Genesis; Literal or Not

On the surface most evangelical Christians will agree that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God. However, it might be interesting to examine the validity of this claim based on their deep seeded ideas, philosophies, and beliefs. As a matter of fact, it would behoove us all to measure our beliefs against scripture from time to time if not continually. Many Christians today seem to have a problem with a literal translation of God’s word. With this in mind, it is easy to see how so many devout Christians have come to embrace the ideas & philosophies of our culture without understanding the ramifications of their beliefs with respect to God’s Word.

Recent surveys indicate less than ten percent of protestant Christians have a biblical worldview. While there are many worldview classifications lets just look at two basic world views. One view is that all things come from matter and have evolved into what we see today (Materialism). The other view is that God revealed the truth to us in scripture and sin is the cause of what we see today (Christian Theism). Many Christians have compromised the latter in order to accept what they believe to be the “facts” of the former.

Here I just want to deal with those who argue for a “non-literal” translation of Genesis as a way to sooth the conflict between man’s ideas concerning the origin of the universe and the inspired Word of God.

Genesis “IS” Literal

The dictionary definition of literal is: “following the words of the original very closely and exactly:” (not figuratively or metaphorically). If you love to read, it is doubtful you have difficulty figuring out whether the writer is being literal or not. If you read, "the clouds lay against the sky like velvet”, you don’t assume that if you could actually feel those clouds they would feel like velvet. If you read, “Jesus is knocking on the door of your heart”, you don’t believe there is literally a little door on your heart being knocked upon. A good writer makes a clear distinction between the literal and the figurative use of language. Shouldn’t we expect that an all powerful God would be able to do the same? Of course, the Bible is quite clear when it uses language that is not meant to be taken literally even when the message is taken literally. The problem is that Genesis (chapters 1-11 being the focus of most "non-literal" reinterpretations) does not lend itself to anything but a straight literal translation. When the attempt is made to translate literal scripture figuratively or metaphorically many will find themselves trapped either by their own logic (what they might define as their “common sense”) or by the contradictions they themselves create in scripture or both. Keeping this in mind let us look at some examples.

A Day is A Day

In order to allow scripture to accommodate the ideas and philosophies of man (antiquity of the earth and evolutionary theory) many have tried to alter the interpretation of what a day means in the Hebrew language by making it synonymous with eons of time in Genesis 1. This is often called “Day Age Theory”. Day in Hebrew is “Yom” and as with any word it can have more than one meaning. The trick, as with all language, is to understand the context. If we say, “back in the day of the Judges” we all understand the word day to mean a period of time. If we read, “Jesus preached all day”, we would understand that to mean some large portion of or all the daylight hours of a day. If we read that Joshua marched around Jericho once a day for 6 days we understand those to be normal 24 hour days.

If we look at the days in Genesis 1 and use what is normally understood as a proper exegesis, it cannot be interpreted any other way than as a 24 hour day. As a matter of fact, you might say God was extremely adimate about it, simple because of the repetitive language used at the end of the each day of creation. At the close of each day scripture says, “…the evening and the morning were the (insert #) day”. This phrase is repeated at the end of all six days of creation. Outside of our desire to allow for man’s theories there is no reason to understand these as anything other than normal days. It is almost, if not entirely, impossible to write the word day in conjunction with evening, morning, or a number and have it mean anything else. Nowhere else in the OT is day used with evening, morning or a number, where it is not clearly understood as a normal day. God used all three of these “helping words” at the end of each day of creation. It’s as if God was being overly obvious in an attempt to help those who might wish to use their “common sense” to make this something other than a normal day.

As mentioned earlier, these reinterpretations of the creation story cause real conflicts with other scriptures. For example, if the word day in Gen. 1 can be reinterpreted to mean thousands or millions of years, then Exodus 20:11 doesn’t make any sense, “For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hollowed it.” If we don’t read the days of Genesis 1 as literal, then how could we understand this scripture? Many other scriptures clearly state the seventh day is a normal day and to be given over to the Lord. It is this understanding of the 6 days of creation followed by the 7th day of rest that gives us our week.

Adam, One Man

In order to allow scripture to accommodate the ideas and philosophies of man many have tried to alter the interpretation of the word “Adam”. In the Hebrew language, Adam can mean a human being or it can refer to mankind. As stated before, most all words have more than one meaning. However, this fact does not mean we get to assign whatever meaning we wish to a word. It must be understood within the context of the language. Just look at the word “man” in English. If I say, “look at that man in the white shirt”, you know I mean a specific person even if there are 100’s of men running around in white shirts. If I say, “we are studying the history of man in my next class”, you understand the class is not tracing the history of one man but of mankind in general. The same goes for the word man and the name Adam in Genesis. Gen. 2:15 states, “God took THE man and put him in the Garden of Eden…” This is clearly indicating one person or the scripture would read “God took man and…” In vs. 18 God said, “It was not good for man to be alone…” He is not speaking specifically of Adam but of all men. He knew we would need a companion. In verse 23 it states, “And Adam said…”, this is clearly one person talking otherwise all of mankind would have had to awaken at the same time and all make the same statement. That would be ridiculous!

Again, these reinterpretations create problems with other scriptures. Romans 5:12-14 clearly refers to sin coming into the world through “one man” and that man is referred to by name as Adam.

Even in our age of relativism one still means one.

Adam is referred to in Luke 3:38 where Seth is noted as the son of Adam, clearly one man fathered Seth not all mankind. The genealogies that tie together Adam, Noah, Abraham, David and Jesus make it impossible to interpret Adam as anything other than an individual man. If Adam was just a representation of mankind then when did God stop using representations? With Seth, Lamach, Methuselah, Noah, at what point did God start telling the truth?

NO GAP TO SPEAK OF

In order to allow scripture to accommodate the ideas and philosophies of man many have tried to alter the interpretation of scripture by placing a “gap” between vs. 1 and vs. 2 in Genesis. This has become known as the “Gap Theory” and it might be the most ridiculous idea ever hoisted upon scripture. It should be ranked up there with the theory that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and headed out for the coast of France. However, it is so prevalent that you will find references to it in the notes of both the Scoffield and Dake Ref. Bibles.

The theory misuses scriptures like Isaiah. 45:18, 2 Pet. 3: 5-7 and Jeremiah. 4: 23-26 to create the illusion that there was this pre-historic world that God destroyed in what they call “Lucifer’s Flood”. Beginning in Genesis 1:3 God is re-creating the world. This “dateless past” coming before vs. 3 is where we get all the fossils, rock ages, prehistoric man etc. This theory is really not worth the time or effort to refute here, but it does show to what lengths some will go in their attempt to rectify scripture with the theories, ideas and philosophies of man.

Created With Age

In order to allow scripture to accommodate the ideas and philosophies of man some have tried to use the idea of “Created Age.” At first glance this one seems plausible, which makes it much more dangerous. It is easy to see past the ridiculousness of the Gap Theory or the stretch in logic of Day Age Theory. However, the idea that a created universe would naturally “look old” is one that might seem to have merit on the surface. When God created Adam it is obvious in scripture that he was a grown man. If we were to walk up at that moment we would have assumed he was maybe 20 years old. The animals would have been fully formed and we would have assumed they had been around for a while.

This idea seems plausible until you understand the reason for its existence in the first place. The only reason to make this “created age” argument is so we can resolve the conflict created by millions of years with the stated time in scripture. In order to accept man’s ideas concerning the origins of life and the universe we build this image of God as creating the world that would necessarily look older than it actually is. While the idea has merit with respect to us seeing Adam appearing to be 20 yrs old it falls apart when you assume God created things to look billions of years old. There is no need for it too appear that old. The theory really begins to fall apart when you further understand the ramifications to scripture of this deceptive age.

God's Trick??

God said he created land animals (including dinosaurs) and man on the same day. Man claims that dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago. That claim is one of the reasons for these alternative interpretations. By the logical conclusions of the “created age” argument, this would mean that God placed “FAKE” bones of non-existent animals in the ground for us to find. This would violate all kinds of scripture not to mention the very character of God himself. It paints God as somehow deceitful. Is it God’s desire here to fool us so we won’t believe in Him? This theory like all the rest can’t pass the test of logic or the spiritual test of scripture. It is just another attempt to find a way to square man’s theories about the antiquity of the earth with God’s revelation in scripture. The problem is that scripture is what always gets changed. Maybe we should consider for a moment that man’s theories might be wrong (they have been before) instead of always looking to change plainly written scripture. (See Proverbs 30:6)

No Death before Sin

The problem of placing sin before death is found in all of the above re-interpretations of Genesis 1, as it is with others not mentioned here. Millions of years became popular in the early 1800’s because of naturalist observations of the earth's crust and the eventual development of the science of geology. Then in 1859 Darwin popularizes the theory of evolution with his book, "The Origin of the Species". As the problems associated with the theory of evolution immerged, more and more time was needed to allow for its incredible claims. This left us with two diametrically opposed ideas as to the origin of man and the universe. One is molecules to man evolution (Materialism) and the other (Creation) as understood from scripture. (We will assume the “aliens brought us here” theory as not yet plausible :)

The only reason to reinterpret the creation story is to allow for our willingness to put man’s theories equal to or above God’s Word. However, none of the alternative interpretations of Genesis has been successful in bridging the gap between these two diametrically opposed ideologies. These re-interpretations run afoul of Hamartiology and Soteriology (the doctines of Sin & Salvation respectively).

Millions of years and evolution means that death, killing, disease, and extinction have been with us long before the existence of Adam in scripture. This means that God’s description of creation could not be true because it was Adam's sin that brought death into the world. Adam is being blamed for something that was already here when he was created. We know Adam lived about 6,000 years ago because of the genealogies found in scripture. (That’s possible one reason God included them.) This would mean, if man’s theories are correct, sin has always been with us which violates the entire understanding of scripture from the sacrificial lambs of Israel to the sacrificial Lamb of God. Romans 5:12-14, 1 Cor. 15: 21, 22, 45 These scriptures make the alternative interpretations of Genesis impossible if one chooses to “literally” believe Christ died for sin. God created a perfect world and sin messed up that perfect world. No other interpretation makes sense based on scripture as a whole or passes the test of logic simply because no other interpretation is true except the literal one given to us by God.

The Danger of Illogical Interpretations

You may have heard this statement before, “well I just don’t buy your literal interpretation of scripture”. Sometimes my sinful nature wishes to rise up and yell, “I don’t buy your illogical re-interpretation of scripture”, but I know there are better ways to respond.

The assumption one makes when calling our interpretations of scripture “literal” is that we have somehow misunderstood God’s “real” meaning. There is an insinuation if not an out right accusation that the cause of our literal interpretation comes from our failure to use “common sense” or our lack of scientific knowledge. This accusation allows the person to feel justified in equating their liberal re-interpretation of scripture with a literal one because they have used their "God given common sense” and we have relied on old fashion "blind faith". Actually, it is just the opposite.

It might be helpful here to restate the definition of literal (“following the words of the original very closely and exactly:” (not figuratively or metaphorically). The person that chooses to not interpret scripture literally, where a literal interpretation is obviously called for, will always set up their interpretation as being an alternative to yours, when in reality it is an alternative to God’s inspired Word. This explains why these alternative interpretations of scripture do not hold water. By their very nature, they will be illogical because they were arrived at by man’s “common sense” and not understood from God’s divine wisdom. In other words, it is not because they are disagreeing with some other persons's interpretation but that they are disagreing with God's Holy Word. Scripture does not lend itself to multiple (and especially contradictory) interpretations. When legitimate interpretational challenges arise, and they do, we can only say that our understanding is not yet clear. What we must not do is use those few instances as an opportunity to reinterpret any scripture however we desire and then just claim it is our interpretation and is equal to all others. There are rules to how we interpret text and understand languages.

What I believe is...*#?@

These different interpretations come about for many reasons, but they are all basically derived from a desire to make God’s Word fit our worldview instead of letting God’s Word determine our worldview. Too often Christians start a discussion about God's Word with the statement, “what I believe is this…” when we should be teaching our people to start biblical discussions with, “what scripture says is this…”. If that were the case we would not have so many Christians who believe the bible says things it clearly does not, simply because starting off a discussion by saying, “what scripture says is…” would assume you know what it says. For example, a recent survey showed that a large number (over 50%) believed scripture said, “God helps those who help themselves.” This was a phrase written by Benjamin Franklin which proves that “common sense” should not be a guide to understanding scripture. If old Ben had understood his Bible he would have understood that statement to go against the very nature of Christ’s teachings. For over 50% of modern day Christians to say it’s in the Bible is a reflection of where we place the importance of scripture and its authority in our lives.

A Pandora's Box

Once we open this “Pandora’s Box”, by failing to interpret scripture as literal where it obviously is literal, then it’s only a short step to begin altering scripture all together. I will guarantee you the churches now allowing practicing homosexuals to become ordained ministers do not believe in a literal interpretation of Genesis, since Gen. 2 is where we get the foundation of one man and one women becoming one in marriage in the first place. The failure of the church to hold tight to proper scriptural interpretation is becoming its downfall. We should love scripture and want to see it become the authoritative guide by which Christians live their lives, because it is what's best for them.

Sadly, even some of our most devoted Christians are destroying the scriptures ability to become that guide for the next generation. WHY? Because;

Once we allow for the reinterpretation of scripture simply because it doesn’t meet our belief in man’s theories or make "common sense" in our culture, we then have no basis by which to say scripture is authoritative in any other area.

In other words, if we claim Genesis chapter one is not literally true then we have no authority by which to tell someone John chapter three is and we have then lost our credibility. From that point on we just look like blind fools with an illogical belief system. Our ability to lead others who might question the truth of Christianity is weakened, that is, unless we can get them to blindly believe just like us or by into one of the aforementioned re-interpretations of scripture.

This explains why the world is influencing the church

instead of the church influencing the world.

For example, the divorce rate among Christians is about the same as among those who do not attend church. Why, because we have altered scripture with respect to divorce. We changed or ignored God’s clear teaching so as to make divorce tolerable within the church. I have heard of pastors who recommended couples divorce even when adultery and pre marital beliefs were not involved. We can’t do that unless we are willing to substitute our wisdom for God’s truth. It’s like telling God, “I know what you said but in this situation I know better what needs to be done.” Yes, it gets done at times with good intentions, however our intentions don’t supersede God’s Word even if they are good.

Pastors are often asked to marry people who are not believers or marry believers to non-believers. Those that do are substituting their “common sense” in the place of God’s wisdom. Counsel with them, love them, present the gospel message to them but don’t go against God’s Word and marry them in their lost condition. Yes, someone else will but at least you won’t have to answer for it. Everyday we see those who are giving advice as if it were “Christian” advice to others and in many cases that advice is at odds with God’s word. I have heard Christians telling other Christians how they hid money from the IRS and gotten away with other questionable if not out right dishonest behavior as if God would understand in this situation.

If we would return to letting God’s Word be the authority in all aspects of our life we would find a life without so much turmoil and confusion. A life of peace. A life worth living. We have today so altered scripture we've forgotten that God’s Word is our authority and not our “common sense” ways or thoughts. (Isa. 55: 8-9). Christian families need to return to and boldly teach that scripture is our authority, not the ideas and philosophies of man. We can do it with love and compassion because telling someone the truth of what God’s Word really says IS compassionate and demonstrates true Christian love.

Trust the Word

Bro. Scott Cosper