Bishop Barron on Genesis

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Exquisite theological poetry.

I've been quite critical of Bishop Robert Barron - the founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries and Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles - a number of times before. If you're in the mood for punishment, see here and here.

Okay, also see here, here and here.

For the record, relative to many members of the extended Francis Junta, I don't think Barron is evil.

Rather, he is simply an incredibly annoying blatheramus.

More to the point, for all his faux-intellectualism, many of his arguments and views, far from being particularly profound or deep are merely shallow and silly.

Below is a transcript (I believe the first actual transcript) of a well-known YouTube video of Barron discussing the Book of Genesis. You may have seen it or heard of it, or you may have seen other videos of Barron making the same points.

Now, most people when they read Genesis (this is still me writing, we'll get to Barron's transcript in a moment) view it as in part a collection of stories. We start with the creation of the world including the creation of the first man from the dust of the earth and the creation of the first woman from his side. Then there is the Fall and man's exile from the Garden. Adam and Eve bear children, but their oldest son Cain commits the first murder and thereby receives a "mark." Years later, man's wickedness prompts God to send a Flood to destroy all the earth's creatures save a few members of the same family and a selection of animals given refuge in an ark whose exact dimensions are given in cubits. Soon after its narrow escape from that, humanity tempts God again by attempting to build a tower to the sky. God responds by creating the first foreign languages and scattering the newly confused peoples across the face of the earth. Then we meet Abraham, Sarah, Hagar and Ishmael. There is a Covenant. We hear of Mesopotamia, Canaan, Egypt and many other places and peoples. Next there is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah where these cities are destroyed and Lot's wife is turned into a pillar of salt. Abraham's son Isaac is almost sacrificed. At the end of the Book, we learn of Jacob, Joseph and the beginnings of the Jews' slavery in Egypt.

I've left a few things out. There are of course angels and other mysterious beings who come and go. Also people often seem to live an extremely long time. We learn this in part through three genealogies that track individuals and nations over many generations going back to Adam.

It's natural for readers to interpret Genesis as making certain claims about things that happened thousands of years ago. To that extent, much of Genesis is history, or at least purports to be. Or at least appears to purport to be.

It's also of course natural for cynical moderns (I'm one of them) to ask whether any of this history, including people coming from ribs, and floods and arks, and angels and giants, and God nuking entire habitations of unwelcoming rapists is true.

But Barron rejects that. According to Barron, not only does Genesis not relate actual history, it doesn't even intend to. Instead it's sort of an extended allegorical poem.

Here is the actual video:

And here is the transcript:        

You know, I'm continually amazed how often in my work of evangelization the problem of Genesis comes up. What I mean is people that are just balking over what seems to be the bad science on display in the book of Genesis. They say, look how can you possibly make sense of this text that says God made the world in six days, all the species came into being, you know, roughly at the same time, that light existed before the sun and moon. I mean, come on, how do you square this very naive mythological cosmology with the subtle work of Newton and Einstein and Stephen Hawking. Genesis is just bad science. Who can take it seriously today? 

Well, here's a way to get at it. When looking at the Bible - and Vatican 2 is real clear on this - you've got to be sensitive to genre. What kind of text are we dealing with? See, people make mistakes about that all the time. It would be, it would be a mistake to look at Moby Dick and expect it to be a 19th century history, a mistake to look at T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland and expect it to be a spy novel. You have to know what kind of text you're dealing with. 

So, what is Genesis? If I can borrow a page from father George Coyne, the great Jesuit priest and astrophysicist, he said, look, modern science commences in the late 16th, early 17th century with Galileo and Descartes and Pascal and company. The last biblical book is written around the Year 100 A.D. There's just no way that the Bible is modern science. Modern science didn't exist yet. So whatever is going on in the Bible, it's not what we mean by modern science. What Newton and Stephen Hawking and Einstein and company were doing is just simply not what the biblical authors are doing. Newton and company are following the ideas and principles of modern science, namely to observe, to form hypotheses, to test them with experimentation, draw conclusions, etc. Okay, so don't look at Genesis as bad science. That's like looking at The Wasteland as a bad spy novel. It's not a spy novel at all. Genesis is not science at all. 

So what is it? I would call it theology, mysticism, spirituality. It's a theological reflection on the origin of all things. 

So, what are some of the insights we gain once we get this genre issue clear? Well, there are many, many. Genesis is so rich and so multivalent. I'll just pick out a couple. 

Here's the first one. God makes the whole world. Now translate this, philosophically, if you want, into the non-contingent ground of contingency gives rise to all things. Even here and now. So creation is happening now. Genesis is talking theologically about something that's happening even now. God is giving rise to the world. How? How - through a nonviolent act of speech. God says "let there be light," and there's light. God says "let the earth come forth," and it comes forth. In almost all the mythologies of the ancient world, all the ancient cosmologies, the world comes forth in a great act of violence. God or the gods battle with some opponent. They wrestle a rival into submission, and in that act order ensues. By the way, notice how that myth is very prevalent even to this day. We still tend to believe that order comes through violence, through the conquest of a rival. There's none of that, though, in Genesis. God brings forth the world not through violence, not through conquest, but through a sheerly generous nonviolent act of speech. Link it now, if you want, to the great ethical teachings of Jesus, about the love of enemies, about non-violence. What he's recommending is not just a more correct ethical path. He's recommending to fall into line with the deepest grain of the universe - that God makes the world through non-violent love. There's a first theological theme in Genesis. 

Here's a second one. People of that time, the time the Bible was written, worshiped all kinds of gods, right? Some worshiped the stars. Some worshiped the moon. Some worshipped the Sun. Some worshipped animals, right? All these different features of creation were worshipped as gods. Now, what does the author of Genesis say? God created the heavens and the earth. God created the stars. God created the planets and the moon and the sun. God created all the animals. You see what he's doing, is he is dethroning all these false claimants to divinity. He's saying none of these is in fact God. But they all come from God and they bear witness to God. But he's enunciating, if you want, a great anti-idolatry principle. Nothing in this world is God. The true God is the creator of all things. 

Relevant message today? You bet. I mean, we worship all kinds of things, you know, from pleasure, to money, to power etc. No, no. God makes all those things. They're all under the aegis of God, but they're not to be worshipped. It's a second theological point. 

Here's a third one, and again I could pick many, many, it's such a rich text. Adam - now don't read it literally, we're not talking about a literal figure, we're talking in theological poetry - Adam, the first human being, names all the animals. He catalogues them. Kata logon in the Greek means "according to the word." God has imbued all things with intelligibility. Adam, noticing the intelligibility, names them, gives them their proper title. Who is he? The Church Fathers, read him as the first scientist. He's the first philosopher. He's the human being in his proper role as the steward of creation, and the one who names and orders all things according to God's creative intention. This is the great humanism that's implicit in Genesis: eat of all the trees, right, we hear. The Church Fathers said that's the great permission of Genesis. Adam and Eve, who are kind of at play in the field of the Lord, that stands for science, for art for politics, for conversation, for friendship -  all these forms of human flourishing under the lordship of God. Genesis is a great humanistic text. 

Now, those are three insights I could garner many many more. Read great commentators on Genesis. Read the great spiritual and theological interpreters of it. Get over the problem of Genesis as bad science. It's not bad science. It's not science at all. Rather, it is exquisite theology.

For the record, relative to the long sweep of interpretive history, this is a very modern view. While a small minority of Fathers and Doctors of the Church made or entertained claims that a few portions of Genesis were merely figurative, no Catholic theologians until quite recently would have endorsed the thesis that the whole thing was merely figurative.

Though Barron doesn't acknowledge it, if this view of Biblical interpretation is correct, Catholics and Christians got the first part of the Bible wrong for close to 2,000 years.

What is Barron's argument for the view? On the surface, frankly, it's inane. He begins with the straw man that some have viewed Genesis as some sort of science textbook. Then "modern science" is tautologically defined as beginning 450 or so years ago. Thus, since Genesis was written 2,000 years ago (it was traditionally dated to more than 3,000 years ago), its genre is not history or quasi-history but "theology, mysticism, spirituality."

Thucydides came before Newton. Thus, the History of the Peloponnesian War is mysticism.

Wait, what?

As far as I can tell, Barron never explicitly denies that Genesis is history, Rather, he denies that it's science or "modern science." But what he really means is that it's not history. This kind of dishonest bait and switch is par for the course for the new evangelist. 

But let's move on. Barron wants to take our history away. But what does he wish to replace it with? Genesis isn't (according to Barron) telling us about actual events. What is it telling us?

1) Non-violence is (in some sense) the way of the universe.

Given the actual text, this claim is more than silly. It's insane. Non-violence? Genesis states that the first naturally born human being was a murderer. After that, killing - by human beings and God - seems to appear on almost every page. Indeed, the violence reaches such a point that God decides to kill everyone (by drowning) except for eight lucky people. He also kills almost all the animals.

Did all this actually happen? Perhaps not. An alternative account (presumably endorsed by Barron) is that for more than a billion years, the engine of God's creation was the "survival of the fittest," with trillions of creatures killing other creatures in a violent and deadly struggle for resources. And to emphasize, they didn't just do this on their own. Rather, God set the whole bloody mechanism up as his preferred method of creation. Xenocidal meteor strikes also occur with regularity.

Do not misunderstand my point. I'm not claiming here that God endorses violence per se in Genesis or anywhere else. He'd have a bit more to say about that in Exodus of course. But using Genesis to, as it were, find Gandhi in "every grain of the universe" is an insult to hidden meanings.

If you've read some of his other writings, you would know that Barron very much likes (and wants you very much to know that he very much likes) Gandhi and Martin Luther King. But still.    

Finally, and not to rub it in, it's just not true to assert that all alternative religious creation stories feature violence as an essential component. I know a bit about this. It just isn't and they don't. Indeed, that's an insult to other religions that Barron, an arch-ecumenist, should be ashamed of. Actually, many creation stories, including one that was quite popular in the ancient middle-east, use sex. (I wonder why, the cynic might rhetorically ask.) The Chinese even have a rooster.

Exquisite. Theological. Poetry.

2) The moon is not God. Etc.

32,000 words to say that? Exquisite.

3) Adam was the first scientist.

Since, according to Barron, modern science didn't start until the Enlightenment, Adam was presumably a pre-modern scientist, which I guess means he didn't do repeatable experiments and probably put too much emphasis on Thomistic analogies.

But to be serious, since Barron does not think of Adam as a literal or historical figure, what Barron is really saying is that man or mankind was made to do science. Too bad it took him thousands of years to get past the allegory. 

Man was also apparently meant for politics, which if you think about it is pretty sick. And if Barron is implying that politics is also embedded in the deepest grain of the universe, I'm now going to get a bit violent...

4) Many, many others...

It's funny, though. In all the interviews and talks I've seen, he only mentions the above three. It's almost as if he has the lecture notes from some liberal 1980's seminary class up his sleeve. 

Enough.

This is the "new evangelization."

It's also religion for idiots.

If you're wondering why atheism or quasi-atheism seems to be currently in the ascendence, you need to look no further than Barron and his like.

Or for that matter, if allegory is all there is, why not just go Pagan? At least it would be more fun.

Or to put it another way, if allegory is all there is, why not just pick the allegory (from the sacred texts of any religion) that one likes best? If Genesis merely expresses theological truth, how do we know it is the truth?

Perhaps because it was Jesus' favorite, though, according to the text, Jesus did not believe Genesis to be mere allegory.

Of course, as we'll see next, Barron appears to believe that much of the Gospels are mere allegory as well...

What is Darwinian Evolution?

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Charles Darwin in 1880

Readers of this blog may have noticed that in the last few weeks I've written a number of posts on evolution and competing theories of origins. You can find them under the tags "evolution" and "creationism". Or for convenience, they are:

Evolution, Creation and Catholic Faith
Was Adam an Ape-Man?
Slumming with the Creationists
Was There a Biblical Flood?
The Biblical Literalism of English Catholic George Leo Haydock

I've jumped around a bit and I've also been, some might say, a bit cagey. I've been critical, in one way or another of all the alternatives. But one of them must be true. After all of it, what do I actually believe? What do I think a Catholic can believe or should believe? I've made some hints, but I haven't firmly taken a side.

I'm getting there. But before I do get there, if you'll indulge me, I want to clearly lay out the alternatives, with an emphasis on the alternatives for faithful Christians or Catholics.

I see five of them:

Darwinian Evolution
Old-Earth Creationism
Young-Earth Creationism
Intelligent Design
Theistic Evolution

In the next five posts, I want to look at each one of these in turn, briefly defining and describing them and then listing what I see as the strong points and weak points (or advantages and disadvantages - in opposite order) of each one.

For me, it's an entertaining break from Bergoglio bashing and Islam bashing. But of course I also think the topic is interesting and, in the end, incredibly important, especially for Christians and Catholics.

Again, I ask that you indulge me, but more importantly I hope you find the discussion interesting. As always, please tell me where you think I'm wrong.

And also as always, in the great Christian blogger moral tradition, I won't stop you from being abusive, but I just might get abusive back. (Insert your own mental smiley or frowny emoji, here.)

So, here's the first alternative:

DARWINIAN EVOLUTION

Definition:

All organisms and species, including Man, came into being via evolutionary descent from a common ancestor or set of similar common ancestors. The engine for this is natural selection operating on or against random genetic mutation.

Various evolutionary theories were proposed generations before Darwin and quickly acquired a certain cache in establishment and elite cultural circles. Charles Darwin's grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, wrote Zoonomia in 1794. While this work would soon make the Vatican's Index of Prohibited Books, it probably only became widely known after his grandson's works became popular. By contrast, Vestiges of Creation by the scientific popularizer Robert Chambers came out in 1844 and was wildly successful. It wasn't until the end of the 19th century that its total sales were surpassed by Darwin's The Origin of Species.

But while these and other works proposed evolutionary theories of life's origins, theories which were in convenient agreement with steadily growing secular zeitgeist, none of them could precisely explain why or how evolution occurred. It was Charles Darwin in Origin who first came up with a scientifically plausible mechanism for how evolution could occur. At that time, Darwin would speak of natural selection operating against the background of "slight changes" - the genetic mutation part would come later, partly as a result of the roughly simultaneous scientific discoveries of Gregory Mendel, a Catholic monk who, arguably, was opposed to Darwinism as a general theory   

Origin was published 1859. It is perhaps notable that this most modern of theories was publicly launched two years before the start of the American Civil War.

What are the disadvantages and advantages of Darwinian evolution in its contemporary (2018) form?

Disadvantages:

1. From a scientific standpoint, the theory has proven to be an utterly bankrupt failure. (And someday I'll tell you what I really think.) Far from the case for Darwinian evolution becoming stronger in the last 150+ years, it has steadily become weaker. Here are some of the major problems:

• The continuing gaps and oddities of the fossil record, completely at odds with what Darwin predicted. Instead of species gradually changing, they abruptly appear, remain unchanged and then abruptly disappear. There is no general trend from simplicity to complexity beyond a few discreet points in an allaged four-billion year timeline. There are rapid mass "explosions" as well as mass extinctions of species, etc.
• The failure, even after 150 years, to come up with a firm evolutionary timeline for Man's origins. Despite the popular conception, there is still no agreed upon sequence of species for how man progressively evolved from ape-like ancestors. New discoveries, rather than "filling in the blanks," tend to simply make things more puzzling. If Darwinian evolution is true, then there must be such a sequence, but scientists are no nearer to having one now than they were three generations ago.
• The failure to solve the problem of irreducible complexity. Darwin argued that evolution proceeded in small steps, each one of which had to be to the advantage of the organism or species. Indeed, in the Origin of Species he claimed, " if it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down." Critics have claimed that many complex organs, such as the eye, have this feature, though this has been disputed by Darwinists who have come up with ingenious (while arguably implausible) proposals for how such complex organs could have been formed in successive stages. But the best example is the cell. Darwin and his contemporaries thought of the cell as a simple blob of protoplasm. We now know it to be akin to an incredibly complex miniature machine. The design of the machine is coded in the DNA of the organism, but no account has as yet been given of how the code builds the machine, or how a succession of different machines could have gradually "evolved" via beneficial changes at each stage from simpler origins.
• The failure to explain how life could have arisen from non-life. This is somewhat related to the above. Various "just-so" stories have been proposed, but no evidence for them has ever been produced.
• The failure to show how mere random mutation could steadily produce beneficial changes at the genetic level. Genetic protein sequences are incredibly complicated, and virtually all of them "don't work," in the same way that, say, virtually all random sequences of a page worth of letters and punctuation marks don't work to produce a page of intelligible prose. The mutations that do arise, almost always hurt an organism, rather than helping it
• The failure to produce long-term beneficial mutations even in a laboratory. This is in a sense the empirical conformation of the previous claim. While it well-known that, say, bacteria can develop "new" resistances to hostile agents, the actual mechanism involved is the creation of a genetic "glitch" that masks recognition by the agent of, say, a particular protein. But no changes may be seen to occur past that point or "edge."
• Finally, we might add that many of the best historical evidences adduced for Darwinian evolution have been exposed as intentional hoaxes or mistakes. This is not completely determinative, of course, but it should give any honest Darwinian evolutionist pause. Some examples of actual fraud include Piltdown Man, the Haeckel embryos and even the famous peppered moths. Even the evidence for the beak growth on Darwin's finches has been shown to be problematic.          

Darwinian evolutionists have reacted to each problem by doubling-down, and sometimes even boldly incorporating disconfirming evidence as confirmatory. Thus the independent evolution of distinct and complex organs such as the eye or similar animal morphologies, something that Darwin argued the theory probably ruled out, have been labeled "convergent evolution" - evidence for how wonderful and rich the theory is. The non-gradual timeline shown in the fossil record has been explained as "punctuated equilibrium." And so on.

With all of these problems, why has Darwinian evolution continued to be the dominant theory? See Advantages, below.

2. Darwinian evolution is strictly incompatible with conventional Christianity. This is of course only a problem for Christians. And indeed, it is celebrated by many atheist Darwinians. What do I mean by "strictly incompatible"? All Christians believe a) there is a God, b) God created (somehow, by some means, directly or indirectly) the world and all life in it, including Man, and c) God intended to create the world, life and Man in a certain way, according to His plan. But now recall that standard Darwinian evolution asserts that the engine for evolution is random mutation. Random means, well, random, or accidental. Or to see it another way, as the evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould put it, if we were to rewind the tape of life, say, two billion years, and then started things again, we'd get something, but it would be something completely different from what we actually have.

But why couldn't God have used evolution as His method of creation? That He could not have is not to invoke the infallible authority of some 19th century pope or to put a limitation on Gos's power, but simply to express a claim of logic, in the same way that we might say that God could not make 1 + 1 = 3. Random processes do not produce planned outcomes, unless there is some power or tendency or law also simultaneously in force. Again, this is not an empirical point but a logical one. If I randomly throw different colored paint at a board,  I could not produce the Mona Lisa. And neither could God (!), at least if we say that He randomly threw the paint. Christian evolutionists often claim that on their theory, the hand of God (somehow) guides the process, or that life as we know it, including the existence of Man was (somehow) front-loaded into things at the beginning. Why can't they say that? Well, they can, of course, but if they do, they're not anymore putting forth Darwinian evolution, which by definition incorporates a random process. Instead they would be (at a minimum) defending some sort of theory of Intelligent Design (see future post).

You can't have your cake and eat it, too.

Sorry, Christian evolutionists.

Advantages:

1. Darwinian evolution is still the overwhelmingly dominant theory or paradigm within the scientific and cultural establishment. If you dissent from the theory, you run the serious risk of torpedoing your career (or your career may fail to launch completely) in academic science and related fields. If you dissent from the theory as an actual or prospective scientist, not only will you probably not be popular or hip but you might also starve (at least if you're also unwilling to or unable to drive for Uber). Is this an "advantage" for the theory? Damn right it is. How could it not be?

2. Darwinian evolution is still the only even remotely plausible naturalistic theory of origins. By "naturalistic theory," I mean a theory that doesn't invoke supernatural agents or causes such as, most obviously, God. This of course provides the answer to why theory is still believed despite the massive amount of disconfirmatory considerations discussed above. The current philosophical and cultural zeitgeist will simply not allow God into "science" - for reasons independent of any scientific considerations themselves. And thus atheist or secular evolutionists are strictly correct when they assert that whatever it's problems, Darwinian evolution is the only game in town. If we assume away God at the beginning, it is the only game in town, at least so far. Why we should assume away God at the beginning is another question. But regardless, it has already been done for us.

And if you have a problem with that, I have an Uber pick up for you.

3. All else said, Darwinian evolution is a very clever theory. I mean that sincerely. True or false (and I obviously think it's false) it's ingenious. It has an undeniable superficial plausibility. Richard Dawkins famously claimed that Darwin finally made it possible to be an intellectual fulfilled atheist. What he meant by that is that before Darwin's theory, the atheist or secularly inclined philosopher or scientist had to confront a major problem - there simply was no good non-supernatural explanation for how all of life, up to and including Man, came to be. That the world and all the life on it had always existed was proposed of course. But that, as they say, didn't quite cut it. Life itself was a seemingly insurmountable obstacle to atheism. Darwin changed that.

In the interests of fairness, I should also add that the Darwinian paradigm has clear applications outside of biology. That some of these applications, or in this case, rather, alleged applications were subsequently used for morally horrific purposes is undeniable. But it's also true that it has been and can be used, if applied carefully and correctly, to better understand some phenomena in the social sciences. For those interested, I recommend David Axelrod's The Evolution of Cooperation, as just one of many examples of where the use of a sort of Darwinian theory can have positive and fruitful results.

Darwin and Darwinism was a huge wrong turn for science. I have previously described it as perhaps the greatest hoax in history. But that doesn't mean there aren't some positive things that honest and curious thinkers can get out of it - and yes, that even goes for Catholics.

That's the way it goes, sometimes.

Next: Old-Earth Creationism

The Biblical Literalism of English Catholic George Leo Haydock

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George Leo Haydock (1774-1849) was an English Catholic priest and Bible scholar who edited and annotated the most popular and widely-used English Catholic Bible of the 19th century. His Haydock Catholic Bible Commentary, originally appearing with that version, is one of the most important and influential Catholic Bible commentaries of the modern era. In 2007, the 1859 edition was made available online.

The Old Testament commentary was the fruit of many years of research and study. I should note, however, that while the New Testament portion is quite useful, it apparently was not written by Haydock himself. 

Haydock's Commentary gives us a window into 19th century Catholic views on the interpretation of Scripture in general and Genesis in particular. While Haydock, following standard historical Catholic practice, often expounded on the figurative and prophetic meanings of the text, he at the same time interpreted the relevant parts of the text precisely literally, also following standard Catholic practice.

Keeping in mind the obvious theological points of disagreement, a typical 21st century Protestant fundamentalist would be quite comfortable with 98% of Haydock's work. Update the language slightly, and any of the below could have been written by the creationist evangelist Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis.

Thus, the view expressed by some contemporary Catholics that Catholic thinkers have always had a much more "sophisticated" theological (but non-literal) approach to interpreting the first book of the Old Testament and that, thus, creationism - the literal interpretation of the creation story of Genesis - is nothing more than a modern Protestant phenomenon is false.

To be blunt, those making that claim are either ignorant (often culpably) or dishonest.

You can decide what that makes Word on Fire's Bishop Robert Barron.

Among other things, mainstream early- to mid-19th Catholic thinkers and authors were creationists. And their 19th century Catholic readers would have found this unremarkable.   

Here are some excerpts from Haydock's Commentary, which I have in most cases prefaced by the verse or verses of Genesis that are referenced. (The translations are from the 1899 Douay-Rheims American Edition). In his pronouncements and speculations on the literal meanings of the text, notice how Haydock often cites other Catholic authorities, from the Fathers and Doctors of the Church to his peers and contemporaries.

The Heavens and the Earth were created in six literal days:

1:1 In the beginning God created heaven, and earth. 

...The first cause of all things must be God, who, in a moment, spoke, and heaven and earth were made, heaven with all the Angels; and the whole mass of the elements, in a state of confusion, and blended together, out of which the beautiful order, which was afterwards so admirable, arose in the space of six days...

The sun and moon were created on the fourth day, but light of some kind was created on the first day:

1:3 And God said: Be light made. And light was made. 

Light. The sun was made on the fourth day, and placed in the firmament to distinguish the seasons, &c.; but the particles of fire were created on the first day, and by their, or the earth's motion, served to discriminate day from the preceding night, or darkness, which was upon the face of the deep. H. --- Perhaps this body of light might resemble the bright cloud which accompanied the Israelites, Ex. xiv. 19, or the three first days might have a kind of imperfect sun, or be like one of our cloudy days. Nothing can be defined with certainty respecting the nature of this primeval light. C.

One may even speculate on the precise date (in terms if modern calendars) of the third day of creation:

1:11 And he said: Let the earth bring forth the green herb, and such as may seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after its kind, which may have seed in itself upon the earth. And it was so done. 

...At the creation, trees were covered with fruit in Armenia, while in the more northern regions they would not even have leaves: Calmet hence justly observes, that the question concerning the season of the year when the world began, must be understood only with reference to that climate in which Adam dwelt. Scaliger asserts, that the first day corresponds with our 26th of October, while others, particularly the Greeks, fix it upon the 25th of March, on which day Christ was conceived; and, as some Greeks say, was born and nailed to the cross. The great part of respectable authors declare for the vernal equinox, when the year is in all its youth and beauty. H. See T. and Salien's Annals, B.C. Christ 4053. 

Scripture is not a treatise on natural history, but neither does it ever assert anything false:

1:16 And God made two great lights: a greater light to rule the day; and a lesser light to rule the night: and the stars. 

But we must remember, that the sacred writings were given to instruct us in the way to heaven, and not to unfold to us the systems of natural history; and hence God generally addresses us in a manner best suited to our conceptions, and speaks of nature as it appears to the generality of mankind. At the same time, we may confidently asset, that the Scriptures never assert what is false. If we judge, with the vulgar, that the sun, moon, and stars are no larger than they appear to our naked eye, we shall still have sufficient reason to admire the works of God; but, if we are enabled to discover that the sun's diameter, for example, is 763 thousand miles, and its distance from our earth about 95 million miles, and the fixed stars (as they are called, though probably all in motion) much more remote, what astonishment must fill our breast!

Men (and probably beasts) were originally vegetarians:

1:29 And God said: Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed upon the earth, and all trees that have in themselves seed of their own kind, to be your meat: 

1:30 And to all beasts of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to all that move upon the earth, and wherein there is life, that they may have to feed upon. And it was so done. 

Every herb, &c. As God does not here express leave to eat flesh-meat, which he did after the deluge, it is supposed that the more religious part of mankind, at least, abstained from it, and from wine, till after that event, when they became more necessary to support decayed nature. H. M. --- In the golden age, spontaneous fruits were the food of happy mortals. C.

The Garden of Eden was a real place, located in actual geographical space:

2:8 And the Lord God had planted a paradise of pleasure from the beginning: wherein he placed man whom he had formed. 

Paradise lay probably to the east of Palestine, or of that country where Moses wrote. The precise situation cannot be ascertained. Calmet places it in Armenia, others near Babylon, &c. Some assert that this beautiful garden is still in being, the residence of Henoch and Elias. But God will not permit the curiosity of man to be gratified by the discovery of it. C. iii. 24. How great might be its extent we do not know. If the sources of the Ganges, Nile, Tigris, and Euphrates, be not now changed, and if these be the rivers which sprung from the fountains of Paradise, (both which are points undecided) the garden must have comprised a great part of the world, H., as the Ganges rises in Judea, and the Nile about the middle of Africa. T.

The tree of life and the tree of knowledge were literal entities:

2:9 And the Lord God brought forth of the ground all manner of trees, fair to behold, and pleasant to eat of: the tree of life also in the midst of paradise: and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. 

The tree of life. So called, because it had that quality, that by eating of the fruit of it, man would have been preserved in a constant state of health, vigour, and strength, and would not have died at all. The tree of knowledge. To which the deceitful serpent falsely attributed the power of imparting a superior kind of knowledge beyond that which God was pleased to give. Ch. --- Of what species these two wonderful trees were, the learned are not agreed. The tree of knowledge, could not communicate any wisdom to man; but, by eating of its forbidden fruit, Adam dearly purchased the knowledge of evil, to which he was before a stranger. Some say it was the fig-tree, others an apple-tree. Cant. viii. 5. But it probably agreed with no species of trees with which we are acquainted, nor was there perhaps any of the same kind in paradise. T.

Adam lived to the age of 930, but from the moment he ate the fruit, his body had started to decay:

2:17 But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat. For in what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death. 

The death of the soul, and become obnoxious to that of the body; thou shalt become a mortal and lose all the privileges of innocence. Though Adam lived 930 years after this, he was dying daily; he carried along with him the seeds of death, as we do, from our very conception.

Eve was literally created from Adam's rib:

2:21 Then the Lord God cast a deep sleep upon Adam: and when he was fast asleep, he took one of his ribs, and filled up flesh for it. 

2:22 And the Lord God built the rib which he took from Adam into a woman: and brought her to Adam. 

2:23 And Adam said: This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. 

Of my flesh. God did not, therefore, take a rib without flesh, nor perhaps did he replace flesh without a rib in Adam's side, though S. Aug. thinks he did. These words of Adam are attributed to God, Matthew xix, because they were inspired by him. --- Woman. As this word is derived from man, so in Hebrew Isha (or Asse) comes from Iish or Aiss; Latin vira woman, and virago comes from vir. H. --- But we do not find this allusion so sensible in any of the Oriental languages, as in the Hebrew, whence another proof arises of this being the original language. C.

The Fall changed the actual properties of nature:

3:17 And to Adam he said: Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat, cursed is the earth in thy work; with labour and toil shalt thou eat thereof all the days of thy life. 

3:18 Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herbs of the earth. 

Thorns, &c. These were created at first, but they would have easily been kept under: now they grow with surprising luxuriancy, and the necessaries of life can be procured only with much labour.

Much of Genesis is comprised of literal eyewitness accounts (beginning with those of Adam), and their authority is guaranteed by God: 

[Comment on 3:24]...Concerning the transactions of these early times, parents would no doubt be careful to instruct their children, by word of mouth, before any of the Scriptures were written; and Moses might derive much information from the same source, as a very few persons formed the chain of tradition, when they lived so many hundred years. Adam would converse with Mathusalem, who knew Sem, as the latter lived in the days of Abram. Isaac, Joseph, and Amram, the father of Moses, were contemporaries: so that seven persons might keep up the memory of things which had happened 2500 years before. But to entitle these accounts to absolute authority, the inspiration of God intervenes; and thus we are convinced, that no word of sacred writers can be questioned. H.

Men before the Flood often lived extremely long lives. Less than 6,000 years elapsed between the creation of Adam and the birth of Jesus (note that these estimates are 1,200 to 1,600 years longer than some of the Protestant estimates of the time):

5:5 And all the time that Adam lived came to nine hundred and thirty years, and he died. 

He died...God prolonged the lives of the patriarchs to a more advanced age, that the world might be sooner filled. Their constitution was then more excellent, the fruits of the earth more nourishing, &c. But the sole satisfactory reason for their living almost a thousand years, while we can hardly arrive at 70, is, because so it pleased God, in whose hands are all our lots. There is a great difference in the number of years assigned by the Hebrew and Vulgate, from that which the Samaritan copy mentions; and the Sept. differs from both. Whether the difference be real, or only apparent, we shall not pretend to determine. The Church has not decided which system of chronology is the most accurate. In the Martyrology, she adopts that of the Sept. and placed the birth of Christ in 5199, after Eusebius and Bede, though Riccioli calculates the Sept. at 5634 years. H...

Men before the Flood were probably larger physically - akin to giants - but there also existed actual giants:

6:4 Now giants were upon the earth in those days. For after the sons of God went in to the daughters of men, and they brought forth children, these are the mighty men of old, men of renown. 

Giants. It is likely the generality of men before the flood were of a gigantic stature, in comparison with what men now are. But these here spoken of, are called giants, as being not only tall in stature, but violent and savage in their dispositions, and mere monsters of cruelty and lust. Ch. --- Yet we need not imagine, that they were such as the poets describe, tearing up mountains, and hurling them against heaven. Being offspring of men, who had lived hitherto with great temperance, but now gave full scope to their passions, and the love of the fair daughters whom they chose, we need not wonder that they should be amazingly strong and violent. Nephilim, rushing on, as Ag. translates. That there have been giants of an unusual size, all historians testify. Og, Goliah, &c. are mentioned in Scripture, and the sons of Enac are represented as much above the common size, as the Hebrews were greater than grasshoppers. Num. xiii. 34. If we should suppose they were four or five times our size, would that be more wonderful that they should live nine or ten times as long as we do? See S. Aug. C. D. xv. 9. 23. Calmet's Dissert. &c. Delrio affirms, that in 1572 he saw at Rouen, a native of Piedmont, above nine feet high. H. --- Of old. The corruption of morals had commenced many ages ago, and some of the sons of Seth had given way to their lusts; so that we are not to suppose, that these giants were all born within a hundred years of the flood, as some might suppose from their being mentioned here, after specifying the age of Noe. C. v. 31. H.

Here are Haydock's speculations on the physical design of the Ark, extrapolated from the instructions given to Noah by God in Genesis 6:14-16:

Timber planks. Heb. "gopher wood," which is no where else mentioned in Scripture. It was probably a sort of wood full of rosin, and being besmeared with something like our pitch, was capable of resisting the fury of the ensuing tremendous storm, for a length of time. C. H. --- Rooms to separate the birds, various animals, provisions, &c. --- Pitch, lit. "besmear it with bitumen," which has a very strong smell, able to counteract the disagreeable odours arising from beasts confined. M. --- It might be mixed with some other ingredients, naphtha, pitch, &c. C. 

Three hundred cubits, &c. The ark, according to the dimensions here set down, contained four hundred and fifty thousand square cubits; which were more than enough to contain all the kinds of living creatures, with all necessary provisions: even supposing the cubits here spoken of to have been only a foot and a half each, which was the least kind of cubits. Ch. --- It is therefore unnecessary for us to have recourse, with Cappel, to the sacred cubit, which was twice as large as the common one, but which seems not to have been in use among the Jews before the Babylonian captivity. Still less need we adopt the geometrical cubit, which contains six ordinary ones, as we might be authorised to do by the great names of Origen and S. Aug. de C. D. xv. 27. q. in Gen. i. 4. These dimensions would make the ark as large as a city. Moses always speaks of the same sort of cubit, used probably in Egypt. Apelles and other heretics, with some modern infidels, have attempted to shew, that this account of Moses is fabulous. But they have been amply refuted by able calculators, John Buteo, Pelletier, &c. This amazing structure, for which God himself gave the plan, was divided with three stories, besides the lower part of the vessel, which might serve to keep fresh water. The different species of animals are not so numerous, as some imagine. Fishes, and such creatures as can live in water, would not need to come into the ark. Animals deprived of exercise, and allowed barely what may support nature, will live upon a very little. Even an ox, according to Columella, will live on 30 pounds of hay, or on a cubic foot, a whole day, so that 400 of these large creatures might be supported on 146,000 cubic feet. The middle story, for provisions, would alone contain 150,000 cubits. Noe's family, and the birds, would probably occupy the room above, in which was a window all around, of the height of a cubit, without glass or crystal, which were not yet invented, but defended with lattice work of wood, like our dairy rooms. H. 

In a cubit. This is understood by some, of the height of the window; by others, of the roof, which would be almost flat, like the top of a coach. Menoch supposes, that the whole ark was to be measured with the cubit in every part, from the bottom to the top; and the words of it, properly refer to the ark. --- Side, or at the end, about the middle way, that the animals might be coveyed easily to their stalls. The door would open into the story allotted to the beasts, and all things might enter it by a sort of bridge, or by sloping planks. C. --- Ordure might be thrown down into the lowest part of the ark, separated from the reservoir of fresh water, or might be brought up with ropes and buckets to the window at the top, which would easily open. T.

I'm going to stop here. But one could go on to cite Haydock's treatment of virtually everything else in Genesis as literal history.

I encourage those who are interested to mark Haydock as a possible reference for their other Bible readings.