In the Beginning
Notes
Transcript
Handout
I invite you to begin a journey through the Bible. I am not sure how long it will take. However, together we will know Jesus more and experience the power of his resurrection as we are transformed by the Holy Spirit, through the study and application of his word.
We will do this by looking at Scripture in its three contexts:
We will be discovering the World Of the Text each week.
We will be discovering the World Behind the Text, which is the Bible in its historical and cultural context.
We will be discovering the World in Front of the Text, which is progressive revelation, early church fathers, church tradition, and commentaries written on the text.
In looking at Scripture in these three contexts, we will learn how our own context and perceptions affect how we observe, understand, and thus interpret the text and apply it to our lives.
Let’s start with observing the World Of the Text in Genesis 1:1, the first sentence of the Bible.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
There are some basic tools of observation to use when we look at the World Of the Text.
The first tool is to identify the genre of writing. There are nine genres in Scripture: cosmogony, law, history, wisdom, poetry, narrative, epistles/letters, prophecy, and apocalyptic literature.
The second tool is to observe the grammar/sentence structure.
The third tool is to observe which of the six investigative questions the text answers. The six investigative questions are: who, what, when, where, why, and how.
The genre of Genesis 1-3 is a cosmogony presented with a combination of history, narrative, and poetry genres.
Cosmogony is a text that deals with the origins of the universe. The Big Bang is a modern cosmogony. Ancient cosmogonies other than Genesis 1-3 are the Memphite Theology and the Epic of Atrahasis, Enuma Elish, and the Eridu Genesis. We will be looking at these ancient cosmogonies later to gain an understanding of the World Behind the Text. When looking at the World in Front of the Text, we will see how the Big Bang cosmogony and other modern ideas influence the understanding of the text and thus, the interpretation of it.
It is history because it records the account of God creating the heavens and earth.
It is a narrative because it tells the account of God creating the heavens and the earth as a story.
It is poetry because it uses recurring refrains. Here are some examples, “God said, ‘Let there be .… ‘”, “and God saw that ______ was good,” “and there was evening and there was morning the ______ day.” These refrains bring clarity to the message of the account and make it memorable. It being in the form of poetry in no way lessens the truth it is communicating concerning God as Creator.
In observing the sentence structure of Genesis 1:1, it is easily broken into three sections.
The first section is “In the beginning”.
The second section is “God created”.
The third section is “the heavens and the earth”.
Now that we have broken down the sentence, we can observe what investigative questions apply to the text.
The first section answers the question of “When?” in the beginning. Which naturally might prompt the question, “What was before the beginning?” The second section gives us that answer: God was before the beginning because “In the beginning, God created.”
The second section answers the question of “Who?” God as Creator. He is the creator of all things; nothing exists outside of his creation. The World in Front of the Text confirms this with progressive revelation in Colossians 1:16. From this, we also know that Jesus is God, the second person of the Trinity, who created all things.
The third section answers the question of “What?” What was created by God?” The heavens and the earth were created by God.
What does the author mean by heavens?
We observe in Genesis, the World Of the Text, heaven being used three ways.
The first is in Genesis 1:8, which is in reference to the sky or the earth’s atmosphere.
The second is in Genesis 1:14, which is in reference to space, where he created the stars, the sun, and the moon.
The third is in Genesis 11:4; 21:17, which is in reference to the abode of God and spiritual beings.
From our observations of the World Of the Text, we see God straight away with the first sentence of Scripture laying for us the foundation that He is the Creator of the heavens and the earth, and thus their beginning.
Now we move to the World Behind the Text by observing:
Who wrote the text?
When was the text written?
What period of time does the text cover?
What were the contemporary cultural ideas?
Who wrote Genesis?
The World Of the Text does not answer this, so we must go to the World in Front of the Text. We are informed from progressive revelation in Luke 24:44 that Moses wrote the first five books of the OT. This understanding has been affirmed through church tradition.
When was Genesis written?
Based on the authorship of Moses, Genesis was written from 1446 to 1406 BC. During this time, Moses wrote the first five books of the OT. It is also known as the Pentateuch because that is the Greek word for five.
What period of time does the text cover?
The World Of the Text says Genesis covers from the beginning of creation in Genesis 1:1 to the death of Joseph in Genesis 50:22. According to the Masoretic Text Family’s record of the genealogies, Genesis covers approximately 2,289 years.
What were the contemporary cultural ideas?
In this context, it is other ancient cosmogonies that the author and the original audience would have been familiar with.
These ancient cosmogonies are: the Egyptian Memphite Theology, the Mesopotamian Epic of Atrahasis, Enuma Elish, and the Eridu Genesis.
The Egyptian Memphite Theology claims that Ptah created all, including the gods. It describes the process of creation as beginning in the heart, and then being formed as words on the tongue, and from that, all things came into being. From reading this, we know that Moses is writing the Genesis creation account to correct the Egyptian view of creation.
The Mesopotamian Epic of Atrahasis claims the Great god Anunnaki made the lesser gods, called the Igigi, create the earth; they dug the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and raised the highest mountains. They carried a workload sevenfold, so they rebelled and went to war against Anunnaki. The solution was to have Belet-ili, the womb-goddess, create humanity to bear the load of the gods. From reading this account, we see Moses correcting the Mesopotamian view of the creation of the earth and the creation of man, for Moses says that man is created in the image of God, the jewel of his creation, in contrast to slave labor for the gods.
The Mesopotamian Enuma Elish creation account is written on seven tablets. It claims that primeval Apsu and chaos Tiamut created through their fighting and chaos. This is in direct conflict with Moses’s account of God’s ordered creation.
The Mesopotamian Eridu Genesis is similar to the Epic of Atahasis in that man was created as slaves to work. The difference is that the gods are not rebelling in this account. Once again, we see how Moses needed to make sure that his audience understood how the world came to be. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, Genesis 1:1.
Now we move to the last context, the World in Front of the Text, by looking at progressive revelation, the early church fathers, church tradition, and commentaries written on the text.
The cross-reference tool is a good way to observe progressive revelation in the Scripture. For Genesis 1:1, there are over 81 passages as cross-references outside of Genesis.
Let’s look at three John 1:1-3, 14; Hebrews 11:3; and Revelation 4:11.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.
“Worthy are you, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they existed and were created.”
The Early Church Fathers approached Genesis 1 through different interpretive lenses, some literal and others allegorical, which is very similar to how modern commentators approach it today.
Theophilus of Antioch was the first to articulate that God created all things from nothing. This is known as ex nihilo from the Latin.
Irenaeus observed the Trinity in Genesis 1:1-3 in light of John 1:1-3,14.
Church tradition here follows the Early Church Fathers. It emphasizes the concept of God creating ex nihilo.
Modern commentaries fall into two lenses of interpretation for Genesis 1-3.
The first lens is the scientific worldview, which emphasizes the natural laws and empirical evidence. This is the view of Western Civilization, the thought process we are raised in.
This view generates questions like: How does God get away with creating the stars, the moon, and the sun on day four?
This view often interprets Genesis 1-2 through the Big Bang cosmogony and also the evolutionary model of Darwin, since in our culture these are seen as science.
The scientific lens of interpretation produced the theory of Theistic Evolution, which postulates that God uses evolutionary processes as the means to bring about all life on earth.
The scientific lens of interpretation produced the Gap Theory that there are millions of years between Genesis 1:1-2. This was done to accommodate the evolutionary model for an old Earth.
The scientific lens of interpretation also produced the Day Age Theory. It claims that each day of creation represents millions of years, and they then try to line it up with the evolutionary model for the universe.
The second lens is the supernatural worldview, which emphasizes God outside of creation creating the natural order from nothing in six days, just as he revealed to us in Genesis 1-2.
This then becomes the lens through which all scientific data is processed. This is the lens of Answers in Genesis, which put together the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter. The founder of this organization is Ken Ham.
This is the lens through which I view Genesis, and the lens through which I try to view all of my life.
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
This God, Yahweh, Creator of heaven and earth, wants to know us. He is the Creator and has chosen to work in our lives for our good. He is trustworthy, and nothing is too hard for him.
Will you trust him with your life?
Maybe you trusted him with your eternity, but like me, you struggle to trust him with the daily grind.
Let’s trust the Creator with our daily grind by walking in his grace.
