Notes on Genesis

by
R.P. Nettelhorst

The Structure of Genesis 1-2 is Not Chronological

I. Summary statement, Genesis 1:1-2

       A. General Details of Creation, 1:2-2:3

               a. The Six Days

       1. light/darkness              4. sun/moon and stars
       2. water above/below        5. birds/fish
       3. dry land, vegetation      6. animals and people

               b. God Rests (seventh day)

       B. Details of Human Creation (return to the sixth day) (Genesis 2:4-25)

       The structure of the six days narrative follows the pattern of the creation of empty spaces (light and dark, water and atmosphere, land) which are then filled by specific objects. Notice, too, that the first two days (and the parallel fourth and fifth day) are split into two segments, while the third day and parallel sixth day are not so split, with plants rising from the soil on the third day and animals rising from the soil to inhabit the land and consume the vegetation on the sixth day.
       The word "day" is defined in the context of the creation narrative in 1:5 where it is equated with the word "light", rather than a twenty-four hour period.
       The phrase, "And there was evening, and there was morning -- the...day" occurs only in the first chapter of Genesis. Its exact meaning therefore is not absolutely clear. Certainly creationists are unwarranted in pressing the phrase as confirmation of their contention that these are twenty-four hour days. The phrase itself proves nothing.
       There are other time periods in the Bible that are not literal in their meaning -- for instance the seventy weeks of Daniel chapter nine, which refer to a time period of 483 years. As if this were not enough, according to the most popular evangelical teaching, the last week is separated from the preceding sixty-nine weeks by an indefinite time that at present has stretched to almost 2000 years, though there is nothing in the text of Daniel 9 to suggest this possibility (hardly resulting in the most obvious or "literal" interpretation of these seventy "weeks"). It seems unwarranted to demand a "literal" interpretation of day if it is possible to accept a less than "literal" interpretation of week.
       The difficulty is in what is meant by the word "literal." I do not believe that it means, when confronted by the phrase "he will sit on the right hand of the father" that we should expect to see the father's hand under his butt. Instead, literal means an ordinary, non-subjective or allegorical meaning; of course, if we are dealing with something allegorical it is as big a mistake to literalize it as it would be to allegorize what should be taken literally.
       According to creationists, theistic evolutionists are forced into an allegorical interpretation of Genesis one. They argue that if evolution is accepted, then automatically the text of Genesis is no longer being interpreted literally. I believe this is an extreme overstatement of the situation.
       Certainly it is true that most theistic evolutionists fail to take seriously the words of Genesis. However, I do not believe such a viewpoint is inevitable. Modern scientific theory can be compatible with Genesis, even a Genesis that is read literally.
       In other words, Adam can be accepted as literally real even within an evolutionary framework.
       As Abraham was later to be chosen by God from a pagan, polytheistic society in order to become the progenitor of his chosen people, so God can be seen as selecting Adam from a pre-existing group of hominids and then giving him the choice of serving God or not. Perhaps Adam was a radical mutation from his forbearers, hence the story in Genesis 2 describing his difficulty in finding a suitable mate, necessitating divine intervention to fashion a mate for him, in this case a female clone (notice, that by being created from the rib of Adam, she was necessarily constructed from his genetic material).
       Frankly, the text of Genesis itself makes the traditional creationist perspective less credible than they would have us believe. Not only are the days not placed in a chronological arrangement, but the search for a mate and the naming of the animals is also evidence that the sixth day at least, was almost certainly not a twenty-four hour period, since it would be difficult if not impossible, for a single man, however gifted, to identify and name all the species on the planet in so limited an amount of time. Consider that there are at least one million species of animals (using the underestimate Whitcomb and Morris give in their book The Genesis Flood, p. 68). Allowing no time for sleep, Adam would have had to name eleven and a half animals every second (with 86,400 seconds in 24 hours). And this doesn't leave him time to realize there is no mate fit for him, or for God to put him to sleep and form Eve.
       Jesus said he would return "quickly" or "soon" (see Rev. 22:12, 20); yet if the world is really only 6000 years old, to have waited for nearly 2000 years hardly seems "soon". However, if the world is actually 4.6 billion years old (and the universe 15-20 billion), then 2000 years is hardly any time at all (cf. the analogy made between a day and the history of the universe, where all of recorded human history takes up only the last few seconds).
       The genealogies of Genesis are not likely to be complete and therefore do not function as a chronology. The genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11:10-26 are both lists of ten names, and both end with the final individual having three significant sons. The artificial and selective nature of these genealogies thereby becomes apparent.
       Matthew divides the genealogy of Jesus into three sections, each with fourteen names. His reason for doing this is that the Hebrew name David is written with three letters whose numerical value is fourteen. To get the structure he desires, Matthew left out several names, which can be demonstrated by comparing his genealogy with those given in the Old Testament (for instance Matthew 1:8 and 1 Chronicles 3:10-12). Therefore, it seems reasonable to suspect that the author of Genesis does a similar thing with his genealogies in order to get his ten plus three pattern.
       1 Chronicles 16:14-17 (which parallels Psalm 105:7-10; also cf. Deuteronomy 7:9) states the following:

He is Yahweh our God;
his judgments are in all the earth. He remembers his covenant forever,
the word he commanded, for a thousand generations,
the covenant he made with Abraham,
the oath he swore to Isaac.
He confirmed it to Jacob as a decree,
to Israel as an everlasting covenant:...

       These passages seem to suggest that far more than the twenty generations listed in Genesis 5 and 11 existed between the time of Adam and the time of Abraham. Though it is possible to read "thousand generations" in parallel with "forever" in vs. 15, thereby making "thousand generations" figurative hyperbole, one could just as easily argue that "thousand generations" defines "forever," moving from general to specific (as in the numerical Proverbs [Proverbs 30:15-16, 30:18-19, 30:24-28, 30:29-31]). However, even if "thousand generations" is hyperbolic it still suggests that far more than a mere twenty generations are in view.
       Romans 5:12 is sometimes quoted to show that death could not have existed on Earth prior to Adam's fall. However, it should be pointed out that the passage in Romans is speaking only about human death and that it would be difficult to press it to include the death of any other life forms. Moreover, before the fall it is clear (from Genesis 1:29-30) that at least plants had to die in order to serve as food for people and animals. This is impossible to reconcile if the passage in Romans is pressed to include any more than human beings.
       Creationists also contend that to allow death, suffering and the struggle for survival before Adam's sin is to make God into an ogre, since God repeatedly describes his creation as "very good" in Genesis 1.
       However, in Psalm 136:17-20, where the death of the first born in Egypt and the deaths of Sihon and Og are described, the Psalmist comments that God's "love endures forever." Psalm 116:15 states that "Blessed in the sight of God is the death of his saints." In both these passages we are discussing the deaths of human beings, not lower life forms!
       Genesis 3:22-23 records that Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden in order to prevent them from eating the fruit of the Tree of Life and thereby living forever.
       Why?
       Because death was absolutely necessary if human redemption was ever to occur. If human beings were not to wind up in the hopeless condition of the demons and Satan, they had to be able to die. Only by the Son of God taking upon himself the form of a human being and dying could the race be saved. If Jesus had not been able to die, then the human race would have remained in its sin and been forever irredeemable. (The reason Satan and the demons cannot repent and be saved is simply because Jesus cannot die for their sins; Satan and the demons are immortal: they cannot die.)
       Death can also be seen as a good thing from the standpoint that it limits the damage that the wicked can do. Sooner or later, even a monster like Hitler has to die -- thereby putting an end to his evil.
       It can be demonstrated that death is necessary in order for life to exist at all (animals eat plants, while other organisms consume the dead plants and dead animals, returning nutrients to the soil, making it fertile for the growth of new plants). A question should also be asked: if animals didn't die before Adam's fall, then why do they die after it? Did they sin, too? Why should Adam's sin have an effect on them?

The Complaint of Jacob by R.P. Nettelhorst

       Jacob’s life was not a particularly easy one and his family life, both growing up, and then as an adult was certainly what would fit the modern definition of being “dysfunctional.”
       So, to say the least, Jacob was not at all happy. The one true love of his life was dead. Joseph, his favorite, the oldest son of his beloved, had been dead for twenty-five years. And now Simeon had been taken from him, and this monster in Egypt was demanding the last link he had to his dead lover. Beside himself with grief, we find his reaction in Genesis 42:36 where it all comes down to this:

Their father Jacob said to them, "You have deprived me of my children. Joseph is no more and Simeon is no more, and now you want to take Benjamin. Everything is against me!"

       And certainly it was the case that the circumstances of his life, from his perspective, from the perspective of his sons standing around him, made his complaint fully reasonable and perfectly understandable. And yet, the fascinating thing about his words, for those of us reading the story, is that we know that he couldn’t be more wrong, despite the fact that his words seemed so obviously true to Jacob – unassailably true, in fact. But we the readers of this little episode, know something that Jacob doesn’t: we know that Joseph is not only not dead, but he is second in command in Egypt, the most powerful and most wealthy nation on the planet at that time. We also know that there’s no way for poor Jacob to know that.
       So the reality of Jacob’s existence is that everything could hardly be better. His favorite son has done very well for himself, thank you. Good job, and great future, with money to burn. Poor Jacob simply doesn’t know this yet. His perception, his perspective of reality, is incorrect.
       And we, the readers, can do nothing to alleviate Jacob’s suffering just now. And God didn’t do anything about it either. It’ll be another year before Jacob learns the truth of what his life is really like. For twenty-five years he mourned for someone who was not dead at all. He bemoans his fate as a miserable one, though his family is absolutely powerful and prosperous. But he doesn’t know any of that; in fact, he has no way of knowing any of that.
       September 11, 2001 was thus an exceptionally bad day (to say the least) and raised numerous questions in the minds of many people about the nature of existence, about the goodness of God, about what it is really, that God wants and expects out of all of us. How do we live in a world where this sort of thing can happen? How do we face the crises of life, both small and great? Is there some key to life, some playbook we can get, some list we can follow, some formula we can memorize that will get us through life in one piece, with ourselves and our families living productive and prosperous lives? What does Jacob's complaint tell us about our relationship to God and the world?

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John of the Apocalypse by R.P. Nettelhorst

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