Scripture and Cosmology: Reading the Bible Between the Ancient World and Modern Science, by Kyle Greenwood
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Scripture and Cosmology: Reading the Bible Between the Ancient World and Modern Science, by Kyle Greenwood
Download Ebook Online Scripture and Cosmology: Reading the Bible Between the Ancient World and Modern Science, by Kyle Greenwood
Christians often claim to hold a biblical worldview. But what about a biblical cosmos view? From the beginning of Genesis we encounter a vaulted dome above the earth, a "firmament," like the ceiling of a planetarium. Elsewhere we read of the earth sitting on pillars. What does the dome of heaven have to do with deep space? Even when the biblical language is clearly poetic, it seems to be funded by a very different understanding of how the cosmos is put together. As Kyle Greenwood shows, the language of the Bible is also that of the ancient Near Eastern palace, temple and hearth. There was no other way of thinking or speaking of earth and sky or the sun, moon and stars. But when the psalmist looked at the heavens, the delicate fingerwork of God, it evoked wonder. Even today it is astronomy and cosmology that invoke our awe and point toward the depths of divine mystery. Greenwood helps us see how the best Christian thinkers have viewed the cosmos in light of Scripture―and grappled with new understandings as science has advanced from Aristotle to Copernicus to Galileo and the galaxies of deep space. It's a compelling story that both illuminates the text of Scripture and helps us find our own place in the tradition of faithful Christian thinking and interpretation.
Scripture and Cosmology: Reading the Bible Between the Ancient World and Modern Science, by Kyle Greenwood- Amazon Sales Rank: #721668 in Books
- Published on: 2015-10-03
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.00" h x .70" w x 6.00" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 251 pages
Where to Download Scripture and Cosmology: Reading the Bible Between the Ancient World and Modern Science, by Kyle Greenwood
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful. A thoughtful, irenic presentation of how to navigate the tensions between ancient cosmology and modern science By George P. Wood The LORD by wisdom founded the earth,by understanding he established the heavens;by his knowledge the deeps broke open,and the clouds drop down the dew.Proverbs 3:19–20 express the who, what, and how of creation. Who? The Creator is “The LORD,” that is, Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. What? He created “the earth,” “the heavens,” “the deeps,” and the “clouds.” And he did so expertly, with “wisdom,” “understanding,” and “knowledge.”These verses also express an ancient Near Eastern cosmology. Israel shared with its Egyptian, Syrian, and Mesopotamian neighbors a three-storied universe consisting of heaven, earth, and seas. Though there were variations in the details of these culture’s cosmologies, the basic three-tiered structure was the same.Modern people hold a very different cosmology than the ancients. We know, for example, that the earth revolves around the sun, not vice versa as the ancients believed. We know that the sun and the moon are not planets, as the ancients believed, and that there are more planets and planetary moons than the ancients could observe with the naked eye. Moreover, we know that our solar system is one among many in the Milky Way galaxy, which itself is one among many galaxies in an expanding universe.The differences between ancient Near Eastern and modern cosmologies raise questions in the minds of Christians about “reading the Bible faithfully.” Kyle Greenwood outlines both questions and answers in Scripture and Cosmology: Reading the Bible Between the Ancient World and Modern Science. Greenwood is associate professor of Old Testament and Hebrew language at Colorado Christian University, whose Statement of Faith makes this declaration regarding the Bible: “We Believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God.” Though readers of all perspectives will find Greenwood’s presentation informative, Christian readers with a high view of Scripture will find it most helpful.Scripture and Cosmology opens with a chapter about the importance of reading Scripture in context. In it, he states his book’s thesis: “a high view of Scripture employs a hermeneutic that accommodates the biblical writers’ immersion in their ancient, pre-Enlightenment cultural context. Therefore, as with other cultural matters, such as social customs and language, the biblical texts reflect that worldview in their written communications.”Part One consists of three chapters that outline the similarities (and differences) between the cosmologies of the ancient Near East (specifically Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia) and of Israel. Greenwood argues that both ANE and biblical texts assume a three-tiered universe consisting of the earth, the heavens, and the sea. He also contends that this three-tiered understanding of the cosmos serves as a better “guiding principle” for the Old Testament various creation accounts than does Genesis 1’s seven-day formula.Part Two consists of two chapters that describe how the Christian church dealt with the challenges to this three-tiered biblical cosmology posed by first Aristotelian cosmology and then Copernican cosmology. Whereas ancient Near East cosmology depicted the earth as “small, flat and round”—a disk, in other words, Aristotelian cosmology pictured it as a sphere. And whereas Ptolemaic cosmology put Earth at the center of the universe, with the sun, moon, and heavenly bodies revolving around it; Copernican cosmology put the sun at the center, with the heavenly bodies, including Earth, revolving around it. (Contemporary cosmologies understand that the cosmos is acentric; neither the sun nor the earth is the center.) What Greenwood writes about the Aristotelian challenge might be equally applied to Copernican challenge: “The most notable trait we see among the Aristotelian-era interpreters is the willingness to adapt their interpretation of Scripture in light of new understandings of the physical universe.”Part Three offers a theological rationale for this adaptation. Terming it “the doctrine of divine accommodation,” Greenwood explains the rationale this way: “God condescends his language to the language of humanity. This is not to say that God is condescending but that he speaks down to the cognitive ability of his human audience.” He offers this example: “Just as a father uses simple vocabulary and analogical language to communicate complex ideas to his children, so the heavenly Father accommodates his language to his children by speaking to his audience’s mother tongue and also employing analogical language.” Applied to biblical cosmology, accommodation entails that God speaks to Israel and its surrounding culture in terms of a three-tiered universe because that is what it believed. Were God revealing himself to our culture, he would accommodate himself to our cosmological speculations.Over the centuries, accommodation has proved to be a fruitful line of thinking for Christians wrestling with the issues raised by a better scientific understanding of the physical universe. That doesn’t mean it is problem free. One wag has defined accommodation as “the theory which states that God goes along with the commonly accepted story even though he really doesn’t believe it.” Accommodation presupposes that we can neatly distinguish between what culture assumes about a given topic and what Scripture teaches about it. Christians largely agree that accommodation is a good strategy when the Copernican Revolution is on the table, but Christians vehemently disagree when evolution is. Perhaps this indicates that while accommodation is a good interpretive strategy, it doesn’t necessarily decide all scientific cases.Regardless, I commend Scripture and Cosmology for its in-depth look at the specific issue of biblical cosmology. It is well versed in the Bible and the texts of the ancient Near East, as well as cognizant of Scripture-science discussions throughout church history. And it is a thoughtful, irenic presentation of how to navigate the tensions between ancient cosmology and modern science.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful. Good Resource By James B. Pate In Scripture and Cosmology: Reading the Bible Between the Ancient World and Modern Science, biblical scholar Kyle Greenwood explores how ancient peoples understood the structure and layout of the physical universe. He pays particular attention to the cosmology within the Hebrew Bible and the challenges it has posed to its religious interpreters, since the cosmology within the Hebrew Bible appears to differ from subsequent cosmologies, including our own. Greenwood offers suggestions about how evangelical Christians, who regard the Bible as religiously authoritative, can accept the Bible as divinely-inspired while still acknowledging and accounting for its cosmology, which differs from the modern scientific understanding of the world.Greenwood looks at the cosmologies of the ancient Near East, which was the milieu of the Hebrew Bible. Greenwood acknowledges the existence of some diversity in ancient Near Eastern cosmology, but he sees evidence that many in the ancient Near East believed in a flat earth, a solid dome in the sky that held back the waters and had windows for the rain to come through, and pillars that supported the land so that it did not float on the waters (though, according to Greenwood, there was a belief among some that the land did float). Greenwood maintains that such a cosmology is present in the Hebrew Bible, but Greenwood also mentions some differences between the Hebrew Bible’s cosmologies and those of the ancient Near East. Greenwood also discusses ancient Greek cosmologies and how they differed from the ancient Near Eastern ones: there emerged a belief in a spherical earth and spherical heavens surrounding the earth, and there was an acknowledgment that water vapor played a role in precipitation. Rather than believing that the moon gave forth light of its own (Greenwood is not dogmatic that the ancient Near East and Hebrew Bible believed this, but he seems to acknowledge it as a possibility), there developed the view that the moon reflected light from the sun. Later, Greenwood narrates, Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler challenged the geocentric view that was part of the Greek cosmology, maintaining that the earth revolved around the sun. This challenged religious adherents to the Bible, who thought that the Bible presented the sun moving, not the earth.What should a religious adherent to the Bible do, when biblical cosmology differs from later scientific understandings of the universe? Greenwood mentions how many medieval thinkers accepted a lot of Aristotle’s views of the cosmos, while not wholly embracing Aristotle’s religious views. Aristotle believed that the universe was eternal and was supported by an impersonal prime mover, for example, whereas many medieval religious thinkers held that a personal God created the cosmos. Greenwood may regard this as a model for how evangelicals can interact with science: accept its findings, yet still believe in a personal God. Greenwood, like many others whom he cites, also believes in the concept of divine accommodation: that God in God’s revelation accommodated people where they were rather than attempting to correct their flawed, inaccurate cosmologies.There are many positives to this book. Greenwood provides documentation from ancient sources in his discussions of ancient cosmologies. He acknowledges diversity, debate, ambivalence, and nuance in his consideration of issues, particularly issues concerning the nature of the cosmologies that he discusses, as well as religious attempts to cope with or account for biblical cosmologies. (John Calvin, for example, believed in divine accommodation and was open to what science had to say, yet he really struggled with aspects of the Bible’s cosmology, in areas. There is some debate about Martin Luther’s views on Copernicus. And there are three views on the Bible and science in The Fundamentals, a crucial document in the development of Christian fundamentalism.) Greenwood’s work is an excellent resource of information on ancient cosmologies and religious attempts to wrestle with biblical cosmology.Regarding Greenwood’s attempts to account theologically for the differences between biblical cosmologies and our modern scientific cosmology, parts of his discussion resonated with me, but I doubt that everyone will find what he says to be convincing. More than one Christian scholar has mentioned divine accommodation as a way to account for these differences, but what I liked about Greenwood’s discussion was that he asked the question of what would have happened had God tried to reveal to the ancient Israelites how the cosmos actually is. Would they have understood what God was saying? And would that have detracted from the spiritual or religious message that God wanted to reveal to them? Greenwood cannot be accused of chronological snobbery, for he astutely notes that there are many things about the universe that we, right now, do not understand. Greenwood’s discussion here made divine accommodation look plausible to me. It will probably not be convincing to atheists, however, who would say that the Bible reflects inaccurate ancient cosmologies because it is not a divinely-inspired book, but rather the product of limited human beings, living in their own times. I make this point because Greenwood indicates in the book that his book could help evangelicals who are challenged by atheists. Maybe his book would help evangelicals to account theologically for the Bible’s scientific inaccuracies for themselves, but I doubt that it will assist evangelicals in scoring points when debating atheists. Another point: Greenwood states that the Bible is perspicuous about how to be saved. I would dispute that idea, considering the different Christian and Jewish views on what one must do to be saved (i.e., enter a good afterlife).I have more questions after reading Greenwood’s book. Job 26:7 states that God hangs the earth on nothing, and, while Greenwood convincingly argues against the idea that this means that the earth is a sphere in outer space, he did not explain what that part of the verse did mean. I was also curious about what ancient Near Eastern cosmology had to say about the relationship between clouds and precipitation. Greenwood mentions I Kings 8:45, in which the clouds become dark before the rain, but he does not say whether ancient Near Eastern cosmology acknowledged a connection between the clouds and rain. If they did, would that challenge, or be an ancient alternative to, the idea that rain came from above a solid dome and was let through the dome’s windows? (Note: see Nicholas Petersen’s website for an alternative view on the firmament in the Hebrew Bible and the ancient Near East. http://www.hebrewcosmology.com/) There were times when Greenwood explained technical details about ancient cosmology that shed light on how the ancient believed the world worked: Greenwood, for example, addresses the question of how people in the ancient Near East believed that salt water and fresh water were kept separate, even though they thought that the water above the earth and the water beneath the earth were part of a common structure. I appreciated his explanation of this technicality, but there were times when I was hoping for something similar in other discussions.I still give this book five stars, however, because it is a repository of information. Those who are interested in biblical cosmology will find this book to be a helpful resource.I received a complimentary review copy of this book from Intervarsity Press, in exchange for an honest review.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. Insight into How Christians Have Viewed Scripture Throughout History By J.W. Wartick Kyle Greenwood’s Scripture and Cosmology might initially seem to be just another introduction to the study of Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) cosmology related to the Bible, but it is not. It is much more than that. Greenwood, in his excellent book, relates not just ANE cosmology to the Bible, but also reflects on how theologians dealt with changes in the prevailing views of cosmology throughout Christian history. That is, Scripture and Cosmology provides a means for readers to explore in brief the history of Christian thought on Scripture and, well, cosmology of different times.The book is organized around three parts: Scripture and Cosmos in Cultural Context (which explores the ANE background of the Bible and finding that cosmology in Scripture), Cosmology and Scripture in Historical Context (which examines the cosmology of Scripture alongside Aristotelian and Copernican Cosmology, along with how Christians read the Bible in these periods), and Scripture and Science (which ties together the previous two sections along with discussing how we should consider the findings therein).Greenwood frankly notes that the Bible’s view of cosmology is situated directly within the ANE background of the text and the understanding of people groups surrounding Israel. He challenges some of the modern revisionist attempts to take texts about, for example, the land floating as an example of Earth in space (Job 26:7). His counter is to show that such a writing would fit nicely within the ANE understanding of a cosmic ocean rather than favoring a modern attempt to fit it into Big Bang cosmology.The chapters on Copernicanism and Aristotelianism show that Christians have historically adjusted their readings of Scripture in light of modern cosmology. He cites several interpreters, including Aquinas, Augustine, Calvin, and Luther to show how some of the greatest minds in the history of Christianity have been shaped by their own contemporary views of cosmology and Scripture.The book ends with a pair of chapters on interpretation of the Bible and the authority of Scripture in light of Greenwood’s findings. These are invaluable tools for those wishing to take the Bible’s text as it stands. Greenwood argues that divine accommodation is one of the acceptable ways to reconcile scriptural authority and the ancient cosmology found therein. The last chapter addresses various avenues for research and science and how a proper understanding of cosmology in Scripture will help to reconcile these issues.I was particularly interested in the findings which compared Aristotelian cosmology to biblical cosmology. It is important to see that Christians have constantly been part of their own cultural understandings of the Bible and the cosmos, and that we are no less victim to the short-sightedness that can come from equating our understanding with ultimate truth. We must be aware that our own understanding is incomplete and that we should not try to make the Bible read how we think it should.Scripture and Cosmology is a superb book that is enlightening and challenging on many different topics. As someone who has read extensively on science-faith issues, I still found many new avenues to explore in this book and much valuable insight. It was exciting to see a work that addressed not only the ANE context of the Bible but also how Christians have interacted with more modern views of cosmology throughout time. I very highly recommend this book.The Good+Demonstrates the relationship between the Bible and ANE Cosmology+Shows history of Christian interaction with their own understandings of cosmology and the Bible+Provides means for readers to explore questions of relating Cosmology and Scripture+Several solid insights into exploring related issues+Opens avenues for further researchThe Bad-Feels a bit rushed towards the endI received a review copy of this book from the publisher. I was not obligated to write any specific kind of feedback whatsoever.
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