My first article a couple of months ago received over sixty comments, the majority of which were from readers upset with my questioning of the Young Earth version of Creationism (YEC). It started what became an excellent discussion.

Some appeared to make belief in a Young Earth an indispensable element of Christian Faith, and it is this position I wish to politely challenge in this article. The age of the Earth is debatable and good Christian people have disagreed about it over the centuries. But some readers felt that the age of the Earth IS fundamental to our faith, because they see any disagreement with a Young Earth as a ‘compromise’ on the inerrancy of the Word of God.

These are complex issues, so the most I can do here is to ask and answer 3 questions:

1. Should we trust a ‘plain reading’ of the most ancient parts of the Scripture?

I would like to suggest that I take the authority of the Bible as seriously as other PT readers do. The difference is that taking the Bible seriously is not the same as taking every verse literally. (Unfortunately, the word ‘literal’ has come to have more than one meaning in Bible hermeneutics, so instead I’ll use the term which occurred regularly in the comments – the ‘plain reading’).

In researching the ‘plain reading’ of Scripture, the best information I have found is David L. Cooper’s ‘golden rule of interpretation’ of the early 20th century: “When the plain sense of scripture makes common sense, seek no other sense; therefore, take every word at its primary, ordinary, usual meaning unless the facts of the immediate context, studied in light of related passages and axiomatic and fundamental truths, indicate clearly otherwise.”

When reading a text that was composed some 3,000 years ago, we are almost certainly bringing different expectations to it from those of the author.

I hope you can see the danger here. When reading a text that was composed some 3,000 years ago, we are almost certainly bringing different expectations to it from those of the author. So what to us is a ‘plain reading’ which makes ‘common sense’ may very well involve misunderstandings.

This is where we need the expert help of scholars of the Hebrew of Genesis and of the cultural patterns of the Ancient Near East (ANE). One such is Professor John H. Walton of Wheaton College. Arguing from the Hebrew and drawing on ANE creation narratives of that period, Walton helps us to see that the How? and When? questions which come to mind for us, living in a scientific and materialist culture, were most likely absent from the original audience’s concerns. To these pre-scientific peoples, all events were the actions of deities. A creation account for them would record a deity assigning functions to the items within his or her control. This is the meaning Walton claims for the Hebrew word ‘bara’ (Strong’s H1254), which occurs four times in Genesis 1.

2. Did the author of Genesis 1-3 mean to give his audience a chronological, ‘scientific’ account of the material creation of the world?

Kenneth Kitchen points out that only four documents of the creation account genre survive from the Ancient Near East’s early second millennium. The Genesis account stands apart from the other three in being very different and in owing absolutely nothing to them in terms of borrowing. However, all four aimed to answer the key existential questions of those generations (e.g. where did the world and humanity come from and why?)

Walton’s further argument that Genesis 1 is a ‘temple inauguration account’ is worth serious attention, in my opinion. In the culture of that era in the Near East, a creation account could include the story of how humans, as slaves of the gods, were required to build and inaugurate a temple to draw down the presence of their local god, who would then provide good harvests for them. By contrast, Genesis 1 shows not competing gods, but one God ordering His own world as His own Temple, but for the benefit of people.

Debating the timing of the days can distract us from the author’s main message in the foundational first ten chapters of Genesis.

Thus this loving God started with the Garden in Eden – a perfect location for Adam and Eve, his image-bearers, to experience life and relationship with him. Far from being slaves, humans were clearly the pinnacle of his creation, and in Eden, he could be with them. From Eden, they were to multiply and extend God’s perfect dominion throughout the rest of the earth. So the great shock of Chapter 3 is that the man and the woman betray the trust of this gracious and loving God. This catastrophe and the exile from Eden are the crisis in the story, which the Holy Spirit uses as a mirror to show us the darkness of our own hearts without God.

The theme of rebellion and exile is repeated three more times (Cain, the Flood and Babel) and in the dark cloud of the Song of Moses (Deut 32) it hangs over Israel through her many rebellions, leading up to the exile of both Israelite Kingdoms. Right from the start, the Bible points to the need for the last Adam to come and Israel’s history underlines this again and again. Debating the timing of the days can distract us from the author’s main message in the foundational first ten chapters of Genesis.

3. Why would God ‘rest’ on the seventh Day?

In Genesis Chapter 2, verses 1 and 2 both state that God ‘finished’ or ‘completed’ [Hebrew word ‘kala’] His work of creating. After that, verse 2 twice uses the Hebrew word ‘sabat’ (Strong’s H7674) to indicate that he ‘rested’. This is puzzling, since God never needs to rest because of tiredness. (Isaiah 40:28 clearly says that “He will not grow tired or weary.”) But for God to ‘rest’ at ease in His Temple-control room, now thoroughly in charge of His Kingdom of earth, and with his beloved human children created and commissioned – now that would make perfect sense to an ANE audience, according to Walton.

Two different hermeneutics

Anyone who can travel with me at all in this approach can then set aside questions of How? and When? and can focus instead on the majestic and catastrophic actions of the story’s characters. These tell us who God is and explain the human condition – the problem to which Jesus is the answer:

• the emotional, self-sacrificial love of the creator God for his human creatures
• the devious twisting of God’s words by the enemy of humanity
• the pitiful betrayal of the creator’s love by foolish humans, who only grasp the joyous generosity of their position of privilege by losing it.

The case I am making is that we should be careful to respect the biblical text by exploring the background and culture of the era of its composition.

In conclusion, I am not really arguing for the great age of the Earth, although that is my preferred understanding. It is a secondary, disputed matter. The real issue here is between two different hermeneutics. The case I am making is that we should be careful to respect the biblical text by exploring the background and culture of the era of its composition. That is just as valid a hermeneutic as the other one. The ‘plain reading’ – the ‘common sense’ understanding – can entirely miss the author’s intent, just as the disciples and the Pharisees so often failed to grasp the figurative meanings in what Jesus said (eg, what he meant by ‘bread’ and ‘yeast’ Mt. 16:11-12).

The real conflict over Genesis 1-3 is between the ‘plain sense’ approach, which is keen to see these chapters as a What? and When? account, versus a ‘study the background’ approach, which asks us to consider three additional factors:

1.  the language, culture and probable assumptions of the human author and the original audience, in this case the Ancient Near East in the Second Millennium BC
2.  the possibility of a symbolic layer of meaning, which is, as in many of Jesus’ parables, the main meaning,
3.  ‘accommodation’ – God’s gracious willingness to adjust his expressions of truth to make allowances for the needs (including scientific ignorance) of his audience.

Non-essential doctrine

These factors together open the way for other interpretations of Genesis Chapters 1-3. Each hermeneutic has its PhD doctors and professors, and I intend to draw on Lennox, Pawson, Goldingay and C John Collins next time. These chapters are indeed ‘foundational’ to the Bible, but the ‘whole structure’ which ‘collapses’ if the YEC position is criticised is not ‘the Christian Faith’, but one particular interpretation of this foundational passage.

All Christians are not going to agree on this issue, so it can only be regarded as among the secondary, ‘disputable matters’ Paul deals with in Romans 14.

Realistically, I see no likelihood that Young Earth Creationism is going to be retired any time soon, since many Christians support it. Fair enough. It is a tenable interpretation. But with this level of disagreement between a range of fiercely-held interpretations, no position on the age of the Earth can possibly be considered an essential doctrine. All Christians are not going to agree on this issue, so it can only be regarded as among the secondary, ‘disputable matters’ Paul deals with in Romans 14.

How would it be if Christians respected each other’s Scriptural hermeneutic, stopped fighting over the age of the Earth, and focused on more important issues in the creationist debate? Watch out for my next article in this series.

Andy Fraser is a retired pastor and university lecturer.