John Walton and Genesis

[PaulSacramento]

John Walton is a professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College in Illinois and an editor and writer of Old Testament comparative studies and commentaries. Throughout his research, Walton has focused his attention on comparing the culture and literature of the Bible and the ancient Near East. He has published dozens of books, articles and translations, both as writer and editor, including his latest book The Lost World of Genesis One.

Has anyone read this book?

Here is a video exert of Mr.Walton:

http://biologos.org/resources/multimedi ... ng-genesis

[cheezerrox]

That video excerpt was extremely interesting, particularly to me what he said about what Genesis 1 is saying about the seventh day, the Sabbath. It's very similar to an idea that Abraham Joshua Heschel talks about in his book The Sabbath, which is that unlike other religions that have mainly material things that are seen to be holy, like temples or cathedrals or objects or things like that, Judaism finds holiness in time more than anything, with things like Shabbat, the sanctification of the New Moons, and the holy days. He calls the Sabbath the Jewish people's "great cathedrals." It's just cool to see two people with totally different theologies and views of Scripture to come to a very similar, and very elegant view.

I definitely want to check out more by this guy.

[PaulSacramento]

http://biologos.org/blog/genesis-throug ... yes-part-1

In the first segment of his talk, “Genesis Through Ancient Eyes”, Dr. John Walton discusses the authority of Scripture and how we should both honor and understand the text. According to Walton, we must remember that Scripture is “for us”, but that it was not written “to us”. He briefly highlights the ancient cosmology of both Egypt and Isreal and implores us to see the text of the Bible the way the Ancient Israelites would have seen it.

[PaulSacramento]

http://biologos.org/blog/genesis-throug ... yes-part-2

Dr. Walton begins the second part of his talk by noting that there is no scientific revelation in the Bible. The lack of science in the Bible does not compromise its message, however, because the ancient Israelites were focused on function, not material origins. Genesis is concerned with God bringing order from non-order, not with describing how matter emerged. He ends with the illustration of a house vs. a home, contending that Genesis is written to explain the origins of our home (our personal, spiritual place), not our house (the physical place where we reside).

[PaulSacramento]

http://biologos.org/blog/genesis-throug ... yes-part-4

Genesis 2:
In the final part of his talk, Dr. John Walton briefly looks at the phrase “It was good” and the narrative in Genesis 2-3. He describes the second account in those chapters as a sequel rather than synoptic re-telling of the first narrative, and suggests that its descriptions are archetypal rather than scientific. He argues that if Genesis 2 has an archetypal focus, there is no biblical account of material human origins.