Let’s dispense with the question of whether or not anything in Genesis 1-2 is historical in the modern sense of the term. Perhaps thousands of pages and thousands of hours have been spent on whether or not, if we could take a video camera back in time, we would eventually see a naked man and a naked woman and a snake trying to give them fruit. Thousands of pages and thousands of hours will be spent before the question is settled to everyone’s satisfaction. In the meantime, let’s agree on this much common ground and work from there: Genesis 1 and 2, which together provide the origin story for the whole Bible, are central to a biblical understanding of what God wanted and wants for adam and what adam’s problem was and is, in the here and now. And, given what the word means, the problem of the guy named adam is also the problem of humankind.

The question of evolution has been passed back and forth endlessly, and it won’t be addressed here. I’ll simply lay out what Genesis says about the relationship of adam to animal. Genesis declares that while adam were created like the animals, adam were made in the image of God and as his agent is to rule over the earth for him, including the other living beings in all three of the habitats God made for his creatures: sea, sky, and, best of all, land. “Let us make adam in our image, according to our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over all the land, and over every crawler that crawls on the land” (Genesis 1:26). The creation of adam in Genesis is not only the creation of a particular guy called Adam, but is the creation of adam as humankind, male and female. Genesis 1:27 is playing with the multiple meanings the word can take on: “So God created the adam in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them.” Genesis 1:28 then commissions adam, male and female, with the task of joint rulership over the earth. “And God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, fill the land and subdue it, and rule over the fish of the sea, the fowl of the air, and every living thing that moves on the land.”

Adam were to “subdue” the land, and to “rule over” the various critters. This was at this point a benign process, not adam against animals but adam over with animals. Both adam and animals, in verses 29-30, are given the seed-bearing plants and fruit trees as sources of food. Adam’s agricultural “subduing” of the land was a process of taking it from a wild state to an orderly one for agricultural reasons. This parallels what God had just done over the past six days, taking the chaotic land and populating it in an orderly manner with plants and animals. Adam, in their calling to subdue the earth, were to act out on a much smaller scale God’s order-bringing activities. And just as God declared himself ruler over adam in a benign and loving manner, so also adam were to were over the animals in a friendly manner.

In short, we have a world at rest: God and adam and animals and plants, all in their proper places, harmoniously living and progressing together from strength to strength. To task to which God and adam are both set is the high calling of work. God does not need to work. Genesis makes it clear that God can speak things into existence. And yet God spends six days in orderly, creative activity, because he is a God who works. Similarly, we will learn shortly that God gave mankind everything he needed in this world. According to some, people must work because we need to survive. They are wrong. We work because working and bringing order and managing things is in the nature that God gave of us. It is a reflection of who he is.

On the seventh day, God rested. This, according to Genesis, is why God hallowed the seventh day, setting up a pattern which would later become law in Israel: life as alternating cycles of work and rest. Just as God worked for six days and then celebrated what he had made once it passed from merely “good” to “very good” with the making of adam, so also the ancient Israelites, for whom Genesis was their origin-story, observed a pattern of working for six days and then enjoying the fruits of their labor and God’s labor on the sixth day.

Why spend nearly one thousand words on Genesis 1, a passage which doesn’t include the word “slavery” even once? Because Genesis 1, and Genesis 2, help set the standard by which we are to judge what is good and compatible with the will of God, and was is bad. In the biblical order of things, we have to have some acquaintance with how things were and ought to be and will be again before we can understand the problem we’re in. And that problem is slavery. We’ll get to it.

Which leads me to what made me write this. A fellow named Logan has started arguing the literalist view of Genesis 1-2 in the comments section of the article in which I first expressed doubts about the historical content of the two chapters. Watch as we try to talk to each other and wind up talking past. The stakes are high, and we’re not even agreed on basic hermeneutical method.

YHWH as Mother -  “The God who creates the humans, who clothes the man and woman as they leave the garden, or who carries them to another land, a land where they will be nourished with milk and honey (the food of newborns), the God who defends children, or who cleans (from sin) – this is a God who does a woman’s work.” I can’t say I agree with this article 100%, but it gives the reader something to think about. {by the way, for all my readers out there who want to know my stand: I believe God is a man. He created man in HIS image – the Bible is very clear on the masculan gender of the Father.}

‘God is a man.’ I’d only seen that statement once before, and it was by a man. Now I’ve heard plenty of people say ‘God is male’ or ‘God is masculine’ (masculan?) but this was new. I thought of three things.

First, there is Numbers 23:19, which tells us, ‘God is not a man.’

Secondly, the Genesis passage does not at all clearly assign God to the masculine gender. As it says in Genesis 1,

God created man in his own image;

in the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them.

It looks clear there that the word ‘man’ is being used inclusively to include both man and woman. Or try Genesis 5, which makes it even clearer,

This is the record of the story of Adam. In the day that God created Adam, he made him in his image. Male and female he created them, and blessed them, and called their name Adam in the day of their creation.

That’s a remarkable phrase: he called their name Adam. This text goes out of its way to ensure that the Adam made in the image of God includes not only the man, but also the woman.

It becomes even more problematic to say ‘God is a man’ when we consider who God is. We are sexual beings, built compatibly for procreation. Maleness and femaleness are necessary if we are to physically reproduce and raise children. Each gender is one half of the creative pattern of mammalian reproduction.

What sense would it make for God to be exclusively male? Why would God, physically or otherwise, be essentially one half of a two-sided pattern of mammalian reproduction? That not only makes him dreadfully incomplete (he has no wife) but to make a pre-existent infinite being have one of two genders puts us all too close to constructing for ourselves a God in human image rather than the reverse.

God is not half of a whole.

These are thoughts still in the process of forming.  Forgive me for thinking them out loud.

For seven years now I have been an odd bird among my peers for insisting on the literal historicity of Genesis 1-11.  I have been able to do this with what has seemed to many a strange lack of attachment to the creation/evolution arguments over what science is and what it tells us about creation.

This is because of my belief in the message of scripture.  I have been and continue to be fully convinced that what God is telling us in scripture is true, regardless of what anyone, including an entire public school system and the vast majority of the scientists at almost all non-confessional institutions, should say to the contrary.

For me the question comes down to one simple question: what is the author of Genesis trying to communicate in those first two chapters? I was raised believing that the text was telling us exactly what it seemed to be telling us: that the world was created in six days, that a man and a woman were created and placed in a garden, and that they then lived, as folks did in those days, nearly a thousand years.

Early in my life (before age 5) I heard of evolutionists, but dismissed them as contradicting the Bible. My experience later in life seemed to back up my initial reaction, as every evolutionist I ever discussed these matters with was either an unbeliever who scoffed at the Bible in general, or a Christian who could not articulate why he chose science over scripture.

I read widely from a very young age, loads and loads of literature from the works of young-earth creations, and a great many anti-creationist works by non-Christians. I even read a few books by Christians who taught against a literal understanding of Genesis, including Hugh Ross’s Creation and Time. His work struck me, and still strikes me, as an absurd attempt to harmonize modern scientific findings and ancient text. In his attempt he does violence to both. Other works by Christians who urged surrender to biologists generally said insipid things like, “The Bible isn’t a science textbook,” as though that would explain why God misunderstood his own world, or “God was writing to primitive people,” as though God couldn’t have communicated his love and guidance to ancient people without peppering his speech with bold-faced lies.

Uninterested in anti-biblical talk of any kind and embarrassed by fellow Christians who so easily sold out the Bible for acceptability, I persevered on as a six-day creationist. I never hesitated during this time period to admit that there were plenty of things I couldn’t explain as a creationist, such as why all the marsupials wound up in Australia, why our DNA appears to created for the sort of evolution we observe happening quickly among viruses and more slowly among dogs and radishes and fishes, and a number of other such things.

I could, of course, point to a number of things that I think atheistic evolution cannot explain, such as how what appear to be irreducibly complex systems emerged, or how abiogenesis could possibly occur despite there being no credible mechanism proposed for it by any scientist anywhere. And so, realizing that to my eyes the data appeared mixed, I sided with God’s word, because that is what I believe most firmly.

I was puzzled and a bit disturbed by certain things observed in the natural world, especially things that seemed to point toward evolutionary processes. I was willing to admit that I did not reject evolution because of any scientific evidence, but because I simply accept God’s word. I told people on multiple occasions that if I were ever to be convinced of anything other than literal six-day creationism, I would have first be convinced that the Genesis text was not preaching literal six-day creationism. What scientists thought was and continues to be a side issue.

I took a class on ancient Mesopotamian and Egyptian mythology, and by reading translations of ancient myths got a feel for how Abraham’s birthplace and Moses’ birthplace treated stories. It appeared that stories, even stories that were tremendously important, were passed down in a much more highly creative way than I would have ever imagined. Stories were tweaked and improved upon and altered over time. In some stories, the major parts of the story would stay the same, but the transmitters of the story would rework and combine stories, developing them in such a way that it seemed clear that these Ancient Near Easterners, who looked to stories to explain the world, did not see those stories as anything resembling what we would call history.

And most notably, there were no warning tags on any of the works, nothing like, “This is a metaphor,” or “This is historical,” or “This is something I modified.” The audience was just expected to figure that stuff out, or else the writers/readers made it clear verbally.

Both civilizations seemed to have existed about as early as 3000 B.C. That just seemed to be pretty clear, although it’s about 700 years too early for any post-flood people according to the genealogies of Genesis.

The genealogies of Genesis, oddly enough, had their own counterparts, including some mythologies which so closely paralleled them that they contained ten kings living much longer periods of time. The dates and names given varied significantly, as though it was the general story of long-lived pre-flood demigods that mattered, not the details. It rather reminded of how we vary details when we retell stories from our own lives. We may try not to, but we constantly catch ourselves and others doing it.

But none of this got to me. After all, we could not trust the writings of pagans above the Bible. I became convinced, however, that the Biblical accounts of both creation, the genealogies, and the flood were carefully crafted “answers” to the pagan equivalents, playing up God, playing down all other heavenly beings, and making the components of nature created things rather than creative forces. Nevertheless, I continued to be quite certain that in addition to being an alternate story deliberately created to counter the other myths, the Genesis accounts were also real history.

The genealogies remind me of something else: the massive variations that occur in dates between Josephus, the Septuagint, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Masoretic Text. It is clear to anyone who compares the dates that the changes we are dealing with in the dates are not random errors, but rather contain clear evidence of systematic alteration.

Now, it is clear beyond a shadow of a doubt that all four (Josephus, Samaritans, Jews, and the Jews and Christians passing down the Septuagint) considered the stories in the text to be of utmost importance. No group felt the liberty to do any serious rewriting of Genesis, and yet it would seem that it also seems that these same groups felt pretty comfortable changing dates. If so, we learn two things. Firstly, that the oldest caretakers of the scripture that we know of seemed to regard the dates as important enough to pass on, while flexible enough to alter at will. And yet there appears to be no reason for people so careful to pass down texts by painstaking copying to engage in such seemingly petty fraud. This is not the way historians behave. This is not the way historical documents are treated.

There are, I am certain, a vast number of other related issues that must be discussed eventually. But I’ll move this toward a conclusion.

I was looking just hours ago through Genesis 2, proofreading the World English Bible translation, when suddenly a verse hit me with such force that I do not think it could have been much clearer if God himself had read it aloud.

No wild plant of the field was yet on the earth, and no cultivated grains of the field had yet sprouted, because יהוה God had not yet produced rain on the earth, and because there was no man to till the ground.

I can try as hard as I can, but I simply cannot reconcile this verse in the second version of creation with the account in Genesis 1.  In Genesis 1, plants simply do not wait on mankind and rain.  They are all created by God not only before mankind, but even before there was sun.

Yes, I’m sure there’s some mental gymnastics I could go through to make everything work.

But I can only maintain the six days as historical truth if I can find some way to effectively deny Genesis 2:5.  And I am not willing to manipulate God’s words into saying something they do not say to fit them around a set framework.

After all, my unwillingness to manipulate God’s word to make it say what I want to say is exactly what made me a young-earth creationist for my entire life.

I don’t know where exactly to go from here.  This is not me accepting some alternate scheme.  This is not even me accepting evolutionary theory.

There’s far too many things I need to think through before I can say one way or another how scripture and creation work.  But I cannot escape what seems to be clear from the biblical text itself:  that the first two chapters of Genesis simply do not describe a single, unified and literally historical story.

I do not know exactly where to go from this.

But I am confident of this:  that my belief in God, his Son, his People, and his Writings is secure.  My understanding of his books may be subject to change, but that is nothing more than me expressing my puzzlement at his ways.  Even when he says things that make me extremely uncomfortable.

To God be all glory, honor, and praise forever.  Amen.

In the beginning God created
the heavens and the earth
and the earth was formless and void
and darkness on the face of the abyss, and the spirit
of God hovering upon the face
of the waters, and God said, Let there be
light, and there was light, and God saw
the light, that it was good, and divided
God between the light and
the darkness, and God called
the light Day, and the darkness he called
Night, and there was evening, and there was morning,
day one.
And God said, Let there be an expanse
in the midst of the waters, and let it divide
the waters from the waters. And made
God the firmament and divided
between the waters which were under
the firmament and the waters which were
above the firmament. And it was so.
And God called the firmament
heaven, and there was evening, and there was morning
the second day.
And God said, let the waters be gathered together
under the firmament to a place,
one [place], and let dry land appear. And it was
so. And God called the dry land

[END OF COLUMN]

1:24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind, cattle, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth after their kind: and it was so. 1:25 And God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the ground after its kind: and God saw that it was good. 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 1:27 And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 1:28 And God blessed them: and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. 1:29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for food: 1:30 and to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the heavens, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for food: and it was so. 1:31 And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

WEB Genesis 1:24-31

1:24 God said, “Let the earth produce living creatures after their kind, livestock, creeping things, and animals of the earth after their kind”; and it was so. 1:25 God made the animals of the earth after their kind, and the livestock after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind. God saw that it was good.

1:26 God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 1:27 God created man in his own image. In God’s image he created him; male and female he created them. 1:28 God blessed them. God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 1:29 God said, “Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree, which bears fruit yielding seed. It will be your food. 1:30 To every animal of the earth, and to every bird of the sky, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food”; and it was so.

1:31 God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. There was evening and there was morning, a sixth day.

V24, etc. Change archaic “after . . . kind” to “according to . . . kind”.
V26.  Change archaic “dominion” to “rulership”
V28.  The ASV “creepeth” has been changed to the WEB “moves.” This is not in keeping with the WEB’s practice throughout this chapter of retaining the word “creep” and its variants as is. So for the sake of consistency this text reverts to “creeps.”
V29.  Changed awkward “tree, which bears fruit yielding seed” to “tree with seed-bearing fruit”.
V31.  The WEB errs in changing the ASV’s “the sixth day” to “a sixth day.” The ASV correctly translates the phrase, which distinguishes in Hebrew “the sixth day” from “a fifth day,” “a fourth day,” etc.

New Genesis 1:24-31

24 God said, “Let the earth produce living creatures according to their kind: livestock, creeping things, and animals of the earth according to their kind.” And it was so. 25 And God made the animals of the earth according to their kind, and the livestock according to their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground according to their kind. And God saw that it was good. 26 God said, “Let us make Man in our image, according to our likeness. And let them have rulership over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 God created Man in his own image; in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it. Have rulership over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that creeps on the earth.” 29 God said, “See, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree with seed-bearing fruit. It is to be your food. 30 To every animal of the earth, and to every bird of the sky, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food.” And it was so. 31 God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. There was evening and there was morning: the sixth day.

1:20 And God said, Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. 1:21 And God created the great sea-monsters, and every living creature that moveth, wherewith the waters swarmed, after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind: and God saw that it was good. 1:22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth. 1:23 And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.

WEB Genesis 1:20-23

1:20 God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of sky.” 1:21 God created the large sea creatures, and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed, after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind. God saw that it was good. 1:22 God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 1:23 There was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.

21: Add a footnote on the Hebrew taninim. Change archaic “after their kind” to “according to their kind,” etc.

New Genesis 1:20-23

20 God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of sky.” 21 God created the large sea creatures*, and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23 And there was evening and there was morning: a fifth day.

*(v21): The Hebrew word translated “sea creatures” is of debated meaning.

1:14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years: 1:15 and let them be for lights in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. 1:16 And God made the two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. 1:17 And God set them in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth, 1:18 and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. 1:19 And there was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.

WEB Genesis 1:14-19

1:14 God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of sky to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years; 1:15 and let them be for lights in the expanse of sky to give light on the earth”; and it was so. 1:16 God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He also made the stars. 1:17 God set them in the expanse of sky to give light to the earth, 1:18 and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. God saw that it was good. 1:19 There was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.

V16: I’m going to retranslate “He also made the stars” to the more literal (and succint) “and the stars,” just to stick closer to the original Hebrew. Other than the punctuation problems, there’s nothing for me to criticize here.

New Genesis 1:14-19

14 God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of sky to divide the day from the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years, 15 and let them be for lights in the expanse of sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night, and the stars. 17 God set them in the expanse of sky to give light on the earth, 18 and to rule over the day and the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 There was evening and there was morning: a fourth day.

ASV Genesis 1:9-13

1:9 And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. 1:10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. 1:11 And God said, Let the earth put forth grass, herbs yielding seed, and fruit-trees bearing fruit after their kind, wherein is the seed thereof, upon the earth: and it was so. 1:12 And the earth brought forth grass, herbs yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit, wherein is the seed thereof, after their kind: and God saw that it was good. 1:13 And there was evening and there was morning, a third day.

WEB Genesis 1:9-13

1:9 God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together to one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so. 1:10 God called the dry land “earth,” and the gathering together of the waters he called “seas.” God saw that it was good. 1:11 God said, “Let the earth yield grass, herbs yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit after their kind, with its seed in it, on the earth”; and it was so. 1:12 The earth yielded grass, herbs yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit, with its seed in it, after their kind; and God saw that it was good. 1:13 There was evening and there was morning, a third day.

V10: “the gathering together of the waters” could be expressed more conveniently as “the waters gathered together” without any loss of meaning. V11: Why not update “put forth grass” as “produce grass” rather than “yield grass”? That way the sentence is less repetitive. The phrase “after their kind” could stand to be updated to the more modern (though admittedly still unwieldy) “according to their kind.”

New Genesis 1:9-13

9 God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together to one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry land Earth, and the waters gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. 11 And God said, “Let the earth produce grass, herbs yielding seed, and fruit trees producing seed-bearing fruit according to their kind, on the earth. And it was so. 12 The earth produced grass, herbs yielding seek according to their kind, and trees producing seed-bearing fruit according to their kind. And God saw that it was good. 13 There was evening and there was morning: a third day.

*[Update:  changed the wording of verse 11 from "fruit trees bearing fruit according to their kind, with its seed in it" to "fruit trees producing seed-bearing fruit according to their kind."  Changed the wording of verse 12 "trees bearing fruit, with its seed in it, according to their kind" to "trees producing seed-bearing fruit according to their kind."  10/25/09]