In this post I will share how Peter Enns enacts “genre calibration” by comparing the Book of Genesis with the “primordial tales of other ancient cultures (Kindle Location 1007).” We will begin with Enuma Elish.
Enns does something that C. John Collins does not do in his book. He emphasizes Genesis’ place in its ancient context. Collins emphasized canonical context. As I’ve said this is a foundational difference. They have different hermeneutical paradigms. Collins interprets Genesis through how it is references in other biblical books. Enns interprets it through its similarities with literature from the same culture.
That said, Enns doesn’t want readers to see this as merely a “comparative approach” as if Israel merely “borrowed” from other cultures. He writes,
“Perhaps a better way of thinking about the issue is to introduce the phrase “genre calibration.” Placing Genesis side by side with the primordial tales of other ancient cultures helps us gain a clearer understanding of the nature of Genesis and thus what we as contemporary readers have a right to expect from Genesis (Kindle Locations 1017-1020).”
And this has implications:
“Genesis is an ancient text designed to address ancient issues within the scope of ancient ways of understanding origins. However one might label the genre of the opening chapters of Genesis (myth, legend, suprahistorical narrative, story, metaphor, symbolism, archetypal, etc.) is not the point here. The point is that Genesis and the modern scientific investigation of human origins do not overlap. To think that they do is an error in genre discernment (Kindle Locations 1021-1024).”
Enns argues that we must understand “the genre of Genesis” to “understand its theology.” He notes that most evangelicals would agree. We affirms a historical-grammatical approach, right? This should be welcomed. “But placing Israel’s stories of origins in their grammatical and historical contexts has caused some stress as well (Kindle Locations 1035-1036).” Genesis goes back to “primordial times” and they are not alone. This concerns many evangelicals. Enns writes, “…if the foundational stories of Genesis seem to fit so well among other—clearly ahistorical—stories of the ancient world, in what sense can we really say that Israel’s stories refer to fundamentally unique, revealed, historical events (Kindle Locations 1041-1043)?”
“Israel’s creation and flood stories are certainly unique to them in the sense that any culture is “unique” when compared to others. But Genesis also bears doctrinally uncomfortable similarities to the clearly mythical stories of the Mesopotamian world (Kindle Locations 1053-1055).”
The first example, and the one I will cover in this post, is the Enuma Elish. It is similar to Genesis 1. According to Enns it is probably older than Genesis 1:
“Genesis 1 was written in the postexilic period (perhaps with earlier versions) and expresses Israel’s faith in Yahweh the backdrop of the familiar creation-story idioms of the ancient Near East in general and of their recent Babylonian hosts in particular (Kindle Locations 1082-1084).”
Enns compares the text listing a variety of similarities with which I imagine most readers are familiar. He gives attention to the “polemical” differences as well: no divine conflict, one deity, tehom is impersonal chaos conquered rather than another god, but overall they share a “similar conceptual world.” It seems like the Canannite views of Baal were similar as well as the Egyptian Memphite Theology. So what? Enns writes,
“What bearing does the relationship between Genesis 1 and Enuma Elish have on the evolution issue? It means that any thought of Genesis 1 providing a scientifically or historically accurate account of cosmic origins, and therefore being wholly distinct from the “fanciful” story in Enuma Elish, cannot be seriously entertained. Apart from the obvious scientific problems with such an idea, it simply ignores the conceptual similarities between Genesis 1 and Enuma Elish. Whether or not the author of Genesis 1 was familiar with the text known to us as Enuma Elish, he was certainly working within a similar conceptual world, where solid barriers keep the earth safe from the heavenly waters, where chaotic material existed before order, and where light existed before the sun, moon, and stars (Kindle Locations 1126-1132).”
So if Genesis isn’t useful for science for what is it useful? This message:
“God alone created the world (established order out of chaos) by an act of his sovereign will, not as the result of a power struggle within a dysfunctional divine family. Again, there is no “cosmic battle” in Genesis 1, although the imagery of the battle between Tiamat and Marduk is in the background. (We will come back to this in chap. 4.) Not only is Tiamat depersonalized, but so are the sun, moon, and stars. These are not gods to be reckoned with as they are in some other ancient stories, but objects placed at the true God’s command, put in the heavens where he wishes. By depicting God’s work of creation so differently while drawing on a set of familiar themes, Genesis argues that Israel’s God is superior to the gods of the surrounding nations (Kindle Locations 1142-1147).”
In the next post I will share Enns thoughts on “Genesis 1 and Monolatry.” In the meantime, what do we make of Genesis’ similarities in worldview to documents like the Enuma Elish? How does this impact our understanding of Adam?
the archives near Emmaus 
Brian Observes “They have different hermeneutical paradigms. Collins interprets Genesis through how it is references in other biblical books. Enns interprets it through its similarities with literature from the same culture.”
Isn’t this a tad worrisome? We know that whatever it’s origins (meaning literary or oral) the Genesis story is ancient. It has this in common with other ancient books – yes. But we (meaning Chrsitians) also claim divine inspiration. It may be true that other books ‘claim’ that as well, but competing claims cannot all be true. Accordingly, if we are correct in our assertion that Genesis like other biblical books is indeed ‘inspired’ that makes Genesis, like all other biblical books, unique.
A high view of scripture necessitates we see Genesis against other biblical books, not other books that may have been contemporaneous since ‘divine inspiration’ trumps temporal coincidence in terms of literary significance. That Enns is falling into that academic trap of lending greater weight to incidental attributes (such as temporal coincidence) than perhaps he should suggests either his faith is weaker than his academic commitment, or he holds too low a view of scripture. (I’m not saying incidentally, that holding a narrow view of Adam and Eve is critical to orthodoxy, but I am suggesting of all the things you’ve said about Enns, this is the most revealing in terms of his motivation and the greatest threat to his credibility – notwithstanding I’m judging him by your words).
The other worrying element here is the question ‘If Genesis isn’t useful for science for what is it useful?’ Recognizing that the purpose of Genesis isn’t to illuminate the workings of our universe, but to establish, up front, that man is a creature, and that there is a Creator – by exhibiting the nature (pardon the pun) of man’s relationship to his Creator it can still be said that this question is completely backwards.
What-ever the purpose of the bible, it’s message has never changed – throughout time even if our understanding of it has, unlike science which is never the same yesterday, today, tomorrow. Science holds untrue ideas, it shifts and changes like the universe it studies, and is not reliable, or believable much of the time. Science studies creation through the eyes of fickle man. Genesis illuminates the Creator through the eyes (supposedly) of the Creator Himself.
We should NOT be comparing Genesis to Science. We should be comparing Science to Genesis so we can better understand both Science and Genesis (acknowledging that our science will likely change).
I was enjoying this serious of posts. This one, however, has struck a chord: what are Enn’s true purposes? (Is this about science or Genesis?)
I think John Walton already has succeeded in eliminating the science versus Genesis warfare from my angle and Walton also used comparative Jewish-pagan studies to discover “create” didn’t mean to them what it does to us.
I guess everything is your orientation or perspective. I see some similarities and way more dissimilarities, I’ve read Enuma Elish.
Having said that, there SHOULD be similarities. Pagan peoples are also humans with traditions, brains, etc. The Jews were johnny come lately, of course their language/alphabet and style was borrowed from their neighbors and often times some imagery.
IF God created, why wouldn’t pagans see it in some way like a believer in Yahweh?
IF there was a flood, how on earth COULD ANE pagans not have known it? Are they supposed to be w/o intellect and oral traditions for some reason? Egypt didn’t see a flood, they saw the killing off of humanity by other means for what it’s worth.
From my biased view, the fact most the ANE traditions have lower “gods” to worship, a creation account, a flood and giants adds validity to the early Genesis account, it doesn’t subtract from it. As with creation, gods, giants and Yahweh, the main difference is in how the 2 sides viewed the events, gods and Yahweh.
Polar opposites is the best description.
Yahweh made man in His image, the pagans felt mankind was made to serve the gods.
The gods were worshipped by the pagans, the Jews felt they were part of creation and should not be revered.
The flood preserved humanity from destruction to the Jew for a higher purpose(promise of Gen. 3:15), it destroyed mankind because we had ticked off the gods( once just due to loud noise).
The giants are revered and worshipped sometimes with the pagans, the Jews saw them as the seed of the serpent and Joshua executed the herem/ban on many of them.
I don’t see an Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Noah pagan antecedent. There is a Moses as a child rescue type story in a neighboring culture, but, most scholars think it was borrowed from the bible as opposed to the opposite.
I see nothing like Adam in Enuma Elish( or other ANE literature) and as such, think Enns is reaching.
Patrick, your last points differentiating Genesis from other contemporary literature are interesting and helpful.
Andrew,
Some of that commentary is very controversial to most believers.
If you’d be interested in reading a long dissertation by Professor Michael S. Heiser on lots of that stuff, email me at ipb7@att.net, I’ll send an attachment.
What I’ve found is the bible narrative explains itself very well, including many of the hard to fathom things(like the herem/ban of Joshua).
BTW, the Jews did borrow cosmological imagery from their neighbors, no doubt. Leviathan, chaotic waters representing evil, etc. Pillars under the earth, God( or gods) riding the clouds, God(or gods) on a high mountain meet up place,etc.
I just don’t think the Jews borrowed the people, places, events and Yahweh or their loser gods from their neighbors. Heck, at least 1 Psalm is stolen from pagan literature, the Jews pulled out Marduk and put in Yahweh.
Kind of an in your ear type dialectic there.
Lately I’ve been taking another look at Genesis 2-3 with myths like that of Prometheus in mind. The result is a fascinating theological fable that I think most Christians would find disturbing.
Paul D. Why?
The Promethean myths arose sometime time during the 2nd century (if Lucian’s comment is to believed that no Promethean temples yet existed existed) in the Olympian pantheon). It’s earliest manifestation in art could go as far back as 5th century. Genesis was well established at least half a millennium before that, and certainly recorded as something more than art when Promethean myth was nothing.
The Assyrian invasion of Greece which brought with it those Israelites the Bible calls ‘Greeks’ happened in 480 BC. Given the obvious Greek plagiarism of Hercules from Gilgamesh why would Christian’s find it disturbing the Greeks had ‘borrowed’ from Hebrew Myth?
Patrick you stated this earlier:
“Science holds untrue ideas, it shifts and changes like the universe it studies, and is not reliable, or believable much of the time. Science studies creation through the eyes of fickle man. Genesis illuminates the Creator through the eyes (supposedly) of the Creator Himself.”
This is an incredibly strange approach to the matter of science and religion. Science is humble, and ever-changing, because it never claims to be the end-all answer. Science always changes, and adapts in light of new evidence, and is in fact the far more honest approach to the creation mystery. Science is not stubborn and neither does it have an agenda – it is simply observation of what is. It is the first to admit it is wrong, and because of this it does a fantastic job of documenting and explaining our natural world. It may be executed through the hands and eyes of “fickle man”, but it doesn’t change the fact that is our most reliable vehicle to exploring phenomena of this world. Everytime the Church has resisted scientific discovery (heretical!), it has fought against it valiantly, but in the end succumbed to scientific process. I do not see the future deviating from this pattern anytime soon.
In harsh juxtaposition, Genesis has been the same through-out the ages. Now that evolution, genetic studies, and modern biblical studies have emerged, Genesis is suddenly in huge jeopardy. Will we dismiss all of this and adhere to our ideas of what Genesis is – as a historical account of origins? Enns has opted for synthesis, because disregarding science causes a great deal of cognitive dissonance for the intellectually honest.
You’re missing the fact that Genesis was written post Babylonian exile – many generations after other ANE creation (and flood) myths had been around. The similarities between the Atrahasis flood epic and the Genesis Noah story are so strikingly similar that it is easy to see why Enns, and many other Christians, have come to question the uniqueness and inspiration of Genesis.
It’s hard for anyone to believe that a text so similar to neighboring ones that have been established for centuries are truly inspired and unique.