The first step in solving the riddles of duration and sequence is to restructure the text. As we discussed in chapter two, we are not doing anything that is in conflict with the Hebrew; we are adjusting the layout. It is amazing how the harmony between Genesis 1 and physical fact can be demonstrated by rearranging the way the text is laid out on the page.¹
 

Recognizing the Title

We start, of course, with Genesis 1:1 (KJV):

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

Biblical scholars have suggested that the first verse is a heading, a summary explanation of what this portion of Scripture is about.² It announces the theme of Genesis 1: that God created everything there is. To the original listeners, “heaven and earth” was all there was, so that creation of heaven and earth would have meant creation of everything, from the lowest thing to the highest thing, from the most basic to the most sublime, from the physical to the spiritual. Truly a profound statement of God’s majesty!³

Modifying the Chapter Break

Consistent with a scholarly position on biblical translation, we put the chapter break in the middle of what is labeled as Genesis 2:4. This brings the whole story of the world’s creation into one chapter. This is not inconsistent with the Hebrew text, nor is it leaving things out in order to make things easier to explain. On the contrary, it is putting things back in.

Using Poetic Structure for Poetry

The next structural change is to put the poetry into a separate format. Since so many people have mistaken all of Genesis 1 for poetry, it is worthwhile to visually differentiate the part that is poetry. This arrangement demonstrates more clearly that the rest of Genesis 1 is not poetry.

To signal the use of poetry, we underline the text and structure the words into stanzas. Using again the language of the King James Version, the poetry verse (Gen 1:27) would look like this:

So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God created he him;
male and female created he them.

Note that this piece of restructuring has current precedent. The New International Version, for example, sets this verse apart from the rest in poetic form, as do the Jerusalem Bible and the New American Bible.

The Septuagint Corrections

The Septuagint is a translation from Hebrew into Greek made about 2,250 years ago. The Letter of Aristeas (c. 110 B.C.) explains that the ruler over Alexandria, Egypt, summoned seventy-two Jewish elders from Jerusalem, six elders from each of the twelve tribes, to translate the Hebrew Bible for his royal library.⁴ That is why this version is called the Septuagint, meaning seventy, for the number of translators.⁵

The Septuagint is older than the Hebrew text we now use. The modern standard for the Hebrew Bible is the Masoretic Text, which was finally settled around a thousand years later than the Septuagint was. This means that the Septuagint can be a useful guide to some Hebrew textual traditions.⁶ The very name that is commonly used for the first book of the Bible--Genesis--comes from this Greek translation.

The Septuagint version of Genesis 1 is structurally different from the King James Version in three places. We will incorporate the Septuagint approach because it fits so well with the restructuring of the text. Here are the three differences:

1. “and it was so” moves from the end of Genesis 1:7 to the end of Genesis 1:6.
2. “and God saw that it was good” is added in the middle of Genesis 1:8, just before “and the evening and the morning were the second day.”
3. “and it was so” is added at the end of Genesis 1:20.

These changes might not sound like much until you look again at the four-part structure of the Genesis account. This structure

1. starts with God’s command (“God said”--often called the acts of creation).
2. confirms that everything happened as God commanded (“and it was so”).
3. gives the result in more detail (e.g., “and the earth brought forth grass”).
4. concludes with God’s assessment (“and God saw that it was good”).

While this basic structure is evident in the King James Version, there are little inconsistencies. The “and it was so” for the creation of the firmament shows up after the detailed explanation. Meanwhile, the “and it was so” is missing from the creation of the sea creatures. Finally, the assessment “it was good” is missing from the account of the creation of the firmament.

There is such beauty in the basic structure that finding these things out of place was like looking at a beautiful building with one of the cornices knocked off. Imagine how thrilling it was to look at the Septuagint, this older version of Genesis 1, and find those pieces exactly where they should have been. And so, following this venerable textual tradition, we put them back in the restructured text that follows.

Structuring by Creative Act

The next step is to organize the text according to the acts of creation, not according to the days. Up to this point, the text, if it is organized within the chapter, is usually organized by days.⁷ But organizing the text by each of the acts of creation--by each of the “God saids”--helps to bring out the accuracy and the majesty of what God accomplished.

Applied to the King James text (Gen 1:9-12), for example, the structure would look something like this:

And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

Parenthetical Indentation

Once the text is laid out according to the acts of creation, the next change falls into place almost by itself. One cannot help but notice that what follows each of the acts is an explanation of what resulted. That is, the following text functions like a parenthetical remark, expounding on the prior thought without intending to get in the way of the general narrative.

To bring out the explanatory rather than the chronological nature of the text, the creation detail is indented under the command that it relates to. The basic points are also bolded for emphasis. To show you how it would work, here is Genesis 1:9-12 with this additional restructuring:

And God said,
Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear:
and it was so.

And God called the dry land Earth;
and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas:
and God saw that it was good.

And God said,
Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed,
and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth:
and it was so.

And the earth brought forth grass,
and herb yielding seed after his kind,
and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind:
and God saw that it was good.

Demonstration of the Structural Changes

Putting it all together, then, here is the text of Genesis 1 restated so you can see all of the structural changes working at once.

And the earth was without form, and void:
and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

And God said,
Let there be light:
and there was light.

And God saw the light, that it was good:
and God divided the light from the darkness.
And God called the light Day,
and the darkness he called Night.
And the evening and the morning were the first day.

And God said,
Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
And it was so.

And God made the firmament,
and divided the waters which were under the firmament
from the waters which were above the firmament.
And God called the firmament Heaven.
And God saw that it was good.
And the evening and the morning were the second day.

And God said,
Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place,
and let the dry land appear:
and it was so.

And God called the dry land Earth;
and the gathering together of the waters called the Seas:
and God saw that it was good.

And God said,
Let the earth bring forth grass, and the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth:
and it was so.

And the earth brought forth grass,
and herb yielding seed after his kind,
and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
And the evening and the morning were the third day.

And God said,
Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth:
and it was so.

And God made two great lights;
the greater light to rule the day,
and the lesser light to rule the night:
he made the stars also.
And God set them in the firmament of the heaven
to give light upon the earth,
And to rule over the day and over the night,
and to divide the light from the darkness:
and God saw that it was good.
And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

And God said,
Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life,
and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
And it was so.

And God created great whales,
and every living creature that moveth,
which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind,
and every winged fowl after his kind:
and God saw that it was good.
And God blessed them, saying,
Be fruitful, and multiply,
and fill the waters in the seas,
and let the fowl multiply in the earth.
And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

And God said,
Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind,
cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind:
and it was so.

And God made the beast of the earth after his kind,
and cattle after their kind,
and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind:
and God saw that it was good.

And God said,
Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God created he him;
male and female created he them.

And God blessed them,
and God said unto them,
Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it:
and have dominion over the fish of the sea,
and over the fowl of the air,
and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat:
and it was so.

And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold,
it was very good.
And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
 

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.

And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made;
and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it:
because that in it he had rested from all his work
which God created and made.

These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created.

Once the text is organized like this, it becomes clearer that while the text confirms that everything God commanded did happen, it does not sound as though it all had to happen instantaneously. The events that completed the command happened over time, and the events for different commands even overlapped.

Overlapping Events

These overlapping events would be like a sculptor saying on Monday, “I think I’ll make a statute of a horse, rearing on its hind legs and pawing at the sky.” Then on Tuesday a wealthy collector commissions the sculptor to do a statute of a little girl chasing a butterfly. Finally, on Wednesday the sculptor signs an agreement with a water park to make bronze sculpture of three leaping dolphins. The work that results from these visions and commitments will take months, and the work on the various statutes will probably overlap. But the sculptor’s biography could explain it as follows:

The first week in May saw the high point of his creativity. On May 1, he conceived his famous horse statute, known the world over for its expressiveness. On May 2, he caught the vision of his Butterfly Girl, whose sense of freedom and joy has been copied in countless ways from outdoor statuary, to tabletop statuettes, to paintings and even to postage stamps. Finally, May 3 brought the inspiration for his unforgettable Leaping Dolphins--an image so compelling that it was adopted as the worldwide symbol of the Save Our Seas League.

In the same way, the Genesis explanations tell us what happened as a result of God’s commands without implying either that creation happened instantaneously or that it all took place sequentially.

Verbs Showing Action That Happened Over Time

This approach may sound odd to readers not accustomed to looking at the text in this way, but it is encouraging to note that two more textual clues support this view of overlapping fulfillments. First, the original Hebrew verbs are not as final-sounding as our English translations make them seem. As we discussed in chapter two, Hebrew verbs have two states: one that communicates completed action (perfect tense) and one that communicates action not yet completed (imperfect tense). English verbs don’t have that second sense,⁸ so English translations tend to make the action sound “one and done.”

The first verb used in Genesis 1, “created,” is a completed action verb: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”⁹ But from there on, Genesis 1 frequently uses verbs describing continuing action.¹⁰ To give you a sense of the difference, here is Genesis 1:11-12 from a 1984 English version (NWT) that tries to stick closer to the original imperfect verb form:

And God went on to say: “Let the earth cause grass to shoot forth, vegetation bearing seed, fruit trees yielding fruit according to their kinds, the seed of which is in it, upon the earth.” And it came to be so. And the earth began to put forth grass, vegetation bearing seed according to its kind and trees yielding fruit, the seed of which is in it according to its kind.

As a further example, here is a portion of an 1888 translation that also tries to communicate the verb tenses found in the original Hebrew. The phrase “proceeded to” is used to signal the continuing-action sense of the verb. The brackets were used by the translator to indicate the temporal sense of the verb used and also to suggest words that are not found in the Hebrew text:
 

And God proceeded to say [future], Let Light become to be, and Light proceeded to become to be [future]. And God proceeded to view [future] the Light, that it [was] good; and God proceeded to divide [future] between the Light and the darkness; and God proceeded to call [future] the light Day, and the darkness he called [not “proceeded to call”; the past tense is used] Night; and evening proceeded to be [future] and morning proceeded to be [future] Day one.

And God proceeded to say [future] Let there become a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it become divisive between waters and waters. And God proceeded to make [future] the firmament, and proceeded to divide [future] between the waters which [are] below in relation to the firmament and the waters which [are] above in relation to the firmament; and God proceeded to call [future] the firmament heavens; and evening proceeded to become [future] and morning proceeded to become [future] Day second.¹¹

It sounds awkward to English speakers to hear the Hebrew translated this way, since English does not have the same verb constructions. It is also possible that even these translations do not carry the full resonance and meaning that the original would have had for a native speaker. Even so, these translations suggest that the verbs are not saying that the action was completed all at once; the verbs are consistent with actions stretched out over a period of time.¹²

The Genealogical or Thematic Approach

Second, there is the guidance of the Hebrew genealogies. In order to understand how this second argument works, start by supposing that you are going to recount a situation with several concurrent plot lines. There are two ways to do it. You can bounce back and forth between the plot lines, rather like a television sitcom, or you can finish one plot line before going back to pick up on the next one. Let’s call the first approach the chronological approach, because the timing of an event determines when it shows up in the narrative. Let’s call the second the thematic approach, because the theme that includes the event determines when the event shows up in the narrative.

To provide a quick example, imagine that a schoolteacher told her students to write an essay about what inspires them the most. A chronological explanation of three students’ activities might read like this:
 

Everyone headed out of the school that day wondering what they were going to write about. Sam headed right for his favorite place, the old oak tree at the top of the hill overlooking the valley, and plopped down with his backpack. Sally went to a friend’s house, where she and her friend spent most of the afternoon talking about the assignment--when they weren’t on the phone or watching television. Susan went to the library. When she was intimidated by an assignment, Susan always felt comforted by the surrounding presence of works from many other people. If they could meet their challenges and put their thoughts down on paper, then she could too.

Out on the hill, Sam watched the sky turn pink and purple, then fiery red and gold in the sunset. The evening birds started to sing, and the evening breeze started to sweep away the heat of the day. Lazily, comfortably, Sam got out his notebook and started to write.

Sally missed the sunset, absorbed as she was with the human drama going on at her friend’s house, the scripted drama that came with commercial messages and the unscripted drama that unfolded with the passions and ploys of the day. She was able to stretch out the delightful experience by getting permission to stay for supper--her favorite, a combination of meatloaf and live-action theater.

Susan not only didn’t see the sunset but also didn’t see supper. She didn’t miss either, though, as she paged through book after book, smelling the old book smells, feeling the ancient leather and enjoying the look of the old-fashioned typefaces. She even cherished the loving way the edges of the pages were finished off--all this attention just on the edges!--either gilded and sparkling or printed with a flowing water pattern of many colors that swirled and eddied.

The following day the teacher collected very different essays from the students in her class. The most moving were Sam’s essay on the inspiration of nature, Sally’s essay on the inspiration of other people, and Susan’s essay on the inspiration to be found in the thoughts and dreams of generations long ago.
 

Meanwhile, a thematic explanation of the same events might read like this:
 

Everyone headed out of the school that day wondering what they were going to write about. Sam headed right for his favorite place, the old oak tree at the top of the hill overlooking the valley, and plopped down with his backpack. He stayed there all afternoon and into the evening as the sunset danced its colors on the sky and the evening birds sang along. It was there, as the evening breeze stroked the day’s heat and worry from his brow, that Sam wrote his essay on the inspiration of nature.

Sally went to a friend’s house, where she and her friend spent most of the afternoon talking about the assignment--when they weren’t on the phone or watching television. Sally was always moved and excited by the human drama going on at her friend’s house, the scripted drama that came with commercial messages and the unscripted drama that unfolded with the passions and ploys of the day. She was able to stretch out the delightful experience by getting permission to stay for supper--her favorite, a combination of meatloaf and live-action theater. It was very late--nearly bedtime--when Sally finally got home and gathered pen and paper to write. But when she tried to gather her thoughts, they brought along the events of the day like pulltoys, waddling and honking behind. Her thoughts wouldn’t let go, and it was late, so with weary submission, Sally wrote her essay on the inspiration of human events.

Susan went to the library. When she was intimidated by an assignment, Susan always felt comforted by the surrounding presence of works from many other people. If they could meet their challenges and put their thoughts down on paper, then she could too! She paged through book after book, smelling the old book smells, feeling the ancient leather and enjoying the look of the old-fashioned typefaces. She even cherished the loving way the edges of the pages were finished off--all this attention just on the edges!--either gilded and sparkling or printed with a flowing water pattern of many colors that swirled and eddied. It was while flipping through a biography of Augustine and lighting on a passage explaining how important books had been to him that Susan got her brainstorm. Just as the library closed, she put the final period on her essay about inspiration from the thoughts and dreams of generations long ago.

It is reasonable to view Genesis 1 as using the thematic approach. The acts of creation announce the theme, while the words that follow explain how God’s command was carried out. The following words also give God’s assessment of the result: “it was good.”

This is a reasonable view not only because Genesis 1 sounds like a thematic approach but also because the text clues us to look at other places in Genesis where the thematic approach is used--the genealogical narratives. In the genealogical narratives, a brief story of one generation is told; then the story of the next generation is picked up, even though it is clear that these stories would have overlapped in time. Look, for example, at the following verses from Genesis 5:6-17 (NIV):

When Seth had lived 105 years, he became the father of Enosh. And after he became the father of Enosh, Seth lived 807 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Seth lived 912 years.

When Enosh had lived 90 years, he became the father of Kenan. And after he became the father of Kenan, Enosh lived 815 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Enosh lived 905 years, and then he died.

When Kenan had lived 70 years, he became the father of Mahalalel. And after he became the father of Mahalalel, Kenan lived 840 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Kenan lived 910 years, and then he died.

When Mahalalel had lived 65 years, he became the father of Jared. And after he became the father of Jared, Mahalalel lived 830 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Mahalalel lived 895 years, and then he died.

Even though Seth’s death is announced at the beginning of this excerpt, the numbers show that he lived long enough to witness the birth of the person at the end of this excerpt. The events within each plot line (person) are laid out before going back to describe the events of the next plot line (person), even though it is clear that the events within each plot line overlapped in time.

How do we know that Genesis 1 uses this thematic, geneological approach? Because that is what Genesis 1 itself calls the narrative! Genesis uses the same word for the creation narrative that it uses for genealogical narratives:

These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created (Gen 2:4 KJV, underlining added)

The Hebrew could also be translated more literally as “these are the begettings of.”¹³ That pivotal word is used ten more times in Genesis; seven of those times it introduces a genealogical accounting.¹⁴ Genesis says these are the “generations of” the creation account, and everywhere else that it describes generations, it uses a thematic approach to overlapping narratives.

 Chapter 4: Organizing the Biblical Text

¹ Readers who have dug a little deeper into biblical studies may be wondering why we haven’t discussed the four basic literary strands that are said to weave together in the formation of the Pentateuch: P (the Priestly tradition), J (Yahwist), E (Elohist) and D (Deuteronomist). Our primary reason is that such a discussion is not germane to our arguments. Our secondary reason is that Genesis 1 is thought to be all one strand ­ P. See Raymond E. Brown et al., eds, The New Jerome Biblical Commentary (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1990), 4, 10.

² Gerhard Von Rad, Genesis: A Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1972), 49.

³ In fact, some recent research that we have done on the Masoretic Hebrew text brings this out even further. The Masoretic Text markings suggest that Genesis 1:1 might be broken down into two parts: “In the beginning God” and “created were heaven and earth.” That is exciting, because it highlights the concept that God was uncreated and existed before anything else, while the creation was indeed created or is the result of a process of making. This recent discovery also takes the emphasis of this verse off when and puts the emphasis on what. That is, Genesis 1:1 is not announcing that Genesis 1 takes place at the beginning of created time. It is saying that at the beginning ­ whenever that was ­ only God preexisted, while everything else was made.

⁴ Nolan B. Harmon et al., eds., The Interpreter’s Bible, 12 vols. (New York: Abingdon, 1952), 1:58-59; Geoffrey Wigoder, ed., The Illustrated Dictionary and Concordance of the Bible (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Publishing House, 1986), 183-84. It must be noted, though, that some scholars consider this story to be self-serving legend based on a fictitious letter. See Brown et al., The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, 1092.

⁵ That is also why the common shorthand symbol for the Septuagint is LXX, the Roman numerals for seventy.

⁶ “On the average, it is just as reliable and accurate a witness to the original wording of the [Old Testament] (the ‘autographs’) as the [Masoretic Text] is. . . . Largely because the Greek language uses vowels and the Hebrew does not, the LXX wordings are less ambiguous, and the LXX was inherently less likely to be marred by textual corruptions than the Hebrew, which went on accumulating corruptions (as well as editorial expansions, etc.) for many centuries after the LXX was produced. . . . you should probably place the LXX side by side with the [Masoretic Text] and treat them as equals.” Douglas Stuart, Old Testament Exegesis (London: Westminster, 1980), 91. Also: “Scholarship has demonstrated that the Hebrew manuscripts by and large reflect a very ancient text; nonetheless, it often needs correcting from the Septuagint.” Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1993), 31.

⁷ To mention a couple of notable exceptions, one very early and one very late: William Tyndale, in his translation of 1530 organized the text by the “God saids.” And the new English Standard Version published in 2001 also organizes the text by the “God saids.” The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (Wheaton, Ill: Crossway Bibles, 2001)

⁸ Depending upon the translator, though, that continuing or periodic sense can be signaled by adverbs such as “continued to,” “gradually” and “frequently.”

⁹ But see some newer translations of the Hebrew, which take a different approach to this verse. For example, “When God began to create heaven and earth” (JPS) and “At the beginning of God’s creating of the heavens and the earth” (Schocken Bible), although some scholars will suggest that the Shocken approach requires some repointing of the Masoretic Text.

¹⁰ It is suggested that starting a narrative with a perfect verb and continuing it with imperfect verbs connected by “and” (vav) is a common Hebrew narrative style. In order to make sense of the biblical text in the many places that this occurs, it is suggested that the vav converts the imperfect verbs into perfect ones; this is known as vav consecutive or vav conversive. (See Page H. Kelley, Biblical Hebrew: An Introductory Grammar [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1992], 145.) But this grammatical point would figure more prominently in the discussion if we were trying to assert that the use of the imperfect verb means the actions were not completed even now. But we’re not trying to argue that. We’re only trying to argue that the Hebrew verbs don’t require an interpretation that the actions happened instantaneously.

¹¹ Benjamin Wills Newton, The Altered Translation of Genesis (London: 1888).

¹² There is another verbal argument to be made. The verb used in “it came to be so” are the same as the verbs used in “and it came to be evening and it came to be morning.” (See John R. Kohlenberger III, The Interlinear NIV Hebrew-English Old Testament [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1987], 1.) We know from experience that evening and morning are not sudden events; they happen gradually. Just so, it can be understood that the fulfillments (“it came to be so”) happened gradually. We’re making this argument in the endnotes, however, because we anticipate that somebody will retort, “However gradually morning and evening come, they still come inside of one twenty-four-hour day!” And so they do. But we’re not using this argument to insist that this verb form requires a fulfillment over a specified period of time; only that this verb form is consistent with gentle gradualness and does not require sudden or immediate action.

¹³ New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (New York: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, 1984), 17 n. 4*. See also Everett Fox, The Schocken Bible: volume 1, The Five Books of Moses (New York: Schocken, 1995), 17, 29, 35, etc.

¹⁴ Genesis 5:1; 10:1; 11:10; 11:27; 25:12; 36:1; 36:9. Of the remaining three times, one introduces the flood narrative (Gen 6:9), one introduces the Isaac narrative (Gen 25:19), and the last introduces the Joseph narrative (Gen 37:2).

The Riddle of Genesis, Chapter 4
Cain/Trespacz