Introductory matters: When I started the TTWB series back in 2012 (https://doughibbard.blogspot.com/2012/01/through-whole-bible-genesis-1.html) I had a plan to finish this far sooner. Across the years some of my points of view have shifted and the other thing that happened was the style of these posts became more stable. I used four categories, tried to keep it under 1000 words, and went from there. As I rework these, I’ll primarily be reformatting the older posts. If I have changed point-of-view on something, I’ll note that as well. That being said, on to “Through the Whole Bible: Relaunched and Landed”.
In Summary: Grab your Bibles and take a look at Genesis 1. This is where the revelation of God’s Word begins in the Christian tradition. We see a summarized version of the way in which God created all things. Genesis 1:1 is probably in the Top Ten of Famous Bible Verses, and it’s pretty straightforward in translation: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” is about the only way to put it and pass your Hebrew test. There are some suggestion that add additional prepositions or qualifiers, but it’s really not necessary.
The rest of Genesis 1 spells out the first six days of Creation. I say “first six days” because I think we do a disservice to the narrative and the rhythms God has given us by excluding the Seventh Day. Taking a Sabbath is not an option and not the result of the Fall. It’s part of Creation.
The rest of the chapter summarizes with different days in which God created. While these were not really heavily debated until the last couple of hundred years, these days there are some serious disagreements about whether each of these days is a literal 24 hours or symbolic of something other.
On the one hand, the language is more narrative than poetry, suggesting the labels are not symbolic. However, practically, you do not see the Sun created until the Fourth Day, so how one marked the hours would have to be different. That’s why there are several theories that attempt to take the text seriously while also explaining the meaning.
I will simply assert here that the core of the text is this: all of Creation was made by the One True God. Most of the cultures surrounding the Hebrew people at the time of Moses (and any later editors) would have attributed creative acts to a variety of gods, goddesses, demigods, and so forth. This text counters those ideas and sets forth one Creator God responsible for an all-good Creation.
In Focus: The focal point I would make here is that God’s Creation was good from the beginning. There were no flaws within it, including in the people that are made on the Sixth Day. There is a tendency to see the world as it is now and assume it has always been wrong, broken, out-of-whack. But it was created “good” and ultimately evaluated as “very good.” When God works, He works well.
In Practice: What do we do with this, practically? First, if what God had made was very good, then God’s redemption will bring it back to very good. Our future hope is not something totally alien to this idea, but instead this is our future hope. Restoration of all things. Second, if God’s work was very good in the beginning, then part of our work as His people is the restoration of that goodness in our time. We cannot remake all the world, nor can we get it quite as perfect. However, we can spend our effort and energy bringing restoration. It’s one of the ways we proclaim God’s Kingdom Good News, by living in God’s goodness. There does not have to be a gap between “sharing the Gospel” and “practicing Kingdom restoration.” We do both.
In Nerdiness: Mercy, there are a lot of nerd-points to hit here. First, we see hints of major doctrine even in the first verse. The word for “God” is plural in the Hebrew, but we refer to it as “plural of divine majesty,” communicating the idea that God exceeds normal language barriers. Then we have questions like those raised in John Walton’s The Lost World of Genesis One (and follow-up works) about whether or not the Creation Days are symbolic of God ordering the visible world into His temple.
The last bit of Nerdiness here is a look ahead: Genesis 1:26-27 gives a summary of God’s creation of humanity. We’ll pick up more detail on that in Genesis 2, because that’s where the mechanism chosen comes up. But it should be noted that God is referenced as creating “male and female” in God’s own image. One thing this tells us plainly: Male and Female are both in the image of God. This also suggests that, while Male pronouns are used for God, the reality of God most likely is beyond our categories of male and female. It also tells us that a male-only situation, or a female-only situation, does not capture the full imago Dei. We need each other.