“This is the book [libros] of the origins of the heavens and the
earth”
(Genesis 2:4 Septuagint).
Fr. Peter Little (S.J.), Sydney, Australia,
wrote in 1997, regarding the Book of
Origins:
…
How can I thank you
sufficiently for that intriguing paper you sent me on the Hexämeron? It’s a
beauty! I would like you to answer a couple of difficulties that spring to
mind. The psalm says God made everything by his word and by the breath of his
mouth: obviously referring back to Genesis. If we say Genesis is recounting
God’s teaching of Adam (and Eve!), can we make the ‘and Elohim said’ that
introduces each day’s action to be a kind of combination expression? As if Adam
were saying ‘God told me and Eve that he’d said Let there be light and so on’. So that the ‘he said’ covers both
the instruction over the six days of Adam plus the content of the instruction.
But whatever slight problem is caused by the wording the solution worked out by
our archaeology friend [i.e. P. J. Wiseman] – and one in line with deeper
insights in patristic explanations – is a thriller. It ties in with the
ultimate instruction given by the Father in and through his Word-Son in the
latter’s incarnate condition. It makes a lot of sense to see the continuity in
God’s determination to communicate to us the knowledge that is his so that we can
live with him in communion and ultimately in face to face awareness and
worshipping love.
…
Yours sincerely,
P. Little S. J. [now
deceased, RIP]
Introductory
The C4th BC historian Berossus, a priest of Bel at Babylon, wrote in Greek a strange mixture of
astrology and historical narratives called
Babyloniaca[1]. In this unusual collection Berossus
referred to a “tablet of the series of
the Heaven and the Earth” (That is, a tablet contained in a series of
tablets called “The Heaven and the Earth”).
Berossus also told of the Babylonians having a legend of a six day period of
instruction by the god-like being, Oannes, who “for six days instructed Alorus”, the first man who reigned on
earth. Berossus wrote that: “When the sun
went down he [Oannes] withdrew till the next morning”.
The Babylonians knew nothing whatsoever of a creation in six days.
But, as is apparent from the testimony of Berossus, they retained memory of an
occasion when instruction was given
during six days. And – according to Berossus – this instruction represented
the original book of revelation:
“The
Book of the Heaven and the Earth”
The ancient Hebrews also had a book about origins. It is what we now
know as Genesis 1:1-2:4, but it too was similarly entitled “The Book of the Heavens and the Earth”. Today it is interpreted by
many as indicating that the universe was created during six, twenty-four hour
days. But there is also a view – based on what archaeology has revealed about
ancient scribal methods – according to which the original text must have been
written on a series of six tablets, and that the concept of a
‘creating process’ so to speak, that lasted for six days, may have been one
quite alien to the mind of the author.
* * *
Undoubtedly, no passage of the Old Testament has been the focus of
more critical attention and controversy than has been this first section of the
Book of Genesis, in which are described the famous “Six Days” (Hexaëmeron, in Greek), with their “evenings” and “mornings”.
The “Six Days” are referred to again in Exodus 20.
Since the time of Christ, theologians of Jewish, Christian and
Moslem belief have written detailed commentaries on this document. In fact some
of history’s best scholarly minds have debated, and grappled with, the meaning
and interpretation of this truly challenging passage of Scripture, with
marvellous results – though not unanimous agreement.
And the debate still rages on today – especially between those who
prefer a literalist interpretation of
the text and those who favour a more metaphorical
approach[2] -
with the typically C21st shift of emphasis away from the metaphysical plane to
that of empirical science.
With so many centuries of intellectual effort behind us, and with so
abundant a choice of commentaries now available, one might well ask why there
is need to burden the public with yet another article on the “Six Days”. Surely
every pertinent aspect of this subject must have been exhausted in debate by
now.
By way of answer, I would simply say that the very fact that
perfervid debate on the subject still continues might perhaps be an indication
that the matter has not yet been settled to the satisfaction of contemporary
scholars.
Chapter One:
Modern debate about the “Six Days”
One area of human endeavour especially that can shed new light upon
Genesis 1:1-2:4 – as indeed it has on the book as a whole[3]
- is the modern science of archaeology, principally
in regard to what it reveals to us about the scribal methods of the ancient
Mesopotamians. P. J. Wiseman[4]
has used this knowledge to great advantage for ascertaining the structure and
composition of Genesis 1:1-2:4[5].
To my way of thinking, Wiseman’s explanation of the structure of this crucial
text is by far the most satisfactory one, serving, as it does, to break the
deadlock between the literalists and
the allegorists – not by destroying
their most relevant arguments, but by managing to harmonise them.
Several hitherto, undisclosed truths about ancient scribal methods,
that Wiseman showed provide the key to
the real meaning and interpretation of the “Six Days”, had been lost to mankind
when the great Mesopotamian civilizations sank into oblivion – until the advent
of archaeology in the past 150 years. Wiseman, making optimum use of the data,
was able to show that the ancient scribal methods that had recently been
brought to light again had (not really surprisingly) been used as well in the
writing of the ancient Genesis text.
It should be noted, however, that the basic truth behind the “Six
Days” had not been totally lost to humanity For, as we are going to see, some
of the conclusions about the “Six Days”, to which the archaeological
information had led Wiseman, had already been reached by St. Augustine (c.
354-430 AD)[6], without the help of archaeology! Wiseman
in fact considered that what he himself had discovered about Genesis 1:1-2:4
was really an old truth’ a truth that has faded with the passing of time. Now,
thanks to archaeology, he had been able to resurrect it. Or, as he nicely put
it, his was “an attempt to restore ‘a
commonplace truth to its first uncommon lustre’.”[7]
Wiseman and the “Documentary Hypothesis”
It might well be asked: If
Wiseman’s theories on the Book of Genesis are so good, how come we have never
heard of him?
Wiseman’s theories are not completely unknown. The renowned
scriptural scholar, Professor R.K. Harrison[8]
has enthusiastically embraced them. So has Dr. Charles Taylor, the linguist,
embraced his Toledoth theory[9],
and Martin Sieff, editor of various magazines on antiquity[10].
What appeals to me about Wiseman’s explanation is that it is able to
meet all of the linguistic and
structural idiosyncracies of Genesis 1:1-2:4 and Exodus 20. The
Wiseman-inspired explanation that will be set out here will, I suggest, solve
all of the above difficulties of the literalists
and the allegorists. It will be
able to accommodate what truly is literal
from Genesis 1:1-2:4, and what has been deemed as metaphorical, without the need to drag the text into a scientific
debate between the literalists and
the allegorists, by shifting the
ground of debate, so that these protagonists will in future be able to
restrict, to the domain of science, whatever in their argument pertains to that
domain. For example, the controversy about the age of the universe.
Basically, the thesis that will be presented here will be built upon
the following of Wiseman’s premises:
(1)
The six days, divided from each
other by an evening and morning, cannot possibly refer to the time occupied by
God in his act of Creation.
(2)
The six days refer to time occupied in revealing to man the account
of creation.
(3)
God rested [literally,
“ceased”] on the seventh day, not for His own sake, but for man’s sake, not because on that day (or period) the
Creation of the world was finished.
Before we discuss Wiseman’s thesis in depth, however, we need to
prepare the ground a bit by considering some earlier view about the meaning of
the Hexaëmeron; especially certain
innovative ideas of St. Augustine of Hippo that apparently influenced Wiseman
in part.
Chapter Two:
Pre-Modern Explanations
“If Plato says that the
wise man is the man who imitates, knows and loves this God, and that
participation in this God brings man happiness, what need is there to examine
the other philosophers? There are none who come nearer to us than the
Platonists”.
Augustine of Hippo
Here, though essentially interested in certain points that Augustine
of Hippo (C4th AD) had raised on the subject of the “Six Days”, we might however,
as a preliminary, run briefly through the opinions of the earliest
Judæo-Christian scholars.
But, firstly, we need to acknowledge Plato, from whom many of these
scholars – and especially St. Augustine – received some degree of inspiration.
1. Plato[11]
According to the early Christian writers – especially with reference
to Plato’s Timæus – no other non-Christian philosopher
came closer to their own thinking than Plato and his successors. Thus St.
Clement of Alexandria wrote, quoting Numenius of Apamea:[12]
“What, after all, is Plato but Moses in Attic Greek?”
St. Augustine, for his part, wrote of Plato and his followers, re
their knowledge of the Supreme God:[13]
If
Plato says that the wise man is the man who imitates, knows and loves this God,
and that participation in this God brings man happiness, what need is there to
examine the other philosophers? There are none who come nearer to us than the
Platonists.
In another work, Augustine was even more explicit:[14]
“If these men (viz. the Platonists) could
have had this life over again with us …they would have become Christians, with
the change of a few words and statements”.
Indeed, the early Christians were amazed to find that Plato had a
conception of God which they recognized as agreeing in many respects with the
teachings of their own religion. This led some of them to conclude that Plato,
at the time of his journey to Egypt,
must have encountered the prophet Jeremiah. But, as Augustine rightly
calculated, such an encounter would have been a chronological impossibility.[15]
In his discussion of the likeness between the Genesis account of
Creation and that provided by Plato in the Timæus, St. Augustine has written:[16]
… the
book of Genesis begins with these words: ‘In the beginning God made heaven and
earth. But the earth was invisible and unformed, and there was darkness over
the abyss, and the spirit of God soared above the water’. Now in the Timæus, the book in which he writes
about the creation of the world, Plato says that God in that work first brought
together earth and fire; and it is obvious that for Plato fire takes the place
of the sky, so that this statement has a certain resemblance to …‘In the
beginning God made heaven and earth’. Plato goes on to say that water and air
were the two intermediaries whose interposition effected the junction of those
two extremes. This is supposed to be his interpretation of the biblical
statement: ‘The Spirit of God soared above the water’. Now the air is also
called ‘spirit’ (in the sense of ‘breath’); and so it might be thought that
Plato failed to notice the normal use of the title ‘the Spirit of God’ in
Scripture, and assumed that the four elements are mentioned in this passage.
Then
there is Plato’s assertion that the philosopher is ‘lover of God’. Nothing
shines out from the pages of Scripture more clearly than this.
From there, St. Augustine proceeded to pinpoint where he thought the
convergence between Plato and Scripture became most apparent:
But
what impresses me most, and almost brings me to agree that Plato cannot have
been unacquainted with the sacred books, is that when the angel gave Moses the
message to go and free the Hebrew people from Egypt, he received this reply, ‘I
AM HE WHO IS, and you will say to the sons of Israel, “HE WHO IS has sent me to
you”.’ This implies that in comparison with him who really is, because he is
unchangeable, the things created changeable have no real existence. The truth
Plato vigorously maintained and diligently taught. And I do not know whether it
can be found anywhere in the works of Plato’s predecessors, except in that book
which has the statement, ‘I AM HE WHO IS’ ….
2. Alexandrian School’s Allegorical Interpretation
It was not by accident that the allegorical exegesis of the Creation
found its first development at Alexandria
in the Nile Delta. The Jewish theologians who had flourished there had favoured
this type if interpretation.
- Philo Judæus (c. 25BC-40AD) interpreted the account of the Creation of the world, and of man and woman, in a symbolical or figurative kind of way. Philo is supposed to have taught that Creation was instantaneous and that the “Six Days” of Genesis were a device for expressing the perfection of the order to be found in the universe.[17]
- Clement of Alexandria (c. 200 AD), influenced undoubtedly by Philo, held that all things were produced simultaneously by God and that the distinction of days was not to be taken as marking temporal succession, but rather as a method of exposition adapted to human intelligence to indicate various gradations in being.[18]
- Origen (c. 200 AD) ridiculed the notion of a Creation in “Six Days”, asking how could it be possible to create light on the first day when the Sun, the Moon and the stars were created later (on the fourth day). Origen likewise took up the idea of simultaneous creation, which was thenceforth to occupy the attention of many exegetes.[19] Like other Alexandrians Origen had tried to take account of the science of his day. It is noteworthy that Origen was born in Alexandria while perhaps the great astronomer, Claudius Ptolemy was still living, and that he taught in a school, that was guided by the thought of Ptolemy.
Other Alexandrians worthy of mention include:
- St. Athanasius (d. 373 AD), who held that all species had been created together and by the same command,[20] and;
- St. Cyril (d. 444 AD) who, while sympathetic to the methods of the Alexandrian school, was somewhat more reserved in his conclusions.[21]
3. The Arabo-Persians and Maimonides
For the Moslem Persians however, and for other eastern thinkers
during the Middle Ages, the general tendency was to accept the view that God
created the universe during six real days:
- Al-Biruni, an Arabian scholar of the C11th AD, tells us that: “On the sixth day of Farwardin, the day of Khurdadh, is the great Nauroz, for the Persians a feast of great importance. On this day – they say – God finished the Creation, for it is the last of the six days …”.[22]
- Moses Maimonides (d. 1204), the renowned Jewish scholar, held that the world was not eternal, that it was created by God from nothing, and in time, but that one could not proves these conclusions by reason and must accept them on faith.
AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO
St. Augustine, as we have noted above, had initially come under the influence of
Plato, especially in his Timæus.
Indeed, the fortuitous but seemingly evident agreement of the Timæus
with some aspects of Genesis had led many of the early Christian
scholars to accept a Platonist cosmology. Augustine was by far the most
important of the Latin Fathers for his influence upon medieval exegesis. His
explanation of the “Six Days” transcends that of every other one of the early
Fathers, and had a profound influence upon the mode of interpretation. For
Augustine produced a new mode of symbolic interpretation that opened up vast
possibilities for future commentators to grasp the real import and significance
of the Hexaëmeron.
So extensive were the Saint’s writings on the Creation account that
it is difficult to summarise them. Augustine’s genius and originality were so
striking that one would be ill-advised to locate him in any particular
school.
“In the Beginning”
“In the Beginning” meant, according to St.
Augustine, that the world could not have existed from
eternity, but instead that time had a beginning.[23]
“Beyond all doubt the world was not made in time, but with time …”, he insisted. And again: “God, therefore, in His unchangeable eternity created simultaneously
all things whence times were to flow …”.
“Heaven and earth”
“Heaven and earth” for Augustine included all creatures, both spiritual – indicated by
the word, “heaven” – and corporeal –
indicated by the word, “earth”. The
creation of both is placed at the very outset. Thus St. Augustine made use of the Alexandrian
notion of simultaneous creation: that, from the very first instant, everything
was created.
“Six Days”
Originally, in 398 AD,[24]
St. Augustine had accepted that the “Six Days” were real, twenty-four hour
days. And rightly so, I believe (see Conclusion). But, as he developed
his Theology, of the Hexaëmeron, he
was no longer able to accommodate such a theory. There is no place in
Augustine’s later accounts for productions that are completely new. This
explains why the remainder of the verses in Genesis 1 (that is, from verse 2
onwards) do not refer to real days, or to successive intervals of time.
According to Augustine, these must be interpreted in a more subtle
way.
The
most original and outstanding interpretation to which Augustine turned – and
this in an adapted way will be crucial for this article in general – is that in
which the “Six Days” signify series of illuminations,
by which God successively acquainted the angels with works that he had
accomplished in one instant.
St. Albert the Great (d.
1280) on Augustine
St Albertus ‘Magnus’ attributed the teaching of simultaneous
creation to Augustine, and that of successive production through the “Six Days”
to the greater number of the Fathers (Gregory, Jerome, Basil, Ambrose, Denis,
John Damascene, Alcuin and Strabo).[25]
His conclusion, however, is that: “Nothing
appears to me to be more true than what St.
Augustine says”. Again, in his Summa Theologica St.
Albert, while declaring that both views are surely sound, indicates his
preference for Augustine’s explanation by saying that:[26]
The creative Word of God could not be other than
instantaneous, but the revelation of that instantaneous work could only be made
according to a temporal succession.
St. Thomas Aquinas (d.
1274) on Augustine
As far back as the thirteenth century, Aquinas had pointed to the
problems that the notion of creation that followed the pattern of six twenty-four hour days would
cause to critical minds. If, he said, the opinion regarding successive creation
is “more common, and seems superficially to be more in accord with
the letter”, that of St. Augustine is “more conformed to reason and better adapted
to preserve Sacred Scripture from the mockery of the infidels”; a point
that Augustine himself had made.[27]
St. Thomas appears to have favoured a simultaneous creation of things.
Creation, he wrote, is the production of anything in the totality of its
substance, presupposing nothing that is either uncreated or created by another.
Whence it follows that no-one is capable of creating except God alone, who is
the First Cause. Therefore, to show that all bodies were created immediately by
God Moses said; “In the beginning God
created heaven and earth”.
Conclusion
What essentially we take from the above is:
(i)
St. Augustine’s
early view that the “Six Days” were in fact real, 24-hour days, coupled with
(ii)
his major, later insight –
appreciated by other great minds – that the duration of “Six Days” is not about
the time taken for the act of creation, but refers to a period during which the
creation was revealed to the creature.
Now such a view is perfectly compatible with what we read in our
“Introductory” part about the Babylonian legend: namely, that Oannes revealed
to the first man, Alorus, during a period of six real days, all that had been created.
The fact that a summary of this ancient account of creation traditionally came
to be written on a series of tablets will be discussed in the following
chapters.
Chapter Three:
“Six Days” Account in Exodus 20
“… a simple but serious misinterpretation” of these verses has led to an assumption that both the first
narrative of Genesis, and that of exodus 20, “… were intended to teach that God created the heavens and the
earth and all plant, marine and animal life, as well as man, in six ‘days’ of
some sort”. Because of this “false
assumption”, some reject the ‘days’ of whatever length, and the narrative.
P.
J. Wiseman.
Commentators, seeking a key to unlock the meaning of the “Six Days”,
could not have done better - according to Wiseman[28]
- than to turn to the account of the “Six Days” as given in Exodus 20:8-11.
For, whilst Scripture often mentions the “Six Days”, it is significant noted
Wiseman that “… the only
references elsewhere to the six days of work and one of “rest” in connection with
the narrative of Creation” are attached to the Commandment cited in this
passage of Exodus: “Remember the Sabbath
day …”.
In no other connection in the Bible are the “Six Days” mentioned.
The Sabbath Commandment requires that mankind should work for six
days and rest on the seventh, because God did something for six days and ceased
doing it on the seventh. It is very necessary, therefore, that we determine what God did on the six days and why He ceased on the seventh
day.
In chapter 20 of the book of Exodus (8-11) we read:
Remember
the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, six days you shall labour, and do all your
work; but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the lord your God: in it you shall
not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your manservant, or your
maidservant, or your cattle, or the sojourner who is within your gates;
followed immediately by the reference to Genesis 1:
… for
in six days the Lord made the heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in
them, and rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day
and hallowed it.
Certainly, the impression conveyed by this passage of the six days
of work and the one day of rest of the Israelites is one of ordinary days. Why then, asked Wiseman, is it that no system of interpretation
reads consistently both the six days and the seventh day – that is both the
whole of the first narrative of Genesis 1 and the whole of Exodus 20 (8-11)?
In answer to his own question Wiseman explained that “… a simple but serious misinterpretation” of
these verses has led to an assumption that both the first narrative of Genesis,
and that of exodus 20, “… were intended
to teach that God created the heavens and the earth and all plant,
marine and animal life, as well as man, in six ‘days’ of some sort”. Because
of this “false assumption”, he said,
some reject the ‘days’ of whatever length, and the narrative.
Others, as we know, deny either the literalness of the six, or else
that of the seventh day; or they lengthen the sixth or the seventh day to
thousands of millions of years.
Six Literal Days
None of the explanations so far given of these “days”, or of the “evenings
and mornings” of Genesis 1, has been fully satisfying to critical modern
minds. Could it be that over the centuries the original meaning and
significance of the “Six Days” had become somewhat obscured? Was archaeology
necessary to provide certain pieces for fitting together again what had become
an enigmatic puzzle? Indeed Wiseman believed so, and he fully utilized the
opportunity provided by this new science. Thus he thought himself able to solve
the mystery of the “Six Days”, because – as he said – “… the statements made in the narrative are accepted in their natural
ancient sense and setting”.
If these working days of Exodus 20 were immensely protracted periods
– as had been maintained by the uniformitarian scholar, Sir William Dawson,[29]
and by other proponents of the “Geological Age Theory” – how long a period was
to be assigned to the “seventh day” that
God sanctified?
No one doubts that the six days of work and the seventh day of rest
of Exodus 20 were just ordinary days.
- Why then should it be assumed that the seventh day is used for a period amounting to thousands of years?
- And in what sense is the present age, that has continued since creation, hallowed or sanctified?
- And can we say that God rested from creation ever since?
The great Jewish scholar and Talmudist, Louis Ginzberg, had pointed
out two lines of argument frequently used by those who ascribe to the word “day” in Genesis an unlimited duration.
They say:[30]
(1)
That the word “day” is not to be taken here in its literal meaning
is evident from chapter 2:4 (of Genesis), “for the portion of time spoken of in
the first chapter of Genesis as six days is spoken of in the second chapter as
one day”. …But the word used in the hexaemeron is the simple noun, whereas in
chapter 2:4 it is a compound of ‘the day of’ with the preposition ‘in’,
which, according to the genius of the Hebrew language, makes it an adverb, and
must be translated, when, at the time, after”.
The second argument they use is in reference
to one of the psalms. They say:
(2)
That the Psalm of Moses, 90:4, is decisive for the spiritual
meaning. But the reference to the Psalm is inapposite; for the matter here in
question is not how God regards the days of creation, but how man ought to
regard them.
But, above all, the greatest defect of this theory – according to
Wiseman[31]
- is that it does not deal with the six “evenings
and mornings”; it either completely ignores them, or it fails to make any
reasonable interpretation of them.
- Was each of them an indefinitely long night in which there was no light, for instance?
- Or, was the geological night as long – or almost as long – as was the geological ‘day’?
The words “evening and morning”
seemed very unnatural, he thought, to describe such a geological night. These,
and other similar questions, demanded an explanation from the “Geological Age”
theorists.
By the time of the historical Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt,[32]
the Sabbath had apparently lost much of its proper significance for them; for
on Mount Sinai God called upon the Israelites to; “Remember the Sabbath day to
keep it holy”. The Egyptians, unlike e.g. the early Babylonians (perhaps),
appear not to have observed a seventh day’s rest. And so the Israelites, who
had long been enslaved in Egypt,
would not have been permitted to take this traditional rest. The people were
reminded, too, that in six days the Lord ‘made’ heaven and earth, the sea and
all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day.
A Closer Look at the Key Hebrew Words
It is crucial here for the reader to grasp the meaning and
significance of certain key words used in the above Commandment (based on
Wiseman’s explanation).
“Rested’
Firstly, the word translated as “rested”
(vayyishevot) in Genesis 2:2 simply
means “ceased” or “desisted”. It does not necessarily mean
the rest of relaxation: “for this, quite
a different Hebrew word is used”.
“Work”
The Hebrew word, melacha, is
translated as “work”.
It expressly refers to ordinary
work or business: in other words,
“it simply means occupation. The
idea of creation is not in any way inherent in it”.
The Hebrew word, ‘asah (or yasah)
Most necessary of all for a proper grasp of Wiseman’ss thesis is a
clear understanding of the correct interpretation and significance of the
Hebrew word, ‘asah (or yasah), which is
crucial to unraveling the mystery of the first narrative of genesis. Wiseman,
in fact, devoted several pages to explaining the significance of ‘asah; for he was convinced that:[33]
… the
precise meaning of this word [which commentators translate as “made”]
must be understood, because the meaning
of the passage which has caused so much difficulty is dependent upon the sense
in which it is used in this verse” (i.e. verse 11 of Exodus 20).
This ‘asah is a very common Hebrew word which is used over 2500 times in the
Old Testament. Though normally it is translated as “do” or “did”, it is
important to realise that the word itself does
not in any way explain what the person “did” or what was “done”. Dr. Young
was quite right in saying that the original word “has great latitude of meaning and application”. Its presence
indicates that some action has gone on. However, the specific type of action
can be determined only by the context within which this particular verb occurs.
Brown, Driver and Briggs, for instance, assign the following meanings to ‘asah:[34]
DO;
MAKE;
PRODUCE;
YIELD;
ACQUIRE;
APPOINT
Whilst, in other instances, it is translated as TRIM (a beard) or
PREPARE.[35]
Yet, despite the fact that the word ‘asah has such a wide application, there has been a tendency to elevate
its meaning here in Exodus 20 to the equivalent of the word bara, “created”. According to Wiseman, “it necessarily means no such thing”,
but simply says that God did something.
And what God did on the “Six Days”
can only be discovered by the context in
which the word appears”.
The Root of the Problem
What ought especially to be noted is that the Hebrew word for “create” is not ‘asah, but bara. Now one thing is
quite clear, said Wiseman, and that is that Exodus 20 “does not use the word ‘bara’ or create, or say that God created the
heavens and the earth in six days”.
The use of the word ‘asah in the immediate context of Exodus 20 is illuminating:
Verse 9: Six days shalt thou [‘asah] all thy work.
Verse 10: In it thou shalt not [‘asah] any work.
Verse 11: For in six days the Lord [‘asah] the heaven and the earth.
It is customary for the word ‘asah
in the first two verses (9 & 10) to be translated
as “do”. In the crucial verse 11 the
word is translated as “made”, and
there is no problem with any of this.
If only the translators had had the insight to compare these verses
of Exodus 20 with the first narrative of Genesis, and had asked themselves what
exactly God was doing, or making [‘asah], during the “Six Days”! If only they had translated the word ‘asah in verse 11 as ‘make’, instead of
‘create’, then the difficulties that we have experienced might possibly not
have arisen! We should then have asked what the Lord did/made for the “Six Days” and why He rested on the seventh day,
instead of it being assumed incorrectly that during the six days God was
creating the earth.
We know from Sacred Scripture that God walked with Adam and Eve in Paradise in the cool of the evening. What better chance
than this was there then for God to speak
about the details contained in the single act of creation! There He
explained to them about what He had done.
Just as Our Blessed Lord would explain
the salvific things that he had done whilst
walking with the two disciples on the way to Emmaus after he had re-created man in His own image and likeness
(Luke 24:25-32). So God explained to Adam and Eve about cattle, and fish, and
plants and trees, and sun and moon. And how they themselves had been formed
from dust in special creation. And thus it came about that the marvellous
tableaux were shown to our first parents in their state of original innocence,
breaking down for them what was contained in the single act of God’s creation.
Or viewed somewhat differently – and as we shall discuss in more
detail further on – God wrote down (or had caused to be written down) on
tablets, as in a book, all the marvellous details of what was contained in the
single act of creation, and thus arranged the book in order. Just as many
centuries later He would have written on tablets all that Moses had been
instructed to tell the sons of Israel. And when He had finished speaking and
writing, detailing and arranging ‘the first library’, God ‘rested’ on the
seventh day; not for Himself, but for us.
Yes, the human race had a lot to learn after it had been created …!
Just as it had a lot to learn after it had been re-created.
Chapter Four:
“The Sabbath was made for man”
“Christ’s own attitude to
the Sabbath is illuminating, for everything that He said about it was to the
effect that should there be anything in keeping the sabbath day inconsistent
with man’s true welfare in relation to the Creator, he was prepared in that
respect to have it broken”.
P. J. Wiseman.
What did God do on those “Six Days”, according to Scripture, and why
did He cease on the seventh?
Scripture provides a direct answer to the second part of this
question, by declaring that “the sabbath
was made for man” (Mark 2:27 ).
From this, Wiseman concluded that the seventh day was originally
introduced by God “in order that Man
could rest for a day and not in order that GOD could rest for a day”.[36]
Christ’s own attitude to the Sabbath is illuminating, for everything that He
said about it was to the effect that should there be anything in keeping the
sabbath day inconsistent with man’s true welfare in relation to the Creator, he
was prepared in that respect to have it broken. As Bengel said:[37]
“The origin and end of things must be
kept in view; the blessing of the sabbath in Genesis 2:3 has regard to man”.
This answer, that God ceased for man’s sake (preferable, I think, to
St. Augustine’s view that the “Six Days” constituted God’s revelation to the
angels) in order that man might rest, is of assistance also in answering the
first part of the question: What did God do on the “Six Days”?
As the seventh was assuredly introduces for man’s benefit, Wiseman
thought it:
… only
reasonable to suppose that what was done on the six days also had to do with
man; and if with man, then obviously on the six days God was not creating the
earth and life, because man was not in the world when these were being created.
If only, he went on to say, commentators had paused to ask
themselves the further obvious question: Why
were the six “evenings and mornings” introduced – for God’s sake or for man’s?,
then they would quickly have drawn the right conclusion.
Instead, we have been presented with the ridiculous image of the
Creator quitting His work of creating the world as the evening drew on, and
re-commencing where He left off as the morning light appeared. “Is it legitimate”, asked Wiseman, “to think of God, when creating, being
unable to continue because of the turning of the earth on its axis, or by its
movements in relation to the sun?”
So far Wiseman considered himself to have determined that God was
not creating the universe during the “Six Days”, but was instead doing
something after man had already been created, and in which man was concerned.
The scriptural record, he said, gives a very simple answer to the question of
what God was doing in the presence of man for “six days”. God was saying
something about creation. Each of the “Six Days” commences with “God said”.
Here, claimed Wiseman, was a record “of what God said to man”, as stated in verse 28: “And God said unto them”. [Obviously Wiseman intended “man” to be understood here in the
generic sense, because it is apparent from the fact that God “said unto them” that woman
also had been created by this time].
It is especially interesting that the Hebrew verb (vayyomer) is used in the present tense,
which Wiseman translated as “God saith”. His
conclusion based on the tense of this verb was that here we have “not only a statement of a command given by
God in the past; it is more. It is a record of what he said to man about
creation”.[38]
Certain commentators have made heavy weather of trying to explain
this verse, however. Professor Skinner, for instance, remarked that:[39]
“The occurrence of the “so” before the
execution of the fiat produces a redundancy which may be concealed but it is
not removed by substituting “so” for “and” in the interpretation”.
But for Wiseman it was simply “…
an account of what ‘God said’ about the things God made. In other words, it is
His revelation to man about His creative acts which were already completed”. Consequently
this narrative is a series of statements to man about what God had done in the
ages past. “It is a record of the six
days occupied by God in revealing to man the story of Creation”. Scripture
records what God said on the first day about the separation of
light from darkness, then came the evening and the morning. The second day God said how He had made the
atmosphere with its waters below and above it, and on the third day how He had caused the waters to recede so that dry land
appeared. It is a narrative of what ‘God said’ to man. “There is no suggestion that the acts … of God had occupied those
six days”, Wiseman maintained.
The Giving of Names
Another significant thing should be noticed. At the time when ‘God
said’ to man about creation, He gave names to the things about which He spoke.
Why was this?
On the first day, for instance, he called the light day and the darkness night; on the second day, when telling
about the firmament, he called it heaven,
and then we read that on the third day “God
called the dry land earth and the gathering of the waters He called seas” (1:10). Now, if at
this stage God had not yet created man – as the proponents of a creation during
six days would insist must have been the case – then was he merely talking to
Himself when giving these names?
Not likely!
From Wiseman’s sensible interpretation we can conclude with
confidence that God would have had a human audience at this stage, a ‘day-time
class’, so to speak.
A name to identify a thing is not necessary to God, but it is
necessary for man.
The supposition that God gave names to things, before man had been
created, has been according to Wiseman “a
great perplexity to all commentators. When we see that the names were given
for man’s sake still another difficulty which has embarrassed many
commentators disappears”.
During the daylight hours of the six successive days – each divided
by an “evening” and a “morning”, when man rested – God
revealed to him something new about creation; and during the first three days
gave to him the names of the things He had revealed.
When at the end of the “Six Days” God finished talking with man, he
instituted the seventh day as a rest day for man’s sake. It was this very
tradition that the Israelites were being called upon to “remember” at Mount Sinai.
As Dillman noted: “God blessed
the seventh day and hallowed it, that is not later on, but just then on the
seventh day”.
In the second narrative of Genesis [which according to Wiseman’s
compelling explanation of the structure of the book of Genesis cannot really be
described as a second account of Creation, but should be seen as Adam’s family
history], we read that God talked with man, instructed Him in language, taught
him to give names to things, and how to choose between good and evil.
Chapter Five:
Book of Creation
We must remember that the majority of ancient peoples
generally wrote on stone or clay tablets, which necessitated the use of certain
distinctive literary techniques.
One sometimes hears it said that the only reasonable way to read the
Bible is to read it in the same way as we do an ordinary book; meaning that any
book ought to be read in the light of the times and circumstances in which it
was written. But in the case of the most ancient document that we call
‘Genesis’, to do this has not really been possible until the last century and a
half, when excavation and decipherment of ancient writing had begun. Modern
archaeology is what has enabled scholars to become acquainted with the literary
methods prevailing throughout Mesopotamia in early times. Consequently, it has
become possible only with archaeology’s advent to compare the literary
construction of, say, the first Genesis narrative with other ancient methods of
writing.
Despite this wonderful assistance from archaeology, however, many
still choose to read Genesis 1:1-2:4, not as ancient, but as though it has been
written in relatively modern times. We must remember that the majority of
ancient peoples generally wrote on stone or clay tablets, which necessitated
the use of certain distinctive literary techniques. For instance, the size of
the tablet used depended upon the quantity of writing to be inscribed on it. If
the amount of writing was only small, it could be placed comfortably on one
tablet. When, however, the quantity to be inscribed was of such length that it
became necessary to use more than one tablet it was customary, Wiseman
explained:[40]:
(1)
To assign to each series of
tablets a title.
(2)
To use catch-lines, so as to
ensure that the tablets were read in their proper order.
(3)
To add a colophon.
I have considered the significance of these literary techniques,[41]
especially the repetitious colophon, “These
are the generations of …”, which seems to be the master-key to the
structure of Genesis.
The presence of ancient literary techniques and scribal methods
throughout the entire Genesis text had been clear confirmation to Wiseman of
the great antiquity of that book, and the purity with which the text had been
transmitted down through the centuries.
Parallelism
Yet another structural feature is clearly evident in the first
narrative of Genesis. It is the use of parallelism. Anyone who reads
attentively the narrative of the “Six Days” will soon begin to realise that
there is something striking about its framework. Not only is it divided into
six sections by the use of the words “and
there was evening and there was morning”, but – as Wiseman has noted – “the sections are numbered serially from one
to six”.[42]
The whole record is fitted into a unique framework composed of words
and phrases that are repeated six or more times.
If this framework is examined carefully, it will be seen that the
“Six Days” fall into “two clearly
parallel parts”. The events recorded in the last three days are
parallel with those of the first three.
1. Light 4. Lights
Separating the light from the darkness, (Sun Moon & Stars)
effecting day and night. to divide the
day from the
night and for season and for days
and years.
2. Water and atmosphere 5. Water and atmosphere
Atmosphere separating the waters Life in the water (fish).
below from those above. Life in the
atmosphere (birds).
3. Land and green vegetation 6. Land and green vegetation, man
(a) Land.
(a) Land animals, man.
(b) Green vegetation and trees. (b) Green vegetation
and trees assigned
to animals and
man.
This peculiar use of a parallelistic structure is a further
indication that the first narrative of Genesis was written originally on a
series of six tablets.
Wiseman explained this parallelistic framework as being “a feature frequent in the Old Testament of
a balanced symmetry due to a repetition of thought expressed in almost
synonymous words”.[43]
Those best acquainted with ancient Hebrew literary methods would
readily recognise this parallelistic structure as such.
The whole key to this arrangement may be seen in the words, “without form and void” (1:2). In the
first three days we are told of the formation
of the heavens and earth, and on the second three days of the furnishing of
the void. “The formlessness takes
shape or form in the narration of the first three days and the void
becomes occupied and inhabited in the second three days’ narrative”.[44]
Genesis 1:1-2:4 is in its entirely fitted into a unique framework
composed of words and phrases that are repeated six or more times:
Verse Day One
3. God said let … and … was.
4. saw … that it was good,
divided .…
5. And there was evening and there was morning day one.
Day Second
6. God said
let ….
7. made ….
divided … and it was so.
8. called ….
saw that it was good [LXX
Version].
and there was evening and there was morning
day second.
Day Third
9.
God said
let … and it was so.
10. called ….
saw
that it was good.
11. said let … and it was
so.
12. God saw that it was good.
13. And there was evening and there was morning day third.
Day Fourth
14. God said let … and it was so.
16. made ….
17. set ….
18. saw
that it was good.
19. And there was evening and there was morning day fourth.
Day
Fifth
20. God said let … and it was so [LXX Version].
21. created ….
saw
that it was good ….
22. blessed ….
23. And there was evening and there was morning day fifth.
Day Sixth
24. God said
let … and it was so.
25. created ….
saw
that it was good.
26. said let ….
27. created ….
created … created
…..
28 blessed ….
said ….
29. said … and it was so.
31. saw that it was very good.
And there was evening and there was morning
day the sixth.
Apart from the repetition of these phrases, the words used are
remarkably few and simple. This is all the more surprising, Wiseman believed,
seeing that this is an outline of the origin of the heavens and the earth; of
vegetable, marine and animal life, and also of the instruction given by God to
first man.
It will be noticed, said Wiseman, that “God said” ten times (four times on the sixth day), “in this number there is a similarity to the
‘Ten Words’ (‘Decalogue’) as the Ten Commandments are called”.[45]
From all of this we begin to conclude with Wiseman that the first
narrative of Genesis, commonly called the “Creation Account”, was inscribed
originally on six tablets.
Now, this series of six tablets represented today by verses 1:1-2:4
of Genesis, consists of the following components:
(a) An introduction,
or superscription, namely 1:1-1:2;
(b) The special framework of the “Six Days” narrative, namely 1:3-1:31;
(c) The colophon,
namely 2:1-4.
Since we have already discussed the “Six Days” framework (a) and
(b), let us go on to speak about (c), that most important colophon.
The Colophon
The colophon, with its important literary information, was added to
the writing tablets in a very distinctive manner. According to Wiseman, the
colophon often contained the following information:
(1) The title
or designation given to the narrative.
(2) The date
of writing.
(3) The serial
number of the tablet, when it formed part of a series.
(4) If part of a series of tablets, a
statement whether the tablet did or did not finish the series.
(5) The name
of the scribe or owner.
Now, when we turn to the colophon that is attached to the first
narrative series of Genesis (2:1-4), the following is what we find:
(1) The title:
“the heavens and the earth”.
(2) The date:
“in the day that the Lord God [‘asah]
the earth and the heavens”.
(3) That it was written on a series of tablets (numbered one to
six).
(4) It states after the sixth tablet that the
writing was finished.
(5) The only name appearing on this colophon is the name of the Lord God.
Let us go through each of these five points in a little more detail.
1. The Title given
to an ancient piece of writing was normally taken from the opening words of the
first tablet. In this instance the title is “the
heavens and the earth”.
In other words, this most ancient of books was called, as we noted
at the beginning:
[The
Book] of the Heavens and the Earth.
Typically, the title catch-line is repeated in the catch-line of the
colophon: “… the heavens and the earth” (2:4),
with which it forms a literary link.
2. The Date. The
second piece of literary information referred to is that ancient colophons
often included the date when the tablets were written. The date in the Genesis
2:4 colophon was written in this fashion: “when
they were created in the day that the Lord God [‘asah] the heavens and the
earth”. That is the real meaning of that “day”, which has caused commentators so much perplexity, since it
seems to imply to them a contradiction of the “Six Days”, by stating that
‘creation’ occupied only one day. But the date does not refer to the
time when the world was created – nor to the time occupied in creating it – “but, as it states [it refers to] the day
when the histories or records
were finished”.[46]
3. Series. Next we
saw that it was often necessary for the scribe to use a series of tablets in
order to write a narrative. In Babylonia it was traditional to record the
account of creation on a series of tablets, and these were numbered serially at
the end of each tablet. Similarly, Wiseman noted that in the Genesis account,
at the end of each of the six sections of the fist narrative series, these same
serial numbers ‘one’ to ‘six’ are given. The Hebrew word used here for ‘one’,
he noted, indicated that it is the first
of a series, “and the article is employed in connection with ‘day sixth’ to
indicate the close of a series”.
4. Whether ‘Finished’.
In regard to the fourth piece of information given on the colophon, scribal
methods have shown that when more than one tablet was necessary in order to
record a narrative, it was a custom to state on the last series of tablets that
the narrative was finished, and sometimes to indicate on the
earlier tablets of the same series that the narrative was not finished.[47]
A significant example of an ancient series being unfinished occurs
with the fourth tablet of the celebrated series of the Babylonian account of
creation (the Enuma Elish, or “When
on High”), the colophon of which reads”
Tablet
4 of ‘when on high’ [title] not finished.
Unfortunately, however, in the case of the Genesis narrative, it has
been assumed that the reference to “finished”
was to acts or processes of creation. But, as we now know, what was
finished on the sixth day was the revelation (and recording) of the acts of
creation previously performed.
In the use of the Hebrew word sabh,
translated “host” (2:4) –
occurring immediately after the word “finished”
– Wiseman discovered yet an additional indication that Genesis 1 consisted
originally of a series of tablets.
We often read of the “host of heaven”, he said, “but never of the host of the ‘heaven and earth’ or the host of earth”.[48]
Nor is the word sabh ever used of
plant or animal life, or of the other created things mentioned in the first
narrative of Genesis. Significantly, as Wiseman thought, sabh or “host” cannot
therefore be (as is often supposed) a summary of the creation of all things,
for life and humankind are not mentioned. Rather, he said, this Hebrew word
translated as “host” conveys the idea
of an orderly “arrangement”, or orderly collection of things, and the Greek
words used in the Septuagint translation mean “to order”, or “arrange”. It is
appropriate, Wiseman claimed, “to an
ordered arrangement or series of tablets one to six”.
Wiseman thus gave, as his version of the overall meaning of the
crucial verse (2:1) in the first colophon of Genesis:
And
were finished (indicating the finish of a series of tablets) ‘the heaven and
the earth’ (the title given to the “book” of six tablets) and all their
arranged order.
But perhaps the strongest verification of all for the accuracy of
Wiseman’s thesis, that here in Genesis 1:1-2:4 we have before us a
tablet-series account describing creation, is the plain statement from the
Septuagint version of the Old Testament itself:
God
made this the written account (or book)
of the origin of the heavens and the earth.
IT COULD HARDLY BE PUT MORE
CLEARLY THAN THAT!
The failure by scholars to realize that the first narrative of
Genesis is a history or account of
creation, as the Septuagint so plainly states, and written in accordance with
ancient literary usages, has made this colophon ending to the account of the
“Six Days” more than difficult for them to explain.
Thus Professor Skinner wrote that: “This half verse is in the last degree perplexing”.
But any perplexity vanishes completely in the light of the literary
methods used in early times. No longer, according to Wiseman, was there any “need of this perplexity as to the
‘descendants’ of the heavens and the earth”, for - given its proper
significance of “histories” or “written account” or “book of the heavens and
the earth” - its meaning is plain.
5. Author. There
remains the fifth and the last of the pieces of literary information usually given
in the colophon – that of the name of the author or writer. Here, in the first
colophon of the Genesis text, the only name mentioned is that of the Lord God. “Was there a similarity of circumstances in
the revelation of the ‘Ten Words’ (‘Decalogue’) at Sinai, and the ten times
repeated ‘God said’, mused Wiseman?
Duration of Creation
Throughout the entire narrative of the “Six Days” there certainly
does not appear to be anything to indicate duration in regard to God’s act of
creation. All we are told is that: “In
the beginning God created [bara] the heavens and the earth” (1:1). Despite
this, however, it is on this very point of duration that a great deal of
controversy between the various schools of thought has focussed. Today we have
the situation where the literalists turn
to the first narrative of Genesis to support their belief in a creation lasting
for six literal days; whilst the metaphorists
scoff at the very idea that the “Six Days” of Genesis could have any sort
of real literal meaning and significance.
With Wiseman I maintain, however, that - in relation to the “Six
Days” narrative at least - this
debate should bever have arisen!
The duration of creation is
not an issue with respect to the
“Six Days”!
Now that Wiseman has, as I believe, provided the key to the real
meaning of the first narrative of Genesis, scientists of whatever persuasion
ought to feel free to debate the issue of the age of the universe on scientific grounds alone.
Theologians now no longer have to be side-tracked from their pursuit
of higher truths by misleading interpretations of the first narrative of
Genesis.
No longer ought there to be any need as well for those interminable
discussions by the literalists, on
the one hand, seeking to defend the view that there could still be days with
their evenings and mornings - and created light, too - before the heavenly
bodies had begun to exist; or, on the other hand, the endless attempts by their
opponents to ‘show’ how each of the “Six Days” can represent a specific
Geological Age.
Whether Creation was gradual, or instantaneous - a question not
central to this present article - the revelation and recording of that creative
work could be made only according to a temporal succession, as St. Augustine
had perceived. And this temporal succession of revelation to man lasted
apparently for the duration of the six days that God was making the written
history.
Chapter Six:
Need for a Metaphysical Overview
For as St. Augustine observes, ‘Beyond all doubt the world was not made in time, but with time’. The point is that time belongs to the created order
and does not extend beyond the world. And so the primary creative act cannot
take place in time.
Limitations of Empirical Science
According to the explanation of the Hexaëmeron as provided in this series, there is no need for the literalists and the metaphorists to be squabbling any longer over a presumed creation
lasting for “Six Days”, because the Bible nowhere states that God created the universe
during six days.
It was further noted that the door is still wide open for the
scientists to debate scientific matters pertaining to Genesis – for example,
the age of the universe – as long as they stick to the empirical facts, which
is the proper realm of the physical sciences anyway.
Now, in this chapter, the Hexaëmeron
will be considered entirely from a philosophical point of view. The purpose of
this extra section will be to show the need for genuine metaphysics, to
complete the explanation of Genesis 1.
In this section I shall be heavily reliant upon Professor Wolfgang
Smith’s excellent book, Teilhardism and
the New Religion.[49]
I take up Smith’s commentary where he discusses –in relation to Teilhard de
Chardin’s version of evolution – the limits of empirical science:
… even
if evolution could indeed be substantiated as a scientific theory, this still
would not provide a sufficient basis upon which to challenge the traditional …
doctrine of creation, let alone found a new theology. And the reasons for this
insufficiency, clearly, lies in the fact that as a scientific theory the doctrine is strictly confined to the
realm of phenomena: it then speaks only of things that can in some sense be empirically observed, and only insofar
as they can be observed. But this obviously excludes from consideration not
only God, but His creative act. Even Teilhard admits … that ‘where God is
operating it is always possible for us (by remaining at a certain level) to see
only the work of Nature’, and that ‘we shall never escape scientifically from
the circle of natural explanations’.
Smith them proceeds to ask the relevant question:
If science is unable to penetrate beyond the level of
phenomena
to behold the secret working of God, how can it enlighten us on the subject? At
best it can say that the phenomena do not suffice, that the pieces do not fit
together into a coherent whole, and that consequently (on the strength of a
certain categorical imperative) there must be something beyond the total
phenomenon: a factor X, which by virtue of its transcendence remains forever
unknown and unknowable. This, quite clearly, is as far as science can ever go
in the direction of Theology; and one might add that today the physical
sciences, at least, are already approaching that limit.
[Here Smith refers to the anthropic principle, which he considers
to be “a case in point” from physical
science].
I move on now to mid-way through Smith’s account of the worth of
Teilhard’s view that “God cannot create
except evolutively”. This section is further relevant to this article on
the “Six Days”, because it quotes from St. Augustine those same two gems of his
about time that were also used above:
But
there is another (and far more serious) difficulty with the idea that God
creates by way of evolution. For as St. Augustine
observes, ‘Beyond all doubt the world was not made in time, but with time’. The
point is that time belongs to the created order and does not extend beyond the
world. And so the primary creative act cannot take place in time.
Evolution, on the other hand – presuming it were a fact – would
naturally take place in time, says Smith. Evolution therefore could not be the
primary creative act. In the words of St.
Augustine: “Let
them see that without the creature there cannot be time, and leave off talking
nonsense”.
Let us try to understand this more clearly.
First of all there is the question: How did the world begin? The answer to this quite obviously could
not be that it began with evolution. Now it appears that Teilhard de Chardin is
intent upon obviating this question entirely by insisting that the world did
not begin at all. “The universe is no
longer endless in space alone”, he tells us. “In all its strands, it now unfolds interminably into the past,
governed by a constantly active cosmogenesis”.
[Smith however, by way of answering
Teilhard’s claim, points to the “latest
findings of astrophysics” which, he says, directly contradict Teilhard’s
belief “that the cosmos is constantly
generating itself, and that this process of autogenesis extends ‘interminably
into the past’.”.].
And if it be admitted that the world was created by God, says Smith,
“then the fact of finite duration is
alone sufficient to rule out Teilhard’s contention that ‘God cannot create
except evolutively’.”
But perhaps when it comes to the later stages of creation, the idea
of ‘creation by evolution’ may yet be vindicated?
To this, Smith answers:
… here
another difficulty presents itself: there are in reality no ‘later stages of
creation’. To quote St. Augustine
once more: ‘God, therefore, in His unchangeable eternity created simultaneously
all things whence times were to flow …’. The point is that the creative act, by
virtue of being atemporal, does not break up into earlier and later phases. The
idea of ‘before’ and ‘after’ do of course apply to the effects of this act, but not to the act itself. Multiple in its
effects, and absolutely simple in its own right that is the point.
The “Six Days”
According to Smith, the act of creation may thus be viewed from two
directions, as it were: from the side of
the cosmos, and sub specie
aeternitatis, as the Scholastics would say. This leads him to give his own,
metaphorical explanation of the Hexaëmeron:[50]
According
to the first point of view, things are created in temporal sequence: first one
thing, then another, and so forth. Let us observe, moreover, that this
corresponds to the perspective of the first chapter of Genesis, the perspective
of the hexaemeron or the ‘six days’. But let us not fail to observe, too, that
in the second chapter one encounters an entirely different outlook: ‘These are
the generations of the heaven and the earth, when they were created, in the day
that the Lord God made the heaven and the earth, and every plant of the field
before it sprung up in the earth, and every herb on the ground before it grew’
(Gen. 2:4-5). Now this corresponds to the second point of view. From ‘the
standpoint of eternity’ there are no longer six days, but only one. On its own
ground, so to speak, the work of creation is accomplished in one absolutely
simple and indivisible act. As we read in Ecclesiasticus: ‘Qui vivit in aeternum creavit omnia simul’ (‘He that liveth in
eternity created all things at once’) (Ecclus. 18:1).
It is
worth pointing out that this perennial teaching comes to us from a double
source: it derives on the one hand from the Judeo-Christian Revelation, and
also from the metaphysical traditions of mankind. For as St.
Augustine has observed, the metaphysical recognition that ‘the world was not
made in time, but with time’, entails the scriptural ‘omnia simul’ as a logical consequence: ‘God, therefore, in His
unchangeable eternity created simultaneously all things whence times flow …’.
They were not made in temporal succession, because they were not
made in time.
Non-Cosmic ‘Roots’
That is not to say that created things do not come to birth in time.
To be sure, they enter the world, as it were, at some particular moment:
Each
creature, in its cosmic manifestation, is thus associated with its own
spatio-temporal locus: it fits somewhere into the universal network of
secondary causes. But yet it is not created by these causes, nor is its being
confined to that spatio-temporal locus: its roots extend beyond the cosmos into
the timeless instant of the creative act. That is the veritable ‘beginning’ to
which Genesis alludes when it declares: ‘In principio creavit Deus caelum et
terram’.
It is:
‘… the
day that the Lord God made the heaven and the earth, and every plant of the
field before it sprang up in the earth, and every herb in the ground before it
grew’.
Let
there be no doubt about it: the creature is more – incomparably more! – than
its visible manifestation. It does not
coincide with the phenomenon. Even the tiniest plant that blooms for a fortnight
and then is seen no more is vaster in its metaphysical roots than the entire
cosmos in its visible form: for these roots extend into eternity. And how much
more does this apply to man! ‘Before I formed thee in the womb, I knew thee’
(Jeremiah 1:5).
Here then, in the scriptural and metaphysical teaching of the ‘omnia simul’, Smith believes, “we have the definitive answer to
evolutionism”. With the adoption of an authentically metaphysical
standpoint, the seemingly interminable debate between the evolutionists and the
so-called creationists has at last been put into perspective.
Smith has indeed managed to show, on the metaphysical level, what Wiseman had been able to show, on the empirical (archaeological) level, that
the protagonists on either side of the debate have been somewhat ‘out of focus’
in their reasonings.
… it
now becomes clear that both sides are in fact looking at half the picture: the
outer or phenomenal half, one could say, forgetting that things have also an
inner dimension, an essential core which transcends the plane of the
phenomenon. From this truncated point of view, moreover, the riddle of origins
becomes truly insoluble – for the simple reason that things ultimately derive,
nor from the phenomenal plane, but from the side of transcendence. Likewise,
they grow and unfold their potential from inside out: the essential, in other
words, has primacy over the phenomenal, whatever the empiricists might think.
Metaphysics, therefore, is neither a luxury nor an
idle speculation; it is there to complete the picture, and is needed if ever we
are to make sense out of first origins or final ends.
One
might add that its neglect in modern times is both a symptom and cause of our
contemporary intellectual predicament. [Emphasis
added].
Getting back to Genesis 2:5, it needs to be pointed out in this
connection that the terms ‘every plant’ and
‘every herb’ admit of a symbolic
interpretation that is metaphysically illuminating.
For, in
marked contrast to animals, a plant exists, as it were, in two domains: above
ground, namely, and beneath the earth. Now the former is evidently suggestive
of the phenomenal sphere, the domain of visible manifestation; whereas the
latter can be taken to refer to a transcendent realm of causes, an invisible
domain wherein the seeds of living beings are to be found, and where also they
incubate and begin to sprout. One thus obtains what might be termed an ‘icon’
of the perennial ontology: through the figure of a natural symbolism, Genesis
2:5 is actually speaking of profound meta-physical
truths.
One should add that under this interpretation the ‘seeds’ correspond
precisely to the rationes seminales of
patristic doctrine: they constitute the essential reality of the creature, one
could say, as it emerges directly from the primitive creative act:
To be
sure, these are not physical seeds, not physical entities, in fact: they are
situated ‘below ground’, after all, which is to say that they belong to a prior
ontological plane. One must remember, moreover, that whereas the physical or
corporeal domain is subject to the spatio-temporal condition, ‘below ground’
one can speak neither of spatial separation nor of temporal sequence in a
literal sense. Here we encounter the truly primordial realm – the corona of
God’s Act – where everything is still concentrated at a single point, or
‘fused’ without confusion’ as Meister Eckhart says.
Such, in brief, is the metaphysical panorama revealed to us – as in
a flash – by Genesis 2:5. It is disastrous, Smith insists, for ‘theistic’ evolutionary
theory (especially as espoused by Teilhard de Chardin).
And it
happens that this picture is not propitious to the evolutionist. Indeed, the
doctrine of evolution may henceforth be likened to a botany which supposes that
plants originate abruptly at the level of the ground – as if they had neither
seeds nor roots!
With or without God – if one may put it thus – what has been
excluded from the evolutionists purview is nothing less than the essential
thing, the ‘core of reality’, of which the visible phenomenon is merely the
outward manifestation:
Furthermore,
inasmuch as this essential core - the ‘ratio seminalis’ – is not subject to
terrestrial time (being situated ‘below ground’ as we have said), there can be
no question of evolution in this domain: the
‘ratio seminalis’ of a simian, for instance, can by no means be ‘hominized’. And
finally, how can temporality be predicated of the creative act itself (as
demanded by the phrase ‘God creates evolutively’)? As St. Augustine has admirably put it, ‘Let them
see that without the creature there cannot be time, and leave off talking
nonsense’.
Supplementary
“After talking with some friends on this explosive
piece of exegesis, we are
wondering why it has not
been disclosed more broadly”.
In 2008, a French correspondent expressed his delight upon his discovering
what was the original version of my “Book of Origins” (his e-mail letter of 28
September): “I want to thank you very much for your article on the six days and
the reproduction of Wiseman’s book. …. We are in a new paradigm! …”.
This was a reference to P. J. Wiseman’s book, Creation Revealed in Six Days (Marshall, Morgan & Scott,
1948).
The same correspondent, upon further reflection along with his
colleagues, wrote a second e-mail, now expressing his complete bewilderment at
the fact that Wiseman’s “explosive piece of exegesis”, as he called it,
has by no means received the publicity that it deserves; and, in regard to
this, the correspondent went on to ask some intriguing questions (his e-mail of
30 September):
After talking with some friends on this
explosive piece of exegesis, we are wondering why it has not been disclosed
more broadly. After all it goes back to the pre-WW2! Are you aware of any
recension in the specialized literature (exegesis journals or reviews)? We
know very well that when some thesis is disturbing, the best way to deal with
it is … to ignore it! Has any one, to your knowledge, tried to “answer” Wiseman’s
arguments? We are all well aware of the mysterium iniquitatis, but even it has
limits! How yourself did you come across Wiseman’s works?? Creation revealed in
six days had 3 printings over 10 years and no one has ever published a commentary,
favorable or not, on this remarkable piece of exegesis?? We can hardly believe
that in Rome it went unnoticed! Even though your Jesuit friend, Fr.
Peter Little, did not seem to know anything about it! Here we face a real
mystery and we will only be too happy to share your opinion about it.
Perhaps a primary reason for the mainstream rejection of Wiseman‘s
Genesis hypothesis,
including his toledôt theory
that the Book of Genesis comprises a series of most ancient patriarchal
histories pre-dating even Moses, is the fact that it all had to compete with
the entrenched JEDP theory of the Documentary Hypothesis, according to whose
false tenets
‘oral tradition’ solely was used down to about 1000 BC, when writing
was then thought to have begun, and hence Genesis and the rest of the Old
Testament were largely very late compilations, well after Moses (who may not
even have existed anyway according to the more extreme JEDP theorists).
See also my:
Preferring P. J. Wiseman to un-wise JEDP
But, whereas the archaeological data would glaringly show up the
inaccuracies of the JEDP theory (despite which many still cling to it),
Wiseman’s theses, which are fully compatible with the archaeological evidence
(e.g. in regard to ancient scribal methods), are real and entirely satisfying.
This is borne out in a statement by another correspondent (e-mail of
1st October, 2008):
[Wiseman’s] Toledoth theory alone is
groundbreaking (as well as accepted – presumably because favourable – by the
six day creation folks). When I read Ancient Records and the Structure of
Genesis last summer what impressed itself upon me most, despite having
already devoured your own material, was the incredible explanatory power of a
theory so simple. It cleared up every objection in one fell swoop no matter
where it was or what it was …. I simply don’t think it’s possible for such
a theory to be able to do this and be wrong when you add in the fact that it
was based on and inspired by archeological evidence not “reading into” the text
something one wanted to see. No one would have been able to see this !!! What
Wiseman has done or started here is exactly what [pope] Pius XII was after in Divino Afflante
Spiritu, to become more acquainted with the ancient East’s writing methods so
as to clear up the meaning and obscurities in the text and answer the
objections of the rationalist critics.
Perhaps nowhere better demonstrated is this correspondent’s correct
observation of the
“incredible explanatory power” of Wiseman’s “theory so simple …
clear[ing] up every objection in one fell swoop no matter where it was or
what it was”, than in the case of how it is able to account for both the “six
days” as well as the “one day” of Genesis 2:4, that seems completely to
contradict the former notion of the “six days”.
Thus
(2:4): “… in the day that the LORD God made (עֲשׂוֹת) the earth and the heavens”.
Here we are being clearly told that a particular work of God was
done in only one day.
No wonder that St. Augustine had, amongst his various
interpretations of Genesis 1, looked for a meaning different from the general
view of a work of Creation lasting for a six day period: namely, that it was a
revelation of God’s creation!
And no wonder that Sts. Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas had
concluded that Augustine‘s revelation theory was the interpretation to be
preferred, and the one least likely to suffer ridicule!
This ‘one day’, which Wiseman has correctly recognized as an ancient
form of date, concluding a tablet series, is in actual fact a ticking ‘time
bomb’ just waiting to explode the whole conventional theory of six days of
Creation!
So widespread has the JEDP theory been, and so strong also has been
the clamour of scientists and evolutionists against the notion that the
‘Six Days’ of Genesis could possibly be a scientific view of how the universe
came to be, that churchmen are no longer willing to stand confidently behind
the Genesis record.
Sydney’s former Cardinal, George Pell, Australia’s then most senior
Catholic cleric, writing in The Sunday
Telegraph (“The sin of pride and its deadly outcomes”), had commented
feebly on the Fall in Genesis: “While we’re not obliged to understand this ancient
story as the literal truth, the symbolism rings true …”.
Wiseman’s account of the ‘Six Days’, which is harmonious with the
aforementioned interpretation of the Hexaëmeron by St. Augustine, that the ‘Six
Days’ were a revelation of a creation already effected, serves at least to take
the pressure off one’s having to show how the Genesis account can be reconciled
with scientific theories of origins.
One scholar who has, in the words of the French correspondent, “tried
to “answer” Wiseman’s arguments”, is Dr. Charles Taylor, a linguist formerly at
the University of Sydney, who has written for “Answers in Genesis”. Taylor is
in fact a non-JEDP favouring ‘Creationist’, who, like many ‘Creationists’ and
conservative Christians has in fact accepted Wiseman’s toledôt theory. But he also, like most of these, has
correspondingly rejected P. J. Wiseman’s explanation of the ‘Six Days’. Dr.
Taylor’s critique of the revelation theory of Genesis 1, his “Days of
Revelation or Creation?”, does, in part, reveal a complete misunderstanding by
him of some key facets of Wiseman’s thesis.
(Taylor’s complete article may be read at https://answersingenesis.org/days-of-creation/days-of-revelation-or-creation/).
Both the Fundamentalists and the scientists commit the same fatal
mistake of reading Genesis 1, etc., from a modern perspective, whereas it is
(a) ancient and (b) Semitic. Of course there is a huge difference between
the two.
Now Dr. Scott Hahn is one who has well appreciated that ancient Near
Eastern thinking was by no means like our modern western thinking. Let us dwell
for a moment on some of the very perceptive comments that Hahn has made in his
classic, a Father Who Keeps his Promises (Charis, 1998);
an easy-to-read book that is to be strongly recommended to those who would wish
to grasp a unifying overview of the Old and New Testaments.
p. 21: “Our problem in the West is that we
tend to reduce history to a secular chronology of politics, economics,
technology and war. As a result we are preoccupied with elections, depressions,
inventions and military battles. Not that these things are unimportant, it’s
just that the ancient Jews discerned deeper currents of divine purpose and
action in history. And tracing such currents calls for faith in God’s
providential governance of nature and the events of history”.
“The modern western approach to history is
antithetical to the ancient Near Eastern perspective. If the modern view is
linear, progressive, optimistic and secular, the ancient outlook tended to be
cyclical, regressive, pessimistic and mythical.
Meanwhile, the biblical outlook falls
somewhere between both extremes …”.
pp. 38-39: “Did you ever find yourself in a
conversation with someone who – you could just tell – didn’t really care what you thought?
Perhaps you got the signal from a glance or some snap reply, but the attitude
was clear, “I want your support, not your thoughts”. Or worse: “If I want
your opinion, I’ll give it to you”. In any case, you’re almost made to feel
like the dummy.
I suspect that if the ancient writer [sic] of
Genesis were alive today, he would feel that way about modern interpreters of
his work, especially the Creation account”.
“To put it bluntly, many readers are more
interested in figuring out whether or not Genesis can be squared with the
theory of evolution than in discovering what the author really meant to say. Our
modern preoccupation with science often gets in the way of a fair reading of
Genesis.
In fact, the only time Scripture even raises
the question of how the world was created is in the Book of Job,
where God basically says forget it (see Jb 38-41). It’s
simply too hard for us even to imagine, much
less figure out for ourselves. Instead, the Creation account seems to address
some other – but no less important – questions, such as what and why God
created …”.
As Wiseman has clearly shown, the order of Genesis 1 pertains to the
typical parallelism of ancient scribal methods when writing upon tablets,
not the presumed order of things as they came into being – often estimated by
moderns against the fossil record. (Though Wiseman does occasionally and
unnecessarily complicate his explanation by also trying to show how it may be
compatible with modern scientific views – but this does not affect his basic
theses). To give one celebrated example, Light on Day One is to be juxtaposed
against Sun and Moon on Day Four, according to the parallelistic structure of
Genesis 1. Moderns wrongly read this as Light inexplicably occurring and
hanging around days before the sources of light (Sun, Moon) were created.
Rather, they should have read it, as originally intended, in a parallel
fashion, as Light connected with Sun and Moon.
Sincere ‘Creationists’ pitiably try to explain how Light could
scientifically be available before the birth of the Sun. Scientists just laugh.
For possible further consideration: One might argue that, from Adam’s own
family history account, or toledôt (i.e.,
Genesis 2:5-5:1), the order of things appearing on the earth was quite
different from that deduced by those who read the ‘Six Days’ as being
successive stages of God‘s work of Creation. Thus God formed Adam from the
earth, “when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the
field had yet sprung up …” (2:5).
Moreover, yet another 11 verses must pass after we have read of man’s
actual formation in v. 7, before God decides that the lone Adam needs company
(v. 18). Firstly, He forms land animals and birds “out of the ground” (v. 19).
Then, a few verses later still (beginning with v. 21), woman is formed. This
does seem to differ from the Genesis 1 order of fish and birds (v. 20), then land
animals (v. 24), then man and woman (v. 27).
[1] See e.g. S. Burstein’s “The Babyloniaca of Berossus” in Sources
for the Ancient Near East, 1, 5 (Malibu, CA 1978).
[2] Amongst the literalists, we
find e.g. the ‘Creation Scientists’. Whilst, on the other hand, the ‘Theistic
Evolutionists’ would tend to favour the metaphorical
approach.
[3] For example the structure
of the Book of Genesis.
[4] Clues to Creation in Genesis (Marshall,
Morgan & Scott, 1977). See also his Ancient
Records and the Structure of Genesis (Thomas Nelson, 1985).
[5] Creation Revealed in Six Days
(Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1948).
[6] Especially in his De Genesi
ad Litteram, IV, 26-30, 43-7.
[7] Creation Revealed, p. 9.
[8] Professor Harrison, who wrote the Preface to Wiseman’s Ancient
Records, made special reference to the latter’s writings in his Introduction to the Old Testament
(1969), pp. 545-553.
[9] In his The Oldest Science
Book in the World (Assembly Press, Queensland, 1984), Dr. Taylor applauds
Wiseman’s account of the structure of Genesis. It should be noted, though, that
he has not accepted Wiseman’s explanation of the “Six Days”.
[10] Theses for the Reconstruction
of Ancient History. Egypt,
Israel,
and the Archaeological Record (2400 BCE – 330 BCE), Society for Historical
Research, 1987. Sieff was one-time editor of the UK Society for
Interdisciplinary Studies’ SIS Review.
Wiseman’s son, D.J. Wiseman, has gone on to become one of the
foremost Assyriologists in the world. See Introduction to the posthumous Ancient Records. D.J. Wiseman wrote: “In response to a growing number of
requests, the study written by my late father, P.J. Wiseman, is presented here
in a single volume. It originally appeared as New Discoveries in Babylonia
about Genesis in 1936. Despite publication in “war economy” format and in a
limited edition, new printings were immediately required. These were followed
by translations into German (Die Entstehung der Genesis, Wuppertal,
1958) and into Dutch (Ontdekkingen over Genesis, Groningen 1960)”.
An article I co-wrote on Wiseman’s basic thesis about Genesis was
well received in the UK
and America.
Mackey, D, Calneggia, F. & Money, P, “A Critical Re-Appraisal of the Book
of Genesis”, e.g. SIS Review’s C&C
Workshop, #’s 1&2 (UK, 1987).
[11] Until the dates for the life of Socrates have been settled
according to the testimony of hard (primary) data, rather than mere opinion or
the dubious ‘testimony’ of late sources, we cannot attempt to fix the exact era
of Socrates’ pupil, Plato. The famous “Socratic
Question” of modern scholarship refers to the controversies surrounding the
correct dating of the historical Socrates.
[12] In Stromata, I, 21.
[13] In City of God, Book
VIII, ch.5, no.5.
[14] In De Ver. Rel., 7.
Minucius Felix says much the same in Octavius,
ch.21.
[15] City of God, ibid., ch,12,
no.11.
[16] Ibid., with reference to Timæus,
31B and 32B; Republic, 2, 380D-381C; and Exodus
3:14.
[17] See W. Wallace’s St. Thomas
Aquinas. Summa Theolgiæ, v. 10, “Cosmogony”
(Blackfriars, 1967), 203.
[18] Clement of Alexandria, op. cit., VI, 16.
[19] In Peri
Archon, IV, 16.
[20] In Oratio
II Contra Arianos, 60.
[21] In Glaphyra
in Genesim, I, 1.
[22] The Chronology of Ancient
Nations, trans.by E. Sachau (London,
1879), 201.
[23] City of God, Book XI, 5
and 6.
[24] In De
Genesis Contra Manichæos, I, 23.
[25] Wallace, op. cit., ibid.
[26] In II Sent., 12, 3, I.
[27] In S.T., Ia, qq. 65-74.
[28] Creation Revealed, p. 17.
[29] In Meeting Place of Geology and History.
[30] Ginzberg, as quoted by Wiseman in Creation Revealed, p. 22. Emphasis added.
[31] Wiseman, ibid.
[32] The Exodus Israelites are the MBI people of archaeology. The Exodus
(and the events associated with it), coincided with – was indeed the cause of –
the collapse of Egypt’s
Old Kingdom (which was concurrent with the
collapse of Egypt’s
Middle Kingdom). I have argued this in various articles.
[33] The information in this section has been taken from Creation Revealed, pp. 32-34.
[34] The Brown, Driver and Briggs edn. of Gesenius.
[35] Clues to Creation, p.
130.
[36] Creation Revealed, p. 36.
[37] Bengel, as quoted by Wiseman, ibid.
[38] Ibid., pp. 39-40.
[39] J. Skinner, as quoted by Wiseman, ibid, p. 40.
[40] See e.g. Ancient Records, p.
62.
[41] See e.g. my “Tracing the hand of Moses in Genesis”, at: https://www.academia.edu/8175774/Tracing_the_Hand_of_Moses_in_Genesis
[42] Creation Revealed, p. 14.
[43] Ibid., p. 16.
[44] If the views of Sts. Clement and Augustine be admitted, that the
Platonists (particularly Plato himself) had come under the influence of the
Book of Genesis, then could it be that the doctrine of hylomorphism (matter and form, potency and act), as developed by
Plato’s pupil Aristotle, had its origin from Genesis 1 – from the account of
the formlessness taking form?
[45] Creation Revealed, p. 47.
[46] Ibid., p. 49.
[47] One cannot help noticing that St.
John’s Gospel, like Genesis, commences with the
phrase: “In the beginning”, and also
uses the culminating word, [It is]
finished”, to describe the death of Christ (19:30 ).
[48] Creation Revealed, p. 50.
[49] The reference in the title is to the French Jesuit priest, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Since I do not have
a complete copy of Smith’s book, only a photocopied summary, I cannot give the
original page numbers.
[50] Smith’s interpretation of this text seems to be quite legitimate
from a metaphysical point of view; but see what I have already explained in
this article about “the day” (the one
day), being a date, rather than a duration of creation. Moreover, following
Wiseman’s thesis, I would disagree with Smith’s including Genesis 2:4 as part
of a “second chapter” of Genesis. It
is rather the colophon ending to
Genesis 1.
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