John Walton says, "We should not expect the Bible to answer the questions that arise from our own time and culture. Genesis was written to Israelites and addressed human origins in light of the questions they would have had. We should not try to make modern science out of the information that we are given, but should try to understand the affirmations that the text is making in its own context." (quoted from The Creation of Humankind in the Ancient Near East)
John Walton has focused on writing books (search for "pub" in his faculty page at Wheaton College) instead of web-pages. But there are some pages about his views, written by him and by others.
• The most recent book by John Walton (published June 2009) is The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate.
• book reviews by Word Press and Art Boulet and James McGrath (1 & 2) and T.C. Robinson and ...
• a blog-series about the book has a summary plus comments, for Chapter 1 and (by replacing "...1.html" with "...2.html" and so on) for Chapters 2-13, and later maybe 14-18.
Eventually this page will begin with selected quotes from the pages below, to summarize the main ideas, but until then you can find the ideas for yourself:
• An Outline of Ideas from John Walton written by John Walton, with 4 pages — Genesis 1 as Temple Text in the Context of Ancient Cosmology, Evidences for Function over Structure, Passages evidencing "Old World" Science, Evolution and Christianity (Pie or Cake?) — that was handed out to supplement a talk at Blackhawk Church in Madison, WI.
• Why
didn't God call the light "light"? by John Walton (29 k
paraphrase of sermon, or MP3 audio)
• Genesis and Cosmology by John Walton, urges us to think about the creation of functions rather than "things" because "Genesis One is about God bringing order (functionality) out of disorder (non-functionality)." (slides and audio, 52 minutes + 10 for Q-and-A)
• John Walton's Greatest Hits (Part
1 & Part
2 & Part
3) is a summary, by Mike Beidler, of Walton's ideas about ancient near-eastern
views
of
creation (6 k,
2 k, 4 k)
to see a variety of ideas from other
authors,
TWO CREATIONIST INTERPRETATIONS OF GENESIS 1 — LOGICAL & CHRONOLOGICAL and
CONCORDISM OR ACCOMMODATION IN GENESIS — ANCIENT NEAR-EASTERN COSMOLOGY?