How can Genesis be interpreted to agree with Theistic Evolution?

Faith & Science Conversation
68

Hi Jo Helen,

Your link is super long. I looked but I didn’t see any reference to “creep” except for a mention of “critter” on Day 5. I didn’t see any discussion of the issue of ancient Hebrew categories that I was addressing with pacificmaelstrom at the time, and I didn’t see anywhere where you explained why the Bible would ever show the air being filled with creatures before the land when this is clearly the opposite of what the scientific evidence shows. This idea of “lineage that would one day become birds” doesn’t actually fix anything, besides just seeming really strained to me.

If you addressed all this in your link, perhaps you could pull out a quote or two.

69

Nice short version of Genesis theology. I would add a definition of the word sin. As normal taught, it is vague, everything we do that is wrong, everything that we do that is a mistake, basically everything is potentially sin.

However the Bible is not vague. Sin is the transgression of law, and is mostly willful transgression. If you do not know law, then you cannot transgress law. Law condemns. There are human laws and God’s laws. Most of them are very similar. God’s laws go deeper. Example: Do not hate your brother is the same as do not kill. God wants His laws to live inside our soul.

70

Yep, and what I wrote is the short version, which is why you found things missing. Then, the thread got derailed.

Creeping critters come on Day 5. Paleontology shows that the first land animals, both bugs and vertebrates, started as creeping critters and quickly became other things that did not creep. They proliferated and diversified at an amazing rate, yet some critters still creep. Diversity does not mean all things change dramatically or change at the same rate. None of the words used in this chapter define species, not even human-kind. All are groups that we would call Kingdom, Class, or Order.

Not sure what you mean by Hebrew categories unless how Day 1 and Day 4 etc. match up. That is part of the circular poetic structure. Poetic structure describes the Big Bang and the entire universe in Day 1 being filled with astral bodies viewed as viewed from earth in Day 4. The sun is not created after the earth or plants. The “out of order” of those bodies (stars should be first) can be explained as a human viewpoint, which is part of that passage. The sun defines days. The moon defines months. The stars define years.

The second set, days 2+5, opens the air and ocean and fills those extreme environments with life. The third set, days 3+6, opens the land and fills it with plants and animals.

Birds are not out of order in a poetic form. They show the extent of God’s creation. From the depths of the ocean to the top of the sky, all life is created by one God. Everything within the waters and everything within the air are grouped together, just like all the universe is grouped and the life on land is grouped.

Paleontology shows that plants and animals started in the water This is not stated as such in the text, but is also an unnecessary detail like insisting the text describe microorganisms or that some mammals returned to the sea. The details listed are important steps described by science. Life started in the sea and plants were the first to colonize land. The text is an outline of what science describes in detail.

Poetry shows an understanding of cause and effect. It took a master poet to show the connection between the universe and earth, the connection between sky and ocean, the connection between sea and air creatures, the connection between all life on land. It took inspiration from God to include details that only recently have been described.

71

@Jo_Helen_Cox I’m sorry to hear that you’ve received other comments as “don’t even try”. That’s certainly not the message I would like to be received here.

I think, in both your cases, and the cases of others, assumptions are involved. In your case, you are assuming that if God inspired a text about creation, then it should “match nature”, even to the point of concording with both ancient and modern cosmologies at the same time. I don’t disagree with you. Certainly, if Genesis was at odds with “nature”, that would be inconsistent with its status as Holy Scripture. But there are many ways that scriptural texts about creation “match nature”. The way that you describe—wherein the text of Genesis reveals modern scientific details and thus demonstrates its supernatural origin—is only one of the ways. The magnificent creation texts of Job and Psalms also match nature (that is also their subject), but not in the scientific details, focusing instead of the relationship between God and creation. I don’t think you and I would disagree on this point.

So I think it’s completely fair to question whether Genesis is meant to communicate scientific information to us (and thus “match nature” in that specific sense). To judge, I think we need to ask whether the creation texts of Genesis are written in such a way that their descriptions of nature can reasonably to applied, in a consistent manner, to modern scientific concepts without violating the original intent of the text. And I think the history of Genesis interpretation makes a strong argument that the answer is no. Put simply, if God wanted us to have a creation text whose words and concepts could translate consistently and clearly into modern scientific concepts, he did a bad job. There are just too many acrobatics involved in getting the text to match science.

You indicated in your longer post that your desire is twofold: 1) to come to peace about the harmony between Genesis and modern science, and 2) to demonstrate the “miraculous” nature of Genesis to “outsiders”. I totally understand where you are coming from with both of these desires, as they are very much part of my journey as well. But I don’t think your interpretive approach accomplishes these goals. At least, I don’t think it’s necessary to find a concordist reading of Genesis to accomplish them.

Let me put it this way: I don’t think Genesis is meant to be a self-evidently miraculous text. I don’t think God wants his existence validated or demonstrated by a concordance between Genesis and modern science. Genesis was written by ancient Hebrews as a counter to pagan myths, crafted from the perspective of encounter with YHWH. We receive the text as a way to encounter this God as well (from the lens of faith, not from a neutral perspective), and reflect on the relationship between God and his creation. If there are connections between Genesis and evolutionary theory, those are interesting to ponder, but they are not a “miraculous” feature because it was not written for that purpose. The poetic nature and interpretive ambiguity surrounding much of the Genesis creation texts just make it impossibly difficult to demonstrate that these connections are an actual feature of the text. This is especially true, given that the same text has been used to substantiate so many different incompatible scientific ideas (the history of interpretations of the “firmament” is a good place to start).

And, for the reasons above, I disagree with using Genesis to try to convince skeptics that the Bible has a miraculous origin. I think the skeptic can justly say, “if God wanted to give you a text which lays out, in infallible detail, a scientifically accurate story of the origins of the cosmos, why is Genesis so hard to interpret? Why do Christians disagree so much over it?” I’m curious: If a skeptic were to ask you those questions, how would you answer?

All this aside, I actually agree with a lot of what you said above, particularly about the “Fall” and the so-called “perfect creation” before it. I also love how you bring out God’s love for process from the Genesis text. I hope this (rather long) post is taken in a spirit of open discussion and not hostility. I so appreciate your presence and contributions here.

3 Likes
72

The doctrine of INEVITABLE SIN makes much more sense than the doctrine of The Fall.

1 Like
73

Here is a good definition of sin. The rest of this post can be found here: Biblically Inerrant Theistic Evolution

Jesus also tells us to repent, ie. Mark 1:15 “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” Repent literally means “to turn around”. But what is sin anyway? Why does God care about sin in the first place, and how can sin disqualify a person from the Kingdom of God or from the New Jerusalem? Why are some resurrected to eternal life and some resurrected to eternal torment? How can a perfect and just God allow anything like eternal torment? Jesus when asked what the most important commandment was, turned the question around and we are told that there are two commandments that are the most important. Mark 12:29-31 states, “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” Interestingly, the 10 commandments fit inside these two new testament commandments. The first 4 of the 10 commandments are about loving God and not loving idols (including money, sex, power, all of the modern and timeless idols). Commandments 6 through 10 are all of the things that we do to hurt one another which then require our forgiveness one to another. So, repenting means not hurting each other, and giving God his due credit and not worshiping things that are not God. Most of what people consider to be victimless crimes or victimless sins are shown to be idolatry when examined. So, sin disqualifies idolaters because idolaters would never want to enter the New Jerusalem because there is no barrier between us and God there, and the idolater would be forced to give up his idolatry. Similarly, sinners who do not forgive others cannot carry their grudges into the Kingdom of Heaven because there can be no hate or resentment in the Kingdom of Heaven. So if you want to keep your hate and keep fighting and keep worshiping idols, then there has to be somewhere else for you to go. That place is called Hell. In Hell you get to keep your idols and your grudges. In Hell you get to be separated from God, and in fact God, who knows the hairs on your head while you are on earth, in Hell, God does not look on you at all. So, what kind of place must Hell be then? We can get some idea by looking at places and times in history when God was rejected in favor of hate. So, for instance, you can go on the internet and see people in orange jumpsuits being beheaded and set on fire as a result of others rebellion against Jesus. Similarly, we can look at times in history, such as the 288 or so protestants that were burned alive by “Bloody Queen Mary” which was the result of her idolatry of wealth and power. I believe that the fires of Hell are lit by Hell’s inhabitants, and to try to blame God for Hell is the ultimate hypocrisy. Long story short, God is perfect, we are not.

YEC’s are afraid that losing the concept of original sin destroys the work of Jesus on the Cross. That is simply incorrect. There are multiple theories of Atonement, and most of them are not mutually exclusive. Jesus lived a perfect life. Jesus was murdered. Jesus forgave his murderers. Might does not make right. God is all powerful, but that is not the source of his moral authority. God’s moral authority derives from his moral perfection. Jesus’ death is inarguable proof that Jesus is better than we are, and “we” means everyone who has ever lived. We do not have the moral authority to judge one another. Who are you to judge me when you are just as bad? Who am I to judge you when I am just as bad as you? Jesus, being blameless, is literally morally superior and has the moral authority to judge each and every one of us. One of the possible outcomes of judgement is forgiveness. Jesus is morally able to offer us forgiveness. Jesus commands us to forgive one another, and because he has the moral authority to forgive us, he offers us a simple and perfectly morally just deal. Matthew 6:14-15 says, “For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” Similarly, Luke 6:37 states, “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; and do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; pardon, and you will be pardoned.” This is simply how salvation works. This may be news to people who have been taught that simply by having faith, one is saved, however when you look at the verses that teach about saving faith, they lead you back to the verses that tell us like Luke 6:46, “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” If we have saving faith, then we follow the dictates of that faith to do what Jesus commands, and that is to forgive others.

1 Like
74

Plants got their start (cyanobacteria) before fish got their start.
Fish got their start before birds (dinosaurs) got their start.
Birds got their start before mammals got their start.
Mammals got their start before people (also mammals but you get the idea) got their start. Evolution is implied in this biblical order.

@Jo_Helen_Cox @pacificmaelstrom @Noza

1 Like
75

@Nick… Nicolas… that’s clever interpretation !!! I like it!

76

@BradKramer Do you really think that the day - vision interpretation is too much acrobatics? It seems to make sense that a revelation would be given as a vision. The receiver the vision saw the highlights and wrote it down as best as he could understand. Just because explaining evolution is not the primary purpose of Genesis does not mean we should throw the baby out with the bathwater especially when such a simple assumption can literally eliminate all of the discrepancies. In science we call that a theory. A theory is a simple underlying idea that allows us to make sense of the data. In this case the data is evolution and the text of Genesis as well as knowledge of the ancient ideas about the world and Hebrew poetry conventions. It seems to me that a Genesis 1 was received as visions or dreams then everything fits together very well. I know people have a lot invested in other interpretations and complex readings but from the perspective of evangelism and apologetics it really takes more acrobatics to explain why God would choose not to include evolution in his creation story then it does too explain Genesis 1 as visions. To reiterate the vision hypothesis puts Genesis 1 in harmony with origin of the Earth and uses very few assumptions to do it. The first assumption is that most of the information came as vision with little interpretation. From a theological perspective this is not a problem there are many prophetic visions in the Bible. The second assumption is that all visions are given from the same viewpoint: sea level. This is the natural perspective from which humans normally see the world. While we are used to seeing the original the Earth from the perspective of an astronaut floating in space the ancient prophet knew nothing of outer space and would have no idea what he was seeing for the first half of the show. Further this sea level perspective is directly mentioned in the text when it is said that the spirit of the Lord is hovering over the surface of the waters. The final assumption is that the prophet described the kinds of animals and plants that he saw in terms of their modern forms. This too makes perfect sense considering that Genesis was explaining the creation of what the people were familiar with. The prophet saw that the first of these animals and plants reproduce after their kind so the original these kinds is all that is needed. Someone was claiming that the ancient Israelites what birds and bugs in the same category which I find hard to believe because they are rather distinct. No one really cares where the bugs came from so they don’t get their own day. Genesis is the highlight reel not the complete description. The creation of the galaxies are glossed over in the first sentence. But again the focus is on humans and what is important to us. Like cows and fruit trees. If this description is long it is because I am trying to be as clear as possible. I think the underlying idea is extremely simple and a powerful asset to the apologist. I don’t really understand how you can say that it takes too much acrobatics.

I also like to briefly mention the discussion here on the doctrine of original sin. I think the original sin was always sort of a problematic Doctrine. If we are born into sin then babies who die in the womb or as infants go to hell. Sin is always described in the Bible in terms of action. It is what we do or think that makes us sinners. It is not the case that we simply are sinners. Or in other words if humans inherits in even before they commit any themselves then Jesus cannot be both fully human and free from sin. A third problem is with the interpretation of what happened in the garden. I think that it can be understood as an archetype for what happens in all of our lives once we are old enough to understand that there are things we are not to do. By our sin we gain knowledge of evil and we find that we cannot go back into the garden of pure good and ignorance. I’ve never understood why Christians insist on Original Sin when their own personal sin is completely sufficient. Christ as the second Adam because he is a new archetype. Before Christ we were all doomed to be cast out of the garden forever as Adam was. But in Christ we are able to return to a relationship with God. Why do you think that Jesus says that we are to be like a child? Is it because children believe everything they are told and that’s the way we should be? That’s what I was taught in the church but I think that is wrong . I think that instead it has to do with love and Trust which children give unconditionally because they do not yet understand the evils that cause adults to be fearful and suspicious of others. They have yet to fall in that sense. Whether or not Adam was historical makes no difference to the need for Christ.

One last comment. People seem to assume that God was threatened by the idea that Adam would eat from the tree of eternal life after knowing Good and Evil. But God said earlier that if they ate from the tree they would surely die. It is the serpent to tell them that they will not die. And it is the serpent who says that God is being selfish by keeping this knowledge of Good and Evil from Adam and Eve. Considering that the serpent is the deceiver it is odd that his words are taken as truth rather than lies. Death is the only thing that keeps us from living forever in a World filled with evil people. Without it without it we cannot get to a better place so when viewed in conjunction with God’s plan for our redemption in Christ it is a mercy.

1 Like
77

So you like it now but when I said the same thing in Greater detail you accuse me of making it up as I went along.

1 Like
78

Thank you for your not too long post. I felt no hostility at all and do not wish to present my beliefs in a hostile manner.

I find your wording a bit contradictory in your first paragraph. You seem to agree with me yet don’t at the same time. You do make the point that I am assuming that an inspired Genesis 1 should match nature. I will add that I also assume God is real and He is the one who healed my two rotator cuffs after 23 years of pain. It is difficult to discuss anything with skeptics if they believe scripture and science do not match. Actually Augustine insisted they must match so that non-believers would not laugh at scripture. I agree with him.

Actually history says “Yes” it does, when the interpreter is not forcing the text or nature. Augustine did it to fit his understanding. His solution is ingenious and simple. His does not fit our cosmology but it does not reject it either. My interpretation started with what the biblical writer wrote and rejected the long list of interpretations and additions that are not stated in the text. Then I asked what in those words matched our understanding of the universe. Getting rid of the concept of perfection was a huge step. I wrote down the main words from the text and the answer presented itself as circular poetry that formed an outline of cosmology as it is known today. Every detail match in Genesis 1. I did the same with Genesis 2-11. Almost every detail matched. Those few that did not match can be attributed to my limited understanding. That is why I presented some of it here, looking for help.

God did not do a “bad job”. Our interpretation lets people think He did a bad job. Too many people want to hold onto a magical medieval understanding of the text. They even add unicorns and dragons. They so desperately want their version to be correct they cant even accept Augustine’s understanding.

I don’t want acrobatics. If the text has so many attributes of poetry, but we reject it as poetry, then we limit our understanding of what God said through the writer. If we reject a concordance just because no one has yet presented one that works, then we limit God’s ability to speak to our generation through the text.

And yet, when read as circular poetry it becomes just that, evidence of a God who inspires people throughout the ages.

Now you make an assumption. But instead of trying to find a bigger God you limit what God can do.

God inspired humans who did not have the resources to comprehend what we know today. Genesis 1-11 (not just the first chapter) outline the evolution of the universe, life, and early humanity in a form that the writers could understand and in a form their descendants could understand. That includes us and those who come after us. However, our interpretation is still limited by our understanding. I believe scientific understanding has finally caught up with the details in Genesis only within this century. Only now can we finally see how miraculous scripture really is. But only if we let God show us that the Bible and science tell the same story.

79

Nick, where did you define sin? You defined lots of stuff, most of which I agree with, but never sin.

80

If that helps you in your walk with the Lord, then I wish you well.

The truth is that “mammals” is absent from the Biblical text, which talks about, all on the same day, “the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals.” You might pull off a mammalian interpretation for livestock and wild animals, but for the creepy crawly creatures, mammals are by far the least likely interpretation. In my opinion it’s a stretch that the textual evidence cannot support.

1 Like
81

Birds did not start before mammals. Birds are a late lineage of dinosaurs. Pre-proto-dinosaurs and pre-proto-mammals both started at the beginning of the Permian. Unknown which came first. The proto-mammal line were earths dominate land animals before and after the Permian extinction. However, in the Triassic dinosaurs became dominate. Bird lineage started before mammals became dominate again after the K/T event. That is sort of like humans became dominate after all of their relatives went extinct.

However, I do agree that Evolution is implied in Genesis 1

82

Sin would be worshiping that which is not God, and also would be not treating others as you would be treated, an also not forgiving others. So I suppose there are 3 kinds of sin.

83

There is only one kind of sin, transgression of Law. However, Law has levels. Is the law of God or of man? Is the sin rebellion or a mistake? Does the sinner justify or repent?

Jesus combined all of God’s laws into one. “Love each other as I have loved you.” Love is the key to not sinning and not staying in sin. Love puts all people and all actions on one level.

84

Denis Lamoureux has pointed out that historically, attempts at concordism have failed. I think he’s right. Sooner or later you hit your head on the hard dome that is the firmament.

1 Like
85

Early Hebrew animal and plant classification is pretty shaky. I think dolphins were a type of fish to those living around the Mediterranean.

Fruit bearing vegetation (day 3) are relatively recent historically (~130 mya), as are the grasses (55-70 mya). The fruits that the Hebrew tribes would be familiar with are from these flowering plants and trees

Land plants date back to about 450 mya, about 150-200 mya after the Ediacaran animals. Algae on land may go back earlier.

Trees don’t show up until the mid-Devonian, long after animals.

On the 4th day the day/night and monthly cycles are initiated.

On day 5, the insects that flowering trees (day 3) need for fertilization appear. Birds appear. Big water animals appear.

One day 6, land animals appear. Based on the fossil records and genetics, the birds, dolphins and whales are derived from land animals and so that’s also incongruent. Livestock also appears at this time in genesis but historically the domestic (livestock) forms of most animals post-date the emergence of humans.

There is likely some form of succession implied in Genesis but it seems a stretch to align the details with what we currently understand today.

2 Likes
86

Except the hard dome never actually existed. There have been plenty of well known scientists who said something could not be. That did not stop people from attempting the un-doable or from finally succeeding.

If read as a list Genesis 1 does not match the evolution of life. If read as circular poetry it fits just fine.

87

No, of course the dome/firmament never actually existed. But that’s how the ancient Hebrews saw it, and they shared this view with their neighbors. You might check out the work by Dr. Denis Lamoureux, as he is an expert on the first 11 chapters of Genesis. He also has free online classes and I’d be happy to point them out if you are interested.