The Creation
The Creation
The Bible begins with a majestic account of the creation of the universe, of earth, of life and of man. It establishes from the outset that the God who later chose to reveal himself to Israel was not the God of Israel alone. Israel must not regard Yahweh2 as the Moabites regarded Chemosh and the Ammonites their god Milcom or Molech, almost as a national mascot. For he was no petty godling or tribal deity whose domain and interests were limited to the tribe and its territory, but the God of creation, the Lord of the whole earth.
It is true that the Genesis account of creation is earth-centered and man-centered, in the sense that it is deliberately told from the perspective of man upon earth, but it is above all God-centered in the sense that the whole initiative in the creation lies with the one, true God:
This simple, unadorned narrative, which ascribes wisdom, purpose, power and goodness to the creator God, is far removed from the fantastic and even disgusting creation stories which circulated in the ancient Near East. There are superficial similarities, in that both begin with chaos and end with some kind of cosmos. But the dissimilarities are greater. The Near-Eastern stories are crude, polytheistic, immoral and grotesque; the biblical account is dignified, monotheistic, ethical and sublime.
Modern readers inevitably approach the early chapters of Genesis with some knowledge that during the last century they have been a battlefield between religion and science. We shall be wise, therefore, to learn a lesson from history, and to study them with caution born of humility. For in the past representatives of both sides have made rashly dogmatic assertions, which either they or their successors have later been obliged to repudiate. Scientists need to distinguish between fact and theory, and Bible students between plain scriptural statement and fallible human interpretation. For our purposes in this book the latter is particularly important. The principle should be clear: what Scripture affirms God affirms and what God affirms is true. So what does God affirm in Scripture about creation?
In general, we can say with assurance that Genesis 1 begins with God (“in the beginning God created …”), continues with progressive stages (“and God said … and God said …”), and ends with man (“So God created man in his own image … male and female he created them”). How much further may we go than this? In particular, what may we say about the “how” of God’s creative activity? Not many Christians today find it necessary to defend the concept of a literal six-day creation, for the text does not demand it, and scientific discovery appears to contradict it. The biblical text presents itself not as a scientific treatise but as a highly stylized literary statement (deliberately framed in three pairs, the fourth “day” corresponding to the first, the fifth to the second, and the sixth to the third). Moreover the geological evidence for a gradual development over thousands of millions of years seems conclusive.
Indeed, speaking for myself, I cannot see that at least some forms of the theory of evolution contradict or are contradicted by the Genesis account of creation. It is most unfortunate that some who debate this issue begin by assuming that the words “creation” and “evolution” are mutually exclusive. If everything has come into existence through evolution, they say, then biblical creation has been disproved, whereas if God has created all things, then evolution must be false. It is, rather, this naive alternative which is false. It presupposes a very narrow definition of the two terms, both of which in fact have a wide range of meanings, and both of which are being freshly discussed today. For example, although the great majority of scientists continue to believe that there had been a long evolutionary process, the Darwinian theory of “natural selection” (or “the survival of the fittest”) as its operational principle is being increasingly questioned, and instead of a single and gradual progression a theory is being developed which posits multiple changes, in fits and starts, and sometimes by inexplicable major leaps. Of course any theory of evolution which is presented as a blind and random process must be rejected by Christians as incompatible with the biblical revelation that God created everything by his will and word, that he made it “good,” and that his creative program culminated in Godlike human beings. But there does not seem to me any biblical reason for denying that some kind of purposive evolutionary development may have been the mode which God employed in creating.3
To suggest this tentatively need not in any way detract from man’s uniqueness. I myself believe in the historicity of Adam and Eve, as the original couple from whom the human race is descended. I shall give my reasons in chapter 7, when I come to the question of how we are to interpret Scripture. But my acceptance of Adam and Eve as historical is not incompatible with my belief that several forms of pre-Adamic “hominid” seem to have existed for thousands of years previously. These hominids began to advance culturally. They made their cave drawings and buried their dead. It is conceivable that God created Adam out of one of them. You may call them homo erectus. I think you may even call some of them homo sapiens, for these are arbitrary scientific names. But Adam was the first homo divinus, if I may coin the phrase, the first man to whom may be given the specific biblical designation “made in the image of God.” Precisely what the divine likeness was, which was stamped upon him, we do not know, for Scripture nowhere tells us. But it seems to have included those rational, moral, social and spiritual faculties which made man unlike all other creatures and like God the Creator, and on account of which he was given “domination” over the lower creation.
When shall we date Adam, then? The chronology which was added in 1701 to the Authorized Version of the Bible (1611) was calculated by James Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh, from the biblical genealogies. By working backwards he reckoned that Adam was created in the year 4004 BC. But the genealogies never claim to be complete. For example, it is written in one of the genealogies of Jesus that Joram “begat” Uzziah, whereas we know from the Second Book of Kings that he was actually not his father but his great-great-grandfather. Three complete generations have been left out. And recent Near-Eastern studies have confirmed that such omissions were a regular practice in genealogies. Certainly the purpose of the biblical tables was more to establish the line of descent (for example, that Jesus was descended from David) than to provide a comprehensive family tree. If, then, they do not profess to be complete we have no ground for complaining about their omissions. Nor can we use them to calculate a detailed chronology.
The Genesis text gives us some better clues. The biblical account of Adam and his immediate descendants in chapters 3 and 4 seems to imply a Neolithic civilization. Adam is said to have been put in a garden to work it and take care of it. His sons Cain and Abel are described as having respectively worked the soil and kept flocks, while Cain also “built a city,” which may not have been more than a fairly rudimentary village. These are significant expressions, since farming the land and domesticating animals (as opposed to foraging and hunting), together with primitive community life in villages, did not begin until the late Stone Age. Only a few generations later we read of those who played “the lyre and pipe” and those who forged “instruments of bronze and iron.” Since the Neolithic age is usually dated from about 6000 BC, this would still suggest a comparatively late date for Adam.
The second chapter of Genesis tells us that work and leisure (six days’ work and one day’s rest), and monogamous marriage, are “creation ordinances” instituted by God for man’s benefit before sin entered the world. The entry of sin through man’s “fall” or disobedience is described in Genesis 3, and in the following chapters the resulting deterioration of man and his society, and the inevitable judgments of God. The flood seems to have been a comparatively local—though widespread—disaster. The assertion that “all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered” (Gen. 7:19) is not to be pressed with strict literalism, but rather understood from the perspective of the observer, just as the “Godfearing Jews from every nation under heaven” who were in Jerusalem for Pentecost (Acts 2:5) evidently refers to the known world of the Mediterranean basin. For Luke goes on to list fifteen such groups (vv. 8–11). He was not alluding to distant peoples like Eskimos, Australian Aborigines and Maoris. The flood is recorded as an object lesson of God’s judgment on human wickedness and of his mercy both towards Noah’s family and towards all subsequent generations in his solemn covenant that “as long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease” (Gen. 8:22). Similarly, the building of the tower of Babel, which may have been a Babylonian ziggu-rat4 or something similar, is recorded as an example of divine judgment on human pride, leading to the scattering of the nations (Gen. 11:1–9).