Can We Believe Genesis in an Age of Science?

By Mark Glaab

According to many Christian leaders, early Genesis is a myth or allegory.

Therefore, Adam and Eve never lived, Eve was never tempted, and Adam never sinned. There was no creation week, so God did not make the earth, the stars, the birds, fish, or the animals. This has become the default position of many Christian teachers, ministries, and campuses. This is not just mainline churches, but evangelicals have joined the ranks of doubters in creation.

This is a reaction to the claims of Christians who work in the sciences, claiming that evolution is now an established fact. As a result, creation week is put in the category of myth or allegory, not history. New interpretations of Genesis abound.

There is just one problem. This may be how people interpret Scripture, but it is not how Scripture interprets Scripture. Scripture treats Genesis as history. If you are wondering whether Genesis can be interpreted as true history, the struggle is over. Jesus is not just the cornerstone of the church. He is the cornerstone of creation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9798887516295

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Can We Believe Genesis in an Age of Science?

Mark Glaab

ISBN 979-8-88751-628-8 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88751-629-5 (digital)

Copyright © 2023 by Mark Glaab

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

All Scripture, unless otherwise stated, is in the New King James Version (NKJV). NKJV: Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Author’s note. Although I love the King James Version, the New King James Version will make for easier reading. In the verses quoted in this book, the verses meaning remains unchanged when the NKJV is used. When the King James Version is used, it’s indicated with KJV.

Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

The Genesis of My Own Story

Foundations

The Creation Narrative

The Pentateuch

The Covenants

The Prophets

Messianic Prophecy

Teaching from a Historical Genesis

Christian Creeds and Songs

Arguments against a Historical Genesis

Important Teaching from Genesis

The Word of God

Before the Beginning

Final Conclusions

What About the Science?

A Personal Note

About the Author

Acknowledgments

Iwant to give a great thanks to Dustin Burlet, who gave me important direction and a great content edit. The first edit was from Liz Tichelaar, for whom I am very grateful. Thank you to Christian Faith Publishing and especially Kathleen Goulos, who bore with me for many months.

Also, a great thank-you to my wife, Anita, who supported me through this project.

Introduction

There is a heated debate within the Christian community over whether we were created by God or whether we evolved from primates. There are some believers who accept the creation account as provided by the plain, literal reading of Scripture. Genesis is still accepted by many as a descriptive, accurate, and historical account of the earth's creation and the first few thousand years of it. They view the Genesis characters as real people who lived real lives. This would include the accounts of Adam, Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, etc. They believe that these people physically talked with God, walked with God, argued with God, and built relationships with God. Christians holding these beliefs are typically labeled literalists because they take Genesis at face value. This label is used as a derogatory slight, suggesting that literalists are ignorant and foolish.

Others believe that God created the world over a period extending billions of years. They believe Scripture does not mean what it says. Another group believes that God created the world by influencing and nudging evolution toward the correct body plans. To them, Genesis is allegorical, poetry, or just made up. Others allege Genesis is influenced by Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) texts. Many portions of Scripture beyond Genesis are also considered unhistorical or inaccurate. They may believe that God started with a big bang then stood back as everything in the universe evolved through some variations of evolution.

It's believed by the majority of evolutionists that God allowed the development of the world and humanity by blind natural forces, placing this view in almost complete accord with evolution as taught in public schools. According to them, creation week, as spoken about in Genesis, never happened. They confidently declare that Adam and Eve; Cain and Abel; Enoch and Noah; Shem, Ham, and Japheth never existed. Those people never loved, they never lived, and they did not talk to God. There was no fall, and there was no global flood. Cain did not kill Abel, and Enoch was not taken up to God. Others believe that Abraham and Moses may have existed, but there is disagreement even about them because some evolutionists believe that only a small amount of the Genesis is authentic history. Most are willing to start their historical beliefs with Abraham. Before Abraham, biblical history is largely not believed. Christian leaders claiming various levels of disbelief are powerful, varied, and influential for many lay Christians.

One may ask, why do we have all these differing views on Genesis? The answer is evolutionary science. Evolutionary science has been accepted as truth by many in the Christian community, and they believe that it's vested in scientific certainty. If the science is certain, what possible defense could Scripture mount?

Reactions to the claims that evolution is a fact vary. Some who look at origins tell us that we should all just get along and that Genesis does not really matter. As long as we believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus, we have all the truth we need for salvation. If we have enough faith and truth to get us into heaven, why should we get excited about whether Adam and Eve were actually tempted in a real garden? According to an increasing number of Christians, only some biblical truths matter and the rest are irrelevant, especially if it's in the Old Testament and challenges evolutionary thinking or timelines. The maneuver to minimize the importance of Genesis is used to avoid contention. Let's avoid controversy and just be in unity!

Then again, it's also forcefully said by a few that pastors and creationists should stop preaching from Genesis so that we don't look so silly to the scientific community! It's hard enough in today's culture to get students to believe in Jesus, let alone to believe in naked people eating forbidden fruit.

There are some interesting divisions among believers. Charismatic Christians have largely sided with biblical creation. The Roman Catholics of today most often side with Darwinian evolution for historical reasons surrounding Galileo. The remaining church community is spread from one end of the spectrum to the other. Of course, there is always slippage and line crossing.

Evangelicals are recently beginning to reject a historical Genesis and join more liberal churches in embracing one of the many alternate views available. There is no single replacement to a natural reading of Genesis. When I say plain, I mean the ordinary meaning of the language. Once a believer rejects the natural reading of Genesis as true, they will find a smorgasbord of alternative interpretations. Each person could have their own interpretation. You can even make up your own new interpretation so long as you reject Genesis as it reads normally.

Meanwhile, as doubts about Scripture are fostered, evolutionary science is increasingly portrayed among Christians as unassailable. We imagine platoons of scientists in lab coats reaching undeniable conclusions based on repeated experiments and clear evidence. To reject established science in favor of biblical literalism is thought to be most unreasonable, perhaps even laughable, and a sign of the weak-minded walking around wearing religious blinders.

Despite this relentless march to evolutionary belief, doubts remain. Those who read their whole Bible in daily reading plans are constantly confronted by references back to Genesis or creation. As a result, many are not yet ready to discard Adam and Eve and the fall of man. Daily Bible reading seems to keep Genesis alive!

For many believers, this subject matter is still important to their church and their families to know whether the Scriptures are spiritual fairy tales or the truth. It's hard not to believe Scripture when one reads what Jesus says about the word of God.

Then there is the matter of Christian books. One can hardly read about temptation or sin in some Christian book without finding a reference to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The serpent account is still crucial to our understanding of sin and temptation. This is where we go to understand temptation. This is how we understand the origins of sin, death, and judgment, the very things Jesus came to defeat. The origin of temptation in Scripture is compelling and makes perfect sense. Without the snake and the first temptation, we drop into ignorance about the origin of sin.

Let's talk about the impact of this debate on our Christian youth. According to the New Testament, Jesus cares about his lost sheep, and they are precious to him. My heart has broken many times when I watched sheep walking away, many times after starting university. I believe that Christians on all sides of the debate are saddened by such loss of faith. Students raised in Christian homes are rejecting Jesus Christ in record numbers. This is especially difficult because both sides are far apart on the solution to the problem.

There are many in the Christian community who are very unhappy with believers who continue preaching Genesis or intelligent design (where the actual designer is not discussed). They believe that if we would all embrace evolutionary science and dismiss Genesis, then fewer students would lose their faith, and it would provide more opportunities to witness among atheists. This may sound convincing—and many are indeed persuaded by this argument—but if the path to faith is unbelief, then I have grave doubts.

I, on the other hand, believe that truth is not dictated by convenience but by the One who is the Truth. That would be Jesus. Those in mainline churches were the first to believe in evolution and disbelieve Genesis. Since then, they are the first to doubt or outright deny the virgin birth. This is followed by a disbelief in the miracles of Jesus, and they even admit to serious doubts about Jesus's bodily resurrection. We should want evangelicals to avoid the next stage of liberal theology, which is to reject the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Churches who have already taken this route of ever-increasing disbelief in an effort to appear modern face an alarming increase of empty pews. Make no mistake, this debate over the accuracy of Genesis is serious. This is not a harmless academic exercise. The next generation's faith in God and in Scripture is being assaulted through the war over evolution versus the biblical account of creation. It's vitally important that we discuss Genesis versus evolution!

Having said all that, let's also be fair to Christians who work in the sciences. They are inundated with the language of certainty as it relates to evolution and origins. It's quite easy for them to imagine that the Scriptures are more fanciful than factual and that the science authoritative. This is the world that they live in. These individuals may have lost their belief in a historical Genesis long ago while working in such an environment.

Many in this scientific environment are certainly Christians, which only adds to the perception of settled science and unreliable Scripture.

Meanwhile, when creationists assert that the Scriptures are true, real, historical, and accurate in their depiction of Adam and Eve, it will immediately challenge everything the more secular Christians believe to be true from their training in modern science. Genesis challenges everything that the more secular among us have come to believe in as scientific fact! This would on the surface appear irreconcilable, and we must be sensitive to that.

This puts both preachers and scientists in an impossible situation, to question what they believe to be absolutely and unquestioningly true.

If it can be hard to convince some church ministers to believe Genesis, how would we convince scientists living in an intellectual atmosphere of apparent scientific certainty to move from that to biblical certainty? It's not an easy task, yet I will attempt to do exactly that in this book.

I am attempting to unravel the truth in science and Scripture and create a path to a common understanding.

This is a meeting of minds that has been difficult to achieve after many attempts by others in numerous books, panels, theories, and theologies. Many have tried this by attacking Scripture outright or attempting to re-understand Genesis to line up with the science. I believe that it can be done, but differently.

My preference is to take the science and the Scriptures at face value without distorting either. Amazing as that may seem, I believe that examining both science and Scripture at face value will lead us to the answer. No more twisting, and no more fantastic interpretations or exaggerations of Scripture to line up with evolution. We will just be looking science and Scripture right in the eye. This should be refreshing for a change, and hopefully a fascinating approach.

I hope to succeed at constructing what others have tried to create, a unity of belief. Call me an optimist!

I will write from my viewpoint as a pastor. This many not seem promising for the scientist or an academic, but don't count me out. I've read plenty from both scientists and theologians and as someone close to the front line, a pastor sees things differently from academics and scientists. I would like to provide this missing perspective! Church ministers are more likely to debate theology than science, but it's time to broaden the debate stage because we must take a close look at the science.

Perhaps you forget that pastors are no strangers to controversy. Pastors are more accustomed to sifting through controversy than you may think.

Let's face it, everyone has the same big questions, which also appear in science books. Where do we come from? Do we have a purpose? Are we here by chance? Why is there evil in the world? And so on.

If you don't know the answer to these questions, then this book is a must for you. This book is certainly a must-read for every minister and professing believer who is unsure whether to believe in creation or evolution. After reading this book, you will, at the very least, know your Bible better, understand the positions people take more clearly, and appreciate the God of the Bible as never before. In the words of Job, I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, But now my eye sees You (Job 42:5).

I hereby exercise my right to check the claims made about human origins in the current state of science and Scripture to see how they flesh out; join me in that exercise of due diligence.

It's my hope that you will see the Scriptures differently and begin to explore the reason for Jesus's famous quote in Matthew 4:4: "It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.'"

I hope that an open search of the science and the Scriptures will help us. This book could be a turning point for you, creating an opportunity for pause, to ask yourself what you really believe and why. Most importantly, you should ask yourself if you really do, in your heart of hearts, want to arrive at the truth wherever it may lead.

We will examine the Scripture and science together, as fellow travelers on the journey to discover truth. I would prefer a fellow seeker to an adversary. Let us join in this walk with open minds and open hearts, ready to follow the trail of bread crumbs into a place of truth and certainty. I am trusting that I may be able to bring out the best in all of us as we bring Glory to God in this study of creation and evolution.

Chapter 1

The Genesis of My Own Story

The Debate

Let me begin by telling you what started my quest to write this book. John MacKay, international director of Creation Research, was speaking in my city a few years ago. I enjoyed his seminar. One day, I thought I would see if John MacKay had any creation/evolution debates on YouTube since I had recently heard him speak. Many people can lecture, but debating has a way of testing the strength of a position.

I began browsing YouTube for content expecting to find a debate between John MacKay and an atheist. Instead, I found him debating a fellow Christian on creation versus evolution. The person defending evolution was Dr. John Polkinghorne, Cambridge physicist and canon theologian of Queens College, Cambridge. Dr. Polkinghorne is a man with a good reputation in the apologetics community for arguing in defense of Christianity. Others speak well of Dr. Polkinghorne, so I was immediately intrigued.

Dr. Polkinghorne presented a theory that evolution was compatible with Christianity, and MacKay disagreed. I settled in to watch the debate online.

Here is the website so you can watch it yourself if you like.¹

Dr. Polkinghorne stated that Genesis was not scientific but rather theological. That got my attention as I like to preach and teach from Genesis.

Dr. Polkinghorne believes that God could have created everything directly but chose not to. Loosely quoting Charles Kingsley, an Anglican clergyman, he told how Christians should accept an evolving creation. Kingsley said, No doubt God could have snapped the divine fingers and brought into being a ready-made world. But that God had done something cleverer than that; God had made a world in which creatures could make themselves. So that's the picture in which God brings the universe into being.

We have God praised and Scripture rejected together in one quote! Not many men claim to have beliefs cleverer than Scripture. I am certain that Dr. Polkinghorne is a devout believer and follower of Jesus, but this crossed a line for me.

In my view, this creates a problem for Polkinghorne. In the garden, the serpent started with hath God said (Gen. 3:1) before moving into a direct denial. Dr. Polkinghorne went straight to the jugular and denied that Genesis is historical. The Genesis creation account was presented as merely whimsical text, to be understood as poetry and not as a description of real events.

Dr. Polkinghorne knows various evidences for the existence of God such as the fine-tuning of the universe. He is not an apostate, wayward, corrupt minister, nor is he anti-Christian. However, his secular training has told him that Genesis is not historical and that it does not represent a true historical record. With such credentials as he has, many will follow him. Here is our choice arising from this video.

Proposition 1: God provided us with accurate accounts, and Genesis is historical.

Proposition 2: God had allowed an inaccurate origins account into Scripture. Modern science has provided us with a new, true, and cleverer account of our origins.

One cannot read Genesis then claim that God clearly used evolution as his primary means of creation. The idea to tie God to evolution has no basis in Scripture.

Truth demands that if one proposition above is true, then the contradictory proposition is not true. Only one competing claim can be left standing. There is no way to make a synthesis between creation and evolution, at least not without changing what either creation or evolution even means. Dr. Polkinghorne claimed a synthesis but offered no proof that such a synthesis exists.

Listening to Polkinghorne woke me up, putting creation and evolution front and center in my conscious mind. At that point, I had not yet decided to do anything about it. I just walked away, shaking my head, then enjoyed the rest of the evening, forgetting the discourse. Alas, this issue was not going to go away.

The Christian Television Program

The next day, I watched a Christian television program where a descendant of Charles Darwin was being aired (there are no coincidences). Jim Cantelon of 100 Huntley Street interviewed Sir James Barlow. Jim Cantelon is a likeable Canadian interviewer on this Christian program. Jim has conducted many excellent interviews on current issues.

Sir James Barlow was his guest that day and is the great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin. Sir James was being interviewed because he had built a replica of the Tabernacle of Moses and was teaching about the typology in the Tabernacle's structure, furniture, and commandments. People from my church had gone to see this exhibit and said it was amazing, coming away inspired at the New Testament truth contained in the Old Testament tabernacle. Having the Tabernacle come alive in a life-size exhibit is a great project. I wish I could have gone myself but was unable.

Naturally, evolution was brought up in this interview with Sir James. Here are the two parts of the broadcast so you can watch for yourself.², ³

I discovered during the interview that Jim Cantelon is sympathetic to evolution, and it surprised me. Some of the comments in the interview really jumped out at me. Sir James stated that if God used evolution, it's not a big problem for me. Then he said that the story in Genesis is more about the development of a relationship with God than actual fact or history.

If God never created Adam and Eve and therefore never interacted with them, then we are robbed of the account where God develops a relationship with the first humans. There would be no account for us to understand what took place and nothing to replace it.

I remembered meeting my wife for the first time and asked myself, how would I develop a love relationship with my wife if we never met, walked together, had disagreements, worked things out, then finally chose to link our lives together in marriage? We're still married. Every conversation, event, and touch went into the development of our relationship. God cannot do this without interacting with real people. The interactions of real people is how relationships are built.

Sir James then went on to say that the Bible is a spirit word from a Spirit and we have to understand that. Now I am a minister, and I have no idea what this statement is supposed to mean.

Of course, people may say things in interviews that in hindsight they would love to retract or word differently.

Then the following statement really got my goat. Sir James said, When we try to make it too physical, it loses its potency.

Can we truly say that the less physical and the less historical something is, the more potent the truth? Are we to believe that God created Adam euphemistically or symbolically so we would get a more potent account?

What astounded me the most is that his own recreation of the Tabernacle of Moses that he had worked so hard on is all about a real tabernacle that historically stood, and it has pertinent spiritual meanings. The original tabernacle was real. We would not get meaning from an imaginary tabernacle. If the Tabernacle in the wilderness had no physicality or historicity, its replica would have no meaning either. There would be nothing for people to come and see. It's the very existence and physical reality of the original that allows meaning and revelation to literally exude from it.

Finally, they discussed Genesis and evolution saying What's the big deal? suggesting that Genesis does not matter. It does matter. It matters to me. It matters because Paul said that all Scripture is inspired. Jesus said, Your word is truth. If Scripture is untrue, incorrect, and unreliable in our origins, then we have a problem because Genesis is referenced by Jesus, Paul, and many others.

Since belief in evolution began to bring Genesis into disrepute, questions have extended to the covenants, the prophets, the apostles, and even faith in the words of Jesus. Yes, this is an issue of enormous importance. It matters to the church, and at this point, I was inspired to write this book to show why.

This is not an easy conundrum for many, especially for those who work in either God's word or in modern science. If the issue leads to strange doctrines (like those espoused in this interview), then we must address the tension between Scripture and science.

Ramifications of Rejecting Genesis

I'd like to take a few moments to share with you some of the problems that immediately spring to mind if evolution were true and Genesis was fiction.

If there was no Adam, no fall, and, therefore, no sin, then there is no need for a Son of Man to die on a cross. A mythical fall plays havoc with the doctrine of sin.

Since there was no first Adam, then Jesus could not be the second Adam, which turns Paul's teaching in 1 Corinthians 15 into nonsense.

If Jesus did not overcome the sin of one man through grace, then Paul is talking foolishly in Romans 5.

If Eve was not taken from Adam's rib and if God did not bring her to Adam, then there is no longer a biblical basis for marriage and two-gender sexuality. This affects not only the teaching of marriage, but also Jesus's teaching on divorce and remarriage and gender issues.

If Jesus was mistaken about the first marriage between Adam and Eve, this leads to an even bigger problem. Jesus claimed that his teaching was the Father's and not his own. If Jesus was mistaken about the first marriage, then he did not hear from the Father. It makes Jesus out to be a liar and unfit for an atoning death on the cross.

Thus, the contention between creation and evolution extends right to the cross of Christ where the precious blood of the Lamb was shed and to the throne of God where that blood was accepted. Jesus was not mistaken about Genesis as some have claimed. Here is why.

God accepted the death of his Son, the spotless Lamb.

The Father accepted the precious blood of Jesus as a sufficient sacrifice for human sin.

He ripped the veil into the Holy of Holies, showing us that the way into God's presence had been made through the atoning blood of Jesus.

God then raised Jesus from the dead and gave him a name above every other name and that by faith in his name we may be forgiven our sin.

The results of Jesus's death on the cross and his resurrection demonstrates conclusively that Jesus spoke the truth and there was no falsehood, error, deception, sin, or confusion in him. This puts the words of Jesus in the crosshairs in the creation/evolution debate when Genesis is dismissed. The Father is seen