Diagoras wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 11:53 pm
theophile wrote: ↑Sat Sep 24, 2022 3:28 pm
Diagoras wrote: ↑Fri Sep 23, 2022 10:40 pm
I’m seeing your position as being that there are many ‘sacred texts’, which often borrow from each other to various degrees. While many ‘see through a glass darkly’ insofar as explaining God, you consider them all to be (to varying degrees), part of the same unified ‘picture’. And that Genesis in particular can be thought of as ‘special’ for having the characteristics you describe, and perhaps being the first to claim a single God. Is that a fair summary?
Yup! I don't mean to diminish all other traditions (I'm by no means that close), but I do believe the God of Genesis exists, has broad explanatory power (although by no means complete*), and is worthy of the name. All of which I say in full acknowledgement of the text's lack of history.
*Two notable examples:
1) God (/Genesis) doesn't explain how the physical world was made in the first place. It just is.
2) God (/Genesis) doesn't explain how God was made either. (But frankly, I believe the physical world provides the necessary ground for God, though Genesis clearly never says that. They both just are at the beginning...)
Apologies for the delay in responding. I've been reflecting on where this debate's taken us, as it's been a bit of a surprise to me. That's a good thing of course - always learning new perspectives.
It seems from your initial point (that the authors of Genesis weren't 'primarily aiming for a historical record') that when considering Genesis, we can (should?) focus less on '
explaining the world' and more on explaining '
the nature and character of the God on offer'. However, I'm not convinced that these two purposes can be easily 'decoupled' to the extent that Genesis can then be thought of as special when compared to any other sacred text. After all, none of us has yet claimed (or supported) that the Sumerians themselves weren't '
primarily aiming for an explanation of the nature of god/gods'. If every sacred 'creation text' has a mix of history and 'nature of god', then it weakens the claim that Genesis should somehow stand above the rest simply because it's more focused on theology.
As you said, we have to put ourselves in '3000-year-old shoes' in order to better see that the people of the time were trying to make sense of a lot of different things. Before the scientific age, gods were the default explanation for a plethora of phenomena, and their supposed exploits and histories (much like civilisation's actual leaders) would have been important enough to require writing down, rather than relying on oral history.
You acknowledge that Genesis is incomplete as regards explanatory power, and that as a historical record it is imperfect. In an earlier post you also suggested Genesis was written '
to counter its god-notions of Marduk, Tehom, etc., and to give Israel its own proper identity as a people grounded in God'. I'm not disputing that, but simply note that it seems more driven by human need, rather than being any form of revelation. Not to trivialise it too much, but it could be as simple as "Look at those Babylonians with all their knowledge of gods! We're going to write about our
own god, and he'll be better than all of them!"
you wrote:As to why God didn't reveal Godself earlier, two quick points: 1) I think God is ultimately a title we assign, so it's not really on God to reveal Godself, and 2), it depends on what God is. (I'm not assuming an all-powerful being here who can do all things...)
Putting on those old shoes again... I'd counter that the Sumerians (and later, the Hebrews) did have a very clear picture of what 'God' was, and that it was much closer to the all-powerful being than to simply a title or concept. God
was the explanation (of past, present and future), absent of scientific enquiry.
You have stated that how we see these texts is a matter of choice - which I agree with - and that comparing them is difficult. Our choices will be influenced by how much we choose to read into each text, and which ones we choose to ignore. Which then comes down to personal bias/upbringing. If Genesis - and only Genesis - provides you with sufficient explanatory power, then I can't really dispute that, and the OP's claim fails in at least
one instance (rather than succeeding in the general sense). However, I consider it to still be a strong argument, as the counter-argument (Genesis is special) can be shown to fail in more instances.
That about sums it up for me in this thread. Thanks to
Diogenes for instigating, and to you,
theophile for offering an engaging and (to me) fresh perspective.
I'm happy for you to add your own conclusions as 'the last word' in our interactions, and hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have.
I appreciate the meaningful engagement as well. There is nothing I enjoy more.
If I attempt concluding remarks of my own to bring some of my disparate threads together, and perhaps frame them in a slightly different light, it would be along the following lines:
All traditions - Sumerian, Biblical, Scientific - try to account for things. And their best accounts are what we tend to call (or compile into) so-called 'sacred texts'. (Which even science has, e.g., Aristotle's
Physics or Newton's
Principia for example.)
My overarching argument has been that we can't just reduce the 'specialness' of such texts to their
historic accounting (to directly answer the OPQ), or even their accounting of the physical world (or of what is) as if that's all there is to account for. But rather we should consider a text special on three broad characteristics: its accuracy, its extensiveness (beyond 'what is' even), and ultimately its worthiness, since at some point of extension it becomes a matter of
choice. Not a choice in what interpretation of the text we hold, or what texts we focus on over others, but a choice much deeper and fundamental than this...
i.e., a choice of what should be. (Which includes questions like, what the role of humankind should be in this world, or how we should organize ourselves and the world around us, etc. etc.)
So a text should be considered special
not only for its account of the way things are, or the way things have been, or even the way things
will or
could be, but the way they
should be. This final extension is the highest order and most important (/special)
because it is determining of anything not yet determined. It is, by definition, the only area still open and left to decide, giving it a special status above any other account. Furthermore, the
implications of such choices can be
huge for every single thing that is, was, or will be, and it is in this highly impactful domain that science and history have no real say. They can predict what
could or
would be the outcome of our choices, but they can't tell us which path to choose. Similarly, they can provide all the accuracy and comprehensiveness we could ask for re: the physical world / past events, but they can't answer simple questions like 'what should I have for breakfast' let alone the bigger questions I posed before. (At least, not without some
prior choice of values / intention such as healthy living or maximum pleasure.)
In short,
science and history are incapable of providing a full account, most notably in this highest order domain, and as such are less special than other traditions that can. This highest order and most special domain, which science and history can't account for, is essentially a matter of how we should shape our lives and the world (through choice). It is a matter of values and intentions that are necessarily chosen, insofar as choice exists.
It is the proper domain of religion to provide an account for such things. (To iterate on my previous comment, Genesis 1 is a revelation of how Ancient Israel envisioned God - a God they deemed worthy of the name - and how this God would have us shape our lives and the world...)
So as for other
religious traditions / sacred texts, such as the Enuma Elish, and why Genesis 1 is special compared to these, it is above all a question of the worthiness of the values / intentions their 'gods' imply. To further elaborate my previous post, what we see in the Enuma Elish is a god (Marduk) who shapes the world toward order and life through
the destruction of difference / chaos (i.e., Tiamat - a placeholder for the flux of the physical world). This is to be contrasted with the god Elohim in Genesis 1 who shapes and fills the world with life by working
with Tehom as one, and by calling a humankind made in this image, i.e., as man and woman, to do the same...
As such, it boils down to values / intentions of diversity and communion versus totalitarianism and control. And while it is 100% up to us to decide, it seems obvious to me which of these two accounts is more worthy and therefore most special. So you're right: I am just one who thinks this is a better way, versus it being a general rule. But perhaps there are others out there who would agree...
Either way, a good discussion for sure, and much appreciated. And apologies for the lack of brevity in my final remarks