Читать книгу Reflections on Biblical Themes by an Octogenarian - Reuben J. Swanson - Страница 5

¶ How did our universe come into existence? Was it created? Or did it just happen in a great bang that occurred approximately fifteen billion years ago? Can we speak definitively about time periods of such magnitude? Or must we be silent and only let the affirmation of faith speak for us? Without question creation is a most nebulous subject for most of us. There are specialists who probe the vast expanses of the universe with powerful telescopes, who measure radiation in outer space emitted by that initial gigantic blast, as well as the radial velocity of distant objects that demonstrate to them that we live in an expanding universe with great distant galaxies larger than our Milky Way traveling in space at almost the speed of light. The topography of our planet Earth has been shaped by the inexorable forces of nature—wind, water, heat and cold—over more than four billions of years. In contrast, there are religious enthusiasts with very modest estimates of the age of the universe, who depict it as created in six of our working days only a few thousand years ago by the word of God. All the features of outer and inner space—galaxies, stars, planets, oceans, mountains, plains, minerals, fossils, living creatures—were brought into being and shaped into their present forms instantaneously by the word of the living and powerful God.

Is it possible to reconcile these two disparate views? To affirm that the picture of our universe painted by the scientist is largely authentic and at the same time to hold with the religious enthusiast that all has been created by God but over a tremendous span of time? Is there an irreconcilable conflict between a modern scientific understanding of the beginnings and of the evolution of our universe and a religious faith that attributes the existence of all that was, all that is, and all that will be to God?

My own point of view is that there is no conflict except in the minds of those who hold dogmatically to one view to the exclusion of the other. A dogmatic point of view cannot be attributed to one side only, for there are scientific as well as religious bigots, scientists and religionists who subscribe to very circumscribed and narrow opinions upon the subject under discussion. The principle that I would advance is that the God of our religion and the God of our science are one and the same God. That is to say, the God who has created me and all that exists is the God who created the faith in me to believe this. There are many, many mysteries still unsolved in matters scientific and religious, but the answers we have as to the origins and the actualities of our existence and of the meaning of our existence originate from the one source—the Creator God.

The Biblical Accounts of Creation

The substance of this discussion will focus upon the biblical accounts of creation as these are reported in the Book of Genesis, chapters one and two. The reference to plural accounts may even come as a surprise to some readers, since the emphasis in the discussion of creation has mostly been upon the more familiar narrative in chapter one. There is a second, an older and more primitive account, in chapter two that has not often received the attention it deserves in our discussions. The later account in chapter one portrays creation as an orderly progression from the origins of light to the origins of man in a series of events over a six day period; day after day God brings into existence higher and higher forms of material and physical existence until finally the ultimate is reached with the creation of man in the image of God himself.

This account of an orderly progression compares favorably in many aspects to the scientific understanding of the origins and development of life as set forth in the theory of evolution. The use of the term “theory” should not prejudice us against any particular viewpoint, scientific or religious, since there are no evidences to prove conclusively a case for either point of view. Ultimately, we must admit that whether we approach our subject from a scientific or from a religious point of view, we rely upon the premise of faith and not upon fact. That we have observed “things” to work in a certain way does not at all demonstrate that we know all there is to know upon the subject. We must acknowledge in all humility that what we think we know we know in part and always from a particular and subjective point of view. The scientist approaches the subject matter in a subjective way because he or she has been conditioned by a subjective system or society to observe and to examine the subject matter according to certain preconceived presuppositions in the same degree that the religious philosopher approaches his or her task. If there is any difference in degree of subjectivity, it is only the difference from observer to observer, whether scientist or religious philosopher, each of us being in bondage to a greater or lesser degree to our previous conditioning. We are never completely free from our past and from our conditioning. We are subjective in our observations and in our conclusions just because we are human. Our growth towards objectivity is always the struggle of a lifetime and wherever we are on the time scale of life the horizon before us is always growing and enlarging with new and exciting possibilities. Even what has just been said is only a possibility and not at all a probability, depending entirely upon our openness to the future.

The big-bang theory of the origins of the universe or the theory of evolution are neither the answer nor the obstacle in the way of our holding to a concept of creation. Rather they are working hypotheses that offer plausible explanations for some aspects of existence but not for all. This writer has no quarrel with these working hypotheses except to qualify some points with reference to the theory of evolution. The pattern of development set forth in the model of a tree with the beginning of the first one-celled plant or creature and the proliferation of all higher and more complex forms of life in a great series of mutations from that one beginning seem to this writer to be too narrowly circumscribed. If it was possible for carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen, and steam to spontaneously evolve into life once, why not a number of times and in different places? And why not in different mixes, so that the resulting life forms were more or less complex and thus the bases for the resultant genera? Inasmuch as the basic building blocks of life, the amino acids and nucleotides, only differ qualitatively in all forms of life, there is a high probability that this goes back to their very beginnings. This possibility has greater plausibility to this writer than the explanation customarily offered. There are areas of the universe and of our existence that have not yet been explored, in part because of our ignorance of their existence and in part because we lack the tools for investigating many of the deep recesses of the universe and of human life. We forge ahead into the unknown both in our scientific and in our religious investigations with expectation and hope, always aware that the last word has not been said and that there are new concepts and new possibilities awaiting the intrepid and the open-minded.

The Biblical accounts of creation in the Book of Genesis are not to be taken as literal and factual descriptions of how and in what order things came into being. They are expressions of the faith of the community that identified itself as the people of God. The existence of the community as an historical entity was comparatively young when these accounts or confessions of faith were made. They reflect the cosmology, the world view, of the time in which they were composed and are not to be interpreted as appropriate for a twenty-first century understanding of the genesis or of the evolution of the universe and of life. The twenty-first century reader must see them against the backdrop of the time in which they were composed and the purpose for which they were intended. For example, the unusual feature of the author’s account of creation in chapter one of Genesis is the affirmation that God created light on day one and only placed the sun, moon, and stars in the heavens on day four. Obviously, this cannot be the true order, for there could not have been vegetation and fruit-bearing trees on day three without the sun in its place. This order of the author results not from any observations of the way in which things happened, but is an expression of his religious intuition. If we are to understand the intention of the writer, we must divest ourselves of our twenty-first century presuppositions and enter into the historical and religious milieu of the sixth century before Christ.

The Creation Stories as a Confession of Faith

The most meaningful understanding of the cosmology and religious presuppositions reflected in chapter one of Genesis is to assume that this story of creation received its final formulation in the time of the Babylonian exile when the community of God’s people had been uprooted from their land and taken as captives into a foreign country. In Babylon they were exposed to a high level culture and to a highly developed and sophisticated religion. The Babylonian empire was one of the greatest and most powerful of ancient times and its capital and religious center at Babylon on the Euphrates River was one of the wonders of the ancient world. The attractiveness of Babylonian culture and religion severely tested the faith of the captives, diluting and threatening their loyalty to their own religious and cultural tradition. The land of Judah was devastated, the temple at Jerusalem in ruins, the royal family and the leading citizens in captivity. The pathos, the tragedy, of the people is reflected in one of their hymns: “By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our lyres. How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” (Psalm 137.1–2, 4). Moreover, Marduk, god of Babylon, had overcome Yahweh, God of Israel, in his own land. In ancient times the gods were closely identified with the land and with the success or failure of a people in warfare. Natural disasters too were expressions of the anger of the god who ruled the land. Thus the exiles were sorely tempted to reject their ancestral faith, their religious heritage, even their God who had failed them in their time of crisis, and to adopt a new and more powerful god, Marduk. The great temple tower of Babylon towering high into the heavens was a far more impressive building than their own modest temple in Jerusalem that was now in ruins. The author of this creation story perceived the threat to Israel’s future and formulated a confession of faith as an expression of the historic faith of Israel and also as a critique of the Babylonian religion.

Such an occasion for a confession of faith is not unusual. A parallel example would be the formulation of the Nicene Creed, one of the major confessions of the Christian community that was shaped and molded in a time when the community was under severe attack from within as to the verities of the faith. The great principle set forth in the confession of faith shaped and molded by the forces unleashed from without against the very existence of Israel as the people of God was that Elohim, the God of Israel, is the Creator and Lord of all. This is the firm conclusion of the author pronounced with assurance and certainty, in spite of the very fragile nature of the existence of the people of God.

A comment upon the name of God, Elohim, used in this confession of faith is in order here. This is a plural form of the god name, El, meaning “mighty one,” common in ancient Mesopotamia and in Canaan before the coming of the Israelites from Egypt. The common use of the plural form, Elohim, does not refer to a plurality of gods, but rather to the divine power taken as a whole as it is revealed without any idea of a clearly defined divine person. Although we have said that the setting for this confession is Babylon in the sixth century before our era, the author gives to the confession the imprimatur of antiquity by using the earliest name for God from before the time of the patriarchs.

The name of God introduced to Israel in the time of Moses, Yahweh, meaning “he who causes to be,” is reserved by this author for the Mosaic time period and thereafter when its use is historically correct. The god of Babylon, Marduk, who was now competing with Yahweh for the allegiance and loyalty of the Israelites, was the sun, that heavenly body worshipped most frequently in ancient and primitive cultures as the source of being. Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, ruled by divine election, chosen and appointed by Marduk for his exalted position as ruler of Marduk’s land. Marduk is supreme among the gods, the author and source of light and life, the very sun in the heavens. The author of our confession reduces Marduk to a lesser status, however, by the simple expedient of declaring that the sun, the moon, and the remaining heavenly bodies were created by Elohim, the one true God, and only on the fourth day of his creative acts. Light, the very essence and radiance of light, came to be in the very beginning as a result of the powerful word of Israel’s God. The order of the creative acts is not only a defense of the God of Israel, but an attack upon the Babylonian premise that the sun is god. How can the sun be preeminent if it was placed in the heavens long after many other and more significant events had already occurred? The God of Israel is the source of light, not the sun, nor the moon, nor the stars.

The Place of Man in the Cosmos

Another significant feature of this confession of faith is the place of man, that is, the true Israelite, in the cosmos. Man, in Hebrew the word is Adam, is created in the image of God. This does not mean for the writer that man resembles God in any way physically, mentally, or spiritually. Rather man is given dominion, that is, authority, in the earth. He is to administer and exercise God’s rule in the sphere of creation. God has created all that is and it is “very good.” Man’s calling is to use all of the created world for his own comfort and well-being and yet preserve the earth and all that is in it for the generations to come. His rule is not to be self-serving, destructive, or wasteful. He does not own the earth or the land; it is God’s own possession. Man is God’s steward. His vocation is to exercise careful and judicious stewardship over the earth to assure that future generations are blessed and served by him. The writer did not anticipate the problems of pollution, the waste of natural resources, the threat to man’s environment so characteristic of our modern age and yet in a sense he did. He was aware that the wrong and destructive use of the resources of the earth would be detrimental and dangerous to the future of mankind.

We note also that man is male and female. Man is a generic term that encompasses both sexes. There is nothing of superiority here, male over female; rather there is equality of personhood and differences only in function. Man and woman together are to populate the earth and through concerted effort bring order out of chaos. Creation is not complete and finished with God’s final word on day six. Rather creation is in a primitive and unfinished state, so that man’s task is to develop, to cultivate, and to renew all that has been placed in his charge. This task male and female are to do together in partnership under the dominion of the God who had created them.

The Setting for “in the Beginning”

The setting for the author is “in the beginning,” yet the beginning had no observers. The confession is marvelously descriptive of a sequence of events that are shrouded in the distant past, how distant the author could not know. If he composed in the sixth century before our era as we have surmised, he has reached back into a past that is lost to us and given an account that is true in essence but not in detail. Did he borrow from antiquity? Perhaps, since there are points of kinship between his description of cosmology, that is, his understanding of the universe, to that which is common in the Mesopotamian world from a much earlier time.

The universe is a three-tiered structure with the heavens above, the earth beneath, and the water under the earth. But evidently his basic motifs and content were more consonant with those concepts and practices that had developed in the worshipping community of Israel over many centuries of worship in the temple at Jerusalem. How much of the organization and arrangement of the material into the pattern in which it now appears in this confession of faith, or how much of the content has been provided by the author we cannot know, but it is not improbable that some of the arrangement and some of the content are his own contributions. The composer is never limited to the language or to the concepts of the past, but is always creative in the arrangement, the word choice, and especially in the meaning he indelibly imprints upon his composition. The references to the days of creation are vague and indistinct. It would be fortuitous if we could equate them with geological periods of time designed by specialists of this discipline in our twenty-first century, but such is not the case. This would be a kind of eisegesis, reading into the text our own presuppositions and subjective assumptions. This is the real problem of hermeneutics, or interpretation, that too often we have done just that. We have approached our biblical subject or our biblical study with our own agenda, looking for support and verification for a theology that has little rapport with scripture and more kinship with philosophy or sociology. Our text is suggestive and we are to be imaginative, but the rules of interpretation demand that our solutions be grounded in a knowledge of the language, the history, the sociology, the literature, and the religion of our source and in the times of which it speaks and the time in which it was composed. There is nothing basically contradictory in this confession of faith to a modern scientific view of “the beginning,” but at the same time we cannot promulgate this text as a true and definitive account of “the beginning” superseding any of the findings or conclusions reached through a modern scientific approach. It is more proper in the opinion of this writer to view the two approaches, the religious or biblical and the scientific, as complementary and not mutually exclusive.

The Sabbath as the Setting for the Confession of Faith

The primary intention of the confession of faith is to provide the ground and the basis for the observance of a Sabbath day, a day of rest, by the worshipping community. On the seventh day, Elohim rested from all the creative work that he had done. In a similar way, man is to rest periodically and regularly from his normal activities as steward of the earth in order to set aside a time for response to and communion with his Creator God. Total attention to his own concerns can only result in a self-centered and self-indulgent creature. The center of the universe is not man but God. God the Creator is not a part of creation, but is totally independent and apart from it. He is above and beyond all that he has made; yet he is intimately involved in all that occurs within it. The universe, that is, earth and man, is his concern and his continuing activity is to guide and direct the course of history to the conclusion that he has appointed for it.

The origins of the Sabbath, the concept of a regular day of rest for worship and for a time of special attention to the concerns of the Creator God, are lost in antiquity. The writer’s purpose here is to anticipate the establishment of such a day for the observance of the things of God in the Mosaic period, for there it is specifically stated in one of the primary commandments of the Mosaic code that man is to “remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” Its observance became fixed very early in the life of the community of God’s people and therefore was of prime importance to distinguish the believing Israelite from the people of the land of Babylon. In summary, the keeping of the Sabbath was an important witness to the commitment of the Israelite to the God of Israel and a confession of his faith to the unbelieving Babylonians among whom he lived. Thus the Sabbath is to be seen as the culmination of the writer’s account of the creation of the universe by Elohim in six days and his declaration that God rested on the seventh day from all his work. The normative activities of God are set aside regularly and periodically for the renewal of his being. How necessary then for man created in the image of God to set aside a day from his normal activities in order that he might be renewed and re-created by his Creator for the vocation that has been entrusted to him.

The Second Account of Creation

When we turn to chapter two of Genesis, we enter a new and strange world. This account of creation is earlier in time by several centuries and is much more ancient and primitive in some of its detail. The earth and the heavens are made by God without reference to time, not even to “in the beginning.” There is no vegetation, no rainfall, only a mist watering the face of the ground. In this barren setting God acts to create man. The setting for this act of God has no reference to probability, or even to possibility. Nevertheless the description of the creation of man is striking in its theological insight and perception. The Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. It is Yahweh Elohim who acts in this account of the creation of man. The divine name revealed first to Moses and then through Moses to the people of God is used in this account of creation, the name Yahweh, meaning “he who causes to be.” It is used in tandem with the older name for God already encountered in the later account of creation, Elohim, as discussed above. It is Yahweh Elohim who acts decisively to create. The life work of Moses is usually placed by critics in the thirteenth century before our era. This would translate into a date approximately B.C.E. 1250 according to our calendar. Therefore the use of the divine name Yahweh in the account of creation calls for an explanation.

The author of this second and earlier account of creation is usually identified by critics as the Yahwist, since he prefers to use the divine name Yahweh in his account of events even from the very beginning. Why does he do this, since obviously this is historically inaccurate? The earlier name, Elohim, by which God was addressed, and even the singular form El, is well documented in the traditions reaching back to early times. The author is not so concerned with historical accuracy as with another and more compelling concern. There is only one true God. Whatever he may have been called, he was and is Yahweh forever. Therefore it is theologically correct to address him by the unique and singular name Yahweh. The earlier divine name, Elohim, was probably not in his account, but was added by editors who joined the various strands of tradition together into a consecutive and orderly account sometime during the Babylonian exile, perhaps in the fifth century before our era.

The Yahwist wrote at a time when the Kingdom of Israel was at its zenith politically, that is, during the David—Solomon era. Saul, the first king of Israel, laid the foundations for a monarchy, but it was David who united the Israelite tribes and through a series of smashing military successes over neighboring states molded the conquered area into a kingdom that became the dominant power in the area east of the Mediterranean Sea in the tenth century before our era. The kingdoms of Egypt and Mesopotamia had all suffered declines and the vacuum was filled by this new and astute empire builder. His son and successor, Solomon, did not add new territory but carried forward the process of inner development and exploitation of the resources, including a massive program of building that included the temple at Jerusalem.

A New Threat to the Faith

A new threat to the faith of Israel emerged at this time, resulting in part from the many alliances with neighboring kingdoms sealed by marriage between the royal houses and in part from the trade and commerce with these kingdoms. Foreign ideas, customs, and even religious practices were introduced that, along with the growing emphasis upon wealth, luxury, the enslavement of captive peoples, and particularly nationalism, threatened the religious basis of the community. The Yahwist composed his epic account as a challenge to the alien religious ideas and practices that were infiltrating the community of God’s people and weakening their loyalty to the one true God. His intention is to focus attention upon the purpose for which Yahweh has called Israel out of slavery in Egypt and established her in the land of promise. Israel is called to be a blessing to the nations. It is a perversion of her calling to become like the nations, to set priorities and goals that are basically materialistic and self-seeking. The author’s theological perspective is unbounded and universal. What Israel has received as blessing from the one true God, Yahweh, is to be shared with all nations and all peoples. His insights and perceptions at such an early date in the history of mankind, or even in the history of the community of God’s people, are unique and exceptional. He anticipates the great eighth century prophets and their universal viewpoint that mankind is one family created by the one true God and called to live together for the mutual good of all.

The Meaning of “Man”

Who is man? Yahweh Elohim formed man (’adam) of dust from the ground (’adamah), and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. Man is creature, created of dust, of the basic elements of which the universe is composed. Therefore man is related to earth out of which he came and to all life that springs from the dust of the earth. How prophetic of our twenty-first century image of man, for we and all life, whether plant or animal, are shaped out of the same basic building blocks, the amino acids and nucleotides, common to the simplest forms of one-celled plants and animals and to man, the most complex of all creatures. The thread of unity and harmony runs through the entire constituency of the universe, whether we study a speck of dust from our planet’s surface or probe the farthest reaches of outer space with powerful telescopes.

We are dust, but we are more than dust and this is the genius of the Yahwist to have perceived a dimension to our being that transcends the dust out of which we have come. Yahweh Elohim formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. The distinctive element that sets man apart from all plant life, from all creatures, is the inbreathing by God. It must be more than a happy coincidence that the word for wind or breath and the word for spirit are one and the same in the Hebrew and Greek languages. The Hebrew word, ruach, and the Greek word, pneuma, fulfill this dual capacity. Thus when God breathes into man, a creature of dust, that lump of dirt is inspirited and comes alive, a living being.

What is the Yahwist telling us by his description of man as a lump of dirt transformed into a living being? There is something so profound here that it boggles the imagination. It is incredible that an unknown thinker four thousand years ago could have arrived at such a profound concept of being. On the one hand, man is creature shaped of the same material as all creatures with physical capacities inferior to some and superior to other creatures. On the other hand, man is creature endowed with mental capacities that distinguish and set him apart from all living beings. All this was without doubt readily apparent to the Yahwist. But the quality of being that he perceived in man alone, a quality not found in other creatures except perhaps to a minimal degree, is the potential for man to be spiritual. The inbreathing, the inspiriting of God, gives to man a dimension, a quality, which sets him apart from all life. Without that inbreathing man is creature with physical and mental traits marking him as superior to some and inferior to others. But inbreathed by the breath, the spirit of God, man comes alive. He becomes aware of the Creator God who has made him and of his potential for life on a new and higher level, a life lived in trusting relationship with God and in loving relationship with man. He becomes aware that it is his glory to be preeminent among the creatures and that his preeminence is a gift and an opportunity to tend the earth and keep it.

The Highest Level for Human Attainment

Life can be lived on more than one level. The genius of the Yahwist was to perceive that the highest level for human attainment is possible only through the inbreathing of God. Only in and through the divine inbreathing is it possible for the potential within creature man to be stimulated and set free, so that he might attain to the highest levels of spiritual understanding and expression. Man alone of all created beings has the possibility and the potential to realize a three dimensional life in which body, mind, and spirit achieve the highest attainments, but only through the inbreathing, the inspiriting of God. Man is unique but his uniqueness is only latent and unrealized until he is in a true knowing, trusting, and responsive relationship with his Creator. Without that inbreathing he is creature; he is born, he lives, he dies, he returns to the dust out of which he came. But inbreathed by God and responsive to that inbreathing his life is unending. His future is forever.

Since we have acknowledged in our discussion that the scientific dating of the beginnings of our universe is intrinsically acceptable to a religious understanding of creation, that is to say, that this event took place some fifteen billions of years ago, the question rises as to the beginnings of human life. When did human beings first appear on this great time scale? The anthropologist searching for clues and evaluating the evidence has come to the conclusion that the emergence of man as a distinct genus came approximately three million years ago. Where then are we to place the Yahwist’s Adam on this time scale? There is no suggestion as to a date or an historic time in our biblical account. The event of creation and the advent of man belong to prehistory. It would not be correct in the view of this writer to equate or identify biblical man with the precursors of Homo Sapiens identified by the anthropologist. What then? Who is our biblical Adam?

The Biblical Adam

Adam represents the breakthrough in the history of man from bondage to creature hood, from finitude to authentic life, to the life of spirit. Through billions of years from the first beginnings of the universe, through millions of years from the first beginnings of the emergence of man, there has been forward movement through countless mutations to higher and more complex forms of material existence. And, finally, the culmination is reached with the unleashing of man the creature from bondage to his focus only upon satisfying the needs and appetites of his body and mind to realize authentic being as man who is the handiwork of God, inbreathed and inspirited by the Creator to realize his full potential as spiritual being. There have been numerous breakthroughs in the history of mankind that have been all-important and decisive for his future, but none to compare to this breakthrough into self-realization and self-awareness as to his place and role in the total design and purpose of the universe. Man alone is singularly blessed with this knowledge and understanding. With this gift given through the breath of God comes man’s calling to live up to his potential, to fulfill his role as caretaker and steward of the earth, of all plants and creatures in it, and even of the universe itself.

A New Concept of Community

The first Adam, a member of the genus Homo Sapiens that had developed and burgeoned over eons of time, was already deeply rooted in the community of family. The revelation that came to him in this moment of inbreathing by God distinguished and set him apart from all members of the community and at the same time opened the way to a new concept of community that was no longer narrow and provincial but as inclusive as the universe. There were sharp distinctions and differences between the inbreathed and the not inbreathed. The highest role of the true Adam was to share his insight, his understanding, his perception, his new dimension of personhood with all those around him to the end that his gift from God become the common property of the entire human family.

That process continues to the present day and will continue to the end of time. For this dimension of personhood is not transferred from generation to generation through the genes, that is, through the procreation of the human race. Each individual begins where pre-Adam began as a creature of body, mind, and soul awaiting the inbreathing of God to awaken the life of spirit, the awareness of personhood, the sense of calling and purpose that comes to life when the Creator God breathes into each one the breath of life. Without this inbreathing man is creature living below the level of humanity, striving towards his own goals, sating his appetite for things, and when his last day has come sinking into the abyss of nothingness and oblivion. Inbreathed by God, man knows his highest purpose is to be the intermediary through whom the Creator continues to inbreathe and create the life of the spirit universally.

Conclusions

The two accounts of creation were written at different times in history and under very different circumstances. The one is a classic expression of the “who” of creation; the other a most insightful perception into the nature of personhood. Both affirm unequivocally that the God of Israel is Creator and Lord of all that was, of all that is, and of all that will be. Both affirm that apart from the Creator God there is no authentic existence. To be at one with God is the wellspring of life, for from that relationship of recognition and acknowledgment rises the possibility to be and to do that which is far above and beyond the capacity of creature hood.

The contributions of the ancient biblical writers to our twenty-first century understanding of the universe and of human life are immeasurable. How impoverished we are, how lacking in spirit, when we choose to ignore or discard them. Their reflections, not so much upon the “how” of creation or the order of creation, manifest a profound probing into the meaning of existence, a probing that is most provocative to the mind that still searches for answers today. The Yahwist, for example, who antedated a Plato or an Aristotle by several centuries, had already arrived at germinal ideas of the nature of human existence that are still fresh and stimulating. Unfortunately, these ideas have mostly been lost to us because they were set forth in what are considered by many to be merely sectarian religious writings of little importance for modern man. Our egotism, our sophistication, is often our worst enemy, preventing us from perceiving and learning from the giants of the past just because they are ancient.

Perhaps the most valuable lesson of all that we might learn from a review of their thoughts upon the origin and the meaning of existence is humility. In reality, we know so little of the universe that is our home and so little of man the most complex of all the creatures inhabiting the universe that we ought not disparage those ancients who probed so unerringly into the deepest mysteries and suggested for our consideration possibilities that far exceed in profundity our sophisticated explanations. What does it profit us if we arrive at answers to the deep mysteries of the “how” of our origins and utterly fail to perceive the meaning and the purpose of it all?