The City, Babylon

     This week in our team-taught course in the Development of Western Civilization, my colleague in theology was introducing the students to the startling and, among the world's tales of creation, unique features of the account in Genesis.  One of the students raised her hand and said, "But isn't this just your interpretation?  And isn't one interpretation just as good as another?"  At which point he dutifully made as if to leave the room, saying that in that case his job was pointless and that the class were wasting their money.

     In fact, serious students of Genesis ought to read the Gilgamesh and the Theogony, and consider how, after one has accustomed oneself to what might be an unfamiliar panoply of gods and demigods, those works do not escape the grip of the ordinary.  They are not only rooted in, and colored by, a particular place and a way of life; they are written to celebrate and to justify that place and that way of life.  The walls of the city Uruk stand tall at the beginning and the end of Gilgamesh.  They stand for man's greatest victory, or perhaps his only victory, the wresting of civilization from a harsh nature, from his own core of brutishness, and from the malice and unpredictability of the gods.  The hero Gilgamesh does not find eternal life, but his consolation will be the shadowy immortality of fame: he has fought well for Uruk, and has glorified it with cedars won from the power of the god of the distant forest.  He will enjoy the temple holidays, and fine robes, and beer; the love of his child and of his spouse.  And that is all.  If it is not enough, we must heed the words of Utnapishtim the Faraway, the Mesopotamian Noah: when the gods made man, they gave him death, but life they retained for themselves.

     Hesiod's Theogony is also, though more obscurely, an epic of city-building.  The generation of young gods under the leadership of Zeus can only secure power by means of canny political compromise: Zeus grants honors to certain strategic Titans, such as Hecate and Styx, and induces the three Hundred-Arms to fight on his side.  Only by their assistance can he defeat the older generation -- the chthonic gods, associated not with the light and laughter and intelligence and cunning of the gods of Olympus (gods that followed the Indo-European steppe dwellers as they made their way into Europe), but with the dark blind earth, that mindlessly fecund womb and tomb, gods that were often hideous and sometimes brutely stupid.  Zeus, in other words, rules Olympus exactly as a "king" would rule an early Greek polis: statecraft in Boeotia or in Attica is "explained" by the statecraft of the gods, for whomever Zeus favors, him the Muses inspire with honeyed words in the assembly, to make men incline to his judgment.

     Now it is remarkable that no such preoccupation with the glory of cities is to be found in Genesis.  (Babel is a city; enough said.)  How can we explain this?  Clearly the stories must be of great antiquity, originating long before the Hebrews attached themselves to a Jericho or a Jerusalem.  But even that is not sufficient.  When the citified editors under Ezra recovered the Genesis material, they did not intrude into it any etiological tales of Jerusalem (as Romans had for Rome, a perfect cornucopia of them), or even, before the exposition of the law of Moses (which reads as law, pure and simple, and not at all as lore), any etiological tales of the origins of this or that social custom or feast.  Genesis, in other words, is supracultural in a way that no tale of origins that I know of can claim.  Yes, there are incidental details that seem to have arisen from the accidents of place and culture; hunters and farmers do not come off particularly well.  But the details are really incidental.  Other cultures hail the hard-won conquests of intellect and courage: a Prometheus here to teach us the skills of the foundry, or an Oedipus there to solve the riddle of the malignant Sphinx.  Genesis mentions that Tubal invented trumpetry and that Nimrod was a mighty hunter before the Lord, but it is as in passing, and not without a trace of scorn.

     If Genesis were a tale for some nation squeezed between the Jordan and the Red Sea, it fails pretty badly.  But even in theory, can one imagine a mythic (and by that word I do not imply falsehood or inaccuracy, rather only the narrative form) account of the creation of the world, by a God who is not one of the things-to-be-explained within that world, that is intended by Providence from the beginning to speak to the minds and hearts of anyone, anywhere, in the plains or the mountains, in the tundra or in the tropics, living in cities or living alone in the desert -- I say, can one imagine such a thing that would not look like Genesis?

Comments

[Bill R]

"-- I say, can one imagine such a thing that would not look like Genesis?"

I cannot. There has been much discussion of the infallibility or inerrancy of Scripture, but not enough discussion of its uniqueness. Note:

"If it is not enough, we must heed the words of Utnapishtim the Faraway, the Mesopotamian Noah: when the gods made man, they gave him death, but life they retained for themselves."

In the Scriptures, by contrast, when God made man, He gave him life, but death he retained for His Son.

[jquinby]

Indeed, C.S. Lewis made a similar observation: Christianity is exactly not what a person would have conjured up if he'd been inventing a religion.

[Bobby Winters]

In some sense, the rest of the Bible is just commentary on Genesis. All of the issues are stated there. All of the patterns are laid out there. All of the threads come out from there.

We simply await for our king to come to tie it all up for us. Come, Lord Jesus, come.

[Bisaal]

What about Hindu myths of creation?
They speak of infinite cycles of
creation and destruction and thus also not grounded in any particular place.
Also resonant with current scientific
account of recurrent Big Bangs.

[holmegm]

What about Hindu myths of creation?
They speak of infinite cycles of
creation and destruction and thus also not grounded in any particular place.
Also resonant with current scientific
account of recurrent Big Bangs.

That is indeed interesting.

I am of the opinion that men are prone to make very similar sorts of mistakes over the course of history. The similarities of modern (untestable, unprovable) cosmologies to several ancient cosmologies, and the difference of both from the Jewish/Christian cosmology, is very interesting indeed.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Christianity is exactly not what a person would have conjured up if he'd been inventing a religion.<<<

Islam, Mormonism and Scientology, on the other hand. . .

[James A. Altena]

Dear Bisaal,

Prof. Esolen's point is somewhat different than your question. He wrote of Gilgamesh and the Theogony and other non-Christian myths:

"They are not only rooted in, and colored by, a particular place and a way of life; they are written to celebrate and to justify that place and that way of life."

And of Genesis in contrast:

"Genesis, in other words, is supracultural in a way that no tale of origins that I know of can claim."

It appears that you understand "supracultural" to mean "not grounded in any particular place." That is a misunderstanding. Unlike the Hindu cosmological myths, which in that sense are highly abstract, the Christian Scriptures, including Genesis, are thoroughly historically grounded and not just mythological. (This is true even if one does not interpret Genesis 1-11 as literal history -- it still has a historical cast to the narrative that the Hindu cosmologies do not.) The difference is that they are not "written celebrate and to justify" that place and that way of life." Instead, they are written with a searingly critical degree of objectivity that unabashedly criticizes and condemns the ancient Israelites for sin. And they do so in a manner that applies to every civilization, every time and place. While they issue from a particular culture, and thus incorporate details of that culture into the story, they are not culturally dependent and limited in the way thta the mytholoiges are.

Also, the Christian scriptures know nothing of "infinte cycles of creation and destruction." there is one initial creation. (The Flood is not a destruction/recreation cycle in the manner of Hindu myths, but a punishment for sin that cleanses the original creation but continues it through Noah's family.) And there will be only one final judgment. There are no cycles of reincarnation for souls, and souls are the spiritual aspect of man as created in the image and likeness of God, not parts of an eternal and uncreated spiritual power that seek fusion back into an undifferntiated original whole.

Also, rather than repetitive historical cycles, the Christian view of history has a single unique nodal point -- the life of Jesus Christ as God the Son incarnate as man. It is the lens through which all history is interpreted and has ultimae meaning. All history before that event looks forward to it; and all history since then looks back to it.

As for "current scientific account of recurrent Big Bangs" -- that is only one theory, and by no means the most commonly accepted one. To the best of my knowledge, most astronomers now subscribe to a theory of a single "Big Bang", not recurrent ones, which of course could be used to bolster a Christian apologetic instead. However, since scientific theories come and go, Christianity does not rely on science to be "proved" (though science rightly practiced elucidates knowledge in conformity with the truth of God). It is faith as a relation of love between two kinds of personal beings, the infintie Creator and His finite creatures, not a speculative system of apersonal cosmic forces.

[Ben Osborne]

"What about Hindu myths of creation? They speak of infinite cycles of creation and destruction and thus also not grounded in any particular place. Also resonant with current scientific account of recurrent Big Bangs."

Here are some resources related to that issue that I would recommend:

One

Two

"1. The maximum radius of the universe would increase from cycle to cycle because of irreversible thermodynamic changes. Therefore, a backwards look would show in finite time a decreasing radius down to a point.

2. The universe's observed density is at most only half of what is needed to force a collapse.

3. All inflationary models of the universe imply mass densities too small to force a collapse

4. Reasonable inflationary models of the universe do not allow for subsequent deflation.

5. No known physical mechanism can consistently reverse cosmic contractions.

6. Isotropic compression becomes violently unstable near the end of the collapse phase.

7. Even if the universe were to collapse, more than a very few bounces would be impossible because of the huge entropy in the universe. "

[Tony Esolen]

Bisaal,

I may be going out on a limb here, but it seems to me that the ancient caste system and the belief in reincarnation, with karma bumping you up or down the caste ladder, go together. What you are suggesting about the Vedas might be suggested also about the Theogony -- that what you have is an allegorical meditation upon the nature of the cosmos, and nothing more -- but only if you are not looking very closely at either the Vedas or the Theogony. To my ear the Hindu myths are more markedly Indian than the Theogony is Greek.

On the succession of big bangs:

I do wish that scientists would take a few classes in introductory philosophy before playing around with metaphysics. The theory of succession can be thought of in only three ways:

1. The universe collapses into a very dense mass, then re-expands. It will always do so, and has always done so. In this case, what you have is a single oscillating universe, not a succession of universes, since the "stuff" of the universe, and therefore both space and time, continue to exist. The universe as such would therefore be perpetual. See Thomas Aquinas on the compatibility of this notion with the necessity that the universe is created by God -- though not its compatibility with scripture. While you are at it, read a good elucidation of Aquinas' five ways of demonstrating the existence of God, and note that none of them assume that the universe had a beginning in time. (The medieval Islamic "kalam" proof does, however, and bears some attention.)

2. The universe had a beginning ex nihilo, and now will oscillate as in 1.

3. The universe collapses utterly, down to nothing, and then there is another "explosion". In this case, space and time and matter have all ceased to exist, and what you have is a completely different, separate universe, without any physical cause. But we can have no information about such a universe; because if we could know about it, there must be a connection between us, something that can be understood through our consideration of things that we can sense; but if there were such a connection, it would not be a different universe, but merely this same one, or a temporal portion of this same one. Therefore, for all we can know or care, these putative other universes may as well not exist; and we are back where we began.

I'

[Dcn. Michael D. Harmon]

Of course, the "multiverse" theorists also postulate multiple dimensions in which a variety of universes exist (infinite, of course, which is the only way you can come up randomly with one like ours, which is so improbably friendly to life). The basis for this theory? Well, ah, the idea that there has to be a way to eliminate the idea of a Designer, and, no matter how wacky it is, that's the point...

[CPA]

I don't have the book handy, but Yehezkel Kaufman's "Religion of Israel" (a GREAT book BTW) has a great line that "The difference between monotheism and polytheism is not arithmetic." Rather, he goes on, in polytheism, the gods are part of the universe and bound to its rules, while in monotheism, God transcends the universe and is most explicitly not bound by its rules.

I can't help but retail his other great apercu: that there is only one thing really frightening in the world of the Torah, and that's God.

[DGP]

The Hindus offer a plausible cosmology, to which the Buddhists add a logically consequent soteriology. Hinduism and Buddhism relate to each other in a manner analogous to the relation between Judaism and Christianity.

In *The Everlasting Man," Chesterton described the religion of the Chinese Emperor as the only tru alternative to Christianity. By that he meant that all religions and worldviews have either been subsumed into or are derivative from one of these two -- the Judeo-Christian and the Hindu-Buddhist-Confucian. I think he's right. (Even what today masks itself as resurgent paganism isn't really classically pagan, but that's another story.)

I reckon the Hindu-Buddhist account of the world as an account of despair, and so I choose for hope, and for Christ. But the Hindu-Buddhist account is the only account beside the Judeo-Christian that is internally consistent. It also has its points of plausibility, and I think I understand the dark love of those who are "enlightened" accordingly.

[Bisaal]

Reincarnation is not just along the caste ladder but the ladder of all the lifeforms. Interestingly, Hindus claim that there are 8.4 million yonis (lifeforms that a soul moves through or can move through). A number that is close to the 10 million species that the biologists say there are on earth.

[James A. Altena]

Bisaal,

8.4 million is hardly "close" to 10 million. And are you claiming that statistical coincidnece constitutes proof of anything? One can find all sorts of "interesting" statistical coincidences (e.g. between upward stock market performance and NY Yankees World Series victories) that are in fact absolutely meaningless.

[Tony Esolen]

"Reincarnation is not just along the caste ladder but the ladder of all the lifeforms."

Exactly. The theory universalizes the social arrangement, just as the "polis" of Olympian gods, representing all of nature, justifies and enshrines the Greek city-state. No such thing is to be found in Genesis 1-3.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>"Reincarnation is not just along the caste ladder but the ladder of all the lifeforms."<<<

Has anyone ever really looked at the implications of a belief in reincarnation and karma for social justice in societies that follow it?

[DGP]

Oh, but karma is already social justice -- pure justice, untransformed by grace.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Oh, but karma is already social justice -- pure justice, untransformed by grace.<<<

Precisely. And because everyone is getting EXACTLY what he deserves, to interfere with karma, e.g., by mititgating the condition of someone in desperate need, actually sets back his progress towards nervana. Therefore, by its very nature, Hinduism has a tendency towards fatalistic acceptance of the status quo and a rather callous outlook towards the less fortunate (something which I have encountered with many upper-class Indians I have encountered both through my work and through meeting other parents at my daughter's science-and-technology high school). This is what made Mother Teresa so radical in Calcutta: she actually cared about all those beggars, cripples and homeless people, and wanted to help them.

[Firinnteine]

Mother Theresa must have really bad karma....

Incidentally, there was a discussion of karma and grace in an interview with Bono, of U2 fame, excerpted a while back in Christianity Today. Some of you might enjoy reading it:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/music/interviews/2005/bono-0805.html

[Anarcissie]

Charity is not forbidden by Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Islam, or any other religion of India that I know of. The criticisms of Mother Teresa that I have read by orthodox Hindus have been pretty much along the same lines as those offered by Westerners and have nothing to do with supposed violations of karma, if such a thing is even possible.

Does it serve Christianity to make up false stories about other people?

[DGP]

Anarcissie,

I think you're reading too much into Mr. Koehl's remarks. He didn't say charity was forbidden. But I think he's right to note that for Far Easterners, even charity is contextualized by a more fatalistic mindset. Consider the (in)famous story of the Buddha and the scorpion....

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Charity is not forbidden by Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Islam, or any other religion of India that I know of.<<<

Actually, I would remove Islam from the list, because at least it's monotheistic, and the Quran does make explicit the demand for charity. Of course, it doesn't quite come up to the standards of Judaism or Christianity in that regard, and especially there is nothing that states how we treat the least among us is equivalent to the way we treat God. Rather, in most of these cultures, while charity is not prohibited, there is also a very clear moralistic thread that equates misfortune with moral transgression. The corollaries, of course, are that people deserve the bad things that happen to them, even they seem to be good; and that they also deserve the good things that happen to them, even when they appear bad. The only Christian equivalent I've ever seen that come close to it is mercantile Calvinism--which, interestingly, shares a lot of the same predestinarian impulses as these other religions.

[DGP]

>>>The only Christian equivalent I've ever seen that come close to it is mercantile Calvinism--which, interestingly, shares a lot of the same predestinarian impulses as these other religions.<<<

I'd never thought of comparing Calvinism and Hinduism. You've got an amazing mind, Stuart Koehl.

[James A. Altena]

"Does it serve Christianity to make up false stories about other people?"

No, but it has long served other people to make up false stories about Christianity.

[James A. Altena]

"The only Christian equivalent I've ever seen that come close to it is mercantile Calvinism --which, interestingly, shares a lot of the same predestinarian impulses as these other religions."

Instead, the usual bon mot about Calvinism is that by Dean William Inge: "Calvinism is a return to Christianity in the spirit of the Koran."

Perhaps, as the Italians say, "Non vero, e ben trovato." (Not true, but well told.)

Let us be grateful for our non-mercantile, true Calvinist brethren.

[Joseph Stringer]

Ahh, Anthony! Welcome back. I missed your inciteful and stirring prose over the summer.

[Ethan Cordray]

I think the tendency to identify material prosperity with moral goodness is natural, and based on a shortsighted understanding of the true intuition that the Lord does indeed bless those who serve Him. And yet it is also too obvious to escape notice that the world doesn't always seem to work that way. I think it's in trying to explain this disconnection that people have developed such kludgy solutions as the wheel of karma and reincarnation, or the Buddhist denial of reality.

The Christian solution, represented chiefly by the books of Job and Habakuk, is that the world doesn't actually work that way, it only seems to from our perspective. And if you spend too much time complaining about it, God tends to simply tell you to quit whining. But the real lesson of Job seems to be that it's better to whine about it than to pretend that there's nothing to whine about.

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