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Chapter 3: The first answer of the Holy Scriptures: The Bible
Owing to the narratives of the Creation to be found in the Old Testament, the
Bible represents the first Scripture of a monotheistic religion ever to provide
data concerning the origins of man. Not until the advent of the age of science,
in which the question is viewed in the light of material facts, has the subject
been approached in the West from any angle other than that of various
philosophies or considerations based on the teachings of the Bible. For many
centuries, the latter were held to come from God Himself, for the Bible was
regarded as the Word of God. There could be absolutely no question, therefore,
of disputing a single statement it contained.
If today we still preserved the same general approach toward the Bible, the
contrast between scientific data and the ideas on the subject set forth in the
Book of Genesis would not only be glaringly obvious, but also insurmountable.
Those who still uphold this classic approach to the narratives of the Creation
contained in the Old Testament would not be able to accept the idea of
evolution: They would be extremely incensed as far as man was concerned, and
they would not tolerate for the rest of the animal kingdom any concept other
than the traditional notion of the fixity of species as laid down in the Bible.
It is not so long ago that any comparison between an opinion expressed in the
Bible and secular data of any kind was violently rejected as a potential danger
to religious belief. Criticism of a statement contained in the Bible invariably
led to scandal, for it implied that certain assertions were wrong. Even today, I
have often noticed the considerable embarrassment of educated Christians when
confronted with certain questions on this subject.
Let us immediately mention one problem, which perfectly illustrates the
uneasiness certain assertions can cause:
Earlier in the present work, we stated that the average lifespan of a human
generation was twenty-five years, constituting four generations per century.
This is the average figure, which can be deduced from genealogical tables when
established over several centuries. Assuming the Australopithecus was the first
representative of the hominids, that he appeared roughly five million years ago
and that he disappeared at the earliest two million years ago, we must conclude
that 80,000 to 200,000 generations separate us from our first ancestor (although
the figure may indeed be higher.) What can we say, therefore, of the genealogy
that appears in the Gospel According, to Luke (3, 23 38), which traces the
ancestors of Jesus back to Adam, and from which it would appear that seventy-six
generations of humans preceded Jesus?
A number of answers have been put forward to explain this, and they vary
considerably. Many people simply ignore Luke's text, while others reply that the
text has been mistranslated, claiming that the phrase `son of...', repeated in
Luke's text, perhaps means for certain of the lineage, that two names which thus
follow one another may not, however, refer to two succeeding generations...
There are very few commentators who think that in view of the circumstances in
which this Gospel was written, and in particular the sources at Luke's disposal,
the text ought not to be taken literally, any more than other passages in the
Gospels. In the light of our present knowledge of the history of the texts,
however, this explanation seems to be the most in keeping with reality: Any
reply that evades this obvious difficulty is illogical and might raise doubts as
to the authenticity of the entire text, in the case of those who are unable to
accept totally irrational explanations.
We are not mistreating the Gospels when we point out the existence of passages
that can no longer be accepted in the twentieth century because they contain
statements that have been proven wrong. On the contrary, we are in fact doing
them a service by highlighting the factors that led the Biblical authors to
write inaccurate information. In so doing, we are rendering more plausible the
existence and mission of Jesus Christ. A genealogy of Jesus that reaches back to
Adam by way of Joseph is, moreover, totally illogical, for Joseph had absolutely
nothing to do with the arrival of Jesus in the world. What Luke's Gospel in fact
gives us is the supposed genealogy of Joseph, whereas the only logical genealogy
for Jesus would obviously be that of Mary.
This extended example clearly illustrates the logicalities to which a stricto
sensu interpretation of certain Biblical texts can lead. It indicates the need
to possess detailed knowledge of the origin and history of the texts, in order
to understand the reasons why we must today read the Bible differently from the
way we have read it until fairly recently. Unless we are aware of certain facts
concerning the texts, we shall not be able to proceed to a commentary of
particular passages, nor shall we learn the lessons that must be drawn from
them.
The Old Testament
The Old Testament has many authors, and the history of the texts is as confused
as it is unknown. In my previous work, The Bible, the Qur'an and Science, I
provided extracts on this aspect of the Bible taken from works written by
members of the clergy. In particular, I turned to the modern edition of the
Bible, translated into French under the supervision of the Biblical School of
Jerusalem [Published by Editions du
Cerf, Paris, 1972] and published in separate volumes.
Originally, there were several texts and not just one. In the first century
B.C., there was a tendency toward the establishment of a single text, bit it was
not until a century after Christ that the Biblical text was definitively
established. The most ancient Hebrew version of the Biblical text probably dates
from the ninth century A.D. The Septuagint was most likely, the first
translation in Greek. It dates from the third century B.C. and was written by
Jews in Alexandria. It was on this text that the New Testament was based. It
remained authoritative until the seventh century A.D. The basic Greek texts in
general use in the Christian world are from the manuscripts catalogued under the
title Codex Yaticanus in the Vatican City and
Codex Sinaiticus at the British
Museum in London. They both date from the fourth century A.D.
All of these versions have enabled specialists to piece together so-called
middle of the road' texts, a sort of compromise between the different versions.
The same process is still carried on today: The `Traduckion Ecumenique de
I'Ancien Testament' [The Ecumenical Translation of the Old Testament]
[Published by Editions du Cerf et les
Bergers et les Mages, Paris, 1975] is a work
of synthesis compiled by over one hundred Catholic and Protestant specialists.
The aim of this edition is to establish a text that is acceptable to Churches
which do not always share identical ideas on certain meanings and commentaries.
The Old Testament is a collection of works. of greatly differing length and many
different genres. The works were written in several languages over a period of
more than nine hundred years, and they were based on oral traditions. Many of
them were corrected and completed in accordance with events or special
requirements, often at periods that were very distant from one another. The
first texts probably appeared at the beginning of the Israelite monarchy, around
the eleventh century B.C. It was at this period that a body of scribes was
formed among the members of the royal household. These early texts constitute
fragments scattered here and there throughout the various collections of the Old
Testament.
It was not until slightly later in the tenth century B.C. according to some, in
the ninth century B.C. according to others that the so-called `Yahvist' text
appeared, in which we find the first five books of the Bible, known as the
`Pentateuch'. The text derives its name from the fact that in it God is called `Yahveh.'
[We must note, however, that, in the Yahvist
narrative of Creation given by the English Revised Standard Version of the
Bible, God is not named 'Yahveh' but 'The Lord God', as we shall see in the next
chapter.]
Later, the so called `Elohist' text was added, for in this text God is known as
`Elohim', and in the sixth century B.C. the `Sacerdotal' version appeared; named
after the priests of the Temple at Jerusalem who composed it; this version was
also added to the previous two texts.
The Pentateuch is of particular interest to our present study because it
contains the Book of Genesis. Here we find not just one, but two narratives of
the creation of the world and of man: The most recent narrative is taken from
the Sacerdotal version, and it is this narrative which figures at the beginning
of today's Bibles: The earlier text, the Yahvist version, comes after the.
Sacerdotal version and is extremely short. Most people think wrongly that there
is only one narrative of the Creation on the Old Testament. The two different
origins of the narratives are fully acknowledged by Christian exegetes, most
notably Father de Vaux, who was at one time the Head of the Biblical School of
Jerusalem. In his commentaries on the Book of Genesis, Father de Vaux clearly
indicates the sections of text, which belong to each respective version. The
ancient idea that Moses himself was the author of the Book of Genesis is, of
course, unacceptable. Nobody knows who actually wrote the Yahvist and Elohist
versions.
The numerous books of prophecy cover the period reaching from the eighth to the
second centuries B.C. The first of these were the Book of Elias and the Book of
Elisha.
The historical books provide an account of the entire history of the Jewish
people from their entry into the Promised Land, which probably took place toward
the end of the thirteenth century B.C. to the second century B.C. While the
events of the second century B.C. may seem to be correctly related, in many
books dealing with other periods historical accuracy has by no means been
respected: Religious and moral considerations outweigh any fidelity to history
such as we understand it today.
The final category is reserved for the books of poetry and wisdom, such as the
Psalms, which were composed by several different authors: David, as wells as
various priests and levities. The authors of many books remain unknown.
We may therefore state that the Bible is composed of books whose contents are
extremely disparate: The texts have undergone considerable rewriting in the
course of time, especially with regard to the subject at hand. Christianity
received the heritage of the Old Testament, to which the authors of the Gospels
adhered very strictly. We should note, however, that during the first centuries
of Christianity, a very stringent selection was made of texts relating to Jesus.
This was not the case for the Old Testament, which was more or less accepted in
its entirety.
The first five books, among which we find Genesis, constitute what is called by
the Jews: the Torah or Law; they relate the events that took place from the
origin of the world to the death of Moses. It is perhaps the questions raised by
these books that have caused the most embarrassment; for centuries, there was
absolutely no discussion either of the text or of the idea that it should be
attributed to Moses.
How could the situation have been otherwise? There are passages in the books
themselves, which indicate that Moses wrote particular narratives or laws.
Moreover, God Himself commanded Moses to describe a certain event in the book of
Exodus. Philo of Alexandria, a secular author writing at the time of Jesus,
supported this theory. In the first century B.C., Flavius Josephus seconded it.
Above all, the Gospels themselves (John 5, 46 47) tell us that Jesus himself
bore witness to the origin of these narratives.
In his `Introduction Generale au Tentateuque' [General Introduction to the
Pentateuch], Father de Vaux has provided an extremely detailed historical study
of the criticism the text has raised from this point of view. I have outlined it
in `La Bible, le Coran et la Science' [The Bible, the Qur'an and Science]. Apart
from the objections raised in the twelfth century by Abenezra, traditional ideas
concerning the origins of the Pentateuch were never questioned. In the sixteenth
century, a protestant named Carlstadt noted that. Moses could not have written
the account of his own death, which appears in Deuteronomy (34,5 12), even
though, as Carlstadt adds, it is written in the same style as the rest of the
book. Father de Vaux goes on to cite other critical works which refuse to
attribute to Moses at least part of the Pentateuch. Prominent among these is the
`Histoire critique du Vieux Testament' [Critical History of the Old Testament]
(1678), by Richard Simon, a father at the Oratory. In it, Simon emphasized the
chronological difficulties, the repetitions, the confusion of stories and
stylistic differences in the Pentateuch. The book caused a scandal, and Simon
was dismissed from his order. His theory was not followed, and Moses continued
to be considered the author of the Pentateuch. In history books published at the
beginning of the eighteenth century, we thus find references to antiquity which
very often proceed from what `Moses had written.' It was obviously very
difficult to contradict a theory strengthened by Jesus Himself in the Gospels
(John, Matthew, Luke) and the New Testament (Acts of the Apostles, Letters of
Paul), as cited by Father de Vaux.
Jean Astruc, the physician of King Louis XV, reopened the debate in 1753 by
publishing his `Conjectures sur les Memoires originaux dont il parait que Moyse
s'est servi pour composer le livre de la Genese' [Conjecture's on the original
writings which it appears Moses used to compose the Book of Genesis]. He pointed
out that two texts, each distinguished by the way in which God was either called Yahveh or Elohim, were present side by side in Genesis: The latter quite
obviously contained two juxtaposed texts.
Father de Vaux cites other, more recent commentators who are inclined to divide
the Pentateuch into four main texts:
 | The Yahvist text, dating from the ninth century B.C.;
|
| The Elohist text, slightly more recent;
|
| Deuteronomy, which for some dates from the eighth century B.C. and for others
from the seventh century B.C. (Father de Vaux);
|
| The Sacerdotal text, which dates from during or after the exile in Babylon
(sixth century B.C.). |
Commentators have, however, distinguished various sources in each of the texts.
Nine of them exist in the Sacerdotal text, which contains one of the two
accounts of the Creation, not including the additions spread out among eight
different authors" (Father de Vaux.) Thus the Pentateuch is showing to be formed
from numerous traditions brought together by `editors' who either juxtaposed
their compilations or adapted the stories for the sake of harmonization.
Modern Christian exegetes of the Old Testament note that this multiplicity of
sources remains perfectly compatible with the general concept of the inspired
nature of the books of the Bible. In the chapter entitled `La Revelation de la Verite, La Bible et les Evangiles' [The Revelation of the Truth, The Bible and
the Gospels] which appears in Jean Guitton's work 'Mon petit catechisme' [My
Little Catechism] [Published
by Desclee de Brouwer, Paris, 1978] we read that "God did not write these books Himself, instead
He had them written by breathing into the apostles and prophets the things He
wanted us to know. This breath is called `inspiration'. The books written by the
prophets are called `divinely inspired books'."
These authors all wrote their works at different periods and according to the
manners and customs of their day. We therefore find various `literary genres'
scattered throughout the Bible. This notion has gained general acceptance so
that we are not surprised, on reading either the Old Testament or the Gospels,
to find divinely inspired subjects side by side with affirmations derived from
certain secular beliefs carried over from traditions whose origins are often
obscure.
This approach to the books of the Bible, which takes account of modern data on
the texts, is very different from the position held by commentators until fairly
recent times: In days gone by, it was not possible to acknowledge the
possibility of such a preponderantly human role in the written compilation of
what were originally oral traditions.
Today, it is easy to explain the existence of historical inaccuracies,
implausible statements or blatant contradictions: They should no longer cause
any embarrassment, even though we are fully aware of the incompatibility that is
to be found between secular knowledge and certain statements in the Old
Testament, bearing on the subject of the present work as well as other topics.
The Second Vatican Council (1962 1965) clearly acknowledged the imperfections
and obsolescence of certain texts in the Bible, as reflected in the Conciliar
Document No 4 on the Revelation
[Published by Le Centurion, Paris, 1966]. The following two sentences define the
position of the Catholic Church on the overall worth of the text, as well as the
impossibility of taking literally certain passages "In view of the human
situation prevailing before Christ's foundation of salvation, the Books of the
Old Testament enable everybody to know who is God and who is man, and also the
way in which God, in his justice and mercy, behaves toward men. These books,
even though, they contain material, which is imperfect and obsolete,
nevertheless bear wittiness to truly divine teachings."
The New Testament
The only passages from the Gospels to which we shall later refer are mainly
extracts taken from the Gospel According to Luke. They are essentially a
rewriting of Old Testament material with 'a few adjustments. Christian
researchers have themselves discovered in the composition of the Gospels such a
complex variety of sources that as for the Old Testament we must once again be
aware of the circumstances present at the time the texts were written, in order
to gain a more accurate idea of the reality of the situation.
It is a great shame that until very recently, the Gospel writers have always
been presented as eye witnesses to the facts they relate. Commentators have
provided such a wealth of detail on these authors their professions, for example
that we, should apparently be in no doubt as to their status as direct
witnesses. In fact they were nothing of the sort. As Cardinal Danielou has shown
in his studies of the early days of Christianity, doctrinal rivalries found
their expression in the different ways events were related.
Each writer seems to have approached the facts in the light of his own opinions
and adapted the texts accordingly. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, who composed
their texts between 70 A.D. and 110 A.D., provide narratives that are often
quite different. Paul wrote his Letters many years before them. According to
modern exegetes; not a single one of the authors of the New Testament actually
witnessed the events he describes. The Gospel writings did not become known
until relatively late. In the introduction to the `Traduction Ecumenique de la
Bible, Nouveau Testament' [Ecumenical Translation of the Bible, New Testament]
which appeared in 1972, we read the following: "Before 140 A.D., there was, in
any case, no account by which one might have recognized a collection of
evangelical writings. "
O. Culmann, in his book 'Le Nouveau Testament' [The New Testament]
[Published by Presses Universitaires de
France, Paris, 1967], notes that
the evangelists were only the "spokesmen of the early Christian community who
wrote down the oral tradition. For thirty or forty years, the Gospels had
existed as an almost exclusively oral tradition the latter only transmitted
sayings and isolated narratives. The evangelists brought them together, each in
his own way, according to his own character and theological preoccupations. They
linked the narrations and sayings handed down by the prevailing tradition... It
must be noted that the needs of preaching, worship and teaching, more than
biographical considerations, were what guided the early community in writing
down the tradition of the life of Jesus. By describing the events of Christ's
life, the apostles illustrated the truth of the faith they were preaching. Their
sermons are what caused the descriptions to be recorded in writing ".
This is exactly how the commentators of the `Traduction Ecumenique de la Bible'
[Ecumenical Translation of the Bible] describe the writing of the Gospels: "The
evangelists... have collected and recorded in writing the material givers to
them by the oral tradition. " The Gospel According to John does not contain
nearly so many episodes in common with the other three. The Gospels According to
Matthew, Mark and Luke are highly euphemistically called `synoptic' Gospels,
because Luke, and to a lesser degree Matthew, contain a number of very important
verses which do not appear in any of the other three texts.
[According to the Ecumenical Translation,
Luke contains 500 out of a total of 1,160 verses]
In their book `Synopse des quatre Evangiles' [Synopsis of the Four Gospels]
[Published by Les Editions du Cerf, Paris,
1972-1973],
Fathers Benoit and Boismard, both professors at the Biblical School of
Jerusalem, stress the evolution of the text in stages parallel to the evolution
of the tradition. In an extremely helpful diagram, reproduced in `La Bible, le
Coran et la Science' [The Bible, the Qu'ran and Science], they explain how the
final versions of the texts were preceded by intermediate versions, which were
themselves drawn from basic documents, certain of which originated in various
Pagan or Jewish communities that were at first quite distinct. This would
explain the variation in tone that we find in the original preaching. Thus we
see how an intermediate document influenced the final version of several
Gospels, and it becomes clear that John undoubtedly remained the most
individualistic author: His text deals with subjects that are quite different
from those contained in the three other Gospels. Father Benoit is clearly aware
of the doubts that these new approaches to the texts may engender in certain
people's minds: "Some readers of this work will perhaps be surprised or
embarrassed to learn that certain of Jesus’ sayings, parables, or predictions of
His destiny were not expressed in the way we read them today, but were altered
and adapted by those who transmitted them to us. This may come as a source of
amazement and even scandal to those not used to this kind of historical
investigation."
To return to the question previously raised concerning the genealogy of Jesus in
the Gospels according to Luke, it is imperative to take into account the
following fact when examining the discrepancy between Luke's Gospel and
established reality: The evangelist presents his work as the result of a genuine
inquiry, composed of the information he has gathered and which he intends to set
forth. The following is Luke's own statement which appears in the prologue to
his Gospel: "Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the
things which have been accomplished among us, just as they were delivered to us
by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, it
seemed, good to me also, having informed myself about all things from their
beginnings, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that
you may know the truth concerning things of which you have been informed."
When Luke wishes to show that he and his community consider that Jesus was
descended from Abraham and David, he turns for information to the Old Testament.
There he finds a genealogy indicating the lineage 9f the first men from Adam to
Abraham. Drawing his inspiration from tradition, Luke then proceeds to provide
us with data on the time of man's first appearance on earth those are hopelessly
wrong.
As we shall see in a moment, Matthew also makes a major error in his Gospel, for
exactly the same reasons. While there is a strong possibility that Abraham lived
between 1850 1800 B.C., or at least at roughly this period, Matthew records
forty one generations between Abraham and Jesus, a figure that for eighteen or
nineteen centuries is a gross underestimation. Here again, we have an example of
an evangelist adapting data from the Old Testament, and taking liberties in the
process.
For our present purposes therefore, we may state that the inaccuracies
discovered in the Gospels basically arise from errors in the Old Testament more
precisely in the Sacerdotal version that forms part of the Book of Genesis which
the evangelists merely repeated in their own works.
In contrast to the Qur'an, the Bible does not contain statements on various
natural phenomena which, at any time in man's history, could form the subject of
observation and which might give rise to commentaries on God's omnipotence,
accompanied by certain specific details. As we shall see later on, such texts
are unique to the Qur'an; they are expressed in a form, which permits us to
compare many data with secular knowledge. The Bible confines itself to relating
certain events from the past; the narrations it contains are peppered with
details which, for one reason or another, interest the scientist on account of
the fact that they either agree with or contradict data which are today firmly
established or at least highly probable. While their number is small, I have
mentioned several of them in `La Bible, le Coran et la Science' [The Bible, the Qur'an and Science] for they nevertheless constitute points of considerable
interest. In the Biblical narrative of the Flood, for example, we find in this
description of a universal inundation, which in the Book of Genesis is precisely
located in time, certain data which prevent us from considering that a cataclysm
could have taken place on this scale at the period indicated. On the other hand,
when we come to the narrative describing the Exodus,, we find extremely valuable
data, confirmed by Egyptian archaeology, which enable us to locate Moses in the
history of the Pharaohs.
The Biblical accounts of the creation of man and the religious history of the
first descendants of Adam and of the Jewish people, provided the Biblical
authors with an opportunity to expand on two subjects which are of interest to
us in the present work. The first is the origin of man, which is explicitly
described in the Old Testament, and the second is the date of man's first
appearance on earth. The latter is deduced from the numerical data contained in
the Old Testament, which were provided for reasons other than to supply
information directly related to the subject: In addition to this, although in a
different guise; we find a reference to the subject in a work of the evangelists
the Gospel According to Luke.
The origins of man are explained in the Book of Genesis in the verses dealing
with the Creation as a whole. In order to understand the subject properly,
therefore, it must be placed in its proper context.
The Creation of Man According to Genesis
As acknowledged by Father de Vaux, Genesis "begins with two juxtaposed
descriptions of the Creation." The existence of two texts must be stressed, for
it is not generally known:
The first is integrated into a text composed by the priests of the Temple at
Jerusalem. It dates from the sixth century B.C., and is called the `Sacerdotal'
version. The longer of the two texts, it figures at the beginning of Genesis and
forms part of the long narrative of the Creation of the heavens, the earth and
living beings; the creation of man is emphasized as its crowning achievement,
even though it is only briefly described:
- The second text is taken from the Yahvist version. It dates from the ninth or
tenth century B.C. and is very short. It follows directly after the Sacerdotal
version, and devotes more space to the creation of man. The text reproduced
below is taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible
[Published by W.M. Collins and Sons for the
British and Foreign Bible Society, 1952] :
The first narrative (Genesis, the entire first chapter and chapter 2, verses 1
to 4a.)
- Chapter One, verses 1 and 2:
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without
form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God
was moving over the face of the waters. "
- Verses 3 to 5:
"And God said, `Let there be light', and there was light. And God saw that the
light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the
light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was
morning, one day:"
- Verses 6 to 8:
"And God said, `Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it
separate the waters from the waters'. And God made the firmament and separated
the waters, which were under the firmament from the waters, which were above the
firmament. And it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And there was
evening and there was morning, a second day."
- Verses 9 to, 13:
"And God said, `Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one
place, and let the dry land appear.' And it was so. God called the dry land
Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw
that it was good.
"And God said, `Let the earth put forth vegetation, plants yielding seed, and
fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind
upon the earth.' And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants
yielding saved according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is
their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And there
was evening and there was morning, a third day."
- Verses 14 to 19:
"And God said, `Let there be lights in the firmaments of the heavens to separate
the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days
and years, and let them be lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light
upon the earth.' And it was so. And God made the two great lights, the greater
light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars
also. And God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light upon the
earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from
the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was
morning, a fourth day."
- Verses 20 to 23:
"And God said, `Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let
birds fly above the earth across the firmament of the heavens.' So God created
the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the
waters swam, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its
kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them saying, `Be fruitful
and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the
earth'. And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day."
- Verses 24 to 31:
"And God said, `Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their
kinds : cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their
kinds.' And it was so. And God made the beasts of the earth according to their
kinds and the cattle according to their kinds, and everything that creeps upon
the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
"Then God said, `Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them
have dominion [sic] over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and
over the cattle, and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that
creeps upon the earth.'
"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male
and female he created them.
"And God blessed them, and God said to them, `Be fruitful and multiply, and fill
the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the
birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.' And God
said, `Behold, I have given you every plant yielding, seed which is upon the
face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have
them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air,
and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of
life; I have given every green plant for food.' And it was so. And God saw
everything that he had made and behold it was very good. And there was evening
and there was morning, a sixth day. "
- This narrative of the Creation comes to an end with verses 1 to 4a of Chapter
Two:
"Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host [sic] of them.
And on the seventh day God finished his work, which he had done, and he rested
on the seventh day from all his work, which he had done. So God blessed the
seventh day and hallowed it, because on if God rested from all his work, which
he had done in creation.
"These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created."
The second narrative follows directly after the first
- Chapter Two, verses 4b to 7:
"In the day that Yahveh God [In this
passage of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, God is called 'the Lord
God', whereas in older texts that served as works of reference, God is known as
'Yahveh God'. The name of the 'Yahvist Version' is derived from this fact. In
the present work, the original name has been reinserted.] made the earth and heavens, when no plant of the
field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up for Yahveh
God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no man to till the
ground; but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the
ground then Yahveh God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being."
There then follows a description of Earthly Paradise (verses 8 to 17) after
which the narration continues with the creation of the animal kingdom and woman:
- Chapter Two, verses 18 to 25:
"Then Yahveh God said, `It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make
him a helper fit for him.' So out of the ground Yahveh God formed every beast of
the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he
would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its
name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to
every beast of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper fit for
him. So Yahveh God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept
took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh; and the rib, which
Yahveh God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the
man. Then the man said
"`This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called
Woman, because she was taken out of Man.'
"Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and
they become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not
ashamed."
An Examination of the Two Narratives :
Of the Creation in the Light of Modern Knowledge
The two narratives vary on more than one point: In particular, the origins of
man and woman, whether mentioned or not, and, the order in which man appeared
compared with the various species of animal. Furthermore, the sense attributed
by the Bible to the creation of man cannot be understood in all its shades of
meaning, within the same version, unless it, is replaced in its general context;
that is why the full text of the two narratives has been quoted above. In order
for us to proceed to a comparison with established, or highly probable, data, we
must first examine each text separately.
The narrative found in
the Sacerdotal version
The image of the empty earth used in the first two verses to describe the state
of the universe before the creation would simply seem to signify that creation
started from the void. The Biblical author nevertheless devotes a place to the
waters over which the spirit of God moved: We may perhaps be allowed to see in
this a reference to the tradition of the `primordial' waters, the source of all
life.
The account of the first day (verses 3 to 5), and the description of the
creation of light, along with the existence of an evening and a morning, suggest
the following comments
The light circulating in the universe is the result of complex reactions in the
stars. At this stage in the Creation however, according to the Bible, the stars
were not yet formed. The `lights' of the firmament are not mentioned in Genesis
until verse 14, when they were created on the fourth day, `to separate the day
from the night', `to give light upon the earth'; all of which is quite accurate.
It is illogical, however, to mention the result (light) on the first day, when
the cause of this light (`two great lights') was created three days later. The
fact that the existence of evening and morning is placed on the first day is,
moreover, purely allegorical; the existence of evening and morning as elements
of a single day is only conceivable after the creation of the earth and its
rotation under the light of the sun.
The reference to a `firmament' separating the waters (verses 6 to 8), on the
second day, is a reflection of the ancient belief that a dome existed which
contained the waters above the firmament : These were the waters which; in the
narrative of the Flood, were to pass through the dome and fall in torrents on
the earth.
The third day (verse 9 to 13) is devoted to the appearance of the dry land, once
the waters had gathered together into one place an idea that is perfectly
acceptable. The third day also saw the earth put forth vegetation, in the form
of trees bearing fruit which is no longer acceptable at all, for vegetation
requires sunlight, and the sun had not yet been formed. What is more, these
verses contain a reference to the fixity of the vegetal species ("plants
yielding seed according to their own kinds").
Verses 14 to 19 describe the creation of the sun and moon on the fourth day,
after the creation of the earth on the third day. Our modern knowledge of the
formation of the solar system does not allow us to state that the sun became a
luminous star after the earth came into being, as it is claimed in the Bible.
The origins of the sun and moon cannot be separated from those of the earth.
The first representatives of the animal kingdom, which according to verses 20 to
23 populated the seas and sky on the fifth day, are described in terms that
suggest that they came before the existence of terrestrial animals, which did
not appear until the sixth day. There is good reason to think that the origins
of life are indeed aquatic and that 'the dry land was `colonized' later on.
Nevertheless, the Bible states that the birds existed before the terrestrial
animals, whereas in fact the birds appeared after a certain group of reptiles:
The birds came after the mammals, and were the very last group to appear. This
therefore constitutes a case of a statement contradicting the established data
of palaeontology.
According to the narrative (verses 24 to 31), the earth brought forth
terrestrial animals on the sixth day, and although his origin is not specified
God created man in His own image on that day. Woman was also created, though no
details are given concerning her origins. This contrasts with the Yahvist
version, which predates the Sacerdotal text, in which man's origins are
described he was formed from the ground and those of woman created from man. He
is placed at the pinnacle of creation with dominion over the rest of the animal
kingdom. The fixity of species is emphasized in the case of the terrestrial
animals, just as it had been stressed with regard to the marine animals created
on the fifth day.
The Sacerdotal version judiciously places man's appearance on earth after that
of the other categories of living beings, but, as we have noted for the rest of
the animal kingdom, the order of appearance described in the narrative does not
conform to the clearly proven facts of palaeontology.
The account of the seventh day refers to God's day of rest, for that is the
meaning of the Hebrew word `Sabbath; this is the origin of the Jewish day of
rest, known as the `Sabbath.
The division of God's labour of creation into six days followed by a day of rest
is not without explanation. We should bear in mind that the description of the
Creation examined here is taken from the so called `Sacerdotal' version, written
by priests and scribes who were the spiritual successors of Ezekiel, the prophet
of the exile in Babylon, writing in the sixth century B.C. The priests took the
Yahvist and Elohist versions of Genesis and remodelled them after their own
fashion, in accordance with their theological and liturgical preoccupations.
Father de Vaux has noted that the `legalist' character of these writings was
absolutely essential.
The Yahvist version of the Creation, which appeared at least three centuries
before the Sacerdotal text, indeed makes no reference whatsoever to God's
Sabbath, to any question of days, or to the phases of the Creation, judging from
what remains of the text today. On the other hand, the Sacerdotal version
divides the Creation into days. There can be absolutely no doubt as to the
meaning of these days, because for each day, we are reminded that there was an
evening and a morning. We are also told that the Creation took place over a
period of six days, with a seventh day of rest, known as the `Sabbath'. There is
good reason to think that this is an example of a narrative written with the aim
of inciting people to respect the religious observance of the Sabbath, a
fundamental aspect of Judaism. We should therefore view the Sacerdotal version
first and foremost as a text designed to influence religious rites, without any
claim to set down events with the rigorous accuracy of a historian.
The narrative found in the
Yahvist version
The creation of the earth and the heavens is only mentioned once in this
version, for the text primarily deals with man.
It begins with a statement that does not square with modern knowledge of the
history of the earth: The absence of any vegetation at the moment God created
man. "Yahveh God had not caused it to rain upon the earth and there was no roan
to till the ground."
The narrative stresses the fact that God formed man of dust from the ground.
Hence in this instance, man's origin from the earth is emphasized, with all the
symbolical significance this origin suggests. None of this is mentioned in the
more recent Sacerdotal text, examined above.
As for the origins of the animals, the Revised Standard Version of the Bible
(1952) simply states that "Yahveh God formed every beast of the field and
every bird of the air" (verse 19) without
saying where they came from. In contrast, the ‘Traduction Ecume’nique de la Bible’ [Ecumenical Translation of the Bible],
states quite clearly in the French text that: "God again moulded from the ground
all the wild beasts and the birds of the air". Thus, according to the French
version, all living beings, man and animals were formed from the ground. Neither
the English nor the French translation seems to provide an exact period for the
appearance of the animals as compared with the creation of man
[The two Biblical texts mention the fact that God
"brought them to the man to see what he would call them", but that does not mean
to say that the animals were created either before or after man.].
The final verses refer to the creation of woman from a part of man's body, a
detail, which the Sacerdotal version does not record.
The Yahvist version is distinguished by its symbolism, for its author emphasizes
the formation of man from the ground. This symbolism is present even in the
choice of vocabulary: The name of the very first man, `Adam', is in fact a
collective noun in Hebrew meaning `man'. The word comes, from 'adamah' which
means `ground', for man is indeed dependent on the ground for his existence.
There is however another symbolical meaning present, which is repeated in other
parts of the Bible as well. In Ecclesiastes (3, 19 and 20), the Biblical author
stresses the common destiny of the sons of Adam and of all living beings: "...
All go to one place; all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again." Man's
return to the ground is repeated in Psalm 104 (verse 29), and we find the same
idea present in the Book of Job (34, 15).
A profound religious meaning is therefore inherent in these Biblical reflections
on man's fate after death. In the Yahvist version of Genesis, it is introduced
by the notion of a place of origin, which is also the place of return after
death. This specifically religious concept must not be confused with the
narration of material events from which no precise religious meaning is to be
inferred.
We must bear in mind that in their day, the Biblical authors could only express
themselves in images that would be readily understood. They were obliged to use
the language of their period and to refer to the traditions current at the time
they wrote. If we compare the two versions the Yahvist version pre dating the
Sacerdotal text by three hundred, if not four hundred years, we shall see the
difference between them quite clearly: The view point expressed . by the authors
of the more recent (Sacerdotal) text has changed. This fact emerges in spite of
any legitimate doubts we may entertain as to whether the texts we possess today
are the same as the ones written at the time. Additions may have been made, and
there may also have been sections cut from the texts: It is astonishing to note
that in the Yahvist version, the earth and the heavens are referred to in simple
terms, without any mention of the actual way in which they were created.
Right up until the age of science, the text of the Creation contained in the
Book of Genesis was the only acknowledged historical source of information on
the events leading to the appearance on earth of man and living beings. In days
gone by, the Biblical text was therefore considered to be a basic point of
reference. When naturalists wished to harmonize the ideas that arose from an
examination of the first discovered fossils with the teachings of the Bible on
the fixity of the species, they imagined that the existence of the flora and
fauna found in extremely ancient terranes could only be explained by the
intervention of successive cataclysms, such as the Flood, which must have
destroyed everything and been followed by new creations. This is what Cuvier
thought at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The influence of these
theories persisted long after Cuvier, for in 1862; Alcide d'Orbigny mentions
twenty-seven successive creations following repeated cataclysms!
It is in fact an error to suppose that the Flood, as described in the Bible,
destroyed absolutely everything on earth at a certain period. According to the
Biblical narratives, there most definitely was a universal cataclysm, but it
nevertheless spared a few human beings. The latter found refuge with Noah in the
Ark, and with them the animals belonging to the species that had entered it. The
earth is said to have been, repopulated by the animals and humans who were thus
able to escape the Flood. The Bible does not, however, speak of the newly
created species, which were later to appear.
The Date of Man's First Appearance on Earth
The Bible deals with this subject in two different ways: First, it provides us
with the genealogical tables of the earliest men, in which we find figures
indicating the duration of their lives, and second, it supplies us with the
number of the generations that intervened between Adam and the birth of Jesus.
Data from the Biblical Genealogies
The Jewish calendar is the most authoritative source in this instance, for it is
based on Biblical as well as non-Biblical sources. The calendar starts with the
Creation, which it states took place 5,742 years ago (counting from the last
third of A.D. 1981). Calculated according to the traditional Jewish calendar,
man therefore appeared on earth 5,742 years ago a statement that quite obviously
contradicts reality.
Leaving aside the data contained in the calendar, it is possible to arrive at an
extremely accurate estimate of the time separating Adam from Abraham, using as
sole source the Biblical text and taking into account the period at which
Abraham most probably lived [According to
certain details contained in the Bible (Father de Vaux, 'Histoire Ancienne
d'Israel' The History of Ancient Israel, Published by J. Gabalda et Cie,
Paris 1971]. In this manner, it is possible to arrive at the
approximate date of man's first appearance on earth according to the two
sources. The Bible does not in fact provide numerical genealogies that continue
uninterrupted beyond the period of the Patriarchs.
Genesis supplies extremely precise genealogical data in chapters 4, 5, 11, 21
and 25. They concern every one of Abraham's ancestors in direct line back to
Adam. They give the length .of time each person lived and the father's age at
the birth of the son. Thus it is easy to ascertain the dates of birth and death
of each ancestor in relation to the creation of Adam. As we already know, the
genealogies ascribe to Abraham and his nineteen ancestors back to Adam lifespan
that are incredibly long: In the case of Methuselah, the figure is 969 years,
compared to which the lifespan of Abraham was a mere 175 years! Once all these
data have been assembled and the lifespan have been added together as each
successive generation appeared, the conclusion to be drawn from the Bible is
that Abraham, who was born 1,948 years after Adam could theoretically have known
Noah (born 1,056 years after Adam and who died 2,006 years after him), and that
in similar fashion, Lemek, who was Noah's father; could have known Adam! The
Biblical genealogies referred to here were compiled by priests of the sixth
century B.C. By citing abnormally long lifespan, the priests may have hoped
thereby to express the idea of divine omnipotence.
Theoretically, one might suggest a correction, for time was originally
calculated in lunar years, whereas today's calendar is based on solar years.
Since the difference between them is only 3 % or thirty years per millennium,
however, it is so minimal that it is not worth considering.
At what period should we situate Abraham? Present day estimates indicate that he
probably lived in either the eighteenth or the nineteenth century B.C. If we
accept the second estimate, and combine it with detailed Biblical data on the
interval separating Adam from Abraham, according to the Bible, we should situate
Adam at a period near the thirty eighth century B.C. This estimate is in perfect
harmony with the data contained in the Biblical calendar. We may therefore
conclude that man's appearance on the sixth day of Creation as related in the
Sacerdotal version must have occurred during the thirty seventh or thirty eighth
century B.C: expressed in round figures, fifty seven of fifty eight centuries
before our own period. It is to be noted that the Yahvist version of Genesis
does not contain any numerical data on which to base this estimate.
Older editions of the Bible often contained their own chronological tables,
which tended to vary from one edition to another: the famous Walton Bible, for
example, which was published in London in 1657. This edition, which was
distinguished by the fact that it contained Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Syriac,
Aramean and even Arabic versions, presented numerical estimates that were more
or less in agreement with the data cited above. The Vulgate Clementine, a
Vulgate edition of the Bible, published in 1621, situates Abraham at a slightly
earlier period, placing the Creation at roughly the fortieth century B.C. This
estimate was for many years used as the basic point of reference in the
teachings of the Catholic Church.
Genesis states that the universe and man were both created within the same week.
If we wish to compare this statement with modern knowledge, however, it is
difficult to refer to precise data concerning the period in which the universe
was created, for present knowledge ` on this subject is somewhat approximate.
This is not the case, however, for the solar system. Here, the age of the earth
has been estimated at some 4.5 billion years, with a margin of error of some one
hundred million years. As for man's first appearance on earth, we shall simply
recall the fact that some 40,000 years ago, a man exactly similar to present day
man was already in existence, while less evolved forms of hominids have been
found which in the present state of research most probably go back some five
million years. It is not possible to provide definitive figures, for the
discoveries made by palaeontology are subject to change, but we know for certain
that men with fully developed brains were already in existence at a period far
in advance of the era considered by the Sacerdotal version of Genesis to be that
of man's first appearance on earth.
Data contained in the New
Testament
Matthew's and Luke's Gospels both contain a genealogy of Jesus; the first traces
His ancestors back to Abraham, and the second provides a line that goes back to
Adam. Both of them are in fact genealogies of Joseph who had absolutely nothing
to do with the birth of Jesus which renders the genealogies illogical, to say
the least. The two evangelists in fact based their texts on data in the Old'
Testament, which they arranged to suit their own purposes, thus taking liberties
with the Biblical Scripture Matthew in particular which explains the notable
differences that exist between the two genealogies.
The genealogy, which interests us, the most is the one according to Luke (3, 23
38), which contains seventy-six names of ancestors of Jesus, going back to Adam.
Earlier, we said that the average lifespan of a human generation was roughly
estimated at twenty-five years; this would mean that Adam was situated at the
beginning of the second millennium B.C., which is simply not possible. Even if
we take into consideration the period of some two thousand years that the Bible
attributes to twenty generations descending from Adam to Abraham, we are still a
very long way from the data supplied by palaeontology (described earlier)
concerning the date of man's appearance on earth.
A comparison of the names which appear in Luke's text and the data contained in
the Bible indicates that, in many instances, the list supplied by Luke does not
agree with the informati6n set forth in the oldest copies of the Bible. Names
have been added by Luke to fill the gaps between the groups of genuine
descendants of David mentioned in the Old Testament and Joseph. Scattered
through Luke's text, we find names corresponding to those of the descendants of
David, which figure in Matthew's text. For this same period of time, however,
Matthew mentions twenty-six names, while Luke refers to forty-one.
It is possible that Matthew and Luke did not possess the same source material
from the Old Testament. Whatever the case, both of them used their sources with
the evident intention of showing that Jesus was descended from Abraham and
David. It is a pity that Luke went even further than this, for his total of
seventy-six generations between Jesus and the first man is totally implausible.
The Inevitability of Scientific Error in the Bible
Luke, and indeed the authors of the Old Testament, composed their texts using
the sources at their disposal, drawing on the traditions they had inherited, and
expressing themselves in the language of their time. All of them were motivated
by an essentially religious aim; they naturally had no other intention than to
transmit ideas, which, in their eyes, carried a basically religious meaning. In
view of this, it would be a misreading of the purpose of the Bible to search
through its books in the hope of finding any scientific data whatsoever that
might be usable in practical terms. This applies, moreover, to all the Holy
Scriptures.
In this context, the fact that there are errors in the Bible was inevitable. How
could the men of the period have failed to make such blunders? They most
definitely had no access to the information required for them to refer to events
such as those discussed in the present work without committing mistakes. An
extremely relevant comment on this subject is made by Jean Guitton in 'Mon petit
catechisme' [My Little Catechism], published in 1978, It reads as follows: "The
scientific errors in the Bible are the errors of mankind, for long ago man was
like a child, as yet ignorant of science." Neither Jews nor Christians should be
surprised, embarrassed or shocked to find scientific errors in the Bible. It
would indeed have been most astounding had there been no inaccurate statements,
considering the circumstances present when the Biblical books were written.
Until very recently, those circumstances were unknown, for any commentary on the
text of the Bible which might cast doubt on the fact that God was its indirect
author was judged intolerable by the various Churches. Nowadays, however, the
discovery of scientific errors is in perfect keeping with the ideas of exegetes
Christian exegetes, at least. They regard the Biblical authors as writers who,
while undoubtedly inspired by God, nevertheless expressed themselves in the
language of their day, in the absence of any serious scientific knowledge. Thus
we come back to the point originally made at the beginning of this section: One
has to know the history of the texts in order to arrive at a valid assessment of
their contents.
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