As requested, here's a more detailed explanation of how I interpret the Genesis creation accounts. I've posted the first two sections of this before. It's long, and some of the details I've already mentioned above, but this puts many of the pieces together.
Partial pictures
The Bible contains descriptions of many things we can't comprehend -- things that are beyond human experience. To explain the unexplainable, Scripture tends to use many pictures, none of which are complete, but each of which explains certain things.
For instance, the Bible gives many pictures of God. Here's some of them:
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- God is Spirit (John 4:24; Psalm 139:7-10).</font>
- God is invisible (Col. 1:15; 1 John 4:12).</font>
- God is not a man (Num. 23:19; Hos. 11:9).</font>
- God is a consuming fire (Deut. 4:24).</font>
- God is the spring of living waters (Jer. 2:13).</font>
- God is our shepherd (Psalm 23).</font>
- God is a warrior (Ex. 15:2-3).</font>
- God is a protective mother bird (Psalm 91:4).</font>
If we take any one of these too seriously while excluding others, it can warp our image of God. If we focus on the first three, we may think of God as more of a "force" or a diffused gas than a personal being. Each of the remaining pictures stress certain aspects of God's character that the more technical descriptions don't get across. We don't get the best picture of God by literally combining all the pictures -- that only leads to nonsense -- but instead by combining the characteristics that underlie each picture.
As another example, Jesus uses three parables to explain why he has come to seek and to save the lost. Luke 15 contains the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost (or prodigal) son. None of the pictures is totally accurate by themselves (for instance, God can be in more than one place at a time, unlike the shepherd who needs to leave his 99 sheep to go after the lost one) but put together they paint a more complete and accurate picture.
Genesis 1 vs. 2
Finally, getting to the point, Genesis 1:1-2:3 and 2:4-25 give two stories of the creation of the world. Trying to merge the two into one literal account is as ridiculous as trying to merge the parables of the lost sheep, coin and son into a single story, or of merging the descriptions of God as fire, spring, shepherd, warrior, and bird into a single figure. The two creation accounts are not contradictory, but rather they give different halves of a whole. If the two halves could neatly fit together into a single literal story, there would have been no reason to separate them in the first place.
The first account starts with primordial waters overwhelming an earth that is "formless and void" (Gen. 1:1-2) while the second starts with primordial ground in need of rain (Gen. 2:4-5). The first puts man's creation at the end while the second has man created first before the plants have grown or animals have been formed (unless you read it from the NIV, which tries to smooth over the difference with the animals; this is clearer in more word-for-word translations such as the NASB, KJV, NKJV or ESV). In the first God tells the humans to rule over the other creatures and subdue the earth; in the second man is placed in the garden to "work it and take care of it". The first portrays God creating mainly by speaking; the second has God forming Adam from dust and breathing life into him. Similarly, the first portrays God (
Elohim, the Hebrew generic name for God) as above his creation while in the second God (
Yahweh, the Hebrew personal name for God) walks in the garden with Adam and Eve.
Many people explain away these differences by taking one account or the other as less literal. Generally, the first account is taken as authoritative and the second is just used to add further detail to the sixth day. When there's an apparent contradiction (such as the plants already existing by this time in the first account but not being there in the second), the first chapter is taken literally and the second is adjusted to fit.
My approach is to take both accounts as two sides of a coin. Either account would lead to misinterpretations if the other is excluded from consideration. For instance, the first account stresses God's transcendence, while the second stresses God's immanence. The first shows God's sovereignty as creation takes place in highly ordered and structured days, while the second focuses on God's providence, with things being created in response to needs (man to till the ground, woman as a helper for man). The first stresses how humanity is created in God's image with dominion over the earth, while the second stresses that we came from dust and have an duty to take care of the world. Industrialists may prefer the first account while environmentalists prefer the second, but by taking both together we find balance.
It is not a matter of contradiction. Most of the differences are so plainly obvious that it is the height of arrogance to think we've only noticed them now. They were as evident when the accounts were written down as they are now. They are presented side by side, which is a pretty good clue that the writer of Genesis wasn't disturbed by their differences. Consider two proverbs in the Bible that are often given on Bible contradiction web sites: "Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be like him yourself" and "Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes". What the contradiction web sites try to minimize is where the proverbs are found: Proverbs 26:4-5 -- in other words, they are back to back! Obviously the compiler of Proverbs was well aware that these two proverbs gave different advice for a similar situation, and yet under divine inspiration he had no problem including them both. This was not a flaw he overlooked or some secret that was only discovered by later generations; the proverbs are two sides of the same coin, and so they were placed side by side. There are times when each is relevant, and it is better to keep both in mind than to always use one to the exclusion of the other.
There are other times when the Bible uses multiple accounts quite differently. Jesus' crucifixion is recorded in detail four times, yet we don't see the huge differences between the accounts that we do in creation or in the parables of the lost items. When Samuel/Kings and Chronicles give accounts of Israel's rulers, they select their details in order to fit their individual purpose, but yet the details mesh together. Saul is followed by David who is followed by Solomon in both accounts, and any differences are in minor details such as the exact moment a king died. Most of the details are exactly the same in both accounts (sometimes word for word).
In the creation accounts, by contrast, hardly
any details are the same. While both describe God as creating everything, they do it in totally different ways. Somebody who reads Genesis 2:4-25 without any preconceived ideas from the preceding chapter would get a totally different picture of creation than one who tries to reconcile the second chapter to the first. I think we often miss much of what the second account has to say to us because we are only willing to view it through the filter of the first chapter.
Genesis 1's framework
I think God's purpose in Genesis 1 is to establish that he is the only Creator and that he is involved with his creation. He revealed this without giving us the answers to questions we have the God-given ability to answer on our own (even if the answers aren't discovered in our lifetime). Genesis 1 doesn't tell us the shape of the world, and it uses terminology that would be very familiar to those who believed in a flat earth surrounded by water covered by the canopy of the heavens. The account is given from an earth-based perspective, so there is no hint that the earth orbits the sun or is dwarfed in size by the sun. While these may seem to be gross oversights for those who see the text as scientific in nature, it makes sense if you believe that the text is more interested in telling us about God and his relationship to humanity than in spilling all the secrets of how the universe works.
Further, God revealed the indescribable wonders of creation in a way that would make sense to the earliest humans as well as us. Even though I think we know more about the universe now than people did in Moses' day, there are still huge mysteries. Genesis 1 doesn't require an understanding of the immensity of stars or the amazing complexity of plant life. Instead, it tells of a creative act beyond our imagination by using terms we (and earlier humans) can understand.
Probably the most creative act a person can do is to make a story. Whether told orally, acted out on a stage or produced in a movie, a story allows a person to create a universe of their own, populated with the vistas and characters of their choosing. It is a form of creation that is known to virtually all cultures in all times, even though the methods of storytelling change. I think Genesis 1 describes how God created the universe using a structure familiar to any playwright or storyteller. It describes the three sets, or realms, and the three groups of characters that together make up this creation.
The first three days describe the three realms. The first realm (1:3-5) is space (or, the heavens). It is the upper reaches of the sky, higher than the birds. Aside from the sun, moon and stars, all this realm consists of (from an earthly perspective) is a gradual progression between light and dark, day and night.
The second realm (1:6-8) is sea and sky. Picture yourself on a tiny island just big enough to stand on. You're surrounded by the sea in every direction, and above you are only the clouds of the sky.
The third and final realm (1:9-13) is land. Note that this realm is created fully-furnished with all kinds of plants and trees. It, like the other realms, is complete except for the characters who will inhabit it.
The second set of three days describe the three groups of characters who inhabit each realm. First, the characters for space are added (1:14-19). Note that the sun is described as governing the day while the moon governs the night: the personification is natural since these are characters and not mere set dressing like the plants.
Second, the characters are added to the sea and sky (1:20-23). A scientist may wonder why whales and bats aren't created with the other mammals, but the point isn't to scientifically classify the animals. It also isn't classifying them according to worth (if that were the purpose, surely humans would have a day for themselves!). Instead, birds and fish (and bats and whales) are all characters that inhabit the second set, so they are all created on the fifth day.
Finally, the characters that live on land are created (1:24-31). This includes livestock, bugs, wild animals, and humans.
One thing I like about this interpretation is that everything fits on the right day. In fact, if you moved any one thing to a different day, it wouldn't make as much sense. This view is similar to how this creation account is sometimes divided into three days of forming that correspond with three days of filling, but unlike that view, the creation of plant life on day three isn't a problem. Unlike a literal historical reading, the creation of light first, then plants, then the sun makes perfect sense, and the personification of the sun and moon also makes sense. It also explains why animals span two days while humans are added at the end of day six instead of getting a day of their own.
Overall, Genesis 1 is an account of God's creation explained in terms humans throughout the ages can understand and relate to: a grand play being fashioned with three realms (or sets) corresponding to three groups of characters. It is not intended to explain the mysteries of the universe, but rather to point to the One who created those mysteries.
A parable about condescention
Fredrick asks his mom where babies come from. She gulps deeply as she was not expecting her young child to ask this question for a few years yet, and then explains that when a mommy and a daddy really love each other, they kiss each other a lot and sometimes this makes a baby start to grow in the mommy's tummy.
When Freddy's older, he reflects back on this explanation and realizes how false it was. Kissing has no direct link to conception. But that's not the only factual error: it's also not true that making a baby requires a married couple, or even that the couple needs to love each other. Why did his mom tell him this blatantly false story?
Fred can think of a few reasons. Maybe everything he's learned about sex is actually a clever deception and his mom's story really is literally true. Or, maybe his mom meant something more by "kiss" than its ordinary meaning; after all, the word can also mean an expression of affection through physical contact regardless of which body parts are involved. Or, maybe his mom was just talking about how a couple tends to kiss a lot when they're planning to have a baby, and the statement about a baby starting to grow is just the end result of that plan. But, none of these reasons satisfy Fred. The first seems extremely unlikely. The second and third require his mom to use words in a way he wouldn't reasonably be expected to understand at the time.
Finally, he comes to think that his mom was purposely condescending to him in relating that story. Kissing was a form of intimacy that he was already able to understand and appreciate, and so his mom used that instead of the more accurate description which he would have found baffling and probably a bit scary and gross. While his mom's version wasn't technically as accurate, it better conveyed the
spirit of the sexual act. Also, he came to see that his mom was more intent on telling him about how marital love
should work than how sex
does work. That's why she had said it was between a mom and dad who loved each other.
At the beginning of his questioning, Freddy had wondered why his mom would tell him something that wasn't true. Now, he realized that his mom's story had been true in another way, and the story was even more important than he'd thought. He didn't think his mom was evil for telling him this story, and he didn't discard the other things she'd taught him because of this, or treat everything she said as symbolic and not literal. However, he did come to a greater appreciation of the different ways his mom had communicated with him in order to guide him to adulthood.
I don't hold to the day-age theory. I think the days in Genesis 1:1-2:3 really mean solar days and not ages, just like the sheep in Jesus' parable of the lost sheep really mean sheep and not people. However, while the days and the sheep are literal within their respective narratives, their narratives as a whole are symbolic of something greater. More on that in my next post.