How to Read Genesis for All It's Worth

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How to Read Genesis for All It's Worth
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
Jeff Lampl

Nothing has fascinated nor perplexed me more than trying to understand what God was thinking when He created the world we inhabit.  Did God create a perfect world that became imperfect because of human sin?  If so how is it that tectonic plate movements for example, necessary for sustaining our planet, actually cause earthquakes which take innocent human life?  Was this movement the result of human sin or did God set our planet up this way?  Are the creation accounts in Genesis compatible with evolution?   Was there death before human beings sinned in Genesis 3?   Why did God make a world where lions eat lambs and animals suffer?  That just doesn’t seem nice!   I have hundreds of other questions which directly impact how I view what God was doing in creating the world we inhabit and therefore impact how I view God and God’s purpose for my life in my brief time here on earth.  

Today’s post will give a very brief summary of three ways that Christians read Genesis 1:1-2:4.   There are actually at least 7, but 3 broad categories will do for today.

 

Young Earth Creationists  

These Christians believe the creation accounts of Genesis are probably written by Moses about 1,300 BC and are to be read in their most literal sense.  They believe that God created the world in seven literal 24 hour days and that the Genesis account is scientifically accurate.  

  “there was evening, and there was morning, the first day”   Genesis 1:4 (and 8, 13, 23, 2:1)

Where the Genesis account differs from the discoveries of modern science, then modern science must be wrong.  Based on their reading of the genealogies in chapters 5 and 10 this group of Christians believe the earth is approximately 10,000 years old.

These Christians take the Bible to be the inspired word of God.  Among them are brilliant scientists and biblical scholars.  They are smart, godly, love God and love the Bible.  

Progressive Creationists/ID/Intelligent Design  

This group of Christians note that the word “day” means at least four different things in Genesis creation accounts.  In vs. 5 light refers to a 12 hour period of time and the next use of “day” in that same verse refers to morning and evening which do not comprise a full 24 hour period.  Vs 14 does refer to a 24 hour day but 2:1 refers to a day that is yet to be completed (read Hebrews 4) and 2:4 is an idiom that means when.  To this group of Christians this means that Genesis is not referring to literal 24 hour periods of time rather what we read in 1:1 through 2:4 describes what God did over time, long periods of times.  These Christians do believe that the universe is began with a “big bang” (Genesis 1:1?) about 14 billion year ago, that the earth is 4.6 billion years old and that life on earth began 3.6 billion years ago.   

However, they do not believe that evolutionary science is adequate to explain the many species that exist, rather they insist that God intervened with special creative action creating brand new species.  They citing gaps in the fossil record, the 5 mentions of “according to their kind” in verses 21, 24 and 25), and the Cambrian explosion to support this belief.  

These Christians take the Bible to be the inspired word of God.  Among them are brilliant scientists and biblical scholars.  They are smart, godly, love God and love the Bible.  

Evolutionary Creationists  

These Christian have studied the creation accounts of the various ancient near east civilizations as a clue to how history was passed on from generation to generation in that era of human history.  They note that accounts of human origins were passed on orally for many hundreds of years in memorable prose with poetic elements mixed in so that the story would not be lost.   They have concluded that these oral accounts were then finally written down and edited over time, perhaps as late as the 500’s BC.  They make the point that what we have in these chapters is God’s word written down for us, but it was not written to us.   Rather it was written to an ancient people in language they could remember and understand using the observable natural world around them as they perceived it.  

The Christians in this group have concluded that what we have here is not a science text.   Instead it is an account telling us that God created the universe but not how God did it. Even more importantly they have concluded that these accounts were given to us by God not just to tell us that God is the Creator but also to tell us why he created the world that we have.  For them, that’s the really the big story that Genesis tells.  

Reading the text this way, they see no conflict at all between the Genesis creation accounts and God using evolutionary processes to create and fill the world.   Some will note passages such as 1:24    (And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures”  Genesis 1:24) where the land, seemingly all by itself, produces living creatures of all kinds, creatures that result in human beings eventually appearing on the scene through God directed evolutionary processes.  

These Christians also take the Bible to be the inspired word of God.  Among them are brilliant scientists and biblical scholars.  They are smart, godly, love God and love the Bible.  

What’s unfortunate in my view is that Christians from each group have a tendency to circle the wagons and major in what’s wrong with the views of those in the other two groups.  We lock horns and find ourselves part of creating division within the family of God.  Unfortunately and shamefully, I have done this very same thing myself!   And I regret it deeply.  

Do you find yourself identifying with one of the three groups above?   Is it possible that you are wrong in your reading of the Genesis accounts as they pertain to science?  Are you open to learning more about the understandings of those in a different “camp”?  Are you able to tell yourself and others that those in a different interpretive “camp” from you are worth trying to understand?  Would you be able to listen to someone in another interpretive “camp” open-mindedly?  

Are you able to view those who believe differently from you not as people who have “succumbed the philosophies of man” or as people  who have “succumbed to narrow minded literalism”, but rather as people who have simply done their homework and done their best to come to the most faithful understanding of scripture possible, just as you did?  

 
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