More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
we cannot translate their cosmology to our cosmology, nor should we. If we accept Genesis 1 as ancient cosmology, then we need to interpret it as ancient cosmology rather than translate it into modern cosmology. If we try to turn it into modern cosmology, we are making the text say something that it never said.
wenham on Genesis as ancient cosmology
if God aligned revelation with one particular science, it would have been unintelligible to people who lived prior to the time of that science, and it would be obsolete to those who live after that time.
If cosmic geography is culturally descriptive rather than revealed truth, it takes its place among many other biblical examples of culturally relative notions. For example, in the ancient world people believed that the seat of intelligence, emotion and personhood was in the internal organs, particularly the heart, but also the liver, kidneys and intestines. Many Bible translations use the English word “mind” when the Hebrew text refers to the entrails, showing the ways in which language and culture are interrelated.
The idea that people think with their hearts describes physiology in ancient terms for the communication of other matters; it is not revelation concerning physiology. Consequently we need not try to come up with a physiology for our times that would explain how people think with their entrails. But a serious concordist would have to do so to save the reputation of the Bible. Concordists believe the Bible must agree—be in concord with—all the findings of contemporary science.
by Wenham
there is no concept of a “natural” world in ancient Near Eastern thinking. The dichotomy between natural and supernatural is a relatively recent one.
No “natural” laws governed the cosmos; deity ran the cosmos or was inherent in it.
What would be the ontology of a curriculum? Whatever our answer might be, these examples should suggest that there are alternate ways of thinking about creative activity, even in our culture. If a curriculum’s ontology is functional, then creating that curriculum involves function-giving activities.
In this book I propose that people in the ancient world believed that something existed not by virtue of its material properties, but by virtue of its having a function in an ordered system.
In a functional ontology, to bring something into existence would require giving it a function or a role in an ordered system, rather than giving it material properties. Consequently, something could be manufactured physically but still not “exist” if it has not become functional.
In the ancient world, what was most crucial and significant to their understanding of existence was the way that the parts of the cosmos functioned, not their material status.
When we go to the theater, we may have passing interest in the construction of the set and stage works, but we understand that the play exists in the roles of the performers. When a person comes late and asks what has happened so far, the question is not answered by information about the costume designer, script writer and the hiring of the cast. Telling the person about all that would be offering the wrong sort of origins information. Some sorts of origins are more important than other sorts of origins.
