The poetry of creation
It’s a cold morning on the lower eastside of Vancouver. I’m sitting with a friend at Save-On-Meats, waiting for the waitress to take our order. He gets the scramble, I order the eggs benny, because I always order the eggs benny. As I’m waiting for my coffee refill, my friend looks at me and he asks a question.
Photo: Tim Andries
Listen, he says. Think about how we read the Bible. So many people read the entire thing literally. Take Genesis, Chapter 1. Did God really create the earth in seven days?
Think about it: the Bible contains many different types of literature: Law, History, Poetry, Gospel and Apocalyptic literature, to name a few. Psalms and Song of Songs are obvious poetic works, to be read as expressions of God’s love, grace and justice. However, there are other Biblical texts that should be read through a poetic lens. Genesis is one of those books.
Read Genesis 1 out loud. Genesis 1 is a work of poetry. You can feel it in the meter and rhythm of the writing. “And God said it was good, it was good, it was very good.” Poetry does not explain things literally; it’s about communicating a feeling, an idea. Genesis 1 isn’t trying to be science; it’s communicating what the creation of the world means. Truth emerges when we read the Bible as it is supposed to be read, not forcing the text to do what we want.
The world was not made perfect, but it was made good in God’s eyes. When this is the world he says is good, we shouldn’t separate the spiritual and the physical. If we make Genesis 1 about how God made the world, not why he made it, we’re missing the point.
Let’s bring St. Augustine into the mix. Augustine sat down and he asked this question: if I read Genesis literally, what do I come up with? He wrote a book, appropriately titled The Literal Interpretation of Genesis. Bear in mind, Augustine wrote this book 1,200 years before the scientific revolution and long before Darwin ever introduced the theory of evolution. He had no beef with science. Augustine was not writing against any specific scientific issue, but saying we should not import our own scientific views onto Holy Scripture. Here’s the quote:
It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he [the non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are. In view of this and in keeping it in mind constantly while dealing with the book of Genesis, I have, insofar as I was able, explained in detail and set forth for consideration the meanings of obscure passages, taking care not to affirm rashly some one meaning to the prejudice of another and perhaps better explanation (The Literal Interpretation of Genesis 1:19–20 [A.D. 408]).
This has massive implications on how we view the gospel. If you start your interpretation of the gospel at Genesis 3—the Fall of Man—the answer to the world’s problems is about getting out of here, waiting for the day we are taken to Heaven. If you start your gospel with Genesis 1, we are not called to escape; we are called to redeem the broken, sinful state of this world, to bring things back to way they were in Genesis 1.
Please don’t walk away thinking I’m proclaiming the Bible is a bunch of fables. Instead, recognize it is written in many different genres. The Bible is meant to teach us, inform us and show us our purpose. Some parts of the Bible are literal, others are not.
Ultimately, we must not live our lives thinking this is just the pre-game show. If your mind was just blown with the possibility Genesis isn’t literal, take a step back and recognize that you are allowed to believe that. However, recognize that God created this world for us and we are called to live our lives here, as fully and richly as possible.
I finish my coffee and we pay our bills. This changes everything.
This topic is explored in much greater detail by Tim Horman of UTown church. You can listen to his sermons at utownchurch.com.
Cail Judy
Recent Comments