I went on a retreat earlier this spring and the person who was
leading my discussion group happened to have an M.Div and his thesis focused
on the Old Testment (OT) and was currently workingg towards a PhD in the
area. In one of the free times i asked him about various issues relating to
the OT and one of them was on the Genesis 1. He didn't share with me his
opinion, which is what i asked him about, rather he challenged me with this
statement, which i will paraphrase:
If you take the first five books of the OT, known as the pentetuke (sp), as
and look at it as literature (not denying its inspiration or religous
importance) it is the story of the Jewish people's progression to the
towards promised land. If this is the case, Genesis is important because
the Garden of Eden could be thought of as the promised land (recall the
garden is generally thought of being somewhere near there [gen.2:10-14]),
and God is restoring his people to the promised land after the fall of Adam
and Eve. Furthermore, perhaps Genesis 1 is not talking of the creation of
mn and the earth, but the promised land (garden of eden) and the only verses
that re relly deling with the creation of the universe is the first two
(i.e. In the begining...).
This was not his opinion, but he was merely repeating what some talmudic
rabbi's thought of Genesis 1 in the middle ages.
Several questions:
1) Have any of you heard this opinion before? And if so do you have any
references?
2) How does this affect the current debate on any apparent contradiction
between genesis 1 & 2 ?
3) What do you think of this theory ?
john misasi
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John Misasi, Senior Research Technician
jmisasi@bu.edu
@engc.bu.edu
http://eng.bu.edu/CAB/jmisasi.html
Center for Advanced Biotechnology Home Page
http://eng.bu.edu/CAB
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