Interpreting Genesis 1
Before evaluating the different ways that the biblical creation account has been understood, we should note that the so-called “Gap Theory” belongs to a slightly different category. Theoretically, one could hold to such a view and still hold to any of the models about to be introduced. The Gap Theory should be rejected for other reasons. Its proponents say that there is a “gap” between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. In this place we are to assume an original universe which fell into chaos. This is what they make of the Hebrew expression תהו ובהו in verse 2. The “void” they see here cries out for a different cause, since naturally God could not have created anything originally defective.
Now the simple fact of the matter is that the grammar of verses 1 and 2 will not allow for this to be anything other than the beginning of creation, and the challenge remains unmet to find any other biblical text that hints at such a pre-Genesis world.
Leaving aside that theory, there have been four main views of how to interpret the creation account of the first chapter: (1) six literal twenty-four-hour days; (2) six figurative days, each standing for an age; (3) a poetic or covenantal framework as a basis for the six-day work week; (4) instantaneous creation, distinguishing orders of creation by the signs of each day.
Six Literal Twenty-four Hour Days
The case for the literal six-day approach can be summarized by these eight points: (1) The sentences of Chapter 1 are characterized by Hebrew the vav-consecutive construct, followed by a verb in the imperfect, which Hebrew always uses to give historical narrative: 51 times in Genesis. (2) Within the text itself, “day” (yom) clearly speaks of a 24-hour period. The volume of uses of the word in the Old Testament is overwhelmingly used in the literal sense. We should assume this unless there is a compelling reason otherwise. (3) The days are numbered, so it is naturally sequential. The use of ordinal numbers next to days especially makes this case. (4) Genesis 1 has no indication of figurative or poetic language, such as parallelism. (5) “Evening and morning” occurs 37 times outside of Genesis and is an ordinary day in each case. (6) On the fourth day, the sun and moon are made to “rule over the day and night.” (7) If Moses had intended a more indefinite period, he could have easily used olam, meaning “age.” (8) The rest of Scripture views it literally. No text views it figuratively: e.g., Ex. 20:8-11, Ps. 104.
Six Figurative Days, Each Standing for a Day
C. John Collins argues that there are three “indications” or “uncertainties” in the text: (1) In 1:3 it marks the beginning of the work week, but it doesn’t follow that it is the beginning of time. The time between 1:1 and 1:3 is unspecified. There is common ground with the Gap Theory here, though the two views are not the same. (2) 2:5 mentions ha-aretz (הָאָ֔רֶץ). While the KJV renders this “earth,” so that the infant earth is being watered by a water rising up; yet newer translations like the ESV renders this the “land,” leaving room for specific location. Verse 12 has vegetation emerging on Day 3, so harmonizing 1:12 and 2:5 becomes a need that the Day Age view is thought to better reconcile. (3) After the constant refrain, “And there was evening and there was morning,” but then, on the seventh day in 2:4, the refrain is missing. This is the perpetual Sabbath. Hebrews 4:9-10 is pointed to as a relevant clue.1 Then (4) Waltke suggests that the use of ordinal numbers for the days together with the lack of definite articles “suggests they may be dischronologized.”2
The Framework Hypothesis
The Framework Hypothesis was proposed by Westminster Old Testament scholar Meredith Kline. Other adherents include Mark Futato, Bruce Waltke, Charles Lee Irons, and Robert Godfrey. This view holds that the “days” in Genesis are not communicating historical time, but are literary devices set in language we can understand. The six days of creation are arranged into a “framework” of two triads (days 1-3 and days 4-6), with parallel types of activities in each triad. The first triad features “domains” in which the “rulers” are placed in the matching days of the second triad. One purpose was to provide a foundation for the work week in the moral law (cf. Ex. 20:11). The question of the age of the earth is left open.
Instantaneous Creation, Signifying the Orders of Creation
This view was set forth by Augustine, especially in his three works On Genesis, which were polemical writings against the Manicheans. The motivation for this view had been building ever since Augustine became a Christian and desired to answer the charge that the Old Testament picture of deity was anthropomorphic. A chief example was the creation accounts. The true God could not create “in” time or “at points of” time at all, nor could He “speak” as if He had a mouth. One nuance to this is that although God created all things ex nihilo, the purpose of Days 1 through 3 is to show a kind of basic form and matter, through which a more complex world was already in the making. Likewise with the language of “kinds” among the animal kingdom. This concept Augustine called “seminal principles” (rationes seminales).3 Some have attempted to say that this Augustinian insight can theologically justify a theistic evolution. But this would be to unfairly read into Augustine an idea that was nowhere in view.
The Question of Genre
However one resolves this, one other view that must be discarded by any serious student of the Bible is the idea that Genesis 1 intends to communicate mere poetry or allegory—that is, that such forms are exclusive of objective history and science. In the first place, E. J. Young says,
“there are poetical accounts of creation in the Bible—Psalm 104, and certain chapters in Job—and they differ completely from the first chapter of Genesis. Hebrew poetry has certain characteristics, and they are not found in the first chapter of Genesis.”4
Another Old Testament Scholar, John Currid, agrees: “there is no indication of figurative language in Genesis 1. If the narrative is to be considered imagery, one would expect to encounter many of the essentials of figurative language (e.g. schema, metaphor, and other tropes), but there are none.”5
Moreover, Henry Morris chronicles “165 passages in Genesis that are either directly quoted or clearly referred to in the New Testament. Many of them are alluded to more than once, so that there are at least two hundred quotations or allusions to Genesis in the New Testament.”6 Walter Brown lists 71 such references, showing stricter ways of counting them.7 The point is that the rest of the Bible treats this only ever as real history.
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1. C. John Collins, Genesis 1-4: A Theological Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2006).
2. Bruce Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001), 62.
2. Augustine, On Genesis, I.7.11.
3. E. J. Young, In the Beginning: Genesis 1-3 and the Authority of Scripture (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1976), 19.
4. John Currid, “A Cosmology of History From Creation to Consummation,” in Hoffecker, ed., Building a Christian Worldview (Philipsburgh, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing, 1987), 44-45.
5. Henry Morris, The Genesis Record (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1976), 21
6. Walter Brown, In the Beginning (Center for Scientific Creation, 2001), 59.
