Inspirational genius in Genesis

The title of the book I intend will come out of these posts,  is “Treasures and Genius in Genesis.” And to me there is no greater genius than the inspiration (2 Timothy 3:16),  of the hotly disputed early chapters of Genesis. Just think about the task the Lord had to inspire something that would make sense to people literately across millennia after millennia. Initially it had to make sense to a mind set in which scientific language would be double Dutch.  But it’s not just the differences across time, it’s across geographically diverse cultures;   across the various schools of thought, be it philosophical, scientific or religious;  across the various schools of interpretation, be it literal,  allegorical etc.;  across various classifications of the literary genre of the Biblical texts, genres such as history, parable, letter etc. (I mean we understand fiction differently from history,  so genre is important).

Then there are the various emphases that we place on what  we read, emphases often informed by our own biases and needs.  And we are all biased and we all have needs (yes me too).  But in spite of this, over all this diversity, over these various schools of thought and emphases, all who are willing to study the texts all seem to be able to take something from them.

The Lord has given us two ears, but just one mouth. In spite of this we seem to find it hard to listen to one another. It seems to be a part of human nature to feel that we are right and  everybody else is wrong. It’s called pride! But when we do this,  we likely to throw out insights others have gleaned from the texts.  And we don’t know what we don’t know, and what we don’t know far exceeds what we do know.

From what I can see, we are all a mixture of truth and error,  ignorance and knowledge (yes me too). And all these things inform what we take from the texts. So it is incumbent upon us to keep an open mind, listen to others, and to chew the meat and to throw away the bones. As mentioned earlier I’m not talking here about salvation truths (see “Is all truth relative” July 3). In these posts I draw insights from many diverse schools of thought,  including young earth creationists, the day is an age creationists, also from the discovery Institute etc. The discovery Institute does not mention the Bible at all, but looks for scientific evidence of design in the created order.

The two schools of creationist mentioned above are divided over the interpretation of the Hebrew word “yom” (day).  In fact both schools claim they are taking the Hebrew word yom literally.  The one in saying yom is 24 hours,  the other the literal understanding of yom as “in my father's day.” It’s pretty clear that much current science and a 24-hour day interpretation of yom, are in conflict. But as I keep saying,  neither science nor our understanding of Scripture have arrived, and I leave the reader to wrestle (or not) with their own position. I want to point out this is not a salvation issue, and in my view should not be a cause of division (Ephesians 4:3)!  

Father, I am inspired by the genius of Your inspiration.  However there are many things we don't know, and we seem to find it difficult to admit it.  We need to listen one another, and to agree to disagree when we do,  or to disagree agreeably. Help us Lord  in Jesus Name Amen