Genesis Part II Page i The Book of Genesis Part II – Table of Contents (tentative) Session Topic Text Page 1 Ultimate Questions Genesis 3 - 11 2 . The Biblical Philosophy . Elements of Explanation . The Great Weight of Sin 2 Insatiable Appetite Genesis 3:1-7 14 . The Cast of Characters . Where was Adam? . Eyes Wide Open 3 Where Sin Abounds… Genesis 3:8-19 31 The Aftermath of the Fall The Protevangelium 4 The Propagation of Hope Genesis 3:20 – 4:1 49 Mother of All Living Expelled from Eden 5 Cain & Abel Genesis 4:1-16 64 Fatherhood of God & Brotherhood of Man The Blood of Abel 6 The Lineage of Cain Genesis 4:16-26 87 Of Cities and Civilization Mighty Men of the Earth Calling Upon the Name of the Lord 7 The Book of the Generations of Adam Genesis 5:1-31 106 Longevity The Lineage of Seth 8 Only Evil Always Genesis 5:32 – 6:8 126 The Sons of God & Daughters of Men Inveterate Wickedness 9 The Crisis of Iniquity Genesis 6:9-22 146 10 The Great Flood – Part I Genesis 7:1-24 162 The Extent of the Flood Clean & Unclean Animals 11 The Great Flood – Part II Genesis 8:1-22 180 God ‘Remembered’ Noah The Noaic Covenant 12 The Noaic Covenant Genesis 9:1-29 196 Be Fruitful & Multiply The Sin of Ham & the Curse on Canaan 13 Toledoth Beni Noe Genesis 10:1-32 216 From One Blood Every Nation… Japheth, Ham, & Shem Genesis Part II Page ii 14 The City of Man Genesis 11:1-9 234 15 The Rise & Progress of Sin Genesis 11:10-26 250 Genesis Part II Page 2 Week 1: Ultimate Questions Text Reading: Genesis 3 – 11 Overview “Nondum considerasti, quanti ponderis sit peccatum. “ You have not yet considered, the great burden of sin.” (Anselm of Canterbury) In a recent presentation it was declared somewhat emphatically that “there is no philosophy in the Bible.” The speaker repeated the statement twice in short order, without providing much in the way of context to the claim. Without a framework within which to measure the statement, one has to consider what might be meant thereby. For instance, if the speaker was simply saying that the Bible is not a philosophy textbook – in the same sense that it is not a scientific treatise or an economics manual – we may readily agree. Indeed, the Apostle Paul himself was quite suspect of ‘vain philosophy’ and cautioned against its inroads into the early Church. However, the manner in which this definitive statement was made argues another explanation: one of prejudice or bias against the Scripture as representative of wisdom literature among the writings of human history. After all, the word ‘philosophy’ literally means ‘the love of wisdom.’ There is a prejudice against the Bible within Western academia; one would be naïve to contend otherwise. The holy book of Judaism and Christianity may be studied as a historical treatise or a literary compendium, but generally within scholarly circles ‘all due respect’ for the Scriptures ends there. This is manifested by unsubstantiated and de-contextualized statements such as the one above: comprehensive denials to the Bible of any validity within the various spheres of academic study. Thus, since the Bible is not a science textbook, there is no science in the Bible. As the Bible does not purport to be a philosophical treatise, there is no philosophy in the Bible. And so on and so forth across the spectrum of the major branches of modern academic curricula. Long gone are the days Genesis Part II Page 3 when Theology was considered the Queen of the Sciences; in the modern world it is not even a lady-in-waiting. Such reasoning is patently illogical: the syllogisms above relating the Bible to science or philosophy or economics are all non sequiturs. One may find philosophy in poetry, and economics in a novel (some have argued that the Wizard of Oz was intended by Frank Baum as a treatise on the gold standard, though that has been hotly debated by people who hotly debate such things). Furthermore, the contention that the Bible holds no validity in modern academic study tends to be maintained by those who are not themselves firmly convinced of this ‘fact.’ More broadly speaking, at least with respect to ‘philosophy’ in the Bible, the general opinion of predominantly atheistic academics is one of mild respect for the biblical presentation of its unique worldview. An example of this, and one of sublime irony, is the fact that the apostle who ardently warned the Colossians to beware of “philosophy and empty deceit” is regularly listed among the greatest philosophers of all time. A recent list places the Apostle Paul third in the top ten, behind Plato and Aristotle. There is indeed a fairly widespread acknowledgement that the writings of Paul, of Augustine and Aquinas, of Jonathan Edwards, all contain the broad outlines and characteristics of philosophy. To this list, with this current study, we add the name of Moses. When it comes to Moses, chapters 3 through 11 of Genesis usually get short shrift – actually the whole book of Genesis tends to take a back seat, with the exception of the Creation narrative, to the books of the Law. Granted that what Moses has to say about the world outside of Abraham and his descendents occupies only eight chapters (Genesis 4 – 11), nonetheless these chapters constitute one of the most profound and philosophical treatises on the rise and progress of sin in the entire corpus of human literature. Other ancient philosophies and religions deal with the reality of sin, though none so thoroughly nor so straightforwardly as Scripture. And none offer anything as profound as the biblical account of the Fall of Man and the Rise of Nations. Genesis Part II Page 4 The doctrine of the Fall and sin are exclusively biblical ideas; or at least they are only fully conceived and applied in the biblical scheme of religious thought. These doctrines are solvents, not sources of difficulty. Into the problem of evil, Scripture introduces elements of explanation.1 That last phrase, “…Scripture introduces elements of explanation,” could be the guiding theme of our current study. For when the question is the origin of evil, there are no definitive answers; indeed, one may argue that there are no real answers at all. G. C. Berkouwer discusses this aspect of the question of evil in his volume Sin, in his excellent 14-volume Studies in Dogmatics. Indeed, Berkouwer discusses a great deal in this volume: notice in the adjacent photo the relative thickness of Sin compared to the other thirteen volumes! Chapter Five of Sin is titled ”The Riddle of Sin.” But Berkouwer has alluded to the difficulty earlier, in the first chapter, “The Question of Origin.” Here Berkouwer agrees with Herman Bavinck’s postulate that one cannot speak of an ‘origin’ of sin, but only a ‘beginning.’ Berkouwer comments concerning the question of origin, “This question is illegitimate for the simple reason that a logical explanation assigns a sensibleness to that which is intrinsically nonsensical, a rationality to that which is irrational, and a certain order to that which is disorderly.”2 This comment is in keeping with what we find in Genesis and throughout the Scripture, where there is no attempt to explain the origin of evil, only its beginning within the human race and, consequently, the world. Countless theories have developed over how sin could germinate and grow within the heart and mind of a sinless being, Adam, to the point that many theologians (especially of the post-Enlightenment variety) have denied Adam’s created 1 Laidlaw, John The Bible Doctrine of Man (Edinburgh: T & T Clark; 1895); 200. 2 Berkouwer, G. C. Sin: Studies in Dogmatics (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans; 1971); 18. Genesis Part II Page 5 perfection. Others have made the ‘fall’ into a ‘rise,’ and have postulated that Man became even greater through sinning than he was as originally created. There is some truth to this, and these chapters of Genesis describe to us just what it cost Man to become ‘great.’ But evil per se is never given an origin, and the transition of Man from sinless to sinner is never portrayed as anything but a ‘Fall.’ This in itself is profound philosophy, that recognizes sin not as a ‘thing-in- itself,’ but rather as a corruption, a derogation of that which is, and a massive step backward in the true development of the human creature. In addition to this aspect of the study of sin and evil, Berkouwer also points out that the topic of sin cannot be studied dispassionately. This is because the student is himself a sinner, and the world around him and in which he is daily involved, is out of sorts because of sin. “No real genius is needed to see life’s battered and mangled pieces before us, and no particular wisdom is required to appreciate how profoundly abnormal life can be.”3 So the student who investigates the rise and spread of sin in man and in the world, does so not as an objective medical clinician, but as a carrier of the disease itself. The question of sin’s origin has a qualitatively different character from the question of any other kind of origin…Whoever reflects on the origin of sin cannot engage himself in a merely theoretical dispute: rather he is engaged, intimately and personally, in what can only be called the problem of sin’s guilt.4 Not only is the investigation of sin an intensely personal one, it is unavoidable for any philosophical analysis of human society, on the individual as well as on the societal level.