Thoughts on Genesis 1

I stumbled across this interview with John Walton.

The Lost World of Genesis - Part 1 from CPX on Vimeo.
These are my notes from the interview.
Genesis 1 needs to be taken seriously, but it needs to be treated as an ancient text rather than a science book.
It was not written to us.
It is in an ancient language to an ancient culture.
To read it as a science text book is not doing justice for what it is, and so not doing justice to the text (to me this means it is taking it out of its historical context and out of its cultural context).
If we make it say what it was not intended to say then we are imposing our own agenda onto the Bible, and that is not a good thing (how many examples are there in history of people doing this to the Bible !!!!)

When the ancient context is taken seriously...

Considering the ancient context adds a complexity to the text that is missed with a superficial reading.
Then people believed in a flat earth and a solid dome for the sky. The sun, moon, stars and birds are all in that same sphere of operation to them. So when communication is done, it needs to be done to what is familiar to those it is intended to reach. So it was not trying to tell them about those details.
According to John Walton, the ancient world, they were not interested so much in the material world ("stuff") like we are. Instead, they were interested in functions, order, organisation, who is in charge, authority, who makes this thing work. This is compared to going to work in a new organisation, your first interest is not who made the building, but where do you fit into the corporate plan.
So, Genesis 1 is an account of those functional origins. "God setting it to work under His rule".
If it is not a material account, then the 7 days are not talking about the time when material came into place. Instead consider that when it tells us that on the 7th day God rested, we would wonder why God needed to rest. But to ancients, God resting means there is a temple involved, and a deity rests when everything is as it should be, and now I can take charge. So, the rest of the 7th day is ruling, not relaxing. The universe is God's temple, and he is ruling in that temple.

Example of light

So why does light come in day 1, and sun moon and stars in day 4? On Day 1 he created time, on Day 2 he created weather, on Day 3 he created the way we grow food. The following days are functionaries in those contexts. Sun moon and stars are functions in those contexts. People with jobs to do are functions in those contexts.

What does Genesis 1 say to the modern reader?

God is the one in charge. But unlike the other deities, this account says that God did not make it for himself, but he made it for us, and that we have responsibilities in His world.

Teachings of the nature of humanity

Ancients had the idea of deities creating people to meet the deities needs. The Bible instead has people as vice-regents, and people do not meet their needs but God meets their needs.
Ancients had the King as the image of god, but the Bible has all people as the image of God.
Humanity is not a genetic accident, but we have a purpose for which he designed us. We should see the universe as His temple.

Science and the Bible?

We should not consider science to be opposed to the Biblical account. In the Biblical account just because we can explain something (in naturalistic ways), does not mean that God had not done it. Instead the Biblical account just says that now we know more of the way God acts and the way God works.
An example is Psalm 139:12, 13 says "You knit me together in my mothers womb". That does not cancel out all of embryology. Instead we say that as much as we know about embryology, and how it works and can benefit from that knowledge, it does not cancel out the fact that is how God is knitting us together in our mother's womb.
So we should not try to work out on every point whether it is something God is doing or whether it is something Science is doing. God is working through (and in?) those processes.

So for evolution?

Whatever is true of evolution, will tell us a little of the mechanism God is using to go on creating, and how he is doing it.

Age of the earth?

Most people who think that the earth is very young, get that from the 7 days in Genesis 1. If Genesis 1 is not about material origins, then the 7 days is not about the 7 days in which material came into being, and then Genesis 1 does not tell you the age of the earth. (Which is not surprising, as that is not why it was written). If Genesis 1 does not tell us the age of the earth, then we do not have a biblical view for the age of the earth. We are also then free to explore whatever science may offer to see if it has legitimacy or not.

Male and female roles?

Just as Genesis 1 is about the functions and order of the universe, so Genesis 2 is about the functions and order of society. People who find contradictions between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 are trying to put material origins in Chronological order. There is no reason to do that.
It may have been revolutionary to consider that both males and females were made as the image of God.
Eve being a help-mate for Adam is not indicating that she is inferior. Instead they are partners in the task they have been given.

Conclusion

If we can be more careful readers of Genesis 1, and closer students of what the text is saying in its context, we will discover that there is not nearly as much conflict as we otherwise would have thought.