Creation (Genesis 1)

Is it possible for an infinite God to create everything that exists within the space of a week? Is the creation account literal history, allegory, a polemic, mythical history, majestic prose or something else?

In the Beginning

Who made everything that is in the material universe?

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1 CEV, CJB, ESV, HCSB, LSB, NASB, NIV, NKJV, NLT, WEB).

The KJV makes the word heaven singular and some add a comma after the word beginning, but essentially most translations are the same.

Some scholars believe that “In the beginning” should be better translated as “in a beginning”. The traditional translation has been followed by most scholars. (Kass, Leon R. The Beginning of Wisdom, University Of Chicago Press. 2006. 27.)

The first word in Hebrew is “be-ra-SHEET”. It is the Hebrew title of Genesis, meaning basically “in (the) beginning.” With God, there is no beginning, but with the material universe there was. Even the science of atheists agrees that the material universe had a beginning.

The second word in the Hebrew sentence is “ba-RA” and is usually translated as created. It is a word exclusively used to describe something new that only God can create.

“El-o-HEEM” is the third word in the Hebrew sentence, usually translated as God. It is a unique word in that the ending “im” is Hebrew plural, yet it is used with a singular verb, known as a plural intensive. It can indicate plurality or greatness. It occurs 32 times in Genesis 1, making God a major theme of the chapter. Is this the mystery of God being one but plural, the first hint of the important Christian doctrine of the Trinity in scripture?

The next words in the Hebrew sentence are “et ha sha-MAH-yeem va et ha AH-rets”, usually translated as “the heavens and the earth.” This is the Hebrew equivalent of the universe. Was the Holy Spirit involved?

The earth was unformed and void, darkness was on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God hovered over the surface of the water. (Genesis 1:2 CJB)

Creation Theories

Is Genesis literal history, allegory, or majestic prose? What are some forgotten purposes of the creation accounts? Let’s look at a few pros and cons of various creation theories and some spiritual purposes of this narrative.

Let’s now examine a few of the many, many creation theories and some of their strengths and weaknesses:

1. Godless Evolution: A popular theory today is evolution without God. A strength is that it gives the appearance of an attempt to be honest with the geological record and biological diversity. Its greatest weaknesses must include often ignoring even the possibility of divinity, the origins of irreducible complexity in design without a designer, treating fictitious theories as fact even though they are completely unable to be reproduced in a lab, and denial of ubiquitous forensic evidence of God’s existence.

2. Theistic Evolution: A popular theory is God-directed evolution. A strength of this theory is that it also tries to be honest with modern scientific theories. A weakness is that it puts too much trust in potentially dishonest and fallible human testimony which is constantly changing, and demotes those parts of the Bible which don’t fit the evolutionary paradigm to the realm of fictitious myth.

Another weakness is that microevolution within a kind or family of species is observable, as dog breeding shows, but proof of macroevolution, from one family into another family entirely, has never been observed and remains elusive.

3. The Day-Age Theory: The day-age theory speculates that the days of Genesis 1 are not literal days but ages, possibly millions of years. A strength of this theory is that it acknowledges popular interpretation of the geological record. Weaknesses include an ignorance of scientific evidence that supports a young earth, and the internal literary definition of the days in question being morning and evening.

The word day has various meanings usually defined by the context. Sometimes day refers to the light portion of a 24 hour period, as in “God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night.” Sometimes the word day refers to a period of time, such as “in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens” which is similar to how we speak of things back in grandpa’s day, meaning when he was young. A weakness of the day-age theory is that in context, the word day is clearly defined as “the evening and the morning.”

4. The Literal 6 Day Theory: This is the most literal interpretation. Some strengths are that Hebrew scholars say that this is a literal narrative in the original language, not metaphor or poetry. Though there are at least three meanings of the word “day” in Genesis 1-2, each creation “day” is clearly defined as morning and evening. Some scientists claim that dating methods are grossly distorted and that the geological record can be interpreted in a manner consistent with a young earth.