Creation In Genesis: The Facts
The Bible is not like the Qur’an.
You might think that’s obvious, but in fact Christians often treat the Bible in the same way Muslims treat the Qur’an. According to Islamic tradition the Qur’an was given directly to Muhammad by God, through the angel Gabriel. A final, definitive, authoritative holy book that came straight from heaven. Through one source.
The Bible is not like that at all.
It is actually a collection, a library of many texts. From many different authors. In a multitude of genres. Set within several different contexts. Written in more than one language. Spanning close to one and a half millennia. And finished 2000 years ago.
And here’s an important tip: none of the texts in the Bible were written in English by a post-Enlightenment, 21st Century Westerner.
Whose Rules?
In Australia our national sport is football. Other countries play “football” too (what we call soccer), but Australian football is unique. We run around with an oval shaped ball in our hands, kicking it into the air. Now imagine if a bunch of foreigners came and told us, “Hey! That’s not how you play football! You can’t use your hands, you have to kick the ball along the ground!”
If you’ve seen how an Australian Rules football bounces along the ground you’d know that trying to mix Aussie Rules with soccer would just be chaos. Yet we often do something similar with the Bible. Sections like the early chapters of Genesis in particular. Modern, post-Enlightenment Westerners obsessed with their notion of “science” and “empirical data” come, as complete foreigners, to an ancient Middle Eastern piece of literary art and say, “You have to play by our rules!”
And the result is a completely unnecessary mess.
The creation account in Genesis is not a scientific document. It doesn’t care at all about modern questions of “How exactly did it happen? What are the facts?” It is not a document about the exact details of natural history. It is a story about meaning. It is not totally literal. But it is true.
“Whaaaat? You can’t make a distinction between facts and truth!!”
Sure you can. We do it all the time. Check out these little comics by Nathan Pyle over at Buzzfeed: These Comics About Facebook Are Too Real.
What was your honest reaction to those comics? Was it something like, “Oh man that is so true!” Or was it more like, “Humph! That is completely un-factual. Facebook is a digital program operating as an online social media platform. It is not a living character with arms and legs. These comics are so riddled with outrageous errors, anyone who places any stock in such ridiculousness must be a total moron. These should be banned!”
I’m going to take a wild stab and guess that none of you responded in anything like the second way. Because we all get it. It’s called art.
Art Speaks And We Listen
A lot of art, whatever it’s form, is used to convey a deeper meaning than mere literal explanation or factual description can get across. Art often reveals beauty and touches the soul in profound ways. It has been used frequently throughout history as social commentary, propaganda, and even a subversive tool for resistance against power. It conveys truth and meaning about real things in non-factual, non-literal ways and we accept its messages all. the. time.
From paintings, to music, to dance, to poetry, to movies, to stories… to comics about Facebook. Art speaks and we listen. It also speaks frequently throughout the Bible. Jesus tells a story about a farmer throwing seed on different types of ground, and we’re like, “Oh, I get it.”
David says, “The LORD is my shepherd… he makes me lie down in green pastures,” and it moves us deeply. It makes total sense to us. We intrinsically understand its profound message. Yet I’ve never heard of anyone taking it literally, exclaiming, “God said it, I believe it!” and then going to lie down in a patch of green grass in obedience to the scriptures. And I’ve never heard anyone deny the Bible’s credibility “because it says God makes Christians lie down in green pastures, but nobody does it, so it’s obviously not true!”
So why do the rules suddenly change for Genesis?
I don’t want to spend too much time on why we should read Genesis as true but not totally factual, because I want to actually focus on what it’s trying to say as part of the Story. The Bible Project have a series of videos on reading the Bible, including discussing genre etc, that I recommend watching. Also Tim Mackie, in his podcast Exploring My Strange Bible has an excellent episode that focusses on Genesis 1 called Science & Faith.
Anyway, moving on.
What Is It Saying?
Once we’re free to read the creation account in Genesis 1 & 2 as a painting (artists depiction) rather than a photograph (capturing exact details) we’re able to ask what the artist is trying to convey. These 2 chapters are so jam packed with stuff we could spend a long time on it, but I just want to draw out some important themes for the rest of the Story.
Firstly, the 7 days of creation is significant, but not because it is literal. It is well known by scholars that in the ancient world a temple was commissioned over 7 days, and then the god would take up residence in their new temple on the 7th day. The use of 7 days in Genesis 1 tells us that God was setting up the earth as his temple, his place to live and be present with his new family, humanity. (See videos on this topic here and here by Genesis expert John Walton).
We haven’t looked at what went wrong in the Story yet, but when later scriptures point forward to God making things right again they describe God making his “dwelling” in creation and among his people. It’s a pretty consistent theme throughout. Like this prophecy from Ezekiel chapter 37 where God says:
“My servant David will be king over them, and they will all have one shepherd. They will follow my laws and be careful to keep my decrees. They will live in the land I gave to my servant Jacob, the land where your fathers lived. They and their children and their children’s children will live there forever, and David my servant will be their prince forever. I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant. I will establish them and increase their numbers, and I will put my sanctuary among them forever. My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God, and they will be my people.“
Ezekiel 37:24 – 27
(“David” in this passage, and many others in the Bible, refers to the promised king from the family line of David who will eventually rule over the kingdom of God forever. See 2 Samuel 7 and 1 Chronicles 17. That king is Jesus.)
And then of course there is the end of the Story given in scripture, the new heaven and new earth described in Revelation 21 and 22. A “new Jerusalem” comes down from heaven and a loud voice from the throne of God says:
“Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.”
Revelation 21:3
Notice that God’s dwelling in this passage is not in heaven, but on the new earth, among men. Read all of Revelation 21 and 22, it’s a great picture. The 7 day creation story suggests this is what God was initially setting up, his home on the earth among humanity.
What Does It Mean To Subdue And Rule?
As I mentioned in my last post, Genesis 1 & 2 gives humans an elevated position in creation. We are the “image” of God, his representatives, who are tasked with overseeing the rest of creation. Humans were appointed to fill the earth, subdue it, and rule over it.
Now the terms “subdue” and “rule” can have oppressive overtones to us, but their use in the Genesis creation account are positive. Tim and Jon of The Bible Project discuss this in more detail in their podcast series on The Image Of God. They talk about “subduing” the earth as meaning to draw out and harness it’s raw potential. To cultivate it. Like if someone takes a plot of land that’s wild and overgrown with weeds and turns it into a garden. Or a more modern example might be harnessing radio waves to create effective modes of communication.
Genesis 2:5 paints the picture of a symbiotic relationship between humans and the earth. Humans need to work the ground for plants to grow, and those plants are food for the humans. The potential for life and growth is there, but man needs to “subdue” the earth to bring it out.
Humans are also tasked with “ruling” over the rest of creation. Again, we might read this as potentially oppressive, not least of all because our history shows we have a strong penchant for using and abusing the rest of nature. But the Bible is pretty clear about what it means to “rule” according to God’s ways. Jesus said it best when he told his disciples:
“The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors. But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.”
Luke 22:25 – 27 (see also Matt 20 and Mark 10)
Ruling on God’s behalf is a task of both privilege and service. For us to rule well means that creation should flourish under our care. This includes other people. This is a theme that has often taken a back seat to the idea of “relationship” presented in the Common Story. But it’s actually one of the main themes presented at the start of the Story, and carried all the way through. Just look at many of the parables of Jesus, which often start with something like, “A master went away and left servants in charge of his household…”
So what went wrong?
Excellent question. And the answer is much more dynamic than what the Common Story says. But before we get to that, let’s have another look at this idea of “relationship” that has hijacked the Story…
