The Primacy of Story: Creation

Let’s just get this out of the way right at the start: I don’t believe in six literal days. There are several reasons, which I’m not prepared to expound on. I will say this: if time wasn’t created until day four with the coming of the sun and moon then how would one measure 24 hour days? Ready for another bombshell: I don’t necessarily believe that Creation happened exactly like it says. I know, I know, burn him at the stake and all that. Let me explain this one because it has probably ruffled more feathers. 

Down through antiquity every major civilization has had a story of how the world came into being. A quick search on Wikipedia or Google will confirm this. The Israelites were no different. These ancient creation stories from every culture were passed down orally, not written down for generations afterward, many bearing striking similarities to those in Genesis. Archaeology has proved this tie and again. As these stories are passed down differences arise in the telling from generation to generation (think of the game “Telephone” that you used to play in elementary school; now extend it over several thousand years). Somewhere down the line a dust-covered Jewish scribe breaks out his Macbook and starts getting the story down into written form. Here you are now, sitting in your Barcalounger, with Jiffy Pop and a Jones soda, reading a leather bound translation of what a nomadic scribe wrote down several millenia ago. Ever wonder why there are two different accounts of Creation, one poetic (Genesis 1) and one narrative (Genesis 2)? Could it be that the author(s) were trying to do something other than just tell a story, perhaps even tell a story beyond the story? A poem is based on rhythm and structure. Though most translations turn Genesis 1 into a narrative structure, the original Hebrew is poetic. Hebrew poetry is uses repetition of lines and phrases to emphasize important ideas. Look at the phrases found in Genesis 1: 

And there was evening and there was morning

It was good

And God said

There are many levels of meaning present here that space will not allow me to go into. What the author wants us to see is that Creation--and all of life--is founded on rhythm. There is a driving beat at the heart of the Universe, carrying forward through history everything that is, like a celestial drummer (or that drummer from Def Leppard that only has one arm but blows up the drums anyway) pounding out the 4/4 time that pushes a song to its inevitable conclusion. Think about the rhythms of creation: four seasons every year; your heart, your breathing, your waking and sleeping; “nine planets around the sun repeat” (with apologies to Dave Matthews Band); 24 hour days; a sunrise and sunset everyday; the tides; birth and death. On and on the rhythms go. Gd even establishes in the 7 day creation a day of rest: six days of work, one day of rest. 6 and 1… 6 and 1… 6 and 1…

When we argue over six literal days we miss all of this. We miss the great truth that all of creation is rhythmic and our lives become full of chaos when we step outside that rhythm. Wonder why your life feels so chaotic? Check your rhythm with the rhythm God established.

There is more, much more to be found in Genesis 1 alone, much less Genesis as a whole. Are you missing the forest for the trees? Are you missing the story beyond the story? That’s why I don’t worry about six literal days, or how creation went down: it isn’t what’s most important here. What the story says about my story and our story is what is important. 

Switch gears now. Where does science factor into all of this? Despite what Ken Ham says, I’m not sure the Bible tries to give answers to the dinosaurs and all of that (I know, I know, Behemoth and Leviathan; but could they have just been really big animals such as an elephant or something? Either way, it isn’t definitive proof, no matter what the Creation Museum says). By remaining vague, Genesis leaves ample room for scientific theory and/or fact. If a “day” is not meant as a 24 hour period, then could it carry billions or years within those three letters? Faith and science need not be exclusive, nor, do I believe, do they need each other to survive. Many people fight against science, evolution and the like because they are terrified that science will prove their faith a fraud. So they ignorantly deny science as “out to get them,” when nothing could be further from the truth. Our faith is based on Jesus Christ crucified and risen, not on our view of Creation (or anything else, for that matter). The power of the Creation story lies, not in its literal fact, but in its story of rhythm, of rest, of a God who creates for relationship, and that that relationship has a rhythm of its own which must be maintained if we are to live fully and completely human lives. 

shalom, matt