The Lost World of Genesis One

A Brief Review

Most modern readers of the Bible will realize that the creation accounts in Genesis 1 and 2 are at odds with current scientific understandings of the origins of life on our planet. A decade ago, I was still working through what I thought about the origins of the universe, life on our planet, and how the biblical text should inform my perspectives on such things. Does the beginning of the Book of Genesis offer an account of the material origins of the universe and life on earth? What might this story have meant to its original authors and audience? These are the types of questions that The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate by John H. Walton addresses, and it was a book which was instrumental in my intellectual development.

There is a lot of material covered in this relatively short book, and I think the best way to break it down is by providing what I see to be the three main takeaways:

-The Genesis Creation Accounts Mirror Other Ancient Creation Stories

The authors of the Genesis text were part of a wider cultural and literary milieu who drew upon recognizable motifs and traditions to craft their stories. The Egyptians, Babylonians, and Sumerians wrote texts which spoke about the creation of the world and human origins and at least some of these predate the writing of Genesis.¹ All of these texts, including the Genesis accounts, share similarities in how they describe the shape of the cosmos,² in the power they give to naming,³ and in the presence of primeval waters.⁴

-There Is Already Material Present When God Begins to “Create”

Walton suggests that God’s creation in the early chapters of Genesis is not about bringing something out of nothing, but about bringing order to chaos and assigning function to the elements of the material world. This argument is made, in part, by pointing out that there is already material present before God begins to act.⁵ In the beginning, there is material but no function to it.⁶

-Intelligent Design Arguments Do Not Adequately Contribute To The Understanding Of Material Origins⁷

While Walton is critical of some elements of naturalistic arguments for material origins, he does admit that the intelligent design (ID) arguments generally fall short. ID arguments are negative positions, meaning they simply call attention to the perceived weaknesses of naturalistic arguments. Those in support of ID arguments, however, do not provide alternative theories that are verifiable or testable.

Conclusion

While there are things that I have come to disagree with in this book,⁸ I admit that it was extremely influential for me and does a great job of centering the Genesis text within its cultural framework, while giving adequate respect to the scientific arguments for material origins. Walton believes the Genesis account may have been a way for ancient Israelites to reframe the creation narratives of their cultural neighbors for their own purposes, and generate a myth of origins which emphasized important aspects of their history, beliefs, and practices. Ultimately, this book encourages reading the Bible with context and an acceptance of knowledge from multiple arenas, something I will always agree with.

Thanks for reading and let me know what you think about some of these points!

1. For example, the Enuma Elish, a Babylonian creation text.

2. For example, belief that the earth was enclosed by a dome or firmament, above which there was water that occasionally fell as rain.

3. Naming, whether gods, animals, or humans, was a way of creating identity and establishing function. Some Egyptian creation texts identify the creator god as the one who pronounced the names of everything, and in Genesis Adam is given the task of naming the animals as well as the woman (Eve).

4. These are present in nearly all Ancient Near Eastern creation accounts and represent chaos, nonexistence, and turmoil.

5. The earth is described as a formless void and there is water present.

6. When first encountering this, I realized I either had to admit that material preceded the divine, or that the Genesis account was doing something other than describing material origins.

7. I appreciated Walton’s perspectives here, though found his critiques of naturalistic theories of material origins unsatisfying.

8. Walton does not think that Genesis is trying to tell us about how the cosmos began, but he argues that God is responsible for the material origins of the universe. As a materialist atheist, this may be my largest point of disagreement.