Art History, the Bible and Evolution (and my first blog ever!)

"In the Beginning..." So Kety will be happy to see that, yes, I figured out how to blog. And I was inspired by Stu's recent post regarding the Bible and creation.

When I first began teaching in the States, after returning from Micronesia, I found myself at a very conservative religious high school in Southern California. One of the many courses I taught at this quite small school was Art History. As I proceeded to introduce the course on day one to my students, referring momentarily to the human evolution of the opposable thumb and its connection to the genesis of cave painting, I quickly found myself in the principals office. (One strange development within my teaching career is that I have found myself over the past 10 or so years to be in the principals office far more as a teacher than I ever was as a student. What this means, I have not yet discovered.) "Jeff," the principal began, "you cannot teach that here." I was utterly confused, wondering to myself why a student could choose to take Art History if I, as the teacher, couldn't teach art. Or was it history that I couldn't teach? I had no idea what my transgression was, so I asked him what I had done that was wrong. It was the mention of evolution.

My students complained that I had taught something that went against the Bible. So I decided, mistakenly, perhaps, to make this the topic for class the next day. I asked the students what I had said in class that contradicted what they had learned from their studies of the Bible. They couldn't cite specifics, merely returning to the basic claim that I had taught something that was not True (capital 'T') and that I was wrong. Humans, they insisted, did not evolve from Monkeys. Rather than getting into a discussion about evolution and how it does not mean we evolved from monkeys, but, simply, that we share a common ancestor (though I admit that science is not my field of expertise), I decided to pursue the Biblical angle. I asked them which story in the Bible did I contradict. They were confused, and simply told me that it was the creation story. "Yes," I said, "but which creation story?" If they were confused with my first question, they were lost with this one. So we all grabbed a Bible and opened it up to Genesis. I wonder to this day if this was the first time they had ever actually looked at the Bible for themselves, rather than just take what others told them it said to be True (capital 'T'). And we proceeded to outline the order of events from EACH story of creation. One starts with humans and ends with sin and exile. The other starts with heaven and earth, the formless void, and, then, light and ends with humans and rest. Now the first story, the story of Adam and Eve, is not the story of the origins of humanity as much as it is a story of the origins of sin and the violation of relationships. The other one, which actually comes first, is, perhaps, a metaphor for evolutionn itself. From a formless void, to light; from water to swarms of living creatures; from land animals to human beings. God created all these things, scripturally in this order, and rested when it was complete. Whether it was 7 days, 7 eras, 7 stages, whatever it may be, we can certainly see God at work in evolution and the possibility for it in Genesis 1.