Forgive me for posting such a long quotation, but it really seems
appropriate for the present discussion. The following excerpt is from
Clouser, Roy A., "Genesis on the Origin of the Human Race"
Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith
Volume 43, Number 1, March 1991
If you were asked to write a book report on the
Bible which had to start with a short sentence stat-
ing the main theme of the whole book, what would
you write? How one answers this question makes
an enormous difference to the interpretation of
Scripture. It is our assumption as to the nature of
the whole Bible, which determines how we are in-
clined to interpret its parts. Of course, one can only
garner an idea of the whole from reading all the
parts, so these two mutually influence one another.
But there are numerous indications within Scrip-
ture itself and within the whole Judeo-Christian
tradition which I believe make the nature of the
whole clear: the central theme of the entire canon
is that of covenant, It is that, after all, which is the
proper title of the book; "Testament" is our trans-
lation of the Hebrew and Greek words for
"covenant". What we have in
Scripture is the record of the main editions of the
covenant God made with mankind: the editions
with Adam, with Noah, with Abraham, with Moses,
with David, and finally, with Christ. In each new
edition there are additions and changes from the
earlier editions, but these serve to develop the central
covenantal themes which remain constant
throughout.
Seen in this way, Scripture must be understood
as having an essentially religious character. It is the
inspired record of the covenant offered to mankind
by the real Creator. It teaches truth about the
covenant maker, God, and the covenant receiver,
humans, and is centrally concerned with how the
covenant receivers are to stand in proper relation
to the covenant maker. Everything it teaches is
governed by this purpose. So whether it records
parts of history, or includes poetry, states
genealogies, or speaks of the end of the world, its
governing purpose remains that of teaching us how
to stand in proper relation to the only true divinity,
Yahweh.
In the previous paragraph, I briefly alluded to
Scripture as the inspired word of God. This is of
crucial importance to every Christian since it is by
having an inspired record of the covenant that it is
transmitted to mankind. Scripture is and always
will be the primary source of the content of our
Faith, and it is its message that is experienced by
every believer as the truth from God about God.
As Calvin once put it:
As to the question "how shall we be persuaded that
[Scripture] came from God ... ?' it is the same as if we were
asked, "how shall we learn to distinguish light from dark-
ness, white from black, sweet from bitter?" Scripture bears
upon the face of it as clear evidence of its truth as white
and black do of their color, sweet and bitter of their taste.
(Institutes 1, 7, 2.)
But having such an inspired record also carries
with it a great temptation. The temptation goes like
this: since God's covenant is inspired and preserved
by Him, why not use it as a short cut way of find-
ing out other things we want to know? We have
questions about prehistory, biology, geology,
astronomy, economics, etc. And these questions are
ones there is no way -- or no easy way -- for us to
answer. But suppose there are statements or hints
about these matters in Scripture. Wouldn't these
also have to be infallibly true? In fact, even if there
are ways for us to investigate questions on non-
religious matters, shouldn't a believer at least start
by canvassing Scripture to see what it says on any
given topic?
I call succumbing to this temptation the "en-
cyclopedic assumption." It results from regarding
the Bible as an encyclopedia in which we may look
for an answer to any sort of question we may have.
The encyclopedic assumption may not go so far as
to think that the answer to every question is in Scrip-
ture, but it does suppose Scripture to contain answers
to all sorts of nonreligious questions. It ignores the
Bible's own central theme and purpose, and instead
of trying to ascertain the literal meaning of the text
(where "literal" means the intent of the author), it
tries to force the text to yield truths about matters
which never crossed the minds of its author(s). This
temptation has not been resisted successfully in the
whole history of biblical interpretation. The Jewish
Cabala, and the Talmudic attempts to extend general
ethical principles into a vast set of rules for every
conceivable circumstance, are examples of this as-
sumption at work. So is the Canon Law of the
Church developed throughout the middle ages, and
so are the more recent attempts to obtain scientific
truth from Scripture.
At this point I want to emphasize that my ob-
jection to the encyclopedic assumption is not an ex-
ceptional hermeneutical point made especially for
Scripture. Rather, it is a general point that applies
to every text whatever. To interpret a text proper-
ly, we must understand as much as possible not
only about its language, cultural setting, historical
circumstances, and literary form, but also about the
questions and concerns its author is addressing. It
is the author's intents and concerns that must guide
how we interpret any text, whether it be a novel,
poetry, a,textbook, a training manual, or sacred
Scripture. Thus it is never proper for us to assume
that because we have a burning question or problem,
that an author of Scripture (or any other book) must
also have had it. Still less is it proper for us to as-
sume that if we have a burning question God must
have revealed an answer to it. The inspiration and
preservation of Scripture are in order to vouchsafe
to us the covenant of God, not to save us the time
and effort of investigating the creation to find the
answers to our questions. Scripture is not a shortcut
on scientific work.'
The Genesis Account
Following what has been said above, I contend
that the creation account of Genesis should be un-
derstood-along with everything else in Scripture-
as focally concerned with religion; that is, with the
covenant by which we stand in proper relation to
the only gethe only genuine divinity: God. Genesis' creation
account cannot be correctly understood apart from
its role as background to the editions of God's
covenants with Adam, Noah, and Abraham which
follow it. And these covenants themselves must be
seen, in turn, as supplying background to the
covenant with Moses.
Viewed as prologue to the covenant(s), the main
purpose of the first part of the creation account is
plainly to identify the covenant-maker. It distin-
guishes the God of Israel from the gods of Paganism
by proclaiming Him to be the creator of everything
other than Himself. It does not intend to tell us
what we would have seen could we have been there
to observe the universe in its early stages. This is
evident from the way the text itself places its em-
phasis. In every case, it stresses God's total control,
repeating again and again that everything comes
about by His command. Before each creative episode
we find, "And God said, 'Let there be .... ' " At the
same time the text shows little or no concern with
the processes that were set in motion, or with how
long they took. All the text says about what an ob-
server would have seen is the repeated expression,
"And it was so."
If we press our examination of Genesis' account
to include its literary structure, then the text looks
even less like an encyclopedia, even less like an at-
tempt to provide scientific information. For example,
it speaks of "days" of creation as follows: Day 1:
God separates light from darkness; Day 2: God
separates sea from atmosphere; Day 3: God separates
land from sea and creates plant life; Day 4: God
creates sun, moon, and stars; Day 5: God creates
sea life and birds; Day 6: God creates animals and
humans. There is an obvious correspondence here
between days 1, 2, and 3, with days 4, 5, and 6.
Day 1 speaks of the difference between light and
darkness as the plan which forms the precondition
for the appearance of the sun, moon and stars on
day 4. Day 2 offers the separation of atmosphere
from sea as the precondition for the purpose of the
creation of sea life and birds on day 5. And the for-
mation of dry land and plants on day 3, is the
precondition for the creation of animals and humans
formed on day 6. This match-up of the first three
days with the last three days seems to be too
prominent a feature of the account to have been ac-
cidental. But if it was not accidental, then it shows
something very important. It shows that the inten-
tion of the text was to reveal a teleological order to
the process of creation, which is not at all the same
as either a scientific explanation or a description of
what an observer would have seen.
For this reason, it is improper to raise such ques-
tions as whether the creative days are literal 24-
hour periods or geological eras. They represent
episodes of divine creativity which are stated in a
literary framework which provides an account of
the teleological order involved rather than the chron-
ological or causal orders involved. By centering its
attention on God's purposes, it is clear that the in-
tent of the text is to teach truths about God rather
than to answer questions about the early stages of
the universe or the earth. Its main burden is to con-
vey that there is no blind chance or fate involved
in the origin of the universe, and to deny that God
was limited by any other force or by the material
he had to work with. The purposes are God's, as
was the accomplishment of those purposes. But the
text shows not the slightest hint of any concern
with the processes by which God accomplished His
purposes, or with how long the accomplishing took.
This stress on everything being subjected to God's
control and purpose becomes more detailed as the
account goes on. We are told that God's purpose
for creating the universe was to create humans, and
His purpose for creating humans was to enter into
a covenant of love and fellowship with them. The
main features of the prehistoric covenants with
Adam and Noah are sketched so as to show how
they led to the covenant with Abraham. And the
main features of the covenant with Abraham are
filled in so as to show that the Sinaitic covenant
with Moses is a continuation of the covenant with
Abraham. Viewed from the standpoint of its own
internal organization and themes, therefore, there
is simply no excuse for reading Genesis' creation
account in isolation from what follows it. Nor is
there any excuse for missing its teleological rather
than chronological organization, or for overlooking
its religious character as preamble to the history of
the covenants. It is simply religious through and
through, and attempting to read it so as to satisfy
scientific curiousity is a blatant distortion which
obscures its religious significance.
In sum, an examination of the biblical text shows
that the Fundamentalist approach is one which at-
tempts to force the text to address the questions
and concerns of fundamentalists, rather than one
which allows the text to tell us what its concerns
and questions are. The concerns of the text are,
Generally stated, these: Which is the true God? How,
in general, does the universe relate to Him? How,
more specifically, do humans come to stand in right
relation to Him? The text is not at all concerned
with such questions as: By what processes was the
earth formed? How long did that formation take?
How old is the human race? By what natural proces-
ses did humans first appear on earth? The upshot,
then, is that what Genesis offers is a birth an-
nouncement of the universe, especially of mankind.
Moreover, it is a birth announcement which contains
revelation of its Father's redemptive purposes.
While I acknowledge that Randy may be right and those of us who accept an
ancient earth and common descent as consistent with Scripture may be wrong,
the implicit assumption (in other of Randy's posts) that EC's and TE's
don't care about reading Scripture rightly is misguided. Clouser (and many
others who agree with him) has at least as many concerns about your
approach as you do about his.
Bill Hamilton
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William E. Hamilton, Jr., Ph.D.
1346 W. Fairview Lane
Rochester, MI 48306
(810) 652 4148