If you missed Ariana Grande’s most popular song last year, tell me what she means:
I didn’t think you’d understand me
How could you ever even try? …
We can’t be friends …
— Ariana Grande
Was she breaking up with a guy because he didn’t understand her? If you keep listening, it’s the other way around. The refrain is, “I’ll wait for your love.”
Even best friends misunderstand each other. We make assumptions about what the person is saying. We hear part of the message and miss the main thing. We don’t connect the words with yesterday’s conversation.
The chance of misunderstanding is greater when we don’t know someone well. If the person is from another culture, or another language, or another time, we’ve got work to do to understand who they are, what they’re saying, and what they mean.
All those issues are present when we come to the Bible. All sixty-six books come to us from another culture, another language, and another time. We misunderstand them when we read them through Western eyes, though the dynamics of our culture and the assumptions of our time.
That’s why people divide over how to read Genesis. We misunderstand it when we expect it to answer our questions about science and history, instead of hearing what it is talking about. Gordon Wenham expressed it well:
Though historical and scientific questions may be uppermost in our minds as we approach the text, it is doubtful whether they were in the writer’s mind, and we should therefore be cautious about looking for answers to questions he was not concerned with. Genesis is primarily about God’s character and his purposes for sinful mankind. Let us beware of allowing our interests to divert us from the central thrust of the book, so that we miss what the Lord, our creator and redeemer, is saying to us.
— Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1–15, WBC (Dallas: Word, 1987), liii
Scripture is not a revelation about science. It’s a revelation of God. When we focus on the wrong questions, we miss the one who is revealed in Scripture, and then we end up fighting with each other.
That’s especially true of Genesis 1. People argue over how the Genesis account of creation and the scientific account of origins fit together. Some views:
- The Bible is true, and science is wrong where it doesn’t agree. Young earth creationists such as Ken Ham (answersingenesis.org) believe the universe was created in six literal days, just a few thousand years ago.
- The Bible and science both say the same thing. Hugh Ross (reasons.org) believes the Bible gives us scientific information about a universe that’s ancient. For example, Isaiah 42:5 says “the Creator of the heavens … stretched them out,” and Hugh Ross identifies this statement with the inflation of the universe that followed the Big Bang.
- The Bible and science give us information about different things. Francis Collins (biologos.org) is a Nobel-prize winning biologist who helped unravel how DNA works. He wrote The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief. In 2020 he was awarded the Templeton Prize for “harnessing the power of the sciences to explore the deepest questions of the universe and humankind’s place and purpose within it.”
I personally grew up in a tradition supporting the young-earth creationists (#1 above). Over time, I realized that the Bible didn’t fit my view of it. To honour the text, I had to change my view.
Let’s take a New Testament example. According to Mark 4:31, Jesus called a mustard seed “the smallest of all the seeds on earth.” If you think Jesus was making a statement about biology, then he was wrong and the Bible contains errors.
Jesus went on to describe the mustard seed growing into “the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree” (Matthew 13:32). That’s also wrong. Mustard seeds grow into garden shrubs, but not trees. Jesus made two biological errors in one story, and your Bible has multiple errors. If you think the Bible teaches science, that’s the conclusion you’re forced to accept.
Once you realize the Bible is not teaching science, you can listen to what Jesus was saying. If you were buying mustard seeds at the market and one little seed fell off the scales, you wouldn’t worry about it. What’s one seed? But that one little seed can grow to fill your garden, and Jesus said the kingdom of God is like that. If Jesus is God’s Anointed (Messiah), the kingdom was arriving in him (the king)! His audience knew that Israel was meant to be God’s garden, though it had been overrun by foreign powers (Psalm 80; Isaiah 5). God was restoring his reign in his anointed.
And then comes the unexpected twist in Jesus’ story. The little kingdom that was coming to life in Christ would grow into something no one expected: a tree far bigger than God’s garden — a tree so large that the birds come and perch in its branches (Matthew 13:32). This was language that the big kingdoms used to describe their power (compare Daniel 4:12, 14, 21). The little mustard seed becomes the kingdom of God: far bigger than a garden, it fills the whole world! Wow!
Jesus’ story is not bad biology; it’s messianic hope. Any attempt to make it fit science misses the point. When we try to make Scripture say something it never set out to say, we distort it into something it is not, and we miss what it is saying.
So, what is Genesis 1 about? If it’s not a science text, what is it saying?
Israel’s story
All Scripture reveals God. The Old Testament is God’s interaction with his people Israel. Israel had a unique relationship with God, established through the Sinai covenant. The Lord freed them from human rule (Pharaoh), and formed them into the first kingdom of God on earth. This foundational story is in Exodus.
Genesis is the prequel. Why did God sent Moses to rescue them? God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob (Exodus 2:24). Genesis is the backstory: God calling Israel’s ancestors:
- Abraham (Genesis 12–25)
- Isaac (Genesis 25–36)
- Jacob, with his twelve sons who became the twelve tribes (Genesis 37–50).
But Genesis doesn’t start with Abraham. It starts with God’s relationship to the world. Genesis 1–11 makes the astounding claim that the God of Israel is the God of all people.
In the beginning, God established … not just Israel! The heavens and earth are his. It was formless and empty until God gave it shape and significance. God’s decrees gave it form and function. The heavenly sovereign declared how things were to be, empowering creation to be fruitful.
So, who is this God? And what can we know of God if God is in heaven and we are on earth? How does he govern the world? How does he care for and protect his earthly creatures? What’s our place in his world? And what if we resist his authority?
Genesis 1–11 addresses the foundational issues of God’s authority. It’s a prelude to Israel’s history. It’s the account of heaven and earth in God’s care, how the earthly realm turned from God, and how God responded. It explains why there are nations with their own rulers, and why God called Abraham to establish a different kind of nation.
Next time we’ll apply that approach to the text of Genesis 1.
What others are saying
Tremper Longman III, Genesis, Story of God Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016), 38:
The proclamation of Genesis 1 is that God, and no other, created the cosmos. This remarkable revelation is muted by those who insist that the main purpose of the book is to provide an alternative depiction of the process of creation as that offered by modern science. However, Genesis 1 (and we will see Genesis 2 as well) is not about how God created creation. It is not to be mined for hints about how long creation took or the specific way in which God brought the world and humanity into being. That said, the creation accounts provide profound perspective on the nature of God, ourselves, and the world. Genesis 1 (and 2) imparts to its readers a worldview which affects the way they believe, think, and act. We will here concentrate on the contribution of the cosmic creation of Genesis 1, and in the next on the human-centered account in chapter 2.
John H. Walton, Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2011), 198–199:
The most important result of this study for the interpretation of Genesis is the realization that the Genesis account pertains to functional origins rather than material origins and that temple ideology underlies the Genesis cosmology. These conclusions have significant ramifications for the public discussions and controversies of our time, including those concerning the age of the earth, the relationship between Genesis and science, the interpretation of the biblical text in relation to evolution and Intelligent Design, and the shape of public science education.
John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 1–17, ed. Thomas P. Halton, trans. Robert C. Hill, The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1986), 74:35:
Notice how the divine nature shines out of the very manner of creation, how he executes his creation in a way contrary to human procedures, first stretching out the heavens and then laying out the earth beneath, first the roof and then the foundation. Who has ever seen the like? Who has ever heard of it? No matter what human beings produce, this could never have happened—whereas when God decides, everything yields to his will and becomes possible. So don’t pry too closely with human reasoning into the works of God; instead, let the works lead you to marvel at their maker. Scripture says, remember, “What the eye cannot see in him has come into view from the creation of the world and are understood through the things he has made.”
Seeking the kingdom 
Wow Allen, I love this. Once again you’ve taken a huge and complex subject and made it so accessible. This paragraph says so much : “Jesus’ story is not bad biology; it’s messianic hope. Any attempt to make it fit science misses the point. When we try to make Scripture say something it never set out to say, we distort it into something it is not, and we miss what it is saying.”
As always, thanks for your insight, wisdom and gentle but firm encouragement to explore biblical truth with open eyes, heart & mind. I so appreciate your gifting & friendship.
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Thanks, Jamie.
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Thank you for taking the time to look at this. I do agree that God is the focus of creation in Genesis. However, I think a plain reading of the text should always be followed unless there is clear reason to do otherwise. Science was birthed in faith. It was fundamentally based on the belief that God created everything and so studying everything scientifically could lead to a deeper understanding of the creator. In the scientific method, something is provable & repeatable, or it is not considered scientific. What has changed is the scope of modern science and the associated claims of scientists. Scientists make truth claims that require faith “I believe the science”. These claims should wake up the believer that an invasion is happening.
I accept science but I believe the Scriptures. If it says seven days, I believe in seven days as we understand morning and evening days. Genesis is not a scientific treatise on creation because what has science to do with creation? Science is the servant of faith not its master. It is beyond the scope of science because science does not have the resources to prove anything.
Scientists cannot replicate creation, and they never will. Yet scientists make wild and boastful claims about things they do not have any understanding or authority. It is incumbent on believers to recognise a “fool” and foolish talk. I do not know how or exactly when the earth was created but I have testimony of Scripture and those who went before me. Either I choose to believe the Scripture, or I choose to believe a fool.
No one on the earth today can tell us how old the earth is because on one on the earth today knows. Therefore, I believe in a plain understanding of Scripture because that is a trustworthy witness. The world may laugh but it doesn’t know. The devil doesn’t want us believing Scripture because that undermines his power and influence. The enemy sow’s confusion because confusion suits him. This is not a rational debate; it is a spiritual battle. This is the same battle that begun in the garden with the lie man could be like God through knowledge. It is written.
Look forward to your next installment.
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I’d be interested to understand what you think a valid reason might be to not follow a plain reading of the text? “However, I think a plain reading of the text should always be followed unless there is clear reason to do otherwise.”
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Parables, poetry and proverbs etc. Genesis 1-11 does not present as any of these.
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Hi lipjam. Thanks for engaging with this in a thoughtful way.
By “a plain reading of the text” I assume you mean how it sounds to us. I’m working on a different assumption: that what it meant to them was “the plain reading” as it was written. Because of differences in culture, language, and our perception of the world, that’s not going to be the same thing as what sounds like “a plain reading” to us. Understanding requires us to look through their lens, to see as they saw and hear what they were saying. If we miss that step, we’re making it mean what we hear instead of what they were saying.
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Hi Allen
I am working through this but from what I see, who is to say that “they” weren’t right, and we (with all our knowledge) are wrong. So, do we just need to accept what “they” say as plainly as “they” say it because “they” heard it direct from Him. A fool says in his heart there is no God, and most modern scholarship would qualify for “fool” status. If we believe God gave us Scripture then it would follow that it would be readily understandable to every generation, language and culture otherwise it was not given by the creator.
This is not primarily a question of knowledge but of belief. We have had the majority text in English since the seventeenth century and it has remained overwhelmingly intact and the message has never changed ever since it was originally written. Until this age when suddenly there are claims made never made in all previous generations. But modern scholarship has not changed the message but it has diminished belief in it. Moses is now an anonymous “they” and the creator of the universe is a Semitic deity from ancient primitive antiquity.
Of course, we need scholarship to translate the text but once translated, the meaning should be plain. Plain enough for a child to understand. Some nuance in language and culture that may produce deeper insight, but it should not require some gnostic knowledge to readily understand the plain message.
A day in English has a variety of meanings and we understand its nuance in the context of the sentence as it is written, and in the wider context of the author. A day, with morning and evening further refines what is intended. So if the Scripture says the world was created in six days then should we accept the testimony of Scripture or do we need to turn to some other credentialled authority?
The main reason I see why most ever question the six days is to do with those who claim to know that the earth is billions of years old. They offer their “proofs” but the truth is they do not know: “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? There are too many fools claiming they know, and we have a simple choice to either believe Scripture or them.
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Thanks Allen. Context is also an important factor to be taken into account. As Prof John Walton likes to say ‘Scripture is written for us, but not to us.’ We do need to take the original audience into account. So, for the book of Genesis the original audience was the Hebrew slaves that had just been rescued from Egypt. They had been in Egypt of around 400 years, long enough that the knowledge of Yahweh was probably quite vague. Who was this god Moses was speaking for? What was he like? How did he work? For the Hebrews the only gods they knew were the gods of Egypt. Was Yahweh the same, did he operate the same, did he need sacrifices to be appeased? These were some of the questions that Genesis was answering, what was this God, Yahweh, really like. This is why the creation stories in Genesis are both like but importantly different from the ancient Egyptian or Babylonian creation stories. They also tell the story of the creation of the world out of chaos, (Genesis 1:1-2) but they deal very differently with the place humans have in the creation. For the Egyptians humans came from the tears of the god and their task was to work creation. For the Babylonians humans came from the bones of the god that was killed, and their purpose was to do all the tasks the gods did not want to do. When you compare these ideas with Genesis 1:27-28 we see how different Yahweh is from the gods of other nations. These stories are the beginnings of the story that tells the Hebrews and eventually us, about the God we serve.
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Love the bigger context you’ve described. The revelation of the LORD God as sovereign over all the peoples of the earth is at the core of Genesis 1-11, so similarities and differences to how other perceived the gods is at the heart of what this text is about. So, as you say, how we relate to this God is the application of the text. Thanks, Graham.
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But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: with the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. 2 Peter 3 v8 [NIVUK]
When Moses wrote the account of creation he was doing so retrospectively, using the language of his day and addressing the audience of his day. The sun, which is central to our definition of a 24-hour day, was not created until the fourth period so perhaps the creation timescale might be more flexible than we think.
In the Biblical text, days are referred-to using a numeric designator such as the first day, the eighth day, etc, or by being the first or last day of a particular period. How can we establish a correlation between the days’ names that we currently use and their numeric identity? For example, how do we know which day-name relates to the first ‘day’ of creation. Did God start work on a ‘Sunday’ in order to arrive at his day of rest on ‘Saturday’?
Or, as Allen suggests, is all this a digression? Perhaps it is more important to look forward to another day:
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare. 2 Peter 3:10 [NIVUK]
Are you ready?
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Thanks for your comment.
As you point out, there are many questions that can be raised as we wrestle with doing justice to the revelation of God found in the opening chapters. The revelation of God is given to bring us into relationship with God: the God who reveals himself, the Sovereign Lord of heaven and earth, the Ruler who knows how to deal with evil and remove it from his creation, restoring us to the day of his reign.
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