In what I am about to lay out, I will only provide one reference.
All the documentation can be found in the book, Foundation, Fall
and Flood (ISBN 0-9648227-0-9) available from the address below.
About a month ago, Jim Bell and I had a discussion on how the
Genesis account should be interpreted. It was a rather O'Henryish
discussion as Bill Hamilton noted. Here an old-earth evolutionist
was defending a historical view of Genesis and an anti-evolutionist
was arguing for a non-literal interpretation of Genesis. Jim was
the first person to actually ask me how an old-earth/evolutionist
could possibly believe that Genesis was a historical record. For
this I congratulated Jim, because someone finally caught on that I
appeared to be advocating two contradictory views, and suggested
that we postpone the discussion until I was ready to lay out my
entire set of views for inspection.
I know that this is not the normal discussion of science which
we engage in here but let's face it, the view we have of Genesis 1-
11 substantially impacts how we view the science and vice versa.
Jim Bell wrote:
"I didn't think you believed in a literal, 24-hour/7day creation.
If you don't, you don't think Gen. 1 is factual. If you do, please
explain as I don't quite get your position. (Sorry if I've missed
it before. Be patient.)"
Here is how I interpret Genesis.
Genesis 1 Issues
Genesis 1 occurs at the beginning of the universe. These are 6
proclamations God made in laying out the laws of the universe.
They are proclamations only -- not actualizations. Nothing was
completed on these days. Thus these can be events immediately at
the beginning of the universe or just prior to the existence of the
universe. Take Genesis 1:3,4, And God said, 'Let their be light,'
and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he
separated the light from the darkness."(NIV)
Moses reported what God said at the beginning of the universe "Let
there be light" The rest of this passage is Moses' commentary.
Moses reports that sometime after God said this, ligth existed.
This does not say that the light necessarily existed at the moment
God said it. There could have been a time lag. Later God
separated the light from the darkness.
Genesis 1:6 "And God said, 'Let there be an expanse between the
waters to separate water from water.'
Genesis 7 "So God made the expanse and separated the water under
the expanse from the water above it and it was so." (NIV)
Verse 6 is the proclamation. Verses 7 and 8 are the commentary by
Moses that yes indeed this was accomplished. BUT THERE IS NO
REPORTED TIME FRAME IN WHICH THE ACTION WAS COMPLETED!
This last point is very important. There is no explicit time
relationship in any of the Genesis 1 verses between the
proclamation by God and the completion of the event. Today we,
like Moses, can say that it was accomplished. All the
proclamations are completed. But this last statement does not
tell you the time frame in which those were finished.
I know this point has been made by others and by me earlier. A look
at Genesis 1:11 shows that God did not create the plants directly.
Genesis 1:11 "And God said, 'Let the land produce vegetation....'"
The Bible states very clearly that God used a secondary cause to
produce the vegetation. God used the land. I firmly believe that
this implies God used evolution to create the plants. They were
not created as we often teach because the best translations of the
Hebrew state differently than we teach. God commanded the land.
To continue with verse 1:11, "The God said, 'Let the land produce
vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear
fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.' And it
was so."
The second very important point here is that contrary to almost all
Christian exegesis this verse does not teach that the plants were
commanded to reproduce according to their various kinds. The land
was commanded to "produce plants and trees...that bear
fruit...according to their various kinds." This is merely saying
that there were supposed to be various kinds of fruit which is
quite different from saying that fruit could only reproduce fruit
after their kind. There is a big difference between the two.
Genesis 1:21 says "God created the great creatures of the
sea...,according to their kinds." The creatures were created
according to their kind, not reproduced according to their kind.
Once again, a very different situation.
Genesis 1:24 "And God said, 'Let the land produce living creatures
according to their kind." Once again nothing about reproduction
was mentioned. The land produced creatures according to their
kind. This is not the same as saying animals reproduced according
to their time.
Assuming that the translators have remained somewhat faithful to
the Hebrew, the subject/verb relationships here say nothing about
the reproductive abilities of animals.
Thus the Bible is perfectly in accord with the concept of
evolution, i.e. that animals do not have to reproduce according to
their kind. They are free to reproduce anyway they want. They
were not free for the land to produce them anyway they wanted. God
placed a limit on the production of plants and animals. They were
to be produced according to their kinds. Some translations say
various kinds.
Problems escaped from by this Days of Proclamation viewpoint.
1. There is no problem raised by the Genesis account in relation
to the time of creation of the sun/plants or sun and moon/day-
night, or insects after the plants or anything at all. God merely
proclaimed the future existence of these animals and plants in the
order he chose fit. He did not create them necessarily in the
order he proclaimed them.
By this technique a whole host of nasty problems are avoided in
the relation between science and the Bible.
2. By viewing Genesis 1 as a separate event from Genesis 2, there
is no problem with trying to account for why are there two creation
accounts. There are not two creation accounts, there are
descriptions of two separate events. Adam does not have to fit
into the sixth day of Genesis 1. In Genesis 1 that was the
proclamation of man's existence; Genesis 2 was the actualization of
man's existence billions of years after Genesis 1.
Gensis 2 Issues
As I mentioned above, Genesis 2 is a totally separate event
which occurred billions of years after Genesis 1. This voids the
higher criticism objection to the scriptural validity that these
two accounts of creation are the two accounts of two different
peoples who joined to become the Hebrews. I have never found the
JEDP theory satisfactory because it assumes the existence of
documents and traditions for which there is absolutely no evidence.
Sounds like faith to me.
The lay of the land
Genesis 2:5 "Now no shrub of the field was yet in the earth and no
plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not sent
rain upon the earth; and there was no man to cultivate the ground.
But a mist used to rise from the earth and water the whole surface
of the ground." NAS
This verse is often said to support the idea that there was no rain
on earth before the flood. This can not be correct scientifically,
unless the laws of physics were different in the past. As long
as the earth is a sphere, the poles will receive less heat from the
sun than the equator. Because of this, air currents will be
initiated which attempt to equalize the distribution of heat. This
will mean cold and warm fronts and the rainfall associated with
them would have occurred. If one wants to believe that there was
no rain anywhere on earth before the flood, then it is incumbent
upon them to postulate a viable hypothesis which would explain the
lack of rain. The solution to this verse lies with the translation.
I am going to suggest that the hebrew word "eretz" which is
often translated "earth" might more sensibly be translated "land"
through much of Gensis 2-11. If you do that, then the above verse
says there was no rain upon the land and that there was no shrub of
the field in the land. The lack of rain and plants of the field
could imply a desert. The modifyer to plants, 'of the field',
could imply a lack of agricultural plants because of the statement
that there was no man to cultivate the ground --a condition which
was removed a few verses later. It is amazing the difference the
choice of a translated word can make. To extend the lack of
rainfall to the entire earth until the advent of the flood, as
young earth creationists do, seems to be an excessive
extrapolation. "Eretz" can equally be translated "land" or
"country"
There are two areas of the hydrology of Genesis 2 which is
utterly bizarre when compared to present realities. The first is
the mists which used to rise up out of the ground. This implies
artesian type of activity which means that the "land"
(mistranslated earth) was in a topographically low area where
rainfall on the highlands seeped into the ground and emerged from
the ground at a lower elevation.
The second bizarre hydrological situation is the splitting of
the 4 rivers out of Eden. Rivers don't split into 4 except at two
places - a delta, and where a river flows from a steep gradient out
onto a broad plain at a lower level. At the place where the
gradient lessens, the flow is more easily split into numerous
channels. Once again this implies a topographically low area.
I will make a suggestion that the place Genesis 2 is talking
about is the Mediterranean basin when it was emptied 5.5 million
years ago. There are several reasons for this. 1. When it was dry,
there would be very little rainfall on that land. In all
directions it would be in the rain shadow of 15,000 foot tall
mountains. 2. Subterranean water in the rocks of the surrounding
continental sediments (Africa, Asia, and Europe) would ooze out of
the ground along what we now call the continental slope of the
Mediterranean basin, thus explaining the mist. The Nile River
flowing out onto the basin would split into numerous channels much
as the modern rivers in the Kalihari desert do today. 3. All the
minerals described in Gensis 2:10-17 are found in the region I am
describing. 4. This makes an excellent place for the Flood to have
occurred because it fits the Biblical description of the Flood
covering high mountains and provides a mechanism for the massive
rainfall described. As that basin filled with water, the air would
be forced upward. Air, containing any moisture which rises, cools
and condenses to form rain fall.
The origin of man.
This is the tricky place. Everybody says that it is impossible to
account for the origin of Adam and Eve by means of evolution and
yet still have the Biblical account be true. This is false.
People have not put enough effort into solving this problem. Here
is what the evidence says.
The apes have 48 chromosomes; we have 46. If we arose from
the apes, there must have been a chromosomal fusion (there are also
other differences like inversions of certain segments etc). The
biggest piece of evidence in my mind connecting us to the apes is
a) the extreme similarity in DNA (99%) and b) the existence of
pseudogene insertions at the same locations in man, chimp, gorilla
and gibbon. (part of this insertion has been removed in the case of
chimpanzee but enough remains to know that it was there at one
time). Since the pseudogene does not work, it can not be claimed
to be there by the mechanism of common design. Why would the
Designer make the same mistake at the same location in 4 species?
Biblically, it states that God made man from the dust of the
ground, that He breathed the breath of life into the man, and that
the man was alone--no Eve. This would appear to contradict
evolution. God is also descibed as being actively and
supernaturally invovled in the creation of man. And that man's
spirit is somehow different from that of the animals. Is there a
way to put all this together? I believe there is.
Assume that God was ready to create a being who was "made in
His image". During this time, there was among the physical ancestor
of man a very rare mutation -- a chromosomal fusion. But this error
was almost always fatal. God took one of these creatures, a still
born, fixed him, and blew his breath into him. Why do I have God
make Adam in this fashion? Because of what God said when Adam
sinned. If you remember the verse Genesis 3:19 God said, "for dust
you are and to dust you shall return." A dead body is "dust."
Adam came from dust and to dust he now will return.
Thus Adam was created. But Adam was alone. He had not
evolved in the normal fashion and so there was no population of
creatures like him with whom he could mate. He also could not
talk. Adam's physical parent could not talk and so he could not
learn from them. God taught Adam to speak. That is what God was
doing when he brought all the animals to Adam.
In this scenario, it is not necessary for Adam to have been
created as a full grown individual. The language lessons may have
lasted years before Adam finally realized that he needed a mate.
At that time, God created Eve in the fashion described.
This is the only way that I have found to be able to retain a
historical view of Genesis and still account for the biological
evidence which indicates genetic connection with the non-human
primates. While this view is somewhat different, it does not
violate anything that the Bible states. That is the basis upon
which this view shoud be judged.