Skip to main content

Finding Our Way Through Genesis One

Yesterday evening, I had the pleasure of attending a meeting of The American Scientific Association's Wheaton-Naperville chapter. The ASA is an association of Christians in science who take both their faith and science seriously. The speaker for the event was Dr. John Walton, professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College. He spoke on his book, The Lost World Of Genesis One. I have not yet read the book (I hope to do so in the near future), but if the book substantiates the claims Walton made during the talk, it could prove to be, for evangelicals, the single most important book of the decade.

I will give a brief outline of the main points he made during his talk but first we have some matters of definition to deal with. The basic issue is whether Genesis 1 recounts material creation or functional creation. Material creation is God making stuff (e.g.., I created a chair - meaning I took pieces of wood and built a chair). Functional creation is God assigning already existing things function (e.g., 'create in me a pure heart' - purity is not a material item, it's changing the way we function, creating purity in us). Walton's contention is that the account of Genesis 1 is an account of functional creation. I'll hit just a few of his points that I thought were convincing

1. Genesis 1:3-5 describes God creating light. Verse 5 is odd. God names the light day and the darkness night. Why doesn't God name them light and dark? Why name light, 'day?' What God is naming is not light as a physicist would describe it. He's naming a period of light, namely what we call day. Thus verses 3-5 are assigning light and darkness a function; keeping time. Walton makes similar types of arguments for each day of creation.

2. The verb "bara'" - 'create' in Hebrew, never unambiguously refers to material creation. On many occasions it refers unambiguously to functional creation. There are several cases where it is ambiguous, but the lack of clear cases where "bara'" means materially create militates against understanding Genesis 1 as an account of material creation.

3. Another very helpful point Walton brought up was comparisons with Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) literature. Creation is functional in other ANE texts. For example, in the Enuma Elish, a Babylonian creation account, nothing is physically made. Thus not only does the verb "bara'" not suggest material creation, the ancient Israelites' cultural context points away from it. Ancient people were not very interested in material origins. They were more concerned with functions. Who made things work the way they do? The answer according to Genesis 1 is Yahweh. God gave function to the heavens and the earth so that he could reside in the cosmos, his temple (c.f., Ps. 132:13-18), but the cosmos is created in such a way that it functions that it does not serve him alone, it's set up to be functional for us as we steward his creation.

Why is this so important? If Genesis 1 is not an account of material creation, then no such account exists in the Bible. This means that Genesis 1 does not prohibit Bible believing Christians from accepting the scientific evidence in favor of evolution, for God can work through a long slow process like evolution if he wanted to.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Galatians 2:11-14: The circumcision group

11 When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. 12 For before certain people came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. 13 The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray. 14 When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, "You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs? (TNIV) There's an important issue that we need to wrestle with in this passage, and it's the question of whether or not the people from James and the circumcision group are the same group. I am not inclined to think that they are. The ensuing discussion is drawn from Longenecker's commentary pp 73-5

More Calvinist than Calvin?

I'm working on a paper on the topic of divine sovereignty and human freedom. Occasionally on this topic (or the subtopic of election) you will hear people through out the barb at strong Calvinists that they're 'being more Calvinist than Calvin.' After having read Calvin carefully on the issue I don't think that there's any validity to that charge. I don't see a material difference here between Calvin and say John Piper. Here are several quotes from the Institutes to prove my point. 'All events are governed by God's secret plan.' I.xvi.2 'Governing heaven and earth by his providence, he also so regulates all things that nothing takes place without his deliberation.' I.xvi.3 'Nothing happens except what is knowingly and willingly decreed by him.' I.xvi.3 Calvin explicitly rejects a limited providence, 'one that by a general motion revolves and drives the system of the universe, with its several parts, but which does not specifc

Jude 20-25

This is the last of our studies on Jude, but stick around, there will be a few more posts this week on the theology of Jude and on Jude commentaries. Finally in Jude 20-23, Jude tells his readers how to contend for the faith. As we will find out, though, it does not take the exact shape that we might expect. Vs. 20: The first and most important thing Jude exhorts his readers to do is to build themselves up in the holy faith. This is not a command given to the members of the church as individuals, but to them corporately. They are to build up the corporate body of Christ, which is God's temple (c.f., 2 Cor. 6:16). Being in a strong community of faith lessens the allurement of false teaching and sinful lifestyles. Secondly, Jude implores them to pray in the Holy Spirit (Jude probably does not mean speaking in tongues). As a church they are to develop a life constantly in communion with the Spirit through prayer. This intimacy with the Spirit will guard them from error. Vs. 21: In ve