Creation:
Forming the World
By Stephen
Terry
Commentary
for the January 12, 2013 Sabbath School Lesson
“In
the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Genesis 1:1, NIV
Perhaps no other words in Christendom are vaguer and yet
have sparked more controversy than the three words that begin the Bible: “In
the beginning…” Unlike the words which follow and clearly state that the heavens
and the earth are created as opposed to spontaneously generated, those three
words are malleable in meaning. For instance, do they refer to the beginning of
the universe, the beginning of heaven, or just our little Earth? Or could it be
that the author of Genesis, chapter one, simply felt that everything has to
start somewhere because of a definition of time that definitely has a beginning
but persists for eternity, like a number line that begins at zero and extends beyond
our understanding into the grey mists of forever?
Such an understanding is useful for writing literature
for an audience who sees things the same way, but problematic when perspectives
vary based on differences in understanding and experience. That the world was created
by divine fiat, ex nihilo, was a
given assumption when the Genesis account was written. No one would have
challenged the concept. The details may have varied from place to place, but
creation was a certainty. Many similarities also existed across the varying
accounts from culture to culture. For instance the Earth as the Greeks understood
it was flat and surrounded by water. In earlier generations, these mythologies
were expected reading for classical studies but have fallen by the way in more
recent times. “Bullfinch’s Mythology” is an excellent work to acquaint one with
some of these ancient world views. In that work, the Greek view of the Sun was
of a charioteer racing across the sky and returning by a northern route to
reappear and repeat the race from the East to the West each day. The similarity
between this and Psalm 19:5-6 is striking.
This perhaps illustrates some of the problems we have in
examining the Genesis account. Just as the writer did in his day, we also tend
to superimpose our perspective on what is being presented. For example, the
writer may have viewed the Earth as a flat object then, just like the Greeks.
However, most visual illustrations of creation week are done with a round earth.
Is that because Genesis says it is round? No, it is because we are interpreting
it from our perspective. This can get us into trouble when we try to make a
simple model foundational to a modern complex cosmology. The logic simply breaks down.
In example, many have noticed that the first, second, and third
days of Creation were defined by periods of evening and morning, yet the Sun
and Moon which were to define these periods according to the Genesis account
itself were not created until the fourth day. Even young people understand there
is a problem here, but those who see themselves as “defenders of the faith” are
so heavily invested in proving their perspective correct that they find it far
too easy to conjure up facile explanations. For instance, they may say since
God dwells in light, it is His light that provides the light for the first two
days. However, the Bible refutes that. It tells us that when the light of God’s
is present “…there will be no night there.” Revelation 21:25, NIV Of course, we
could conjure up a God who flashes on and off like some heavenly neon sign, but
that only further illustrates the problems that come with feeling that we must view
the Genesis account as some sort of scientific text that must be explained from
our modern perspective.
Other logical problems exist as well within the Creation
account. For example, if the Earth was not created until Creation week, how could it then
exist “without form and void?” How can something "be" and yet be formless and void? A possible conclusion might be to say that the
Earth as it is portrayed in Genesis did not exist until Creation week but may
have existed in some other manner, but this leaves open a lot of room for speculation as to what that means. Some have conjectured that there was a Pre-Adamic
period that we know little about. Perhaps they derive this from the Revelation
account that tells about a new heaven and earth where everything prior is wiped
away. Apparently even painful memories are purged. (See Revelation 21:1-5) If
like agents K and D from the movie “Men in Black,” God wipes our memories then
one might see how the Pre-Adamic folks could believe that the Genesis account
was not the first creation. However, this does not explain how you could have a Pre-Adamic creation without form.
So given the logical inconsistencies and the potential
for speculative interpretations that some might view as factual, what is the
answer? Perhaps we need to stop seeing Genesis, chapter one, as a line in the
sand that needs to be defended by logic and science. We should be careful about
building an entire “house of cards” on a particular interpretation. When we do
so we imply that we have perfect understanding of Creation, and when others
challenge that understanding, and rightly do so, we feel compelled to offer
ever more fanciful explanations of what might have taken place. Sometimes we
sacrifice credibility in order to sustain an impression that we fully
understand and are not simply accepting things on faith.
In the end, accepting God as Creator does not depend on
the Genesis account. It is possible to accept God as Creator without miring
oneself in the details of exactly how it all took place. In the same way, we
can accept that someone is the driver of a bus we are riding on without knowing
exactly how he does the driving. It is true one can study and learn about
busses and how they operate, but busses are finite. God is not. At some point
we have to admit that we cannot understand everything that God is or does. By
definition, He is beyond all that.
Sometimes, when I travel, I want to take too many
things, and it is difficult to close the suitcase. Perhaps we try to make our
infinite God fit into our finite suitcase because we feel if we can contain our
understanding of Him, we can dictate to others what
they must understand about Him as well. Many battles have been fought and many
lives lost through the centuries over such esoterica. One man will get an idea
about something and attempt to rally others to that idea. When they do not
agree with him and if he has the power, he will compel them to agree by threatening
their livelihood, their families, or even their lives. The simple demand “Recant!”
has led thousands to their graves who could not in good conscience do so. We believe
we live in a more enlightened age today, but inquisitions still run rampant. While
they do not usually result in the physical death of the dissenter, they may
still destroy the financial well-being and the professional reputation of
someone who dissents.
Unfortunately, the Genesis creation account is sometimes
used as a litmus test for these inquisitions wherein ideas like “literal
24-hour days” and “6,000-year-old Earth” are used to destroy men’s lives and
livelihood. Believing themselves to be without sin, the inquisitors eagerly
hurl their stones at their victims, convinced that they are doing a holy work. In
the end, instead of Christ’s blood covering their sins, the metaphorical blood
of their victims covers their hands. Many scholars today understand that the city of Jericho has fortifications
that date to almost seven thousand years BC[i] and Göbekli Tepe, the Turkish
temple compound that dates to around ten thousand years BC.[ii] In spite of these
realities, some would still “die on their sword” over an earth that they
maintain is only 6000 years old thanks in large part to Archbishop Ussher of
Ireland.
In regards to 24-hour days, we apparently inherited that
from the ancient Egyptians, who divided their days into ten hours of daylight, two
hours of twilight and twelve hours of night.[iii] It would be no stretch,
therefore, to determine that the author of Genesis was writing of 24-hour days
when he wrote the Creation account. It might also be reasonable to assume that
whatever mechanical relationships that existed within the solar system have
been consistent since initiated, barring an intervening event. A reason for
challenging the concept of a 24-hour day during Creation might be a long-ages Creation
week. However, such a challenge is self-defeating. If one sees the Creation
week as only metaphorical in the first place, then why would it be necessary to
fit any sort of progressive creation activity within the confines of daily and
weekly models?
On the other hand, even accepting the idea of the author
intending a 24-hour day does not negate the possibility of the Creation account
being intended as mythical as opposed to literal. In the ancient near east, genealogy
was extremely important, both individually and culturally. Who hasn’t waded
through the genealogies of the Old Testament with trepidation? While we can
learn many things from those accounts, perhaps the most important is their significance
to the people of those times. It was vital to be able to trace your lineage
back through your ancestors. Logically that lineage should be able to be traced
back to a beginning. Of course the best of all beginnings would be a divine
one. As a result, many cultures developed a mythology that traced everyone’s
beginnings back to an act by one or more gods, thus demonstrating the divine
origins of that culture.
Could that same principle be operating in the Genesis
account? Perhaps, but we must acknowledge that even apart from mythologies, no
matter how far back we go, and no matter how many geologic events may have
transpired, eventually we would hope to discover an event that we can call “the
beginning.” Unless, of course, infinity is actually a loop or a sphere with no
fixed point of origin, in which case we might find ourselves both literally and
figuratively back where we started.
