{"id":374,"date":"2014-02-01T00:36:28","date_gmt":"2014-01-31T13:36:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.shields-online.net\/?p=374"},"modified":"2016-06-14T12:26:17","modified_gmt":"2016-06-14T02:26:17","slug":"genesis-1-is-not-poetry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.shields-online.net\/?p=374","title":{"rendered":"genesis 1 is not poetry"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>What can I say? Genesis 1 is not poetry, nor is it some weird hybrid of poetry and prose. Genesis 1:27 alone is poetry, but the rest of the chapter is pretty much stock-standard biblical Hebrew narrative in regards to its syntax. <em>It is not poetry!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Why is this an issue? It&#8217;s an issue because debates about Genesis 1 seem to align figurative reading (of some sort) with poetry and literal reading with prose. This is a manifestly false disjunction. It is perfectly possible to have &#8220;literal&#8221; poetry, and it is quite common to have figurative prose. In other words, the whole argument is daft!<br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Aside from this, it&#8217;s worth making a few specific points about Genesis 1 in the context of such debates:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Whatever genre Genesis 1 is, it is not historiography (by which I mean the sort of text we find in much of the remainder of the pentateuch). The repetition, symbolism (including numerical symbolism), and the aetiological elements are unlike anything that we find in (what can loosely be termed) biblical historiography. This does not mean Genesis 1 <em>must<\/em> be figurative, but it does mean we cannot simply assume that it is &#8220;literal.&#8221;<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>A significant problem with modern readings of Genesis 1 lies in the dominance of scientific readings. Young-earth creationists read it as though it presents scientific information, those who believe the universe is billions of years old condemn Genesis 1 on the grounds that it conflicts with what they know from science. These groups dominate debate and both seriously misread the text!<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Genesis 1 was written in the ancient Near East in a foreign language to a people with a very different cosmological view of the world, not to correct their cosmology, but to tell them about God and their place in his world. Much of what makes it strange to us was merely the language and ideas used to communicate to those people. There is no indication that it set out to correct their cosmology, rather that it used those ideas (just as it used Hebrew because that was what the people understood) to communicate its message. Consequently it does not endorse their cosmology, but needs to use it in order to successfully convey the message the text does endorse.<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Some proponents of the young earth position speak as though non-literal texts cannot contain any factual information. This, too, is a fallacy. Jesus&#8217; parables were fictional tales that sought to teach specific lessons. Fables are the same, as are numerous other figurative narrative genres. Furthermore, there&#8217;s no reason why figurative narratives cannot include historical elements. So, for example, Job may have been a historical figure, but the account of his life in the Book of Job can hardly be literal (who goes around speaking only poetry, after all?).<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>To realise just how strange Genesis 1 is (or ought to be) to us, I&#8217;ve reproduced my foreignising translation in toto below. This aims to avoid domesticating the text (which many modern translations do) so that we cannot escape from seeing just how difficult it really is to reconcile the chapter with modern thought.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So here&#8217;s the complete translation of Genesis 1:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>When God began establishing the sky and the land, the land was uninhabitable, and darkness covered the surface of the primaeval depths. But the spirit of God stirred over the surface of the waters and God said, \u201cLet there be light!\u201d And there was light. God recognised that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. God named the light \u201cday\u201d and he named the darkness \u201cnight.\u201d Then there was evening and then morning, a first day.<\/p>\n<p>Then God said, \u201cLet there be a barrier between the waters which will separate the waters, and let the barrier separate the waters which are below the barrier from those which are above the barrier.\u201d And it was so. Then God named the barrier, \u201csky,\u201d and there was evening and then morning, a second day.<\/p>\n<p>Then God said, \u201cLet the waters under the sky be collected to one place so that dry ground appears.\u201d And it was so. Then God named the dry ground \u201cland\u201d and he named the collected waters \u201cseas.\u201d God recognised that it was good.<\/p>\n<p>Then God said, \u201cLet the land sprout plants: crops and fruit-trees producing varieties of fruit containing its seed.\u201d And it was so. So the land produced plants\u2014varieties of crops and varieties of trees bearing fruit containing its seed. God recognised that it was good, and there was evening and then morning, a third day.<\/p>\n<p>Then God said, \u201cLet there be lights on the barrier of the sky to separate between the day and the night, and let them mark the times for days and years, and let them be lights on the barrier of the sky to shed light on the land.\u201d And it was so.<\/p>\n<p>God made the two great lights\u2014the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night \u2014 and the stars. God placed them on the barrier of the sky to shine on the land, to govern the day and the night, and to separate between the light and the darkness. And God recognised that it was good. And there was evening and then morning, a fourth day.<\/p>\n<p>Then God said, \u201cLet the waters swarm with swarms of living things, and let flying things fly over the land, in front of the barrier of the sky.\u201d And God established the great sea-monsters and all the varieties of squirming living things with which the waters swarm, and all varieties of winged flying things. God recognised that it was good.<\/p>\n<p>And God blessed them with the words, \u201cBe fruitful, multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let the flying things multiply on the land.\u201d And there was evening and then morning, a fifth day.<\/p>\n<p>Then God said, \u201cLet the land produce varieties of animals\u2014varieties of cattle, creeping animals, and wild animals.\u201d And it was so. God made the varieties of wild animals, varieties of cattle, and all varieties of animals which creep over the ground. God recognised that it was good.<\/p>\n<p>Then God said, \u201cLet us make humankind as our representation to be our proxy so they may rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the cattle, and over the entire land as well as all of the creeping animals which creep over the land.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So God established humankind as his representation,<br \/>\nas the representation of God he created that one,<br \/>\nmale and female he created them.<\/p>\n<p>Then God blessed them with the words, \u201cBe fruitful, multiply, fill the land and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea, the flying things of the sky, and all the animals which creep over the land.\u201d And God said, \u201cNow I give you all the crops which are on the land and all trees bearing fruit containing its seed\u2014these shall be your food. To all the wild animals, to the birds of the sky, and to the animals which creep over the land which are alive, [I give] every green plant for food.\u201d And it was so.<\/p>\n<p>God recognised that all which he had made was now very good. And there was evening and then morning, a sixth day.<\/p>\n<p>Then the sky and the land was finished, and all their entourage. By the seventh day God had finished the work which he had done, so he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done. And God blessed the seventh day and made it sacred, because on it he rested from all his work which God established.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>To see the commentary that goes along with this translation, and its introduction, see the following pages:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.shields-online.net\/?p=122\" title=\"Introduction\">Introduction to foreignising translation<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.shields-online.net\/?p=124\" title=\"Genesis 1 part 1\">Genesis 1 \u2014\u00a0part 1<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.shields-online.net\/?p=126\" title=\"Genesis 1 part 2\">Genesis 1 \u2014 part 2<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.shields-online.net\/?p=132\" title=\"Genesis 1 part 3\">Genesis 1 \u2014\u00a0part 3<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What can I say? Genesis 1 is not poetry, nor is it some weird hybrid of poetry and prose. Genesis 1:27 alone is poetry, but the rest of the chapter is pretty much stock-standard biblical Hebrew narrative in regards to its syntax. It is not poetry! Why is this an issue? It&#8217;s an issue because&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,11,25,5,28,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible","category-genesis","category-hebrew","category-old-testament","category-theology","category-translation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.shields-online.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.shields-online.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.shields-online.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.shields-online.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.shields-online.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.shields-online.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.shields-online.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.shields-online.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.shields-online.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}