In today’s culture a person doesn’t have to search too far to find debate in the public square with regard to the place of religion. If it isn’t whether or not we ought to stamp our money with “In God we trust”, it’s a fracas over a display of the Ten Commandments in a courthouse. There are even those who argue over whether or not a city in New Mexico whose name translates into “The Crosses” can have actual crosses in its official seal. (Thankfully, the Supreme Court has ended that affair – Las Cruces, NM will remain Las Cruces in both name and seal.) The debate has even spread to public schools, where creationists and evolutionists intellectually duke it out for the right to educate America’s children about the origins of the universe. While it’s not my intent to wander into public policy on that score, I will admit that the creationism-evolutionism cage match has caused many Christians to re-examine their own beliefs and traditions with regard to the creation narratives found in Genesis chapters 1-3. Thus this post is meant to create a space for an “internal” conversation among those who believe in the Christian God, but who aren’t sure how to reconcile the biblical account with contemporary, often atheistic evolution. This is not to say, “Atheists need not apply,” but rather to set up a permeable boundary around the discussion.
Several years ago now, Apple Computers ran and advertising campaign around the slogan “Think different.” The idea was that it is the counter-cultural persons and ideas that often turn out to be great, proving themselves to either be ahead of their times or initiators of a paradigm shift in the world-views of their day. With regard to contemporary approaches to Genesis 1-3, I’d argue that a good dose of “Think different” is needed in terms of both the debate over evolution as well as recognizing just how counter-cultural the Biblical account actually is.
Think different – Think mythologically:
One of the first things we ought to recognize is that the ancient mind thought more in terms of myth and was much more comfortable with myth than we are today. Just ask the person sitting next to you to define the word myth and you’ll likely get answers like, “Oh, you know, a story, a fable, a fairy tale, kid’s stuff.” We are culturally condition to discount myth as a means of the knowledge of truth. We want (as Joe Friday used to say) “Just the facts, ma’am.” We inherently trust the sciences (both hard and soft) to lead us into the truth.
But the ancient mind as I said earlier, didn’t think that way. Take for example Socrates, having being asked by his followers about the afterlife says to them, “Let me tell you a story,” or, closer to the original language, “Let me mythologize.” He doesn’t say, “Well, we have much empirical evidence in this regard, let’s consult what the academy tells us.” (cf. Plato, Phaedo, 64.) This does not mean that Socrates is anti-intellectual (he was, after all, regarded as the wisest man in Athens), rather it displays his willingness to discover truth through myth. So what did the ancients mean by myth? A quick examination of the word for myth (μυθος) shows its relation to the word “μυω” – “to close.” One gets the impression that myth is speaking to those things which are “closed” to us, i.e., things that happen either before our birth or after our death. It’s as though the human being is an island enclosed about by an infinite sea, requiring him to “mythologize” about what the things beyond himself based on any number of factors. A myth can be either true or false, ancient or modern; either way, myth isn’t what the ancients did before they discovered science (since modern science could be understood in this sense as myth). What is important is to realize what a given myth is actually saying (and not saying), and here context plays a sizable role.
When this idea is applied to the account of creation found in the Scriptures we can easily see the ancient mythological mind at work, especially when compared to other creation accounts of the same time and place of the Bible. The Egyptian creation myth for example, also makes mention of water, describing it as a great river out of which the gods form the world. The Babylonian myth tells that man was created by the gods in order to “do their work.” In this schema, only the king can claim to bear the image of the gods.
What makes Genesis distinctive from these two accounts is that its narrative describes one God who makes all things from nothing and who in turn creates main to join him in fellowship. In addition, both male and female (the totality of humanity) bear the image of God and are able to represent him to the world. The Scriptures are giving its readers and hearers a theological message from the perspective of absolute meaning, not presenting us with an empirical account of the creation process. They’re telling us “Who,” as opposed to “How.” So long as a Christian keeps these themes primary, he can have no trouble affirming what science is able to demonstrate (and vice-versa – so long as the grounds are sufficient). Our modern focus on a literal, 24-hour day vs. “day” as “epoch of history” misses the point of what the original audience would have likely understood.
In short, myths are all around us. The task for us as postmodern, 21st century Westerners is to “Think different” when we approach the texts in order to decode these myths and more correctly understand both what is being said as well as what is not being said with regard to the origin of the universe. Science can give us a model for understanding how the creation works and fits together; the Bible tells us who put it together and why.
