For most of church history, Christians have generally considered the “days” of Genesis 1 to be normal, 24-hour periods. There was no serious challenge to this view until the age of modern science. But this does not mean that the “24-hour” view of the Genesis 1 “days” has always been held universally. There have been notable exceptions, namely from the 5th century Saint Augustine.
Nevertheless, there are some Christians today who make the argument that the six “days” of Genesis 1 must always mean “24-hours” each. Let me say up front that I stand with Saint Augustine on this one, that the exact meaning of the six “days” of Genesis is difficult to determine. Are they 24-hour periods or could they simply be long, indeterminate lengths of time? Saint Augustine did not know for sure, and neither do I. Saint Augustine was a lot smarter than I am, and he lived a long time before me, so I will put my lot in with him.
However, I do get greatly concerned when some insist that their view of a “24-hour” day is the only faithful way of reading the six “days” of Biblical Creation. This implies that the “24-hour” day view should be some test for Christian orthodoxy. Anything that wavers from this is a compromise of Biblical authority. Thankfully, not everyone in the “Young Earth Creationist” camp takes this kind of rigid approach. But for those who do, this way of thinking is very harmful to the unity and testimony of the Body of Christ. So I would like to tackle one of the primary arguments used to defend this position, acknowledging that not everyone goes to such extremes with it.
But before I launch into that, it might be helpful to view the latest “Table Talk” session I had with our lead pastor, Travis Simone, during our Summer Bible Study series on Genesis 1-11. Notice how Travis makes the point that getting caught up in the details of how God created the world takes our focus away from the more important details pertinent to the Gospel. It is so easy to stumble over things like the exact meaning of”days,” that miss the main point of Genesis 1, namely that the God of the Bible is the Creator and that we as humans are created in His image:
Here on Veracity, we talk quite a bit about three different models that Christians use to understand the “how” questions of Creation: How did God create the world? How long did it take God to create?
The three models are “Young Earth Creationism,” “Old Earth Creationism,” and “Evolutionary Creationism.” Some people get a little scared by the terminology. For example, some might say, “Atheists believe in evolution, so why should a Christian believe in it?” Or others might say, “Muslims say they believe in creationism. Is this about promoting Islam?”
Definitions are important, and here at Veracity, we go at great lengths to try to properly use these terms in such a way that respects and submits to the “plumb line” of Holy Scripture, the final standard for Christian authority. Each of these views, “Young Earth Creationism,” “Old Earth Creationism,” and “Evolutionary Creationism,” have various strengths and weaknesses to them. Here at Veracity, we discuss different topics like this (and many others!!), offering different points of view, challenging one another to think about what we believe. As you study these topics, you get to decide which viewpoint makes the most sense and which view is the most faithful to God’s Word. As Veracity founding-blogger, John Paine, reminds me, Veracity exists not to tell people what to think, but rather to encourage people how to think.
Recently, I have been invited to participate in Table Talk sessions for a discussion on Genesis 1-11 with our lead pastor, Travis Simone, during the Summer Bible Study at our church. You can view the latest session here with some commentary, as well as explore other blog entries related to the topic. Recent topics in this series include “Genesis: History, Fiction, or Neither?,” “Tim Keller on Interpreting Genesis,” and “Does Genesis 1 and 2 Contradict One Another?” Simply browse the latest blog entries, or look for the “Search” option on the right hand side of the blog, and punch in something like “creationism” or “genesis,” and then click on “go” to pull up some articles that might help you think a little more deeply on these subjects.
“What kind of days these were it is extremely difficult, or perhaps impossible, to determine” (Saint Augustine, City of God 11.7).
We live in an age when the Bible is surely under attack by those who reject its authority. In response, many well-meaning Christians feel compelled to defend the Bible against such attacks by insisting on the “literal interpretation of the Scriptures,” beginning right with Genesis 1. To this point, we simply can not dismiss the Bible because we dislike what it says. But is the appropriate objective really to defend the “literal interpretation of the Scriptures,” or is it to defend the faithful and correct interpretation of the Scriptures as the Biblical writers originally intended them to be understood? One might think these objectives are identical, but depending on how one values the use of metaphor in Holy Scripture, the answer may be surprising.
My contention is that no one interprets everything in the Bible in a strictly literal sense anyway, and a good look at Genesis 1 demonstrates this. Furthermore, unlike fairly recent debates concerning God’s purpose for human sexuality and marriage, the debates over how to interpret such matters as the “days” of Genesis 1 have been with us for centuries. In contrast, the Genesis teaching on sexuality and marriage has a strong and unified consensus behind it throughout church history.
In the 5th century A.D., Saint Augustine dedicated a book on The Literal Meaning of Genesis in order to tackle the subject of how to rightly interpret this early part of the Bible, including those controversial “days” in Genesis 1, hundreds of years before Charles Darwin was ever born. Augustine’s conclusion, noted above from the City of God, is but one example to show that those who love God’s Word for multiple centuries have puzzled over at least some of the details in the first book of the Bible. Augustine wrote The Literal Meaning of Genesis specifically to refute attempts to over-allegorize Genesis, so this should not be taken as an excuse to interpret the Bible any way we want. Instead, we must seek the most faithful reading of the text as originally given and submit to its teachings.
But before I get into the subject at a deeper level, it might help to gain an overview of the different options regarding how different Christians have interpreted Genesis 1. Our lead pastor, Travis Simone, sat down with me during a “Table Talk” session during the worship service last week to discuss the topic.
Many readers of Genesis 1-11 are not entirely sure how this part of the Bible relates to world and natural history. Creation? Nephelim? Flood? Babel? What is this all about? As the Christian community I am part of begins a “Summer Bible Study” series on this part of the Bible, these type of challenges are more important that ever. I can boil it down to this question: Are these chapters written from the perspective of a human eyewitness observer recording the events as they happen?
When it comes to the Gospels, the New Testament writers make it clear that we are dealing with eyewitness testimony. For example, Luke explicitly claims that he gathered the sources for his Gospel from eyewitnesses to the original events (Luke 1:1-4). But when we come to Genesis, things get a bit more vague. For example, the authorship of Genesis is traditionally attributed to Moses himself. But even the most conservative perspectives must acknowledge that Moses, who lived centuries after the events described in Genesis 1-11, was not sitting up in a tree in the Garden of Eden with his videocamera. So, then how do we understand Genesis 1-11 in relation to actual historical events?
Zondervan Publishers has released a book that tackles the topic, Genesis: History, Fiction or Neither?, as part of its Counterpoint series. The book editor, Houston Baptist University professor Charles Halton explains the purpose behind the book in the following video. The contributors include some veteran Old Testament scholars representing diverse points of views:
James K. Hoffmeier: Theological history.
Gordon J. Wenham: Proto-History.
Kenton L. Sparks: Ancient Historiography.
The book is important for not only Christians who are trying to make sense of the Bible but also skeptics who are trying to figure out if Christianity really makes any sense.
New York City pastor, Tim Keller, offers a different approach than the one I put forward on how Genesis 1 relates to Genesis 2. Keller argues that Genesis 2 is actually historical narrative and that Genesis 1 fits more into a poetic genre, as opposed to a straight-forward historical narrative.
Keller may be right. The point I want to make is that different believers can look at some of the non-essential interpretation matters in Genesis differently, and they can still agree on the big picture, namely the essential doctrines concerning the knowledge of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as the Creator, as well as who is humanity in relation to that Creator.
I call these the great “who” questions of faith: Who is God? Who is the Creator? Who is Man? These “who” questions are in contrast with the “how” questions: How did God create? How long did it take God to create? How does Genesis 1 relate to Genesis 2? The “how” questions are still important, but they pale in comparison to the great “who” questions that the Bible seeks to address.
The following short video by Keller demonstrates some of the challenges in determining the appropriate context and genre of this very ancient passage of the Bible in early Genesis. Keller and I both affirm that no one takes all of the Bible completely literally, and he gives his brief analysis as to what type of interpretive “grid” should be used when reading the Bible. We can still debate the smaller questions, but let us keep in the front of our minds the big picture.
I would highly recommend Tim Keller’s book Reason for God as a great book to give to a non-believer or believer who is struggling with these issues. Here is a quote from the book, around pages 93-94, that explains more in detail Keller’s approach to interpreting Genesis, and interpreting the Bible in general:
“Christians who accept the Bible’s authority agree that the primary goal of Biblical interpretation is to discover the Biblical author’s original meaning as he sought to be understood by his audience. It has always meant interpreting a text according to its literary genre. For example, when Christians read the Psalms they read it as poetry. When they read Luke, which claimes to be an an eyewitness account (see Luke 1;1-4), they take it as history. Any reader can see that the historical narrative should be read as history and the the poetic imagery is to be read as metaphorical.
The difficulty comes in the few places in the Bible where the genre is not easily identifiable, and we aren’t completely sure how the author expects to be read. Genesis 1 is a passage whose interpretation is up for debate among Christians, even those with a “high” view of inspired Scripture. I personally take the view that Genesis 1 and 2 relate to each other the way Judges 4 and 5 and Exodus 14 and 15 do. In each couplet one chapter describes a historical event and the other is a song or poem about the theological meaning of the event. When reading Judges 4 it is obvious that it is a sober recounting of what happened in the battle, but when we read Judges 5, Deborah’s Song about the battle, the language is poetic and metaphorical. … I think Genesis 1 has the earmarks of poetry and is therefore a “song” about the wonder and meaning of God’s creation. Genesis 2 is an account of how it happened including Genesis 1. But it is false logic to argue that if one part of Scripture can’t be taken literally then none of it can be. That isn’t true of any human communication.
What can we conclude? Since Christian believers occupy differentpositions on both the meaning of Genesis 1 and on the nature of evolution, those who are considering Christianity as a whole should not allow themselves to be distracted by this intramural debate. The skeptical inquirer does not need to accept any one these positions in order to embrace the Christian faith. Rather, he or she should concentrate on and weigh the central claims of Christianity. Onlyafter drawing conclusions about the person of Christ, the resurrection, and the central tenets of the Christian message should one think through the various options with regard to creation and evolution.
That last part shows some real wisdom that followers of Jesus should keep in mind at all times. Contrary to some well-intended yet misguided approaches, I do not need to debate the age of the earth or even the scientific theory of evolution with a non-believer. Instead, I should focus first on the central claims of the Gospel: Jesus Christ and Him crucified and risen from the dead.
Veracity 