Times & Seasons

This week, we continued talking about Enuma Eliš and Genesis 1, beginning with a review of some of the similarities we talked about last week. Similarities– 1) Opens with temporal clause. 2) pre-creation darkness 3) precreation cosmic waters 4) wind/spirit 5) division of the waters to create space for human existence 6) a solid “roof” created to restrain the cosmic waters from reentering that space. There are also stark differences, which generally fall under the category of semi-polemical monotheistic reinterpretation. That is, while Genesis shares with Mesopotamia (as well as all the other ancient Near Eastern cultures we know of) a very different conception of the physical universe and some other elements, it differs sharply in who’s in charge. Differences– Lack of combat– In contrast to Enuma Eliš, other creation accounts, and other parts of the Old Testament (per the last post), creation is portrayed as being free of combat with other deities or cosmic waters/chaos. Monotheistic. – Things which are deities in creation accounts elsewhere are downplayed, removed, and made to be creations, such as sun, moon, stars, sabbath, the waters, and the “great whales” or cosmic sea monsters associated with the deified cosmic waters. See my post here. (Well, kinda monotheistic, at least in comparison with its neighbors. Israelites likely believed in existence of other divine beings, though none really offered a challenge to Yahweh.  This is probably reflected in the several “us” passages (Genesis 1:26-27, 3:22, 11:7, etc.)  Unlikely…

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Fourth and last in a series of essays about female identity. Previous posts explored this theme in the contexts of air, water, and earth. It was snowing when I drove to the hospital, and it wouldn’t be daylight for another hour at least. The only person in the lobby was the woman at the information desk. She directed me to the laboratory down the hall, where I handed over my paperwork and sat down in the empty waiting room. On the wall-mounted TV, a news reporter announced that an escaped convict had been captured. He’d broken out of federal prison to visit his terminally ill mother. The tech called my name and motioned me to the blood-draw chair. She asked what procedure would be having that morning. I looked over my shoulder; the waiting room was still empty. “Tubal ligation,” I said.

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(updated!) Attendance down a little this week; I know one student had a date, the weather was poor (no one likes to travel in the rain), and so on, but I also heard that last week was too much for at least one person. But, I felt this week went quite well, and we finally got into Genesis itself. As per the syllabus, class today was divided in two parts. And due to my own schedule and time commitments this week, I’m afraid my notes here are much rougher, less complete and posted later than I’d wish. I. Tools part I We went over a handout about language and dictionaries, talked about why Webster’s modern dictionary isn’t useful, how to use Strong’s Concordance, where to get it for free, and what’s wrong with it, then some resources that you can use once you understand Strong’s and have the number for a word. Here’s the handout (ask if something isn’t clear), which came with some relevant sample pages from Strong’s, where we looked at “abide” as exemplar (those pages not uploaded) and the relevant chapters from Jim Faulconer’s excellent short Scripture Study: Tools and Suggestions “English Historical Dictionaries” for D&C/Book of Mormon/Pearl of Great Price; Here’s his chapter for dealing with Greek and Hebrew, “Doing Bible Research Without Knowing Greek or Hebrew.” Now, I go beyond Faulconer, and suggest using great caution with Strong’s. It’s very outdated, and doesn’t give useful…

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What’s my margin of error? Adam ± .33?

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A close reading of Blake Ostler’s work is timely, and I’m happy to do it alongside of Adam Miller. I’ve left mostly to Adam’s post last week to state what we’re up to and why. I want this week, before we come to the chapter-by-chapter work of this project, to say something about how time has affected Ostler’s project—how the project has changed between 2001 (publication of volume one) and 2008 (publication of volume three). I’ll also have to say a word about how it may change before 2012 is over (publication of volume four). My modus operandi will be simple: I will look at the prefaces to the already-published volumes of Exploring Mormon Thought.

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I was gratified to see most of the class come back, but we’ll see if it happens again. Here’s the tentative syllabus for the next few weeks. I was really apprehensive about today, for two reasons. First, the material in this lesson was largely groundwork for the next few weeks, and really shouldn’t stand on its own, because you don’t see the payoff. Time constrained me, though.  Second, this is some of the most tentative material I’m working with, and I’m hesitant about some of it. I’m still working it out in my own mind, but this seems to be the direction the evidence points in. Because of those two things, and the amount of material to cover, I’m not sure it all got presented in the clearest way, and I know at least one of the major arguments didn’t get presented. Reverse summary: Next week, we’re going to start reading Genesis against other creation accounts, particularly the Babylonian Enuma Elish, to see the doctrinal arguments it made.  In order to build up to that, I presented three main points: 1) Whatever portion Moses may have written of Genesis 1 is now unrecoverable, and its current form dates to much later (likely around the Exile c.600 BCE). 2) The Book of Moses creation account neither proves Moses wrote our Genesis account nor is it an independent witness to an earlier version of Genesis 1. 3) The Book of Abraham Creation…

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