When it comes to Genesis 1, it’s very easy to find ourselves spending a lot of time trying to understand the historical details of how the world was created. After all, there’s a lot of talk about days, right?
When we speak about understanding the Bible, you may sometimes hear us say, ‘the Bible is written for you, but not to you.’ This means that the Bible is God’s inspired Word for us, but it doesn’t mean that it was written directly to address our context and assumptions. Therefore, as we read the Bible, we first must ask about the context of the original recipients. Who were they? What issues were they facing? What assumptions might they have had about the world?
When we read Genesis 1, the same principle of needing to think about context applies. Genesis 1 was not written to 21st Century readers who have been raised in a world of scientific reasoning and advanced technology. Genesis 1 was written to a group of Israelites who had been enslaved by the Egyptians for 430 years and were attempting to move into a new land and forge their identity as a nation of God’s special people. Many of them would have grown up in Egyptian households and would have been expected to participate in Egyptian rituals. Furthermore, as they moved into new lands, they encountered new peoples with gods that made claims that they were more powerful than the God of Israel.
Therefore, what was an Israelite to think? How were they to make sense of these Egyptian gods that claimed to hold so much power? What about the narrative that was engrained in them since childhood that said, ‘if you upset the gods, bad things will happen to you?’ What if they were to ask questions about their importance? Did they simply exist to prevent the gods from going hungry? An Israelite may turn to Genesis 1 and have their questions answered.
‘Who made the world?’
‘The one and only God.’
‘Was it a bit of an accident?’
‘No. God made it on purpose, and it was good.’
‘What about the other gods?’
‘They don’t even get a mention, they’re not that important.’
‘What about my purpose, is it just to serve God?’
‘You are made with purpose, and you are the centrepiece of His creation.’
See where we’re going with this? Many of the big questions an ancient Israelite could have asked about God are all here in Genesis 1.
If this is the correct historical context, then how do we apply Genesis 1 to our lives today? One of the more recent approaches over the last 100 years has been to say, ‘The evolutionary atheists suggest the world was created over billions of years. Genesis 1 claims the world was created in six days. Therefore, the atheists are wrong.’ Now, regardless of where you land on the meaning of ‘days’ in Genesis 1, this line of thinking is not addressing the focal point that Genesis 1 was trying to address for its original readers. Genesis 1 is primarily about theology, not history and time. The Israelites were not interested in the mechanics of creation or how old the earth was. They were interested in knowing their God and having a relationship with Him. They were not trying to argue the age of the universe but understand the supremacy of their God.
Therefore, when we read Genesis 1, though the history of creation may be a pressing question that we want answered, we must be careful not to let our pressing questions take centre stage over and above what the passage is trying to do. That is, to teach us about the supremacy of our God, His purposeful creation, and the special purpose assigned to humanity. That is our true hope in Genesis 1.