So to start with some brief comments on evolution: I have found the biological evolution of species a fascinating subject to study and I have the benefit that my education in STEM subjects and profession as a Chemical Engineer allow me to follow what the experts write for a technical, but lay, audience. However, when I first wrote this website I decided not to include anything about evolution because I don't find the creation-evolution controversy particularly interesting or fruitful and there has already been too much written about it elsewhere. I didn't want the other things I had to say to be dominated by a single, and in my view irrelevant, subject. Although it gets many Christadelphians very excited, an acceptance of evolution is shared by Christians and atheists as well as others. And having spent a lot of time reading up on both evolution as a subject as well as the ongoing debate between evolutionists and those who believe in ‘special creation’ I have had my fill of biblical literalism.
In short my position is that evolution is a scientific fact that is as sure as the earth going around the sun and inescapable unless you claim:
- Conspiracy theory on the part of numerous professionals in many disciplines, which is simply too farfetched to warrant further comment.
- Physical evidence is not useful for finding physical truths, which is a philosophical position that I have never heard anyone genuinely express.
One final comment on evolution because I think we should all know what would falsify our position and cause us to change our mind: I would change my mind on evolution if it were no longer taught in undergraduate courses in biology at the best universities worldwide (this is my proxy for expert and scientific consensus). To put that in perspective, I would also change my mind on a heliocentric solar system if it were no longer taught in undergraduate physics courses, something equally unlikely.
With that introduction let’s move on to consider something else about early Genesis, and that is where the ideas it contains came from.
Enûma Eliš
The first ancient document I want to mention is Enûma Eliš (or Enuma Elish) which is a Babylonian document written in cuneiform over seven tablets and was discovered in the ruined Library of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh (now Mosul in Iraq). The dating of the text is uncertain and suggestions have been made between around 1800 BCE and 1100 BCE. If you have read my section on Documentary Hypothesis you will remember that the Torah was written at various times by various people in various places, all of them after 1100 BCE. So the Bible is a later document than Enûma Eliš.
Enûma Eliš is of interest to Biblical Scholars because it assumes the same cosmology as Genesis 1, but has a different theology. This shows that the Israelites shared a construction of the universe (albeit an incorrect one) with their Babylonian captors, even though they disagreed on who the highest deity was and how they achieved their position.
Enûma Eliš is the Babylonian creation myth that explains how their god Marduk came to be exalted as the chief god of the pantheon. It starts “Enûma Eliš”, which means “When on high” and continues ‘the heaven had not been named, / Firm ground below had not been called by name, / Naught but primordial Apsu, their begetter, [And] Mummu-Tiamat, she who bore them all,” Enûma Eliš tells us that initially there is nothing but water absolutely everywhere, both above and below, and two primary gods Apsu and Tiamat. It later comes to pass that a lesser god Marduk fights the goddess Tiamat. In the battle Marduk splits her body in half and uses the two pieces to hold back the waters. One part holds back the water below and is the ground; the other holds back the water above and is called the firmament. The firmament is literally a solid clear dome and when we look into the sky we can see the fresh blue water held back behind it. When the firmament gets little holes in it the water falls through as rain. And when you dig into the ground you find the waters from below seeping into the bottom of your well, or they come up as springs (hold that cosmology in mind when you next read the flood story of Noah). Marduk didn't stop there though; he went on to create other things as well - the sun, moon and stars, and so on. Finally he created man from the blood of one of the gods that died in the battle along with Tiamat. The person he created was called ‘human’ or ‘adam’ in Hebrew.
If you are familiar with Genesis 1 you will have noticed some striking similarities as well as significant differences with Enûma Eliš. The point I am making here is that the Israelite writer of Genesis 1 knew about, and agreed with, the earlier document when it came to the shape of what we would now call ‘the observable universe’. He didn't know anything more about the universe than the prevailing thought of the time, which has subsequently been shown as false. Genesis 1 then, was written as polemic against the supremacy of Marduk placing God above the position of Marduk as supreme creator of a watery universe.
The Epic of Gilgamesh
The next ancient text I am considering here is The Epic of Gilgamesh which scholars link with the second biblical creation story. The Epic of Gilgamesh has some close parallels with the second creation story in Genesis 2 to 3 which is quite different, and even contradictory, to the account in Genesis 1. The Epic of Gilgamesh is often considered the earliest surviving great work of literature, dating to around 2100 BCE. So as with Enûma Eliš it pre-dates the biblical record and the Israelite writer of the Genesis 2 to 3 account drew on The Epic of Gilgamesh while writing his own work.
In The Epic of Gilgamesh there is the story of a man called Enkidu. Enkidu was formed from clay by one of the gods, he starts life as an innocent primitive, he is at one with nature and roams across the steppes with the gazelles such is his strength and speed. He is unclothed and gets all his food from the plants around him. He lives a life similar to Adam initially did in The Garden of Eden. But for Enkidu’s quest he has to be tamed so a woman goes to him and over the course of a week through sexual initiation he changes. In the end he becomes civilised, he loses his innocence and oneness with nature and becomes civilised and wise like a god knowing good from evil. He knows his place in the universe and has a moral and spiritual awakening. After this he tries to go back to his friends the gazelles but they run off and he can no longer keep up their speed. He clothes himself and starts having to work for his food as the ground no longer provides for him like it had done before. There is the sense that as he, and by extension we, became self-aware our innocence and oneness with nature is lost but we gain wisdom and civilisation in the process and that we had to lose one to gain the other.
Obviously there are a number of parallels here with the second Genesis creation story and The Fall, but there are also differences, and scholars have learned from both. Perhaps the differences are less substantial than they may initially seem. Enkidu was tamed through sexual encounters, but Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge – in Hebrew ‘to know’ can mean both knowing something and ‘to know’ someone in the biblical sense, i.e. sexually.
My intention isn't to dissect the meaning of these text or the thoughts and ideas of the people who wrote them. It is only to highlight that the Garden of Eden story is an adaptation of an earlier story, modified to suit the views of the audience listening to it in the age and place they lived.
Conclusion
Subject matter experts tell us that first few chapters of Genesis are a development of earlier thoughts and stories. These stories tell us nothing about our literal beginnings; how humans came to exist. Instead they show us how the Israelites retold stories they had inherited from their ancestors and how they shaped them to suit their own perspective, beliefs and understanding.
If there is one thing that I'd like you to take away from this page it is that the Bible must not be read in isolation. It sits within a wider context which needs to be understood in order to comprehend what the biblical writers thought. The Bible is not literally true, and read in isolation it is propaganda. When read in context with other human discoveries and knowledge (historical, philosophical, scientific, etc.) it can provide a fascinating window into our past and cultural heritage.
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