Making Sense of Genesis 1: The Fundamental Biblical Worldview

Some of the most hotly-contested chapters in the entire Bible these days are those found in Genesis 1-11. Young Earth Creationists argue that they are literal history and that to question that means you are undermining not only Scripture, but ultimately the Gospel itself. On the other side of the spectrum, you have militant atheists like Richard Dawkins who love to point to Genesis 1-11 to show how stupid, superstitious, and unscientific those “Bronze Age shepherds” in the Bible were–and why would any enlightened person every consider that to be “God’s Word”?

Unfortunately, those two extremes often get most of the attention anytime Genesis 1-11 gets discussed. I simply reject both extremes. I believe that Genesis 1-11 should be understood fundamentally as “mythological literature.” Now I’m not using “myth” in the way most people use it, namely as a pejorative term to denote something that isn’t true. I’m using the term in its proper literary context: namely, it is a specific genre of ancient literature that was used to explain a given culture’s fundamental beliefs and worldview concerning God/the gods, human beings, and the created order.

Simply put, myths were not meant to be understood in historical terms–they were stories full of metaphor and symbolism that tried to make sense of existence. In any case, I believe that Genesis 1-11 serves that function for the Bible: it sets the stage of Jewish worldview and belief that puts their history into its proper perspective.

And so, I thought it would be helpful to take a few posts to provide a basic overview of the significance of Genesis 1-11 as a whole.

The Cosmology of the Ancient Near East
So what are we to make of Genesis 1? For starters, we have to make sure of exactly what Genesis 1 is describing. And to get to the point, you have to get out of your mind the picture that is undoubtedly in your head right now: God creating a “big blue ball in space” known as the earth. Remember, we are dealing with Genesis 1 being addressed to ancient people who had no access to satellites, and therefore no real concept of earth in the way we understand it today.

The people in the ancient world did not picture the earth as a blue sphere, suspended in space. In fact, they didn’t even have the same concept of space—how could they? Rather, the extent of their understanding of the universe was based on what they could see with their own eyes, along with some creative and imaginative images that led to their conceptualization of the created order, or rather, their cosmology.

If you want to get a grasp as to how the ancient world viewed things, picture a snow-globe placed on one of those fake coral-reefs that people often put in their fish tanks, with the snow-globe itself actually being under water, but with the disk inside the snow-globe being obviously dry, because it is underneath the dome of the snow-globe. It’s not a perfect illustration, but it does get to the heart of how people in the ancient world, ancient Israel included, understood the created order. You can also just go on to Google, type in “Ancient Near Eastern Cosmology,” and I’m sure you will find plenty of great illustrations that show this very concept.

Essentially, what it amounted to was this: the earth was a flat disk of land situated on subterranean mountains or pillars that were deep within the ocean; somewhere deep down in the ocean was Sheol—the place of the dead; the ocean was also the place where the great sea serpent, whom some cultures viewed as one of the gods, lived (this sea serpent is called Leviathan and Rahab in the Old Testament, and was known as Tiamat by other ANE cultures); above the earth was a solid dome into which were placed all the stars, along with the sun and moon; above that solid dome were the waters above; and above even that was the heavens, the abode of the gods (if you were a pagan), or God (if you were a faithful Israelite).

Therefore, the picture the ancient Hebrews would have had in their mind as they read Genesis 1 would not have been that floating blue planet in space that we in the modern world think of, but rather something like that. At the same time, though, they would not have viewed such a concept as some sort of literal “scientific” description of the universe as we might assume. We do the text a disservice if we assume that the original author was trying to “do science.” It simply was a rather imaginative and metaphorical description of the world that they saw.

To assume they were trying to be scientific and literal in their description would be like assuming that when Christians talk about Jesus sitting at the right hand of the Father in Heaven, that Jesus is literally just sitting on a throne up above the clouds. We naturally understand and use metaphorical imagery to express our beliefs about things that are ultimately beyond the mere natural world; we should extend that same understanding to the writer of Genesis 1.

The Structure of Genesis 1
The literary structure of Genesis 1 has long been noted by biblical scholars. To get the point, although there is a clear seven-day structure to Genesis 1, it would be a mistake to think of it in literal, historical terms. John Walton goes into depth on this point in his book The Lost World of Genesis 1. I will just point out one basic thing: there is a clear poetic, literary structure to how the days are laid out. Basically, in Days 1-3, God establishes the “spheres of existence” (think “boxes”) whereas in Days 4-6, He “fills those boxes up.” And so, in Day 1 we have night and day, and in Day 4 those “boxes” are filled with the sun, moon and stars. In Day 2 we have the seas and the skies, and in Day 5 those “boxes” are filled with birds and sea creatures. In Day 3 we have the establishment of the land, and in Day 6 that “box” is filled with animals and human beings.

The point of that structure should be obvious: the one true God is a God of order, and He exercises completely control of the natural order.

The Three Major Themes of Genesis 1
The next thing we need to consider is this: “What are the major themes in Genesis 1?” Or to put it another way, if you were a pagan in the ancient world, and you came across Genesis 1, what things would jump out to you? Well, I’ll tell you: you’d realize that what Genesis 1 was saying about God, creation itself, and human beings was something you had never heard before.

What made Genesis 1 so revolutionary in the ancient world was not its basic conceptual understanding (or cosmology) of the universe—that description would have been something the ancient Hebrews would have been familiar with. What made Genesis 1 so revolutionary was rather what it said about God, creation, and human beings. To truly appreciate what Genesis 1 is saying about these things, though, you first have to grasp what the surrounding pagan culture of the ancient Near East was saying about these things.

The Fundamentals of the ANE Pagan Worldview
Here is what they believed in a nutshell:

• Many gods: The ANE cultures (obviously) taught there were many gods—they were polytheistic. And these gods were petty, dangerous, and violent—and certainly not “good” in any sense of morality. Human beings cowered in fear before them; they certainly didn’t love them.
• Creation: The ANE cultures also taught that the earth was made from the carcass of a defeated, loser god. In Mesopotamia, for example, there is a creation myth in which Marduk (a Babylonian god) goes and fights Tiamat (a giant sea serpent god), who was the leader of some of the gods who rose up in rebellion against Marduk. After Marduk defeats Tiamat, he cuts her body in half, puts half of it in the heavens, and forms the earth out of the other half. So, if you were a person living in the ancient world, the message was quite clear: your home was on a corpse.
• Mankind: Not only did the ANE creation myths tell you that you lived on a corpse of a loser god, those same myths told you something about yourself as well. In that same story where Marduk defeats Tiamat, after he creates the earth with her corpse, he also decides to create human beings. What he does, though, is he first takes Kingu, the god who instigated the rebellion in the first place, and he cuts Kingu’s arteries and kills him. Marduk then creates human beings out of Kingu’s blood, and they are considered to be savages whose sole purpose is to slavishly work for the gods. There are other myths that have human beings made out of the excrement of defeated gods as well.

But the point is clear: if you lived in those cultures, you believed there were many gods and they were extremely dangerous, that creation is the corpse of a loser god, and that human beings were products of either the blood or excrement of other defeated gods, and they were nothing more than brute slaves to those very violent gods they feared. Talk about not having a good self-image.

The Fundamentals of the Worldview Laid Out in Genesis 1
By contrast, the first chapter of Genesis challenges that pagan ANE worldview at every level:

• God: One thing is abundantly clear in Genesis 1—there are not “many gods.” There is only one God, and He is the one who created everything. The sun, moon and stars were not “gods”—they were lights that the true God created. This is something we often just overlook; but this claim of monotheism was revolutionary in the ancient world. Simply put: There is ONE God, not many.
• Creation: On top of that, the earth is not the corpse of a defeated serpent god. Genesis 1 states that the true God simply created it with His Word, and when He created everything, He brought order out of chaos. On top of that, with everything He made, He declared it to be good. So, creation is depicted as good, orderly, and brought about, not because of a cosmic battle between gods, but by the wisdom and word of the one true God. Simply put: Creation is GOOD and ORDERLY, not a corpse left over from a chaotic battle.
• Mankind: And what about human beings in Genesis 1? Are they made out of the blood or excrement of a defeated god to be mere slaves to the gods? No. Instead, Genesis 1 states that the true God made mankind “in His image.” We will discuss what this means in the next segment, but the point should be obvious: Genesis 1 teaches that mankind, both men and women, has inherent worth and dignity, and is not created to be a slavish brute, but rather to bear the likeness of God Himself. Simply put: Mankind is made in GOD’s IMAGE.

One God, Good Creation, Mankind created in God’s Image–that was what Genesis 1 is all about. In the very first chapter of the Bible, these three themes aimed to blow apart the ancient Near Eastern worldview about all of reality. It was a true revolution in worldview.

In my next Genesis post, I’ll look at Genesis 2.