A Few Scribblings on Creation, Cultural Status, and Idolatry

I keep telling myself I don't feel as strongly as it looks but I'm losing.

“If the Bible had said that Jonah swallowed the whale, I would believe it.” So said the former secretary of state, three-time Presidential and one-time General Moderator finalist, William Jennings Bryan. As Christians we do not have to consider the strange doctrine of the fish-eating-man, but his memorable cross examination at the Scopes Trial, not yet a century past, provides an essential lesson on the hermeneutics of Genesis 1 for the English-speaking Christian. How highly does he value his worldly status?

I suggest that a Christian’s interpretation of Genesis 1 can be determined by asking him two socioeconomic questions; 1) Does he desire to have a higher social status than his parents? 2) Does he have a master’s degree? The first will determine his adherence to a young earth creationist perspective in six days literal, and the second question will determine if he simply puts “gaps” between the days or perhaps expands the length of time of the days, or whether he will opt for a more theologically sophisticated means of reinterpreting the text, the most popular of which is probably Kline’s Framework interpretation, wherein the seven days are ordered to present a theological and literary themes that highlights redemptive history.

I do adhere to the traditional, six day, 24 hour interpretation of Genesis, which I call the consistent-but-low-status position, because it immediately makes me more suspect in the eye of public opinion and probably most of my home parish. It smells vaguely of geo-centrism, the transatlantic slave trade, and long jean skirts. I probably wear a MAGA hat and think the Declaration of Independence was inspired by God. Nonetheless, I think this icky and deplorable position the only internally consistent position to be found in Scripture, and I will give four reasons why, followed by a defense of my socioeconomic questions.

Firstly, the six-day reading is internally consistent. Nothing gets recreated, and no part of creation would be forced to live without the other necessary parts of its biology. The supposed contradictions like light appearing twice make perfect sense on its face, since light exists independent of heavenly bodies. Others have pointed out how plants appear in day three and day six, not attending to the differences between fruit bearing plants (day three) and non-fruit bearing plants (day six). It is easy to imagine Adam naming all creatures according to their kind in a single morning, since he would not have to examine all species, just each kind. All of day six could easily be accomplished in an actual day. At one level, Genesis one is remarkably simple.

Secondly, all signs have a referent, and since words are signs, their context determines their meaning. These referents have to be apprehensible within both a partially fulfilled covenant structure (every covenant has a written component) and within a completed structure (the new covenant). Thus the creation story has to provide a true understanding of the world for the people in Seth’s day, as well as Noah’s, as well as Abraham’s. The first three chapters, especially the seven days of creation, introduce dozens of terms that are highly significant for the promises, prophecies, and history of God’s people: heavens, earth, sight, darkness, nothing, chaotic waters, division of those waters, good, dry land, trees, plants of seed, fruit, seasons, days, years, sun, stars, moon, image, ruling, sea creatures, winged birds, all creeping things, signs, man, creative speech, day, night, dominion, the Holy Spirit, three tiered universe, male and female. These terms set up the entire rest of Scripture, and are not addendums to the text, but must be placed in just the way they are for redemptive history to even be coherent for both its first readers and the current one.

Thirdly, the seven days are eschatologically significant. Day one is a day of light which lightens both heaven and earth. The last sabbath rest will also be a day in which a single light shines upon heaven and earth. Just as the world moves from glory to glory and from faith to faith over the course of redemptive history, so to it moves from light to light. The seven days also provide a historical framework for man’s redemption. God does not complete his work instantly. He chooses to build it over time. So it is for man’s salvation. He does not leave the body upon being saved, but remains in it, building up the church until he achieves his sabbath rest. God always uses time to save his people. He does not rise from the dead instantly, nor does he redeem Israel before 400 years in Egypt. His work builds, it does not appear.

Fourthly, the seven days are covenantally binding. The fourth commandment specifically restates the seven days before declaring them the normative order for earthly man. And as Jesus says, those days were made for man, not man for those days. They were meant for his use, his imitation of God. The author of Hebrews takes this up when he speaks of the earthly tent being built on a heavenly model. Moses was building a figure of heaven, which was itself a more perfect version of creation. And sure enough, the Lord commands his earthly tent to be built in seven distinct “Then the Lord said” speeches in Exodus 25-31, the seventh pertaining exclusively to the Sabbath. Unsurprisingly, Jesus recapitulates the seven days in John 1-2 after an opening of “in the beginning,” the seventh day being the wedding feast at Cana where he makes water into wine. The seven days keep reoccurring in human time, as literal days, with massive theological import, each ending with the promise of the fulfillment of all creation. For the very origin and initial meaning of these days to be in radical discontinuity with their redemptive fulfillment is highly implausible, and would suggest that God’s pattern for the creation and redemption of the world wasn’t actually a covenantal pattern at all, so much as a numerical trick.

Though I have just begun to touch on all four of these arguments, I will return to my heuristic on respectability and status. Psalm 2 states clearly that the nations hate God because he ordered the universe, and so they accuse him of enchaining them. This rebellion leads to greater hatred of God’s people, even as it leads to fears of their destruction (as the body of Joshua finds out when they cross the Jordan only to be met with detestable cowards who have no spirit). Their prince is the Leviathan, and he deceives them continually, such that they turn to false images and ask for those images from nature to “fall on them” in the day of judgment. They do this because as idolaters they misinterpret the book of creation, and make it the creator. Having perceived God’s divine attributes in creation, the nations of the world instead choose to study that creation apart from the Scriptures in which the purposes of God are revealed. They take the objects of God’s glory, and make them into idols for man’s glory. This is the theme of idolatry found from the beginning to the end of Scripture, and it is Israel’s most recurring problem. They don’t want to have to stand out from the nations like God has told them too, so they turn from his testimony of creation of all in six days to the false testimony of other nations that proclaim long and majestic beginnings from millennia ago. The nations puff themselves up that they shall not be moved, because of their eternal presence on the earth. But the Lord will cast them down in the imagination of their hearts, for the world is young, and their empire shorter lived still.

Addendum on alternative readings of Genesis

I find the day-age theory lacking for three reasons. Firstly, it stretches out creation such that man was not on earth for centuries or millennia after its development. This casts serious doubt on whether the days of creation were made for man and why God even bothered to make a temple with no image or priest in it to govern and protect it. Secondly, it turns words upside down. Day loses all significance, and for no clear or discernable purpose besides wanting to put distance between God’s creative act and your own time and place. Thirdly, it muddies the purpose and clarity of later covenants. The seventh day loses all boundaries, as does Jesus’ wedding at Cana. Why does God build the tabernacle in seven speeches? Why is man told to keep a garden and fill a world that’s been developing for thousands of years? Why does Adam jump in now? Eschatology and covenantal redemption get muddled for no discernible purpose.

I think the framework interpretation fails to hold up because it collapses linear time into atemporal themes. God doesn’t work in themes, he works in “human” time to accomplish his purposes. God reveals his Son at the fulness of time. He drives out the Canaanites in due time, lest wild animals overrun the land of Milk and Honey. Themes certainly exist in the text, but to pit any theme against the actual creation of God serves to only de-historicize the Christian religion into a series of principles and laws to be recapitulated ad absurdam. Ambition, not truth, tries to maintain as much of the original content of Scripture as possible while accommodating the nations who rage against the Lord’s anointed. If carving and forming of nature is not done in accord with God’s testimony, it will reveal whatever man wants it to, because that’s what idolatry always does-it reveals the blindness and deafness of man.

While many would prefer to reserve such rhetoric solely for the historicity of Adam, I do not see how that Adam is kept intact if the rest of the Genesis account is not also adhered to. Moses demands rigid adherence to the “theomorphic” days of creation for all Israel, and Paul, John, and author of Hebrews think the heavenly pattern in seven days offers the decisive evidence of the New Covenant’s superiority. We live in a world full of idols, and while literal creation may not be the most immediately destructive one, it holds the seeds of other, more blatant Scriptural compromises in the name of cultural accommodation, whether intended or not.