Background for Genesis Essay - 1
In the preceding blog posting in this series, the author concluded with the statement that “the first (of the following) essays will start with the first part of the book of Genesis.” Now, however, it seems best to defer that assignment until after two preliminary essays on the philosophy and history of the Judeo-Christian religion have been presented. Developing philosophical and historical clarity now is expected to lead to quicker comprehension of the Genesis text once it is started. Today’s essay will start with some philosophical background on the topics of belief, faith, trust, states of affairs, facts, unrealized possibilities, truth, and knowledge. Then, we will state some Biblical background information.
Philosophical Background: Prior to any philosophical or theological reflection, it might seem that a comprehensive presentation of God’s truth could be accomplished with a Bible that “started at the beginning” and said everything that was worth knowing (in the sense of “capturing in writing”) about the relationship between God and man. Among presuppositions of this exposition would be the ideas that belief is another word for faith; that the Hebrew Bible presents faith as trust in God; and that the Christian Bible identifies faith as trust in Christ, who is the second person of the Holy Trinity. Here, “trust” includes experiential or emotional factors, if any, that cannot be captured in writing.
However, the terms “belief” and “faith” have not only a branch of meaning relating to the term “trust,” but also a branch of meaning relating to the terms “truth” and “knowledge.” These latter two terms are in turn related to a real (or actual) world, which is assumed to exist and to be intelligible. This real world is thought to consist of states of affairs (SOA’s) that “obtain” and that are usually known as “facts,” whereas SOA’s that “do not obtain” are merely unrealized possibilities. SOA’s are also known as “situations” that may or may not occur.
An SOA is a way that the real world must be in order for some corresponding (or underlying) proposition about the real world to be true in a logical world. In other words, an SOA is a truth-maker; whereas a proposition is a truth-bearer. SOA’s either obtain or fail to obtain; whereas propositions are either true or false. For example, if historical research and judgment lead one to believe that the SOA “Caligula is cruel” obtains; then, as a matter of logic, the proposition “Caligula is cruel” is true. Likewise, if the relevant judgments lead one to believe that the SOA “Caligula is cruel” does not obtain; then, logically, the proposition “Caligula is cruel” is false. The distinction between truth-maker and truth-bearer is based on the difference between empirical research and judgment, on the one hand; and the logical world of premises and deductions, on the other.
We speak of a belief as one particular type of introspective judgment or attitude toward a proposition, which in turn is something that can be true or false in logic. If the attitude is one of acceptance, then we are said to have judged (fallibly) that the SOA under consideration obtains in the real world; thereby forcing the corresponding proposition to be true in the logical world. If the attitude is one of rejection, then we are said to have judged (fallibly) that the SOA under consideration does not obtain in the real world; thereby forcing the corresponding proposition to be false in the logical world.
One notes in passing that there is a panoply of possible attitudes that one might take towards a proposition, including, but not limited to, expecting, hoping, or fearing; intending, desiring, or wishing; believing, knowing, or judging; and accepting, rejecting, or doubting. In this essay we are focusing on believing and knowing. Attitudinal analysis presupposes that we are capable of (fallible) introspection and judgment; that we can recognize real and logical worlds; that these worlds are intelligible; and that we can estimate subjectively (or in some cases, statistically) how much confidence or probability to attach to any particular belief - - from certitude to barely above 50%.
Finally, knowledge is sometimes said to be justified true belief, i.e., belief that is true and that is backed up (i.e., justified) by a “story” of why the belief must be true. Ever since the Platonic dialog, Theaetetus, however, this approach has been shown to be plagued by circularity. One recent philosopher, Robert Nozick, created a “work-around” for this problem. In this new approach, knowledge is said to be “belief tracking truth”: Your belief, X, qualifies as knowledge if X is true, you believe X, and you would not believe X if X were false. Presumably, you are aware of some “factor” or “story” that explains why X couldn’t be false. In effect, Nozick substitutes “couldn’t be false” for the traditional “must be true.” It took more than 2300 years to get from Plato to Nozick, and one doubts that we have heard the definitive last word on this subject.
The nebulous role of certainty in accepting propositions: One might contrast certainty in the mathematical and logical worlds; a high degree of confidence for at least some empirical laws in the physical world; and sufficient reason for actions or beliefs in the moral or religious worlds. Mathematical propositions that follow from self-evident principles and deductive proof are considered to be certain, because the “mind’s eye” sees, and assents to, each step in the proof. Perceptions, being empirical, can sometimes be accumulated so as to allow the formulation of physical hypotheses, which in turn are tested via falsifiability criteria and possibly accepted with a high degree of confidence. Some moral and religious propositions are thought to be so “existentially charged” that they rise to the level of “moral certainty” or “incontrovertible belief.” One recalls that Aristotle’s practical syllogisms envision propositions as premises and actions as conclusions. In the Christian New Testament (Hebrews 11:1), one reads that “faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (NIV-1983). Thus, the idea of certainty surpasses its original domain of mathematics and logic, migrating into the domain of religious faith.
Biblical Background: The Hebrew Bible contains 24 books divided among the five books of the Law (Torah) given to Moses; the eight books of the Prophets; and the eleven books of the Writings (e.g., Psalms, Chronicles, etc.). The Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek as the Septuagint, which presents the books distributed among four sections (Law, History, Poetry, and Prophets) for use by Greek-speaking Jews in the third century B.C. The Torah is referred to in Greek as the “five scrolls,” or “Pentateuch.” The Christian Old Testament is essentially based on translation from the Hebrew Bible, with the Septuagint being available for context. The first book of the Law is referred to (in English) either as The First Book of Moses or as Genesis, which is a Greek word that means “origin, source, or beginning,” albeit not a word that actually occurs in the Septuagint itself. After the lifetime of Jesus of Nazareth, his followers produced a completely different set of writings that followed a different canon and that became known as the “New Testament.”
The first Hebrew word of the First Book of Moses is translated into English (NIV) as “in the beginning.” According to the Bible-hub Interlinear web resource, this Hebrew word occurs four other times in the Hebrew Bible (always in the book of Jeremiah), in Jeremiah 26:1, 27:1, 28:1, and 49:34. All four occurrences in Jeremiah are translated into English (NIV) as “early in the reign of …” Thus, the same Hebrew word can bear two different senses, either as indicating an absolute or unqualified beginning or as indicating “relatively early” or “near the beginning” of a particular king’s reign. The English translation of Genesis 1:1 as “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” is on solid ground.
However, the first two Greek words of the Septuagint (in Genesis 1:1) are transliterated as “en arche,” which means “as a first rule, highest ruler, or philosophical first principle.” (One recalls that “monarch” means “the one ruler of a government or of a nation.” See also Philip Wheelwright, “The Presocratics,” Odyssey Press, 1966, p. 15.) On this Greek view, the English translation of Genesis 1:1 becomes “As a first rule or highest ruler or first principle of the universe, God created the heavens and the earth.” The question arises: How could this utterly novel, Septuagint-based “context” of Genesis 1:1 have arisen?
The apparent answer is that Greek translators make Greek philosophical presuppositions, which God evidently intended to introduce into his Biblical revelation. Some pre-Socratic Greek philosophers had proposed that one or another of the classical elements (earth, air, fire, and water) is the fundamental source, or arche, of all matter; which is to say, a basic, irreducible substance from which all other matter is composed. In the case of Genesis 1:1 in the Septuagint, if the Creation truly occurred “in the beginning,” then the Creation is not a part of any temporal sequence. Instead, temporal sequences arose within the Creation. In the ancient Greek view, the Creator must be a true first principle, or arche, existing outside of time, not an interloper in the temporal order. A “creator within time” could only be what the Greeks called a demiurge, a cosmic worker who fashioned the universe out of pre-existing materials (as in line 28a6 in the Platonic dialog, Timaeus).
The Septuagint version of Genesis, Chapter 1, envisions a logical sequence of purposes to be fulfilled, or tasks to be completed, while God “speaks the universe into existence.” This type of creation is consistent with the Aristotelian worldview that there exists an Unmoved Mover who is a first principle or final cause of the universe. Moreover, Greek presuppositions are useful in dealing with philosophical questions such as the apparent problem of a “young earth” at variance with the modern estimate (nearly 5 billion years) for the age of the earth.
The Septuagint does not seem to be “just one more translation” that is a forerunner of the relatively recent KJV or NIV translations. Instead, the Septuagint seems to be a divine authorization, or warrant, to take Greek philosophical presuppositions seriously.
In the following blog posting, a second preliminary essay will deal with some guidelines for the historical dating of certain prominent Biblical events - - events that are remote in time and that typically allow only very imprecise suggestions for their historical dates.