Here's a recent article by John Walton on this issue. it is more up-to-date than Hasel. You'll notice that he cites Tsumura and others in objection to seeing tehom as the primeval opponent. Tsumura favors a Genesis polemic that more or less has Canaanite, not...
Genesis 1
God as Creator of All Things — Including the Material Already Present at Genesis 1:1
For this post (and the next one) to make sense, you need to recall the initial post on Genesis 1. The conclusion of that post (and the powerpoint video) was that, according to the Hebrew syntax of Genesis 1:1-3, Genesis 1:1 ("when God began to create...") was NOT the...
Genesis 1 as a Polemic Against Ancient Near Eastern Religious Cosmologies
We might as well jump into this. As a way to get everyone into the conversation, here is an article to read. It's by Gerhard Hasel and entitled, "The Significance of the Cosmology in Genesis 1 in Relation to ANE Parallels."
Genesis 1 and Creationism, Part 2
In this post I want to hit on what is known as the "literary framework" view of Genesis 1. Basically, this view suggests that what happens on each of the creation days makes no scientific sense -- but makes very good sense in terms of a deliberate literary design to...
Genesis 1 and Creationism
I'll be presenting this topic in church next month, so this powerpoint video is a warm-up of sorts. It's one the *real* issue in Genesis 1 with respect to the "timing" of creation: the clause structure. You probably just yawned, I know. But a majority of you asked...
Walton and Van Wolde: Hebrew Bara’ Does Not Mean “To Create”
John Hobbins has a helpful post offering links to the critiques of the thesis of Ellen Van Wolde that Hebrew bara' does not mean "create". John Walton's recent book The Lost World of Genesis 1, positively reviewed by me here and (soon) in print, has popularized this...
The Cosmology of Genesis 1 and the Old Testament’s Pre-Scientific Worldview
Naked Bible readers will remember I got into this issue several times during the discussion on inerrancy. It's current again for me for two reasons. One is N.T. Wright has chimed in on the subject in this video, which I offer for the curious (I'm not inclined to care...
Blogging with Dr. Barry, Part 3
Same procedure as the previous two posts. My response is blocked and marked by "MSH". -------------- You do not become a hermeneutical rapist overnight. I didn't just wake up one day and decide to write The Bible and Flying Saucers . Two important elements in my early...
Does Hebrew bara’ Mean “to Spatially Separate” Instead of “Create”?
That's the contention of Dr. Ellen van Wolde. The problems in translation and interpretation in Genesis 1:1-3 are well known to Hebraists, but it's rare for any of them to claim that the Bible teaches that God did *not* create matter, which Dr. van Wolde claims as a...
Great Moments in Pulpit PaleoBabble
Here's a YouTube video that's a real treat (if you like PaleoBabble on Sunday morning). The sermon is about "alpeh and tav" -- the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The minister (?) equates this with the description of Jesus as the first and the last,...
Exposing the Work of Zecharia Sitchin, Part 2: Does the Bible Have the Gods Creating Humankind?
This is a Sitchin signature teaching. In an effort to marry his notion that the Anunnaki (a group of gods in the Sumero-Mesopotamian pantheon) created humankind to the biblical story, Sitchin teaches that the Bible itself has plural gods creating humankind in Genesis....
Exposing the Work of Zecharia Sitchin, Part 1: ELOHIM in the Hebrew Bible
Prior to this blog, I created a website devoted to exposing the flawed teachings and research of Zecharia Sitchin. Next to Erik von Daniken, Sitchin is easily the most well-known articulator of the ancient astronaut theory--the idea that the gods of ancient texts and...