Mr.Wright addresses the literal 'why', but not the literal 'how'. One could argue that the 'why' is more important, but too many get stuck on the 'how' to allow discussion of the 'why'. They say that if the 'how' is illogical and unsupportable by human reason, then why should I trust the 'why'. For the most part human reason is wrapped up in science for these folks. The interesting part is that science keeps changing to more and more agree with the literal 'how' of genesis.
-When the big bang was postulated, secular scientists cried it's too much like biblical creation, then it was essentially proved to be true.
-The notion of punctuated equilibrium is the idea the suddenly animals rapidly evolved. This theory was invented because the fossil record just doesn't support a slow evolution of life.
Yet, well meaning Christians keep trying to shoehorn evolution into genesis. Why? Because they don't see (in their own human understanding) how God could have done it based on the CURRENT understanding of the evidence. When the universe was proved to be expanding and therefore the big bang must have happened Christians said 'See, the Bible's right.' At that point the current understanding changed to agree more fully with God's word. Basically the rocks are crying out that God's word is True. Who am I to say it is wrong or cryptically metaphorical or missing clearer notions of time or events? Who am I to add to God's Word? The only thing left to do then is watch as God slowly reveals the Truth of His creation to those who put their trust in merely human understanding.

Kontributor, then you have scientists who are Christians like Francis Collins (The Language of God), head of the Human Genome Project, who says that evolution (between species) IS accounted for in the DNA "fossil" record. So the confusion goes on. I believe all we really NEED to know about the origin of the universe is found in Genesis 1:1 and what follows is the kind of "myth" or stylized account that presents truth that is of a scope that human minds cannot accommodate except in a sort of mythical narrative. That the structure of the narrative is that of the Israelite Temple seems important for giving the context in which we can understand its spiritual (not necessarily its modern scientific) import. I don't think evolution (small "e," i.e., as a process of the development of life involving an interaction between the environment and the inherent God-given potential in biochemical and cellular life) is possible without the Christian God, but I also don't know that I can easily dismiss so much of the description of how and what happened produced by modern science (e.g., about the age of the cosmos and the earth and human civilization), even if I must dismiss the *purely* naturalistic philosophical paradigm (the unbelievers "answer" to why it happened that way) of Evolution as untenable.

What N.T. Wright says is brilliant.
Kontributor,
While I believe you are putting words in Wright's mouth that he is not saying.
He is not saying: blindly follow what scientists are saying. He is saying look at the passage carefully and figure out is it a metaphorical story or a real life story.
Ask yourself the question, is there a real "Good Samaritan?"
There most certainly is not, even though that story is so much a part of our DNA most non-believers think that there is a real Good Samaritan.
That is the point of this message. What Wright is doing is he is saying that with all the evidence that the world is much much older than 6000 years we need to read Gen 1-11 metaphorically like we would reading a parable of Jesus.
And when Abram from Ur shows up, we have entered into the recorded period of history where we have writing to pass down what was happening then.
There is no evidence of a global flood. There is no evidence of people living 900+ years.
There is empirical evidence of everything that happens from Gen 12 to the End of the book of Acts.
My faith is build upon the eye witness accounts, most importantly the ones from the New Testament writings.

I agree that the text of Genesis, particularly ch. 1-11, does not purport what actually happened, but a series of narratives to explain why things are as they are, especially human relationships to God - both as crown of creation and as fallen.

However, my concern is not to show how science is right, nor is it to "disprove the Bible." We need to work on ways to demonstrate how the literature of Genesis works, and why we need to abandon the idea that Genesis is about "what happened" and that the Bible cannot be reliable if we don't understand it as such. Until we understand that Biblical myths, fables, and works of fiction can still be "divinely inspired" we will never appreciate the richness of scripture and how it speaks today. Furthermore, we will never appreciate the narrative in which we continue to participate.

MennoKnight, I understand what you are saying, but I do have some concern. You talk about the empirical evidence that the world is much older than 6000. Well, that may very well be true, and at the end of the day the age of the earth is not a salvation issue.

But empirical evidence also claims that according to evolution, there was much living and dying going on BEFORE the appearance of mankind on the earth as we know it. But if that is also true, then how do we reconcile that with the clear teaching of Scripture--introduced in Genesis 1-11, but also affirmed in the empirically verifiable rest of the Scripture--that death is the RESULT of sin by mankind. How can Romans 5:12ff be true if whole species lived and died out for millions of years before "Adam" (whether interpreted literally or not)? The age of the earth may not be a salvation issue, but this IS.

I am not against science. If science tells me that the origin of human life on this earth is the result of millions of years of evolution, then fine. I'd write that answer on a science test with no harm done to my conscience. But I wouldn't preach it from a pulpit, because that is NOT what the Scriptures reveals as true. Whatever "actually happened" before Genesis 12, it could NOT have been that!

"How can Romans 5:12ff be true if whole species lived and died out for millions of years before "Adam" (whether interpreted literally or not)?"

Bill, very good question. Some food for thought here:

http://www.proof-of-evolution.com/faq-death-before-adam.html

Perhaps...just a thought for those entertaining "In the Beginning G-d..." is that, just maybe, Genesis wasn't written as a "And this is how G-d did it!" book, but more of a "And this is WHAT and WHY G-d intended with all that he did."

Maybe, Genesis isn't a book about mechanical processes, but rather a book about what the universe is suppose to be like...I mean come on...look to whom it was written too: Farmers, shepherds, hunters, gatherers, fishermen...not scientists or rationalists looking for quantifiable and empirical evidentary processes that are replicable in a controlled enviroment...which, are all modern convienences.
Perhaps, just throwing thiso ut there...what G-d intended was that this universe is his to do with as he saw fit, and said, as he declared "all is good" that this...the whole functioning system is how it shuold be...and not what it will turn into in a very, very short period of time.

And perhaps...just a thought to throw out there to discuss...the death that is spoken of is a spiritual death, a separation, a divide that from our perspective is rather a limited ceasing of biological life, but from G-ds perspective, a complete deviation from what he intended at the moment he made the universe.

btw, Karen, I have a response from the other thread...how strong is your faith?

Sheer, re: the other thread--that's good. I will look forward to reading it when you get it posted. How strong is my faith? Depends on in what! Looks like we have some similar thoughts on the Genesis 1 creation account.

Regarding the literal interpretation of Genesis 1, I have two questions:

1. If the Genesis account is only about the what and the why but not the how, then why is a specific time frame given? If we can believe that God created the earth at all then why is His time frame so difficult to understand?

2. What makes today's scientists think they have all the answers of creations time frame? They can't even get the weather predictions correct most of the time.

"2. What makes today's scientists think they have all the answers of creations time frame? They can't even get the weather predictions correct most of the time."

And yet you're willing to put your life on the line when you drive a car, fly in an airplane, or take that pill the doctor prescribes for you...you know, things brought about by...yes, science.

Makes me wonder how it is you can say such things, and yet your daily willingness to use these things says something completely different.

I didn't mean to imply that scientists don't know anything and haven't accomplished a lot. What I'm saying is that there is no one who can really explain the time frame for creation accurately. As soon as some new discovery comes to light the old theories fly out the window - like the flat earth did.

"As soon as some new discovery comes to light the old theories fly out the window - like the flat earth did."

Fair enough.

In reading Genesis I think we should be aware that exact timelines are...not really given other than just a day. One day at a time.
Now, what is a day to a being who sees the beginning and ending all at once?

I think there are a lot of assumptions that are front loaded when reading Genesis...perhaps, it is time we start questioning those assumptions of ours.

Karen, I'm putting up the post now.

Elegance, also the term "day" in Scripture doesn't always denote a 24-hour period, and the rather poetic "and there was evening and morning" suggests to me that this account is structured as . . . well, poetry (i.e., not the language of modern science)! I agree with Sheer that there are a lot of "front-loaded assumptions" modern Evangelicals need to examine when coming to the exegesis of the Genesis creation accounts. I rather doubt some of them are assumptions the first readers of Genesis would have had.

Just to clarify, I do believe God created the world and everything in it.

"Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, 'If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,--
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm...'"

This is the first couple of stanzas from a famous poem by Longfellow, using common poetic devices. It is obviously not meant to be taken literally in all its details.

AND YET...

No one will deny that there WAS a literal Paul Revere who existed, and that the ride described by Longfellow DID literally take place.

So, just because Genesis 1-11 was written using poetic language, that in itself does not exclude the possibility of a literal creation by God, or the possibility of a literal first couple (even if their names weren't actually "Adam" and "Eve") or their decision to distrust and disobey God leading to death (both spiritual and physical), or the possibility of a literal flood, or any of the other events mentioned in this section of Scripture, even if those events did not happen exactly, or "literally", as described.

It's not just modern Evangelicals (whom I don't even identify myself with, by the way) who carry "front-loaded assumptions." We ALL need to be VERY CAREFUL not to become the person who believes, "Everyone else has assumptions except for me!"

I hope the last paragraph of my previous post did not come off as harsh, by the way. It's just that those of us who are willing to accept Genesis 1 more literally than others (even though acknowledging the poetic language and structure in which it was written) are sometimes spoken to, in my view, rather condescendingly; and so I guess I was reacting to that a bit. My point is that we need to realize that ALL of us carry assumptions, and that just because someone disagrees with me doesn't mean THEIR assumptions are wrong. Maybe MINE are too!

But especially Karen, my experience with you is that you have never written in a condescending or disrespectful manner. So I hope you don't take my comment the wrong way!

By the way, I also realize that this is by no means a simple issue, and I'm willing to accept those who see this issue differently from me as sincere and also wanting to know the Truth.

Karen,

I read that link that you posted, and it certainly was food for thought. I've been mulling it over for a couple of days, and I do acknowledge that the Bible does refer to "death" in two ways: physical death that all of us experience, and spiritual death that is a separation from God. But the article seems to be arguing that the two are COMPLETELY different and have nothing to do with each other. That is how physical death could exist through the evolutionary process for millions of years before the appearance of "Adam", or "mankind".

The thing is, I don't see anything in Scripture that would specifically argue for that conclusion. You simply have to assume that conclusion in order to harmonize with scientific knowledge, which is based on fallible human observation. That's not to say scientific knowledge is not reliable. But it is also not infallible.

On the contrary, Scripture seems to correlate the two deaths much more closely than the author of the article would allow. Yes, the "death" that Adam brought into the world according to Romans 5:12 is spiritual death, symbolized by Adam's expulsion from the Garden of Eden which contained the Tree of Life. I will agree with the article on that point. BUT...turn to the next chapter and what do you see? The physical death of Abel at the hands of his brother Cain. Turn one more chapter and what do you see? Generations coming and going, each one punctuated by the same refrain: "And he died...And he died...And he died..." Each of these referring to physical death.

I could go on, but my point is that Genesis 1-11 seems to be making a strong correlation between spiritual death and physical death. Physical death is a RESULT of spiritual death. Think of a leaf plucked from a tree. You could say that at that moment, the leaf is spiritually dead according to Paul, because it is disconnected from the source of its life. And BECAUSE of that, eventually, it will wither and dry out and physically die.

So, if in fact physical death is the result of spiritual death, then we're right back at our original question, since it turns out that the article never answered the question at all! On the contrary, it raised more questions. If the article is true, then does that mean that physical death is simply a part of God's plan? Does that mean there will be physical death in the New Heavens and New Earth described in Revelation 21-22? And what would be the point of the Resurrection of the dead (the hope of the entire New Testament), if people are simply going to die physically again! And if they're not going to die physically again, why not? What's changed? Why would God allow physical death to exist for millions of years, independent (according to the article) of sin, and then at some point just arbitrarily stop it?

Like I said earlier, current scientific knowledge claims that life originated on this planet through the process of evolution. And that's fine. I won't argue that that is what science teaches, although it is well to note that there is a significant number of scientists who point out some pretty glaring gaps in evolutionary theory. Regardless, the claims of evolutionary theory seem to me to be so inconsistent with Scripture, that though I can accept it as "knowledge", I cannot accept it as "Truth".

Sorry for the delayed response, Bill. I haven't been back to this thread until just now. I certainly don't take offense at your questions and wrestling with this issue. And, I don't intend to come across as saying "front-loaded assumptions" are particular to any one group over another. I have had many of the same conversations inside my own head as you describe above.

Having wrestled with this issue, too, I find I can't land firmly in any particular camp of interpretation right now, other than to acknowledge that I believe God created the world, which puts me someplace, I think, in the realm of Intelligent Design (and believing, albeit perhaps erroneously, that some version of theistic evolution might be compatible with that). I know that I don't have either the theological or the scientific expertise to do much other than I have done--point out that there is conflicting information from apparently sincere and committed Christians who do theology (the exegesis of the meaning of "day" in the Genesis account, for instance) and equally sincere committed Christians who study science and that we (or at least I) need to perhaps keep an open mind about particulars of interpretation, and that perhaps a focus on attempting to discover the spiritual import of the passage for the Hebrew community in which it was birthed might yield better spiritual fruit than the modern science against religion debates. I'm not confident that Genesis 1 is attempting anything like a modern scientific explanation of creation, but I am very confident it is intending to say something important and even critical about the relationship of the world to the God of the Israelites. So I found N.T. Wright's brief comments intriguing. In other words, I think maybe it would be more spiritually profitable for us modern Christians to ask, "What did this mean for the Israelites as regard to how they approached the Creation and the Creator God?" than to ask, "Can this be reconciled with modern scientific theories of how we got here? and, if it appears it can't, but science appears to be 'correct' (or everyone else thinks it is) what do we do?" I'm not saying that latter question is unimportant, but it occurs to me it might be a distraction from even more important things. No, I don't believe that physical death will play a role in the New Heavens and New Earth either. I appreciate your thoughts and you raise very good questions.

Bill, the only other observation I might offer is that spiritual death as a category only applies to spiritual beings, i.e., men and angels--not to the rest of the material creation. It also occurs to me to ask what sense would Adam and Eve have been able to make of the original commandment not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil with the warning that if they did, they would "surely die" if they had never witnessed death in creation and understood what it was a as a process? How would they have been capable of understanding this warning? We have no record of God explaining that to them.

Karen, I've just gotten back to this thread and I've read through your comments. You raise some very good points that I'd like to think about. I don't have a lot of time tonight, but just wanted to let you know that I did read your comments and I'll get back to you hopefully by tomorrow.

By the way, I really appreciate engaging in conversation with you; you certainly encourage me to think through and clarify issues, at least in my own mind!