Look Out, Tim's a Professor

Starting in August, I will be teaching Old Testament Lit for Hutch Community College. (See, putting that master's degree to work). So as I think about how to approach this, I have decided that my first question to my class will be "When it comes to the Bible, specifically the Old Testament, are you a literalist or not?" The whole point of this question is to show the class that, while the Bible is the inerrant word of God, sometimes you can't really interpret it literally.

Here's the proof, if you read the two creation stories in Genesis 1 and 2, you will see that the order in which God created is not the same. In Gen 1 God created humans (male and female) at the same time. In Gen 2, God created the male first, then the animals, then the female. Now if you are a literalist, these two stories contradict and therefore making Genesis non believable.

If you interpret the creation stories in a more general sense you find that the chronology of creation is not as important as the as the fact that God created.

Next question I will ask, which creation story was written first, Gen 1 or 2? Here's the answer, more than likely Gen 2. I would invite you to take a minute and read Gen 2, you can see the beauty and the visualization, almost like a poem. You could interpret this to mean that it was a good period for the nation of Israel and they were in favor with God. Now, look at Gen 1 and more specifically, notice how often the chapter says "it was good" (it meaning the part of creation that took place), and also notice how structured the writing is, more like this story was meant to be memorized. Chances are when Gen 1 was written the nation of Israel was in a period of captivity and the only way to learn was by the recitation of God's word. (In all likely hood, any writings were destroyed by the captors). And like I mentioned before Gen 1 continually mentions that creation was good, this must have been one way of keep morale somewhat lifted during the particular period of captivity.

Interesting isn't it? Just so you all know, for the longest time I was a literalist when it came to the Bible. But once I learned that in some instances being literal is flawed, I had to unlearn a lot of flawed theology and relearn and rebuild my own theology to be more in sync with what I feel is right. Plus, I didn't want to be know as a radical right-winged fundamentalist.