Board index ‹ Creation and Evolution

[Seraph]

Universe is Billions of years old. How, then are we to believe that the Universe was created within just Six Days, as Exodus explicitly states?

For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Exodus 20:11 ESV

[jimwalton]

Genesis 1 is about how God ordered the cosmos and Earth to function, not about their material manufacture. Light and dark function to give us evening and morning, viz., time. The firmament functions to give us weather. The Earth functions to bring forth plants. The sun, moon, and stars function for seasons and calendar. Humans function to rule the Earth and subdue it. God created the cosmos to function as His temple.

In the ancient world, when a temple was dedicated, it was dedicated with a 7-day ceremony to recognize the greatness of the deity and his works, after which the deity would come to "rest" in the temple, meaning he would come to live with his people and engage them in their everyday lives. That is what is happening in Gn. 1.1-2.4.

So also, Exodus 20.11 is a recognition of the inauguration ceremony as recorded in Genesis 1. If Genesis 1 is a Temple text pertaining to God ordering the universe to function as His Temple, and ordering the Earth to function as His place of meeting with humanity to form a relationship, then "made" in Ex. 20.11 pertains to this ordering function, just as it did in Genesis 1. In the ancient Near East, something was considered "created" when it had a role or function—creation had nothing to do with manufacture or with ontological existence. The wilderness and the sea were both regarded as "uncreated"—they were not ordered to function; they were wild, chaotic places. So when Exodus 20.11 says that God "made" the Earth, the reference is to His ordering it to function well ("and it was good"). And to say that He did so in 7 days underlines the Genesis account, which is a recognition of the greatness of God and a rehearsal of what He has done.

Brevard Childs writes, "The Sabbath command is not tied to the act of creation. This verse provides an etiology (cause, origin) for the sanctification of the Sabbath, which was rooted in the creation tradition. The etiology grounds the sanctity of the sabbath in the creative act of God; it is built into the very structure of the universe." In other words, since a temple was supposed to speak of God's greatness, God's person, and God's acts, and the dedication ceremony was supposed to reflect a microcosm of this work, then the 6 days is a reference to the whole package, not to 6 literal days of material manufacture. Henri Blocher writes, "The creation is an archetype of human work." It is acceptable, and not inaccurate then, to speak of it in 6 days, as Genesis 1 does. But we always have to understand the context. For instance, whenever we read about "light" in the Bible, we simply cannot think photons, to which our mind automatically goes. They never thought in photons, and we can never read "light" that way in the Bible. So also, if Genesis 1 is not material manufacture that happened in 6 days (if that was NEVER their understanding) then we can never read it that way, despite what seems obvious to us.

Some would probably complain that I am dodging the clear and only possible meaning of the English—except that if that's not what 6-day creation meant to the ancients, then that's not what it meant.

[Matt]

Gen 1 is a poem. We have two sets of threes getting more specific.

Light from darkness -> Sun and Moon

Land from water -> Animals in the water

Plants on land -> animals on land

This is how Biblical poems work, they get bigger or they get more direct, specific.

I agree with you, this was never meant as history, as description of events. It is theological. I think the biggest theological point is the first: God is not the Chaos and not the Water and not the Sky. God made everything (except the Chaos, that was here first). Literalism is wrong both in terms of the world and in terms of the text

[jimwalton]

> Gen 1 is a poem.

It does not follow any conventions of normal Hebrew poetry. I would disagree with you. It has more in similarity with the temple texts of the ancient Near East at temple dedication ceremonies, rehearsing the great acts of God and praising Him for bringing order out of disorder and non-order.

> We have two sets of threes getting more specific.

Clearly and unarguably. The first three days speak of separation for particular functions, and the next three days speak of filling for a particular function.

> It is theological.

Yes, I agree (mostly). The purpose of Genesis is to begin the story of the covenant. Though God created everything to have function and order (Gn. 1), sin drew people away from God (Gn. 3ff.) so much so that they no longer had an accurate idea of who God was and what He was like. This is why God made a covenant (with Adam, Noah, Abraham, etc.) he used the covenants to reveal Himself. The blessing, order, and functionality ("and it was good") of Gn. ` quickly turned to corruption (the Eden mess, Gn. 3 & 4, etc.) and a distorted picture of God (illustrated in the Babel mess of Gn. 11).

John Walton writes,

"In the biblical world, the most important aspect of creation was that God brought order from disorder, and the order that was brought forth from chaos had to be maintained day by day, moment by moment. … In one sense, God made the world for us, but in another, he made the world for Himself. The cosmos was created to be His temple, and people were placed in the garden to serve, but not as slaves. Since the garden was sacred space, serving in the garden was similar to serving in the temple—it involved caring for sacred space."

> Literalism is wrong both in terms of the world and in terms of the text.

I think it depends what you mean by literalism. I believe the text is literally about functionality and order. It is NOT literally about material manufacture. We can take the text literally as it speaks theologically and of how and why God brought order and functionality to the cosmos (to be His temple [Isa. 66.1; Ps. 104.2-4]). But it is certainly not a scientific text or one of how the world came to materially exist.

[Matt]

> It does not follow any conventions of normal Hebrew poetry.

It very much does and I explained why. Read Alter's The Art of Biblical Poetry.

[Mother of all]

What about binary star systems that would harbor life? How would that be reconciled into Scripture?

[jimwalton]

I don't see where that's a problem. If Genesis 1 is about how God ordered the cosmos to function, and not about its material manufacture, then Scripture is making no statement about the duration of creation or what mechanisms were used. The duration could be 14 billion years and counting, and the process could be progressive development and evolution. It's not irreconcilable with Scripture.

As to binary star systems, they are part of grandeur of the universe that declares God's majesty (Ps. 19.1). As to the possibility that they harbor life, we will likely probably never know such things. When astronomers are looking for life, they are generally looking for microbial life, not intelligent life. The presence of life in other places of the galaxy or universe does not pose a problem for the Scriptural account of Genesis 1 where God brought order and functionality to the cosmos.

[Mother of all]

Where’s the proof [in the Word] that it isn’t about its material structure? Where’s the proof that the Father wasn’t describing a literal system that was later said to be something else by men?

[jimwalton]

If you read the text literally, it's about how light functions: it gives us day. Darkness functions to give us night. Any physicist will tell you that you can’t separate light from darkness. What God is separating is a period of light to a period of darkness. The alternating sequence (function) of light and darkness gives us evening and morning. The ancients knew nothing of light as a substance (photons) that had to be brought into being. Their concern, as Moses states, is about how light and dark function, especially in sequence.

If you look at bara' ("created", v. 1) in the rest of Scripture, the subject is always God. The objects are really unusual things, in the categories of abstractions (purity, righteousness), people groups (the nations, Jerusalem). It is never talking about making a thing, but an abstraction rather than material things. It never refers to materials because it is not talking about making a thing but something more abstract, as if in English we said “I created a masterpiece.” You “create” havoc. It has nothing to do with manufacture, and not with things. The thrust of the verb is not that God manufactured out of something or not out of something, but that God assigned roles and functions.

The essence of the word bara’ concerns bringing heaven and earth into existence focusing on operation through organization and assignment of roles and functions. Even in English we use the verb “create” within a broad range of contexts, but rarely apply it to material things (i.e., parallel in concept to “manufacture”). One can create a piece of art, but that expression does not suggest manufacture of the canvas or paint. Even more abstractly, one can create a situation (e.g., havoc) or a condition (an atmosphere). In these cases, the verb indicates the establishment of a role or function. The text asserts that in the seven-day initial period God brought the cosmos into operation (which defines existence) by assigning roles and functions.

Another way to look at a verb is by what the situation was like before the verb is brought to bear on the situation. The “before” picture is Gn. 1.2: The earth (must have been there) was without form (form?) and was dark (Dark? Where did that come from?) The text is talking about order, not about material things.

Look at day 3. It's not telling us anything that was MADE. It's telling us how the earth functions: it brings forth vegetation. The proof is in the Word.

Look at day 4: The sun, moon, and stars function to give us seasons. It's about function, not manufacture.

The concern of the ancients was not about material manufacture, but instead about order and function. Something was considered "created" when it had order and function. In Mesopotamia one way to accomplish this was to name something, because a name designated a thing’s function or role. Thus, in the Babylonian Creation account, bringing the cosmos into existence begins “when on high no name was given in heaven, nor below was the netherworld called by name… When no gods at all had been brought forth, none called by names, no destinies ordained, then were the gods formed.” In the earlier Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld, the first couple of lines read: “After heaven had been moved away from earth, After earth had been separated from heaven, After the name of man had been fixed…”

In Egyptian accounts, existence was associated with something having been differentiated. The god Atum is conceptualized as the primordial monad—the singularity embodying all the potential of the cosmos, from whom all things were separated and thereby created. The Genesis account includes both of these concepts as God separates and names.

They probably viewed light as having existed prior to this time and that at v. 3 it was put into operation on the Earth. They would not have viewed the sun, moon, and stars as the sole source of light, but they certainly recognized their role (function), as in v. 14. So light would have been seen as regulated in the heavenly bodies but having its existence independent of them. We take that same information and seek to theologically establish God as the source of light. To them, that would be silly...of course God is the source of light—whether it comes from the sun or not! People forget that the ancients didn’t know anything about the sun as being a burning mass of gas or the moon as being just a planet that reflects the sun’s light. To them, the sun, moon, and stars were created “things” which God ordained to carry light. Cause and effect was not seen scientifically, but as connected to God. (In our day, we have swung a full 180º and see all cause and effect scientifically.) In reality I suspect that scientific cause and effect and “God cause and effect” are not only interwoven, but are totally the same. So light was independent of the bodies and merely assigned to them.

[Icthys]

This is not to solve whether the opening of Genesis is a poem or poetic, but I thought this was an interesting piece to the puzzle. William Lane Craig (a Christian apologist, philosopher, and theologian) recently wrote a book called In Quest of the Historical Adam in which he argues that Genesis 1-11 fits into a genre of "mytho-history."