What sort of writing is Genesis?
The first
three chapters of the book of Genesis – the Judeo-Christian*
creation myth commonly called the story of Adam and Eve – is
associated today with a disregard for facts. That disregard for facts
may take a heavy form in which the overwhelming evidence of modern
biology and geology is denied in order to maintain a literal reading
of these chapters (hereafter just referred to Genesis). Alternatively
it may take a lighter form in which the facts are deemed less
important than the moral truths of Genesis as if higher truth and
mundane fact could be held as mutually exclusive fields.
I don’t think either the heavy or light kind of disregard for
the facts honours the original authors because I think Genesis was an
attempt to observe the facts of its own time. Then Genesis aims to do
something quite excellent with these observations. Genesis tries to
organize them in a way that gives meaning to its reader's present
life. The greatness of that task is not recognized today if we simply
say that Genesis can contradict the facts and stand.
This post was inspired by reading a defense of Genesis based on the argument that literalism wasn't a necessary position. That's correct; a
totally literal reading of Genesis with days pre-existing the sky is
just silly. It is a minority position in Judaism and Christianity. But neither does Genesis belong to an entirely different
dimension of truth. Even a metaphor needs to be translatable – days
can mean epochs for example, taking a fruit from a tree could even mean
gaining religion. The Roman Catholic position is that we don't need
to accept Genesis as science but we should accept it as history
nonetheless - just in poetic language. If that was a solution with
the Genesis account we could stop there, but its problems with modern
observable reality are more qualitative.
So why bother replacing Genesis? Some people may with a shrug
suggest we simply move on to the scientific account as if the age of
creation stories can be considered behind us. But a purely scientific
account would include all the data in the universe. For all the time
it would take to tell it, such a perfectly scientific account would
fail to address the key question of any creation story – who we are
and what that means. Its story would be bereft of beginning, end and
any plot.
The scientific account as it stands therefore needs to be woven
into a narrative. Its facts need organization around us – the
audience of its tale. For that to happen “us” needs to be
defined. That’s what would turn it into a history.
Finally there are the moral truths of Genesis – the values which
are implied from the story. Again these values rest on facts and
can't be explained in the same way when the facts aren't there.
However a purely factual account is not going to deliver these values
– or any values – without a lot of narrative work (distancing it
from a purely factual work).
Genesis is a story. It's a story about observable facts – which
makes it more than those facts but also reliant on them.
How is Genesis broken?
By facts I mean observable reality that you and I can show
each other. That “showing” may not be easy – it might require a
demonstration of erosion or evolution on a smaller scale to prove a
larger case but it can be done. It might also involve seeing
ourselves or other animals in a certain light. Dian Fossey and Jane Goodall have shown us a side to the great apes that obliges us to
recognise our similarities (while not ignoring
real differences). Nuclear bombs and global warming show us
our world is finite and fragile. Whatever the reasons (and science
should not take all the credit for changes in ideas like animal
rights or gender equality) we do not see exactly what the authors of
Genesis see.
Firstly lets consider, what “facts” Genesis attempts to deal
with;
- Humans are different to other animals but also the same in
many ways. We uniquely have religion and language (we name animals)
– allowing us to create the eternal spaces of ritual. Our minds
definitely feel eternal. Yet we die like other animals – no matter
what rituals we perform.
- Life is basically good (generally preferable to the
alternative) – but also full of sorrow and death. The greatest
sufferings are caused by inter-human strife. We also carry the
burden of shame about our bodies unlike any other animal.
- All humans despite differences seem to be related – we are
one species. Women are different to “us men” (Genesis was
probably written by and largely for men) but still the same animal.
We share the same flesh so to speak. No other creature can be
company to “us” like a woman.
To an extent we don’t continue to observe these truths today. At
the very least we observe them differently;
- Increasingly it’s harder to argue that humans are
especially different to other animals. We are at least not the only
personalities on the planet. Elephants mourn, monkeys use tools,
mice sing and so on. We may even be only presuming that other
animals have no “religion”. It therefore seems purely
self-referential to put our species into a unique position.
- A part of the above is the recognition that “we” in
reference to our species has not always been our species. If there
are two categories – human and animal – then we were animal
once. And we might evolve differently in the future. This undermines
our special status as a species which is deeply assumed in Genesis.
In Christian theology it is called the special creation of humans.
- Goodness and evil aren’t possible to separate in the
natural world. What Genesis treats as something outside perfection –
death in particular – has never been absent from life. Instead
death and violence is observably part of the state of things, in the
fossil record, well before any proto-human comes on the scene. This
is where the scientific
account differs from Genesis'
with the greatest impact for Christian theology.
In many forms of
Christianity this idea that
humans ruined creation through the introduction of sin is
profoundly fundamental to their
understanding of salvation (and justification for hell). However
it no longer matches our observations.
- Genesis' treatment of gender has been used to claim
patriarchy as part of a natural design – Adam is made first and
Eve as his “help-mate.” Yet few people now doubt that any “first human” had
both a mother and father. There was no boy's world first. We also
now understand patriarchy to be a typical but not universal
development in human societies and not grounded in the nature of men
and women.
This last point is possibly the most contentious. Some people
still hold that women belong in a position of submission to men’s
leadership. Sometimes this belonging is described in a way that has
no correspondence to any observable information – such as whether
anyone is happier with that type of organization. For such people the
rightness of patriarchy is just a condition of life we should accept
on faith with no assessment of the outcomes. That’s a statement
made entirely on faith and it’s on faith that I reject it entirely.
Note: I think there’s plenty of evidence that patriarchy
doesn’t work well. The outcomes of organizations with the highest
degrees of patriarchy are usually the worst for children, women and
even men. I just have to resort to faith to reject a “spiritual”
patriarchy which doesn’t need any evidence to argue its case
precisely because evidence is irrelevant to its merit.
Other people reject that Genesis supports patriarchy. In fact they
locate patriarchy in
the consequences of our expulsion from paradise (although even there it can be used to oblige us to accept it). For
them patriarchy is not a part of ideal life in Genesis but in fact
repudiated by it. I think they should accept that Genesis contains an
unnecessary potential to say that men are the image of God while
women are the image of men. That’s a reading which has plagued
society with the oppression of women and the unhelpful elevation of
men. While it might be a misreading, its not an insane misreading.
Genesis could easily be written better to preclude this conclusion.
Genesis also doesn't need to have it be a woman to be the one who
tempts Adam to eat the fruit after having a chat with a deceiving
serpent. No less a church father than the Apostle Paul used this
special guilt to justify women being subservient to men;
1
Timothy 2: 11-15 A
woman
should
learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to
teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. For Adam
was formed first, then Eve.
And
Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and
became a sinner. But women
will
be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and
holiness with propriety.
To be fair to Paul it's not an idiotic conclusion to draw if you
hold that Genesis is true. The chain of fault behind the eating of
the fruit reads like it should have meaning but it hasn't added
anything but woe to gender relations.
While we're at it: A wish list for any creation story.
Entrenched patriarchy isn't the only problem to come from Genesis.
“Green” readings of Genesis are entirely possible but have to do
some complicated gymnastics around certain passages;
Genesis
1:28 God
blessed them and said to them,“Be
fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule
over the
fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living
creature that moves on the ground.”
Genesis was written too early for people to appreciate that the
globe has limits. “Fill the earth” was also never imagined as a
network of superhighways and boxstores with no room for subsistence
farming. Something which acknowledged our earth's finitude in the
face of human exploitation would be ideal in any new creation myth.
That's possibly going to be an even greater challenge for a story
reflecting the scientific account. In a long world history in which
countless species have become extinct how do we value the
preservation of biodiversity today? How do we describe the loss of
the White Rhino without reference to it's special creation? Should
our current ecosystem be especially valued if such an ecosystem is
not what any God intended but merely one iteration of the
environment? Tough questions.
I definitely want to include something that checks our human
destructive potential. We have the ability to be like terrible Gods
and we need something that gives our finger pause over that button.
In Genesis we are humbled beneath our creator. Gratitude is supposed
to balance entitlement. That's something for other stories to
consider how to include; gratitude and balance with or without a divine Creator.
Lastly we should recognise that the notion that we all bear the
image of God has been used historically to defend human rights for
all. Characters like Bishop Desmond Tutu have used this idea to
challenge racism and homophobia. Although our Catholic Prime Minister
fails to see it, this language argues for an equality between any
asylum seeker and Gina Rhineheart. Without a special status for the
human species will we undermine arguments for human equality and
dignity? What can we write that matches the facts to make a case for
human rights?
We shouldn't underestimate the task of replacing Genesis. In fact
engaging in the task gives me fresh respect for the story. It does
some hard philosophical work.
Also just superficially, that seven days thing, from a writers
perspective, is gold. It has marvelous rhythm. Its not easy to write
a creation story that has adequate gravitas without sounding
overblown. My partner is currently sitting on her own opening
paragraph in case I steal it.
More seriously mirroring the daily life of the community – the
seven day week – in the form of creation allows audiences to
ritually re-experience their origins in ordinary life. That's
magnificent writing and I challenge anyone today to achieve something
even remotely similar.
That wasn't rhetorical. I'm actually inviting submissions. Send me
links to stories of our creation which you feel are up to scratch or
if you don't know any then write your own. I'll publish them here or
link to them if I feel they can do the job.
In a little while I'll even publish my own.
________________________________________________________________________
*Rabbinical Judaism divides the Torah
into weekly readings. The first reading called Bereshit covers the
first verse to halfway through chaper six of Genesis. I've chosen the
first three chapters of Genesis to focus on due to my perception of
their emphasis in Christianity and subsequently Western culture.
Christian readings of this story are also informed by first
century theology in ways that aren't obviously in Genesis and not
shared by Judaism. The Apostle Paul teaches the idea of Jesus as a second Adam
correcting the error of the first which makes an actual Adam and Eve more crucial.
