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Evangelicals often read the creation account in Genesis 1 as straightforward history but I’ve been suggesting that we need to pay attention to the literary features of the text and its ancient Near Eastern background. The text is historical narrative, I affirm, but also literary and figurative. This raises three questions that we need to address.
[Read more…]I can still remember holding that tiny little baby (5.0 lbs, 16.75 in) and thinking to myself, only eighteen years with her! Well, time has flown by and Elisabeth turned eighteen in June. Since Slovakia has a thirteen year school system she still has one more year to go, but she’s looking to the future: college in the States, developing her voice talents and driving (have to be 18 in Slovakia).
[Read more…]The creation account of Genesis 1 is divided into six days of creation and one day of rest. Each day of creation ends with the same two clauses: “And there was evening and there was morning, day 1,” “…evening…morning…the second day,” etc. To us, it seems perfectly clear that day means a 24 hour period. Why else would he say, “And there was evening, and there was morning…?” So why do some interpreters, like myself, say it’s possible that Moses uses “day” in a non plain-language way?
[Read more…]Remember the Creation Project from way back in 2016? I have a commitment to the Templeton Religion Trust and the Henry Center for Theological Understanding to publish two articles on the topic of the proper way to read the creation account in Genesis 1. I’ve finally sent off the first article to see if a journal will accept it for publication.
[Read more…]It’s time to bring together the material from the last two posts to show how Moses makes a brilliant literary move in his Genesis 1 creation account. What does he do? He takes the normal ANE metaphor “the temple is creation” and reverses it to “creation is a temple.” This literary move has huge theological implications.
[Read more…]Memes are a modern phenomenon that we associate with social media. But in a way, memes are as old as human culture. In this post, I want to think about the idea of “temple” as a meme in the ancient Near East that served as a way for people to understand their place in creation, especially their place in relation to God. We’ll see how the idea of temple, like a meme, was transferrable to different contexts. Then we’ll be ready for the next post, when we’ll see how Genesis 1 uses the temple meme to communicate theological truths about creation.
[Read more…]For a couple of years now, Jana’s teaching responsibilities have been expanding. She started at Narnia Elementary School with after school English musicals (remember, English is a foreign language for these kids). Then they needed to fill in a gap and asked her to teach first graders English and then also Music (her Music Together training has come in handy for both of those classes). This year, Jana began teaching her first graders evangelical religion for the first time.
[Read more…]When last I wrote I announced that we were planning our home assignment for this summer and that “we’re hoping this year will be no exception” to our regular biennial schedule. But even then (March 15), the coronavirus had already been declared a pandemic and now we know this year is, indeed, an exception.
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