Stephen Terry, Director

 

Still Waters Ministry

 

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Worshiping the Creator

Commentary for the May 13, 2023, Sabbath School Lesson

 

{This week's commentary is an excerpted chapter from my book "Creation - Myth or Majesty?" available as an e-book from Amazon.

 

"He is before all things, and in him all things hold together." Colossians 1:17, NIV

Perhaps no other words in Christendom are vaguer and yet have sparked more controversy than the three words that begin the Bible: "In the beginning..." Unlike the words which follow and clearly state that the heavens and the earth are created as opposed to spontaneously generated, those three words are malleable in meaning. For instance, do they refer to the beginning of the universe, the beginning of heaven, or just our little Earth? Or could it be that the author of Genesis, chapter one, simply felt that everything has to start somewhere because of a definition of time that definitely has a beginning but persists for eternity, like a number line that begins at zero and extends beyond our understanding into the grey mists of forever?

Such an understanding is useful for writing literature for an audience who sees things the same way, but problematic when perspectives vary based on differences in understanding and experience. That the world was created by divine fiat, ex nihilo, was a given assumption when the Genesis account was written. No one would have challenged the concept. The details may have varied from place to place, but creation was a certainty. Many similarities also existed across the varying accounts from culture to culture. For instance, the Earth as the Greeks understood it was flat and surrounded by water. In earlier generations, these mythologies were expected reading for classical studies but have fallen by the way in more recent times. "Bullfinch's Mythology" is an excellent work to acquaint one with some of these ancient world views. In that work, the Greek view of the Sun was of a charioteer racing across the sky and returning by a northern route to reappear and repeat the race from the East to the West each day. The similarity between this and Psalm 19:5-6 is striking.

This perhaps illustrates some of the problems we have in examining the Genesis account. Just as the writer did in his day, we also tend to superimpose our perspective on what is being presented. For example, the writer may have viewed the Earth as a flat object then, just like the Greeks. However, most visual illustrations of creation week are done with a round earth. Is that because Genesis says it is round? No, it is because we are interpreting it from our perspective. This can get us into trouble when we try to make a simple model foundational to a modern complex cosmology. The logic simply breaks down.

In example, many have noticed that the first, second, and third days of Creation were defined by periods of evening and morning, yet the Sun and Moon which were to define these periods according to the Genesis account itself were not created until the fourth day. Even young people understand there is a problem here, but those who see themselves as "defenders of the faith" are so heavily invested in proving their perspective correct that they find it far too easy to conjure up facile explanations. For instance, they may say since God dwells in light, it is His light that provides the light for the first two days. However, the Bible refutes that. It tells us that when the light of God"s is present "...there will be no night there." Revelation 21:25, NIV Of course, we could conjure up a God who flashes on and off like some heavenly neon sign, but that only further illustrates the problems that come with feeling that we must view the Genesis account as some sort of scientific text that must be explained from our modern perspective.

Other logical problems exist as well within the Creation account. For example, if the Earth was not created until Creation week, how could it then exist "without form and void?" How can something "be" and yet be formless and void? A possible conclusion might be to say that the Earth as it is portrayed in Genesis did not exist until Creation week but may have existed in some other manner, but this leaves open a lot of room for speculation as to what that means. Some have conjectured that there was a pre-Adamic period that we know little about. Perhaps they derive this from the Revelation account that talks about a new heaven and earth where everything prior is wiped away. Apparently even painful memories are purged. (See Revelation 21:1-5) If like agents K and D from the movie "Men in Black," God wipes our memories then one might see how the pre-Adamic folks could believe that the Genesis account was not the first creation. However, this does not explain how you could have a pre-Adamic creation without form.

So given the logical inconsistencies and the potential for speculative interpretations that some might view as factual, what is the answer? Perhaps we need to stop seeing Genesis, chapter one, as a line in the sand that needs to be defended by logic and science. We should be careful about building an entire "house of cards" on a particular interpretation. When we do so we imply that we have a perfect understanding of Creation, and when others challenge that understanding, and rightly do so, we feel compelled to offer ever more fanciful explanations of what might have taken place. Sometimes we sacrifice credibility to sustain an impression that we fully understand and are not simply accepting things on faith.

In the end, accepting God as Creator does not depend on the Genesis account. It is possible to accept God as Creator without miring oneself in the details of exactly how it all took place. In the same way, we can accept that someone is the driver of a bus we are riding on without knowing exactly how he does the driving. It is true one can study and learn about buses and how they operate, but buses are finite. God is not. At some point we must admit that we cannot understand everything that God is or does. He is beyond all that.

Sometimes, when I travel, I want to take too many things, and it is difficult to close the suitcase. Perhaps we try to make our infinite God fit into our finite suitcase because we feel if we can contain our understanding of Him, we can dictate to others what they must understand about Him as well. Many battles have been fought and many lives lost through the centuries over such esoterica. One man will get an idea about something and attempt to rally others to that idea. When they do not agree with him and if he has the power, he will compel them to agree by threatening their livelihood, their families, or even their lives. The simple demand "Recant!" has led thousands to their graves who could not in good conscience do so. We believe we live in a more enlightened age today, but inquisitions still run rampant. While they do not usually result in the physical death of the dissenter, they may still destroy the financial well-being and the professional reputation of someone who dissents.

Unfortunately, the Genesis creation account is sometimes used as a litmus test for these inquisitions wherein ideas like "literal 24-hour days" and "6,000-year-old Earth" are used to destroy men's lives and livelihood. Believing themselves to be without sin, the inquisitors eagerly hurl their stones at their victims, convinced that they are doing a holy work. In the end, instead of Christ's blood covering their sins, the metaphorical blood of their victims covers their hands. Many scholars today understand that the city of Jericho has fortifications that date to almost seven thousand years BC[i] and Göbekli Tepe, the Turkish temple compound, dates to around ten thousand years BC.[ii] In spite of these realities, some would still "die on their sword" over an earth that they maintain is only 6000 years old thanks in large part to Archbishop Ussher of Ireland.

In regards to 24-hour days, we apparently inherited that from the ancient Egyptians, who divided their days into ten hours of daylight, two hours of twilight and twelve hours of night.[iii] It would be no stretch, therefore, to determine that the author of Genesis was writing of 24-hour days when he wrote the Creation account. It might also be reasonable to assume that whatever mechanical relationships that existed within the solar system have been consistent since initiated, barring an intervening event. A reason for challenging the concept of a 24-hour day during Creation might be a long-ages Creation week. However, such a challenge is self-defeating. If one sees the Creation week as only metaphorical in the first place, then why would it be necessary to fit any sort of progressive creation activity within the confines of daily and weekly models?

On the other hand, even accepting the idea of the author intending a 24-hour day does not negate the possibility of the Creation account being intended as mythical as opposed to literal. In the ancient near east, genealogy was extremely important, both individually and culturally. Who hasn't waded through the genealogies of the Old Testament with trepidation? While we can learn many things from those accounts, perhaps the most important is their significance to the people of those times. It was vital to be able to trace your lineage back through your ancestors. Logically that lineage should be able to be traced back to a beginning. Of course, the best of all beginnings would be a divine one. As a result, many cultures developed a mythology that traced everyone's beginnings back to an act by one or more gods, thus demonstrating the divine origins of that culture.

Could that same principle be operating in the Genesis account? Perhaps, but we must acknowledge that even apart from mythologies, no matter how far back we go, and no matter how many geologic events may have transpired, eventually we would hope to discover an event that we can call "the beginning." Unless, of course, infinity is a loop or a sphere with no fixed point of origin, in which case we might find ourselves both literally and figuratively back where we started.

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[i] Michal Strutin, "Discovering Natural Israel," (2001), p. 4.

[iii] Sandra Sham, "The World's First Temple," Archeology, vol 61 no 6

[iii] National Institute of Standards and Technology, "Early Clocks," A Walk Through Time, www.nist.gov

 

 

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Scripture marked (NIV) taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Used by permission. NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION and NIV are registered trademarks of Biblica, Inc. Use of either trademark for the offering of goods or services requires the prior written consent of Biblica US, Inc.