This creationist viewpoint has been forcefully asserted, especially during the latter part of the 20th century, and the media have been very effective in reporting it. There is, therefore, a general sense among the biblically illiterate general public (and even many Christians) that the majority of Christians have always held such a view. This is not the case.

According to Conrad Hyers, author of The Meaning of Creation, allegorical interpretations of Genesis 1 were common in the Patristic (early) and Medieval Church, whereas Protestant Reformers leaned toward a literal approach. Martin Luther, for example, criticized Augustine (A.D. 354–430) for Augustine’s allegorical interpretation of the six days of Creation.

Today, there are numerous religious books about the Genesis Creation written by evangelical or fundamentalist scientists who ridicule evolution and rewrite geological history, meanwhile demanding that the Genesis accounts can be interpreted only and wholly literally. Wedded to a particular paradigm, they fail to consider carefully what type of literature it is, why it was written, who the audience was, and what were the historical/cultural and religious settings in which Genesis was written.

The fact is, a literal interpretation of Genesis 1 has nothing to do with science, and it is poor theology to suggest it does. "Young earth" creationists have overlooked the first principles of exegesis. Exegesis is the systematic study of Scripture to discover the original, intended meaning.

When exegesis is done properly, Genesis 1 is seen for what it is—a literary masterpiece, an intelligent, carefully crafted assertion of monotheism against polytheism (many gods), a matter of great significance for the people who were alive when Genesis 1 was written. Many chapters of the Old Testament record how the people of Israel preferred to "go whoring after other gods" than follow the one true God.

Cosmogony or cosmology?

Moses wrote the Creation account as a cosmogony that was intended to counter the well-known cosmogonies of the pagans.¹

A cosmogony is a story of the genesis or development of the universe and the creation of the world, whereas cosmology is strictly a formal branch of philosophy dealing with the origin and general structure of the universe. We know what the commonest pagan cosmogonies were because they are preserved in cuneiform script on clay tablets.

The best-known cosmogony, the famous Babylonian creation epic known as the Enuma Elish, itself based on earlier, pre-Mosaic versions, was written some time after Moses. When you read a translation of it (see box), you can see what the Israelites were up against. It describes a struggle between cosmic order and cosmic chaos. There are great sea monsters, and the chief divinities, in order of pre-eminence, are the stars, the moon, and the sun. Other gods abound in the cosmogonies—gods of darkness, water, vegetation, various animals, and so on.

The Enuma Elish and earlier cosmogonies help us understand why the Genesis account is written as it is. As one archaeologist has written, Genesis freely uses the metaphors and symbolism drawn from a common cultural pool to assert its own theology about God.

In the beginning…

Let’s now look at the structure of Genesis 1 to see how this works (for this you might want to consult a Bible). It starts out with a summary statement: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth [the universe]."

Most of the verses in the chapter hinge upon the next statement, in verse 2: "The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep." The following verses explain how God respectively structured and "filled" the conditions of formlessness and emptiness. The six days are arranged in two parallel sets of three (noted as early as Augustine in his City of God), such that what is created on days four through six populates the appropriate realm structured in days one through three.

The point of this symmetry in Genesis 1 is that the form of the presentation is at least as important as the content. With this perspective, it is clear that the structural framework is artificial and therefore was never intended by the author to be taken literally as a seven-day historical account (with God resting on the seventh day). The fact of God’s creative authority over everything is certainly intended literally, but the seven-day framework is just that—a framework.

As Victor Hamilton in his 1990 commentary on Genesis 1 wrote, "A literary reading of Genesis 1…understands ‘day’ not as a chronological account of how many hours God invested in his creating project, but as an analogy of God’s creative activity. God reveals himself to his people in a medium [a seven-day week] with which they can identify and which they can comprehend."

How the ancients saw the world

We need to understand that, for most peoples of the ancient world, all the various regions of nature were divine. There were sky gods, earth gods and water gods, gods of light and darkness, rivers and vegetation, animals and fertility. Everywhere the ancients turned, there were divinities to be petitioned, appeased, or pacified.

Each day of Creation in Genesis 1 takes on two principal categories of divinity and declares that these are not gods at all but creations of the one and only true God. This includes humans, none of whom—not even kings or pharaohs—are to be worshipped as gods.²

From the Egyptian book of the dead, the god Shu separates Nut (the sky) from Geb (the earth).

Hebrew monotheism (one God) was a unique and hard-won faith. The temptations of idolatry and syncretism (blended religion) were everywhere. Later in history, it came to be understood just how liberating was the concept of monotheism. From time immemorial, superstitious people have attributed natural phenomena, or calamities like earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis, to gods who were beyond understanding (except by a priestly elite) and had to be appeased and not questioned. Genesis 1, on the other hand, asserts that there are no gods but God and that his creation is comprehensible and amenable to investigation. This perspective made possible the scientific study of nature.

Verse 16 of Genesis 1, when understood, is amusing. As an intentional put-down, it deliberately reverses the order of the chief deities of a well-known cosmogony. The sun—called the "greater light" to avoid using the only available Semitic names for the sun, which were names of deities—comes first, then the moon, the "lesser light." The stars—the highest deities—are barely mentioned in a throw-away line: "He made the stars also"! Not only that, Genesis 1 makes it plain that they are not to be worshipped; they were made to serve—daily, seasonally, and calendrically. And none is accorded astrological significance.

You see the contrast? In this chapter, God overcomes darkness, makes order out of chaos, and even makes the great sea creatures, which, as it happens, are not monstrous. The impressive orderliness of Genesis 1 and its patterned structure are a deliberate response to pagan mythologies. The Hebrew God has no competitor and there is no cosmic battle going on. Everything is under control.

No contest

Genesis 1 is not at odds with modern geology and biological science. This is not an issue here. To insist that it is does violence both to Scripture and to science. As Victor Hamilton wrote, "This is a word from God addressed to a group of people who are surrounded by nations whose cosmology is informed by polytheism and the mythology that flows out of that polytheism. Much in Genesis 1 is patently anti-pagan…. The writer’s concerns were theological."

Both Henri Blocher and Rick Watts (see Further Reading) have highlighted the similarities and differences between the Genesis account and some themes apparent in Egyptian cosmogonies (something relatively few scholars have attempted). In short, Genesis 1 is a corrective against polytheistic concepts encountered by the Israelites in their old land as well as in their new. •

Dennis Gordon is a biologist in a government research organization in New Zealand and an Associate Member of the U.K.-based Society of Ordained Scientists. He obtained his PhD in 1973 (Dalhousie University, Canada), was baptized in the same year, and was ordained in 1980.

Blocher, H., and R. Preston. In the Beginning: The Opening Chapters of Genesis. InterVarsity Press, 1984. 240 pages.

Gibson, J.C. Genesis (volume 1). The Daily Bible Study Series. Westminster John Knox, 1981. 228 pages.

Hamilton, V.P. The Book of Genesis: Chapters 1–17. The New International Commentary on the Old Testament. Eerdmans, 1990. 522 pages.

Hyers, M.C. The Meaning of Creation: Genesis and Modern Science. Westminster John Knox, 1984. 216 pages.

Watts, R. "Making Sense of Genesis 1." Stimulus 12(4) (2004): 2–12. www.stimulus.org.nz/index_files/Stim12_4RikkWatts.pdf.

Endnotes

1 Moses is taken to be the author of Genesis. As Henri Blocher, Professor of Theology at Wheaton College, Illinois, has written: "We stand…with the contemporary specialists who maintain the traditional positions, those suggested by the Bible itself, which associate Genesis with the work of Israel’s most powerful thinker, ‘our Teacher,’ as the Jews call him, Moses." And for good reason—his training in Egypt and his later pastoral life uniquely equipped him intellectually and spiritually, as one who was "instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians" (Acts 7: 22) and who was filled with the Spirit of wisdom, which he later passed on to Joshua (Deuteronomy 34:9)

2 All humans, men and women equally, not just pharaohs and kings, are said to be made in the likeness of God, with the royal prerogative of rulership (properly, stewardship) over the earth. This equality of men and women, extended to common folk, was revolutionary teaching! 

FROM VERTICAL THOUGHT MAGAZINE: http://www.verticalthought.org/issues/vt18/dinosaurs.htm

"Where Do the Dinosaurs Fit?"

"Figuring out when the dinosaurs lived relative to man isn't really difficult."

"by Mario Seiglie "

"I don't believe in the Bible because dinosaurs lived a long time before man ever did."

"Have you ever heard a statement like that? I certainly have—many times. In fact, this was one of the principal reasons Charles Darwin, the father of the theory of evolution, eventually rejected the Bible. Many have followed suit. "

"Most people believe you can't reconcile dinosaurs and the Bible—but they are wrong. This erroneous idea is based on the supposition that either you have to believe in the young-earth theory of a 6,000 year-old earth and dinosaurs living with Adam, or you can't believe in the creation week account of Genesis Chapter 1. "

"Yet many would be surprised to find that several centuries ago scientists did believe in dinosaurs, an ancient earth and in creation week. "

"In fact, many of the first geologists who established the basic geologic column were believers in both the Bible and an ancient earth. "

"British physicist Alan Hayward wrote about these premier geologists: "Among them were William Buckland and Adam Sedgwick. Buckland held the chair of geology at Oxford in the early nineteenth century, while Sedgwick was his counterpart at Cambridge [University]. Both were leading churchmen, and both preached the plenary inspiration of Scripture and argued in favor of special creation … "

"Buckland maintained close links with Sedgwick and the famous French geologist, Baron Cuvier … They did much to persuade the early nineteenth century church that the earth was extremely old and that such views could be harmonized with the teaching of Genesis" (Creation and Evolution, 1985, pp. 72-73). "

"Proper chronological sequence "

"It is interesting to note that two Bible experts in the 1970s combined their skills to publish The Reese Chronological Bible, which supports an ancient earth and a creation week that is actually a re-creation of a devastated earth. "

"Edward Reese was a professor of Bible, history and missions at Crown College in Powell, Tennessee, and spent 20 years putting biblical events in chronological order. Frank Klassen was an architect and engineer who spent 10 years writing The Chronology of the Bible. They both agreed that the account of Genesis had important biblical events occur between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. "

"In fact, they felt the first verses of the Bible chronologically would be John 1:1-2: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God."

"This is the same way 20th-century Church of God leader Herbert W. Armstrong explained the real beginning of the biblical account. Before space, matter and energy were created, there existed the Word (who would later become Jesus Christ, see John 1:14) and God (who later would be identified as God the Father). "

"Next in The Reese Chronological Bible comes a scripture that speaks of God existing before the creation of the earth, Psalm 90:2: "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God."

"Then comes the traditional first scripture of Genesis 1:1: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." This marks the creation of the universe as we know it, including the galaxies, stars and planets. "

"But the most fascinating part of this Bible is what follows—not Genesis 1:2, but Isaiah 14:12-17, where Lucifer's fall from heaven is recorded. Next comes the parallel account of Lucifer's fall in Ezekiel 28:13-18. "

"Devastation and renewal "

"Only then comes Genesis 1:2, "The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters" (emphasis added). In the New International Version (NIV) of the Bible, a footnote to the word "was" in this verse says, "Or possibly became."

"Apparently, something happened to cause the earth to become, as the Hebrew denotes, "chaotic and in confusion." Since God is not the author of confusion or chaos (Isaiah 45:18; 1 Corinthians 14:33), it makes sense that the earth became that way due to Lucifer's rebellion and subsequent expulsion to the earth. "

"As Jesus Christ remarked, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven" (Luke 10:18). Other scriptures reveal it was not only Satan, but also the fallen angels that were cast down with him. We read in 2 Peter 2:4, "For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell [from the Greek tartaroo, a place of confinement, and in this case, the earth] and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment …"

"Revelation 12:3-4 describes the dragon (Satan, verse 9) as having drawn a third of the stars of heaven to be cast down to the earth—these "stars" being symbolic of angels (compare 1:20)."

"What we don't know is how long it took Lucifer to rebel—and how long this was before the six-day renewal of the earth culminating in the creation of Adam and Eve, as described in the rest of Genesis 1. Satan's rebellion apparently happened after the earth had passed through the dinosaur age. Then, geologists agree, something dramatic occurred between the age of reptiles and the age of mammals. "

"As the famous paleontologist G.G. Simpson once remarked: "The most puzzling event in the history of life on the earth is the change from the Mesozoic Age of Reptiles, to the … Age of Mammals. It is as if the curtain were rung down suddenly on a stage where all the leading roles were taken by reptiles, especially dinosaurs, in great numbers and bewildering variety, and rose again immediately to reveal the same setting but an entirely new cast, a cast in which the dinosaurs do not appear at all, other reptiles are supernumeraries and the leading parts are all played by mammals of sorts barely hinted at in the previous acts" (Life Before Man, 1972, p. 42). "

"This apparently reflects the change from the pre-Adamic world to the world of man. Certainly there are smaller reptiles in our world, but they are insignificant in comparison to what existed in the previous age. "

"What has been presented here is not the only "ancient earth" explanation available, but it seems to make the most biblical sense. It is the only explanation I know of that accepts the literal 24-hour days of the creation (or to us, re-creation) week and, at the same time, makes room for an indefinite period before the creation of mankind that could include the dinosaurs and previous eras. "

"Recent geological and astronomical discoveries, such as cosmic expansion and signs of meteor impacts at the Cretaceous-Paleocene border of the geologic column, have only served to substantiate this view. "

"So, if anyone tells you he or she doesn't believe in the Bible because of a dilemma with the dinosaurs, let that person know there is more than the young-earth explanation available—one that fits well, as best we know, with the biblical facts. "

About the Author
Mario Seiglie is a father and the pastor of United Church of God congregations in Garden Grove, California, and Honolulu, Hawaii.

C.S. Lewis was an intellectual who was a professor at both Cambridge and Oxford. He was a true scholar, not someone who merely invented fake degrees for himself and lied about his accomplishments. When you're tired of "junkyard philosphy" and ready to move on to true intellectual fare, read this book:

MERE CHRISTIANITY BY C.S.LEWIS You're probably familiar with C.S. Lewis. He's best remembered for the Chronicles of Narnia, which was inspired by the Gospel of Christ. Unlike LaVey, Lewis really did have a doctorate, and was a college professor to boot! Lewis lost his faith early in life and became an atheist, and later rediscovered Christianity through his friend J.R.Tolkien (of Lord of The Rings fame). Mere Christianity is perhaps is best non-fiction work. In it he presents a thinking person's Christianity, showing you don't have to ditch your brain to be a Christian!

YOU CAN DOWNLOAD THE BOOK "136 BIBLE CONTRADICITIONS...EXPLAINED" AS A ZIPPED .pdf FILE RIGHT NOW BY CLICKING HERE!

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