This arose out of a CRC-Voices Discussion

Attempts at accounting for pre-Mosaic history in Genesis fascinate me. I posted a thing on my blog Saturday on thinking about Biblical inspiration in the light of the discussions around Ehrman’s book.

Our tradition holds to an “organic” view of inspiration as opposed to a dictation method or a mechanistic method. “organic” can be pretty broad. I basically encompasses that God brings about and guide the processes of the creation of the Bible. This may go all the way from God speaking words to someone all the way to God providentially moving through historical events that don’t appear directly related to producing a text but which in fact yield the text, selection and preservation, of what we now call the Bible.

I often hear people presuming that God revealed the pre-mosaic material (Genesis basically) to Moses via some vision, telling him what happened, or something of the sort. There is no story of this in Exodus, Numbers or Deuteronomy and no indication in Genesis that anything of the kind happened. The story is simply told.

What we know of Moses is intriguing in the fact that he was raised and educated in the court of Pharoah, one of the centers of the world of that day in terms of access to recorded knowledge. It doesn’t seem a stretch to imagine that in fact Moses had received one of the best educations that could be had in that part of the world. Part of that education I imagine certainly would have included origins stories from Egypt and Mesopotamia. What we have in the pre-Abrahamic history as is well noted has similarities and striking differences from other accounts we have access to that were floating around in that world. What’s key I think are the differences and they are stark. How can we account for these difference?

Did God reveal these difference? Did they arise out of theological reflection based on knowing God in the unique way he did based on the knowledge he had? If God spoke directly to him it seems quite natural that God would speak to him in terms that Moses could appropriate. Discussions in modern physics (in ancient Hebrew) would hardly seem helpful. All of these questions are of course pure speculation, but also all well within a theology of organic inspiration. I think we may say that whatever process God employed through Moses yielded a creation account that commoners and intellectuals of their day would find engaging, provocative, and life giving in terms of laying the groundwork to faithful knowledge and productive relating to this God. This is no small thing.

What’s even more amazing is to think that this text has in fact accomplished this and continues to do so to multiple generations and a myriad of cultures around the world. For any of us who work daily on communication either orally or through written text this accomplishment is mind blowing. In my opinion the idea of organic inspiration and what it has accomplished yields greater praise than a sort of mechanistic, dictation theory. Which is harder and therefore more glorious to do, to tell Moses “you write this down…” or to move time, history, heaven and earth in such a way that Moses is born and raised when and where he was, got his education, knows the stories of the world he needs to engage with and accomplishes writes this piece that serves his God over thousands of years and myriads of cultures and peoples. Kinda makes me want to sing a song. 🙂 pvk