THE LOST WORLD OF GENESIS ONE
By John H. Walton
IVP. 192 pages. £10.99
ISBN 978 0 830 837 045
Every once in a while a book is written that forces you to reassess your understanding of a key passage of Scripture. One must then consider whether a shifting of understanding is justified in the light of what is being proposed and how it harmonises with the rest of Scripture.
The Lost World of Genesis One by John H. Walton, Professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College, is such a book for me. Based on comparative analysis of Genesis 1, with other ancient Near East cosmologies and writings, Walton suggests that the people of that time did not think of origins in terms of what the material origin was, but looked for answers in terms of how things function and what their purpose was within an ordered system. Neither did they have the concept of a natural world to be contrasted with a supernatural realm.
Walton’s thesis
In the 21st century, we almost exclusively think materially and scientifically when we think of creation. How were all the parts made, where did it come from and how does it work in a mechanistic sense? Walton’s thesis is that Genesis 1 does not deal with creation in that material sense. Instead, it is describing God giving the various parts of an already pre-existing cosmos function and purpose to create an ordered system with meaning and significance. In developing this line of reasoning, Walton considers the language used in Genesis; in particular, the Hebrew word bara, translated into English as ‘created’. Our English word ‘create’ clearly includes the meaning of creation in a material or structural sense, and we, as 21st-century people ask the question, ‘Where did the material world come from?’
Walton examines the use of bara and concludes that, in the nearly all the contexts where it appears, it does not have a material meaning, but requires a functional understanding. Its subject is always God, that is, it is a divine activity and its object is nearly always functional, not the creation of a material object.
Implications
In 18 propositions, Walton clearly sets out and explains the implications of his thesis. In Day One (Walton sees the days as 24-hour days), God gives function to the alternating period of light and dark to be the marker of time for man. It is not describing the material creation of light by God (for example, photons), but that he gives the periods of light and darkness a function in the world.
In Day Two, God separates and divides cosmic space. He gives the waters in the firmament, or sky, the function of providing sustenance to the earth in the form of weather. The rain falls to nourish the earth. God was creating cosmic order out of a disordered, pre-existing, material world.
In Day Three, he separates and divides terrestrial space. God creates the basis for food in plants that are fruitful and reproduce after their kind. So in days One to Three, God creates time, weather and food. These were vital necessities for survival and highly relevant in the world of the people for whom Genesis was first written. This explanation was far more important to them than the origin questions we want to see answered today.
In Days Four to Six, God installs functionaries to fulfil the functions given in Days One to Three. In Day Four, the celestial bodies are given to mark times and seasons. In Day Five the creatures that fly and swim fill the spaces of the firmament and the waters, given their function in Day Two. The creatures’ function is to multiply and fill those spaces. Likewise, in Day Six, the land creatures are given the function of multiplying and filling the land, according to their kind.
Finally, people are given the function to populate the world. They are also given three further functions: in regard to the rest of creation, to subdue and rule it; in regard to God to bear his image; and, in regard to one another, to be as male and female, for as such they were made. These are all functions and purposes that are being described and make no reference to any mechanism or substance of material creation. This is a very different approach to seeing Genesis from the one most readers will be used to.
The seventh day
Walton then goes on to consider Day Seven. He proposes that, far from being a postscript to the description of creation, it is, in fact, the most important day of creation. Using Psalm 132, the description of the tabernacle/temple and the inauguration of Solomon’s temple in 1 Kings 8, Walton shows that the seven days of creation are the description of the construction of a cosmic temple in which God takes up his residence on Day Seven. His ‘rest’ is not a ‘sit-back-with-feet-up’ type of rest, but a time of ‘normal functioning operation’, after ceasing a period of unusual activity (see Deuteronomy 12.10).
What makes Day Seven the most important day is seen in relation to the temple. The temple was nothing but an empty building until the ark of God’s presence was placed there, and it then became the dwelling place of God. It only became the temple when God presenced himself and dwelt there. Day Seven is when creation becomes all that God intended for it and fulfils all that God intended for it, with the omnipresent creator presencing himself and sustaining his creation on a day-to-day basis.
Walton notes that the horizontal arrangement of the structure of the temple, from the outer courtyard to the veil and the holy of holies, mirrors the vertical arrangement of the cosmos, from the earth to the heavens with the veil fulfilling the function of the firmament (p.81). Likewise, in the visions of Ezekiel and Revelation, the temple contains much imagery from the Garden of Eden. The full thesis that Walton is proposing is that ‘Genesis 1 should be understood as an account of functional origins of the cosmos as a temple’ (p.84, as is seen in Isaiah 66.1-2).
Other interpretations
Most of the rest of the book is spent considering this thesis in the light of the more familiar approaches to interpreting and expounding Genesis 1, including creationism (old and young earth), the framework hypothesis and ways of reconciling Genesis 1 with evolutionary theory. He finds all of these either over-interpret or under-interpret the account given in Genesis 1.
Not scientific at all
In commenting on the thesis presented in this book, there are four points to make. The first relates to the question of material origins. In saying that Genesis 1 is not dealing with material origins, but is instead describing the giving of function to a pre-existing material universe, Walton is not denying the material creation of universe by God. That is made quite clear in Acts 7.50 and Colossians 1.16-17, for example, where God is shown to be the creator of the material world in the way we understand the question today.
However, the Bible is not a scientific textbook and does not say how God created the material world, nor when he did so. Walton makes the point that, ‘Through the entire Bible, there is not a single instance in which God revealed to Israel a science beyond their own culture. No passage offers a scientific perspective that was not common to the Old World science of antiquity’ (p.19).
Science or faith
That leads to the second point. One of the great tragedies of our present generation is the number of young people who leave the church and lose their faith when faced with the choice of following what is discovered through scientific endeavour, or trying to fit those findings into a presumed biblical mould that does not easily fit them. We know that scientific ‘facts’ and theories may change with time in the light of new research and information, but it must be acknowledged that whatever science finds that is true, then that must be God’s truth, for he created things that way.
Walton introduces a helpful analogy using pies and cakes! The science versus God creation debate is not a sliced up pie in which each has a greater or lesser slice as more discoveries are made. Rather, it is more like a layered cake. Scientific investigation and natural material processes are represented by the lower layer. Discovery in this layer does not subtract from God or his works. In contrast, the top layer represents the work of God and covers the entire bottom layer. It illustrates the ultimate divine causation of all things material. Science, by definition, cannot explore the top layer, which addresses ultimate causation and purpose, in particular, that God causes and gives purpose.
According to Walton, Genesis is a top layer account and does not describe particular mechanisms for material origins. There are very good reasons for seriously questioning aspects of evolutionary theory, but Genesis 1 is not the textbook that sheds light on the matter. The thesis presented by Walton sidesteps the whole ‘science versus creation’ issue in a most constructive and helpful way. That alone, I would suggest, makes it worthy of further consideration.
Unfinished creation?
Thirdly, Walton’s thesis sheds much light on a number of themes running right through Scripture. For example, the presence of God with his people, the temple theme, including Christ dwelling among and within his people, and the culmination of the vision given in Revelation. It gives one of the strongest arguments for understanding the Sabbath and the way that theme works throughout Scripture.
It also sheds light on God’s continuing provision for humanity in his sustaining grace, through the functions he has given his creation to fulfil, albeit marred by the entry of sin into the world. If God inhabits his cosmic temple in the way suggested by Walton, it sheds new light on the nature of his ongoing maintaining and sustaining his creation. Creation did not finish on Day Six, and neither is he micro-managing the world today; but, as in Days One to Six, he gave functions to the cosmos, so going into Day Seven he continues to sustain those functions in the normal running of the cosmos.
What about death?
Fourthly, an area where further clarity is needed relates to the question of the creation of Adam and Eve. Walton deals with them in archetypal terms, while not denying them to be particular individuals. It would have been helpful if he had covered the creation of man in more detail. The question of death within creation is raised in Genesis 3, but Walton does deal with it in this book. He argues that death was intrinsic to what was created, in that plants, for example, can only fulfil their God given function by flowering, fruiting and producing seed. This is a process involving death at every stage. Likewise predatory creatures survive through death of other creatures. Romans 5.12, rather than saying that there was no death of anything before the fall, is talking about how death came to people. The answer he gives to this is that the Tree of Life provided an antidote to our natural mortality. The punishment for disobedience was banishment from the Garden, removing access to this antidote, so that human death would be the inevitable consequence and punishment. Therefore death did indeed occur through sin.
