Something I keep stressing is that the Bible is God's Word, and true from the very first verse. There are people who, for various reasons, want to compromise and say that the Bible is true, but not the early chapters of Genesis — those have to be interpreted in light of the ever-changing whims of man-made science philosophies. Can't be believing in creation, can we? Yes, yes we can.
Why would they compromise? If you study on it, there are several possible reasons. One is that they are ashamed of God. Another is because they are more interested in what other people think of them rather than what God thinks. Many learn bad theology from liberal teachers. I reckon the most likely reason is that they have not really thought things through (which may stem from not being grounded in the Word). Capitulating on the opening chapters of Genesis leads to theological horse trading throughout the Bible, and undermines the gospel message. Genesis was written as history, old son, and the rest of Scripture treats it that way.
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| Sunset over clouds on Lake Superior, credit: Freeimages / Archbob |
Ever had someone tell you, ‘You’re missing the whole point! The purpose of Genesis is to teach that God is our Creator. We should not be divisive over the small details. Genesis teaches the theological truth of “Who?” and “Why?” not about the “How?” and “When?”’ Or else they say that the Bible is a book for faith and morality, not history.I hope you'll read the rest of this important article. Just click on "Genesis: Bible authors believed it to be history".
An obvious answer is, why should we trust Genesis when it says God created if we can’t trust it on the details? After all, Jesus told Nicodemus, ‘I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?’ (John 3:12). So if Genesis can’t be trusted on an earthly thing, such as Earth’s age, the sequence of creative acts upon it, or the Flood that covered it, then why trust it on a heavenly thing such as who the Creator was? Also, if Genesis 1 were merely meant to tell us that God is creator, then why simply not stop at verse 1, all that’s necessary to state this?
However, the critic has overlooked something even more important—Genesis is written as real history. This is why the rest of the Bible treats the events, people and time sequences as real history, not parables, poetry or allegory.