PUTTING RACE TO THE SWORD (eBook)

Chapter 1:
The Origins of Race

If we are going to make any sense of the concept of “race” in Scripture, we must start in the Book of Genesis. The reasons are obvious. Genesis is our ultimate “history” chapter, showing where we came from, and why all things exist. To take Scripture as the literal Word of God is to take the statements of fact concerning humanity’s existence as they are presented in the Bible as truth, the basis for our interpretation of reality today.

The Bible starts with the book of Genesis. This itself starts with the existence of God alone who creates. We do not see any other “god” or “creator” present. Nor does Scripture tell us of factual elements or ideas appearing or functioning apart from God to create. We do not see randomness in the events which take place. Any arguable concept of evolution does not even exist as of yet. The Bible starts with God in His Trinitarian form directly speaking what we humans know as reality into existence. Thus, we can take all truths of reality as originating in the Word of God because the Word of God literally says that this is so.

In light of this, however, the creation account and pre-Fall time period described at the beginning of Genesis provide a conceptualization of not just the historical Word of God but the holy intentions of God, that is, reality as He originally, perfectly intended. This is significant because we are shown truths via aspects of God’s creation which reveal the heart of a perfect God. The things which are created by God are of God or “good,” as we see repeatedly stated in Genesis 1. It is from this foundation that we can begin forming a lens by which to determine what is “right” versus what is “wrong,” good versus evil, as we later consider and evaluate conditions of reality occurring after the Fall, including those of today.

Manifestations of God’s Creation

As we know from Genesis, God created many things: the sun, moon, planets, and stars; the physical earth; all sorts of plants and animals; human beings and so on. These are facts—physically existing truths that the Bible says God created in Genesis 1. Aside from these, however, there are other “truths” which God indirectly created as a function of the facts He originated. These are what we may call factual concepts. They are concepts because they are ideas or expressions of ideas which exist to define things we humans validly observe or describe in our world. However, these concepts are factual—they are indirectly created truths because they are rooted in, or have their validity in, actual facts that God created during His six days of work.

Consider Genesis 1:26-27:

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Accordingly, in this passage, we see direct physical facts created by God: “fish of the sea,” “birds of the sky,” “the cattle,” “the earth,” etc. However, with the inclusion and consideration of “man,” we see some additional things. Note, first, that God made man “male and female.” Although directly indicated is the creation of biological sex differences in humans as a fact (as similarly comparable to the animals), what is indirectly created here is the idea of gender roles, or the foundation for uniquely ordained purposes for men and women in general (e.g., a “dad” versus a “mom”). Gender would then be a factual concept created by God.

Other, more significant concepts present themselves in this passage in a similar manner. Note, for instance, that man is to “rule” over all the animals God created. In other words, the concept of “superiority” is being introduced by God in His creation via the role of man in terms of the animals. This likewise creates the concept of “inferiority” in His creation by default from the perspective of the creatures ruled. Along these lines, note also that since the created man is “male” and “female,” this presents the idea of multiple humans ruling at the same time over the animals and creation. That is, humans will share superiority over the animals—share power. This implies the concept of human equality (equal power) as created by God. (Note here that the concepts of “superiority” and “inferiority” must exist to validate “human equality” as having any relevance.) What is more, human beings are described as created “in the image of God.” That is, humans are actually made in terms of some sort of direct expression or reflection of God Himself, who in turn is the Supreme Being in the universe. As compared to the rest of creation, human beings are special. What we see created is the concept of human dignity as a truth. Humans are equally valuable per the Word of God.

Moving on to some other verses of the creation account in Genesis, we see some additional concepts of importance presented. Genesis 2:18 provides us with some context as to why God created multiple humans during His work:

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.”

As we well know, the first human being created was Adam and the second human, the “helper” God made for him, was his wife Eve. Now note two things. First, the reasoning for God’s creation of Eve was to solve the issue of Adam being “alone” as a human being. God found this idea “not good.” It was another human being, as opposed to an animal or any other aspect of creation, living in existence with Adam that God saw as “suitable” for Adam. That is, God ordained the concept of multiple (human) persons living in existence with each other (and God) at this point: in this, we see the concept of the group. Second, notice again that Eve was created as a “helper” for Adam. In other words, Eve was created to not just live with Adam but to assist the man in living, to complement him. That is, the two humans were to live in chemistry with each other. They were to exist, to survive, in harmony. This signifies the concept of not just grouping but community as ordained by God for humans during the creation account. Adam and Eve formed the first conceptualization of human community on earth.

One other idea is worth noting. Consider Genesis 2:23:

The man said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”

Upon first seeing Eve, Adam provided this responsive statement, which indicates something important. Adam called the second human “woman.” In other words, he testified to the fact that Eve was different from him. The second human had a physical body which looked different and had different origins from his. Thus, Adam was to live in community with a different-looking and different-identifying person. This indicates God ordaining the concepts of human identity and human diversity as aspects of His creation. It also displays God ordaining the value of intragroup diversity by default. Yet in looking at Adam’s response again, “bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh,” we see that Adam still connects with and values Eve’s apparent humanity. She is still equal to him and equally valuable. In this, Adam shares biological ownership of Eve’s diversity and identity even though he himself does not physically express it. This shows how diversity via unique identity was something to be both celebrated and mutually shared in the human community but not something which would disrupt the chemistry of the group in terms of functioning together to live. This was signified by God via the creation account. And again, all of this was “good” in His eyes.

Race as a Manifestation of Sin, Not God’s Creation

For all of the facts and concepts we have noted of God’s creation account up to this point, you will realize by now that there is something missing: we have yet to describe any understanding of race as an aspect of God’s creation. Indeed, we have noted diversity and identity as general concepts in God’s creation via human sex/gender differences. We have noted the concept of grouping among humans via Adam and Eve. Yet even with these, there is no conceptual foundation presented for us to understand the first human beings as ordained to classify as biologically distinct racially: we are not told whether Adam and Eve were what we would call “white,” “black,” “Asian,” etc. Nor do these kinds of classifications or anything suggestive of separate biological identities, other than sex/gender, appear in the pre-Fall context as factual aspects of God’s ordained creation. Moreover, as we saw with sex/gender, while expressing diversity, Adam’s “bone of my bone” comment indicated a shared group classification (biological ownership) with Eve as “human” despite their diverse...