William Lane Craig’s Quest for the Historical Jesus (through the lands of Myth!) (Part 2)

In this second post on WLC’s recent book, In Quest for the Historical Adam, I’m going to walk us through chapters 3-5. So, without any opening witty banter, let’s just jump right into these chapters!

Chapter 3: Are the Primaeval Narratives of Genesis 1-11 Myth? (Part 1)
Chapters 3-4 both focus on addressing the question, “Are the primaeval narratives of Genesis 1-11 myth?” The long and short of these chapters is that he comes to the conclusion that yes, when it comes to the issue of genre, Genesis 1-11 deserves to be classified as ancient Near Eastern (ANE) mythological literature. On that ultimate point, he is absolutely correct. With that conclusion stated up front, we can now walk through some of the particulars of what he argues, first in Chapter 3.

First, WLC points out that various scholars, like Gordon Wenham, correctly observe that “Genesis 1-11 is full of parallels with ANE traditions…whereas Genesis 12-50 is devoid of such parallels” (53). As a side note, if you take the time to read YECist Jason Lisle’s critique of WLC’s book, you’ll see that Lisle repeats over and over again in his posts that Genesis 1-11 is written exactly like Genesis 12-50, and there is absolutely no difference at all between Genesis 1-11 and 12-50. It is quite unbelievable. It reminded me of the scene in The Princess Bride, where Inigo Montoya tells Count Rugen, over and over again, “Hallo! My name is Inigo Montoya! You killed my father! Prepare to die!” The only difference is that in the move, Inigo Montoya was right and followed through, whereas Lisle’s repetition just gets annoying.

Second, WLC touches upon some scholars, like Herman Gunkel, who argue that since Israel was averse to polytheism, that means they would also be averse to the use of myth. WLC is correct in pointing out that aversion to polytheism belongs in a different category altogether than deciding which genre of literature to use. So, thumbs up for WLC on that point.

Third, though, WLC gets a big thumbs down when he takes a few pages to criticize Brevard Childs’ description of myth. This section left me scratching my head. To the point, I thought Childs’ treatment of myth was pretty spot on, and WLC lambasted it as “incoherent nonsense.” So, let’s take a brief look at what Childs said and who WLC responded.

In his book, Myth and Reality in the Old Testament, Childs basically argues that traditional pagan mythology has a certain “cyclical” understanding of time and reality, and that differs from the way in which OT Israel “tweaked” mythology for their own ends. Now, to be clear, WLC notes that Childs defines “myth” in the following way: “A form by which the existing structure of reality is understood and maintained. It concerns itself with showing how an action of a deity, conceived as occurring in the primaeval age, determines a phase of contemporary world order” (60). That definition can be applied to either pagan, polytheistic myths, or monotheistic myths (as we find in Genesis 1-11).

Okay, so what does that mean? Simply put, Childs argues that pagan myths occur outside of linear, historical time, and in that sense are timeless. As he states, “there is no actual distinction in mythical time between the past, present, and future. Although the origin of time is projected into the past, to the primeval act of becoming, this is only a form in which an essentially timeless reality is clothed. In the cultic representation of the myth, this act is relived” (62).

Okay, so what does that mean? Even more simply put, myths occur outside of linear, historical time, and yet myths represent the ultimate reality, so that the events in history aren’t really unique, but really are just “replays” patterned after the cyclical myths. In pagan mythology, history is worthless. The events and people in history simply are cheap re-runs played out over and over again. Things in history just get repeated on a loop, patterned after those timeless myths.

By contrast, Childs argues, what we see in the Bible is very different. In Genesis 1-11, the biblical writers have taken all that and have done some major alterations, perhaps the most major one being laying the groundwork for the value and importance of history. In the biblical mythological story of origins, something goes wrong, and reality is perverted, thus human history is given a purpose. It becomes the arena in which God works to right the wrong and bring humanity back to original good…sort of. Because, as Childs points out, the eschatological view of the Bible is that what God is “bringing humanity back to,” is really something better than the original.

Put all that together, we get this: (1) In pagan mythology, reality is determined by the myth, and thus historical time is just run on a cyclical loop according to mythical “time.” But (2) In the Bible, myth is used to show something is wrong, and thus history has purpose and historical time moves forward to something better. Let me use my own analogy using standard ANE cosmology. In the ancient world, people viewed the sky above as a dome spreading over the land. They viewed the stars in the sky as being lights in the dome that traveled in their certain routes across the sky. The dome’s fixed position and the stars’ predictable routes made it possible for people on the land to chart their course as they traveled, whether on the land or on the sea. Hence, that solid dome and the stars spreading over the land are kind of like ancient myths that spread out over and cover human history.

The difference between pagan mythology and the biblical use of mythology, though, is that in the pagan world (using my analogy) pagans were on a “reality island” and they never traveled anywhere. There was no place to go. But the Israelites understood that they were on a journey and that history had purpose and a goal.

Needless to say, I think Childs is spot on. For some reason, though, WLC was not impressed. He wrote, “…the sympathetic interpreter will be reluctant to ascribe such incoherent nonsense to the progenitors of myth. What does it mean to say that time is ‘absolute,’ and how is that consistent with saying that reality is ‘essentially timeless’?” (62). He then goes on to criticize Childs for, quite frankly, in a way that I honestly cannot understand. I’ve read these pages numerous times, and, I’m sorry to say, the only “incoherent nonsense” is that of WLC’s reaction. It is like he missed Childs’ argument completely. I think it might lie at the root of why WLC insists that Genesis 1-11, though in the genre of myth, must still be about real history—he simply misses one of the most fundamental characteristics of myth: they are un-historical and are stories that lie outside linear, historical time. Simply put, they’re not about history.

Chapter 4: Are the Primaeval Narratives of Genesis 1-11 Myth? (Part 2)
In Chapter 4, WLC largely focuses on two things: (1) The various characteristics in Genesis 1-11 that indicate it is mythological literature, and (2) The question of whether or not the writer of Genesis 1-11 borrowed from earlier Mesopotamian myths.

He begins with a rather decent explanation of Genesis 1-11: “The primaeval history of Genesis 1-11 seeks to anchor realities present to the Pentateuchal author, such as the world, mankind, natural phenomena, cultural practices, and the prevailing cult, in a primordial time. Here we come to the very heart of myth” (65). [The problem, IMO, is that when WLC speaks of “primordial time,” he is thinking that mythical “time” is still literal, historical time—and this is contrary to what Childs argues, and that is why WLC found Childs’ explanation “incoherent nonsense.”]

In any case, when it comes to the question, “Is Genesis 1-11 ‘borrowed material’ from earlier ANE myths?” WLC takes issue with various scholars (like Peter Enns, for example) who argue this is so. In short, WLC argues that “myths tap deeply into the human psyche, so we should not be surprised to find that similar myths, whether by polygenesis or convergence, exist among unrelated peoples throughout the world” (77). Therefore, “Whatever one thinks of the question of asymmetrical Hebrew borrowing, our discussion here shows how difficult it can be to establish causal dependence between parallel narratives and the sort of careful argument that needs to be offered (87).

Fair enough. I do think it is problematic to conclusively say that the writer of Genesis 1-11 borrowed from other ANE myths. I think it is safer to say Genesis 1-11 and the other ANE are all products of the ANE and all reflect the varying beliefs of the various cultures.

When it comes to how Genesis 1-11 reflects the characteristics of ANE myth, WLC’s discussion, though lengthy, is fairly good. One particular point that he makes I feel is worth noting is how one characteristic of ANE is how all the details in a given myth don’t necessarily make “logical” sense, or how there are some things mentioned that aren’t fully explained. Case in point, where did Cain’s wife come from and who were the other people that Cain feared would take his life? If Cain and Abel were the only two sons of Adam and Eve in Genesis 4, where did these other people come from? If you assume this is straight history, you feel there needs to be a historical explanation. With myth, though, there doesn’t need to be an explanation. As WLC writes, “Similarly, the author could have easily eliminated any questions about the provenance of Cain’s wife and who the others are that Cain feared would take his life, but he chose not to” (104).

Yep…that answer is good enough for me!

Another characteristic of myth is that of “fantastical elements.” And if you read Genesis 1-11, you find a lot of them—from a talking snake to God literally walking in a garden, to the two trees, to the incredibly long lifespans, all of it just screams “mythological genre.” Again, on all of those points, WLC is correct. Particularly with the lifespans, WLC notes that if we were to take them literally, that Noah would have been a contemporary of Abraham and that Shem would have actually outlived Abraham. Furthermore, there is this rather humorous quote in which WLC pokes fun at the typical YECist narrative:

“Since Noah was contemporaneous with the age of the dinosaurs, he is said to have taken dinosaurs aboard the ark, two of every one of the five hundred genera. Upon disembarking, he released these dinosaurs into the world, where they spread throughout the earth and evolved into all the known species of dinosaur. Since Noah disembarked only 292 years prior to the birth of Abraham, the entire history of dinosaur evolution and extinction must be compressed into the space of less than three hundred years (unless, that is, dinosaurs were still about at the time of Abraham)” (130).

If nothing else, WLC conclusively shows just how ridiculous the YECist really is. In any case, although I think WLC misunderstands what “myth” ultimately is (I’ll touch upon that in the next post), in these chapters, he does make a fairly good argument that what we are reading in Genesis 1-11 is, in fact, a form of ANE mythology. In my next post, we’ll tackle Chapters 5-6 and WLC claim that Genesis 1-11 is “mytho-history” and his assessment of the NT’s references to Adam.