We live in our culture. The language we speak, the clothes we wear, and the food we eat, are culturally determined. The things we pursue and the things that pursue us are in our culture. We are going to look at culture from several standpoints beginning with the biblical view of culture. Genesis 1–11 tells us the origin of many things, but we will concentrate on Genesis 4 which tells us the origin of culture.
Origin of culture in the Bible
The Bible gives us two insights into culture from God’s perspective. The first one is the account of the origin of human culture as recorded in Genesis 4. We are not given a detailed account, but a general, historical account of the roots of human culture from which everything we encounter today can be traced back to. The other one is a very detailed account of what was to become the Hebrew culture and is recorded beginning at the giving of the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20 and including all the rest of the Books of the Law (Leviticus–Deuteronomy).
Initial culture
We read in Genesis 3 that Adam and Eve sinned and were banished from the Garden of Eden to work the ground for their food, but the ground would produce thorns and it would take painful toil to produce the food they would need. In Genesis 4 we are told that they had two sons named Cain and Able. Cain murdered his brother, Able, and received a two-part curse from God. For him, the ground would not produce crops that he would need for food or to barter for other things he needed. And he would be a restless wanderer on the earth. The text tells us that Cain went out voluntarily from the Lord’s presence.
Obviously, Cain would need somebody’s crops that produce food to eat and he would need shelter to live in. People have needs—physical, emotional, and spiritual. There are two places people settle to get their needs met—a farm or a city. A farm would not work for Cain because of his curse so he needed a city and he built one. It is in that environment that Cain and his descendants built a culture in which they could get their needs met.
What this tells us is that human culture was first developed by an ungodly line of people who were trying to get their needs met apart from God. The text gives the descendants of Cain but no details until we get to the sixth generation in the line of Cain. Lamech was the sixth generation and he married two women becoming the first polygamist. One wife was named Adah and gave birth to sons Jabel and Jubel. The other wife was named Zillah and gave birth to Tubal-Cain, a son, and Naamah, a daughter.
The sons of Lamech were the ones to get the first fully-developed culture going for humanity. The names of the sons are indicative of their talents. Jabel’s name means leader of cattle, producer, walker, or wanderer. The text tells us that he was the “father of those who live in tents and raise livestock.” Jubal’s name means “player on an instrument, sound”. He was the “father of all who play the harp and flutes.” Tubal-Cain’s name means brass smith. He “forged all kinds of tools out of bronze and iron.” From these men came the cultural activities of farming and shepherding and manufacturing; the cultural arts; and, the tools to make food and to make war. From their father came the violation of God’s standard of one husband and one wife becoming one flesh, and injustice, resulting in the killing of another human being for a minor offense (Genesis 4: 23).
The fact that women were mentioned in this generation of initial human cultural development and the meaning of their names is also indicative of how human culture looks upon women. Lamech’s wives were named Adah and Zillah. Adah means “beauty, ornament, adornment.” Zillah means “shadow, shady” [seductive]. The daughter of Lamech and Zillah was named Naamah. Naamah means “pleasant, lovely, beautiful, sweetness, graceful.” This set the pattern in human culture to value women for their beauty and seduction and to be used as ornaments or adornments for men. In this twenty-first century, the pressure is still on women to be beautiful and to be valued for their beauty.
In studying the roots of culture here in Genesis 4, I have come up with my own definition of culture. For me, culture is everything man does to get his needs met apart from God. God wanted to meet the needs of humanity and He did that in the setting in which man was created. But because of sin, man not only had to but wanted to, exert his God-likeness to do and make what it took to meet his own needs.
This definition puts me at odds with the current missional churches and much of Evangelical foreign missions. The general opinion is that God developed the different cultures as an expression of His variety and that cultures are spiritually neutral in their cultural forms. If we go back to what happened in Genesis 11: 8–9 we will see a different picture. At the Tower of Babel God confused the languages so that people could only communicate with other people that spoke their language. The different languages made people separate into different groups and live with their groups separated from the other language groups. In separating, they developed different cultures (ways of getting their needs met apart from God) based upon the climate and resources for where they settled. God’s purpose for using language to separate the people was to keep them from uniting against Him. God did not develop the different cultures; man did.
Some who believe culture is neutral believe that there is no such thing as Christian music, only Christian lyrics; God has no preference for style; it is not the form of worship that matters to God, it is the Who that is worshipped, or so they believe. Try this theory on the cultures where they make human sacrifices to their gods. If they get saved, would the God of the Bible be pleased with a human sacrifice made to Him? That sounds far-fetched but it is in keeping with the theory put forth. Culture is the world system we have to live in and is not neutral—it is anti-Christ.
Man, though he tries, cannot live apart from God. His survival would be impossible. God sends the rain and the sun needed to produce the crops for his food (Matthew 5:45). God also provided the birds and the natural beauty of the earth as proto-types for man to copy for his music and art. Culture is man’s means of using what God created for man’s own benefit without giving due credit to God. This is the biblical view of culture. You may think it is fiction or religious myth, but it fits the facts of culture.
In the next post, I will present the only surviving culture that existed for nineteen centuries without a homeland.