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So, how should we read Genesis 1-3?
If you can find a recording of Conor Cunningham’s Did Darwin kill God? (BBC2 programme of 2009 during the Darwin season) this will give you an excellent overview of Christian approaches to Genesis 1-3. He points out that, for the majority of Christian history, these stories were understood figuratively. It was only in the 20th century that the literal interpretation, now quite prevalent (particularly in the USA), became popular.
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Some Christians have almost made this literal 7-day creation a young Earth to be a test of orthodoxy. They seem to fear that taking any other view will begin to undermine their faith in other parts of the Bible. Here is a video that addresses this issue:
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Poetry and story: another window on truth
“My love is like a red, red rose …” (Burns). Does the writer mean this literally? Clearly not! We are able to appreciate the qualities that he brings out in this simile. Epic stories and myths (by which, I don’t mean made-up nonsense but stories covering big themes) resonate with us as being real. When it comes to Genesis 1-3, I think there are challenges for those who want to dismiss it altogether and for those determined to read it literally:
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- The challenge to literalists. Take another look at the creation story – firstly noting that there are, in any case, two stories told. Hear the poetic rhythms and note the different concerns in the two stories. Ponder why there is a concern about Sabbath if this is a literal scientific account of creation. These are stories about our origins but in the language of myth / poetry. They resonate with us and we feel our connection to them but they do not have to be read literally.
- The challenge to those who dismiss it. As has been said elsewhere in these pages, science does not have the monopoly on truth. A poem may express thoughts about love, about purpose, about hope that science will never unlock. If Genesis 1-3 is stripped of the literal straightjacket imposed by some Christians, then its main claims are that God is the author of everything; that human beings are created with the possibility of knowing God (“in his image”); and, sadly, that the universal human experience has been that we do stuff that is wrong. The debate as to whether the universe owes its existence to the Creator is the content of this whole section but the other two points – humanity at the top of the evolutionary chain and the pervasive experience of human wrongdoing – seem pretty well established. Therefore I contend that these stories have stood the test of time and need to be given due consideration…
Use the email address below to give feedback / ask questions to the author, whose views these pages reflect
Six Big Questions Rev John Hibberd sixbigquestions@throughfaithmissions.org |
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