Dr. Alice C. Linsley
Throughout history many wise persons have thought about the creation of the universe, the origin of organic life, and the Creator's purpose. Interpretations of the days of creation in Genesis chapter 1 range from literal to allegorical. The science of Biblical Anthropology attempts to place the narrative in its earliest cultural context among the Nilotic Hebrew who dispersed widely before the time of Abraham (c. 2000 BC).
Young Earth Creationists interpret the sequence of days in Genesis 1 as 6 consecutive 24-hour days. They assume that Cain (Gen. 4) and Seth (Gen. 5) were among the few humans on earth no more than 10,000 years old. The YEC position requires one to ignore the
vast material evidence of human existence on earth over millions of years. Those who do not ignore the evidence resort to the fallacy of inaccurate dating methods.
St. Augustine of Hippo believed that everything in the universe was created simultaneously by God. He is explicit that God did not create over the course of six consecutive 24-hour days. He writes, "The sacred writer was able to separate in the time of his narrative what God did not separate in time in His creative act." In his view, the six days of creation convey the logical order of and relationship of created things, rather than a passage of time. He wrote, "But in the beginning He created all things together and completed the whole in six days, when six times he brought the 'day' which he made before the things which He made, not in a succession of periods of time but in a plan made known according to causes."
St. Basil the Great, on the other hand, believed in six consecutive days of creation and presents the divine act in great detail in his Hexaemeron. It originated as a lecture series that he delivered over three days in 378 AD on the days of creation, moving line by line through Genesis 1:1–26. Basil did not insist on 24-hour days since the solar arc was not a factor until the fourth day (Gen. 1:14-19).
Origen of Alexandria also noted that "days" did not exist before the sun and moon were formed, and he believed that the "days" described in Genesis 1 do not refer to a literal succession. Rather the sequence is a symbolic representation of God's creative process. Origen tended to interpret that Genesis 1 creation narrative allegorically.
St. John Chrysostom wrote, "The text says:
"This is the book about the origins of heaven and earth when they were created, on the day God made heaven and earth, before any grass of the field appeared on the earth or any crop of the field sprouted. God, you see, had not sent rain on the earth, and there was no human being to till the soil; a spring used to flow out of the ground and water the whole face of the earth." [Gen 2:4] Notice again, I ask you, the insight of this remarkable author, or rather the teaching of the Holy Spirit. I mean, after narrating to us detail by detail all the items of creation and going through the works of the six days, the creation of human beings and the authority granted them over all visible things, now he sums them all up in the words,
"This is the book about the origins of heaven and earth when they were created." It is worth enquiring at this point why it is he calls it the book of heaven and earth in view of the fact that the book contains many other things and teaches us about a greater number of matters about the virtue of good people, about God's loving kindness and the considerateness he demonstrated in regard both to the first formed human being and to the whole human race, and about a lot of other things it would be impossible to list right now. Don't be surprised, dearly beloved; after all, it is the custom with Holy Scripture not to describe every thing to us in detail in every case but rather to begin with a summary of related items and to leave further detail to be considered by rightminded listeners as they take in what is said.
So that you may learn this is the case, I will make it clear from the very verses just now read. What I refer to is this: notice Sacred Scripture taught us in detail in the preceding verses the creation of everything, but now, instead of mentioning them all, it says: "This is the book about the origins of heaven and earth when they were created, on the day God made heaven and earth," and so on. Do you see how it confines the whole account to heaven and earth, leaving us to get from them a sweeping view of all the other things? I mean, when it said heaven and earth, it included everything together in those words, both things on earth and things in heaven. So, just as in its account of created things it doesn't mention them all one by one but gives a summary of related items and makes no further attempt to describe them to us, so too it called the whole book the book about the origins of heaven and earth, even though it contains many other things, evidently leaving us to work out from the reference to these two that all visible things are of necessity contained in this book, both those in heaven and those on earth.
Professor John Walton believes that Genesis 1 draws on Babylonian cosmology in which the whole universe is God's cosmic 7-tiered temple.
Biblical Anthropology applies the tools of anthropology to the Genesis creation narratives and suggests that they come from the early Hebrew who lived in the Nile Valley (4200-1500 BC). The oldest known site of Horite Hebrew worship is
Nekhen on the Nile.
The Nilotic Hebrew understanding of the human condition and our need of God’s saving mercy is evident in the Genesis 1-3 narratives which have their closest parallels in African creation/origin stories.
The African themes such as "the beginning", the chaotic waters, the apical parents of the Hebrew ruler-priest caste, the defiling Serpent, are concisely woven together in the Genesis creation stories. These African themes include the separation of the waters above from the waters below, the creation of male and female humans from the soil (humus), the Tree of Life, estrangement from the Heavenly Father and his son, and the anticipated
third day resurrection of the Eternal Son.
It must be evident that the creation stories are not where we encounter verifiable historical data. One may insist that creation happened over 6 consecutive 24-hour days, but Genesis does not provide empirical evidence for that argument. On the other hand,
analysis of the kinship pattern of the early Hebrew rulers listed in Genesis 4 and 5 reveals that these are historical persons with an authentic
marriage and ascendancy pattern. In other words, when speaking of history in Genesis we must begin with the
historical persons of Adam, Eve and their descendants, some of whom are named in Genesis 4 (Cain's line) and 5 (Seth's line).
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