If Moses is the Target ...

Here is Richard Holloway's letter to the author of Genesis:

The Scotsman : Richard Holloway writes a letter to the author of the book of Genesis
https://www.scotsman.com/arts-and-culture/books/richard-holloway-writes-a-letter-to-the-author-of-the-book-of-genesis-1-5044785

Here is why I know about it, CMI is taking it as a letter ultimately to God (qui loquutus est per prophetas), here is their answer:

CMI : A patronizing letter to the author of Genesis Answering Richard Holloway’s anti-Christian diatribe.
by Gavin Cox | Published: 27 February 2020 (GMT+10)
https://creation.com/letter-to-author-of-genesis

And, I'll take it as adressed to the last hagiographer involved in at least all but minor detail of Genesis, namely Moses.

Richard Holloway

Dear Author of Genesis, I know it’s pointless to begin like this, because you lived about three thousand years ago and are no longer around to answer my questions, but I think you would appreciate what I am trying to do in this letter, so I’ll carry on.

My answer

About 3500 years ago, actually.

Richard Holloway

I wish you had added a little note inviting your readers to take you seriously but not literally. In fact, I wish you had written a prologue on the art of reading. I wish you had reminded us that you were an artist responding imaginatively to the wonder of the universe, not a reporter taking notes on something happening in real time.

My answer

It so happens, the only thing Moses added to what was already common knowledge among the Hebrews (except perhaps some negligent ones) was the account of the six days, which he received in a vision (there is strong traditional support for six days being his vision and not just around all the time since Adam : Book of Jubilees states it, but it is also accepted by lots, theremong Christians, who do not accept Book of Jubilees as canonic or even genuine).

So, they knew their ancestors had come to Joseph in Egypt a few hundred years earlier, how was Moses going to tell them he was writing fiction?

And if they already were preserving the Flood account, how could he tell them he had invented it?

So, the idea of Genesis being fiction doesn't hold up very well.

Richard Holloway

On the sixth or last “day” of your narrative, God creates all the living creatures on earth, the grand climax being the emergence of humanity, God’s special favourite.



“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”



Then come the fateful instructions to these human beings about how they are supposed to live:



“And God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”

My answer

Getting enough fish, chicken, wheat, wine, oil or cheese or even beef is not what is even possibly threatening the climate, but lots of haste and trade and transport is.

If regions are supposed to provide beef for entire distant nations as well as their own inhabitants, things get a bit lopsided, and there is nothing about Brazil producing hamburgers for both Brazil and US that looks really like obedience to this command of dominion.

Nor is there so in being so hasty as to eat things with plastic forks, spoons, knives ...

In other words, maybe some things should change, but fathers and mothers making children is not one of them.

Here is one idea : by Lent, we are giving God a tithe. 365 days per year, well, 36 + of them, we refrain from eating meat, giving God's other breathing creatures time off. We no longer live in immediately post-Flood times when Genesis 9:2 reflected an immediate necessity, since plants were scarce and perhaps not too hardy, and this was also arguably before wheat had been cultivated properly.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Bpi, Georges Pompidou
Ash Wednesday
26.II.2020

PS, Gavin Cox in his answer has stated, about rebel for life:

Like you, they have rejected the fact that this is God’s world, over which he made human beings His stewards (Genesis 1:26, 28). The writer of Genesis would not admire their futile actions as you speculate because, in their “love of the … planet” rather than its Creator, they have “exchanged the truth about God for a lie” (Romans 1:25).

Have they? Greta Thunberg personally was not raised a Christian, and as far as I know, she has not excluded Christians, including Fundies, from the movement. As to "futile" actions, it is possible, but to me that is too soon to judge./HGL