The Bible’s account of creation, in Genesis chapter 1, never even attempts to answer the question of how creation happened; it only tells us who created and why? My friend, Stephen Abery, has an in-depth Bible knowledge and has written on this subject. He acknowledges there are several unhelpful ways of approaching Genesis 1:

“The first unhelpful approach is to read Genesis 1 as a literal historical account of what actually happened in a very special week several thousand years ago. In this view, God created the world in 6 days of 24 hours each. Now I am not suggesting that God cannot do that – of course He can, God by his very nature can do anything – and I know for many people being a ‘6 day creationist’ is the touchstone of orthodoxy. However, such a view today is very difficult to reconcile with our scientific knowledge of geology and astronomy. A more basic problem is a careful reading of Genesis suggests that its author’s intention was never to create a literal history.

Another unhelpful approach to Genesis 1 is to treat it as a myth or legend. In this approach the creation story is no more than a fairy tale without any basis in fact at all. A story made up by an ancient unsophisticated people to explain why the world existed and to justify their religious beliefs. The great problem for this view is that the Bible everywhere assumes the creation account is true truth. Jesus assumed Adam and Eve were historical figures in His discussion of marriage. The apostles base the arguments in many of their letters on the fact of creation. You simply can’t decide the creation story is a make believe fairy tale without undermining the whole Bible.

So if these are unhelpful approaches, how are we then to interpret and make any sense of Genesis 1? I suggest we are meant to approach Genesis 1 as a carefully crafted account of creation. If you read it you will notice its repetitive rhythm: ‘And God said… And God said… And God said… Let there be… Let there be… Let there be… It was so… It was so… It was so… And God saw… And God saw… And God saw… It was good… It was good… It was good… And there was evening… And there was evening… And there was evening… and there was morning… and there was morning …and there was morning…’

Notice also the structure of Genesis 1. What was the problem with the earth in verse 2? ‘The earth was formless and empty.’ How was the problem solved? The first three days create form, they create structure. What are the fundamental forms or structures for human life? Well, you need to know whether its day or night, whether you’re on the earth or in the sky, whether you’re on land or sea. So these forms, these structures are created and then… the second three days populate them. So what are the six days about? Are they regular 24 hour days? The evidence suggests they may not be regular 24 hour days – as sponsored by Accurist – they’re a literary device, an organising structure which enables us to see the order and logic of God’s creation.”

Adapted from a sermon preached by Stephen Abery in August 2005, Arborfield Church