Israel's Journey to Know God: Progressive Revelation Part One

Wineskins Contributor・04/28/19

“I appeared to Abraham, Isaacand Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name ‘The LORD’ I did not make myselfknown to them.” (Ex. 6:3)

Haveyou ever had an “ah-ha!” moment while reading Scripture? Something that let youknow either that you had finally figured something out, or at least that you’vebeen wrong in your thinking? Well a few years ago, this was it for me. I readExodus 6:3 which seemed pretty straight forward: God was known as El Shaddai(God Almighty as it is rendered in most English Bibles) to the patriarchs butwas not known as Yahweh (The LORD) until he revealed himself as such to Moses. ButI remembered reading in Genesis the day before, and I could have sworn God wasreferred to as Yahweh. Sure enough, I turned back to Genesis 14 and Abramrefers to God as Yahweh in 14:22. You see this frequently in the book of Genesis,even as early as the second creation account in Genesis 2-3.

Itwas at this point that, in my mind, I had one of two options: I could declarethe Christian faith a hoax due to contradictions in certain parts of the Bible,or I could nuance my understanding of biblical inspiration and my expectationsof the Bible. Unfortunately, some have chosen the former option. That was neverreally an option for me though. I chose to study further and eventuallyrealized that my inerrantist paradigm of biblical inspiration was not only untenable,but also completely unnecessary. Instances in the Bible such as the one I have describedare only problematic if our expectations of Scripture and our theological preconceptionsare unfounded. Do we expect an ancient collection of documents written athousand years apart in different cultures, circumstances and languages tocontain perfectly cohesive ideas about God and the world? Should we expectabsolute historical and scientific precision? Some say yes due to the Biblebeing God’s word, and as far as assertions go, I suppose that is a fairassertion. But assertions alone are just that-assertions. They need to besubstantiated. And we must substantiate our assertions about biblicalinspiration with critical study of the text itself.

Thus,I am proposing that the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, can best beunderstood through a progressive revelation paradigm. As I wrote in the previousarticle, God progressively revealed himself to humankind throughouthistory, with that revelation ultimately culminating in the person and work ofJesus Christ. This means that there is inevitably a human element to Scripture,and that we must look to Jesus Christ to see a perfect revelation of who Godis. After all, it was the apostle John -a Jew- who dared to proclaim that noone had ever seen God but that it was Jesus Christ who had made the Fatherknown (Jn. 1:18).

Understandingprogressive revelation is essential, in my opinion, to understanding the natureand purpose of Scripture. So, what does progressive revelation tell us aboutthe Bible and the nature of God’s revelation to humans? For starters, it meansthat God chose to reveal himself to ancient Israel in such ways that they wouldunderstand. At times, this meant he would have to accommodate their humannature and culture. This can easily be seen in several ways, not least of whichis examining texts from surrounding civilizations in the ancient Near East.

Inthe 19th and 20th centuries, many significantarcheological discoveries were made specifically pertaining to the fields ofbiblical studies and ancient Near Eastern history. In the 19thcentury, archeologists discovered thousands of clay tablets which had Akkadianmarkings on them. This is important as Akkadian was the predominant languageused by many of the ancient Near Eastern cultures in the third, second andfirst millennia BC, including Assyria and Babylon.[1] What these tablets exposedto us is that some of the material contained in the Old Testament, particularlythe Torah, was not wholly unique to ancient Israel. This was a problematicdiscovery for many because a good number of Christians implicitly expected forrevelation from God to be wholly unique. After all, if the Bible in itsentirety is direct revelation from God and is not itself human reflection on orinterpretation of revelation, then we should not expect the Old Testament tolook anything like documents from surrounding cultures, as those documents wereof human origin while the Old Testament was of divine origin. Further, howcould we logically say that Genesis was to be read as literal history when manyof these Akkadian tablets had myths that were similar to the narratives foundin Genesis? Or, so the reasoning went. “Liberals” reacted by saying the OldTestament could not be inspired by God in any way, while “Conservatives” attemptedto distance the Old Testament texts from the Akkadian texts, often timesblatantly ignoring clear parallels between the two. Both reactions were and areunhelpful, in my opinion. Nonetheless, it is important to point them out asthey demonstrate inerrantist expectations of Scripture.

Now,you might be wondering if these Akkadian texts really are similar to the OldTestament texts or if some skeptical scholars are just trying to discredit thebiblical accounts by any means necessary. To be fair, there is some debateconcerning the Akkadian texts and how reliant, if at all, the Israelite textsare on them. For instance, though some similarities can be drawn between theBabylonian myth Enuma Elish and theGenesis creation accounts, it certainly cannot be said that the Genesisaccounts are reliant upon Enuma Elish.

BothGenesis and Enuma Elish share ancientcosmology. For example, both have light existing before the sun, and both havethe waters being separated above and below the firmament. The creative sequenceof days is also similar. There are, however, some major differences, as Enuma Elish says the god Marduk had tofight and kill the goddess Tiamat, and from her dead corpse he created theuniverse. The point of the story is likely to justify the worship of Marduk asthe head of the Babylonian pantheon.[2] Of course in Genesis, Godsimply speaks the world into existence without having to struggle against anyother deities. The Genesis creation accounts could be a reaction against storieslike Enuma Elish; their purpose couldvery well be to demonstrate the sovereignty of Yahweh over the universe. At thesame time, it is also possible that the authors of the Genesis creationaccounts could have been completely unaware of Enuma Elish (though I don’t think this to be the case for variousreasons). We do not know with certainty. The point is, while there aresimilarities between the Genesis creation accounts and Enuma Elish, there are differences as well.

Thereare various other ancient Near Eastern documents that share as much or more incommon with the Old Testament. I would like to briefly look at two: the epic Gilgamesh and the Code of Hammurabi. Gilgameshis one of several flood myths from the ancient Near East. See if this looksfamiliar:

The ship which you shall build,

Let her dimensions be measured off.

Let her width and length be equal.

What living creatures I had I loaded upon her.

I made go aboard all my family and kin,

Beasts of the steppe, wild animals of the steppe.

The sea grew calm, the tempest grew still, the deluge ceased.

I looked at the weather, stillness reigned,

And all of mankind had turned to clay.

The boat rested on Mount Nimush,

Mount Nimush held the boat fast, not allowing it to move…

When the seventh day arrives,

I released a dove to go free,

The dove went and returned,

No landing place came to view, it turned back.

I released a swallow to go free,

The swallow went and returned,

No landing place came to view, it turned back.

I sent a raven to go free,

The raven went forth, saw the ebbing of the waters,

It ate, circled, left droppings, did not turn back.[3]

Compare some of those relevant lines of Gilgamesh with Genesis 6-8, and you will see the striking similarities. Now, for the Code of Hammurabi.[4] It is lengthy, so we will just look at a two exerts and compare them with some of the laws found in the book of Exodus:

Code of Hammurabi 195-97:“If a son has struck his father, they shall cut off his hand. If a nobleman hasput out the eye of another nobleman, they shall put out his eye. If he hasbroken another nobleman’s bone, they shall break his bone.”

Exodus 21:23-25: “If anyharm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, handfor hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.”(NRSV)

Code of Hammurabi 209: “Ifa nobleman has struck another nobleman’s daughter and has caused her to have amiscarriage, he shall pay ten shekels of silver for her fetus.”

Exodus 21:22: “Whenpeople who are fighting injure a pregnant woman so that there is a miscarriage,and yet no further harm follows, the one responsible shall be fined what thewoman’s husband demands, paying as much as the judges determine.”

And yes, the Code of Hammurabi was written well before the Torah as we have it today. Hammurabi was a Babylonian king who ruled in the 18th century BC, while the earliest date anyone can conceive for any kind of biblical exodus is the 15th century BC. In actuality, the Israelite narratives, at least in the forms we have them in today, are much newer than their Akkadian counterparts. The Israelite stories could have existed earlier in oral form, and likely did in some capacity, though they would have undeniably been framed in an ancient Near Eastern worldview. But writing was reserved for established nations in the ancient world and Israel does not become that sort of established nation until roughly the kingdom monarchy. Not to mention, biblical Hebrew likely did not exist as a language before the 10th century BC. Nonetheless, scholarship has concluded that the Israelite narratives, as they are in their Hebrew forms, are very likely newer than the Akkadian myths.

From here, some may then ask how we are to understand some of the early Israelite narratives, particularly Genesis 1-11. That question will be addressed in a later article in this series. For now, it is safe to conclude that God was content to reveal himself to ancient Israel in ways they would understand. The ancient Near Eastern evidence suggests to us that the Old Testament is not some other-worldly book dropped out of heaven but is rather very much a part of the world in which it was produced. We should expect this, as even Joshua 24:2 says, “And Joshua said to all the people, ‘Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Long ago your ancestors-Terah and his sons Abraham and Nahor-lived beyond the Euphrates and served other gods.” The ancient Israelites were a people who were deeply entrenched in a specific worldview and their Scriptures reflect that worldview. This means that God did not advance their scientific or historical knowledge in ways that would satisfy our post-Enlightenment minds. I mean, after God leads them out of Egypt, it’s not long before they are worshiping an inanimate object in the wilderness made out of gold. They clearly didn’t “get it” right away, as some might say. As Israel walked with God, they began to know him more and more. God gradually took Israel from their ancient Near Eastern roots and transformed them into a people who would eventually produce and embrace the Messiah who called them away from vengeance and to enemy love: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.” (Mt. 5:38-39)

This leads us back to the questions concerning what we should expect of the Bible. Again, some Christians have expected absolute cohesiveness as well as scientific and historical accuracy. A man named Galileo, an Italian astronomer and devout Christian, once dared to question some of the cosmology found in the Bible. He agreed with a man born earlier named Copernicus, a Polish astronomer who had concluded that the earth revolved around the sun. This was, of course, a heretical view at the time because, well, the biblical authors thought otherwise. They thought that the earth was flat and that the sun revolved around the earth, as that was the prevailing consensus at the time. This can easily be seen in Joshua 10:12-14. The Israelites were in a battle with the Amorites and needed a bit more daylight. So, after Joshua prays to Yahweh for this additional daylight, 10:13-14 reads, “And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies. Is this not written in the Book of Jashar? The sun stopped in midheaven, and did not hurry to set for about a whole day. There has been no day like it before or since, when the LORD heeded a human voice; for the LORD fought for Israel.” Galileo’s assertion that it is actually the Earth that revolves around the sun got him imprisoned by the Catholic Church in 1633. Why? Because their expectations of Scripture were faulty. They did not recognize the aforementioned human element so evidentially present in Scripture. Thankfully, Christians eventually came to accept that the Earth revolved around the sun. However, some may still be troubled by examples such as the disagreement among Pentateuchal authors about when God became known as Yahweh. Perhaps we would be better off basing our beliefs about the doctrine of inspiration on all evidence available to us, including critical textual studies, as opposed to theological preconceptions and biblical expectations that some of us may have inherited.

In the next article, we will focus generally on some of the ideas which progressed throughout Israel’s history to demonstrate their journey to know and understand who God is.

[1]. Peter Enns, Inspirationand Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament, seconded. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, an imprint of Baker PublishingGroup, 2015), 14.

[2]. Ibid., 16.  

[3]. Citations ofGilgamesh are from Ibid., 18.  

[4]. Again, this is not to say that the Code of Hammurabi and the law of Moses can be said to be synonymous. There are differences between the two as well. The point here is simply to demonstrate a shared worldview between the two.