JOHN H. WALTON
In the modern dialogue regarding science and Scripture, it is sometimes claimed that the two offer ultimately competing claims about origins. Before we can legitimately defend that such a conflict exists, we need to be certain that we have accurately assessed the actual claims each makes. What follows is the result of an analysis of the biblical claims based on a close reading of the biblical text and a comparative study with what is known from the texts of the ancient Near East concerning how people in that time thought about cosmic and human origins. As readers of Scripture we are committed to being faithful interpreters, and therefore we must do all we can to ascertain that we are reading the text of Scripture without imposing our own worldview or meaning on it.
When we consider the claims made by the Bible (and its resulting theology) and those made on the basis of modern scientific understanding respectively, our first task is to consider the sorts of claims each is capable of making.1 Much has been written on the limits of science and its underlying epistemology, and I shall leave others who have expertise in that area to address that issue.2 In general, however, the claims made from a scientific perspective assume a distinction between metaphysical categories traditionally labeled “natural” (processes that follow traceable laws of cause and effect describable and comprehensible through scientific investigation) or “supernatural” (events or phenomena that transcend or defy scientific analysis, prove impervious to scientific explanation, and are presumed to bypass natural processes). In recent centuries the former is often assumed to be free of divine involvement, while the latter requires divine intervention in the natural world—the disruption of natural laws—and is therefore associated with the miraculous. For the most part, science focuses on the “natural” by either simply neglecting what is claimed to be supernatural or, more aggressively, deducing that God has no role to play even if he exists. Scientific claims, then, are typically premised on this metaphysical divide, with the idea that if a natural explanation can be offered, then any biblical claims about God’s involvement can be disregarded. This metaphysical assumption has dominated the way that the conversation has been structured. Contemporary thinking has a decided bias toward materialism and assumes that ultimate reality and the nature of existence are purely material, not spiritual.
Specifically with regard to origins, the scientific consensus sets forth explanations involving big bang cosmology and evolutionary models as evidence that all can be explained by means of natural laws (at least eventually), while those who value biblical explanations contest those claims based on their belief in the teaching that God is the Creator and that origins (whether cosmic or human) need to be understood with recourse to God’s activity. As we turn our attention to the Bible, however, particularly to the Old Testament where the biblical origins account is located (Gen 1–2), we ought to begin by asking about the metaphysical categories current in the ancient world in general and among the Israelites in particular. Do they classify phenomena into categories that comport with our distinction between natural and supernatural?
Those who are inclined to reject scientific claims based on their understanding of biblical claims sometimes do so on the basis of their belief that when the Bible says that God did something, that event must therefore be categorized as supernatural and by definition unexplainable to natural laws. In other words they have accepted the metaphysical divide that natural and supernatural are mutually exclusive—if science can explain something, then God did not do it. I would propose instead that such a distinction between natural and supernatural is foreign to the ancient perspective reflected in Genesis. We cannot claim the Bible says something that makes no sense in the original context; it cannot make a categorical distinction if it does not have the categories.
It is common for people today to understand God’s creative action in Genesis 2 as entailing the claim that, since he is portrayed as acting, he bypassed natural processes. This traditional perspective presupposes that the interests, language, and/or metaphysical concepts of the ancient Israelite author recognize a distinction between natural and supernatural. Ancient Israelites, however, believed that God is always active in the world in numerous and often undetectable ways; they did not have the categories of natural and supernatural.3 The operations of the world that we consider regular, predictable, and able to be described in scientific ways would have been considered no less the works of God in the ancient world.4 “Natural phenomena were indicative of divine decisions made in relation to human life.”5 They believed that when they planted a grain of wheat, wheat would grow. But God would be no less involved in that than if barley grew instead. In the same way, we cannot infer from Genesis whether God created humans naturally (through a process capable of scientific description) or supernaturally (beyond the regular and predictable cause-and-effect processes) just because God is identified as taking an active role. They believed God always took an active role. Since the Hebrew language does not have words that classify levels of causation the way we do today, the language of the Old Testament can’t be used to confirm or deny our way of classifying cause and effect as either natural or as being the result of divine action alone. Since Israelites do not acknowledge a metaphysical divide, the actions of God cannot be metaphysically distinguished with regard to whether they bypassed natural processes or not. In their view everything has a metaphysical aspect to it.
When the Old Testament describes God’s extraordinary involvement in the world, it is not to specify a supernatural event that is in defiance of natural, scientifically describable cause and effect. In the ancient world they undoubtedly understood certain phenomena as usual, ordinary, or normal. But they would not have therefore considered them as natural (i.e., scientifically describable; no involvement of God). If they have no such category as natural, then they cannot negate it (“nonnatural”). Generally, the Old Testament identifies phenomena as “signs and wonders.” These stand as demonstrations both of God’s power to deliver his people and of his covenantal love for them. At times, the text also emphasizes that the God of Israel, not another god, is in control of the events. Consider the plagues of Egypt. These demonstrated that God’s power was superior to the gods of Egypt. The Old Testament focuses on the fact that he could do what no other god could do. This does not at all imply a distinction between supernatural events (God bypassing scientifically describable processes) and natural events (God acting through natural processes).
God is certainly capable of bypassing normal causes, but it is not safe to infer that he did so just because the Bible reports that he acted. Only the logistics of the scenario could lead us to that conclusion. For example, in the New Testament when Jesus turned water into wine, he obviously bypassed natural processes. The wine undoubtedly had a chemical structure like naturally made wine, but Jesus’s act must have bypassed the usual natural processes. Some insist we should also believe that God bypassed natural processes in creating Adam. We could do so if the text or the scenario made it necessary to do so. At the wedding in Cana there is clearly no time and no means for the normal process to have taken place. As such, it is the scenario more than the language of the text that demands we understand that normal processes were bypassed. In Genesis 2 there is neither a distinction being drawn by the language nor a scenario that rules out a scientifically describable process for the creation of human beings.
Today, when we make distinctions between natural and supernatural activity in Scripture, not only do we push our modern categories into the Bible, but we also limit God’s action. Once we designate some acts as “special” or “supernatural,” we imply that other events which can be explained by normal cause and effect are not the acts of God. This drifts toward deism (distancing God from the operations of the cosmos) by suggesting that God only acts some of the time. This kind of thinking is responsible, at least in part, for bringing about the divide between science and the Bible. It is not the way the Israelites thought and it would be flawed for Christians to think about God in this way today.
Having laid the theoretical foundation by which we understand what sorts of claims the Bible and science make, we will now explore the specific claims that the Bible makes in Genesis 1 and 2 respectively. Just as it is important to understand the metaphysics of the ancient world, we must also understand the details of the text in the context of an implied author and implied audience situated in an ancient world—at least as best as we are able. We can accept the idea that the Bible was written for us, but we dare not think that it was written to us. We must proceed with the assumption that the text made sense in that ancient context and that it was meaningful in that culture. Only by employing an overly subjective hermeneutic would a person feel free to read modern scientific meaning between the lines and into the words of the ancient text. Although such interpreters may claim that God would have had such a sophisticated meaning in mind, the fact remains that if God’s intentions are not conveyed in Scripture, such claims are neither falsifiable nor verifiable.
A close reading is called for. Such a reading will seek to set aside any translations that may have been affected by our modern cultural ideas so that we might develop the poetics of ancient cosmological thought. Beyond ancient cosmological interests and the lexical semantics of biblical Hebrew, it is important to have a working hypothesis relative to the rhetorical strategy of the book of Genesis, which entails a discussion of its compositional history and its implied audience.
Communication in the ancient world was hearing-based, not text-based. The impact of the orality of the ancient world on the compositional history of the Bible cannot be overestimated.6 Traditions were preserved and transmitted orally and only reduced to written documents (not yet the literary sources popular in redaction-criticism) occasionally for archives and scribal schools.7 Such documents were copied over the centuries and existed alongside the ongoing oral preservation of the traditions. In this way, the traditions were not only preserved, but they were interpreted to serve the needs of successive generations. Authority figures were often seen as the source of these traditions, and capable tradents passed them from generation to generation.
We have little to inform us about when these archival documents began to be gathered together into literary works, eventually taking the rhetorical shape that we have in the book of Genesis. The rhetorical shape could conceivably have been dictated by the needs and situation of the implied audience of that time, but it could just as well have carried many of the earmarks and influences of the long transmission process. In this way, the final biblical book that we seek to interpret may plausibly be considered both in relation to the authority figure(s) at the fountainhead of the stream of a tradition as well as to the compilers who constructed the book for their audience. At times we may catch a glimpse of the Sitz im Leben of that target audience, but we see it no less than the inherent reflections of earlier shaping in its history. It is appropriate that we respect the complexity and sophistication of this process by confessing our limitations to reconstruct it. Its final form reflects a shaping that undoubtedly took place over centuries rather than just being the literary outcome of the last redactors. Consequently, even if we could conclusively locate the implied audience of the book in the postexilic period, for example, that would by no means make the book the invention or even the product of that period.
Rhetorically, the book of Genesis embodies the traditions of Israel with particular theological objectives in mind. The covenant with Abraham clearly takes center stage once the text moves into chapter twelve, but the first eleven chapters demonstrate that the covenant should be seen as playing a role in a larger picture. We often think of Genesis 1–11 as somehow introducing the covenant, but an alternative view sees the covenant contributing to the larger issue set forth in 1–11. In brief, such a proposal would see Genesis 1–3 as introducing the idea that the cosmos was ordered as sacred space—God dwelling among his people—and subsequently that order fell into jeopardy in what we have come to refer to as the fall. God’s presence was lost, and Genesis 4–11 traces attempts to reestablish order (e.g., the cultural developments in Cain’s line) as well as demonstrate the effects of disorder (e.g., sons of God, the flood). The Tower of Babel account in Genesis 11:1–9 shows the builders trying to reestablish God’s presence in sacred space as they provide a ziggurat on which he can descend and manifest his presence in his temple as patron of his city.8 But their initiative is tainted by selfish motivations (making themselves a name rather than making God’s name), and God inaugurates a counterinitiative in the covenant. The covenant is intended to develop a relationship that will eventuate in his reestablishing sacred space and access to his presence as he lives among his covenant people (in the tabernacle, then the temple).9 In this model, the rhetorical strategy of the book is focused on God’s presence in sacred space. It is this idea that is introduced in Genesis 1–2, gives direction to the rest of the book (and indeed all of Scripture if we continue to trace it though incarnation, Immanuel, Pentecost, and new creation), and has relevance as a compelling issue throughout the history of Israel—not least the exilic and postexilic audience but by no means restricted to that time.
Due to the aforementioned inclination of post-Enlightenment audiences to consider ultimate reality to be material in nature, readers of the Bible (whether modern or postmodern) have been inclined to read Genesis 1 as an account of the material origins of the cosmos.10 Ancient audiences, lacking such a priority on the material cosmos, were more inclined to construct cosmologies with a focus on ordering and establishing roles and functions. Sumerian and Babylonian texts speak of the decrees of the gods that set up the ordered cosmos. Existence begins with acts of separating and naming, as is also evident in Genesis.
It is very difficult for present-day readers to consider Genesis 1–2 as focused on anything but material origins. The fact that the relevant Hebrew verbs used to convey the creative activity of God are translated by English terms such as “created,” “made,” and “formed” leads a modern reader to think intuitively of material processes.11 When we add in Aristotelian levels of causation, it is easy for us to understand these verbs to specify the nature or extent of God’s involvement. We can easily overlook the implication that God’s speech (the most common of the verbs of creation in Genesis) has for understanding this cosmology in terms of the decrees of destiny known in the ancient world.12
Once we recognize that this is an ancient text, which has little interest or focus on material origins, we can arrive at an understanding of the text that is more in line with the way an Israelite would have perceived it. If Genesis 1 is seen to focus on ordering the cosmos as sacred space as it establishes roles and functions for the various inhabitants of the cosmos, we might consider that it is less interested in the building of a (cosmic) house than in making the cosmos a home—a home functioning for people and designed to be a place where God can dwell in the midst of his people and be in relationship with them.
To use a modern analogy, we could benefit from thinking about Genesis 1 as providing God’s vision statement and mission statement for the cosmos.13 His vision for the cosmos is that it would become sacred space by virtue of his presence here dwelling in relationship to his people. His mission statement in Genesis 1 is to order the cosmos to function for people, who have been given the role of co-order-bringers. Created in his image, they then serve alongside him to subdue and rule. In this analogy, the cosmos has been prepared (perhaps over eons) to fulfill this vision and carry out this mission. But in Genesis 1 the time has come to articulate this vision and mission and so to give direction to humanity and the cosmos so that they understand their created purpose. In that sense, it offers an account of cosmic identity rather than an account of scientific origins.
The sacred space concept derives from the idea that God rests on the seventh day. The account of the seventh day itself only indicates that God ceases (shabbat) his ordering activities. But other texts (e.g., Exod 20:11) indicate that God’s rest also includes engaging in rest (nuah). Texts from the ancient Near East have no parallel to the observance of a weekly Sabbath outside of Israel, but the concept of divine rest on which it is based is commonplace.14 The biblical theology of rest points us to an accurate understanding of the implications of divine rest that also happens to coincide with the ancient Near Eastern concept.
When God offers the Israelites rest (nuah) from their enemies (Deut 12:10; Josh 1:13; 21:44; 2 Sam 7:1; 1 Kgs 5:4), that rest refers to their being freed from invasion and conflict so they can live at peace and conduct their daily lives without disruption. It refers to achieving a state of order in society. Such rest is the goal of all the ordering activities that they undertake to secure their place in the land. This same concept is reflected in the New Testament (Matt 11:28; Heb 4:10–11).
Ordered stability is characteristic of God’s rest in the cosmos just as it is in the temple. Temples in the ancient world were not just places for divine residence—they were the control centers of the cosmos.15 God has established order, and now he is exercising control over his creation. The point is articulated in Psalm 132, where the temple is identified as God’s dwelling place as well as his resting place (vv. 7–8). In verse 14 he sits enthroned in this resting place. This rule of God is consummated in creation on the seventh day and continues in perpetuity. Ezekiel 43:7 reiterates: “Son of man, this is the place of my throne and the place for the soles of my feet. This is where I will live among the Israelites forever” (NIV).
The seven-day account in Genesis can therefore be seen as indicating that God has ordered the cosmos to function for people. The order in the cosmos is maintained by God’s presence and sustained by his rule because order emanates from him. His presence creates sacred space.
This sort of thinking is present throughout the ancient Near East, where temple and cosmos were related ideas. The temple was viewed as a microcosm, the palace of the deity, and the center of his control.16 Cosmologies, generally constructed to show the deity bringing order to the cosmos, often included temple-building accounts.17 Once we realize the relationship between cosmos and temple, the seven-day structure of the account becomes more meaningful. When temples were built in the ancient world, the construction process prepared a building for God’s presence. But the structure did not become a temple until its initiation. Both in the Bible and in the ancient Near Eastern accounts, seven days is an appropriate length for these significant inaugural celebrations.18 We can consequently understand Genesis 1 in that light and conclude that the seven days inaugurates ordered sacred space and has nothing to do with the age of the earth. The seven days could only pertain to the age of the earth if Genesis 1 were an account of material origins. In contrast, as an account of God ordering the cosmos to be sacred space, it makes no claims about the age of the cosmos.
If the seven days are related to the inauguration of the cosmos as sacred space, it represents the period of transition from the material cosmos that has been prepared over the ages to being the place where God is going to relate to his people. It has changed from space to a place. The seven days is related to the home story not the house story—the purposeful ordering and establishing of roles and functions, not the production of material objects.
As modern readers, we have an impoverished understanding of the seven-day account when we fail to understand that it is all about sacred space. Without a clear understanding of day seven, the other six days are meaningless. In this home story, God is not only making a home for people, he is making a home for himself. If God does not rest in this ordered space, the six days are meaningless. The cosmos is not just a house; it is a home. Rich theology emerges from reading the chapters this way that is obscured by reading the text as a house story (about material origins). We learn that even though God has provided for us, it is not about us. The cosmos is not ours to do with as we please but God’s place in which we serve as his vice-regents. Our subduing and ruling are done in full recognition that we are caretakers. Whatever humanity does should be directed toward bringing order out of nonorder. Our use of the environment should not impose disorder. This is not just a house that we inhabit; it is our divinely gifted home, and we are accountable for our use of it and work in it.
The seven-day account in Genesis 1:1–2:4 and the Eden account in Genesis 2:4–25 are separated by a formula that is a common structural element in the book. The formula features the term toledot (variously translated “account” or “story”; traditionally “generations”). Since the formula statement occurs ten other times throughout the book, we can study its rhetorical use to discover the narrative relationships that it governs. Upon analysis, we discover that in three cases the section after the formula is recursive of the section before the formula (e.g., the genealogies of Ishmael followed by the story of Isaac). The rest of them serve as a transition between an account and its sequel. That means that we have no reason to think that Genesis 2 is a recapitulation of day six. Nowhere else does the formula lead to a recapitulation. If Genesis 2 is something like a sequel, we would conclude that it is not intended as an account of material human origins. Genesis 1 conceivably addresses the creation of corporate humanity rather than focusing on only two (this would coincide with all ancient Near Eastern accounts as well as with the Genesis account of the creation of birds, fish, and animals as populations). In fact, Genesis 4, on three occasions, implies that there are other people around besides Adam’s family.19 If Genesis 2 is not recapitulating day six, we should inquire into what other purpose the account in Genesis 2 might serve.
Traditionally, readers have concluded intuitively that Genesis claims the first man was uniquely formed by God from the dust and the first woman was uniquely formed from the rib of the man. It is easy to see how readers would come to those conclusions. Acquaintance with ancient Near Eastern accounts of human origins, however, leads us to plausible alternatives. In these accounts whenever ingredients are mentioned (and they often are), the ingredients reflect something that is archetypal and ontological.20
In Genesis 2 the garden is the focus. It receives the most attention, and Adam and Eve are given the task of caring for the garden. It serves them (for food), but more important, they serve it (v. 15). Modern readers, unaware of the cognitive environment in the ancient world, are more inclined to think of Eden as a lovely environment for human enjoyment. Ancient readers would have been overwhelmed by the sense of the sacred. Eden is the center of sacred space, the Holy of Holies for the cosmos. God is there.21 The seven-day account was designed to show God ordering the cosmos to be sacred space functioning for people. But it did not indicate where the center of sacred space would be. In Genesis 2 we see that Eden is the center of sacred space, and even though it serves people, people serve in sacred space to preserve its sacred status. It is the place where God dwells and where people will be in proximity and relationship with him.
As in the ancient Near Eastern accounts, we will find that close attention to the biblical text will show that here too the focus is archetypal and ontological, particularly in relation to sacred space, rather than biological or material. In Egyptian reliefs, when the craftsman god Khnum is shown forming pharaoh on the potter’s wheel, he is forming pharaoh’s identity for his royal role. It is not a story of biological origins. A Neo-Babylonian creation text talks about the gods forming the king and describes all the archetypal qualities of the king.22 This view is confirmed by Zechariah 12:1, where it is the human spirit that is formed, not the human body. Even Isaiah talks about how God formed the Servant in the womb to have a particular identity and serve in a designated capacity. These show the inclination for forming accounts to focus on archetypal and ontological issues. They pertain to forming human identity.
If the forming of Adam and Eve were to be seen as archetypal and ontological, the result would be that the elements of “dust” and “rib” were not unique to them, but express what is true of all of humans. First of all, we are all formed from dust. This conclusion is confirmed through an examination of the rest of the biblical text. In the very next chapter of Genesis we are informed that “dust” is related to mortality. Further support for this concept is found throughout the Bible (e.g., Ps 103:14; 1 Cor 15:47–48). We are all formed from dust—mortal and frail. This is not a statement of what is unique to Adam; it is the identity of all of us.23 Yet God has made us more than what we are formed from—that is, ontology is not simply a byproduct of ontogeny (as is also true in any Christian understanding of evolution).
When we turn our attention to woman, we find that there is little semantic support for translating the Hebrew word tsela‘ as “rib.”24 Even Adam’s speech refers both to bone and flesh. A more appropriate rendering would reflect that God took one of Adam’s (two) sides and built the woman from it. This makes a statement about the ontological relationship between the genders with Adam and Eve serving as the archetypes for humanity. Womankind is ontologically equal to mankind; both are halves of a whole. I would propose that Adam is shown this in a vision (the result of being in a “deep sleep”)25 rather than thinking that he was involved in a surgical procedure.
The text then is not discussing the unique biological origins of the first two humans. It has adopted Adam and Eve as archetypes for communicating the ontological identity of humanity. Their role is not as the first biological examples of the species but as those selected for a specialized assignment in this newly established sacred space. Caring for sacred space is the focus, and Adam is given that task in Genesis 2:15. It is too large a task to handle on his own, so he is given an ally. The two verbs in 2:15 are priestly in nature.26 The first can, in some contexts and collocations, refer to agrarian labor, but it also frequently refers to the work of the priests in sacred space. The second cannot easily be associated with agrarian labor but is well-suited to the role of the priests as they guard sacred space. Therefore, Adam and Eve should not be considered the first biological human beings but the first significant human beings by virtue of the assignment they are given as priestly representatives in sacred space. It is their designated elected role that sets them apart, not their material origin.
The biological origin of human beings was not a concern of the ancient Israelites or any of their neighbors. They did not have categories of causation to differentiate the level of God’s activity in making Adam from the level of his activity in making us. God made Adam; God made all of us. In the Hebrew language, the same verb (‘asah) can be used for both instances, and God is no less involved in one than in the other. Some may claim there is a distinction because we were conceived and born through a nine-month process, while Adam is described as being formed from the dust. Yet the Bible affirms that God is no less involved in each birth (Ps 139:13). And before we could conclude that this is an intentional distinction of a different type of material origin for Adam than the rest of us had, we would have to determine whether the text is claiming to address Adam’s material origin. The evidence both in the biblical text and the ancient Near East suggests that it is not.
Is the text claiming that Adam was formed from dust by the very hand of God, while the rest of us are born from a woman after a nine-month gestation period? Many assume this is the case. But such a view implies that the text asserts a supernatural theory of human origins for which there is no natural explanation or process involved. Again, the text cannot be making such a distinction because the Israelites did not classify phenomena in terms of these competing categories.
If the Bible is not claiming that God bypassed scientifically describable processes in the material creation of human beings (since its authors and its intended audience had no such categories), Genesis may not be used to rule out scientific explanations for material human origins (such as evolution). Both the Bible and theology agree that God is pervasively involved in his world no matter what level of scientifically describable cause and effect we can detect. So it is not inconsistent with the biblical text to suggest that God created human beings over a long period of time through processes that operate according to recognizable cause-and-effect patterns. As such, evolutionary creationism would be a perfectly acceptable view for Christians who take both the Bible and science seriously. God’s activity is not limited to what scientifically describable cause-and-effect processes fail to explain; he is engaged in working through all processes.
At the same time, every Christian should affirm that humans are not merely the result of scientifically describable processes. God has made us ontologically distinct beings, regardless of the material processes involved. We are more than dust; and we are more than any phylogenetic ancestor. Furthermore, this ontological uniqueness cannot be simplified to the imposition of a soul or to the assignment as God’s images. Unique human ontology can’t be reduced to anthropological components because it concerns the fundamental nature of our being. We are more than what we are made of, and God is responsible for that. Identity is more important than biology.
Christian theology has no room for those who exploit science to defend a purposeless and meaningless view of humanity and the world. Furthermore, evolutionary creationism does not intrinsically call for minimal or occasional divine attention. It does not intend to remove God from involvement in creation. It does not replace God with science. Taking the Bible seriously involves not imposing modern categories on it that can conceivably lead to a misunderstanding of its message or teaching. The Bible cannot be interpreted to specify categorical distinctions it never had because it cannot be interpreted to say what it never said.
In investigating the claims made in the biblical text as understood in light of the Hebrew terminology and the conceptual world of the ancient Near East, we have suggested that their questions are not the same as ours would be. They are more interested in identity than in material origins. The biblical claims are therefore not in conflict with modern scientific models. The Bible’s interest is in agency, not mechanisms, while science can only comment on mechanisms and offers no insight into agency.27
1. Some of the material in this section originally appeared in “ ‘Natural’ and ‘Supernatural’ are Modern Categories, Not Biblical Ones,” BioLogos, 28 April 2015, http://biologos.org/blogs/guest/natural-and-supernatural-are-modern-categories-not-biblical-ones/.
2. A seminal study on the limits of science is Delvin Ratzsch, Science & Its Limits: The Natural Sciences in Christian Perspective, 2nd ed., Contours of Christian Philosophy (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2000). On epistemology see Ian Hutchinson, Monopolizing Knowledge (Belmont, MA: Fias, 2011).
3. Evidence is ubiquitous throughout the Old Testament. One example is Ps 139:13, in which God is seen as responsible for the development of each child in the womb.
4. Eclipses for example.
5. Beate Pongratz-Leisten, “Bad Kings in the Literary History of Mesopotamia and the Interface between Law, Divination, and Religion,” in From Source to History Studies on Ancient Near Eastern Worlds and Beyond, ed. Salvatore Gaspa et al. (Münster: Ugarit, 2014), 527–48 (quote on 527–28).
6. For extensive discussion and introduction to the massive literature on the issue see John H. Walton and D. Brent Sandy, The Lost World of Scripture: Ancient Literary Culture and Biblical Authority (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2013).
7. For detailed discussion of these issues see William M. Schniedewind, How the Bible Became a Book: The Textualization of Ancient Israel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); Donald B. Redford, “Scribe and Speaker,” in Writings and Speech in Israelite and Ancient Near Eastern Prophecy, ed. Ehud Ben Zvi and Michael H. Floyd (Atlanta: SBL, 2000), 145–218; Dominique Charpin, Reading and Writing in Babylon (Chicago: University of Chicago, 2010); and Karel van der Toorn, Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 2007).
8. J. H. Walton, “The Mesopotamian Background of the Tower of Babel and Its Implications,” Bulletin for Biblical Research 5 (1995): 155–75. For more detailed discussion of the rhetorical shape of Genesis 4–11 and the role of the Tower of Babel as a transition to Genesis 12–50, see John H. Walton and Tremper Longman, Lost World of the Flood (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2018).
9. J. H. Walton, Lost World of Adam and Eve (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2015), 164–68.
10. Some paragraphs of this section are adapted from Walton, Lost World of Adam and Eve.
11. Detailed semantic analysis of the Hebrew terms underlying these translations has been done elsewhere, demonstrating that they are not inherently material in nature, but often appear in contexts where ordering or establishing functions is addressed. For “create” (bara’), see J. H. Walton, Lost World of Genesis One (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2009), 36–43; J. H. Walton, Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2011), 127–33. For “made” (‘asah) see Walton, Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology, 133–39; or J. H. Walton, Lost World of Adam and Eve, 30–33, 39–43. For “formed” (yatsar), see Walton, Lost World of Adam and Eve, 71–72.
12. Walton, Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology, 168–69.
13. Obviously, such an analogy is etic rather than emic, but I use it only as an analogy to help present-day readers to be able to think beyond their intuitive inclinations.
14. Walton, Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology, 110–19; Walton, Lost World of Genesis One, 71–76; V. Hurowitz, I Have Built You an Exalted House, JSOTS 115 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1992); M. Weinfeld, “Sabbath, Temple, and the Enthronement of the Lord—The Problem of the Sitz im Leben of Genesis 1.1–2.3,” in Festschrift Cazelles, AOAT 212 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1981), 501–12.
15. J. D. Levenson, “The Temple and the World,” Journal of Religion 64 (1984): 275–98; M. Weinfeld, “Sabbath, Temple, and the Enthronement of the Lord”; B. Shafer, “Temples, Priests, and Rituals: An Overview,” in Temples of Ancient Egypt (Ithaca, NY: Cornell, 1997), 1–8; M. B. Hundley, Gods in Dwellings (Atlanta: SBL, 2013).
16. Walton, Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology, 100–19.
17. Examples include The Sumerian Hymn to E-engura, Enki’s Temple at Eridu, The Founding of Eridu, A prayer on a foundation brick of a temple, and, of course, Enuma Elish, the Babylonian Creation Epic. See R. Clifford, Creation Accounts in the Ancient Near East and the Bible, CBQMS 26 (Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association, 1994), 59–66; J. Assmann, The Search for God in Ancient Egypt (Ithaca, NY: Cornell, 2001), 35–36; R. B. Coote and D. R. Ord, In the Beginning (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991), 6; M. Smith, “Like Deities, Like Temples (Like People),” in Temple and Worship in Biblical Israel, ed. John Day (New York: Continuum, 2005), 3–27; Walton, Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology, 107–9, 178–84.
18. Hurowitz, I Have Built You an Exalted House, 260–61, 275–76, 280–82; Walton, Lost World of Genesis One, 86–91; Walton, Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology, 181–82.
19. Such a view is known and was widely circulated as early as the seventeenth century in the work of Isaac La Peyrère; it is discussed at length in W. J. van Asselt, “Adam and Eve as Latecomers: The Pre-Adamite Speculations of Isaac La Peyrère (1596–1676),” in Out of Paradise: Eve and Adam and Their Interpreters, ed. B. Becking and S. Hennecke (Sheffield: Phoenix Sheffield, 2011), 90–107. La Peyrère saw evidence not only in Genesis 4 but in Rom 5:14 in Paul’s reference to those “who did not sin by breaking a command (that is, not like the transgression of Adam), as did Adam (that is, not like the transgression of Adam).” For summary case, see Walton, Lost World of Adam and Eve, 63–69.
20. Walton, Lost World of Adam and Eve, 82–91.
21. Walton, Lost World of Adam and Eve, 116–27.
22. Translation in R. Clifford, Creation Accounts in the Ancient Near East and the Bible, 69–71; See discussion in Walton, Lost World of Adam and Eve, 85–86.
23. See discussion in Walton, Lost World of Adam and Eve, 70–81.
24. Walton, Lost World of Adam and Eve, 77–79.
25. M. Oeming, TDOT 13:338.
26. Walton, Lost World of Adam and Eve, 104–15.
27. Distinction between agency and mechanism prompted by comments by April Maskiewicz. See Robert Asher, Evolution and Belief: Confessions of a Religious Paleontologist (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).