(Mis)interpreting Genesis: How The Creation Museum Misunderstands the Ancient Near Eastern Context of the Bible

by Ben Stanhope

Contents by chapter:

What was Leviathan? Was Behemoth a Dinosaur? King James' Unicorns Making Sense of Isaiah's Flying Serpents Does Genesis 1:1 Describe the Absolute Beginning? Ancient Hebrew Heavenly Cosmology The Ancient Hebrew Conception of the Earth Eden: The Cosmic Mountain of God The Meaning of the Seven Days of Creation The Numerological Lifespans of the Patriarchs Animal Death Before the Fall Why the Holy Spirit isn't Your Bible Commentary How Popular Views of Inspiration Protect Readers from Their Bible
False Artifacts, Hoaxes, and Misinterpretations: Young-Earth Creationism's Use of Dragon Legends Misuse of Flood Legends Cosmology and Traditional World Cultures


Praise for (Mis)interpreting Genesis:

"Stanhope's scholarly, multi-pronged critique...helped me to see the biblical narrative as holding far deeper, more significant meaning than what these Christian materialists seem bent on forcing the text to say. The text itself, in its ancient context, is far more interesting than what these eisegetes want to make it say."

- John Holzmann, Co-Founder, Sonlight Curriculum Ltd.; Manager, Holzmann Family Enterprises LLC

"Stanhope has dedicated many years to combatting the misinformation circulated by young-earth creationists in print and online. In this book, we see the fruit of his labors and a clear demonstration of his love for the Bible and dedication to understanding it in its historical and cultural context. The result is a monumental work.... The book offers a positive and remarkably thorough survey of the relevant biblical texts (both the ones young-earth creationists twist and the ones they conveniently ignore) as well as of relevant archaeological data.... In short, the book offers a compelling case for how to interpret the biblical material about creation that is more honest and more genuinely biblical in character than what one finds in the homeschooling and other literature promoted by the Creation Museum and other organizations like it. All those concerned not only about the state of science education in the United States, but also the decline in biblical literacy, owe Stanhope a debt of gratitude."

- James F. McGrath, Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature, Butler University. Author of The Only True God: Monotheism in Early Judaism and Christianity

"Stanhope relies on the most up-to-date scholarship to explain many concepts in the biblical texts that have been misunderstood by many people in today's world. This book is necessary for anyone to dive deeper into the biblical texts. I cannot recommend it enough."

- Michael Jones, Founder and Director of the Inspiring Philosophy Christian research video library



Ben Stanhope has served as a Garrett Fellow in the Department of Literature and Culture of Boyce College, holds a certificate in Worldview from Biola University, a B.A. from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and an M.A. in Manuskriptkulturen from the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures at the German University of Hamburg, where he was educated in archaeometric techniques under Dead Sea Scroll scientists. His research thesis First Temple Hebrew Seals and Bullae Identifying Biblical Persons synthesizes archaeological and museum catalog data to present novel discoveries in the interpretation of Egyptian icons on biblical period papyrus seals. He has authored a work on first century Roman philosophy entitled, The Golden Sayings of Epictetus: In Contemporary English.

Genres: Theology, Christianity

337 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2020

Reviews

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

AN EXCELLENT ANALYSIS, AND CRITIQUE OF ‘YOUNG EARTH’ INTERPRETATIONS

Author Ben Stanhope wrote in the Introduction to this 2020 book, “We have come to the Creation Museum in northern Kentucky, the 27 million dollar incarnation of young-earth doctrine upheld by the organization Answers in Genesis… Our tickets in hand, my wife and I turn the corner and find ourselves standing in the shadow of a mastodon skeleton towering at the forefront of the museum hall… a sign next to the gift shop advertises Ken Ham’s book, ‘The LIE: Evolution.’ … an animatronic child and raptors are playing together near the water’s edge. I can immediately appreciate why the general culture and news media have seen this museum as little more than a comedy goldmine, and I fail to suppress my own grin. However, my smile quickly transforms to somber sympathy as I reflect on what I know to be the museum’s motives.” (Pg. 11-12)

He continues, for centuries, our civilization has rested on the metaphysical foundations of Genesis’ creation account… Much of the Creation Museum stands as a warning that we cannot obliterate that heritage from the foundations of our civilization and expect all to carry on unchanged… I was born into an evangelical missionary family… After hearing hundreds of sermons on Genesis… I thought I understood Genesis pretty well… However, into my late teens, I finally began to read Genesis for myself… I realized that…. The story I was reading was much more profoundly cryptic than the … packaged version I had been taught… A barrage of questions pounded me as I read: … Where was the ‘evening and morning’ light on the first three creation days coming from if the sun, moon, and stars weren’t even made until day four? When God says, ‘Let US make man in our own image,’ to whom does the ‘us’ refer? If Adam and Eve were the only original humans, why does Genesis 4 seem to imply that there were already cities on earth right after their first child Cain killed his twin?... Why is the introduction of animal predation and death never even remotely mentioned in Genesis 3 when God is listing out all the consequences of the Fall?” (Pg. 12-13)

He goes on, “I have written to engage the average churchgoer and curious secular readers. My thesis is that archaeological and linguistic discoveries about the Bible’s original context clearly show that a great deal of mainstream young-earth interpretation of biblical creation texts is wrong. I also aim to demonstrate that these archaeological and linguistic discoveries should correct our understanding of the biblical authors’ core intended messages… I write as a textual analyst. I avoid writing with the tone of a theologian, and seek to maintain a generally religiously neutral tone.” (Pg. 14, 16)

Of the reference in Job 41 to ‘Leviathan,’ he comments, “Believing that the Job author is being literal, the sponsors of the Creation Museum and other young-earth authors believe these verses provide us evidence that there must have lived alongside man a species of marine reptile that possessed the biological capability of LITERALLY BREATHING FIRE. For them, a non-literal interpretation of this fire-breathing dragon dishonors the divine authority of the Bible… they compare Leviathan’s flaming maw with creatures we know like the electric eel and the bombardier beetle… I want to show you why we know… that Leviathan is NOT a member of the animal kingdom… Psalm 74:14 reads: ‘You crushed the heads of Leviathan and gave him for food…’ is Leviathan in the above passage singular, or plural? … are we dealing with ONE Leviathan that has multiple heads---a sort of hydra?” (Pg. 23-25) Later, he concludes, “the author of Psalm 74 is using leviathan as a figurative symbol, most likely to emphasize Yhwh’s kingship over creation.” (Pg. 34) Similarly, in Behemoth in Job 40 “the author is most likely using this creature of mythic origins to teach us a lesson about God’s domination over the cosmic order and man’s frailty by comparison.” (Pg. 45)

He suggests, “The opening verses of Genesis DO NOT describe creation from nothing (though they don’t contradict the idea, either). The Hebrew syntax of the creation account DOES NOT allow us to establish when the matter of the universe or the pre-earth materials were brought into being… For all we know, this matter may have existed for as long as the majority of cosmologists think it has.” (Pg. 81)

He explains, “The vapor canopy model was … believed to have been a water-shell hanging over the globe’s atmosphere… The canopy doesn’t exist today because it was depleted to create the Great Flood…. Unfortunately, a widely ignored passage in … Psalms [148:4-6] landed this theory a mortal blow when it was … pointed out … that the ‘waters above’ were still described as loitering over the sky AFTER the Flood… To their credit, the majority of young-earthers have abandoned the vapor canopy model because the meteorological science could never get off the ground, and contradicting Bible verses … became so glaringly problematic. The Answers in Genesis website advises Christians now to reject the view.” (Pg. 89-90)

He points out that “Henry Morris … declare[d] that the specific Hebrew term translated ‘circle’ in [Isa 40:22] ‘means to be made spherical.’ … Unfortunately... I quickly discovered that there’s nothing scientifically special going on in this verse because we have plenty of polytheistic Near Eastern writings before and after Isaiah which also describe the earth as a circle (i.e., a disk)… Morris was wrong. The Hebrew word … doesn’t specify a sphere. In Isa 44:12-13… Job 26:10 and Prov 8:27 the same term is used … to describe … the two-dimensional shape one draws with a compass… Isaiah views the earth like the flat ground over which the heavenly tent is erected.” (Pg. 119-120) Similarly, Job 26:7 [‘hangs the earth on nothing’]… is probably not emphasizing God’s hanging the earth in a literal vacuum.” (Pg. 125)

He notes, “Many might be surprised to learn that Eden was also located on top of a mountain. We know this because Eze 28:13-16 plainly says, ‘You were in Eden, the garden of God… the holy mountain of God.’ … Scholars therefore agree that Eden, like the other mountain abodes, was a Near Eastern ‘cosmic mountain’… the inner sanctum of a temple where God and his divine sons congregated to administrate the affairs of the cosmos.” (Pg. 138-139)

He clarifies, “Despite my criticisms of young-earthers, I am in full agreement with the Creation Museum that old-earth interpretations that try to read millions of years out of the days of Genesis 1 are dismally unimpressive… As scientifically untenable as many old-earthers may find young-earth creationism, a wincing interpretation that tries to read the days of the creation account as poetic sequences of millions of years is part of the problem not the solution … The Creation Museum is certainly correct that the days are not a poetic description of millions of years… Genesis 1 is clearly not a sequentially accurate account of the origins of the material world.” (Pg. 155)

He states, “Some popular old-earth scholars have argued that the fact that day and night exist in Genesis before the creation of the sun must indicate that Genesis 1 … is not concerned with relating things … in sequential order. They argue that the sun must have actually existed on days one through three but was not depicted as created until day four for literary reasons… they then attempt to weasel their way around the somewhat embarrassing fact that Genesis 1 has trees (day three) created before the sun (day four)! … Other biblical texts imply that the light summoned forth on the first day proceeded not from the sun, but from God himself.” (Pg. 160)

He explains, “In the genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11, we find it claimed that early humanity lived astonishingly long lifespans… Abraham is the first person in the Bible to be described [Gen 25:8] as having attained fullness of age. However, if the lifespans in Gen 5 and 11 are literal, this passage is bizarre because Abraham’s great, great, great, great grandfather Eber was still alive and kicking at Abraham’s death and even outlived him at 464 years… If literal, these genealogies imply every one of the patriarchs born back to Noah lived at the same time as Abraham! This is strange because the Bible otherwise appears to treat these men like they were long dead by this time… Indeed, except for Jacob blessing Joseph’s sons, none of the patriarchs is ever recorded as having related to his grandchildren… Jacob founded the nation of Israel. Why do we never see him consulting with or meeting Abraham to whom the promise of this nation was once given?... the call of Abraham gives us a more concrete example… [Abraham asked in 17:17] ‘Will a son be born to a man a HUNDRED YEARS OLD? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of NINETY?’ Sarah… even laughs at the absurdity of it… Here’s the problem: If the numbers in Genesis 5 and 11 genealogies are literal, this wasn’t actually a miracle. Why not? Because Abraham’s own dad, Terah, fathered either Abraham or one of his brothers at 130 years old (Gen 11:32, 12:4, Acts 7:4).” (Pg. 174-176)

He says, “[Ken] Ham states: ‘When God completed his work of creation… animals were all vegetarian.’ Many young-earth thinkers will admit that this idea is one of young-earth creationism’s more difficult doctrines… Nearly everywhere in nature, we see creatures exquisitely equipped with all sorts of creative means to inflict death and suffering upon one another. If animals never harmed or consumed each other before Adam’s sin, what exactly did scorpions look like before the Fall?... Why do they need these massive pincers?... Did God create them like this, or were these structures post-Fall developments?” (Pg. 189-190)

He argues, “Using the Holy Spirit as an excuse for academic laziness in Bible study isn’t going to help someone understand … why the wheels in Ezekiel’s vision were covered in eyeballs… It won’t help a person uncover why Paul says women should wear head coverings ‘because of the angels’… People can pray for God supernaturally to reveal to them the meaning of these passages all they want… it is… foolish to depend on it as one’s standard operating method.” (Pg. 224-225)

He observes, “I wish to encourage more caution among those who make claims from artifacts purporting to overturn the paleontological timeline affirmed by the vast majority of relevant scientists… the Creation Museum… [has used] a dragon hoax from a nineteenth century coal town newspaper… we have seen a rock art display in the Museum that has been proven for yeas to be a misinterpretation by a published scientific journal… Answers in Genesis … misinterpreted a photograph of a Native American mountain lion spirit as a spiny dinosaur… If leading young-earthers want their highly minority positions in the physical sciences to be taken seriously, it is in their interest to avoid being negligent with ancient texts, folklore, and artifacts.” (Pg. 274-276)

He states, “Young-earth creationists frequently cite the existence of flood legends around the globe as evidence that the Great Flood was historical and universal… it is undeniable that many of these legends were the product of local floodings… only a comparative few flood legends remember the even as having occurred in some distant land… the given flood is remembered from the standpoint of the people group’s present geography… folklorists… have discovered that there is a tendency for them to coincide major bodies of water… Another consideration … is that Christian missionaries historically tended to reach many uncontacted people groups before the ethnographers did… cultures were already exposed to Bible stories before their indigenous oral mythology had … [been] recorded.” (Pg. 277-278)

Many of Stanhope’s linguistic arguments will seem ‘too technical’ or ‘irrelevant’ to many readers (e.g., Ugaritic textual comparisons); but overall this is a fantastic book that takes the Bible ‘very seriously,’ though often not ‘literally.’

[Kristine Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review title: Compares approaches to understanding the Bible; understanding the text in context is best.

Ben Stanhope investigates and evaluates a couple of approaches to understanding the Bible, especially the beginning of Genesis. The book is well written and very informative. It’s divided into 3 sections.

Section 1, “Proposed Claims of Extinct Animals in the Bible”, examines Leviathan, Behemoth, Unicorns, and flying serpents to see if these should be understood as various dinosaurs or something else. In no case does it seem like a dinosaur is the most faithful way to understand these references.

Section 2, “Reading Genesis Like an Ancient Israelite”, examines Ancient Hebrew concepts and how they compare and contrast with neighboring cultures. It was especially interesting to learn about the Ugarit language that shares some common words with ancient Hebrew. This section is particularly well researched and supported by numerous footnotes.

Section 3, “A Path Forward”, discusses the role of the Holy Spirit in interpreting the Bible and the value of scholarly study when trying to understand the Bible (or anything else) faithfully.

Appendices A, B, and C delve into some supplementary information like false artifacts, hoaxes, and misrepresentations publicized by young-earth creationist organizations.

I highly recommend this book for those who desire to understand the Bible well, especially for Christians who value and cherish Scripture. I also recommend this for parents, pastors, youth leaders, university students, and those who recognize that the perceived conflict between science and the Bible has driven many away from Christianity. Much of this perceived conflict can be resolved by understanding the cultural background and thus understanding better what the Bible is teaching.

[Fabien · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone who is extremely intrigued and engaged by contemporary Old Testament scholarship, this was a thoroughly enjoyable and enlightening read.

Stanhopes work is accessible to both those who are unfamiliar with this territory, as well as anyone with some level of knowledge of Hebrew and Mesopotamian texts. The book shows great robustness when comparing the Hebrew texts to its local world of the Ancient Near East, yet outlines clearly when the biblical authors differed from their religious neighbours for theological, philosophical and literary reasons.

A must read for an up-to-date and engaging debate with the doctrines of 'Creationism' from a scholarly and often misunderstood perspective.

Great illustrations too!

[Kevin Pulley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fairly good distillation of the collected works of Michael Heiser and John Walton. Being very familiar with both, there wasn’t a lot of new information but is a great overview/introduction of a good majority of topics Heiser/Walton cover.

I thought the book would have been better off not singling out the Creation Museum in its title; seems a little petty and “punching up” to try and sell books (in my opinion). There was a lot of great refutations of a majority of YEC unsubstantiated claims for things though.

[Zachary Lawson · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the best, accessible, sustained critiques of “young-earth creationism” I’ve read in a while. Some editing is left to be desired, dinging this from a 4/5 to a 3/5 but nevertheless recommended.

[Tony Ross Jr. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great stuff from my friend, Ben. Such a wealth of information included in this volume.