The last few years have led me to view the first chapters of Genesis very differently than I have in the past.
In the past, the creation accounts, and especially Genesis 1, were always framed to me in terms of academic debate. People talked about, debated, and taught one view or another of whether Genesis 1 is recounting literal days, longer periods of time, or something different. It was a critical part of the debate over whether the earth is millions or merely thousands of years old. And as a result, any time I would approach Genesis 1-3, I would always think about the chapters in terms of these debates and issues.
Two things have changed this for me relatively recently. The first was reading Dr. Michael Heiser’s The Unseen Realm where he brought a lot of contemporary religious context into the conversation about Genesis. All of Israel’s neighbors had creation stories of their own, and in those stories, the world and humanity came about by violent conflict; gods at war, killing one another, and the earth and/or humans being born out of that conflict. On top of that, among those other peoples, the king was generally considered divine. In contrast to this context, Genesis paints a picture of the world and humanity coming about, not as a result of conflict or random happenstance, but as an intentional act by a God with authority over all things. Yahweh didn’t need to join his power to other gods to bring forth the world, nor did He need to slay another god like Himself to build upon in creating, but when He speaks creation springs forth. Along with this, God caps off His creation by creating humanity in His own image. It is not a merely a single king who stands in His image or bearing His authority, but it all of humanity who exists as His imagers and who bears His authority to rule over creation.
The second thing that changed how I have been thinking about Genesis lately is a question my friend asked about The Fall in Genesis 3. He texted a number of us and asked if we thought the curses resulting from The Fall are static or progressive (i.e. were things cursed and stayed that way, or does the curse take increasing effect over time). I had never really considered that question before, but it took me back to the creation accounts with a different eye for them. What that brought out to me was how much the creation is framed as the pulling back of chaos to create a space for humanity to thrive. Genesis 1 starts with the world as formless and void (or “wild and waste” as Tim Mackie translates it); not a place at all conducive to human life or flourishing. But from the wild and waste, God brings forth order, creating days, ordaining seasons and times, bringing forth land, and then flora and fauna to populate that land. Then, having created a world in which humans could live and flourish, God creates a space of even greater order, planting a cultivated garden, and placing humanity in the midst of that garden. From there, humanity’s task was to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. God had started the subduing by making the Garden of Eden, and Adam and Eve were to have children and expand the garden until it encompassed the entire world over which they ruled.
I point all this out because, at The Fall, the commission to fill the earth and subdue it is what gets more difficult. Eve will experience pain in child bearing and Adam will have to fight the ground to bring forth food. So whereas God had pushed back the chaos to the point where humanity would spread and flourish joyfully, I think He allows a bit of that chaos back in to stand against their efforts to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. Add to that humanity’s new-found propensity for sin, directing the subduing of the world according to their own desires rather than the Lord’s, and you have a recipe for the continuous spiritual degradation of humanity and the world it stewards over time.
But whether that understanding of The Fall is exactly right or not, this is the picture of creation put forth in Genesis, that God is pushing back chaos to create a space for His image bearers to live and flourish, and that effects how you read and interpret the events flowing forth through the rest of the book.
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