N. T. Wright on Adam and Eve (How to Read Genesis Even More Seriously!)
2010 June 8
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Sniffing out the work of God in the world…
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Enlightening, as always from the right rev.
It’s also interesting about how he talks about Americans equating the historicity of Adam and Eve with other “big” issues. Do his comments there somewhat contradict some of his other thinking about the political nature of the gospel and the big issues that Paul tries to talk about his his writing or is it apples and oranges?
I find this to be interesting, but I also like what is said here http://ow.ly/1VEWX – I’d like to hear back from you on this.
I agree to flatten it and only say it is history is wrong and to flatten it and only say it is myth is also wrong. We need a great sense of duality here, there does need to be more mystery!
What an excellent video. I have long believed that the word “myth” has been a point of gross confusion among most people who encounter the term in a theological context. He might be right when he suggests that perhaps we need to use different words. If I were to stand up on Sunday and declare that Genesis is “myth” I would be run out of the building if I did not have the opportunity to explain the term, and even them I still might be ussered out the door. The more I encounter Wright the more I appreciate his overall approach to scripture. He certainly has the ability to take complex theological concepts and make them accessable to simple people like myself.
Great video…to flatten Genesis 1-3 out is to miss its historical theology that is neither literal nor untrue. To flatten it out also requires some strained exegesis. When we miss what Genesis 1-3 is really saying, we set ourselves off on the wrong trajectory to understanding what God creative and redemptive mission is all about.
Grace and peace,
Rex
What , then does Gen. 1-3 have to say ? What is the point ? What should we teach about Gen. 1- 3 in our pulpits , classes , homes , small groups , when asked at work , school , at lunch or over the fence to a neighbor ?
Ray B.
Regarding Genesis 1-2…That God created without effort or struggle but by the spoken word; that God’s creation was “good” rather than frought with the struggles of a suffering world; that God created humanity with a special purpose for which they bear his image, to be his ambassadors upon the earth caring after creation with the same loving stewardship and providential care that God blesses creation with; with creation being “good”, humans were created to be in communal relationship with God and each other rather than the broken and fragmented relationships we have with God and each other in a fallen unredeemed world.
Though not impossible, most people I run across who flatten Genesis 1-3 out and turn it into a science text to compete against other scientific theories miss most of those theological teachings which I believe are profoundly fundamental to understanding God’s creative and redemptive mission that unfolds.
Genesis 3…that God loves us enough to give us moral choice which we have exercised negatively towards God; that our sin has consequences that effect both our relationship with God and each other as well as creation itself; that there is a possible hint of God’s redemptive response to our failures already in this text.
Often I have found that people who flatten this out to view it only as a story about the “first sin” miss how much this is the beginning of a downward spiral for humanity that unfold up to Gen 11 and the Tower of Babel where humans want to make a name for themselves rather than be the people who bear the image of the Creator (and isn’t that story played out time and time again throughout history…people, tribes, nations, etc…who want to make a name for themselves rather than simply be known as the people of God?)
I hope that explains a bit more.
Grace and peace,
Rex
Also, the problems with viewing the Genesis creation narrative as a scientific text is not only does that bring us to the text asking the wrong questions but those questions are also rather modern questions that would have made absolutely no sense to Israel who had just emmeged from under 430 of Egyptian slavery and now needed to have their entire identity, origin, and purpose retaught if they now were to be God’s people before the pagan nations.
Grace and peace,
Rex
Ray — so much to teach from Genesis 1-2. From my vantage point, much more than I could have imagined growing up by forcing Genesis into a scientific discussion it has no interest in. It launches a story that finds fruition in Revelation 21-22.
As you can tell from this clip, Wright thinks that Gen 1-2 is pregnant with information about God, humans, and creation that is vital for our understanding of our faith.
What the first chapters of Genesis tell me is that God exists before everything else; that He has a plural nature; that He speaks the words “Let there be” and things happen in a big, big way.
With the simplicity of telling a Story, God speaks and all is created in its complexity and interrelatedness and dependency upon Him. He has the ability to pack that information into the very DNA of matter and energy and time and space themselves – so they can and will respond in a moment to His verbal command in an environment where air, divine vocal chords, language, speech, intonation and a thousand other characteristics of communication had a meaning perhaps totally unknown and unknowable to us.
Yet these two chapters are the way He chooses to relate that Story and make the truth about His capability, His nature, His concern for His creation known to us, His creation.
God says “Let us create man,” and we don’t even know who “us” is (are?) until we get around to reading John 1. He creates man “in our own image” and puts him in a zoological garden to till and tend – giving man a simple, first purpose in life – a chance to experience how good creation is, first-hand.
God says to Himself, “It is not good for man to be alone;” and by that we understand that He loves and cares deeply for this brand new creation; that man is intelligent, social, and strong – but incomplete. So God gives man an incomparable gift: woman, of his own flesh and similar to his own image.
Then we learn that man also has the potential to live forever; man has a soul. And God gives man and woman an incredible gift: choice, between learning of good and evil through Him – or taking their own path.
Eventually – two or three “books” further in the collection – we discover that mankind’s real purpose in life is to love God as God loves mankind: with all of one’s heart, soul, mind, and strength – and to love other as one loves oneself.
I am not quick to dismiss the possibility that God tells this Story to man through His Spirit exactly the way it happened because 1.) He is completely capable of having created everything exactly as described and 2.) it is impossible for Him to lie and 3.) because it makes such a great Story. It’s among the first and most memorable stories that believers share with their children as soon as they can understand (and sometimes before)! Why?
It holds the essence of a truth too deep for words, too precious for dissection, too primal to be ignored. This Story is completely unverifiable by scientific quantitative analysis and is therefore the perfect venue to communicate the absolute necessity of choosing good over evil at the quantum level – by grace through faith – because order should triumph over chaos.
All of that fact and truth is packed into the extraordinary Hebrew poetry of those first few chapters of scripture – plus so much more that we probably haven’t even begun to plumb the depths of it with our little strings and bobs.
What does Gen. 1-3 teach us? I’m no scholar or expert on the matter, but I like to think that the story of Genesis is a story about identity and purpose. I believe Genesis was brought out during a time when stories of creation and beginnings were much more similar to Enuma Elish. This story included multiple warring gods and how mankind was merely an afterthought – an unexpected result of the bloodshed from these gods – and that we had no real purpose. This was common of most creation stories in ancient times.
Genesis tells a very different story. It is not multiple gods, but rather one – God! Humanity is not the result of battles. No, God peacefully, but powerfully spoke us into being. We are not mere afterthoughts, with no purpose. No, we have great purpose. God created us as the climax, or crowning achievement of all his creation. Our purpose is to reflect Him. Genesis is a story of relationship.
No one asked during Abraham’s day, “Were we created by a Maker, or just the result of a Big Bang?” No one doubted a creation by a higher power. The question was, “Who created us, and how?” Genesis is our story, and it gives us identity and purpose. It is also gives God identity and purpose. It is not science. It is theology.
This is my story… this is my song.
Many western people have simply never explicitly considered that stories can be created to do things besides inform or entertain. So when they consume a story (by which I mean to say quite starkly that they take it in on their own terms for their own purposes — their default mode of encountering the world) from a distant culture with other values, they often miss the point — in this case, that Genesis was created to be identity-forming, a myth.
Western Christians need their leaders to point this out to them very plainly. If they can begin to see it, then they can also see that faithfulness to the text isn’t the inescapable result of opening the bible with good intentions.
In American vernacular, the term myth stands for something that is false. So using that term to describe any portion of scripture is a dialogue breaker.
The narrative approach to Gen 1-3 is very enriching. It helps us understand the purpose of God’s work. It helps us see the big picture because of its nature, it filters out the details. Yet, as Dr. Wright says, the details are there. I personally cherish the details because they review a hidden knowledge not told in other creation stories. For example, both science and Genesis say that plants came before animals, the first animals were water born, and the last life were humans.
Wright put very well the idea of what Genesis 1-3 was intending to communicate about God and creation vs. what we have often tried to make the passage say. However, I don’t think I subscribe to what he was implying about a redeemed earth eschatology. I believe that is more than what Genesis 1-3 is intending to teach.
myth \?mith\ noun
[Greek mythos] 1830
1 a : a usually 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
b : PARABLE, ALLEGORY
2 a : a popular belief or tradition that has grown up around something or someone especially : one embodying the ideals and institutions of a society or segment of society ?seduced by the American myth of individualism —Orde Coombs?
b : an unfounded or false notion
3 : a person or thing having only an imaginary or unverifiable existence
4 : the whole body of myths
Merriam-Webster, I. (2003). Merriam-Webster’s collegiate dictionary. (Eleventh ed.). Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, Inc.
Question? Are parables true or false?
What is the role of Genesis as a nation builidng myth?
N.T. Wright does not represent the official Anglican view on Creation. That flawed and arrogant statement of doctrine is found here:
http://jandyongenesis.blogspot.com/2011/02/anglicanism-on-doctrine-of-creation.html
Joe,
Genesis is used by Jews to build the myth of Jewish racial purity and exclusive land claim to Israel (Zionism). However, Genesis reveals that Abraham and his ancestors were Kushites, not Jews. Akkadian, the language of NImrod’s vast kingdom, is related to the Kushitic languages.
Genesis also reveals Abraham had 8 sons (9 according to the Septuagint, which includes Eliezar) and that the land was given to all of these, though according to the marriage and ascendency pattern of Abraham’s people, Isaac ascended to Abraham’s throne to rule over his territory between Hebron and Beersheba. Joktan (Yaqtan), Abraham’s firstborn son by his cousin wife Keturah, ascended to the throne of his maternal grandfather, after whom he was named. To this day, the Joktanite tribes live in Southern Arabia.