#757 The Sabbath Day and Mytho-History

Dr. craig’s response

Oh, my goodness, Olatunde, the grounding of Sabbath day observance in the creation narrative (Genesis 2.1-3) is one of my showcase examples of the etiological motifs in the primeval history of Genesis 1-11 that go to support its genre classification as myth! To make sure that we’re on the same page, here is the definition of “myth” I use from the Finnish folklorist Lauri Honko:

Such a definition of “myth” is obviously worlds apart from the popular use of the word in expressions like “the myth of the self-made man” or “the myth of the low-calorie diet.”

Now as Honko indicates, one of the most important functions of myth in a society which embraces it is etiological: it aims to anchor realities present to the audience such as the world, mankind, natural phenomena, cultural practices, and the prevailing religious cult in a primordial time. Genesis 1-11 shares with myths in general and Ancient Near Eastern myths in particular the grand etiological themes of the origin of the world, of mankind, of certain natural phenomena, of cultural practices, and of the prevailing religious cult in Jewish society.

Grounding the religious cult accepted in a society in events of the primordial past is one of the important etiological functions of myth. That is exactly what the creation account does with the all-important Sabbath observance of the Jews. Among the most important and obvious etiological motifs in Genesis 1-11 are those related to the establishment of the religious cult. The creation story ends with God’s resting from His work on the seventh day: “And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all his work which he had done in creation” (Genesis 2.2-3). Old Testament scholar Bill Arnold, from whom I first learned of mytho-history, observes that the significance of the Sabbath in ancient Israel “can hardly be overstated.” He rightly comments,

The idea of a seven-day week climaxing in a sanctified Sabbath is unparalleled in other Ancient Near Eastern texts. It is uniquely Jewish. Probably no other etiological motif in Genesis 1-11 is so powerfully attested or so important as the grounding of Sabbath observance in God’s own observance of the seventh day as a day of rest in the story of the world’s creation.

As you note, the Pentateuchal author himself, later reflecting on the creation story, is explicit about Sabbath observance’s being grounded in the pattern set by God and His hallowing and blessing the seventh day (Exod 20.8-11; 31.15-17).

So, yes, the Pentateuchal author refers back to the events of the creation story in Genesis 1-2, but that requires no more than a literary reference, a flashback, as it were, to the creation story. I think that the difficulty you have with this idea is that you think that the authority of a myth in a society depends upon the literal truth of that myth. That’s just not the case. Myths are often interpreted figuratively or metaphorically in societies for which they are authoritative. The myth of a six-day creation climaxing in a day of rest can be authoritative for Sabbath observance in Israel without thinking that God created for literally six, consecutive, 24-hour days and then rested on the seventh.

So did the Pentateuchal author demand that we read his account literally? There is good reason to think that he did not. In general there is the implausibility of the world’s being created in just six days, an implausibility which is due, not to any limit on God’s almighty power (which could have created the world in six seconds!), but rather to the problem of deceptive “appearance of age” scenarios—illustrated, for example, by the famous omphalos conundrum: did Adam have a navel? Similarly, there is the highly stylized and structured literary quality of Genesis 1, what one commentator has called “exalted prose.” More specifically, there are clues in the account itself that indicate that the author did not intend for it to be read in a literalistic fashion. For example, the Pentateuchal author would have known that the primordial waters of creation in Genesis 1.9-10 could not have drained away in 24 hours (cf. Genesis 8.3, where the Flood waters, which returned the earth to its primordial state, take over 150 days to abate until the tops of the mountains become visible). He would similarly have known that sunset and sunrise (Genesis 1.5b) could not have occurred prior to the creation of the sun (Genesis 1.14-18). He would have known that trees could not have naturally sprouted from the earth, grown to maturity, blossomed, and borne fruit in 24 hours (Genesis 1.12-13), as if in time lapse photography. He deliberately omitted from his account any close to the seventh day (Genesis 2.2), so that it is not a 24 hour period of time.

All this suggests that a literal interpretation of the creation narrative is not incumbent upon us. Rather the Pentateuchal author has taken the typical Jewish work week, climaxing in the Sabbath, and used it as the rubric for framing his account of creation. He is thereby able to ground the prevailing Jewish religious practice of Sabbath observance in the primordial events of creation. The primordial creation story was authoritative for Jewish society but did not need to be interpreted literally.