Back on September 23rd of this year, I traveled down to Lubbock with my good friend and my preacher, Bret McCasland. We enjoyed a nice dinner at Lubbock Christian University. But we didn't go for the dinner. We went to hear the presentation afterwards.
John H. Walton, a renowned and prolific Old Testament scholar, was there to present a lecture titled, "Genesis One in the Context of the Ancient Near East." This is one of several topics for which Walton has become well-known. During the lecture, I took a few notes. Walton said things like,
"Scripture was written for us. But it was not written to us."
He explained. The most obvious evidence of this relates to the fact that virtually all of the of the Old Testament was written in ancient Hebrew, and all of the New Testament was written in Koine Greek. Therefore, even if we assume that the Almighty intends the Bible as a revelation to humanity, people like us are not the original audience of the Bible. It was initially written to other people.
"Culture is the silent partner in every conversation."
In other words, nothing is ever said or written that does not have a cultural background. In human experience, culture is pervasive. It's always present.
"To read the text of Scripture literally means to read it as it was intended."
Here, Walton was referring to factors like literary form. For example, a parable of Jesus should be read as a parable. A psalm should be read as a psalm. An allegory should be read as an allegory. Etc.
Walton made these points in order to raise the following questions: What cultural assumptions stand behind Genesis Chapter One? For that matter, what sort of text is Genesis One? What kinds of questions does it answer? How does the chapter address those questions. Etc.
I made notes like this hoping I'd be able to put together a summary of Walton's excellent presentation. Then, I discovered that the lecture had been taped and uploaded. So, here's the video if you're interested. It's very much worth a look and listen.
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