We believe Genesis is a true account that, like other ancient narratives, uses vivid imagery to describe past events. It is silent on the scientific questions we might wish it to answer. Christian doctrine is broadly compatible with scientific accounts of our origins. Clues to the original intended meaning can be found in the style of language, the genre of literature, the original audience, and the historical and cultural context. A fresh look at the genre of the creation story provides more context of Genesis 1, and what its contents meant for the early users of the Pentateuch.
Wrestling with the doctrine of creation? Found among the ruins was a Babylonian creation story referred to today as Enuma Elish. How people viewed Genesis would never be the same again. The divergences between the creation accounts in Genesis 1 and 2 suggest that these texts are not teaching science; for then we would need to ask which account is scientifically true.
Discussing interpretation with biblical scholar John Walton and exploring the answers his work offers. Introduction Did the author of Genesis 1 intend to communicate that God created everything in six hour days, or are the days meant to be understood in some other way? Contrasting Views of Genesis 1 Most Christians today interpret the first creation account in the Bible, Genesis , in one of three ways: According to the calendar day view , Genesis 1 is a straightforward historical narrative, in the modern journalistic sense.
This conclusion, combined with a summation of years given in biblical genealogies, lead most advocates of this view to believe that God created the material universe in one ordinary week between six and ten thousand years ago.
Those who hold this view are known as young-earth creationists. The days of Genesis 1 may be millions of years long and even overlap with one another. Advocates of this view tend to accept the scientific evidence for the great age of the universe; they are called old-earth or progressive creationists.
Literary views prioritize the literary features, theological themes, and cultural context of the creation account. Conclusion So are the days of Genesis 1 meant to be understood as regular, hour days? What is BioLogos? Subscribe Now What is BioLogos? Common Question. Proclaiming, "It is not good for the man to be alone. Adam and Eve anger God by eating a forbidden fruit, but they are nonetheless permitted to have sex and reproduce. From this first union of man and woman, the writer explained, have come all of us.
Before the time of Moses, most cultures and religions showed relatively little interest in explaining the origins of the cosmos and life on earth. We are conditioned to assume anything that is, once was not—but that assumption was not generally shared in the ancient world. A brief survey of major cultures and religions reveals the paradigm-shattering nature of Yahweh.
The early Chinese, for example, seem never to have given the question of creation serious attention at all. Hindus pondered creation, but for them creation seemed less a riddle to be explained than it was a cause for awe. The Vedas, sacred hymns in Sanskrit written between and B. Hindus thus reverse western notions of creation: nothingness is not transformed into everything; everything has emerged from a Oneness that was there at the beginning.
For the Buddha, too, the question of creation was one without answers. The epics begin with a world populated by fully mature gods and goddesses. While Hindus, Buddhists, and Confucians look primarily inward for the meaning of life, the Creator-God of Moses invites speculation as to the nature of man, salvation, and the beginning and end of time. It is especially in the theology that owes its existence to Moses that the theory of evolution presents serious threat. The most defining belief of the Christian West until the early twentieth century was that of a God who created the earth and humans, and who guided the course of history.
Does that God die, or does He retreat to the gaps of still-unanswered questions? Prior to the time of Moses, most people thought of themselves as instruments or playthings of gods. Moses—himself a kind of creator—helped changed this arguably pathetic conception people had of their role in the world. Indeed, he identified it as the source of the scientific theories and hypotheses that would one day come to threaten the very religious concepts he fathered.
Without Moses, in other words, Darwin would never have been possible. Lynn Margulis thinks humans are, essentially, a colony of closely associated bacteria.
The human story, as Margulis first saw it, began about 3. Confined within the large cells, the bacteria transformed into swarming elliptical membrane-filled bodies called mitochondria.
With the formation of mitochondria began the flow of a river of DNA that sweeps through three billion years to include us all. According to Margulis, each one of the hundred trillion cells in the human body is an enclosed garden of specially tamed and always multiplying bacteria. Not only is every man not an island, in the vision of Margulis, he is in essence a community of communities. The mitochondria perform essential functions, such as allowing chain reactions to occur that are critical to breathing and digestion.
Mitochondria, with their own simple DNA that is not affected by sexual mixing, come from our mothers only. The female-only transmission of mitochondria, coupled with its slow rate of genetic mutation, make its DNA ideal for tracing and dating maternal ancestry. Researchers in the s used computers to analyze samples of DNA drawn from diverse women from all over the globe—Chinese, African tribeswomen, Australian Aborigines, Native Americans, Europeans.
The researchers discovered that the family trees of these women all led back to Africa. Remarkably, the analysis demonstrated that genetic differences among the various people within Africa all are twice as great as the differences between all other population groups. This strongly suggests that all the population groups outside Africa are descended from a small band of humans that left Africa —probably about 50, to 80, years ago.
In a sense, we are all Africans. The ancestral human population that lived in Africa started to split up roughly , years ago, when the mitochondrial tree makes its first branches within the African continent. The very root of the mitochondrial tree seems to lie in the northwestern Kalahari Desert in southern Africa.
The mitochondrial research matches nicely with recent genetic research using the Y chromosome, transmitted exclusively by males, which also points to southern Africa as the home of Adam.
Unlike the Genesis version of human origins, however, the Y chromosomal Adam and Mitochondrial Eve that our genetic trees trace back to did not have the planet to themselves—there probably, in fact, were thousands of other humans living at the time.
According to Christian belief, God created the universe. There are two stories of how God created it which are found at the beginning of the book of Genesis in the Bible. Some Christians regard Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 as two totally separate myths that have a similar meaning. Others see the two chapters as part of one continuous story. God saw my affliction and the labor of my hands, and rebuked you last night. But what can I do today about these daughters of mine, or about their children whom they have borne?
Where are you going? And whose are these ahead of you? So he divided the children among Leah and Rachel and the two maids.
When they heard of it, the men were indignant and very angry, because he had committed an outrage in Israel by lying with Jacob's daughter, for such a thing ought not to be done. Now he was the most honored of all his family. Only let us agree with them, and they will live among us. Make an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau.
So it was called Allon-bacuth. Now the sons of Jacob were twelve. These were the sons of Jacob who were born to him in Paddan-aram. These are the sons of Esau who were born to him in the land of Canaan. These were the sons of Adah, Esau's wife. These were the sons of Esau's wife, Basemath.
Joseph, being seventeen years old, was shepherding the flock with his brothers; he was a helper to the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father's wives; and Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father. Suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright; then your sheaves gathered around it, and bowed down to my sheaf. Are you indeed to have dominion over us?
Shall we indeed come, I and your mother and your brothers, and bow to the ground before you? Come, I will send you to them. He came to Shechem, [] and a man found him wandering in the fields; the man asked him, "What are you seeking? The pit was empty; there was no water in it. And they took Joseph to Egypt. A wild animal has devoured him; Joseph is without doubt torn to pieces. She was in Chezib when she bore him.
So Tamar went to live in her father's house. She saw that Shelah was grown up, yet she had not been given to him in marriage. She said, "What will you give me, that you may come in to me? Now Joseph was handsome and good-looking.
How then could I do this great wickedness, and sin against God? He came in to me to lie with me, and I cried out with a loud voice; [] and when he heard me raise my voice and cry out, he left his garment beside me, and fled outside. Please tell them to me. As soon as it budded, its blossoms came out and the clusters ripened into grapes. And Pharaoh awoke. Pharaoh awoke, and it was a dream. Pharaoh told them his dreams, but there was no one who could interpret them to Pharaoh.
When we told him, he interpreted our dreams to us, giving an interpretation to each according to his dream. When he had shaved himself and changed his clothes, he came in before Pharaoh.
I have heard it said of you that when you hear a dream you can interpret it. Never had I seen such ugly ones in all the land of Egypt. Then I awoke. But when I told it to the magicians, there was no one who could explain it to me. They are seven years of famine. Thus Joseph gained authority over the land of Egypt. And Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh, and went through all the land of Egypt. There was famine in every country, but throughout the land of Egypt there was bread.
Pharaoh said to all the Egyptians, "Go to Joseph; what he says to you, do. And Joseph's brothers came and bowed themselves before him with their faces to the ground. They said, "From the land of Canaan, to buy food. He said to them, "You are spies; you have come to see the nakedness of the land! The rest of you shall go and carry grain for the famine of your households, [] and bring your youngest brother to me.
Thus your words will be verified, and you shall not die. That is why this anguish has come upon us. But you would not listen.
So now there comes a reckoning for his blood. And he picked out Simeon and had him bound before their eyes. This was done for them. Then I will release your brother to you, and you may trade in the land. When they and their father saw their bundles of money, they were dismayed. All this has happened to me! Put him in my hands, and I will bring him back to you. If harm should come to him on the journey that you are to make, you would bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to Sheol.
Have you another brother? Could we in any way know that he would say, 'Bring your brother down'? If I do not bring him back to you and set him before you, then let me bear the blame forever.
Carry back with you the money that was returned in the top of your sacks; perhaps it was an oversight. As for me, if I am bereaved of my children, I am bereaved. Then they went on their way down to Egypt, and stood before Joseph.
So we have brought it back with us. We do not know who put our money in our sacks. Is he still alive? God be gracious to you, my son! So he went into a private room and wept there. So they drank and were merry with him.
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