The Genesis Creation Story’s Fragmented Framework

Questions of credibility

This article is written as a response to David Gamble’s recent article Is the Genesis Creation myth credible in any way?

David begins his article by dismissing the literalist reading that the seven days were regular 24-hour days as promoted by Ken Ham and others. Instead, David examines the text in light of his own former belief from back when he was religious.

That view is that Genesis was a poetic metaphor where each day stood for a geological age. He then asks if such a perspective is in any way credible.

He admits that when he was religious that he never gave the issue too much thought. He just assumed that this approach was more or less correct as it allowed him to maintain the belief that Genesis more or less aligned with modern scientific knowledge.

David then decides to re-examine the text of Genesis from the perspective of a critical thinker to see how well the text conforms to the theory that each day represents a geological age.

I salute his attempt. I too am a proponent of skepticism and critical thought. In fact, many of his arguments were my arguments back when I mingled with students at a Mennonite college in Hesston, Kansas.

My views have evolved since then, and my current take on the Biblical creation story is rather complex. For this article, I will note how my understanding differs from the author’s while following along with his comments.

Day 0 — Genesis 1:1–2

1. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

David points out what is for him a huge discrepancy. The Universe is about 13.7 billion years old while the Earth is somewhere around 4.5 billion years old. David states that the text indicates that the creation of heaven and earth occurred at the same time, so there is a big chunk of time missing.

My understanding of this creation narrative is that it is presented from the perspective of an entity reporting from the earth. Usually, the description is restricted to the senses of the life forms present at that particular stage. For Day Zero, however, this restriction seems to not be in effect.

2. 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.

If this is just prior to the ignition of the Sun then the Earth is likely shrouded in dust and gasses, blocking the view of the heavens. The text is describing the planetary surface as being covered in water. The description of the earth can be read as a description of the heavens reflected by the waters. The earth was empty and without form because it was a reflection of the dark abyss above.

Obviously, the heavens had structure and form, but they were hidden by the opaque atmosphere. And just as obviously, the heavens had existed for billions of years before the Earth, but from the perspective of a theoretical entity on the earth, it would seem that the heavens and the earth were being created simultaneously.

So Day Zero is a description of Earth prior to the ignition of the Sun.

Day 1 — Genesis 1:3–5

3. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. 4. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. 5. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

Here, David points out that the Sun isn’t created until the fourth day. He claims that this “has a nice flow to it”, but that it does not conform to our modern understanding. David is suggesting that modern science has dispelled the illusion that daylight is in no way dependent on the Sun. However, the authors of Genesis lived back when the common view was otherwise.

So David believes that the authors wrote that light, night, and day were created before the Sun, Moon, and the heavens because they believed it actually happened that way.

My own understanding of the Genesis story is rather different. I see it as a schematic framework where certain key pieces have been removed. As it stands now, it lacks credibility. I agree with David one hundred percent.

The thing is, its present form is not its real form, its intended form. The Genesis narrative is designed to be decrypted using three separate keys. When it is fully decoded the result is not a one-to-one geological era matchup. There is however a thematic correlation that speaks to the unity of life.

When it is complete, each day is associated with one or two specific forms of life. In its present state, there is no mention of life until day three. And even then only dry-land plants are mentioned and not their systemic counterpart, the dry-land arthropods.

Let me go ahead and fill in the missing forms of life. I will provide the justification for each lifeform in a future series of articles

Day One gave rise to cyanobacteria. Day Two, aquatic arthropods. Day Three, dry-land arthropods and dry-land plants.

By Day Three David has had it. Let me try to show you how I see it. On Day One, the Sun ignited. Then let’s suppose some stuff connected with Day Two occurred. Let’s say that the proto-planet Theia struck the Earth and formed the Moon. The Moon starts altering the atmosphere, creating the waters below in liquid form and the waters above as atmospheric gasses. Eventually, this leads to conditions where photosynthetic life develops.

We are already on Day Two, the time of aquatic arthropods. Still, photosynthetic life corresponds to the domain of light, the domain of the Sun. Just as the aquatic arthropod corresponds to the Moon.

Day Three begins with the earth rising above the waters. Eventually, this leads to both dry-land plants and dry-land arthropods as the earlier forms of life are transplanted into this new realm. Even if that takes tens of millions of years and a couple of other days start their processes in the meantime.

So this third day, the day of plants and insects is Tuesday, which is Mardi in French. Mars day. So we had Sun day, Moon day, and now Mars day.

Day 4 — Genesis 1:14–19

14. 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: 15. And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. 16. 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. 17. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, 18. 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. 19. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

So finally we arrive at Day Four. Mercredi in French. Mercury day. Mercury is the planet associated with the intellect. And so Day Four is the day of the rational mind. Time is based on the lights in the heavens. The Sun and the Moon are perceived and given names.

How is this possible if day and night were created on the first day? It all comes down to perception. The forms of life created prior to the fourth day lacked visual systems capable of perceiving the sun and moon as orbs or stars as individual points of light.

It was only after Day Four with the development of a creature with an advanced eye that this sort of vision was possible. This day is associated with the mollusk in its polar forms with clams and other bivalves at one extreme and cephalopods at the other. It is from the cephalopods that this new eye developed.

Day 5 — Genesis 1:20–23

20. 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. 21. 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. 22. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. 23. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

Day five sees the development of the vertebrate line. Fish to birds, with the middle state of sea monsters or dragons translated here as whales. This middle category includes amphibians and reptiles. Jeudi in French, Jupiter day.

Day 6 — Genesis 1:24–31

24. 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. 25. 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.

Day Six gives us the dumbed-down version where all of the creepy crawlies are all released at once. Spiders and insects from Day Three, snails and slugs from Day Four, snakes and lizards from Day Five, and mammals and Homo sapiens from Day Six. Vendredi in French, Venus day.

So yes, David is correct. Taken as is, the seven days of Genesis lack all credibility. The account has been written so that on its surface it is simplistic and just basically wrong.

However, my research has led to the conclusion that the text has been carefully crafted with three separate layers of encryption. The keys to these layers of encryption are contained in systems that were taboo for believers to study. This ensured that the keys were kept far from the texts that they were designed to unlock.

Once the text is unlocked, it follows modern evolutionary theory more or less. It has a different focus which seems more systemic. Such as the way Day Three sees the different forms of life from Days One and Two rise up to dryland.

Days One, Two, and Three develop aquatic forms of life that adapt to life on dry land. Days Four, Five, and Six seem focused on the adaption of a specific sort of creature to life outside of water. A creature that can in time develop a brain even larger than one possessed by a cephalopod.

The first three days resulted in dry land arthropods and plants that began bioforming the land in preparation for the coming wave of vertebrates, four-limbed creatures with a centralized nervous system.