Hallelujah

While attending Oklahoma Christian College as a fresman, I heard a rumor around campus that a professor couldn't teach there unless he or she signed a statement acknowldging that the 1st 11 chapters of Genesis were literal. I didn't understand the ramifications of signing such a statement because I was just out of high school. And truly, I couldn't believe that someone could believe some other way than the literal interpretation of the 1st 11 chapters of Genesis.

By the time I was in my late 20s, I was hearing and reading about a flood story that the Sumerians had written that predated the Genesis material. It was at that point that I began doing timelines and reading archaeological and historical books about the ancient time periods. Then, I understood the dating of the Biblical books much better. During my 30s then, I had to come to a different understanding of the Bible. I also encountered a very different way of knowing how the Bible itself was put together through a theory called JEPD, after the names for God and the priestly ways of preserving the law. After translating a number of books of the New Testament, gaining a perspective of the influence of manuscript traditions, and discovering linguistic principles about the multiple meanings of words, I had to shift away from the literal interpretation of the Bible.

I went through my 40s learning more and continually shifting and shifting away from ideas such as inspiration of the Bible if it meant, as I had been trained as a youth, God's actual thinking through the hands of the humans involved in penning the books. I was finally able to see that if Genesis had been written around 1300 BCE and the Sumerian flood story had been written about 3000BCE, then it appeared that at the very least, the Hebrews had been transmitting stories from one generation to the next for 1000 years. About 1/2 way through that time span, Abram migrated from Sumeria (at least from the upper Mesopotamian area). God revealed himself to Abram, so the name of the maker of the flood and the causes were different, but the other details had been left intact. I finally understood what Oklahoma University had asked their professors to declare. By this time in my life, I also knew that I would never have been able to sign such a declaration. Even the Garden of Eden stories now had Sumerian prototypes. The names for God were different, but much of the story had been left as the Hebrews presented it hundreds of years later.

Just recently I ran across some information in a documentary that served as a crowning proof that any of the great stories of the Bible had literal value. The Garden of Eden was the topic of the documentary. It was interesting and plausible. But with 10 minutes left in the program, the editors of the program mentioned the keribda (cherubim) of the Garden. As it turns out, Keribda guard cities and important places in the ancient Mesopotamian area. They were winged creatures with the face of a wolf or dog, much like the Greek griffins. When Adam had been driven from the Garden, according to the Bible, Cherubim had been placed at the entrance to the garden so that Adam could not reenter it. Yet again, the Bible has its roots in some fanciful tales of the ancient Sumerians.

This information caused no surprise or stir for me. I had long ago given up the literal understanding of anything in the 1st 11 chapters of Genesis and maybe for Genesis itself. Many people see this stance as heretical. Some see it as just a misjudgment on my part. Others hope that this understanding is a phase in my life. What it has done is to liberate me from bibliolatry, worship of the Book. What it has done is to allow me to see the Old Testament more as a human record of humanity's attempt to worship a deity. What it has done is to show me the authentic, unique nature of Jesus, God's son, against a backdrop of human attempts to worship God. What it has done is to drive me closer to the presence of a modern, real, active God- a God not based or bound by tradition or by book(Bible) reading. My faith is much more vibrant now than it ever would have been. Hallelujah!