Professor Walton’s twenty one propositions carefully argue for a few key propositions:
- Genesis does not state that Adam and Eve were materially created de novo.
- New Testament theology focuses as on Adam as an archetype rather than a progenitor
- The primary focus of the Genesis account, and of Paul’s theology, is that God gave Adam and Eve specific functions and assignments as His vice regents in the Garden of Eden; their sin, and their and humankind’s fall, was the appropriation of His prerogatives and His provision as their own.
Along the way numerous insights buttress the logical argument. A basic tenet is that when Moses recorded this account, God was speaking to people immersed in an ancient culture to set straight propositions in their fallen religions (Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Canaanite) in the context of their understanding. The issues of the day did not focus on material origin, but on function and purpose, indeed the very nature of God (or the gods). Recent archeological excavation of numerous ancient texts have filled out the worldview of ancient pagans, in their creation stories (about purpose, functions, and assignments), as they constructed meaning for their lives. Millennia ago, pagans answered the question, “What is the chief end of man” not with the Westminster catechism, but creation myths. So YHWH had Moses set the record straight. But He did so in a language and using concepts that the ancient Israelites would understand. He was not speaking to 21st century scientists.
As a consequence, interpretation of Scripture as inerrant does not require either a young earth or Adam and Eve to be literal progenitors of the human race. God called and gifted them to be priests in His Holy place (Eden), just as He called Abram, and later the Israelites. In these last days He has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He created the world. Two points: continuing to read the Epistle to the Hebrews, one finds priesthood repeatedly a focus (although Adam is not mentioned); and time seems unimportant to the eternal God. Genesis 1-3 tell of beginnings, but they are the beginnings of purpose, meaning, and function. God created the heavens and the earth, but that is not what most of this passage is about.
The practical implication: “The order that God brought focused on people in His image to join with Him in the continuing process of bringing order, but more importantly on ordering the cosmos as a sacred space.” (Proposition 16). Both Adam and Jesus have historical and archetypal roles in New Testament theology, and as Paul explains, Jesus, the last Adam, became a vivifying spirit. There is a profound excursus by N. T. Wright on Paul’s use of Adam, embedded as proposition 19. His bottom line is that we are rescued by the blood of the Lamb to be a royal priesthood, not simply to be saved ourselves, but to be liberated from sin and death and anointed by God, in order to bring His wise order into a world that is a terrible mess.
One other consequence of this hermeneutical view. If we allow the passages in Genesis to speak about purpose, function, and use, and not insist they deal with material origin, then there is space to reconcile evidence for material evolution (such as geologic evidence for an old earth, or phylogenetic continuity) with God’s revelation. This opens the door to a better understanding of evidence discovered, and also allows new generations to not be faced with a take-it-or-leave-it approach to doctrines often promoted as the only true interpretation of Scripture, such as a young earth or de novo creation of Adam. Can we resist the temptation to claim for our interpretation of Scripture the same authority as Scripture itself?
No comments:
Post a Comment