (and related portions of the historical books outside the Pentateuch) was the earliest of the sources; he also maintained that the Mosaic law was in its final form post-exilic, the creation of "Judaism," by which he meant the sect which survived the annihilation of the majority of the Israelites by the great empires of the East. This theory had enjoyed little favor prior to the appearance of Wellhausen first volume of the Geschichle Israels (1878), better known by the title of the reissue as Prolegomena zur Geschichle Israels; the publication of this work by Wellhausen convinced a number of scholars in the new generation this view was viable.

Wellhausen's work served to rewrite the history of ancient Israel, and was based on the "materials" provided by the Old Testament. "The Old Testament does not furnish a history of Israel, though it supplies the materials," he noted. According to Holm and Thompson, Wellhausen was correct in placing more emphasis on the importance of the dating of the Mosaic law, a view that was contrary to the prevailing thought of the day. These authors point out that: "Against the traditional opinion that it was common racial property before the Twelve Tribes entered the Holy Land, Wellhausen believed it was not assembled until Israel was captive in foreign bondage and subject to foreign powers. The Law was both cause and effect in the recreation of the race after the Babylonian exile."

Unless this fact is taken into account, Wellhausen cautioned, "one will above all fail to understand the great work accomplished by the prophets in destroying Old Israel, and preparing the way first for Judaism, and then for the Gospel"; however, Wellhausen did not merely employ literary arguments as his predecessors had done. In fact, he went so far as to track the development of religious forms and practices and provided an examination of the religious cult of the Hebrews, their ceremonials and holy places, and an analysis of the historical books of the Old Testament. Furthermore, this historian had larger plans for the future including an analysis of the reconstruction of Israelitish history; however, this work was never completed but there is a sketch prepared for the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica based on it.

In the final analysis, Holm and Thompson suggest that, "Whatever corrections may be made in details or even in the main thesis, the Prolegomena will remain a classic for beauty of utterance, profundity of vision, and boldness of outlines."

From the perspective of these authors, the significance of Wellhausen was that he was a decent historian rather than merely being a sophisticated critic.

In this regard, they point out that Wellhausen "could dissect and analyze sources in brilliant -- and sometimes specious -- fashion, as he demonstrated in Die Komposition des Hexateuchs und der historischen Bucher des Alten Testaments."

This proponent of the documentary hypothesis was more interested, though, in the historical events that were behind these sources and in how the religious development of the Jews took place rather than the importance of the criticism of the Old Testament as it applied to Christian dogma.

Contemporary commentary about his works frequently maintain that Wellhausen actually developed little original thought, but simply offered a rehashing of old views mixed with unsupportable assertions that he tried to defend by the reiteration of the words "gloss" and "interpolation."

According to Holm and Thompson, Wellhausen's "friends and followers have admitted that he sometimes tended to overstress an argument and to exceed tenable positions. Some capital has been made of his limited linguistic equipment. He taught Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, and Arabic at Marburg; but his knowledge of Assyrian and Babylonian literature was largely second-hand, and he never devoted much study to the archaeological research of his generation." In fact, the entirety of the Prolegomena dedicated just six pages to stylistic and linguistic arguments and these authors suggest that Wellhausen failed most miserably in his efforts to dissect Judges and Samuel.

According to Morris (2003), the majority of past conservative scholars have accepted the view that Genesis was written by Moses. This has been the uniform tradition of both the Jewish scribes and the Christian fathers. Genesis is considered to be the first book of the Pentateuch (the others being Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy), and all of them together taken as the Law (Hebrew, torah) of Moses. This general view was apparently accepted by Christ as well: "And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. . . These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me" (Luke 24:27, 44).

Assuming that Moses was responsible for the Book of Genesis as it has come down to modern believers, there remains the question as to the method by which he received and transmitted it. In this regard, there are three possibilities: 1) Moses received it all by direct revelation from God, either in the form of audible words dictated by God and transcribed by him, or else by visions given him of the great events of the past, which he then put down in his own words, as guided subconsciously by the Holy Spirit; 2) he received it all by oral traditions, passed down over the centuries from father to son, which he then collected and wrote down, again as guided by the Holy Spirit; and 3) he took actual written records of the past, collected them, and brought them together into a final form, again as guided by the Holy Spirit (Moore, 2003).

Evidently any of these methods would be consistent with both the doctrine of plenary verbal inspiration and that of Mosaic authorship; however, neither of the first two methods has a parallel anywhere in the canon of Scripture. For example, "visions and revelations of the Lord" typically involve the prophetic revelations of the future (e.g., Daniel, Ezekiel, Revelation, etc.). The direct dictation method of inspiration was used mainly for the promulgation of specific laws and ordinances (e.g., the Ten Commandments, the Book of Leviticus, etc.). By sharp contrast, though, the Book of Genesis is comprised entirely of narrative records of historical events. A number of biblical parallels to Genesis are found in such books as Kings, Chronicles, Acts, and so forth. In all of these cases, the writer either collected previous documents and edited them (e.g., 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles), or else recorded the events which he had either seen himself or had ascertained from others who were witnesses (e.g., Luke, Acts). It also is significant that, although the Book of Genesis is quoted from or alluded to at least two hundred times in the New Testament, as has been already noted, in none of these references is it ever stated that Moses was the actual author (Moore, 2003). This is particularly significant in view of the fact that Moses is mentioned by name at least eighty times in the New Testament, approximately twenty-five of which refer to specific passages attributed to Moses in the other books of the Pentateuch (Moore, 2003).

While this evidence is not conclusive, it does favor the explanation that, while Moses actually wrote the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, he served mainly as compiler and editor of the material in the Book of Genesis. This in no way minimizes the work of the Holy Spirit, who infallibly guided him in this process of compilation and editing, just as He later did the unknown compiler of the Book of Kings and Chronicles. It would still be appropriate to include Genesis as one of the books of Moses, since he is the human writer responsible for its present form. In fact, this explanation gives further testimony to the authenticity of the events recorded in Genesis since we can now recognize them all as firsthand testimony (Moore, 2003).

Holm and Thompson suggest that Genesis was written by a priest after the Captivity and incorporated ancient materials; this would require some innovative argumentation on the part of biblical scholars to prove why Genesis failed to contain allusions to a time after the Exile. According to these authors, a good example of his wealth of illustration and cumulative argument is the introduction of the use of incense as evidence of 'increased luxury'; hence its lack of mention in certain writings mark them as dating from the time of poverty after the Exile; even more relevant than all the foregoing is the criticism that like Baur and the Hegelians, Wellhausen wrote "conceptual" history, and "forced the texts and facts to fit the Procrustean bed of his own stages in Jewish history."

What Is Myth?

The logical place to begin in a creation myth analysis is with the most fundamental question, "What is a myth?" The following definition may help provide some insight into common usage: "Myths are stories of the acts of superhuman beings, often improbable to us, but believed to be true by those who related them. The narrative form is essential. While myths deal with the gods, they are not expressions of worship (prayers or psalms) nor statements of belief (creeds)."

Even when they describe the gods, they do so in a tangential fashion, in connection with some story of their acts; therefore, when they are concerned with the constantly recurring processes of nature, the description seeks to be a narrative of what happened once in the mythical past.

This view is reiterated by Paul Avis, who notes that, "Myths are essentially narratives that embody numinous symbols. They speak of origins, transformations and destiny, the interaction and commerce of God and humanity, heaven and earth. Myths are set in a different timeframe, 'the Great Time' when the world was different. Their characters, though not always gods, are superhuman. In a similar yet slightly different fashion, Dundes defines a myth as "a sacred narrative explaining how the world and man came to be in their present form."

Dundes is not without his detractors, though. According to Wethington (2004), Dundes suggests the proper approach to understanding the authorship of Genesis can be gained by contextualizing the Judeo-Christian Scriptures within an orally dependent milieu; however, even Dundes himself recognizes the difficulties inherent in this approach. According to Wethington, Dundes' assertions are important because of this scholar's reputation in a field that typically refuses to connect with biblical studies, combined with his convincing assurance that his conclusions about such connections are sound (2004).

In fact, every component of the foregoing definition of a "myth" has an important consideration for this analysis; for example, Avis points out that myths are considered sacred; they are narratives; they have an explanatory function as a metaphysical explanation for events rather than a scientific account; they concern events that will occur in the future; they concern totalities such as all of humankind and the world. In this regard, Avis emphasizes that myths are the earliest and continue to provide the most vivid forms of reflection on the truth of existence. "Even Plato, who believed that ultimate reality was beyond all images, used myths. In myth, the sacred or supernatural effects a breakthrough into the ordinary world."

According to the collegiate dictionary definition of "myth," the term implies some origin in fact; Merriam-Webster advises that a "myth" is "usually a traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon."

This is perhaps what some people today think of when they hear the term "myth," but just as historians have different versions of historical events, many people are going to have a different concept of what the term implies based on their personal views about religion and the culture in which they live. By and large, though, it is reasonable to assert that most people assume that a myth is something that is not real, but it might be based in some part on something that actually happened whether it was formally codified in the historical record or not.

For example, in his book, Some Mythical Elements in English Literature, E.M.W. Tillyard points out that:

The words myth, mythical, mythology, mythological have been dreadfully overworked in recent years and have a distressingly large range of significances. . . .When I use myth, mythical, I have none of the above uses in mind, but I refer to the universal instinct of any human group, large or small, to invest, almost always unconsciously, certain stories or events or places or persons, real or fictional, with an uncommon significance; to turn them into instinctive centers of reference; to make among stories A, B, C, D, all roughly having the same theme or moral, one, and one only, the type. Made thus typical, the story becomes a communal possession, the agreed and classic embodiment of some way of thinking or feeling (emphasis added).

Concerning the creation of the universe, Charles H. Long suggests that, "The myths of the Ancient Egyptians do not present us with a clear-cut picture."

Indeed, experts on Egyptian religion are even mixed on their views of the number of deities these ancient people worshiped, with estimates varying from "one" to "thousands"; at any rate, Egyptian religion is generally regarded today to have been a sophisticated form of polytheism.

Unlike many modern religions, the ancient Egyptians applied pluralistic concepts to their deities and many of them were of both genders; furthermore, people were free to worship or placate those representations of the Supreme Being that seemed most relevant to their lives. "For example," Pinch says, "if you made your living on the Nile, the crocodile god might be the focus for your devotions."

Over the course of Egyptian history, approximately 80 deities had shrines or temples constructed for them in more than one place; by contrast, other deities, such as the sky goddess Nut, were rarely the subject of a cult but were more prominent in myth. "Putting the evidence of cult and myth together, about 30 gods and goddesses could be described as major national deities."

The Egyptian word "n t r" (or, "god" or "power") was applied to these major deities and for numerous lesser beings, such as star gods, personified concepts, deified kings, the denizens of the underworld, and the bizarre protective beings shown on objects like the Metternich Stela. If all these entities are included in the ancient Egyptian pantheon, there would be hundreds of named deities. Furthermore, "If each manifestation of a deity worshipped at a particular place, such as 'Sobek-Ra, Lord of Sumenu', was counted separately, the list would run into thousands. Egyptian myth has a large potential cast of characters."

A list a major Egyptian deities is provided at Appendix A; of these major deities, Ptah is most closely associated today with creation dogma presented in the Bible. According to James Hall, "As a creator Ptah brought the world into being simply by the power of his command, through the spoken word. This concept, formulated by the priests of Memphis, was unique among Egyptian creation myths. It was a remarkable foreshadowing of later Hebrew belief and one that was ultimately adapted to Christian doctrine. It was somewhat analogous to the Hindu concept of Brahman (emphasis added)."

Some Egyptologists maintain that from its beginnings, Egyptian religion developed into a sort of monotheism; in this regard, Egyptian ethical texts simply refer to god in the singular as a force that rules the universe and creation myths show that the Egyptians believed in a primeval being who had created an infinite number of deities, people, and animals.

From the New Kingdom onwards, some texts consider the entire pantheon of ancient Egypt as being merely souls or forms of this primeval creator; for instance, the heretic King Akhenaten (c.1352 -- 1336 BC) attempted, unsuccessfully, to abolish all deities except Aten, a solar creator god. According to Pinch, though, "His successors accepted that within the great cycle of creation, the divine was always manifest in numerous gods and goddesses."

Furthermore, unlike the patriarchal and monolithic nature of many Western deities, the Egyptian gods were seemingly more flexible in their administration of the universe. "Each of these deities could split into a pair or group, or merge with another deity. Some Egyptian texts praised Sobek-Ra as the one creator god. Others, such as the hymns dismissed as 'unmitigated rubbish' by Gardiner, listed the numerous forms of Sobek existing in various parts of Egypt. Sobek and Ra could merge into a solarcrocodile-creator, as in our statue, but both Ra and Sobek continued to function separately. The fluid way that deities were treated in Egyptian thought probably worked against the development of narrative myths."

The ancient Egyptian beliefs concerning the nature of a Supreme Being and their relationship to the universe were based on the fundamental concept that there was a single Supreme Being in the beginning, though, that was responsible for creating the universe out of the nothingness of chaos, but again, these did not focus on humanity but rather on the larger cosmos in which mankind ultimately landed: "All of the [creation] myths imply the existence of a single Supreme Being and/or creation from a void or nothing," Long says. "In some of the myths, e.g., the Tuamotuan, the Hebrew, the Zufii, the Egyptian, the Mayan, the Polynesian, the Maori, and the creation myth from Rig Veda X. 129, equal emphasis is given to the Supreme Being who performs the creative act and the manner in which he formed it."

There are also fundamental differences in how other creation myths treat the issue of a Supreme Being. For example, "In the Polynesian myth, the Australian myth, and the Theogony of Hesiod, the manner of the creative act is stressed, but little or no prominence is given to a Supreme Being. The classical type of creation-from-nothing myth is illustrated by the former category; the latter category is a variant of the classical type."

In the classical type of creation-from-nothing myths, four distinct characteristics should be recognized:

1.

The Creator deity is all-powerful and does not share his power with any other deity or structure of reality;

2.

A correlate of the first point, the deity exists by himself, alone, in a void, or space and there is no material or reality prior to him in time or power. He creates the cosmos out of the void or nothingness in which he exists;

3.

The mode of creation is conscious, ordered, and deliberate; it reveals a definite plan of action; and,

4.

The Creator is free since he is not bound by the inertia of a prior reality.

In his book, Illustrated Dictionary of Symbols in Eastern and Western Art, James Hall points out that Egyptian creation myths and Christian dogma share some distinct commonalities. For instance, water is one of the first elements created by God and the word "water" is mentioned in Genesis 1:1-25 eleven times. Likewise, water is an important component in numerous versions of Egyptian creation myths; for example:

Water is the primeval matter in several Egyptian creation myths. In the beginning a mound arose from the water bearing the creator-god of Heliopolis, Atum. The mound was the centre of earth and the city was built upon it. Alternatively a lotus bud floated on the surface and opened to reveal Horus in the role of sun-god whose rays spread over the earth, like the much later Hindu creation myth. Water, as the source of fertility for dwellers in the Nile valley, symbolized the female creative process, yet at the same time the deity who personified it was Nun, a male. He was present in the sacred lakes within Egyptian temples where priests performed purificatory rites of ablution.

In fact, the oldest Greek creation myth also associates the primordial water with a Mother-Goddess. "In the beginning Eurynome, the goddess of all things, rose naked from Chaos, but found nothing substantial to rest her feet upon and therefore divided the sea from the sky' (the firmament again). The myth is probably an echo of the matriarchal religion of the prehistoric inhabitants of Greece, the Pelasgians (whose name means 'water')."

In sharp contrast to Egyptian creation mythological accounts, though, the biblical accounts as presented in Genesis 1:1-25 are not concerned at all with the actual creation of mankind, but rather the entire universe with mankind being thrown in as a cosmological afterthought. According to Brandon:

One remarkable feature of the ancient Egyptian creation myths is that they show no concern to explain the origin of mankind. They are literally 'cosmogonies,' in that they deal with beginning of the 'cosmos' or world and the relations of the gods. There are passing references to the creation of men in various other texts, but the Egyptians were not so much concerned with the origin and purpose of the human race as were the Mesopotamians and Hebrews. There is evidence, however, of the manner in which the Egyptians believed that human beings were created, as for example in a bas-relief commemorating the birth of the pharaoh Amenhotep III (1405-1370 B.C.) at Luxor.

According to Robin Waterfield, all of the foregoing considerations tend to cloud the issue about what is under consideration when people refer to "myths." In this regard, this author suggests that, "Rather than asking, 'What is myth?,' one can only ask, 'What is a myth?,' because there are so many different kinds of myths, and so many different kinds of cultures in which they have functioned (emphasis added).

Clearly, then, a myth means different things to different people based on their personal worldview, particularly as it relates to religion and spirituality, but almost everyone would agree it would seem that a myth strikes an elemental chord with humanity in general. In this regard, one author notes, "In the light of the chronic tendency of myth towards diversification and complexification, it would seem more correct to say, not (with Nietzsche) that myth contains the concentrated image of the world, but that myth reflects the deepest human experience of the world."

What Is History? Turning again to the dictionary definition, "history" can be defined as "a chronological record of significant events (as affecting a nation or institution) often including an explanation of their causes."

Alas, most historians have not conformed to this rigid definition as they have plied their trade over the centuries, and the historical record is fully blown of personal whim and cultural overtones. Today, there historians are paying increasing attention to issues that formerly were the domain of social anthropologists and archaeologists as the seek to determine precisely what a particular historian had in mind when he or she recorded the events in question.

According to Eileen H. Tamura, "Besides context, historians seek to understand the world views of a people at a particular time in the past, that is, to understand people on their own terms -- their perspectives and their ways of thinking. A related line of questioning is to inquire into the ways in which people's thinking evolved over time. In examining world views, historians eschew the pitfalls of presentism -- interpreting the past through present-day lens and judging past actions with present standards."

The prevailing views about Genesis as history or myth that remained in place until the turn of the 20th century in the West actually began in the 17th century.

According to Michael Austin, "To the extent that we can identify a 'public sphere" in seventeenth century England, we must acknowledge that it was a public sphere constructed, maintained, and negotiated by the near-absolute rhetorical legitimacy of the English Bible." During this century of revolution, the Bible served as both an agent for radical change and as the basis for preserving the status quo. Christopher Hill goes so far as to assert that the seventeenth-century English Bible was "the source of virtually all ideas, [and] it supplied the idiom in which men and women discussed them."

Commenting on this same phenomenon, Hans Frei describes the three basic interpretive assumptions there were at the center of the 17th century's understanding of biblical history:

1.

That the stories in the Bible referred to and described actual historical occurrences";

2.

That the different narratives in the Bible reflected a single, continuous narrative thread in which it was possible to make all of the different narratives constituent elements of one great story; and

3.

Because the continuous narrative of the Bible reflected "the one and only real world, it must in principal embrace the experience of any present age and reader."

The foregoing assumptions ultimately mean that during the 17th century, the English public was actively involved in a collective effort to ensure their influence on a master narrative of sacred history. According to Austin, "This great narrative began in the Garden of Eden as described in the Book of Genesis and would not end until the Battle of Armageddon as described in the Book of Revelation, somewhere within the narrative framework established by these events could be found supposedly accurate representations of all of the political turmoil that the seventeenth century produced."

In this regard, writing about the way Dryden engaged biblical themes for political ends, Steven Zwicker coins the phrase "political typology" to describe the kind of narrative construction in which contemporary political events were connected to biblical narratives as integral parts of the same coherent whole. According to Zwicker, the purpose of political typology is to "shape contemporary events in a manner that allows the reader to see how the present day embodies the past and, through that association, comes itself to participate in an eternal repetition of the events that the Bible records." Dryden, like all of the great writers and thinkers of his day, was intimately involved with the construction not merely of a history, but of a historical totality. And, as Zwicker concludes, "the biblical metaphor ... And the contemporary political applications are all working to transform the Restoration present tense and the biblical past into a symbolic eternal tense."

Undoubtedly, historians have always applied contemporary standards and world views to their versions of the historical record, but this trend towards seeking to discern how people's thoughts also changed in response to these historical events is fairly recent. For example, in his seminal work, What Is History? Five Lectures on the Modern Science of History, E.A. Andrews suggests that the contemporary definition of history came about largely around the turn of the 20th century. At that time, history became primarily a socio-psychological science. This shift in how historians viewed important events in humankind's past is an important element in how the various creation myths are viewed today. According to Andrews:

In the conflict between the old and the new tendencies in historical investigation, the main question has to do with social-psychic, as compared and contrasted with individual-psychic factors; or, to speak somewhat generally, the understanding on the one hand of conditions, on the other, of heroes, as the motive powers in the course of history. Hence, the new, progressive and therefore aggressive point-of-view in this struggle is the socio-psychological, and for that reason it may be termed modern. The individual point-of-view is, on the other hand, the older, one that is based on the championship of a long-contested, but now, by means of countless historical works, a well-established position.

Today, scholars largely regard history as history a series of discourses about the world. "These discourses do not create the world (that physical stuff on which we apparently live) but they do appropriate it and give it all the meanings it has."

From Jenkins' perspective, that part of world that is history's professed object of enquiry is the past. In this regard, the author notes that:

History as discourse is thus in a different category to that which it discourses about, that is, the past and history are different things. Additionally, the past and history are not stitched into each other such that only one historical reading of the past is absolutely necessary. The past and history float free of each other, they are ages and miles apart. For the same object of enquiry can be read differently by different discursive practices (a landscape can be read/interpreted differently by geographers, sociologists, historians, artists, economists, etc. ) whilst, internal to each, there are different interpretive readings over time and space; as far as history is concerned historiography shows this.

A definition provided by one historian is reflective of current thought: "[History] is the reconstruction of past events, through a dialogue between surviving evidence about the past and existing analytical, theoretical, and political concerns in the present. ... And it's about learning who we are ... about giving the people who came before us the respect that they deserve for doing what they did, and making clear that the lines of connection are there."

In this regard, two historians who are key to an accurate understanding of the creation account as recorded in Genesis 1:1-25 are Manetho and Josephus, who are discussed further below, followed by an assessment of the possible role played in this process by Jeroboam in his capacity as scribe for King Solomon.

A.

Manetho. Manetho was an Egyptian priest who wrote a history of Egypt in Greek, most likely for Ptolemy I (305 -- 282); however, Manetho's history has not survived to the present, except for some fragments of narrative in Josephus' treatise "Against Apion" (see further discussion below) and various tables of dynasties, kings, and lengths of reigns in the works of Eusebius, Julius Africanus, and George Syncellus.

According to Antony E. David, "Eusebius was one of the sources in whose writings Manetho's Aegyptiaca was preserved (the others were Josephus, Africanus and Syncellus). However, these present Manetho in an abridged and sometimes contradictory form, and Eusebius' facts sometimes disagree with those of Africanus."

In any event, the preserved fragments show that Manetho's work was based on good native sources and have been valuable to modern scholars in confirming the succession of kings where the archaeological evidence was inconclusive, and Manetho's division of the rulers of Egypt into 30 dynasties is still widely accepted.

Manetho undertook a chronicle of the Egyptian kings of which, apart from some much edited extracts preserved by the Jewish historian Josephus (fl. A.D. 70), there remains only a garbled abridgement in the works of the Christian chronographers Sextus Julius Africanus (early 3rd cent. A.D.) and Eusebius (early 4th cent. A.D.), a much later compiler named George the Monk, known as Syncellus (c. A.D. 800), contributing greatly to the communication of these accounts to modern historians.

"In Manetho's work the entire history of Egypt, after the reigns of the gods and demi-gods, was divided up into thirty-one dynasties of royal families beginning with M-n-s and ending with Alexander the Great's conquest in 332 B.C." Despite of all of its deficiencies, though, this classic of division of Egyptian history into dynasties has become so firmly entrenched in the literature of Egyptology that there is little chance of its ever being abandoned. According to Gardiner, "In the forms in which the book has reached us there are inaccuracies of the most glaring kind, these finding their climax in Dyn. XVIII, where the names and true sequence are now known from indisputable monumental sources."

At the time he wrote his History of Egypt, Manetho likely enjoyed a large body of records in capacity as the High Priest in the temple at Heliopolis, when he came to write in Greek during the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (c. 250 B.C.).

In his book, The Egyptians, Cyril Aldred notes that although this work has not survived intact, but only in the aforementioned fragmentary and garbled summaries contained in the writings of Josephus and other Classical authors), "It is doubtful, however, even if a copy came to light whether it would be of more than limited value. Manetho's motive was only partly to inform an educated class of the story of his country. He wrote with particular bias, being involved in the rivalry of Ptolemy and Antiochus of Syria, each striving to claim a greater antiquity for the land he ruled."

B.

Josephus. Josephus' first work was Bellum Judaicum ("History of the Jewish War"); this work was written in seven books between AD 75 and 79, toward the end of Vespasian's reign. The original Aramaic has been lost; however, the surviving Greek version was compiled under Josephus' personal direction.

After briefly sketching Jewish history from the mid-2nd century BC, Josephus presents a detailed account of the great revolt of AD 66 -- 70. He stressed the invincibility of the Roman legions, and apparently one of his purposes in the works was to convince the Diasporan Jews in Mesopotamia, who may have been contemplating revolt, that resistance to Roman arms was pure folly. The work has much narrative brilliance, particularly the description of the siege of Jerusalem; its fluent Greek contrasts sharply with the clumsier idiom of Josephus' later works and attests the influence of his Greek assistants. In this work, Josephus is extremely hostile to the Jewish patriots and remarkably callous to their fate. The Jewish War not only is the principal source for the Jewish revolt but is especially valuable for its description of Roman military tactics and strategy.

In Rome, Josephus had been granted citizenship and a pension. He was a favourite at the courts of the emperors Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian, and he enjoyed the income from a tax-free estate in Judaea. He had divorced his third wife, married an aristocratic heiress from Crete, and given Roman names to his children. He had written an official history of the revolt and was loathed by the Jews as a turncoat and traitor. Yet despite all of this, Josephus had by no means abandoned his Judaism.

His greatest work, Antiquitates Judaicae ("The Antiquities of the Jews") was completed in 20 books in AD 93 and traces the history of the Jews from creation to just before the outbreak of the revolt of AD 66 -- 70. This compilation was an attempt to present Judaism to the Hellenistic world in a favourable light; however, by virtually ignoring the Prophets, by embellishing biblical narratives, and by emphasizing the rationality of Judaic laws and institutions, he managed to strip Judaism of its fanaticism and made it more appealing to the cultivated and reasonable man. "Historically, the coverage is patchy and shows the fatigue of the author, then in his middle 50s; however, throughout, sources are preserved that otherwise would have been lost, and, regarding Jewish history during the period of the Second Commonwealth, the work is invaluable."

The Antiquities contained two well-known references to Jesus Christ: the one in Book XX calls him the "so-called Christ." The implication in the passage in Book XVIII of Christ's divinity could not have come from Josephus and undoubtedly represents the tampering (if not invention) of a later Christian copyist."

As an appendix to the Antiquities, Josephus included a Vita (Life), which was not so much of an autobiography than it was an apology for Josephus' conduct in Galilee during the revolt. This appendix was written in respond to attacks by his enemy, Justus of Tiberias, who held that Josephus was responsible for the revolt.

In this response, Josephus contradicted the account given in his more trustworthy Jewish War, and suggested that he was himself as a loyal partisan of Rome and could therefore not have been a part of the rebellion from the outset. According to Poole, though, Josephus manages to come across in a much better light in a work generally known as Contra Apionem ("Against Apion"; however, earlier titles such as "Concerning the Antiquity of the Jews" and "Against the Greeks" are more appropriate).

In this regard, Poole reports that:

Of its two books, the first answers various anti-Semitic charges leveled at the Jews by Hellenistic writers, while the second provides an argument for the ethical superiority of Judaism over Hellenism and shows Josephus' commitment to his religion and his culture. Because Against Apion mentions the death of Agrippa II, it is probable that Josephus lived into the 2nd century; but Agrippa's death date is uncertain, and it is possible that Josephus died earlier, in the reign of Domitian, sometime after AD 93.

As a historian, Josephus was subject to many of the constraints that are shared by the majority of ancient historians: "His analyses are superficial, his chronology faulty, his facts exaggerated, his speeches contrived. He is especially tendentious when his own reputation is at stake. His Greek style, when it is truly his, does not earn for him the epithet 'the Greek Livy' that often is attached to his name." Nevertheless, from a historical perspective, Josephus provided the link between the traditions of Judaism and Hellenism, and identified an association between the secular world of Rome and the religious heritage of the Bible; as a result, he provided a number of insights into the thought process driving the people who were compelled to live under the laws and customs of the Roman Empire.

This contribution, though, has not stopped modern critics from noting his many character flaws that may have influenced his historical accounts: "Personally, Josephus was vain, callous, and self-seeking. There was not a shred of heroism in his character, and for his toadyism he well deserved the scorn heaped upon him by his countrymen. But it may be said in his defense that he remained true to his Pharisee beliefs and, being no martyr, did what he could for his people."

Another early 20th century critic suggests that Josephus offered little new in many ways, and a number of the additions he made to the story of the Creation, the Fall and the Flood can be found in the Rabbinic literature, Philo, and various Apocryphal writings, and these additions have little to contribute to the analysis under consideration here. For instance, in his book, Josephus and the Jews: The Religion and History of the Jews as Explained by Flavius Josephus, F.J. Foakes-Jackson suggests that: There is little [here] to merit our attention. The rationalism inherent in our author is evident in his attempt to account for the great ages of the early patriarchs, where he explains that they were permitted to live so long in order to perfect the arts necessary to existence, astronomy, geometry, etc. Besides, they had to be on earth 600 years, the space of time in which the 'Great Year' (i.e. The Pythagorean Cycle) was completed, in order to be able to predict the course of the heavenly bodies."

Like any good historian, though, Josephus relies on the testimony of various ancient writers to confirm the primitive story of Genesis, and mentions certain objects that remained standing to support the veracity of the assertions in his narrative; for example, an inscribed stone in the land of Syria, set up by Adam, who foresaw the Deluge and wished to preserve the memory of the knowledge man had already acquired, and the relics of the ark in Armenia. "Unlike Philo," though, "he makes no serious attempt to indulge in allegory on the mysterious subject of Creation."

Nevertheless, Josephus made other important contributions to the modern study of the Bible as history; for example, Josephus' the De bello Judaico and the Antiquitates Judaicae were known to the Middle Ages in Latin translation, and were of critical importance as a source of information regarding the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 by Titus and Vespasian, the topography of the Holy Land, and supplementary historical background to the Bible.

Nevertheless, Philo does not refer to the Hellenized writers of the Land of Israel or why Josephus refers only once to him as a writer; neither does he refer to the Hellenistic Jewish historians as Jewish.

On the other hand, an impressive series of works in Hebrew and in Aramaic emanate from the Land of Israel, the only Near Eastern land that, so far as we know, produced such a range of works in its own language(s). In fact, even such natives of Egypt and Babylonia as Manetho and Berossus, as early as the beginning of the third century B.C.E., wrote their histories in Greek. No other people had a sacred book comparable to the Bible as a national history, as a decisive influence on its national consciousness, and as a means to maintain continuity with the past.

Likewise, in the Antiquitates, the Latin translation of which was originally made in the sixth century at the instigation of Cassiodorus, Josephus provided an account of the years Moses spent in Egypt before; in this regard at least, Josephus differs fundamentally from the Exodus narrative -- having to take flight because of the plots being hatched against him by the Egyptians. According to Balfour, "The main incident of these years is Moses' campaign as leader of the Egyptians against the invading Ethiopian army. Having successfully driven out the enemy, Moses leads his army into Ethiopia itself and lays siege to the royal city of Saba."

The means by which he finally topples the city may seem familiar to modern readers of the chansons de geste:

Tharbis was the daughter of the Ethiopian king. When she saw Moses leading his army up to the city-walls and fighting valiantly, she marvelled at his ability and skill; the Egyptians having been for some time reduced to a state of desperation, she judged that he stood out as their deliverer and that this could be to the benefit of her own happiness, for the Ethiopians were rejoicing at their success against them. And then, seeing him in the thick of the dangers, she fell fiercely in love with him and, overcome by her passion, sent to him the most faithful of her servants to speak with him of marriage. He accepted her proposal that she hand over the city to him, and they made a pact that he would take her as wife and that, once in possession of the city, he would in no wise violate their agreement. It was no sooner said than done, and after the slaughter of the Ethiopians, Moses gave thanks to God, celebrated his marriage and led the Egyptians back into their own land.

Josephus most likely gleaned this story from a Jewish-Hellenistic, Alexandrian source, either from a text now lost to modern historians or from oral tradition; for example, the account of the Ethiopians invading Egypt is also recorded by Artapanus, who is cited by Eusebius in his Praeparatio evangelica; there is no mention, however, of the siege of Saba.

Irenaeus also provides an account of the story of Moses and the Ethiopian princess in a surviving fragment of what was probably an exegesis of the book of Numbers; more specifically in the context of explaining the reference to Moses' Ethiopian wife in Numbers xii, whose presence among the Israelites led to Aaron and Miriam questioning Moses' status as leader.

The description of Moses' wife as an Ethiopian seems to be something of an anomaly in the biblical account, as the only wife of his previously mentioned in the Pentateuch is Zipporah, a Midianite (Exodus ii.21). While the story of Moses and Tharbis may well have originally developed to explain this apparent contradiction, Josephus is obviously not telling the story to that end, as he does not refer to the events of Numbers xii in his Antiquitates, and indeed follows Exodus in his description of the betrothal of Moses and Zipporah.

While there is much known about Josephus, there has been less scholarly material discovered concerning Jeroboam, who is discussed further below.

Jeroboam. In sharp contrast to Josephus, there remains scant data available concerning Jeroboam. What is known is that upon the death of Solomon, his kingdom was divided. A former general named Jeroboam returned from his exile in Egypt and led a revolt of the ten northern tribes against the two tribes in the south; the two latter tribes continued to be loyal to Solomon's son, Rehoboam, with Jerusalem being their capital in the south. These people became known as the Kingdom of Judah, while the ten tribes established themselves in the north as the Kingdom of Israel. According to this author, "The glory had departed, and today - Jewish people look back to the reign of Solomon as Israel's 'Golden Age.'"

It is also known that Jeroboam built his palace at Shechem, a city that also had ancient claims to be considered the capital. In addition, Jeroboam's interest in religion was reflected by the conscientiousness of how he cared for the sanctuaries in his domain, the most celebrated of these being Bethel and Dan. Bethel traced its sacred character to the Patriarch Jacob, who discovered there the presence of Yahweh, as well as the mysterious ladder which led thence to heaven; in addition, it was also Jacob who erected the sacred pillar and inaugurated the cultus by pouring oil upon it. According to Smith, "The stories mean, of course, that the place was a sanctuary before historic times, and this suggests that it was one of those taken over from the Canaanites."

This ability to tie specific historic events to the individuals involved provides historians with some additional insights into the life of Jeroboam as well.

Is Genesis 1:1-25 Myth?

According to Nicholson, "Anyone who wants to grasp the theological intentions which stand behind the collection and editing of the material of the Pentateuch must rather examine these editorial traces in very exact detail. In this way one will come across various important theological statements, but he will not meet the authors of the 'sources' as understood in the classical documentary hypothesis."

Given the assertions of the JEPD, then, a close examination of the creation account in Genesis in order. "In Genesis 1," Williams E. Phipps note, "the creation of man and woman is recorded as God's last act in the creative sequence."

Table 1 below sets forth the outline of the creation of the universe, Earth, mankind and "everything else" as set forth in Genesis 1:1-25:

Table 1. The Outline of Creation in Genesis.

1.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

2.

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep: and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

3.

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

4.

And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

5.

And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night: and the evening and the morning were the first day.

6.

And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters; and let it divide the waters from the waters.

7.

And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

8.

And God called the firmament Heaven: and the evening and the morning were the second day.

9.

And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

10.

And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

11.

And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

12.

And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

13.

And the evening and the morning were the third day.

14.

And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven, to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

15.

And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

16.

And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

17.

And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth

18.

And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

19.

And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

20.

And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

21.

And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

22.

And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

23.

And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

24.

And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

25.

And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

26.

According to Joseph P. Thompson, the above account represents:

One of the oldest written documents in the world perhaps the oldest written account of the creation. There are monuments and even literary remains of the Egyptians and the Chinese that claim a higher antiquity; but these are, for the most part, dry details of names and numbers, with no consecutive narrative of events, or they are myths, traditions, and religious rituals in the form of poetry. This document is professedly a history, given in historical form, and it concerns the origin of Mankind (emphasis added).

The passages in Genesis 1:1-25 are popularly attributed to Moses as their author, either as composer or compiler; contemporary criticism, though, has sought to displace Moses from this traditional position, and to substitute for him historians of later date, perhaps of the time of Solomon, or even as late as the time of the Captivity. This author suggests that it is not an absolute requirement to the authenticity of the record that scholars today should be able to fix definitely upon its author; however, the same proofs of genuineness exist in this ease as in respect to the works of Herodotus, Homer, and other historical writers of antiquity.

The biblical accounts presented in the Book of Genesis are well-known to have two creation narratives that are fundamentally different and underlying these two narratives are a number of sources that can be discerned through analysis; according to Avis:

In the mythic proto-history of Genesis 1-11 there are numerous permutations of genealogy and several inconsistent accounts of Noah and the flood. Turning to the New Testament: if, for the sake of argument, we may allow that the Gospels bear some of the marks of myth as a literary genre (without at present jumping to any conclusions about their historicity or truth-value), the diversity and inconsistency of the resurrection appearance narratives would be a prime piece of evidence to bear this out (emphasis added).

Given the foregoing inconsistencies and repeated allusions to the passages of Genesis as being more myth than fact, can contemporary scholars find evidence in the historical that supports a contrary view?

Is Genesis 1:1-2:4 History?

The first task of the biblical scholar is to identify the original tradition, identify and eliminate any superfluous additions, correct any obvious errors or changes, and then present the "clean" tradition for contemporary discussion; thereafter, the scholar examines each nuance and previous change in an effort to discern the author's original thoughts behind it. In this regard, Solomon Buber has recommended a more direct approach of examining each composition to better discern its original underlying tradition:

In contrast to the popular critical source theory (JEPD), which dissects the text into layers, Buber claims that each book, or each episode, has its own tradition and glosses. He does not completely reject comparison of the tradition and its corrections or additions -- as long as it is not based on an attempt to establish a technical link with some broader literary stratum. After examining each tradition and addition, one must discover the ideational background of the gloss, thus making possible the interpretation of the tradition through its complete historical evolution, as a unit of spiritual development with a clear internal structure.

While Buber offered his own approach for applying scientific philological-historical tools to this investigation, he imposed a restriction of the use of this approach by applying a prescientific requirement; Dan suggests that while these tools are helpful in determining the original tradition and the relation between the text and the environmental circumstances at the time of its creation, the unique nucleus of each prose, poetic-prophetic, or legal section is determined by direct empathy, which is a subjective response to a specific emotional or ideational message.

The biblical accounts are not history, for history in its scientific sense describes events from a distance and not from within. The Bible cannot be objective, but this fact does not detract from its value. The subjective expression of an event is itself the historical event, and therefore one cannot use solely objective research tools in order to understand it. Rather, one must respond subjectively, reliving the event in order to comprehend it (emphasis added).

In his essay, "Genesis 1:1-2:4 - The Beginning of Our World," Gary DeLashmutt suggests that the first important thing modern scholars should accept about Gen. 1 (and chapters 2-11 as well) is that:

It is history rather than myth. More than any other passage of scripture, Gen. 1-11 has been rejected by many as true history. This is because of a lack of extra-biblical historical records for this period, and because of supposed contradictions with science.1 Therefore, we are told, this passage must be stories that humans made up to help them cope with life, like the Epic of Gilgamesh or the stories of Zeus. But Gen. 1-11, including the creation account, is real history, reporting on real persons and events in space and time.

In support of this position, the author cites a number of reasons, including:

1.

The author (Moses) uses the same historical narrative style in chapters 1-11 as he does in chapters 12-50. If you read through the Book of Genesis in one setting, you will see that the author does not change his style at chapter 12 or give any textual clue that he is moving from myth to history. Rather, you will see that the book is a unity -- a record of historical events that sets the stage for the rest of the Bible.

2.

It makes references to places, and time (location of Eden, Babel, Ararat; how long people lived). Myths have no interest in places and time, because they want to remove their characters from history.

3.

It ends each section (real chapters?) with the same phrase, " . . . these are the generations of . . ." -- thus demonstrating the unity of the book.

4.

The rest of the Old Testament and Jesus himself regard these chapters as real history (see Ps. 136, where the psalmist praises God for creating the world as described by Gen. 1 in the same way that he praises God for delivering the Israelites from Egypt as described in Ex. 1-19; also, see Matt. 19:4, 5, where Jesus regards Adam and Eve as real historical people).

5.

The biblical creation account is fundamentally different from other ancient creation myths such as the Babylonian Enuma Elish. "As is so often the case, to actually read the other myths is to realize how very different the biblical account is. In fact, one of the main purposes of the Genesis account is (probably) to correct the erroneous creation myths of the ancient Near Eastern culture" (emphasis added).

The second important thing scholars should recognize today, at least according to DeLashmutt, is that "Gen. 1 harmonizes with origins science, but it is not a scientific textbook. There is no contradiction between what is recorded here and what science has discovered about the origin of the universe and life on earth. Rather, there is agreement about the most important issues. The universe began at a point in time. For centuries, many scientists held that the universe was eternal, but now we know this is not the case. Through a variety of means, we can trace the universe back to a moment in time when all of its mass was condensed into a single point of incredible density. This mass exploded, and the aftermath of this explosion is the universe. This is the so-called "Big Bang."

"The details differ, but the essential elements in the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis are the same . . . We scientists did not expect to find evidence for an abrupt beginning because we have had, until fairly recently, such extraordinary success in tracing the chain of cause and effect backward in time . . . For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."

By any measure, the earth is certainly very old. The solid scientific evidence that has emerged in recent years such as the results of red shift analyses and the radioactive dating of rocks suggests that the earth and the universe are at least several billion years old.

As a matter of faith, though, many Christians have dogmatically stated that Genesis says the earth is only a few thousand years old based on biblical assertions to the contrary. In this regard, the classic formulation of this position was provided by Bishop Ussher, who calculated the genealogies back from Jesus and proclaimed that the universe was created during the week of October 18-24, 4004 BC, with Adam being created on October 23 of that year. While young earth creationists have moved this date back by several thousand years, there remains a problem with both the existing scientific evidence as well as the biblical text.

Nevertheless, it also remains unclear whether Genesis 1 is actually referring to the creation process taking place within six successive 24-hour days; in fact, there is evidence from the text that Moses used the word "day" (yom) to refer to a period of time that was longer than 24 hours.

Genesis 2:4 concludes the six-day creative cycle with the day that "the Lord God made heaven and earth"; however, there is no ending to the seventh "day." Therefore, the events of Gen. 2:4-25 would appear to require more time than was available in a single 24-hour day (DeLashmutt mentions tending grade until lonely, naming all the animals, deep sleep while Eve formed, presenting Eve to him). Likewise, the reference to "evening and morning" can imply a beginning and an ending instead of stipulating a single 24-hour day. "In other words," DeLashmutt says, "Genensis 1 may be a general description of God's activity in the creation and development of the earth over a very long period of time in a way that corresponds generally with the findings of origins science (vegetation to sea animals and birds to land animals to humans)."

Furthermore, it is also possible that Genensis 1 represents a description of six literal but not sequential days; here, the author points out that the text does not specifically state that the six creative days were in sequential order, it simply refers to them as being "a day." According to DeLashmutt, "These 'days' may refer to roughly 24-hour day long periods in which God intervened dramatically to introduce new life forms, etc. -- and between which God was active in a very long fashioning process of these life forms."

Clearly, there is much to consider in an analysis of the creation story presented in Genesis; but there appears to be some consensus among biblical authorities that there are elements of both myth and actual historical events recorded therein; these issues are discussed further below.

Is Genesis 1:1-2:4 Both Myth and History?

Just as the controversy over nature vs. nurture continues to be debated, it is reasonable to assert that biblical scholars and Christian fundamentalists will likely continue to debate the content as Genesis -- as well as every other word in the Old and New Testaments -- as to its authenticity, authorship, date of composition, and most importantly, their relevance to the lives of people today. In this regard, people have always turned to myths to help them understand the mysterious world around them; furthermore, virtually all scholars acknowledge that the majority of the mythos systems around the world are a universal response to this attempt to understand the unknown -- and perhaps unknowable. For example, Waterfield points out that, "It is true that from the idea that myth explains reality it does not follow that every attempt to explain reality is a myth, but nevertheless it is true that all systems of belief evolve to elucidate the order of things and to make sense of the world."