These textual insights point to a remarkable literary depth in the early chapters of Genesis. What may seem like two disjointed creation narratives turns out to be a strategic arrangement serving the book as a whole.
The fact that God inspired the text in such a way that these two distinct creation accounts appear side by side strongly indicates that the chronology of creation is not the main focus of these texts. Over the past century, biblical scholars have made significant advances in understanding ANE culture, the context in which Genesis was written.
Babylonian and Egyptian creation stories predating Genesis have been discovered that suggest that Genesis was written as a response to polytheism. Countering a culture in which celestial bodies were worshiped by earth dwellers, Genesis describes their purpose in terms of providing service light and calendrical time to earth dwellers. In the Babylonian creation story Enuma Elish , the storm-god Marduk forms heaven and earth from the body of the goddess Tiamat, whom he has just vanquished in battle; by contrast in Genesis, there is one God, and creation is an act of generosity and love, bringing into being a good world in which humans and other creatures can flourish.
Image: Upper part of a clay tablet, part of the Creation legend Enuma elish. God chose to reveal himself to a particular people with a particular conception of the world. It is evident in the biblical text that he was not interested in correcting pre-scientific ideas the Israelites shared with other ANE peoples. For example, they may have understood the waters of the heavens to be held back by a solid dome —the so-called firmament described in Genesis The stars and possibly the sun and moon were believed to be embedded in the dome, and the earth was thought to be flat, with water all around both above the firmament and below the earth.
All ANE people shared this general two-tiered cosmology of heaven and earth and Genesis takes this view of the world for granted. Does the fact that Scripture uses pre-scientific ways of describing the world invalidate its message? Christians have long noted that God revealed himself to the biblical writers in ways they could understand , a principle known as accommodation.
As John Calvin wrote,. Thus such forms of speaking do not so much express clearly what God is like as accommodate the knowledge of him to our slight capacity. To do this he must descend far beneath his loftiness Institutes of the Christian Religion , 1. The frequent references to ancient cosmology in Genesis 1 indicate that God did not choose to reveal modern scientific information to the ancient Hebrews.
For him, it was difficult to understand why an infinite God would take a whole week to create the cosmos. He concluded that God created instantaneously, but with the capacity to develop , much like a seed has the capacity to develop into a mature tree. So are the days of Genesis 1 meant to be understood as regular, hour days? Yes and no. The seven-day week is meant to be understood as a regular human work week. But it does not automatically follow that Genesis 1 is revealing scientific information about the chronology of natural history.
Join us to receive the latest articles, podcasts, videos, and more, and help us show how science and faith work hand in hand. We believe Genesis is a true account that, like other ancient narratives, uses vivid imagery to describe past events. It is silent on the scientific questions we might wish it to answer.
If one sees the days other than six twenty-four-hour days, then the age of the earth is not a biblical teaching. Those who agree with us that the Genesis days are twenty-four-hours long still may not hold that Scripture mandates a young earth. The creation of planet earth may not have been during those six days. Many believe that Genesis is a brief summary of an unspecified period of time—perhaps a minute or billions of years, since the Hebrew word for beginning, like its English translation, refers to inauguration rather than to a specific timeframe—that preceded the six literal days of Genesis during which God prepared Eden on the already-created earth as the dwelling place of mankind.
In the end, the date of the earth cannot be a closed-handed issue. It seems to us that those who strongly advocate either young- or old- earth dates are inferring a position from the Bible that the Bible simply does not state unequivocally. It must also be admitted that the age of the earth is not of great concern in the Bible. The great authors of the Bible, including David, Isaiah, and Paul, and Jesus himself, never referred to the age of the earth, even though they asserted God as Creator.
As Augustine rightly said, the Bible is not a scientific textbook seeking to answer the ever-changing inquiries of science but rather a theological textbook seeking to reveal God and the means by which he saves us.
What the Bible actually teaches is inerrant truth from God that must be believed, but it does not teach everything we want to know. We must be courageous to receive and teach unashamedly what it does say as closed-handed issues1 but humble enough to let unclear and unrevealed matters be open- handed issues, avoiding unprofitable controversies.
The question persists as to how we deal with the widespread scientific consensus that the earth is 4. The flood most likely occurred sometime between 2, and 10, B.
It seems possible that ice age melting around 10, B,C, could have helped provide enough water for the flood. The flood record in Genesis neither affirms nor denies that men existed beyond the Mesopotamian valley at the time of the flood. However, paleo-anthropological evidence for a worldwide distribution of homo Sapiens at that time is abundant. Evidence exists that man existed in America as far as 10,, years ago.
Ramm The question of whether the flood was local or universal has been debated for years. It is a matter of hermeneutical interpretation, not inspiration. At that time, do you suppose the Egyptians were even aware of India and China? With this linguistic consideration in mind, it seems likely that the universality of the flood hinges upon the universality of the experience of the one who reported the event. To the observing reporter, then, all mountains were covered, and all flesh died.
Mount Ararat has a peak of 17, feet, and the Himalayas are roughly two miles higher. Did the flood waters rise to a height of six miles above sea level? Kinns and L.
Henderson as referred to in Ramm, This would require a 0. Such a vast amount of water would have crushed and killed virtually all plant life, and devastated life in the sea. Not to mention another problem: Where could all that water drain to? Therefore, the post-flood restoration process would have required a creative work almost as extensive as the original creation itself.
And then there is the matter that a series of remarkable miracles would have been required to get all of the animal species in existence at the time of Noah into the ark and back again over oceans and continents. Also, considering all of the environments required by land animals the world over, some animals require an environment in which certain other animals could not possibly have survived.
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