Weaverville – It seems no other book in the Bible is attacked as much as the Book of Genesis. Most people, even some Christians, view the book, especially the first few chapters, as nothing more than a fable, an allegory, or poetry.
The creation of the earth and universe, the story of Adam and Eve, their fall in the garden, and the flood story are all written off as Jewish myths, weakening the foundations of the Bible being divinely inspired.
Is that the way Christians should view Genesis? I, for one, don’t think so.
First, did Jesus take Genesis as history or a fable? If anyone should know whether or not Genesis was a real account of history, I believe it would be Jesus since he was the Son of God.
Jesus, in Luke 17, cites a sign of his return as the days of Noah. “And as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of Man.” They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.”
Why would Jesus choose a fictitious event to point to his coming? Answer: He wouldn’t.
In a 2015 piece entitled, “Who Is Jesus and What Did He Believe About Creation?” by Simon Turpin on December 24, 2015 (https://answersingenesis.org/jesus/what-did-jesus-believe-about-creation/), he wrote:
“Jesus regarded the Old Testament’s historicity as impeccable, accurate, and reliable. He often chose for illustrations in His teaching the very persons and events that are the least acceptable today to critical scholars. This can be seen from his references to Adam (Matthew 19:4–5), Abel (Matthew 23:35), Noah (Matthew 24:37–39), Abraham (John 8:39–41, 56–58), and Lot, Sodom, and Gomorrah (Luke 17:28–32). If Sodom and Gomorrah were fictional accounts, then how could they serve as a warning for future judgment? This also applies to Jesus’ understanding of Jonah (Matthew 12:39–41). Jesus did not see Jonah as a myth or legend; if it were, the meaning of the passage would lose its force. How could Jesus’ death and resurrection serve as a sign if the events of Jonah did not take place?
Furthermore, Jesus says that the men of Nineveh will stand at the last judgment because they repented at the preaching of Jonah, but if the account of Jonah is a myth or symbolic, then how can the men of Nineveh stand at the last judgment?
The real question is: What did Jesus believe about the six-day creation? Oddly enough, He was silent on the issue except to say Scripture written by Moses should be believed (John 5:45–47). So does that mean that he believed in a six-day creation or that there was more to the story than he had time to explain? We can’t know for sure except that he said to believe Moses’ writings, which would be the first five books of the Old Testament.
For me, who has been studying the Bible since I was in my 20s, attending several Bible colleges, and doing personal study on my own, I have come to my own conclusions based on scripture. It’s a bit different than anything I’ve seen out there, but here you go.
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Full stop. That’s the end of the story about the initial creation. Isaiah 45:18 says, “For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD, and there is none else.”
Yet, in the first part of Genesis 1:2, that’s precisely what we find: “And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep.” If God did not create the earth this way, as suggested by Isaiah 45, then what happened?
Well, some would say this is where the “gap theory” comes into play. I would say where “Gap Fact” comes into play. What is the “Gap Theory” or “Gap Fact”? It is true that a gap of time occurred between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. How much time? Unknown.
What about the rest of Genesis 1? What I think and what G.H. Pimber, author of Earth’s Earliest Ages, think is that this is a re-creation of the earth. The 19th-century writer has plenty to say about what happened in that gap (you can read his book for free at https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.222681/page/n35/mode/2up).
This gap helps explain where Satan got his title as the “god of this world” (II Corin. 4:4), where he ascended to heaven in his effort to overthrow God (Isaiah 14:13), and where he was plying his trade (Eze. 28:16) before Adam came on the scene.
Young creationists who hold to the earth being no older than about six thousand years would say many scientific facts don’t support an old earth. The amount of cosmic dust found on the moon, the fact that the earth’s rotation is slowing down, etc. Those things are a result of entropy. Wikipedia says, “Entropy is a scientific concept as well as a measurable physical property that is most commonly associated with a state of disorder, randomness, or uncertainty.”
For me, that says that entropy was only introduced as a result of Satan’s rebellion in the universe. In that regard, God did not wait long after Satan’s fall to replace him with man. Why do you think Satan hates us so much? We were created to take his job.
Now, I don’t use the gap to place animals like dinosaurs on this earth, I do believe they were here with mankind, and we’re even on the ark, but the climate conditions after the flood were not suitable for dinosaurs, so they eventually became extinct. There are over 200 flood stories found in the cultures of the world, but that’s proof of the flood for another day.