BibleProject - Timelines, Dinosaurs, and the Purpose of Creation – Ancient Cosmology Q+R

Episode Date: July 12, 2021

Are Genesis 1 and 2 literal? What’s up with the differing timelines in those chapters? Where are the dinosaurs in the Bible? How do you know what ancient Hebrew words really meant? In this episode, Tim and Jon tackle your questions from the Ancient Cosmology series. Thanks to our audience for all your incredible questions!View full show notes from this episode →Timestamps How Can You Know the Correct Meaning of Ancient Words? (5:52 - 12:06)Can You Understand the Bible Without Other Resources? (12:06 - 21:04)What Is the Purpose of Creation in Genesis 1-2? (21:04 - 28:45)Are Genesis 1 and 2 Literal? (28:45 - 42:14)Where Are Dinosaurs in the Bible? (42:14 - 49:24)How Did Other Biblical Authors Interpret Genesis 1 and 2? (49:24 - 55:30)Referenced ResourcesInterested in more? Check out Tim’s library here.John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins DebateJohn H. Walton, The Lost World of Adam and Eve: Genesis 2-3 and the Human Origins DebateRobin A. Parry, The Biblical Cosmos: A Pilgrim's Guide to the Weird and Wonderful World of the BibleAlister McGrath (multiple works on the intersection of Christian and scientific cosmology)John Polkinghorne (multiple works on the intersection of Christian and scientific cosmology)Show Music “Defender (Instrumental)” by TENTSShow produced by Dan Gummel, Zach McKinley, and Cooper Peltz. Show notes by Lindsey Ponder.  Audience questions collected by Christopher Maier.Powered and distributed by Simplecast.

Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it in, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds, and please transcribe your question when you email it in. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode.

Hey Tim! Hey John! We are going to look at some questions from the Cosmology series. Yes, yep. That just released. Now, that just released in real time for those of you listening along. Yes.

The series of conversations has an interesting backstory. Yes. For us, these conversations happened two and a half years ago. A little over two. A little over two, I think. So what happened? Yeah, so here's the backstory. We were going to do six or seven theme videos

and put them all together in this creation theme video series. And the very first video was gonna be on ancient cosmologies. And I don't remember what other ones were in there except to say that four of the six or seven made to life. Yeah, they came to life in the form of independent theme videos that we made. We released those conversations, so those were... Tree of life. Tree of life.

Yeah. Water of life, which had no podcast series connected to it. And that's why there's water conversation here. Yeah, that's why this ancient cosmology series has a bunch of water conversations. Because literally in the course of those conversations was a bunch of stuff that is edited out so that you all don't have to sit through it was when we realized, oh, we shouldn't make a seven-part series.

Let's just make four theme videos. Yeah. The water of life, the second, the third one was... Saboth. Saboth. And then the fourth one was Temple. Those are all really great theme videos, and they have really great podcast

series, conversation series. Yeah, but these conversations about the ancient cultural context of the cosmology of Genesis 1 and Babylonian Egyptian cosmologies, we thought we were gonna try and make a video about that, and then we just decided, yeah, it's not the most strategic thing for us to do. And so those conversations sat on the digital shelf for a couple of years.

Yeah. And then we thought, you know, those are really good conversations. Yeah. And so we dusted them off and threw them up and then realized some water of life stuff was in there. What a pleasant surprise. And it seems like people have really enjoyed thinking about ancient cosmologies. I think it's perfect for the podcast audience. I think for the video audience is a little off. Yeah. Our main content is aimed at our mission, which is helping people experience the Bible as a unified story that leads to Jesus. And you don't need to know about ancient cosmologies. Now you don't have to. But it's definitely a fascinating rabbit hole

that can enrich ones understanding of the creation stories in the Bible. You know, one other just quick thing about the backstory to that series. So I think in the podcast series, we in those conversations, we referenced the theme of water in the gospel of John. Mm-hmm.

And we never actually ever had a full podcast conversation about water in the gospel of John. And we never actually ever had a full podcast conversation about water in the gospel of John, but there you go. Yeah, so you might have been expecting another episode where we talk about water in the gospel of John. Yeah, so real quick, here's the sketch. Yeah. In John chapter two, when Jesus storms the temple and turns his tables over and the priests and Jerusalem leaders

get in his face about it and he says, destroy this temple and I'll raise it up in three days. Famous exchange. They're like, what? It took 46 years to build the temple. And then John Whispers in New York and says, he was talking about his body. And so that introduces this motif of Jesus, well actually, and that's developing from John chapter one that the word became flesh and dwelt as a tabernacle among us. So Jesus is the temple, which is in image of Eden, the place where heaven and earth are one. So in the gospel of John going forward then, you have this idea introduced that Jesus is the reality that Eden itself is a narrative image of. And so in John chapter four, Jesus claims to be

the source of living water that gives eternal life. Oh yeah. So Jesus offers the Samaritan woman, water of life, you know, that will never run dry. In John chapter four. Yes, in John chapter seven, there's a famous line about the one who believes in me, his belly will flow with living waters. And there's the translation challenge there, but the images of Jesus providing living

water from his own self. And we actually incorporated that into the water of life video. Yeah, that's right. There's an image of Jesus, kind of a larger than life Jesus. Yeah, as like a fountain. A fountain. It's coming out of his hands more, but his hands are out of his belly. Exactly. That was our, that was Alan's wave. Yeah. Solving that artist for that scene. And then and climatically, it's when geosacide is, you know, gashed open with spear, John, to picks blood and water flowing down. From the temple mount.

Yeah, from the mount, from the earth. The mount, which is the temple heed and mountains on. Yeah. So John is very clearly understands the symbolism and the development of the waters from Genesis 1 and 2 and then he's mapping it on to his story about Jesus as the ultimate Eden. So there you go. We could have talked about that over the course of an hour. But as the water to wine, is that part of it too?

That's his first miracle in John, right? Oh, sure. It is related. It's different. It's a different part of the water imagery connected to purity. The water is in these jars used for ritual purification, and he turns that into a great feast of Eden, a wedding feast. So it's connected, but it's got other motifs going on with it there too.

So, water and the gospel of John's really neat theme study. Let's jump into some questions then. Yeah, yeah, y'all sit in, as always, really thoughtful questions that we are excited to interact with. So, shall we? We shall. This first question is from Josh Jacobs in Arkansas. Hey, Tim and John. My name is Josh, and I'm a student at the University of Arkansas in Fayville. I've been studying biblical Hebrew for about a year now. I was wondering how

you're able to tease out the nuances and appropriate meanings for some of the words that appear in Genesis 1, like Rashit Burat, Tahom, Tohuvavuhu. These words that don't necessarily fit our modern concepts of the world, especially when it seems like a lot of traditional English translations have chosen to fit these concepts into a modern framework rather than allowing them to say what the original author's meant. Thanks guys. Yeah, that's a great question.

Yeah, I mean, is that just kind of what you learn when you study Hebrew? It is kind of. So when you're studying a living language, you know like Spanish or French It's a little easier like what do people mean when they say this correct? You can actually go like ask someone in fact the best way is to go talk to somebody Here speaks the living language and you'll pick up what are the living? Current ranges of meaning of the words and just start using them the trick is even though modern Hebrew is spoken today You know, it's very, very developed from ancient

biblical Hebrew. We've talked about this because you lived in Israel and could speak ancient Hebrew. So yeah, I mean, my first few months there, my Hebrew sound as our land lady often said, I sounded like Shakespeare. What would come to my mind is biblical phraseology, biblical Hebrew, which sounded like, yeah, it, 3,000 years old. Yeah, to her. So the trick is when you are learning ancient biblical Hebrew you sign up for classes, you'll get vocabulary cards. And the vocabulary cards, the first ones will be edits.

And you'll flip it over and you'll say earth. So what any language has to do, if you're going to translate, is find words that are roughly equivalent in the corresponding language. So that's only step one. The full step is that language is an expression of culture and worldview. And so the question about how do you tease out nuances in biblical Hebrew of words that are really similar but also not similar to our English words.

You just have to study how the words are used. The meanings of words aren't like magical things that exist in an ethereal place. Yeah, like math. Totally. Yeah, it's not like that. The meanings of words is determined by how people use the word. I don't know. We both are living with kids with growing vocabulary.

You watch this every day. Yeah. Usually with how they'll use words inappropriately, but you still know what they mean. Right. Where they'll make up words. Oh yeah, August said this one the other day, it's strawberry season, right now, real time's June.

So our house is full of strawberries because we go strawberry picking a lot. And August, we made these strawberry waffles, put strawberries all over the waffles. And he walked over the table and he says, oh, those look so tempting. Temptating. It's so like, yeah, that's right.

So you're taking temptation, but making it a verb. But I knew what he meant, even though the word was incorrect. So meaning is about people using words in context. So we just went to my nephew's high school graduation. And they were having a hard time saying graduation, and they kept saying graduation. We're going to the graduation. Yeah.

And I was like, it's such a wonderful, because then you could just say, congratulations. Oh, that's right. Oh, they're merging. They're merging congratulations and graduation. That's exactly it. Yeah, okay.

So that's great. So they're merging two words to create a new word with a meaning that is separate from graduation or congratulations. It's the congratulations at the graduation. Words are malleable, so you have to study how language users use a word to know what they mean. So Josh, you're asking, how do you tease out nuances? You just have to study the language.

And I suppose why, I think for some people, this feels really fresh to be like, oh, to home. It means something more than just deep water the way that a modern would think about it. Correct, yeah, this is it. And why is in our English translations helping us do that, necessarily? Oh, well, because that's not really the purpose

of a translation. Translation just is trying to give you, you know, an appropriate equivalent, and then you gotta keep on going. But to understand that what, the meaning of, you know, the abysmal waters in English, and how that differs from the concept of to home and ancient Hebrew, that's not what a translation is for. You need a teacher or a commentator for that.

Some translations that are more on the interpretive side, what do they call this? Well, there's a spectrum, you know? Right. Because even to use the first example, to translate the Hebrew word, adverts as earth, already puts you at a disadvantage in the Bible. So why do some translators do that? Well, I think because in some traditions of English, Earth still just means land. That's true.

Like we grab a fistful of Earth. A handful of Earth. But the meaning of Earth is shifting. That's right. It sounds weird to like talk about plowing the Earth. So in that case, I think to translate in the beginning, God created the skies and the land. It helps you center and what they're actually thinking about.

Yeah, that's right. So to get just really pointed to your question, Josh, to rebuild the concepts and meanings of ancient biblical Hebrew words, and this is true for New Testament Greek as well, is just studying the words and how they are used in context and rebuilding the definition. So word, word study skills, not just looking a word up in a biblical Hebrew dictionary, but actually learning how to study all of the occurrences of word and building a mental portrait of its meaning in your mind.

It's a really important skill. If you wanna recover the way the biblical authors saw the world, and that's essentially what we're trying to set the table for in this series. We have a class coming out on the classroom project on that. I think it's going to come out this summer. Well, no, there's one out already called Heaven and Earth. No, I'm sorry on word studies.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. The art of biblical words. The art of biblical words. Yeah, we did a bioproject class that'll come out. Yeah. I think July or August. Maybe later this year. Short class. Short class on this very thing. I think July or August. Maybe later this year. Short class.

Short class on this very thing. How to study Biblical words. Yeah. It's a how-to class. It was super fun. So, great question, Josh. Thanks for asking it. Next, we're going to hear from Dan in Connecticut.

Hey, Tim and John. My name is Dan. I'm from Hartford, Connecticut. Hey, Tim. On a recent podcast, you mentioned that if someone had a Hebrew Bible and a Hebrew dictionary, they could probably understand the text. So my question is, what is the purpose of studying history and textual interpretation? How can the common person reconcile seemingly different hermanutical ideas of people like John Sailhammer or John Walton. Guys, thanks so much. You rock. That was really kind. No, no, Dan.

You rock. I hope he does rock. I hope he's in a rock band. Yeah, that would be pretty great, Dan. Yeah, great question. And just to fill out that reference you're making at the end, you're referring to two Hebrew Bible scholars, both named John. Both of whom have been hugely influential on me and us

and the Bible project. So John Sailhammer was a luminary in Hebrew Bible studies. He had appointed an intentionally provocative way of raising this issue. He really believed, and he grew up in an era where his kind of circle in biblical studies had really been over-influenced by the importance of ancient Near Eastern studies. And it had really overshadowed studying the literary artistry and the biblical theological kind of developing ideas

throughout the story that he revival. And so he was kind of offering a corrective and saying, you actually don't need a lot of this ancient Near Eastern historical context to read the he revival. He loved to make that point. And to agitate people. And in one sense, and I've learned he's right, and that's the point I was trying to get at. Right. Because I was actually asking you in a very pointed way of like, you know, what if we didn't have this? And I remember referencing there's a debate going on in our undergrad. Yes, that's right. Of whether or not you did need it. That's right. And the person in our college, Professor Ray Lubak, who was offering a perspective, saying,

yeah, you don't need ancient and ancient history as much as you might think. He was a student of John C. Lambert. So here's the thing, and this is related to the question just right before. The meaning of words is determined by their usage. And so if you're reading the Hebrew Bible and you start at page one, and if you're reading in Hebrew, and you start at page one, and if you're reading in Hebrew, you can build up an internal growing dictionary. Yeah.

You could do it in English too. It's just a lot more work because you have to constantly go reference it. Well, exactly. So let's just do a thought experiment. Okay. I'll say you're doing Hebrew, but you're an English speaker doing it. But this would be the case if you were speaking any other language. Yeah, Spanish, French, whatever.

So you could just get a Hebrew Bible, Hebrew dictionary, and start cranking. And if you let the meanings of words define themselves as the Hebrew Bible develops, you would get a lot. And if you let your imagination hyperlink things, the way you're supposed to, as you go through this story, the Bible, you would be able to track fully. But here's the problem that's impossible, that that would ever happen. Because none of us are living speakers of ancient biblical Hebrew. Wait, what's impossible?

Oh, the little thought experiment that I'm saying is impossible. If you went to a deserted island and you had just the Hebrew Bible and a Hebrew dictionary. Why is that impossible? It's impossible because anybody doing that is coming in thinking in another language than ancient biblical history. But isn't the idea that, yes, I'm thinking in another language, but I want to then explore these words to help me form a new way of thinking. Totally, yes.

But as you do that, you will unknowingly without even realizing it, import your modern spoken language meanings into these words that you're reading. Yes, but then you do it again. And maybe it just continues to kind of reform itself until lifetime of that, you get closer and closer. No, I think that's true. And so the question is, what are some other additional tools that can help us get closer?

Faster. And faster, and can expose the ways that I'm importing modern concepts into the Hebrew Bible and the Tesla. So it's impossible to strong then maybe? Oh, well. It's slow. It's slow. And it's inefficient.

Okay, you're right. I guess I was being provocative. But I'm just saying it's not possible that anybody could do that on the first try. No, yes, on the first try now. Because language is an expression of culture. Probably not on your third or fourth try either. No, I mean no.

Maybe by the end of your life you may have gotten somewhat close. If you're doing a community of people for thousands of years. Yeah, that's right. You probably are getting really, really close. Yeah, totally. So this is where the work of a scholar like John Walton, I have found so helpful. Yeah. Because what he's able to say is say, look, here's this biblical Hebrew word.

Here's how it's used. Well, notice that it's really different than how our English translation word, what it means. And lo and behold, what the Hebrew word means is very similar to the concept of creation in Babylon and in Egypt. It's the fast pass. Yeah, it's a fast pass. And it's helping see that biblical Hebrew and biblical thought had lots of similarities and differences with the cultures and languages around them.

So for me, actually, the chaos dragon is a good example, and it's an example of where my thinking has developed since we had those conversations two years ago. So when we're talking about the chaos dragon and the defeat, Marduk's defeat of TMAT in New Mealish. And then I brought up how Genesis 1, there's no battle. The only C-dragon there is... And God's order. Yeah, is a creature God makes in Genesis 1, 21. But then I brought up Psalm 74, which talks about God splitting the heads of the C-dragon. And it's connected in some way with creation,

because he says, yours is the night, yours also is the day. And it's about God establishing order. And this is where I'm at currently. I think it's intentional and important that Genesis 1 is starting the Hebrew Bible with no conflict narrative. The darkness and the chaos waters are a neutral canvas. That's your term. And I like that.

They're not an enemy, they're neutral canvas. And the only dragon around is no threat in Genesis 1. However, after God makes the creatures, there does turn out to be a rebel creature in the garden. Yeah, a reptile. Yep, a snake. And it tries to usurp God's authority and human's authority and all that, that's the Eden narrative.

And so God says like, hey, there's going to be hostility between the seed of the woman and the snake and its seed going on. And you know, there's going to come an ultimate showdown between the snake and chosen line. So there will be a battle. There will be a battle. Or the dragon. Exactly. And so as you go throughout, then the Cain narrative teaches you that humans by their moral choices

Can align themselves with the seed of the woman or the seed of the snake? Cain becomes the seed of the snake. He builds the first city. Ham becomes another Snakeling through his choices and his descendant builds Babylon. Oh, and then Egypt and Pharaoh in Exodus chapter 1 becomes the Shrewd snake who tries to stamp out and enslave God's chosen ones. The blessed Israelites there. So you get this portrait that the nations

and the empires that Israel suffered under, Egypt, Babylon, Assyria were taken over by the snake. So Psalm 74 is about the response to the destruction of the temple by Babylon. In the book of Isaiah, Rehab, who we talked about, is the seed dragon there referring to Egypt in the Exodus. And so what's interesting, it's the forces creation, but over the forces of rebellion within creation, and it's about God's ultimate victory over the snake. So it's a good example of how if you only look at ancient Near Eastern parallels of the battle with Martin and Tiamat, you won't fully get what the Hebrew Bible is uniquely doing. And to do that, you need to pull a John sale hammer.

But to understand the broader context, you need to pull a John Walton. Sure. You need both perspectives. Yes, you need both. I love that. But I think part of the thought experiment of can you just do it with a Bible dictionary? Yeah. And that translation is to say, for a normal Christian, do you have to become some sort of archaeologist or historian? Right.

And what you're saying is, what a great gift that really does help. But the other side of it is, actually, you can do it. It's just a lot of work. Yeah, and you can do it. You can do it even in your own first language. just takes a lot of patient rereading and trying to be self-critical that you aren't importing modern meetings and ideas into old New Testament. Which is really tricky. It is. You so you need help.

Which is why that's the wonderful world of biblical studies. And even with that, you need help because it's just so easy to let your own perspective. Yeah. And all of a sudden, you see the usage and another ancient Near Eastern culture, it just becomes a mirror real quick. Cool. All right, let's look at a question from Christian Swales

from Spain. Yeah. Hi, my name is Christian and I'm Anger Nata Spain. What I'm learning through this series is that the ancient Israelite creation narrative is much more about the why than in the how. It's the purpose of creation being told through the lens of an already established ancient cosmology. So my question is, how could that ancient Israelite why,

that ancient purpose of creation be translated or retold now through our current and modern understanding of the cosmos. That's a cool question. Yeah, isn't it? Well, asked. Question? I was going to say, well said, but it's a question. So just one thought, just on that statement, it's more about the why than about the how.

I really resonate with that. Though I do want to also say, it is giving an account of how the cause most was ordered. And it's doing it in the categories of, in ancient Israelite cosmology, through God speaking, separating and calling things out of the land. Plants come out of the land, the creatures come out of the land and so on.

So there is a how, but that how is based off of an ancient cosmological understanding. Yeah, maybe why you're saying that is, to an ancient Israelite, they wouldn't make that distinction. Yeah, but now us looking back, we could tease that out, but to them that didn't matter. Yeah, for them the how God separating, speaking, calling, things out of.

Was also the why. It was also the how. Exactly. So I think what we need to do because we are in a different cultural setting is we need to create just a distinction between those two and what we can say is different cultures have different imaginative explanations of how the cosmos works yes and we have one too and we're pretty sure it's right well it's moderns but it's constantly being developed and tweaked.

And there's things we do not know. And there's a lot we don't know. This is stuff called dark energy. What's that? What's that? Yeah, what really is a core? Yeah, so there we're to the chronological snobbery thing. Because we inhabit a later and a developed view of the cosmos that is informed by really sophisticated tools.

Yeah. Scientific tools for understanding. We mistake it for like... We know the how now. Right. Well, we mistake it for we know the how. That's what I'm saying. Oh, exactly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. And our grandkids, you know, if humans are still alive. When I can't get there. They'll be sure they've got it figured out. Yeah, they'll be sure. And they'll look back at us and they'll be like, oh man, they had no clue about what X, Y, a lot. When I can't get there. They'll be sure they've got it figured out. Yeah, they'll be sure. And they'll look back at us and they'll be like, oh man, they had no clue about what XYZ was.

So, I think the point is, cosmologies are always a combination of how and why. And that's interesting that now it's hard for us to split those two. Yes, it's hard for us. How and why? Yeah, because we're living in our own cosmology. Exactly. But for later generations, it will be much easier for them to see that. And so the question is, what are the worldview value claims

being made by any cosmology? Because any cosmology, when you give an account of how and why something came into existence, you're not just talking about the mechanisms. You're talking about what it is and why it's here. So these are world view questions. So cosmology is our vehicle for way bigger questions. Like, where are we?

What kind of place is it? This philosophy. Yeah. So like, is the world we inhabit as eternal? Is it finite and contingent? We're still arguing about that. Yeah, is it static or is it dynamic? Is it cyclical, going in eternal cycles?

Or is it linear, going in a sequence forward? That right there. Is it ancient debate that spans cultures and times? And the Greeks thought one thing, and that developed and the Jews, and the Christians developed a unique contribution based on the Hebrew Bible. The history has a trajectory.

Yeah, the reality has a beginning point that reality cannot be the basis of its own existence. Because all realities we know it is contingent. But still debate. It is, yeah, but logically, you have to just play it out. There must be some cause. This is the famous about the first cause, stuff like that.

As far as we understand. As far as we understand. As far as we understand, that's exactly right. So what I'm saying is the why, Christian, being communicated by Genesis 1, is very much a set of larger claims about the nature of reality. That there is a personal being who is the ultimate... One ordering and the one bringing life, the one guiding. And that

there is some sort of linear forward development that's going to culminate in something. Those are major claims about the nature of reality that are communicated through this ancient Israelite cosmology. Yes. And that humans are made in his image. Yeah, the humans are both emerged from the material order, but then also have the ability to transcend their origins and be a part of something that's much more cosmic and much more transcendent. Those majors, I mean, we're taking a philosophy class right now

all of a sudden. But I love about his question, is that it's asking, can we do this in a fresh way through a new cosmology? Yeah. And it seems like you totally could. And it would be a really wonderful project and it would be really fun to read someone or watch someone's version of that. Yeah.

And I'm sure stuff like that exists, actually. Yeah, actually here, let me, you know, a really helpful book along these lines. So John Walton, so Hebrew Bible scholar, started to come up. He's done work on this in his lost world of Genesis one and lost world of Adam and Eve. Another popular level treatment that was really fun

that I came across is by a biblical scholar, Robin Perry, called the biblical cosmos, a pilgrim's guide to the weird and wonderful world of the Bible. And it's a really great introduction to the three-tiered world of the Bible, the concept of the waters above, the waters below, the dragon, all these things. It's a really fun and his daughter, if I remember correctly, his daughter's a graphic designer, so she did all the artwork in the book. It's really cool. And part of one of his main whole points is that the view and the cosmology of the biblical authors was also developing as the biblical canon and collection was developing.

And so the way that the apostles in the New Testament, they're also being informed by developments in Greek and Roman culture in conversations about this. And so their language has those accents to it as well. And Jewish and Christian views of cosmology developed throughout history and kept changing updating to Aristotelian and Copernican revolutions. And all those generations were able to still find relevance and meaning in the ancient cosmology of the Bible. And translate between them. And that translation effort, I think is what he's getting at.

Exactly. Would it be cool if there was a Carl Sagan type or a Neil Degreeske Tyson type, who also could then translate? Yeah. Both be the cosmologist. Yeah, sure. Give you a tour of the cosmos, but then translating these ideas into it. Wouldn't that be awesome?

Yeah, totally. These theologians and scholars, they're people doing this. Work, it's great work. It's synthetic work of science and cosmology. The works of Alistair McGrath, a scientist and theologian, excellent. Work on John Polkinghorn, who's a physicist and a priest and theologian.

They're doing excellent work at the forefront of scientific cosmology and Christian cosmology or biblical cosmology. Well, that's two great names to follow up on. Yeah, exactly, yeah, good stuff. All right, the next question is from Kayla in Florida. Hey, Tim and John, my name is Kayla, and I live in Lakeland, Florida.

I really enjoyed the series on ancient cosmology but it does bring up a certain level of tension for me as someone who grew up in a tradition where Genesis 1 through 3 was taught from a more literal perspective. Hearing about the Bible's influence from other ancient cosmologies causes me to pause and wonder how much of it is quote unquote true. So how should this new understanding readjust my approach to these chapters? Thank you guys so much for all that you do. Yeah, get right to the real question. Just get into it. No, because I'll, yeah, for me too, even in an undergrad, I had a geology class from a professor who really wanted

us to understand these as literal. Yeah, so a couple of challenges there. One is the meaning of the word literal, and the other one is this really a new perspective. So part of what we're trying to say is that there's actually nothing new here. What's new is our synthesis of the biblical cosmology and translating it and harmonizing it with modern cosmological ideas. That's the new thing. What we're trying to do is recover the ancient understanding of these

narratives the way the biblical authors intended them. It feels new because it hasn't been the main way these narratives have been read in the last couple hundred years in our cultural setting. Yes, in the last couple hundred years, there has been a large contingent of Christians who looked at Genesis one and two and thought this must be like the cosmology books that are being written in our era, which are like explaining literally this happened. And by literal, like in space time, this explosion happened and then caused this atom to form, which then did this and then sun's formed, like that, like literally happened

in a modern cosmology. Yeah, well, yes, I think we need even a bigger frame to talk about it. Okay. So before really the era, I mean, this has happened in major cosmology revolutions, like in the Copernican Revolution or the development of telescopes and Galileo and, you know, I think actually we're on the spinning rock around the Sun, not vice versa. Right. So there were those, but with the advent, especially of the modern sciences, geology, paleontology, physics, and so on, and then certainly biology, they began to open this window

of information coming in from these fields of a deep, deep sense of time in history that reached way beyond what anyone had ever imagined. Up till that point in history, Christians and Jews reading the Bible for them the literal meaning, the world was imagined to be. So the way the biblical story described history was the way it was, and there was no other alternate narrative to challenge it. But with the growing narrative coming out of these scientific disciplines, there became this alternate narrative that was very difficult to square.

This deep sense of time of hundreds, thousands and millions of years. Because Genesis 1 does not take that into account. Seven days and you're there. Yeah, seven days in human shop. Or do six days in human shop? The genealogies backwards from Genesis, and you're some way or six thousand years ago. James Bishop Up Usher did the kind of definitive math.

Okay. And so then you have this tension between, well wait, which is real? Or what is the literal? Which one's right? Which one's right? And so the literal meaning came to be identified with a harmonization. Well, what if we take the data from the sciences and because it doesn't correspond to what the biblical chronology or whatever

seems to be saying, what the literal meaning is is to fuse the cosmology, the material realities we are learning about from the sciences, but to fuse it with the biblical chronology. And then that becomes the literal face value meaning. And so I think that trick is that the word literal started being disconnected from what the biblical authors meant, because the biblical authors had no concept

of like photons or geological ages. And- But if you were talked to a biblical author, and you would say, here's what I mean by literal, what happened in space time yesterday? Versus what did yesterday mean to you? Right? Yeah, sure. To me, the distinction between those two things really mattered. Yeah. Maybe they don't as much to you. And the way you're gonna tell

story, but they mean so to me. Yeah, that's right. And then in that case, and they're like, okay, I get it. I give you me by literal. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so I think the point is that the word literal, literal interpretation of the Bible came to be identified with a fusion or a harmonization between the biblical words and These more modern categories from geology and time and so on and so we create this new thing that's never been before That has been identified with the literal meeting of genus one and two, but it's really rather novel to the last few centuries. If you read Augustine of Hippos, one of the most influential Christian thinkers of all time living in the 300s in Northern Africa,

he wrote a whole work called the literal interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2. And if you go read it right now, you'll be like, whoa, this is not literal. And it's for him it was. But for him it was. But for him it was. Yeah. And so it's helping us see the literal interpretation. What we mean by that in our American context right now is itself a novel entity in the history of interpretation.

So you're talking about the synthesis. Some people think the literal means don't try to synthesize it all. Yeah. Just what does the Bible say? Yeah, that's right. And specifically what did the biblical authors intend to mean? And so once we do that, Bible say? Yeah, that's right. And specifically, what did the biblical authors intend to mean? And so once we do that, we say, well, okay,

what words did they use to express what they mean? Oh, what did they mean by those words? And now we're to the earlier questions of the meanings of words are always connected to world view and bigger cultural concepts. And so I think the challenge here, here's what I, at least I've experienced in pastoral settings, is that, well, okay, so if the cosmos being created in Genesis 1 has three levels, and there's waters up there, and they're still up there, And so the Bible is wrong because it's not true. And so that's where I think we're

to the question of, what do we even mean? Like just because a cookbook doesn't read like a New York Times editorial, does that mean it's not true? No, what it means is that's not its purpose. So in biblical Hebrew the word true means trustworthy or faithful, meaning it does what it does. that's not its purpose. Yeah. So in biblical Hebrew, the word true means trustworthy or faithful, meaning it does what it does. That's a different word than literal. Designed to do. It is, but in our context, something being literal and something being true have become interchangeable ideas.

In the sciences. What do you mean? Oh, in art, we don't mean that. Exactly, exactly. But in sciences, we do. And Genesis 1 to a modern is the Bible doing science. And I think that's the rub. And in history.

And in history. Science is in history. We want to make sure that the literal is also the true. And other things, we're okay with that, not being the case. Yeah, that's right. But so the Bible is doing history. And if the Bible is doing science, to a modern, those two things need to align.

Correct. And so if science is diverging from what I'm reading my Bible, then what am I going to trust? Yeah, that's how the problem is presented. And I think what I hear you saying though is that the Bible is not doing science. Yeah, when we take the language of the Bible, which was originates from a different culture and time, and from a people who had a different vision of the construction of the cosmos.

And then we use those words and concepts for our modern concepts of what light is and the age of the universe. It's oranges and apples. We need to just let the Bible be an apple. So why do you think Kayla's feeling tension? Oh, because of what you described. If those early narratives of Genesis aren't offering us

What I would see on a video camera. If I was there or what a scientist would create then they're not true Where they're not trustworthy and so we got to back up and say well, but what was what were those narratives designed to communicate and Designed to the way through the tension is to say. Instead of asking question, is this literal? Ask the question, is this trustworthy? Then when you ask in the question of literal, what do you mean by that? If your meaning doesn't align with what the Bible is doing, be comfortable with that. with that the Bible is doing, be comfortable with that. Yeah. I think where people get really itchy is okay,

but then Jesus was literal. Jesus literally lived. Yeah, totally. Did he literally rise from the dead? And that's important. It's super important, right? It's actually like the foundation of a... Paul seems to think that's really important.

It's super important, yeah. That's right. So at what point if you start to get a little fuzzy, unlike, well, certain parts of the Bible, or trustworthy, even though they might not be literal in the way that you are forcing it to be literal, at what point does that break down? Yeah, that's, but again, so this is why I thought

I would be able to talk about this in a more clear concise way. The word literal, if we mean by the word literal, what the author is designed this text to accomplish and communicate. Paul and the apostles, people who wrote the four gospels, designed those narratives very clearly to make a claim that this man who was Israel's Messiah, God of Israel become human, was murdered and buried, and hundreds of people encountered him alive from the dead. It's fairly obvious that's what they mean.

Yes, they're literal meaning. That's what they mean. Exactly. So what are Genesis 1 designed to do? They are literally talking about the construction of the cosmos in a seven-day sabbath cycle. The next narrative literally talks about the creation of the cosmos as a garden, being grown out of the land, and the chronologies are not the same. So then you have to say what's the

literal meaning of Genesis 1 and the Garden of Eden narrative next to each other? What did an author intend to communicate? And if what they intended to communicate was a claim about the physical material processes and timelines through which reality came into existence. You've got some problems because there's different timelines. It seems like what the author was more concerned about was some other things. And the literal meaning is those, and that's what the questions before we're about. That's helpful.

Thank you. And I think then the way through the tension too is the point then isn't to try to convince Someone about any modern cosmology. No, yeah, you know whether or not you want to believe the earth's 6,000 years old and appears older Correct. Or you want to believe that the earth is billions of years earth the universe is billions of years old Yeah, we get to sidestep that conversation. Yes And we get to say yeah, what are these twoestep that conversation. Yes, that's right. And we get to say, what are these two chapters trying to say? That's right. Like, what's the point that they're trying to make?

That's right. And it doesn't happen to be either of those things. Yeah, that's right. It's something else altogether. Something else altogether. Yeah, the literal meaning that is the meaning intended by the ancient biblical authors, stands independently of whatever someone's vision of the. It's a very uniting perspective because you could go in and you can say like, hey, if you believe the earth is 6,000 years old and that's really important to you, that is totally fine.

That's right. But let's not miss some really cool stuff happening in these chapters that seem really important to the authors. And so the tension almost feels like, do we have to have an us versus them of like, there's not, there's like, we all can come together. Correct. Regardless of your modern cosmology. Yeah, yeah.

And see what this text has to offer. Correct. And so that's in effect what the interview with Joshua Swamy does last week. Which was last week. Yeah, which was last week, which was, and again, we are dipping our toes out of our normal conversations. But for me, I appreciated his book because he was saying,, which was, and again, we are dipping our toes out of our normal conversations.

But for me, I appreciated his book because he was saying, no matter what your perspectives or convictions are about historical Adam and Eve, what we ought to be able to do is read the biblical text on its own terms. And then lo and behold, there is all of the scientific data that just hasn't been brought up yet because of the modern debates. And when you integrate those two, you get a hypothesis that emerges that could be at home in any of the views about historical or symbolic atom. So that's why I really appreciated his contribution because it was very much in the spirit. I think of what we're trying to do in this series, which is create that middle ground where we can all come from different positions and just sit at the feet of the Biblical authors

and try and hear them on their own terms. That is here the literal meaning of Genesis 1. Now when you have that conversation and you bring up all these other ancient Near Eastern cosmologies and show that it does kind of set it up to someone to feel like, what you're telling me I can't believe the earth is young. Almost, it almost feels that way potentially

and you don't have to frame the conversation that way. You can still get to all this really interesting stuff about the waters. Yeah. And the abyss by just looking at the Bible. That's right. Yeah, totally. Yeah, that's exactly right. And that's, yeah.

In fact, actually, our next question is an interesting kind of real specific example of a similar question that we just responded to from Kayla. This is from Leonardo in Ohio. Hi, my name is Leonardo Curr-Ballo. I'm from Puerto Rico and I'm leaving in Cleveland, Ohio. I'm taking the heaven and earth class while you're having a series talking about these topics. My question and I hope I'm not getting out of the context it is. In the pre-creation story, you guys talk about the different class model using how they all have similarities. What I always been interested in in what part of the creation

the Jurassic Park story character takes place. And one where we can see the mention of dinosaurs, if it is before the Wall and West state, or part of the creation, knowing the Hebrew Bible. Thank you for everything. Thanks Leonardo. Yeah, that's really interesting question.

He's taken the heaven earth class. Great class. I had a good time. You did a wonderful job. and a lot of people are wondering like where did dinosaurs fit and the story of the Bible. We have this idea of the Jurassic era or you know all these big eras of human history of the earth. And so in the Bible you just get like there's the wild and waste and then all of then all of a sudden, there's animals and the humans. Yeah.

So like where are the dinosaurs? Yeah, this is a great case study in this conversation we're having connected to Calus question earlier. So just like the biblical authors had no awareness of quantum physics or photons, the creation of light in day one has nothing to do with the creation or physical existence of photons. They've never seen them or heard of them. And so it would be inappropriate for us

to import our concept of photons into Genesis 1 and say, look, God's creating photons. But without a lot of light. But there'd be photons. But there'd be photons. So similarly, these concepts and awareness that paleontology and geology have given us of these Jurassic prehistoric periods

and of these creatures and so on. The biblical authors had no awareness. They hadn't run into any of these bones. And if they had, they didn't know how to... Well, I wouldn't... They didn't construct them and realize like, oh, these things are from... It's entirely possible, even likely,

that they came across like dinosaur bones, stuff like that. I mean, the concepts of the dragon came from somewhere. Yeah. You know? Yeah, and who knows what kind of animals were around. Animals going extinct. Totally, that's right. So I think the point is more that we have these concepts of dinosaurs that live during

this time. Right. And then we go to the Bible and say, well, the Bible is about the world that I live in. Yeah, I was talking about every time. That's right. And so we take a modern concept of dinosaurs from Jurassic period, and then we look within the biblical timeline for a place to slot them. Yes.

And we're doing that apples and oranges things again. We need to let the biblical authors do their thing. Do their thing within their cultural context and cosmology. And then we need to let our cultural narratives that are growing and dynamic speak their story. And we need to let our cultural narratives that are growing and dynamic speak their story, and we need to bring them into dialogue on the level of those ultimate philosophical questions.

And so this is my conviction, right? So I know that there are people who love and follow Jesus passionately, and they disagree, and they think we really do need to integrate those timelines with each other. I think the one thing I would just offer is to say, but aren't we starting to make the Bible say and mean things that the biblical authors had no concept of? And in that case, we're not doing biblical interpretation. But God had concept of it. Yeah, of course. But that's not what we're talking about. What we're talking about is about how God made these humans the vehicle and made their language.

And therefore their cultural categories and the way their minds work and the way their minds work, the vehicle of what he wanted to say. So in that sense, I think it's a misguided quest in terms of interpretation of the literal meaning to look for dinosaurs in the Bible because it wasn't a part of the concept or tradition of talking about the origins of the cosmos. Yeah, but what you could say, and we know dinosaurs existed, we've seen their remains. And they give all the indications of being unimaginably old to us, like really, really old, way before

people were ever around. And so you do have to then go, how does that fit into my understanding of God and the cosmos? Sure. And what can you say? Yeah, the emergence of life on our planet is like nothing short of a miracle that it's here and that it has survived as long as it has and developed in all these fascinating ways. It's truly remarkable. And that we can like know from fossils in the ground,

like this amazing history of life on our planet. And God is apparently very patient, very patient. But when we're talking about these deep, deep periods of time back into prehistory and so on, it's just a different example of like, you know, the origin of galaxies, you know, and nebula and space gases that gravity pulls together into stars and then planets and so on. And it's very similar. It's just like cosmos is a mystery. Yeah. It's interesting. I know there are many Christians who are just deeply suspicious of the

sciences because they think the sciences have an agenda that are anti-god. And that has been and is true. In some, though not all, wings of the sciences, you know, they're sort of like saying, sports are bad. Maybe some are. Really really I think what we mean is some people in different sports have maybe really distorted agendas and truth things in destructive ways to just say. And it gets to as extreme as like science is lying to us about the earth being round. There's some people who think that.

All the way to a less extreme of maybe science is lying to us about the age of the earth or about how old these dinosaur bones are, to like maybe science is lying to us about what's happening with the climate. Like there's all of these things. Yeah, and these are the culture wars. These are the culture wars.

That's right. And there's a way of like, in one sense, we're sidestepping that. We're saying we don't have to talk about that. Yeah, that's right. But in another sense, the question here is saying, but when you do encounter those kind of things, then what do you do?

So let's say you encounter and you trust science enough that you're like, okay, these animals roam the earth, but I also really trust the Bible. So what am I supposed to think about dinosaurs? They are part of God's creation. Yeah, just like quasars are. The Bible doesn't talk about quasars, but they're real. And they existed long before humans ever did.

In many ways, there's no difference. And so here to where our bigger concepts of what is the Bible in the first place, it's God, it's our conviction that like the beautiful mind is reaching out to us through the story of this people and through the authors of these texts, but is chosen to accommodate and speak through the language and culture and concepts of the people that wrote these texts. And if that's your foundation for understanding what the Bible is, then it makes quasars or dinosaurs a very interesting question, but they're not relevant to understanding the Bible because the Bible just doesn't talk about those things. Last but not least, we're gonna

listen to a question from Jesse in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Hey John and Tim, this is Jesse Lusco in Albuquerque, New Mexico. You have been in immense help to me. Here's my question about the ancient cosmology series. Is there any indication that later biblical authors are aware of the discontinuities Between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. Do they see them as a unified whole? What about ancient rabbis or early Christians would love to hear your thoughts? Thanks Cool. It's always talking about is Genesis 1. Genesis 1 1 through chapter 2 versus 3. That's right. This is 7-day narrative. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. I believe in the chapter 2. Yeah. Is God creating out of the deep abyss in a 7-day, 7 days and humans show up on the 6th day after the animals. Yeah. And then in the second story that starts in Genesis 2.

4-5. God creates out of a wilderness and humans are actually created first. First before the animals. And so those are kind of the big differences. And it's easy to spot, right? Yeah. So wouldn't have any of the other biblical authors been aware of these discrepancies and what did they do with them? Yeah, so we're back to the literal meaning, but what we mean by literal is what these texts are designed to communicate.

So if the purpose of the text was to give a unified linear sequence, it's a very difficult reading experience. Yes. And that's what we experience. That's what we experience. So then I think that should force us to go back. Oh, maybe the thing that I'm supposed to get here is not that, but another set of ideas. So if you begin to compare and contrast repeated words and categories, what you get is something

more like, like think of two paintings. Oh, this goes back kind of similar to our conversation with John Walton. It's an illustration that he's used before that I like. Think of one as like a view of the night sky from a Hubble Space Telescope, and then another view like Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night. Two representations of the same reality, the night sky. They're very different in their surface presentation. And what if Genesis 1 and 2 are more like that? And so that both are giving

complementary portraits of the nature of the cosmos, the role of humans and human identity within God's purposes in the cosmos. And if you look at that, they really are parallel. So for example, the role of the spirit, this is actually, it's great for an example, and I just learned this, I taught a class on Ezekiel last week, and this hit me like a ton of bricks. So in Genesis 1, God's spirit is present in the dark waters. In Genesis 1, verse 2, we talked about that,

and God begins speaking. In Genesis 2, God's breath is present in that he infuses it into the dirt to make the humans. In Genesis? His breath. Yeah, he breathes into the dust, the breath of water. That was already been formed. Yeah, that's right.

But the point is that God forms the dirt. But the dirt is inert. Not human yet. Yeah, I was about to rhyme. The dirt is inert. The dirt is inert. Until God breathes into it. And turns it into

birth. In Genesis 1, humanity is male and female already. In Genesis 2, there's just a singular human who is split, and then you have man and woman. So you have these different concepts. In Genesis 1, they're told to be fruitful and multiply. That language is not used in Genesis 2. It's about the two becoming one flesh. Okay, so in the book of Ezekiel, there's a sweet set of three essays or three paragraphs that are all right next to each other. The second half of chapter 36, and then Ezekiel 37 has two parts to it. And all three of them are meditations on the restoration of Israel from exile back to a new Jerusalem. And each one of them is riffing off of different elements in Genesis 1 and 2.

And it treats different ideas and words from Genesis 1 and 2, but unifies them. So for example, in Ezekiel chapter 36, God says he's going to recreate his new covenant people by putting his Rewach within them, putting his spirit within them. You're like, oh, yeah, sweet Genesis. Yeah. Genesis chapter two. Always a good thing happened. Yeah.

God's ruach shows up. And then he says he's going to plant a new garden where there will be fruit trees multiplying and you're like, yeah, sweet. The tree is multiplying. So this is all Genesis two, kind of stuff. So it's all Genesis two. And then he says at the end, and they will be fruitful and multiply. But that's language, not from the Eden narrative.

So it shows you Ezekiel, the Ezekiel, the Ezekiel. And he'll use the language of those two creation stories and blend them together to talk about new creation. He does the same thing in the Valley of Dry Bounds. He does the same thing in the story after the Valley of Dry Bounds where he talks about, he says, get two trees and then he says, right on them, the names of Judah and then Joseph, the divided brothers, the divided tribes. And then he says, I'm going to put them back into that new Eden, planted back in 36, and the two will become one.

Hmm. And then he says, and one king will reign or rule over them. So he's taking the two becoming one from the deep, but he's getting the image of God ruling and reigning from Genesis one. So he's taking, once again, concepts from both. The ruling and reigning being the image of God stuff. Yeah, and that's the new David Messiah.

So the point is, here's an example of a later biblical author who sees these two first creation narratives as complimentary portraits referring to the same thing. So those are just recent insights that I had and I was like, wow, that's good, a zikil, that gets brilliant. And you can see it continuing on into the early Jewish literature of the second temple in the New Testament. They don't seem to have a problem with Genesis 1 and 2, having different timelines, they just quote and interact with them as if they're complimentary.

And to me, that was an early clue many years ago. Like, maybe the problems that I have, I'm bringing the wrong expectations, these narratives. So, there we go. Great, cool. Thank you so much for sending in these questions for the Cosmology series. It's a great series. you to him for bringing us through. These are always wonderful questions, increasingly, increasingly wonderful. Up next on the podcast, actually, is, you know, we've been

doing this podcast for five or six years. Yeah, over five years. Over five years. Yeah. And we've put out a new episode every week. Yeah. We have a Mr. Week. Yep. Every single week. Yeah. And that's not just you and me. That's a whole team of people working really hard

to put the stuff out there. And yeah, our teams never really taking a break. We're going to take a break of sorts in that we're going to, for the next five weeks, we're going to for the next five weeks We're gonna re-release some of the top podcasts from the last five years They generally are the first episode in a series and they're usually some of our older series because they've been out Belongous so they've got the most listens. Yeah, there are also ones that we often recorded like on the porch at your house, so in a closet somewhere,

and the sound quality is really different than that. One of our first audio booths was literally under a stairs. Yeah, totally. And you can just hear people talking and footsteps and stuff. Yeah. So we're gonna remaster those and re-release those, and that would be a good way to kind of reintroduce

to some old series that you might be interested in re-listing to or listening that would be a good way to kind of reintroduce to some old series that you might be interested in re-listing to or listening to for the first time. Yep. So I'll be for the next five weeks and then we've got some other cool content we're cooking up and some really amazing new series starting in the fall. And I'm really excited about all of that. Bible Project is a non-profit organization that exists because of well because of generosity of thousands of people like you pitching in so we can make these resources. But the purpose of all of this is to experience the Bible as a unified story that leads to

Jesus. And we do this podcast, we've got videos, we've got other resources, we've got us gradual level classes, and it's all free. And it's thanks to you, so thank you so much for being a part of this with us. This week's episode was produced by Cooper Peltz, our lead editor Dan Gummel, assistant editor Zach McKinley. All the questions were compiled by Christopher Mayer and the show notes by Lindsey Ponder and the theme music by the band Tense. As in the kind of tent that you camped at. As in the kind of tent you camped with. Tents. G'day, this is Chad and I'm from South Australia.

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