2 Theological Interpretation of Creation

THE THEOLOGICAL
INTERPRETATION OF
SCRIPTURE
LECTURE TWO: CREATION.

Review:
Biblical Theology as a “Bridge Discipline”
- A Diagram from D.A. Carson

EXEGESIS
BIBLICAL
THEOLOG
Y
HISTORIC
AL
THEOLOG
Y
SYSTEMAT
IC
THEOLOG
Y
Carson’s Diagram
on Biblical Theology as a
“Bridge Discipline”
Tends to
focus on
analysis
of
passage
s &
themes
Tends to
focus on
synthesi
s of
passage
s &
themes
Putting
all this
together:
What
should
we
believe?
What did
Luther,
Calvin,
or
Augustin
e say?

Review:
Biblical Theology as a “Bridge Discipline”
- A Diagram from D.A. Carson
Is BT more “biblical” than Systematic Theology
- Geerhardus Vos:
‣No.—Both should equally be rooted in the Bible.
‣ST draws “circles” of topical discussion:
๏e.g.: God; man; sin; salvation
‣BT draws a “line” of historical progression (narrative)

Review:
What of the modern diversity within BT?
- Klink and Lockett (2012) provide a spectrum:

Different types of “Biblical Theology” Today
[Klink and Lockett, 2012]

Review:
What of the modern diversity within BT?
- Klink and Lockett (2012) provide a spectrum:
Differing “Covenantal Systems”
- Dispensationalism vs. Covenantal Theology
Differing “primary” uses of the Law
- Lutheran; Reformed; Dispensational
While one need not identify entirely with such “camps”
it is helpful to know their basic positions

Review
The Metanarrative:
Creation Fall Israel Jesus Church New Creation
Today’s
Session

Creation:
A universal question:
- Why is there something rather than nothing?
Some Biblical Answers:

Genesis 1
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the
earth.

Psalm 33
6 By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,
their starry host by the breath of his mouth.

Psalm 8
3When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place…

Psalm 104
5 He set the earth on its foundations;
it can never be moved.
…
24 How many are your works, Lord!
In wisdom you made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.
…
30 When you send your Spirit,
they [the creatures] are created,

Job 38
4 “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
6 On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone—
7 while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy?

Hebrews 1
1In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the
prophets at many times and in various ways,
2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his
Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through
whom also he made the universe.

Colossians 1
15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the
firstborn over all creation. 16 For in him all things were
created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and
invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or
authorities; all things have been created through him
and for him.

John 1
1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God.
2 He was with God in the beginning.
3 Through him all things were made; without him
nothing was made that has been made.

Creation:
A universal question:
- Why is there something rather than nothing?
Some Biblical Answers:
- In wisdom, God (Father, Son, Spirit) created the
universe.
After examining the Genesis account more closely,
we’ll then explore some Creation-related themes in Scripture.

Creation:
Initial Observations:
- There are two accounts:
‣Gen. 1-“Days”- The Big Picture.
๏Focused more on non-human creation:
๏Light/dark; land/sea; sun/moon; etc.
‣Gen. 2- Focused on Humanity and Eden.
๏Eden—Rivers, Gems, Location
๏Humanity—From dust, to work/care, etc.

Genesis 2 (i.e. the 2nd account)
4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth
when they were created, when the Lord God made the
earth and the heavens.
5 Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no
plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent
rain on the earth and there was no one to work the
ground, 6 but streams came up from the earth and
watered the whole surface of the ground. 7 Then the
Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the
man became a living being.

Creation:
- There are two accounts:
‣Gen. 1-“Days”- The Big Picture.
๏Focuses more on non-human creation:
๏Light/dark; land/sea; sun/moon; etc.
‣Gen. 2- Focused on Humanity and Eden.
๏Eden—Rivers, Gems, Location
๏Humanity—From dust, to work/care, etc.

Creation:
- There are two accounts (Why?):
‣Higher Critical (Liberal) Answer:
๏JEPD: Wellhausen’s Documentary Hypothesis:

JULIUS
WELLHAUSE
N
(1844 — 1918)
GERMAN BIBLICAL
SCHOLAR

Creation:
‣Higher Critical (Liberal) Answer:
๏JEPD: Wellhausen’s Documentary Hypothesis:
๏Thesis: Torah is a mix of different (contradictory)
documents & sources.
๏Evidence: (1) Divine Names (2) Duplications

JEPD - The “Sources”
J—Yawhist (“Jehovah”) 10th-9th c. -
“David’s Theologian”
E—Elohist (uses “Elohim”) 9th-8th c.
P—Priest (Genealogies) 7th c.
D—Deuteronomist (Concerned with
laws, reform, monotheism - e.g.
2Kings 22) - 6th c.
Key—All these sources have competing agendas.

Problems with JEPD
1.In the ANE every deity had multiple
names (this magnified the deity).
Marduk—50 names! (Enuma Elish)
2.In the ANE, repetition / layering was a
literary style (e.g. Gen. 1-2).
3.The theory failed to meet its own
criteria (e.g. YHWH first appears in
Gen. 15, not Exod. 3).
Key—Even many Liberal Scholars have now
moved beyond it as an ironclad hypothesis.

Creation:
‣Higher Critical (Liberal) Answer: JEPD:
‣Another Possibility: The two accounts of
creation emphasize different aspects/themes of
God’s creative work.
We’ll now explore some of these themes.

Creation Themes:
No Conflict + No Consorts
- All other ancient creation myths involve violent or
sexual confrontations.
‣e.g.: Enuma Elish (Ancient Babylonian)

Creation Themes:
No Conflict + No Consorts
- All other ancient creation myths involve violent or
sexual confrontations.
‣e.g.: Enuma Elish (Ancient Babylonian)
• Marduk slays Tiamat forming earth and sky from
two halves of her corpse; then Marduk slays
Kingu and makes humanity from his blood.
- In contrast, note the ease and joy with which God
creates from and for loving communion.

Genesis 1
earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty,
darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the
Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was
light. 4 God saw that the light was good…

Job 38
4 “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
[…]
7 while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy?

Colossians 1
16…all things have been created through him and for
him [i.e. the Son].
[…]
19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell
in him…

Creation Themes:
Exodus Themes:
- Thesis: Because Exodus was likely written first, we
must read even the creation stories in its light.
‣Q: What were (perhaps) the first written words of
the entire canon?
‣A: The Ten Commandments (see Exod. 31.18)

EXODUS 31.18: “WHEN THE LORD FINISHED SPEAKING TO
MOSES ON MOUNT SINAI, HE GAVE HIM THE TWO TABLETS
OF THE COVENANT LAW, THE TABLETS OF STONE
INSCRIBED BY THE FINGER OF GOD.”

Creation Themes:
Exodus Themes:
- Thesis: Because Exodus was likely written first, we
must read even the creation stories in its light.
‣Q: What were (perhaps) the first written words of
the entire canon?
‣A: The Ten Commandments (see Exod. 31.18)
• Scripture thus begins to be seen as having both
divine and human authorship.

Creation Themes:
Exodus Themes: Links between Creation+Exodus
1.The Spirit Parts the Waters
2.In Exod. 1, Israelites are filling earth and multiplying.
3.Plagues upon Egypt are a kind of anti-creation.
4.The climax of Exodus is the construction of the
tabernacle, a kind of reconstructed Eden.
We will now explore this further…

Creation Themes:
Eden as a Sanctuary: (Possible connections?)
1.God’s presence dwells (“rests”) there.
2.Entrance to the East, guarded by Cherubim.
3.Menorah (lampstand) symbolic of the tree of life.

Creation Themes:
4.Command to ‘Work’ & ‘Care for’ used elsewhere
only of the Levites in the Temple.
5.The River reminiscent of Ezek. 47 & Rev.2.7.

Creation Themes:
6.Gold and Onyx figure prominently.
7.Holy of Holies decorated as a Garden.
• 1Kings 6.29: “On the walls all around the temple, in
both the inner and outer rooms, he carved
cherubim, palm trees and open flowers.”
Yet one thing is missing from a typical ancient temple: (?)
The “idol” (i.e. image) of the Deity.

“Idols” (images) of the deity in ancient temples.

Creation Themes:
8.Humans as the icon (image) of the Deity (Gen. 1.26).

Genesis 1
26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our
image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the
fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the
livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the
creatures that move along the ground.”
27 So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

Creation Themes:
8.Humans as the icon (image) of the Deity
• Q: But what does the image entail? (3 options)
(i)Substantial: Something we posses (e.g.
reason)
(ii)Functional: Something we do (e.g. rule/reflect)
(iii)Relational: Something we experience through
personal (perichoretic?) relationships.
- e.g.: as an imperfect echo of the Trinity.
Perhap
s all
three
have
value:

Creation Themes:
• Q: imago Christi or imago Trinitatis:
- Augustine and Irenaeus on the image…

Irenaeus Augustine
imago Christi imago Trinitatis

Creation Themes:
- Augustine and Irenaeus on the image…
- Key texts…

Genesis 5
1…When God created mankind, he made them in the
likeness of God. 2 He created them male and female
and blessed them. And he named them [Adam] when
they were created.
3 When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his
own likeness, in his own image; and he named him
Seth.
Seems to show that the “imago Dei" persists even after the Fall

2 Corinthians 4.4
4 The god of this age has blinded the minds of
unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the
gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the
image of God.

Colossians 1
15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the
firstborn over all creation.

Hebrews 1
3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the
exact representation of his being, sustaining all
things by his powerful word.

Creation Themes:
- Perhaps the Human was fashioned in the image
of the incarnate Christ - the true imago Dei.
- This may help us to unite substantial,
functional, and relational views of image
doctrine.

Francis Watson
All humans may be said to be like God in the sense
that they are like Jesus. He shares their human
existence, the path they must traverse from birth to
death; and they share his human existence. If Jesu sis
like God, then, insofar as they are like Jesus, all
humans are like God.

Francis Watson
Without this christological reference, the concept of the
image and likeness of God should be handed over as
quickly as possible to the Platonizers and the
spiritualizers, who insist that the image is to be found
int he human mind but is absent from the human body.
Yet in Genesis, it is not the mind but he whole human
person who is made in the image and likeness of God;
and that is the case with Jesus, who mirrors God not
only in his mind but also in his bodily action.
Text and Truth: Redefining Biblical Theology, 291

Creation Themes:
9.Seven days as related to temple inauguration.
- Solomon’s temple took 7 years to build.
‣1 Kings 6.37 The foundation of the temple of the
Lord was laid in the fourth year, in the month of
Ziv. 38 In the eleventh year in the month of Bul,
the eighth month, the temple was finished in all its
details according to its specifications. He had
spent seven years building it.

Creation Themes:
- Solomon’s temple took 7 years to build.
- Solomon’s temple involved 7 day blocks of
dedication / inauguration (2 Chron. 7.9).
This brings us to the larger question of how we read
the “days” in Genesis 1.

Genesis 1
earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty,
darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the
Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was
light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he
separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the
light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And
there was evening, and there was morning—the first
day.

Genesis 1
6 And God said, “Let there be a vault between the
waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made
the vault and separated the water under the vault from
the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the
vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was
morning—the second day.
9 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be
gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And
it was so. 10 God called the dry ground “land,” and the
gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it
was good.

Genesis 1
11 Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation:
seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear
fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.”
And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants
bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing
fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God
saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and
there was morning—the third day.

Genesis 1
14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the
sky to separate the day from the night, and let them
serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and
years, 15 and let them be lights in the vault of the sky
to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made
two great lights—the greater light to govern the day
and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made
the stars. 17 God set them in the vault of the sky to
give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the
night, and to separate light from darkness. And God
saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and
there was morning—the fourth day.

Genesis 1
20 And God said, “Let the water teem with living
creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the
vault of the sky.” 21 So God created the great
creatures of the sea and every living thing with which
the water teems and that moves about in it, according
to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its
kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed
them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and
fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on
the earth.” 23 And there was evening, and there was
morning—the fifth day.

Genesis 1
24 And God said, “Let the land produce living
creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the
creatures that move along the ground, and the wild
animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so.
25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds,
the livestock according to their kinds, and all the
creatures that move along the ground according to
their kinds.
And God saw that it was good.

Genesis 1
26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image,
in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in
the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and
all the wild animals,[a] and over all the creatures that
move along the ground.”
27 So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

Genesis 1
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and
increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule
over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and
over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing
plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that
has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30
And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the
sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—
everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every
green plant for food.” And it was so.
31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very
good. And there was evening, and there was

Genesis 1-2
31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very
good. And there was evening, and there was
morning—the sixth day.
2.1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in
all their vast array.
2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he
had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from
all his work. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and
made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work
of creating that he had done.

Creation Themes:
Debates on “Days” and Origins in Genesis One:
- With the rise of science, such texts raised questions.
- Yet long before Darwin, the early church had
interpreted such “days” in a non-literal manner.
- Some suggested views:

Creation Themes:
1.“YEC” (Young Earth Creationism)
- Via “flood geology”
- Or, Via an “aged earth” theory
2.Gap Theory (And the “fall” of Satan)
3.Day/Age Theory (“Yom”)
4.Theistic Evolution (In combination with other views)
5.Framework Hypothesis (*Explanation)

Creation Themes:
• Also called—Literary Framework theory
• Key: The creation account is (THEO-)LOGICAL,
not CHRONO-LOGICAL (See chart).

FRAMEWORK
HYPOTHESIS:
Kingdoms / Habitations Kings / Inhabitants
1. Day and Night
(light and dark separated)
4. Sun/Moon/Stars
(rule over day and night)
2. Sky
(waters above/below
separated)
5. Sea Creatures / Birds
(fill ‘waters’ above and below)
3. Land 6. Land Animals / Humans
The order of creation is (Theo-)Logical, not Chronological.

Creation Themes:
• Also called—Literary Framework theory
• Key: The creation account is (THEO-)LOGICAL,
not CHRONO-LOGICAL (See chart).
• May also be combined with a final view…
6.Genesis 1 as an account of “Functional Origins”
• John Walton, Wheaton College:

Creation Themes:
• John Walton, Wheaton College:
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72qbEeRP-Ys

Creation Themes:
• God created all things materially, but the Days of
Genesis 1 are about God giving finished
functionality to an already existing material world.
- Hence Gen. 1.2: Now the earth was formless and
empty [or, “wild and waste”] darkness was over
the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was
hovering over the waters.
- Key: Things exist before “Day One”

Walton, The Lost World of Genesis
One
[In the ancient world] Creation constituted bring order
to the cosmos…
Would they [ancient people] have believed that their
gods manufactured the material? Absolutely, for
nothing can be thought to stand apart from the gods.
But they show little interest in material origins. Such
issues were simply insignificant to them.

Walton, The Lost World of Genesis
One
When we go to the theater, we may have passing
interest in the construction of the set and stage works,
but we understand that the play exists in the roles of
the performers. When a person comes late and asks
what has happened so far, the question is not
answered by information about the costume designer,
script writer and the hiring of the cast. Telling the
person about all that would be offering the wrong sort
of origins information.
Some sorts of origins are more important than other
sorts of origins (pp. 36—7).

Creation Themes:
• The Days of Gen. 1 are about giving finished
functionality to an already existing material world.
• These days are literal 24 hour days.
• We are free to accept (or reject) scientific accounts
of material origins (e.g. evolutionary development)
insofar as we maintain God’s original creative role.
• Thus, Gen. 1 may comport with theistic evolution.

Creation Themes:
2.Gap Theory
3.Day/Age Theory
4.Theistic Evolution
5.Framework Hypothesis
The key takeaway involves the diversity of interpretive options

Creation Themes:
2.Gap Theory
3.Day/Age Theory
4.Theistic Evolution
5.Framework Hypothesis
The key takeaway involves the diversity of interpretive options
Views 2—6 may affirm some
degree of evolutionary
development.

Creation Themes:
Eden as a Sanctuary: (Review / Overview)

Creation Themes:
Eden as a Sanctuary: (Review / Overview)
4.Command ‘Work’ & ‘Care for’ used only of the Levites.
5.The River reminiscent of Ezek. 47 & Rev.2.7.

Creation Themes:
Eden as a Sanctuary: (Tracing the theme forward)
- God’s “dwelling” (sanctuary) throughout history:
Eden Tabernacle Temple Jesus Church New Creation

Creation Themes:
Conclusion:
- A Revolutionary Notion: Good, but not God.

The Metanarrative
Today:

The Metanarrative
Next Session:

2 Theological Interpretation of Creation

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