Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Carey Griffel: Welcome to Genesis Marks the Spot, where we raid the ivory tower of biblical theology without ransacking our faith. My name is Carey Griffel, and I've got a fantastic guest lined up for this week. I'm here with my good friend, Troy Yurchak and we are going to be talking about Genesis and Chiasms.
[00:00:29] Now, lately I have been talking about some things in relation to the literary structures in the Old Testament, and I've already talked about a basic structure of Genesis chapter one that kind of helps us see that chapter as God's structuring environment and inhabitants, or, as Meredith Klein puts it, God establishes earthly kingdoms and then earthly kings. I really like how he puts it like that because the kingdoms are kind of established as the zones of habitation and those zones are then filled with rulers. Now, of course, you can kind of quibble with that because day five of creation with the birds and the sea creatures doesn't seem to be establishing them as rulers of the kingdom of the sky and water.
[00:01:19] But day five does mention great sea monsters, and we might think of Leviathan as the ruler of the sea in a sense. But at any rate, today we're going to be going beyond that structure in Genesis, digging into it a little bit deeper. And hopefully, we're going to see how that relates to some other things, both in the text as well as in our lives.
[00:01:41] Like, we can get really lost in the weeds in this topic, but we're going to try to keep bringing it back to how this can really impact our biblical interpretation as well as the application in our lives. Because, as we know, biblical theology is about tracing themes and patterns in Scripture, but we always want to keep bringing it back to the ground, and we want to ask, what does this mean to us, and how does this enrich our discipleship walk?
[00:02:12] and I really think Troy is going to be bringing some amazing things for us to consider as far as that goes. So welcome, Troy. Thank you so very much for coming to talk to me today about this. Could you please introduce yourself to the audience and maybe tell a little bit about yourself and your journey?
[00:02:31] All right. Well, my name's Troy, as you said I have been involved in ministry since I was very little. I was ordained minister for about 10 years in a non denominational church. And in that process of, Really studying, not just for myself, but for the people that I felt I was responsible for, I started discovering things that I didn't see reflected in the churches that I was a part of. And so in that quest of curiosity being raised on C. S. Lewis and a few other wonderful authors that helped express what mere Christianity was, I started looking for, where is the faith that the Bible describes? And I really love, as a fan of your show, how you cover biblical theology, not in opposition to a systematic theology, but as a wonderful, beautiful literary approach to scripture. That's the thing that I had discovered. And I was like, I really want to find a church that's Walking that out.
[00:03:35] So in all of that, that kind of led me to Orthodoxy. So I am now a child in Orthodoxy after 10 years of being an ordained minister, and I feel like I'm a child. So I'm learning so much. I don't speak for the Orthodox church, so that's not what I'm trying to do here. This is just me nerding out on a wonderful subject with a good friend. So I hope that's enough story.
[00:03:59] Awesome. I know we were talking earlier about having a conversation about ritual, and I think we still should totally do that, but I actually think this conversation relates quite a bit to that, but hopefully we'll get a little bit more into that later.
[00:04:15] But let's start out by defining what a chiasm is, and by doing that we can also talk about what a chiasm is not, because that's a very essential part of this conversation. Like, as I've talked before with other people, I've kind of tried to bring the reins in, because people get really excited about chiasms when they find out about them, and rightly so, because chiasms are really, really cool structures, and they can help us see things in the text that we wouldn't see otherwise.
[00:04:49] But we also need to be really careful with those as well and be aware that we can really easily read our presuppositions into the text when we're looking at chiasms. So how would you define a chiasm like if you were talking to somebody?
[00:05:07] Troy Yurchak: The word chiasm kind of gives a visual. So when you're thinking of a chiasm, the Grand Canyon, right? That's a chiasm, right? Or a chasm. It's very similar to chiasm. So if you're thinking of a chasm as an upside down V a structure that has its widest point at the top and its most Close point at the bottom flip that on its head and you have a chiasm. Put that in a literary term Is that you have book end points at the very widest point of a cone and then they spiral up to a centerpiece or a dual of Centerpiece at the top of this spiral So each point moves a little bit closer to center and a little bit further up until you get to the highest point in what the author is intending to highlight.
[00:05:55] So normally in the Western world, we have a beginning, a middle, and an end, and we move through that structure. Whereas in a oral tradition and a more Eastern tradition, the most important part is placed at the center and then you have supporting points emulating from that centerpiece. So I think that we can get into better explanations when we actually get into a few chiasms to look at, but , that would be my basis.
[00:06:23] Carey Griffel: Technically, there's a couple of different things that I would say a chiasm could be. Because chiasm could be, and usually is, like a poetic structure. Right? So, it's exceptionally related to the words used, to the ideas used. So, you can have concepts that are going to mirror each other, rather than just like repeated words. Sometimes you're going to have repeated words, but not always.
[00:06:51] You can just have repeated ideas. And that is legitimate, but you have to be careful with that too, because the parallels in those repetitions from the first to the last ought to be connected together, right? Like, they ought to have something more than just, they're kind of the same. Like, they ought to be either the same kind of thought, like, directly parallel. One thought is the same as the other thought, or you could have opposites. that's an okay structure. You can also have like I was saying in my episode about poetics in general, you can have a furthering of the thought, but you shouldn't just have like kind of a touch point.
[00:07:39] Troy Yurchak: Right. It's, not as loose, like any poetry, the beauty of poetry is the strictness that you follow the rules and the creative ways that you break the rules. And so if, it's only generally applied and the ideas are not very clear and the lines are not very well defined, you can squint your eyes and force anything into a chiasm, which when you've discovered it and how exciting it is and how much of scripture actually is written in a chiasmic structure, you tend to see it everywhere.
[00:08:11] But The caution is, is don't force fit it, right? There are rules. There are things that will give you a clear indication. Hey, I read at the beginning of this passage or somewhere in this story, I read these three words that were close together, and I just made it three more pages down in the Bible and these words repeated right next to each other again.
[00:08:33] Well, that's an indication that the author was Giving you hints that there might be something in the center of those two phrases or those two sets of words that might be important. So there's hints and clues, but like you mentioned, it's easy to force fit chiasms into it because it's, literally, this is how humanity thinks. It's easy for us to get into spirals. We get into spirals in thoughts. We get into spirals in the way that we do our lives. We get into pattern making. So it's natural for us to find patterns. Now it's a matter of being critical and going, am I seeing a pattern where there isn't one, or is there actually a pattern here? And there are some rules that go along with that.
[00:09:15]
[00:09:16] Carey Griffel: Yes. And the other thing that I would point out when we're talking about chiasms is that there is a thing that's called an inclusio. And an inclusio can make it look like a chiasm when it's not necessarily a strict chiasm. You also see this talked about as like an envelope structure.
[00:09:35] So, the Book of Job, I personally think is a really good example of this. You have the first part of the Book of Job, and you have the last part of the Book of Job, and clearly they parallel each other. It talks about Job's sons and daughters and his animals and all of this, and you have those mentioned at the beginning. You have those mentioned at the end when he is restored from his suffering, right? So that's an inclusio. But if you see that inclusio, and then you decide, well, then there's got to be a chiastic structure....
[00:10:10] Well, I mean, the whole book of Job kind of has that because it does absolutely have a center chapter. And that center chapter, I think it's chapter 28, and it focuses on the wisdom of God. And so that's the whole purpose of the Book of Job. So, in a sense, from that perspective, it's a chiasm, but I've seen people take that whole book and say, well, if it's a chiasm, then every element of the first part up to 28 has to parallel all of the chapters after 28.
[00:10:42] And that's where you get into some trouble because it, doesn't do that. First of all, the chapters are widely different in those sections. So you're going to end up with problems with like words and like the length of sections. So if you've got really big sections on one side and small sections on the other side, that's probably not a chiasm. but that doesn't mean that you can't have like some sort of idea that maybe it's not a chiasm, but it parallels the idea of what a chiasm is.
[00:11:13] And one thing that I've seen a lot of people ask and think about is, is history itself, or at least the Bible, the Old Testament, and the New Testament together are those structured as a chiasm? Because you have creation, you have Jesus in the middle, you have the Gospels, and then you have the book of Revelation at the end. And so, obviously, Genesis and Revelation have a lot to do with one another. And Creation has so much to do with the eschaton, because the eschaton, we get the fulfillment of the purposes of creation. And obviously Jesus came somewhere in the middle, maybe not exactly in the middle, like as far as time goes.
[00:11:59] But some people wonder if like the whole Bible is structured as a chiasm, or all of history is structured as a chiasm. And like, again, like chiasm is a poetic structure. But that doesn't mean you can't take a poetic structure and, use it poetically in our concept of time or history or our lives in general, right? So, I don't know. What do you think? Do you think anything about history or the Bible being a larger chiasm?
[00:12:29] Troy Yurchak: I like what you talked about, the closing of the envelope. That although that might indicate a chiasm, it doesn't necessitate a chiasm. It's a hint, but it's not the only rule. So yeah, I think that there's at least what's the term again, the closing of envelope or the, the word that you used
[00:12:50] Carey Griffel: The inclusio.
[00:12:51] Troy Yurchak: Oh, inclusio. Okay. It's a new word to me. So I, I I get the concept. I just hadn't heard the word before. So I definitely think that there's multiple inclusios. You have the opening of the cosmos in Genesis. You have the closing of the cosmos, the closing of the age in Revelation. There's a lot of parallels and you could probably see some chiastic structure as in you go from good creation to creation affected by sin , and then in revelation, you start with a world affected by sin leading to a world that's now at its telios.
[00:13:24] The cosmic structure and temple that was started in Genesis one and two is now complete and full and in its full state in revelation. So I can definitely see that as very tempting to go , it has to be a chiasm. Now let me fit all of the other books and all of the other structures into it.
[00:13:44] Okay. I wouldn't do, I wouldn't go that far. Right. There's another inclusio that I think is really beautiful. You have in Genesis two, Man created and then the visionary experience of God pulling the human apart, and now you have the man and the woman. And so woman comes from man. And now in, I think it's Corinthians. I could be wrong, but Paul talks about it as just as the woman came from the man, now, the man comes from the woman. Okay, there's an inclusio. What he's doing is going, alright, just like Eve came from Adam, now, at the end of the age, the last Adam comes from the last Eve, Mary. And you have this inclusio there
[00:14:33] Now, once again, that may be my bias, but I think that's a really beautiful picture. And in, in the Greek, there's , the definite, the, at the beginning of all four references, the man, the woman, the woman, the man. And so it's talking about a specific, not a general. So yeah, I think that there's quite a few inclusio's and , it would not be good if we just went, Oh, , I found the bookends. Now I need to force fit everything in between these bookends into a chiasmic structure. That's not okay. Yeah, I agree with you.
[00:15:04] Carey Griffel:
[00:15:04] Yes, well put, exactly, and that's kind of what I wanted to point out here, is that like a chiasm is supposed to build, and it's supposed to have like, like they're steps, they're steps on one side that go up or down, however you're structuring your picture of the chiasm and then on the other side, it's going to go up or down, in opposite.
[00:15:25] So just because you have an inclusio doesn't mean you also have a chiasm. Now, an inclusio is still going to highlight something about the middle. It might not be as specific. It might not have the neat parallel structure of the sides of the mountain or the canyon being all equal. And I think if we keep that in mind, that you can also have things that look like chiasms, but aren't chiasms, that can be really helpful.
[00:15:54] So when we're going into Genesis 1, and we're looking at the structure of those days, and we're looking at the Hebrew words used, and things like that, like Genesis 1 is very Particular, even down to the number of Hebrew words it uses, not throughout the whole thing, but throughout different sections.
[00:16:14] Like the first verse, what we call the first verse, has seven words, and then you have 14 words, and then it builds up like that. So Genesis one has like a ton of really neat structure to it. And so how do we see this in the form of chiasm and that kind of thing.
[00:16:36] Troy Yurchak: Okay. Yeah, I, I, I agree with you. I think that when you see very strict structure and repeated micro patterns in a passage, there's a good chance that there's intentionality behind it. So in Genesis one, you almost have all the different rules that you could apply to a chiasm are all expressed in Genesis one, which makes it a very complex passage. But not unattainable. It's not that hard to see. It's just, there's a lot of layers to, unravel.
[00:17:07] So one of the things on a biblical approach to narrative is that genealogies usually are book ends for sections, right? So you have the genealogy of Cain and the genealogy of Seth before you get into the genealogy of Noah and that story. And then you get a genealogy after Noah, before the Tower of Babel, then you get a genealogy after the Tower of Babel for Abraham, right? And then you see these, at least in Genesis, genealogies play a big part in dividing up sections.
[00:17:37] Well, what is a genealogy when there are no creatures? So in the very beginning of Genesis, like you said in the first verse, first verse where we get Genesis, the beginning, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth... that's like saying, all right, what is the genealogy, the Genesis of the heavens and the earth. And if you see at the end of Genesis one there's a , genealogical outro. So this would be your. Inclusio, thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.
[00:18:07] So you have this phrase, heavens and earth repeated at the beginning and end of this chapter. Kind of gives you a clue. Hey, there's something in between these two that's important and a complete inclusive narrative. So any notes on that that I said so far?
[00:18:24] Carey Griffel: Yeah. Well, and so just for everybody listening, when we're talking about Genesis one, we're going to be going into a few of those verses in Genesis two,. Why the chapters were separated the way that they were is, I don't get it. it's always kind of bugged me, but when we're talking about the first chapter of Genesis, we're going to loop those first few verses of Genesis two in. And where people end that it kind of depends on what they're thinking, you know, a lot of people think that Genesis 2, 4 is the beginning of the next section because that's where we have the next Toledote or the next generational section there. But we do have, like, in Genesis 2, 4, we have these are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, and in Genesis 2, 1, we do have that kind of end that calls back to the first verse, where we have, thus, the heavens and the earth were finished, and all of the host of them. And, of course, What you mean by host there is dependent upon what you think about a lot of things as well.
[00:19:29] But yeah, so there's a lot in between those sections, and it's obviously something that's pointing out some sort of structure. And, you know, I see people who want to see like a study Bible that gives chiastic structures and like you can kind of do that, but again, like you said, they're so layered and there's chiasms within chiasms. So, It would be a limited resource just by definition, although it would still be kind of interesting.
[00:19:59] Troy Yurchak: I think that to be able to do that properly because that be quite heavy like not everybody would get it. Not everybody would, you wouldn't see the purpose of it. is that because chiasms are best Seen aren't, no, let me rephrase that chiasm's are best heard, right? It's not something that you see as easy as you hear them.
[00:20:20] And as someone that's a good storyteller, not me, but as someone that could be a good storyteller, it's the structure of being able to find, you find your center, and then you're building up to your centerpiece. It's the way you would tell an oral story. And so a study Bible may not be the best for that.
[00:20:40] I guess, a little bit of background on the oral side of tradition is that you've got oral community still today, and they will have multiple people tell the same story and one person will take 40 minutes, one will take 15. And if you ask the one that took 15 minutes, did the one that took 40 minutes add a bunch of stuff? No. And if you ask the 40 person, did they take out a bunch of stuff to the 15 minute? No, they covered the story. So what is it? It's there's a structure that stays the same, and then there's the branches and leaves that can adjust from the different person that's telling the story.
[00:21:13] So I don't think chiasms work really well when you make them rigid like that. If that makes sense, forcing them into a study Bible. I think that it's better when it's living. How do I tell the story? How do I remember to tell this story, but how do I tell it in such a way that my kids get it? And I've done that where I've just, once we get into the frame, I can show you how quickly it is to remember the entire main structure and as my kids grow, I can build in the detail and never disregard or change the structure that I started with.
[00:21:46] So real simple mirroring between day one and day four, day two and day five, day three and day six. They each have a thing that mirrors the other. You build that structure. Now it's building in the details as you know, if I'm telling the story to a four year old, or if I'm telling a story to my 12 year old, if I'm telling that story to a group of people that are interested in Bible study, it may take me five minutes , or less for the four year old, but it may be an hour and a half discussion on that same structure with a bunch of adults that are interested in all the details and little spirals that come off of this fractal structure called a chiasm.
[00:22:25] So. I think I went off on a big rabbit trail there.
[00:22:31] Carey Griffel: Yeah, but I mean, the point of having it oral is that, you're hearing it and you're living this out with other people. Like, it's not just the dry text. The problem I would see with like a, a study Bible is that people do tend to get a little bit too in the weeds when you're looking at chiasm sometimes.
[00:22:52] Like, you want to mine it for data. like it's another form of Bible code sometimes. You know, I've literally seen people take some books and some sections of chiasm and go, well, this is how we map it onto this. And here's my little, tiny little detail that I think is really, really important.
[00:23:13] Well, like, look, that's, it's not really the point of the chiasm. Like, yes, there's parallelism and steps in all of these places. But that doesn't make it into some magical Bible code. And the question always becomes, or it always should become, like, how do we take this into our own lives instead of leaving it on the page as some dusty little detail, right?
[00:23:38]
[00:23:38] Troy Yurchak: Right. It's, not just a literary jewel to put on a crown. It's, something that's organic and living and, requires the I guess what does the rabbis talk about the turning of the jewel, right? It's this constant interaction with the jewel, not just the thing that, Oh, look, I know what a chiasm is and put it up on a shelf and I pull it out for, you know, impressing someone.
[00:24:01] No, it's actually the way in which I, build , the ground structure of a narrative and then I can add those details and then at the extent of it, in constant dialogue with other people that see different things than I do, there's an ability to really branch out into little thoughts and ideas that may not follow the same pattern, but are attached to a branch that's in that structure of the chiasm.
[00:24:24] So I agree with you. I don't think that making it rigid or individualistic and approach to chiasm is the right approach. And, and something that you mentioned earlier about this specifically, this passage is building a liturgy, right? And once again, a liturgy is something that is a repeated pattern that is done in community which is what storytelling is-- properly understood, that's what storytelling is, right?
[00:24:50] We've gotten to the point where what's normal for us when it comes to stories is I read a book. And so it's just me and the book and my understanding of what I think the author is saying. That's not how stories have interacted with humanity over most of our lives, or most of human history. Most of human history, that has been a communal thing. It's how we tell the story of our origins and they may be mythical. They may be grandiose, but it's what unifies us because we all have that same story. We all have the same structure and we might tell different branches because we are on different branches of that one unified story,
[00:25:31] Carey Griffel: Yes, the different branches and I think that's, that can be really confusing and hard for us today because we are so propositional and linear in our thinking. Like, we think when you say something, what you're saying is a truth for all of time and that everyone should understand it. But in reality, what you're saying is your perspective on something and your view of the facets of the jewel, right?
[00:25:58] So what you're saying and what somebody else says might sound so remarkably different, but they're just slightly different perspectives of the same thing. And this can be really hard to talk about with other people because you've got slightly different definitions for things.
[00:26:18] But at any rate let's talk a little bit about this structure within Genesis one and the frame of it.
[00:26:26] Troy Yurchak: With Genesis one, on a typical or easier to read chiasm would be you have A, B, C, a centerpiece D, it can be longer than that, but ABCD. And then you have C prime, B prime, a prime. So you have this, Starting out at the very wide, like I explained at the very beginning, and then you have the centerpiece .Genesis one, on the other hand, does an A, B, C, D, A prime, B prime, C prime, D prime. So it's a mirrored structure, two hills that you're climbing and they're supposed to be compared and contrasted.
[00:27:03] Carey Griffel: It's easy to see, like I've boxed it before in two days, but there's actually other ways you can also do it. And maybe we'll talk a little bit about that. But you have like Meredith Klein said, the kingdoms, and then you have the Kings on the other side. And they're parallel, but in a way we can still see this as a chiasm.
[00:27:27] Troy Yurchak: Yes. Okay. So the way that I, I've seen this put out and I really like it is... I like what you just described. I hadn't heard it that way. The making of a kingdom and the filling of a kingdom. that's the same thing that's going on here.
[00:27:39] So you have a making of space where day one, day two, and day three are dividing something. You have day one, you create light. Okay. But then you're dividing between light and darkness. Day two, you have a divide between the waters below and the waters above. Day three, you have a dividing of waters from land, and then you have this like addendum note, plant life and reproduction.
[00:28:03] Then when you start in day four, you have filling of the light and darkness with omens or tokens for ritual time or feasts. Day five you have the filling of waters below and the waters above with swarming swimmers and flyers Day six you have the filling of land with crawlers and then you have this addendum of mankind as a crown and steward of all creation.
[00:28:25] So if we were to unravel the chiasm and look at it from the perspective of instead of a b c d A prime, B prime, C prime, D prime, you can pair the A's, you can pair the B's, you can pair the C's and you can pair the D's.
[00:28:43] So light created and divide between light and darkness. Filling the light and darkness with omens and for ritual time. B and B prime divide between waters below and waters above and filling that space with waters below and waters above. C divide between waters and land and C prime filling the land with crawlers. Then you have D plant life and reproduction, and then D prime mankind is the crown and steward of all that creation also given the mandate to reproduce.
[00:29:10] So that would be the super basic structure. That's really easy. A small child can get that structure, right? And it's visually easy to depict. You have light and darkness. They know what it is when the light's off. They know what it is when the light's on, and there's a division between those two, right? So that's what I find is a very useful beginning structure. And that comes out of the text. So if you look at each of those verses in greater detail, you will see that structure come out. We're not forcing it in there.
[00:29:41] Carey Griffel: So the way that we can see this kind of parallel... now, a parallel might not seem like the chiasm as a mountain, but when we add in a few of these elements about The plants and what we see at the end with the creation of man, we have again, the plants mentioned, and you know, a lot of people will take that mention of plants and they'll go, well, this just is our list of things that we're supposed to eat.
[00:30:12] Well, nothing in Genesis chapter 1 is there just incidentally or because we needed a little bit of information that we wanted you to know. So, Like, nothing in Genesis 1 is accidental. It is all part of this structure. So , , you've got this picture, and if I can do a blog post later, I can add this picture in, of like, it's a cone, and there's a spiral that goes up the cone.
[00:30:41] So as you're going up the cone, you've got A A prime and B and B prime, and you're reaching the top. And the end point of both of the parallel structures is kind of that top of the cone. So, in that sense, that becomes our chiasm.
[00:30:59] And again, it's very embedded into the text. it's very purposeful with the language that we actually read, or we would hear if we were listening to this orally . And again, we're going to be talking a little bit more about the liturgy here, but notice the emphasis on plants. I guess that's just the thing that I would say first right here.
[00:31:19] Troy Yurchak: Yeah. I think that this sets precedent for a lot of comparisons between humanity doing their proper job and how that is compared to plant life. So I believe in the Psalms it talks about that the righteous man will be like a tree planted by rivers of living water. Okay. So a righteous man which is what the goal getting back, we talked about the, inclusio between Genesis and revelation is that a righteous human is doing the telios of what they're called to do, Eden springs from that man, right? It springs from that human. And I think that that's, that's the point. That's the comparison is drawing back to this. There's a comparison between plant life being the first thing that reproduces after its kind and mankind being the crown and steward of that creation as both a gardener and a shepherd.
[00:32:09] And also, like you said, it's not just about, well, you're allowed to be a vegetarian and that's not the goal. That's too materialistic in it's, it's reading what it is talking about is that, Hey, there is fruit of the vine and there is the seed bearing plant that you produce bread with. Okay. So there's, there's something in this that plays in multiple different structures across the testaments of. Bread and wine.
[00:32:35]
[00:32:35] Carey Griffel: Well, when you have what people are supposed to eat You have trees, and you have grains, right, the seed bearing plants, and we think that those are like scientific designations or something, but to the ancient person, they would have particular ideas of what those were, right? When we're looking at the Bible in the way that we do when we're doing biblical theology, we're tracing themes and we're tracing patterns And this is what is so exciting to me because those themes and patterns will show up necessarily in both our literary structures as well as our doctrine and our actual practice as Christians or in liturgical settings or just in our discipleship walk, right?
[00:33:24] Like all of those things are actually connected and that's what's exciting to me about studying the Bible from a perspective of both biblical theology as well as literary structure. Because all of that connects together, whereas if you kind of separate it out into well, this part is talking about The process that God used to create. Well, okay What does that matter to me? How does that shape my daily walk as a Christian? Well, I don't know Like when I was little and I was trying to memorize the days in a linear order it made no sense to me. But now that I understand that it's got this structure, and it's actually building to a climax of the sustaining of humanity, as well as our walk in life for discipleship, and being good stewards of creation, and causing that to be a way that we can flourish, then that parallels with so many other things that we see and how, if we are a tree by living waters, then we are producing something that can actually nourish other people as well. Like we produce shade, we might produce fruit, we might produce things that, benefit not just humanity, but other creatures.
[00:34:45] so , it's this whole idea of the way we live our lives. And I think it's absolutely embedded into creation itself.
[00:34:52]
[00:34:53] Troy Yurchak: Absolutely. To feed off of that idea, you see in revelation where it says that the tree of life is on either side of the river and it's It's leaves are for the healing of the nations that if we as righteous are Really connected to the sweet water connected to the river of life that we are going to be producing fruit.
[00:35:14] And what's interesting and another parallel between plants and humanity that you start thinking about if you're going, all right, what are the parallels between humanity and this plant life is that plant life has a substructure that is under the ground, so very earthy, and then it reaches into the heavens, right?
[00:35:36] And you see that with humanity as well, is that he's, made from the earth, but he's inspired or spirited by God. And that between those two things coming into contact now, he's a living soul. And I think that that's another way that you could see the parallel is that you've got plant life that lives in two worlds, right? The ground in the sky .And humanity lives in two worlds, the material and the spiritual, not that those things are separated, but we're the bridge, right? And I think that that, when you see that across all of scripture, that We are made in the image of God and we're supposed to be imaging God wherever we go.
[00:36:20] Well, how do I image God if I've cut myself off from the heavens, right? But I can't be so heavenly minded. I'm no earthly good. If I cut myself off from the earth, I've lost the bridge to be the image there too, because stewardship requires me interacting with the earth, right? So. Another idea that just a rabbit trail that runs through that parallel between why is the author Paralleling plant life and human life.
[00:36:47] Carey Griffel: Yeah, because otherwise it seems a little bit separate. To the ancient person, plants weren't alive. That's another way I've seen some scholars kind of designate these separations in Genesis one is that first it talks about things that don't have nephesh. And then it talks about things that do have nephesh. And part of that center actually is about day four with the rulers of the sky. Right? the sun and the moon and the stars. So, again, this is why you can't really just have one Bible that's going to show you all chiasms, because you can find different ways of doing this. But, again, it absolutely should be centered on language.
[00:37:32] But part of the question is, for that, like, why does day four talk about the things that it does? And there are specific things, like the fact that particular words are used for the sun, moon, and stars, because other words could have been used that were used for pagan deities, for instance. You know, and so this is where we can have the idea that you can have rulers, but like the sun, moon, and stars can rule the sky, but they don't have nefesh like earthly creatures do.
[00:38:05] So that's kind of an interesting point because, you know, for us, I think there's a human tendency to think that spiritual beings are so much greater than us. Like they can do things that we can't do and maybe we feel limited in comparison to them. But in reality, we are like the crown of creation and yet we're mortal and we have bodies. We have nefesh. And spiritual beings seemingly don't like, why is that? And what does that mean for us to be creatures like that, to be the crown of creation, right? So these are all interesting questions and this is the kind of rabbit trail you can get into when you're talking about literary structure.
[00:38:51]
[00:38:52] Troy Yurchak: Yes. I think , that's really cool. As you were saying that I was rereading that specific section, and it's interesting the language difference between the lights in the sky versus the language for humans. So let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night and let them serve. So first function is serve as signs to mark sacred times and days and years, and let there be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth. So service, service. And it was so God made the two great lights. Greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. So very specific, the sun to govern the day, the moon to govern the night, right?
[00:39:31] It's, it's very specific. This is what you're governing. This is your specific function, but when it comes to humanity, it's let us make mankind in our own image, not something that you see spoken about by the luminaries, right? in our likeness so that they may rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky over the livestock, all the wild animals over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created mankind in his own image in the image of God he created them; both male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, be fruitful and increase in number, fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.
[00:40:09] So there's this reiteration multiple times of rule versus serve. And the aspect that you would parallel with govern for the, govern the day and govern the night, is much more broad. It's You have the parallel between day one and day four, and the luminaries are to govern light and darkness, very specific to their one day, but when it comes to man, he's given govern ship or stewardship over multiple days 'creation. And I think that , it really highlights like Psalm, I don't remember which Psalm , but it's like, who is man that you're mindful of them or the son of man that you take notice. You've made him for a little while, lower than the, The angels lower than the gods, but you've crowned him with glory and honor.
[00:40:52] So there is this, Oh, the first time governor's mentioned is for these luminaries, but give it a couple of seconds and man is elevated to a much higher status. I think that's also something that's supposed to be drawn out. Like you said, this stacked chiasm does have a centerpiece in day four, where you're talking about the feasts and time being something that's governed by the luminaries. But man is still given much more focus, much more personal touch. Right. Let us versus before. Let there be. Right. It doesn't really talk about who was involved or how it was done. But when it comes to man, it's like, no, let us make them. And then he makes them. It's like, he's directly not just calling them, but forming them. And I think that's a lot more personal relationship.
[00:41:41]
[00:41:41] Carey Griffel: Right. Exactly. And I mean, and you can see the days one through seven as a chiasm or something like a chiasm, because you have the beginning of time, you have time mentioned in day seven, obviously, and you have day four, where it also talks about time, obviously, and the other days really don't.
[00:42:04] So you have that idea, but if you just took that and said, this is the point of Genesis 1 and this is the point of what creation is.... Well, you're, you're missing out on who the actual crown of creation is, right? And, you know, there is reason and Theological presupposition for certain camps to kind of go that direction, right? Like they want to make that focus of time... they don't really want mankind to be the pinnacle of creation because that's gonna necessarily mean certain things. And some people don't want to admit those things that it's going to kind of necessitate, right?
[00:42:51] Like if God has mankind as a crowning achievement in creation. That's something we should really take to heart and act upon, right? Like we're not just the lowest forms of creation, you know? And so the purpose of creation is just deeply embedded here.
[00:43:11] Troy Yurchak: Absolutely. that point can't be overstated is that when you, when, when you're looking at chiasms, be very attentive to the lenses that you bring in looking at them because you're right. If Genesis three is the start of humanity and it's not Genesis one, then you are going to be blind to the amount of time spent describing and the personal language associated with God's relationship with man in Genesis one and Genesis two.
[00:43:42] And, and. You're right. If the crown of God's creation is humankind, both male and female, equal, if that's the centerpiece, if that's the important, if that's the highlight, if that's the thing that's being focused here, that the image has entered the temple that's been created, that calls all of us to a much higher account for what we do, how we steward creation, how we relate to one another. But if if Genesis three is the start and the epicenter of man, then it's, well, we're not capable of anything good.
[00:44:22] And it's a sad rescue mission for an unworthy creature. And that's not what the story starts with. It starts with us being very close to sons and daughters, it, it starts there. It starts there with us being a hypostasis of God. And I know that's, I don't know if there's a good English word for it.
[00:44:44] Regent, a stand in a, a person who is not governing for their own sake, but governing for the sake of their superior. That's what man stands in. That's the place of man. And that's what you get from Genesis one and two. You start in Genesis three. It's what a worm and it's the wrong place to start.
[00:45:06] Carey Griffel: Absolutely. So you had some other things that connected Genesis one to some other parts of scripture, so let's get into that
[00:45:15] Troy Yurchak: .
[00:45:15] One of the things , that we notice in the overall structure, like you said, you can take day one through seven, and that kind of creates a structure with day four as a centerpiece. So you see time. But if you're looking at , the structure that we talked about before, the pairing of days, Day seven kind of fits outside. It even fits outside of the genealogical inclusio, right? So you have this closeout of, all right, this is what happened. The, thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.
[00:45:44] And then you have this reality outside the frame as in the frame of this chiasm. And, There's something that's going on outside the frame that doesn't fit into the chiasmic structure as we've seen so far.... still related because now you have day seven. All right, we've seen language before so it's connected to it But it's outside the frame. And that is that God finished his work He had been doing on the seventh day and he rested from all his work And I think that that idea of him resting It's not the idea of him ceasing to function, the divine watchmaker that wound everything up and then steps away.
[00:46:20] But it's more of, he now sits in his throne. He's done what's necessary to create the kingdom, to fill the kingdom. And now he sits enthroned in his kingdom. that's what I think the picture of rest here is. And so , with that in mind, I think that fits in with Hebrews four one through 11, where in, in that verse the author of Hebrews is talking about are the teleos of man is to enter into the rest of God.
[00:46:49] And if you have Genesis one, like we've talked about the crowning of God's creation is the, vice regent, the steward of all creation, the image of God properly doing what they're supposed to do. We also share in God's kingship over creation, then we enter into the same rest that same day.
[00:47:09] And that day, because it's outside the frame of a more linear progression of time, it's a day that we have access to whenever we choose to. And that's what Hebrews four, one through 11 is talking about. Strive to enter that day of rest. And he wouldn't mention another day unless that day was available, right?
[00:47:27] It, there's a question. A couple of different words. I don't, I don't have it memorized in my head to be able to recount it word for word, but there's this point where the author of Hebrews is talking about he wouldn't talk about another day unless there was another day, once again, outside the frame and that we could enter it. And I think that that's a beautiful picture. A connection from much later in, in scriptures in the book of Hebrews, back to this Genesis one narrative of, Hey, there's a reality outside the frame. There is a, another aeon. There's a place that we're supposed to step into the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of a new age has come and we have access to it.
[00:48:06]
[00:48:07] Carey Griffel: You know, so many people who are like, well, the days of creation are mentioned in like Exodus and they're paralleled with the human week, , you know, the idea of Sabbath and all of that. And so that's, you know, often people's proof of why the days of creation have to be literal six days and all of this kind of idea.
[00:48:30] But I don't hear people bringing in Hebrews 4 to that discussion because the fact of the Sabbath, that means something. , it's not just a day of the week. And if it was just a day of the week, we could go, okay, sure, I guess you're right. But it's not. It has meaning beyond that. And because the Sabbath has meaning beyond what it is as a day of the week, then the days of creation also have that meaning beyond just literal days.
[00:49:00] And so I think that is an absolutely awesome parallel to bring in here because I don't see that often talked about. But you're right. Like, if you read that section of Hebrews in parallel with what we see in Genesis 1, you know, it becomes clear what that rest is. and I've seen people ask, well, okay, you say that God is talking about resting in a temple here in Genesis, but, you know, maybe you're just making that up. Well, you can go read Hebrews 4, and that kind of clarifies it for you.
[00:49:35] Troy Yurchak: Or all of Hebrews, same with the same with the end of revelation to or, or revelation as a whole. You see at the end that the, all of the cosmos becomes the creation. There's no need for the luminaries because God is the light of creation, right?
[00:49:52] There's this really beautiful. Deeper fullness like kind of the way that C. S. Lewis talks about further up and further in, a new iteration of time in a different way than we've experienced it before, a different iteration of relationship, a different closeness between what we normally considered a two tiered universe. I don't ascribe to that, but a lot of people view the universe as all right, we have the material and we have the spiritual. So we don't really know if there's anything, but every once in a while, we hear some. We hear some knocking up there, so there's got to be something going on up in the heavens, right?
[00:50:25] We hear some knocking every once in a while, but I, I don't ascribe to that view. I think it's, there's an overlap. And what we see in revelation is that the veil between the material and the spiritual, the veil between the, the realm of, Of the gods or the realm of God and the realm of material reality has become more more thin. There's not, not as thick a veil or a mask between those two anymore.
[00:50:49] And so, yeah, I think that there, there is this it was good, but nowhere in this narrative. Do you see it was perfect. Telios has not been completed yet. There is a garden that's walled and the goal and the, command to man is you need to be fruitful, multiply, and spread this garden everywhere.
[00:51:09] The telios of creation is when man does its job as steward of the creation, as the image of God. And I think that that that's a, you see that culminated in the end where you have the bride of Christ being, Clothed in white, which is the righteous acts of the saints. It's the fullness of the teleos. You have Adam and Eve recapitulated in Christ in the church. It's such a beautiful picture. So
[00:51:34] Carey Griffel: totally. , and we still have some time, so let's go ahead and get into a little bit more of the parallels you have with Genesis one to other scripture as well.
[00:51:45] Troy Yurchak: All right. Another one that I I really think is beautiful is the Lord's prayer. So we, kind of touched a little earlier about how in Genesis one, there's this talk about what is to be consumed, right? , the fruit of the tree and the seed bearing plants. Right. And so I know that that's a little weird callback when you're talking about the Lord's prayer, but let me get into it a little bit. So everybody knows it.
[00:52:08] Specifically, if you're in a liturgical setting, our father, who is in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today. I like sustaining bread or the bread of tomorrow. That's a couple of different ways of looking at it and forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors and do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
[00:52:32] That also has this chiastic structure. So. A is our father who is in heaven, B, hallowed be your name, C, your kingdom come, D is the centerpiece, give us today today's bread, C prime, forgive us our debts, B, do not lead us into temptation B prime, A prime for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
[00:52:54] So like I did with the, day structure, if you unfold the chiasm, the spiral and place the pairs together, you have: here's our request. Here's what it looks like. And I think that it's a beautiful picture here. Our father who is in heaven. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Hallowed be your name, which, how does God's name become unhallowed? By the acts of the people, right? It says in, in Isaiah, I think, or Jeremiah talks about that, my name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you. So when we're going, Hey, God, let your name be hallowed. How? I'm the image of God. You're the image of God. It's our action.
[00:53:38] So do not lead us into temptation or the testing. But if we have to go through testing, deliver us from an evil or worthless outcome. I think that's really beautiful.
[00:53:48] Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. What does that look like? Forgive us our debts as we forgive those who are our debtors. Right? So you have these parallels. What did Christ come into the world to do? To defeat the works of the enemy and to bring forgiveness? Right? So it's a really beautiful picture. Parallel. All right.
[00:54:08] So now you have the thing in the center, right? Give us today our sustaining bread, right? Well, Jesus earlier says man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. You have this picture from, and this is a call back to Exodus, where manna shows up, right? Every day. It's sustaining. It's not enough for two days. It's only enough for one day, right? It's bread from heaven. In the New Testament, Jesus says, I'm the true bread from heaven.
[00:54:37] So if we take all of that literary Language that's tied to this one prayer, we can see that give us today our sustaining bread is a call back to Exodus, but it's also a call back to what Christ said in the last supper. This is my body broken for you. This is my blood shed for you for this new covenant, right? Every time that you do this, do this in remembrance of me. This is the thing every time that you do this, right?
[00:55:06] So I think that before I was aware of a liturgical Practice, before I was aware of a liturgical church, I started looking into the Lord's prayer and, more and more in, John, the whole book of John is full of chiasms. It's fun, but I noticed that the language of John is talking about fruit of the vine, Jesus being the true vine and bread. , I'm the bread from heaven. And I was like, wait a second, but in John, it's the one gospel that doesn't cover the last supper or those, those words of this is my body, this is my blood that the other three synoptic gospels cover.
[00:55:43] And I was like, wait a second. What John is doing is he's using the entirety of the gospel to talk about the Last Supper and then skips over it at the end because he's been talking about it the entire time. And then when you have this prayer, and I believe this is the Matthew 6 version, you see all of that idea focused in on at the centerpiece of the Lord's prayer, that it's not just talking about physical bread. It's not just talking about what I need to sustain me physically. It's something deeper than that. And I think that if we approach this prayer with a material mindset, we're going to miss that this has a intentionally spiritual meaning that is pointing to Christ as the centerpiece of this prayer.
[00:56:26] Carey Griffel: Yes. And so when we're talking about, like you said, the teleos of creation, like the purpose of creation and how that culminates, when you look at this structure in Genesis 1, and you see not only the crowning glory of creation in humanity, but this connection with the plants as kind of the center, then that's like an arrow pointing to Jesus directly when he keeps calling himself the bread of life and you see, you know that the repeated patterns of the manna in the wilderness and David in the temple, You know, taking the showbread and, you know, all of these things, they happen again and again.
[00:57:07] And again, and you can say, well, you know, you're just making that up because you just want to see it. But this is why it's important to look at the repeated patterns, you don't just see it one place, you see it over and over and over again, and the idea of bread is, it's so divorced from what we live today, like for a lot of us, it's like, oh, carbs are bad. We're not going to eat carbs.
[00:57:32] I mean, you know, I get that, like to some degree, you're right. But what we're eating today is not actually the same as what they were eating in the past either. And so our meaning for that has really dramatically shifted. And so getting back to this ancient idea of what is the core of human flourishing. And what does that look like? How do we promote human flourishing? And, how is that embedded into our lives? And how does our daily walk, literally our daily walk, how does that point and parallel to our discipleship walk with Jesus? Right? ,
[00:58:14] it's not like it's some sort of, a magical thing, right? , but it's a metaphor, it's a simile, , it's a thing that should remind us of things in what we're doing. And so when we're talking about liturgy and liturgy being embedded into creation in this way, it's not just something that you're doing in church. It's not just these little motions you go through.
[00:58:40] It's like, it's this deeply embedded thing that is supposed to promote your flourishing in a literal way, like literally physical and also spiritually. Like that's how I am viewing this idea of liturgy and its importance.
[00:58:57] Troy Yurchak: As I'm experiencing it more and more , in my life, that's one of the things that I've, really noticed in liturgy, you see this.... one, the gathering of the priesthood of all believers into a holy place that's dedicated specifically for service to God. It doesn't parallel other spaces. So it feels weird. Sometimes I, I don't know how else to explain it, but holy feels weird. It's other, right? There's not another place to put it.
[00:59:23] Anyways, in, in that space, you have the priesthood of all believers being grateful for what God has given us and then offering back to God what he's given us --the bread and the wine-- and then that's being brought back to us from God transformed, right? As the body and blood of Christ, but that's not where it stops. So that may be the micro pattern, a small fractal, but then immediately after church, liturgy continues, but not in the holy place. Now it's what we call coffee hour, but it's a meal that we share with others.
[00:59:58] So now, not only did I share a meal with God, I offered to him what he's provided to me. He provides back something transformed that connects me to his life and connects everyone else that participates to his life. And now I get an opportunity to repeat that pattern in my own specific life, with others where I get to share a meal with them. And so it's, I get first and second step of this pattern, and then Monday comes around and I can walk that pattern out or I fail.
[01:00:31] Right. And as I'm practicing and repeating the pattern, going back on Sunday, seeing the same liturgy with very little change in between each liturgy. That pattern is being imprinted into my life of service to God, offering to God what he's given to me in gratefulness, having that returned and there's mutual gift giving, and then doing that with my fellow imagers.
[01:00:53] And I think that it's extremely beautiful when you see that pattern lived out. Week after week. I don't need it to be novel every week. What I need is to be regrounded every week. I need to be reconnected to both my roots in the earth and my branches in the sky. And it's, it's wonderful to have that practice repeated often.
[01:01:18] And as someone that spent 40 years in a non denominational setting, every week, I'm in awe. And I know that every practice, everything that you do ritually or habitually brushing your teeth gets old. You can do it without thinking about it. Right. You know, there's other habits that we do that we just stopped thinking about. Driving a car, that type of stuff.
[01:01:41] And maybe it's just because I'm new, but I, I can't ignore how beautiful it is to have that pattern put before me every week to share in, participate in, and then given the commission to carry out that same pattern as it grows outside of the holy place. And I, it's one of those, well, we were placed in a garden, be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth with this. And I see that pattern recapitulated in liturgy. So I hope that's helpful mental picture to what you were saying about how important this liturgical approach to understanding Genesis one is because I see it and I get to see it every week and it's really beautiful.
[01:02:23] Carey Griffel: Yes. and you know, I mean, I'm not part of a liturgical tradition, but I see the beauty of it and I see people being drawn towards it and I see the kind of emptiness that a lot of people have even when they go to church, they think we're just, you know, repeating the same thing or we're just here because we have to be or whatever it is.
[01:02:46] as opposed to a greater understanding of what it can mean To see this liturgy in creation in what we're doing together as the body of Christ. you don't necessarily have to be in a liturgical tradition to accept all of this knowledge and to understand and to take it in deeply. In my personal opinion, I think it's, it's the understanding and the meaning and the togetherness.
[01:03:14] It's It's genuinely embedded into creation. It's embedded into the way that we interact with each other and the way that we become the body of Christ as we meet together, as we fellowship, as we do anything as disciples of God. So liturgy is one specific thing and it can be a particular thing, but that's not all that it is.
[01:03:42] Thank you, Troy, for coming to talk to me about this topic. I think that it's been a delightful conversation. I've enjoyed it. I hope that everybody else has gotten something from this. I think it's a beautiful thing to be able to look at Scripture in such a deep way with other people and see these kinds of cycles and patterns and see what the center and core of who God is.
[01:04:07] I just wish that was more frequent in some areas and, and that, that's what I want to bring to people is to understand God. Like that's the point of our Bible study. That's the point of what we should be doing and living our lives as disciples is bringing that to people. That's our priestly duty.
[01:04:28] So as always, I hope everybody enjoyed the conversation. I hope it was a blessing to you and I hope this kind of feeds into your discipleship walk and how you read scripture and how you even are seeing what happens with other believers around you, whether you're going to church and having services, whether or not it's liturgical or not, you can see the same kinds of patterns because it's absolutely embedded in creation.
[01:04:58] I think it's a beauty that speaks to me every time I come to Genesis 1. Like the whole idea of seeing it as temple structure and the way that we are to live out our lives, it's such a beautiful thing and it means something deeper to me than just facts on a page.
[01:05:16] So, at any rate, if anybody has any questions or comments, I'm going to be loading up the show notes with at least a few resources, and you can always find me on Facebook or you can contact me through GenesisMarksTheSpot. com, where you can find blog posts and guest profiles And even some of my artwork and ways you can help support me financially.
[01:05:40] And a really special thank you and shout out to those of you who support me financially, but also thank you to those of you who share the episodes or who rate the podcast . Thanks for listening and I wish you all a blessed week and we will see you later.
