The aim of this series of blogs is simple. To figure out what the Bible is plainly saying. It is not meant to be definitive nor complete, but just plain. The bible is complex, that much is certain, and so is our reading and understanding of it. Often times I think our aim is either too high, or too low, and both sides end up missing what is right in front of us. So I hope to hit somewhere in the middle and offend everyone at the same time by asking “What’s the big deal?” If only one thing is to be pulled from this text, what is it?
BIBLE SAY WHA?! Genesis Chapter One
What does it say?
Like any good story, the bible introduces us to its main character early on, that character being “God”. We are also simultaneously given a frame of reference, “the beginning.” Now whether this beginning points to a specific time and date is unclear, there is a lot of debate around this, and while I think it’s important to talk about those things, it obviously is NOT the MAIN thing this text wants us to know. So the WHEN? of the beginning, nor the WHAT? of the creation, seems to be the main thin in this text. So then, it would seem that the WHO? is the main thing, and if you were to ask me to place theses things in order of importance, I would say that the least important part is the WHEN, followed by the WHAT, and finally, most importantly the WHO.
This text then is about God, who at some time in the past, created everything.
So how did I come to that conclusion?
I’m glad you asked! Lets say you had no knowledge of the bible, or any thing that anyone had told you about the bible, you just happened to find this book, opened it up, and read from the beginning. You then think to yourself “What’s the big deal?” I would argue that whatever is given the most detail is what the passage wants us to know the most. This passage does talk about the beginning, it does talk about creation, but it talks mostly about God, which would then make Him the most important object in the text.
In this passage we do learn some interesting things about creation, specifically the “WHAT” it was that was actually created. We read about the heavens and the earth, the light and therefore the night and day, the waters and the land, vegetation and seeds, stars in the sky, fishes, then livestock, then man. However, while this is specific, its not very specific, it seems very broad in its scope and leads to other very good questions.
Were all the different types of fish created, or just enough fish with enough genetic diversity to then eventually produce the variety of fish we now have? Same goes for the beast, and the vegetation. Was the earth in the shape and form that it is now? Were the mountains the same then as the are now, were the plains and valleys and regions generally the same?
Most likely not. Therefor there is no reason that a Christian can not trust the majority of scientific discovery that gives us a potential glimpses into creation’s early history. In fact the science vs faith dichotomy is a false one, but I digress. There is no need for someone who believes the bible to shun science, the only time we should be suspect is when someone tries to uses scientific discovery to rid of us of the main thing in this text, God. When it comes to the time frame of this creation account we don’t have many specifics, so it doesn’t matter if science says the earth is 6000 or 60 trillion years old, or that all of creation happened over long periods of time, or in an instant, the bible is fairly quite on the matter. What does matter is if someone would then suggest that this “science” is evidence that there is no God at all, because again, the WHO is more important to the WHEN or the WHAT, and the bible is most certainly NOT quite about the WHO. So we can accept what science reveal and still believe in the bible….shocking, I know.
We should also note that the opening of Genesis is written as a poem, so we should consider that there may be some artistic license to the creation story, and therefore a strictly literal interpretation is NOT necessary to believe in this text or affirm that it is true, although this does NOT mean that the poem is not literal or at least partly literal either. Either way, it still does not shed as much light on the WHEN or WHAT aspects of creation, over the WHO of creation. Keep in mind that it does seem to zoom in a bit more in chapter two, giving us more specifics, but still, the WHO of the creation story is still at center stage.
Ultimately then, the WHO should be our main focus.
To emphasis this, I was photographing a wedding at a small church about six years ago. On a small table in the lobby was a pamphlet about the different alternating theories of the creation account. Now we aren’t going to dive into this too much because our aim is the MAIN thing, and as I’ve already stated that I think the main thing is the WHO, not the WHEN of creation, but in this pamphlet it presented some of the different schools of thought including the “gap theory”, “day age view”, “theistic evolution”, “poetic framework” view, and the “literal” view. I’ll give some credit to the makers of this pamphlet, they did a very good job explaining the different views correctly, but then towards the bottom of the page, the bias began to show. The pamphlet boldly declared that any interpretation of the days of creation other than the literal interpretation was a compromise to God’s word and we cannot allow these compromises in the church!
To which I thought “Really?”
If I handed you Genesis chapter one and simply told you that this is a poem about how everything began, could you possibly find enough information from this chapter, and even the next chapter, to steadfastly determine that this is the only right way to understand this text? Me neither!
In fact the only detailed specific thing in this text is again, the “WHO”. When we read about the “WHEN”, all we know for sure about it, is “WHO” was there. When we read about the specifics of the “WHAT”, we get a little more detail, but the primary detail we read is that it was God “WHO” created it. There is much more detail about God than anything else in this text. We read that he has a Spirit. We read that he has a voice and that he speaks. We read that he has an image and a likeness. We read that image reflects some mysterious “our” suggesting that this God has some sort of diversity in himself. Granted it’s not a very clear picture of WHO this God is, especially the “our image” and “our likeness” bit, but it’s much more detail than we get about anything else, and as such, it is probably where most of our attention should be, not just in this first chapter, but in the whole story.
Lastly we do see a second “WHO” show up at the very end of this text. We see ourselves, or man. The main WHO, God, brings a LITTLE WHO, man, into his creation. We see that the MAIN WHO, gives us LITTLE WHOS dominion over all that he has made, and that the LITTLE WHOS are also a part of the WHAT of creation, the only thing not created in this text is the one WHO does the creating. Man and creation are linked, one is not above the other, they are made to live in peace together. God sets us up in an order or a relationship with Himself and with His creation. “You take care of the creation, and it will take care of you, and I will take care of both of you.”
Which is very beautiful, but it is not the whole the story. We know that this is the setting that tension will eventually be introduced into. This is the setting of peace we were in, and the Bible, as a whole, is a story of how that peace was destroyed, and how that peace was restored. The destruction of that peace can easily be summarized as the LITTLE WHOS think they know better that the BIG WHO. It is not us versus evil, its us versus God, from that single inversion all tension, unease, evil and suffering would flow.
However, we are not that far into the story just yet, so in true cliffhanger fashion, I’ll have to leave it there for now.
In summary this specific chapter of the bible is about WHO God is, and WHO we are in relationship to him and in relationship to WHAT he has created. The “WHEN” of the whole deal is a side-note at best, and this should set the frame for the rest of our investigation into the scriptures. The big deal is always going to be God. So if you are a Christian, plant your flag and stake your claim around the WHO of this passage and not the WHEN or the WHAT. In as far as we have traveled into this book, God is the main player, initiator, creator and driving force in this story. He is the most important piece, in fact the only piece that matters, because without him there are no other pieces for us to even think about. So then, for you, personally, that is the question. “Is God the only most important piece in your life, because without Him, none of the other pieces matter?
To be continued…
Theist the Bearded 