Genesis 1 - "plainly" or "straightforwardly"

I'm already behind in my attempt to read through the Bible in a year this year.

It doesn't help that I'm trying really to read it (rather than simply skim; see my last post).

So I'm reading Genesis 1, the part of the Bible that Ken Ham and company warn we must interpret "without compromise," in "a plain or straightforward manner."

Reading the Bible “plainly” means understanding that literal history is literal history, metaphors are metaphors, poetry is poetry, etc. The Bible is written in many different literary styles and should be read accordingly. This is why we understand that Genesis records actual historical events. It was written as historical narrative, as outlined in Should Genesis be taken literally? [Note: I have replaced the broken linking URL from this article on Answers in Genesis' (AiG's) website. The original URL (www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v16/i1/genesis.asp) clearly references an article from Creation magazine, "v16/i1"--Volume 16, Issue 1. Due to some unfortunate relational issues between AiG and what has now come to be known as Creation Ministries International, that link no longer works. I had to do a web search to find Creation magazine's current website and the home of the original article. --JAH]

Reading the Bible plainly/straightforwardly (taking into account literary style, context, authorship, etc.) is the basis for what is called the historical-grammatical method of interpretation which has been used by theologians since the church fathers. This method helps to eliminate improper interpretations of the Bible.

So how shall we interpret Genesis 1 "plainly/straightforwardly"?

For example:

"And God said, 'Let . . .'" (vv. 3, 6, 9, etc.)

To quote St. Augustine,

[H]ow did God say, Let there be light? Was this in time or in the eternity of His Word? . . . [W]as there the material sound of a voice when God said, Let there be light, as there was when He said, Thou art my beloved Son? . . . And, if so, what was the language of this voice when God said, Let there be light? . . . Who was intended to hear and understand it, and to whom was it directed?

But perhaps this is an absurdly material way of thinking and speculating on the matter. . . .

[Perhaps it is] the intellectual idea signified by the sound of the voice, in the words, Let there be light, that is meant here by the voice of God, rather than the material sound?

--St. Augustine The Literal Meaning of Genesis, p. 21

Now, I will confess that Augustine's The Literal Meaning of Genesis drives me a bit crazy by its apparent ancient philosophical approach to interpretation. (Many of the questions Augustine asks are of a nature one would never hear a modern person ask.) But, at the same time, the very fact that Augustine was diligently seeking to understand the true, "literal" meaning of Genesis might serve as a cautionary example for those of us today who seek, as the young-earth creationists of Answers In Genesis do, to define once and for all what is the "plain" and "straightforward" meaning of a text.

"Genesis 1 is historical," say the YECs.

All right. So what is the history, here, when the text says, "God said, 'Let . . .'"--"Let there be light." "Let there be an expanse." "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered"--and so forth? How are we to understand these words "plainly" and "straightforwardly"?

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I expect some of my readers will object that I am making far too much of a supremely insignificant detail: "said." --Who cares?

And they may be right. Maybe I ought not to care. God "spoke" and how He spoke is really immaterial ([possibly] in both the literal and figurative sense of that word!). Maybe He spoke in a voice that could be "heard" by other beings (though it would seem [Editorial revision at 10:25AM on 1/4/11--may have been] impossible for such a voice to be "heard" physically, since--at least as far as I am aware--no one would claim any physical substance existed at that point, so there would be no [physical] medium by which a sound might be propagated [Editorial revision at 10:25AM on 1/4/11--if the young-earth creationists are correct, the creation of the heavens and the earth mentioned in Genesis 1:1 is a summary statement of what is described in detail in the verses that follow (see especially vv. 6-10). After all, as Ken Ham writes in The New Answers Book, p. 53, to suggest any kind of gap between Genesis 1:1 and what follows "is inconsistent with God creating everything in six days, as Scripture states. . . . Exodus 20:11 says, "For in six days, the LORD made the heavens and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it." Thus the creation of the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1) and the sea and all that is in them (the rest of the creation) was completed in six days. Is there any time for a gap?" --Old-earth creationists would say, "Of course." Ham and friends, apparently, would say "no way"--and anyone who disagrees with them doesn't believe Genesis]. But [Editorial revision at 10:25AM on 1/4/11--So, if the young-earthers are to be believed,] perhaps He "spoke" in a more spiritual sense by which His "voice" was communicated directly into the consciousness of whatever beings He was attempting to communicate with). Or maybe He was simply "talking to Himself."

But however He spoke, "It really doesn't matter, does it? Let it go."

Okay. So I will let it go! At least for now.

But I want to point out that in even this small detail of the word "said," the "plain" meaning is anything but "straightforward." It is not straightforward at all!

But let us move on.

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What about these statements:

"And God said, 'Let the earth sprout . . .' And it was so. The earth brought forth . . . (vv. 11-12)

"And God said, 'Let there be . . .' And it was so. And God made . . ." (vv. 14-16)

Etc.

When God said these things, how long did it take before "it was so"? Does the Bible tell us?

Again, the young-earth creationists seem quite sure that they know.

The implication of everything I have ever read or heard from every young-earther whose works I have read or whose speech I've heard suggests these creative words produced the bulk of their effects immediately. God said it and--poof!--it was done. Immediately.

But was it done like that . . . immediately?

Why, after the repeated summary statements--"And it was so"-- . . . Why does the text go on to discuss more detailed activity--the earth bringing forth vegetation and plants yielding seed and trees bearing fruit, for example? Why doesn't it stop with the simple "it was so"?

Is it possible that something else is going on here?

"Oh!" I can hear the young-earthers say. "You want to niggle. Fine. Maybe we are looking at a few minutes for the fulfillment to take place. Or hours. Maybe.

"But there are limits to the kind of time involved. Look at the time signatures. We're talking about a maximum of one day per creative statement and the primary activity that followed."

And I say, "Okay. Maybe. Maybe it was all done in a day. But could it not take longer? How do you know it was all done in one day?"

I am reminded of a proposal I heard from Dallas Cain, an elder in the church of which I was a member in high school. (NOTE: I never heard of these things while in high school. I didn't hear about--and Cain didn't tell me about--any of this until the early 2000s.)

Cain suggested that on each of the recorded days God spoke His intention. Thus, on the first day, God spoke His intention to create light; on day two, to create the earth's atmosphere. And so on.

Then, after each "word," Cain suggested, the Bible inserts a parenthetical statement about the consequence of that word.

This idea is based on two well-established Biblical principles:

1. That when God has foreordained something, it is often spoken of as if it has already taken place — though it may take considerable time actually to come to fruition (and, in the case of Genesis 1, millions, hundreds of millions, maybe even billions of years).
    
2. The widespread use of parenthetical statements in Scripture.

Such an interpretive scheme would certainly fit in well with the rest of the Bible, yet it permits unlimited time for the outworking of God's creative words. And it permits, too, an overlap in the outworking of the events recorded. Some that were foreordained or declared before others might not be fulfilled until after--indeed, potentially, long after--their subsequently-declared companions have been carried out.

You can find Cain's complete "argument" in a paper called Creation and Capron’s Explanatory Interpretation available for free at the linked address on the Interdisciplinary Biblical Research Institute's website. (See also And It Was So: The Genesis Creation Riddle by Dallas E Cain with Karen L Trespacz.)

Does Cain's proposal make sense? Possibly?

--More later.