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« on: October 14, 2015, 11:52:25 PM »
Just here to make a point about the Theory of Evolution regarding the creation story in Genesis 1-3.
Many people believe the creation story and the theory of evolution to contradict each other, but this entirely depends on the way we read and interpret both the creation story and the world around us. Before addressing the creation story in Genesis 1-3 itself, I'd like to address the 3 main origin beliefs Christians hold. There are Young-Earth Creationists (YEC), Old-Earth Creationists (OEC), and Evolutionary Creationists (EC). YEC believe that Genesis 1-3 is a literal account of the events that took place during the formation of the universe and that the Earth is only ~6000 years old. This belief is very common among Christians. OEC believe the same as YEC, except that the Earth was created to appear old. So despite it's actual age of ~6000 years, it appears to be much older than that and has evidence suggesting as much. For scientific, theological, and other such reasons, this is an unpopular theory among Christians. EC believe that the current scientific understanding of the Theory of Evolution and the Big Bang were created by God and are supported by Genesis 1-3, and that the story of Genesis is not a literal interpretation.
As you may have noticed, the real difference comes down the the interpretation of the creation story. While the literal approach is fairly straight forward, if it is non-literal, then the way you arrive at your interpretation matters just as much, if not more, than what the actual text says. Most Christians choose the literal interpretation of the Bible because the New Testament, especially the books concerning Jesus, seem to be literal accounts. Not wanting to get caught on a slippery slope about how certain books and stories should be interpreted, the prefer to interpret the entire collection as literal. However, I believe this is a mistake.
Firstly, the creation story found in Genesis 1-3 is actually two different creation stories written by two different authors hundreds of years apart. Genesis 1:1-2:3 is known as The Elohim and focuses on the creation of the Earth and the greatness of the Creator. Genesis 2:4-3:24 is known as the Yahweh and focuses on the creation and the downfall of humanity. To interpret that literally as one cohesive story creates problems for the narrative as the intended focus of the stories create shifts in the chronological events. Viewed as two separate stories, these issues matter less.
Secondly, the context in which we understand the creation story found in Genesis 1-3, as well as the rest of the Bible, matters greatly in how we interpret it. The contextual lens in which we view and interpret reality is called an ontology. Understanding our current ontology, as well as past ontologies, is crucial to understanding how a text is to be interpreted. The context by which most modern humans interpret our reality is known as a material ontology. When we view something, we tend to interpret it as a list of traits. If I ask you to picture a wheel in your head, most of you would begin to think of physical traits about that wheel. The size, the color, the material it's made from, etc. This material ontology gives us a very literal interpretation of the world around us, which is possibly why so many people choose to view the text of Genesis 1-3 literally. However, this ontology didn't seem to be shared by the authors that wrote the Elohim and Yahweh. The ontology of their era was known as a functional ontology. Instead of viewing something as a list of traits, things were viewed in the functions they served. This sort of thinking appears in many stories from that era. While the change in ontolgies seems minor, when thinking about the abstract, this is a massive change in how we interpret. If the authors intended us to interpret what they wrote based on the functions provided versus the traits they showed, then the way we view those things becomes drastically different.
I was going to write more, but I'm really tired and I think this is at least good enough to effect the debate at least a little bit. I can come back and add more or clarify things as needed.
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