The question of the 'genre' of a text and the role of our assessment of its genre in its interpretation is a second order question. The first order question is a grammatical-lexical one: first off, what information is conveyed by the words in their order. Only when this runs us away from factual experience can we objectively impose between the direct meaning of the words and the author's intent considerations which derive from our knowledge of other similar approaches to composition. That is, when we read of trees clapping their hands, we bring the knowledge of trees not having hands and not being known to have volitional capacity, we deduce that we have encountered a genre known as 'poetic'. This appraisal comes by the passage's distortion of real world facts and categories which nevertheless retains meaning and is able to communicate meaningfully.
Other's have attempted to first look at the structural aspects of texts, rather than the words composed by the author, and use this, or contrive to use this to negate the direct meaning of a text. I think for example of John Dickson at an ISCAST sponsored talk a few year ago where I heard him wax lyrical on the chiastic structure of Genesis 1 as eliminating the possiblity of it being either a factual account, or of it meaning what it says, but meaning something else.
The irony of this was lost on John I think when the 'something else' coujld only be informed by the words which he denied carried the direct meaning and could only communicate the 'something else' on the basis of the direct meaning. That is, put more simply, Genesis 1 teaches us that God created but not in the way he says . . . what other way is there and how does the reader know this? John's view, if I understand it properly, is that a text ceases to be factual in its direct sense if it contains any structure which hints at literary art. Not only is this question begging in the grandest style, but it relies on the reader having alternative knowledge of the topic the author addresses. So is Genesis 1 a metaphor? If so, a metaphor of what, because Dickson's approach cuts us off form the author's intent.
If we are cut off from the author, where does our information on origins derive? Well, it must be from the world around us: the cultural world, that is; modern naturalism tells us that all is as it always was (2 Pt 3:4) and so this informs us that the universe contains the source of its being and cannot point beyond itself (contra Roms 1:20), it must have the answer, against rationality, that more comes from less, and something comes from nothing; a view that has been the undercurrent of pagan beliefs since ancient mythology, with Empedocles springing to mind.
The other folorn element of Dickson's address was that he reached for the structural device of 'chiasm' to deny facticity, or even the possiblity of facticity, but overlooked the fact that chiasm is frequently used in the Bible in all sorts of genres. It is found in the gospels, history and less suprisingly what we term (but the Hebrews did not) poetry. With literarature having no external formating clues: no paragraphs, verse numbering or other devices, it has been proposed that chiasm was the method authors used to delimit sections of their work: and to do it artfully, as distinct from the ham fisted method used today in most cases which relies on typographical markers, not the art of the composition itself.
I don't want to say more on this at the moment as I will start referring to an article that I read pre-publication. I prefer to await its publication and post a link to it.
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Hey, Michael,
John Dickson's material certainly does promote an either/or case. He claims Genesis 1 isn't history because it contains literary devices. Maybe you know something I don't?
John
A reprinted post made by Martin 'Enkindu' Shields from the SydAng forums:
The question of the 'genre' of a text and the role of our assessment of its genre in its interpretation is a second order question. The first order question is a grammatical-lexical one: first off, what information is conveyed by the words in their order. Only when this runs us away from factual experience can we objectively impose between the direct meaning of the words and the author's intent considerations which derive from our knowledge of other similar approaches to composition. That is, when we read of trees clapping their hands, we bring the knowledge of trees not having hands and not being known to have volitional capacity, we deduce that we have encountered a genre known as 'poetic'. This appraisal comes by the passage's distortion of real world facts and categories which nevertheless retains meaning and is able to communicate meaningfully.
So we know that "the trees of the field will clap their hands" is not meant to be literal because our experience of the world tells us this doesn't happen. So when a scientist whose experience of the world leads him or her to believe that the universe is ancient reads Genesis, it is perfectly legitimate for them to conclude that Genesis cannot be understood literally!
Eric had better watch out, he'll be chucked out of the Sydney Anglican Heretics club and be forced to join the Sydney Anglican Heretics!
;-)
Lee your meaning is far from clear but I imagine you are referring to a Christian who is a scientist who you believe is forced to re-interpret Genesis, the Word of God- God who was there at the beginning, who does not make mistakes and who does not lie. That this hypothetical scientist has rather to trust the untestable long-age beliefs of scientists who were not there at the beginning, constantly make mistakes and are just sinful humans like the rest of us. Does Scripture tell us to trust the opinions of sinful man, any man over the Word of God? You know it doesn't. This is the foundational error as exposed on the Anglo forum, that man is the authority, not God.
Lee when you start from the wrong station it is unlikely you will end up at the right place.
I can't speak for Martin, whom I quoted and whom you have had a go at in your blog (I would have thought you would have recognised the name), but he is pointing out the inconsistencies of what you guys are saying. You say that trees clapping cannot be literal because we never experience that tree do that (and fairly so). But you reject that a scientist can look at the universe and see the evidence for an old earth and universe and can make the same assessment.
Now I'm not going in to bat for scientists who do say that, I simply do not know enough to talk about it authoritatively, but you can't have your cake and eat it too. If there is genuinely evidence for an old universe, as many true blue Christians around the world believe, then you would have to say that Genesis would have to be taken non-literally.
If Isaiah and trees clapping isn't literal because of what we experience by observation, then the same would apply to Genesis. And it can also be said that we have re-interpreted many things over the time of history like, for example, flat earth theory. Would you say that sinful man has distorted the Scriptures because we don't read any description where it refers to the world having corners as being literal?
Lee,I asked you a question which you haven't answered.
I am a little confused here: please explain the connection between trees clapping and someone seeing evidence for an old earth???
By the way I believe the earth is old- 6,000 years + is very old.
You are right there is evidence for an old earth but there is far more evidence for a young earth. But don't confuse evidence with proof.
However should real Bible believers re-interpret Scripture because of evidence which can't be tested empirically? You should know and most likely do that the God of creation has said to believe Him not any falible sinful man. Remember Jesus( The Creator)said if we don't believe Him about earthly matters why should we believe Him about spiritual matters. Jesus who was there at the beginning says man was made at 'the beginning of creation' not after eons of supposed time. Maybe He got this bit wrong or maybe scientists know better that Him? Who do you trust Lee God or man? Who you gunna call?
By the way the flat earth idea was conceived by two atheists to ridicule Christianity. The Bible teaches a round earth, hanging in space upon nothing.
Lee it is also important to remember the reformation doctrine of perspicuity- that Scripture was written to be easily understood by the believer. We don't need guru's, priests, scientists, or even ex-camel-driving archbishops to interpret it for us. And we don't need people of compromised belief to re-interpret it for us either. I just trust that God knows a lot more than me.
Lee I don't know why you puzzle over language which talks about the corners of the earth-maybe I misunderstood you. We talk of sun-rise and my right-hand-man, they are just sayings and literature including the Bible is full of them. I think you are genuine but have been fed nonsense by others. All the best.
We don't determine the genre of a passage by what we know in the real world, otherwise we would have to decide that the resurrection passages are oobviously figurative rather than historical!
As I said in the your.SA.net forum, discussions of genre can be useful, but they can also waste time and be misleading. After all, genre is a man-made classification system, and we could classify the verses in the Bible into as many genres and sub-genres as there are verses! Genre can help our study of the Bible, but it can't determine whether something was historically true or not.
Warwick,
My comment was not on the validity of what scientists say, I can't talk about it because I don't know a whole lot about it. My comment was on the consistency in applying observation to the Bible.
Eric, in his blog post, said we know that when it talks about trees clapping their hands in Isaiah, we know it isn't literal because we don't observe trees clapping their hands. Martin, posting on the SydAng forums, made the statement that using the same logic, there was nothing wrong with seeing the evidence of an old universe and coming to the conclusion that Genesis maybe shouldn't be taken literally, though still be said to be true.
In regards to the flat earth thing, Christians prior to the discovery of the earth being round would have thought that the earth was flat (just like everyone else). Yes the Bible talks about being a globe but there are many more references to the world having corners and the like, that they probably wouldn't have though the whole globe thing to be literal. However, with the discovery of the round globe (which was an endeavour supported by the church), people re-interpreted the passages that refer to corners of the world be not literal.
The point is over time, Christians have changed their understanding of the world in accordance with scientific discovery. It isn't a sledge but a reality. You come to the Bible with 2000 years of Western history behind you. You can 't completely remove that from your understanding. And there isn't anything wrong with that because the Bible isn't the source of all knowledge, it is the supreme authority of matters of the Christian faith. Tell me, how do you tell the difference between the bits of the Bible that are supposed to be taken literally and non-literally if not by observation?
And on perspecuity of Scripture, there is limitations on that. Do read one of the autographs (one of the original writings)? Do you read it in greek? Otherwise, you are reading something that is compiled from many different texts from many different times, written in 3 ancient, dead languages, translated into English for your convenience. The Bible is perspicuous (?) in the sense that we don't need a priest to tell us what to believe, we can get it from Scripture ourselves, but it doesn't mean we can do it with no regard to when and why something was written or any of the other external factors.
Danni,
God writes His Word in a human fashion. Because of the dual-authorship of Scripture, genre isn't something we just impose upon Scripture, they are something intrinsically in the Word. And we do learn about genre from interactions with other writings, how else do you tell difference between a newspaper editorial and a poem?
So in ragards to the genre of Genesis, it makes a big difference if it is a figurative historical text (as many of the non-YECS folk on SydAng would say it is) or of the same historical narrative as books like Samuel or Kings (as YECS ers would say). If it is like Samuel (which I don't think it is), then the literal reading would be the way to go but it doesn't make much sense. There would be real contradictions, not explained away by observational difference (like in the Gospels), and the way things are described leaves a lot of questions.
It also has very serious implications for how we read the read the rest of the Bible. If genre is disregarded and you take the stance that everything in the Bible must be read literally, then Revelation, for example, becomes a whole lot of weirdness. We would expect a literal 10 headed dragons to be coming out of the ocean. We would a dead-looking lamb to leading Christians around a hill. From Ezekiel, we would expect a second Messiah, the literal David, to return to lead Israel rather than Jesus.
Genesis can be true even if it is figurative history. It just means that the extent to which it is true is different that if it were like Samuel. If Genesis was written as a polemic against other creation myths at the time, that really matters because it will change the way something is read.
Do you read a 'report' in a glossy girls magazine the same way you would read an academic's thesis or watch Today Tonight the same way you'd watch the 7:30 Report?
And we do learn about genre from interactions with other writings, how else do you tell difference between a newspaper editorial and a poem?
We can easily tell the difference between a newspaper editorial and a poem, and genre is but a part of that. However there are many newspaper editorials without a bit of truth in them, and there are many poems that describe concrete truth.
So in ragards to the genre of Genesis, it makes a big difference if it is a figurative historical text (as many of the non-YECS folk on SydAng would say it is) or of the same historical narrative as books like Samuel or Kings (as YECS ers would say). If it is like Samuel (which I don't think it is), then the literal reading would be the way to go but it doesn't make much sense. There would be real contradictions, not explained away by observational difference (like in the Gospels), and the way things are described leaves a lot of questions.
Of course the way we read it makes a big difference, but even if we did read it as the same genre as 1 & 2 Kings, that doesn't mean any of the events it described happened. And if it was pure poetry, that doesn't mean it couldn't describe historical events either.
Do you read a 'report' in a glossy girls magazine the same way you would read an academic's thesis or watch Today Tonight the same way you'd watch the 7:30 Report?There are many thesis' that probably belong in a glossy magazine :P
Everyone, on both sides of the YECS debate, should seriously get over genre. Debating about the genre of parts of the Bible doesn't help.
Lee I am not part of this site. I was told about it and have had my say here and there. I have read much of the Anglo Forum and have found some of the writers to be smug, and quite rude to dissenters.
Thank you for your thoughtful reply.
I don't take Scripture literally and know of very very few who do. In fact I can't bring one person to mind. I take Scripture at face value unless there is some good reason not to do so. I do not consider the constantly changing opinions of men to be a safe basis for doubting the historical reality of any part of Scripture. I have a decades long method of Bible study in that I read the Bible from cover to cover each year. I therefore have a better than average understanding of the warp and flow of God's revelation to us. It is true and obvious that some parts of it are puzzling, and hard to understand, as Peter said of some of Paul's writings, so I am in good company. I have always submitted the puzzling bits to prayer and the consideration of the texts from various dictionaries and concordances and my limited understanding of Hebrew and Greek. Further when reading through Scripture from cover to cover Scripture has a way of explaining itself. By this I mean that it can only be understood-in my opinion- by understanding the overall context. We go from word, to sentence, to verse, to chapter to book to the whole book.
If the Bible said air has no weight then I would have to stop and wonder if the Bible was factual as air does have weight and we can weigh it any time we like. It is therefore not a belief or a philosophy. (By the way the Bible says air has weight.) However if someone (for one example) says we cannot trust the Biblical timeline from Adam to Jesus as being an historical time line from the beginning to a later time because of the dates which radiometric dating assigns to certain rocks then that is a different thing. Radiometric dating is based upon un-testable assumptions and is therefore not part of the scientific method. Serious contradictions bob up all over the place. Not 50 miles from where Michael(son of the ex-camel-driving archbishop-said in fun)is studying timber was found in limestone. The timber dated by carbon 14 to be some thousands of years old while the limestone was dated at some 10's of millions of years. Please excuse my vagueness about the thousands and millions I would have to do some refresher study to get the exact figures and don't have time at the moment. If you know anything about carbon 14 decay you would know that it has a half life of about 5,700 years therefore all carbon 14 has gone by 50-60,000 years. But there it was in limestone supposedly millions of years old. This shows the limestone dating figures to be dramatically wrong. There are many other instances of these large discrepancies, one showing a mistake of 2-3 billion years!
I discussed this timber in limestone deal with Dr Tom Higham from Oxford Uni. who suspected that mistakes had been made in either field or lab work. I offered to supply a highly qualified scientist to do it again with his (Higham's)involvement but Tom would not take it on. I tried to get him involved on a few occasions but no success. I think it fair to believe he knew the facts and didn't want to be the evolutionary scientist who assisted the Biblical cause. I don't blame him they would probably boil him in oil, or worse.
So what's this all about? I believe that many in the Anglican community have accepted the radiometric dating story hook line and sinker and therefore are forced to re-interpret anything in the Bible which disagrees with the changing ideas of fallible sinful men who believe one thing then ten years later believe the opposite. This is the nature of science but these changing ideas should not be used to interpret the Word of the perfect God , rather the reverse.
That I believe is why so many on the anglo site argue so passionately against the days of creation being literal days as we know them. Not one of their arguments is in anyway convincing. Ask any reasonably intelligent 8 year old what 6 days means and they will look at you strangely as the answer is so obvious they wonder what is wrong with you. They know what three days or four days mean. So why don't others? because their starting point is not the Bible, with God as authority, but man as authority. This produces the complicated reasoning we see in their writings, aimed at explaining away the obvious meaning of six creation days and further explains their often bad attitude to the dreaded YEC's.
Exodus mirrors the creation week- work six and rest one- don't rest on the seventh then execution awaits. So was God vague about when the seventh (execution free)day was, and how long. No way!
Sola Scriptura!
To the Moorites/Jensenites,
Allow me to build upon what my learned friend Eric has cast as a pearl.
As any 1st year philosophy student learns, there are 2 types of truths: analytical and synthetic.
With the first, one does not have to engage with the world to know whether the proposition is true or not. For example, if I say, "See that man there, he's a bachelor and there's his wife." By definition something has to give.
Regarding the second, if I say all swans are white, I cannot know the truth of this unless I search the world. (The more astute of you will understand the significance of my example!)
So, "trees clapping" is false on a priori grounds because trees do not have hands. In other words, it's poetic.
Similarly, with 6 days, I don't have to go out into the world to know the meaning of this: in any language a number next to a day, grammatically signifies a proscribed number of days.
Likewise, if I read the genealogies of Genesis and Luke I don't have to go out into the world to know the meaning. It's just language.
Martin has committed a fallacy of equivocation when he accuses Eric of not following his own epistemology. The meaning of Genesis 1 and Exodus 20 and 31 are not dependent upon synthetic evaluations: they are coherent from the plain sense of the language. In other words, analytical truths.
Of course, if Martin were to be talking about the age of the earth, independent from what Scripture says, then there should be a whole lot of evidence for its youth..but that is another question.
John
Dear John,
[I'm neither a Moorite or a Jensenite, so perhaps I'm unwelcome here. Anyways...]
1. As any 1st year philosophy student also learns, the distinction between analytic (not "analytical") and synthetic truth is problematic. Witness.
2. You seem to equate "a priori" with analytic. They are not the same thing. Some people maintain that there are synthetic a priori truths (take Kant for example...).
3. "Trees clapping" does not look like a statement that has a truth value to me. Yet you claim it is false. What does this mean?
4. Perhaps you are claiming it is impossible for me to find a clapping tree in the world. I find it highly unlikely that I'll ever meet such a tree, but I don't see why it's impossible. If you show me a picture of a tree with hands I am likely to say "wow! a tree with hands" not "that's not a tree". I don't see what in the definition of a tree procludes it having hands and being able to clap.
Similarly, with 6 days, I don't have to go out into the world to know the meaning of this: in any language a number next to a day, grammatically signifies a proscribed number of days.
5. You were hitherto discussing truth. At this point you jump to meaning. (I would have thought the logic of your argument would lead you to consider whether "6 days" is true or not.)
6. You later say that the meaning of Genesis 1 and Exodus 20 and 31 are "analytical truths". You mean that the "six days" mentioned in Exodus 20 is true? But what does that mean? Could I similarly claim that "water heater" or "12 monkeys" is true? There's still a big gap to go from truth to meaning.
6. Proscribed does not mean what you think it means (at least as you wrote it).
7. What is "just language"? Can you explain how language makes sense without reference to the world?
8. I don't understand why you say that this Martin has committed a fallacy of equivocation. A fallacy of equivocation is the use of the same word in different meanings in an argument. Which word in Martin's argument has been used with different meanings? Or perhaps you meant only to accuse him of equivocation, not the fallacy thereof?
Cheers,
Charlie
I saw trees clapping in The Lord of the Rings. Do they count?
Danni,
lol
Warwick,
I don't know much about science so I won't debate it with you. Don't see my comments as an endorsement of evolution coz they aren't.
What I do know is that the Genesis text itself is not like Samuel/Kings/Chronicles and I'm convinced that it does use poetic license and structures to describe the beginnings, thus the contradiction between Gen 1 and 2 and the way the Flood account is written. I am also convinced that the purpose of Genesis is a polemic against other ANE creation accounts, so it's purpose is show the stable, loving greatness of the One True God as opposed to the chaotic, violent ways of the false gods of surrounding nations. I think pushing it as a critique of the science of evolution is not a good thing to do since it wasn't written for that purpose (it does critique the philosophy that might stem from evolution, in the same way as it critiques any other non-biblical thought).
Lee,
What poetic devices are we talking about?
John
Lee,
Whenever I talk with JWs or Mormons I always ask them what evidence would they accept which would overthrow their ideas. I ask you, on the basis of what you just wrote, what would prove your thesis incorrect?
John
Charlie,
Yes, your post certainly shows the wisdom in not entering a debate so late at night after 1 glass too many of red. I was far too unrigorous in my definitions and application. So, this afternoon I’ll hopefully explain my point a bit more elegantly and clearly.
To a minor issue first.
I meant to use ‘circumscribed’ – but you knew that didn’t you, Charlie?
And yes, I’ve unintentionally equivocated on ‘truth’ and ‘meaning’. I meant ‘meaning’ all along because that is the first issue of addressing a text i.e. what is to be understood by the words themselves. So forgive me for that…as I knew you would, Charlie.
To my main contention.
Although it may appear as trivial, I think it isn’t because in many respects it gets to the heart of the case for a young earth and the arguments which align themselves against it.
Those opposed to a young earth all seem to eventually state that, notwithstanding the assumed scientific evidence supporting their case, the 6 days that the Bible records in several places as being the duration of God’s creative activity (some recorded as God’s own words), cannot be equivalent to 6 24-hour periods. I claim that the statements which make these claims in the Bible are analytic truths because they are really of the form
In 6 days God created the world, these being 6 x 24-hour periods.
They are analytic because the nature of language, as it is used here, dictates that the predicate, 6 x 24 hours, is already contained in the subject i.e. [God’s creating in] 6 days. It is analogous to saying ‘All red roses are red’. Thus, in the above case, 6 days cannot mean anything other than 6 days, a total of 144 hours.
In a very real sense, there is nothing new that I’m being informed about when I claim that the 6 days are 24 hour periods because, as far as I am aware, that is what the expression 6 or 5 or 256 days always means in any language.
It is also analytic because to say other than (as the Anglican people on their Forum argue) ‘6 days are 6 24-hour periods’ involves self-contradiction. (Don’t forget, I’m not talking about first looking for evidence of how old the earth is and then returning to the God-spoken proposition and reinterpreting it in light of what one has supposedly discovered!) If one cannot deny maleness as being inherently contained in the idea of bachelorhood, without suffering from contradiction, then I cannot see how a ‘number’ plus ‘days’ can be denied its definition of being composed of 24 hour periods and still retain sense.
The majority of contributors on the Anglican Forum skirt around this and obfuscate the issue with innumerable academic discussions. It is interesting that Richard Dawkins even calls people who take 6 days other than its obvious meaning, dishonest.
These people on the forum are saying that the author of Genesis 1 and Exodus 20 and 31 (The Holy Spirit last time I checked orthodox theology!) could not have meant 6 days is 6 x 24 hours because…well, they can’t claim that language allows this, because it doesn’t, it can’t. So what they do is muddy the waters with “high-sounding nonsense”, as JB Phillips called it, while never claiming explicitly (well, rarely!) that science has proven the Bible false. No, they would not have the balls to do that; so they do the next best dishonourable thing and say that something so transparent as 6 days isn’t so perspicuous and is need of a cerebral makeover. They then throw in all those sidetracking and irrelevant pseudo-arguments like ‘trees clapping’ and ‘windows of heaven’.
However, as I have stated above, there are no good reasons why one can alter 6 days to mean something other than 6 24-hour periods. This expression is not idiomatic like ‘in the days of’, for example. It’s straightforward like, “I am drinking 3 litres of water.” I may have to check to see if there is water there, as well that there are 3 litres of it, but I can’t argue that 3 litres do not mean 1+1+1 because that is the nature of numbers and subjects. But even more so with days!
I am not question-begging because if I were, then every time someone made a statement involving quantity, one could question it and dissect it the way the Anglican mob has been doing with Genesis 1 and what the days mean.
On the issue of my division being too problematic, some philosophers have argued, in order to overcome some of the problems you alluded to, that the analytical/synthetic distinction can be collapsed into the a priori/a posteriori categories. I really don’t want to take that up because my comment was a general statement about how unnecessarily complex and illogical many of the Anglicans have made the issue when it really is about first looking at the structure of the language.
As I’ve mentioned, whether or not the world is old or young is another issue which can be pursued elsewhere, as it has on the Anglican Forum.
Re ‘trees clapping’. As I recall the argument, the old age proponents were claiming that young earthers aren’t consistent with their epistemology. That is, if 6 days are to be taken at face value, so should trees clapping. My point was that, once you understand what a tree is (I know, I know, it may require observation of the world to know what a tree is!), I don’t have to ask David or whoever wrote the psalm, to show me that tree and its hands clapping. I mean, if I claimed I saw a tree thinking about Einstein’s GTR, only a fool would bother to say, “Prove it!” You’d probably think I’d been in the sun too long or that I was using a tree as a metaphor for a type of person.
Given that Charlie, I really don’t understand what you mean by, “I don’t see what in the definition of a tree precludes it having hands and being able to clap.” Maybe you are right; but it would also mean there’s nothing in the definition of a tree which would preclude it having the capacity to build space-craft, prefer chocolate ice-cream over vanilla and vote Republican in this year’s election.
Let’s not cut too fine an academic distinction between categories and hence lose sight of the forest for the trees. The issue is not actually about any of this but whether old agers are justified in reinterpreting the 6 days that God said he took to create everything to mean anything other than what straightforward language and commonsense would dictate. I've yet to hear an argument that they are
John
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