To explain why I wrote Genesis and the Thoughtful Christian, my only nonfiction book so far, let me tell you about two museums I’ve visited.
About twenty years ago, I was walking around Nashville when I saw a sign advertising a Biblical Archaeology Museum. (That wasn’t really the name.) I thought it sounded fascinating and went in to take a look. The amateur archaeologist behind the exhibits claimed to have found Noah’s Ark, the chariots of the Egyptians who chased Moses and the Israelites through the bottom of the Red Sea, and the Ark of the Covenant. He also claimed that he had found traces of the blood of Jesus on the ark, and that the DNA reflected Jesus’ miraculous conception. It didn’t take me long to decide I had walked into a Bible-based version of a sideshow tent. The experience wasn’t completely in vain. It did motivate me to redouble my research into biblical archaeology, but I wondered about the impression it might have made on guests. Did it make them more excited about the Bible or more skeptical and jaded–or did they just see it as harmless fun like a museum about Bigfoot or UFOs?
In 2007, I was in Houston, Texas, for an academic conference when I visited the Houston Museum of Natural Science. It was that marvelous kind of museum that they always show in movies with big rooms full of dinosaur displays. There was also a traveling exhibit of the famous Lucy skeleton. Lucy is a prehistoric female discovered in Africa in the 1970s and named in honor of the Beatles song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” Her skeleton is about three feet tall and chimp-like, but her bones show that she walked upright like a human, and her braincase shows that her brain was larger than that of a chimp. Lucy is a kind of visual centerpiece in discussions about human evolution. Along with Lucy, the exhibit included other skeletons. Some could have passed for human and probably were humans of some kind, and others would have been more at home on The Planet of the Apes.
Seeing the history of life on earth in the exhibits was a fascinating experience (Who doesn’t love dinosaurs?), but it was also troubling in some respects. There was no mention of God in the midst of it, but since science mainly concerns itself with physical artifacts, that isn’t necessarily a criticism. As with the earlier museum, I wondered about the impression this one made on guests. Did they see the museum as a refutation of the Bible or did it make them reflect on God’s mighty works—or did all of that depend on the mental framework they brought in with them? (Note: The museum has also featured exhibits about The Birth of Christianity, the Dead Sea Scrolls, St. Peter and the Vatican, C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia, and the Tombs of Ur, so I don’t mean to give the impression that it’s an anti-Christian establishment.)
From a Christian’s standpoint, I’ve wondered whether society’s views of Christianity are more damaged by sideshow depictions of Christianity or by very nice science museum depictions of worldviews that don’t seem to require any belief in the supernatural. I would have thought the sideshows were more damaging, but I’m really not sure. In political elections, some voters are more impressed by candidates who paint everything in black and white and claim they can fix everything. Candidates who make more modest—and probably more honest—claims are seen as lacking conviction. Exaggeration plays better in some circles, but I’d still rather deal in substance than sensationalism. When I was younger though, I was probably more impressed by exaggerations and oversimplifications because I didn’t know enough to recognize them for what they were. The challenge, I think, is to keep it simple without being shallow even though shallow gets good ratings.
When I wrote Genesis and the Thoughtful Christian, I envisioned two other museums. One was a biblical museum with cuneiform tablets, scrolls, paintings, dioramas of ziggurats and temples, and recreations of archaeological sites. The other was a science museum with images from the Hubble telescope, dinosaur skeletons, and 3D images of DNA helixes. Both were arranged chronologically, beginning with the creation of the universe and moving on to the creation of the earth and its ecosystems, animals, humanity, and civilization. In each museum, I led took guests on a guided tour, comparing and contrasting each with the other. I was not able to harmonize all of the apparent discrepancies of course, but did come away with an appreciation of what each museum had to offer.
P.S. This is the Amazon link to Genesis and the Thoughtful Christian. It’s available in both print and Kindle editions. I haven’t updated it yet to show that I finished my Mdiv degree from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.