Interchange 44, pages 10-12

Francis Andersen

The Bible begins with creation. We shall call the first portion “Genesis 1”, even though it continues into Chapter 2.

Is this report history? Or is it something else — parable, allegory, legend, saga, folktale, myth, whatever?

It is easy enough to make a pronouncement: “It must be history!” Such an assertion often arises from anxiety for the truth of the Bible. It declaims that the Bible is true. It is intended to protect the Bible from sceptics, liberals, modernists, and other bad persons who have suggested that Genesis is not history, but rather parable or allegory or myth or whatever.

The nature of Genesis 1 cannot be settled by bravado, Behind the bluster — “It must be history” — hides a crude assumption that truth is identical with fact, a theory that revelation must consist of propositions. History consists of statements of fact: therefore Genesis 1 must be history. The end result of this kind of argumentation can be no better than the starting point — only facts can be true; revelation must be propositional.

The nature of Genesis 1 cannot be settled ahead of time by dogmas such as these. It can be determined only be reading the text and finding out what it actually is.

The present writer believes as staunchly as anyone that the Bible is the unerring Word of God. It is God’s own account of his activities in his world and of his dealings with humankind. How did he actually speak his truth? He did not give formal lectures on history, theology, science. He told stories. Of course God also used many different forms of literary composition as the media of his self-disclosure. The range and variety are astonishing, and include parable, fable, allegory, etc. In other words, the Bible contains many kinds or narrative. God has conveyed his truth in more than one way. God is perfectly free to tell the story of creation in any way he pleases. It would be impertinent, if not blasphemous, to dictate to God that he must reveal the truth about Creation in propositional form, that he must discuss Creation as a modern historian or scientist would, because that is the only kind of truth that we are prepared to accept.

We simply have to accept what is in the Bible, and, instead of approaching it with our minds already made up about what it should be, to read it with an open mind, to find out what it actually is.

A lot of people are surprised to find out that there is so much poetry in the Bible. Like all poetry, it uses fanciful imagery (not to be taken as factual), and figures of speech (not to be taken as propositional). To complicate things, Hebrew poetry is written in a completely different dialect from Hebrew prose.

When the Divine Author of Holy Scripture has so many literary and linguistic options for the choice of medium, our first step in reading any portion is to work out what kind of literature it is, and what language it is written in. Each kind of literature has its own rules of composition, and these serve also as rules for its interpretation. And we need to use prose grammar when reading a narrative such as Ruth, and to use poetry grammar when reading Psalms and other biblical poems.

So, to read any passage correctly, we must do four things: 1. Isolate the unit — find one whole literary composition; 2. Identify the literary form (class, type, genre) of the composition; 3. Diagnose the dialect — prose or poetry; 4. Use the grammatical and literary rules for that kind of composition.

Unless this preliminary work is done correctly, the text will be misread.

What, then is Genesis 1?

Firstly, Genesis 1 is not a poem. It does not use verse forms. It is written in the standard literary dialect of narrative prose. It is completely devoid of poetic diction, imagery, figures of speech.

Secondly, Genesis 1 is straight-forward narrative. It talks about the real world, completely familiar to us. It itemizes the cosmic elements and terrestrial phenomena such as we observe everyday — sky, land, sea, heavenly lights, vegetation, fish, birds, and animals, including humankind. The terms “sky”, “land”, “grass”, etc., have their simple meanings. The language is not mythological, allegorical, parabolical. Genesis 1 states that God made all these things. The story is as simple as can be, straight-forward, matter-of-fact.

Thirdly, Genesis 1 is followed by other stories which read like successive chapters in a book. The narrative is continuous, with transitions rather than breaks; and it goes right on through the accounts of the patriarchs, the careers of Moses and Joshua, followed by Judges and Kings. Genesis through Kings is a single, continuous, gigantic chronicle; and all of it is the same kind of writing. It is a unified history of God and his world. As the first part, and an integral part, of that history, Genesis 1 itself is also history.

There are no literary arguments for any other kind of identification. So far, so good!

But we still have to work out how history is written in the Bible, and what kind of history-writing we have in Genesis 1. Again, it would be impudent to insist that we already know the answer to that question, even before we begin to read, and to insist on interpreting it in our way, instead of first finding out the biblical way of doing it.

We notice, for instance, that Genesis 1 is very repetitious. The events take place on six days, and each day’s events are reported in a similar cycle. It is highly schematic and formulaic. Is this artistic pattern a framework, carrying the list of things that God made? Or is it part of the factual information supplied? In all, eight acts of creation are reported. And, no matter how it is done, they have to be reported in some kind of sequence. One of the commonest mistakes in reading Genesis 1 is to assume that truthful history must report events in chronological sequence. Who made that rule?

The eight acts set in six days add up to a complete coverage of all the phenomena of the universe as we observe them from this planet. The scheme has symmetry. The first three days are days of separation, setting up three pairs of contrasting elements light/darkness; above/below; sea/land. The arrangement is stable, and vegetation (the fourth action) is part of the fixture.

Then come three days in which moving things are placed successively in these three domains — lamps in the periods of light and darkness (Day 4 matches Day 1); birds and fish in air and water (Day 5 matches Day 2); animals and humankind on land (Day 6 matches Day 3). The effect is cumulative; the result is comprehensive. The style is simple, yet grand; the impression is majestic, overwhelming. It is a marvellous combination of plain narrative and high art. The fact that it is history should not shut our minds against its artistry. The fact that it is artistic should not soften our confidence in its truthfulness as history.