• Corpus ID: 7589764

Genesis 1-11 as Historical Narrative

@inproceedings{PhillipsGenesis1A,
  title={Genesis 1-11 as Historical Narrative},
  author={William G. Phillips and David M. Fouts}
}

• W. G. Phillips, David M. Fouts
• Art, Philosophy

Most young-age creationists believe the universe and the earth is young because they are convinced that the Bible makes that claim. There are, however, those who have as strong a belief in the truthfulness of Scripture but who do not accept the claim that the universe and earth is young. Some of these people believe that the creation account is not to be taken literally because it is either poetry (as opposed to narrative) or non-historical narrative (allegory, parable, myth, legend or tale). This essay lists reasons to believe that the creation account is historical narrative. 1) Non-historical narrative in Scripture does not include a lot of geographical 11) provide geographical and genealogical details more consistent with historical than non-historical Hebrew literature. In Genesis 2-11 are found " ...:59)—all presenting " ...us with the possibility of establishing the reliability of our author " (Kaiser, 1970:59). Furthermore, aside from God and the " heavens " (which might even be the physical " heavens "), Genesis One has a surprising paucity of reference to the spiritual world (Berkhof, 1941:150). In short, Genesis 1-11 focuses on details of the physical world in a manner more characteristic of historical than of non-historical literature. 2) In Scripture, non-historical literature consistently includes a person who receives or tells the story as well as an interpreter. With the exception of the multiple parables of Mat-thew 13 which are given a single collective interpretation, non-historical stories are also followed by an interpretation. It also tends to be the case in Scripture's non-historical literature that every element of the story is symbolic. (NOTE: The only exception seems to be the Greek passage of Luke 12:13-21.) God thus does not appear as " God, " but is symbolized by another figure (e.g. landowner, father). Scriptural analogies of singular events tend to refer to a historical narrative elsewhere in Scripture detailing that event. In Genesis 1-3, however, there is neither narrator, nor interpreter, nor interpretation, and every element of the account seems to be non-symbolic (e.g. birds, plants, stars)— including God appearing as Himself. Furthermore, if the passage or any part of it is an analogy of a singular event, then this would be the only Scriptural example where that event is not recorded anywhere else in Scripture's historical narrative. It seems most likely then, that Genesis 1-3 is actually historical narrative (Scaer, 1977). 3) Numerology, figures of speech, textual symmetry …