Aside from the resurrection of Jesus, there can’t be many pieces of Christian dogma that have been attacked and defended with as much vigour, and sometimes vitriol, as the creation story. From the Oxford evolution debate of 1860 and taking in ten major court cases in the United States, as well as innumerable books and publications, the debate rolls on.
At one extreme are the atheists, whose agenda is to write God out of the earth’s story altogether. At the other extreme, seven day creationists, promoting a completely literal interpretation of the creation story recorded in Genesis. Caught in the middle is the vast majority of scientists and people of faith, who adopt more flexible interpretations of ancient manuscripts, and accept the likelihood or at least the possibility of a creator, or are agnostic.
Within evangelical Christianity, seven day creationism has been particularly forceful over the last thirty years or so, especially in North America; fostered by organisations like the Creation Research Society and books like Whitcomb and Morris’s ‘The Genesis Flood’. It teaches that the earth is a few thousand years old and was created in six calendar days, and that geological strata and the fossil record are the result of Noah’s flood.
This particular teaching about creation, which is in stark conflict with an enormous body of scientific evidence, causes two significant problems. Firstly, it discredits Christianity itself by making it appear unreasonable. Secondly, it creates a pressure of conscience for some Christians, who are made to feel that they ought to believe in it, but simply cannot.
So for anyone who is still wondering if and how they can reconcile the Genesis account with modern scientific knowledge, here is a starting point: five reasons to believe that the term ‘day’ is not intended to be taken literally in Genesis 1.
1) A literal ‘day’ is the period it takes for the earth to spin on its axis; for the people of the Old Testament, the period from sunset to sunset.
In that case, though, how long was the first day? And when did it begin? What was a day before the earth was formed? When did sunset take place before there was a sun?
2) The length of a day depends on your perspective. Standing on the surface of Venus, a day is 5,832 hours. What is a day from the perspective of eternity?
Of course it’s true that the Bible was originally written for people who only had a single perspective. But if it is ‘inspired by God’ – authored by a God who sees from all perspectives, and having wisdom that stands for the whole of history – then a correct interpretation of it will stand up to examination from every perspective. A literal interpretation of the seven days of creation plainly doesn’t.
3) The terms used in Genesis can be and have been used metaphorically and figuratively, by people throughout the world, throughout history. We say ‘things weren’t like that in my day’; we talk about ‘the dawn of a new era’, and an older person who is ‘in the eve of life’. There is no reason at all to dismiss the possibility that their use in Genesis is equally metaphorical.
4) The Hebrew word for ‘day’ in Genesis 1 is the word ‘yom’. The same word is used figuratively rather than literally in several places in the Old Testament, particularly the prophetic books; ie it is used in contexts where it simply doesn’t make sense if interpreted purely as a period of 24 hours. Eg Isaiah 2: 11; Isaiah 4: 2.
5) Insisting on a literal interpretation of every biblical text also creates other problems. For example, a literal interpretation of several texts would lead us inevitably to conclude that heaven is a place somewhere physically ‘above’ the surface of the earth, and hell is a place somewhere physically ‘below’ it – eg Genesis 1: 7,8; Acts 1: 9. So to have integrity and to be consistent in their interpretations of Scripture, those who argue for a seven day creation ought also to accept that the earth is flat!
Obviously these are not the final words on the subject. But they are my final words. For the time being. I promise…
At one extreme are the atheists, whose agenda is to write God out of the earth’s story altogether. At the other extreme, seven day creationists, promoting a completely literal interpretation of the creation story recorded in Genesis. Caught in the middle is the vast majority of scientists and people of faith, who adopt more flexible interpretations of ancient manuscripts, and accept the likelihood or at least the possibility of a creator, or are agnostic.
Within evangelical Christianity, seven day creationism has been particularly forceful over the last thirty years or so, especially in North America; fostered by organisations like the Creation Research Society and books like Whitcomb and Morris’s ‘The Genesis Flood’. It teaches that the earth is a few thousand years old and was created in six calendar days, and that geological strata and the fossil record are the result of Noah’s flood.
This particular teaching about creation, which is in stark conflict with an enormous body of scientific evidence, causes two significant problems. Firstly, it discredits Christianity itself by making it appear unreasonable. Secondly, it creates a pressure of conscience for some Christians, who are made to feel that they ought to believe in it, but simply cannot.
So for anyone who is still wondering if and how they can reconcile the Genesis account with modern scientific knowledge, here is a starting point: five reasons to believe that the term ‘day’ is not intended to be taken literally in Genesis 1.
1) A literal ‘day’ is the period it takes for the earth to spin on its axis; for the people of the Old Testament, the period from sunset to sunset.
In that case, though, how long was the first day? And when did it begin? What was a day before the earth was formed? When did sunset take place before there was a sun?
2) The length of a day depends on your perspective. Standing on the surface of Venus, a day is 5,832 hours. What is a day from the perspective of eternity?
Of course it’s true that the Bible was originally written for people who only had a single perspective. But if it is ‘inspired by God’ – authored by a God who sees from all perspectives, and having wisdom that stands for the whole of history – then a correct interpretation of it will stand up to examination from every perspective. A literal interpretation of the seven days of creation plainly doesn’t.
3) The terms used in Genesis can be and have been used metaphorically and figuratively, by people throughout the world, throughout history. We say ‘things weren’t like that in my day’; we talk about ‘the dawn of a new era’, and an older person who is ‘in the eve of life’. There is no reason at all to dismiss the possibility that their use in Genesis is equally metaphorical.
4) The Hebrew word for ‘day’ in Genesis 1 is the word ‘yom’. The same word is used figuratively rather than literally in several places in the Old Testament, particularly the prophetic books; ie it is used in contexts where it simply doesn’t make sense if interpreted purely as a period of 24 hours. Eg Isaiah 2: 11; Isaiah 4: 2.
5) Insisting on a literal interpretation of every biblical text also creates other problems. For example, a literal interpretation of several texts would lead us inevitably to conclude that heaven is a place somewhere physically ‘above’ the surface of the earth, and hell is a place somewhere physically ‘below’ it – eg Genesis 1: 7,8; Acts 1: 9. So to have integrity and to be consistent in their interpretations of Scripture, those who argue for a seven day creation ought also to accept that the earth is flat!
Obviously these are not the final words on the subject. But they are my final words. For the time being. I promise…
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