WEBVTT - The Thing Before the Beginning, Part 1 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:06.760 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:12.920 --> 0:00:14.640 Hey A you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:16.120 My name is Robert Lamb. 0:00:16.239 --> 0:00:19.160 And I am Joe McCormick. And in today's episode of 0:00:19.160 --> 0:00:21.880 Stuff to Blow Your Mind, I wanted to talk about 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:27.319 creation myths, in particular an aspect of creation myths that 0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:31.960 has always really interested me but which often felt kind 0:00:32.000 --> 0:00:37.040 of overlooked, especially in my early religious education, and that 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:42.760 element is what people imagine the world was like before 0:00:43.280 --> 0:00:44.400 the time of creation. 0:00:45.560 --> 0:00:49.680 M Yeah, this is a this is a tough one, right, 0:00:49.760 --> 0:00:51.960 I mean, because on one level, it's hard enough for 0:00:52.040 --> 0:00:54.800 us to imagine the world before we were born, much 0:00:54.920 --> 0:00:59.320 less some state of existence before the advent of humanity 0:00:59.560 --> 0:01:03.960 or the event everything that came before that. But it's 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:08.160 you know, it's a it's an important, you know, core contemplation. 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:11.520 You know, what existed before the observable universe, And it's 0:01:11.560 --> 0:01:14.520 such an enormous question. It's only only possible through human 0:01:14.560 --> 0:01:19.400 reason and self awareness building, allowing us to build out mythological, philosophical, 0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:23.880 and ultimately scientific models of phases of existence completely beyond 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:27.440 our time or beyond our observation, beyond our just you know, 0:01:27.640 --> 0:01:32.360 basic fathomability, and in a literal sense. The interesting thing 0:01:32.400 --> 0:01:34.800 is it does us absolutely no good as a species 0:01:35.040 --> 0:01:40.320 to form an understanding, incorrect or even partially correct, of 0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:42.800 of what such a period might have been like, or 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:44.880 to even call it a period. It may not even 0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:48.760 be accurate, But to even contemplate such a thing it does. 0:01:48.880 --> 0:01:51.440 It doesn't really give us a survival advantage or anything, 0:01:51.920 --> 0:01:55.279 But it is, I guess, to a large extent, urged 0:01:55.320 --> 0:01:59.320 onward by our deeply seated survival instinct to understand the 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:02.320 past in order to better navigate present in future threats. 0:02:02.800 --> 0:02:06.040 Absolutely right, it pays to understand the past, But does 0:02:06.080 --> 0:02:08.760 it pay to understand what came before the past? Are 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:13.520 there lessons to learn from that? But it is actually 0:02:13.639 --> 0:02:18.200 a question worth examining when you're looking at religious or 0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:22.799 mythological creation narratives, because one thing you will notice if 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:25.919 you start reading a bunch of these stories is that 0:02:26.240 --> 0:02:30.720 a lot of them are actually not very well captured 0:02:30.880 --> 0:02:35.040 by the English word creation, because, at least in English, 0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:40.120 at least today in English, the word creation, I think, 0:02:40.200 --> 0:02:45.480 tends to make people imagine the manufacturing of new materials 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:49.800 or substances that did not previously exist. 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:50.799 So if you think. 0:02:50.639 --> 0:02:54.320 About the act of cosmic creation in that way, bringing 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:58.480 new substances into existence, bringing the world into existence out 0:02:58.520 --> 0:03:01.480 of nothing, then it doesn't make a lot of sense 0:03:01.520 --> 0:03:04.960 to talk about what the world was like before creation, 0:03:05.160 --> 0:03:09.040 because there's nothing to talk about or to describe. But 0:03:09.440 --> 0:03:15.280 the instantiation of new existence from nothing is actually not 0:03:15.880 --> 0:03:21.639 what most creation narratives describe. In most cases, I would argue, 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:26.519 there is some kind of pre existing world or state 0:03:26.840 --> 0:03:30.840 before creation, and the act of creation is not actually 0:03:30.880 --> 0:03:35.240 what spits out the raw space and matter and energy 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:38.240 of the cosmos, but rather it is some kind of 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:43.600 sorting and ordering process which, whether by the intentional will 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:46.240 of a God or God's or by some kind of 0:03:46.280 --> 0:03:52.720 happy accident, takes a static or maybe unorganized, or a 0:03:52.800 --> 0:03:57.800 highly entropic or chaotic state of affairs, and imposes on 0:03:57.960 --> 0:04:01.480 it some kind of order or struck sure which allows 0:04:01.720 --> 0:04:06.160 stories to take place within that space. And I want 0:04:06.160 --> 0:04:08.920 to illustrate this by looking at just one example, which 0:04:08.960 --> 0:04:12.720 will probably be surprising to a lot of people who 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:16.400 grew up like I did reading the creation story in 0:04:16.480 --> 0:04:19.640 the Book of Genesis, at least in its classic translated 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:24.240 form in English. So as we've just been talking about this, 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:28.080 I bet a lot of listeners were probably thinking, Okay, yeah, 0:04:28.120 --> 0:04:31.839 some stories may have this ordering quality rather than a 0:04:31.880 --> 0:04:35.440 creating quality. Maybe you're thinking of these creation by combat 0:04:35.480 --> 0:04:38.240 type stories. We'll talk about some of these in our 0:04:38.279 --> 0:04:41.800 episode today, but you might be thinking, well, the biblical 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:44.760 creation account in Genesis, that's got to be one of 0:04:44.800 --> 0:04:48.200 the exceptions. That is a story that actually does feature 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:52.919 the creation ex nihilo, where God by his will instantiates 0:04:52.920 --> 0:04:55.880 the universe out of non existence. And that's what I 0:04:56.000 --> 0:04:59.480 used to think, because if you read the very first 0:04:59.480 --> 0:05:03.159 sentence of Genesis one in the classic King James translation, 0:05:03.680 --> 0:05:07.400 it says, reading from the King James, in the beginning, 0:05:07.760 --> 0:05:11.320 God created the heaven and the earth, and the earth 0:05:11.480 --> 0:05:15.479 was without form and void, and darkness was upon the 0:05:15.480 --> 0:05:18.560 face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:22.680 upon the face of the waters. Now, a couple of 0:05:22.720 --> 0:05:25.160 things about that passage actually, well, one of the reasons 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:28.640 I'm interested in talking about this subject today is my 0:05:28.920 --> 0:05:34.480 memory from childhood of how overwhelmingly dark and mysterious this 0:05:34.560 --> 0:05:37.960 passage sounded like, I guess, as with a lot of 0:05:37.960 --> 0:05:40.159 things in the Bible, if you grow up reading it 0:05:40.279 --> 0:05:43.160 or hearing about it. You can kind of just gloss 0:05:43.200 --> 0:05:45.279 over it, like go past it pretty quick and not 0:05:45.360 --> 0:05:48.040 really think about it. But if you stop and think 0:05:48.080 --> 0:05:52.039 about this image, I think it is very frightening and 0:05:52.160 --> 0:05:55.880 exciting and weird. So it is a world that did 0:05:55.920 --> 0:05:59.400 not yet have light, because it doesn't. It says that 0:05:59.440 --> 0:06:03.359 God didn't bring light into existence until the next verse. 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:08.200 But it has some quality of formlessness and emptiness, but 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:12.040 it's not completely empty because there are waters. It says 0:06:12.040 --> 0:06:15.520 there are deep waters in this dark world, and the 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:18.600 deep waters have a surface. And then it says the 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:22.200 spirit of God or sometimes otherwise translated as the wind 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:26.440 of God moved upon the face of the waters. Again, 0:06:26.480 --> 0:06:28.040 maybe you can just kind of go past you if 0:06:28.040 --> 0:06:29.720 you don't think about it too hard. But when I 0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:34.240 try to picture this world and like give it a 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:37.839 feeling of physical reality, it is literally hair raising to me, 0:06:39.279 --> 0:06:41.919 kind of like if I really force myself today to 0:06:41.920 --> 0:06:44.760 think about the physical reality of a black hole or 0:06:45.080 --> 0:06:47.799 imagining myself on the surface of Titan or something. 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:52.800 Yeah, yeah, something like knowing that it's supposed to not 0:06:53.320 --> 0:06:55.520 just be the surface of the ocean perhaps, but like 0:06:55.640 --> 0:06:58.479 something that is like the surface of the water with 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:01.400 some sort of force moving across the top of it. 0:07:01.480 --> 0:07:06.440 But there's nothing else yet. There's no fish. Yeah, no light, 0:07:06.520 --> 0:07:11.880 Well there's no light. There's just kind of this, this 0:07:12.040 --> 0:07:15.720 sort of semblance of darkness and depth and. 0:07:15.640 --> 0:07:21.720 Presence, cosmically deep water wrapped enveloped in darkness, with a 0:07:21.800 --> 0:07:25.560 kind of ghostly wind of the breath of God moving 0:07:25.600 --> 0:07:29.520 across the top of it. Now, as I understood this 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:33.360 passage when I was young, this description would have been 0:07:33.560 --> 0:07:38.320 of a sort of half created world, a creation in progress. 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:42.320 It was like the first state of affairs. God created 0:07:42.400 --> 0:07:45.480 before the imposition of light, and before the land and 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:47.640 the day and the night, and plants and beasts and 0:07:47.720 --> 0:07:51.520 human beings. And for a long time this was I 0:07:51.560 --> 0:07:55.240 think the most common understanding among Christians, at least, I'm 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:58.440 not actually sure what is the most common understanding among 0:07:58.520 --> 0:08:03.000 Jewish readers, But the common view that I encountered growing 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:07.280 up as an American Protestant was that the Biblical creation 0:08:07.440 --> 0:08:11.840 story was a manufacturing type creation. Because the very first 0:08:11.880 --> 0:08:14.280 words are in the beginning God created. 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:16.880 Yeah, it makes it sound like this is not adapted 0:08:16.920 --> 0:08:20.000 screenplay category. This is screenplay. This is not supposed to 0:08:20.040 --> 0:08:23.680 be based on anything prior, right, But I know exactly 0:08:24.080 --> 0:08:26.600 what you're you're getting at with all this, you know, 0:08:27.120 --> 0:08:30.480 growing up in the church as well, like when you 0:08:30.640 --> 0:08:35.080 begin to hear readings of these early early passages, or 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:38.719 more to the point, I think most of us, our 0:08:38.720 --> 0:08:42.520 earliest experiences are not with direct Bible quotations necessarily, but 0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:48.800 various like picture book Bible stories, you know, illustrations for children, 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:52.079 versions of the stories for children that very much simplify 0:08:52.200 --> 0:08:56.520 things and certainly gloss over anything that might be confusing. 0:08:57.080 --> 0:09:00.640 But then but then things do get confused, you know, 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:02.840 you start thinking about, okay, the darkness on the face 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:06.319 of the deep, what is the deep? Or certainly when 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:08.280 you get into the New Testament, I remember the first 0:09:08.320 --> 0:09:10.439 time I've begin picking up in this whole. Okay, in 0:09:10.480 --> 0:09:12.320 the beginning, there was the Word, and the word was 0:09:12.320 --> 0:09:16.120 with God, and the Word was God, and I think 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:19.559 that was often poorly explained, and it is also kind 0:09:19.559 --> 0:09:22.840 of inherently confusing. So I would just be setting or thinking, Okay, 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:25.000 you're telling me that before the creation of the universe, 0:09:25.400 --> 0:09:29.600 there's just a Bible kicking around, Like what, It's more 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:33.079 complicated than that. But I do remember the initial confusion. 0:09:33.600 --> 0:09:35.560 I actually had to do a sidebar on this because 0:09:35.559 --> 0:09:38.000 I know exactly what you're talking about. Though in the 0:09:38.040 --> 0:09:40.400 beginning was the word in the Gospel of John. That's 0:09:40.400 --> 0:09:43.559 a whole other can of worms. It is a very 0:09:43.840 --> 0:09:48.320 common Protestant interpretation of that verse that the word refers 0:09:48.360 --> 0:09:51.040 to the Bible, because they say, like, you know, let's 0:09:51.040 --> 0:09:52.920 now hear the word of God, and they mean reading 0:09:52.920 --> 0:09:56.000 from the Bible. This is almost definitely not what the 0:09:56.040 --> 0:10:00.320 author meant in that passage. The English word word is 0:10:00.360 --> 0:10:03.440 a translation of the Greek logos, which has a host 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:09.480 of meanings including word, but also means like reason, logic, discourse, 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:13.760 maybe order. And there are literally whole books on what 0:10:14.000 --> 0:10:16.120 the author of the Gospel of John meant by the 0:10:16.120 --> 0:10:20.000 word logos there. So it's like a very fraught and 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:26.199 complex and highly entangled theological and philosophical concept. But at 0:10:26.200 --> 0:10:30.040 the risk of oversimplifying, it seems to have something to 0:10:30.040 --> 0:10:33.439 do with the author's belief that Jesus is the embodiment 0:10:33.600 --> 0:10:39.080 of a divine principle that existed before creation with God, 0:10:39.559 --> 0:10:42.280 as a part of God or as an expression of 0:10:42.320 --> 0:10:47.479 God's power in a way that is actually manifested as words, 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:51.880 So in the way that God speaks things into existence 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:54.560 in the Genesis narrative by saying their names, like in 0:10:54.640 --> 0:10:58.520 the in the very next verse after those first two verses, 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:01.080 I was just reading, God says, let there be light, 0:11:01.240 --> 0:11:03.280 and then there is light, so he speaks the word, 0:11:03.400 --> 0:11:07.440 and then the reality comes into being. And I would 0:11:07.480 --> 0:11:10.559 even relate this to other things outside of ancient Judaism, 0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:14.800 Like we've talked about the way that words have literal 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:17.880 power to transform reality in Egyptian magic. I mean, this 0:11:18.000 --> 0:11:20.160 is a common way of thinking in the ancient world, 0:11:20.160 --> 0:11:24.080 that there is some kind of magical or creation potential 0:11:24.160 --> 0:11:28.160 in language itself, and that when the words are spoken 0:11:28.679 --> 0:11:31.800 by God or by the gods, they have even this 0:11:31.880 --> 0:11:34.880 greater power. So like God's word is in itself a 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:38.559 kind of infinite divine potential. 0:11:39.160 --> 0:11:41.320 Yeah, yeah, I mean, and really, like the whole discussion 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:44.640 we're having here is possible because of words. I mean, 0:11:45.040 --> 0:11:47.320 there's of course the simple version of that, but also 0:11:47.440 --> 0:11:52.760 like language allows us to deal with increasingly loftier and 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:58.040 complex subjects and topics, that allows us to talk about 0:11:58.080 --> 0:12:00.480 things like the time before the beginning of time. 0:12:00.800 --> 0:12:05.000 Yeah, exactly, that nature yeah, but to be clear, yeah, 0:12:05.040 --> 0:12:07.000 the word in the Gospel of John, don't think I 0:12:07.000 --> 0:12:08.600 don't think it's supposed to mean the Bible and it 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:12.800 doesn't just mean word. It's this like highly complex, multi 0:12:12.880 --> 0:12:17.120 layered theological, philosophical load that is being delivered there. 0:12:17.400 --> 0:12:20.080 But when you're a kid, yeah, you think you could 0:12:20.080 --> 0:12:22.320 just say here word and you're like, what does that 0:12:22.360 --> 0:12:23.920 even mean? And then, like I said, I think half 0:12:23.920 --> 0:12:26.560 the time it's very poorly explained or the person that's 0:12:26.559 --> 0:12:29.240 reading is like, don't worry about that, Yeah, just move 0:12:29.280 --> 0:12:30.679 on to the next topic, that sort of thing. 0:12:30.920 --> 0:12:33.319 But so, anyway, so we jumped off of that from 0:12:33.360 --> 0:12:36.400 talking about how my understanding used to always be, and 0:12:36.440 --> 0:12:39.800 the common understanding for a long time was that the 0:12:40.160 --> 0:12:44.400 Biblical creation narrative had this manufacturing quality in the beginning 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:49.280 God created. Now imagine my surprise years later when I 0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:53.400 encountered a different English translation of the exact same passage 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:56.440 in the Bible. Again. This is Genesis chapter one, the 0:12:56.480 --> 0:13:01.120 first couple of verses. This translation says in dead when 0:13:01.240 --> 0:13:05.160 God began to create the heavens and the earth, the 0:13:05.200 --> 0:13:08.880 earth was complete chaos and darkness covered the face of 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:11.920 the deep, while a wind from God swept over the 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:15.480 face of the waters. So this is from a more 0:13:15.520 --> 0:13:18.200 modern translation. The first one I read was the King James, 0:13:18.200 --> 0:13:20.480 which is hundreds of years old. This is from the 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:24.480 updated edition of the New Revised Standard Version or n RSV, 0:13:25.080 --> 0:13:29.040 which uses modern scholarship to try to capture more faithfully 0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:32.280 the meaning of the original Hebrew. In this case does 0:13:32.320 --> 0:13:35.160 the Hebrew and the Greek of the New Testament, but 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:39.760 still it has that haunting description of the darkness enveloping 0:13:39.800 --> 0:13:42.680 the deep waters. It has the wind of God rushing 0:13:42.720 --> 0:13:45.160 over the surface of the ocean. But the first few 0:13:45.160 --> 0:13:47.760 words are very different. It is not in the beginning 0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:53.160 God created, implying the raw manufacture. Instead, it says when 0:13:53.360 --> 0:13:56.160 God began to create the heavens and the earth, the 0:13:56.240 --> 0:14:00.959 earth was, suggesting that the darkness was wrapping the deep water, 0:14:01.520 --> 0:14:04.400 and the rushing wind or the spirit of God was 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:07.160 above the face of the ocean, and this is what 0:14:07.240 --> 0:14:11.640 things were already like when God began the creation. And 0:14:11.840 --> 0:14:15.080 from what I can tell, most scholars agree that this 0:14:15.160 --> 0:14:18.520 newer translation is closer to the plain meaning of the 0:14:18.520 --> 0:14:21.840 passage in Hebrew. And I think that's so interesting because, 0:14:21.880 --> 0:14:24.240 like so many people read this story and they think 0:14:24.360 --> 0:14:27.440 this is how the world was made, and this is 0:14:27.480 --> 0:14:30.960 a totally different understanding of the initial state of affairs. 0:14:32.080 --> 0:14:35.880 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. The idea that there's something out like 0:14:36.000 --> 0:14:38.800 some makes it sound like there's like some very limited 0:14:38.840 --> 0:14:42.200 wasteland that already existed. Now, why is it a wasteland? 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:44.600 Was there something before this? Is this just what was 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:48.360 left after the lizard men blew it? I don't know. 0:14:48.400 --> 0:14:49.680 The Bible doesn't get into that though. 0:14:50.080 --> 0:14:53.440 Well, actually that'll tie right into something about I want 0:14:53.480 --> 0:14:56.000 to get into further about the translation of this passage. 0:14:56.040 --> 0:14:59.280 So I was reading about this in a twenty twenty 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:03.480 two paper by University of Toronto professor Robert D. Holmstead 0:15:03.720 --> 0:15:07.400 in the Journal for Semitics called the Syntax of Genesis 0:15:07.400 --> 0:15:11.600 ie Verses one to three. And in this paper, the 0:15:11.640 --> 0:15:15.880 scholar Homestead analyzes the linguistic features of the first three 0:15:16.000 --> 0:15:20.440 verses of Genesis, and he says there are two plausible 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:24.359 ways of translating this passage, or he calls it analyzing 0:15:24.400 --> 0:15:28.160 this passage saying what it is supposed to mean most literally, 0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:32.080 But he says in both of these analyzes, the description 0:15:32.400 --> 0:15:35.400 of that dark world and the deep waters that we've 0:15:35.440 --> 0:15:40.120 been talking about is a parenthetical describing what the world 0:15:40.280 --> 0:15:46.040 was like before God began his work. Now, interestingly, in 0:15:46.080 --> 0:15:49.680 this translation and in all of the updated translations that 0:15:49.720 --> 0:15:55.320 I've read, God does seem to instantiate or manufacture some 0:15:55.360 --> 0:15:57.760 of the raw materials of reality. So it's not like 0:15:57.840 --> 0:16:00.680 God doesn't have the power to create things from nothing. 0:16:01.080 --> 0:16:05.000 For example, in verse three, the story says that God said, 0:16:05.120 --> 0:16:09.160 let there be light, or in Holmsteat's translation, let light exist, 0:16:09.600 --> 0:16:12.160 and then light begins to exist, so he speaks it, 0:16:12.200 --> 0:16:16.040 and then it does come into existence. So I think 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:18.840 that is truly meant to be read as raw creation. 0:16:19.000 --> 0:16:21.520 And of course light is a very important ingredient in 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:26.720 the universe. So I don't think this is this way 0:16:26.800 --> 0:16:32.040 of reading the story has any less implication of God's 0:16:32.120 --> 0:16:34.720 power to create. It's just telling a different kind of 0:16:34.840 --> 0:16:39.760 order of affairs. But this dark world and the deep 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:42.760 water and the hovering wind of God over the surface 0:16:42.800 --> 0:16:45.960 of the water that was all there before, And in 0:16:46.120 --> 0:16:51.200 keeping with that, in Homestead's two possible analyzes of this passage, 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:55.520 the first sentence does not use the word created at all. 0:16:55.960 --> 0:17:00.520 Homesteadt cites another scholar named Walton who makes extensive arguments 0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:03.720 that create is the wrong translation of the Hebrew verb 0:17:03.800 --> 0:17:09.480 in question, and Holmstead himself instead uses the term ordered. 0:17:09.600 --> 0:17:12.560 He says, so God ordered the heavens and the earth. 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:16.359 He also acknowledges a scholar named Ellen van Wolda who 0:17:16.520 --> 0:17:20.760 argues that the best translation is separate. God separated the 0:17:20.800 --> 0:17:23.760 heavens and the earth. Either way in the story, this 0:17:23.920 --> 0:17:28.160 is not an act of making, but of organizing, bringing 0:17:28.280 --> 0:17:33.680 structure and character to these deep cosmic fathoms that came before. 0:17:34.720 --> 0:17:37.159 By the way, just since we're on the subject of 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:40.960 this paper, one more interesting argument that Homestead makes is 0:17:41.000 --> 0:17:44.119 about the very first phrase of Genesis, one which is 0:17:44.200 --> 0:17:49.560 usually translated in the beginning with a definite article referring 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:52.840 to the only beginning, the beginning of all time and space, 0:17:54.000 --> 0:17:58.640 for various linguistic reasons. Holmsteat says, actually, there are two 0:17:58.800 --> 0:18:03.639 possible translations which better capture the original meaning. One is 0:18:04.000 --> 0:18:08.560 in a beginning rather than in the beginning. So in 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:12.359 a beginning, God ordered the heavens and the earth. You 0:18:12.440 --> 0:18:15.240 can take this opening as similar to the phrase once 0:18:15.359 --> 0:18:19.639 upon a time, denoting a point of beginning among many 0:18:19.800 --> 0:18:24.240 worlds or possibilities and then the other possible reading he gives, 0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:28.160 which has a pretty similar ultimate meaning, is in the 0:18:28.160 --> 0:18:30.879 beginning in which God ordered the heavens in the earth. 0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:34.480 This is once again setting the beginning of the story 0:18:34.600 --> 0:18:38.480 as one among multiple possibilities. Kind of like if you 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:41.199 were to say, hey, tell the story that starts with 0:18:41.359 --> 0:18:44.720 Mary finding a kitten. Oh, okay, in the story where 0:18:44.760 --> 0:18:47.120 Mary finds a kitten. So it's kind of like that 0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:50.280 in the story where God, where God orders the heavens 0:18:50.280 --> 0:18:54.480 and the earth. But both of these phrasings really cause us, 0:18:54.520 --> 0:18:59.240 i think, to take differently the intended meaning of the 0:18:59.280 --> 0:19:03.879 Creation's story being told not just as the beginning, but 0:19:04.000 --> 0:19:08.280 as one of many possible or many actual beginnings of 0:19:08.359 --> 0:19:12.399 the world in the teller's view. So Homestead says, quote, 0:19:12.440 --> 0:19:16.000 either way, the door is logically open to other beginnings 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:19.480 that were before this particular one. Bring us back to 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:21.520 what you're just say, after the lizard people blew it 0:19:21.600 --> 0:19:22.280 up or whatever. 0:19:22.480 --> 0:19:27.280 Yeah, so the door is biblically open for lizard men 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:30.480 and great old ones and whatever you want to put 0:19:30.480 --> 0:19:31.480 in there in the prequel. 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:34.919 Yeah, at least that's the case. Homestead makes that the 0:19:34.960 --> 0:19:38.720 best way of the most faithful translation here would say 0:19:38.760 --> 0:19:41.520 that the story is not saying this was the only 0:19:41.680 --> 0:19:43.919 way that the world was ever created. There may have 0:19:43.960 --> 0:19:47.600 been many other creations before, There may be other creations after. 0:19:47.760 --> 0:19:51.399 This was a beginning, one way God decided to do 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:52.919 it one time at least? 0:19:53.359 --> 0:19:56.520 Oh wow, do creationists know about this yet, because it 0:19:56.520 --> 0:19:58.880 seems like this would open up new possibilities. 0:20:00.640 --> 0:20:03.200 I don't want to just like slam on Young Earth 0:20:03.240 --> 0:20:05.640 creationists here. I mean, obviously we know that the Earth 0:20:05.720 --> 0:20:09.520 is not just six thousand years old, but I'm not 0:20:09.520 --> 0:20:12.000 not trying to hate on people who believe that. But 0:20:12.080 --> 0:20:15.800 I do think it's interesting how as far as I'm aware, 0:20:16.480 --> 0:20:20.480 people who have the young Earth creationist viewpoint seem to 0:20:20.600 --> 0:20:27.400 sometimes be really resistant to scholarship that offers readings of 0:20:27.480 --> 0:20:30.919 the Bible that would alleviate some of their concerns. You know, 0:20:31.119 --> 0:20:35.920 like this would actually reduce, like I think, a more 0:20:36.119 --> 0:20:39.440 faithful reading of the creation narrative. It would actually give 0:20:39.480 --> 0:20:43.760 you more room to say, oh, Okay, it's not so 0:20:43.880 --> 0:20:47.400 much a problem that this conflicts with science, because maybe 0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:50.199 I'm not supposed to read this literally. Maybe that is 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:53.600 not actually what the author or what God even intended 0:20:54.800 --> 0:20:59.159 but I think there's just a lot of resistance to that. Yeah, yeah, 0:20:59.200 --> 0:21:01.760 because I think I mean, if I can just psychologize 0:21:01.760 --> 0:21:03.400 a little bit, I think a lot of times, when 0:21:03.440 --> 0:21:07.439 we get really rigid about representing a point of view 0:21:07.560 --> 0:21:11.160 like Young Earth creationism according to your interpretation of the Bible, 0:21:11.800 --> 0:21:14.240 a lot of times what we're really showing fidelity to 0:21:14.640 --> 0:21:18.280 is our own past experience, Like we don't want to 0:21:18.440 --> 0:21:22.240 budge from the way we have always felt about the narrative. 0:21:22.600 --> 0:21:25.080 So if somebody offers you a revision of how the 0:21:25.200 --> 0:21:28.560 narrative should be understood, you will resist that as well. 0:21:28.720 --> 0:21:30.720 Yeah, it's like the same thing that you're resisting, but 0:21:30.800 --> 0:21:31.720 from a different direction. 0:21:32.200 --> 0:21:35.160 Yeah, but anyway, So that's what I wanted to talk 0:21:35.200 --> 0:21:38.480 about in this series, is these visions of the world 0:21:38.480 --> 0:21:41.879 from different types of creation accounts, visions of the world 0:21:42.000 --> 0:21:45.960 before what is commonly understood as the act of creation 0:21:46.400 --> 0:21:51.680 took place, and also maybe looking at what in these 0:21:51.720 --> 0:21:54.679 stories had to change about the world in order for 0:21:54.760 --> 0:21:57.479 it to be seen as now ready for the beginning 0:21:57.520 --> 0:22:10.239 of history or for the beginning of the story. So 0:22:10.359 --> 0:22:14.000 before we move on to talk about specific examples of 0:22:14.040 --> 0:22:16.400 pre creation narratives, Rob I know you've got a really 0:22:16.400 --> 0:22:19.960 interesting one I'm excited to look at today. But before 0:22:20.000 --> 0:22:21.639 we get to that, I just wanted to mention a 0:22:21.640 --> 0:22:25.280 few more things, like reasons I find this topic of 0:22:25.440 --> 0:22:29.720 the world before creation really interesting. One thing I wanted 0:22:29.720 --> 0:22:31.480 to harp on a little bit more is just the 0:22:31.520 --> 0:22:34.439 aesthetics of it. Like I've already talked about how I 0:22:34.480 --> 0:22:38.080 always found it haunting to think about that sketch from 0:22:38.080 --> 0:22:41.040 Genesis of the darkness upon the deep waters and the 0:22:41.080 --> 0:22:44.920 wind of God rushing above. But there are other visions 0:22:44.960 --> 0:22:50.160 of the world before Creation that are beautiful and strange 0:22:50.200 --> 0:22:55.000 and frightening in similar ways. But sometimes they are illuminating 0:22:55.040 --> 0:23:00.440 about ontologies, like visions of the world before creation can 0:23:00.800 --> 0:23:03.800 inform us about what a culture and a people thought 0:23:03.880 --> 0:23:08.439 it meant for things to exist. So one that I 0:23:08.520 --> 0:23:12.400 find really striking is the description of the pre creation 0:23:12.560 --> 0:23:15.960 world in the Babylonian Epic of Creation. This is sometimes 0:23:15.960 --> 0:23:18.440 called the enuma a leash, which comes from the first 0:23:18.480 --> 0:23:21.640 two words of the poem in the original language numa Aleish, 0:23:21.640 --> 0:23:25.199 which means usually translated as something like when on high 0:23:25.359 --> 0:23:27.520 or in the skies above or something. 0:23:29.280 --> 0:23:29.359 So. 0:23:29.800 --> 0:23:34.320 My Oxford University Press edition of the Myths of Mesopotamia, 0:23:34.880 --> 0:23:39.360 translated by Stephanie Dally, It goes like this here, when 0:23:39.400 --> 0:23:43.480 skies above were not yet named, nor earth below pronounced 0:23:43.520 --> 0:23:48.879 by name, Apsu the first one, their begetter and maker Tiamot, 0:23:48.960 --> 0:23:52.960 who bore them, all had mixed their waters together, but 0:23:53.080 --> 0:23:57.520 had not formed pastures nor discovered reed beds. When yet 0:23:57.600 --> 0:24:02.360 no gods were manifest, nor name pronounced, nor destinies decreed. 0:24:02.920 --> 0:24:07.520 Then gods were born within them, Lamu and Lahamu emerged, 0:24:07.680 --> 0:24:11.920 their names pronounced. So a lot of things are interesting 0:24:11.920 --> 0:24:13.720 about this, and we may return to it in a 0:24:13.760 --> 0:24:15.840 later part in the series. But one thing I really 0:24:15.880 --> 0:24:19.600 like about the Dali translation in particular here is the 0:24:19.640 --> 0:24:23.320 blurring of the distinction between the existence of things and 0:24:23.359 --> 0:24:27.600 the naming of things. So, instead of just saying sky 0:24:27.680 --> 0:24:31.280 and earth did not exist, as some translations I have found, 0:24:31.640 --> 0:24:34.560 they translate it more like that. Here it says they 0:24:34.640 --> 0:24:40.159 were not named, And in ancient Mesopotamian thinking, it seems 0:24:40.200 --> 0:24:44.399 that there may actually be some conceptual overlap here. To 0:24:44.520 --> 0:24:48.920