Theology in the Raw - 812: The Bible and Science, Friend or Foes? Dr. John Walton

Episode Date: August 20, 2020

I asked THE Dr. John H. Walton to come on my YouTube channel and talk about the Bible and science, and I can't believe he say "yes!" This dude is LEGIT! I mean, this scholar is very qualified to speak into this topic with much wisdom and sound biblical knowledge. Anyway, in this episode, we talk about the biblical creation account and science, the historicity of Adam and Eve, the meaning of the tower of Babel, and much much more. Watch this episode of the podcast on YouTube Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Youtube | Preston Sprinkle Check out his website prestonsprinkle.com If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

How do we reconcile the Bible and science? This has been a question that's been on my mind for my entire Christian life. I am not a scientist. I have not read a lot of the scientific data when it comes to things like old earth, young earth, literal six day creation versus some sort of figurative day in Genesis one and all the stuff that comes with that. But I've been on this, um, kick recently of just kind of sitting back and listening and learning from those who have dug into this issue. And I think it's a really, really important issue. Um, it's something that a lot of, uh, non-Christians are wrestling with, not even wrestling. I think they just simply, you know, dismiss the Bible because they believe it just blatantly goes against science. But a lot of

Christians are wrestling with this as well. And as you probably know and have experienced, there's lots of pretty volatile, heated debates within the Christian church about how to reconcile the Bible and science, if it can even be reconciled. And so I've been doing a lot of listening and reading in this area as much as I can. I can't devote a lot of time to it, but on this podcast, I have had a Tremper Longman on a few weeks ago. And, um, I have on the show today, the one and only Dr. John Walton. If there ever is somebody who understands the relationship between the Bible and science from a biblical standpoint, it would be John Walton. This guy is a beast. And if John's listening, that's a positive, that's a positive term here that I'm

using of you. John has written dozens of books. Many of them have been high powered academic books. He's a professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College. He is one of the top evangelical Old Testament scholars. I mean, I would say he's one of the top Old Testament scholars, full stop, but he is a Bible believing evangelical Christian, and I am so excited for you to listen to this discussion. He is very, very informed on the scientific data, but he's even more informed on the biblical data. We talk about Genesis 1 and 2. We talk about Adam and Eve. We also wander over and talk about the Tower of Babel, which I found out in the episode that this was the subject of his doctoral dissertation from, I don't know, like 40 years ago, whatever.

If you want to support the show, you can go to patreon.com, support the show for as little as five bucks a month and get access to premium content in return. And what else do I got to announce? I think that's about it. Let's just dive into this conversation. Please welcome to the show for the first time, hopefully not the last time, the one and only Dr. John Walton. Hello, friends. I'm here with a world-renowned Old Testament scholar, Dr. John Walton.

I don't even know, John, if you know how many books you've written. Do you have a total for us? But I know it's in the... 30, I don't know. Around... Depends on the count. And these are high-powered, I mean, really, really thoughtful stuff. These are two of my favorites. If I could put these up here.

Let me start with The Lost World of Genesis 1, The Lost World of Adam and Eve. For you on the podcast, you know, I'm kind of holding stuff up here. But these two books in particular, two of many books you've written, John, that have combined really robust scholarship, but in a in a prose that people can understand. So I wanted to have you on the show because I want to talk about the Bible and science. So here's my leading question is, a lot of people think that the Bible and science are enemies, are in conflict, and that science kind of wages war against the veracity of scripture. I think you take a different view.

Are the Bible and science friend or foes? Well, of course, some scientists wage war against Christianity and faith, and some people who really value the Bible wage war against science. But if we're going to ask whether science and faith are inherently contradictory or in conflict, we have to ask an important question first, and that is, what claims are they making? They can't be in conflict if they are not making contradictory claims. And so my approach is to say, before we decide on whether there's a war or not, let's find out what they're saying, what claims, not what the scientists and the theologians are saying, but what is the Bible saying and what is science saying? What claims are they making? And to me, that's the first line of approach to say, let's figure that out before we get to the other thing.

That's helpful. I recently had a mutual friend, Tremper Longman, on the show to talk about the Bible and science when it comes to Genesis 1 and 2 and 3, really. And we spent a lot of time on that. I don't necessarily want to spend a ton of time on that, but would love to maybe run through some of those same questions with you to get your thoughts on it. So in light of what you just said, Genesis 1, let's just say, seems to say the world was created in six literal days. I don't think it says anything about the age of the earth per se, but somebody could come at science and read Genesis 1 without any kind of biblical background and say, wow, this doesn't seem to be very scientific. So how should we understand Genesis 1 in light of the scientific data? We can never afford to read Scripture superficially.

And sometimes scientists who really know nothing about the Bible are inclined to do that. But also sometimes Christians who really haven't delved very deeply might be inclined to do that. deeply might be inclined to do that. The reason we can't do that is because our superficial readings tend to be informed by our own cultural perspectives. And our cultural perspectives are not necessarily a good guide to what the biblical authors are saying. People who take the Bible seriously are interested in being accountable to the biblical authors. After all, the biblical authors are the channels for the authority of God. And therefore, if we want to be accountable to God, we should be accountable to the biblical authors. And that means that we have to try to make a connection with them and figure out what it is that they are saying. And if we read the Bible superficially,

if we read it intuitively, our intuitions take us to our default, and our default is our cultural perspectives. So I make the claim that if we're going to read these texts well and read them as God's authoritative message, we'd better delve into it and try to understand that as best we can. So Genesis 1, some of the specific language, evening and morning, day one, evening and morning, day two. And this is something I kind of framed with Tremper, even though I would come from an old earth perspective. So I like to push back on my own kind of framed with, with Tremper, even though I would come from an old earth perspective. So I'm not, you know, I'm, I like to push back on my own kind of assumption. So, you know, when I asked Tremper, I said, if, um, um, if the science pointed to a young

earth, would you, would we not naturally read Genesis one that way? We'd love to hear your thoughts on that. Like, is the only reason why we would say evening to morning doesn't really mean evening to morning in a literal sense. It's not a literal day. Is the only reason why we're even entertaining that because the scientific data doesn't,

seems to go against that? Or is there something intrinsic to the text itself that even if the science pointed to a young earth, you know, we would say, I don't know, that kind of presents problems with the way Genesis 1 is being framed, if that makes sense. What are your thoughts on that? Well, I think we always have to read it within the framework of what the narrator was intending to do with that structure. Is he intending to use that to give us the age of the earth?

That's certainly one option you could consider. Is he intending the words to be taken as 24-hour days? I tend to think he is. But people therefore conclude that it must be a young earth, because they also think that he's dealing with a material cosmos, and the material origins of the cosmos. And that's where I would disagree. When I look at, okay, so when I look at the biblical text, I don't see this as an account of material origins because my understanding of the ancient world and the Bible is that materialism or the material aspects aren't of any significance to them at all.

They are most concerned about order. And when God creates, he creates order. And when he creates order, he creates with a purpose. Order and purpose are related ideas. And so really, I go back to the question, counterintuitive, that's why I ask it, because I want to get past my own intuitions. I go back to the question, wait a minute, what kind of creation account is this? Is it the kind I would think in my intuitive reading from my own day, scientifically directed and focused? Or if they had a different kind of focus, then I need to move away from my intuition and read it the way they would intend it. So for instance, if I have time for a

quick illustration, if you go to a play, and because of all kinds of things, you get there late, and it's a half hour late, and you walk in and you sit down, everything's going on, and you poke the person next to you and you say, how did the play begin? Now, we find that this is a very congenial person, despite the fact that you've just interrupted him. And he says, well, the play was written in 1934, and it was a Pulitzer Prize candidate. And you say, no, no, no, no, no. I don't want to know about the script. He said, well, that's how the play began. You can't have a play without a script. You say, I get that. I get that. But no, that's not what I want. Well, okay. This theater and its stage were built in the 1950s. You say, no, no, I don't want to know that. He said, well, you can't have a play without a stage. You have to have something for it to

happen. I know that, you say, but that's not my question. Okay, fine, fine. The set was constructed just three years ago, and it was purposed toward this particular. You say, no, no, I'm not interested in the set. Well, what would a play be without a set? He replies, I know. Now the lady on the other side has gotten interested and she says, I can straighten this out. The cast was chosen by the Johnson Casting Company. No, no, no. This is not what I want. Tell me what happened since the curtain opened. Oh, they say, well, that's not really how the play began. Well, yes, it is by my questions. You can see that all of those are correct answers.

And all of those aspects are necessary for the play. That doesn't mean that every question and every story and every answer is interested in all of those other factors. When I think about, you know, when we talk about cosmic origins in our scientific world, we're talking a lot about the stage and the theater. But Israel doesn't really care about the stage or theater. Do they know there is one? Of course. But they're interested in something else. They want to know kind of what happened since the curtain opened, and maybe a little bit about the set. Okay? So when they ask, how did the world begin? There are likewise many different ways that that question could be

answered correctly. But not everybody wants the same answer. Not everybody asks the same question with the same focus in mind. So that's what I say when we go to Genesis 1, we have to say, what kind of creation account is this? What's the story they want to tell me? Not what's the story I want to know. Now, people might have different opinions on it. My conclusion is that Israel is interested in the ordering of the cosmos for the purpose of God dwelling in the cosmos with them. Now, again, I have my ways to get to that, and I think I can demonstrate it, but not everybody agrees. Your book, Lost World, Genesis 1, it's been a while since I read it, but everything you're saying now, it's starting to come back.

I'm like, oh yeah, that's right. You do build. I know some people are like, oh, where's the evidence for that? Well, John has written extensively on the evidence, and we don't have time to go through all the evidence. Let me just make sure I understand what you're saying, though. evidence um and we don't have time to go through all the evidence let me just make sure i understand what you're saying though that and this is a movie a classic term and now i'm nervous using modern day categories but you know the classic creation ex nihilo that that god that genesis one is all about god making something out of nothing speaking material the material universe into existence

are you saying whether or not that's true is another question. The question is, that's not the main point of Genesis. Genesis is about ordering the material cosmos to make room for the divine presence in this cosmos. Is that one way to frame it that you might resonate with? Absolutely. I mean, certainly it's my theology that when God created the material universe, he created it out of nothing. It's good theology. It has some foundation in the Bible, and I believe it. But that doesn't mean that Israel has to be telling that story, just like you didn't have to tell the stage story or the cast story. What story are they telling? And yes, I think it's a different story. It's a story that has to do with the idea of ordering with purpose to be sacred space where God will dwell with his people.

Do you have one or two pieces of, let's just say, textual evidence that you would point to to show that your reading is what's going on in Genesis 1? I think it very easily demonstrated, number one, by the fact that there is a seventh day and that we have to figure out how to put that in place. And we goof it up because we don't understand that rest equals rule. God rules in his cosmos. And so we get mixed up with that. God rules in his cosmos. And so we get mixed up with that. But the other thing is that as you go through each day, ask yourself a question. What is being manufactured materially in this day? I mean, day one, God creates light. That's not material. Or you could say, I like this even

better. He creates day and night. That's not material. He creates time. That's not material. That's day one. Day two, right? He creates space for us to live in. That's not material. Day three, he says, let the dry land emerge. Let plants sprout. It doesn't talk about him manufacturing these things. And so you go through day by day and you say, wait, wait. Now you get to day four and you say, I got you here because it said God made the lights, the sun, moon and stars. Well, be careful there. Yes, it says God made them.

What are the sun, moon and stars? OK, we say, well, they are material bodies. And so this means God manufactured these material bodies. But wait a minute, this isn't our story. This is Israel's. What does Israel think they are? They don't know that the sun, moon, and stars are objects. They don't know that they're material. They think the stars are engraved in the underside of the sky. They don't know that the moon is a rock in space. To them, the sun, moon, and stars are, big surprise here, hold your breath, lights. And that's what they call them. And so again, God made the lights. Okay, but he made them to be signs, seasons, days, and years.

Order. Yeah. So even when it looks to us like he's making objects, no, Israel doesn't see it that way. Interesting, yeah. Is there something, too, with the Hebrew verbs going on here? I forgot. Interesting. Yeah. Is there something, too, with the Hebrew verbs going on here? I remember you saying that the verbs could be taken in an ex nihilo sense or they could be taken more in a molding, forming order kind of sense. As always, when we deal with Hebrew terms, we have to figure out whatever nuance we can bring to them by their usage. When we find

that bara, the verb translated create, bara is used for all kinds of things that are not material. God creates darkness. God creates purity. God creates the nations. All kinds of things. And therefore, I would say, so this is not specifically material creation that bara screams at you. Again, it's something more like ordering and organizing. Yeah, okay. Now, I'd still translate it create, but for an Israelite, to create means to order. So I'm okay with that. The other verb, asah, which they translate make, okay, really is a verb that communicates that God is the agent.

It never tells you what level he's involved as agent. Is this ultimate cause or indirect? That's our philosophy. Don't bog down the Hebrew with that. But Asah suggests that God is the agent. So when God Asahed the great lights, the sun, moon, and stars, we say he made them. Well, yes, but that just says he's the agent in their creation. What is, again, if it's an ordering thing, he's the agent in ordering them. He's the agent who orders. So in that sense, again, we make a mistake when we connect material objects to all of these things. So that would fit, if I could read between the lines, that would fit in with more of the science.

So if we do see evidence, for instance, of millions of years of evolution, you're saying, according to the way you're reading Genesis 1, that there's really no conflict there. Because the point of Genesis 1 isn't to say not evolution, but X and heliocreation. It's talking about something just different. Would that be accurate to say? So they're not making competing claims, right? Because they have their own claims to make. They're not competing claims, and therefore they are compatible. Certainly, I would never say that the Bible is therefore talking about evolution. The Israelites don't know evolution, and they're not talking about it. Yeah. And so did I hear you correctly that you said you do believe that the authors

convey in a literal 24-hour days, but you can have a literal 24-hour days and still have an old earth? See, if they're days for ordering, not for material manufacturing, then it says nothing about the age of the material if it's not a material account again think about solomon's temple he spent seven years on the material phase building the the structure seven years doing that when it was all done, there is the site's been cleared. The workmen are gone. The scaffolding is gone.

The tools are gone. Is it a temple? Well, no, it's not. It's been prepared to be a temple. It's built to be a temple, but it's not a temple. Okay, so what happens between the material phase and whatever the next phase is? Well, the temple phase where it becomes a temple. Well, we know what that process is whatever the next phase is. Well, the temple phase, where it becomes a temple. Well, we know what that process is because the Bible tells us. There is an inauguration

ceremony, a dedication ceremony. The Bible tells us all about it. And that dedication ceremony is seven days. So it's seven days for the structure to be made functional, to be ordered, to actually begin working for what it was designed to do. And so in that sense, the seven literal days, after all, it is seven literal days, but that's for inauguration and dedication of the sacred space that has been previously constructed. It's not the time for the construction. And so likewise, for Genesis 1 to reflect seven days, if it's parallel to temple inauguration, ordering the cosmos for God's sacred space to be established, then those seven 24-hour days have nothing whatsoever to do with the age of the earth, which is a material question. Okay.

So that, yeah, going back to my question of what if the science pointed to a young earth, you would say then that's compatible. If it points to an old earth, that's compatible too, because that's just not the question Genesis 1 is getting at. There is no biblical view of the age of the earth. If there's no biblical view, then we're free to follow the science. Or if you don't like the science, disagree with the science, but not because the Bible tells you something different. Yeah. Well, let's move on to Genesis 2 and 3, because from my vantage point, I have not looked at the scientific data like you or trump or others have done so i it's called i i tend to follow scholars i trust in this area you're one of

them um when it comes to adam i i would admit that this one's a little uh tougher for me um because it's in this the next 30 seconds out of my mouth could be complete ignorance. Okay, so hang with me. It seems like just from a reading of Genesis 2 and 3 that Adam and Eve is intended to be this singular first human pair from which all spring. And yet it also seems to be that especially in light of the human genome project with Francis Collins and others that that is really we've we know now from the science that cannot be um of course every scientific theory is a theory that can be rendered invalid but this one seems pretty pretty solid um and so that forces us to have to go back to genesis two and three and say i don't know is is there a possible way to read this where it's not trying to convey a human pair that might be a very honest evaluation in my mind, might be totally inaccurate, but we'd love to hear your thoughts on both the natural reading of Genesis

2 and 3 and the scientific data. Well, of course, I'm not inclined to let science tell me what I have to think about the Bible. Sometimes those signs can prompt us to look again to see if we've got it right. As with the previous discussion, I want to know what claims is the Bible making, but I have to read that through their claims and through their texts, not through my own demands and my own framework. That's always the toughest thing with interpretation of the Old Testament. You've got to make these adjustments so that you don't impose your modern view on the text. As I like to say, the Bible is written for us, but it's not written to us. And therefore, we have to be very careful about how we handle this. So it's one thing to say

it looks to me like, as you started your presentation, but of course, how things look to us is very much affected by our default, our own modern culture. So again, we have to try to let the text speak for itself. Now, at that point, we have to move biology off the table because they don't have biology. And so to say, well, this must be biologically the first and only of the species. Do you hear all the science coming out of that sentence? And so we have to be careful about that. And we can say, oh, well, God gave Adam a divine anesthesia so that he could remove surgically his rib. Listen to the science. Do Israelites know anything about anesthesia or surgery? Okay, so we have to kind of do a wipe, you know, and get that off the table and try to look at the text for what it is. What does the text believe is the

significance of Adam and Eve? Now I'm inclined to think that the text does view them as real people in a real past. Okay. But that doesn't answer the question of their significance. Is their significance biological? Is it species oriented? That's certainly not as clear from what the Bible tells us. One of the first things we get at is the idea in 2.7 that Adam is formed from the dust. We've got to be real careful with the Hebrew here. That preposition from is not there. It is not there. The Lord God formed humanity.

Let's not call him Adam yet. The Lord God formed humanity. And then give me a semicolon or a comma or something. And then with no preposition, dust of the earth. Dust from the ground, there's from, the dust is from the ground. It does not say that Adam is from the dust. Huh. Now, at that point, the conclusion I draw is that this is not in the book you read. The conclusion I draw is that it is not, therefore, telling me about chemical or biological composition. No surprise. That's not their thing anyway.

That's our thing. But rather, it's telling you about identity. The Lord God created humanity. What is humanity? Dust from the earth. And what does dust equal? Dust you are, and to dust you shall return. Mortality. Psalm 103. Now I've messed up my... You remember our form, that we are dust. We are dust. See, this is something peculiar of how Adam was formed, that we're all different. Adam was made out of dust.

We're all born of woman. No, the Bible says pretty clearly that we're all different. Adam was made out of dust. We're all born of woman. No, the Bible says pretty clearly that we're all dust. And so you and I and everybody else are dust. And yet we are born of woman. That means Adam can be dust and born of woman. and born of woman. In other words, being dust doesn't preclude being born of woman. That makes sense. So the dust is speaking to our kind of, it's a theological anthropological statement,

our mortality, our mortal relationship in relation to an immortal God, and yet that immortal God has breathed life into our nostrils. And clearly two seven is very poetic. I mean, several things in Genesis two, I mean, Genesis one to 11 has a lot of poetic. One might even say mythical kind of images being woven into the portrayal of the text.

It seems like from our vantage point, from our vantage point, again, I find that our categories often throw us off. So even though it has some what you might call poetic features, I don't call it poetry. Even though it shares, overlaps some ideas of what mythology does in a culture, I don't want to call it mythology because those are our labels and our labels are going to distract us and probably distort. That's good.

Yeah. So you would say, so yeah, summarize just in layman's terms, layperson's terms, what's going on in Genesis 2 with the creation of humanity. And then my next question is going to be, what does the scientific data tell us? Right. He's not, in Genesis, he's not trying to tell us about scientific origins. He is trying to tell us about scientific origins. He is trying to tell us about human identity.

Who are we? We are dust. We're mortal. Now, some people have trouble with that because of Romans 5. And they say, Paul says that death comes because of sin. Well, sure it did. But let's read what Paul's saying. Paul knows Genesis pretty well.

I think I'm pretty safe with that assumption. And Paul knows, therefore, that in chapter two and chapter three, there is two trees in the garden. And those trees in the garden, one of them is a tree of life. And Paul's no idiot. He knows that immortal people don't need a tree of life. That would be a silly thing to be in the garden. Okay. So that means that the tree of life is an antidote to the inherent mortality. People are mortal. God gave a tree of life as a remedy for that. When they sinned, they lost access to the tree of life. And therefore we are subject to death because of sin, not because we were previously immortal, but because the antidote that God supplied has been taken away. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah, so this is going to come from left field, but I mean, I hold to a conditional immortality view of the afterlife. view of the afterlife. And one of our main foundational claims is that humans aren't intrinsically immortal, but immortality is granted as a gift of grace through the resurrection of Jesus and our faith in him. Second Timothy 2 talks about this, First Timothy 5 and others.

So everything you're saying here, I'm like, amen and amen i'm not saying you're reading the genesis to demand sort of a conditional mortality view of the afterlife but um it very much fits in with it um and we don't need to that's a whole different area let's let's stay in genesis too um so so tell us the scientific so you're saying genesis 2 is just making kind of a generic statement about human identity not a specific statement about human identity, not a specific statement about human origins. What does the scientific data tell us about human origins and how confident can we be at this point in history in the scientific data? Well, obviously, I'm not the person to talk so much about that because I have no training in science and therefore every opinion I have is based on people that I trust. Yeah. You have read extensively in the scientific data, I know.

So you're more informed than most people. But of course, as on many things, you can find people on either side of the equation. So certainly the scientific consensus today is that there is an evolutionary model. consensus today is that there is an evolutionary model. Now, there's all kinds of critiques of evolutionary models, but even those who are evolutionary biologists recognize the critiques and keep trying to work at it to make it better. You know, I find myself very much ready to trust Francis Collins and his genetics insights. And so, again, I take those pretty seriously. I might not be inclined to take them as seriously if I believe the Bible taught otherwise, because I feel pretty strongly about the Bible. But if I don't believe the Bible is making

biological or genetic claims, if I don't believe that it's trying to critique some fundamental basis of evolution, then I can say they look compatible to me. As long as you recognize that whatever evolutionary model or process might be involved, that doesn't remove God from that process. Yeah. Can you be a little more specific? When you say, you know, the evolutionary model of humanity, what is that? There was kind of pre-homo sapiens

and then through time, now we kind of develop in the homo sapiens. But as far as like having two humans from which all homo sapiens came from, that is not, that doesn't resonate with the scientific data, right?

No, it does not. So at that point, you know, again, people talk about the bottleneck. I'm out of my expertise here. People talk about the bottleneck, that there were never fewer than 5,000 humans. Some say never fewer than 10,000. And, again, I've heard the science. I'm not really in a position to critique it. I know some people don't like really in a position to critique it. I know some people

don't like it, and they do critique it. So again, I don't make that my case. I make my case, what does the Bible demand? Now, that means I have to ask the question, if Adam and Eve are not significant because they are biologically the first and only of a species, I mean, that's how we often read kind of intuitionally. If they are not that, then why does the Bible talk about them? Why does it care? What's their significance? And again, I draw my information from the text that in 2.15, from the text that in 215, God gives him his task in the garden to serve and to keep. I don't take those as landscaping terms, menial work, digging in the ground, harvesting food, as important as those things can be. The main importance is to recognize that the garden is not just green space, it's sacred space.

And that they should therefore be guardians of the sacredness of sacred space, which is what priests do. And priests also are said to serve and keep, same two Hebrew verbs. So it looks to me like they are given priestly tasks, and that's their significance. That is, they are the forerunners at the forefront of God's relationship with people. As God interacts with them, as God has come to dwell among us, and they're the ones that are standing in that place. And for that, they become the fountainhead of humanity, not species wise, but relationship with God wise. And so in that sense, they have a great significance as God begins his dwelling among his people. And so in that case, the text of Genesis 2 has several very important points to make about our identity. One, of course, is the mortality. A second is what we would call

ontology. That is, people are different from animals, because Adam found no animals to work alongside him. Thirdly, that people are in relationship with God. They're given a task in sacred space. And fourthly, that men and women are of the same nature. No inferiority, superiority. They are ontologically the same. And therefore, again, we need to think in those terms. So it's making very important points about human identity, which is a big deal today still. Right. But it's not making any points whatsoever about science. Okay.

way to read Genesis 2 in light of this scientific data then is that Adam and Eve, two literal individual humans selected out of the lot of Homo sapiens to be the ones through which God would start to build this covenant relationship leading to restoring the temple presence in the garden through temple, church, resurrection, so on. I wouldn't say it that way, but again, it's going the right direction. We don't know if they were chosen from others. It's possible that there are others around, and if there are, then they were chosen to be these representatives in sacred space. Okay, but we don't know that because of course, the Bible does not address any other people around. It's not its interest, although it implies it in three places. Cain finds a wife, Cain's afraid that somebody, other people are

going to kill him, and Cain builds a city. All of those are suggestive that there are other people, but there are other ways to explain them, as people always have. I don't think they're good ways, but they're ways. And likewise, the Bible, therefore, does not confirm. But again, it has those implications. So it never gets around to suggesting that they were chosen. It never indicates that there's a covenant. You know, there's lots of pieces that we fill in theologically from our own vantage point. And I wouldn't be quick to fill those in from either science or theology. Again, I just want to try to pick up the text. So if it's not a covenant relationship, like what's special about Adam and Eve, then what's what do they do? What's their what's their function in Genesis 2, apart from the 4000 plus other homo sapiens that were possibly around at that time? They have a role in sacred space. That is a representative role.

That's what priests do. Priests are guardians of sacred space and they are representatives, mediating representatives. Think about Israel as a kingdom of priests. That doesn't mean they're offering sacrifices for everybody. It means that they are mediating the knowledge and presence of God. That's a priestly role, and that's what I would see Adam and Eve as involved in. Something just for my audience, too, something I guess John and I assume, and it's pretty well known in Old Testament scholarship, that a lot of the language used to describe Genesis 1 to 3 we see come up later in reference to the temple

and priestly service in the temple. And it's not just a word here and there. There's like several things over and over and over. You know, God walks in the garden as he walks in the in in in the temple and in the the what's the two hebrew words to serve and to keep in genesis 2 15 we only see use of the priest in the temple so it seems very clear i think i don't want to say undisputable because i rarely ever say that but it seems pretty clear that the author is trying to make some connection with later temple ideology with the creation account. A good case could be made.

And you also see the design in the tabernacle, and it describes all of the features of the tabernacle. And they keep linking back to the Garden of Eden. Right, right. One of the early – I mean, this is years ago. David Wenham, I think, wrote a good article just kind of documenting this. But again, I don't know too many Old Testament scholars who wouldn't agree on some level with this. I don't know. At some level, there are some that bicker about it. But of course, that's what we do. We're scholars. COVID, just a bicker about stuff, but let's move on then. So should Genesis 1 to 11 as a whole, do you see this as a distinct kind of literature? I mean, some people talk about the Genesis 1 to 11 myth, you know, and then once we get the 12, now we're getting into the raw historical stuff.

Your thoughts on the flood, Tower of Babel. I mean, yeah, you can kind of take it any direction. Maybe just begin with an overarching. Should we read Genesis 1 to 11 as really a distinct kind of literature that would allow for a lot of non-literal things from going on? It certainly is a distinct kind of literature. Okay, good. And that's distinct because there's nothing else like it. Now, that's what poses us the problem. I mean, we have cosmologies from the ancient world, but nothing like this.

Not really. I mean, you read Enuma Elish, the Babylonian creation epic. It's not like this. You read Atrakasis, which has creation and then some mess-ups and then a flood. But it's still not like this. There are a couple of parallels you could draw, but there's nothing quite like this. Now, that's what gives us a problem because we ask, what genre is this? Problem. The concept of genre is based on commonality between several pieces of literature.

In other words, you call something a genre because it fits into a set, and that set shares common elements and features and characteristics. If there's nothing else like Genesis 1 through 11, then there's no set to put it in, and therefore there's no genre to call it. to put it in. And therefore, there's no genre to call it. When we try to put into a set, even a general one like myth, well, wait, the way we use the term myth means made up stuff. Right. Did Babylonians think that their mythology was made up stuff? No. To them, No. To them, that was the most important literature that existed to talk about reality. It's just they used a different way to do that. Well, then should we feel comfortable calling Genesis myth? I don't think so, because that's going to be suggested. It's either the same as the Babylonian view or the same as the word we use when we talk about things that are made up, and it doesn't communicate well on either level. Well, people say we should call it history because it really happened. Wait a second. Does history have a monopoly on describing what really happened? In other words, to describe reality, do you have to use

history? Well, no, you don't. History is one way to describe reality, observed reality, empirical, in some cases, reality. But again, we have different packaging. There's all kinds of things we stick in that backpack that we call history, assumptions that we make about it. We stick in that backpack that we call history, assumptions that we make about it. And again, the minute we call Genesis 1 through 11 history, we've carried that whole backpack in and plopped it on the text. And that's not appropriate either, because their way of thinking about reality connected to the past is not the same as the thing that today we call history. That's so helpful. It made me think of, well, there's a debate within gospel scholarship, whether the gospels are unique literature. We do see some parallels, though, to Greco-Roman biography. So I wouldn't say it's completely unique but it is it's it's different it's different within maybe

a certain genre um in that in that world um gosh i have so many questions well real quickly and i don't take too much more of your time well i do but i don't um tower babble this is one that i haven't wrestled with much at all but i've got a friend saying oh yeah the kind of traditional reading the tower babble also is just scientifically invalid and so i just haven't wrestled with much at all, but I've got a friend saying, oh yeah, the kind of traditional reading of the Tower of Babel also is just scientifically invalid. And so I just haven't, I literally have never read anything on what's going on in Tower of Babel. So I don't know, maybe introduce us at lay person's level. What are some of the questions being discussed about the biblical presentation of the Tower of Babel? I imagine it's probably gonna, you've already given us a huge running start. Um, but if you had five minutes in a Sunday school class of, um, Christians that actually did want to know what the

Bible says, not all these presuppositions, sometimes Sunday school classes could be, um, frustrating for people like you and I, but, um, yeah, give us a snapshot of what's going on at the Tower of Babel. Well, it's tough to do a snapshot. I did my doctoral dissertation on the Tower of Babel. And so snapshots. Also, my most recent treatment of the Tower of Babel was in a chapter in Lost Road of the Flood. So if somebody wants to get kind of where I'm, how I'm thinking about the Tower of Babel now, that's where they would find it in a chapter in a readable book. Basically, with the Tower of Babel, we've made a huge mistake. And because we read through Greek eyes, Greek mythology eyes, and didn't know the ancient Near East anymore. This is a ziggurat. Hardly anybody debates that. A ziggurat, we know now, has very clear function. Its function is so that God can come down and enter the temple and be worshipped.

That's a whole lot different than building it so people can go up and get to God or fight with God or replace God or be equal with God or whatever. It's not about people going up. It's about God coming down. That's what ziggurats are. They're part of sacred space. And so when the Israelites, not Israelites, when the builders, watch it, when the builders are building, so much for the dissertation, when the builders are building the Tower of Babel, they're not trying to get up to God. They're trying to provide a means for him to come down.

They want him to come down because they want him to dwell among them. Remember, that's what Genesis 1 was about, God creating a place where he could dwell with his people. Genesis 2, Garden of Eden, God dwelling with his people. Genesis 3, people say, we want to do it our way. Out they go, no access to the presence of God. They want to restore the presence of God because it's a good thing. The presence of God brings all kinds of benefits. So they want to restore the presence of God. So they're building a ziggurat so he can come down, come into his temple, dwell among them. That's a biblical view. Unfortunately, instead of wanting the presence of God so that his name might be exalted, they're building it with ulterior motives. They're building it so their name might be exalted. They're building it with ulterior motives. They're building it so their

name might be exalted. Okay? There's nothing wrong with making a name in the ancient world or in the Bible. Making a name just means doing something that you will be remembered by. But this text is very clear, and it's not a matter of pride. It's a matter of benefit. They're building the tower so that God will come down, dwell among them, and prosper them, making their name great. And sacred space should not be exploited for our own benefits. And that's what they were doing wrong. So it wasn't a matter of pride. It was a matter of desire. It was a matter of desire. It was a matter of greed. It was a matter of wanting to benefit themselves. And God's presence was not to be established with the idea of human benefits in mind instead of exalting his name.

In contrast, of course, Yahweh is going to make a place where his name will dwell for his own namesake. Okay? So that's the nature of the tower building. Now, science has nothing to say about that one way or another. Were ziggurats built in the ancient world? Yes. Were they for the purpose of divine presence? Absolutely.

Did they have the problem of wanting to benefit the people who built it? Absolutely. Read the royal ins problem of wanting to benefit the people who built it? Absolutely. Read the royal inscriptions, all of them. But this idea that there's nothing contradictory, the place where science gets into a mess is with the languages. Right. Is this the origin of languages? And again, I would qualify whether that's the Bible's claim. Okay? The whole idea was that by having God come to dwell among them, they were going to establish order, the city, a center of order, right? That's what people were created in God's image to do, to work alongside him to bring order. But when they ate from the tree, they grabbed the wisdom so that they could do order on their own for their own benefits with

themselves as center. And they're still doing that. That was a problem with the flood. Them seeking their own order brought only chaos, violence. And so now they're trying to establish order through God's presence. That's good, but they still want that on their own terms. Okay. And so they're trying to bring order for themselves. And instead, God uses the confusion of the language to bring disorder, non-order. They can't carry out their order project. That doesn't have to be tied into the origin of languages. And even if there was a literal, even if they were speaking the same language and God literally did confuse them, that doesn't mean that's the origin of all human languages. It's not like this is the

fountainhead, even on a very literal reading of Genesis 11, right? I mean, I don't think it makes that claim that therefore this is where all the languages came from. Matter of fact, it doesn't even tell you the group that's there. It says all the world spoke the same language, but it's not all the world that traveled. The grammar doesn't suggest that all the world

is the subject of that traveling. Oh, okay. So it's a certain group of them. And in Genesis 10, before the Tower of Babel, at least literarily, we've got loads of different languages there. And some people say, well, it's a flip-flop to chronology to kind of make room for that, right? Well, it doesn't have to be a flip-flop. In Genesis, they do use narrative recursion. That is, they'll follow one storyline, and then they'll back up and pick that up and follow a different line.

It does it several times. Well, Genesis 1 and 2, right? I mean, Genesis 2 kind of goes back to day six. Well, no, I don't think so. We won't go back. I'll let that linger. But the way you're reading Tower of Babel, I kept thinking how that leads to the genealogy leading to Abraham. Tower of Babel, I kept thinking how that leads to the genealogy leading to Abraham.

I'm thinking like Genesis 12 on is it feels like a nice fitting contrast to that where we have God coming down into the life of Abraham, the father of many nations. And God's going to cause his people to spread throughout the globe in a way that he has originally purposed rather than them doing it on their own kind of, yeah, I don't know. It just seems to fit very well. It's far than a contrast. It's God's counter initiative. The Tower of Babel was a human initiative to restore God's presence. The covenant is God's counter initiative to restore his presence because the covenant doesn't end just in Abraham having a big family. It ends in Exodus where he brings his nation people now to Mount Sinai, gives them instructions of building the tabernacle,

so that he can come and dwell among them. The purpose of the covenant is God dwelling on earth. Yes. And lastly, do you see a connection with Acts 2 and Tower of Babel? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yes. Again, there, of course, they are exalting God's name.

Yeah. And God's presence actually does come down, and he takes up his residence in them. Okay? The covenant is fulfilled. That is God actually dwelling among his people. And then the languages are reversed. They can all hear in their own language and they scatter to all their places. But now not with a failed program, but carrying the presence of God with them. that's in the flood book as well that chapter yeah i'm from a new testament i mean i've seen it the other direction when i look at acts 2 and then and then go to tarah babel like oh my gosh this seems to be a super clear connection and again i don't know too many new testament scholars who would uh doubt that that's just i i love how i don't know i just just coming back big picture

stuff just how seamless the bible is you know i i know I'm doing a series right now at a church on the reliability of the Bible, which is a tough question. You know, it's not, how do you know the Bible is trustworthy? It's like, well, it's a different philosophical question than how do you know there's a box of cookies in the pantry? You know, if you want to prove that to be right or wrong, you open up the pantry door and there it is, or there it isn't, but is the Bible true? Once I'm there, I won't be there anymore. You know, that box of cookies. Never mind. But one of the things I brought up is just the internal testimony of the Bible,

the cohesion. And I don't even want to go so far like every single archaeological find has proven the Bible to be correct because that's not true. There are some complications there. I think the overall historical archaeological overall historical archeological testimony is looking pretty good, but I don't want to say it's just like, oh, just study archeology and your faith will go through the roof. But, but this internal cohesion with multiple authors spanning thousands of years, I mean, it is at least impressive. I'm not saying that proves

the reliability, but it does feel very different than other comparable religious types of literature. One of my favorite sermons to preach is called Emanuel Theology. People can find it on YouTube, just Walton Emanuel Theology. I've preached it dozens of times. And in that, I really take you from Genesis 1 all the way through Revelation 21, tracing the theme of the presence of God. you from Genesis 1 all the way through Revelation 21, tracing the theme of the presence of God. We've talked about part of it today, but of course it goes all

the way through Tabernacle Temple, it goes into the Incarnation and Pentecost, and We Are the Temple, and all the way to New Creation. You made the theology, John Walton. Yeah, check that out on YouTube. If I remember,

I'll put that in the show notes. but John, I've taken, uh, enough of your time. I wish we can. Yeah. Going out from Genesis 12 all the way through spend a few hours, but, um, I'm sure we have stuff to do, John. Thanks so much for being on the show. If you want to check out John's work, I mean, just, you can Google John H Walton, um, your, your professor at Wheaton college still, right? That's still where you're at. Okay. Um, and, uh, go to Amazon, John H Walton. Um, you're professor at Wheaton college still, right? That's still where you're at. Okay. Um, and, uh, go to Amazon,

John H Walton. You can check out lots of books all the way from hardcore, uh, academic stuff to textbooks, to more lay person, um, uh, more, you know, popular level pros, but everything he writes is, is very thoughtful. So thanks John, for being on the show. Encourage people to check out your stuff. You're welcome. Good to be here. All right. Take care. you