Genesis Creation Story Or Genesis Creation Stories: Does It Make A Difference In Your Story Transformation Process?
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A core premise of the Story Transformation Process is that you cannot create the life you choose to create if you cannot accurately assess where you are right now.
Accurate Assessment Of Current Reality In The Creative Process
The previous posts in this series have focused on the Genesis creation stories themselves. In this post, I return to Robert Fritz’s claims in The Path of Least Resistance: Learning to Become the Creative Force in Your Own Life about accurate assessment of current reality.
Reactions To The Idea Of More Than One Genesis Creation Story
Timothy Beal’s article, In the Beginning(s): Appreciating the Complexity of the Bible, demonstrates the importance of accurate assessment of current reality. The real point of his article is not so much his argument that there are two Genesis creation stories, but the reactions from two groups to the idea that there are two Genesis creation stories. He includes some comments on an earlier article about multiple creation stories in the Bible.
“I could see that what I’d gotten myself into was an amplified version of the debates that go on every day between “Bible-believers” and atheists, who looked to me very much like two sides of the same coin.”
The Metamessage
Beal’s comments about the reactions of these “two sides of the same coin” is the metamessage—the underlying meaning—of his article.
“A metamessage is the ‘real’ message sent by a piece of communication, e.g. through tone of voice, which may be different or even contradictory to the content” (Metamessage).
The metamessage of Beal’s article can be summarized in this statement. “Neither side was remotely interested in engaging with the logic of my argument, let alone the biblical texts I used to support it.”
Taking God To Court?
I choose not to include some of the crudest language in the comments Beal includes in his article. (The following paragraph is taken directly from Beal’s article without editing.)
“As one exclaimed, “the OP ["original poster," me] needs to actually check his facts. You would think one might actually read the books objectively before commenting on them. Seriously??? Differences in Gen 1&2??? Are you nuts!!!” Another wrote, “There is only one creation account found in the bible, which anybody with any intellectual honesty can see. There are no contradictions; You’re just not reading it carefully. Probably on purpose. All I’m seeing is cheap shots being taken at the bible, all of which are based on opinion and not fact.” Several made clear, moreover, that my “attack” on the Bible was also an attack on its presumed author, God, and therefore on faith in general. As one commenter put it, “i don’t buy any of this futile facts … i stand by one fact, the Bible is a true and unchanging word of God, we shouldn’t take God to court.” ( In the Beginning(s): Appreciating the Complexity of the Bible).
My Metamessage For Bible Stories And The Story Transformation Process
As a biblical scholar myself, I have my own experience with getting such comments to my posts on other blogs about the Bible. It’s downright discouraging and disconcerting to be on the receiving end of rage-filled, indignant, nasty comments by people who are not “remotely interested in engaging with the logic of my argument, let alone the biblical texts I used to support it.”
Accurate Assessment Of Current Reality?
However, my own metamessage about Beal’s article, and my own purpose in including Bible stories as part of the “Story Transformation Process,” come back to the problem of accurate assessment of current reality.
If you look at the comments that Beal includes in his article—astonishing comments asserting that a Biblical scholar has never actually read the Bible—and then look at the comments to his post, you will see people who are not doing very well with accurate assessment of current reality.
These comments demonstrate the problem. You cannot transform your to life to create the life you choose, if you cannot accurately assess where you are right now.
For a lot of people, Bible stories are part of the problem. Misunderstood, mistranslated, misused Bible stories can easily be used as weapons to keep people afraid, stuck, guilt-ridden, and unhappy.
As Beal knows—and as I also know very well—the only remedy for such abusive Bible reading is to make a concerted effort to assess accurately the current reality of the Bible. In the case of Genesis, that means recognizing the overwhelming evidence that there are two creation stories in Genesis.
For Your Success,
Kalinda
Dr. Kalinda Rose Stevenson
The Story Transformer
Creator of “The Story Transformation Process”
[Cross-Published on KalindaRoseStevenson.com]
This is the fifth post in a 5-Part series.
Are Bible Stories Really Stories?
What Kind of Bible Story Is The Biblical Creation Story?
How Many Biblical Creation Stories Are In Genesis 1-3?
Using Midrash To Transform Creation Stories Into A Biblical Creation Story
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