To wit: Many have chuckled at the notion of a real Adam and Eve, but ongoing research in mitochondrial DNA continues to confirm in an ever-increasing way the truth that there was an original “pair” of humans. Furthermore, when migration patterns are traced backwards, this pair is thought more and more to have resided in the Middle East rather than in Africa. The site I linked above has some articles as well as whole books detailing such research.

Genesis first and foremost is a faith narrative and we must always be careful to not base our belief in it on whether or not the latest and greatest science “confirms” it. However, I do sense a growing convergence of Genesis with what can be known through science, so much so that I’m having to rethink by strictly “non-literalist” position to some degree.

“scientific truth about the physical world folded into the text… [that] could only be fully understood later.”

In seminary, we are taught (and correctly I believe) in exegesis that scripture had to make sense to the original audience in order for it to be a word from God to that particular audience — hence that is why we seek to exeget scripture in its historical / gramatical context and setting to the best of our ability (which sometime is still lacking).

That being said, I do not see how a text laden with science would have made sense to a non-scientific world. I am cautious about doing eisegesis (reading our modern views back into scripture).

After this weekend is up, I will be finished with finals and papers — so I will go back and carefully read the original post and the links.

I agree that is certainly possible and am fascinated by the notion that it might be true. I’m troubled by the notion that we should just say it’s not literal and then stop thinking about how to harmonize it with scientific truth. I prefer a view that keeps us, as Mike said, “about the business of unpacking its messages and plumbing the depth of its mysteries.”

However, as I learn more about the original Hebrew from the likes of Hugh Ross and now Schroeder, I am more impressed every day with the growing convergence between the Genesis account and what is known through science. Genesis, as it turns out, is a many layered book and the fact that many are still about the business of unpacking its messages and plumbing the depth of its mysteries is a testimony to its sophistication and depth.

Great post and food for thought.

“Where did light come from, since according to day one there was light but it was not until day four when the sun, moon, and stars were created.”

Or for that matter, since we calculate days by the passing of the sun, is it not illogical to conclude that Genesis is speaking of “days” as 24 hour periods defined by the passing of the sun, when the sun was not yet in existence?

I have always had a problem with literalists who read this as 7, 24 hour periods, and this is my main problem with it…

The one problem is reading Genesis as a scientific document when it was written well before our consept of modern scientific theory.

That’s not a problem, it is a wonderful, awe-inspiring mystery. Schroeder’s point is precisely that Genesis can be read to contain scientific truths which could not have been known at the time — which for Schroeder is evidence of its divine origin.

Schroeder adheres to the principle that when Torah and natural science seem to conflict, one or the other is being incorrectly interpreted. He cites Maimonides.

In his article on the age of the universe he writes:

The idea of having to dig deeper is not a rationalization. The Talmud (Chagiga, ch. 2) tells us that from the opening sentence of the Bible, through the beginning of Chapter Two, the entire text is given in parable form, a poem with a text and a subtext. Now, again, put yourself into the mindset of 1500 years ago, the time of the Talmud. Why would the Talmud think it was parable? You think that 1500 years ago they thought that G-d couldn’t make it all in 6 days? It was a problem for them? We have a problem today with cosmology and scientific data. But 1500 years ago, what’s the problem with 6 days? No problem.

So when the Sages excluded these six days from the calendar, and said that the entire text is parable, it wasn’t because they were trying to apologize away what they’d seen in the local museum. There was no local museum. No one was out there digging up ancient fossils. The fact is that a close reading of the text makes it clear that there’s information hidden and folded into layers below the surface.

* * *

Each day of creation is numbered. Yet there is discontinuity in the way the days are numbered. The verse says: “There is evening and morning, Day One.” But the second day doesn’t say “evening and morning, Day Two.” Rather, it says “evening and morning, a second day.” And the Torah continues with this pattern: “Evening and morning, a third day… a fourth day… a fifth day… the sixth day.” Only on the first day does the text use a different form: not “first day,” but “Day One” (”Yom Echad”). Many English translations that make the mistake of writing “a first day.” That’s because editors want things to be nice and consistent. But they throw out the cosmic message in the text! Because there is a qualitative difference, as Nachmanides says, between “one” and “first.” One is absolute; first is comparative.

Nachmanides explains that on Day One, time was created. That’s a phenomenal insight. Time was created. I can understand creating matter, even space. But time? How do you create time? You can’t grab time. You don’t even see it. You can see space, you can see matter, you can feel energy, you can see light energy. I understand a creation there. But the creation of time? Eight hundred years ago, Nachmanides attained this insight from the Torah’s use of the phrase, “Day One.” And that’s exactly what Einstein taught us in the Laws of Relativity: that there was a creation, not just of space and matter, but of time itself.

Read the whole article. There are worthy insights to be gained if you don’t just dismiss the notion that Genesis has something to say about science. That robs it and makes it one-dimensional.

It seems the purpose of Genesis has less to do with “how” the earth and it inhabbitants were created and more to do with “who” created. This would seem to make sense in light of the fact that it was a story given to the Israelites after they had just been freed from 430 years of slavery where the only religion they were exposed too was the Babylonian (pagan) view. So Genesis tells the Israelites who created then — and because humanity is created in the image of God, the Israelites can now know that they are someone special and were created for a greater purpose than just to be someone’s slave.

So, I take Genesis to be narrative theology rather than narrative science.

For whatever that is worth.

Intersting that this guy helped Anthony Flew towards theism. I have read some of Flew’s writtings and he was a pretty hardened atheist.