Creation

We are studying through Genesis chapter one with the help of John H. Walton’s book “The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate.” Previous articles have emphasized the functional perspective of the ancient readers of Genesis. This is a very, very difficult perspective for 21st century AD Westerners to adapt to. Nevertheless, if we respect the authority of the Bible and the context in which it was written, we must read the creation account like an ancient Israelite would have.

On days one through three, God established three great functions of time, weather and food. The remainder of the days will see functionaries and inhabitants installed into these three domains

How could there be light on day one before the sun was created on day four? Were the days of Genesis 1 ordinary twenty-four hour days, or was each day an eon of time? Was there a gap of possibly millions of years between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2? Was each plant and animal a special act of creation, or did God use evolution to populate the world?

All of these controversies (and others) based on the questions above are a result of attempting to understand Genesis outside of its original context. When we fail to honor the historical and cultural framework within which Moses wrote, we end up with all sorts of irreconcilable theories which twist and distort the message of the creation account. As I noted in previous articles (here and here) Genesis describes the functional origins of the Universe, not necessarily the material origins.

Christians are divided into two camps when it comes to the Genesis creation account. Both believe God created the world but differ about its age. One group affirms the Earth is billions of years old and the other group concludes Earth is relatively young being only 6,000 – 10,000 years old. The assumption underlying both of these interpretations is that Genesis 1 is an account of the material origins of the Universe. Is Genesis a revelation of creation from a scientific perspective? Or, is it an account of creation, written to accommodate an ancient cosmology, describing how God brought order out of chaos?