I like Gen. 1's Version Better, Anyway

As Rick Warren, Saddleback's energetic pastor, adds the the cause of America's alarming biblical illiteracy to his portfolio, Paul Wallace wonders if influential Christian leaders are contributing to a rise in scientific illiteracy:

I suspect more moderate leaders like Warren have a lot to do with it. Warren’s own views on evolution, while less hysterically expressed than those of [Albert] Mohler and [Ken] Ham, are not finally distinguishable from them. In a 2007 Newsweek debate with Sam Harris, Warren declared, “Do I believe in evolution[?] The answer is no, I don’t. I believe that God, at a moment, created man... Did God come down and blow in man’s nose? If you believe in God, you don't have a problem accepting miracles. So if God wants to do it that way, it's fine with me.”

In his opinion on evolution, Warren displays his own considerable scientific illiteracy. That in itself is not too big a deal; one man rejecting evolution is not news. But when that man is Rick Warren, a major Christian figure who has, despite his conservative credentials, pushed the evangelical envelope on a number of environmental and social issues, the rejection carries a lot of freight.

The Nephilim Explained?

You don't have to be a Neanderthal to find intriguing correlations between scripture and modern science -- once you're willing to accept that God's normal workday runs a bit longer than ours.

New archaeological finds suggest that human migration from Africa into Mesopotamia and beyond began as long as 127,000 years ago. From DNA evidence, scientists had previously concluded that the exodus started just 60,000 years ago.

Especially interesting is the speculation about where homo sapiens may have encountered and bred with Neanderthals. Nicholas Wade writes in the New York Times:

Jebel Faya is near the Persian Gulf, which is now a shallow sea. But before 8,000 years ago, when the sea level was about 330 feet lower than today, the gulf area was a low-lying plain, with the Euphrates running through it. The region would have been an oasis that served as a refuge during dry periods. Neanderthal sites are known from central Iraq, so perhaps Neanderthals came down the river to the gulf oasis before it was inundated, making it “an interesting candidate for the place of hybridization,” [University of Birmingham archaeologist Jeffrey] Rose said.

A refuge and an oasis fed by the Euphrates, huh? As for hybridization, there's always been that odd passage in Genesis 6:1-4, just before the Noah story:

⁴The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterwards—when the sons of God went in to the daughters of humans, who bore children to them. These were the heroes that were of old, warriors of renown.

Wikipedia says Neanderthals were a little smaller but built more robustly than homo sapiens. What if thanks to the robustness of oral tradition, stories of their heroic exploits in northern European climes reached all the way to the compilers of Torah?

Do You Remember (The Alamo)?

The current "Rolling Stone" (to whose print edition I'm fated to subscribe until it dematerializes) has a disturbing article about Phil Collins, whose hits in the '80s and '90s with Genesis and as a solo artist manifested an easy, soulful sensibility that I found irresistible. He also did a great job producing Eric Clapton's mid-'80s comeback albums, "Behind the Sun" and "August."

His outstanding work notwithstanding, some extremely unpleasant art rock devotees identified Collins as the cause of all their problems after he took over from Peter Gabriel as Genesis' lead singer in 1975. In every field of human striving, there's a fanatical cabal that sucks every glimmer of joy out of life in the name of some ideal of purity. In Collins' case, they sent him hate mail because they didn't like his pop songs.

What's really disturbing, the RS article discloses, is that it seemed to get to him. He's also lost a good deal of his hearing and, as the result of a neck injury, the ability to grip anything with his hands -- not only drumsticks but eating utensils. While he's preparing to tour behind a new album of Motown covers, he won't be playing the drums, and he's considering retiring from music afterward. He admits to having had suicidal thoughts.

The great joy in his life, besides his two sons, whom he's raising at his home in Switzerland, is his collection of Alamo memorabilia, one of the world's best. So arriving in San Antonio this afternoon for an Episcopal schools conference, having just read the RS article, I found it synchronicitous indeed to get a chance to hear his upbeat voice narrating an account of the Battle of the Alamo written to go along with a carefully constructed 13- by 15-foot model showing the Alamo compound circa 1836.

Collins purchased the model last year and gave it to a small private museum, the History Shop, on Houston St., not far from where the compound's northeast corner would've been on the morning in March 1836 when the forces of General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna launched their first assault. They eventually killed all the defenders, sparing only the woman and children huddled in the sacristy of the old mission church in the southeast corner (the building, below, which most people think is the Alamo).

A young woman named Megan was on duty when Kathy and I visited this afternoon. She showed us a small excavation, perhaps four feet deep, that had revealed horseshoes (which, given the museum's location, might have been left by elements of the Mexican army) and a cannon ball. We also met El Paso-born History Shop staffer Art Duke, who assisted with the dig. He told us that Collins would be back in town soon for an Alamo anniversary event.

His narration takes 13 minutes as spotlights illuminate key moments and positions inside and outside the compound. It's not a "don't mess with Texas" show but rather one that acknowledges ambiguity and unanswered questions, such as how many of the new Texas Republic's best were holed up and died there (estimates ranging from 180 to 225). Being fair to all who fought their hardest for a cause they believed in, he calls one Mexican officer who died while trying to rip the Texas flag from atop the Long Barracks a hero. He should be careful, because Texans make Peter Gabriel fans seem like pansies.

Truckin' Through Genesis

Robert Alter reviews '60s comic artist R. Crumb's illustrated version of Genesis. I can't wait to get my copy from Amazon, though I don't think it will quite work for my 5th grade religion students at St. John's. Like Torah's first book, Crumb's illustrations are rated R. That's Abraham at left, about to sacrifice Isaac.