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Defenders 3: Excursus on Creation of Life and Biological Diversity (Part 12): Examining the Supposed Parallels Between Genesis and Egyptian Myths
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Welcome to Defenders, the teaching class of Dr. William Lane Craig. Today the Creation of Life and Biological Diversity, Part 12. For more information and resources from Dr. Craig, go to reasonablefaith.org Last time we
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looked at the way in which the notion of myth is understood by scholars of folklore, and you'll recall that we said that a myth is a sacred narrative which seeks to ground or anchor present realities in a primordial time, and as Such, the first 11 chapters of Genesis would qualify as mythical. Now, let me say a couple of things about comments that were made in the discussion last week, on which I had a chance to reflect afterwards. Given the definition of myth that we're using, the folklorist's definition, this is not the same sense that Tolkien and Lewis spoke of myth when they said that Christianity or the Gospel is the true myth. They're thinking there of the notion of myth as a sort of archetypal idea which is truly embodied in in the Christian faith and in the message of the Gospel. But the Gospels themselves, the four Gospels are not of the genre of myth. They are not traditional sacred narratives which try to anchor present realities in some prehistoric time. Rather, scholars of the Gospels have determined that the genre to which the Gospels belong is ancient biography, like the famous Lives of Greeks and Romans by Plutarch. And as such, the Gospels have a historical interest in giving an accurate historical portrayal of the subject of the biography. So it's important to understand that in the sense in which we're using the word myth, the Gospels do not belong to that genre. They are not myths. Rather, they are ancient biographies. In the discussion as well, someone asked if I could think of a good example of literary dependence that has been demonstrated since I expressed skepticism about the efforts of many Old Testament scholars to show the dependence of stories of Genesis 1 to 11 in ancient near Eastern mythology. And as I reflected on this at home, it occurred to me that there is one very good example of this, and this would be the Epic of Gilgamesh, which is an ancient Sumerian Babylonian poem recounting the exploits of Gilgamesh. And the Gilgamesh story originally did not include a flood story. The oldest versions of Gilgamesh have no flood story. Rather, this is to be found in another ancient epic, Mesopotamian poem called Atrahazis. And what scholars have found is that in the most recent or standard accounts of the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Atrahazis flood story has been incorporated into into the Gilgamesh epic. Indeed, in some places it's verbatim repetition of the Atrahasis flood story. Now, given the verbatim linguistic parallels, as well as the similar context of the flood story in Gilgamesh and the flood story in Atrahasis, this seems to be a truly genuine parallel between Gilgamesh and the Atrahasa's flood story. The flood story in Gilgamesh seems to be borrowed from or dependent upon Atrahasis. Moreover, since the Atrahasa story is older, going back to at least the second millennium B.C. whereas the standard version of the Gilgamesh story is much more recent, the causal connection between them cannot be from Gilgamesh to Atrahazis, and Atrahasis is the older account, and so the causal line would be drawn from Atrahasis to Gilgamesh. So this would seem to be a case in which the criteria that Samuel Sandmel laid out of showing truly parallel texts in context with a causal connection between them that is asymmetric would seem to be pretty convincingly demonstrated. Now, what we also saw that was very interesting is that neither the Atrahasis account nor the original flood story in Gilgamesh after Atrahazis was incorporated into it included the episode of the release of the birds to see if the land was dry and it was safe to exit the ark. That gets added to the Gilgamesh epic later on and is attested no earlier than about 750 BC. So that raises the question as to where the Epic of Gilgamesh got the bird episode, which was added then to the flood story borrowed from Atrahasis. I explained last time that too many Old Testament scholars have succumbed to the affliction of parallel Omania, that is to say, trying to show that one narrative is dependent upon another by examining details taken out of context. And this results in cherry picking that can be very misleading in demonstrating alleged independence. Now, just this week in my reading, I encountered a paradigm example of this sort of cherry picking. In his book Creation Accounts in the Ancient near east and the Bible, Richard Clifford has this to say about the relationship between the Epic of gilgamesh and Genesis 1:11. He says such kaleidoscopic reuse of traditional materials may seem strange to modern readers, but ancient authors evidently liked to put familiar objects in new contexts. Now, here Clifford actually appears to endorse cherry picking, that is to say, comparing details of narratives without appeal to their context, and he gives as his example certain details in the story of Gilgamesh. Now, by way of background, Gilgamesh was a warrior king who was able to defeat every challenger that came against him, and the gods made for Gilgamesh close companion and aide named Enkidu, who was originally a hairy wild man that became then a bosom friend of Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh and Quito were, if you will, the Tom Brady and Julian Edelman of Mesopotamian mythology. Now, Clifford draws the following parallel between the Gilgamesh story and Genesis. The naked and animal, like Enkidu, acquires wisdom from his seven day dalliance with a prostitute. Afterward, she clothes him and leads him to the city of Uruk and its king, Gilgamesh. Okay, that's the account in Gilgamesh. I'll reread that. The naked and animal, like Enkidu, acquires wisdom from his seven day dalliance with a prostitute. Afterwards, she clothes him and leads him to the city of Uruk and and its king, Gilgamesh. All right, you ready for this? Here's the parallel with Genesis. Genesis rearranges these same traditions to describe the institution of marriage. Now, this is parallelomania and to my mind constitutes the reductio ad absurdum of the cherry picking methodology. Now, Miller and Soden are are guilty, I fear, of the same sort of cherry picking, even if not as egregious. Consider their most important claim about the primordial states being a dark, watery chaos in both Genesis and the Egyptian myths. Genesis chapter one, verse two says the earth was without form and void and and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. And this is supposed to resemble the primordial state in Egyptian myths. Now, as I said last week, I'm certainly open to following the evidence where it leads, but I think that Miller and Soden have been very sloppy in drawing these alleged parallels between Genesis 1:2 and Egyptian creation myths. And I want to make two points about their claim of parallelism. First, the two states, when examined in context, are not truly parallel. When examined in context, the two states are not truly parallel. It's important to understand that in various Egyptian cosmogonic, or rather theogonic myths, what's at stake is an ancient philosophical problem called the one and the many. That is to say, how does one explain the underlying unity of the world behind the multiplicity that we observe in the world? And these Egyptian myths seek to derive multiplicity from a primal monism. In these myths, water and darkness symbolize the undifferentiated primordial state of the unbounded One with a capital O, from which all multiplicity emerges. For example, Coffin text number 76 contains one of the earliest references to the qualities of the primordial state. Atum, one of the Egyptian gods, is here speaking in the first person, and he says, I am the begetter of repeated millions. Out of the flood, out out of the waters, out of the darkness, out of lostness. Eric Hornung, an Egyptologist, in his book Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt, the One and the Many explains that the Egyptian language had a special negative verb form, one use of which was to describe how things were before creation. When something was not yet. He says, the spatial nature of the world is negated. Earth and sky have not yet come into being. Before creation there were not yet two things. There is no thing that is no matter. This is an expression of the Egyptian view that before creation there was just undifferentiated unity which could not be divided into two distinct things. Now this primordial one is both everything and yet paradoxically also non existent. Non existence is one and undifferentiated. The creator God in these myths emerges from the non existent, which marks the beginning of the process of things coming into being by differentiating himself into the plurality of millions of things. According to Hornung, the non existent signified negatively that which is inchoate, undifferentiated and unlimited, and affirmatively, it is that which is absolute or fundamental. In contrast to the non existent existent, things are clearly defined and are restricted by boundaries and distinctions. The Jewish commentator Nahum Sarna suggests that the reason that water seemed to the ancients the appropriate representation of the primordial state was because of its amorphous nature. Now, in contrast to this monistic picture, the state of the primitive earth in Genesis 1:2 is not an undifferentiated unity or chaos. Despite the careless statements of many commentators, much less is it non existent. It is just a primeval ocean cloaked in darkness. It is not unbounded or universal, but rather it exists on the earth which is distinct from God. It is covering. The land which will eventually emerge from has a surface over which the Spirit of God is moving, and therefore it is bounded. It is not characterless. It's the same water that will eventually fill the seas and in which marine life will thrive. It's the same water that will fall from the sky as rain and nourishment the land. It is not unordered or chaotic. It has the typical properties of water with which ancient Israelites would have been familiar, such as liquidity, weight, surface tension, solubility, buoyancy, and potability. The primeval ocean is no more a chaos than is a ravaged desert landscape which the Bible also describes as without form and void. The Hebrew expression is tohu Wabohu. The only other place besides Genesis 1:2 that this is found in the Bible is Jeremiah 4:23 Jeremiah 4:23, where it describes the land as the judgment of God has fallen upon it. Reading From Jeremiah chapter 4, verse 20 and following disaster follows hard on disaster. The whole land is laid waste. I looked on the earth, and lo, it was waste and void. Tohu wabohu and to the heavens and they had no light. I looked on the mountains, and behold they were quaking and all the hills moved to and frozen. I looked and lo there was no man, and all the birds of the air had fled. I looked and lo, the fruitful land was a desert and all its cities were laid in ruins before the Lord, before his fierce anger. Jeremiah is here describing a war torn land as an uninhabitable waste and similarly the primeval earth was an uninhabitable waste. The New Testament scholar. David Tsumura has rightly said that the phrase tohu wabohu and I quote has nothing to do with primeval chaos. It simply refers to the earth as an unproductive and uninhabited place. Now just how wrong headed it is to see this primeval state as chaos is evident from the Genesis story of the flood found in Genesis 7, verses 17 to 24. Genesis 7:17 24. The flood returns the earth to its primeval condition, this desolate waste of water. But it is obviously not again, despite many commentators careless statements, a state of chaos. The state of the earth when Noah's ark was floating on the surface of the waters is not a chaos. The sun and the moon and the stars are still shining above. The boat is floating on the surface of the waters. The waters are filled with marine life, and the boat is full of animals and men. The waters cover the mountains which will eventually emerge from beneath the surface of the water and be seen as mountains. This is definitely not chaos. An ancient Israelite would probably have pictured the state described in Genesis 1:2 and to be like a pitch black night out on the Mediterranean Sea when no moon and stars were visible. This was a condition which seafaring peoples known to Israel. See Genesis 10 for example, in the Table of Nations. It lists many seafaring peoples with whom Israel was familiar as well as during the monarchy. See First Kings 10:22 First Kings 10:22 concerning Solomon's fleet of ocean going vessels that sailed out of the Gulf of Aqaba. Both these seafaring peoples and the Israeli sailors would themselves have been familiar with this condition on a pitch black night out on the open sea. This state of affairs is wholly unlike the primal monadic condition envisioned in Egyptian mythology. The state in Egyptian mythology is much more akin to the Greek philosopher Plotinus1, which is beyond being and is the source from which all multiplicity emanates. In fact, the primeval state that is described in Genesis 1:2 much more closely resembles the state which is described in North American Indian creation myths, which feature a kind of primeval ocean in darkness, than these Egyptian myths. And therefore I think Miller and Soden have been all too quick and careless in drawing these supposed parallels. Any question or discussion about that? First point that when the parallels, the alleged parallels are examined in context, they are not truly parallel. All right, second point of criticism, the claim that the primordial darkness and watery deep of Genesis 1:2 show the influence of Egyptian creation stories is rendered uncertain not merely by the fundamental difference between them, but but also by the fact that these same motifs of primordial darkness and water are so widely disseminated in creation myths around the world. According to the biblical scholar Kei Namazawa, myths about the world's origin in which the earth and sky were originally combined as one, whether as water alone or as a featureless substance or as a cosmic egg, can and I quote, be found among practically all peoples, being found, for example, even among North American Indian tribes. According to these myths, a formless substance existed in primordial darkness until its separation from the earth and sky, which marked then the beginning of the universe. Common to nearly all the myths is the idea of utter darkness before the separation of sky and earth, when light appeared for the first time. If you're interested in seeing some of these myths, take a look at the multi volume work edited by Gray, Louis Gray and McCullough, Lewis Gray and John Arnic McCullough. The Mythology of All Races this is a 13 volume work published between 1916 and 1933. It is somewhat dated now, but still useful in giving a survey of the world's mythologies. The Mythology of all races, 13 volumes, 1916-1933 Scholars who appeal to Egyptian influence upon the Genesis creation account have often failed to consider just how widespread the favorite motif is among the world's peoples. Their inductive sample, in other words, is too small. Myths tap deeply into the human psyche, and so we shouldn't be surprised to find that similar myths exist among unrelated peoples throughout the world. In order to demonstrate a causal connection between myths, it will be necessary to exclude the possibility that similar myths arose independently, which which is very difficult to do minimally. The theorist engaged in comparative studies of Genesis 1 to 11 needs to widen his comparison class beyond myths which have a possible causal connection with the primeval narratives so as to be sure that an alleged parallel and causal connection really exists rather than simply mere similarity. And the need to do this is especially urgent when the similarities are isolated elements in vastly different contexts, like monistic Egyptian theogonies. Any question or comment about that second point then? That these motifs are so common among the world's myths that it makes it difficult to prove that there's any causal connection with Egyptian myths in particular? All right. By way of summary then, the claim that Genesis 1:11 shares with ancient Near Eastern myths a common concern to anchor present realities in a primordial time is not securely grounded by attempts to show dependence of the biblical stories on Babylonian or Egyptian predecessors. The attempt to prove such dependence is fraught with conjecture and uncertainty. Rather, the claim is grounded in the commonality of themes and etiological concerns in the various myths. So any final discussion of that critique and that overriding point? The overriding point is that the classification of Genesis 1 to 11 as belonging to the category of myth is not to be grounded in exploring alleged parallels between the Egyptian stories, rather between the Genesis stories and the Egyptian and Babylonian stories. Rather, it will be grounded in showing that Genesis 1:11 explores similar themes themes and has similar etiological motifs of anchoring present realities in prehistoric times.
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Steve, I agree with everything you said. I was going to bring up a notion that happened to me several months ago. I was helping a guy who had gotten out of had come to the Lord again in prison and had gotten out and gotten a job at Napa Parks, had lost it. His wife had been falsely accused by her mother. He was in terrible shape, but the guy had a glow about him. He was trusting in the Lord. And I got out of the car, didn't have a coat on, it was cold. And he said don't have a coat. And I said I'm just rushing in. So I started talking to him and I helped him out and he said the Lord's just been blessing me, thinking if he took took away this job, he's got me another one. And a guy, he had an appointment to go get that but didn't have a way to get there. So I drove him around that day and the next day I ended up to get him out of debt and everything like that, $1,000. But he showed Me such amazing things he was saying. You know, God showed him. He was wondering how Moses could write Genesis. I mean, and then he said this way. He said, then I realized he was alive. Then I said, I don't think you mean that. I mean, Jesus was alive. You know, that's the story that's not said. No, no, no. God is in him. And so God was alive and could tell him what all Moses, what happened to Genesis. And so the narratives, the myths can be created by would have points of accuracy, as God chooses to enlighten people because his spirit is like God says, if you drew out his spirit, all flesh would die. And so Moses is able to tell you. And so it's common to a lot of myths because it's trying to tell us things deeper than we can comprehend. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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I want to say with regard to Miller and Soden, that I am really open to the evidence that they would bring forward. I don't see any incompatibility with saying an inspired author, inspired of God, might draw upon motifs from pagan myths and, as you say, express truths thereby. But honestly, I'm just not convinced when I look at these Egyptian myths. These scholars don't seem to understand what's at stake in them. You know, I often wonder, what in the world can a philosopher like me bring to this discussion with these Old Testament scholars and Assyriologists and so forth? Well, I think this illustrates it. These people, I don't think, have ever heard of the philosophical problem of the one and the many which occupied ancient philosophers. And I wonder if they've read Plotinus either, because once you are familiar with those, you see that what's described in these myths isn't anything like the orderly state that is described in Genesis 1:2 and again after the Flood. So I don't have a problem with saying that an inspired author might draw upon these sorts of things, but I'm just skeptical that this has been demonstrated. All right. Now, I have asserted that Genesis 1:11 exhibit the same concern with etiology, that is to say, trying to anchor present realities in a primordial time. But I haven't actually demonstrated that. I've asserted it, but I've not shown it. So what I want to do when we meet next time is to show that Genesis does share with ancient Near Eastern myths common themes like the creation of the world, the creation of mankind, the universal flood, and so forth, and that it also exhibits this etiological concern to ground realities that are present to the author of the Pentateuch in the primordial past of the primeval history in Genesis 1 to 11. So that will be our discussion for next time. Let's close with a word of prayer. And now may the God who gave the Lord Jesus to die for us to forgive our sins and reconcile us to Himself, give you strength and power to live holy and blameless lives pleasing to him through the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit, through Christ our Lord. Amen.
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The copyright for the the preceding material is held by Dr. William Lane Craig. For more go to reasonablefaith.org.