God and Nature Fall 2023
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By John B. Carpenter
Young Earth Creationism (YEC) begins with the assumption that day one of the seven days described in Genesis 1 is when the initial creation occurred. Jason S. DeRoche, in a recent Midwestern Journal of Theology article, claims—as is typical of YEC—that the Bible reveals the age of the earth by a combination of genealogies that take us back to Adam, the first man, plus six 24-hour days that take us back to the original creation (1). DeRouche claims, “The most natural reading of the Bible’s introduction points to a young earth (2).”
The key issue, then, is that in this interpretation, day one contains the original creation. There cannot be gaps in the narrative or a prehistory before day one. Many assume that the key question is the meaning of “day” (Hebrew yom). But that raises the question: when was day one? If Genesis 1:1-2 is prior to day one, then regardless of whether the days are literal 24-hour days, there is no way to date creation from the Bible (3).
Young Earth Creationism (YEC) begins with the assumption that day one of the seven days described in Genesis 1 is when the initial creation occurred. Jason S. DeRoche, in a recent Midwestern Journal of Theology article, claims—as is typical of YEC—that the Bible reveals the age of the earth by a combination of genealogies that take us back to Adam, the first man, plus six 24-hour days that take us back to the original creation (1). DeRouche claims, “The most natural reading of the Bible’s introduction points to a young earth (2).”
The key issue, then, is that in this interpretation, day one contains the original creation. There cannot be gaps in the narrative or a prehistory before day one. Many assume that the key question is the meaning of “day” (Hebrew yom). But that raises the question: when was day one? If Genesis 1:1-2 is prior to day one, then regardless of whether the days are literal 24-hour days, there is no way to date creation from the Bible (3).
Genesis 1:1-2 is day one’s pre-history. |
Genesis 1:1
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ
This first sentence has seven words in the original Hebrew, an undisclosed time, God as the subject, a verb for creating or bringing things about that’s only used in the Bible with God as the agent, and two objects—the heavens (i.e. the universe) and the earth.
Attempts to translate the opening sentence as something other than a statement about the original creation have been popular with some scholars but ultimately fail the test of sound exegesis. F. F. Bruce was “almost persuaded” by the translation “In the beginning of God’s creating the heaven and the earth…” (4), assuming that “rê-šîṯ” (רֵאשִׁית, beginning) is in the “construct state.” However, adverbial clauses serving as specifications of time, like “in the beginning” (one word in Hebrew), can be absolute, as in the standard translation (5).
Alternately, some scholars have interpreted 1:1 as a title to the six days. The immediate problem with this interpretation is that, if true, then there is no report of earth’s creation, like there is of other specific items such as the making of dry land (1:9). Most obviously, Genesis 1:2 reports the earth existing, as if 1:1 has, indeed, described its creation.
The preposition b’- (בְּ, in, at), prefixed to “rê-šîṯ” (רֵאשִׁית, beginning), the very first word in the Bible, is a “prepositional specification of time” (6). That is, 1:1 is specified as happening “in the beginning.” Thus, the event of 1:1 gets a separate specification of time than the event of 1:3, “day one.” This suggests the beginning and day one are two distinct events.
John Sailhamer concluded that beginning “always refers to an extended, yet indeterminate duration of time.” It is a ‘time before time.’ It does not refer “to a point in time but to a period or duration of time which falls before a series of events” (7). Thus, 1:1 reports God creating the universe, as a separate event, before the main narrative begins in 1:3 with “day one.” C. John Collins calls this “stage setting.” He notes that Old Testament narratives typically open with the perfect tense (i.e. qatal verbs) in order to describe events that set the stage for it. He calls this “discourse grammar (8).” So “created” (bā·rā’, בָּרָא) in 1:1 “denotes an action prior to the main storyline—that is, prior to the beginning of the first day (9).”
Also, the verb bā·rā’ (בָּרָא, “created”), according to Sailhamer, “refers to an indefinite period of time.” It “could have spanned as much as several billion years or it could have been much less; the text simply does not tell us how long. It tells us only that God did it during the ‘beginning’ of our universe’s history” (10).
Genesis 1:2
Genesis 1:2 consists of 14 words. That the description of the seven days is preceded by a declaration of seven words (1:1) and then three statements of fourteen words (combined) is too meaningful to be a coincidence. The three statements in 1:2 explain the condition of the earth created in 1:1. Here are the first two:
The earth was without form and void (1:2a),
and darkness was over the face of the deep (1:2b).
There is much debate about the shared verb of 1:2a and 1:2b, hā·yə·ṯāh (הָיְתָה). Rendering it as “became” can be interpreted as relating a series of events: the earth was created and then became void and desolate because something happened to it, and then darkness became over the waters, and then the Spirit of God hovered over the waters. This “temporal sequence” interpretation is legitimately possible (11), and problematic for YEC. However, even if we render hā·yə·ṯāh (הָיְתָה) as “was,” there is still the implication of some kind of sequence because the earth had to be “void and desolate” after being created. That is, obviously, its condition reported in 1:2 is after its creation in 1:1. Translating the verb as “was,” as in our major English translations, does not necessarily tie 1:1-2 to 1:3 (day one) with a dateable, chronological chain of events. For an extended discussion on whether hā·yə·ṯāh (הָיְתָה) should be translated as “became” or “was,” see my article “The Beginning of Days.” Neither translation upholds YEC (12). The third statement says:
And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. (1:2c)
וְרוּחַ אֱלֹהִים, מְרַחֶפֶת עַל-פְּנֵי הַמָּיִם.
“Was hovering” (מְרַחֶפֶת, mə-ra-ḥe-p̄eṯ) describes ongoing action (13). To hover is an action over some time. It evokes the image of a brooding hen. The word occurs in Deuteronomy 32:11, “Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that flutters over its young,…” “Hovering” suggests a process over time, what Sailhamer notes is “an indeterminate period” (14).
Genesis 1:3
The main storyline, beginning in 1:3, uses what Hebrew grammarians call “wayyiqtol verbs,” unlike the “stage setting” grammar earlier (15). In Genesis 1, these verbs begin in 1:3 with “and he said” (way-yō-mer, וַיֹּאמֶר). This serves as the refrain marking off the beginning of each day. Each of the six days are introduced by “And God said” (way-yō-mer, וַיֹּאמֶר) and concluded by “it was evening and morning, the nth day”. Consistency demands day one begins with “and God said” (way-yō-mer, וַיֹּאמֶר) in 1:3. Therefore, Genesis 1:1-2 occurs before day one.
Genesis 1:3 begins with a waw consecutive, in which the prefix on the verb is usually translated simply as “and.” Waw (ו) is a common Hebrew word, rendered as “and,” “but,” “now,” “then,” etc., or even left untranslated. A waw attached to a verb (like “and he said”) is often a waw consecutive, conveying a sequence of events. For example, each man in the genealogy of Genesis 5, beginning with Adam (in 5:3), begins with וַֽ (waw) prefixing the verb “lived.” These are waw consecutives like the one in 1:3 (16). Since each man did many other things besides beget the next man—indeed, we’re told each “begat other sons and daughters”—there are gaps passed over by the waw consecutives of Genesis 5, as there may be in those of Genesis 1 (17).
YEC proponents often labor to prove that the opening waw of 1:2 is not a consecutive but a disjunctive, since consecutives allow intervening events (18). But 1:3 begins with a waw consecutive. Hence, the opening waw of 1:3 communicates a subsequent event in the same way as the waws that begin every other day. Thus, even by YEC proponents’ own reasoning, the waw consecutive opening 1:3 allows for a gap between the initial creation of 1:1 and the beginning of day one.
Conclusion
Day one does not begin in Genesis 1:1-2. Genesis 1:1-2 consists of vocabulary, grammar, and numerology that sets the stage for the main narrative. “And God said” is the refrain that marks the beginning of day one. Genesis 1:1-2 is day one’s pre-history. Hence, the original creation occurred at an undisclosed time prior to day one, after which the Spirit of God “hovered” over the water on earth for an undisclosed time. All of 1:1-2 occurred prior to the first “and God said,” the marker that begins each day. Genesis does not begin with day one. It begins with an original creation, ex nihilo, that sets the stage for the seven days when God made it fit for human life.
Hence, “The beginning” of Genesis 1 does not provide the unbroken chronology of datable events that allows us to date the earth. The initial creation was before day one. How long before? Genesis does not say. So, purely on exegesis of Genesis 1:1-3, without any influence of modern science, we conclude that the Genesis leaves the age of the earth unspecified (19).
References
1. Jason S. DeRouche, Wayne Grudem, “How Old Is the Earth,” Midwestern Journal of Theology 22.1, 2023, 1-29.
2. DeRouche, “Our Young Earth: Arguments for Thousands of Years,” MJT 22.1, 2023, 2.
3. Sailhamer, “the period of which follows “the beginning” is a single seven-day week….” (Genesis Unbound: A Provocative New Look at the Creation Account [Sisters, OR: Multnomah Books, 1996], 44.)
4. F. F. Bruce, “‘And the Earth was Without Form and Void,’ An Enquiry into the Exact Meaning of Genesis 1, 2,” Journal of the Transactions of the Victoria Institute 78 (1946): 21-37, p. 22.) William S. LaSor joined the chorus for this rendering. (according to Fields, pp. 154-155.)
5. Jeremy D. Lyon, “Genesis 1:1–3 and the Literary Boundary of Day One,” JETS 62.2 (2019), 274.
6. E. Kautzsch and A. E. Cowley, eds., Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2006), 457.
7. Emphasis original. Sailhamer, Genesis Unbound, 38, 44.
8. C. John Collins, Genesis 1-4: A Linguistic, Literary, and Theological Commentary, Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2006), 51.
9. Collins, Genesis 1-4, 55.
10. Sailhamer, Genesis Unbound, 13.
11. Leslie Allen, Personal communication, February 19, 2016.
12. John B. Carpenter, “The Beginning of Days: A Response to Jeremy Lyon’s “Genesis 1:1–3 and the Literary Boundary of Day One,” Journal of Biblical and Theological Studies, Vol. 6, Issue 1, 2021, 161-163.
13. Collins, Genesis 1-4, 42.
14. Sailhamer, Genesis Unbound, 44.
15. Collins, Genesis 1-4, 51.
16. Genesis 5:6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 25, 28.
17. Genesis 5:4, 7, 10, etc.
18. Weston Fields, Unformed and Unfilled, (Master Books: Green Forest, AR, 1976), 81-83.
19 John Lennox, Seven Days that Divide the Word (Zondervan: Grand Rapid, MI, 2011), 53.
John B. Carpenter, (Ph.D [LSTC], Th.M. [TEDS], M.Div. [Fuller]) is pastor of Covenant Reformed Baptist Church, in Danville, VA, and the author of Seven Pillars of a Biblical Church (Wipf and Stock, 2022) and the Covenant Caswell substack.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ
This first sentence has seven words in the original Hebrew, an undisclosed time, God as the subject, a verb for creating or bringing things about that’s only used in the Bible with God as the agent, and two objects—the heavens (i.e. the universe) and the earth.
Attempts to translate the opening sentence as something other than a statement about the original creation have been popular with some scholars but ultimately fail the test of sound exegesis. F. F. Bruce was “almost persuaded” by the translation “In the beginning of God’s creating the heaven and the earth…” (4), assuming that “rê-šîṯ” (רֵאשִׁית, beginning) is in the “construct state.” However, adverbial clauses serving as specifications of time, like “in the beginning” (one word in Hebrew), can be absolute, as in the standard translation (5).
Alternately, some scholars have interpreted 1:1 as a title to the six days. The immediate problem with this interpretation is that, if true, then there is no report of earth’s creation, like there is of other specific items such as the making of dry land (1:9). Most obviously, Genesis 1:2 reports the earth existing, as if 1:1 has, indeed, described its creation.
The preposition b’- (בְּ, in, at), prefixed to “rê-šîṯ” (רֵאשִׁית, beginning), the very first word in the Bible, is a “prepositional specification of time” (6). That is, 1:1 is specified as happening “in the beginning.” Thus, the event of 1:1 gets a separate specification of time than the event of 1:3, “day one.” This suggests the beginning and day one are two distinct events.
John Sailhamer concluded that beginning “always refers to an extended, yet indeterminate duration of time.” It is a ‘time before time.’ It does not refer “to a point in time but to a period or duration of time which falls before a series of events” (7). Thus, 1:1 reports God creating the universe, as a separate event, before the main narrative begins in 1:3 with “day one.” C. John Collins calls this “stage setting.” He notes that Old Testament narratives typically open with the perfect tense (i.e. qatal verbs) in order to describe events that set the stage for it. He calls this “discourse grammar (8).” So “created” (bā·rā’, בָּרָא) in 1:1 “denotes an action prior to the main storyline—that is, prior to the beginning of the first day (9).”
Also, the verb bā·rā’ (בָּרָא, “created”), according to Sailhamer, “refers to an indefinite period of time.” It “could have spanned as much as several billion years or it could have been much less; the text simply does not tell us how long. It tells us only that God did it during the ‘beginning’ of our universe’s history” (10).
Genesis 1:2
Genesis 1:2 consists of 14 words. That the description of the seven days is preceded by a declaration of seven words (1:1) and then three statements of fourteen words (combined) is too meaningful to be a coincidence. The three statements in 1:2 explain the condition of the earth created in 1:1. Here are the first two:
The earth was without form and void (1:2a),
and darkness was over the face of the deep (1:2b).
There is much debate about the shared verb of 1:2a and 1:2b, hā·yə·ṯāh (הָיְתָה). Rendering it as “became” can be interpreted as relating a series of events: the earth was created and then became void and desolate because something happened to it, and then darkness became over the waters, and then the Spirit of God hovered over the waters. This “temporal sequence” interpretation is legitimately possible (11), and problematic for YEC. However, even if we render hā·yə·ṯāh (הָיְתָה) as “was,” there is still the implication of some kind of sequence because the earth had to be “void and desolate” after being created. That is, obviously, its condition reported in 1:2 is after its creation in 1:1. Translating the verb as “was,” as in our major English translations, does not necessarily tie 1:1-2 to 1:3 (day one) with a dateable, chronological chain of events. For an extended discussion on whether hā·yə·ṯāh (הָיְתָה) should be translated as “became” or “was,” see my article “The Beginning of Days.” Neither translation upholds YEC (12). The third statement says:
And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. (1:2c)
וְרוּחַ אֱלֹהִים, מְרַחֶפֶת עַל-פְּנֵי הַמָּיִם.
“Was hovering” (מְרַחֶפֶת, mə-ra-ḥe-p̄eṯ) describes ongoing action (13). To hover is an action over some time. It evokes the image of a brooding hen. The word occurs in Deuteronomy 32:11, “Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that flutters over its young,…” “Hovering” suggests a process over time, what Sailhamer notes is “an indeterminate period” (14).
Genesis 1:3
The main storyline, beginning in 1:3, uses what Hebrew grammarians call “wayyiqtol verbs,” unlike the “stage setting” grammar earlier (15). In Genesis 1, these verbs begin in 1:3 with “and he said” (way-yō-mer, וַיֹּאמֶר). This serves as the refrain marking off the beginning of each day. Each of the six days are introduced by “And God said” (way-yō-mer, וַיֹּאמֶר) and concluded by “it was evening and morning, the nth day”. Consistency demands day one begins with “and God said” (way-yō-mer, וַיֹּאמֶר) in 1:3. Therefore, Genesis 1:1-2 occurs before day one.
Genesis 1:3 begins with a waw consecutive, in which the prefix on the verb is usually translated simply as “and.” Waw (ו) is a common Hebrew word, rendered as “and,” “but,” “now,” “then,” etc., or even left untranslated. A waw attached to a verb (like “and he said”) is often a waw consecutive, conveying a sequence of events. For example, each man in the genealogy of Genesis 5, beginning with Adam (in 5:3), begins with וַֽ (waw) prefixing the verb “lived.” These are waw consecutives like the one in 1:3 (16). Since each man did many other things besides beget the next man—indeed, we’re told each “begat other sons and daughters”—there are gaps passed over by the waw consecutives of Genesis 5, as there may be in those of Genesis 1 (17).
YEC proponents often labor to prove that the opening waw of 1:2 is not a consecutive but a disjunctive, since consecutives allow intervening events (18). But 1:3 begins with a waw consecutive. Hence, the opening waw of 1:3 communicates a subsequent event in the same way as the waws that begin every other day. Thus, even by YEC proponents’ own reasoning, the waw consecutive opening 1:3 allows for a gap between the initial creation of 1:1 and the beginning of day one.
Conclusion
Day one does not begin in Genesis 1:1-2. Genesis 1:1-2 consists of vocabulary, grammar, and numerology that sets the stage for the main narrative. “And God said” is the refrain that marks the beginning of day one. Genesis 1:1-2 is day one’s pre-history. Hence, the original creation occurred at an undisclosed time prior to day one, after which the Spirit of God “hovered” over the water on earth for an undisclosed time. All of 1:1-2 occurred prior to the first “and God said,” the marker that begins each day. Genesis does not begin with day one. It begins with an original creation, ex nihilo, that sets the stage for the seven days when God made it fit for human life.
Hence, “The beginning” of Genesis 1 does not provide the unbroken chronology of datable events that allows us to date the earth. The initial creation was before day one. How long before? Genesis does not say. So, purely on exegesis of Genesis 1:1-3, without any influence of modern science, we conclude that the Genesis leaves the age of the earth unspecified (19).
References
1. Jason S. DeRouche, Wayne Grudem, “How Old Is the Earth,” Midwestern Journal of Theology 22.1, 2023, 1-29.
2. DeRouche, “Our Young Earth: Arguments for Thousands of Years,” MJT 22.1, 2023, 2.
3. Sailhamer, “the period of which follows “the beginning” is a single seven-day week….” (Genesis Unbound: A Provocative New Look at the Creation Account [Sisters, OR: Multnomah Books, 1996], 44.)
4. F. F. Bruce, “‘And the Earth was Without Form and Void,’ An Enquiry into the Exact Meaning of Genesis 1, 2,” Journal of the Transactions of the Victoria Institute 78 (1946): 21-37, p. 22.) William S. LaSor joined the chorus for this rendering. (according to Fields, pp. 154-155.)
5. Jeremy D. Lyon, “Genesis 1:1–3 and the Literary Boundary of Day One,” JETS 62.2 (2019), 274.
6. E. Kautzsch and A. E. Cowley, eds., Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2006), 457.
7. Emphasis original. Sailhamer, Genesis Unbound, 38, 44.
8. C. John Collins, Genesis 1-4: A Linguistic, Literary, and Theological Commentary, Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2006), 51.
9. Collins, Genesis 1-4, 55.
10. Sailhamer, Genesis Unbound, 13.
11. Leslie Allen, Personal communication, February 19, 2016.
12. John B. Carpenter, “The Beginning of Days: A Response to Jeremy Lyon’s “Genesis 1:1–3 and the Literary Boundary of Day One,” Journal of Biblical and Theological Studies, Vol. 6, Issue 1, 2021, 161-163.
13. Collins, Genesis 1-4, 42.
14. Sailhamer, Genesis Unbound, 44.
15. Collins, Genesis 1-4, 51.
16. Genesis 5:6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 25, 28.
17. Genesis 5:4, 7, 10, etc.
18. Weston Fields, Unformed and Unfilled, (Master Books: Green Forest, AR, 1976), 81-83.
19 John Lennox, Seven Days that Divide the Word (Zondervan: Grand Rapid, MI, 2011), 53.
John B. Carpenter, (Ph.D [LSTC], Th.M. [TEDS], M.Div. [Fuller]) is pastor of Covenant Reformed Baptist Church, in Danville, VA, and the author of Seven Pillars of a Biblical Church (Wipf and Stock, 2022) and the Covenant Caswell substack.