Transforming Christian Theology Shaping the Future of the Church

Borg-Crossan Seminars

Transforming Christian Theology Shaping the Future of the Church

Theme for 2013 Seminar

The Challenge of the Christian Bible

The Character of the Covenantal God

Toward a Christian Theology of the Christian Bible

John Dominic Crossan

(Tuesday, June 18, 11:00-12:30pm)

Lecture 1

“Original SIN”:

SEXUAL TEMPTATION OR ESCALATORY VIOLENCE?

A. Time & Place of Creation

(1)Why does the Bible date the Garden of Eden to about 6,000 years ago?

(i) Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act 4, Scene 1:

“The poor world is almost six thousand years old.”

(ii) 1642-44: John Lightfoot, Vice-Chancellor of England’s CambridgeUniversity:

Creation = Sunday, September 12, 3928 B.C.E., at 9 A.M.

(iii) 1650: James Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of All Ireland, and Vice- Chancellor of Dublin’s TrinityCollege:

Creation = Sunday, October 23, 4004 B.C.E.

(2) Why does the Bible locate the Garden of Eden in Mesopotamia by naming its two constituent rivers:“The name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates” (Genesis 2:14)

(3) Because its earliest sources were from Sumerian traditionsas the Neolithic Revolution climaxed by making southern Mesopotamia the “Cradle of Civilization. That was, in round number, about 6000 years ago, and it created the settled-down life of civilization, imperialism, & escalatory violence:

(a) There are “parallels between the microparasitism of infectious disease and the macroparasitism of military operations” as “the fulminating sort of macroparasitism we call civilization” (William H. McNeill, Plagues and Peoples [1976]. Page 72 & 111.

(b) “Civilization … arose in river valleys and practiced alluvial agriculture. In fact, most went farther, artificially irrigating their land with flood water.” (Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power. Vol. 1: A History of Power from the Beginning to A.D. 17601986]. Page 74.

(c) “[in] a technical, anthropological way …. civilizations are a specific kind of culture: large, complex societies based on the domestication of plants, animals, and human beings …. [and] typically have towns, cities, governments, social classes, and specialized professions” (Ronald Wright, A Short History of Progress (2004). Page 33)

(4) Therefore, I intend to read Genesis 2-3 and Genesis 4 nor with modern Christian eyes but with ancient Mesopotamian eyes.

B. Adam & Eve in Genesis 2-3

(1) Common Elements for Mesopotamia & Bible:

(a) Primordial, Original, Ancestral, or Archetypal Couple.

(b) Plant or Tree of Eternal Life obtained & lost.

(d) Biblical story adopts-but-adapts Mesopotamian model.

Mesopotamia: Gilgamesh &Enkidu as a martial couple (hero & side-kick)

Bible:Adam & Eve as a marital couple (husband and wife)

(2) Mesopotamian Story.

(a) Death of Enkidu: “My friend whom I love so much, who experienced every hardship with me, Enkidu, ... the fate of mortals conquered him. Six days and seven nights I wept over him. I did not allow him to be buried until a worm fell out of his nose. I was frightened and I am afraid of death, and so I roam open country .... Am I not like him? Must I lie down too, never to rise, ever again?

(b) Plant of Immortality (as eternal rejuvenation); "Gilgamesh saw a pool whose water was cool, and went down into the water and washed. A snake smelt the fragrance of the plant., It came up silently and carried off the plant. As it took it away, it shed its scaly skin."

(c) Having & losing plant/tree of immortality is a parabolic story teaching that immortality as a not-ever-possible human delusion. (Compare Mesopotamia with Egypt: two rivers vs. one river, stone vs. mud-brick; separation vs. invasion.)

(3) Biblical Story. Fits Second Tree into story of a First/Only Tree (as original verion?):

(a) “Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to sight and good for food, and the tree of life in the middle of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil’ (Genesis 2:9)

(b) “God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’” (3:3).

(c) Impossibility of immortality replaced by the necessity of conscience: “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Genesis 2:9,17).

All that humanity has for it future is—conscience.

C. Cain & Abel in Genesis 4

(1) Common Elements for Mesopotamia & Bible:

(a) Strife between Brothers.

(b) Brothers are Farmer & Herder.

(d) Biblical story adopts-but-adapts Mesopotamian model.

Mesopotamia: Farmer-GodEnkimduvs. Herder-GodDumuzi.

Bible: Farmer Cain vs. Herder Abel

(2) Mesopotamian Story:

(a) Debate poems as Sumerian thinking/writing about the Advent of Civilization: Summer vs. Winter; Cattle vs. Grain; Plow vs. Pickaxe.

(b) Shepherd vs. Farmer: Goddess Inanna prefers to marry Farmer not Shepherd. They debate their comparative merits. Peaceful outcome asthey agree to live together in peace. Inanna marries Shepherd & Farmer is invited to marriage ceremony.

(3) Bible Story: Much more negative summary of the advent of civilization (Genesis 4):

(a) The farmer kills the shepherd and builds the first city:

(i) “Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a tiller of the ground” (4:2).

(ii) “The Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard” (4:5)

(iii) “Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and killed him” (4:8)

(iv) “Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch; and he built a city, and named it Enoch after his son Enoch” (4:17)

(b) As that happens, human violence escalates exponentially:

(i) “Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and killed him” (4:8)

(ii) God: “‘Whoever kills Cain will suffer a sevenfold vengeance” (4:15)

(iii) Lamech: “I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain is avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy-sevenfold” (4:23-24).

(i) “sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it” (Genesis 4:9b)

(ii) first time sin ever mentioned in the Bible—it is not innate and unavoidable but a free choice —despite conscience.

(iii) There is o mention of divine sanctions but of human consequences (escalatory violence).

(iii) This, if you must have it, is the “original sin” and it is passed on not through human nature but through human civilization.

(iv) Therefore, the normalcy of human civilization is not the inevitability of human nature.

D. The Wisdom Tradition

(Matrix is not the Mesopotamian traditions of human origins, neolithic events, and civilization’sadvent but the Egyptian traditionsof elite schools, learned scribes, and philosophical teachers)

(1)In the Book of Proverbs

(a)Wisdomas transcendentin heaven:

(i)“The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth” (8:22-23),

(ii)“The Lord by wisdom founded the earth; by understanding God established the heavens” (3:19).

(iii)Wisdom was “beside God, like a master worker; and I was daily God’s delight, rejoicing before God always, rejoicing in God’s inhabited world and delighting in the human race” (8:30-31).

(b)Wisdom as immanent on earth:

(i)Wisdom“cries out” for followers: “in the street … in the squares … at the busiest corner … at the entrance of the city gates … on the heights … beside the way … at the crossroads … beside the gates … at the entrance” (1:20-21; 8:1-3).

(ii)Wisdom is a very public, open, and inclusive seeker of students, asking only willingness to follow Her.

(b) In the Book of Sirach:

(a)Wisdom as transcendent in heaven:

(i)“‘I came forth from the mouth of the Most High,and covered the earth like a mist …. Over waves of the sea, over all the earthand over every people and nation I have held sway …. Before the ages, in the beginning, he created me, and for all the ages I shall not cease to be” (24:3,6,9).

(b)Wisdom as immanent on earth:

(i)“The Lord created human beings out of earth …. granted them authority over everything on the earth …. endowed them with strength like his own, and made them in his own image. He put the fear of them in all living beings, and gave them dominion over beasts and birds” (17:1-4).

(ii)“Discretion and tongue and eyes, ears and a mind for thinking he gave them. He filled them with knowledge and understanding, and showed them good and evil” (17:6-7). Notice that, as in Genesis 2-3, knowledge of good and evil is a positive gift.

Wisdom is both transcendent in heaven & immanent on earth—from & in creation:

(i)Wisdomas “the fashioner of all things …. [has] a spirit that is intelligent, holy …. all-powerful, overseeing all …. and penetrating through all spirits … more mobile than any motion;because of her pureness she pervades and penetrates all things” (7:22-24).

(ii)Wisdom “is a breath of the power of God, and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty; therefore nothing defiled gains entrance into her. For she is a reflection of eternal light, a spotless mirror of the working of God, and an image of his goodness” (7:25-26)

(iii)Wisdom “is more beautiful than the sun,and excels every constellation of the stars.Compared with the light she is found to be superior, for it is succeeded by the night,but against wisdom evil does not prevail” (7:29-30).

(d) The Wisdom Tradition is the best biblical commentary on the Priestly Tradition of creation:

(i) As the best commentary on Genesis 1:26-28—and Psalm 8—Divine Wisdom has so infused all of creation with intelligibility that humanity can understand the meaning of Creation (think: Evolution) by observations about the created world, by summarizing those observations in proverbs and aphorisms, and by studying them with learned teachers.

(ii) To refuse Wisdom’s open advances and universal offer begets internally innate human consequences rather than externally added divine sanctions

(iii)As I read those sections over and over again, I have one very basic question for the entire Christian Bible: if Wisdom, as the immanent presence and external face of God, is not a Person but a Personified-Process, how do we know that the biblical God is not also a Personified-Process rather than a Person?