Category Archives: Genesis 1-11

02/16/22

Looking at Carol Hill’s Article (2021) “Original Sin with Respect to Science” (Part 8 of 15)

0033 Adam and Eve are fairy tale figures.

The early Genesis stories are fairy tales about a real, historical event.

This real historical event entangles all humanity.

0034 These are the statements that Carol Hill is on her way to isolate.

The stories of Adam and Eve mark the start of Jewish covenant history, which proceeds directly, through descent, to the fulfillment of all that goes before, that is, Jesus Christ.

The real event that Adam and Eve represent is the start of the Ubaid, the initiation of unconstrained social complexity in southern Mesopotamia, directly, and in the entire world, indirectly.

0035 Jewish covenant history is real and theological.

A hypothesis linking the Ubaid to the initiation of unconstrained social complexity throughout the world is real and scientific.

Shades of Saint Augustine of Hippo!  There are two movements, one theological and one scientific.

0036 Plus, the scientific movement is the one under consideration.

Is there such a hypothesis?

Yes, there is.

But, obviously, Hill is not currently aware of it.

02/15/22

Looking at Carol Hill’s Article (2021) “Original Sin with Respect to Science” (Part 9 of 15)

0037 Carol Hill next turns to the historicity of the Genesis text.  She introduces a worldview approach similar to Lamoureux’s.  The science-scripture dialogue must respect archaeological science and the worldview of those who preserved and wrote the scriptures.

0038 First, she does not explicitly label the genre of the stories of Adam and Eve.  She does not call them, “fairy tales”.  Instead, she writes (page 139), “The important point is that, while the Adam and Eve / Garden of Eden story could have involved real people residing in a real place, the writing of this story by the biblical authors was commensurate with the use of figurative images in narratives common to the ancient Near East.”

0039 Second, Noah is both a fairytale figure and an epic hero.  This explains the two styles intermingled in the story of Noah’s flood.  One style goes with the earlier fairy tales.  The other style goes with the later Patriarchs (more or less).

0040 Third, Abraham is an epic hero.

0041 So, the question of genre comes to the fore.

I may ask, “Is Genesis fairy tale, epic or ancient Near Eastern mythology?”

0042 Others frame the question differently.

A review of a recent book on this subject may be found in the November and December 2021 blog at www.raziemah.com.  The title of the blog is Looking at the Book (2015) “Genesis: History, Fiction or Neither?”.

Three scholars of the Bible contribute to this 2015 book, James Hoffmeier, Gordon Wehnam and Kenton Sparks.  These theologians wrestle with various worldview approaches, with insight-filled results.

Yet, their insights are not complete, because, like Hill, they do not know about the scientific hypothesis addressing the question, “Why is our current Lebenswelt not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in?”

02/14/22

Looking at Carol Hill’s Article (2021) “Original Sin with Respect to Science” (Part 10 of 15)

0043 Carol Hill offers a worldview approach.  In order to understand the historicity of Adam and Noah, one must take into account the worldview of the Ubaid and Uruk periods of southern Mesopotamia.

Such an approach makes sense, if Adam and Noah are fairy-tale figures.

0044 Fairy tale figures are real, at least to mothers and their children.  They are so real that the stories of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Lamech and Noah retain their integrity for thousands of years, propagated by the descendants of Seth and later, the descendants of Abraham.

0045 Similarly, the Patriarchs are real figures, wrapped in a mantle of epic narrative.  Greece has bards.  So does Israel.

0046 These issues are discussed in the blog posted in January 2022, Looking at Mark Smith’s Book (2019) “The Genesis of Good and Evil”.

02/11/22

Looking at Carol Hill’s Article (2021) “Original Sin with Respect to Science” (Part 11 of 15)

0047 Carol Hill’s worldview approach encourages me to imagine the genres of Genesis 2:4-11 as fairy tales, then as a mix, and then as epics.

0048 The identification of genre is crucial since the historical processes that coincide with the stories in Genesis are both real and impossible to isolate from the Biblical text alone.

Something outside the scriptures is needed.  The scriptures tell the story from the inside.  Archaeology tells the story from the outside.

0049 With this lesson in mind, Hill returns to her struggle with the doctrine of original sin.

02/10/22

Looking at Carol Hill’s Article (2021) “Original Sin with Respect to Science” (Part 12 of 15)

0050 In the last sections of her article, Carol Hill wrestles with the issue that Saint Augustine’s doctrine is part theological and part scientific.

The incredible duality comes from Saint Paul, who compares Christ, as the one who is to come, and Adam, as the one who is fallen.  Paul makes two assertions.  One, Jesus literally descends from Adam.  Two, Adam’s sin entangles all humanity.

If Adam stands at the start of the history of the Jewish covenant, then that is one point.

If Adam stands at the start of the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia, then that is a second point.

A scientific question arises concerning the Ubaid.  How does the Ubaid entangle all humanity?

0051 What does Paul say in his letter to the Romans?  

Paul connects Jesus to the salvation for all humanity.

This connection is theological and diagnostic.

Augustine of Hippo develops the connection.  He is honored for centuries for these developments.

0052 Today, Augustine’s theological propositions on the nature of original sin surpasses the current modern social sciences, which still reduce the human condition to manifestations of stimulus-response.  Augustine’s diagnosis is unparalleled.  Even if humans are animals behaving according to the dictates of stimulus-response, our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.  So, our evolved responses operate in a world that no longer reflects our um… evolution.

As for the current social sciences, if one reads two of E. Michael Jones’ books, Libido Dominandi and Degenerate Moderns, then one can see how the personal lives of the founders of various social sciences pay tribute to Augustine’s theological diagnosis of the human condition.  Their personal lives are testimonials to original sin.

0053 Today, Augustine’s scientific proposition on the nature of transmission of original sin has been thoroughly debunked by modern genetics.

But, that does not mean that today’s humanity is not entangled in original sin.

Rather, it means that we are faced with a very curious problem in human evolution.

Why is our current Lebenswelt not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in?

02/9/22

Looking at Carol Hill’s Article (2021) “Original Sin with Respect to Science” (Part 13 of 15)

0054 Carol Hill does not have an answer to the scientific question concerning the transmission of original sin from Adam and Eve to the rest of humanity.

However, she does have the intelligence to intimate that the problem is with science, rather than theology.

0055 Well, it is a problem with theology, in so far as many theologians cannot imagine that Augustine’s scientific proposition is now debunked.  All humanity is not literally descended from Adam and Eve.

0056 The new scientific question, posed by Augustine’s failed hypothesis, and transformed by Hill’s careful framing, asks, “How does the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia potentiate our current Lebenswelt?”

0057 One answer is called, “the hypothesis of the first singularity”.

The first singularity?

The first singularity is a technical term for the fact that our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

0058 The Ubaid starts the first singularity.

How so?

The Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia is the first culture on Earth to practice speech-alone talk.  At the time that the Ubaid emerges, all contemporary cultures practice hand-speech talk.  Hand-speech talk is associated with the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

0059 Today, all civilizations practice speech-alone talk.  The last significant cultures practicing hand-speech talk, the Australian aborigines and the North American Plains Indians, have been mortally compromised by external civilizations.  The first singularity comes to a close in our own time.

0060 The hypothesis is plainly spelled out in the e-work, The First Singularity and Its Fairy Tale Trace.

The founding of the hypothesis is dramatically presented in the e-book, An Archaeology of the Fall.Both works are available at smashwords and other e-work venues.

02/8/22

Looking at Carol Hill’s Article (2021) “Original Sin with Respect to Science” (Part 14 of 15)

0061 The doctrine of original sin is inspired by Saint Augustine’s interpretation of Saint Paul’s Letter to the Romans.  Adam is of the type who is fallen.  Jesus is of the type who is risen.  Jesus descends from Adam.  Adam connects to all humanity.  Through this, Jesus connects to all humanity.

0062 How does Adam connect to all humanity?

One answer is offered by the Genesis text.  God makes the earth-man and the rib-woman.  The rest is history.  But, is that the history of the Jewish covenant or the history of our current Lebenswelt?  Or both?

0063 Hill tries to resolve the confounding, saying, “Adam and Eve are the parents of those in the covenant line of Adam leading to Christ.”

Technically, she is correct.

However, she does not capitalize on the other idea, clearly articulated in her article, saying (more or less), “Adam and Eve associate to the Ubaid period of southern Mesopotamia.”

0064 She cannot capitalize on this idea, because she has not encountered the concept of the first singularity, nor wondered about its implications.

Consider Comments on Original Sin and Original Death: Romans 5:12-19, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other electronic book vendors.

If the Ubaid initiates our current Lebenswelt, and if the Ubaid breaks with the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, then there is a replacement to Augustine’s failed scientific proposal.

0065 Hill’s vignette about copper production, a highly specialized alchemic process, tells me that she senses that ‘something cultural’ comes out of the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia and spreads to all the world.  Her intuition is already fulfilled.

0066 The Ubaid is the first Neolithic culture to practice speech-alone talk.  Speech-alone talk has dramatically different semiotic qualities than hand-speech talk, the way of talking practiced since the time that humans evolved.  The semiotic qualities of speech-alone talk favor unconstrained social complexity.  Unconstrained social complexity leads to greater wealth and power.  Labor specialization increases wealth.  Social specialization yields power.

No wonder every hand-speech talking culture in the world ends up dropping the hand-talk component of their hand-speech talk.  It is so easy to do.  Plus, the consequences are not readily apparent.  Over generations, labor specializes and society stratifies.  The world gets more and more complicated.  The old ways are derided.  Then, they are forgotten.  A village becomes a town.  A town becomes a city.  In the city, there are rumors of people who remember.  And what do they remember?  History begins with the start of civilization.

0067 Meanwhile, the people in unconstrained social complexity become more and more disoriented, until evil is in their hearts, continually.

Our spoken words mean whatever we want them to mean.  If our spoken words can lie for us, then why not live the lies?  Doesn’t that fit Augustine’s theology of original sin?

Yes, the transmission of our current Lebenswelt, from the Ubaid to the entire world, does not come from descent.  Rather, it comes from the fact that we all practice speech-alone talk.  Before the Ubaid, humans practice hand-speech talk.  Today, humans practice speech-alone talk.  The semiotic differences between hand-speech and speech-alone talk account for why civilization never forms before the Ubaid and why civilization is potentiated within the Ubaid.

0068 Perhaps, an expanded theology of original sin comes from the realization that Adam associates to the Ubaid and the Ubaid associates to the first singularity. Augustine’s theology is a good place to start.  I am fallen.  Concupiscence calls me.  I am tempted to project my own meanings, presences and messages into my speech-alone words.  My spoken words can lie for me.  I can accuse others, using made-up words, and so on.  The only way for me to get to my feet is to be baptized, in a sacrament, just like Jesus is baptized by John.  The water of baptism gives me the grace to be honest.

01/31/22

Looking at Mark S. Smith’s Book (2019) “The Genesis of Good and Evil” (Part 1 of 16)

0001 Mark S. Smith is a theologian in the Catholic tradition.  He writes a book that is equally weighted between text and endnotes.  The text ends at the center of the bound volume. The endnotes begin at the center of the bound volume.  Smith sends a message.  At the very center, there is a gap.  The gap is between the text and the endnotes.  Does the text write the endnotes?  Or, do the endnotes write the text?

The full title of the book is The Genesis of Good and Evil: The Fall(out) and Original Sin in the Bible.  It is published by Westminster John Knox Press, in Louisville, Kentucky.

0002 A scholarly introduction sets the tone.  This work is not about the Bible.  This book is about scripture.  Nowhere in the Bible, does anyone say the word, “Bible”.  Instead, people in the Bible say, “scripture”, all the time.  So, their scope (or cultural impress at the time) includes Jewish scripture.  Only a retrospective reading, by Christians, years after the gospels are added to the Jewish scripture, allows the use of the word, “Bible”, which comes from the Greek, “biblos”, denoting a collection of manuscripts.  The Bible, at its heart, binds two books, which we now call the Old and New Testaments.

0003 How scholarly is that?

01/29/22

Looking at Mark S. Smith’s Book (2019) “The Genesis of Good and Evil” (Part 2 of 16)

0004 Two key words pop out in the introduction, “scope” and “retrospect”.  Both apply to reading and writing.

First, consider the author.  The author has a gift, a charism.  Insights are framed by “his” scope, the cultural impress of the time.  But, the cultural impress does not determine the author’s words.  The author does.  The author has “his” own concerns, which somehow intersect with scope.   The author’s insights arise from “his” own interpretations and experiences.

0005 I can write two formulaic descriptions of the author, following A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form(available at the smashwords website as well as other purveyors of e-works).

One, the normal context of producing text3 brings the actuality of the author’s personal conditions2 into relation with possibilities inherent in the cultural milieu of the author1, including “his” scope.

Two, the normal context of writing3 brings insights2 into relation with the potential of the author’s point of view1, containing “his” charism.

0006 Do these nested forms interscope?

Some say that an author emerges from the civilizational conditions.  Others say that an author conveys insights.  Clearly, one nested from does not fully situate the other.

They do not interscope.

0007 Instead, they intersect.  The author is the single actuality that fuses the actualities of conditions2 and insight2.

0008 Ah, the author2 is a single actuality that is the intersection of two actualities, conditions2H and insight2V.  One nested form defines the horizon.  One nested form transects the horizon.  Clearly, the intersection celebrates, rather than resolves, contradictions inherent to the author2.

Here is a picture of the intersection.

01/28/22

Looking at Mark S. Smith’s Book (2019) “The Genesis of Good and Evil” (Part 3 of 16)

0009 Mark Smith concludes the introduction by casting an eye upon the reader.  The Christian reader of Genesis 3 wants to plumb the author’s scope1H and charism1V in order to apply lessons to “his” own situation, where “his” indicates “his” and “hers”.

0010 “His”?

Even the awkward attribution smells funny.  Presumably, men, like rotten fruit, no longer represent the entire species.

So, we have to clean up the language, don’t we?

0011 What does Genesis 3 really say?

Mark Smith intends to inform the reader.  He begins with a retrospective.

0012 John Milton (1608-1674), at the start of the Age of Ideas, composes an epic poem, titled, Paradise Lost.  Paradise Lost begins in the middle.  Yes, a theodrama precedes Adam’s occupation of paradise.  And, Satan is not pleased.

The most recent Catechism of the Catholic Church formulates original sin as the connection between Adam’s transgression and our current misery.  Figuratively, we are all Adam’s descendants.  Or, is it literally?

0013 These introductory retrospections add a puzzling emptiness.

Maybe, the story of Adam and Eve begins in the middle, but what goes before?  The defeat of Satan is not about humans. What would it mean if humans, or generally, our hominin ancestors, live before Adam and Eve, on the open plains and in the gnarled forests that the defeat of Satan leaves open for settlement?  It is an odd question…

…further cemented by the formulation that we are all descendants of Adam.  How can folk living on the far edges of Eurasia be Adam’s descendants, when Adam lives a generation before the formation of Cain’s city?  They cannot be literally descended. After all, the first towns start a little over 6000 years ago.

Better words may be “drawn into” and “entangled”.

We are all drawn into Adam’s transgression.

0014 Indeed, we are entangled.  It is like the sticky postmodern situation where the word, “he”, once meant both “he” and “she”, then “she” declares that “he” is presumptive, arrogant, and so on, and demands her own pronoun.  And now, everyone wants their own pronouns.  For me, it is back to “he”, but now in scare quotes, because there is no way to get disentangled.

0015 What sin has all humanity been drawn into?

What sin entangles us?

Oh, it must be original sin.

0016 According to Mark Smith, the foundational stories in Genesis 3 contain deeply unsettling psychological portraits.  The psychology is tied to the drama, just like the pronoun business.  The drama contains comedy and tragedy and, most horrifying, catastrophe.  Yet, all this is not so bad, because good people appear in every generation, like Abel, who gets murdered, and Enoch, who gets swept up in mysterious circumstances, and Noah, who gets to build an ark because God is about the wipe out the civilization.

Other people, who may not be as good as good can be, are somehow in play, even though they are not upstage.  They are the ones who call upon the name of the Lord.  They remember.  Plus, a good God knows all.

0017 So, I say, “There is more to Genesis 3 than meets the eye.”