Whilst much of the literary analysis that Vic Lipski (Letters, June NZ Baptist) wrote about is far beyond my level of understanding, the gist of what he said seems to ring true.

To me, as an ordinary mortal, Genesis 1 does not read as history or science.

The original author must have been grappling with enormous difficulty to convey what God had revealed to him, hence he was almost lost for words. No doubt his language had a much smaller vocabulary than we have, given the growth of knowledge, the introduced foreign terms and specialised words in use in present-day English.

Thus it is not surprising that the simple narrative of this chapter hides a complexity that most of us would also find difficult to describe even with our wider vocabulary.

I think the same was applicable to Ezekiel as he tried to describe his vision of God in Ezekiel 1 and John as he wrote down his visions in Revelation.

We could almost call this impressionist writing.

– Mike Power
Rotorua