A Genesis Interpretation

1. Earliest Understandings and Beliefs • Genesis 2 doesn’t interpret 24-hour days.  Verse 4, 4 ‘days’ in Gen 1:1-19 = 1 ‘day’ here. (Day=Yowm). This was not missed by Jews. Philo, Josephus and others argue the literal meaning of yowm in Gen 1 and 2 is not 24 hours. If 1 day incorporates several other days, it cannot be 24 hours. • The days in Gen 1 were not generally considered 24 hours throughout most of the history of interpretation. • Irenaeus of Lyons (115-202AD) thought earth was as old as 12,000BC.  Disciple of Polycarp who was disciple of John.  Key person in shaping NT canon.  Contended with gnostics over literal understanding of Genesis who pointed out that Adam and Eve didn’t die within 24 hours of consumption. Irenaeus responded by saying the days meant a period of 1000 years (2 Pet 3:8). If this is the case then God is not a liar.  Justin Martyr (155AD) used the same logic to interpret ‘day’.  Cyprian of Carthage, another ancient Church father in 250AD said the same thing.  Clement, Basil, Augustine and many others also argue that yowm is a long and unknown period.  They were technically still Young Earthers but they show examples of Christians not taking Genesis stupidly literal. • Many key writers of 17th and 18th centuries equated the chaos of Gen 1:2 “without form and void” with a significant passing of time between the initial creation and the re-ordering of creation in 6 days.  It was ‘the chaos-restitution interpretation’ and was adopted by most commentators.  Grotius, Mersenne, Bacon, Descartes, Wesley, Gill, Horsley, Milton, Traherne, Pope, Handel, Haydn, Kant etc.  Thomas Burnet in Sacred Theory of the Earth wrote of the period of indefinitely long chaos before creation saying “so it is understood by the general consent of commentators.” 1681. • The idea that Ussher’s date was representative of the church comes from Andrew White (an originator of the science vs religion false dichotomy) in A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology.  According to Michael Roberts, Ussher’s chronology had no need to be seriously questioned until the 1800’s. But well before then his interpretation of 6 24-hour days was generally rejected and his view was a minority over the next 150 years.  “His influence on the churches is grossly exaggerated and many writers passed over him in silence.”  By the 1700’s, “only a handful of theologians adopted a strict 6 24-hour day chronology.”  And “strict 6-day creation was never the dominant view and was the official position of no church in Europe or America (until the late 20th century)”. • It was devout Christians from the 17th-19th centuries that introduced the concept of vast geological time.  Which challenged the eternalism of enlightenment deism at the time.  Also, the work of William Smith and his successors (Christians) vastly extended the age of the earth. William Buckland, Adam Sedgwick, Daniel Conybeare, John Phillips, James Dana, all Christians all making discoveries pushing the age of the earth back. • At the height of the fundamentalist movement in the 1920’s, all who left a written record accepted the scientific evidence for the antiquity of life on earth.  The only religious group that rejected this evidence were SDA’s. This is the reason we still have young earth creationism. Because Ellen White had visions of God and creation happening in 6 24-hour days all happening only a few thousand years ago.  Their views went mainstream when it was adapted and updated by Henry Morris and John Whitcomb Jr in their 1961 book The Genesis Flood. They were not SDA’s which is what made it possible for conservative Christians to embrace what had previously been views unique to SDA’s. 2. Poetic or Purely Historical • A purely literalist approach puts you in flat earth territory  The Hebrew word for ‘expanse/firmament’ ‘raqia’ pertains to something solid. Like a dome…will literalists take this bit literally? • You can have poetry and history at the same time  Ps 51 features both. • Chaos and Order  Where did the sea come from? Why is it there already? It’s interesting that at the beginning of the text is a common ANE symbol for chaos and non-order. Shouldn’t that tip us off that the subduing of chaos is the focus of the text? 3. Functional Creation Rather Than Material • Ancient people described things by their function/purpose.  You have to read scripture as its human authors and original audience would have understood it. For them, things existed by virtue of their role.  “The ancients didn’t care about chronological order as much as we do”-Misreading Scripture With Western Eyes.  It can’t have been both. Couldn’t be talking about material creation because light is not material. And you would be forced to say God created a solid dome sky on day 2 as that’s how ancient near easterners viewed the sky according to the vast majority of OT scholars.  An anthropocentric function was also typical of contemporary creation accounts (The Egyptian Papyrus Insinger, Egyptian Instruction of Merikare). • Genesis 1:1 should be “When God began creating”  The current one “In the beginning” ignores cultural context. Ancient texts confirm this by starting with “when.” (Enuma Elish, Epic of Atrahasis, Assyrian Kar 4).  Biblical Hebraists have departed from the conventional independent clause. Michael Heiser argues that the Hebrew Masoretic vowel points and wording from the Greek Septuagint do not imply “In the beginning.” There is a clear lack of a definite article in the Hebrew meaning it should be ‘when’ not ‘in the beginning’. It should be a dependent clause, dependent on verse 2. Meaning when God began creating, the earth was already there formless and void.  More in IP’s Gen 1 video arguing from John Sailhammer and Robert D Holmstedt. • Created (bara)  Bara is better used as assigning new function. It’s never used to necessarily mean material creation but has been used to necessarily mean assigning function.  Even in aforementioned pagan texts, it’s implied they too see things as having been created by virtue of having been ‘named’ and assigned function.  Kenneth Matthews argues this as well and points out its use in Ps 51:10 and Isa 57:19, 65:18. • This makes more sense of “Formless and void” (Tohu and Bohu)  Formless and void doesn’t capture the Hebraic meaning. After a full semantic analysis of tohu, David Tsumura concludes its best defined as unproductive.  Used elsewhere in bible to refer to the wilderness, idols that accomplish nothing, wastelands, wandering aimlessly, desolate settlements, and a destroyed kingdom. No human production or orderly civilization. • God literally goes on to assign functions to everything  Day 1-God creates light. Why not call the light what it is? Light. Because he names it by how it functions on earth. As day. And how darkness functions-night. He is creating time. Time is not material but a function.  Day 2-D. J. A Clines points out the existence of the firmament is in relation to its purpose-to separate waters.  Day 3-Names the dry land as Earth, and the gathered waters called Seas. The earth’s function is to produce vegetation and purpose of that is to provide food.  Day 4-Luminaries to mark time and separate light from dark. Gen 1:14-19 implies days, nights, evenings and mornings existed before the sun and moon. Which weren’t created until day 4. Implying the sun and moon were materially there already but not given their function till day 4. • Similar uses in Jeremiah 4  The language suggests the reverse of Gen 1 took place. It isn’t describing Israel popping out of existence but going back into chaotic/unsubdued land. 4. Inauguration • Creation week is a temple inauguration of the cosmos.  7 was culturally symbolic number for temple inaugurations. The tabernacle was completed in 7 stages. Priest ordination was 7 days. Solomon’s temple had 7-year construction. Dedicated to God during 7-day festival. On 7th month. Solomon’s dedication speech given in 7 petitions.  This occurs outside the bible as well (Gudea Cylinder, Ugaritic texts).  Earth created in 7 days. And like a tabernacle, created out of pre-existing material (God still created the universe ex-nihilo, just not the focus of the passage).  What do you put in a temple after building it? An image of God. What is the last thing God put in the cosmos in Gen 1? An image of God. • Richard Hess notes the Hebrews thought spiritual life occurred in 3 concentric spheres of intimacy with God.  The temple features these spheres. It goes priests/Levi in tabernacle, then the encampment of Israel, then pagan nations and wilderness.  This occurs with animals as well with sacrificial animals in the first circle, then clean animals for the encampment of Israel, then unclean in the wilderness.  This also occurs in Genesis, Day 1 and 4 outer circle with luminaries (light and darkness), then day 2 and 5 (the sky, sea and animals therein), then in the innermost circle is day 3 and 6- God with humans and land animals. • The authors are using the 7 days as a symbol for temple inauguration and dividing the work between 6 symmetrical days to explain God’s temple being divided into 3 spheres of intimacy. • Symmetry/mirroring of creation days. Day 1 is Light and Darkness, Day 4 the luminaries. Day 2 Sky and Sea, Day 5 all the animals in them. Day 3 Land and Plants, Day 6 land animals. 5. Literal Ages? • Gen 17:17. Abraham and Sarah laughed at the idea of having another kid at their ages (100 and 90).  Seems strange to do if people are living until they are 900. How fast do literalists think ages were declining? Jacob, Abraham’s grandson lived until he was 147 (Gen 47:38), taking the ages literally, Jacob was 91 when Joseph was born. And Benjamin (the youngest) was still to come. There would have had to be a rapid decline and then stagnated for several generations.  Terah would have fathered Abraham when he was 130…what is Abraham laughing at?  Gen 25:7 says Abraham lived until 175 but the next verse says he died a good old age and full of years. But if the ages are literal, he was not full of years, he died extremely early. In fact his ancestor Eber outlived him! • All of the biological theories are improbable based on science. • Symbolic Use  Karen Nejat in Ancient Mesopotamia says “The Mesopotamians assigned a numerical value to each sign. Thus, every name had a corresponding numerical value.” Also, “It is clear that the biblical chronologies of the patriarchal age are not intended to be accurate historical records in our sense of the term…The numbers used are an expression of the biblical interpretation of history as the unfolding of the divine plan on the human scene.”  You can see the bible clearly using numbers like this in other places. Matthew manipulates numbers for symbolic use in his genealogy to arrive at 3 sets of 14 to show that Jesus is the Messiah, you can see the ones he missed by comparing to Chronicles. And need I mention Revelation??  Similar texts from around that time period record ages from 70-80.  Even in our own culture we use numbers symbolically “I’ll be there in 5 minutes” “my wife is a 10”.  It’s interesting that if you add up all the ages of the patriarchs from Abraham to Moses you get 12,600 which shows up in Revelation 11:3 and 12:6.  There are indications that the ages of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac and Jacob are ideal numbers. Sarah: 120+7. Combines two ideal numbers. And has significance in other passages (Esther 1:1, 1 Kings 20:29-30) and in Herodotus, The Histories.  But look at Joshua and Joseph, strong affinities with Egypt and their ages were 110 this is the ideal age in Egyptian inscriptions. The biblical authors are saying they lived the perfect Egyptian life. And in Understanding Genesis Nahum Sarna notes that the ages from Abraham to Jacob show a mathematical formula (See picture)  Kenneth Matthews notes that the ages in Gen 5 vary between the Masoretic text, the Septuagint and Samarian Pentateuch, this would create problems if they were literal. 6. Global or Regional Flood? • Literalists cannot be consistent here  Taken literally, we should expect Gen 41 describes a literal global famine and that people from Mesoamerica had to go to Egypt to buy grain. And that Jesus healed every single sick person in Syria in Mt 4. Universal language can and is used hyperbolically. • A global flood is rejected by scientific community. • 2 Pet 2:5 qualifies it by saying it came upon the world of the ungodly. • If it was regional why wouldn’t God just send Noah on his way to another place?  Because his building the ark, was a chance for society to see him and condemn themselves and repent. It had never rained before. This was something that had to be done. Heb 11:7, God sends a prophet before judgement, if he just wandered off to somewhere else then they wouldn’t have had another chance-they didn’t deserve it but God is gracious. God had his prophets do drastic things in order to get the people’s attention. • Some scholars extract two separate flood accounts from Genesis  Because they read the documentary hypothesis into the text. More from InspiringPhilosophy’s Are There Two Flood Stories In Genesis? https://youtu.be/C8Z0vrs1ZIs • Irrelevant but worth noting  God was sending a public message that animals were more worth saving then that culture. Having offspring/descendants was considered a blessing and he was taking it away from them and giving it to animals.  The flood waters were a foreshadow of Christ’s blood coming upon the land and washing away the sins of humanity.  Its philosophically impossible for God to kill someone the way a human does. A human removes a person from their plane of existence for selfish and hateful reasons. God is on all planes of existence its logically impossible for him to murder the same way. He would not be removing them he would be shifting their plane of existence. And he would be maximally great in morality, justice, selflessness, compassion, foreknowledge, he would be doing it for perfectly perfect reasons. If you don’t believe in God that’s fine but if you did happen to believe in a maximally great being, then this is just how it is.  This flood is comparable to Sodom and Gomorrah, God was willing to spare the whole city if there were just 10 righteous people.  The bible also implies an age of accountability, if these places are as evil as claimed, it’s doubtful there would be a lot if any children (look at our culture and it’s disdain for childrearing). Those wishing to protect their children would flee. These places were full of violence already. People try hard to sympathize with these condemned places but I really don’t know why they would other than an excuse to condemn God. They are betraying their intuitive sense of justice. They would happily watch Hitler and his followers drown or be burned alive. The story emphasized that Noah was the only righteous man and he didn’t build the ark in a day, people had their chance to repent just as we do now.  Also, Leviticus says lying with a father’s wife uncovers his nakedness, which may lend a tool for interpreting Noah’s son uncovering his nakedness. 7. Were Adam and Eve the First Humans? • Just like the Cosmos, their creation is functional here  They were already there but God is now assigning functions to them.  Adam and Eve are archetypes for humanity. Adam and Eve aren’t even their names. The Hebrew language didn’t come into existence until the time of Moses at the earliest. They are given names. Adam means man/humanity and Eve means life. Their names and ingredients were meant to teach theological importance not scientific truths. We live in a scientific era where we have to know the ‘how’. Before you say this is ‘how’ they were created, you have to make sure you know the priorities of the authors in their culture.  As for creating Adam, the word ‘form’ (Ysr) wasn’t necessarily a material act of creation. It means material creation in less than half of its uses in the bible. Our predisposition to understand it as material creation comes far more from our English translation than the Hebrew original. Its more often used as God ordaining or decreeing things. Like forming events or emotions. An archetypal understanding is more likely. The preposition ‘from’ doesn’t exist in the Hebrew. So, there is no direct claim he was formed from dust. Why not God created man [who is] dust of the earth? Makes for a more consistent reading. Gen 3:19 “for you are dust and to dust you will return”…Adam was not literally dust at this point…it must necessarily be understood metaphorically. Unless he was a cloud of dust able to eat fruit. Also, dust has always had metaphorical use throughout the bible so why take it literally here? It always symbolizes mortality and is therefore an indication Adam was created as a mortal man. Ps 103:14, Eccl 3:20, Job 10:9. God was saying what we were made for not what we were made from.  The breath of life doesn’t appear anywhere else. This is the only context we have. Living being ‘nephesh’. Can have multiple meanings but often the vitality of a person or their desire to live/experience life/purpose/drive. Basically, saying God gives man his reason for living and purpose for being alive. But anyway, does God have an ACTUAL mouth to literally BREATH into Adam’s face?  Even William of Conches also said they could have been created from natural elements. • If the text is talking about material creation, then there is a contradiction as humans are created last in Ch 1 and first in Ch 2  The problem disappears if Ch 2 is a sequel rather than a recapitulation. Gen 2:4 is a Toledot “account”. A literary formula. Whenever the bible does this “These are the generations of”, it reports what comes after, it is never used as a recapitulation. There are recursives but not recapitulations. And if it is a sequel, then the humans in Gen 1 aren’t necessarily Adam and Eve. It’s vague on the creation of humans “he created them male and female”.  If it’s a recapitulation, then all of Gen 2 happened in 24 hours. God planted a garden, trees beginning to grow, by the time Adam was tending it, fruit was growing, then Adam was given the assignment of naming all the animals, God making Eve out of him, Adam says “at last” when he sees his woman helper, not exactly what you’d say if it’s been less than a day…  If Gen 1 was the inauguration of the cosmos, which it was, then Gen 2 was narrowing in on the sacred space which is the Garden of Eden (the center of the cosmos). Several scholars (Isaac Kikawada, Katherine McDowell, John Walton) have pointed out that the garden functions as the first temple. The Hebrew words for ‘work’ and ‘take care of’ are often used of priestly services to God rather than agricultural tasks. John Thomas Swann points out Adam naming the animals is considered an act of establishing order.  Other ancient texts the Atrahasis and Enki And Ninmah do similar things.  https://youtu.be/x41Cq643bzE Inspiring Philosophy Are There Two Creation Accounts In Genesis? • But Eve is the Mother of all the Living  Except animals and Adam.  Gen 4 says Jubal was the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe too. Does that mean he is literally their father? Or perhaps being assigned a special place as a leading figure??? • But Paul says Adam is the first man  You can’t have it both ways in 1 Cor 15, if Adam is the first man then Jesus is the last man. Adam was a priest representing humanity as is Jesus we don’t have to be biologically related to Christ to be represented by him.  The bible doesn’t say HOW sin spread to mankind just that it did. We are free to speculate, it was Augustine that said we inherited it from Adam biologically. A modified version of the inheritance theory is that Adam and Eve’s kids inherited it and they spread sinful nature through influence rather than genes to their contemporaries. • Other indications  If other people were around, it would explain where Cain got his wife. The incest ‘solution’ isn’t satisfactory. Leviticus says that God condemned surrounding nations for incest even before the Law of Moses was given. Lev 18 condemns it outright. If incest is always a moral sin, then why would he set creation up for it to be completely necessary?  Cain moved to a “city” which would be a completely inappropriate term if people weren’t already there. If Gen 2 is a sequel, this makes sense. • You can’t take it consistently literally  The way Adam and Eve are created should be evidence enough that there is something strange occurring in the text. Created from dust? And a rib? Two becoming one flesh? Ironically, and inconsistently, literalists are only willing to say the latter is metaphorical. Yes! Because they are supposed to function as one flesh.  The Hebrew word for rib isn’t in Gen 2. Many OT commentators and scholars don’t believe rib to be an accurate translation. It is better translated side. As she came from his side it implies an ontological equality with man. And Adam even says bone of my bone flesh of my flesh. Creating a contradiction. Meaning not a material creation.  Adam fell into a deep sleep, couldn’t it have been a vision? Michael Fox notes that the word for sleep wasn’t the typical word but one that is used for someone about to receive a vision from God. • Biologically untenable  Even if you believed God created two humans de novo, you’d still have to explain how those two could produce such a wide array of genetic diversity in the human genome in such a short amount of time (6000 years). 8. Death Before Sin? • Gen 3:22 indicates it was access to the tree of life that makes humans immortal  Explains why this tree shows up again in Revelation and Heaven when we will once again be immortal.  Explains that when God banished Adam and Eve that they lost access to this tree as well. To assume Adam was created immortal is adding to the text which is what they think everyone else is doing. God curses the ground, not their bodies.  Which means if they were born mortal, then the concept of death is very real. And even if sin didn’t enter the world, they could have died without the tree.  Also pay attention to the fact that man was made from dust making a clear reference to mortality. • The garden wasn’t hedonic paradise  God saw that it was good. There’s nothing indicating good means blissful and perfect without death. On the contrary it was not good that man was alone. Meaning man wasn’t functioning properly.  “It was good” expressed the functional readiness of the cosmos for human beings. Also supported by Abraham Kuruvilla and John Hill.  Humans were not originally built for a utopia, but an adventure. A parallel is in Jesus sending us out into the world to be fruitful and multiply. It wasn’t meant to be a perfect stress-free ride. If the world was originally a paradise with no pain or suffering, why would God command a war-like conquest on it? Thomas Kelser “The utilization of subdue implies that the earth needs to be subdued, thus logically creating the impression that something with creation required such action. But this goes against the nearly universal presumption that God’s creation was perfect in the sense of being unimprovable or finished; however, the characterization of creation is not as something which is unimprovable and finished but rather as still requiring further action or development.” Terrence Fretheim supports this as well. • We probably weren’t vegetarians originally  But just prior to that verse are the words for dominion and subdue in relation to the animals. These words when used other times are very harsh and militaristic referring to war, conquest and enslavement, trampling under foot (verses provided in Gen 1b. They have strong connotations that Josh Van Ee in Death and the Garden believes they indicate some form of strife and most likely allows the use of animals for food. He says the word “is not used for someone ruling over his own people unless that rule involves some sort of oppression or injustice.”  With that alone, its clear animals were given to humans for full use for their purposes. Peet Van Dyk “[The] immediate context the Hebrew words ‘kbs’ and ‘rdh’ cannot be softened in any way.” This should be a view balanced out with OT laws that prohibit animal cruelty Ex 23:19, Pro 12:10, Deut 25:4. • Rom 5:12 says death reigned from Adam to Moses  Yes, it stopped at Moses. So how could it be referring to physical death? 9. Polemics • Genesis 1 was a direct attack on the pagan cultures of the day. • The Image of God  The image of God isn’t an ability we have but a status. We are called to be his imagers. In the ANE, the king was the representative of god, but Genesis democratizes that.  May be another dig at pagan gods who had idols and false images in the temples, whereas we ARE the images and what should be representative of the living God.  Sun and moon called greater and lesser light as the names of these were of Canaanite deities, so the authors refused to even acknowledge them. They are just lights, governed by the only God worth acknowledging.  Also taking the qualities of other gods, instead of marduk dividing the waters it is the Lord, and instead of Ptah speaking things into existence, it is the Lord, instead of Ishtar providing fertility, it is the Lord. 10. Giants/Nephilim • Evidence is pretty thin and debunked for literal giants. • Rober Gentry’s 30-year-old book has been debunked. https://youtu.be/gjYAHBGN_XA 11. Sources • John Walton • John Sailhammer • Ben Stanhope • Michael Heiser • Kenneth Matthews • David Tsumura • J. Richard Middleton. • Craig Olson • Richard Hess • Misreading Scripture With Western Eyes • Ronald Numbers • Davis Young. • Richard Deem.