Scott, we may be at an impasse here, as you and I – though both Catholics – appear to come from two quite different presuppositional frameworks. As I presume you know, the Hebrew scriptures are a complex and composite historical document, with pericopes of differing forms transmitted orally at first, and then written down by different scribal hands, assembled over many centuries by different redactors into collections that grew and changed over time. Contrary to what some literalists claim, Moses did not write the Pentateuch – which includes the account of his own death in Deuteronomy 34!
To be sure, the Hebrew scriptures include material that is historical in character, but it also includes material that is mythical in nature, and material that is legendary (embroidered stories based upon a really existing ur-figure). It does not take much exegetical sophistication to recognize that Genesis 1-11 is mythical in character, like the great myths of the Egyptians and Indians and Chinese, of the Mayans and Aztecs and other indigenous Americans, of the tribes of Africa and the Amazon, of the Pacific islanders and the Arctic peoples. To privilege one cosmogonic myth from one tribe in one part of the world – and to mistake it as “history” – is not only completely to misunderstand the nature of myth, but to disrespect its universal character and the essential role it plays in all cultural development.
It is important to understand the difference between myth, legend, history, apodictic law, cultic regulations, poetry, sermons, proverbs, parables, sayings, miracle accounts, prophecy, and other genres of writing included in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. It is also important to understand the difference between these genres and “Science” as we know it, which makes no appearance in the Bible, at last nothing parallel to the contemporary Greek natural philosophies that were attempting to understand through reason how the world works.
Prayerfully yours,
Petrus
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