Dedication: For my son, Vernon L. Harper II
“As the Father has loved me, I also have
loved you; abide in My love.” John 15:9
Epigraph:
What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you visit him?
Psalm 8:4
Rhetoric can be described as the art of effective persuasion through written and spoken language. In view of this definition the Christian faith as expressed through the Bible is the singular rhetorical vehicle for the truth of the human condition. The purpose of “Adam, Eve and the Present Day Deception” is to explore God’s word, the Bible, as the truth of our everyday lives.
In this way we can demonstrate the necessary idea that any culture that rejects or constrains the use of the Bible’s contents is sacrificing their quality of life and the scope of their knowledge.
However, to make this point requires more than a theoretical theology. We need a theology which infuses scripture into culture. It is this scriptural infusion of culture that is the goal of this blog series.
Achieving this goal will not mean that I have answered all questions, or that we will agree on our various conclusions. I am not attempting to establish doctrine for the Christian Church. Success for this series will mean I have provided a common point of origin for a general direction of inquiry. An inquiry addressing the basic questions of our existence without abandoning the foundational truths of the Christian faith. This examination can address misguided cultural assumptions about the Bible, as well as lay a foundation of trust in the hearts of people for all of scripture’s claims, especially those that lead to salvation.
Christendom throughout history has continuously divided itself into a growing collection of opposing theological beliefs. This has resulted in much of the Church developing either a disengaged and general or hyperbolic and esoteric expression of its theology. In either case the Christian idea becomes isolated and insular. “Adam, Eve and the Present Day Deception” is designed to make theological exploration the servant of rhetorical engagement. Such a rhetorical exploration is the fountainhead of a relevant expression of the Christian faith in our culture.
This idea is not new to God’s people. Moses achieved a similar goal when he used the Pentateuch to transform The Children of Israel into The Nation of Israel by establishing a common identity and culture.
However, Moses does not go out of his way to explain all the details and definitions contained in his Genesis narrative. For instance, Moses’s original readers would have already been familiar with some version of the entire story of the creation, fall, judgment, destruction by flood and re-establishment of humanity. Some version of this story existed in cultures in every part of the world. These stories had been passed down through oral tradition from antiquity and derive from the one original event.
For this reason, it was not necessary for Moses to give his original readers definitions for the sons of God, the children of men or the Nephilim when he wrote Genesis. These definitions would have been understood through the cultural context possessed by his original readers.
The Epic of Gilgamesh is one such story that depicts these events even as the narrative is corrupted with exaggerations, misrepresentations, and falsehood. The Children of Israel living in a metropolitan center of trade and culture like Egypt would have been familiar with such stories. Moses is not teaching Israel a new story in these initial chapters of Genesis but is realigning their existing understanding to the accurate narrative of events for the story of creation, judgment, and the flood. This blog series is designed to contribute to a similar biblical realignment for today’s postmodern culture.
Christian teachers who look to engage the larger culture with the biblical narrative are who I am targeting. My hope is anyone else looking to explore the biblical narrative will also find value in these posts. In either case this blog series should be viewed as a tool used as a starting point for expressing the Christian faith beyond the walls of the Church. A tool designed to drive the foundational truths of God’s love for humanity, His ongoing relationship with us, and our need for rescue that is only available from God through Jesus Christ, into the larger cultural discourse.
For this reason, it is not helpful to my stated purposes to bring a traditional or conservative approach when exploring these scriptures. I do not emphasize a commentary like exposition of the text or a review of any established biblical understandings that are not germane to our subject. This lack of emphasis on what could be considered traditional approaches should not be interpreted as an abandonment of accepted soteriological truth. Instead, this unorthodox emphasis is designed to provide a biblical realignment for understanding human nature expressed as cultural into creation. For it is this human expression of culture that shapes every one of our lives.
If the culture’s understanding of the Bible is shaped by the prevailing atheistic or pagan rhetorical expressions, without access to an expanded engagement of the narrative of scripture, its view of God, humanity, and the material world will be flawed. There can be no real understanding of the human condition without the applicable understanding of the authentic biblical story.
What is human nature, human purpose, and human relationship with God? These are the types of questions that are most relevant to our daily experience. All these questions have the truth of their answers revealed in the Bible through a knowledge of Jesus Christ. This is a central claim of the Christian faith and the essential rhetorical claim that can be made to any culture.
What follows is written in support of that claim.
Vernon L. Harper
Creation - Chapter 1 coming Tuesday February 6th.