Sevens

In his lively recent study of creation, The Seven Pillars of Creation: The Bible, Science, and the Ecology of Wonder , William Brown uses the typical weapons to neutralize the historical claims of Genesis 1: ANE parallels, hermeneutics, a one-sided view of biblical authority.  He takes contemporary scientific theories far too seriously, and bends the Bible until it fits.

But there are some valuable things here too.

Like: “God ‘saw’ and pronounced created ‘good’ seven times, ‘earth’ or ‘land’ (same word in Hebrew) appears twenty-one times; ‘God’ is repeated thirty-five times.  The number seven, or multiples thereof, also crops up within certain discrete passages: Genesis 1:1 consists of seven words; 1:2 features fourteen words; Genesis 2:1-3 renders a word count of thirty five.  In fact, the total word count of the narrative proper (1:1-2:3) is 469 in Hebrew (7 x 67).”

Like most commentators on Genesis 1-2, Brown recognizes the connections with temple-building, but goes further to suggest that the text actually forms a triadic structure matching the structure of Israel’s sanctuary: Day 0 (1:1) is the portico, the six days form the nave, and the Holy of Holies is the Sabbath.  The temple-building includes the installation of an image of the Creator, the creation of man on Day 6.m

Next
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

Rome and the Church in the United States

George Weigel

Archbishop Michael J. Curley of Baltimore, who confirmed my father, was a pugnacious Irishman with a taste…

Marriage Annulment and False Mercy

Luma Simms

Pope Leo XIV recently told participants in a juridical-pastoral formation course of the Roman Rota that the…

Undercover in Canada’s Lawless Abortion Industry

Jonathon Van Maren

On November 27, 2023, thirty-six-year-old Alissa Golob walked through the doors of the Cabbagetown Women’s Clinic in…