I quoted Walton somewhere in one of my articles who said interpreting Hebrew isn’t like eating in a cafeteria where you can choose whatever you want. That is what I see as a main problem with that translation practice.
The RTB model doesn’t deal with all the science problems and it generally denies evolution. In the end it attempts some pretty sophisticated linguistic gymnastics but without even critiquing them, it falls short.
Did God parade the animals in front of Adam in hopes of finding him a mate or not. Literal in that sense.
I think that’s a helpful distinction you’re drawing between modern and ANE concepts of truth, and I agree that authorial authority played a major role in how texts were received in that context.
Where I see it slightly differently is that acknowledging the ANE framework doesn’t necessarily mean the text has no relationship to objective reality—it just means that reality isn’t being communicated in the same categories or methods we would use today.
So when I talk about correspondence to reality, I’m not trying to impose a modern scientific standard onto the text or “upgrade” it. Rather, I’m asking whether what the text describes—however it is framed—might still reflect real features of the world, even if expressed in pre-scientific language.
I think that’s a fair observation—but I’d frame it a bit differently. The goal in that approach isn’t necessarily to use science to better understand the text itself, but to consider whether what the text affirms can help inform how we understand reality.
In that sense, it’s less about reading modern science into Scripture and more about asking whether Scripture provides a framework that can guide how we interpret what we observe in nature.
That’s closer to what figures like Richard Owen were doing, and how RTB tends to approach it—using the text as a conceptual lens rather than trying to force scientific ideas back into it.
I think where the disagreement may be is whether that kind of approach is legitimate at all, or whether interpretation should only move in the opposite direction.
I agree with Walton—it’s not cafeteria-style interpretation. Context determines meaning. My point is that Hebrew words have a range of legitimate meanings, and you have to look at how the passage functions as a whole.
Out of curiosity, did you get a chance to look at the material I shared in the opening thread that features an updated version of their model?
On your question about Adam and the animals, I think that highlights the deeper issue. The question isn’t just whether that event happened in a straightforward modern-historical sense, but what role that scene is playing in the narrative. Is it primarily describing a biological process, or is it making a theological point about human uniqueness, relationship, and the absence of a suitable counterpart?
So rather than choosing between “literal” or “non-literal” in a simplistic way, I think the better question is what kind of claim the text is actually making, and how its language is functioning within that context.
That response smacks of a desire to make the text say what one wishes. Fudging meaning to protect scripture by making it appear to match our modern worldview is no different than fudging it to appear to support a particular theological leaning – indeed both are idolatrous because they rely on the assumption that some current worldview is superior to the one through which God chose to speak!
Context tends to reveal that, and there is nothing in the context of Genesis 1 to call for any meaning but a normal day.
Besides which, appealing to those possible meanings looks like an attempt to smuggle in a correspondence with a MSWV (modern scientific worldview), which is inappropriate because such an attempt has to shove aside the original worldview.
Just let Genesis be the ancient literature it is and read it that way!
Because that’s not how translation works: you don’t apply an outside context to force meaning on the text.
Besides which, one of the big points of Genesis 1 - 11 is that “reality” is not something that corresponds to what our eyes can see and ears can hear, etc., rather that reality is what God is up to and Who He is and therefore who we are. A modern application of Genesis 1 would be that the way we see the world is not the way things are.
One might say about any human worldview as far as Genesis 1 goes is, “This is not the reality your’e looking for” (or something like that).
What confounds me about this discussion is that everyone is speaking of Genesis as if there were only one creation account. There are two very distinct creation stories at the beginning of Genesis. There is Genesis 1 (which ends in the beginning of Genesis 2) and Genesis 2-3. These are two very different accounts with very different purposes. How can we speak of them as if they were one and the same?
Genesis 1 tells us exactly how the universe and the earth came into being, as we now know that to have happened. The belief that it does not, comes from centuries of misinterpretation of the words of this amazing book. To begin, no action occurs in the first verse. That’s just an introductory summary. The earth does not exist in verse 2; it is without substance and without form. Nothing without form or substance exists in the physical realm. That means creation begins (surprise) with the first day – the creation of light and darkness and time. That’s the big bang. The second day is the expansion of the universe and the coalescing of the heavenly bodies. The third day is our earth. RTB misses the big bang and expansion of the universe but picks it up correctly after that.
The second creation story is more of a “fairy tale.” Wrong word, but I can’t think a better one. It doesn’t tell us what really happened, but tells us why things are the way they are. Why men leave home and form a new one, why we don’t still walk with God in the morning, etc. It even tells us why snakes don’t have legs (they used to, according to paleontology).
Take the text as it presents itself. And don’t fret about the 7 days. Einstein showed us that time stretches.
The only assumption it relies on is that nature and bible cannot conflict with each other if we believe what we believe to be true. However, this does not mean our interpretation of each domain can’t come into conflict with each other.
How so? I have never found any evidence that the text supports a normal day interpretation over any other definition or interpretation.
That is not how I would describe it. Instead, it is just making an inference to the best explanation (or interpretation in this case) and then testing to see if that explanation holds up overtime.
The goal in that approach isn’t necessarily to use science to better understand the text itself, but to consider whether what the text affirms can help inform how we understand reality.
In that sense, it’s less about reading modern science into Scripture and more about asking whether Scripture provides a framework that can guide how we interpret what we observe in nature.
That’s closer to what figures like Richard Owen were doing, and how RTB tends to approach it—using the text as a conceptual lens rather than trying to force scientific ideas back into it.
I think where the disagreement may be is whether that kind of approach is legitimate at all, or whether interpretation should only move in the opposite direction.
Your question is a good one and one I have given much thought to. But I think it requires a longer discussion. I have done my own research and developed my own understanding.
I come down on the side that scripture is less metaphorical. God does not use metaphors.
I have attempted to align Genesis 1 and 2-11 with evidence based on the research of others from physics and the applied sciences of archeology, paleontology, anthropology, and geology. The evidence is irrefutable and scripture must be examined in light of the evidence.I start with the premise that the Bible tells us what God did and why and science tells us how and when.
Shortly I will be publishing a book on this titled Reflections On Genesis. It covers Genesis 1-11 and explains from my perspective much of what your question entails. Some of my conclusions will be acceptable, others will be controversial in terms of the traditional understanding but they are the way I see it after examining the evidence and aligning with scripture. However one doctrine remains solid regardless of how one wants to interpret Genesis 1 and 2. Adam brought sin into the world and Jesus Christ redeemed us of it (Romans 5).
I know I am not to promote my books on this site and I am apologizing in advance but as I said this discussion is one that cannot be had in the space we have on this site.
Not what I was saying at all. The Bible, when it records naked eye observations, is a record of objective reality. When it records supernatural events then of course that is different.
No that reality (the natural world) is communicated just as we would today. Which isn’t to say they got it completely correct.
Is it the supernatural you are trying to fit into science?
The goal of the paper you provided was to use science to “better understand the text”, AKA interpret. I fail to see how an ancient text, with all the limitations that entails, could help us understand objective reality today.
That is in effect trying to use a poor quality/cloudy lens to better understand the high def photograph we currently have. Sure, if you look through the lens and squint just right you might think you are seeing more clearly, but are you?
To me, the only correct direction is to use science to inform me when I have the interpretation wrong. Keeping in mind that science doesn’t answer all questions.
“There was evening [light going away], there was morning [light coming back] – a day” is pretty clear that the time of light referenced before that is an ordinary day. That may be (it is) a primarily theological statement but it works as theology because it is referring to the very real rhythm of light/dark.
This leaves open the option that they were “divine days”, especially the ones before the sun was made, but once the sun is set in the heavens the argument for anything but ordinary days faces an extremely steep uphill battle.
But again, trying to pin down a literal length for the days insults the literature by trying to make it talk in MSWV terms, something about which it cares not a whit.
Any appeal to a scientific meaning does violence to the text because it is not about science. Not only is the genre wrong, but they didn’t have a genre that cared about science because it wasn’t within their worldview. It’s like arguing over which shade of green is redder when there’s no red in green in the first place.
But by trying to force a meaning that allows some scientific foothold you’re not translating any more, you’re stuffing in meaning from outside.
And that’s what RTB is doing – they’re trying to make ancient literature talk science, they’re just not being literalistic about it – well, not much anyway; by trying to peg scientific concepts to the text they’re inherently saying it means something literal in scientific terms.
I think part of the disagreement comes down to how we’re defining terms.
On the “supernatural” point, I’m not suggesting that anything outside the current scientific framework is being inserted into science. The discussion is about whether existing physical processes—like constraints, energy landscapes, or information structure—might play a larger role in shaping biological outcomes than is typically emphasized.
I may not have been clear before. It’s not about using Scripture to reinterpret science in a circular way. Rather, it’s exploring whether a particular interpretive framework—like constraint-based or structural approaches—can help make sense of patterns we already observe in nature.
So it’s less about forcing science to match the text, and more about asking whether certain interpretations of the text are consistent with, or even suggestive of, patterns that science is independently uncovering.
I actually agree with the concern behind it. Any interpretive framework—whether theological or purely naturalistic—can distort if applied too rigidly. That’s why the goal here isn’t to replace scientific explanation, but to see whether different frameworks can converge on the same underlying reality.
I think we’re closer than it might seem. Science absolutely plays a role in correcting interpretations when they conflict with well-established evidence. The question being explored is whether, in some cases, interpretive frameworks might also guide how we make sense of the data—without overriding it.
I think I see what you’re getting at with the evening–morning structure, and I agree that it reflects a recognizable light/dark rhythm. But I’m not sure that automatically settles the question of duration in the way a modern 24-hour definition would.
For example, the text presents the sequence as “evening and morning,” which is a literary framing rather than a technical definition of time. It clearly communicates order and pattern, but whether it’s intended to specify a strict 24-hour cycle is less obvious—especially given the broader flexibility of terms like “evening” and “morning” which can symbolize the beginning and end of a creative period, rather than literal calendar day.
I actually agree that Genesis isn’t written as a scientific text. Where I think we differ is in how that affects interpretation. My view isn’t that we should force scientific meaning into the text, but that it’s reasonable to ask whether what the text describes can still correspond to real features of the world, even if expressed in non-scientific language.
Regarding RTB specifically, I think it’s important to distinguish what they’re actually claiming. They’re not arguing that Genesis is teaching science directly. In fact, they explicitly separate theological context from empirical claims. For example, they state:
“Our scientific claims rely solely on empirical evidence and testable hypotheses… [and] philosophical analysis is used strictly… as conceptual clarification—not as a source of empirical inference.”
So their approach isn’t to make the text “do science,” but to explore whether certain interpretations are consistent with patterns observed in nature—while keeping scientific claims grounded in empirical methods.
I think the real disagreement here is whether that kind of cross-disciplinary coherence is valid at all, or whether the text should be interpreted entirely within its ancient context without any reference to external knowledge.
God is speaking through a world view? I’m missing that. Maybe you can show me where it is. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” I don’t see a world view in this. It’s just a statement telling us what this chapter is going to be about.
“Now the earth was empty and formless…” Is there a world view here? Just tells us the earth has no shape and no substance, i.e., it doesn’t exist in the physical realm. Ok. “darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the spirit of God hovered over the waters.” No world view here either, unless I’m just not being imaginative enough. It just says that somewhere, not the earth since it doesn’t yet exist, there was a lot of darkness, deep darkness, and water of some kind. But not a world view.
“And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning–the first day.” Did I miss a world view? Are we obviously in ancient times? Are there people walking around in sandals or riding donkeys? Don’t think so.
The rest goes on in more or less the same way; more details, but the same idea. There is no world view, because there are no people to have one.
The other thing to notice is that all of these things that happen in Genesis 1 mirror what we know today to have happened in the opening of the big bang and then the coalescing of the heavenly bodies, and then the rise of continents on the earth, and so on through natural history.
Can’t anyone see this??? Doesn’t this make you wonder how Genesis 1 was written? How did ancient people know these details and to put them in this order. The sun, moon, and stars show up when the skies clear due to the appearance of oxygen produced by the plants. Who would have thought to put the appearance of the sun after the growth of the plants? But that’s how it happened, and thats how Genesis 1 has it. Doesn’t this make anyone wonder???
No. This is how you are choosing to read Genesis 1 after the fact. Did ancient authors think plants made by God couldn’t survive a day in absolute zero temperatures? Of course not. This wasn’t on their mind. They can survive one night without the sun. That happens every day. Did they know how photosynthesis worked or about the great oxygenation event? Of course not. At best we can claim this part of the fuller sense of the text as Christians who think the Bible takes on extra meaning as part of a unified canon inspired by God.
Maybe the RTB model is true and there is some scientific foreshadowing when we consider the sensus plenior of scripture as part of a canon inspired by God. Maybe Genesis 3:15 is a nod to the virgin birth as well since God mentions the seed of the woman will crush the serpents head. Or maybe God was just talking to the woman and would have said the same thing to the man. And maybe we are just connecting dots in hindsight that many expert translators and commentators just don’t see nor agree with translation-wise (per RTB and Gen 1).
I would consider the RTB model more ( @RTBsupporter) if it could get the job done and did not deny evolution. I’ve read at least 4-5 of Hugh Ross’s books. His model rests on denying evolution. Has this changed? If it hasn’t the updated model is not updated to me. For me the evidence overwhelmingly tells me that is wrong as evolution is well evidenced.
I have a long article on How to Interpret Genesis 1 and part of it is directed towards this Line of thinking. It’s hard for me to see Genesis describing our atmosphere going from opaque to transparent when it believes God made the giant solid slab in the sky separating the waters above from those below. This was my point two in the article. This is what I wrote:
[2] Genesis 1 is at Odds with Science
Apologists have devised creative attempts to fit the Genesis 1 chronology into the wider context of modern science. The days are treated as long epochs and the account is given from the perspective of a terrestrial observer. Instead of the sun (and stars) inaccurately being created after the earth on day 4, they simply appeared in the sky as the atmosphere went from “opaque to transparent.” This reading does not place plants before the sun either since it was created all along, just obscured by a heavy, opaque atmosphere. A lot of the scientific difficulties are resolved when this is done but I am skeptical of such interpretations which seem more like ad hoc harmonization attempts than sound exegetical readings. As Walton once said, “Word meanings cannot be chosen as if we were in a cafeteria taking whatever we like. ” But even if we grant such an interpretation, the account gets the order of life’s appearance or evolution incorrect. It also mentions God creating a solid slab (firmament, vault or dome) in the sky and that that is not reconcilable with modern science. We can reject science here or simply let it inform how we understand this Biblical narrative. After all, science is simply the study of God’s world and how He normally runs and sustains creation. Maybe it is not science --the best material understanding of God’s handiwork-- that is wrong, but rather the literal interpretation of Genesis 1? Why should we trust science over the Bible here? That is the wrong question and not what I just asked. Why should we trust science over requiring a literal interpretation Genesis 1 is the better question and it is answered in the following paragraph.
The Bible does not appear to possess any supernatural knowledge when it comes to
science. Jacob describes a dream about climbing a ladder to heaven (Gen 28), the same place the tower of Babel was apparently going to reach (Gen 11). This reflects the three-tiered cosmos of the time. There seems to be a bit of incorrect scientific backgroundknowledge scattered throughout the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. Parts of the Bible refer to the four corners of the earth (Is. 11:12), think thoughts come from our kidneys (Psalm 16:7), believe there is a solid firmament or metal dome in the sky (Gen 1:6, Job 37:18), identify the moon as a light like the sun (Gen 1:16), proclaim the earth is immutable and does not move (1 Chron 16:30, Ps 93:1, 96:10, 104:5; Is 45:8), consider the earth flat (Mt 4:8, Dan 4:10-11), thinks stars are small and close enough to the earth they can fall from the sky and land on it (Rev 6:13-16, 8:10; Mt 2:10, 24:29; Dan 8:10), rain and snow are kept in heavenly storehouses (Job 38:22, Ps 135:7), heaven and hell/Sheol are up and down in the earth (Isaiah 66:1, Psalm 33:14, Mt 12:40, Eph 4:9). These examples could be multiplied. As we look at the rest of the Bible, it is quite clear that God has accommodated his message and spoke through ancient cosmologies. Why would Genesis 1 be an exception? It seems more likely that God is going to teach us theological truths through the pre-scientific background knowledge of the time. This means that if Genesis intends to teach us that God created all things, we can take this as a theological truth even if the account does not give us an accurate sequence or scientific accounting of how everything came to be.
I made 6 other points on why we might not be dealing with pure history in Gene 1-11 and the first two creation accounts in particular. There are two contradictory creation accounts, the first is interested in forming and filling, it uses a pattern of sevens and is so interested in them, breaks its own conventions to do so. It’s at odds with science as noted above and there is an extremely high density of mythological or anthropomorphic ideas I n this section of the Bible.
In the end I think the RTB model is too literal and too concordant and it’s driven by that and a need to maintain inerrancy. Evolution is its primary problem and linguistic gymnastics a secondary one. So if we could get through the evolution problem, it might be worth going over the linguistic questions. But until then it looks like “the Bible code” to me.
Are there many serious advocates of the RTB model that don’t also accept inerrancy? In reality, our discussion isn’t about Genesis 1 and the Hebrew word yom. If making it an epoch is the only way to salvage scripture in some way for someone then that is what they will do.
I disagree when you claim the first story is history and the second is not. I see the first as teaching theology and polemic again rival conceptions of God. I laid out 8 things we learn from it. The second account has mythological elements for sure but Adam and Eve are historical to me. So I see that as more historical then. the first account for sure.
Vinnie, I know I have seen your blog before, but just to remind me, could you give us a link again? It might even be helpful for us to make another post listing blogs by participants for reference. Obviously, some will be in agreement with the Biologos view and some will not, but we can put on our big boy pant(ie)s and use our discernment in reading them.
Is a fully metaphorical reading of Genesis truly necessary for theistic evolution?
No. And I do not.
Though… I do think some use of symbolism (and less literal and simple minded meanings of the words) is needed/good to make the story in chapter 2 & 3 more meaningful and compatible with the findings of science. And this is very much justified by the context and extensive use of symbolism in the whole Bible. This is different than some vague metaphorical-ism which simply doesn’t take the story seriously enough to be in accord with Christian tradition and practice.
So for example… when it says in Genesis 2:7 “the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being,” This can be understood to mean God formed man from the stuff of the earth (by its natural processes such as evolution frankly) and the breath of life is inspiration by which God brought the mind of man to life. It doesn’t have to mean contrary to the findings of science that there is any life stuff added to matter in order to make it alive like in Walt Disney’s “Sorcerer’s Apprentice.”
In this way I see no problem with believing Adam and Eve were real people and the story about something which really happened – the first human beings in a world with millions of homo sapiens. A story about how these first human beings misused gifts from God to start a history filled with self-destructive behavior and habits.
So yeah a more allegorical reading to be sure. Which is NOT a fully metaphorical approach.
… a more allegorical approach? (editing to fit my own approach)
The reason is so the Bible is about reality rather than some made up fantasy like out of one of the cartoons of Walt Disney. Otherwise, the Bible belongs in the fantasy section of any library along other such human works of fantasy.
It is always a hermeneutical preference or at least only a necessity within some perceptual framework of understanding the world. For someone like myself, where that perceptual framework is built on science, it is the only way the Bible can be taken seriously.
So I think the implied question of this thread is… what do I think about the whole RTB approach?
RTB claims that all current humans are descended from a specially created couple that lived about 50,000 to 100,000 years ago (Wikipedia)
I think this makes Adam and Eve too insignificant and does not agree with the Biblical account because there is just too little change in most of that 50,000 to 100,000 years. And why? Just to force a genetic interpretation on story, which I think is VERY VERY much the wrong way to go with this. I see this as only good for supporting racism and eugenics and not at all good for giving meaning and value to the Biblical text.
Furthermore it is really not enough to make this work with genetic science anyway – which really requires more like 100,000 to a million years.
A severe genetic bottleneck occurred in human ancestors roughly 800,000 to 900,000 years ago, reducing the breeding population to approximately 1,280 individuals and lasting nearly 117,000 years. (google AI)
I extend the range to include 100,000 ya because our genetic similarity goes back that far at the very minimum.
But pushing Adam and Eve back that far makes them completely insignificant to human history. In other words, trying to force a genetic understanding of A&E will result in reducing their significance to a genetic significance only which is NOT what the Bible is about at all – not in any good/decent understanding of the Bible worth believing in.
Interpretations are flexible and can range from totally rejecting to totally accepting science. All interpretations are fallible, human constructions. Is it possible to come up with an interpretation that matches science, sure. Does that mean the interpretation is correct and the text supernaturally matches science? I don’t think so. For example, if I use a rubber ruler to measure an object and I stretch or squeeze the ruler to get the measurement I wanted is it a correct measurement?
The question being explored is “Can progressive creation explain the diversity of life we see while allowing us to reject evolution?” Problem being rejecting evolution requires rejecting the mountains of data which supports it.
Frankly I think there was another genetic bottle neck 100,000-250,000 years ago as ice age survivors fled to south Africa, but this is more difficult to get from pure genetic data because afterwards there was genetic mixing from remnants of the Neanderthal and Denisovan populations. Perhaps this will someday be modeled and calculated and we can speak of this more based on the evidence than just speculation.
This article places this partial bottleneck between 195,000 and 123,000 ya. I say partial bottleneck because other population remnants were mixed in afterwards. Though it also suggests a more extreme bottleneck of only hundreds and thus where a lot of genetic diversity was lost. This is also the time esitmates of mitochondrial Eve and Y chromosomal Adam (which makes sense with such a loss of so much genetic diversity). Though perhaps it is important to note that this is not the origin of the species or any of the peculiar characteristics of homo sapiens which happened earlier than this.
It’s making a theological point that rests on it being an actual ordinary period of nighttime. To those in the ANE the period of dark was one where the gods had to fight the powers of darkness so that the sun could make its passage around under the earth to come up on the other side again; the Genesis writer is saying no, night time is just part of how Yahweh does things.