Craig D. Allert. Early Christian Readings of Genesis One. IVP Academic, 2018. See here to purchase the book.
Craig D. Allert has a Ph.D. from the University of Nottingham, and he teaches religious studies at Trinity Western University.
This book is about patristic interpretations of Genesis 1. Allert
largely focuses on Theophilus of Antioch, Ephrem the Syrian, Basil of
Caesarea, and Augustine.
Chapter 1 is entitled “Who Are the Church Fathers, and Why Should I
Care?” Allert criticizes Protestant Christians who dismiss the church
fathers and believe that the apostolic age was a Golden Age, shortly
supplanted by Catholic corruption. Allert argues that the church fathers
were heroes of the faith, that Protestant founders respected them, and
that reading them provides a sense of continuity with the past.
Chapter 2 essentially frames the discussion in the rest of the book.
Allert critiques young-earth creationists who appeal to the church
fathers to argue that the traditional position of Christianity is that
God created the cosmos in six literal days. One version of their
argument is to quote passages in which church fathers appear to
interpret Genesis 1 as literal history. Another version is to
differentiate between the “literalist” Antiochian school and the
“allegorist” Alexandrian school, contending that there were fathers who
adhered to the former, which young-earth creationists deem to be
consistent with their own position (i.e., Genesis 1 is literal history).
Chapter 3 is entitled “What Does ‘Literal’ Mean? Patristic Exegesis
in Context.” In this chapter, Allert critiques young-earth creationists’
argument regarding the Antiochian and the Alexandrian schools. But
Allert also challenges how many scholars define the two schools, as he
contends that the last fifty years of scholarship has undermined the
conventional definitions. For one, the difference between the Antiochian
and Alexandrian schools was not so much that the former valued history,
whereas the latter did not. What motivated the Antiochian method of
interpretation was a regard for rhetoric: the impact of a writing,
particularly a narrative, in teaching an ethical lesson. Antiochians
tended to focus on the narrative itself, whereas Alexandrians regarded
texts as symbolic of spiritual or philosophical truths. And even here,
both schools were not entirely consistent, for there are cases in which
Origen (an Alexandrian) was more literalistic than some Antiochians.
This chapter also argues that both the New Testament and also the church
fathers did not practice the grammatical-historical method of biblical
exegesis that young-earth creationists champion. Both interpret parts of
Scripture in light of what they consider to be the larger Christian
narrative rather than immediate context or authorial intent.
In Chapter 4, Allert attempts to refute a young-earth creationist’s
argument that Basil of Caesarea rejected the allegorical in favor of the
literal method of biblical interpretation. Allert highlights examples
in which Basil strayed from the literal and approached allegory, and he
attempts to contextualize the occasions in which Basil appears to
criticize allegorical interpretation.
Chapter 5 is about creation ex nihilo. It discusses how pagans
conceived of cosmic origins: Plato thought that the Demiurge formed
already existing matter into an orderly cosmos, whereas others believed
the universe simply was, which precludes design or intent behind it.
Focusing on Theophilus of Antioch, Ephrem the Syrian, and Basil of
Caesarea, Allert shows how a belief in creation ex nihilo was
significant in their interpretation of Genesis 1, and what they believed
was at stake. A goal of this chapter is to demonstrate that the church
fathers had their own concerns, quite different from those of
young-earth creationists.
Chapter 6 talks about the days of Genesis 1. This chapter, like the
previous one, looks at Theophilus, Ephrem, and Basil. There was a
tendency among some fathers to take the surface level of the text at
face value: Basil, for instance, tries to account for the sequence of
the creation order. A significant question in this chapter concerns what
the light was that God created before God created the sun, moon, and
stars. But there was also a patristic tendency to seek a deeper
spiritual meaning in the days of Genesis 1, about the spiritual life,
salvation history, or eschatology. Allert also refers to an example of
Basil rejecting a literal interpretation of biblical cosmology.
Chapter 7 focuses on Augustine. Augustine seems to question a literal
interpretation of Genesis 1. He thinks God created everything
simultaneously. Yet, from what Allert presents, it does not seem as if
Augustine thoroughly repudiates Genesis 1 as history, for he seemed to
have thought that God’s simultaneous creation played itself out
sequentially in time (or so I interpreted Allert), and he sought to
explain how light could exist prior to the sun, moon, and stars. Allert
also discusses Augustine’s attempt to explain God resting on the
Sabbath. Does God need to rest, and how does one reconcile that with
Jesus’s statement in John 5:17 that he and the Father work, even on the
Sabbath? Augustine’s answer echoes Hebrews 4: that God created a
spiritual rest in which people can partake.
Chapter 8 is about being like Moses. Moses was meek, but, according
to Basil, Moses also contemplated creation when he was fleeing from
Pharaoh. This enhanced Moses’s appreciation of God.
Some of my reactions:
A. Allert’s task was noble. The church fathers should not simply be
quote-mined, but they should be appreciated on their own terms.
B. The spiritual and eschatological interpretations of Genesis 1 that Allert highlighted were intriguing and edifying.
C. Chapter 3, which is about the Antiochian and Alexandrian schools,
is lengthy (around sixty pages), but it is important for people who want
to enter scholarship on this field, or who desire a more nuanced
understanding of the two schools. That said, Allert said more than once
that the Antiochians did not conceive of historia as
grammatical-critical interpreters conceive of history, and he was a
little unclear about how this was the case. He said that they
interpreted fiction (literature) as well. But the important question, I
think, is this: Did they believe that the events of Genesis 1 happened
as narrated?
D. It seemed to me that a lot of the church fathers Allert profiled
believed that the events of Genesis 1 occurred as narrated. Why seek to
explain the light that existed before the sun, moon, and stars, if it is
all just symbolic, anyway? They may have believed there was a deeper
spiritual meaning to the details of Genesis 1, but they seem to have
accepted Genesis 1 as history: a narrative about what happened in the
past. A question would then be whether there were fathers who rejected
Genesis 1 as a narrative about what happened and solely saw it as
allegorical. Allert perhaps could have addressed this question more
directly, though he raised considerations that might be relevant:
Basil’s criticism of over-literalizing, Basil’s repudiation of taking
biblical cosmologies literally, Augustine’s reservations about seeing
Genesis 1 as literal science, and Origen’s statement that there are
cases in which the literal level of the text should be rejected as
without value.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher. My review is honest.