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Speaking the
Language of Canaan:
The Old Testament and the Israelite Perception
of the Physical World
How the Scriptures
Appropriate Non-Hebraic World Views
Dennis Bratcher
Consultation
on the Relationship Between the Wesleyan Tradition
and the Natural Sciences, Kansas City, Missouri - October 19, 1991
A. The Issue in
Context
B. The Nature of
Scripture
A. The Appropriation
of Culture
B. Mythical Images in
Scripture
A. Ancient and
Modern Perceptions of the World
B. Myth, Symbol, and
Mythopoetic Language
C. The Dynamics of
Tradition, Community, and Culture
I. Issues and Assumptions
I will confess at the outset that I am an avid reader of fantasy and
science fiction writing. I began in Junior High School reading Jules Verne
and Jonathan Swift, then graduated to Isaac Asimov and C. S. Lewis. I suppose
it was inevitable that I would became a devoted Star Trek fan. I
eventually figured out that this form of literature and drama intrigued me
because of the satirical nature of the genre.
Satire, which is the true genre of most fantasy, is about the
human condition, aspects of human experience shared by everyone of all
cultures and all times. Satire is a safe and effective means of addressing
the folly, prejudices, injustices, and outright corruption of political
systems, social mores, and individuals. Yet beyond and beneath the specifics
of the metaphors and symbols of fantasy, once understood, is the common
experience of humanity.
1. words, meanings, and world views
There is a fascinating episode
of Star Trek: The Next Generation that deals with the
interrelationship between history, culture, and communication. The crew of the Enterprise
encountered an alien race of people with whom they could not communicate.
They could understand all of the words spoken, but the words made no sense.
As the plot unfolded, Captain Picard learned that the aliens' language was
built of only brief metaphorical references to stories from their cultural
heritage. A simple phrase, which only named a person and a place or an
action, evoked a whole range of meanings associated with the event.
For example, "Juliet, on the balcony" in our context could be a
metaphorical reference for love, loyalty, and devotion drawn from
Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet. Even understanding the words,
the phrase has no meaning apart from the original story. To understand the
meaning of the words, a person must understand the function of the phrase in
the narrative history of a culture, as told in a specific story with
specific images. And yet, the images evoke a basic experience and set of
emotions shared by all humanity. The Star Trek episode concluded with
Captain Picard reading ancient Greek epics, observing that a knowledge of
cultural heritage preserved in ancient stories might help him better
communicate in his modern (future) world.
The story is fantasy. But the point stands. All communication must occur
within a frame of reference. Knowing all the words does not necessarily mean
that communication or understanding will occur. For there to be
communication, both parties must operate with some shared assumptions and a
common frame of reference. Or, in the case of Captain Picard, one party must
learn enough about the assumptions of the other in order to understand the
frame of reference and move beyond the words to the meaning.
It is these shared assumptions about the world and human existence in it
that make up world view. James Sires has defined world view as ". . . a set
of presuppositions (or assumptions) which we hold (consciously or
unconsciously) about the basic makeup of the world."
-1- This set of presuppositions is usually adopted from the culture in which a
person lives. World view, on a large scale, deals with the most basic issues
of life.
What is the nature of the physical world? What is ultimately real (gods,
matter, etc.)? What is the nature of humanity? What is the basis of right
conduct? What is the meaning of human existence? -2- How
answers to these questions are expressed in any society, and what language
symbols and metaphors are used to express them, depends both on the
particular world view held combined with the cultural heritage of the
society. For our purposes in this paper, the term "world view" will include
not just those presuppositions about the world, but also the language
symbols used to express them. In fact, I will focus more narrowly on the
language symbols than the underlying tenants of the world view itself.
2. the questions
This brings us to the heart of the topic of this paper. Do we
automatically assume that because we understand the words of Scripture
(after they have been translated into English) we also understand the
meaning? Is the language and world view presented in the Bible God's
language and world view, written by God himself, and therefore an absolute
truth? If so, does that mean that all of Scripture must be read absolutely
literally? Or should we ask what the frame of reference and world view from
which the biblical writers spoke might have been? How do we decide when the
biblical writers are using symbol and metaphor? Do the writers of scripture
use language symbols and cultural metaphors that are immediately
translatable into our world view? Or is our modern perception of the world
so different that the ancient stories are totally untranslatable and
therefore irrelevant to us?
Is it possible to understand enough of the biblical writers' frame of
reference and context to understand their meaning? Is there anything
particularly sacred or absolute about their world view that compels us to
adopt it as our own? Or was it simply a common cultural heritage shared by
other peoples of the ancient world and appropriated by the Israelites and
the early church? And if so, wherein lies the uniqueness of Scripture as the
word of God? And how does all of this relate to our modern, Western,
American, 21st century, scientifically-oriented frame of reference, world
view and set of cultural metaphors?
The problem is especially acute in Old Testament Scriptures, because in
most places the cultural context is far more alien to us than in the New
Testament. As a result, we are more conscious of the incongruity between the
ancient Israelite perception of the world and our own. We want to
believe the Old Testament, because it is Scripture of the Church, or at
least our faith confessions say that it is. Yet there are places where,
because of our modern world view, we find it difficult to believe.
From our understanding of the physical world and our ideas of motion and
inertia, how can the sun stand still and not disrupt the entire solar system
and destroy the earth itself (Josh 10:12-15)? How can we account for the
volume of water necessary to cover the entire surface of the earth to a
depth of over 5 miles (Gen 6-7)? How can long-buried bones revive a dead
corpse (1 Kings 13:20-21)? How can there be plants flourishing before there
was a sun (Gen 1:11-19)?
Too often, people adopt responses that fail to deal with the questions.
They may respond that since God is doing it, and since he can do anything,
there is no problem. Others may reject the Old Testament stories as mere
superstition, while others reject the scientific world view and adopt a near
magical perspective, or develop a sophisticated intellectual schizophrenia
that allows them to function in one world at church and another world the
rest of the time. The issue is especially critical for people of faith who
accept the validity of work in the Natural Sciences where it seems the world
views are irreconcilable.
Of course, an underlying issue here is the nature and character of
Scripture. There are a host of issues that could, and properly should, be
addressed here, ranging from theories of inspiration of Scripture (see
Revelation and Inspiration of Scripture) to
philosophical assumptions about the nature of God and the extent of His
activity in the world. But given the limited scope of this presentation, I
will only briefly touch on the issues, mainly to establish my own
assumptions and frame of reference in addressing some of the questions.
1. fundamentalism and inerrancy
The influence of fundamentalism, and its accompanying doctrine of the
inerrancy of Scripture, is pervasive in evangelical circles of the church
(see The Modern Inerrancy Debate). Many of the
issues in the relationship between science and religion in our tradition
arise from this context. The influence of the doctrine of inerrancy, mixed
with the anti-intellectualism that emerged in some parts of the American
religious scene in the 1920s, and the other-worldly emphasis picked up from
the millenarian movements of the late 19th century, has fermented to produce
a strange concoction of beliefs in the Church of the Nazarene, as well as
other traditions. This phenomenon of inerrancy has been adequately
documented by church historians, so I will not elaborate here. The important
point to understand is that the doctrine of inerrancy that emerges from
fundamentalism has its roots in Calvinism and Reformed theology, with all of
the philosophical presuppositions that accompany that doctrinal system.
I cannot debate the issue of inerrancy here. For our purposes, I will
simply reject the idea of the inerrancy of Scriptures, along with most of
the philosophical assumptions that drive it, as incompatible with a
thoroughly Wesleyan theological perspective. -3-
One of the basic assertions of a Wesleyan stance is that God actually works
with human beings, allowing them a degree of autonomy through His prevenient
grace. If we take this seriously as a theological principle, it must affect
how we view Scripture. The content and message of Scripture reveals God and
His relationship to human beings and the world. But the form of that
Scripture, the language, the words, the historical, religious, and cultural
contexts, and therefore the cultural metaphors, are human. It is God's word,
but in human words. And it is those human words that we read in Scripture.
2. language, symbol, and theology
All language is metaphorical. Whether a language is alphabetically or
phonetically based as in most modern languages, pictorially based as in some
ancient and eastern languages, unwritten as in some remote dialects even
today, or composed of motions as in sign language for the deaf, the basic
elements of the language (word, pictograph, sign) represent something. They
stand for a thing, an idea, an action or a set of relationships. The words,
word clusters, and phrases function as symbols for those ideas and
relationships.
Perhaps it is easier to speak of the symbolic nature of language from the
perspective of mathematics, the natural sciences, or even from areas of the
humanities than from theology. For example, chemists use a technical
language -4- of symbols to describe the processes of
interaction between various substances. Physicists and mathematicians use
symbols to describe an amazing array of relationships between objects and
processes. And the poet is well trained in the use of images of one kind to
evoke a response in a different domain.
The premise of the Star Trek episode is valid here. To understand
language, for it to be communication, I must know the frame of reference for
the symbols of that language. Without a frame of reference, an understanding
of the context of the symbols, I will not know how to understand the symbol.
I may see the symbol K. A chemist would immediately think of Potassium. But
a sailor would think of a unit of speed, a knot. A jeweler would think of
caret, a chess player would think of a King or a knight, a linguist would
think of a certain sound, or lack of one, a statistician might think of the
11th unit in a sequence, and a computer programmer would think of units of
data. I would probably first think of the King City Glass Works in King
City, Indiana, because K is the embossing on glass insulators made there,
which I happen to collect. But you would need to know something about me and
my immediate frame of reference to understand my appropriation of the symbol
in that way.
If the point here about language and symbol is valid, then it applies to
theological language and theological symbols as well.
-5-
Whatever else it may be, the Bible is theological language. It communicates
something about God, about humanity, and about humanity's relationship to
God. Because of this understanding of the language of the Bible, I am not a
literalist in interpreting Scripture. The words and the symbols of biblical
language, and of theology, communicate truth, but they are not the truth
themselves.
Unlike the natural sciences, the danger in theological language,
especially when we are considering Scripture, is that the language symbols
used to communicate theology can be allowed to become ends in themselves and
take on a life, a reality, of their own. This is the value of asking our
questions about world view. If we can come to an understanding of the frame
of reference and context of the language, and so better understand how the
language images of the Bible work, perhaps we can better understand the
message, the theology, which the language, the symbols, the metaphors of
language are expressing.
3. imaging history
Unlike most aspects of our modern world view, with its complicated
development from the Renaissance through the Enlightenment, the Industrial
Revolution, and the emergence of a technologically oriented culture, the
world view of the Bible is not preoccupied with data. It is rooted in the
faith confession that God entered human history and interacted with humanity
in a significant way. But the events, the history of the Bible, are not
reported as data points, as facts to be processed into some practical
application or accumulated as a contribution to tracing the causes and
effects of a positivistic world view. The community has already processed
the events and the history is told as story.
Even when it emerges in a more reflective, even philosophical, form as in
the Old Testament wisdom literature (Job, Proverbs, etc.), the story uses
language images and cultural symbols, not to reproduce the data of the
event, but to communicate the significance, impact, and meaning of the
events for the ongoing community. The history emerges in the Bible as
theological confession and witness. -6- Biblical history is
not just reported, it is imaged. That is, it is retold in the images created
by language drawing on the cultural milieu and heritage of the writer and
using the cultural symbols of that milieu as the vehicle for talking about
God (theology).
II. Old Testament Scriptures in Cultural Context
Having outlined the issues and assumptions and set a general framework
within which to proceed, we may now turn to the biblical traditions
themselves to understand how the Scriptures appropriate non-hebraic world
views. At the outset, there is a problem with phrasing the topic this way.
Exactly what is a "Hebraic" world view and how should it be defined? And to
what extent does a Hebraic world view differ from, say, a Canaanite or a
Babylonian world view?
This is likewise a complex issue, so we can only make some superficial
observations. For the moment we will simply assume that there is
something unique and identifiable about the Hebraic world view, and return
to the issue later. However, rather than focusing on the unique aspects of
Hebraic culture and world view, for the topic of this paper our preliminary
discussion has led in the direction of looking at aspects of Israelite
culture shared by surrounding peoples as a profitable means to understand
aspects of Old Testament Scripture.
A. The Appropriation of
Culture
1. the cultural pool of the ancient Middle
East
Biblical historians tell us that we should not assume that the uniqueness
of the Hebrews or Israelites lay in their distinctiveness from surrounding
Middle Eastern peoples
on the level of culture. -7- While the Israelites
came to a radically new understanding of God, His relationship to the world,
and human beings' place in that world, the Israelites shared much of their
culture and cultural heritage with surrounding peoples. There was a large
common "pool" of culture and cultural metaphors.
-8-
In the realm of religion, for example, many of the peoples of the ancient
Middle East shared the same gods and the same myths about those gods. The
details of the stories and the names of the gods changed between ancient
Sumer, Akkad, and later Babylon, or between Phoenicia, Assyria, and Aram.
-9- But the essential elements of the stories, and the basic world views
they expressed, were remarkably similar. Israelite law codes provide an
example from the social sphere. While in many respects the Israelite Torah
differed from, for example, the Code of Hammurabi of Babylon, there are
enough points of contact to reveal a certain degree of shared concerns from
a shared cultural perspective (see Israel’s Codes of Conduct
Compared to Surrounding Nations).
There is also evidence from the historical side. The Israelites not only
lived in the midst of Canaanite culture, a certain number of them were
originally Canaanites or were native to the environment of Palestine.
-10- So it seems likely, and there is little in the biblical traditions
which would dispute the fact, that the Israelites moved in this cultural
milieu and drew from its stock of metaphors, language symbols, customs, and,
to some degree, its world view.
2. the growth of Israelite community
As the Israelite community emerged in the twelfth century BC they did not
simply create a new culture from whole cloth. The escaped Hebrew slaves, the
Egyptians who left with them, and various groups, including Canaanites, who
joined them in route to Canaan or after they settled in the land, brought
with them social conventions, mores, customs, and a world view (or views).
So, for example, when the Israelites began sacrificing to Yahweh in the
desert, they were appropriating a ritual practiced by virtually every group
of people in the ancient world. But they gave the symbol added content,
because they sacrificed to Yahweh and celebrated a new understanding
of deity. And they did it as people of God so that the symbol became a means
of doing theology.
The same is true of the Passover festival. Originally there were two
distinct ancient festivals celebrating the spring birthing of livestock
(Passover) and the planting of crops (Feast of Unleavened Bread). Passover
emerges in later Israelite tradition, on one level as a celebration of God's
deliverance of the Hebrew slaves from Egypt, and on another level as a
confession that God enters the arena of human history and reveals himself to
human beings. The ancient pagan rituals were appropriated as vehicles for
confessing the Israelites' understanding of God. The same could be said of
other familiar "Israelite" institutions such as circumcision, the
priesthood, the temple, and the yearly festival cycle. As the community grew
and matured through time, the origins of the symbols became more and more
obscure and more distinctly Israelite. Yet, that does not alter the fact
that their origin lay in Canaanite culture.
B. Mythical Images in
Scripture
Beyond the elements of social culture and convention that the Israelites
shared with other peoples, there is also a whole range of broader and less
easily defined conventions. These are the conventions of thought, what we
might call in our context a philosophical framework for thinking and
articulating abstract ideas.
Most peoples of the ancient world, including Canaanites (and the Romans
of New Testament time), viewed the world from the perspective of myth.
Contrary to what I have often heard from the pulpit, the term "myth" as used
here does not mean "false" or "fiction." Even in my old and yellowed
Webster's, "fiction" is the third meaning of the word.
-11- In its primary and more technical meaning "myth" refers to a story
or group of stories that serve to explain how a particular society views
their world. The stories of myth often deal with phenomena of the physical
world for which the culture does not have an adequate explanation. Or they
may deal with human actions and emotions that are potentially valuable or
destructive for the community. Myth is a means by which a society can
express its collective experience of the world, with the fear, frustration,
anxiety, and promise that it holds. -12-
The myth is also the technique by which the society comes to terms with
the world in which it lives and tries to make sense out of it. For example
the Oedipus myth of Greek culture attempts to verbalize, and condemn, the
sexual attraction between a parent and child. The deities of myth are
usually little more than the forces of nature or traits of human beings
personified. Often the gods of myth are simply human beings writ large whose
actions on a cosmic level produce effects in the physical world. Sexual
union of the gods, for example, produces the fertility of the earth to grow
crops. The means by which humans affect a world construed in myth is magic.
The magic used to control the world is usually expressed in two ways. Either
people imitate the activity of the gods thereby causing them to perform a
desired action. Or they appease the gods by some act, such as sacrifice, to
put them in a good frame of mind so they will respond in the desired way.
The most prevalent mythical system in the immediate Canaanite context of
Israelite culture was the myth of Ba‘al. -13- As with most
myths, the entire story is complex, varying in details and emphasis between
peoples. The basic features, however, are fairly simple. Ba‘al religion
revolved around the cycles of nature necessary for survival in the ancient
world, primarily growing crops or raising livestock. Not surprisingly, in an
arid and agriculturally marginal area of the world, the fertility of land
and crops played a large role in Canaanite world view. And also as expected,
water was a major element of the myth and its images.
We do not have time here to go into much detail concerning the Ba‘al myth
and its counterparts. What we know of the basic elements of the myth
actually comes from two groups of texts. -14- The
Babylonian creation hymn, Enuma Elish,
describes a great battle among the gods, -15- primarily
between Marduk, the champion of the gods, and Tiamat, the primeval ocean or
the "deep." Sometimes Tiamat is portrayed as a great serpentine beast, the
dragon of chaos or the dragon of the sea. Marduk overcame Tiamat and her
forces and after splitting her body into two parts, made the sky, stars,
sun, and moon from one half, and the earth from the other. From the blood of
Tiamat's defeated husband Kingu, one of the lesser gods, Ea (Enki) then
created humanity to be servants of the gods so they would never have to work
again. Marduk continued to bring order into the chaos caused by Tiamat,
setting each of the astral deities in their place in the heavens and
establishing the cycles of nature. -16-
This theme of a cosmic battle among the gods personifies the struggle for
life. It describes the annual renewal of the earth in springtime; it is a
myth of the cycle of seasons. This cosmic battle was not understood as a
historical event of the past, but occurred anew each year and was reenacted
in cultic ritual. Marduk represents the forces of order, the coming of
spring with its renewal of life and the end of the reign of the chaos and
death of winter. Marduk is the spring sun that gives life and renewed energy
to the earth. Tiamat represents those forces that threaten human existence,
the threat of a disordered world in which springtime never comes. The
ancient theme of an original primeval ocean that threatens to break out and
engulf the world in killing salt water is also seen in Tiamat. Creation, in
Babylonian thinking, was an ongoing struggle between order and chaos, a way
of thinking no doubt related to the uncertainties of life in the ancient
world.
The second group of texts comes from Ugarit, in northern Syria. They are
chiefly concerned with the emergence of Ba‘al as the leader of the gods.
Basically, Ba‘al was the storm god, the bringer of rain, and thus fertility,
to the land. There was rivalry among the gods and a struggle erupted between
Yamm, the sea, and Ba‘al, the rain. With the help of his sister Anat, the
goddess of war, and Astarte, the goddess of earth and fertility, Ba‘al
defeated Yamm, and his cohorts, Tannin, the dragon of the sea, and Loran (or
Lothan, cf. Isa 27:1), the serpent with seven heads. The gods began to build
a magnificent house for Ba‘al so that he could be at rest and provide
abundant rain for the earth. But Ba‘al was challenged by Mot (or Mut), the
god of death and the underworld. Mot temporarily triumphed and Ba‘al
disappeared into the underworld. Anat and Shapash, the sun god, found Ba‘al,
brought him back to life, and restored him to his house.
-17-
This series of stories is even more clearly, especially in its details, an
agrarian myth personifying the cycle of rainy and dry seasons of the Middle
East. Like the Enuma Elish, these texts
deal with the danger inherent in drought and ensuing famine. The
disappearance of rain in the dry season (Ba‘al's descent into the
underworld) portended catastrophe if it did not return in the Spring.
But this myth is more explicitly concerned with fertility, specifically
cast in terms of human sexuality. Worship of Ba‘al involved imitative magic,
the performance of rituals, including sacred prostitution, which were
understood to bring vitality to Ba‘al in his struggle with Mot. It takes
little imagination to see the connection between the human sexual act and
rain watering the earth to produce fruit. It is interesting to note in
passing that the biblical traditions use these same agrarian images of being
fruitful or barren to describe vitality in human beings.
The emphasis here is not on the order of the world, but on the necessity
of rain. The needed water cannot be the unrestrained water of flood or the
lifeless salt water of Yamm (the Sea). It must be life-giving rain, falling
at the proper time. Ba‘al is often portrayed as "Rider of the Clouds," and
described in imagery associated with storms and meteorological phenomena,
including clouds, thunder, lightning, and hail. The myth gives assurance of
some stability in the physical world, assisted by humans in their service to
the gods, which would allow continued human existence.
2. poetic images and the language of
creation
Since the Israelites shared the cultural milieu of the Middle East, it
would not be surprising, as pervasive as these myths were in that area, that
they would use some of this imagery. The creation narratives in Genesis 1,
for example, draw from the images of chaos and the primeval ocean associated
with the Babylonian myth, although without the cosmic battle of the gods.
The "deep" (Heb: tehom), which has cultural parallels in both Tiamat
and Yamm, is formless and void. By the "breath" of God, he brings order into
this formless water. We may speak philosophically of ex nihilo
creation (creation out of nothing) as a logical necessity, but in Genesis 1
the images are of God as a bringer of order. The creative activity in
Genesis 1 is concerned with setting limits and boundaries, bringing order
into the chaos. The idea of "separating" is a recurring one. Boundaries are
set between light and darkness, between earth and sky, between sea and dry
land, between the waters above and the waters below. Boundaries are also set
for living things; plants and animals only produce after their kinds (see
The Cultural Context of Ancient Israel
and God and Boundaries: Genesis 1:1-2:25).
It is this sense of order that leads to unusual laws in Israel, such as
the prohibition against sowing two kinds of seeds in the same field or
wearing clothing made of two different kinds of material (Deut 22:9-11). If
the mythic images are taken seriously here, creation emerges not as a static
and self-sustaining system, but as dynamic, sustained by the ongoing
activity of God. Unlike the myths, however, God does not need the magical
assistance of human beings to sustain the world. Genesis 1 is not about the
world and creation; it is about God the Creator and Sustainer of the world.
The Genesis 2-3 account is slightly different in focus. It emphasizes by
the use of rain, mist, and rivers the life giving necessity of water on the
earth brought by God. But the real focus of the story is the creature
adam who had understood the boundaries and limits of God's creation and
yet violated them thereby bringing disruption and chaos into the harmonious
order of God's world. The chaos comes not because of a battle between the
gods but because of human sinfulness (see A Literary
Analysis of Genesis 2:4-3:24).
However, the serpent imagery may well have its origin in the recurring
theme of the dragon of chaos. It is interesting to note that in the book of
Revelation (12:1-13:9), the only place in the Bible where the serpent of
Genesis 3 is identified with the satan and the devil, both are also
identified with the red dragon that causes upheavals in the entire order of
the universe (12:4), along with the dragons of the sea that disrupt the
world and human society (13:1ff). It is also interesting that the dragon
devil uses a flood of water from his mouth to pursue humanity, in the figure
of the woman and her child (12:15-17).
These images of chaos and order show up in a variety of other places in
the biblical traditions. Probably the most striking use of the imagery is in
the prophets as they use the idea to warn the people of impending judgment.
Jeremiah (4:23-28), using the phrase "formless and void," warns of God's
punishment on the nation of Judah for her sins. The images are of a world
gone totally awry in which mountains move, there is no sun, no water, and no
life. God will simply withdraw His presence and the world will collapse back
into primeval chaos.
Chaos is a major concern in the Flood story (Gen 6-9) where the sinful
actions of humanity have brought a disruption into the world, described in
terms of water engulfing the earth. It is crucial to note, however, that the
water, contrary to the eastern myths, is not in rebellion against God but
responds to His will.
Isaiah (34:8-17) also describes the "day of Yahweh's vengeance" in which
chaos and confusion will come to the people, accompanied by water turning to
fire and earth become brimstone. Interestingly, in this passage also are
rare Old Testament references to mythical Canaanite "demons," the satyr and
Lilith, the storm god of the desert (see Demons in
the Old Testament).
Joel, using a devastating locust plague that threatened the produce of
the land as a symbol of God's wrath on sin, also tapped into this imagery of
chaos: the sun and stars cease to shine, the moon becomes blood, the earth
burns, and the sky moves. It is significant that when Joel wanted to speak
of God's forgiveness and hope for the future, he used images of rain,
abundant fresh water, and fertility of the ground (1:21-27, 3:18).
In exilic Isaiah, written to encourage the people following the exile,
creation language is abundant. In Isaiah 45:18-19, in a deliberate play on
the earlier warnings, the writer promised that God would continue to act as
Creator to avoid the chaos and to establish a stable world for his people
after the exile. These images of cataclysm emerge as the standard way of
talking about God's judgment, later becoming the stock of images used in
apocalyptic writings such as Revelation.
The idea of God the Creator as the bringer of order also appears
extensively in Psalms and in the Wisdom traditions. The psalmic creation
hymns often portray the Creator God in terms of the order and stability of
the world: the sun keeps its course (19:4b-6), the waters are contained
(33:7), the pillars supporting the earth are solid (75:3), the rains come on
time (66; 147:8), the crops grow (104:14ff), even the animal world follows
set patterns (105:20:23). This stability is a frequent topic of wisdom
writings, as in the "times" of Ecclesiastes (3:1-9).
There are many passages, chiefly from the Psalms, which portray God in
images from the Ba‘al myth. Yahweh speaks from the mighty waters, His voice
lightning and His words thunder (Psa 29; 104:7). Frequently, God is
described as shooting flashing arrows from the heavens as He rides in a
chariot in the clouds (Psa 76:3-9; 77:16-20; 97:1-5; 104:1-4; cf. Hab
3:4-9). He has smashed the head of the sea dragon (Levithian, Rahab) and
established the boundaries of the earth (Psa 74:12-17; 89:10; 104:5-9;
148:6; cf. Isa 27:1ff; Job 26:12-13). It is Yahweh alone who rules over the
waters of the deep and controls the raging of the sea (Heb: yam; Psa
77:16; 89:5-13; 93:3-4).
Clearly, the biblical traditions, when they want to speak of the physical
world and express God's relation to it, draw on the cultural idiom of the
language of Canaan. However, it is equally clear that the Israelites
understood the difference between using the images to speak of God's world
and adopting the images as truth. Some did take the images themselves as
truth and succumbed to the worship of Ba’al as another deity. But they were
always condemned in biblical tradition as distorting the proper worship of
God.
3. Yahweh, the
divine warrior, and the language of theophany
We have discussed the mythical images of Canaanite culture in relation to
biblical creation language. Another significant use of these images from
Canaanite culture is in salvation language of the Old Testament. In the
understanding of God acting in history to reveal Himself to humanity, Israel
makes the most decisive break with her cultural neighbors. But again, it is
not on the level of language, the surface level of the images, or even in
the understanding of the physical world depicted, but on a deeper level of
the background and content of the metaphorical language.
The paradigmatic event in Israel's history was the exodus, specifically
the crossing of the Sea of Reeds (see The Yam Suph:
Red Sea or Sea of Reeds?). Since this event involved water, there is
a natural connection with the myths of ancient Middle Eastern culture.
-18- The Song of the Sea, following the Reed Sea incident (Exod
15:1-21), is one of the oldest writings in the Old Testament, and draws on
the imagery of the conquest of Yamm (Sea). Yahweh is portrayed as a mighty
warrior doing battle for His people (v. 3; cf Psa 24:8). While there are
historical references to Pharaoh and his army, the battle itself is
described in relation to the sea. The deliverance of the Israelites from the
Egyptians was effected by Yahweh's control of the sea, the waters, the
floods, and the deep. Israel remembered the deliverance as a historical
event. Yet when they described it, they used the language of Canaan, the
poetic images common to the cultural milieu of the day (note Psa 77:16-20).
The event itself became a paradigm, a metaphorical way to confess God as
Deliverer and Savior. Likewise, the poetic language used to depict the event
also took on a larger symbolic function. The "coming" of God for the
salvation of His people, cast in images of the Divine Warrior marching at
the head of the heavenly armies, became a conventional way of referring to
God and His activity in the world. This emerged in a special literary form
called a theophany, in which the presence of Yahweh among His people was
depicted in images rooted in the Ba‘al myths.
-19-
A typical example is the hymn of Habakkuk 3. There Yahweh marches from
the southern desert riding upon the storm clouds. Pestilence (Heb: derek)
and Plague (Heb: resheph), known elsewhere as the Canaanite deities
Derek and Resheph, march at His side. With lightning flashing from his
hands, He comes for the salvation/deliverance of His people. While Habakkuk
is writing at the time of the Babylonian invasion, Yahweh's foes are Nahar,
Yam, and Tehom, the river, the sea, and the deep.
Although the literary form of a theophany can be varied, other
theophanies exhibit similar references to clouds, lightning, thunder, gloom
and darkness, and heavenly armies or assemblies of the heavenly court
(Exodus 19; Psa 77:16-20). The Israelite writers exhibited a great deal of
creativity in theophanies, and some of the images may have origins
elsewhere. Yet, there are enough overtones of the mythical metaphors to see
some contact with the stock of cultural metaphors of surrounding culture.
As already noted, it is likely that the images of chaos and cosmic
struggle in the Ba‘al myths, mediated through the metaphorical language of
theophany, also emerge in the highly stylized and symbolic language of
apocalyptic, represented in Old Testament by the book of Daniel and in the
New Testament by the book of Revelation. While the specific origin of many
of the symbols of apocalyptic writings cannot be traced, several basic
elements, including the struggle between God and the dragon, the images of
fire, cloud (smoke), and water, and cataclysmic upheavals in the physical
world, have a common background in Canaanite and Middle Eastern culture.
Some of these images, especially the cosmic battle waged for control of
the world, translate well from their Semitic origins into the more dualistic
thought world of the inter-testamental period and the early church.
Unfortunately, in our day, many have again taken the metaphors themselves as
truth and understand the Christian life in terms of this ancient cosmic
battle between God and the dragon of chaos. This explains the popularity of
"spiritual warfare" language current in some circles of the Church today.
III. Believing the Old Testament in the Twenty-First
Century
We now return to our original questions and perhaps are ready to consider
some answers. One thing remains to be considered, however. We have noted the
ancient Israelites' way of talking about their world and about God. In
summary, we need to compare the ancient world's way of speaking with the way
we talk about our world and about God as we near the twenty-first century.
A. Ancient and Modern
Perceptions of the World
1. the reign of myth and magic
Apart from Israel, the ancient world was dominated by myth and magic,
which explained how the world functioned and how human beings related to it.
The myths grew out of experience, but were actually a means of articulating
speculative thought about the world.
-20- The myths revealed a way of thinking that saw the
world as the embodiment of personal forces that could be controlled or
manipulated by human actions. The myths were not concerned with data,
natural "laws," or absolutes. They were only concerned with establishing
order and stability for the survival of life. Nothing else was necessary to
explain human existence beyond the activity of the gods on some cosmic
level, because the gods and the world were essentially the same thing (see
chart on the Comparison of World Views, Myth).
2. the reign of naturalism and positivism
Our modern world, at least in Western, 20th century society, is largely
dominated by rationalistic approaches that deal only with data, empirical
observation, and processes that are more or less self-sustaining. We call
these processes "natural law," although there is an increasing awareness
that this label may not be totally adequate. -21- This
naturalistic view sees the world only in terms of a sequence of causes and
effects (positivism); it is a closed system that needs no outside
"interference" to operate. Nothing else is necessary to explain human
existence beyond the operation of the laws of nature on a physical level,
because the gods do not exist and the cosmos is self-contained (see chart on
the Comparison of World Views,
Naturalism/Positivism).
A slightly more nuanced version of this view is that of classic
philosophy (or the later adaption of rationalism into Deism). That
view distinguishes between some ultimate or primary cause, whether a
"big bang" or God however defined, and the more immediate causes of
specific events or effects, such as the dynamics of the atmosphere that
create weather.
B. Myth, Symbol, and
Mythopoetic Language
1. myth, ancient and modern
I would suggest that the naturalistic view of the world, whether it
emerges in historical positivism, philosophical deism, or atheistic
empiricism, is just as mythical in the technical sense as is the
Enuma Elish or the Ba‘al myth. It assumes that one way of looking at
the physical world is the only way, and that one set of metaphors, and one
language, is adequate. This ascension of the myth of naturalism and natural
law has created the tension that most of us have experienced as we move from
our modern world view to the world view of the Scriptures. While this modern
myth of immutable natural law is being modified from the perspectives of
quantum physics, the theory of random event, and chaos theory, there is still a
disposition, perhaps a need, to see the world in rational categories, in
terms of stability and order. After all, that is a basic premise for most of
the work done in the Natural Sciences.
2. religious language: having it both ways
Must we, living in a culture where the way we view our world seems
totally at odds with the perspective of ancient Israelite culture, choose
one or the other? I think not. I think we can have it both ways! It is here
that the Bible can be our greatest ally and can provide a solution rather
than being the source of the problem.
I contend that the Israelites borrowed the cultural language of Canaan
because that language was the best, perhaps the only, means available to
them in their cultural context to articulate observations about the physical
world and how God related to that world. There were no other thought
categories available to them to describe what we call "natural" processes.
In fact, there is no equivalent word in the Hebrew language for what we mean
by "nature." The Israelites could not speak of "nature" as a collection of
natural forces. They could only speak of God.
Yet, they differed radically from the Canaanites and surrounding cultures
by refusing to equate God with the physical world. They did not use the
myths to articulate their understanding of God. They did that on a
historical level and so parted company with the ancient world. But the
Israelites did not leave their culture. They did not make radical
breakthroughs in observation of the physical world. So they were left with
the language of myth by which to speak of the physical world, even when they
understood it in terms of creation by God. They used, not the content and
assumptions of the myth itself, but the language of myth to confess God's
relationship to the physical world as Creator and Deliverer (see chart on
the Comparison of World Views,
Bible/Mythopoetic).
Understanding this puts us a long ways towards understanding the use of
mythical imagery in the Old Testament. In fact, this is probably the single
most important point in this paper: when it addresses
aspects of the physical world, the language of the Old Testament is often
the language of Canaan, cast in the images of contemporary Canaanite
culture, although the content of those images is informed and
transformed by a different understanding of God and his actions in the world.
The difference in understanding is not on the level of the description of
the physical world or the surface levels of the images themselves. On that
level, the Israelites were much nearer the mythical world of their Canaanite
neighbors than they are to us (see chart on the
Comparison of World Views). This helps explain the Israelites' seven
hundred year struggle to break free from a syncretistic religion that tried
to make the appropriated symbols truth in themselves. On a deeper level, the
mythical images of the culture were used in a metaphorical way much as the
metaphors functioned in the Star Trek episode mentioned earlier. They
became in biblical traditions simply the conventions of poetic description,
what scholars call mythopoetic language. The difference is in the radically
different view of deity and humanity that the poetic images were used to
convey.
C. The Dynamics of
Tradition, Community, and Culture
1. speaking what must be spoken
As the community of faith, what should we speak to our modern,
rationally, scientifically, technologically oriented world? What is it that
we need to say about God? What should the Church, the people of God, be
expending its energy getting people to believe? The Church, as it has often
done in the past, can set itself totally against culture, reject the
language of Canaan as too pagan, and create its own closed community with
its own system of symbols and metaphors, a language that only the initiated
can understand and which the initiated are required to speak. It can haul the Galileos in its midst before the Inquisition and silence them. But that does
not erase what we know. Galileo was forced before the Inquisitor to recant
his Copernican theories of planetary motion, which held that the earth was
not the immovable center of the universe. Legend says that Galileo arose
from before the Inquisitor and quietly whispered, "But the earth does
move."
We must, as people living in the Western world at the end of the second
millennium after Christ, live in our world. As much as we might like
to return to a simpler world, to a biblical world, uncomplicated by the
knowledge, the technology, the problems, and the questions of our time, we
cannot. We can never be "BC " persons and we can never be first century
Christians. We have learned too much about our world in 2,000 years. If we
are to be authentic persons, authentic Christians, we must come to terms
with our world, not capitulate to it, but learn to function well in it
as Christians. We must learn to be genuine theists in a way that
takes seriously the biblical confession that God is Creator and Sustainer of
his creation, and yet also takes seriously what we have come to know about
that creation and how it works (see chart on the
Comparison of World Views, Theism).
We cannot simply construct a new myth, whether it be magically or
rationally based. If we are to retain a dynamic and growing Faith in the
twenty-first century, we must learn to articulate that Faith in ways, in
symbols, in metaphors, that twenty-first century people can understand. If
they do not know the cultural context of our words, the words will have no
meaning and our message, our witness to our God, our salvation, our hope for
the world runs the risk being unintelligible, or worse rejected as
irrelevant. Our Faith will never be totally rational, but it cannot be
irrational, and, if Wesleyan tradition is at all correct, it should be
reasonable.
2. what language shall we speak?
As Christians, we must speak. Like Jeremiah the prophet, we have a
message for the world that if we do not speak, it becomes a burning fire
inside us that we cannot shut in. We must speak. But what language shall we
speak? What symbols shall we borrow? And who will listen?
If the Israelites could hold a primitive view of the physical world much
like their Canaanite neighbors, and yet still affirm Yahweh as Creator,
perhaps we should realize that our faith is not finally linked to such
matters unless WE force it to be. If Israelites thought that the
world was flat and floated on the primeval ocean like a lily pad, and could
still acknowledge God as Creator, perhaps we can believe that the world is
billions of years old or that there is intelligent life on other planets in
remote solar systems and still be Christian. If the biblical traditions
could appropriate the language of Canaan and "sanctify" it to carry their
own faith confessions, perhaps the Church should not be so threatened by
science and the language of science when it informs us about our physical
world.
I would suggest that we can, and should, as Christians, allow the Natural
Sciences their voice in the church. I see nothing in scientific methodology
that is inherently alien or threatening to the Christian faith. I see only
scientists, as well as theologians, sometimes using their methodology badly.
Perhaps we can even appropriate some of this modern language of Canaan in
articulating our Faith confessions. We may have to give it added content,
shape it to our Faith confessions, even reject some of the presuppositions
that inform it. We may have to be more deliberately Wesleyan, even more
deliberately Christian, in our thinking.
But in the end, we must learn to speak the language simply because it is
the language that our modern world outside the church speaks. After all, the
words and the language itself are not truth, they only bear witness to the
truth. And I contend that, ultimately, it is the message and the witness
Himself who is believed, not just his words. But the words and the language
must be understood or no one will even hear the message.
-Dennis Bratcher, Copyright ©
2018, Dennis
Bratcher - All Rights Reserved
See Copyright and User Information Notice
Endnotes
1. James Sires, The Universe Next Door:
A Basic World-View Catalog, InterVarsity Press, 1976, 17. [return]
2. James Sires, The Universe Next Door:
A Basic World-View Catalog, InterVarsity Press, 1976, 18. [return]
3. Here I need to make clear that Wesleyan
theology in and of itself does not demand a certain set of philosophical
assumptions, nor does it demand the rejection of certain systems of thought.
Many in the Wesleyan tradition have held the same set of assumptions as
those in opposing traditions. The point is that for me, in my understanding
of the basic aspects of a Wesleyan system, especially the concept of
prevenient grace and human freedom/responsibility that results, the
classical Platonic and Neo-Platonic philosophical systems upon which
Calvinistic and Reformed theology is based does not lend itself to
articulating the essential elements of that Wesleyan view. For a
more detailed presentation of the perspectives on Scripture that lie behind
this view, see The Modern Inerrancy
Debate, Revelation and Inspiration: The Foundation in Scripture) [return]
4. There is clearly a difference between
language as the specific ways in which sounds and words are combined to
produce speech common to a particular group, as the English language,
and the more general sense in which I am using language
here to emphasize any means of communication through symbols. However, the
difference is more one of degree than of substance; the former is a more
specialized aspect of the latter. [return]
5. Here I am using "theology" is a
non-technical sense simply to refer to "talk about God," which is the basic
meaning of the word. [return]
6. This dimension is emphasized in two of
the Gospels: Luke 1:1-2, John 20:30-31, 21:24-25. [return]
7. William A. Irwin, "The Hebrews," in
The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man: An Essay on Speculative Thought
in the Ancient Near East, University of Chicago Press, 1972 [1946],
224ff. [return]
8. There are no surviving texts from the
Canaanite culture that the Israelites replaced in Palestine. Most of our
information comes from archaeological excavations and from the Old Testament
itself. However, large numbers of texts have been discovered in Syria
(Ugarit), Assyria (Nineveh), and Babylon (Sumerian and Akkadian), as well as
Egypt. These texts describe religious myths, beliefs, and practices that
correspond very closely in significant details to the Israelite
characterization of Canaanite religion presented in the Old Testament. We
can also trace the similarity in law codes, customs, building practices,
etc. Walter Beyerlin, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Religious Texts Relating
To the Old Testament, Westminster, 1978 [1975], 185, passim. [return]
9. For example: Sumer, 18th century
BC, An, Enlil, Ninhursanga (Heaven, Air, Earth); Akkad, 12th century
BC, Marduk, Enlil, Tiamat; Ugarit
(Ras Shamra), 13th century BC, El, Ashirat, Baal (Hadd or Hadad), Anat;
Hittite/Hurrian, 13th century BC, Teshub, Kumarbi; Sidon, 5th
century BC, Eshmun (Gk: Asclepius), Astarte; Tyre, 5th century BC,
Baal Melqart (Gk: Heracles); Carthage, 5th century BC, Baal Hammon,
Tanit; Damascus, eighth century BC, Baal Shamamin, Shamash, Shahar
(Lord of Heaven, Sun, Moon); Babylon, 9th -5th century BC, Marduk,
Ishtar. Ancient Sumerian and Akkadian texts name over 3,000 deities. Walter
Beyerlin, ed.,
Ancient Near Eastern Religious Texts Relating To the Old Testament,
Westminster, 1978 [1975], 69, passim. [return]
10. Norman Gottwald has postulated that
the great majority of "Israelites" that emerged in the period of the Davidic
monarchy were actually disenfranchised Canaanites who rebelled from the
overlords of the city states of Palestine and joined a core group of escaped
slaves in a battle for freedom (Norman Gottwald, The Tribes of Yahweh).
Even without accepting this hypothesis, there is biblical evidence that at
least some Canaanites, as well as some Africans from Egypt, joined the
Israelites as they moved into Canaan. This would partly explain the
recurrent problem with the worship of Baal and other non-Israelite deities.
See Josh 9, Exod 12:38, Num 11:4. Also, scholars have suggested that the
lack of battles fought in the central highlands of Samaria as the Israelites
entered the land is evidence that clan members related to the Israelites
remained in this area during the several centuries-long Egyptian sojourn of
Abraham's family. [return]
11. Webster's New World Dictionary of
the American Language, The Southwestern Company, 1962, 495. [return]
12. H. and H. A. Frankfort, "Myth and
Reality," in The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man: An Essay on
Speculative Thought in the Ancient Near East, University of Chicago
Press, 1972 [1946], 3-27. [return]
13. Again noting that there are no
surviving texts from Canaanite culture. The most complete text of the Ba‘al
myth comes from Ugarit. [return]
14. Space prohibits dealing with the
equally interesting Epic of Gilgamesh or the earlier Atrahasis
Epic, both of which contain stories in which water threatens to
re-engulf the world. Walter Beyerlin, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Religious
Texts Relating To the Old Testament, Westminster, 1978 [1975], 89-97. [return]
15. This mythical battle, called a
theogony, is a recurring theme in most mythical systems from ancient
Greece and Rome to modern popular Hinduism. [return]
16. Pierre Grimal, ed., Larousse World
Mythology, Chartwell Books, 1976 [1965], 63-70; Walter Beyerlin, ed.,
Ancient Near Eastern Religious Texts Relating To the Old Testament,
Westminster, 1978 [1975], 80-84. [return]
17. Pierre Grimal, ed., Larousse World
Mythology, Chartwell Books, 1976 [1965], 86-92; Walter Beyerlin, ed.,
Ancient Near Eastern Religious Texts Relating To the Old Testament,
Westminster, 1978 [1975], 185-221. [return]
18. See F. M. Cross, "The Song of the Sea
and Canaanite Myth," in Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, 113-120.
[return]
19. See Samuel Terrien, The Elusive
Presence: The Heart of Biblical Theology, Harper and Row, 1983, 63-152.
[return]
20. This is the conclusion of the
Frankforts in H. and H. A. Frankfort, "The Emancipation of Thought from
Myth," in The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man: As Essay on
Speculative Thought in the Ancient Near East, University of Chicago
Press, 1972 [1946], 363-388. [return]
21. There is much debate about the
development and transition to a "post-modern" perspective that is less
rationalistic, less concerned with self sustaining processes, and that is
more aware of spontaneity and random event. This has led, especially in
scientific circles to talk more about the processes by which events occur
rather than the final cause for them according to a definable "natural law."
This perspective may (or may not) mark a transition to a new world view.
However, there is sufficient diversity in the perspectives right now to
describe them generally as falling somewhere in a range between theism
(emphasizing a certain external cause), deism (acknowledging some external
cause), to naturalism (the cause resides within the system) whether or not
that cause is defined in terms of "natural law". [return]
-Dennis Bratcher, Copyright ©
2018, Dennis
Bratcher, All Rights Reserved
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