Mesopotamian Myths from Genesis to Revelation

There is a loud subset of American Christianity that reads Scripture, particularly Genesis 1, as if it is intended to be a science text.   Yes, I know.  This is not news.  I mention it, however, because I was raised with this literal reading of Genesis 1 and spent many of my younger years looking for the scientific evidence to back it up.   While I abandoned that position many years ago, the discussion of Genesis 1 remains an interesting one for me, though for very different reasons.  When one presumes a certain definition of historicity in Genesis, one is subjecting Scripture to an expectation that rips it entirely out of its Mesopotamian context.  With some irony, those fundamentalists who warn others about making Scripture subordinate to modern science, are themselves subjecting Scripture to a modern definition of historicity.  From my perspective, (more…)