Part #2: Wrestling with Religious Texts: Misinterpretation--Reading Modern into Ancient

How NOT to Explicate the Text

1. Don’t read into the ancient text modern scientific discoveries. That is eisegesis, not exegesis.

Sarah Salviander, a brilliant astrophysicist, misreads the basic text of Genesis:
https://sixdayscience.com/genesis-1-modern-science/
--
[Gen. 1:14] God said, ‘There shall be lights in the heavenly sky to divide between day and night.’
"Plants changed the atmosphere of the Earth so that it became transparent."
[Gen. 1:15] ‘They shall be lights in the heavenly sky, to shine on the earth.’
"Enough (unscattered) light was eventually able to reach the surface of the Earth to allow the Sun, Moon, and stars to become visible."
--

What?!

The Bible's text says nothing about the “light was eventually able to reach the surface of the Earth to allow the Sun, Moon, and stars to become
visible” or that the “atmosphere of the Earth…became transparent.”

On the contrary, what the text says is this:
Genesis 1:14 And it was evening and it was morning, third day. And God made two two great lights, the great light for dominion of the day and the small light for dominion of night, and the stars. And God placed them in the vault of the heavens to light up the earth and to have dominion over day and night and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. Ans it was evening and it was morning, fourth day.
The Five Books of Moses, translated by Robert Alter

The actual text doesn't mention the cosmos gradually coming to be visible! It says nothing about plants changing the atmosphere so that it "became transparent."

What it states is that God said, There shall be lights...

And notice that this takes place in the evening and morning of one day!!

NOT billions of years.

God makes the sun and the moon on the 4th day.

How Salviander gets around the incredible disparity is that she says that the first few verses of Genesis are from God's point of view while the last ones are from the Earth's point of view. BUT such a claim--that part of Genesis chapter one is from God's point of view, not our view isn't in the text itself.

I do admit her understanding about astrophysics appears to be marvelous. Her explanations are way over my head--I only had high school physics. Indeed, her PhD explanations arguing for God's point of view sound very impressive.

However, how does she know God's point of view?!

Besides, why would God need a "day" with an evening and a morning?

Salviander wrote she is referencing the views of another famous astrophysicist, Gerald Schroeder.

But there are plenty of other scientists who strongly disagree with this combining of cosmology and religion. For instance, read counter views of another physicist, Mark Perakh:
http://www.talkreason.org/articles/schroeder.cfm

Furthermore, the earth's moon isn't a "great light." Even grade school students know for a fact that the moon isn’t a light at all, but that it reflects light from the sun.

If misinterpreters such as Salviander claim that the text doesn't mean to give an accurate understanding of reflection in the case of the moon, then the text isn't scientific, and their whole central thesis that Genesis is accurate to modern cosmology is defeated.

Also, it's strange that Genesis only mentions the stars last! If Genesis was meant to be scientifically accurate, it ought to have spoken of trillions of stars, multiple galaxies. And that many of those stars are millions of times larger than our relatively small sun in a rather minor solar system on the edge of one galaxy, the Milky Way, and that there are billions of galaxies beyond ours.

YET according to Salviander, her website is named after the ancient biblical scholar Nahmanides who wrote that "that the six days of creation (Genesis 1) contain “all the secrets and ages of the universe.” In other words, Nahmanides was claiming Genesis 1 as a work of scientific literature. “SixDay Science” is a reference to how developments in modern scientific fields like relativity, cosmology, and particle physics are supporting this claim."

From my perspective as a literature teacher, and former Bible teacher, and avid reader of modern cosmology books, this claim seems extremely untrue.

Here’s another translation of Genesis, considered one of the most literal word-by-word translations:
14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons,6 and for days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. 16 And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. 17 And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18 to lrule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.
ESV

Note that none of Sarah Salviander’s points are true, none of the text has anything to do with modern scientific facts.

Lastly, if Genesis was meant to be scientifically accurate, the HUGE question is why didn't the text warn early humans of germs and viruses. That would have been far more important than giving ancients correct knowledge of modern cosmology? It would have saved billions of humans throughout history from horrific illnesses, gruesome deaths, such as in the Black Plague.


In the Light of literary interpretation,

Daniel Wilcox
retired literature teacher

Reflection on Dead Poets Society and Whitman's Poem, O Life!

from Dead Poets Society:
*Literature teacher Keating waited a moment to let the lesson sink in. Then Keating grabbed onto his own throat and screamed horribly. "AHHHHGGGGG!!" he shouted.

"Refuse! Garbage! Pus! Rip it out of your books. Go on, rip out the entire page! I want this rubbish in the trash where it belongs!"

--

So begins Dead Poetry Society, a troubling, but powerful movie that grabs us by the throat with unexpected shock--a teacher telling students to rip pages out of their expensive hardbound literature books.

Caution: I didn’t like the movie’s depressing climax--though I do admit that it is realistic, reminding me of the tragedies of students' lives here where I taught literature for many years. One brilliant girl cut herself repeatedly, responding to the emotional abuse of her often absent father.

Nor do I agree with some of the film's philosophical and ethical points. Like most Hollywood movies, it seems to glorify various ethically wrong actions.

BUT:

Robin Williams as teacher, John Keating, dramatically inspires and is life-changing. Williams creates an incredible acting performance as the idealistic professor at a strict New England prep school.

The character, Keating, reminds me of one of our most creative teachers back when I was a naive teen growing up in Lincoln, Nebraska. Our teacher, Mr. Keene, (yes, that was his real name:-) had a similar eccentric, quirky humorous, thought-provoking way of taking us beyond rote learning, of making texts jolt alive and getting us plunged ocean-deep into thinking, reflecting, and creating.

From the screen play:
*The following morning John Keating sat in a chair beside his desk. His mood seemed serious and quiet.
"Boys," he said as the class bell rang, "open your Pritchard text to page 21 of the introduction. Mr. Perry" - he gestured toward Neil - "kindly read aloud the first paragraph of the preface entitied 'Understanding Poetry'."

The boys found the pages in their text, sat upright, and followed as Neil read:
"Understanding Poetry, by Dr. j. Evans Pritchard, PhD. To fully understand poetry, we must first be fluent with its meter, rhyme, and figures of speech, then ask two questions:
1) How artfully has the objective of the poem been rendered and
2) How important is that objective?

Question 1 rates the poem's perfection, question 2 rates its importance.
Once these questions have been answered, determining the poem's greatness becomes a relatively simple matter. If the poem's score for perfection is plotted on the horizontal of a graph and its importance is plotted on the vertical, then calculating the total area of the poem yields the measure of its greatness.

A sonnet by Byron might score high on the vertical but only average on the horizontal. A Shakespearean sonnet, on the other hand, would score high both horizontally and vertically, yielding a massive total area, thereby revealing the poem to be truly great."

Keating rose from his seat as Neil read and went to the blackboard. He drew a graph, demonstrating by lines and shading, how the Shakespeare poem would overwhelm the Byron poem.

Neil continued reading. "As you proceed through the poetry in this book, practice this rating method. As your ability to evaluate poems in this manner grows, so will your enjoyment and understanding of poetry."

Neil stopped, and Keating waited a moment to let the lesson sink in. Then Keating grabbed onto his own throat and screamed horribly. "AHHHHGGGGG!!"

"Refuse! Garbage! Pus! Rip it out of your books. Go on, rip out the entire page! I want this rubbish in the trash where it belongs!"

He grabbed the trash can and dramatically marched down the aisles, pausing for each boy to deposit the ripped page from his book. The whole class laughed and snickered.

"Make a clean tear," Keating cautioned. "I want nothing left of it! Dr.j. Evans Pritchard, you are disgraceful!" The laughter grew, and...

Keating strutted back to the front of the room, put the trash can on the floor and jumped into it. The boys laughed louder.

Fire danced in Keating's eyes. He stomped the trash a few times, then stepped out and kicked the can away.

"This is battle, boys," he cried. "War! You are souls at a critical juncture. Either you will succumb to the will of academic hoi polloi, and the fruit will die on the vine - or you will triumph as individuals.

"Have no fear, you will learn what this school wants you to learn in my class; however, if I do my job properly, you will also learn a great deal more. For example, you will learn to savor language and words because no matter what anyone tells you, words and ideas have the power to change the world."

Keating slammed his hand on the wall behind him, and the sound reverberated like a drum. The entire class jumped and turned to the rear.

"Well," Keating whispered defiantly. "I say - drivel! One reads poetry because he is a member of the human race, and the human race is filled with passion! Medicine, law, banking - these are necessary to sustain life. But poetry, romance, love, beauty? These are what we stay alive for!"

"To quote from Whitman, "O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless... of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?"

"Answer. That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play *goes on* and you may contribute a verse."

"What will your verse be?"



Later, in the film, Keating emphasizes the romantic and pagan manifesto: "Carpe Diem."

If "Carpe Diem" means "Live Up Today" in the usual secular meaning, then it isn't a worthy lesson to teach students. Think of how many young people wasted their lives because they took that sort of advice in the last few generations.

However, one can--with a little creative license--turn Keating's meaning into one of deep significance, "Carpe Transcendence."

The latter is what the social activist, peacemaker, and reconciler Thich Nhat Hanh means when he writes:

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox