Unlocking the Bible

There are, however, two problems to consider if Moses wrote these five books.

PROBLEMS OVER MOSES’ AUTHORSHIP

The first problem is quite minor. At the end of Deuteronomy Moses’ death is recorded. It is a little unlikely that he wrote that part! Joshua probably added a note about it at the end of the five books to round off the story.

The second, and major, problem is that the book of Genesis ends about 300 years before Moses was born. He would have no problem writing the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, since he lived through the events they record. But how could he have obtained his material for the book of Genesis?

The problem is easily overcome, however. Studies made of people in non-book cultures have revealed that those who cannot write have phenomenal memories. Tribes which have no writing learn their history through the stories passed on around the camp fire. This oral tradition is very strong in primitive communities and would have been so among the Hebrews, especially when they became slaves in Egypt and wanted their children to know who they were and where they had come from.

There are two kinds of history normally passed down in this memory form. One is the genealogy, since their family tree gives people an identity. There are many genealogies in Genesis, with the phrase ‘these are the generations of’ (or ‘these are the sons of’ in some translations) coming 10 times. The other is the saga or hero story – telling of the great deeds which ancestors accomplished. Genesis is composed almost entirely of these two aspects of history: stories about great heroes interspersed with family trees. With this in mind, it is easy to see how the book was composed from memories which Moses gleaned from the slaves in Egypt.

Nonetheless, this does not answer all the questions about Moses’ authorship. There is one part of Genesis which he could not possibly have picked up that way, and that is the first chapter (or rather 1:1 through to 2:3, since the chapter division is in the wrong place). How did Moses compose the chapter detailing the creation of the world?

It is at this point that we must exercise faith. Psalm 103 refers to God making his ways known through Moses, including the creation narrative. It is one of the few parts of the Bible that must have been dictated directly by God and taken down by man, just as God clearly tells John what to write in Revelation when describing the end of the world. Usually God inspired the writers to use their own temperament, memory, insight and outlook to shape his Word (as with Moses in the rest of Genesis), and he so overruled by the inspiration of his Spirit that what resulted was what he wanted written. But he gave the story of creation in direct revelation.

A confirming detail is provided when we consider that there was no record of the Sabbath being observed before the time of Moses. We do not read that taking a day for Sabbath rest was part of the lifestyle of any of the patriarchs. Indeed, there is no trace at all of the concept of a seven-day week. Any time references are to months and years. Since we have Genesis 1 at the beginning of our Bible, we assume quite wrongly that Adam knew about it and observed a Sabbath as a model to everyone after him. But it seems instead that Adam looked after the Garden of Eden every day and had time with the Lord in the evenings. Likewise there is no suggestion that Abraham, Isaac or Jacob took a Sabbath, and their work as herdsmen probably offered little time for rest.

All this need not surprise us if, as suggested above, Moses received the first chapter – including the concept of Sabbath rest – from God himself. With this knowledge, he was then able to introduce the Sabbath concept into the life of Israel through the Ten Commandments.

To summarize, then, Genesis is clearly a book from God and should be read with this assumption. It is also a book written by Moses, using his education and gift for writing from his time in Egypt to record the extraordinary works of God as he reverses the effects of the Fall in the call of Abraham.

The shape of Genesis

It is instructive to note the overall shape of the book. The first quarter (Chapters 1–11) forms a distinct unit, covering many centuries and the growth and spread of nations throughout the ‘Fertile Crescent’ (the land stretching from Egypt to the Persian Gulf in the Middle East). The watershed comes with God’s call of Abraham in Chapter 12. The next three-quarters of the book has a narrower focus, chronicling God’s dealings with Abraham and his descendants, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph.

There are other divisions within this overall shape. In Chapters 1–2 everything is described as good, including human beings. In Chapters 3–11 we see the origin and results of sin as man drifts spiritually and physically away from Eden. We see God’s character, his justice in punishing man, and his merciful provision even within this punishment.

In Chapters 12–36 six men are contrasted: Abraham with Lot, Isaac (child of promise) with Ishmael (child of flesh), and Jacob with Esau. We are faced with two kinds of people and asked which we identify with. God is tying his own reputation to three men, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, flawed as they are. Finally the text focuses on Joseph, an altogether different character. We will see later how and why he is so distinct from his forefathers.

In the beginning God

Let us turn now to the book itself and to the amazing chapter with which it opens. It begins with the words, ‘In the beginning God’.

Genesis is full of beginnings, but it is clear that God himself does not begin here. God is already there when the Bible opens, for he was already there when the universe came to be. Philosophical questions concerning where God came from are really non-questions. There had to be an eternal something or someone before the universe existed and the Bible is clear that this person is God. It is the fundamental assumption of the Bible that God exists eternally, that he has always been there, that he will always be there, and that he is the God who is. His very name, ‘Yahweh’, is a participle of the Hebrew verb ‘to be’. An English word which conveys the nature of God contained in the word ‘Yahweh’ is ‘always’: he has always been who he is and will always be just the same.

While we do not need to explain the existence of God, we do need to explain the existence of everything else. This is the very opposite of modern thinking, which looks around at what is there and assumes that we need to prove the existence of God. The Bible comes at the question from the other direction and says that God was always there and we have to explain now why anything else is there.

Certainly when Moses was writing, every Hebrew knew that God existed. He had rescued his people out of Egypt, divided the Red Sea and drowned the Egyptian army, so their personal experience told them that God was there. Further ‘proof’ was unnecessary.

The need for faith

The New Testament suggests a useful approach to considering God which will help us in our reading of Genesis. In Hebrews 11 we read two things about creation. First that it is ‘by faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible’. Then, a little later in the same chapter, we read that ‘anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him’.

As far as the whole Bible is concerned, therefore – including Genesis – we must assume God is there and that he wants us to find him, know him, love him and serve him. Then we see what happens on the basis of this trust. We cannot prove whether God exists or not, but we can hold the basic belief that God wants us to know him and have faith in him.

A picture of the creator

Moving on from the first four words of the book, we come to a feature that may be surprising: the subject of Genesis 1 is not creation but the creator. It is not primarily about how our world came to be, but about who made it come to be. In fact, in just 31 verses the word ‘God’ appears 35 times, as if to underline that this is all about him. It is not so much the story of creation as a picture of the creator. So what does this picture tell us?

1. GOD IS PERSONAL

Genesis 1 depicts a personal God. He has a heart that feels. He has a mind that thinks and can speak his thoughts. He has a will and makes decisions and sticks to them. All this forms what we know as a personality. God is not an it, God is a he. He is a full person with feelings, thoughts and motives like us.

2. GOD IS POWERFUL

It is quite evident that if God can speak things into being by his Word, he must be enormously powerful. In all he gives 10 ‘commandments’ in the first chapter, and every one is fulfilled just as he desires.

3. GOD IS UNCREATED

We have already noted that God is and always was there. He was always the Creator, never a creature.

4. GOD IS CREATIVE

What an imagination he must have! What an artist! Six thousand varieties of beetle. No two blades of grass the same. No two snowflakes. No two clouds. No two grains of sand. No two stars. An astonishing variety, yet in harmony. It is a uni-verse.

5. GOD IS ORDERLY

There is a symmetry in his work of creation, as we shall see. The fact that creation is mathematical has made science possible.

6. GOD IS SINGULAR

The verbs in Genesis 1, from ‘created’ onwards, are all singular.

7. GOD IS PLURAL

The word used for ‘God’ is not the singular El, but the plural Elohim, which means three or more ‘gods’. So the very first sentence in the Bible, using a plural noun with a singular verb, is grammatically wrong but theologically right, hinting at a God who is ‘Three-in-one’.

8. GOD IS GOOD

Therefore all his work is ‘good’ and he pronounces human beings as his best, his masterpiece, ‘very good’. Furthermore, he wants to be good to all his creation, to ‘bless’ it. His goodness sets the standard for all goodness.

9. GOD IS LIVING

He is active in the world of time and space.

10. GOD IS A COMMUNICATOR

He speaks to creation and the creatures within it. In particular he wants to relate to human beings.

11. GOD IS LIKE US

We are made in his image, so we must be in some ways like him and he must be like us.

12. GOD IS UNLIKE US

He can ‘create’ out of nothing (ex nihilo), whereas we can only ‘make’ something out of something else. We are ‘manufacturers’; he is the only Creator.

13. GOD IS INDEPENDENT

God is never identified with his creation. There is a distinction between creator and creation from the very beginning. The New Age movement confuses this idea by suggesting that somehow ‘god’ is part of us. But the creator is separate from his creation. He can take a day off and be quite apart from all that he has made. We must never identify him with what he has made. To worship his creation is idolatry. To worship the creator is the truth.

Philosophies challenged

If we accept the truth of Genesis 1, then a number of alternative viewpoints about God are automatically ruled out. These viewpoints could also be called philosophies (the word ‘philosophy’ means ‘love of wisdom’). Everyone has their own way of looking at the world, whether they consciously think about it or not.

If you believe Genesis, the following philosophies will not stand.

1 Atheism. Atheists believe there is no God. Genesis 1 confirms there is.

2 Agnosticism. Agnostics say they do not know whether there is a God or not. Genesis 1 says we accept that there is.

3 Animism. This is the belief that many spirits control the world – spirits of rivers, spirits of mountains, etc. Genesis 1 asserts that God created and controls the world.

4 Polytheism. Polytheists believe there are many gods. Hindus would be in this category. Genesis 1 states there is just one.

5 Dualism. This is the belief that there are two gods, one good and one bad, with the good god responsible for the good things that happen and the bad god for the bad things. Genesis 1 asserts that there is just one God, who is good.

6 Monotheism. This is the belief of Judaism and Islam – that there is one God, and just one person, thus rejecting God as a trinity. By using the word Elohim to describe God, Genesis 1 tells us that there is one God in three persons.

7 Deism. Deists see God as the creator, but argue that he cannot now control what he has created. He is like a watchmaker who has wound up the world and lets it run on its own laws. As such God never intervenes in his world, and miracles are impossible. Many Christians are, for all practical purposes, deists.

8 Theism. Theists believe that God not only created the world but is also in control of everything and everyone he has made. Theism is one step towards the biblical philosophy, but does not in fact go far enough.

9 Existentialism. This is a popular philosophy today, where experience is believed to be God. Our choices and our own affirmation of ourselves is the ‘religion’ followed. There is no creator as in Genesis 1 to whom we have to give an account.

10 Humanism. Humanists reject the concept of a god outside the created world. Although Genesis 1 tells us that man is created by God, humanists believe that man is God.

11 Rationalism. Rationalists believe that our own reason is God, rejecting the indication in Genesis that the powers of reason were given when God created man in his image.

12 Materialism. Materialists believe that only matter is real and do not accept anyone or anything they cannot see for themselves.

13 Mysticism. In contrast to materialism, mystics believe that only spirit is real.

14 Monism. This philosophy underpins much of the New Age movement. It holds that matter and spirit are essentially one and the same thing. The idea of God as an independent spirit creating the world is thus ruled out of court.

15 Pantheism. This idea is similar to monism, in that everything is believed to be God. A modern version of it is called Panentheism: God in everything.

In contrast to all these philosophies, the biblical viewpoint could be called Triunetheism: God is three in one, creator and controller of the universe. This is the biblical way of thinking which comes right out of Genesis 1 and continues through to the last chapter of Revelation.

Style

Let us move on to look more closely at the text of Genesis 1 and in particular the style of the chapter. The obvious point to make is that it is not written in scientific language. Many people seem to approach the chapter expecting the detail of a scientific textbook. Instead it is written very simply, so that every generation can understand it, whatever the standard of their scientific learning.

The account uses only very simple categories. Vegetation is divided into three groups: grass, plants and trees. Animal life also has three categories: domesticated animals, animals hunted for food and wild animals. These simple classifications are understood by everybody everywhere.

WORDS

This simple style is also demonstrated in the words used. There are only 76 separate root words in the whole of Genesis 1. Furthermore, every one of those words is to be found in every language on earth, which means that Genesis 1 is the easiest chapter to translate in the whole Bible.

Every writer has to ask about the potential audience for their work. God wanted the story of creation to reach everybody in every time and in every place. He therefore made it very simple. Even a child can read it and get the message. One of the results of this is the ease with which it can be translated.

The verbs are also very simple. One of the verbs used is especially important to our understanding of what took place. Genesis 1 distinguishes between the words ‘created’ and ‘made’. The Hebrew word for ‘created’, bara, means to make something out of nothing and it only occurs three times in the whole of Genesis 1 – to describe the creation of matter, life and man. On other occasions the word ‘made’ is used instead, to indicate that something is made out of something else, rather in the way we may speak of manufacturing things.

The description of God’s work of creation in seven days is also very simple. Each sentence has a subject, a verb and an object. The grammar is so straightforward that anybody can follow it. All the sentences are linked by one word – for example ‘but’, ‘and’ or ‘then’. It is a remarkable production.

STRUCTURE

Genesis 1 is beautifully structured. It is orderly, spread over six days, and the six days are divided into two sets of three.

In Genesis 1:2 we read, ‘Now the earth was formless and empty.’ The development starts in verse 3 and there is an amazing correspondence between the first three days and the last three days. In the first three days, God creates a varied environment with sharp contrasts: light from darkness, sky from ocean, and land from sea. He is creating distinctions which make for variety. On the third day he also starts to fill the land with plants. The earth now has ‘form’.

Then, on the fourth, fifth and sixth days, he sets out to fill the environments he has created in the first three days. So on day four the sun, moon and stars correspond to the light and darkness created on day one; on day five the birds and fish fill the sky and sea created in day two; and on day six animals and Adam are created to occupy the land created on day three. So God is creating things in an orderly and precise manner. He is indeed bringing order out of chaos. The earth is now ‘full’ – of life.

MATHEMATICAL PROPERTIES

It also fascinating to note that Genesis 1 has mathematical properties. The three figures that keep coming up in the account are 3, 7 and 10, each of which has particular significance throughout the Bible. The number 3 speaks of what God is, 7 is the perfect number in Scripture, and 10 is the number of completeness. If the occasions when the numbers 3, 7, and 10 occur are examined, some astonishing links emerge.

At only three points does God actually create something out of nothing. On three occasions he calls something by name, three times he makes something, and three times he blesses something.

On seven occasions we read that God ‘saw that it was good’. There are, of course, seven days – and the first sentence is seven words in Hebrew. Furthermore, the last three sentences in this account of creation are also each formed of seven words in the original Hebrew.

And there are ten commands of God.

SIMPLICITY

The style of Genesis 1 is in marked contrast to other ‘creation stories’, for example the Babylonian epic of creation, which is very complicated and weird and has little link with reality. The simplicity of the Genesis account of creation has not been universally applauded, however. Some have suggested that this simplistic approach is proof that the Bible cannot be considered as serious in the modern era. But there is much to be said in defence of this simple approach.

Imagine describing how a house is built in a children’s book. You would want it to be accurate but simplified so that the young readers would be able to follow the process. You might write about the bricklayer who laid the bricks, the carpenter who worked on the windows, the door frame and the roof joists. You might mention the plumber who put the pipes in, the electrician who came to put the wires in, the plasterer who plasters the walls and the decorator who paints them.

Written in this way the description has six basic stages, but of course building a house is far more complicated than that. It requires the synchronizing and overlapping of different workers for particular periods of time. No one would say that the description given in the children’s book is wrong or misleading, just that it is rather more complex in reality. In the same way there is no doubt that Genesis is a simplification and that science can fill out a whole lot more detail for us. But God’s purpose was not to provide detailed scientific accuracy. Rather it was to give an orderly explanation that everyone could follow and accept, and which underlined that he knew what he was doing.

Scientific questions

Understanding the need for simplicity does not answer all the questions which arise from the Genesis account of creation. In particular we must consider the speed at which creation took place and the age of the earth, two separate but interrelated areas. Geologists tell us that the earth must have taken four and a quarter billion years to form, while Genesis seems to say it took just six days. Which is correct?

In terms of the order of creation there is broad agreement between scientists’ findings and the Genesis account. Science agrees with the order of Genesis 1, with one exception: the sun, moon and stars do not appear until the fourth day, after the plants are made. This seems contradictory until we realize that the original earth was covered with a thick cloud or mist. Scientific enquiry confirms the likelihood of this. So when the first light appeared, it would just be seen as lighter cloud, whereas once the plants came and started turning carbon dioxide into oxygen, the mist was cleared and for the first time the sun, moon and stars were visible in the sky. The appearance of sun, moon and stars was therefore due to the clearing away of the thick cloud that surrounded the earth. So science does agree exactly with the order of Genesis 1. Creatures appeared in the sea before they appeared on the land. Man appeared last.

While scientists generally agree with the Bible on the order of creation, there are still areas of major conflict. These include the origin of animals and humans and a host of associated questions, including the age of the people who lived before and after the Flood, the extent of the Flood, and the whole question of evolution versus creation.

Before becoming involved in the detail of such questions, however, it is important to note that there are three ways of handling this problem of science versus Scripture. It is vital to decide how you are going to approach the problem before you do so. You must choose whether to repudiate, to segregate or to integrate.

REPUDIATION

The first approach offers a choice. Either Scripture is right, or science is right, but you must repudiate one or the other: you cannot accept both. Typically unbelievers believe science, believers believe Scripture and both bury their heads in the sand about the other.

The problem with repudiating science if you are a Christian is that science has been right in so many areas. We owe so much of our modern communication to scientific development, for example. Science is not the enemy some Christians seem to believe it to be.

The story of the discovery of ‘Piltdown man’ is a case in point. When a skull from a creature which seemed to be half-man half-ape was discovered at Piltdown in Sussex in 1912, many saw it as evidence of some form of evolution. When it was later found that the skull was actually a forgery, Christians were quick to pour scorn on science. They forgot that it was science which had discovered the skull to be a fake in the first place!

Choosing between science and the Bible thus has problems attached. We should not accept scientific truth unquestioningly, but neither should we be foolish enough to call people to commit intellectual suicide in order to believe the Bible. It is not necessary.

SEGREGATION

The second approach is to keep science and Scripture as far apart as possible. Science is concerned with one kind of truth and Scripture with another. This view claims that science is concerned with physical or material truth, whereas Scripture is concerned with moral and supernatural truth. The two deal with entirely separate issues. Science tells us how and when the world came to be. Scripture tells us who made it and why. They are to be kept entirely separate for there is no overlap to be concerned about. Science talks about facts; Scripture talks about values and we should not look to the one for the other.

This approach has become very common even in churches. It comes from a mindset shaped by Greek thinking, where the physical and the spiritual are kept in two watertight compartments. This kind of thinking is alien to the Hebrew mind, however, which saw God as Creator and Redeemer, with the physical and the spiritual belonging together.