In this episode, we try to discover the worldview of the Ancient Near East so we can read the Bible more faithfully

• There is no Natural/Supernatural divide--no distinction between sacred and secular
• One of the primary concerns of the ancient world was order
• Genesis in more concerned with "Functional Creation" rather than "Material Creation"
• The Bible lives in a culture with lots of creation stories, some of which are very similar.
• The Bible doesn't "borrow" stories from the cultures around, but rather it shares common cultural assumptions about the nature of the universe--this shouldn't worry us

For more information see John Walton's The Lost World of Genesis 1