Thinking carefully about how the original audience would have understood biblical passages can improve our understanding of Scripture and enhance our apologetic efforts.
Readers of this blog know that I am unashamed to be a biblical creationist or what has often been called a young-earth creationist (YEC). We believe Genesis 1–11 should be understood according to the plain sense of the text, which teaches that God made everything over the course of six, normal-length days approximately 6,000 years ago, and that the Flood in Noah’s day covered the entire earth and accounts for the majority of our fossil record.
I have been writing and teaching on this and related subjects for more than 25 years, so I am well-acquainted with most of the arguments for and against these positions. I believe that many of my fellow young-earth creationists have done an admirable job of defending the historical accuracy of Scripture. However, I’m sure we can all agree that there will always be room for improvement. Over the past several years, it has become apparent to me that most YECs and most other apologists tend to overlook biblical theology, a discipline that can greatly enhance our understanding and defense of Scripture, particularly those foundational chapters of Genesis 1–11.
Before addressing how biblical theology can help us improve our apologetic, we need to define what biblical theology is and why it has frequently been overlooked by biblical creationists and other apologists.
What Is Biblical Theology?
Those unfamiliar with biblical theology may think that it simply refers to Christian theology in general, since our theology comes from the Bible. But that isn’t really what we are talking about. Biblical theology is a specific approach to doing theology. The Got Questions website defined it as “the study of the doctrines of the Bible, arranged according to their chronology and historical background.” Although it lacks some necessary nuance, this brief definition is a helpful place for us to start.
A statement from the Ten Commandments provides the necessary context to properly interpret the days of Genesis 1.
Biblical theology investigates how themes and doctrines are developed within the pages of Scripture in a chronological manner. That is, it essentially starts from the time God began to reveal His word and seeks to understand the themes and overall narrative of Scripture and how doctrines are developed over the course of the Bible’s time periods. It attempts to discover how the original audience might have understood a particular passage. For example, concerning the subject of creation, biblical theology does not look at the modern debates over creation/evolution or young earth/old earth and then search the Bible to find the answer. Instead, it considers the time, place, and culture of the original audience and tries to see the passage through the eyes of the original audience. What, when, and how could they know the details recorded for us? How would they have understood it?
While I’m sure there are many exceptions, generally speaking, I believe this approach appeals to folks who may still be left-brain dominant but have a little more right-brained tendencies or perhaps they are closely balanced between the two. Biblical theology puts the researcher into the shoes of the original audience and consider how they would’ve thought about various topics when they first encountered them. It is essentially an inductive approach to the Bible as it uses categories and themes that come from within the pages of Scripture. And the questions it answers are those that are specifically raised by the text itself.
Biblical Theology Contrasted with Systematic Theology
Biblical theology is often contrasted with systematic theology. Systematic theology seeks to compile and arrange all data into useful categories. For example, systematic theology scans the pages of Scripture to find everything it has to say about a given theological subject, such as creation. In many cases, systematic theology also incorporates any relevant information that might be found in philosophy, history, and science to develop a view on creation. This approach is attractive to those of us who are left-brain dominant because that is generally how we think. It is deductive in that we start with a completed Bible, develop our categories, and then we use the data of Scripture to fill in those categories.
Scientists, mathematicians, and other left-brained folks emphasize the logical arrangement of data so that it is easier to retrieve whenever it is needed. And looking back on the history of the modern creation movement, the majority of its leaders have been scientists, science educators, engineers, and other left-brained individuals. Thus, our approach to Scripture has generally been via a systematic approach.
The highly respected Old Testament scholar Eugene Merrill stated the following about historical and systematic theology.
Systematic theology is concerned to view and articulate biblical truth in terms of the complete canonical witness without particular concern for the developmental process at work to create its final shape. It is the more synthetic of the disciplines and aims at a unified result. Biblical theology is concerned to discern, trace, and describe the progress of divine revelation throughout the canon from its earliest to its latest expression. It logically precedes systematics and is the bridge between exegesis and systematics. ((Zuck, Roy B. 1991. A Biblical Theology of the Old Testament. Electronic ed. Chicago: Moody Press, p. 2.))
While this series focuses on biblical theology, I want to be clear on this point: I love studying systematic theology, and I’ve often considered pursuing a PhD in this discipline. I have a whole shelf full of very thick volumes on the topic, many of which I have enjoyed reading. There is nothing inherently wrong with a systematic approach, but it often overlooks some important details, and if you are not careful, you can easily pull a passage out of context to support your beliefs. This can be entirely unintentional, because you might be unaware of the theme woven through a given book if you have only studied the Bible from a systematic approach. Also, it is not uncommon for researchers to impose an extra-biblical framework on Scripture so that whenever they interpret a given passage, they are interpreting through a lens that is not even biblical. On the other hand, a shortcoming of biblical theology is that it doesn’t always use the safeguards inherent in systematic theology. For example, those doing systematic theology regularly compare Scripture with Scripture to make sure that our conclusions don’t contradict other teachings of the Bible. But since a person doing biblical theology starts at the beginning without assuming truths revealed much later, they may reach conclusions that are contradicted by later revelation. Ideally, we would all possess a solid systematic theology that is grounded in sound exegesis and biblical theology.
There is much more that could be said to properly define these terms, and they overlap at times, but let’s finish this first article in the series by looking at how someone might address the topic of the length of the days in Genesis 1 from these two approaches. Future articles in the series will explore other subjects found in Genesis 1–11.
A Practical Example – Six Days?
YECs have shown time and time again that the six days of the creation week should be understood as six normal-length days. We have made positive cases for this position. For example, we have shown how the term for day (yom) when used in similar contexts refers to a 24-hour day, and we have detailed that whenever biblical writers or figures, including Jesus Christ, allude to the events of the creation week, they consistently treat the days in a straightforward manner. We have also successfully defended this position against Christians who seek to harmonize Genesis 1 with the notion of the earth and universe being billions of years old, as proposed by most modern scientists.
My first book defends biblical creation while demonstrating the many shortcomings of the numerous views that seek to harmonize the Bible with the idea that earth is billions of years old.
I have no doubt that we are right to promote and defend this position, and we should do these things in a respectful, God-honoring manner. This is what I sought to do in my first book, Old-Earth Creationism on Trial, which was written to defend the young-earth creationist understanding of the Genesis creation and Flood accounts. However, nearly every promotion and defense of the YEC position from its proponents would fall under the category of systematic theology. We compile everything the Bible has to say about the events in Genesis 1 and show how the other passages support YEC. Occasionally, we also engage in historical theology when we highlight what Christians throughout church history have taught on the subject, but rarely do we base our arguments on biblical theology.
Let’s quickly explore one example of how biblical theology can strengthen our position. This might be a bit challenging for some readers to think through because we are so accustomed to approaching this topic systematically.
When interpreting the Bible, we first must ask ourselves what the text actually says. Then we need to determine what those words actually mean in context. One aspect that comes into play here is trying to figure out how the original audience would’ve understood the passage. This last question can get us into trouble if we assume too much about the original audience. They aren’t here to tell us their views, and we weren’t living in their time and setting to experience life the way they did, so we should always exercise caution here. However, there are times when we can be rather confident about how they viewed a particular subject, and this is one of those situations.
When we read our Bibles today, we often start at Genesis 1, because that is literally the beginning. Those of us seeking to defend our understanding of Genesis 1 often start in that chapter and move outward to the rest of Scripture to make our case, and that seems to make sense. But from the standpoint of biblical theology, Genesis 1 is not the beginning. Yes, it tells us about the beginning of all things, including the beginning of history, but it was not the beginning of God’s revelation to man in Scripture.
Assuming the traditional view that Moses wrote Genesis through Deuteronomy,1 it becomes clear that Genesis 1 was not the earliest revelation God gave to Moses or the Israelites. Within three months of God miraculously leading Israel out of Egypt, He brought them to the foot of Mt. Sinai (Exodus 19:1). While they were there, God delivered the Ten Commandments to the people of Israel, and in announcing the fourth commandment, God spoke these words:
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. (Exodus 20:8–11, emphasis added)
The earliest information that the Israelites received from God on the subject of timing related to creation is found in Exodus 20 when God told the Israelites that they were going to work for six days and rest for one day because that is precisely what He did when He made everything. The people had already started living this out a few chapters earlier when God provided manna from heaven for them. On the sixth day, He gave them enough manna to last for two days and instructed them to gather enough for that day and the Sabbath that followed (Exodus 16:17–30). Sometime after God gave them the Ten Commandments, Moses wrote Genesis. Perhaps the Lord revealed the information to him during one of the times Moses met with Him on Mt. Sinai for forty days (Exodus 24:18, 34:28), or maybe the Holy Spirit inspired the writing of Genesis while Moses and the Israelites wandered in the wilderness for 40 years.2 Whenever that occurred, the Israelites wouldn’t have heard the details of Genesis 1 until after they had heard the Lord announce the Ten Commandments.
If I am correct that the Israelites heard the giving of the Ten Commandments before they ever heard or read the words of Genesis 1, then there can be no doubt how they would’ve originally understood the days of the creation week. The Lord had already told them that He made everything in six days, and they knew these were 24-hour days because the Lord made a direct link between their seven-day workweek and the time it took Him to create everything. With the details about creation from the fourth commandment in their minds, they would have naturally made the connection between the fourth commandment and the days of the creation week.
When we compare this finding with our exegetical studies of Genesis 1 and our systematic work incorporating the rest of Scripture, we can rest assured that the days of the creation week were truly normal-length days.
Conclusion
Young-earth creationists have dutifully defended the historicity of Genesis 1–11 against an onslaught of arguments made by skeptics, evolutionists, and old-earth creationists. By approaching the debate from more of a systematic perspective, we have overlooked some additional arguments from biblical theology that could greatly benefit our apologetic efforts and enhance our understanding of Scripture.
The upcoming articles in this series will highlight passages in Genesis 1–11 that have not always been handled very well by apologists and theologians. But if we were to look at them through the lens of biblical theology, the meaning becomes clearer, and we can offer a more robust understanding of these foundational chapters of Scripture.
Since the 19th century, critical scholars have generally rejected Mosaic authorship, usually in favor of the documentary hypothesis. This is also known as the JEDP theory, which postulates that Genesis was compiled from multiple sources long after Moses, while the Israelites were exiled in Babylon or soon after their return. Though popular with critical scholars, the foundations for this hypothesis have been eroded. The discoveries of countless written texts predating Moses have obliterated the notion that writing was not invented by the time of Moses. For a good overview of the documentary hypothesis and its numerous shortcomings, see Gleason Archer, A Survey of Old Testament Introduction (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1994), 88–125. ↩
Many creationists have adopted the tablet model hypothesis, which proposes that Genesis was written by up to ten different authors identified by the various colophons (or toledoth statements) found in Genesis. This view is attractive because it helps explain certain statements that seem to imply eyewitness reporting, such as the description of the rivers and lands in Genesis 2, and because it would demonstrate that man possessed the intelligence to read and write from the very start. However, the tablet model has never been proven and faces a variety of serious challenges. See Lee Anderson, Jr., “A Critical Evaluation of the Tablet Model: Considerations on the Origin of the Book of Genesis,” Creation Research Society Quarterly 2017, 54:5–26. ↩
