God has revealed Himself to us in His words and His works. The first concerns an ancient revelation in the early part of Genesis. The other book is that of nature. Each book speaks its own language but the truth is expressed in both.

Let us consider Genesis 1:1. At least three [Hebrew] words could convey this message of a beginning but the word selected, “reshit,” is multilayered. Here it has a starting point that is followed by an indeterminate period of time.

It is interesting to note that “bara,” “to create,” may not be concerned so much with materials but rather with the allocation of functions (John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One).

The writer had no word to express the concept of a universe, like the Greek “cosmos.” Sensibly, he did not make one up but chose words known to the hearers: the sky and “eretz,” the land. “The Earth,” the world or a globe, is not used anywhere in the Hebrew scriptures because God has defined the meaning in 1:10: “God called the dry land eretz,” a geographical region in a defined locality. So an acceptable translation of this opening would read, “In the beginning God created the sky above the land below.” That is, God created everything.

We now enter a realm of controversy. Evolution is one biological explanation of nature. When God brought forth living creatures and later created humanity (Genesis 1:24, 26), it says that they were all “living animated beings.” Humans alone were God’s “tselem,” or image, given the role of managers. Science continues to demonstrate this relationship, both in the fossil record and more recently in DNA studies.

In the history of Christianity, some of the most significant heresies have been conservative, not radical. They arise because some hold onto old beliefs when many Christians have moved onto new answers. Our understanding of the scriptures and the explanations provided by science change.

God’s two books tell us the truth. A book by Denis O. Lamoureux, I love Jesus and I Accept Evolution, has been written to help the perplexed. As an “evolutionary creationist” he, in a way, brings the two books together.

– Ken Mickleson
Epsom, Auckland