Keeping with the custom of the Counterpoints series, Genesis: History, Fiction, or Neither? is set up so that each of the contributors has the opportunity to present his position (I have only identified two female authors within the entire series), followed by responses from the other two contributors. Since each essay is critiqued within the book itself, I will try to present the views of the contributors in their best light.
The first contributor for this volume, James Hoffmeier, is well known in conservative evangelical circles. He is professor of Old Testament and Near Eastern archaeology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and has been a champion for the historical reliability of the exodus event. In this volume, he has been given the unenviable charge of presenting the view that the narratives of Genesis 1-11 "are dealing with real events involving historical figures" (p. 32). I say "unenviable" because while Hoffmeier is a maximalist in terms of the biblical narratives, he is by no means a fundamentalist. As the most conservative member of the panel, his views will not sit well with a large constituency of evangelicals for whom anything but a literalist view of Genesis is seen to be outside of orthodoxy. For example, one of the reasons why Hoffmeier's historical view is distinctly different from, say, Ken Ham's historical view, is that Hoffmeier embraces the ancient Near Eastern texts as not only relevant, but crucial for our understanding of Gen 1-11.
Hoffmeier begins by stating that Gen 11:32 is an arbitrary dividing point between the so-called "primeval history" and the "patriarchal history." He sees Gen 1-11 "as a vital unit of the larger work" (p. 25). While he acknowledges the work of sources (for example, the toledot formalae are the work of the Priestly writer - p. 30), he sees the final, redacted (edited) whole as a seamless literary unit. He especially makes this point with reference to the flood narratives (p. 50).
Hoffmeier is quite comfortable with Gen 1-11 being classified as myth, so long as myth is rightly defined. Citing Mircea Elieade definition as "an event that place in primordial Time," Hoffmeier argues that myth is founded on historical events, offering examples from ANE historical texts that employ mythological images. "Consequently," Hoffmeier argues, "it is reasonable to assume that while Genesis 1-11 uses mythic language, that such language does not necessarily make its contents fiction" (p. 28).
While most scholars of the ANE see the genealogies as problematic for the historical nature of Gen 1-11, given their typical rhetorical (rather than ancestral) function, Hoffmeier argues just the opposite. He notes this rhetorical function in the Sumerian and Assyrian king lists, "but the differences in function do not mean that both the Genesis genealogies and those from the ancient Near East were not interested in an accurate and orderly sequence of ancestors. Lists could be truncated and schematically organized, but the names refer to real people, not fictitious figures" (p. 31).
After laying out his case for a historical reading of Gen 1-11, Hoffmeier then turns his attention to the three case studies as prescribed by the book's general editor, Charles Halton. The three topics each contributor is mandated to address are (1) The story of the Nephilim (Gen 6:1-4); (2) Noah and the ark (6:9-9:26); (3) Tower of Babel (11:1-9).
Before tackling the three test cases, Hoffmeier establishes his methodological framework by briefly demonstrating in his mind how the Garden of Eden is situated "within the known geography of the ancient Near East, not some made-up mythological, Narnia-like wonderland" (p. 32). He argues that the four rivers: Gihon, Pishon, Tigris and Euphrates are known waterways (or were known by the authors of Genesis), that place the garden in Mesopotamia. The Tigris and Euphrates are well known and their location is without dispute, but the Gihon and Pishon are generally seen as evidence against a specific Mesopotamian region. Hoffmeier argues that Shuttle Imaging Radar technology has located the long defunct Pishon River as flowing from Saudi Arabia to Persian Gulf near modern day Kuwait. He says, "The 'Kuwait River' appears to have dried up sometime late in the third millennium BC. The fact that Genesis 2 knows about this river is remarkable indeed" (p. 34). As for the Gihon, Hoffmeier assigns this not to the land of Cush known as Nubia (Egypt), but to the land of the Kassites in Babylon. Hoffmeier's point is that since we can locate the Garden of Eden due to the details provided in Gen 2, the remainder of Gen 1-11 is set in real time and real space.
Since this review is getting on the long side, let me quickly run down Hoffmeier's conclusions for the three test cases. With respect to the Nephilim, Hoffmeier asks (rhetorically?), "[C]ould it be that in Genesis 6 we have an ancient...and authentic story, that in the course of time had been mythologized and part of the shared memory of the ancient Near East, but was demythologized for the Israelite audience when recorded?" (p. 41). Surely, he concludes, the raison d'etre for the flood would "not be the result of some made up story!" (p. 41). On the flood narratives, Hoffmeier demonstrates their literary cohesion and theological distinctiveness from their Mesopotamian counterparts. His conclusion is that given "the Mesopotamian origins of Abraham and his ancestors (Gen 10 and 11:10-32), it should not surprise us that the flood story should be part of the shared memory of the Israelites and the Babylonians" (p. 55). Hoffmeier concedes that the Tower of Babel episode is etiological in nature, but that doesn't meant they "are necessarily fictitious accounts" (p. 55). Drawing on parallels from the Sumerian text, "Enmerkar and the Lord of Atta," Hoffmeier suggest that "it is possible to propose that both the Sumerians and Gen 11 preserve a common memory by one language" (p. 57).
For those who are familiar with Hoffmeier's writings, his contribution to Genesis: History, Fiction, or Neither? is fairly predictable. He does not dismiss the ancient Near Eastern material as irrelevant literature from the pagan world. He does, however, make every effort to harmonize the material with a historical reading of the biblical text, allowing for the fact that modern definitions of history do not generally coincide with what the ancient authors would have deemed history.
I'll conclude this review by allowing Hoffmeier the last word: "If one reduces the narratives of Gen 1-11 to fictitious stories and legends, the history of salvation lacks its raison d'etre. Fortunately, the Christian committed to Scripture need not commit intellectual suicide by embracing the historicity of the events described in early Genesis, for the text itself is written in such a way to reinforce this view" (p. 58).
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