Tool Alpha
Genesis, the Beginning
What the first eleven chapters say, what they do not say, and where the real arguments are.
John Walton
Wheaton Old Testament scholar. Genesis 1 is ancient cosmology about functional origins, the inauguration of the cosmos as God's temple.
Genesis 1:1-2:3, in every translation this tool compares.
Walton's big idea in one line: Genesis 1 is the story of the world being set up to work, with God moving in, not the story of the world's raw materials being made. The house was built years ago. Tonight the family moves in. That is what he thinks the seven days describe.
What Walton holds, in his own terms, stated at full strength.
Genesis 1 is ancient cosmology and makes no claims about modern science. The ancient world defined existence by function. Bara concerns functions. The starting state is nonfunctional, not shapeless. Days one to three establish functions, days four to six install functionaries. Divine rest is in a temple and the cosmos is a temple. The seven days are literal days of the inauguration of that temple and do not concern material origins. So there is no biblical position on the age of the earth. Adam and Eve are real people in a real past, and the forming accounts are archetypal statements about every human.
Critics, including those Lennox cites, ask whether one ancient ontology can be applied across the whole Near East, whether a functional emphasis excludes material interest, and whether the temple reading puts more into Genesis 1 than an ancient reader would have found.
Not a denial that God made matter. Walton says so repeatedly.
- Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One (IVP Academic, 2009)
- Walton, The Lost World of Adam and Eve (IVP Academic, 2015)
- Walton, Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology (Eisenbrauns, 2011)
