Genesis, Creation, and Ancient Interpreters, Part II

Science and the Sacred: Genesis, Creation, and Ancient Interpreters, Part II Peter Enns

We saw last week that wisdom was represented as a woman in Proverbs. (We looked at Proverbs 8:22-31, but you can see it almost anywhere in Proverbs 1-9.) This is called “personification,” i.e., when human traits are given to something abstract to make it seem more concrete. We do this today, for example by referring to death as the Grim Reaper. …

… Some interpreters found a clever way of “seeing” Wisdom in Genesis 1:1, by associating her with the word “beginning.” Remember that in Proverbs 8:22 God made Wisdom “the beginning of his works.” “Beginning” is the same Hebrew word in Genesis 1:1. Some early interpreters saw this as a “hook” to bring the Wisdom of Proverbs 8 into Genesis 1:1.

This move is seen in two Targums to Genesis 1:1:

With wisdom did God create and perfect the heavens and the earth (Fragment Targum to Genesis 1:1)

In the beginning with wisdom did God create (Targum Neophyti to Genesis 1:1)

It is not clear whether wisdom is personified in these Targums, but that is neither here not there. In the minds of these interpreters, there was a need to see wisdom in Genesis 1 but not as a created being. “Beginning” is the hook that allows it. …

… As much as we today might look at this imaginative approach as subjective and uncontrolled, ancient interpreters felt they were doing precisely what God wanted them to. Actually, these ancient interpreters felt that, by leaving things unsaid, God was actually inviting them to “fill in the gaps.”

But before we are too hard on these interpreters for “making things up,” we need to take the log out of our own interpretive eye first. We might agree or disagree with what ancient interpreters said about wisdom, but we should not be too hard on them for filling in the gaps. We also fill in the gaps when we read. Let me give one example.

If you talk to anyone who has grown up familiar with the story of Jesus’ birth, they will be able to recount the story with ease. Mary rides into Bethlehem on a donkey, led by Joseph. She is about to give birth but one insensitive innkeeper after another turns them away. They make their way to a manger, and after Jesus is born, the three wise men come and present him with gifts, surrounded by farm animals.

This is very familiar, but the problem is that much of this is not really in the text but in the “gaps.” Read Luke 2:1-7. There is no donkey, no mean innkeeper(s), no manger (rather a feeding trough), no three wise men (no number is not given, let alone the traditional names of Melchior, Caspar, and Belthasar), no farm animals.

We fill in the gaps, too….

… Whatever ancient interpreters might have made up, at least they were typically very conscious of what they were doing and very intentional in how they did it. We today are not always as self-conscious about what we say the Bible says. …

I'm looking forward to the rest of the series.