The Bible Creation Stories

The two creation stories in the first two chapters of Genesis are theological treasures worthy of considerable study and contemplation. They differ from each other in starting point and order of creation, presumably because they are based on two different oral traditions passed down in different parts of the world and originating at different times. Scholars consider the Genesis 2 story to be much older than the Genesis 1 story.

We have learned much about the universe God created so our 21st century viewpoints about how that creation occurred are certain to be different from the viewpoints and understandings of a people occupying a tiny part of the universe, their known world, thousands of years ago.

Excuse me for making a statement that may upset some readers, but I have no trouble considering that God, outside of time and space as we know them, may have created this universe through an evolutionary process. I think it is fair to say that the methods in Genesis, by speaking and by hand, are examples of anthropomorphism, the assignment of human qualities to God, a considerably different process from what it means to say that God created us in his image. It seems more appropriate to consider that creation statement as referring to spiritual and perhaps mental image rather than to physical image. What ever the means of creation, The God-Inspired theological truths are the same. It was definitely not “atheistic evolution.”

The creation information chart below was first designed during a 2003 Old Testament Theology course at the Columbia SC Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary. Recent revisions were cosmetic and formatting changes to improve readability. The fundamental information remains the same.

Please take a look and do a little contemplating. I welcome comments and observations.

John 3:16 – Gospel in a Nutshell…with Context

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. – John 3:16 King James Version (KJV)

Importance of Context

Richer understanding of these beautiful, encouraging, and famous words from the Gospel of St. John results from consideration of context, an essential step in correct interpretation and understanding of Sacred Scripture. Writers of the books of the Bible did not divide them up into chapters and verses. The divisions we commonly see in current English versions are only about 600 years old. So, St. John might be quite disturbed to find that Christians are going around quoting that single statement from his theologically deep and profound story of Jesus’s encounter with Nicodemus, taken from his even deeper and more profound Gospel, often not even knowing from whence the sentence came.

OT – NT Connections and Paragraphs

Speaking of verses and chapters, and the OT connections, some translations even go so far as to add paragraphs. I’m not a student of typology so have never given serious thought to those OT connections with Moses and with Abraham and Isaac, connections that were very important to first century Jewish understanding of who Jesus was and to correct understanding of the meaning of this encounter with Nicodemus. The online New American Bible, Revised Edition shows verses 14 and 15,  a reference to Moses and the serpent, at the end of a paragraph and John 3:16 as the beginning of a new paragraph. Given the apparent only son sacrifice connection between God/Jesus and Abraham/Isaac, I believe I would begin a new paragraph with verse 14. But, that is just an idea of course.

The Whole Story

We can be easily misled and even build heresies on single “verses” pulled out of context and perhaps even by single books pulled out of context. John 3:16, correctly understood, is true, the Gospel in a nutshell, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. Where are the Beatitudes and the Our Father? They are not in the Gospel According to St. John.  And with only John’s Gospel, we learn nothing about the birth, baptism, temptation, or transfiguration of Jesus Christ, and find no mention of repentance. So, in seeking the whole truth, we have to consider the Sacred Scriptures in their entirety.

Translation Difficulties

Another issue, even with single verses, is difficulty in translation of ancient Greek and Hebrew into meaningful modern English language. The Greek word usually translated “believe” really means trust and goes far beyond mere intellectual belief. Below is what a Bible Greek dictionary says about the word and about the following little three-letter Greek word which is translated “in” or “into” and, according to the Greek Bible dictionary, “denotes purpose and sometimes result.” One could say that since the verb can be translated “believe in,” the verb plus the preposition gives double emphasis much as when Jesus proclaims “I Iam” or “Amen amen.” All three examples are characteristic of the Gospel of John.

And here is what the subject verse looks like in Greek, the two key words being highlighted in yellow. More information HERE.

It is interesting to see how various translators of English versions have handled that little highlighted Greek phrase. Of fifty-six versions checked, fifty-two translate it as belief in or on. The Amplified Bible hedges the bet a bit by translating as “believes and trusts.” The Amplified Bible Classic Edition adds parenthetically “(trusts in, clings to, relies on).” The Contemporary English Version translates as “has faith in.” The New Life Version translates as “puts his trust in.” The Complete Jewish Bible translates as “trusts in.” So, even without looking at the Greek, insights can be gained from considering how different translators have handled the problem.

A Simple Example

To take a simple example to illustrate the difference between believing that and believing in or into, it is one thing to believe that global warming is real but something entirely different to “believe into” global warming which might result in getting off the grid and going 100% solar, giving up driving, beef, air conditioning, moving to higher ground further north, shutting down the churches as unjustified energy consumers, etc. In Bible Greek terms, in John’s Gospel, believing in or into something means a change in one’s life. (I’m not suggesting that we all “believe in” global warming. I think that is, or at least should be, more political than religious.)

Occurrences of That Two-Word Greek Phrase

An interesting fact about the two-word Greek phrase highlighted above is that it never occurs in Matthew, Mark, or Luke but occurs 14 times in John, once in 1st John, and once in Acts. For the really curious, here are all sixteen occurrences, NABRE English but based on a search of the Greek Phrase.

believe in verses

Pushy Atheists and Weak Christians

“Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.”

– G. K. Chesterton

What made me think of that Chesterton quote was an article, Atheists Debate How Pushy to Be, in the October 16 New York Times. The article reported on an early October Los Angeles Council for Secular Humanism conference of folks opposed to religion. Well-known heroes of the group are Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Bill Maher. During the conference, such deep questions as, “How publicly scornful of religion should we be?” were dealt with. There was also discussion on “alternative ethical systems” that do not depend on any deity. There was tension and discord. Humanists interested in seeking common ground with religious people were accused of being “accomodationists” while the most militant atheists were tagged “confrontationalists.” It almost sounds like a description of a group of “religious” folks meeting. (I think that is actually what they are.)

 

Of course skeptics get much of their energy and inspiration from religious folks such as Rev. Ronald Allen who, in an attack on homosexuality, offered us this challenge in a Letter to the Editor of The State Newspaper today: “Think about it: If any word in the Bible is wrong, then every word in the Bible would be suspect, and the Bible would not be the word of God. But God cannot be wrong, and his word cannot be wrong, whether we like what it teaches or not.” I just can’t believe that persons who take such simplistic views of the Bible are reading it carefully and paying close attention to the words. I think they must be reading it looking for confirmation of what they already believe and completely missing or ignoring anything that challenges what they believe. And such statements make great fodder for the critics and encourage them to be even more pushy.

 

But back to the work of the LA anti-religion conference. Of course it is quite easy to have a system of ethics without any reference to God or religion. Any group of people can get together and decide what rules they will live by and what the consequences of breaking the rules will be. But, they, like many Christians, would be missing entirely the point that Christianity is not about rules and ethics. Christianity is about a personal relationship with Christ, dying to oneself and giving up everything to be one with Jesus in loving service to others. If you missed that, go back and read the New Testament again and then join me in confession and penance. If all Christians really lived as Jesus calls us to live, it would take all the wind out of the sails of the atheists, humanists, and skeptics.  It would be a permanent fix for many of the world’s problems. Shame on us for not doing just that.

 

I may sound a bit radical here, but just blame it on The New York Times from whence the idea came.

Septuagint Poetry

Daniel 3:57-87 is a beautiful and inspirational worship canticle (Biblical song or poem), part of the prayer of Abednego as he and his two friends strolled about in the flames of Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace, and a staple of Morning Prayer in the Liturgy of the Hours. But, it’s not in all Bibles. Here it is from the New American Bible.

Bless the Lord, all you works of the Lord, praise and exalt him above all forever.
Angels of the Lord, bless the Lord, praise and exalt him above all forever.
You heavens, bless the Lord, praise and exalt him above all forever.
All you waters above the heavens, bless the Lord, praise and exalt him above all forever.
All you hosts of the Lord, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.|
Sun and moon, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.
Stars of heaven, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.\
Every shower and dew, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.
All you winds, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.
Fire and heat, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.
Cold and chill, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.
Dew and rain, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.
Frost and chill, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.
Ice and snow, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.
Nights and days, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.
Light and darkness, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.
Lightnings and clouds, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.

Let the earth bless the Lord, praise and exalt him above all forever.

Mountains and hills, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.
Everything growing from the earth, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.
You springs, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.
Seas and rivers, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.

You dolphins and all water creatures, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.
All you birds of the air, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.
All you beasts, wild and tame, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.
You sons of men, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.

O Israel, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.

Priests of the Lord, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.
Servants of the Lord, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.
Spirits and souls of the just, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.
Holy men of humble heart, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.

The reason that canticle is not in all Bibles is because it is part of the Apocrypha (Protestant) or Deuterocanonical (Catholic) Scriptures. Many Protestant Bibles contain the Apocrypha in a separate and generally ignored section, but, in the Catholic Bible, its contents are distributed appropriately with other OT Scriptures. The Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament that was sacred scripture for the Christian Church from the time of Jesus until the Protestant Reformation contained the Deuterocanonical books. Read all about it HERE.

Remembering George Eastman

A Sad Death?

During a discussion about experiencing a happy death, I thought of an excellent example of what I have always assumed was a sad death, that of George Eastman, founder of Eastman Kodak. George Eastman was born July 12, 1854, and died March 14, 1932. His father, George Washington Eastman, died of a brain disorder when George was 8 years old, and his mother, Maria Kilbourn Eastman, began taking in boarders to support George and his two older sisters and pay for his education. George left school early and began working to help his mother support the family. He never married nor had any offspring but was devoted to his mother and sisters. His mother died in 1907, her final two years in a wheelchair, when George was 53. 


At age 30, in 1884, George patented the first photographic roll film, and four years later, the first camera designed to use that film to introduce photography to the masses. The business he developed and managed based on those inventions made him a very wealthy man. George became a leader in industrial relations, introducing “profit sharing” for all employees, a benefit I enjoyed during my 34 years as an employee, long after George’s death.


George donated more than $100M ($2B in today’s dollars) to various non-profits around the world. There was a focus on the arts, health and dental care for poor children, and two southern historically black universities.


Some spinal disorder in his final two years resulted in intense pain and difficulty standing or walking. He suffered depression, perhaps from his condition and remembering the lingering deaths and suffering of his parents. He committed suicide with a pistol shot to his heart and left this note: “To my friends, my work is done – Why wait? GE“


As an employee of Kodak, I never heard any reference to Mr. Eastman having any interest in faith or church or any connection with either. I guess I assumed he was just an unhappy atheist who committed suicide. But I wondered if there was more to the story and Googled something along the line of “Did George Eastman have any church or faith connections?” That brought up a fascinating story by a long time personal friend of Mr. Eastman, George E. Norton, Rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Rochester NY from 1923 to 1948. Included in that story were two faith related quotes from Mr. Eastman. The first is from a letter, a copy of which Pastor Norton had in his possession.


The second quote was made in person to Pastor Norton in response to Norton’s statement, following some church criticism by Eastman, that Eastman was not a member of the church and consequently didn’t know what he was talking about. Eastman replied, ” “Young man, who are you, and by what right do you think you can read me out of the church. I was baptised in St. Luke’s Church and I was confirmed by Bishop Cox. You can’t read me out of the church.”

The last paragraph in Pastor Norton’s story was about the funeral of George Eastman:


So, maybe the death of George Eastman wasn’t seen by him as sad. Maybe nobody had ever explained to Mr. Eastman the complicated theology of the Catholic Church, the benefits of its sacraments, the necessity of worship, and it’s view of suicide. Maybe nobody had invited him in. But it appears that he lead an unselfish life that resulted in better lives for thousands who enjoyed employment by him, preserved important memories with his inventions, or benefited from the generous distribution of his wealth. And, lest we get hung up on the suicide issue, there is this from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, CCC-2283. Of course only God knows how George Eastman’s life looked to him.


In the meantime, in hope for a happy death, let’s focus on “seeking first the Kingdom of God, the Our Father, the Commandments, the Beatitudes, the Gifts of the Spirit, the Virtues, and the Creed. Hmm, those are the same things suggested last week for protection from demons!


Footnote: And one truly sad death was the death of Eastman Kodak, the imaging company that failed to respond to the shift from silver halide to digital imaging and, after long and painful suffering, went bankrupt in January 2012. A healthy George Eastman would have not allowed that to happen.

From Chaos to the Church

 A Great Course

In January of this year an email from The Great Courses offering big discounts caught my eye. One course offered for only $25, Foundations of Western Civilization, inspired me. History of Western Civilization had been my toughest course as a Vanderbilt freshmen in the fall of 1960, and, while the title was slightly different, foundations vs. history, this looked like a good chance to make up for what I had missed in that course decades ago. I ordered it, and my wife and I enjoyed the 48 episodes, usually one per night, over the next few weeks. I recommend it. Buy and enjoy it (at their discount prices).

An interesting coincidence was that the lecturing professor, Thomas F. X. Noble of Note Dame, had been our son’s History of Western Civ. professor at the University of Virginia almost 40 years ago. Some Goggling of the professor led to “A Noble Farewell: Professor Retires After 41 Years.” In that 2015 article, the professor offered this memory:

“One difference between a public, secular university and a Catholic university, he explained, is that at the latter, “We are actually much freer to talk about things than they are.” He continued, “In public universities, there is kind of a soft left orthodoxy to which everyone must hue, or basically, keep your mouth shut. Whereas here we can actually talk about anything, which is really quite remarkable…it opens our capacity to explores and to investigates and to talk-and even to argue.”

Very interesting, but I believe that “soft left orthodoxy” may have hardened in the last eight years.

I mention this because it is a shame the students of 40 years ago at UVA didn’t get the same emphasis on Church history as we got in the current presentation by Professor Noble. The current version includes an episode titled The Hebrews – Small States and Big Ideas. Here are some phrases from that episode:

“Three central religious ideas contained in the Hebrew Bible constitute the key foundations of Western Civilization…The idea of the covenant…one God for one people, not a god for a place or a state…The idea of exclusive monotheism…The idea of ethical monotheism…and this: “Western literature is unimaginable without its fundamental formative text: the Bible.” I don’t recall getting that view in the Vanderbilt course.

More recently, I have struggled with some of the writings of G.K. Chesterton, a British writer of a century ago who never found an obscure word he didn’t like. But his thinking is profound. For example, he states that we cannot treat the Church as a child once we discover that she is our mother and the mother of our country, “much older and more aboriginal.” That is part of a discussion of confusion of patriotism, nationalism, and faith in God, always a serious current issue.

All these preliminaries are leading to presentation of an updated chart I have worked on over the past several years. It depicts, in simple terms, the first 2000 years of the Church, from God’s selection, preparation, and education of the pagan Hebrew people, through the Incarnation, to the establishment of The Church. Comments and observations are welcome. The chart is discussed in more detail in a post titled The Bible Story.

 

 

Miracles?

A Chesterton Quote Impossible to Remember

That quote is eight lines out of a 55 line paragraph in Chesterton’s book. Apparently Mr. Chesterton was never at a loss for words. Well, what’s my point?

For about three months, I have been choosing a few lines meaningful to me from Chesterton’s book and copying them into a Google document on my iPad. The goal is to have a better understanding of Chesterton’s interesting defence of orthodox theology which I find to be logical and rational. On the morning of May 14, 2023, the paragraph portion above was what I copied.

Maybe those words about miracles caught my attention because of my current situation, following various advised medical regimens after a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. The adventure started in the late summer of 2021 with a mild but not painful discomfort in my lower left abdomen. I could have easily continued to ignore it.

However, I got an early October appointment with my GP and after some discussion with him, wondered aloud if we couldn’t just do a scan to see if anything was going on. He said yes and, a couple of hours later, on a Friday afternoon, I was undergoing the scan. A couple of hours after that I got a call from the doctor saying that I would be seeing a surgeon the following week.

The surgeon took a look at the scan and, when I asked if he was going to do a biopsy, said no, that it didn’t matter what it was, it had to go. I guess he knew, from the scan, based on his experience, what it was. The early November surgery he scheduled resulted in removal of about half the pancreas, a few inches of duodenum, the spleen, and a few lymph nodes, two or three indicating malignancy.

After a month or so of surgery recovery, the oncologist started me on a six month chemo regimen. I took the summer of 2022 off, but a scan in early fall dictated a more intense chemo (Folfirinox) for six months. Then in early spring 2023, after a favorable scan, I was shifted to a less intense chemo (5-FU) which is ongoing. As of May 2023, I feel great, pretty much the same as summer of 2021 before the whole adventure started. A few days ago I rode my recumbent bike 20 miles in 75 minutes, a bit faster than four minutes per mile, and about what I was capable of two years ago. I am thankful.

Now, what about the miracle issue? Many people have told me during this ordeal that they are praying for me. I don’t know exactly what they are praying for but I love them and thank them for it. My own prayer for myself has been for fortitude, patience, peace, and joy, all fruits or gifts of the Holy Spirit, throughout the process, wherever it leads. I’m experiencing that now and give thanks for answered prayer, probably not of documentable miracle status.

I am personally attributing miracle status to, and thank God for, the inspiration that sent me to the doctor in October 2021. As I said in an earlier paragraph, the discomfort wasn’t that bad and could have been easily ignored. Without that early detection before lung or liver involvement, I suspect I would be dead or nearly so by this time. Life expectancy for stage 4 pancreatic cancer is 12 to 18 months.

My miracle is not dramatic like such as healing of a crippled man or a man born blind. I don’t believe I would be justified in asking for a miracle of that scale, or that I could ask with faith, and don’t intend to do so.

Of course the skeptic, relying on his or her “doctrine,” would say it was all luck, that I won a small prize at the lottery, or maybe just bad luck that I have the cancer at all, or maybe that the story isn’t over…I’m still going to die from pancreatic cancer. How pessimistic!

I could take full credit for the decision, talking about what a smart fellow I was to see the doctor and suggest a scan when I did. I’m not taking that route. My evidence of a miracle is that I feel good, am still serving and enjoying life, that the whole experience has been sobering, educational, and valuable, and that I am a slightly better person, perhaps better able to express sincere empathy, for having gone through the experience.

Thanks be to God for sending me to the doctor in October 2021. And may He continue to grant me fortitude, patience, peace, and joy throughout the process wherever it leads.

Catholic Teaching on Miracles

I know that my miracle wouldn’t meet miracle criteria established by my Church. Here is an article on the subject.

Bonus

 

For the curious: Educational Material on Pancreatic Cancer