Many different hypotheses have been suggested for how to reconcile Genesis 1 with the evidence of the earth and the stars.
1. The Creation/Re-creation Theory argues that Genesis 1:1 describes God’s initial creation per science, and that there’s a long time gap between v. 1 and v. 2, reading “was” as “became” —
(Gen 1:1-2 ESV) In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth [became] without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
The six days of creation happens billion of years later, about 6,000 years in our past. It’s a popular theory. Moreover, “create” is sometimes used of creating out of pre-existing material. As the NET Bible translators explain,
The verb בָּרָא (bara‘) always describes the divine activity of fashioning something new, fresh, and perfect. The verb does not necessarily describe creation out of nothing (see, for example, v. Gen 1:27, where it refers to the creation of man); it often stresses forming anew, reforming, renewing (see Psa 51:10; Isa 43:15, Isa 65:17).
2. The Gap Theory is very similar, except this theory suggests that the first creation is not mentioned in Genesis 1. Rather, Genesis describes a re-creation. Thus, Genesis
(Gen 1:1-2 ESV) In [] beginning [this creation], God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
Both theories suffer from a complete absence of scientific evidence of a re-creation of the world and the universe around 6,000 years ago. There is no discontinuity or break in the fossil record, and archaeology finds human bones going back 100,000 years.
3. The Day-Age theory treats each “day” as an age of possibly millions of years. Two prominent efforts to attach each “day” to a period of time consistent with the scientific evidence may be found in Hugh Ross’s Creation and Time: A Biblical and Scientific Perspective on the Creation-Date Controversy
The scriptural justification is, of course, such passages as —
(Psa 90:4 ESV) 4 For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night.
In response, Young Earth (YE) Creationists have argued that the scriptures never uses “day” to refer to a period of time greater than a literal day. However, Revelation does exactly that.
(Rev 11:3 ESV) 3 And I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.”
(Rev 12:5-6 ESV) 5 She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne, 6 and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which she is to be nourished for 1,260 days.
Moreover, it’s the nature of metaphor that an author often makes up his own metaphors. He is not limited to the idiom of his language. That is, there is simply no grammatical rule that forbids a word such as “day” from being a metaphor even if it’s used that way only once.
“Fox” is used only twice in scripture, literally in Nehemiah 4:3 and metaphorically by Jesus in Luke 13:32 — or must we assume that Herod is a literal fox since there is no other occasion when “fox” is used as a metaphor in scripture? It’s really a frivolous argument.
4. The Poetry or Figurative Language theory suggests that Genesis 1 is written as a poem or highly stylized prose with very figurative language. Thus, we should interpret the text as we interpret Psalm 104 and Job 9, not as a scientific textbook but as a beautiful poem.
Genesis 1 is certainly not a poem in the same style as the Psalms or much of Isaiah, but where is it written that the Israelites may only have one form of poetry? We Americans have sonnets, haikus, blank verse, and all sorts of other forms. So might Moses. After all, while Genesis is clearly not written the same as a psalm, it’s also not written the same as Judges or 2 Chronicles. It’s not ordinary prose.
Many object to this, seeing no metaphors at all — which is a serious indictment of our educational system.
(Gen 1:2 ESV) 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
What is the “deep”? Surely a metaphor for something. “Hovering” is a verb used for the behavior of birds — hence the Spirit is referred to as a bird. It’s a metaphor.
What kind of “face” do waters have? A literal face? I’m pretty sure it’s a metaphor.
(Gen 1:3 ESV) 3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
Per John 1, “said” is a metaphor for God creating through the Logos, Jesus.
(Gen 1:5 ESV) 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
There was no Sun! Evening is not a time of day. It’s when the Sun sets. Morning is when the Sun rises. The Israelites had no clocks (not yet invented) and weren’t likely to have carried sundials with them. (The Egyptians built obelisks to use as giant sundials.)
It’s been suggested in the comments that the earth may have been lit by God himself, but the text says God created light, not that God became light to the earth. Besides, when God becomes the light of the new heavens and new earth, there is no night (Rev. 22:5). God is everywhere and so would not shine on just half the earth at once.
I could go on, but the highly figurative nature of the language should be obvious to an honest reader.
5. Genesis 1 describes the inauguration or dedication of the Creation as God’s cosmic temple. We have, of course, already addressed this theory from John Walton’s The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate
Personally, I believe Walton is right, because he reads an Ancient Near Eastern text as an Ancient Near Eastern text. Moreover, there is truth in reading Genesis figuratively, as it is obviously highly metaphoric. However, I believe that there are echoes of the Big Bang in that account.
I could never understand why the “Big Bang” is so feared by many believers. It is scientific confirmation of creation from nothing and with no scientifically explained “cause.” When this is coupled with reading Genesis as an Ancient Near Eastern document, the “difficulties” evaporate.
Hosea 6:2 uses yom to refer to the restoration of Isreal (per Jon Greene) possibly either hundreds of years or ultimately thousands of years in the future… [Hos 6:2 ESV] After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him. And Daniel referred to futuristic events in terms of “weeks” that obviously exceed 7 days each…
Question: In this verse from Heb 11… does it mean that God created from nothing or from things that could not be seen ? Is there a difference ? [Heb 11:3 ESV] By faith we understand that the universe was ceated by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible..” When Genesis speaks of the “earth bringing forth”… does that require creation from nothing or does it allow for things to be formed from atoms, and cells, and dna, etc. ?
following
Jay wrote:
“Both theories suffer from a complete absence of scientific evidence of a re-creation of the world and the universe around 6,000 years ago. There is no discontinuity or break in the fossil record, and archaeology finds human bones going back 100,000 years.”
In Part 10 (Rest), you commented:
“Hence, it’s entirely consistent with Walton’s interpretation for Adam and Eve to be literal people who really walked the earth. That is, in fact, Walton’s belief. It is also mine.”
Unless I’m misunderstanding (more than possible), I see a contradiction.
Tom,
I believe God specially created Adam and Eve from scratch, i.e., not by evolutionary processes. However, it’s hard to fit them into history at 4,000 BC. The Chinese civilization, for example, was already well underway and there were humans all over the planet in 4000 BC. Therefore, they have to be much older than that, especially given that recollections of the Flood are found in the traditions of people all over the planet. Adam and Eve and the Flood and Babel have to be before humanity scattered — which was quite a long time ago. Future posts will address in more detail.
Price,
Thanks for the Hosea reference.
It utterly repudiates the argument that “day” preceded by an ordinal numeral (such as “third”) must be a literal day.
Price asked about Heb 11:3 —
I believe in creation from nothing, and so I take “things that are [not] visible” to mean the laws of nature decreed by God through the Logos. He speaks in terms of “not visible” to parallel the chapter’s theme sentence about faith allowing us to believe the unseen.
Thanks Jay and I’ll look forward to future posts. I’m not sure I understand why it’s hard to fit Adam and Eve into history at 4,000 BC. Luke’s account of Jesus’ lineage traces Him back some 70+ generations to Adam (actually to God Himself). I have always believed this to be literal as the context seems to demand it.
Tom,
Even the generations of Jesus in Matthew skip people. And Matthew was written to Jews, who would have immediately recognized the skips. I learned from a CD lecture by Ray Vander Laan —
1) The number of words must be divisible by 7 evenly (In each of these constraints, it is assumed that the divisions are without remainders.)
2) The number of letters must also be divisible by 7.
3) The number of vowels and the number of consonants must be divisible by 7.
4) The number of words that begin with a vowel must be divisible by 7.
5) The number of words that begin with a consonant must be divisible by 7.
6) The number of words that occur more than once must be divisible by 7.
7) The number of words that occur in more than one form must be divisible by 7.
8) The number of words that occur in only one form shall be divisible by 7.
9) The number of nouns shall be divisible by 7.
10) Only 7 words shall not be nouns.
11) The number of names in the genealogy shall be divisible by 7.
12) Only 7 other kinds of nouns are permitted.
13) The number of male names shall be divisible by 7.
14) The number of generations shall be 21, also divisible by 7.
Seven is the number for God. Just as there are many sevens in Genesis 1, Matthew’s genealogy has an astonishing number of sevens, all to claim that Jesus is God — which is likely why some generations were skipped. Matthew and his readers considered the numerology more important than the literal generations.
“There is no discontinuity or break in the fossil record”
True, not within 6 thousand years. But 60-150,000 years is a different story. If we allow the genealogical gap in Genesis 1-11, perhaps this is when God perfected the Heavens and the Earth on day 7(until God cursed the Universe on account of sin).
Or perhaps the whole Universe was already fell into corruption because of the cosmic rebellion led by Satan(1/3 of the angels of God). Maybe The Garden of Eden was there to shelter man in His presence. But this seems to counter the narrative of Genesis.
Whatever happened we know that the Earth was once a perfect paradise(even science concedes this). After the movie contact came out, there were scientists who used that film as an illustration to how the primordial world and universe appeared in the beginning!
The Apostle Paul declares that the whole creation yearns and groans to be released back into that pristine condition of beauty. When we will cloth ourselves with immortality. The body that Adam once had!!!
I think the big bang theory or thought is dismissed quickly due to it becoming a happen-stance situation that by coincidence came together without God controlling presence.
Robert,
Young Earth Creationism and atheists believe that the only choices are a literal reading of Genesis 1 and 2 or Godless evolution. No one else believes that. There are in fact other possibilities, one being that God used evolution to produce the world as we know it and another being that God controlled evolution and sometimes even did a miracle to produce the world as we know it.
So-called Theistic evolutionists generally do not care whether evolution proves true. They are not evolution advocates. Rather, they just can’t imagine God not being heavily involved in his creation or producing a creation that presents a false picture of the creation.
Under a theistic view, evolution is not random, but managed through, as you say, God’s controlling presence.
What about the Genealogical Gap Theory of Genesis 4-5 and 11(i.e. father=ancestor and son=descendant)? The belief that these genealogies were just literary summations of a sacred lineage(e.g. the number ten)-though based on actual literal history. Maybe Moses writing in the style of the ANE skipped several generations for the sake of artistic license.
RJ asked,
It’s easy to find genealogies in the scriptures that skip generations. When skeptics call these omissions “errors,” Christians — even the most conservative Christians — defend by pointing out the nature of the literature and conventional practices of the day.
This is from Apologetics Press: http://www.apologeticspress.org/AllegedDiscrepancies.aspx?article=2093 — but when someone not as conservative as they says exactly the same thing, he’s excoriated as a liberal.