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I am going to connect the following with the book of Ecclesiastes because I think that book, more then many Old Testament books point us in the direction of discovery. What brings this about are a couple of things going on in my mind recently, another of those convergences of ideas that I am fond of mentioning.

 Recently on the atomorrow.com discussion forum there has been some conversation with the atheists there who, it seems to me are often just as fundamentalist as any right wing Christian fundamentalist you can think of.  (For the purposes of this series of articles a fundamentalist is defined as those who assume that the Bible is infallible and inerrant and who view the events recorded therein to be literal history. For example Genesis, the book of Job and Jonah are writings, which represent historical events.) Through the conversation some of us have noted that the Genesis story is a myth. Myth is not a bad word it indicates it is a story used to teach people something about their world or the reality around them. Myth does not simply mean something that is untrue. Because it is perfectly legitimate to use something that did not actually occur to present ideas about reality. Jesus used parables and the Old Testament used stories. The Fundamentalist assumes that the stories in Genesis and Job and Jonah must be true actual events. But to a good portion of Christianity these books are not viewed as history but rather works used to teach about man and about God. Some of these books like Ecclesiastes seem designed to make the reader ask questions of the world around them and of their own religion, Job and Jonah are very much in this category of Wisdom literature.

So the fundamentalist atheist asks if the story of creation and the Garden of Eden and the perfection of man is not the true history then why man’s need of  a savior. He then challenged me to “Give a scenario which ties into the NT salvation theory seamlessly like Genesis does.” I normally don’t spend a lot of time with the atheists in these discussion groups but this is an excellent question and it ties into the other things that I have been thinking about. Namely the last couple posts on ways to make the church service more effective and the overall theme of what is the purpose of having a relationship with God. We love to talk about having a relationship with God but I cannot be satisfied with thinking that this relationship is only for my benefit and God’s benefit. In other words I don’t think that a relationship with God is about me getting a reward and going to heaven. The relationship is much more then my salvation.

The Atheist’s question is based upon his view of what Christianity has taught him, as with the other atheists on that discussion forum he is a former Seventh-day Adventist. He knows what Adventists believe, at least from the fundamentalist side which throughout our history has been the main source of theology in the Adventist church. But he cannot envision a different way of looking at religion. Though the different way of looking at religion has always been around, we have a traditional view now and we assume that that is the only possible way. However when looking at his challenge above we would have to quickly note that to the people who were given the stories of Genesis it was not about getting a savior to come and return them to the Garden of Eden type existence. As I have noted several times the book of Ecclesiastes does not work from the perspective of a resurrection and renewed life lived with God. It spurs us to the thought that there must be more but it does not explain what that more is. He may have been the wisest man in the world yet he did not know what we know.

The entire Old Testament is a journey in understanding God. It goes from the almighty creator to the warrior God of Israel with episodes of the Redeeming God interspersed. The God who champions the cause of the abused, the poor and those treated with injustice. Though we can see the progress of the views of God through the Old Testament books, they hold that God does not change and our logic holds that He does not change. What the Old Testament books show us is the different aspects or ways of viewing God. As we move into the later prophets and then into the New Testament all these aspects are still found but they change in relation to the people involved. God is no longer the warrior God of Israel; He is the warrior God against all cruelty and evil and for all who will follow Him. No longer the redeemer of the children of Israel but the redeemer from all the crushing force of nature and our own evil actions. Yet He is still the creator of all that we see the good in man and nature and because of freedom the bad in man and nature. Yet as Paul says all nature groans: The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.  We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. (Rom 8:19-23  NIV) [You will notice that there will not be a lot of Bible quotations in this article, the reason is that in many cases I would be using the same verses as the Fundamentalist would use, the effort here is to change the way we look at things rather then build a Biblical case for a doctrine.]

However before we attempt to write a scenario of salvation from Genesis to Revelation we have to deal with the basics of the relationships with man and God. For my atheist friend I have to admit that I can’t write the scenario using the fundamentalist mindset. I like that atheist, have given up the fundamentalist mindset ,the difference however is that I have not given up God and religion because I can’t accept the fundamentalist views anymore. Just like the writer of Ecclesiastes we have to delve into the purpose of life, the purpose of our lives and the purpose of God. Ecclesiastes in it’s anti-fundamentalist areas would ask the questions which the fundamentalist at that time would not ask. Like the friends of Job they only know what their tradition had told them and when it does not work out that way they are at a loss.

So to begin we have to examine what it is to have a relationship with God and what is the point of that relationship. I ran across the following quote, though I don’t know who the wise spiritual guide is, I thought it was interesting.

A wise spiritual guide once said, "We are as good at praying as we are at the other relationships of our lives.  If you want to get better at prayer, work on the key relationships in your life."
http://www.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/1-relationship.html

What I like about that quote is that it connects a relationship with God with our relationships with others. That relationship with others is often one of the real problems for Christians. A couple of years ago I heard a sermon which I strongly disagreed with but I have found it useful in reflecting upon a relationship with God. I will quote from the Message Thought of the church bulletin by speaker that day:
“Many people use the expression “personal relationship” to describe what God wants for each of us. Like any term that gets used often, it runs the risk of losing its meaning. What are the implications of a personal relationship with God? They are huge. In fact we will probably need an eternity to explore them. However, there is something we can be sure of We are in charge of it! That’s right, you are at the controls. So who is your God? Who you make him to be! I can hear you now, “wait a minute we aren’t the creator, that’s God’s role.” Let’s talk about it. I think there is something worth chewing on here!!!”

He began well by telling how he asked his school class “who am I?” The answers in some way describe him. Of course his thesis would have fallen apart if someone had said that he believed the speaker to be the queen of Egypt. Because in fact we don’t create God by what we want him to be anymore then we create our teacher by what we want him to be. If we create God to be what we want him to be, we create an illusion. Now it is certainly possible to have an imaginary relationship with an imaginary friend, children sometimes do it as well as mentally ill people. But it is limited to imagination and in fact there is really no relationship. You may want to try the experiment of creating a relationship with someone you know at school or work, you are in charge of who that person will be. Like in the sermon you can create, not God in this case but your friend. Your friend will no longer be someone who eats onions because you don't like onions. Yesterday that person may have loved onions but you are now in charge of the relationship so they no longer eat onions. Create just the right friend out of anyone you want.

 By doing this, have you established a relationship with that person? In a way you have, you now relate to that person in an abnormal way, you see something that is not really there and pretend it is there. Most likely the subject of your experiment will avoid you like the plaque, so in practical terms you really don’t have a personal relationship.

Personal relationships are built upon several factors. First is the acknowledgement of who the other person is. That acknowledgment has to be pretty accurate. You have to know and accept that person for who he is, not who you may want him to be. Of course you will never know everything about a person but you will know a good deal. Enough so that you can say you trust that person and trust is a key ingredient in relationships.

So in simple terms a relationship with God is about trust. The Bible uses the words faith, believe, as well as trust, it is all the same thing. You can be fairly sure that God believes in you, (if we accept even a small portion of the Bible) He has faith that you can communicate with him and he trusts you to make multitudes of decisions. Now that kind of trust is pretty easy because we do that with people all the time. Yet our relationship to God has to encompass much more because to be God, God must be much more. He has to be all powerful, all knowing, and if he says He is love then to earn our trust he has to be love.

 But I can’t see God, I can’t hear God. Now the speaker of the sermon mentioned above said that God told him we need to create our own God. But the evidence seems to suggest otherwise. That evidence cannot be because I think it is this way therefore it must be that way. I think therefore I am tells me I am, it does not tell me that what I think is right or not. So what we think is true must be built upon the evidence around us. A world vast to small of incredible intricacy and complexity implies a designer. If there is a designer then he should be able to communicate to us in some ways. So how does the designer communicate yet not overwhelm us? How can he allow you freedom if he was always in front of you or always telling you what to do? We grow by means of learning through trial and error, step by step, yet a God of all knowledge and all power to teach his student would have to let the student act on their own.

Complexity defines the world; any human relationship is also complex. Certainly man’s relationship with God will also be complex. The atheist demands that God give him proof, because the atheist does not want the complexity. No doubt he would want the freedom but with freedom comes responsibility. So there is an increase in complexity from each step. Nature is often defined as the web of life. Relationships are just as much a web of life. Each involving people, thinking, freedom, responsibility and finally God.

For the Christian this all takes us back to Jesus Christ. The fullness of God revealed in Human flesh. Jesus takes us to the messages of the Old Testament, how God deals with mankind, Does God know the future, does God tell the truth, does God love. Then Jesus takes us to the New Testament. Does God have power over death, does God forgive and heal, what may the future hold for us?

All this becomes the standard by which the Christian comprehends God. It is the evidence that leads to the philosophy of the Christian. The evidence tells us what God is like, that He is transcendent, which means that He is beyond the ordinary. That He can act upon people in ways that no person acts upon another person. That He is reaching out to us.

He stands at the door and knocks but we are man, we can think, we are free. The relationship is when we open the door and say come in, I trust you, heal me, change me, and reconcile me to you. To draw it all together, if I was to put the most generous spin upon the sermon I heard that day it would be summed up as:

You will never have a relationship with a God you do not respect. So if you can’t respect your God create a new God.

There is a song done by the band Downhere called “Making Me” which said – “I was a cancer you made me a son”. We are not going to want to be the son of a God who is a cancer. We want to be changed from what we are into something better. That is why it is important to remove the man made rubbish that so often infects many Christian’s view of God. It is why some of us fight against those who say, “God says obey me or I will kill you”, “you are sinners and deserve to die” and “God made His son pay the penalty for our sin”. That is not love and it is not trustworthy…it is not God. There are many Christians who are at this point, they need to rethink the God they have made.

The first step in relationship with God is to have comprehensive understanding of who God is. Not merely the traditional and uncritical view of God but a view that takes into account the complexity of nature and relationships. Traditional and uncritical views may well be a starting point of the relationship but relationships need to grow.

In part two I will look at why do we, and/or why does God want us to have a relationship with Him. Because there really has to be more then our selfish desire to live forever and get heavenly rewards. Pie in the sky was not the original message of God’s revelation to man. I have still not answered the fundamentalists and atheists opening challenge. Every paradigm shift comes down to a series of steps, learning and unlearning go hand in hand.

Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. (Gen 1:2 NIV) 

In the beginning God created, but just how did He create? Did you ever wonder as you read the above text how there was water on the earth as it floated light years from the nearest sun? (Proxima Centauri is 4.3 light-years from the Sun) For in the Genesis account there was no sun until day four, there was no atmosphere to hold in the vapor of that water if by some unknown property it should no longer be in the natural state of ice found near absolute zero of space, because the firmament was not until day number 2 of the creation series (Genesis 1:8). Light was the first element of creation but we have no idea what that light was, it can’t be the sun, that is the light which predominately lights our world because again that was not created until day four of creation. Yet in Genesis 1:5 we see that the light produced, separated the light from the darkness and the light part was called day, the dark, night, those today are the result of earth rotation.

The story to modern scientific minds makes little sense but it seemed to cause little confusion in the ancient world. They had no idea where the Sun was or that other suns were those much more distant shining lights in the sky. The idea of a planet in space was totally foreign concept to ancient man. It would be hard for someone coming out of Egyptian captivity to even imagine glaciers let alone a planet covered with ice. So the Genesis story begins with the symbols of familiar myths of creation. The chaos of water is integral to many of the creation myths. For the Egyptians creation came about from the water. Water is a very good symbol of chaos as it swirls and covers and seems to have the ability to do whatever it may want to do with whatever it encounters. A river can appear tame but when it floods it is a fearsome thing and the sea with it vast amount of water would be a terrifying thing. An article entitled Chaos –A Creation Constant says:

The ocean (or simply water) is a popular metaphor for chaos. We find this not only in Japanese tradition, but also in Hebrew tradition. In the first chapter of Genesis we read of God crossing the deep waters. In Babylonian tradition the fierce and fertile goddess Tiamat represented chaos as a deity of the saltwater sea. Hindu mythology tells of Vishnu perched upon a giant snake adrift in the infinite chaotic primordial sea. Water has properties that make it an ideal symbol for chaos - it is fluid and difficult to control or manipulate.

These myths also have in common that the Creator God brings order out of chaos. That order is probably described most orderly in the Genesis account. Perhaps comparing the Genesis account with those other myths contributed to our modern acceptance as if the account was literal history, but it does not mean that it was literal history just because it is given in a more logical progression then say the Babylonian creation myth. Many archeologists think that the Babylonian creation myth is the source for that of Genesis. For instance the article The Babylonian Origins of the Creation Myths states: In Genesis 1:6-8 God is said to have created the firmament on the second day of creation. In the Babylonian myth, Marduk, son of the Ea the god of wisdom, killed Tiamat and split her into two. The upper half of Tiamat was fixed onto the sky to keep the waters above in place.

The order of creation in the Babylonian myth and the Genesis account are very similar but the Babylonian account is filled with so much god on god violence that it probably was not taken all that seriously even by the Babylonians. The Egyptian myths were not much different either. As the article Atum the Creator God says: Atum performed auto fellatio and spat out Shu (the air) and Tephnut (the moisture). When Atum masturbated, the first word he exclaimed was deified into the God Hu.

In short the Hebrew account is a whole lot less fantastic then the accounts of their neighbors. It is likely that the Genesis account is one of the major reasons for the triumph of monotheism over the pagan multi-god universe. But we as Christians don’t have to compare our religion to other ancient religions; we do have to find what our religion says to us. If we take the admonition found in the New Testament that all scripture is inspired by God (2 Timothy 3:16) how do we deal with the myths found in the Genesis story?

Before we answer that question we have to remove some of the baggage that comes with many people when they hear the word “myth”. It is not a bad word; it does not simply mean something that is not true. Dictionary.com defines myth as: a traditional or legendary story, usually concerning some being or hero or event, with or without a determinable basis of fact or a natural explanation, esp. one that is concerned with deities or demigods and explains some practice, rite, or phenomenon of nature.

Myth then is a way for people to explain the world around them. This is equally true for the Genesis account as it is for the Egyptian account. The Genesis account presents God as the creator and cause of all we see. It does not explain how the creation took place; it is forced to use explanations which are outside the bounds of human understanding. Even if taken literally the story does not account for everything the story says such as the formless earth covered with water and then the creation of light making days and nights. The story teaches creation; not how creation was done. This is not hard to understand as we learn more about science we see just how complex the universe is, an accurate description of creation would likely be far to complex for those of ancient man. Very likely for those of us who can’t wrap our minds around quantum physics the description of creation would be too complex. So the Bible presents us with language of the people of the time it was written. It is very likely incorporating into the story ideas from the time as well and using symbols and knowledge of the time. For example consider the verses describing the purpose of the creation of the sun, moon and stars And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, (Gen 1:14 NIV).

The sun and moon have been great tools for use as calendars, ancient Israel used a lunar calendar but scientifically speaking the sun and moon are far more important than as tools to tell what time of year it is. The account describes the knowledge from the writer at that time. The account describes the world we see around us and tries to make sense of it. For more information on this idea see my article on Genesis in Symbol and Substance.

It is little wonder then that the Genesis account does not correspond to the world of today understood through the advancement of science. But the concept of inspiration can still take into account the progression of knowledge. What once may have been stories taken literally can now be viewed as stories which impart information used to aid people in how they live. At one time people would have believed in Adam and Eve as literal people in a literal garden it is possible now to see them as stories reflecting mankind’s own nature. They can now be seen as symbols of humanity and man’s own desires which at times are not for his own good and are very often self centered. Through inspiration the stories could have very specific meaning for those of ancient times as they left to become a nation and still have important meaning for present day man. Many of the stories of Genesis are about obedience, pretty much unquestioning obedience. Obedience would be pretty important to a group of slaves freed from Egyptian captivity and heading out to start a new nation. It would however be hard to accept the same demand of obedience required of Adam and Eve freshly placed in a garden paradise. According to the story they were given very little information, little about why not touch the tree of knowledge of good and evil or what death or evil was. Certainly the reaction of God in the story seems very far from the God of even the latter Old Testament and certainly the New Testament views of God. The reason they are kicked out of the garden according to the Genesis story is: And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." (Gen 3:22 NIV) 

In the story evil was to disobey God and death was induced by God taking away access to the tree of life. Many Christians have come a long way from that concept when they build upon the Genesis story with the information of later writings and the New Testament revelation of Jesus Christ. Death is the consequence of distrusting God, rejecting the life that God offers, ignoring the forgiveness of God, forgiveness not even hinted at in the Genesis story. The story takes on far more significance as the New Testament expands our understanding. We today have no problem seeing in the story the nature of rebellion in the character of the serpent we even name that rebellion with the agent of evil, Satan. But that was not present to the original hearers of the Genesis story. The progression through the Bible takes us from the magically talking serpent to the adversary of God. Christianity is a progression from the views of the early Hebrew religion. Accumulated knowledge has the tendency to change religions and even the story interpretations within those religions. It seems the nature of inspiration is that it can reach people in so many different times, places and cultures with a message that grows with our own knowledge, if we allow it.

What the myths try to explain is the current reality of life, what they cannot explain is the world before the reality we see. We can’t even imagine a world without any death or decay and in fact the Genesis story never defines the world in that way, it is something we add to the story. This has been a problem to Christians through time. They see the Genesis stories and they see that the stories have cracks and holes where we want more story. Some Christians have attempted to fill in the holes and many times those additions to the Genesis stories have through tradition been accepted as if they were in the stories. An example of this can be seen in the commentary Bible that Jimmy Swaggert produced in which he says: “even though the Lord had explained to the First Family the necessity of the Sacrificial System, that is if they were to have any type of communion with God and Forgiveness of sins.” The Latter Day Saints do the same with the addition of their special doctrine into the Adam and Eve story: the Book of Mormon in Moses 5 writes: 10 And in that day Adam blessed God and was ^afilled, and began to ^bprophesy concerning all the families of the earth, saying: Blessed be the name of God, for because of my ^ctransgression my ^deyes are opened, and in this life I shall have ^ejoy, and again in the ^fflesh I shall see God. 11 And Eve, his wife, heard all these things and was glad, saying: Were it not for our transgression we never should have had ^aseed, and never should have ^bknown good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient. It is far too common to see religions embellish stories to try and create a new doctrine.

To many our tradition of how we see the Genesis stories will dictate how everything else in the Bible will be viewed. The tradition that has been handed down to Christians since the middle ages is the view that sees Jesus paying the penalty for the sin of humans. This is called the Penal or Substitutionary Atonement theory. In this view man was perfect but man sinned and fell from perfection. Not only did man sin but God declared a punishment upon man for that sin. To many Christians this view of God has become their only view of God. A God who says obey me and live disobey and I will cause you to die. In the Genesis story we see it as: And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." (Gen 2:16-17 NIV) 

The Genesis story does not say that God will cause them to die but that is the fallacious assumption that is read into the verses by those holding the Penal view of the atonement. In a modern translation like the NIV the concept of when does not make it appear as if the death is a punishment of God, but the use of the King James Version which says: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. The idea then became that if the person sinned they would die on that day. Of course the story does not have the people dying on that very day so the story is embellished to make it appear consistent with the much later Penal theory. The embellishment range from they died “spiritually” on that day, which contextually and any other way makes no sense to the idea as mentioned above that God instituted as sacrificial system and those an animal was substituted for the human beings so that they would not have to die on that day.

When the story is shaped by the addition of countless embellishments the story will later become crucial to the connected doctrines. This brings us back to the purpose of this article. How can we accept the need for a Savior in Jesus Christ if we don’t hold to the Genesis story as a literal story? The answer is that we don’t need to hold to it being a literal story because its purpose was to try and describe the world they saw. Even those who claim that is it a literal story, do not operate as if it is literal. If they did they would have no reason to insert all the embellishments into the story.

People sin, they over-reach and they get themselves or others into worse trouble. We don’t need the Genesis story to tell us what sin is, we know because we see the consequences of selfish actions all around us. We don’t need the story to tell ourselves that we hurt each other and ourselves. Without the embellishments the Genesis story does not even tell us how to get out of the situation we find ourselves in. The Genesis story sets the stage for the nation of Israel, and the nation of Israel sets the stage for the coming Messiah and the Messiah takes us to the ultimate solution where man is no longer adversaries of God. It is all a progression in understanding of ourselves and God.

When God steps into our world to live the life as a man He reveals the character of God, that God does indeed love us and that that love can bring us into a relationship with Him that can save us from the natural destruction of all things we see. The crucifixion revealed the selfish cruelty of mankind even upon the One who is the ultimate author of life. Yet even then, while tortured Jesus loved and offered forgiveness to those who inflicted upon Him pain. He remained faithful to His teachings even to the point of death. From death the resurrection proves God’s ability to impart life. The destruction we see around us does not have to be the end result for us. Are we willing to trust God enough to accept the gift of eternal life, do we trust God enough to see value in other people to love and forgive them?

Viewing the Genesis story as a myth is not necessarily something that is contrary to the concept of needing a savior. There are connections that can be made between the way the world is explained in Genesis and the way Jesus Christ offered new hope. A prime example is what Paul said: Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned--(Rom 5:11-12 NIV)  The gift is contrasted to transgression, the gift being available to all mankind just as sin is universally part of mankind. Paul’s argument is not that because one man sinned all death entered the world, we can’t imagine a world without death and neither does the Genesis story as it indicates that Adam and Eve were free to eat of all the trees but one. To eat as we understand it is to destroy the cellular components of the fruit. Paul is using the Genesis story to illustrate that the actions of one can affect the whole of mankind. More concisely Paul states:

But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. (1 Cor 15:20-22 NIV)  In his analogy Adam represents all of mankind and all people die. Christ represents the firstfruits of those who die and live again. Most conservative Christians will take either one of the above mentioned verses and incorporate them into the Genesis story and say that there was no death before Adam sinned. Without death there could be no theistic evolution or a number of other origin theories that have been proposed by Christians who try to harmonize the reality of the scientific world with the Biblical stories. But with the method of comparing Adam with Christ it is not likely that Paul would have meant his words to be used to in that way. It could be argued that he did mean them to refer specifically to death in the human race but that view would not be incompatible with theistic evolution.