Stephen
Terry, Director
Worshiping
the Creator
Commentary
for the May 13, 2023, Sabbath School Lesson
{This
week's commentary is an excerpted chapter from my book "Creation
- Myth or Majesty?" available as an e-book from Amazon.
"He
is before all things, and in him all things hold together." Colossians
1:17, 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 talks 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 a 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 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 buses and how they operate, but buses are finite. God is
not. At some point we must admit that we cannot understand everything that God
is or does. 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, 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 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.
___________________________________________________
[i] Michal Strutin, "Discovering
Natural Israel," (2001), p. 4.
[iii] Sandra Sham, "The World's
First Temple," Archeology, vol 61 no 6
[iii] National Institute of
Standards and Technology, "Early Clocks," A Walk Through
Time, www.nist.gov