Seeking the Primary Meaning

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 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.”

– Genesis 1:1-2

With these words, the Biblical story begins, kicking off the drama of a good creation fallen into evil that its loving Creator sacrifices all to save. For the Christian, any attempt to answer the question, “Where did we come from?” must start here. “In the beginning, God created.” God is the source of our being. He is the primary mover and the Hero of the Biblical story. This is the foundation that the rest of the story builds on.

The devil is in the details. Questions fly about how to interpret the first two chapters of Genesis. Did God create in six literal twenty-four hour days? How then do we bring Genesis 1 together with Genesis 2, where man was formed before the shrubs appeared? Could the days represent longer ages? Or could Genesis 1 be a poetic “song of creation,”1 not meant for scientific analysis? With the rise of Darwinian evolution and its requirement of long time spans, there is concern that non-literal interpretations of Genesis 1 and 2 sacrifice scriptural authority on the altar of scientific interpretation.

With all this debate, it is easy to lose track of the primary meaning of the Genesis accounts. Just as we have learned to approach science through the posture of worship, we need to approach interpretation of Genesis by first searching out the main point of the text.

Ultimately, Genesis 1 and 2 lay the foundation of who God is, what the world is, and what it means to be human. God is outside of the world and has total control – the universe was not created through a cosmic battle (as in other creation myths of the day). God is not an abstract concept but is personal – His Spirit hovers over the waters. And He is the consummate artist, bringing beauty from ugliness and order from disorder. Thus the world is a place of order, giving meaning to science and exploration. It is a place of diversity and beauty, and it is good in God’s sight. And the pinnacle of this goodness is mankind made in God’s image to both resemble God and represent God as caretakers of His world.2

Continue: Understanding Genre

Understanding Genre

Using this lens to view the story, we can consider how to interpret Genesis 1 and 2. As with any interpretation we must start by considering the literary genre.3 We interpret a Psalm very differently than Luke’s gospel. One was written as poetry while the other as literal history. So when King David writes about God, “Smoke went up from his nostrils, and devouring fire from his mouth; glowing coals flamed forth before him” (Psalm 18:8), we do not have a literal description but rather a dramatic image of God’s power to save those who call on Him. But when Luke describes the resurrection of Jesus, we take it as a claim to true historical fact.

The challenge with the early chapters of Genesis is that their genre is neither easily determined nor universally agreed on. But this has been the case throughout church history. Long before Darwin, learned theologians were putting forth differing interpretations of the creation story. Saint Augustine, a bishop and theologian living around 400 A.D. wrestled with these chapters and wrote five in-depth studies on their meaning, ultimately ending with more questions than answers.4 After offering numerous possible interpretations, he refused to attach himself to one in particular:  “I have not brashly taken my stand on one side against a rival interpretation which might possibly be better.”5

All truth is God’s truth, whether we find it in nature or in the Scriptures. This means that the study of science points us to real truth about the natural world, just as Scripture points us to real truth about God’s actions in the world and how He has worked out our salvation. These are two different realms of knowledge, but they both come from the same God, and at times they intersect. The question of our origins is a prime example of this. Starting from the biblical text itself, it is not clear that there is only one valid interpretation. But as we seek truth by studying God’s creation, we can gain insight into which interpretation is closest to reality.

Next Page: Age of the Earth