Old Testament scholar John Walton has written extensively on the early chapters of Genesis.  These writings include a long article on ‘Creation’ in the IVP Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch, a commentary on Genesis in the NIVAC series, a scholarly book entitled Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology, and a more popular-level book carrying the title of this post.

In the last-mentioned work, Walton proposes a reading of Genesis 1 that takes account not only of the language it was written in, but also the culture.  The latter, says Walton, is much more difficult.  And it is necessary for us, not so much to translate the culture, but to enter into it.

In what follows, I am closely following (and abbreviating) this summary of Walton’s book.

Ancient Israel was not simply influenced by culture, but was part of the culture.  With regard to its ideas of origins, in some ways it adopted, and in other ways challenged the ideas of other cultures.

Genesis 1 offers an explanation of origins and how the world works which fully reflects the thought-world of the day and at the same time comes to us as divinely inspired Scripture.  But this latter affirmation gives us no excuse for reading modern ideas into the ancient text.  We must read it on its own terms.

Walton develops a number of propositions:

1. Genesis 1 is ancient cosmology

It is not modern cosmology.  It does not modern scientific concepts embedded in it (if it did, it would have been incomprehensible to earlier readers, and also would have been hostage to whatever counts as ‘modern science’ in any particular age).

Concordism – the attempt to harmonise Genesis 1 with modern science – is, therefore, a nonstarter.  The ‘science’ of Genesis 1 is that of its own day, not ours.  In fact, the same applies to the entire Bible.

No distinction was made between the ‘natural’ and the ‘supernatural’ in the Ancient Near East.  That distinction is a relatively recent one.  So we do not expect to find in the Bible any discussion of how God’s creative activity relates to the ‘natural’ world.

We must read the text on its own terms.  God has chosen to reveal himself and his purposes in certain ways, and we must respect his methods, and not commandeer the text to address our own issues and concerns.

2. Ancient cosmology is function oriented

When ancient people thought about creation, they did so not in terms of physical properties, but in terms of function, purpose, significance.  We can identify with this today: myriads of people have little or no interest in the components that make up a computer, but much interest it what it does and what it is for.  Similarly, when a head teacher says: ‘I want to create a top-class school’, she is not thinking so much of the bricks and mortar, as of the quality of the learning experience.  So, ancient peoples were less interested in the material status of things, more interested how they functioned.

In the literature of the ANE, nothing material is actually made; everything is function oriented.  Creation is about bringing order to things, giving them their place and making them operational.  To create something means to give it a function, not to give it material properties.  We tend to think of the cosmos as a machine; the ancient world viewed it more like a company or a kingdom.

Of course, the ancients did not deny that everything was brought into existence by the gods; but they show little interest in material origins.

3. “Create” (Hebrew ברא) concerns functions

Genesis 1 does speak of creative activities, but in a way that reflects what the ancients thought about creation and existence: by naming, separating and assigning functions and roles in an ordered system.

4. The beginning state in Genesis was is nonfunctional

The text does not begin with no material: it begins with no function.

The refrain, ‘It was good’ refers to the functional readiness of the cosmos for humans.

The order and function established and maintained by God makes the cosmos purposeful and intelligible.  Therefore, although Genesis 1 does not teach modern science, it makes modern science possible.

Once again: creation was viewed in the ancient world not so much as bringing things into being, as establishing functions, roles, order, jurisdiction, organization and stability.

5. Days 1-3 establish functions

Day 1 describes the creation of time

Day 2 the functions that serve as the basis for weather

Day 3 – differentiates terrestrial space, and therefore the basis for food

Together, these are the foundation of life.  The interest of the text is not in the materials God brought together, but in the fact that he brought them together in such a way that they work.

6. Days 4-6 install functionaries

To use a company analogy, the functionaries are assign an office, told to whom they will report, and given a place in the company.  Their working day is determined by the clock, and they are expected to be productive.  Supervisors are put in place, and everything is ready for operation.  All that is needed is for owner to arrive and move into his office.

7. Divine rest is in a temple

This is what a temple is for: a place for divine rest.  In the ancient world, rest occurs when a crisis is over, when things have settled down.  After creation, God rests in and rules from his temple.  ‘Rest’ in OT thinking is not idleness, but rather engagement in activities that can be carried out once stability has been achieved.  (It is just so when God talks about giving Israel ‘rest’ in the land).

8. The cosmos is a temple

The cosmos is its Maker’s temple, and the temple is a microcosm.  Eden is the antechamber that serves as a sacred space adjoining the presence of God.

9. The seven days of Genesis 1 relate to the cosmic temple inauguration

Once again, the emphasis falls, not on building the temple but on creating the temple.  The second days to not represent a period of time over which the material cosmos came into existence, but rather commissioning the functions of the temple and the entering of God to take up his rest there.

10. The seven days of Genesis 1 do not concern material origins

This does not mean that God was not involved in material origins.  But Genesis 1 is not that story.

The cosmos is both the handiwork of God and also his residence – the place he has chosen and prepared for his rest.

11. ‘Functional cosmic temple’ offers face-value exegesis

Concordist schemes of interpretation import alien ideas into the biblical text.  The present scheme, on the other hand, reads the text as the author would have intended it and as the ancient audience would have heard it.

Nowhere in the OT does the text import scientific information that transcended the understanding of the Israelite audience.  The most faithful reading is the one that comes from their world, not ours.

12. Other theories of Genesis either go too far or not far enough

Science cannot contradiction the Bible’s view of material origins, because the Bible has no such view, apart from the general truth that whatever exists, God did it.

13. The difference between origin accounts in science and Scripture is metaphysical in nature

Science as currently defined and practised is incapable of adjudicating on the existence of God.

Biological evolution cannot neither affirm nor deny purpose in the cosmos.

God’s intentions and purposes are best seen in the way the cosmos runs, rather than in the way its material components were formed.

14. God’s roles as creator and sustainer are less different than we thought

God established the functions in Genesis 1 so that he is seen as their originator.

15. Current debate about intelligent design ultimately concerns purpose

Questions of purpose do not lie within the purview of science as currently defined, and therefore cannot be factored into a scientific understanding.

16. Scientific explanations of origins can be viewed in the light of purpose, and, if so, are unobjectionable

Science is by no means to be rejected, even though it is incapable of affirming the existence and role of God.

We should not try to force academic institutions to offer the theological alternative of God’s role, and more than we would do so in training meteorologists or embryologists.

17. The theology resulting from this view of Genesis 1 is not weaker, but stronger

The modern scientific mind tends to ask, ‘What is it made of?’  But Bible prompts us to acknowledge that God has made everything work.

Sabbath doesn’t need to be governed by rules.  It is, rather, the way we acknowledge that God is on the throne, that this world is his, and that our time is his gift to us.

18. Public science education should be neutral regarding purpose

If a science course discusses material origins from the point of view of a material ontology, there is no conflict with Genesis 1, because the latter does not concern itself with material origins.