Here’s a bonus digest of a book that presents the three views of Genesis and a digest of a paper by Mark Futato on Genesis 2. I had to write the digest for my Doctrine of Man class.

The Genesis Debate: Three Viewson the Day of Creation edited by David G. Hagopian

I.        24-Hour View (J. Ligon Duncan III& David W. Hall)

A.     Introduction — The 24-Hourview has been the prevailing view throughout church history.  It did not come into dispute until thesixteenth century and was not really debated by orthodox theologians until thenineteenth century since the creation account in Genesis was widely viewed asaccurate. “The debate over the nature of the creation days is not a purelyexegetical or interpretive debate.  It isalso a hermeneutical and theological debate” (pp. 22-23).  

B.     The Creation Narratives andCreation Days

1.     God is the Author of Creation

a)      The Framework view is that Mosesis writing an apologetic against the pagan worldviews and so the creationnarrative is not written as a cosmogony. But the fact that it is an apologetic does not mean it is also acosmogony.  The cosmogony is the apologetic.

b)      God created the world good andman is responsible for the sin in creation. God created the world from nothing(ex nihilo) and then filled it.

2.     The Role of the Days in theNarrative

a)      The First Day – God’s power isdemonstrated in His creation of the world by His spoken word.

b)      The Second Day – There is anemphasis on dividing; God brings order to chaos by dividing day and night

c)      The Third Day – The emphasisshifts from “formation/ordering to filling/bearing.”

d)      The Fourth Day – “The theologicalmessage of this passage is that God is sovereign over the markers that order ourlives” (pg. 32).

e)      The Fifth Day – DemonstratesGod’s power over the creatures of the sea (other gods)

f)       The Sixth Day – The creatures arecreated after their kind but man is created in the image of God.   Since man is created in the image of God,the body is not inherently evil.

g)      The Seventh Day – God finishedcreation but He continues to sustain it. The seventh day is not eternal and does end even though the phrase “andthere was evening and there was morning” is missing.  God rested on the seventh day and set thepattern for our rest. 

C.     The OT and the Days ofCreation – the Old Testament supports the view that God alone created the earthin 6 days (not slowly over a period of time) and He did not need to depend on”other forces or agencies” (Gen. 5:1-2; 6:7; 14:19; Ex. 20:9, 11; 31:12-18;Deut. 4:32; 32:6; Job 38:4-12; Ps. 8:2; 19; 33; 148:5: Pro. 3:19; 8:25-27; Jer.31:35; Eze. 28:13,15).

D.     The New Testament andCreation Days –The New Testament views the creation event in the same way asthe Old Testament: as an instantaneous event and not one that happened over along period of time (Matthew 19:4; Mark 13:19, Romans 1:20; 4:17; 1 Corinthians11:9; Ephesians 3:9;  Colossians 1:16-17;Heb. 4:3-4; Heb. 11:3,6; 2 Peter 3:5).

E.      Objections Answered

1.     How could there be an evening andmorning without the sun and moon? Answer: God “may have employed nonsolar sources of light before creatingthe sun.  Since God is light and in Himis no darkness, He certainly does not depend on the sun for light.” (pg. 52)

2.     Genesis 1:12 has instantaneous growthand Genesis 2:9 has gradual growth of plants. Answer: Since this is asupernatural event, nature would not act as it would under normalcircumstances. 

3.     Could the events in Genesis2:5-25 occur in one day?  Answer: Thiswas a miraculous event and therefore all could be accomplished in one day. 

4.     Day is used in three differentways in Genesis 1:1-2:4.  Answer: Thereis no reason to assume that yômrefers to anything but a normal 24-hour day. “[W]ere we to take day in 1:14in other than its literal since, consistency also would require us to bracketas nonliteral the terms ‘seasons’ and ‘year,’ which in context, isnonsensical.  Those who voice thisobjection have no reason, other than cosmological assumptions, for construing yôm to mean anything other than a numberday.” (pg. 54) .

I.      The Day-Age View (Hugh Ross &Gleason L. Archer)

A.     Introduction — “Our day-ageinterpretation treats the creation days literally as six sequential, longperiods of time.  Integrating biblicaland scientific data, we assert that the physical creation events reported inGenesis appear in correct sequence and in scientifically defensible terms” (pg.123).

B.     Multiple Literal Definitions

1.     The English word “day” can referto a 24-hour day or a long period of time but English also has words todescribe longer periods of time (age, eon, era, and epoch). Hebrew does nothave specific words other than yômfor longer periods of time. 

2.     The early church fathers”accepted that yôm could mean ‘a longtime period.’  The majority explicitlytaught that the Genesis creation days were extended time periods (something like a thousand years per yôm). Not one Ante-Nicene Father explicitly endorsed the 24-hour interpretation”(pg. 126).

C.     The Evolution Factor

1.     “[S]cientific advance onvirtually all fronts, which increasingly supports a theistic, interventionist(that is, miraculous) view of life’s origin and development” (pg. 126).

2.     Genesis 1 and other passagesstate that God ceased creating new life forms after the sixth day. But thosewho believe in a young-earth and their understanding of the fall and floodbelieve that large number of new species appear in a space of a few thousandyears.  Animals were not carnivores,since meat eating implies death and there was no death until Adam sinned.  Carnivores must have evolved rapidly fromplant eating animals.

3.     There are only thousands of yearsto account for fossils and for the dinosaurs and other animals to becomeextinct.  This means a rapid changedespite the evidence that no such rapid change has taken place.  “If naturalistic evolutionary processesactually did proceed with such speed, they would, of course, be observable inreal time, our time.” (pg. 127) 

D.     Death and Extinction beforeAdam

1.     Young-earth creationist thinkthat “very good” means perfect.  Revelation21 and 22 “declare that a superior creation is yet to come” (pg. 131). 

2.     Young-earth creationists believethat Adam’s sin brought death into this world. Romans 5:12 and 1 Corinthians 15:21 state that Adam’s sin brought deathto all of mankind.  There is noexegetical reason to include the death of plants or animals since only man iscapable of violating God’s commandments. 

3.     Young-earth creationists believethat death is bad in all contexts and would therefore deny the law of decay(“heat flows from hot bodies to cold,” pg. 133) operated before the fall sincethey see decay, death and disorder as a result of the fall…No stars would shedlight (stars are near-perfect expressions of the second law) nor would anycreature be able to digest food, work or physically move.” (pg. 133)

E.      Viable Creation Model

1.     The Bible “predicts what has beencalled ‘the discovery of the century,’ the observation of remnants from theinitial creative burst.  Einstein’sequations told us early in this century that the universe had a beginning inthe finite past…that the Cause of the universe created it independently of allmatter, energy, and even the ten space-time dimensions along which all thematter and energy are distributed” (pg. 135). 

2.     Biblical chronology “allows oneto turn the tables on the evolutionists…The multiple extinctions of sea mammalsimply that God repeatedly replaced extinct species with new ones.  In most cases, the new species were differentfrom the previous ones because God was changing earth’s geology, biodeposits,and biology, step by step, to prepare for His ultimate creation on theearth–the human race.” (pg. 137) 

F.      Testing the Day-Age CreationModels

1.     The day-age view is the only viewthat “predicts” the growing body of scientific data.

2.     Missing Horizontal Branches inthe Fossil Records – there has been no record of species branching off intoanother species but there has been recorded species becoming extinct and thensuddenly reappearing.  According to theday-age model, “God supernaturally introduced new species, sometimes withlittle change, sometimes with significant change, replacing those that becameextinct” (pg. 139).

3.     Fossil Record Reversal – “As timeadvances, fewer and fewer species remain on the earth, and the most advancedspecies show the fastest extinction rates…this reversal is perfectlyconsistent, however, with the day-age creation model.  According to this model, for six epochs Godcontinues creating new species and replacing certain extinct ones.  Then, with the creation of humans on thesixth day (age), His physical creation is complete…any changes we observereflect natural processes” (pg. 140). 

4.     Recent Origin of Humanity -Following the genealogies in the Bible a date for the creation of man could beplaced “about 10,000 to 60,000 years ago … With the capacity to studymitochondrial DNA and y-chromosomes has come the ability to study mitochondrialDNA and y-chromosomes has come the ability to study humanity’s “genetic clock”(pg. 141)

5.     The Perfect Fit of Genesis withthe Fossil Record – Since the 24-hour and the Framework view are notobjectively provable then they place the creation narrative in the category ofmyth.  Only the day-age view proves thetruth of the Genesis account.

G.     Biblical Evidences For LongCreation Days

1.     The Long Time Required by the Endof the Sixth Day – Nothing in Scripture suggests that Adam worked at asuperhuman speed to accomplish all the things that occurred in Genesis 2. 

2.     The Continuation of the SeventhDay – All the other days of creation except for the seventh followed thepattern: “There was evening, and there was morning – the [X]th day.”  “Given the parallel structure marking thecreation days, this distinct change in the pattern for narrating the seventhday strongly suggests that the day had (or has) not yet ended.” 

3.     The Rest from Creating and FutureRe-creation – God ceased creating after He created Eve.  According to Revelation 21, a time is comingwhen His rest will cease and He will create again when He creates the newheavens and the new earth. 

4.     God’s Days Are Not Like Our Days- God’s days are like a thousand years (Psalm 90:4). 

5.     The Unusual Syntax RegardingSpecific Creation Days – “We would expect the literal Hebrew to say, ‘and wereevening and morning day X.’ But it does not…we should understand the term dayin Genesis 1 as something other than its most common literal definition” (pg.149).

III.     The Framework View (Lee Irons with Meredith G.Kline)

A.      Introduction–“The framework interpretation strives to understand thetext of Genesis 1:1-2:3 on its own terms, independently of any questions thatmay arise from the empirical study of origins.” The creation account was givennot to “satisfy our curiosity regarding sequence or chronology, but bypredominately theological and literary concerns” (pg. 217).  The framework view does not concern itselfwith the age of the earth.  Scripture issilent on the age of the earth.

B.       Definition and Exposition

1.     Though the creation narrativepresents the days as being normal days these days are not to be taken literally,they are to be taken as “picture frames. Within each day-frame, Moses gives us a snapshot of divine creativeactivity” (pg. 219) and though each activity actually happened, “they arenarrated in a nonsequential order within the literary structure or framework ofseven-day week” (pg. 219).

2.     The Nonsequential Element

a)      The eight creative acts of Godhave not been arranged sequentially. This is evident by a comparison of Day 1 and Day 4.  The creation of the stars and sun on Day 4corresponds with the creation of light on Day 1.  The text is arranged topically notsequentially. 

b)      Dischronologization – “Biblicalscholars refer to nonsequential ordering as dischronologization or topicalarrangement, which actually is a common feature of biblical historical narrative.  It occurs whenever the order in which eventsare narrated does not correspond to the actual chronological sequence” (pg.221).

c)      Temporal Recapitulation – “Aspecific type of dischronologization…the biblical writer first makes a briefand comprehensive statement and then follows it with more or less elaboratedetails” (pg. 222).  Genesis 2 isexpanding on the sixth day of creation and Genesis 2:8 states that Adam was”placed” in the garden and in Genesis 2:15 Adam is again “put” into the garden.

C.     The Two Triads

1.     The creation days form aframework consisting of two parallel triads. The first triad (Days 1-3) deals with the creation kingdoms, while thesecond triad (Days 4-6) deals with the creature kings who exercise dominionover those kingdoms” (pg. 225).   “Noordtzijsees in this ‘pronounced parallelism’ a clue to the authorial intent.  Moses ‘consciously used’ the conceptualscheme of a six-day work-week followed by a Sabbath rest to convey a theologicalpoint regarding the ultimate destiny of man and creation” (pg. 225)

2.     King and Kingdoms – “Theluminaries of Day 4 are established to ‘rule over’ the day and night(1:16).  The fish and birds of Day 5 areblessed with dominion mandate that implies rule over the spheres established onDay 2″ (pg. 225).  “Be fruitful andmultiply” is a similar mandate to man’s mandate to “multiply” and should beunderstood the same way as a dominion mandate. Man’s rule is not limited to the “sphere of Day 3.  He is to rule” over all creation (pg.225).  All creation is subjected to their”Creator King” on the seventh day.

3.     Sabbatical Symbolism – Theseventy years of captivity of Israelis an example of sabbatical symbolism (Leviticus 26:43; 2 Chronicles 36:21).The seventy weeks in Daniel 9:24-27 is an example of a nonliteral use ofweeks.  The author wanted to make thepoint that there was to be an “eschatological Sabbath rest for the people ofGod.  The fact that the Holy Spiritemploys the language of ‘week’ is, of course, highly significant, for it echoesthe creation narrative’s metaphorical use of the week” (pg. 227).

4.     Parallelism of Days One and Four- Both Day 1 and 4 deal with light and with separation.  his is a problem for those who hold asequential view since God is repeating an action that He declared good on Day1. 

D.     Because It Had Not Rained

1.      In a 1958 article by Kline “argues thatGenesis 2:5-6 establishes the principle of continuity between the mode ofprovidence during and after the creation period” (pg. 230).

2.     Explanation of the Argument

a)      Genesis 2:5 states that there wasno vegetation because it had not rained and there was no one to cultivate theplants.  In Genesis 2:6-7, God sends arain cloud and a cultivator (Adam). 

b)      “Rain cloud” is usuallytranslated as “mist” but this does not make sense in context because if therehad been a mist to water the vegetation, why mention that there was novegetation because there was no water? Also the Hebrew word is rare and only used in one other place (Job36:27).  The use in Job corresponds tothe intended use here.

3.     Implications for the 24-Hour View

a)      Comparing Scripture to Scripturedictates that we take what is learned in Genesis 2 and apply it to Genesis 1(specifically the fourth day).  Genesis 2shows that God created naturally and when applied to Genesis 1 this would ruleout a sequential interpretation.  Day 4is an example of temporal recapitulation.

b)      A literal interpretation alsoresults in vegetation being created before the sun.  “Genesis 2:5-6 indicates that God employedordinary methods…If vegetation could have been sustained without the sun, itcould have survived without the rain” (pg. 233).

c)      Another problem is that theday-night cycle would be established before the earth’s rotation is establishedsince the sun was not created until Day 4. Any supernatural means would contradict Genesis 2.

4.     Implications for the Day-Age View- the day-age view shares a similar problem with the 24-Hour view since bothbelieve that the creation days are sequential. In the day-age view there would be vegetation growing without a sun fora long period of time. 

E.      Two-Register Cosmology

1.     The Two Registers

a)      The two registers are the tworealms that “compose the created order. The upper register is the invisible dwelling place of God and His holyangels, that is, heaven.  The lowerregister is called ‘earth’ but includes the whole visible cosmos from theplanet Earth to the star-studded sky (Col. 1:16)” (pg. 237). 

b)      The upper and lower register”relate to each other spatially, not as different locations, but as differentdimensions of the one cosmos” (pg. 238). One day the upper register will bevisible (when Jesus returns) and the upper and lower registers will be united.

2.     Application of the FrameworkView 

a)      “The Days of Genesis 1 belong tothe upper register” (pg. 239). 

b)      The relationship between theupper register and the lower is analogical. “The upper register is an archetype, and the lower register is ananalogical replica of the upper register” (pg. 239).  . 

c)      The language “of the days and the’evenings and mornings’ is not literal but an instance of lower-register termsbeing used metaphorically to describe the upper register.”  The language mirrors the analogicalrelationship between the upper and lower registers.

3.     Answering an Objection toTwo-Register Cosmology – The framework interpretation is not a “mere literarystructure having no referential significance to objective reality…Just becausethe measurement of upper-register time is not calibrated according to alower-register chronometer” (pg. 248). The six day period in Genesis corresponds to a unit of time but we don’tknow what that is.

F.      Two Primary Objections

1.     The ForthCommandment – how can the forth commandment be taken literally if God did not restafter a week?  Exodus 31:14-17 (aparallel text) uses anthropomorphic language of God refreshing Himself.  If we take this literally then we have aweary God.  “The fundamental weakness ofthis objection, then is that it assumes identity rather than analogy betweenGod’s rest and man’s” (pg. 250).

2.      The Meaning of Yôm – each of the creation days refers to an evening and morning,why not take it as a normal 24-hour period? The word yôm “in Genesis 1denotes an ordinary, lower-register, solar day. Yet it is being used metaphorically to describe an upper-register unitof time that is not defined by the earth’s rotation with respect to the sun”(pg. 251).  The “critical question is notthe meaning of yôm but the nature(literal or metaphorical) of the total image of the week of days” (pg. 252).

“Because It Had Rained: A Studyof  Genesis 2:5-7 with Implications forGen. 2:4-25 and Gen. 1:1-2:3″ by Mark Futato  

I.       Introduction  — “The structure ofGen 2:5-7 is the key to understanding the structure of the whole of Gen 2:4-25,which turns out to be topical not chronological” (pg. 1).  The topical nature of Gen 2:4-25 supports thetopical nature of Gen 1:1-2:3. 

II.      The Argument of Gen 2:5-7

A.     This passage is best viewedin the “immediate and broader literary contexts, as well as the geographicalcontext of the Ancient Near East and the theological context of Canaanitereligion.”

B.     In verse 5 two differentwords are used for vegetation.  “Thephrase, stah-hassadeh, refers to the wild vegetation that grows spontaneouslyafter the onset of the rainy season, and ‘eseb-hassadeh refers to cultivatedgrains.” Verse 5b states that “because the Lord God had not sent rain on theland, and there was no man to cultivate the ground.”  The wild vegetation did not grow becausethere was no rain and the cultivated grain did not grow because there was “nocultivator.” The solution to the problem found in verses 6-7 is two fold: “Godcaused rain clouds to rise up” and “formed the man from the dust of theground.”  The term is usually translated”stream.”  The problem with thatinterpretation is that the text does not state that there was a lack of waterbut the problem was stated as a lack of rain. 

III.    Implications of this Interpretation for Gen2:4-25

A.     In 2:19a God is said to haveformed animals out of the ground but in 2:7a God is said to have formed Adamout of the ground.  This sequence is theopposite of Genesis 1 where man is formed last. The author is clearly not writing this passage chronologically.

B.      If the author was concerned with chronology hewould have “syntactically signaled the dischronology of Gen 2:19 with thewaw+subject+predicated construction” (pg. 11).

C.     If the author was concernedwith chronology he would not have stated that Adam was placed in the gardentwice (2:8b and 2:15). Genesis 2:4-25 is an example of the Hebrew stylistictechnique of “synoptic/resumption-expansion.” 

D.     The focus of Genesis 2:4-25is the planting of a garden and putting man in it, not a retelling of thecreation account.

IV.    Implications for the Reading of Genesis 1:1-2:3

A.     Genesis 1:1-2 and 2:1-3frame the creation narrative.

B.     There are 8 creative actsrecounted in Genesis 1:3-31. Day 1 God creates light and on Day 2 God creates”an expanse.” On Day 3 God created land and sea and vegetation and on Day 4 Godcreated “lights in the expanse of the sky” and on Day 5 God created livingcreatures from the land and man. 

C.     On Day 1 and 4 the creatingof light parallels the creating of luminaries and both focus on separation andon Day 2 and 5 the creating of the sea and sky parallels the creating of fishand birds and on Day 3 and 6 the creating of land and vegetation parallels withthe creation land animals and man.   Manand vegetation may not seem to be parallel until the 2-fold focus of Genesis2:4-25 (man and vegetation) is understood. 

V.      Implications for the Theology ofGenesis 1-2

A.     There is an importance tothe literary structure in Genesis 1-2 in terms of theology. The Sabbath is”central to the theology of Gen 1:1-2:3″ (pg. 17) and Sabbath theology is tiedto the parallel accounts of the days of creation (Days 1-3 and Days 4-6).

B.     Another important issue inthis passage is the focus on rain.  Ifthe reader was a pre-exilic Israelite than the focus on rain would besignificant because of the worship of the Canaanite god, Baal, “the rider ofthe clouds,” who was sovereign over the rain.

C.     Israel hasalways been attracted to Baal worship as is evident throughout the OT. Genesis1-2 must be read in the context of this threat of Baalism.  In Genesis 1-2, God is proclaimed sovereignover creation, rain, vegetation, and life.