The Evolution of Adam

When I bought The Evolution of Adam, by Peter Enns, I was afraid that I might be in for a tenuous attempt to read evolution into the Bible. What I found instead was an engaging discussion of the history and cultural background of the Old and New Testaments, in support of Enns's argument that Adam was probably not a historical person.

As fate would have it, I happened to be in the middle of the book during April General Conference, which made for an interesting juxtaposition. In the middle of a powerful talk on Jesus Christ and the Atonement that used two boys' harrowing experience on a cliff as a metaphor, Elder Jeffrey Holland turned for a moment to the importance of the fall of Adam and Eve.

In our increasingly secular society, it is as uncommon as it is unfashionable to speak of Adam and Eve or the Garden of Eden or of a “fortunate fall” into mortality. Nevertheless, the simple truth is that we cannot fully comprehend the Atonement and Resurrection of Christ and we will not adequately appreciate the unique purpose of His birth or His death...without understanding that there was an actual Adam and Eve who fell from an actual Eden, with all the consequences that fall carried with it.

Enns is by no means a secularist. He is a professor of Biblical studies who is clear and straightforward about his belief in Jesus Christ [1]. Nevertheless, as Enns sees the historical evidence, which he lays out in the first half of the book, Adam was probably a mythological character that the ancient Israelites used to orient and define their identity.

The second half of the book examines what this conclusion means for Paul's teachings. Briefly put, if I understand Enns correctly, Paul used Adam to show Jews and Gentiles that they were united in having a common problem that was solved by Jesus Christ. Since that common problem pre-dated Abraham and the law of Moses, and since Jesus had solved the problem, there was no need for Gentile Christians to convert to Judaism first and/or be circumcised. To put a finer point on it, Paul was explicating the origin of sin and death in a Biblically novel way [2] to solve a problem (i.e. refute the Judaizers). The fact that he used a scriptural figure that (according to Enns) probably did not exist is simply a reflection of the fact that Paul was a first-century Jew. (By comparison, there is no necessary reason to think that Job was a historical figure just because he is mentioned in D&C 121. Joseph had no reason to think otherwise, and Job was a fitting example to make the point.)

Noting that "It is commonly argued that, as goes the historicity of Adam, so goes the historicity of Christ," Enns's perspective can be summarized by these passages (italics in original):

Admitting the historical and scientific problems with Paul’s Adam does not mean in the least that the gospel message is therefore undermined. A literal Adam may not be the first man and cause of sin and death, as Paul understood it, but what remains of Paul’s theology are three core elements of the gospel:

The universal and self-evident problem of death
The universal and self-evident problem of sin
The historical event of the death and resurrection of Christ

These three remain; what is lost is Paul’s culturally assumed explanation for what a primordial man had to do with causing the reign of death and sin in the world. Paul’s understanding of Adam as the cause reflects his time and place [p.123].

So, even without attributing their cause to Adam, sin and death are with us, and we cannot free ourselves from them. They remain the foes vanquished by Christ’s death and resurrection. The fact that Paul draws an analogy between Adam and Christ, however, does not mean that we are required to consider them as characters of equal historical standing. Unlike Adam, Christ was not a primordial, prehistorical man known only through hundreds and hundreds of years of cultural transmission. The resurrection of Christ was a present reality for Paul, an event that had happened in Jerusalem about twenty-five years before he wrote Romans [p. 125].

For Enns (to use Elder Holland's metaphor), it doesn't really matter how the boys got into their predicament. What matters is the cold reality of their predicament and need for saving.

I fear that my highlighting Enns's argument that Adam was not a historical person will result in otherwise interested readers passing on Enns's book. That would be a mistake because even if you can't accept his conclusion, there is much to learn. For one thing, he admits that there are other possible interpretations, even if he does not favor them. Further, LDS readers ought to be more conversant with the cultural and historical background of the Bible, as understood by mainstream scholars. But there are also some gems that serve our own parochial interests. For example, LDS readers may find this statement striking:

The Protestant reading of Paul reflects medieval theological debates, not Paul or the Judaism of his time.

If I hadn't read this book, I would not have known that there is a movement among New Testament scholars called the New Perspective on Paul, which at first blush seems to reinterpret the New Testament discussion of grace and works in a way that undercuts Protestant critiques of Mormonism on these issues. LDS readers who must commonly address this issue with their Protestant acquaintances may want to give further consideration to the New Perspective. Similarly, Enns acknowledges that the doctrine of "original sin" is an Augustinian innovation that is not supported by scripture. And like others of his books, this book also cuts against the Protestant doctrine of scriptural inerrancy while maintaining reverence for the scriptures.

Of course Enns does not have extra-Biblical scripture to rekcon with. Adam and Eve appear in every additional LDS book of scripture, including Joseph F. Smith's vision described in D&C 138. Explaining them away as non-historical scriptural characters might be possible, but is orders of magnitude more difficult in an LDS context. Perhaps it is acceptable and sufficient to say that Adam is a combination of man, myth, and legend.

Enns does not pretend to have the final word and hopes for ongoing conversation. I hope that Elder Holland's talk does not end the conversation in LDS circles. Even taken on its own terms, the talk was more circumspect than one might have expected.

I do not know the details of what happened on this planet before that [the fall], but I do know these two were created under the divine hand of God, that for a time they lived alone in a paradisiacal setting where there was neither human death nor future family, and that through a sequence of choices they transgressed a commandment of God which required that they leave their garden setting but which allowed them to have children before facing physical death. [bolding added]

If that is the bare minimum of acceptable LDS doctrine on Adam and Eve, Elder Holland has still left a lot of space for exploration and discussion [3].

Notes:
1. BYU's Maxwell Institute featured a great interview with him on their podcast.
2. Enns points out that after the initial chapters of Genesis, Adam is virtually ignored in the Old Testament.
3. See also my previous posts, The Further Fall of Adam, and Book of Mormon Scholarship as an Elias for Evolution.

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Abraham's Myths

This is mostly a note for myself, but I thought I would post it for anyone interested. I've been re-reading Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament, by Peter Enns. Although written for an evangelical audience, it applies almost equally well to Mormons. (I've mentioned the book before, and it is routinely recommended by Ben Spackman.) In reading chapter 2 I was struck by Enns's explanation for why Genesis resembles the older myths of other ancient cultures. Before proceeding it is important to know what Enns means by 'myth.'

Myth is an ancient, premodern, pre-scientific way of addressing questions of ultimate origins and meaning in the form of stories: Who are we? Where do we come from?

Enns thinks it all starts with Abraham. (The italics are original.)

It is important to remember where Abraham came from and where he was headed....The Mesopotamian world from which Abraham came was one whose own stories of origins had been expressed in mythic categories for a considerable length of time. Moreover, the land Abraham was going to enter, the land of the Canaanites, was likewise rich in its own myths....

As God entered into a relationship with Abraham, he "met" him where he was--an ancient Mesopotamian man who breathed the air of the ancient Near East. We must surely assume that Abraham, as such a man, shared the worldview of those whose world he shared and not a modern, scientific one. The reason the opening chapters of Genesis look so much like the literature of ancient Mesopotamia is that the worldview categories of the ancient Near East were ubiquitous and normative at the time. Of course, different cultures had different myths, but the point is that they all had them....

What makes Genesis different from its ancient Near Eastern counterparts is that it begins to make the point to Abraham and his seed that the God they are bound to, the God who called them into existence, is different from the gods around them....

We might think that such a scenario is unsatisfying because it gives too much ground to pagan myths. But we must bear in mind how very radical this notion would have been in the ancient world. For a second-millennium Semitic people...to say that the gods of Babylon were not worth worshiping but that the true god was the god of a nomad like Abraham--this was risky, ridiculous, and counterintuitive....

To put it differently, God adopted Abraham as the forefather of a new people, and in doing so he also adopted the mythic categories within which Abraham--and everyone else--thought. But God did not simply leave Abraham in his mythic world. Rather, God transformed the ancient myths so that Israel's story would come to focus on its God, the real one.

[T]he question is not the degree to which Genesis conforms to what we would think is a proper description of origins....The question that Genesis is prepared to answer is whether Yahweh, the God of Israel, is worthy of worship....Genesis makes its case in a way that ancient men and women would have readily understood--indeed the only way.

Although the Egyptians aren't mentioned, they also had a rich mythology. That Enns builds his argument around Abraham is of special LDS interest given our Book of Abraham. However, the argument is equally applicable to Moses. God's covenant people were surrounded by powerful polytheistic cultures and empires for hundreds to thousands of years. It makes sense that they needed myths of their own, and that those myths looked somewhat similar to those of their neighbors.

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Even as I Will

The Book of Moses comes from Joseph Smith's inspired revision of Genesis. After recounting the Creation and the fall of Adam and Eve, the story is interrupted with a statement directed at Joseph.

And these are the words which I spake unto my servant Moses, and they are true even as I will; and I have spoken them unto you. See thou show them unto no man, until I command you, except to them that believe. Amen. [Moses 4:32]

Although God told Joseph that the words are 'true', I have previously argued that the differences between the Book of Moses, the Book of Abraham, and the temple endowment suggest that no particular version of the Creation and Fall can be considered the gold standard. But what does it mean when God says, "they are true even as I will"? Is that just a rhetorical flourish, or is there additional meaning?

A couple of years ago, a commenter on one of my posts suggested that it means that the accounts are as true as God wants them to be, which is an interesting interpretation. I decided to see if the rest of the scriptures could shed light on the phrase. It turns out that, except for the verse above, the phrase 'even as I will' occurs exclusively in the Doctrine and Covenants. Below I quote all the additional verses, with the phrase highlighted.

Section 29:48

For it is given unto them even as I will, according to mine own pleasure, that great things may be required at the hand of their fathers.

Section 50:8

But the hypocrites shall be detected and shall be cut off, either in life or in death, even as I will; and wo unto them who are cut off from my church, for the same are overcome of the world.

Section 52:6

And inasmuch as they are not faithful, they shall be cut off, even as I will, as seemeth me good.

Section 55:6

And again, let my servant Joseph Coe also take his journey with them. The residue shall be made known hereafter, even as I will. Amen.

Section 71:1

BEHOLD, thus saith the Lord unto you my servants Joseph Smith, Jun., and Sidney Rigdon, that the time has verily come that it is necessary and expedient in me that you should open your mouths in proclaiming my gospel, the things of the kingdom, expounding the mysteries thereof out of the scriptures, according to that portion of Spirit and power which shall be given unto you, even as I will.

Section 104:20

Let my servant Sidney Rigdon have appointed unto him the place where he now resides, and the lot of the tannery for his stewardship, for his support while he is laboring in my vineyard, even as I will, when I shall command him.

In two instances, the phrase is accompanied by the clarification, "according to mine own pleasure" or "as seemeth me good," and the rest of the instances are in a context that seems to imply as much.

Looking back at the Book of Moses, I see two possible (though not mutually exclusive) interpretations: 1. The Book of Moses is a good enough representation of what God said to Moses. 2. What God said to Moses is a good enough representation of what really happened.

Either way it seems that my commenter was right--that the words are as true as God wants them to be.

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Let Us Speak of Bowels, and the Fullness Thereof

A couple of days ago I got to wondering about the scriptural use of the word bowels, as in bowels filled with mercy. So I did a Google search and the first link to pop up was a 1999 BYU Studies article, "Bowels of Mercy," by John Durham Peters. It's a pretty interesting read.

The scriptures often come to us like messages in a bottle, blown from distant times and places. They bring with them modes of expression that can sometimes be mysterious for latter-day readers. One of these mannerisms is the frequent use of concrete bodily language in describing spiritual conditions....That bowels, of all things, should be singled out for special spiritual purposes arouses perplexity, if not aversion, in most of us. Yet if properly understood, the notion that the viscera can be the vehicle of virtue is poetically and morally powerful.

The Hebrew and Greek words translated as bowels have broader meaning than the end of the large intestine. In fact, the word itself used to have a similarly broader meaning. It can refer to the internal organs in general, for example, or may refer to reproductive organs. The ancients did not have a good understanding of how the body worked, so thoughts and emotions were associated with various internal organs, and this is reflected in the scriptures. For example, Jeremiah 20:12 says that God can see your kidneys (reins) and your heart.

I think Peters gets a tad carried away over how wonderful of a metaphor bowels are. Nevertheless, it's a nice quick read, and with Easter coming up you'll be able to display your superior knowledge at church when bowels full of mercy are mentioned.

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Surely it is the Earth that Moveth

The Book of Mormon seems to be explicitly heliocentric. In a passage expressing his frustration with mankind, Mormon writes about God (with an apparent allusion to Joshua):

14 Yea, if he say unto the earth—Thou shalt go back, that it lengthen out the day for many hours—it is done;

15 And thus, according to his word the earth goeth back, and it appeareth unto man that the sun standeth still; yea, and behold, this is so; for surely it is the earth that moveth and not the sun. (Helaman 12:14-15)

What is this kind of statement doing in a document that purports to be ancient? Did the Nephites understand the workings of the solar system better than most of the ancients? Is it an anachronism that gives away Joseph as a fraud? Or is it possible that the scientific clarification was a commentary made during the translation process?

In the latest issue of BYU Studies, David Grandy argues that none of the above are correct. In his article, "Why Things Move: A New Look at Helaman 12:15" (subscription required), Grandy draws on the work of John Walton to contend that this is a case of our failure to understand ancient ways of thinking. We are the children of Newton, who think of matter as inanimate and passively following physical laws, like machines. God doesn't need to push the earth around the sun, gravity does that. In contrast, the ancients saw God's hand in all aspects of the world, including motion. If we look at the larger context of Mormon's statement, we see that he emphasizes that everything on earth obeys and moves according to God's command--except man. The verses surrounding 14 and 15 are all about how various parts of the earth (dust, hills, mountains, water) move, shake, part, rock, dry, etc, as commanded.

Grandy writes:

Rather than confirming Copernican cosmology, this verse suggests that Mormon is invoking Joshua’s event, not because Joshua’s account is scientifically inaccurate and therefore in need of correction, but because it reinforces Mormon’s own admonition that humans, being indigenous to the earth (their bodies made of the dust of the earth), should follow the many examples of responsive obedience they witness among things with which they are intimate—dust, hills, mountains, the foundation of the earth, the great deep, and so on.

This is all well and good, but Mormon specifically says, "the earth goeth back, and it appeareth unto man that the sun standeth still...for surely it is the earth that moveth and not the sun." Grandy notes that although this sounds like it assumes axial rotation and orbiting, those are assumptions that we bring to the passage. If he was like other ancients, Mormon did not share our concept of a sphere sitting in space. He would instead have pictured something like the picture to the left [image source]. The focus in these verses is on movements of the earth; it can move back and forth, and thus "goeth back." The contrast drawn with the sun is simply tailoring language to keep focus on the earth.

I'm not sure whether I buy this. I am quite sympathetic to attributing differences between scripture and science to differences in culture and worldview, so when Grandy asserts that Mormon did not share our scientific outlook, I'm on board. My trouble is that verse 15 is so suggestive to me of Copernican motion. If I try to empty my head of orbits and revolutions, does Mormon's statement make sense given the context? I guess it kind of does--maybe I just need to get used to it. I think it helps to keep in mind that Mormon referred to "the earth," not "Earth." That's a subtle but perhaps important difference.

I don't know whether he is right or not, but I think Grandy's argument is at least worth considering.

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Making Allowance for Prophetic Hyperbole

Over at Juvenile Instructor, Christopher Smith has a post on Mormon folklore about the lost ten tribes living at the north pole. He relates that when explorers reached the pole and it became clear that it was uninhabited, critics of the Church merrily pointed out the falsity of the semi-popular belief. Elder B. H. Roberts responded to the criticism in a speech, "The Things of God Greater Than Man's Conception of Them," given in the Salt Lake Tabernacle on September 12, 1909. (Note that the date given at that link is incorrect; it's apparently a typo.)

Roberts denied that the scriptures dictate such a belief, and then said the following. I think it's worth highlighting because it has broader application than the topic at hand.

You must remember that seers and prophets do not speak the cold, calculating language of philosophy, where every word is weighed in the exact scales of thought. Prophets do not follow the precision in their language that is required of the scientists. These men, prophets and seers, commune with God. Their finite life touches, for a moment, the infinite life of God. Their limited wisdom touches for a moment the supreme wisdom of the infinite. For an instant they see things large; and infused and inspired with the fire they have received from this contact with the divine, lo! they come with their message and speak it in the words of spiritual passion. Of course, to them, in this mood, the mountains will sink; the valleys will rise. Of course, the prophets, if in the north, will hear the voice of God, and the mountains of ice will flow down at their presence; the hills will rejoice and the mountains shout for joy! When men come with this inspiration upon them they see and feel things large, and they speak of them in that spirit; and when we come to reduce what they thus bring to us, from the heart of God, to our petty conceptions, we of course must be prepared to take into account the figurative language they speak. It is possible that if we fail to do this, we shall misapprehend, in part, some material fact of their message. Especially should one be on his guard in such highly picturesque matters as the return of the lost tribes from their long dispersion—from the lands of the north. In such an event not only will "mountains of ice flow down" at the presence of their prophets, but highways will be cast up in the midst of the great deep—their enemies will become a prey unto them—in barren deserts shall come forth pools of living water—the parched ground shall no longer be a thirsty land—the "boundaries of the everlasting hills shall tremble at their presence!" (Doc. and Cov., sec. 133.)

We must make some allowance, I repeat, for the hyperbole of that language in which the message of these prophets is delivered—remember, it is vibrant with the great things of God; and it makes some effort to encompass these great things.

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Batman, Hebrew, and Genesis

The semester at BYU following my mission was an exploratory one. I left on my mission knowing that I did not want to continue in the major I started in. However, as I returned I didn't know what major to choose, so I decided to have a little bit of fun. I had always been interested in the facsimiles of the Book of Abraham, so I took a Pearl of Great Price (PofGP) class from Michael Rhodes because he was the only religion professor that I knew could translate them. At the same time I took an introductory class in biblical Hebrew. My Hebrew was never advanced; I did alright in the class, but the height of my ability was to translate some very simple sentences.

One day in PofGP class, I realized that there were honest-to-goodness Hebrew words in the Book of Abraham. Words like Kokob, Kokaubeam, and Shaumahyeem were words that I was learning in my Hebrew class. I also knew enough Church history to know that Joseph Smith had studied Hebrew in Kirtland. At some point it occurred to me that the reason there were Hebrew words in the Book of Abraham was probably because Joseph had studied Hebrew, not because they were revealed to him.

It turns out that, of course, I'm not the only one to have noticed this. For example, a 1981 article in Sunstone, "Professor Seixas, the Hebrew Bible, and the Book of Abraham," explains how wording in the Book of Abraham creation account reflects Joseph's studies of Hebrew. In some cases, the word choices are more aligned with the Hebrew text of Genesis than the Book of Moses, which was Joseph's inspired, pre-Hebrew, rendition of the same material. At a minimum this calls into question simplistic notions that any of these versions represent the original text. Over at Times and Seasons, Ben S. is posting notes for his Institute class where he lays out the same basic argument. He makes some great points, and I suggest you go read what he has to say.

So how do the Genesis, the Book of Moses, Book of Abraham, and temple creation accounts relate to each other? I think it's obvious that the Genesis text is the touchstone for the rest. But why have more than one? I'm chewing on a different way of thinking about them, and here's where Batman comes in.

Compare the 1989 movie Batman (with Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson) to The Dark Night (with Christian Bale and Heath Ledger). Both movies cover the same basic story--the battle between Batman and the Joker--but do so with different details and interpretation of character. If you broaden the scope to include the various television series and comic books, you see a variety of interpretations of Batman, but they remain unified by constant elements of his character. Similar things could be said of the James Bond movies; there is a certain consistency between the movies with respect to the characters and elements of the storyline. However, there is usually not any attempt to maintain continuity between movies. Or if we switch to music, we could speak of different versions of the same jazz song, or re-mixes of pop songs. In each case the movie or song stands on its own, while at the same time being intimately tied to others.

That's kind of how I view the various creation accounts. Each is a re-mix of the Genesis story, but with novel elements that reflect Joseph's changing understanding and sensibilities, which gives each a different flavor. In this view, the question of which version is the "correct" or "original" is largely irrelevant. Each stands on its own, but you can't get too attached to the details because they are flexible.

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Getting Gods Out of Genesis

Over at Times and Seasons, Ben S. has a post up about how translation of the Old Testament into English doesn't necessarily convey the original meaning because of the differing cultural contexts. You should read the whole thing, but I especially liked this part and want to post it here as part of my own collection.

Several times in Genesis 1, curious circumlocutions appear. There’s no mention of the sun or moon, but “greater light” and “lesser light.”... And lastly, though we have the world bifurcated into water and dry land, the seas are mysteriously plural. All of these are explainable via polemical context. First, both the sun (shemesh) and moon (yareach) were also the names of those deities outside Israel, just as Ra designated both sun and sun-god in Egypt. We can see echoes of shemeshas the name of a (solar) deity in Israelite place names like bet-shemesh (Joshua 15:10), ir-shemesh (Joshua 19:41), and en-shemesh (Joshua 18:17), as well as in Sampson (shimshon). Genesis polemicizes against these deities; Not only are they creations, as opposed to co-creators as in some accounts, but their names are not even mentioned to avoid any hint of polytheism.

Similarly, the name for the sea (”yam”) was also the name of a prominent deity. Hebrew, as far as we can tell, did not have a full range of words for different-sized bodies as ocean, sea, lake, pond, puddle, etc. (think: Sea of Galillee), so it couldn’t simply substitute another term, but instead pluralizes to seas, yammim.

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Lehi's Inner Logic

We were discussing the parable of the good Samaritan in priesthood meeting recently. As usually happens, we were looking at the various elements of the story and suggesting meanings and applications. In the course of discussing why the priest and Levite passed by the injured man one of the brethren, apparently in an instinctive attempt to deflect judgment upon the priest and Levite, said, "We don't know the whole story." This surprised me because, I thought to myself, we actually do know the whole story. It was a fictional parable meant to answer the question, "And who is my neighbor?" There is no more story. In fairness I should mention that the same person later made the same point about the purpose of the parable, perhaps realizing the strangeness of his earlier statement.

It occured to me that the statement, "We don't know the whole story," is a simple example of just how easily we can slip into the world of fiction and treat it as if it were reality. For at least a moment the priest and the Levite were real people to this brother, and he felt that we were not in a position to judge them with the little information at hand. We do this all the time when discussing books or movies with a good story as we explore character motivation and wonder why certain choices were made or words said. We think of how we would act under similar circumstances. We feel empathy or compassion for some characters and disdain for others. We wonder why a character insists on doing dumb things. We talk about how elements of the story fit with one another.

At this point I could pivot and discuss how scriptural stories can have meaning whether or not they are historical. Of course they can, but that's not quite the direction I'm going. Instead let's change levels and ask whether prophets do the same thing. I have in mind Lehi's blessing of Jacob in 2 Nephi chapter 2. Much of what Lehi says in that chapter, particularly about Adam and Eve, is bracketed by the issues of freedom of choice and the consequences thereof. In other words, Lehi goes on a long digression about choice and roots it in the garden of Eden. The usual way of reading this passage is just to assume that Lehi, as a prophet, was an authority on what happened in the garden of Eden. But what if Lehi was simply doing what humans so often do: exploring the inner logic of a story?

For example, Lehi says that if Adam and Eve had not transgressed "they would have had no children." Other than the fact that in the accounts of Adam and Eve they are not said to have had children until after their expulsion from the garden, to my knowledge Lehi stands alone in the scriptures in saying that Adam's fall was necessary for children. This has spawned a lot of LDS commentary about the nature of their bodies while in the garden, with assertions that not only would they not have had children (as Lehi says), but that they could not have children.

But there is another way to look at this. Adam and Eve were said to have been naked but not ashamed; they were innocent. There is an easy comparison to be made between Adam and Eve and children who have no comprehension of adult sexuality. Perhaps Lehi drew the conclusion that Adam and Eve simply would not have had children, not because they couldn't, but because it wouldn't really occur to them. Or maybe Lehi's thoughts were more in line with the LDS interpretation suggested in the temple, that if Adam did not follow Eve, they would be separated and unable to have children. (Note that the passage of interest focuses on Adam only.)

Lehi's discourse has also served as key support for the teaching that there was no death on earth before the fall.

And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden. And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end.

But again, Lehi seems simply to be following the logic of the story in the context of opposites and choice. Without opposites there is no choice (or existence), and without choice there is no progress. Ergo, if Adam didn't make a choice, everything would stay the same.

Viewed this way, Lehi's discourse is not an authoritative exposition of the history of life on earth. Rather, it is a commentary that takes a highly figurative story (although Lehi may well have understood it literally) at face value and uses it as a way of illuminating the need to choose "the great Mediator of all men." This interpretation releases one from the need to reconcile Lehi's discourse with modern science.

Perhaps you have noticed that there is another layer to all of this in that I have been exploring the logic of the story of Lehi. I can't help it; I'm human.

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Joseph Smith as [Non-] Scientist

In 1908 soon-to-be Apostle John A. Widtsoe published his book, Joseph Smith as Scientist. Originally published as independent essays in the Improvement Era, the purpose of the book was to show that, "in 1833, or soon thereafter, the teachings of Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet, were in full harmony with the most advanced scientific thought of today, and that he anticipated the world of science in the statement of fundamental facts and theories of physics, chemistry, astronomy and biology."

I haven't read the whole book and a detailed discussion of its arguments are beyond the scope of this post. Briefly, although Widtsoe makes some of Joseph's teachings appear impressively on the mark, other reconciliations fall flat. This is particularly so when, for example, Widtsoe invokes the luminous ether, a concept that would be discarded within twenty years of the book's publication. (This example serves as a warning that reconciling science and religion can be a "dubious achievment.")

More interesting to me in the context of John Walton's statement that scripture does not provide new scientific perspectives are some of Widtsoe's introductory remarks, which would seem to undercut the thesis of the book. I find them to be striking--especially the last one--and I quote them below without further comment.

The mission of Joseph Smith was of a spiritual nature; and therefore, it is not to be expected that the discussion of scientific matters will be found in the Prophet's writings. The revelations given to the Prophet deal almost exclusively with the elucidation of so-called religious doctrines, and with such difficulties as arose from time to time in the organization of the Church. It is only, as it appears to us, in an incidental way that other matters, not strictly of a religious nature, are mentioned in the revelations.

While on the one hand, therefore, it cannot reasonably be expected that Joseph Smith should deal in his writings with any subject peculiar to natural science, yet, on the other hand, it should not surprise any student to find that the Prophet at times considered matters that do not come under the ordinary definition of religion, especially if they in any way may be connected with the laws of religion. Statements of scientific detail should not be looked for in Joseph Smith's writings, though these are not wholly wanting; but rather, we should expect to find general views of the relations of the forces of the universe.

It is not in harmony with the Gospel spirit that God, except in special cases, should reveal things that man by the aid of his natural powers may gain for himself....Such a doctrine makes it unreasonable to look to the Prophet's work for a gratuitous mass of scientific or other details, which will relieve man of the labor of searching out for himself nature's laws. So well established is this principle that in all probability many of the deepest truths contained in the writings of Joseph Smith will not be clearly understood, even by his followers, until, by the laborious methods of mortality, the same truths are established.

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John Walton on Scripture and Science

In the Lost World of Genesis One, John Walton argues against concordism--the attempt to make science and scripture match. In the course of his discussion of scientifically outdated beliefs that can be found in the Bible (existence of a firmament, entrails as the seat of thought, etc) he makes this provocative statement (p. 19):

Through the entire Bible, there is not a single instance in which God revealed to Israel a science beyond their own culture. No passage offers a scientific perspective that was not common to the Old World science of antiquity.

Is Walton right? And is this also true for our other scriptures? In the next few posts I plan to explore this a little more, especially as it pertains to our additional scriptures.

I should note that there are at least two ways to argue against Walton's statement without having to provide a clear counter-example. First, you can say that science hasn't caught up to scripture, or that scientific data are not interpreted correctly, so that such a judgment is premature. The other is to claim that of course the ancients understood the scientific truth of the matter. It was the intervening apostates who obscured that understanding in the scriptures. However, while there may be substance to these arguments, they both rely on unknown information. In the meantime, we can discuss some of the things that we do know.


(I am assembling a list of topics to explore. Here is your chance to make suggested additions: In what ways have the scriptures been ahead of science?)

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Prophets, Scripture, and Science

I've been doing some thinking about the relationship between prophets, scripture, and science. I think that I have enough material for a loosely cohesive series of posts. Much of what I will present represents continued exploration, so I hope to get some outside input. To start things off, I want to juxtapose two quotes. The first is from Hugh Nibley's The World and the Prophets (p. 134), and is one you may have seen before.

The words of the prophets cannot be held to the tentative and defective tests that men have devised for them. Science, philosophy, and common sense all have a right to their day in court. But the last word does not lie with them. Every time men in their wisdom have come forth with the last word, other words have promptly followed. The last word is a testimony of the gospel that comes only by direct revelation. Our Father in heaven speaks it, and if it were in perfect agreement with the science of today, it would surely be out of line with the science of tomorrow. Let us not, therefore, seek to hold God to the learned opinions of the moment when he speaks the language of eternity."

Now let's look at a passage from Conrad Hyers' book, The Meaning of Creation (p. 30-31). You may recall Hyers, formerly a professor of religion at Gustavus Adolphus College, from a previous post. The book was published in 1984 and is an extended argument for rejecting concordist assumptions about the creation account.

Again and again in the history of modern science, efforts have been made to correlate the Bible with the newest scientific data and theory in geology, paleontology, biology, physics, chemistry, and astronomy. If Genesis, however, were to be harmonized with the prevailing science of any particular generation, it would necessarily be out of harmony with the prevailing science of every other generation....To effect a "reconciliation" of science and Scripture at any one point in history would be a dubious achievement. To try to discredit some prevailing scientific theory and discount scientific evidence on the grounds that they will eventually be proved wrong and the Bible proved right is to keep matters of faith in everlasting suspension. Biblical affirmations are in harmony with the science of every period and culture, not because they have been harmonized by enterprising souls, but precisely because they have little to do with science.

These passages strike me as remarkably similar. Now for some discussion questions.

Is Nibley correct to say that revelation is the last word? Actually, he says that the last word lies with "a testimony of the gospel." Is that different?

What does Hyers mean when he says that assuming science will eventually be proved wrong and the Bible right "is to keep matters of faith in everlasting suspension"? Does this apply to our additional scriptural works?

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John Walton Ancient Cosmology Lecture

Earlier this month I reviewed John Walton's The Lost World of Genesis One. Today I happened to come across an hour-long lecture by Walton that lays out his major arguments. It's audio only, but all six parts are embedded below. So if you don't want to get the book, you can get a good sense of it by spending an hour listening to him.

On a side note, both in the book and lecture, Walton said that a Hebrew word translated as "mind" is actually a reference to entrails or intestines. Anybody know what the Hebrew word is (preferably with an example from the Old Testament)?

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The Lost World of Genesis One

Christmas brought me a few books that should serve as blogging material. First up is The Lost World of Genesis One by John Walton, a professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College. Walton argues that if Genesis 1 is read carefully with the ancient Near East context in mind, it becomes clear that the creation story is a functional account (how things work together in an ordered system) rather than a material account (the physical origin). He then argues that scientific accounts of physical origins do not conflict with the Bible because the Bible has nothing to say on the matter.

A couple of things shake out of his analysis that should be of particular interest to an LDS audience. First, is Walton's conclusion that the Hebrew word translated as "create" (bara) does not refer to creation ex nihilo. Although he still believes that ultimately God did create everything out of nothing, Walton argues that the text itself does not teach or imply such a thing. He lays out the reasoning of the ex nihilo interpretation as follows: Materials for creation are never mentioned in association with the word (bara), therefore they must have been created out of nothing. Walton argues that this line of reasoning depends on the assumption that material creation, rather than functional creation, is what is described.

[Genesis 1] does involve creative activities, but all in relation to the way that the ancient world thought about creation and existence: by naming, separating and assigning functions and roles in an ordered system. [p. 46]

This is within striking distance of Joseph Smith's interpretation. Although his reasoning took a somewhat different path, Joseph also rejected creation ex nihilo based (at least partly) on his analysis of the same Hebrew word, as recorded in the famous King Follett discourse:

Now, the word create came from the word baurau which does not mean to create out of nothing; it means to organize; the same as a man would organize materials and build a ship. Hence, we infer that God had materials to organize the world out of chaos—chaotic matter, which is element, and in which dwells all the glory.

Second, Walton argues that the creation of the cosmos should be understood as God creating a temple. (I hardly need to mention the role of the creation in LDS temple worship.) Interestingly, he says that when the text says that God "rested" on the seventh day, this is actually a reference to God taking up his place within his temple, and would have been recognized as such by ancient Israelites because in ancient Near Eastern culture, God(s) rest in, and only in, a temple. He then goes on to write things that will look familiar to anyone who as done any reading of what LDS scholars have written about ancient temples (eg. Hugh Nibley's Temple and Cosmos) [1] . For example,

This close connection between cosmic origins and temple building reinforces the idea across the ancient Near East that the temples were considered primordial and that cosmic origins at times were defined in terms of a temple element....

We can draw the connection between temple and cosmos more tightly when we observe that temples in the ancient world were considered symbols of the cosmos. [p. 79]

According to Walton, in effect, God finished setting up the functions of his temple and then settled in to get down to business. This leads Walton to propose that Genesis 1 is essentially a seven-day inauguration ceremony of God's temple (the cosmos), which he has set up around the needs of humans, and in which he dwells and conducts his business.

Given the relationship of the temple and the cosmos, the creation of one is also the creation of the other. The temple is made functional in the inauguration ceremonies, and therefore the temple is created in the inauguration ceremony. So also the cosmic temple would be made functional (created) in an inauguration ceremony. [p. 88]

Walton insists that he is not offering an alternative to a literal reading of Genesis 1. Rather, he says that this is a literal reading; it is how the ancient Israelites would have understood it. Making the switch from material to functional thinking is difficult, which Walton would probably say is a testament to the power our cultural environment has in shaping our thinking. Although he offers several analogies, I think of it like this: Imagine a baby blessing where the father, rather than making a general statement about the health and growth of the child, proceeds to name each major organ system and describe the function of each. Nobody would mistake this for the actual physical creation of the organ systems. (It occurs to me that we need not look outside of the temple for an example of functional language (eg. initiatory ordinances).)

Nevertheless, it is hard to read the creation account in the Book of Abraham, or consider the creation account in the endowment, without getting the sense that God (or his representatives) is depicted actually doing something. Yet even here Walton may have a partial solution. Early in the book he says that the ancients did not distinguish between 'natural' and 'supernatural' causes. There were no 'natural laws' which caused things to run on their own, with God stepping in from time to time. Rather, the ancients attributed everything to God. Whereas we might say that God used an earthquake caused by a shift in tectonic plates, or (to use scriptural history) that he used the empires of Assyria and Babylonia to accomplish his purposes, the ancients would simply say that God did it. So it shouldn't be surprising that a text written for another culture shows no concern for a distinction important to ours. On the other hand, we are not totally divorced from the ancient mindset. It is not uncommon for people to express a sense of providence in what seem like ordinary natural events.

There are additional nuggets of insight to be mined from the book, but I'll leave it at that for now. At under 200 pages, the book is an easy and quick read. It is also organized well; each chapter title encapsulates the main point of the chapter and there is a nice summary at the end, as well as answers to FAQs. The last couple of chapters wander a little off-topic by getting into how science is taught in public schools. I pretty much agree with his position, which is to leave discussion of purpose (or lack thereof) out of science classrooms, but it seemed a little out of place in this book.

I'll close with a quote from the introduction.

The Old Testament does communicate to us and it was written for us, and for all humankind. But it was not written to us. It was written to Israel. It is God's revelation of himself to Israel and secondarily through Israel to everyone else. As obvious as this is, we must be aware of the implications of that simple statement.

Notes:

1. I don't mean to imply that all of these similar insights originated with LDS scholars.

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Abraham's Allegorical Astronomy

Several years ago I highlighted three chapters from the FARMS book, Astronomy, Papyrus, and Covenant. One of the chapters, "'And I Saw the Stars': The Book of Abraham and Ancient Geocentric Astronomy," by John Gee, William J. Hamblin, Daniel C. Peterson, argues that the Book of Abraham (specifically, chapter 3) is best read in the context of a geocentric astronomy. I've felt that this chapter is an important example of putting scripture into an ancient context that does not fit with modern science, and it is done so by LDS scholars of unquestioned faith.

This week I came across an article that takes this a step further. In his 2009 article, Encircling Astronomy and the Egyptians: An Approach to Abraham 3, BYU Associate Professor of Ancient Scripture and Egyptologist, Kerry Muhlestein, argues that the astronomical paradigm is irrelevant to the meaning of the Book of Abraham.

I think we stumble when we attempt to understand Abraham’s vision in terms of astronomic paradigms. It is quite likely that the Lord was describing astronomy and the heavens allegorically in order to teach doctrinal, not astronomical, principles. While attempting to understand astronomical principles has merit...and while there may be an understandable cosmic paradigm to be teased out of the narrative, it seems that the allegorical teachings are the weightier matters as far as the gospel classroom is concerned.

Muhlestein goes on to explain the importance of the planets and stars to the Egyptians and how, in chapter 3, God was preparing Abraham to be able to teach the Egyptians using astronomy as basis for communication.

I was slightly surprised to find that this thesis--a rejection of scriptural literalism and concordism--was published by the Religious Studies Center, an arm of the BYU Religion Department. Good on them. As I have noted on several occasions, other Christians have been taking this basic approach with the creation scriptures for a while now. I know of only a couple of attempts by LDS authors to do similarly, but most Church members would probably consider them unorthodox at best.

Muhlestein's article gives me hope that what's good for Abraham chapter 3 will also be good for chapters 4 and 5.

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BioLogos and the ANE Context of Genesis

Among the features of BioLogos are a collection of "Scholarly Essays." Two that I want to highlight here, and that I think should be read together, are: "The Biblical Creation in its Ancient Near Eastern Context" by Joseph Lam, and "Biblical Creation and Storytelling: Cosmogony, Combat and Covenant" by Brian Godawa (see link above). These essays are similar to resources I highlighted in my earlier post, Taking Joseph and Brigham's Advice with Genesis.

Both essays address the themes, motifs, and purposes of the creation account in Genesis 1, particularly in relationship to the Ancient Near East (ANE). I am not going to re-hash them; go read them. But I do want to comment on something from the Godawa essay.

First I should say that it makes sense to me that Moses and the Israelites were not prepared to hear about many of the scientific facts and ideas that we take for granted. They weren't dumb, they simply lived in another world. A crash course in physics, geology, and biology probably would not have been that helpful. But even if we accept this, why would God make up the particular story we have in Genesis and the Book of Moses? I think Godawa may have hit on part of the answer.

One of the functions of ancient creation narratives is to literarily encode the religious and political overthrow of one culture by another. When a king or kingdom would rise to power in the ancient world, they would often displace the vassal culture’s creation stories with their own stories of how their deities triumphed over others to create the world in which they now lived....

God was preparing Israel to displace the pagan Canaanites and their gods both physically and literarily, so He inspired this authorship of the creation account to express that ancient Near Eastern motif of justifying transcendent authority and land ownership with a creation story.

I think this is a significant idea for understanding why God would give a less-than scientific/historical account of the creation. It wasn't just that the people would not understand much of what we take for granted, although that was probably part it. God's people needed a creation story that would help to give them a sense of identity and explain why the God of their small nation was superior to the gods of the surrounding empires, and worthy of worship. It was also going to have to compete with the stories of the gods of those surrounding empires. Since they lived in the ANE, it makes sense that God would use the surrounding themes and motifs and re-formulate them into a new creation story with its own theology. A creation account involving millions of years and impersonal, poorly understood laws of nature just wouldn't cut it--and given the culture, it might sound plain crazy.

Obviously I don't know whether this is actually correct, but it seems plausible to me.

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What's With the Ages of the Patriarchs? (Part 1)

One of the well-known curiosities of Genesis is the long ages of the ancient patriarchs, particularly from Adam to Noah. With the exception of Enoch, who was translated, all of them are said to have lived over 700 years--some of them almost 1,000 years. To say that such long lifespans seem implausible is an understatement. What are we to make of these ages?

Carol Hill's 2003 article, "Making Sense of the Numbers of Genesis" (PDF) in Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith (a publication of the American Scientific Affiliation) argues that the numbers of Genesis should be understood in terms of numerology rather than arithmetic. She makes the following basic points:

• In ancient cultures numbers often had symbolic value independent of their numeric value.
• The ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt are known to have exaggerated lifespans of important persons.
• Mesopotamians used a sexagesimal (base 60) number system, often symbolically. However, the Egyptians--and later the Hebrews--used the decimal (base 10) system. The decreasing lifespans after the flood may reflect a change in the usage of numbers by the Hebrews as a result of their time spent in Egypt.
• All of the ages given from Adam to Noah can be broken down into favored numbers.
• There are clear examples of numerical symmetry in scripture.
• Genealogies in the Bible sometimes omit generations, and "begot" doesn't always mean begot.

Read the paper for more details. I think she makes a good case for exercising care in taking Biblical numbers (especially in Genesis) at face value. This frees us from having to accommodate such fantastic lifespans as part of real history.

BUT...

The Genesis lifespans are repeated in the Book of Moses, which is Joseph Smith's revision of Genesis, and Doctrine and Covenants 107:42-53 gives the ages at which the ancient patriarchs were ordained to the Priesthood. Not only were several of them hundreds of years old at the time of their ordination, but before he died Adam assembled his posterity to bless them. All of the patriarchs down to Methuselah (Adam's great-great-great-great-great grandson) are named as having attended.

So now we are back where we started. Or are we? In my next post we'll look at the ages of the ancient patriarchs a little more closely and see what we find.

Part 2
Part 3

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Lehi and the Creation of Opposites

In a recent post I discussed the need to be careful about imposing our own culture and questions upon the scriptures. Specifically, I was discussing the Creation as depicted in Genesis 1 and how it may not have been formulated with our sense of science and history in mind.

While reading Conrad Hyers's The Meaning of Creation I came across the following passage (p. 89; an almost identical paragraph is here):

Since cosmologies are concerned with the establishment and maintenance of order in the cosmos, central to the achievement of order is the act of separating things from one another. Without acts of separation, one would have chaos. Thus ancient cosmologies commonly begin with a depiction of a chaotic state, where there are no clear lines of demarcation, and then proceed to indicate ways in which the present world-order (cosmos) with its lines of demarcation, has been organized. In other cultures this was achieved by divine births, wars, etc. Here cosmos is accomplished by separating things out from one another, and by creating other things (e.g., light or firmament) that aid in the separation. Everything is thus assigned its proper region and allowed to have its own identity, place and function in the overall scheme of created things. The key concept, therefore, which is applied to the inanimate as well as the animate, is the cosmological concept of separation to achieve order.

I have often thought that this universe and life on Earth can be described in terms of separation, gradients, and compartmentalization (and for you physics folks, broken symmetries?). And until I read the above passage, I've always thought of these separations in the context of Lehi's opposites in 2 Nephi 2.

11 For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my first-born in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility....

15 And to bring about his eternal purposes in the end of man, after he had created our first parents, and the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and in fine, all things which are created, it must needs be that there was an opposition; even the forbidden fruit in opposition to the tree of life; the one being sweet and the other bitter.

It is clear from the context that Lehi had been reading about the creation and subsequent events in the Garden of Eden. Scholars believe that Genesis 1 and 2 contain separate creation accounts that were merged together, probably after the Babylonian exile--and therefore after Lehi. But let's put that aside for now.

Although Lehi's discussion of opposites is focused on the fruit of the two trees, it is interesting to me that in our text (if, perhaps, not Lehi's) the opposites of Eden are preceded by the creation of opposites through separation.

I guess my point is that the suggestion that the creation narratives can be understood in ways other than literal science/history is not mere ivory tower sophistry, nor is it meaningful only in an ancient context. In addition to other symbolic meanings of Genesis 1, Lehi provides us one more: Genesis 1 represents the creation of a universe of opposites and both foreshadows and complements the opposites of Eden.

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Taking Joseph and Brigham's Advice with Genesis

I have a key by which I understand the scriptures. I enquire, what was the question which drew out the answer or caused Jesus to utter the parable? -- Joseph Smith

Do you read the Scriptures, my brethren and sisters, as though you were writing them a thousand, two thousand, or five thousand years ago? Do you read them as though you stood in the place of the men who wrote them? -- Brigham Young

Biblical inerrancy is a Christian doctrine that Mormons have always rejected. However, in practice we sometimes replace biblical inerrancy with our own brand of prophetic inerrancy, especially when it comes to Joseph Smith's revelations. This puts us in a similarly uncomfortable position as that of evangelical Christians when scientific, historical, archaeological, linguistic, textual--whatever--evidence clashes with scripture. A number of evangelical Christian scholars argue that the key to resolving at least some of these tensions is to realize that (i) God accommodates himself to our level of understanding, and (ii) that things that make sense in an ancient culture/worldview may not make sense in ours.

An introduction to this approach to scripture is Inspiration and Incarnation (2005), by Peter Enns. I learned of the book from a post at FAIR Blog, where it was highly recommended. Enns uses an analogy to the incarnation of Jesus: just as Jesus was both human and divine, so the Bible is both a work of humans and inspired. He then applies this analogy to three Biblical difficulties: (i) similarities between the Old Testament and broader ancient Near Eastern culture and literature, (ii) theological diversity within the Old Testament, and (iii) the use and interpretation of the Old Testament in the New Testament. Enns clearly believes in the divinity of the Bible, but apparently his suggestion that the Bible bears marks of humanity was too much. In 2008 he was forced to leave his 15-year professorship at Westminster Theological Seminary.

There are several things that one should know about the world of the ancient Near East--the world in which the ancient Israelites lived. First, their view of the cosmos was something like this [1]:


If the ancient Israelites and their neighbors thought of such expressions as "pillars of the earth" or "windows of heaven" as exclusively figurative, as we do, they apparently did not indicate it.

Other things to know include:

• The ancient Israelites were surrounded by polytheism, where elements of nature were considered gods that were related to one another in various genealogies. Compared to the gods of the surrounding mighty empires, Yahweh was considered a small and insignificant tribal god.


• Other ancient Near Eastern creation myths have similar elements to that of Genesis, including overcoming chaos, division into seven periods, and resting at the end.


• In some Near Eastern creation myths humans are created as slaves to serve the gods.


• In addition to their numeric value, numbers also served symbolic purposes in ancient cultures.

Tie these things together and you can begin to see how the scriptural creation accounts deal with very different issues than we think of. For more information I recommend the resources below. Unfortunately, these issues seem to have largely gone untouched by LDS scholars. The few that I know of are noted.

Further Reading:

First let me highlight some of my own blog posts. I suggest reading all of my scriptural concordism posts, but especially see Genesis in Context and Rejecting Concordism.

Books:

Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament, by Peter Enns. The book only spends a couple of pages on Genesis and creation. It is really more focused on developing the general argument.

The Meaning of Creation: Genesis and Modern Science, by Conrad Hyers. Actually I haven't read this book yet; it's in the mail. But if his writings available on the internet (see below) are any indication, it should be well worth reading.

Jehovah and the World of the Old Testament, by Richard Neitzel Holzapfel, Dana M. Pike, and David Rolph Seely. This recent book published by Deseret Book describes the context of the Old Testament with LDS sensitivities. For the purposes here, its value is in background information. It does not synthesize the information in the same way as the other listed sources do.

Online Articles:

Creation according to Genesis: Literary Genre, Cultural Context, Theological Truth (PDF), by Daniel Harlow, professor of religion at Calvin College. This is a very nice treatment of the above issues. If you read nothing else, read this.

by Conrad Hyers:

Biblical Literalism: Constricting the Cosmic Dance
The Fall and Rise of Creationism
Dinosaur Religion: On Interpreting and Misinterpreting the Creation Texts
The Narrative Form of Genesis 1: Cosmogonic, Yes; Scientific, No
Comparing Biblical and Scientific Maps of Origins

LDS:

Adam's Navel, by Keith Norman. Originally published in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought Vol. 21, No. 2, Summer 1988.

[1] A Mormon Midrash? LDS Creation Narratives Reconsidered, by Anthony Hutchinson in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought Vol. 21, No. 4, Winter 1988.

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The Condescension of God

Another visit to the ASA turns up another thought-provoking quote by Paul Seely.

God is a Father, not a rationalistic scholastic philosopher-theologian. He was willing to come down to the intellectual level of his children in order to communicate to them lessons of faith and morals. His employment of ancient history and science as if it were really true is a gracious accommodation to the Israelites’ limited knowledge.

It is a distortion of his grace to call this accommodation a disguising of fiction as real history. The people of that time believed it was real history. God accommodated it as such for their sakes, and we read it over their shoulders.

For a similar previous post, see here.

Source: Genesis 1–11 in the Light of Its Second Millennial Worldview (pdf).

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