When Literal is Not Literal Enough: The Genesis of a Creation Myth

Genesis: literal history or creation myth? To be honest, the more I dig into this question, the weirder it gets, and the more confusing my own answers become. Do I believe that Genesis is to be read literally? Yes. So does that mean I believe that the Earth is only 5,700-10,000 years old? No.

I know, I know… Most people usually answer either yes or no to both of those questions. But they never mix their responses. Confused yet? It will probably only get worse from here on out. You have been warned.

I think I should throw in here that this is no mere hobby for me, either. I am certified to teach both Geology and Art in Texas public schools. I took every Geology course that a Geology major would take in college, went on all the field trips, read all the Darwin books, you name it. So I don’t come at this issue as a Science skeptic. Or a Bible skeptic for that matter (that was an earlier stage of my life). I come at this issue as one that has embraced both, putting me in a rather small minority of a rather small minority.

Never Be Afraid To Be In The Minority

First of all, I have to say that one of my pet peeves in this whole debate are people that have to exaggerate the opinions of critics, scientists, and experts to seemingly lend more weight to their beliefs. This is usually evident when the word “overwhelmingly” is added to any statement. When this word is actually true – like the research that has found that 99.6% of all relevant scientists believe that the Earth is older than 6000 years – then I am fine with people using it. But when people also say that an “overwhelming majority” of Biblical scholars believe that the first few chapters of Genesis are poetic myth… that is not the case. The scholarly field is still very split on this issue.

If you go against the majority belief on something… there is nothing wrong with that. There are still some scientists that believe the universe has no age (it has always existed and was never “created”). You are entitled to choose what you believe – don’t make up statistics to manipulate others into believing that you actually have this huge team of experts on your side. Just graciously explain why you differ and move on.

Young Earth Creationists typically have this gracious explanation thing down, because they are used to being in the minority (yes, I know – some don’t always do it graciously, but most do). Its the evolutionary creationists that I find who need to understand this one more. Any scientist that uses the word “clear” or “overwhelming majority” too much in anything they write is probably not a good resource to listen to.

Dealing With Problems

Let’s face it – there are problems with Genesis no matter how you slice it. Many people are familiar with the Hebrew word yom, which is translated in English as ‘day.’ I read once that the debate over whether yom is supposed to be a literal day or a long span of time has been raging since before the time of Jesus. So we have to recognize that even those who knew the language of the Bible weren’t sure exactly what God was talking about. Or maybe not… we’ll look at that in a little bit.

What I have found, though, is that the idea of Genesis being poetic in nature is a fairly new idea. As far as I can tell, it can be traced back to 1924 and a man named Arie Noordtzij. Many proponents of the “Genesis as poetic myth” idea have admitted that they believe the idea just because they are tired of everyone taking Genesis literally. Some scholars have found some interesting evidence on this front – but a new idea is a new idea.

Recently Rob Bell and others claim that a “majority of theologians” think that Genesis is poetry. Is this really true? Not really. According to James Barr, a well known Hebrew scholar, almost every expert at every “world-class” university believes that Genesis is historical narrative. Barr is unique in that he doesn’t believe the Bible to be true – so he would benefit most from Genesis being poetry. But he apparently still sticks with what he thinks to be true on this statistic. I am inclined to believe him.

To me, the points made by the Genesis as poetry experts are good, but usually speculative and brief. The Genesis as historical narrative side makes a much better, detailed, and exact case. I can’t find a reason to disagree with them, so I go with the “Genesis being historical narrative” camp. But in my reading of Genesis, most of the “literal” interpretations of Genesis are not literal enough. They still have to add some things into the scriptures that just aren’t there. Because, let’s be honest here: there is not a lot “there” period. Whether you believe the Earth is 5000 or 4.6 billion years old, it is all crammed into one book or so of the Bible. That is a lot of summarizing… even at 5000 years you still have to speculate a lot to come up with a comprehensive history of the Earth from so brief an account.

All of this is to say, I believe that Genesis should be read literally, but that reading it literally should not lead one to a Young Earth Creationist view. What do most Young Earth Creationists miss? Well, it all comes back to that pesky word yom.

Pull Out Your VHS Recorders

In all instances of usage, day is a relative term. It tells about the passage of time that we notice relative to where we are. A day on Earth is 24 of our hours. But a day on Jupiter is 9.8 Earth hours. A day on Venus is 243 Earth days. When you are talking about the universe, “day” is technically a literal term… but it still means different lengths of time depending on where you are in the universe and who is the central character from your point of view.

The ancient Hebrews might not have been scientific, but they weren’t stupid. They knew that humans measure days based on the rising and setting of the sun – two objects not created until the fourth “day” of creation. So anyone listening to the Genesis story (since it was probably passed down orally before it was written down) would have known that the “days” mentioned in Genesis were not human days. But they would probably think of them as literal, so what else could they be? Well, there is only one other character in the Genesis account, and He just also happens to be the central character. So these “days” that are referred to are days in relation to God and his time frame, not ours.

Why didn’t they use different word for day there? Well, the whole point of Genesis is to relate to human kind how they are connected to God. So they probably just used words they already had as much connection as possible. You see this in many other places in the Bible, where God or a prophet or someone else uses words that already existed and “re-purposes” them for the sake of the message. Besides, why make up a word when people needed to know that God created everything, not the exact amount of time that it took?

I know many scholars have made detailed cases for why the word yom is supposed to mean 24 hours. Many of those are very intelligent, but also very speculative. This is where I disagree with the literal young Earth viewpoint. Nothing in the original language suggests what kind of day was referred to by yom. It is just rather generic… and hence all of the debate through the centuries.

So the questions remains… how old is the earth? Did it take 6 days to create or 4.6 billion. The answer is… yes. To both. What? Think of it this way.

Do you remember recording TV shows on VHS tapes? Taping a show was pretty easy, but sometimes there would be an all day or night event on New Years or Labor Day that you wanted to see just one part of – maybe, say, your favorite band was performing a song or something like that. You couldn’t stay there waiting to see when they would play, so you would pop in the VHS tape, hit record, and head out the door. When you came back, there would be 6 hours of video for you to dig through. And your favorite band usually played somewhere near the end. So, you would hit play and then fast forward, watching 10 minutes of people skipping around on hyper-speed until your favorite band appeared. The same six hours of time passed by to the people on the tape, but you sped through most of it in 10 minutes to get to the end.

When some people read “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years” in 2 Peter 3:8, they usually do some kind of substitutionary formula. One day = 1000 years, so creation could be 7000 years or so, making the earth close to 12,000-15,000 years old.

But what if this is not a literal exchange formula, but a way of saying that one day and a thousands years are the same thing to God? While the Earth is experiencing a huge amount of time, God is only going through one of His days. The earth is on fast forward in front of him, going through thousands and millions of years while He experiences one day – kind of like the way we experience fast-warding a VHS tape (or DV-R if you want to modernize this idea).

Why would I say millions of years when the scripture clearly says 1000? Well, we all know that numbers are symbolic in the Bible. Peter is probably not trying to give out a specific number, just a figurative statement that says that God lives on a different time scale than us, where a huge amount of time passes to us while one day passes by to God. To Peter, a thousand years was a huge chunk of the known history of the universe, but to modern man that would be closer to hundreds of millions of years.

The important point to note here is that I don’t believe that God is literally “fast-forwarding” the universe. That is just a metaphor to help visualize how He is experiencing the universe on a different time scale. We all know that He created time and is therefore outside of time (as far as we know). But He also choose to have “days” of some kind from the very beginning.. so I think a combination of what we know of God from Scripture and what we know of the Universe from Science would come together to tell us that God experiences days on a different time scale than us.

Creation was six days to God, and 4 billion years to us. Both at the same time. I told you it gets weird.

We can’t deny the fact that so many things on this earth are very, very old. Millions of years old. Some people would say that God created them to have the appearance of age. I just don’t buy that God would deceive us like that. He is not the Deceiver, Satan is.

The next issue for concern is the fact that God would miss so much if He has the Universe on “fast forward” (so to say) to get to the good part (the creation of humans). If He was human, that would be true. But He is not, and His mind is so much more infinite than ours. I think this might be the meaning of the second part of 2 Peter 3:8: “a thousand years are like a day.” God’s mind is so much more infinite than ours, even if the Universe is on “fast forward” to Him, he can still examine the details of each human day as if He had a thousand human years. Ever wonder how He can number the hairs on everyone’s head? Maybe this scripture is telling us how God experiences time different than we do, but can also still have enough mental capacity to dig through every detail He wants.

Kind of gives you a new perspective on anything that mentions “the day of the Lord”, huh? Also makes me wonder – what “day” of the Lord are we on right now? 9? 10?

The other issue we have to be concerned with is how the Biblical order of what was created on which day does not match with the Scientific view of the order of how things came to be on the Earth. How can plants exist before the sun since they need the sun to live? Stars were created after plants, but Science says that many stars are older than the Earth? And fish and birds are created on the same day – before the day that reptiles were created on land – but Science says that fish evolved into reptiles that evolved into birds? Does this disprove the whole notion I have been discussing?

Well, if you make God out to be a man, enslaved to our linear concept of time, yes. But if you think a bit about how God created time and exists outside time, other possibilities open up.

I think of this in terms of comic book creation. When a team comes together to create a comic book, it is often created in many different orders. Basic images are sketched first, ink next, color next, words next, computer effects maybe added on top, etc. Specific scenes are focused on early to make sure they “look right”, even though they may come near the end of the story. To the characters in the story, everything happens in chronological order. To the creators of the story, different parts happen on different days. Now say it takes six days to create a comic book. If you tell the story of that comic from the view of the characters in the story, you have to go chronologically based on the story being told. If you tell the story of the creation of that comic from the creators perspective, you are going to tell it chronologically in the order that they created it. Both are true and accurate. But the order still comes out differently. We have to remember that the creation account in Genesis tells the story of creation, not of the created. To some degree, once we get to the part of getting kicked out of the garden, the story switches from a story of creation to a story about the created. But until the creation is finished, the account is of the creation and not of what was created.

Once we get out of the garden, things start to get hairy with this “fundamentalists / hyperliteralists are not literal enough” idea of mine. Did people really live for hundreds of years? Where did all of these other people mentioned in Genesis 4 come from? Did any of the people in the Bible really exist, or were some of them symbolic? I have answers for all of that, but my head is full just typing all of this…. so that will all have to wait until I get inspired on this topic again.

But the main point is that the hyperliteralists are not really that literal at all, and actually take a very liberal view of the scriptures by adding in ideas and concepts that are not contained in the pages of the Bible. But to be fair, what I have really unfurled here is a way to look at the creation account as figurative metaphor that is also historical narrative. Looking at God as a comic book creator who can simultaneously watch things in fast forward and slow motion on the worlds largest VHS machine is, of course, a figurative and metaphorical view at its core. But the idea is that metaphor and history don’t have to be at war with each other.

When Albert Mohler and Other Church Leaders Resort to Lies and Manipulation

So, yes, I know that is a harsh title. I chose the words carefully, because there are times when we all lie or manipulate to get our way. I don’t want to label anyone a “liar” just because they tell a lie, or a “manipulator” just because they manipulate at times. That would be condemning myself. But when a Christian publishes something that is so full of lies and manipulative statements that it nearly makes me hurl, I have to say something. Not to accuse one of being a liar or manipulator, but calling them out for resorting to lies and manipulation in a given situation.

Such is the case with the recent article entitled “Same-Sex Marriage as a Civil Right: Are Wrongs Rights?” by Albert Mohler, President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Very interesting language in this article… to say the least. But I will let Mr. Mohler’s words speak for themselves and add my commentary.

(As a side note, I am not trying to convince anyone what to think on this issue or to change minds, but just to point out where bad logic, inconsistent theology, and efforts to manipulate followers is occurring  I leave it up to you the reader to decide for yourself the character of the man making these statements.)

The article starts off as a nice way of viewing civil rights, a little heavy on the bleeding heart side…which leaves you bracing for the big “but”. It comes right after the big bold heading “When Rights Are Wrong” (Mr. Mohler words in italics, my commentary following)

At this point Christians have to think very carefully.

The manipulation starts. Because clearly Christians would never think clearly unless our leaders tell us how to before stating their point. Remember that all you clones-in-training.

But is same-sex marriage such a right? The answer to that question must be no.

Telling everyone the answer they must have is not only considered manipulative in leadership, but also a bad educational method (or incorrect pedagogy for those in the field). But obviously the answer has to come first before the explanation lest you think too much and see through his points.

Christians cannot accept the argument that homosexuality is an immutable characteristic.

Why not? The scripture does not say so either way. The Bible does describe a few things as sin that we now know is biological (in the mental health field, especially). Even the Southern Baptists accept some of those concepts (for the most part – some still label them as sin).

On that basis, why not grant theft or other sinful behavior the same civil rights protection?

Because that is failed logic based on a misunderstanding of law. Theft would still be illegal because it infringes on the basic rights of others. Same sex marriage does not infringe on the rights of people outside of the same sex marriage itself. We do not make things illegal because they are sin. We make them illegal because they infringe on the rights of others (please forgive that over simplification my lawyer friends out there).

Christians understand that marriage was instituted by the Creator, who designed marriage and the family as the foundational social unit of human society.

The scripture is not really clear on who created marriage – Adam or God. But you can see my previous post on this issue. There is nowhere in scripture that you find God saying that marriage and family are the foundation of society. We just assume that because it came first that it was supposed to be that way. What about “on Earth as it is in heaven” and “people will neither marry or be given in marriage” in heaven? Or how about the fact that God is not married? Did He really create it so that society had to be based on something that is not even part of His character?

Every human society has recognized this meaning of marriage, and all successful civil societies have honored, protected, and defended heterosexual marriage as the union that should govern human sexuality, reproduction, intimacy, and rearing of children.

The problem with this is that it is not true. I explored this again in a previous post, but the basic idea is that many human societies have had different meanings for marriage, and the “success” of a civil society has never been tied to its definition of marriage. Many societies that have upheld Mohler’s definition of marriage have failed, and many that have not upheld that view have lasted for hundreds if not thousands of years. And many times when they failed… well, when civil tribal societies were actually wiped out by disease brought from outsiders, or annihilated by superior weapons – you really can’t blame that on marriage.

But I guess one could technically say they were not civil if they were tribal, but that would be incredibly ethnocentric and ignorant to do so.

Those pushing for the legalization of same-sex marriage have been tremendously successful in convincing many people

Because people can’t possibly think for themselves? They are only “convinced” (brainwashed?) if they agree?

But this is a confusion of categories that Christians cannot accept.

Because apparently you are equal with Jesus and can tell us what we can and can not accept? Or are you trying to say that people just aren’t really a Christian if they disagree with you?

The argument for the legalization of same-sex marriage fails in terms of any constitutional logic that our nation’s founders would have conceived.

You mean like the logic that one group can’t force another group to follow their religious beliefs?

The Bible is clear in terms of its teachings on both sexuality and marriage.

Its not really that clear at all, but I have already pointed that out. (yes, after a while it does get a little tiring to point out the same blog post again and again for multiple points)

As Jesus Christ declared, God intended marriage as the union of one man and one woman “from the beginning” (Matthew 19:4–6).

Nice distortion of scripture. Jesus just says that we were created as male and female and that is a reason why a male and female would get married. He doesn’t speak to the definition of marriage. Oh, and way to leave out the complete scriptural story on this. Who needs pesky context when interpreting scriptures? Who cares about Matthew 19:3 where the Bible records the question that was asked of Jesus? I mean, it may completely change the way people read this scripture to see that Jesus was asked if it is lawful for an already married man to divorce his female wife. People might realize that Jesus’ response was to a question about a previously existing heterosexual marriage… but that’s not really important, right? Not when you have already told us what to think?

The legalization of same-sex marriage would confuse and greatly weaken the single institution that is most central to human society and most essential to human flourishing.

So… monasteries are weakened and confused and are not helping to flourish humans? I know Baptists don’t like Catholics in general, but way to be harsh on their leaders (who never marry).

Christians responding to demands for the legalization of same-sex marriage cannot accept the argument that the right to marry a person of the same gender is a civil right.

Since you haven’t made a logic case yet, why get demanding now? Oh… that’s right. You like to tell us how to think.

Christians must remember that our ultimate authority is the Word of God.

Seeing that you have already butchered the Bible…. but I guess denial is not just a river in Egypt. Or should I just say, check out the plank in your own eye dude!

At the end of the day, the argument over same-sex marriage is never just about same-sex marriage, and debates about civil rights are never just about civil rights. Deeper truths and worldview implications are always at stake, and it is our responsibility to make certain that we know what those are and stand humbly and compassionately for those truths, regardless of the cost.

And the ultimate manipulation hammer comes down. Yes, deeper truths and worldview implications are at stake, but the constitution was written to ensure that no one can force their deeper truths and worldviews on another group that does not believe in them. That is also core to Baptist belief, but I guess Mr. Moher has forgotten his heritage. But, I ultimately love the implication that those that don’t agree with Mohler are deceived, arrogant, and giving in to the world around them. Or that there is a greater cost for standing up against same sex marriage than standing for it. Oh, you poor things – someone might mock you in the media or even person. So sorry that has happened…. but when is the last time a Christian committed suicide for the way they were treated by the pro-same-sex marriage crowd? Do you know how many LGBT people will commit suicide this week alone from the persecution they face, mostly at the hands of Christians?

What I Wish Church Websites Were Really Like

So, another move and another new season in life means finding another church in another town. So like most people my generation, I turn to the all-knowing, all-powerful Google to see what is out there. I look through several websites of several churches, and after a few minutes I wake up from dosing off to come to a startling realization:

Most church websites suck. Big time.

Oh, they look great and contain a lot of vital information. But for a new person trying to find out if we are really going to fit in at these places… nothing useful. Nada. Zip.

Sure, there is always a good, long description in the ubiquitous “what we believe” or “who we are” sections. We believe that Jesus is the coolest, the Bible is Truth, we are loved, etc. They all pretty much sound the same, and before too long I feel like I am listening to one of the adults from Peanuts talk to me.

Sometimes I just want to email them and say “you believe in Jesus? So THAT is why you aren’t call a mosque or a temple or a coven or whatever. Thanks for spending an entire page explaining it to me on your website!”

Kidding aside, experience has taught me that behind all of these generic and cool declarations of what a church believes, there is the “real story.” All of these churches try to say the right things, but they all have vastly different ways of implementing these beliefs.

Then there is all the stuff they don’t talk about on their websites.

Are they egalitarian or complementarian? Are they anti-Science? Do they ignore the ambiguity of certain Biblical passages or embrace them despite that? Do they make non-extreme right-wing Tea Party people feel welcome or weird? Do they truly embrace cultural diversity or are they still patting themselves on the back for that one black family that stumbled through their doors 10 years ago and for some reason never left? Do they look at your injured back that still hurts despite prayer and then rank your spiritual maturity as “low” based on that fact alone?

And for goodness sake, what are their people like? Are they so addicted to coffee that you will be forced to suck it down or feel like a social pariah? Do they think that Mumford & Sons counts as “good music”? Do they think that families of 10 or more are normal? Do they equate your political leanings with spiritual maturity, all the while believing the lies being fostered on them by Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton and Ron Paul? If one of your sons ends up being effeminate, are they going to stand by him if he gets bullied, or “just stay out of it because we don’t want to look like we are supporting the gay agenda”? Do they even believe in weird concepts like “gay agendas”, “Obama becoming a dictator”, or “Jesus wants me to own a military-grade fire arm to blow your head off in love”?

Of course, most bad churches don’t have a huge expensive neon sign pointing to the coffee shop right inside the door to tip you off that you need to “run away as fast as you can” like some do. Many will look good at first and then go downhill quickly once you finish the membership class. So you obviously have to look at the website first, because there seems to be no UrbanSpoon for Churches. But there is often nothing there to tell you where any of these churches stand on any issue other than the Trinity. And we all know that churches will just fall apart if they don’t all get a clear vision of what it means to believe in a word that doesn’t even appear in the Bible.

So what I want to see on Church websites is a list of where the Church stands on current issues, even hot button topics. What about an active blog by the church leaders where they discuss these issues? Or a Facebook page where the members come together to discuss? Give me a place that I can freely access to see what people are like at your church. And why not a resources page of popular bloggers or writers or thinkers that influence your church? If you follow the teachings of John Piper, let me know. If you follow the teachings of Rachel Held Evans, let me know.

In other words, quit being so wimpy about where you stand on issues when it comes to what you put on your website in an effort to trick people to come visit. Grow a spine and let people know where you stand on issues from the get-go. Even if you aren’t sure – sometimes it is refreshing to see a church admit to not knowing everything. Open learning is all the rage in educational circles. I am ready for some open churching.

Clarity, Uncertainty, and the Truth

The Truth Is Out There

I have always believed this statement, long before the X-Files put it into our shared cultural lexicon. There is Truth out there. Philosophers debate whether it is empirical, constructed, relative, pragmatic, or a hundred combinations and variations of any or all of those.

The biggest problem problem with truth is that we can’t proclaim something the Truth because we feel it is, or because we think something else implies it, or just because we want to. We have to have reasoning and proof to back it up.

Faith comes into the picture when we take the plunge to throw our lot in with the reasoning and proof that we believe points to the Truth. But at the end of the day, it is only by Faith that we can believe anything to be true. Even if you believe in Science, you have to have faith that what you see in the results of your experiment is true and not just some colossal coincidence or even a practical joke by some advanced alien race.

But even though there is always an aspect of faith that goes along with any belief in truth, at the end of the day, if you call something “true” it had better not be false.

Let’s say you work at a certain store that sells self-assembled furniture packages. One day you see your manager putting together a shelving unit for display. He makes it look easy – putting it together in no time without even looking at the directions.

Later that day, a couple comes in to the store and is interested in buying the shelving unit. They are concerned that it looks complex and they wonder if they will be able to handle the installation. You assure them that the instructions are clear and that they can easily handle  it themselves, because if your manager can handle it, anyone can.

When they get home, however, they run into instructions like this:

No real directions and all the words are in a foreign language. And on top if that, there are several steps where they basically have to choose what they want to do out of several options. There is no clear path on how to make the shelves even if they could read them.

The problem is that you did not know that the manager can read the language in the instructions. You also did not know that the manager just winged it through the different options and basically created his own version of the shelves based on personal preferences. You just told a lie to the people that asked because you did not know or care to recognize the true complexities of the product. You said it was clear, but that is actually a lie.

You see, the Bible is not a clear set of instructions originally written in English. It is a set of ancient writings in various ancient languages that don’t always translate into English that well (and aren’t always that clear even in the original languages). Many translators have come along and decided to translate certain passages into English in a  way that makes them seem easy and clear, but what you don’t realize is that they may have just picked their translation because it was easiest… or maybe even because it fits their personal feelings on the subject.

This is why understanding the latest research on the translation of Biblical words is so vital and important. You may be believing something that is a lie and not know it. But I hear Christians all the time saying “I will never listen to all these crazy arguments about how words are supposed to be translated. We already know most of what we need to know.”

What this basically means is: “I may be believing a complete lie based on a bad translation, but I don’t care. I like what I believe and I’m going to stick with it no matter what.”

So many of the issues that we see churches fighting over seem to revolve around parts of the Bible that are – to be completely honest – very unclear in the original text. The role of women, the definition of marriage, the age of the earth, and the role of politics are all very vague concepts as written in the Bible. Anyone that says these are “clear” is believing a lie. An honest way of explaining our beliefs on some of these issues would be more like this: “No one is totally sure exactly what the Bible is saying on these issues, but what makes the most sense to me as being the possible truth is ____. But if you disagree, I see where your side could be just as possibly valid, and I respect your right to have a differing conclusion on these issues.”

But I am pretty sure hell will freeze over before we see that become the main way to disagree on Facebook.

I get that many people are uncomfortable with the ambiguity that comes with knowing the truth about translation difficulties. But to remain in the dark about these issues is to run the risk of believing a lie about something.

Is that really a risk any of us should take?

Marriage By The Book

Yet another culture war has erupted on Facebook over marriage equality. Or the gay agenda, depending on how you view it. Proponents of Biblical marriage have been posting their quips and quotes meant to prove that God intended for marriage to be between a man and a woman all the way back in Genesis, and argue that we must follow this model in order to survive as a nation.

My own views on this issue are pretty complicated, mainly because I did not grow up in the church. In fact, my first time to read through the entire Bible (a weird habit of mine I do every year with a different translation) was before I started really attending Church. When I did start going to Church, I was a bit surprised by how some people interpreted various scriptures. But not because I was learning something new about the scriptures, unfortunately.

My surprise came from seeing how many ideas people added to their interpretation of scriptures that were based mostly on their person feelings and not what the scriptures actually said.

Coming at the scriptures with a fresh mind with no one to tell me what they “really” said gave me a different picture of what I was reading. One that I am thankful for to this day.

Genesis 2:23-24 is probably one of the most often quoted verses in defense of “Biblical Marriage.” It is also a very odd choice in that it makes one of the worst scriptures to use in defending “what God intended for marriage.” Let’s take a look at it:

The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

Of course, this is also the first mention of marriage in the Bible, so I can understand why many quote it. But what is missing here? What really important statement does it need to have to indicate that God had a plan for marriage?

How about something like “thus saith the LORD“?

That is the problem with this passage – verse 23 is Adam talking and verse 24 is the writer of Genesis (whether you think it is Moses or a Babylonian Exile or whoever) talking. In fact, going by this verse alone (as some do) only proves that marriage is a social condition that was created by humans. Verse 23 is giving a reason why Adam felt connected to Eve (which begs the question of if it still applies today, since none of us had our wives yanked from our side), but not a command from God for who should marry who. Verse 24 is giving a reason why someone would marry, but still no command from God declaring His intentions for anything. Or even a statement from God where He defines anything.

Of course, many will then skip back to Genesis 1:27-28:

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

So what is missing here? How about anything pertaining to hard and fast rules for marriage? Or any mention of marriage itself for that matter? Verse 27 is basically telling why God created two genders (He needed to replicate His image in a created being, but had to have two genders in order to do it). Verse 28 is basically a command to have kids and rule the Earth – but nothing about marriage, love, commitment, or anything we associate with marriage other than having offspring. Let’s face it – if you are creating the first humans on Earth, do you start with the “correct definition of marriage” or the “birds and the bees”?

Well, whatever your feelings are – God started with the birds and the bees.

Of course, then some point to Genesis 2:20-22 as proof that God wants marriage between a man and a woman, because woman was created to be man’s helper. The problem is that the word translated here as “helper” (ezer) has its roots in two words that mean “to rescue, to save”, and ”strength”; while the word for suitable (kenegdo) does not indicate any kind of subordination of the woman or marriage relationship of any kind. A Mother, Aunt, Neighbor, Teacher, or any other strong female helper in your life could fit into this scripture and there would be nothing weird about it. If Genesis 2:20-22 was intended to be about marriage… there would be some weirdness. Especially in later verses that use ezer to refer to non-marriage relationships.

Then, of course, we come to Matthew 19:3-9, where Jesus clearly said that marriage must be between a man and a woman every time. Or did He?

Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?” “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?” Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

Again – what is explicitly missing here? No one is asking Jesus who can or should get married. They are asking Him about a situation where a man that was already married to a woman wants to get a divorce, and Jesus gives them a reason why that situation is not acceptable. Jesus is just answering what was asked of Him, nothing more. To say otherwise would be comparable to me walking up to a pizza buffet and asking if there were any healthy pizza options on the buffet and then then going back to my table and telling my eating companions that they told me that I can never eat cheese again. You can’t just inject an answer into a situation when re-telling it later just because you think it is related.

“Now wait a minute” you might say “Jesus clearly said ‘what God has put together’ – so it is what God defines because it says He put it together that way!” That is mostly correct – God holds people to the vows that they take before him… even if those vows had nothing to do with what God commanded them to do. Remember good ‘ole Saul from the OT? He was always taking oaths before God that had no connection to any commandments from God, but then getting punished by God for not following through with them. Why is that? Did God ever make a commandment about killing your children for eating honey? No. The problem was that he made a vow to God to kill anyone that ate food and then broke it. This is how God views vows that we take before Him – no matter how good or crazy. Once we make those vows before Him, it is as if He put them together. So Jesus is saying that because you took the vow before God, it is as if He put it together and therefore you can’t break it.

But that still doesn’t change the fact that Jesus was referring to divorce as it pertains to a married heterosexual couple. The question of the definition of marriage was not asked of Him, nor did He say anything that directly impacts it. You have to take an implication out of that scripture to make it about the definition of marriage. How many cults have been created based on implications in scripture? A slippery slope to step out on.

So what we really see in the Bible at best is that humans decided to define marriage in Genesis. Maybe later on Jesus confirmed that God said part of that (Matthew 19:5), but it was still just a reason for getting married and not a definition of what it should look like. You can read implications of what God wanted into that, but I would caution you to do so with humility as you don’t want to get in the business of assuming you know everything about the mind of God.

Add to this the etymology of the word “marriage” itself. The first appearance of the word was around 1250 A.D. – well after Genesis was written. It is based on older words of other languages that ultimately trace back to the Latin word marītāre. This would place the timeline at about 800-700 B.C. as the beginnings of the word that we are saying originated in Genesis. So our dates are off if we say that there has been an unchangeable definition of the word “marriage” since the beginning of time (or the time the Bible was written if you do not subscribe to Young Earth Creationism). Of course the concept of what we now call marriage has been around for as long as there have been humans, but concepts are different that words.

The point I am getting at is that the term “marriage” is our current English word for a socially-constructed concept that is defined by the culture we currently live in. Another important concept to consider is that not all cultures define this concept the same. And I am not just talking polygyny or even polyandry. In some cultures it is common for two or more males and two or more females to be married in group marriage (and not all of the relationships within these groups are heterosexual or one-sidedly monogamous). Many people like to talk like the concept of “marriage” is an absolute idea that can not be changed. But that is just not so when you take a global perspective on the issue. Of course, you might not care about all of this because these are not Christians practicing these marriage arrangements, or you could even say that they have no bearing on how a Christian should view marriage – and I would agree. But there are some out there that claim that marriage has always been between a man and at least one woman in every culture everywhere and because it is universal worldwide we can not change that definition. This is not a logically correct argument.

Even when you look at the history of the term just here in the United States – we used to not let biracial couples marry. At a certain point in history, we redefined marriage… and there is nothing saying that it is incorrect to do it again. Or for that matter that we have to redefine it again if we don’t want to. We have redefined marriage when needed and not redefined it when needed also. But to say that we never did therefore we never can is historically inaccurate.

It is also important to note that many of the cultures that practice group marriage never fell apart because of it, and many cultures that practiced strict adherence to monogamous heterosexual marriage still fell apart despite it. The notion that a nation will stand or fall based on it’s definition of marriage is not supported by historical cultural study.

None of this is meant to change your mind on marriage equality issues nor should it. But it should make you realize that you might have to change your reasoning for why you are against it. You can’t claim it is what God wants unless you also point out that your claim is based on an implication from several scriptures that is not directly there, and therefore you want to base societal norms on your interpretations of implications. It sounds scary to say it that way, and I doubt few will be that honest, but that is basically what it is. Sorry for the blunt card.

Calling BS on Rick Warren’s Quote

Probably by now you have seen this Rick Warren quote floating around on Facebook:

“Our culture has accepted two huge lies. The first is that if you disagree with someone’s lifestyle, you must fear or hate them. The second is that to love someone means you agree with everything they believe or do. Both are nonsense. You don’t have to compromise convictions to be compassionate.”

I know it is being examined more, meaning Warren’s context is becoming clear (and it is currently being used out of context by most people using it). With apologies to Rick Warren, I want to look at the current use of the quote by most people on Facebook and not his original intention for it.

Most people are currently using it to say that they are being unfairly labeled as bigoted or homophobic just because they disagree with marriage equality. They are innocently and lovingly standing beside their convictions and are getting demonized for doing so.

I have to call BS.

I have met very few Christians that just stop with “disagreeing with a person’s lifestyle.” Even if that were so, they don’t even understand how using the word “lifestyle” is offensive to, well… anyone you apply it to. Would you like to be referred to as someone living a “heterosexual lifestyle”? Would you like your whole life defined by what you do in the bedroom?  Because people so love being minimized to one aspect of their being.

Where else could this minimization come from? Fear and/or hate. Sorry to play the honest blunt card.

But if that was where most Christians stopped, I would still understand the use of the Warren quote out of sheer ignorance of how hurtful your words are. But they don’t stop there. They stay silent while gay students commit suicide because they don’t want to be seen as “affirming the gay lifestyle.” I even know a Christian that wouldn’t stand up for a heterosexual effeminate boy because they could still get “lumped in with gays.” They say they love all people but then mock “Liberals” about their “gay agendas” with words that would piss Jesus off. And I can’t count the number of times a Christian has told me privately how saddened or disgusted they are when they see a gay couple holding hands.

This is all just “disagreeing”?

BS I say. BS.

The church has bought into the lie that we can be complete buttwipes behind people’s backs as long as we say we love them in public… but don’t actually DO anything to show that we love. And then when we get busted we whine and post stuff like the Rick Warren quote out of context to blow a smokescreen over our own sin.

If Jesus was standing in the flesh in front of you right now and you told him “I don’t fear or hate people that are different that are gay” – would he agree with you or rebuke you? The New Testament is full of stories about people that tried to justify themselves as “good” to Jesus, only to find themselves the receiving end of a loving rebuke.

Why Rand Paul is Not My Hero

So I posted a few times on Facebook yesterday my problems with Rand Paul fighting against Obama’s Drone Assassination Program (or whatever it is called – which I am against for the record) while voting for things much worse in the past. I was immediately inundated with questions along the line of “what on Earth can be worse than killing American citizens on American soil without an American trial?”

Well, honestly, I can think of a lot of things a lot worse. Like a small girl being abducted from her parents and forced into slavery for her whole life. Teenagers that get bullied to the point of committing suicide. Elderly people that are found dead in their houses because they were abandoned and neglected. And so on. You get the picture. To me, systemic instances of sustained abuse and neglect or a much “worse” problem (if we had to rate them – they are all pretty bad in reality and rating the “worst” seems a bit superfluous).

We will all have differing opinions oh how to rate how “bad” something is. But if your first thought is to start bringing up American rights and American citizenship as the “worst possible thing a politician can vote against”, I have to seriously wonder about your priorities. Especially if you are a Christian and claim your first allegiance is to God and His purposes on the Earth, not man’s institutions.

But anyway, back to Rand Paul. He spent something like 13 hours in a filibuster to stop illegal assassinations of U.S. citizens. I agree that we should not assassinate American citizens. Or citizens of any other country for that matter. But even if Obama assassinated everyone he wanted to, it would affect something like 0.00001% of the American population.

So Rand Paul will spend 13 hours to fight for the rights of a small amount of Americans, but then vote against the Violence Against Women Act, which extends help to hundreds of thousands of victims of crime (if not more). And we are talking about real victims, not possible assassination attempts that may or may not happen in reality. That, to me, is despicable  “But, but, but, there was this attachment or his belief in…” Whatever. B.S. He voted for a whole slew of other Bills that had attachments to them that he has stated he opposes, just because he agreed with the core bill.

Then he votes against the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act, designed to give aid to victims of Hurricane Sandy. Because the last thing people need when their house is destroyed is help. They need to have Obama’s Drone Program shut down. Obviously.

So if you want to call someone a hero who won’t extend legal help to victims of violent crimes or natural disasters just because he took a stand against political assassinations  you are free to do that. If you claim to follow the Bible though, you are reading it wrong.

Sometimes it really disturbs me who people that claim to follow Christ lift up as examples for others, the issues they fight over, and the stances they take on those issues. Sometimes it seems like we care more about logically defending the second amendment than living out the second greatest commandment. You don’t think so? What would people deduce from your Facebook posts? What would a victim of rape think about you calling someone life Rand a hero, when he voted against the very bill that helped her in tremendous ways?

Not to mention that Rand voted against tax breaks for the middle class and small businesses. I can’t read his mind to know why, but since many of those bills also called for increased taxes on the rich and large businesses…. you have to wonder. In fact, if you really think about it…. who would be on this Obama Assassination List anyways? You have to wonder if some like Rand is worried that Obama might put outspoken political opponents on that list. So are the people standing against this List really looking out for the average man or woman on the street…. or their own necks? If they are voting against bills that obviously do help every day citizens, while spending a long time in a filibuster against an idea that doesn’t really help that many people… you just have to wonder.

I agree with stopping the president from violating the constitution. But to call someone a Hero for doing that? Really? No, the real heroes are the ones out there fighting against slavery and poverty and injustice here and around the world. Organizations like Freedom Firm that are actually going in and rescuing underage girls from forced prostitution (some of which might end up in the United States at some point). Or bands like Aradhna that work to raise funds for Freedom Firm. In America there are organizations like the Traffic Jam Campaign that does similar work. And a thousand more groups like these.

Those people are the real heroes.