A Person of Faith and Science - part 2

I said in my last piece that there are TWO stories in Genesis 1 & 2.  There are, and if you outline them, it becomes very clear.  
In the center is the creation of humans.  That's the main point in the inverted parallel style of most eastern Mediterranean literature, including verbal literature.  See Kenneth Bailey, "Poet and Peasant".

However, these two very different stories have been edited and combined into ONE story.  That story emphasizes that all of us, including the human genus, are creatures, not gods.  Cannot be gods.  Will never be gods.  Not to be worshiped.  etc. 

Careful scholars, who are derieded by the right wing of the Christian church, demonstrate this in their commentaries, monographs, books, etc.  This is not news.  The scholarly work dates back into the 1800's.  However, the understanding of the literary styles of the eastern Mediterranean peoples is newer -- since the 1960s' and 1970's. 

When people demand of me, "Do you take the Bible literally?" I usually answer, "Yes, if by 'literally' you mean as literature, following the conventions, rules of grammar, etc. of all literature.  And I study it as literature, read it as literature, and work at continuing to understand it as translated literature, translated by people who never lived in that ancient culture and are still figuring out what the norms, conventions and so forth were. 

As Kenneth Bailey said in a worshop, "Culture is what everybody knows and nobody knows.  It's just there.  Only an outsider can see it and identify it as culture.  Insiders simply know that that's how things are."


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A Person of Faith and a Person of Science

If you do the following, have a pencil and paper and OUTLINE the story in writing.

1.    Read Genesis 1:1 - 2:4a (the end of the story).

2.    Read Genesis 2:4b - end of chapter 2.

• If you are carefully outlining what do you notice?
  
• Which story is the most accurate?
  
• Which story "grabs" you the most?
  

======= Keep going =====>
Now, imagine this character, but much larger:    
>
Imagine the upper left represents the first segment (first day of creation)

Imagine that the lower left represents the last segment of the Genesis 2 story.
Imagine that the pointy part, pointing RIGHT, is roughly 2:4a and 2:4b.

In the Mediterranean way of organizing thought, that POINTY area is the Main Point.

E.g., the point of the collation of the two legends, stories, etc. is that HUMANS were created by God.

            Al, you ask, why is that important?

Ah!  I say.  Because way too many HUMANS were worshiped as gods.  Pharoah comes to mind. 
Ah!  I say.  Becasuse BAAL worship in Canaan was about worshiping a BULL   But the Bull was created and Humans were to have dominion, not the superstitious way the Canaanites had it worked out. 

These two stories (yes, there are TWO, not One, stories) are not about how the world was created, but that we are ALL, humans, animals, plants, sky, stars, sun -- created.  Not meant to be worshiped.  Creatures, not the creator. 

Once you see that, you have a whole different take on what the Bible is up to, and don't need to abandon science at all.
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Which Perversion of the Faith?

•  Which perversion of the faith you hold works best in the world?
• Which perversion of the faith you belong to do you embrace?
• Which perversion of the faith you claim does the most damage to others?
• Which perversion of the faith you announce hates thinking the most?
• Which perversion of the faith your were born into is the most facist?
• Which perversion of the faith you live by guards personal freedoms best?

All these questions, and many others, make one assumption:  all the faiths, whether Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu or (you name it) are perverted by the time we work out what we believe and embrace and act upon. 

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Celebrate Survival or Celebrate Life?

The other day I heard a pastor talking about “celebrating life” as he referred to someone who had come through a difficult illness and was alive.  I believe he meant, in context, that he was celebrating survival.  No mention was made about how the person lived, or plans to live.

Think about it.

Did : the person plan to think?

·      Was the person planning to relate more and better with other people who touch his/her life?

·      Has the person committed to being a better employee or better boss?

·      Will the person spend more time appreciating life, sunsets, music, or art?

·      Has the person one more invention to sketch out and bring to reality?

In my estimation the celebration of life includes the above and more than I can mention here.  Survival – not so much.

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Faith and Observation

Faith takes into account that which cannot be seen -- the unseen.

I think most of us can agree to that.  Thomas Edison seems to have had faith that he could invent a light bulb.  He had never seen one, but he could imagine it.  He could use what he did know to believe that he could invent what he could not yet see.

The life of faith is both irreverent and silly if it only deals with what cannot be seen.  Using the gift of observation given to each human person, and to clusters of human beings, we can build beyond what can be seen.  At no point does the Jesus spoken about in the New Testament assert that the gifts of God, including the gifts of observation, are bad, unnecessary or to be ignored. 

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