Here in Part 8 of my extended analysis/overview of Francesca Stavrakopoulou’s book, God: An Anatomy, I am going to cover “Part 5” in her book, entitled “Head.” Within this section, there are five chapters: (16) “Face to Face,” (17) “Headstrong Beauty,” (18) “Profile,” (19) “Sense and Sensitivity,” and (20) “Gasp and Gulp.” As with the book as a whole, the different areas of the body that make up the major sections to the book really are somewhat superficial. Dr. S doesn’t so much provide a sustained argument that YHWH had a literal body, as she simply assumes it. The real thrust of her book is that YHWH was no different than any other ANE god, and in the process of that thrust, she (in my opinion) gives some rather odd interpretations of various biblical passages and pushes a number of what can be considered “left-wing/progressive” ideologies to boot. If you have read my previous seven posts, you already have an idea what I’m talking about. That being said, let me first give a bird’s eye view of chapters 16-20, where I will attempt to (1) articulate what Dr. S argues in each chapter and (2) focus on what I feel are her problematic interpretations of various biblical passages.
Chapter 16: Face to Face
Chapter 16 focuses on how individuals encountered YHWH in the Old Testament. The main focus of this chapter is the seeming contradictory claims in the Bible that (a) no one has ever seen God face to face, and yet (b) accounts that tell of people (like Moses) speaking with God face to face. It is something that scholars have long noted and attempted to explain in a variety of ways.
As for specific claims in the chapter I found a bit odd:
- Dr. S argues that the smoke from the altar of incense in the Temple actually acted as a “smokescreen” that prevented worshippers from being able to actually see YHWH.
- Dr. S claims that verses like Deuteronomy 31:17 (“I will forsake them and hide my face from them, and they will be devoured; many evil troubles will find them”) should be taken literally, as in when YHWH literally hides his literal face from the Israelites, it is then that their enemies will be able to defeat them.
- Dr. S claims that the term “queen of heaven,” as used in Jeremiah 7:8 to describe ancient Israel’s worshipping of a foreign goddess was “recycled” in the Christian era for the Virgin Mary.
- Dr. S claims that Lady Wisdom, as found in Proverbs 1-9, was considered to be “Yahweh’s breath-born daughter.”
Chapter 17: Headstrong Beauty
In Chapter 17, Dr. S focuses on how the image of a bull was associated with YHWH throughout the OT. On top of that, she argues that YHWH is portrayed not only as good-looking, but that His eyes also are attracted to beauty, particularly, male beauty. To be fair, it is undeniable that YHWH was worshipped as a bull throughout ancient Israel. Dr. S correctly points to the two golden calf idols that King Jeroboam set up in Dan and Bethel to serve as worship sites for the northern kingdom. Of course, how she characterizes that situation is, in my view, problematic.
As for specific claims in the chapter I found a bit odd:
- Dr. S argues that the condemnation of the golden calf/bull idols found in the OT were (you guessed it) inventions by later post-exilic scribes.
- Dr. S claims that verses like Psalm 135:3 (“Praise Yah, for Yah is good!”) actually are verses that are praising YHWH’s good looks, and not his goodness. Dr. S translates the aforementioned verse as, “Praise Yah, for Yah is good-looking!”
- Linked to that, Dr. S also claims that in Genesis 1, when God decrees at the end of each day of creation that “It was good,” that He really said, “It was very beautiful.” Now obviously, creation being beautiful is part of God’s declaration of the goodness of creation, but the questionable translation here to reduce everything to God simply commenting on creation’s beauty is odd.
- Dr. S claims that YHWH really had a thing for good-looking men, as seen in the descriptions of both David and Saul. Dr. S also claims that the love Jonathan had for David was “erotically charged.” The beauty of women angers YHWH, but the beauty of men really turn His head. It seems to me that Dr. S has conveniently forgotten all the women in the OT that are praised for their beauty.
- Finally, Dr. S references the admittedly odd story in II Kings 2:23-24 where certain young men mock the prophet Elisha by saying “Go away, baldy!” and are then mauled by two bears. I would argue that, when read in the context of Elijah having just been taken up to heaven, that the young men aren’t mocking Elisha for literal baldness, but rather that he had lost Elijah, the “head” of the school of the prophets. Therefore, when Elisha curses them and the two bears maul them, it is essentially affirming that Elisha is the new head of the prophets. Dr. S though, doesn’t interpret it that way. Curiously, she writes that Elisha “might as well have been mocked for erectile dysfunction. But Yahweh heeds Elisha’s call for a curse to fall upon the children – and responds with a sardonic, gender-bending flourish: two hairy she-bears suddenly appear, and attack the children, shredding a staggering forty-two of them.” I’m sorry, but erectile dysfunction? Gender-bending she-bears?
Chapter 18: Profile
Chapter 18 doesn’t really have a focus or main argument. It just doesn’t. It is a chapter of random claims:
- In Daniel, YHWH is presented with white hair. YHWH has usurped El’s status as the high god of the cosmos.
- In the Book of Enoch, Enoch is portrayed as, not just a son of man (i.e. human being), but as THE Son of Man, “a divine figure on whom the white-haired high god conferred cosmic kingship” (351). She quotes I Enoch 71:9-14 to show this. This passage ends with, “You [are] that Son of Man who was born for righteousness, and righteousness dwells on you, and the righteousness of the Head [Ancient] of Days will not forsake you.” Now, given the apocalyptic nature of the Book of Enoch, there is obviously a lot of scholarly discussion and debate over many passages in it. Given Dr. S’s brief comment here, I will just say I’m not really seeing any claims to divinity or kingship here.
- Dr. S mentions a certain scene depicted in a 4th century Roman sarcophagus in which we see Adam and Eve, with God next to Adam and their faces nearly identical, and a youthful Christ next to Eve. Indeed, it is an interesting depiction that invites theological discussion. I would invite people to look into Irenaeus’ teaching regarding Adam and Eve, God’s plan for humanity, and the role of Christ within that plan. (I wrote a few posts on this a few years ago. Here is a link to the first post. You can find the rest from there). Dr. S’s take on all this, though, seems to me to be rather lazy and simplistic. Without quoting two full paragraphs, allow me to summarize her take this way (Note, I’m putting this in quotes, but she didn’t literally say it in this exact way!): “Some Christian scholars tried to argue that it was God the Son as the pre-incarnate Logos who appeared to figures like Adam, Abraham, Moses, and others in the Old Testament. Well, such ‘highbrow, esoteric theology’ made up by those early Christian theologians probably couldn’t be understood by most of the common Christian types. The fact that so many theologians and bishops had to claim it was the pre-incarnate Son, and not God the Father, shows that most people thought that God had made Adam in His own image, not in the image of Christ.”
I’m not even going to try to respond to that. I am at a loss.
Chapter 19: Sense and Sensitivity
Chapter 19 also doesn’t seem to have a clear focus. I suppose you can say it has to do with God’s voice and His hearing. Again, though, it seems to me to be a mishmash of claims thrown together. A few claims I found odd are as follows:
- The way Dr. S. portrays the OT prophets strikes me as odd. To be fair, prophets like Jeremiah claimed that the prophetic word within them was like fire. In in particular seemed to be tormented at times in his prophetic ministry. Nevertheless, the OT prophets were not religious fanatics or hysterical babblers. They spoke YHWH’s message to their particular generation, and the essential message was always “Return to the covenant.” Their messages were highly crafted and artistic. They were essentially covenant enforcement mediators. None of that, though, is brought up by Dr. S. Instead, simply characterizes OT prophecy as “the urgent screams of prophets savaged by God’s voice” that then “ripped through startled, frightened communities—much to the deity’s delight.” To be clear, instead of correctly portraying the OT prophets who called people to forsake their worship of foreign gods and to return back to the covenant with YHWH, Dr. S portrays it simply as a bunch of half-crazed mad men screaming bloody murder at crowds of frightened communities who were just minding their own business.
- Dr. S also claims that the God of the Bible got upset by the sheer noise of people. After all, in Revelation, He commanded that there be silence for a half an hour in heaven so that He could hear the prayers of the martyrs. Sure, the scene is in heaven, and not on earth; and sure, Dr. S doesn’t seem to get the point of emphasis in the passage (namely, God’s concern for His people, and not so much “things were noisy”)—but hey, when you’re pushing a decontextualized agenda, you gotta do what you gotta do.
- On a similar note, Dr. S also claims that in passages like Amos 5:23 (“Take away from me the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the melody of your harps!”) the reason why YHWH doesn’t want to listen is simply because people were being too loud. Again, the context of Amos 5 be damned. YHWH is speaking to the golden calf-worshipping northern kingdom of Israel, and the reason why He is rejecting their worship isn’t because it is “too noisy,” but because they were engaging in pagan worship.
- And what about the Tower of Babel? According to Dr. S, God dispersed the people at Babel because their “noisy activities threatened to overwhelm the heavens.”
- Finally, again, Dr. S claims that the misogynistic YHWH really had a problem with women’s beautiful bodies. In Isaiah 3, “YHWH notices women’s bodies—It was a sight that irritated his masculinist, sensitive eyes – so much so that, as he glares at them, he envisages searing their hair from their heads and their genitalia, leaving them violated and exposed: ‘The Lord will afflict with scabs the heads of the daughters of Zion; Yahweh will lay bare their private parts’” (382). That’s right, this oracle of judgment has nothing to do with YHWH’s judgment of Israel’s worship of foreign gods which routinely included sacred prostitution. It really is all about how YHWH just really hates beautiful women and longs to inflict their heads with scabs and leave their genitalia violated and exposed.
Chapter 20: Gasp and Gulp
Chapter 21 seems to focus on God’s nose and mouth, and His ability to smell things and swallow things. As Dr. S writes, “…the God of the Bible is a deity who breathes, smells and sniffs his way through his worshippers’ world” (393). To illustrate this, Dr. S, once again, makes some peculiar claims.
- When referencing Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, when Paul says in Ephesians 5:2 that Christ loved us and gave himself up for us (a reference to the crucifixion), and that was “a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God,” Dr. S gives this odd take: “The implication was that the sacrificial scent of Christ’s corpse would naturally trigger a favourable response from God” (395). Paul is using the language of the Temple sacrificial system to explain the significance of Christ’s crucifixion, yet Dr. S seems to think Paul’s comment (note: she doesn’t think Paul wrote Ephesians) is about how it was the actual smell of Christ’s corpse that does the trick.
- Dr. S claims that Paul showed an “utter disinterest in telling stories about the earthly life of Jesus.” Many have made similar claims, but I find such claims hopelessly naïve and ignorant. What we have are Paul’s letters in which he was addressing specific problems within a few of his churches. Just because he doesn’t launch into narratives about Jesus’ ministry in letters he is writing to address specific problems in certain churches doesn’t mean he was “utterly disinterested” in the earthly life of Jesus. It just shows he was addressing different issues in his letters. If I write a letter to a friend who is struggling with some ethical issue in his life, just because I don’t include my thoughts on the Sermon on the Mount doesn’t mean I don’t care about the Sermon on the Mount.
- Then there is Dr. S’s take on the Virgin Mary. To the point, she claims God raped her. She writes, “The extent to which she has any choice about the matter is far from ambiguous. ‘Here I am, the slave of the Lord’, she says in response. ‘Let it be with me according to your word’. Contrary to centuries of Christian teaching, this is no joyful assent. Describing herself as a ‘slave,’ Mary articulates not her willingness to be impregnated, but her powerlessness to object” (410). Well of course, what we should we expect from such a patriarchal, misogynist God who hates looking at beautiful women and who just wants to inflict violence? Again, damn the context of the birth narratives. Damn everything else in those passages where Mary expresses delight and joy, or where she literally says, “May everything happen according to your word!” I mean, that sure sounds like she articulates a willingness to become pregnant! But I can see where Dr. S might have missed that–it was the sentence immediately after the one she quoted. And damn the fact that nowhere does it say either in Matthew or Luke, or any early Christian elaboration on these passages that God had sex with Mary away. When it comes to fighting the patriarchy, sometimes you just need to twist scripture.
Conclusion
There is obviously a lot more in these chapters than I’ve covered here. And to be fair, much of the information about ANE worship practices, gods, and goddesses, is decent. But, like I said in an earlier post, an actual work of Biblical Studies this book is not. You don’t get a better understanding of the Bible or the biblical context of anything in the Bible. What you get is a rather muddled argument (if you can call it that) that YHWH was no different than any other ANE god and that anything in the OT that says otherwise was a post-exilic attempt to gloss over the truth. And oh, the biblical God, as well as post-exilic scribes and Christians throughout the centuries, are all patriarchal misogynists who utterly hate women and sometimes have an erotic desire for men. (Yes, I’m being a bit hyperbolic and cheeky there). In any case, I will need one more post to articulate my concluding thoughts, not just about God: An Anatomy, but also about Biblical Studies in general and about the vitriolic and hateful response I’ve gotten in the course of this book analysis from certain people.
Thank you for your service
Beware of any expert with an agenda, whether it be a progressive or a conser ative.
What’s shocking to me is so many of her fanboys have praised her “scholarly” work when it seems it must read more like a Danielle Steele novel. The part on Mother Mary is particularly egregious as she glorified and praised God in the Magnificant. Even worse is her take on a supposedly misogynistic God. Absurd. I’m glad I didn’t waste the money buying the book. You’ve done a terrific job outlining its arguments. If this is what modern scholars are putting out, we have a problem in our universities.
I am confident that this doesn’t represent all of modern scholarship. It does represent a definite part of it, sadly. But that’s always been the case. I do think, though, that there is something else going on with those you call “fanboys” and I call “Twitter hyenas.” That is something I’m going to try to articulate in my concluding post.
This work clearly has symbolic importance to people. It seems that some aren’t ok with themselves liking the book but can’t handle anyone disagreeing (or worse snickering)
This is why non-experts (the general public) should not latch onto the scholarship of one particular scholar or one particular minority group of scholars just because his/her/their views agree with yours. Look for consensus expert opinion and accept consensus expert opinion as fact on all issues about which you personally are not an expert. If the experts are nearly evenly divided on a particular issue (such as the origin of the universe) withhold judgment.
There are 20000 scholars in the field. I think there really needs to be an equivalent of the philosophers survey for biblical scholars
One pattern I’ve noticed is just how much mind reading is going on. She claims to know peoples true intentions and motivations.
Yes indeed. But that is what one has to engage in when one throws out the testimony of the text itself. And it isn’t so much “mind reading” as it is projection of one’s own biases and agendas back onto a decontextualized text.
You are, of course, immune to these sorts of projections. Nothing but uninvested, dispassionate critical inquiry flowing from your pen.
My concern is with the text that we have. No one is disputing the texts have undergone development. Yes, there are clues as to what those earlier sources might have been, but a responsible person will realize the limitations of what admittedly speculation. Tread carefully and don’t arrogantly pronounce with certainty about things we have no actual texts for.
When someone says, “Well, the OT says ‘x’ so therefore we KNOW that the truth is ‘y'”–I’m going to smirk.
Yeah, that’s a total misread of the Elisha story. It’s a real problem when everything has to be fitted into a sexual mold.
Isaiah 3 is another misread. Overzealous reading on FS’s part?
When you are the only one in the room smirking—in a room filled with experts in the field who have forgotten more about the Bible than you or I will ever know—then maybe it’s just you? For all your rhetoric about my arrogance, you are the one who seems to think he knows better about what is happening in the text than everyone else.
Sorry Kipp, if you can see the messages I’ve received about you and the other Twitter hyenas, you’d realize I’m not the only one smirking.
Messages from all those scholars in the field who find Stavrakopoulou’s book as preposterous as you do? Even scholars who disagree with her also recognise the arguments she is making, and are erudite enough to see their legitimacy.
I am pretty confident that the only messages you are seeing are from your sycophantic followers who don’t know any better. Pardon me for not being especially moved by what the general public thinks regarding the minutia of the biblical texts.
Oh, not only are you the equivalent of a petulant teenager, you’re an elitist snob to boot! But of course, as has become obvious, your view of anyone, even scholars, is basically, “If they don’t agree with me, they’re hacks, they’re ‘Christian apologists,’ blah blah blah.”
@Kipp isn’t Joel correct in pointing out that she misreads many texts, like 2 Kings, Isaiah 3 and 6:1 and these interpretations are rejected by most scholars? To treat only Isaiah 6:1 her interpretation is based Eslinger and Wyatt is the only one to have accepted it. Everybody else thinks it’s problematic or improbable it like Williamson and Smith.
No, Joel is not “correct in pointing out that [Stavrakopoulou] misreads many texts.” He has offered his opinion about her readings, which in many instances is clearly very poorly informed, but let’s tackle each of these individually.
2 Kgs 2:23–24: Joel offers his interpretation of the ridicule hurled by boys at the Prophet Elisha for his badnless as denigration for his just having lost his mentor, “the ‘head’ of the school of the prophets.” I think this likely ties into what is happening in this story, given the immediate context, but it will come as a surprise to a poor reader like Joel that an individual text can have many layers of meaning, or is drawing on a plurality of images and contexts. What he does not do is provide any clear restatement of Stavrakopoulou’s reading of this passage. He quotes a single sentence as a summary, but without teasing out what she is getting at: Elisha “might as well have been mocked for erectile dysfunction. But Yahweh heeds Elisha’s call for a curse to fall upon the children – and responds with a sardonic, gender-bending flourish: two hairy she-bears suddenly appear, and attack the children, shredding a staggering forty-two of them.” This is a blatant straw-man—a misrepresentation of Stavrakopoulou’s discussion.
Admittedly, without understanding what Stavrakopoulou is getting at, this does appear odd. Having supposedly read the book, I would have assumed that Joel would be able to see what she has clearly presented. First, Stavrakopoulou is pointing out that Elisha’s baldness is being deliberately juxtaposed with Elijah’s distinction as a “lord of hair” (2 Kgs 1:8), which is a feature in ANE culture of virility and masculinity. She is basically saying that by drawing attention to this stark difference in Elijah’s and Elisha’s appearance, within this context this signals to the original readers something about the perceived masculinity of each figure. Second, the irony of YHWH’s judgment on the boys who denigrate Elisha’s baldness is in the form of their mauling by a pair of FEMALE bears—who happen to also be covered in fur. So, here the bald man is vindicated by the much hairier she-bears. I mean, once the fuller context of her argument is actually presented, then her flourish of language in describing what is happening as a “gender-bending” irony for a prophet whose baldness—in this cultural milieu—is akin to “erectile disfunction” suddenly does not appear anything but rather clever. And, it moreover does not even interrupt Joel’s reading of the same text where Elisha’s baldness is also symbolic of Elijah’s recent absence. Joel’s careless dismissal of this reading is just ignorant.
So, I have no idea with regards to the currency of this reading in modern scholarship, but I have no doubt that it is one which would be received as both intuitive and relevant, precisely because of how closely it aligns with the broader ANE cultural context.
Off hand, I do not recall Stavrakopoulou’s treatment of Isaiah 3, so you will have to enlighten me.
As for Isa 6:1, I have attempted to engage Joel precisely on this point, in an effort to show that the text is not nearly as clear as he presumes it to be. While you are correct that scholars by-and-large do not read the text the way Stavrakopoulou does, it is not because she does not have a case. As for Smith and Williamson, you are wrong on the former: Smith actually makes this point; he has noted that Stavrakopoulou’s reading is perfectly plausible, but that he does not adopt it. Williamson’s rejection is odd, basing his point on the belief that the text should have used יד instead of שולים if YHWH’s genitals were in view. However, I think this fails to account for an instance in which the author is quite clearly attempting to avoid making explicit what the prophet has seen. Then, Williamson attempts to argue from a textual variant elsewhere in Deutero-Isaiah where another word most often translated as “robe” has been replaced in 1QIsa-a with שולים, as a means to indicate that this is the meaning to be read for the scribal replacement. The problem here is twofold: 1) the word in question (I remember neither the word nor passage off hand) is a hapax-legomenon, so it is anyone’s guess as to what it actually means. 2) the replacement in 1QIsa-a with שולים actually brings the reading of the passage much closer in alignment with other texts where this word is used to refer to a woman’s genitals. Honestly, I think Williamson’s treatment of this verse is rather unconvincing, but that’s scholarship for you.
It is abundantly clear from all of Joel’s blog entries about this book that he does not understand the material, and he appears to be willfully ignorant of it. He strikes me as a guy who has made his mind up about the biblical texts, and who lacks the academic curiosity to probe it any further than just a very basic, Sunday School-level, surface reading that is comfortably at home within many Evangelical, or other deeply conservative Christian churches.
1. No, I don’t think I’m wrong about Smith. Actually, I don’t think that’s a fair characterization of what Smith or I said. Smith never claims Eslinger’s or ‘Stavrakopoulou’s reading is perfectly plausible’. He sees many problems with Eslinger’s interpretation and consequently has his reservations about it. Instead, he uses carefully crafted language and states that: ‘Despite these questions, readers should understand that despite their possible sense of propriety about biblical portraits of the divine, a divine portrait with sexual aspects is a priori not impossible or even improbable’ (247), but due to the numerous problematic aspects of Eslinger’s interpretation, it can’t be shown from this text.
2. While you’re correct that not all of Williamson’s points are equally strong, though I’m unclear if this particular example in ‘Deutero-Isaiah’ you pointed to was subjected to careful reading by you. Further, that Williamson ‘fails to account for an instance in which the author is quite clearly attempting to avoid making explicit what the prophet has seen’ is what you are trying to prove. So it runs the risk of circularity. The important point, however, is that Williamson agrees with Smith that for linguistic as well as other reasons, Eslinger’s proposed interpretation cannot firmly be shown from the text.
3. As for furry bears, it makes perfect sense in context. The boys mockingly imply that Elisha by his baldness hasn’t inherited his master’s hairy head or mantle, that is prophetic gifts. As a tit-for-tat punishment the boys are mauled by furry bears! Contextually there are no clear sexual under- or overtones and as you rightly point out, this take has a very limited following, if any. Certainly, a more carefully laid out argument would be welcome. I think Joel is right in pointing out these interpretations as lacking solid foundation in the text and as effectively supported by nobody.
4. Isaiah 3: Joel quotes in this very blogpost, please scroll up and you’ll see it.
JOEL: “YHWH was no different than any other ANE god and that anything in the OT that says otherwise was a post-exilic attempt to gloss over the truth.”
You obviously, very clearly disagree with this statement, and it seems that you accept the biblical texts on their face as accurate, unadulterated depictions of religion in Iron Age CisJordan. So, I am curious: if these texts were in fact as most scholars suggest—late, heavily redacted depictions of Iron Age Israel, but under a thick veneer of post-Exilic theological revision—then, how do you think we would know it? What do you think we should have to inform us of this much, but do not? In other words, what clues and evidence should we as scholars expect to inform our theories regarding the historical development of biblical texts?
Admittedly, this is a difficult question to answer, because I think it will lead you to see precisely why scholars approach the text the way that they do, and why most rather emphatically reject it as a plain, clear presentation of culture, religion and history in Iron Age Palestine.
Bottom line: No one knows for sure the intent of any ancient author. Did the author(s) of the Hebrew Scriptures truly believe that Yahweh had body parts? We cannot know. Did the author(s) of Genesis believe that Yahweh created the universe is six literal days or six “ages”. We cannot know! Did the author of Genesis really believe that Methuselah lived to be almost 1,000 years old? We cannot know! When the Gospel author describes Yahweh “overshadowing” the Virgin Mary, did he envision a sexual act? We cannot know.
Dr. Stavrakopoulous doesn’t know. Dr Kipp Davis doesn’t know. Dr. Joel Anderson doesn’t know. They are taking educated guesses. The Bible is NOT an historically reliable text.
Well, I think you take it too far. ANY writer, if he is even a decent writer, will be able to effectively communicate what he is intending in his writing. Anyone who has a fair amount of knowledge of history and a fair amount of literary competency (i.e. knows how to intelligently read) will be able to know what the writer is intending to communicate. That being said, sure, given the historical distance and cultural differences, there will always be some shades of ambiguity here and there. And that is where “educated guesses” come into play. But for the most part, most competent people will be able to read something–whether it is in the Bible or some other text–and know pretty much what it is communicating.
Are you claiming that the majority of ANE scholars claim to know as fact that the author(s) of Genesis were not inferring that Yahweh created the universe in six literal days?
Basically, yes. I highly doubt that most ANE and Biblical scholars interpret Genesis 1 as claiming the universe was created in six literal days in the modern scientific sense.
Can you give a reputable source which says so?
It is weird to describe the claim as holding that “the universe was created in six literal days in the modern scientific sense,” since most of the scholars to whom you are referring (I assume) do not believe there is anything remotely scientific about a six-day creation. Moreover, I think you will find that many more non-confessionally obligated biblical scholars are quite comfortable with the notion that six literal days is precisely what the author of the text had in view, since they do not think that this is anything approaching a scientific description of origins.
I am undecided about whether the original writers/readers understood the Genesis 1 story to have taken place within an actual week, although this view certainly would have had much more relevance in view of the teaching from the story about the importance of the Sabbath.
What the hell are you talking about? You crack me up.
Why do you do that, Joel? Why do you claim to not understand a very clear statement from Kipp? You have done this to me multiple times. I believe you do it in order to ignore a skeptic’s argument for which you do not have a good answer.
You claim that most scholars KNOW the intent of the authors of Genesis in regards to the six “day” creation. Dr. Davis validated my claim that the experts are divided on this issue: that there is no consensus on this issue. You don’t like hearing that so you pretend not to understand what he is saying. Come on, Joel.
No, he us simply restating what I’ve said, but putting it forth in some kind of unnecessary combative way.
Yes, in the context of the creation story, they are DAYS. But no, the creation story isn’t making any kind of scientific, historical claim.
When Robert Burns wrote, “My love is a red, red rose,” rose means the flower, but he wasn’t claiming he was actually in love with a literal plant.
No. The point is: Neither you nor anyone else knows the intent of the authors of Genesis. No one knows if they meant “day” in the literal sense of “the evening and the morning were the ___ day” or if they were speaking metaphorically. You have repeatedly stated that you know their intent. Dr. Davis confirmed the fact that there is a diversity of scholarly opinion on this issue, therefore the truth is that you have been misrepresenting the facts.
No…if one cannot know the writer’s intent, then communication is an impossibility. The very fact that you are responding to things I write shows that you believe it is possible to communicate through words and writing.
To then turn around and say, “But with the Bible we just can’t know!” seems ludicrous.
Wrong. What I say or think is irrelevant. Dr. Davis has confirmed that scholars are divided on the intent of the authors of Genesis regarding their use of the word “day” in the Hebrew Creation stories found in Genesis 1 and 2. I asked you above:
“Are you claiming that the majority of ANE scholars claim to know as fact that the author(s) of Genesis were not inferring that Yahweh created the universe in six literal days?”
Your answer was: “Basically, yes.”
According to Dr. Davis, you are misrepresenting the current status of scholarly opinion on this issue. Please be honest and admit you overstated the facts.
No. Most Biblical scholars do not think Genesis 1 is speaking of six literal days in the way, for example, Ken Ham claims. Genesis 1 is not making that claim.
Joel: Most Biblical scholars do not think Genesis 1 is speaking of six literal days in the way, for example, Ken Ham claims. Genesis 1 is not making that claim.
Gary: I asked about ANE scholars and historians. Please provide a reputable source which states that most ANE scholars and historians are certain that the authors of Genesis did not mean evening and morning as a literal Jewish day but rather as an age; an extended period of time.
So better yet, why don’t you name one ANE or Biblical scholar that agrees with Ken Ham’s interpretation?
Dr. Kipp Davis: “Moreover, I think you will find that many more non-confessionally obligated biblical scholars are quite comfortable with the notion that six literal days is precisely what the author of the text had in view, since they do not think that this is anything approaching a scientific description of origins.”
Ask Dr. Davis for some names, Joel.
He literally said the exact same thing I said. What are you not understanding?
No. Dr. Davis is saying that there are plenty of scholars who believe that the authors of Genesis meant a literal six days. Ask Dr. Davis if you don’t believe me.
This is Carrier-level absurdity. Absolutely atrocious. Dr Falk’s analysis was 100% correct
“This” referring to what specifically?