The First Creation Story—Genesis 1–2:3

The first five books of the Bible explain God’s character and covenant to a people being brought out of slavery and who are being formed into a nation for the first time. Much must be said. Much must be learned. From the unfathomable beginning of time through to the story of Joseph in Egypt, God in Genesis brings his covenant people up to date in just fifty short chapters.

Genesis 1 is the starting point of this journey, an introduction to God. This is an amazingly compact yet beautiful explanation to this people of who he is and how the world they know came into being. It reveals to the Hebrews how important his people are to his creative work. It speaks with power even to this day.

The story is more structured than normal narrative prose. For example, the first three days have a direct relationship to their counterparts in the next three days:

Location	Inhabitants
Day 1 light and dark	Day 4 lights of day and night
Day 2 sea and sky	Day 5 animals of sea and sky
Day 3 earth	Day 6 land animals

This is a literary device, one of several in the story, which may indicate that the writer was not so much interested in the scientific aspects of time and order as he was in the impact of the account on the readers. It is a masterly crafted account about the Master’s creation.

What is the Central Message of Genesis 1?

Coming out of Egypt, the Children of Israel would have learned many things about God, the world, and themselves as they read or heard this story. God reveals lasting truths about himself and his creation, which ring true to us even today:

• There is but one God
• God created order out of chaos
• God is not capricious
• Material objects, no matter how majestic, are not gods and were themselves created by God
• God is pleased with creation
• God created all things
• God predates any human
• Man is created in the image of God and is commanded to subdue the creation
• God creates the Sabbath rest so he can enjoy his creation

These were especially important ideas to a people who were born in a polytheistic society and where existing stories of creation featured chaos, monsters, gods, and manlike gods behaving capriciously—and to former slaves who never had their weekends off!

Several of these revelations take on special relevance when we consider the knowledge and experiences of these people who first heard them, when we listen with their ears. The simplicity and lyric order evident in this account contrasts starkly with the other creation stories they had heard from their neighbor nations. Some of important truths are implicit in the story rather than being stated directly:

• In many of the then-current creation stories, man or man-gods created or helped to create the world. Genesis 1 gives lie to that idea. Only God creates. Mankind had nothing to do with the creation event.
• The fact that God declares each day’s creation good implies that there can be less than good—evil exists even before the creation of man.

These foundational truths of Genesis still give us our basic understanding of who our God is and how we relate to him and are an important part of our present truth proclamation of God’s Kingdom on earth and the kingdom yet to come.

The Pachyderm Lurks…

Despite the eternal truths about God and the classic beauty of this account, in this modern age we cannot escape the question: is this account "true"?

Can stories speak truth about God but not be true in the sense of our modern understanding of nature? Although this question has already been dealt with by the majority of Christians, it is still the elephant in the room for many evangelicals and Adventists. Although obvious simplifications in the story—such as God not revealing the triune nature of his being—don’t bother us at all, simplifications of the science or history cause us much more indigestion.

Could God have gotten his theological message through to these people if he told them the story using modern ideas about the natural world, such as the earth revolved around the sun? Even in the seventeenth century, people were not yet ready for these "truths." Would the Hebrews have heard the theological truth in this story or would it have been buried in the buzz about the crazy "science"?

Like nations at any time, the Hebrews had a limited set of ideas and linguistic words to understand what they perceived as reality. There are many resonances in this account with the Egyptian creation stories with which they were already familiar. Like a parent teaching children, God may have used the building blocks they were familiar with to get across what was important for them to know at that time. God simplifies and distills the essence of his creative power for his spiritual children.

…and Begat a Conundrum

Today within our church family, we are in danger of losing that important central message of the creation story—the message that the Hebrews heard—when we take the story more as science rather than theological instruction.

One part of our church family wants to see this account as scientifically accurate in both order and time. They are guided by a hermeneutic that follows Ellen White’s interpretation of these and other creation texts. The other part of our family sees in this account an elegant tutorial that is intended for teaching theology and the message that God’s second book, Nature, can help shed light on a process that may have taken much longer.

Both sides run into a brick wall—a conundrum that defies easy solution. Neither side of our family can cross the abyss that divides their understanding of the mechanics of creation. Because of the underlying assumptions of each group (Ellen White is inerrant on creation matters, on one side, and the belief that the scientific method can better explain the geological record, on the other), both groups start from unreconciled presuppositions. No amount of impeccable logic can harmonize different sides if they do not share compatible presuppositions. Realistically, this gulf may not be bridged in this generation.

If logic or compromise will not solve the problem, the idea that one side "wins" by banishing or destroying the other group is repugnant. We are family! A battle would seriously damage the Church and many of its members.

It is clear that we would be wiser and more prudent to pursue a course that:

• Strongly supports the creatorship of God and the theological truths espoused by the Genesis account. We all agree on this. We stand united here. Champion the truths of Genesis 1!
• Allows flexibility for individual members on how they interpret God’s method of creatorship, depending on their view of inerrancy and God’s method of speaking through nature.

Despite the fears of some, although the language we use may change, none of the Church’s fundamental tenets will be challenged by this dual approach. In restating our beliefs in modern terms we will become ourselves creators, participating in a new creation process for a new generation.

I think God would like that. I know he loves elephants.

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