In concordist interpretations, God made the earth using the sequence of events described in Genesis 1. In non-concordist interpretations, God created the earth using a different timing and order of events than those described Genesis 1.

How should Christians go about choosing among all of these interpretations? Such a decision should be based on consistent principles and prayerful reflection, not just on “what sounds good.” Here are our own conclusions.

Weaknesses in Concordist and Non-Concordist Interpretations

Both concordist and non-concordist interpretations of Genesis 1 arise from good motives, a desire to show that the Bible does not conflict with nature’s testimony.  But both types of interpretations have their pitfalls.

For concordists, the temptation is to interpret every Bible verse to match the current scientific picture. The meanings of particular phrases can be bent out of shape to match a particular scientific finding. For example, Hebrew words that literally meant birds or plants to the original audience are redefined to meet some modern scientific category such as insects or single-celled organisms, just to make the order of events line up. By focusing on trying to match the details of the ancient text to twenty-first century knowledge, the concordist may miss meanings in the passage that were clear in the original cultural context, including important spiritual insights. Moreover, concordists can be forced to regularly change and update their interpretations as modern scientific knowledge grows and changes. For instance, the Gap Interpretation twisted the meaning of Genesis 1:2 outside its original intent; later it failed to match new scientific evidence.

For non-concordists the temptation is to interpret every Bible verse that appears to disagree with science as figurative without first studying the text. By interpreting a text that was intended tobe understood literally as metaphoric, they may bend the meanings of particular phrases to refer to purely spiritual ideas and ignore the historical meanings they had in the original cultural context. At one extreme non-concordists can apply the same strategy to all Bible passages and even interpret Jesus’ miracles and resurrection as spiritual symbols simply because they think that miracles are scientifically impossible.

For both concordists and non-concordists the temptation is to let science drive the interpretation of Scripture more than it should. When an apparent conflict arises between science and a biblical text, it can and should motivate us to consider a biblical passage more closely. The scientifically discerned testimony from God’s book of nature can even be a useful tool for deciding between two or more biblical interpretations that are otherwise equally valid. But the interpretations themselves are not determined by science; they must be driven by theological considerationsand be consistent with the rest of Scripture.

To avoid these risks we need to look at what the best biblical scholarship has to say about the passage rather than at how it fitswith science. Finally, we must take care that the desire to resolve conflicts does not distract us from the main message God has forus in the text. Our primary calling as Christians is to live our lives according to the clear messages of God’s Word; it is a lesser calling to debate the subtleties of interpretation of less clear passages.

Genesis 1 in Its Original Context

To choose among the various interpretations, we recommend using a consistent approach based on the principles of biblical interpretation discussed in chapter 4.  The first principle, that each passage should be interpreted in light of the rest of the Bible, provides some guidance. For instance, the Bible’s teaching on God’s truthfulness and his glory displayed in creation might lead us away from the Appearance of Age Interpretation.  The differences between the Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 accounts might point toward a non-concordist interpretation.

The second principle of interpretation gives more direction. It reminds us first to work out what the passage meant in its original literary, cultural, and historical context, and then figure out what meaning it has for us today. How do the various interpretations fit this principle? Of the four concordist interpretations discussed in chapter 5, the Young Earth Interpretation seems to come closest to what ancient peoples would have heard in the text. The Gap and Day-Age concordist views would have baffled the original audience, since these ancients would have had no concept of geological ages; if they could not fathom time periods of millions or billions of years, the text must have meant something different to them.

Of the four non-concordist interpretations of Genesis discussed in this chapter, the Proclamation Day Interpretation, while it has some basis in the text, seems least likely to be the meaning heard by the original audience. The proclamations are implemented as soon as God says them, and there is no reference to a different timing or sequence of events in terrestrial time. In our view a combination of the Ancient Near East Cosmology, Kingdom and Covenant, and Creation Poem Interpretations come closest to what the original audience would have heard. The differences between the Genesis text and the pagan stories highlight the sovereignty of God and the goodness of creation. The elegant poetic structure and inspired phrases reinforce the theological messages of the Kingdom and Temple interpretations.

Genesis 1 for Modern Readers

With a better understanding of what the original audience heard,we have insight into God’s message for them and thus for us. If God’s purposes in Genesis 1 did not include teaching scientific facts to the Israelites, then we should not look here for scientific information about the age or development of the world. For modern readers, as for the original audience, the message of Genesis 1 is its powerful theological truths. God does not use theBible to teach us the physical processes he uses to make the rainfall or the earth orbit the sun or to form the mountains. Instead, in a beautifully crafted and impressively short text, God teaches us all about

• his sovereignty.
• the goodness of creation.
• the honored status of humankind as his image bearers.

God has given us a text that speaks of the physical world in simple terms, based on how it appears, in order that all peoplemight understand it.  The common language of this text has made it accessible to people of many times and cultures, aiding the communication ofthe gospel around the world.

Does a non-concordist interpretation of Genesis 1 mean that we have sacrificed a literal understanding of the gospel? No. TheGospels were surely heard by their first audience as historical eyewitness accounts by the disciples, and everything about the emphasis and tone in those books indicates that Jesus’ resurrection and miracles are essential events in the story. That is how we should read the Gospel stories still today. In Genesis 1, on theother hand, the first listeners heard nothing new about the physical universe; all the emphasis was on who created the world and humanity and why they were created.

What does this mean for science? It means that Genesis 1 is not a science textbook. The text was never intended to teach scientificinformation about the structure, age, or natural history of the world. Thus, comparing Genesis 1 to modern science is likecomparing apples to oranges. Or perhaps more accurately, comparing Genesis 1 to modern science is like comparing Psalm 93:1 (“The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved”) to modern astronomy. Genesis is neither in agreement nor in conflict with the sequence of events found by astronomy and geology.

As scientific knowledge increases and changes over the centuries, its understanding of the physical structure and historyof the earth will change. But through all of those centuries the theological truths of Genesis 1 remain the same: there is one sovereign God who makes light from darkness, creates an ordered world from chaos, and fills an empty world with good creatures. Humans need not fear the capricious whims of a pantheon ofgods but can instead trust in the one true God who made us in his image and declares us “very good.”

For more discussion of Biblical interpretation, see chapters 4, 5, and 6 of Origins. Next week, we'll look at an excerpt on astronomy and the age of the universe.

Excerpt from Chapters 5 and 6 of Origins: Christian Perspectives on Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design (Grand Rapids, MI: Faith Alive Christian Resources), 2011. Reprinted with permission. To order purchase a copy of the book or e-book, please call 1-800-333-8300 or visit our website www.faithaliveresources.org.

Want a free copy of Origins?  For a limited time, donations of $50 or more will receive a  copy of the book! Plus, from now through April, your gift will be doubled thanks to a matching grant from a generous donor. You can learn more here.

In this video Conversation, Denis Alexander addresses two prominent barriers for Christians to accept evolutionary creation. The first is Biblical interpretation. When contemporary Christians interpret the early chapters of Genesis literally, they do so out of a desire to take the text seriously. Yet the early church fathers saw these chapters as figurative—and that figurative interpretation did not lesson the important foundational truths taught in these passages. The contemporary literal reading is actually a modern approach to the text in that our scientific mindset inappropriately shapes the interpretation. Since science did not even exist at the time that Genesis was written, an overly literal interpretation can actually cause us to miss the inspired message that the Biblical authors were communicating.

The second barrier is the rhetoric of the New Atheists, who claim that it is impossible to accept evolution while still believing in God. Christians should challenge this. Traditional Christian views are not in conflict with modern science. Instead, they see nature as God's work, with St. Augustine writing that "nature is what God does." As humanity develops a scientific understanding of nature, we will only learn more about the handiwork of God. 

Genesis 8:1: But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and all the domestic animals that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided; 2 the fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained, 3 and the waters gradually receded from the earth.

The Flood narrative of Genesis 7-9 has played a prominent role in science and religion debates for over three hundred years and gave rise in earlier centuries to geological theories such as old earth catastrophism. While literary studies have uncovered the chiastic structure of the Flood story (see Gordon Wenham, “The Coherence of the Flood Narrative” Vetus Testamentum 28 (1978):336-48) and with it the theological pivot point of the entire narrative (Gen. 8:1 – “And God remembered Noah…), much of the popular attention remains on the questions regarding details (Is there THAT much water in the world to cover ALL the mountains to a depth of 15 cubits? Could you really fit two or seven of every animal species in an ark that size?)

Looking at a smaller matter, we find at the beginning and the middle of the narrative indications of an ancient Near Eastern worldview. As the story is told, the flood was not merely the result of excessive rain, but actually the convergence of the waters above the earth with the waters below the earth. It is, as one translation puts it, as if the sluice gates at the deep and of the heavens were thrown open and water poured in from above and below. This is a consistent picture from the Old Testament of a three-tiered universe—a dome above the earth holding back the heavenly waters, a flat earth with water on its surface, and water under an earth which is held up by pillars.

That the story is told using the cosmology of its time should not be unduly unsettling, nor that the story is reinterpreted as new understandings of the universe come into favor. By way of example, consider John Calvin and his understanding of the structure of the universe. Although committed to the principle of sola Scriptura, Calvin recognized that the Bible would have been written in terms its original recipients would have understood.

Calvin inherited the medieval cosmology of his time, a way of viewing the world heavily influenced by Greek thought and one which was about to receive shocks from astronomers such as Copernicus and Galileo. But not just yet. Calvin still subscribed to the common conception of his day in which the four elements—earth, air, fire, and water—comprised the earthly sphere and possessed unique characteristics. The nature of air and fire was to rise, while the nature of earth and water is to sink. Earth, being heavier than water, should sink to the center of the cosmos and water should compose the next layer. Both earth and water are spherical, i.e., naturally form spherically around the cosmic center. Thus the heavier spherical element of earth should be encased entirely within the lighter spherical element of water.

Notice what this does to the flood story. For Calvin, the amazing thing is that the world isn’t constantly under water and subject to flooding. In the cosmology of Calvin’s day, it does not take an act of God to cause a universal flood, but rather an actively present and restraining hand of God to keep the waters back in everyday circumstances and make inundation by water something other than universal.

Obviously, Calvin was wrong. Or perhaps we should say that medieval cosmology was flawed and justifiably gave way to new conceptions of the universe. The answer is not to return to an ancient Near Eastern cosmology, but to reinterpret cautiously within new and better cosmologies and to pay closest attention to the text and the theology of scripture.

The geological and planetary sciences bring their own unique contributions and are of more interest than the latest expedition to discover the ark on Mt. Ararat. Is the flood story a universalization of a catastrophic regional event that burned itself into the psyche of ancient cultures in the Mediterranean basin? Various theories regarding a Black Sea venue for a catastrophic flood event are still in process of being sorted out. It’s intriguing. Or the question where the water on Planet Earth comes from? Was it always here as an emanation of vapors from the earth’s crust in its early formation, or has it accumulated over eons through the steady bombardment of earth by small, icy comets? It’s an intriguing scientific question that is in the midst of determination through testing.

Preaching Suggestions

When preaching on the story of the Flood, it is easy to get lost in the debates over particulars. As mentioned elsewhere, to tackle all the peripheral issues threatens to turn a sermon into a geology lecture. Other settings are better suited to addressing those questions, and those are best addressed open-endedly.

A brief explanation of ancient Near Eastern cosmology can be helpful to contextualize the story. If there are those who are tempted to think that a cosmology embedded in the Bible must be inspired and definitive, one can note that cosmology has changed by the New Testament. The Bible itself isn’t wed to a particular structure of the universe.

What is important is to keep the theology of the text front and center, and in that theology there are at least three non-negotiables from the flood narrative. First, human sin and violence threatens to undo a good creation (the flood is a de-creation event, a return of the waters mentioned in Genesis 1:2). Second, God remembers Noah, and never forgets his promises. Third, the end of the flood is a covenant with the whole earth regarding the stability and endurance of the natural order.

Augustine had a great deal to say about those chapters in Genesis that are especially controversial within Christianity today. In fact, Augustine dedicated about as much as any other Christian writer to the first few chapters of Genesis, so there is little guesswork we have to do in ascertaining what he believed Scripture to claim about creation. First of all, Augustine clearly rejected the notion that God had created the earth in six 24-hours periods. Instead, he believed that the universe was created instantaneously, and that the six days reported in Genesis were a metaphor for the various levels of dimensions of the created realm—something akin to what ancients referred to as the ‘Great Chain of Being’. But this is not to say that Augustine believed that the world was created as it is today in that instant. Rather, he affirmed that God created the world with inchoate potential for further development, like an acorn that will grow into a great tree when planted in the ground.

Augustine therefore affirmed that Creation has evolved and continues to evolve, though not driven by random natural processes, as affirmed by classical Darwinism. Instead, such evolution is governed providentially both via the inchoate potentialities present in the world from its beginning and by God’s ongoing governance of the universe.⁴ We should be careful not to turn Augustine too quickly into a modern advocate of theistic evolution, but the similarities are nevertheless significant. Augustine affirmed these ideas not on the basis of an attempt to accommodate Scripture to scientific discovery, but based upon his own reading of Scripture! Indeed, I think it fair to say that the great father of Western Christianity was something of a proto-evolutionary theist, and therefore one whose work deserves far more attention by those seeking to be faithful to both Scripture and Christian tradition while making sense of the claims of contemporary science.

Of course, we need to be careful not to push such claims too far. Augustine himself resists such a move by recognizing both the contingency of human interpretations of Scripture and the dangers of unintentionally imposing our own views on Scripture. A rather long, but significant quote from Augustine makes this point all too clear:

Let us suppose that in explaining the words, “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and light was made,” one man thinks that it was material light that was made, and another that it was spiritual. As to the actual existence of “spiritual light” in a spiritual creature, our faith leaves no doubt; as to the existence of material light, celestial or supercelestial, even existing before the heavens, a light which could have been followed by night, there will be nothing in such a supposition contrary to the faith until unerring truth gives the lie to it. And if that should happen, this teaching was never in Holy Scripture but was an opinion proposed by man in his ignorance.

On the other hand, if reason should prove that this opinion is unquestionably true, it will still be uncertain whether this sense was intended by the sacred writer when he used the words quoted above, or whether he meant something else no less true. And if the general drift of the passage shows that the sacred writer did not intend this teaching, the other, which he did intend, will not thereby be false; indeed, it will be true and more worth knowing. On the other hand, if the tenor of the words of Scripture does not militate against our taking this teaching as the mind of the writer, we shall still have to enquire whether he could not have meant something else besides. And if we find that he could have meant something else also, it will not be clear which of the two meanings he intended. And there is no difficulty if he is thought to have wished both interpretations if both are supported by clear indications in the context.

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of the faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men.

If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason?

Reckless and incompetent expounders of holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.⁵

I am tempted here to let Augustine have the final word, but I think there are three final points worth highlighting here as a way of connecting this quote to the two books theory and thereby concluding our discussion of Augustine:

1. The Book of Nature is clearly revelatory of God’s providential work in Christ, and even nonbelievers are capable of comprehending its complex order through the proper use of reason and experience (i.e. science properly understood).
2. The Book of Scripture is clearly revelatory of God’s providential work in Christ, and therefore is true and authoritative in all matters. The problem is that we often misinterpret Scripture by imposing our own preconceptions upon it rather than allowing it to speak for itself.
3. God’s two books can and should be read together in harmony when we are open to allowing them to speak for themselves on their own terms. Ultimately, they cannot contradict each other because the source of both is the same God and if they seem to be in contradiction it is because we have misread one or both of them, and we need to be willing therefore to allow ourselves to be open to thinking about either one in different ways, trusting that God will ultimately lead us to see the truth of the whole.

Notes

4. In truth, these two kinds of providence are one and the same for Augustine because God in some ‘stands’ outside of time as its eternal creator. So, for Augustine, eternality is not everlasting time, but the complete lack of temporality altogether. In this sense, all of creation at all times is eternally present to God, and there is ultimately no difference between God’s governance over creation at its beginning from God’s governance at any other moment in its history. In a way, God governs all of history all at once.
5. This quote is excerpted from St. Augustine, The Literal Meaning of Genesis, 2 vols., translated and annotated by John Hammond Taylor, SJ (Paulist Press, 1982), volume one of which can be read here.

A careful study of this chapter is important because it gives us a beautiful picture of the proper relationships we should have with God, the natural world, and each other. Numerous posts could be written on each of these relationships, but in this post I’d like to focus on how Genesis 2 describes our relationship to the rest of creation. These relationships are given deeper significance when we recognize that the garden is being described as a temple-like “sacred space,” not just an ordinary garden. There are numerous clues in the passage that this is the case. John Walton writes that the Garden/temple parallels “are givens that are simply assumed by the author and audience” ¹ of Genesis, but we completely miss them if we take fail to read the text the way the ancient author and audience would have.

Temples and Gardens

In the Ancient Near East (ANE), all sacred space was conceived of as something like a temple; it was a place where humans would serve God and experience their closest access to Him. Thus in ANE cultures, a temple complex was seen as being the apex and a microcosm of creation and the earthly abode of the god(s). Descriptions of temples often pictured a river flowing from under the temple and flowing out through an adjacent garden, symbolizing the fertile extravagance of the divine provision. A temple garden would be no mere backyard vegetable patch, but rather an elaborate, beautifully landscaped botanical park.

The same temple/river picture can be seen in the description of the eschatological temple in Ezekiel (ch. 47) and Revelation (chs. 21-22, where the final temple is God Himself). Sound familiar? In Genesis 2 we also have a river flowing “from Eden [‘Abundance’] to water the garden” (v. 10).² Not only is the Garden filled with “every beautiful tree with edible fruit” (v. 9), but the area itself is rich with gold, resins, and gemstones (sometimes translated “bdellium and onyx”), the same materials later used to decorate Israel’s tabernacle, temple, and priestly garments. Furthermore, many scholars are convinced that the design of temple’s Menorah (candlestick) deliberately echoes the Garden’s Tree of Life, and some also think that the Ark of the Covenant in the temple parallels the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.³

Made for Sacred Service

As inhabitants of this temple-garden, it comes as no surprise that Adam and Eve enjoyed a special closeness to God’s presence (Gen. 3:8 pictures God taking an evening walk through the Garden). But as inhabitants of the Garden, they had special responsibilities as well; they were told “to farm it and take care of it” (v. 15). The two Hebrew words used here have a broader range of meaning than their English translations suggest. As John Walton writes, the broader meaning of the word here translated “to farm” (particularly when used in a sacred context) “is often connected to religious service deemed as worship (e.g., Ex. 3:12) or of priestly functionaries serving in the temple precinct (e.g., Num. 3:7-10).” ⁴

The usage in Genesis 2 seems to have two layers of meaning: “farm/cultivate the Garden” (since it is an agricultural space) and “serve/worship God” (since the Garden is also a sacred space). The dual meanings are as intertwined in Hebrew grammar as they are intended to be in practice. The second Hebrew word (translated “take care of”) has a deeper religious meaning as well. The word can refer to protecting farmland from external threats, but in a danger-free sacred space like the Garden, the word more generally refers to “performing duties on the [temple] grounds,” that is, to “sacred service.”⁵

Walton therefore translates these two Hebrew words as “serve and preserve.” These same words appear again together several times in Numbers to describe the priest’s duties in the temple. Because of all this, Gordon Wenham describes Adam as “perhaps…an archetypal Levite” with a “quasi-priestly” role in the garden.⁸ Eve was created as Adam’s companion and “helper” in his work, a word which nowhere in the OT refers to a subordinate assistant, but rather to one who is at least equal to the one being helped.⁹

Genesis 2 should banish from our minds any idea that creation care is somehow “secular” work for a Christian, or that it is not even our responsibility. This was the first task given to humanity, to serve and worship God by cultivating and protecting the natural world. The centrality of our responsibility in this regard is even clearer when we back up to the beginning of the chapter. We know there was a river “flow[ing] from Eden to water the garden” (v. 10), symbolizing that “all fertility emanates from the presence of God.” ¹⁰ Nonetheless there could be no cultivated plants in the garden because “there was still no human being to farm the fertile land” (v. 5). With no gardener and no rain, the ground was watered indiscriminately; a human was needed to irrigate the waters and support a garden.¹¹ Therefore, God “formed the human from the topsoil” (Hebrew wordplay equivalent to “human from the humus”) before planting the garden. God certainly could have watered it another way without needing us, but He chose not to, and the resulting collaborative picture here is a beautiful one. All provision flows from God, but He has chosen to give us an essential part in further channeling his provisions in the natural world. Far from countering God’s creative work by destroying nature, we are intended to work with Him to preserve and further it.

Of course, though created primarily to glorify God, the world was also made to provide us abundantly with the food and resources that we need to live (Gen. 2:16). Yet we don’t need to look far to see that we have often failed in our responsibility to properly care for creation. We live in a fallen world, and sin has fractured the intended harmony of our relationships with God, creation, and each other (as described in Genesis 3:14-24).

I recently heard a striking crystallization of this fallen perspective in Spencer Tracy’s narration in the opening scene of the sprawling 1962 western film “How the West Was Won.” As the camera flies over majestic Western fields and mountains, the narrator tells us that “This land has a name today, and is marked on maps. But the names and the maps all had to be won, won from nature and from primitive man.” This is the fallen perspective – advancing our human purpose on earth is done through defeating nature and other people (derogatively labeled “primitive,” as well) apart from God. This perspective perfectly illustrates the conflict-based relationships that sin brings about, already described for us back in the first chapters of the Bible.

Are we doomed, then, to live helplessly in this way? If this is just the way the world is and the way we are, shouldn’t we just accept that? Apart from Christ the answer would be “yes,” but the New Testament makes it clear that though we are still fallen, the saving work of Christ has brought about a profound change in us. As N.T. Wright makes clear in his book Surprised by Hope, Jesus taught (and the Resurrection vindicated) that the Kingdom of God “was and is breaking in to the present world, to earth.” ¹² Christ’s Resurrection was the first act of the future new creation. If we are truly “born again” into this new reality, this new way of living, we must strive (in the Spirit’s power) to live lives of wholeness and right relationships, putting our sinful nature to death (Colossians 3). In doing so, we would be wise to include Genesis 2 as we seek to follow God’s will and God’s Kingdom, “on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10).

In part 2 of this series, David describes how Genesis 1, Genesis 2, and modern scientific accounts offer complementary and mutually enriching perspectives in our understanding of God's creation.

Notes

1. John H. Walton, Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006), 125.
2. Biblical quotations are from the Common English Bible unless otherwise noted.
3. Both symbolized divine wisdom that humans had to receive from God obediently, with the proper “fear of God” that the Old Testament wisdom literature stresses as a prerequisite. Disobediently eating the Tree’s fruit would lead to death and disobeying God would lead to expulsion from the Garden. Similarly, disobediently touching the Ark brought death (Num. 4:15, 2 Sam. 6:1-7) and disobeying God’s instruction led to Israel’s exile from their Eden, the land of Canaan.
4. John H. Walton, Genesis (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2001), 172.
5. Ibid., 173.
6. Ibid., 192.
7. See Numbers 3:7-8, 8:26, 18:5-6.
8. Gordon J. Wenham, “Sanctuary Symbolism in the Garden of Eden Story,” in “I Studied Inscriptions from Before the Flood”: Ancient Near Eastern, Literary and Linguistic Approaches to Genesis 1-11, ed. Richard S. Hess and David Toshio Tsumura (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1994), 401.
9. Walton, Genesis, 176.
10. Ibid., 170.
11. This follows Walton’s illuminating exegesis of this passage in Genesis, 164-65.
12. N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (New York: HarperOne, 2008), 201.

To say, “I believe in the Church” is to embrace and live into a reality that precedes us, encompasses us, and continues beyond us. Indeed, if we are to truly be the Church in the present, I believe that it is incumbent on us to listen to those who have gone before us, and recognize that our own “here and now” is not the whole of the Christian story. Moreover, paying attention to the voices in the history of the Church can reveal to us our own contemporary blindfolds and assumptions, and might even enable us to approach Scripture with fresh eyes.

As a case in point, over the next three posts I’d like to walk us through a number of what I call “pre-modern” church fathers’ readings of Genesis 1 so that we might hear how Christians have read this text across the last 1600 years. For, while exploring the history of interpretation of any biblical text can teach us several important things, the biblical account of creation in Genesis 1 is a particularly instructive case.

Many, many Christian readers interpreted Genesis 1 during the early, medieval and Reformation eras of the church, but my survey focuses on the accounts given by Origen, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin. Every one of these church fathers held to at least two strong, shared assumptions: first and foremost, they all believed Scripture is the inspired Word of God—an infallible revelation given by God to reveal God and God’s truths for the church. I will return to this point later to show that what these readers meant by “infallible” is not necessarily the same as what many modern readers mean today, but the fathers’ firm conviction in the absolute trustworthiness of the biblical text is something contemporary evangelicals have in common with our predecessors in the faith. Secondly, they all asserted that any good reading of Scripture has the ultimate goal of edifying the Church. A faithful reading is performed in, with and for the Church, for the Church’s strengthening and/or repentance.

Beyond these two essential points about the text itself, all five of these church fathers focused upon several shared theological teachings in their readings of Genesis 1:

• First, the world is created. In other words, the world is not eternal; it has a beginning and an end.
• Second, God created the world.
• Third, God created the world from nothing. This is the Christian doctrine of creation ex nihilo.
• Fourth, the Creator is also Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The first three of these beliefs—the world is created, God created the world, and God created the world from nothing—set up a clear distinction between God the Creator and created creatures who depend upon God for their creation—that is, the supreme distinction between Creator and creature. This distinction is necessary to demonstrate that only God is God; there is no other God. There is no room for the world or anything else to claim existence outside of or beyond God. God is the beginning of all existence.

Finally, the church fathers’ agreement that Genesis 1 teaches us about God’s Trinitarian nature of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit gives us a sense of the complete and self-sufficient yet still relational quality of the Creator. In sum, Origen, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin agreed that the account of creation in Genesis 1 tells us in some kind of literal way how the world came to exist, but equally that Gen 1 is intended to teach us these key theological truths.

An infinite source of wisdom

One of the key issues debated amongst these early readers of Genesis 1 was a question of methodology: how should one read the text? The pre-modern Church held firmly to the belief of both the divine inspiration of Scripture and Scripture as an infinite source of God’s wisdom, revelation and teaching. This meant that the pre-modern Church believed that there was not just one singular correct meaning of a biblical text, but that there were many possible faithful readings of any given text.

Such an assertion involved the belief that since God is infinite, so also is God’s Word infinite. To assume that there is only one singular correct meaning of Scripture is in essence to “box God in” or offend the absolute sovereignty of God—namely, limiting what God may teach or say through God’s own very Word. Hence, from very early on in the Church’s history, the church held that Scripture has literal and spiritual meanings. The late-2nd / early 3rd-century church father Origen, for one, was a keen proponent of the spiritual reading of Scripture. He maintained that Genesis 1 has both a literal meaning and a spiritual or allegorical meaning. He wrote, “There is certainly no question about the literal meaning, for these things are clearly said to have been created by God,” but then he continued, “but it is also profitable to relate this text in a spiritual sense.”¹

The spiritual meaning of the text, according to Origen, is that the creation account is not simply about how the world was created, but it also sets forth the Christian’s journey in faith from infancy to maturity. Or, put another way, the days of creation are an illustration of the ethical journey of Christians toward righteousness. Thus according to Origen, for example, the separation of waters from the dry land (in verse 9) points to the call for the Christian to seek heavenly things rather than earthly things.² Though they may be literally the creation of the sun, moon and stars, the lights in verse 14’s “Let there be lights” spiritually signify Christ and his Church—Christ who is the “light of the world” and the church who has been called to reflect this light into the world (John 8:12).³ Hence, though Origen affirmed the literal reading of this text as teaching that God created the world, the weight of his focus fell upon reading Genesis 1 as a road map for the Christian’s journey in righteousness towards becoming more Christ-like.

The renowned late 4th/early 5th-century church father Augustine also believed in reading Genesis both literally and spiritually, though he placed more emphasis on the literal reading than did Origen. Augustine commented on Genesis 1 several times, including Against the Manichees and A Literal Interpretation of Genesis. In the both of these accounts, his primary intention was to set forth that the world is created by God out of nothing—hence light vs. dark or good vs. evil cannot be rightly believed to be dualistic entities. In fact, God is the only Supreme Being, and God created everything else out of nothing—not out of God’s self (which leads to pantheism or pan-entheism), nor out of something else existing alongside God (which would lead to dualism or the belief that there are two or more equal entities that can claim to be gods). All of these theological teachings were set forth to deliberately counter the heretical teachings of the Manicheans in Augustine’s day. Hence, one might argue that Augustine’s “literal” reading of Genesis was very much focused upon certain theological teachings of Genesis 1.⁴

But Augustine did not stop there. He also provided a number of ways in which the literal words of Genesis 1 may point to a spiritual meaning. For example, Augustine writes that the 7 days of creation represent the 7 ages of the world. Moreover, Augustine—much like Origen—also read the 7 days of creation in terms of the Christian’s spiritual journey in faith. Thus, Day 1 is the light of faith, day 2 is a time of learning and discernment; day 3 is the separation of heavenly and earthly things; day 4 is development in spiritual knowledge; day 5 involves good works; day 6 is being made in the image of God to gain mastery over carnal desires, and day 7 is a day of perpetual rest.⁵

Key theologians of the early church (such as Origen and Augustine, as we’ve discussed) read Scripture with multiple senses and meanings—with a literal sense and multiple spiritual senses. However, not all fully agreed with this methodology. Though most all would certainly hold to multiple senses of Scripture, some readers insisted upon a more profound attention to the literal sense, and the use of the literal sense to help restrain or hold in check the possible spiritual readings. Such 3rd- and 4th-century Church fathers, as St. Basil the Great, John Chrysostom, St. Ambrose, and Theodore of Mopsuestia insisted upon a much more restrained literal reading of Genesis 1.⁶

Yet even those who insist upon a more literal—or more historical—interpretation of Genesis 1 still contended that the primary purpose of any reading was to edify the Church, which entails setting forth the key theological teachings of Genesis 1, rather than focus on the material specifics. Again, such teachings include that the world is created, that God create the world out of nothing, and that the creation account demonstrates the great order and harmony of creation as a testimony of the God’s glory, beauty, and goodness.⁷

More than one thousand years later, 16th-century Protestant Reformers Martin Luther and John Calvin strongly argued for a literal reading of Genesis 1 over and against an allegorical one. Luther wrote, “God’s purpose is to teach us not about allegorical creatures and an allegorical world, but about real creatures and a visible world apprehended by the senses.”⁸ Calvin maintained, “For to my mind this is a certain principle, that what is here treated is the visible form of the world.”⁹

Yet Luther and Calvin also insisted that the central purpose of Genesis 1 is to set forth the theological teachings that the world is created, that God created the world out of nothing, and that creation demonstrates God’s providence, divine purpose, goodness and benevolence.¹⁰ While these historical readers do not all agree on whether Genesis 1 should be read allegorically, what becomes crystal clear is that for all of these interpreters, in one way or another, a “literal” reading of Genesis 1 retains as its focus the theological teachings of the text. In our next installment, we’ll look briefly at some of the difficulties our expositors perceived in Genesis 1 when they did attempt to read it literally.

Notes

1. Origen, Homilies on Genesis, 60.
2. Origen, 49, 50.
3. Origen, 53-55.
4. Augustine, Against the Manichees, 57, 58 and Genesi ad litteram, 145-46.
5. Augustine, Against the Manichees, 83-88, 89-90. The seven ages are the following: Day 1 = the infancy of the world that stretched from Adam to Noah; Day 2 = childhood, stretching from Noah to Abraham; Day 3 = adolescence, encompassing the biblical history from Abraham to David; Day 4 = the age of youth, from David to the Babylonian captivity; Day 5 = youth to old age, stretching from the Babylonian Exile to the first advent of Christ; Day 6 = old age, the coming of Christ until the 2nd coming; and Day 7 = on the even and including the 2nd coming of Christ.
6. St. Basil the Great, Hexameron 9.1.
7. Ibid, 7.6, 1.7-9, 1.2-4.
8. LW 1:5.
9. John Calvin, Commentary on Genesis, 79.
10. LW 1:3, 4, 10, 18, 36, 39, 47, 49. Calvin, Commentary on Genesis, 70, 89, 80-82, 88.

No Football Coaches

When I explain this position to students, I like to start with a little puzzle. Many years ago, after attending an academic conference in a major city, I was driving through the rural countryside some distance away, en route to an historic house that wasn’t well marked. As I got closer to where I thought I might start seeing some signs directing me to the house, I noticed a fair-sized hotel, restaurant, and bar off to one side of the road. What really caught my attention was a sign, prominently displayed at the start of the driveway, warning off a certain clientele: NO FOOTBALL COACHES, it said. Unfortunately I’d forgotten my camera, but this is pretty much what I saw.

When I show it in class, I ask the students to guess what this was all about: why such a sign outside of such a place? The stories they come up with are pretty good. My favorite involves two neighboring high schools, arch rivals, with the football coach at one having an affair with the wife of his opposite number, resulting in fist-fights in that bar every fall, when friends of one man or the other would go at each other in the bar, which was on the highway connecting the two school districts. After a few students have tried their luck to no avail, someone asks, where did this take place? Was it maybe in England, where football means soccer and coach means bus? Give that student an A, I say. It was England, on a highway running between York and Manchester. Now, who can fill in the blanks? Almost right away, a student will explain that soccer fans in England can be pretty rambunctious, and that a busload of them might not make the best impression on the rest of the clientele at a respectable country inn and pub. Thus, the manager would rather not have their business.

The take-away message, of course, is that there is always a context in which the meaning of a text is embedded. Unless you know something about the time and place in which a text is composed, you aren’t going understand what it actually says. The same is true for any part of the Bible, including the opening verses of Genesis. That’s the bottom line for the Framework View: if you don’t know anything about literature and culture in the Ancient Near East, you won’t understand what Genesis is really saying.

Core Tenets or Assumptions of the Framework View

(1) The “days” in Genesis have nothing to do with historical time; they are literary devices, employed by God in order to communicate the story of the creation in terms that we can understand.

This sounds like an example of the principle of accommodation, and it should. The activities of the six days of creation are arranged into a “framework” of two triads (days 1-3 and days 4-6), with parallel types of activities in each triad.

Thus, light is created on the first “day,” and on the fourth “day” God makes the Sun and Moon, the two great lights in the firmament that produce light and “rule over” the day and the night. The air and sea appear on the second “day,” and on the fifth “day” God fills them with birds and fish, etc. In other words, the order of events seems to be more logical than chronological. The key element is the fourth day: as we noted in our discussion of Concordism, the Sun was not made until the fourth day, yet it was expressly given the task of producing the day and the night and we’ve had “evening and morning” since the first day. What’s going on here? How can this be taken “literally”? Advocates of the Framework view see a solution in the parallel triads.

Another way to see this focuses on the second verse in the Bible, which reads (in the American Standard Version, a translation that follows the Hebrew closely), “And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep: and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” God is confronted by darkness, a watery abyss, and a formless earth—each of these features posing a problem for God, who deals with them in the subsequent six “days.” First, on “days” 1 to 3, God prepares the heavens and the Earth to be a home for the great creatures to come, by separating light from darkness, separating waters above the firmament from waters below the firmament, and causing the dry land to “appear” and to “put forth” vegetation. Then, on “days” 4 to 6, God makes the creatures and puts them in the places God has prepared—the Sun and Moon in the “firmament of heaven (day 4), birds in the air and fish in the seas (day 5), and finally “the beasts of the earth” and “man” on the land (day 6).

We emphasize that the Framework View is simply about the Bible, not about science. The Earth and the universe can be as “young” or “old” as anyone wishes to claim, because the literary form of early Genesis leaves this an open question. The “days” were probably meant to be understood “literally” as ordinary days, but only in the context of a literary form that was not meant to be understood literally, when taken as a whole.

What about the seventh “day”? Because it lacks a “morning” and an “evening” in the text (have you ever noticed this?), some authors interpret the seventh “day” as a prophetic reference to God’s own eternal rest, which has not yet begun and which we will share with God in the eschatological future. An OEC book I discussed in my column on Concordism, Robert Newman’s Genesis One and the Origin of the Earth (1977), advocates this interpretation (see pp. 65-66), and so do some advocates of the Framework View.

(2) When seen against the cultural and literary context of the Ancient Near East (ANE), it is clear that Genesis was written to combat the polytheism and pantheism of other creation stories. It was not written to provide a scientifically accurate account of the creation.

This is why the Sun and Moon are not even named on the fourth day: they were worshipped as divine beings by many people in the ANE, and the Hebrew author(s) of Genesis intentionally omit their names as an act of defiance against worshippers of those two false gods. (Remember: for the ancient Egyptians, the Sun was the chief god.) Furthermore, the stars are mentioned simply as an afterthought, at the end of verse 16: “And God made the two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.” This was done deliberately, as a way of belittling the Babylonians and others who worshipped them. Indeed, the whole creation account stands in the face of polytheism, by affirming that the one true, invisible God has actually created all visible things, including the heavenly bodies. Nothing we see is divine: this is the essence of monotheism, stated bluntly and boldly.

(3) It is not possible to find a close match between what is proclaimed in Genesis—that God is the creator—and the details of natural history. We should not approach this text with inappropriate expectations.

For many readers, the crucial question awaits: according to the Framework View, is Genesis 1-3 historical in any meaningful sense? Here there is a division of the house, with authors falling into either of these two camps:

(1) Genesis 1-3 is an historical narrative (though not strictly chronological), not a creation myth. As Lee Irons and Meredith Kline emphasize in The G3N3S1S Debate, “The framework interpretation does not teach that creation was a nonhistorical event” (p. 220). The universe was actually created, Adam and Eve were the first humans, and the Fall was a real historical event. Some OECs like this approach, which can be seen as a looser type of Concordism than the day-age theory; Bernard Ramm’s “moderate concordism” might be understood as fitting into this category, even though he did not discuss the Framework View per se.

(2) Genesis 1-3 is not an historical narrative; it resembles some other, older ANE creation stories. Conrad Hyers advances this view in his book, The Meaning of Creation: Genesis and Modern Science ; see below. Some aspects of the story reflect this: the days, the progression from chaos to order, and the creation of humans from mud or clay. These are common to other ANE stories, and they are present in Genesis because that’s what hearers in the ANE expected such stories to include. Other aspects of Genesis, however, are profoundly unlike other ANE stories: the transcendence of God and the de-deification of nature. These constitute the crucial, timeless, substantive message that God has revealed to us. Theistic evolutionists tend to like this non-historical approach, which is not usually seen as a kind of Concordism.

Historical Comments

The Framework View is modern, but its attitude toward the Genesis “days” is similar to that held by Augustine. As I explained in an earlier column, he taught that God created all things at once and told us about it in the pattern of six days, in order that we could understand it. The days themselves, however, were “unknowable” and not meant as a “literal” description of the passage of time.

In the 19th century, the German scholar J. H. Kurtz put forth an interpretation that Ramm called the “pictorial day” view, which he considered to be a type of “Moderate Concordism,” the overall position that Ramm himself favored. Kurtz described the creation story as “prophetico-historical tableaux, [in] which are represented before the eye of the mind, scenes from the creative activity of God, each one of which represents some grand division of the great drama, some prominent phase of the development” (The Bible and Astronomy, 1861 Philadelphia edition, p. 110). His Scottish contemporary Hugh Miller, one of the most prolific and influential evangelical writers of his day, endorsed Kurtz’ interpretation, holding that “the form and nature of the revelation” in Genesis was “conveyed by a succession of sublime visions” (The Testimony of the Rocks, 1857 Boston edition, p. 180).

The Framework View itself, with the “days” arranged in parallel triads, was first proposed in 1924 by the Dutch scholar Arie Noordzij and made more widely known by another Dutch scholar, N. H. Ridderbos. His book—Is There a Conflict Between Genesis 1 and Natural Science?—was translated into English in 1957. Subsequently, Kline and the French theologian Henri Blocher have been its most prominent supporters.

An Assignment: It’s Your Turn to Read and Write

I’ve done most of the heavy lifting in this series, but now it’s your turn. As a way of getting into all three of the views we’ve studied thus far (not simply the Framework View), I’d like everyone to read an article by Conrad Hyers, “Dinosaur Religion: On Interpreting and Misinterpreting the Creation Texts,” Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation 36 (September 1984): 142-48. The questions below are intended as helpful suggestions; feel free to discuss other matters as well!

1. What does Hyers mean by “dinosaur religion”?

2. What is Hyers’ most basic objection to “creation science,” the YEC view?

3. What does Hyers believe to be the true message of Genesis One?

4. Overall, do you agree with what Hyers says? Why or why not? Whether or not you agree, do you have any critical comments?

NOTE: Hyers wrote a sequel, “The Narrative Form of Genesis 1: Cosmogonic, Yes; Scientific, No,” Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation 36 (December 1984): 208-15, in which he employs an interpretive scheme highly similar to the Framework View, although that term is not used. I encourage you to read this also, but our discussion will focus on the first article.

Looking Ahead

In our next column on August 14, we begin a lengthy discussion of Theistic Evolution. Although that is the view advocated (under an alternative name) by BioLogos, I will approach it no differently. After explaining its central tenets, we’ll examine them critically and outline its history. Between now and then, I’m keen to see your responses to the assigned reading. If you gotten this far, you’re more than just a casual reader. Tell us what you think of Hyers’ ideas.

This essay considers the meaning of another small word, but not one in Latin or Greek. This word appears in the Hebrew language in which the Old Testament was written. It is the word pronounced, mîn, that can be rhymed with “green.” In Modern Israeli Hebrew the word has taken on the meaning of “species.” This is also the traditional way in which is it translated in the Old Testament of Genesis 1. It appears in Genesis 1:11, 12, 21, 24, and 25. A survey of a variety of English translations (King James Version, New American Bible, New Revised Standard Version, English Standard Version, and New International Version) reveal that the translation “kind” or “kinds” is used.

Can we be more specific? Does the word imply a zoological classification such as the term “species” would in scientific discussions of the animal and vegetable kingdoms? It is always dangerous to apply modern concepts to ancient literature. The use of classificatory schemes provides a good example. The application of categories of knowledge in pre-Aristotelian writings invites misunderstanding as the means of viewing the world and its elements differed from the way we look at things today. This does not mean that communication is impossible; only that we need to remain especially cautious not to import our understanding of matters onto the ancient worldview of writers without approaching these questions carefully and critically.

In terms of ancient (or modern) literature, a word is best understood according to its usage in the writings in which it occurs. This suggests that context determines meaning. This is especially true where it appears multiple times in the same type of literature written from the same culture and general time period. The study of context is the primary determinant for understanding the definition of a word.

Secondarily, one may consider related words in the same literature. Because a Semitic language such as Hebrew is based on roots (usually of three consonants) that each generate verbs, nouns, and other particles of speech, words formed from the same root may provide additional understanding of the term we are considering.

The third area for study is where the same word occurs in comparative literature coming from similar, though not identical (which we consider in the first category), cultures and times. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew but we do not have much additional Hebrew writing preserved for us from the time when this part of the Bible was written. However, there are closely related Semitic languages that possess a wealth of literature and may contain our word in their writings. If so, it would be good to check this and see if there is a relationship there. At the same time, later Hebrew, written by Jewish scholars, may also use this word. It is of value to compare the usage here. This part of the study can confirm and refine our understanding of mîn, but it should not overturn clear contextual indications from the Old Testament usage itself.

Finally, we should note that, in the Old Testament, mîn does not appear by itself. Every one of its occurrences forms part of the same prepositional phrase. Thus our work is not complete when we have identified the contextual and comparative meaning of the word. Instead, we need to examine the usage of the term within this prepositional phrase. Such expressions can sometimes alter the meaning of the term. This is especially true in idioms, but also occurs in other common expressions.

Old Testament Context of mîn

The Hebrew term, mîn, occurs 31 times in the Old Testament. These occurrences are found in four contexts: the creation story of Genesis 1 (vv. 11, 12, 21, 24, and 25), the flood story (Genesis 6:20; 7:14), the lists of clean and unclean animals in Leviticus 11 (vv. 14, 15, 16, 19, 22, and 29) and Deuteronomy 14 (vv. 13, 14, 15, and 18), and the single occurrence in the prophet Ezekiel’s vision of the future river that will flow from the Jerusalem temple to the Dead Sea (Ezekiel 47:10).

The usage in Genesis 1:11 and 12 associates mîn with vegetation, especially those plants and trees that have seeds and bear fruit. These will form the basis for the food to be eaten by people, birds, and land animals in Genesis 1:29-30. There is no specification of mîn in terms of species or any more specific category than edible plants and fruit trees.

The same seems to be true in Genesis 1:21, where mîn appears alongside large and small sea creatures and birds with wings. The second and third days of creation in Genesis 1 describe God’s demarcation of three domains of the physical world: the sky, the seas, and the dry ground. On days five and six God fills these areas with life, with living creatures. For the sky and sea, the creatures are defined according to their general means of locomotion and not in any other way. Modern zoological classifications use criteria in addition to locomotion. Thus there are few clues that would connect mîn with any modern classification system.

The appearance of our term in Genesis 1:24 and 25 brings us to the fifth day when God fills the dry land with life. Here God creates three categories: livestock, wild animals, and creatures that crawl along the ground. In v. 24 the general category of all living animals on the ground is described with mîn; whereas in v. 25 each of these three categories receives this term. Thus the term can be used of more general and more specific “kinds” of animals within the same grouping.

The term recurs in Genesis 6:20 and 7:14, where it modifies individually the bird, the wild animal of the land, and the creature that crawls along the ground. In Genesis 7:14 livestock is added to those in the ark. It also is modified by mîn. Here the categories of animals resemble those in Genesis 1. From these “kinds” would come all the species that are found in nature. This confirms the broad usage of mîn but does not add new information.

The usage of mîn also occurs in the listing of unclean animals. It occurs in a list in Leviticus 11:14, 15, 16, 19, and 22; which closely follows the list in Deuteronomy 14:13, 14, 15, and 18. Only Leviticus 11:22 is separate. This list includes specific names of small wild animals, various birds, and insects (Leviticus 11:22). Although there is discussion and dispute regarding the specific identification of various of these animals, it is clear that they form subcategories of those types to whom the term mîn was applied in Genesis 1, 6, and 7. The resulting picture is thus that mîn applies to a variety of animal categories, both those more general and those more specific. While particular species may be described in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, that is certainly not the case in Genesis, where the categories of living creatures are much broader.

The remaining text with mîn is Ezekiel 47:10. Here the fresh water that will pour from the temple into the Dead Sea forms a natural habitat for fish that are mîn and are compared with those fish found in the Mediterranean Sea. As in Genesis 1:21, the picture is one of general creatures of the sea, rather than what anyone might identify as a particular species. Indeed, if the translation of the phrase in which mîn occurs is understood (following the New International Version) as, “The fish will be of many kinds,” then this could envision various species. However, such an interpretation is not explicit from the text itself.

Our survey of the usage of the term in biblical Hebrew suggests that it may describe all types of plants and animals, and this may include mîn in the broadest categories of living creatures: green plants with seed, fruit trees, birds, sea creatures, fish, wild land animals, domestic animals, and creatures that creep along the ground. It may also include specific categories as enumerated in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14. Thus mîn does refer to various kinds of living creatures without a predisposition as to how large a category is intended. Only context can tell us that. The term is applied only to living creatures as described in the Bible. It is never applied to people, abstract concepts, or nonliving objects.

In Part 2, Dr. Hess expands his analysis in by exploring closely related words in the Old Testament and by comparing how mîn is used in literature coming from similar cultures and times.

It is obvious to anyone with even a cursory interest in the topic of ‘origins’ that the Bible’s opening creation account (Gen. 1:1–2:3)¹ has been the subject of a very heated debate in recent years between so-called ‘six-day creationists’ and those branded ‘scientific materialists’. These labels are frequently used in a pejorative sense, so let me flag that my use of these epithets is one of convenience not criticism.

The six-day creationists insist, largely on the basis of Genesis 1, that the universe was created in just one week about 6000 years ago and that no other interpretation of the biblical material is possible for those seeking to be faithful to Scripture as divinely inspired. The scientific materialists retort, largely on the basis of the scientific data, that such a view is patently false and that the universe is close to 14 billion years old. Therefore, the Judeo-Christian account of our origins, they say, must be dismissed as irrelevant for our day. There are, of course, innumerable ‘middle-positions’ that are less relevant to the argument of this paper.

In what follows, I hope to demonstrate that both sides of the debate—as they typically present themselves—make a similar mistake. They form their conclusions about the biblical account of creation in isolation from the conclusions of many mainstream contemporary biblical historians. And it is as a historian that I wish to address this theme.

Six-day creationists and scientific materialists approach the opening chapter of the Bible in a ‘literalistic’ fashion. I use the word ‘literalistic’ deliberately, as I want to distinguish between literalistic and literal. A literalistic reading takes the words of a text at face value, interpreting them with minimal attention to literary genre and historical context. A literal reading such as my own, on the other hand, gives serious consideration to both the literary style and the historical setting of a text. It tries to understand not only what is said but what is meant—i.e. what the original author intended to convey. Sometimes in literature what is meant and what is said do not have a one to one correspondence. In metaphor, for example, what is meant is greater than what is said (‘The Lord is my shepherd’, Ps. 23:1). In hyperbole what is meant is less than what is said (‘If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away’, Mt. 5:30). One can read such literary devices literally—trying to discern what the literature intends to convey—without reading them literalistically.

Both six-day creationists and scientific materialists approach Genesis 1 as if the original author had intended to narrate the mechanics of creation in historical prose. I believe this is a mistaken, literalistic reading. For over a century now, a great many biblical historians have detected in the Bible’s opening words a style other than simple prose and a purpose other than to explain how the universe was made. These two issues, genre and purpose, are critical for understanding this foundational portion of the Jewish and Christian Bible. In what follows, then, I want to unpack what many modern scholars are saying about these issues and demonstrate that, properly understood, Genesis 1 teaches nothing scientifically problematic for the modern enquirer. I emphasize the adverb ‘scientifically’, since there is plenty in Genesis 1 that is theologically and existentially confronting. That is the aim of the text, as I understand it.

But, first, an important clarification: I must emphasize that this paper assumes no particular view of human origins. The questions explored are literary and historical, not scientific. My rejection of the literalistic reading of Genesis 1 offers no direct support for old-earth, progressive creationism (or ‘theistic evolution’, as it is sometimes called), nor is it intended to do so. In fact, the case made below is consistent with virtually any scientific account of origins. To put it starkly but no less accurately, even if science ended up proving that the universe was created in six days around 6000 year ago, this happy correspondence between the scientific data and the surface structure of Genesis 1 would not affect my interpretation of the text at all. I would still insist that the opening chapter of the Bible does not aim to teach a particular cosmic chronology and that to suggest otherwise misconstrues the author’s original intention.

An analogy may help. Suppose that some clear historical evidence were discovered that around AD 29 a certain fellow from Samaria was travelling along the Jerusalem-Jericho road and came upon a Jewish man stripped of his clothes and beaten half to death. The Samaritan promptly tended to his wounds and paid two denarii for his care at a nearby guesthouse. Would this chance discovery—perhaps in some passing report by Josephus or Philo—have any bearing on the actual point being made in Jesus’ famous parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30–37) where precisely such details are narrated? The answer is ‘No’. It would certainly be a happy coincidence if one of Jesus’ didactic illustrations turned out also to be a true story, but it would not alter the fact that the ‘parable’ itself—a well-known literary device of Jewish antiquity—was never intended to be heard as a historical narrative. Parables are narrative constructs with a moral or spiritual message. Whether they correspond to events in time is of no consequence.

The parable of the Good Samaritan, therefore, is (in theory) consistent with any view of the historicity of the story because factuality is not relevant to the genre. A person reading the text may, of course, believe that Jesus was telling a factual story—it may well be—but he or she could not argue that the story puts itself forward as such; it is obviously a parable (even though, interestingly, the story is not introduced as a parable in Luke’s Gospel). The point here is not that Genesis 1 is also a parable. Not at all. I am simply emphasizing that some parts of Scripture, rightly interpreted, commit us to no particular view of the factuality of what is described. I do not believe that Genesis 1 teaches a six-day creation but this is neither an endorsement of theistic evolution nor a denial of six-day creationism. It is simply a literary and historical statement. I am happy to leave the science to the scientists.

Interpretation of Genesis 1 in the pre-scientific era

Before I give an account of what contemporary scholars are saying about the genre and purpose of Genesis, I want to establish for readers that a non-literalistic interpretation of Genesis 1 is by no means a recent phenomenon. Sceptical friends have often put it to me that my interpretation of Genesis 1 is really just an act of acquiescence to the troubling conclusions of modern science: ‘It is now clear that life emerged over a period of billions of years’, they say, ‘so now you are trying to appear respectable by picking and choosing how you read the Bible.’ Richard Dawkins has echoed this criticism with great flair recently (Dawkins 2006 pp. 237–238). Interestingly, six-day creationists say the same thing. They insist that the non-literalistic reading of Genesis 1 is the result of biblical scholars losing their nerve or being taken captive to the Zeitgeist.

It is never wise to second-guess the motives of scholars on such questions but, more significantly, it is important to realize that the precedents for a non-literalistic reading of Genesis 1 can be found in the very distant past. What follows is not intended as a proof or validation of my interpretation; it is simply a counter-argument to the above suggestion. Genesis 1 was being interpreted in a non-literalistic fashion long before modern science became a ‘problem’ for some Christians.

The Jewish scholar Philo

The prolific Jewish scholar, Philo, who lived and worked in Alexandria in the first century (10 BC – AD 50), wrote a treatise titled On the Account of the World’s Creation Given by Moses. In this work, Philo says that God probably created everything simultaneously and that the reference to ‘six days’ in Genesis indicates not temporal sequence but divine orderliness (Philo 13, 28). In the introduction to the Loeb Classical Library edition of this work the translators, FH Colson and GH Whitaker summarize Philo’s rather complex and subtle view of things:

By ‘six days’ Moses does not indicate a space of time in which the world was made, but the principles of order and productivity which governed its making [original emphasis].

It is perhaps important to note that Philo was not marginal. He was the leading intellectual of the largest Jewish community outside of Palestine.² How widespread his views were we do not know, but his discussion of the topic reveals no hint of controversy.

The Greek ‘Fathers’

Philo is followed in this interpretation by the second century Christian theologian and evangelist, Clement of Alexandria (AD 150–215), for whom the six days are symbolic (Stromata VI, 16). A generation later, Origen (185-254), the most influential theologian of the third century—again, an Alexandrian—understood Days 2–6 of the Genesis account as days in time. However, he regarded Day 1 as a non-temporal day. He reasoned that without matter, which was created on the second day, there could be no time; hence, no true ‘day’.³ What is interesting here is that a leading Christian scholar of antiquity was comfortable mixing concrete and metaphorical approaches to Genesis 1 (Origen in Heine 1982).

The Latin Fathers and beyond

Moving to Latin-speaking scholars, the fourth century Bishop of Milan, Saint Ambrose (AD 339–397), taught a fully symbolic understanding of Genesis 1.⁴ Moreover, his greatest convert, and perhaps history’s most influential theologian, Saint Augustine, famously championed a quite sophisticated, non-literalistic reading of the text. Augustine understood the ‘days’ in Genesis 1 as successive epochs in which the substance of matter, which God had created in an instant in the distant past, was fashioned into the various forms we now recognise (Augustine 2002). Augustine’s view was endorsed by some of the biggest names in the medieval church, including the Venerable Bede in the 8th century (Hexaemeron 1, 1), St Albert the Great (Commentary on the Sentence 12, B, I) and the incomparable Thomas Aquinas (II Sentences 12, 3, I) in the 13th century.⁵

It must be said that such views were not the majority position during this period. The literalistic reading appears to have been the dominant one from the 5th-century through to today. In her review of the interpretations of Genesis 1-2 offered by the ancient Fathers, Elizabeth Clark argues that this concrete approach to the text developed in the 5th- century partly as a response to the ascetic, anti-creation heresies of the period. Only a literalistic understanding of the Bible’s creation account, it was thought, could preserve a truly biblical doctrine of the goodness of creation (Clark 1988 pp. 99-133).

Be that as it may, the larger point I wish to make is that a non-literalistic interpretation of Genesis 1 is not necessarily a nervous, modern reaction to the rise of contemporary science. It is a viewpoint (even if a minority one) with a long and venerable history in both Jewish and Christian traditions.

Having said this, there are aspects of the modern interpretation of Genesis 1 that only became possible in the 16th–19th centuries, at precisely the time of the scientific revolution. This is no coincidence. The Renaissance and Enlightenment periods precipitated a literary revolution in parallel with the scientific one. This was a time of increasing sophistication in the historical-critical analysis of ancient texts in their original languages. Out of such analyses have come particular conclusions about the genre and purpose of Genesis chapter 1.

Notes

1. Genesis 1:1–2:3 is the literary unit under discussion, even though I will frequently refer to it as ‘Genesis 1’ or the ‘opening chapter of the Bible’.
2. For a concise history of the Jewish community of the intellectual centre of Alexandria (and Philo’s place in it) see Binder 1999.
3. In this, Origen echoes Philo who argued similarly about Day 1 in On the creation (Philo 15, 26-27, 34-35).
4. For a history of interpretation of these sections of Genesis see Genesis 1-3 in the history of exegesis: intrigue in the garden (Robbins 1988). A detailed account of patristic (both Greek and Latin) interpretations of Genesis 1 is also found in Appendix 7 of St Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologiae (Aquinas 1967 pp. 202-210).
5. For Aquinas’ own careful and even comparison of Augustine’s view of creation with other ancient Fathers see Summa Theologiae Ia. 74. (Aquinas 1967 pp. 1-3) Excellent articles on the interpretation of the ‘Six Days’ (Hexaemeron) among medieval theologians are found in Appendices 8 and 9 in St Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologiae (Aquinas 1967 pp. 211-224).

In the next post, Dr. Dickson examines the genre of Genesis 1.

Left: "Abrahamic Covenant" by Christoph Weigel, 1695.
Courtesy Pitts Theological Seminary, Emory University.

The people of your culture cling with fanatical tenacity to the specialness of man. They want desperately to perceive a vast gulf between man and the rest of creation. - Ishmael ¹

For the destiny of humans and the destiny of animals is the same: As one dies, so dies the other; Both have the same breath of life. And humans have no preeminence over the animals…All go to the same place; All come from dust, And to dust all shall return. - Ecclesiastes 3:19-20

What is humankind’s place among the animals? Should we even count human beings among the animals at all? Perhaps we—as men and women—are something else entirely? Such questions are not new. Indeed, they are as old as writing itself and similar ponderings about human identity occupy the most ancient of texts. While many of these primeval writings have crumbled in the winds of time and have come to us only in fragments, the Genesis account of human and animal origins remains a living document that occupies a vital place in the life of Christian practice and thought. In the first chapter of the Genesis narrative we read that humans—male and female—were created in the image (tselem) and likeness (demuth) of God. But what does this mean? There is certainly no shortage of proposed answers, and over two thousand years of theological tradition bears witness to this fact. Here, however, we are not primarily interested in tradition—as valuable and insightful as it may be—but we are concerned with what the Bible itself has to say.

Taking the authority of Scripture seriously demands that we engage with Scripture in light of both its original languages and its original cultural context. If we are to avoid—as much as it is possible—projecting our own personal, modern and post-modern cultural presuppositions onto Scripture, then we must be willing to do some of the hermeneutical (or interpretive) hard work. In other words, if we want to allow Scripture to speak for itself, we must be hyper-aware of the cultural lenses we are wearing when we read it. Interpreting the Bible through five hundred years of Protestant tradition, fifteen hundred years of Roman Catholic tradition, or one hundred years of Seventh-Day Adventist tradition won’t do.² Rather we must venture to take off the thick hermeneutical lenses of tradition and boldly attempt to go into the world of the sacred text itself so that we can allow the ancient inspired words to shape the lenses or our reading.

With this approach to Scripture in mind, I believe it is useful to address the matter of the image and likeness of God (or imago Dei) by first asking what the imago Dei is not. Throughout the centuries, theologians, philosophers, and others have posed a number of answers to the question of what the imago Dei is. The vast majority of these answers have focused on one or a few characteristics that humans alone have and that non-human animals lack. For example, Evangelical Christian author Kay Warren explains: “Animals and people are two different classes of created beings and they will never be equal in their worth. As precious as animals are to our daily existence, they operate from instinct, not volition. Only people have a spiritual dimension. We are the ones created in the image of the Creator, the only ones with a soul.”³ In a similar manner, political commentator Ann Coulter, citing “the story of Genesis”, maintains: “It’s not merely opposable thumbs and a bipedal gait that make us distinct from the other beasts. It is consciousness of our mortality, a moral sense, language, mathematics, art, beauty, music, love, longings for immortality, a sense of symmetry, the soul’s ascent, the ability to accessorize, and our fascination with Branson, Missouri…We are in God’s image, and we’re the only ones in God’s image, which is why we eat escargot rather than worship them.”⁴ While these are two popular contemporary voices, similar views are espoused by numerous academics as well. In this way the imago Dei has, for many, become synonymous with one central characteristic or several key traits that make humans unique among and/or superior to animals.⁵

As intriguing as such perceived indicators of human uniqueness are, and regardless of the scientific status of claims for such distinguishing human traits, the idea that there are particular physical features and/or behavioral characteristics that make men—and not beasts—in the image and likeness of God is not one that is found anywhere in the pages of Holy Scripture. With regard to humans as “the image and likeness of God,” a literal and consistent reading of the Genesis narratives discloses that the imago Dei designation does not refer to unique characteristics or capacities which humans posses in a way that excludes other non-human animals.

Hebrew scholar Phyllis Bird informs us that the scriptural context of the phrase “image and likeness of God” makes it plain that “its theological significance is in the place it gives to humans within the created order, not in any physical or moral attribute of the species, in either its present or ‘original’ state.”⁶ In the Bible the imago Dei is not about exceptional human capacities or characteristics that automatically qualify humans as being included in the imago Dei category. There is no reason, explains Bible scholar James Barr, to believe that the author of Genesis chapter one “had in his mind any definite idea about the content or location of the image of God.”⁷ The terms “‘image’ and ‘likeness’…make no statements about the nature of human beings.”⁸ When we read of “the creation of human beings in God’s image (Gen 1:26)…the biblical narrative remains silent…about any qualities of human nature that might account for their special standing.”⁹

If we are to properly understand the meaning of the texts, then, says Old Testament scholar Claus Westermann, we must confidently resist “the tendency to see the image and likeness of God as a something, a quality.”¹⁰ Consequently, a literal reading of the early Genesis accounts demands that no specific anthropological content or characteristics may be directly equated with the imago Dei. If one is to take the findings of biblical exegesis seriously, then—apart from theological tradition—the image of God cannot be defined on the basis of particular physical traits or behavioral characteristics. This means that—according to a straightforward reading of Genesis and the rest of Scripture—humans are not said to be biologically or behaviorally unique in a way that is related to their being named the “image of God.”

In addition to the broad consensus among biblical scholars that the image of God in humans, when understood within its original Hebrew linguistic and Ancient Near Eastern context, has nothing whatsoever to do with an appeal to the human possession of particular characteristics which non-human animals lack, research in biblical exegesis has similarly revealed that there is no essential or substantial super-natural divide between humans and other animals. Scripture, when read in the original languages, clearly describes both “man and beast” as possessing “the breath of life” and refers to both equally as “souls.” In this way Scripture makes no ontological or metaphysical distinctions between humans and non-human animals. Instead, the scriptural “emphasis lies on the commonality that exists between the humans and the rest of the animal creation.”¹¹

While the use of the Hebrew word nephesh, often translated as “soul”, to describe humans has been taken by some as an indication that humans are substantially set apart from the animals, the nephesh is not an exclusive possession of humans. Indeed, the Hebrew text describes both humans (Gen 2:7) and animals (Gen 1:21, 24) equally as nephesh hayyah or “living souls.”¹² Thus, Bible Scholar Gordon Wenham explains that in Genesis 2:7, which describes the human being as a nephesh, “it is not man’s possession of the ‘breath of life’ or his status as a ‘living creature’ that differentiates him from the animals—animals are described in exactly the same terms.”¹³ In Genesis, “human beings…are only one subset of God’s ‘living beings,’ into whom God has breathed the breath of life” and established as “living souls.”¹⁴

According to the biblical understanding, then, “what is distinctive about human beings is not that they have a ‘soul’ which animals do not possess, nor that they have a ‘spirit’ which other creatures do not possess.”¹⁵ It is clear, then, that “the possession of nepheš is not a unique characteristic of the human person.” Indeed, “unless one is ready to grant that animals have ‘souls’ in the same way that humans are alleged to have, then we might better conclude that the Genesis account is referring to the divine gift of life: ‘the human being became a living person.’”¹⁶ Consequently, “claims for a ‘special creation’ of humanity in comparison with animals and the material world conflict with the strong assertion in Genesis 2 that, physically (organically), Adam does not differ from the ‘beasts of the field.’”¹⁷ The theological language of anthropology in Genesis 1 and 2 “underscores Adam’s linkage with the animal creation, not his difference from it.”¹⁸

Whatever else the imago Dei might be, then, a clear and consistent reading of Scripture does not permit us to equate it with either a non-material soul which animals lack or some unique physical characteristic or behavior which animals lack. These conclusions regarding what the image and likeness of God in humans IS NOT lead us directly to our discussion of what the imago Dei IS.

In Part 2 of this series, Dr. Moritz examines how the phrase "image and likeness of God" is used within Scripture itself.

Notes

1. Daniel Quinn, Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit (New York: Bantam, 1992), 146.
2. I mention SDA because the prophecies of Ellen White and her interpretations of Genesis have played a significant role in shaping contemporary Evangelical understandings of the text. See Ronald L. Numbers, The Creationists: The Evolution of Scientific Creationism (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1992), 74. For an online lecture on this topic see http://vimeo.com/38687776
3. Kay Warren, “Puppies Aren’t People: When compassion for animals goes too far,” (Accessed May 22, 2012) http://blog.christianitytoday.com/women/2009/04/kay_warren_puppies_arent_peopl.html. In this essay Kay Warren cites the theological views of her husband Rick Warren.
4. Ann Coulter, Godless: The Church of Liberalism (New York: Crown Forum, 2006), 266.
5. For example a recent group of Genesis interpreters concludes, “Evidence points to the fact that man is a unique creation, made in the image of God.” David N. Menton, “Did humans really evolve from ape-like creatures?” in War of the Worldviews: Powerful Answers for an Evolutionized Culture, ed. Ken Ham, Bodie Hodge, Carl Kerby, et al. (Green Forest, Arkansas: New Leaf Press, 2006), 43-59.
6. Phyllis A. Bird, “Theological Anthropology in the Hebrew Bible,” in The Blackwell Companion to the Hebrew Bible, ed. Leo G. Perdue (Malden, MA: Blackwell 2001), 262.
7. James Barr, “The Image of God in the Book of Genesis: A Study of Terminology, ” Bulletin of the John. Rylands Library 51 (1968-69), 13.
8. Horst Dietrich Preuss, Old Testament Theology, vol 2, trans. Leo G. Perdue (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1996), 115
9. Kathryn Tanner, “The Difference Theological Anthropology Makes,” Theology Today 50:4 (Jan 1994), 573.
10. Claus Westermann, Creation, trans. John H. Scullion, S.J. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974), 57-58.
11. Iain Provan, “The Land Is Mine and You Are Only Tenants (Leviticus 25:23): Earth-keeping and People-keeping in the Old Testament,” CRUX 42:2 (Summer 2006): 5.
12. Claus Westermann, Genesis 1-11: A Continental Commentary, 1st ed. trans. John J. Scullion (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1994), 136.
13. Gordon Wenham, Word Biblical Commentary: Genesis 1-15 (Waco: Word, 1987), 61.
14. Provan, “The Land Is Mine and You Are Only Tenants,” 5.
15. Ray Anderson, “Theological Anthropology” in The Blackwell Companion to Modern Theology, ed. Gareth Jones (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), 85 (emphasis added).
16. Joel B. Green, “Restoring The Human Person: New Testament Voices For A Holistic and Social Anthropology,” in Neuroscience and the Person: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, ed. Robert John Russell, Nancey Murphy, Theo C. Meyering, and Michael Arbib (Vatican City State and Berkeley, CA: Vatican Observatory and CTNS, 1999), 5.
17. Lawson G. Stone, “The Soul: Possession, Part, or Person? The Genesis of Human Nature in Genesis 2:7” in What About the Soul?: Neuroscience and Christian Anthropology, ed. Joel B. Green (Nashville: Abingdon, 2004), 50.
18. Ibid., 57.

What we will do here falls under three headings. First, we will examine what a leading Catholic theologian said about the earth’s motion and the Bible, at almost the same time when Galileo was writing his letter. Next, we will examine the attitude of a modern opponent of Galileo, in order to see why he objects to Galileo’s approach to the Bible. Finally, we will briefly look at how creationists today keep Galileo out of the garden of Eden—how they differentiate between Galileo’s use of accommodation for biblical passages about astronomy (where they generally agree with Galileo) and the adoption of a similar attitude for early Genesis (where they oppose applying Galileo’s strategy).

Robert Bellarmine’s Approach to the Bible and Astronomy

Early in 1615, a few months before Galileo finished his “Letter to Christina,” the Carmelite friar Paolo Foscarini published a letter of his own about the Copernican system, whose title (translated into English) was “Letter concerning the Opinion of the Pythagoreans and Copernicus about the Mobility of the Earth and Stability of the Sun, and about the New Pythagorean System of the World.” Foscarini tried to reconcile the Bible and Copernican astronomy—the same thing Galileo did in his letter. He sent a copy of his letter to a Catholic theologian, Roberto Cardinal Bellarmine, an intellectual who had earned a reputation as a learned defender of the Catholic Church against various Protestant claims. Bellarmine replied both to Foscarini and to Galileo’s earlier letter to Castelli (see my previous column) in a letter he wrote to Foscarini on April 12, 1615.

Please read that letter now, before reading the rest of this column. (Note: The first sentence on this web site is entirely erroneous and should be ignored. Galileo had not yet finished his “Letter to Christina” when Bellarmine wrote to Foscarini.)

Let me highlight the most important parts of Bellarmine’s letter.

• First paragraph: Bellarmine has no objection to the Copernican hypothesis—provided that it is treated only as a purely mathematical model of the heavens that is useful for calculating where things can be seen on a given night. (This is what he means by “the appearances are saved…”) However, it must not be seen as a valid description of physical reality; that is, the earth does not really go around the sun, rather the sun goes around the earth. There was nothing out of the ordinary with Bellarmine’s suggestion—this is the overall attitude that astronomers had held since antiquity. It was also the attitude suggested by the anonymously written, unauthorized preface to Copernicus’ own book, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres. For more on that, see the section “Ad lectorem” (“to the reader”).

• Second paragraph: Bellarmine makes a crucial point that can be understood only in the context of the Reformation. The Council of Trent, in which the Roman Catholic Church responded officially to the Protestants, forbids interpreting the Bible in ways that are not consistent with “the common agreement of the holy Fathers,” that is the Patristic writers. In other words, if the early theologians had all held to a particular interpretation of a given biblical text, that interpretation could not be changed; it was binding on the Church henceforth—provided that it was a matter of faith, that is, a matter of theological importance to Christianity as the Roman Church understood it. That principle was intended for use against Protestant theological claims, which clearly were matters of faith, but in this instance Bellarmine applied it also to astronomy, which is not clearly a matter of faith. Bellarmine anticipated such an objection. His answer is that all statements in the Bible are matters of faith, in effect, because the Bible is the written words of the Holy Spirit. This reflects contemporary views of the inspiration of the Bible, as seen (for example) in Caravaggio’s painting, The Inspiration of Saint Matthew (1602), at right. The issue here—whether the inclusion of erroneous scientific views in the Bible (as we would judge it today) means that the Bible is not divinely inspired—is central to the whole conversation about science and the Bible. I’d like to see what you think.
• Third paragraph: Bellarmine admits that, if there were “a true demonstration” of the Copernican theory, then we might need to reinterpret some biblical passages; but, if we can’t really prove it, then we are obligated to view it as a hypothetical mathematical model rather than a true description of physical reality. If possible, I’d like to avoid getting into the finer details of what “a true demonstration” meant, in the context of Aristotelian views of knowledge (the relevant category). It’s probably not too much of an oversimplification to say simply that Bellarmine’s view amounts to saying, “Where’s the beef?” This is also a key issue in modern debates about origins—when do we have enough evidence for a scientific conclusion (for example, the great age of the earth or the common descent of humans and other organisms) to say that a re-interpretation of the Bible is warranted? It is precisely on questions of this sort where creationists, theistic evolutionists, and most advocates of ID (those who oppose common descent) find that they disagree.

Tomorrow—after you’ve had a chance to read Bellarmine’s letter and respond to it—we will bring the same issues down into our own day, by comparing how modern creationists (both those who reject Copernicus and those who don’t) view Galileo’s attitude toward science and the Bible.

What's the Problem?

Many secular and many evangelical voices agree on one ‘truism’—that if you are an orthodox Christian with a high view of the authority of the Bible, you cannot believe in evolution in any form at all. New Atheist authors such as Richard Dawkins and creationist writers such as Ken Ham seem to have arrived at consensus on this, and so more and more in the general population are treating it as given. If you believe in God, you can’t believe in evolution. If you believe in evolution, you can’t believe in God.

This creates a problem for both doubters and believers. Many believers in western culture see the medical and technological advances achieved through science and are grateful for them. They have a very positive view of science. How then, can they reconcile what science seems to tell them about evolution with their traditional theological beliefs? Seekers and inquirers about Christianity can be even more perplexed. They may be drawn to many things about the Christian faith, but, they say, “I don’t see how I can believe the Bible if that means I have to reject science.”

However, there are many who question the premise that science and faith are irreconcilable. Many believe that a high view of the Bible does not demand belief in just one account of origins. They argue that we do not have to choose between an anti-science religion or an anti-religious science.¹ They think that there are a variety of ways in which God could have brought about the creation of life forms and human life using evolutionary processes, and that the picture of incompatibility between orthodox faith and evolutionary biology is greatly overdrawn.²

For example, there have been a number of efforts to argue that there may be evolutionary reasons for religious belief. That is, it may be that capacity for religious belief is ‘adaptive’ or is connected to other adaptive traits, passed down from our ancestors because they supported survival and reproduction. There is no consensus about this among evolutionary biologists. Nevertheless, its very proposal seems to be completely antithetical to any belief that God is objectively real. However, Christian philosopher Peter van Inwagen asks:

Suppose that God exists and wants supernaturalistic belief to be a human universal, and sees (he would see this if it were true) that certain features would be useful for human beings to have— useful from an evolutionary point of view: conducive to survival and reproduction—would naturally have the consequence that supernaturalistic belief would be in due course a human universal. Why shouldn’t he allow those features to be the cause of the thing he wants?—rather as the human designer of a vehicle might use the waste heat from its engine to keep its passengers warm.³

Van Inwagen’s argument is sound. Even if science could prove that religious belief has a genetic component that we inherit from our ancestors, that finding is not incompatible with belief in the reality of God or even the truth of the Christian faith. There is no logical reason to preclude that God could have used evolution to predispose people to believe in God in general so that people would be able to consider true belief when they hear the gospel preached. This is just one of many places where the supposed incompatibility of orthodox faith with evolution begins to fade away under more sustained reflection.

However, many Christian laypeople remain confused because the voices arguing that Biblical orthodoxy and evolution are mutually exclusive are louder and more prominent than any others. What will it take to help Christian laypeople see greater coherence between what science tells us about creation and what the Bible teaches us about it?

Pastors and People

In my estimation what current science tells us about evolution presents four main difficulties for orthodox Protestants. The first is in the area of Biblical authority. To account for evolution we must see at least Genesis 1 as non-literal. The questions come along these lines: what does that mean for the idea that the Bible has final authority? If we refuse to take one part of the Bible literally, why take any parts of it literally? Aren’t we really allowing science to sit in judgment on our understanding of the Bible rather than vica versa?

The second difficulty is the confusion of biology and philosophy. Many of the strongest proponents for evolution as a biological process (such as Dawkins) also see it as a ‘Grand Theory of Everything.’ They look to natural selection to explain not only all human behavior but even to give the only answers to the great philosophical questions, such as why we exist, what life is about, and why human nature is what it is. Doesn’t belief in the one idea—that life is the product of evolution—entail the adoption of this whole ‘world -view’?

The third difficulty is the historicity of Adam and Eve. One way to reconcile what current science says about evolution is to propose that the account of Adam and Eve is symbolic, not literal, but what does this do to the New Testament teaching of Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15 that our sinfulness comes from our relationship with Adam? If we don’t believe in an historical fall, how did we become what the Bible says we are—sinful and condemned?

The fourth difficulty is the problem of violence and evil. One of the greatest barriers to belief in God is the problem of suffering and evil in the world. Why, people ask, did God create a world in which violence, pain, and death are endemic? The answer of traditional theology is—he didn’t. He created a good world but also gave human beings free will, and through their disobedience and ‘Fall’, death and suffering came into the world. The process of evolution, however, understands violence, predation, and death to be the very engine of how life develops. If God brings about life through evolution, how do we reconcile that with the idea of a good God? The problem of evil seems to be worse for the believer in theistic evolution.

I have been a pastor for almost 35 years, and during that time I’ve spoken to many laypeople who struggle with the relationship of modern science to orthodox belief. In the minds of most laypeople, it is the first three difficulties that loom largest. The fourth difficulty—the problem of suffering and death—has not been posed to me as often by parishioners. Yet in some ways the problem of suffering goes along with the third question regarding the historicity of the Fall. Without the traditional view of the historicity of the Fall, the question of evil would seem to become more acute.

Therefore, below I will lay out three basic problems that Christian laypeople have with the scientific account of biological evolution. Nothing here should be seen as meeting the need for rigorous, scholarly arguments in answer to these questions. These are popular-level pastoral answers and guidance. As a pastor I have had to draw heavily on the work of experts. The first question, about Biblical authority, requires that I draw on the best work of exegetes and Biblical scholars. To answer the second question, about evolution as a ‘Grand Theory of Everything,’ I need to draw on the work of philosophers. When we come to the third question regarding Adam and Eve, I must look to theologians.

In short, if I as a pastor want to help both believers and inquirers to relate science and faith coherently, I must read the works of scientists, exegetes, philosophers, and theologians and then interpret them for my people. Someone might counter that this is too great a burden to put on pastors, that instead they should simply refer their laypeople to the works of scholars. But if pastors are not ‘up to the job’ of distilling and understanding the writings of scholars in various disciplines, how will our laypeople do it? This is one of the things that parishioners want from their pastors. We are to be a bridge between the world of scholarship and the world of the street and the pew. I’m aware of what a burden this is. I don’t know that there has ever been a culture in which the job of the pastor has been more challenging. Nevertheless, I believe this is our calling.

Next week, Keller begins to unpack the individual questions, beginning with how we can understand evolution in relation to a literal reading of the Bible.

Notes

1. A good popular level book by a scientist is Denis Alexander, aptly titled: Creation or Evolution-do we have to choose? (Oxford: Monarch Books, 2008.)
2. See Christian Smith, ed. The Secular Revolution: Power, Interests, and Conflict in the Secularization of American Public Life (University of California Press, 2003.) and Rodney Stark For the Glory of God : how monotheism led to reformations, science, witch-hunts, and the end of slavery (Princeton: 2003.)
3. Peter van Inwagen, “Explaining Belief in the Supernatural”, in J.Schloss and M.Murray, ed. The Believing Primate: Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Reflections on the Origin of Religion. (Oxford, 2009) p.136.

Today's video features pastor Brian McLaren and is courtesy of filmmaker Ryan Pettey, director/editor of Satellite Pictures.

In today's video, Brian McLaren discusses the value of considering Scripture in light of the cultures that surrounded them. The Biblical writers were aware of the myths of the power nations that surrounded them, but flipped their stories on their heads to reveal truth about God. The myths of cultures like Babylon declared that the world was built on a foundation of violence and humans meant to be slaves to the gods and their leaders, but the Bible tells that the world comes from goodness and that humans are made for more than servitude but to truly know God.

Today's video is courtesy of filmmaker Ryan Pettey, director/editor of Satellite Pictures.

Video transcript

I think there are sometimes a couple of biblical images we struggle to lay hold of. In the New Testament we find when we talk about life, we have the idea of living or ‘bios’. In other words, we talk about how we are alive. But Jesus talks about the fact of “coming to life “ when we know him. That doesn’t suddenly mean that our heart starts beating. It means that there is this whole side to us which was dead… which wasn’t alive and is now… that has actually sprung to life. And we run into complications maybe if we reduce all of these things into exactly the same categories. Now you can have the same issues with ‘death’ too. That word is used in many ways, and different words are used to try and signify various different things.

Now what is interesting is that if you go back into the Genesis account, it says “now do not eat this [apple] or you will surely die”. There is a whole chain of events that happens when Adam and Eve decide they want to walk away from God. The first thing that happens is that they cover themselves up. There’s like a psychological alienation that comes. They are no longer happy with the way they are. The next thing that happens is God steps into the garden, they run and hide. There is spiritual alienation. The voice that was once welcoming where they went, they now find themselves cut off from that. Then there is a social alienation that comes as a result of turning away from God. They start blaming each other. There is a vocational alienation that comes as a result of, of course, judgment. That which was meant to be home for them, all work become labor, and we could keep going.

So when we talk about “death” the picture, to me, seems to be much bigger, much fuller. I can’t think of a more comprehensive view of possibly what it could mean. And so I think we need to again break away from a straight forward, in fact, mechanistic understanding. In no way do I think that impoverishes either or understanding of the gospel or of the cross. As a matter of fact, it enhances it. It makes the work of the cross even more incredible and it makes the idea that God is looking for redemption from us more complete. We are not talking simply about the idea of physically living forever because that’s clearly not what it means. We know that we are going to physically die. All of us. But when you think about it in terms of what that means psychologically, spiritually, emotionally, socially, vocationally and so on it becomes a huge picture. The text is teaching us something which is real, which is true, which is there. I think we just need a bigger more sophisticated handling of the text, than a reductionist one that I think actually impoverishes or understanding of The Fall, the cross, redemption, the ‘coming again’ and so on.

On the other hand, the creation of the world described in scripture is commonly regarded as brief, superficial, and inflexible. Once they’ve read the first three pages of the Bible, most people think they’ve understood it. But if we were to give any scientific topic the same cursory treatment, it would be laughable to think we could draw any conclusions from it.

To make any sense of scripture beyond a crass caricature, one needs to examine it with the same patience and tenacity that one approaches science. It also helps to have a highly developed intellectual toolset: knowledge of ancient languages, ancient history, archaeology, and philosophy. Few people these days have mastered these academic domains, which is partly why we hear such wildly differing claims about creation. While it’s true that some messages of the Bible can be understood by a child, other parts remain opaque unless we are willing to conduct some intense inquiry.

Obviously, most of us don’t have time to learn Hebrew and Mesopotamian history. But neither do we have time to study partial differential equations and quantum mechanics, and that doesn’t stop us from learning and appreciating modern science. For complex topics, we turn to experts who share with us the results of decades of research.

Scientists are skeptical of biblical scholars who are woefully ignorant of contemporary science. If they have such an impoverished understanding of nature, what reason do we have to trust them in spiritual matters? The best response to this challenge is for scholars to become versed in both natural science and theology in order to speak the language of their audience and earn their respect. Professor William P Brown of Columbia Theological Seminary has taken this path in his new book The Seven Pillars of Creation: The Bible, Science, and the Ecology of Wonder. He puts the scientifically-informed reader at ease by revealing his understanding of modern science and his fascination with its discoveries. Then he proceeds to impart his knowledge of antiquity to make sense of highly contentious passages in scripture.

In addressing the subject of creation, Brown contends that there is not one story but seven contained in the sacred texts of the Judeo-Christian tradition. The books of Genesis, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Isaiah each provide unique perspectives of the natural world. Together, they offer a dynamic, robust depiction of the natural world, one filled with awe and wonder. What follows is a brief taste of each.

Genesis 1:1-2:3

Since this narrative appears first in the Bible, it is the most common and well-recognized creation account. Very austere in its tone, it reveals a transcendent God who stands separate from his works. But even here, the cosmos is not a static, passive receptacle made from purely supernatural causes. Instead, waters “produce swarms of living beings” and the earth “brings forth living beings”. Here, God is not a magician performing tricks, but one who empowers a productive, dynamic world.

Image credit: USFWS Pacific

Genesis 2:4-3:24

In contrast to the transcendent God in the first account, this one is like a gardener and potter who shapes a “drama of dirt”. The narrative focuses on “an inhospitable field of clay”, in which God is a responsive participant in his creation. The Adam in this account is made from dirt, as are the other “wild animals and winged creatures”. Made from the same basic substance as his fellow animals, this Adam—in addition to bearing the Imago Dei—also reflects Imago Terrae, the image of the earth.

Job 38-41

More than Genesis or anywhere else in the Bible, the book of Job provides the longest account of the natural world. And nowhere does it mention man’s dominion. God gives Job a tour of creation—wild, diverse, and powerful—and Job discovers that the world does not revolve around him, or even around humanity as a whole. Instead, God tells Job, “Behold Behemoth, which I made with you,” and also says that Behemoth was the “first” or “best” of God’s works. Brown draws an intriguing parallel between Job’s journey and Darwin’s tour on the Beagle, in which both of them encountered creatures that filled them with awe.

Image Credit: Jen Bowman

Psalm 104

This psalm provides a vibrant, celebratory account of the interplay between God and nature. Like in Job, humans play a marginal role in the narrative. Absent is any sense of human dominion—God himself continuously cares for creation. The natural world depicted here is fully good, with one exception—ourselves. Of all the species described here, humans are the only species that the psalmist wishes would “cease from the earth” and “be no more”.

Proverbs 8:22-31

A central theme in Psalms and Proverbs is the acquisition of wisdom, a process that is open-ended, ongoing, and never finished. Wisdom is a fundamental tenet of the Judeo-Christian tradition and is one reason why Christian intellectuals have been a part of modern science since its very beginnings. Proverbs 8 makes clear the priority and importance of wisdom in God’s world. In fact, wisdom existed prior to the creation of the cosmos: “Before YHWH made the earth abroad, and the first clods of soil, when he established the heavens, [Wisdom] was there” (v26-27). Could wisdom actually exist prior to the inception of the physical universe? Certainly not within a purely materialistic philosophy, but according to scripture, “[Wisdom] was YHWH’s delight day by day, playing before him every moment, playing with his inhabited world, delighting in the offspring of Adam.” In the order of creation, wisdom comes first.

Ecclesiastes

Ecclesiastes resonates well with 20th century existentialism and the somber predictions of science. Rather than describe the origin of the cosmos, Ecclesiastes focuses on the futility of life and its inevitable end: “the sun darkens, even the light, as well as the moon and the stars” (Ecc 12:2). Humans toil like animals and die, returning to the dust from which they were born. Chance and random events appear to govern life: “The race does not belong to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor the bread to the wise, nor wealth to the intelligent, nor favor to the skillful, for time and accident befall them all” (9:11-12). According to the author, the highest goals that people can aspire to are “to eat and drink, and to find satisfaction in his toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given him” (5:18), something that you would never expect to hear from a religious text. On the other hand, it is a very accurate description of what we often experience on our planet.

Isaiah 40-55

Isaiah contrasts sharply with Ecclesiastes. Whereas the latter admonishes, “There is nothing new under the sun,” Isaiah tells Israel that God has not abandoned them, and that he continues the process of creation:

“I will open rivers on the bare heights, and foundations in the midst of the valleys;
I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.
I will put in the wilderness the cedar, the acacia, the myrtle, and the pine
I will set in the desert the fir tree, the plane and the cypress together” (41:18-20).

This is not the work of a distant God who only “intervenes” in supernatural displays, but an active God who shapes the world through natural forces and enables it to blossom and thrive. This God values not only life itself, but its great diversity. The seven different trees in this passage-- from the desert acacia to the mountain cedar—represent dramatically varied species and habitats. In Isaiah, creation is not just a six day event, but a continuous process of renewal.

Image Credit: Thomas Burnett

Now we have completed William B. Brown’s tour of the seven models of creation found in scripture. Alone, each is incomplete and subject to misinterpretation, which we frequently hear in popular discourse. But together as a whole, these biblical accounts of creation present a remarkably rich depiction of the physical world, and an even richer depiction of human history and identity. If there is going to be productive dialogue between scientific and religious communities, it requires us to sit down and learn about topics with which we are unfamiliar. Brown’s book offers the reader an opportunity to learn about the richness of scripture itself, as well as see how modern scientific research can enhance, rather than detract from, our understanding of creation accounts.

Top image credit: AgnosticPreachersKid/ Dandelion image credit: Metro Tiff

Today's video is courtesy of filmmaker Ryan Pettey, director/editor of Satellite Pictures.

In today’s video, theologian Chris Tilling, New Testament Tutor for St Mellitus College and St Paul's Theological Centre in London, discusses biblical genre and the relational truth of Scripture. Tilling notes that when we read the Biblical text, we bring our own presuppositions and assumptions to the text (what theologians call “eisegesis”). The genre of the text is central to how we understand the Bible. For example, we read poetry very differently than we would read a phone book.

The text often contains clues to how it was intended to be read. The rhythmic nature of Genesis 1 and 2 hints to the hymnic and poetic functions of the text. The Gospels, on the other hand, parallel ancient biographies, which were concerned with historic events in a way symbolic theological accounts were not.

Ultimately, Tilling notes, it boils down to the questions that we ask of the text. The author of Genesis was not asking biological questions but theological ones. To stay true to the text, we too must be asking the theological questions, because theological truth is always more than information; it is transformation . The Truth (capital T) of Christian theology is relational truth which addresses us, which has us as the objects. That Truth is a person. That Truth is one to whom we relate. What kind of truth are we talking about?

Transcript

Dr. Chris Tilling: “The crucifixion is detailed in the gospels. We assume that the suffering of the cross, that the physical agony, is the main focus of the crucifixion. This may tie in with various theological commitments, but it also ties into our own world view in various ways. Yet, when we actually go to the gospels, they focus more on the shame of the crucifixion, and less on the pain of the crucifixion. So there is an example where it is just a subtle difference, but it does illuminate how we read a text or how we misunderstand a text.

Now, to come to the question of historicity—what it means to write history—we have particular presuppositions about what makes history work. Today, we would prefer (to a greater or lesser extent) some kind of unbiased, impartial observation of evidence, but what we are actually doing is what scholars would call eisegesis: we are bringing our own presuppositions and assumptions into a text and reading it in light of that as if it were in the text. One way of responding to that is to point to the centrality of genre in understanding the Bible. We read poetry in a way that is very different to the way we read a phonebook, and there are clues in a text as to how the text should be read. So with Genesis—the rhythmic nature of Genesis one and two—the almost poetic and hymnic effect it would have played in the liturgy of the earliest Jewish lives. There is liturgy of life, there is the snake which eats dirt, there is God walking in the garden…it seems to me that there are clues here that it should be read in a theological way.

When you get to the gospels, however, the closest parallels that we have for the gospels is ancient biography—they seem to look like the way ancient biographies were written. In other words, they were concerned with what was happening in a way that a symbolic theological account would not. So, the genre of the different parts of the Old Testament will determine to what extent there was historical factuality involved. It boils down, ultimately—though we might not like to put it so sharply—it boils down to the questions that we are asking. The author of Genesis was not asking the kind of questions that we are often asking in a biological sense. These were theological questions that were being asked, and our questions, if we want to stay true to the text, likewise, need to be theological…because truth is always more than information, it is transformation. It isn’t just about things that we can look at and that we can put in a test tube—small “t” truth if you like. Capital “t” truth is relational…is the truth which addresses us, which speaks to us, has us as the objects. That truth is the subject. Jesus Christ speaks of himself as the truth, the way, and the life…that truth is a person, that truth is one to whom we relate. What kind of truth are we talking about?”

Introduction

Today BioLogos begins a series that we think ought to have significant impact on evangelical churches far beyond the local congregation in Arlington, Massachusetts where it was first delivered. A recent editorial in Christianity Today stated that many Christians likely face another "Galileo moment." In that earlier era, finding that the earth moved around the sun--and not the other way around--caused the Church to reorient its understanding of certain scriptural passages. Today, interconnecting strands of evidence all of which lie at the heart of biology, geology, physics and astronomy require segments of the Church to carefully evaluate its magnificent creation narrative--it needs to be certain it is hearing God's message in the way that God intends for it to be understood. It is healthy for the conservative wing of Christianity to be carefully examining the genre of the creation narrative. It has had to do this once before and, it is appropriate to prayerfully seek clarity once again. Christians are truth-seekers and God's Spirit will guide the process as we sincerely seek that wisdom which is from above.

Oratory, at its best, has long been an important key in opening the door to new and dramatically important insights. Pastor David Swaim of Highrock Church in the Boston suburb of Arlington illustrates this poignantly. In fact his sermon is so significant, we've asked permission to post it in serial form so that each of us can deeply reflect on his words in a protracted fashion. We encourage you to let others who are conflicted over this issue know about the series so that they can follow it. Indeed, we believe It will be a great series for small group discussions--we need to lovingly support each other as we seek God's guidance in coming to understand God's truths.

In this sermon, Swaim discusses our belief in God as creator, or “Maker of heaven and earth”, as the Apostle’s Creeds so poetically states. To begin, he reminds us that some passages in the Bible, like the parable of the prodigal son, convey deep truths even though they are not historical accounts. Asking “the wrong questions”—questions that focus on arbitrary details—about such stories can cause us to miss out on their intended message. In a similar way, he says, it is possible that we might be asking the “wrong questions” about the opening chapters of Genesis. In recent years, conflict has erupted because a literal reading of Genesis seems to contradict the findings of science. Swaim suggests, however, that accepting scientific evidence about things like evolution and the age of the earth need not rule out faith in Scripture.

If you wish to jump ahead and hear the sermon in its entirety, you may do so here.

Introduction written by the BioLogos editorial team.

"Maker of Heaven and Earth" (transcript)

One of my favorite parables is that of the lost son. There’s a lot to it. Basically, it’s a story that Jesus told about a young man who insulted his father by demanding his share of the inheritance early, then ran off to spend that money on wild living, and found himself destitute when the money was gone. In desperation, he returned to his father, asking to work as a servant. But instead of being angry, his father joyfully embraced his lost son and threw a huge feast to celebrate his return. It is a great story that Jesus tells to help us understand God’s amazing grace.

How many of you know this story? Raise your hand, if you would. Okay. Now I want to make sure I’m clear…that’s a lot of you…I don’t mean just like, you know it because I just told it to you. I mean you know it because you’ve heard a sermon on this before, or maybe you’ve read it on your own. Raise your hand high if that’s true of you. Wow, still a lot of you. That’s perfect because I actually have a couple of questions maybe you can help me with. You see, it says that the father saw the son while he was still a long way off. Can anybody tell me how far off was the son at that point? Anybody know that? Because, you know, they didn’t have glasses back then, and the father was really old, so how far could he really see? It just doesn’t really add up for me. Can anybody tell me about that? Nobody? Okay. Well I have another question. Maybe this one’s easier. What town did that family live in? Does anybody know that? No? Nobody? What town they lived in? People, this is one of the greatest stories of all time! This is a story that has changed thousands of lives, including many of yours! How can you say that you know this story, that you understand this story, if you don’t even understand these basic facts? Okay, well maybe this is easier. Speaking of family, the Bible’s into family values, so I want to know—where’s the mother? Can anybody tell me? Is this family not intact? What’s wrong? Did they get a divorce maybe? And how come the father ended up with the custody of the sons? And why did they only have two? Families back then had much bigger families. Maybe they just got divorced too early? But I mean he seems so nice—why do you think she left? Anybody know these things? I mean I just don’t get it. You all tell me you know this story, and yet you don’t understand just these simple things about it.

Obviously, my questions miss the whole point of the story. There was no mother, or for that matter, no father or son either. This never actually happened. It’s just a parable. It’s one of the many marvelous stories that Jesus told in order to help us understand something that was hard to see. Now does that make it so that this story isn’t true? No, it is true. This story communicates some of the most important truths in the universe—about God’s nature, and the way that we relate to him. There are many passages in scripture that promise God’s love, or praise God’s love, or even try to explain God’s love. But this passage helps us grasp that truth in a way that’s much more effectively communicated than just through direct reporting. This way helps us feel it. This event never happened, but it’s one of the truest stories in the world. And what a shame for someone to dismiss it as irrelevant because it’s not literal history, or miss the point by asking the wrong kinds of questions.

Now I bring this up because just like my questions miss the point of the lost son parable, so, I fear, many of us ask the wrong questions about the beginning of the book of Genesis, which we read from just a few minutes ago. Not only does this generate needless confusion and division, it also makes us miss the point, miss the life-changing truths that we could see if we asked the right questions. Right now we’re in a sermon series studying the Apostle’s Creed, an ancient declaration of faith in the God of the Bible. And today, we’re considering the word “creator.” So, Genesis seemed like the right place to go.

Like the story of the lost son, most of you know the basic outline: God created the universe in six days and then napped on the seventh (so those of you who nap through my sermons every Sunday, you’re in good company!). But by adding up all the names of the people mentioned in Genesis, and throughout the rest of the Bible, seventeenth century Bishop Ussher determined that the creation of Adam and Eve, and everything else, happened in 4,004 BC—about 6,000 years ago. And that’s great. But you’re probably also aware that this creates some tension with contemporary scientists who suggest a different timeline. Considering the evidence offered by the size and expansion rate of the universe, plate tectonics, fossil evidence, and genetics, their best guess is that the universe was created by a big bang about 13 billion years ago, the earth appeared about 4.5 billion years ago, and the earliest humans existed about 200,000 years ago. In the past 300 years, this has become a very heated debate. Apparently, we need to choose whether we believe in science or in scripture. At least that’s the claim made by the most strident voices on each side, so the general population seems to have accepted that if you believe in God you can’t believe in evolution, and if you believe in evolution then you can’t believe in God.

This topic arouses passions and anxieties in many people, including some in this room. No matter what your perspective is, I’m probably going to say something today that you’ll disagree with, and might even make you angry. There’ll be plenty of time for you to set me straight in the coming weeks. But for the next half hour, in order to allow the possibility that we might hear something new, or even learn from the Holy Spirit, let’s lay aside our defensiveness so that we can at least consider why we are so attached to whatever ideas we have, and evaluate whether our devotion to one truth may be blinding us to others. As scientists have discovered more and more evidence supporting the basic evolutionary theory outlined in Darwin’s Origin of Species, Christians have responded in a variety of ways.

Science has been right about so many things, so some Christians have embraced evolution and felt forced to abandon their trust, not only in the truth of Scripture, but also in the God it describes. Other Christians, including many renowned scientists, have fought back by pointing out the many flaws in evolutionary theory and proposing alternative theories of their own. These include Young Earth Creation, which asserts that the earth was created in six days six thousand years ago, and offers thoughtful explanations to reconcile the findings of science with the words of Genesis 1. Old Earth Creationists do the same thing, but contend that each of the days in Genesis could represent an epoch, or a million years, or whatever amount of time, instead of just a 24-hour day. This is linguistically legitimate—it’s a fine interpretation of the Hebrew word “day” in Genesis—and it recognizes that it’s hard to measure a day before the invention of the sun in day four, anyway. So, Old Earth Creationism opens up many possibilities to reconcile scientific claims about the age of the earth with a literal interpretation of Genesis. Theistic Evolution takes further steps to accommodate evolution while still honoring God as the one who created heaven and earth and everything in them through the evolutionary process. This is attractive because it eliminates the conflict between science and scripture, but it requires a very different way of reading Genesis. They suggest that, like I did with the parable of the prodigal son earlier, perhaps we’re asking the wrong questions about Genesis so that we’re inventing an unnecessary argument, and even worse, we’re also missing what the first chapters of Genesis really are all about.

In the next installment, to be posted tomorrow, Pastor Swaim goes on to discuss the Genesis passage in detail.

]]> Thu, 27 Oct 11 05:00:06 -0700 David Swaim http://biologos.org/blog/series/a-leap-of-truth?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=RSS_Syndication http://biologos.org/blog/series/a-leap-of-truth?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=RSS_Syndication In this series, Ryan Pettey offers several clips from his powerful documentary "From the Dust". This feature-length film is divided up into various sections, each of which wrestles with the difficult problems that arise when reconciling Scripture with the theory of evolution. A light of hope dawns on the science-faith conversation, however, as scientists and theologians engage in honest dialogue about tough issues such as the interpretation of Genesis, the nature of the Fall, and the idea of random design. Their profound insights are sure to enlighten all minds, raise deeper questions, and provoke new thought.

Last week we debuted the first clip from the documentary “From the Dust”, directed by filmmaker Ryan Pettey. It is our sincere hope that, above all else, the film can become a focal point for some of the big questions that inevitably arise at the intersection of science and faith.

To help foster such dialogue, we are including several discussion questions with each clip from the film. In the transcript below, you’ll find several prompts that are meant to help viewers dig deeper into the material being presented. Mouse over each highlighted region and a question will appear on the side. We encourage you to watch this video with your friends, your church, your small groups and Sunday School classes, your pastors -- or anyone else for that matter – and take some time to discuss what is being said (and maybe even what isn’t). You may not all agree, but you will find yourselves engaged in fruitful and spirited conversation. And it is this kind of conversation that will help move the science and faith discussion forward. We have more discussion questions that go with this transcript and we'd be happy to send them to you to foster further conversation within your church or small group setting.

Editor's Note: The full documentary is now available on DVD and Blu-ray. You can order the film here, and learn more about the project here.

"The Book of Genesis" Transcript

Dr. Alister McGrath: “The Christian church has always wrestled with the interpretation of Scripture, realizing both how important it is and also sometimes how difficult it is to get it right. Certainly, the opening chapters of Genesis have been a topic of much debate throughout Christian history.”

Dr. John Polkinghorne: “The Bible is very important to me, but it is very important to recognize that the Bible is not a book. The Bible is a library. It has all sorts of different kinds of writing in it—It has histories, it has stories, it has poetry, it has prose. When we read Genesis one, we have to figure out, what am I reading? Am I reading a divinely dictated textbook to save me the trouble of doing science, or am I reading something, in fact, more interesting and profound than that?”

Dr. John Walton: “We have to approach Genesis 1 for what it is. It is an ancient document. It is not a document that was written to us—we believe the Bible was written for us like it is for everyone of all times and places because it is God’s Word—but it was not written to us. It was not written in our language. It was not written with our culture in mind or our culture in view.”

Dr. Alister McGrath: “It is not about the authority of Scripture, it is about the interpretation of Scripture. What method of interpretation do I use in the case of each individual passage?”

Dr. Karen Strand Winslow: “Biblical scholars urge people to take a literal, plain reading of the text…but I think in the controversy between theology and science, literal is often used to mean scientific, as if it is scientific, and that is a whole different story.”

Dr. John Walton: “We are inclined by our culture to think of the creation narrative as an account of material origins because we think about the world in material terms. For us, that is kind of what is important about origins. People come to Scripture thinking that they need to integrate it with science and so, they want to either read science out of the Bible or they want to read science into the Bible. That is not the way to do it because inevitably you end up making the text say things that it never meant to the ancient audience.”

Dr. Chris Tilling: “We are importing meaning into the text; we are bringing our own presuppositions and assumptions into a text and reading it in light of that as if it were in the text. Now, there is a sense in which we all inevitably do that, but there is also a sense in which we need to be aware when the times that we do that are damaging to the reading of the text.”

Dr. Nancey Murphy: “When I was a kid and the film industry was still relatively new, it was possible to depict people from two centuries ago as modern Americans dressed up in togas. As the film industry has gotten more sophisticated, they have gotten better and better at creating human figures that actually look and behave and think as they probably would have in the past. So, we Bible readers ought to be equally sophisticated and recognize that someone who was writing three thousand years ago, which is very hard to imagine, that these people must have been very different from us, with very different concerns. They certainly had very different understandings about how material things worked.”

Dr. Peter Enns: “One of the benefits of understanding the historical circumstances of the Bible is that we are reminded of how incredibly old this literature is. Let’s understand it in view of what we could even remotely expect of the Biblical writers to say.”

Dr. Nancey Murphy: “We can understand what our own creation stories are saying better, if we know what the creation myths were that were known at the times that those stories were written—for instance, to realize that a lot of the Genesis stories were written as a counter measure against the other cultures’ creation stories. That throws an immense amount of light on what parts of the story we are supposed to be paying attention to.”

Dr. Chris Tilling: “The Gilgamesh epic, for example, has a flood narrative and so forth, and so it wants to reflect creatively and theologically in light of those creation myths; it is going to be something recognizable.”

Dr. Peter Enns: “Genesis one shares theological vocabulary with the other stories—it just sort of takes things and turns it on its head.”

Dr. Nancey Murphy: “If one creation myth talks about the earth being created as a result of the battle between gods, we know to look in our creation stories to say, ‘wait a minute! Is violence intrinsic to the very creation of the universe?’ We find very clearly written that no, it is not.”

Dr. Peter Enns: “It’s Israel’s declaration that Yahweh is worthy of worship. It is a potent and counter-intuitive theological statement in the ancient world where people say, ‘That is totally different from anything we have ever seen.’”

Dr. John Polkinghorne: “The stories of the ancient world were not so concerned with minute, literal accuracy as we are today. People wrote not to give you sort of a factual, journalistic account of what is going on, but to tell you the significance of what was happening.”

Dr. Ard Louis: “And so what we see is that there are these really interesting structures in the Genesis text, which suggest that it is not describing the creation process as this is the order in which it happened. Rather, it is taking that story and emphasizing theological points. It talks about days; there was morning, there was evening—but the sun and the moon are not created until the fourth day. So why, for example, did the writer of Genesis put the sun and the moon on the fourth day? It is a very strange thing to do, and it is not as if it is only moderns who realize ‘Oh dear! Something is wrong.’ People at any time of history would have realized that that was an unusual way of writing down a journalistic account. And, of course, the reason most likely is that people of that day worshipped the sun and the moon, and the Israelites were always being drawn away that way, and the people around them were doing that. And so, what the writer was saying is, ‘no, I am going to demote these things to the fourth day. They are not the first thing to be created; they are something to be created somewhat later.’”

Bishop N.T. Wright: “This is simply the sort of language that people use to refer to concrete events, but to invest those events with their theological significance.”

Dr. John Walton: “We are well aware that people have to translate the language for us. We forget that people have to translate the culture for us, and therefore, if we want to get the best benefit from the communication, we need to try to enter their world, hear it as the audience would have heard it, as the author would have meant it, and to read it in those terms.”

Bishop N.T. Wright: “There is a distinction which is there in Scripture between heaven and earth. But the thing about heaven and earth is that they are supposed to overlap, and have an interesting, interlocking, interplay with one another. They are never supposed to be far apart.”

Dr. John Walton: “In the ancient world, they didn’t have a line between supernatural and natural. God was in everything. You couldn’t talk about God intervening because you can’t intervene in something you are doing—and to them, God was doing it all. That kind of functional aspect was very important to them.”

Bishop N.T. Wright: “In Genesis, God makes heavens and earth, and it appears that humans are in the world, but God is around as well because the heavens and earth have not split apart.”

Dr. John Walton: “The temple and the cosmos were all blended into one. If we used a modern metaphor it would almost be like the temple was the oval office. It is kind of where all the business is done, where all the work is run. It is the hub of activity and control, and when Deity took up his rest in the temple, it wasn’t for leisure or relaxation…it was to settle down to the work now that everything is set up and ready to go.”

Bishop N. T. Wright: “Telling a story about somebody who constructs something in six days, it is a temple story. It is about God making a place for himself to dwell…and this is heaven and earth. What you do with that is, the last thing is you put an image of this God into the temple. Suddenly, instead of Genesis one being about ‘were there six days or were there five or were there seven or were there twenty-four hours…,’ it is actually about when the good Creator God made the world, he made heaven and earth as the space in which he himself was going to dwell and put in humans into that construct as a way of both reflecting his own love into the world and drawing out the praise and glory from the world, back to himself. That is the literal meaning of Genesis. To flatten that out into, ‘this is simply telling us that the world was made in six days’ is almost perversely to avoid the real thrust of the narrative.”

Michael Ramsden: “If this is an inspired book, if this really is, you know, something where God is revealed and can speak through it, it shouldn’t surprise us that we find multiple layers of depth.”

Bishop N.T. Wright: “Genesis is one of those books like a Shakespeare play or like a Beethoven symphony or something where you can describe what it sort of literally says. Here is a Beethoven symphony; here are the notes, ‘Duh, duh, duh, duh.’ Then, you think, ‘well, that doesn’t actually catch what is going on in this’, and you want to use bigger language about the opening of Beethoven’s first symphony. This is an amazing statement about the power of empire and the fate of man…and goodness knows what! You still have got to play the notes. This world was made to be God’s abode, God’s home, God’s dwelling place. He shared it with us, and now he wants to rescue it and redeem it. We have to read Genesis for all it is worth. To say, either history or myth is a way of saying, ‘I am not going to study this text for what it is worth. I am just going to flatten it out so that it conforms to the cultural questions that my culture today is telling me to ask…and I think that is a form of actually being unfaithful to the text itself.”

Dr. John Walton: “The account in Genesis one is not intended to be an account of material origins. If that is so, then the Bible has no narrative of material origins, and if that is so, we don’t have to defend the Bible’s narrative of material origins against a scientific narrative because the Bible does not offer one. We can let the text be what it is and take it for what it is. That is the most literal reading that you could have.”