3 Lessons from Creation

This journey into the creation stories in the Bible has been a lot of fun. We’ve compared the two stories that begin Genesis, learning about together they teach us about God’s mystery. We took a deeper look at the mystery of God in the stories, talking about the necessity to maintain multiple metaphors for God because each one is imperfect on its own. 

Today, we need to address the elephant in the room with these creation stories. They are real stories, but they are not historical nor biological. They are true, but they did not happen. To grasp this, we must look at the nature of a myth. 

According to the dictionary, a myth is “a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events.” This definition goes so nicely with our stories. However, the second definition listed is this: “a widely held but false belief or idea.” When we say that there are myths in the Bible, too many people mistakenly think about this second definition. But myths, according to the first definition carry a wealth of meaning and identity, even if they aren’t necessarily true stories. The creation stories are myths that give the Hebrew people identity, purpose, and roots. As we study these creation myths, we can gain identity, purpose, and roots as well. 

These texts originated as oral traditions but were written in a time when the Hebrew people had been conquered and exiled from their beloved homeland. They had been scattered and separated from their home. Their identities were so intricately tied to the land they called home (Israel? Palestine? Cana? Another post for another day) in part because they believed worship could only occur in Jerusalem because that’s where God lived. While in exile, they also felt separated from the presence of God. 

So out of that context, came people who wrote down the origin stories that had been passed down to them verbally. In these stories are the ideas and identities that the Hebrew people held most dear. What is not in these stories are any scientific or anthropological facts. 

Rachel Held Evans says this in her book Inspired: “Origin stories are rarely straightforward history. Over the years, they morph into a colorful amalgam of truth and myth, nostalgia and cautionary tale, the shades of their significance brought out by the particular light of a particular moment. Contrary to what many of us are told, Israel’s origin stories weren’t designed to answer scientific, twenty-first century questions about the beginning of the universe or the biological evolution of human beings, but rather were meant to answer then-pressing, ancient questions about the nature of God and God’s relationship to creation.” 

Inspired

What she is saying here is that these stories are more for identity formation and teaching about God than anything else. They are like fables. They teach a lesson or multiple lessons rather than teaching facts. 

So what kind of lessons did the Hebrew people learn from these texts and what kind of lessons can we learn? 

1. God created everything. 

Think about how comforting the message that God created everything would be if you were separated from the only place you ever knew as home and the only people you ever knew as family. Think about home comforting the message would be that God created even the place where you are. In all its depressing landscapes, unfamiliar faces and foods, God created it. Wouldn’t that comfort you? These stories carry the basic message that God created everything in part to remind those who had been exiled that the Divine Presence is with them always because God created every bit of the world. 

Now, there’s obviously a lot of you who are wondering about how the “God created everything” line meshes with the whole evolution theory. Essentially, God began creation. Through God’s sustaining Spirit, creation is empowered to continue with its own creativity and agency. Each part of creation still bears God’s presence and image because God began creation. For more on this, don’t miss our review of Elizabeth Johnson’s book, Ask the Beasts. 

Rachel Held Evans says, “The creation account of Genesis 1, in which God brings order to the cosmos and makes it a temple, is meant to remind the people of Israel, and by extension, us, that God needs no building of stone from which to reign, but dwells in every landscape and in the presence of the humble will make a home.” 

Inspired

2. God created us and it was very Good. 

The second lesson may seem even more simple than the first. These stories taught the Hebrew people that God created them and called them very good. This is huge. 

At the time these stories were written down, prophets would have been preaching about the relationship between the exile and the sin of the Hebrew people. They would say that their sins are what caused the exile — similar to what people have said about the death of Jesus on the cross. Many would have said that it was the wrath of God, getting the Hebrew people back for breaking God’s trust. They would have said terrible statements about no good being found among the people. 

Yet, these creation myths passed down through generations of Hebrews and engrained in their DNA would have reminded them that God created them, blessed them, and called them very good. No matter what others said about them, no matter what they did or didn’t do, they were at their hearts, good. 

We need that message more than ever today. Goodness is in our bones. We will cover this goodness in a whole post later this week. Check back for more. 

3. In creation, God’s love becomes known. 

In that time, the gods were not loving nor empowering to their creation. Think Zeus here. Zeus was separated from his world, unengaged and not emotional. But this God in these stories is different. 

Harvey Cox says this: “They [the writers of Genesis] wanted to show how he* exercises his divinity in a radically different way than did the king or tyrant gods of their neighbors. They pictures a God who is intent on compromising his oneness, on sharing his rule by arranging a universe with independent centers of power, even to the point of giving the human being the responsibility to name the animals. The portrait that emerges is of a God who wants to dismantle his monopoly both of being and of power.”

How to Read the Bible

*Harvey Cox here is summing up insights from medieval rabbinic commentator, Rashi and an Israeli scholar, Avivah Zornberg, neither of whom used gender neutral words for God. Here at The Holy Craft, we will use gender inclusive language for God wherever we can, knowing that putting it in someone else’s quote is presumptuous. 

This God is with creation and is moved by love. This God empowers creation to continue to creation, thereby letting go of some power in order for the creation to have power. You would have trouble finding a story in the Ancient Near East in which a god would give power to the creation. But in these texts, God does because God loves humans and trusts them. 

In the very act of creation, God love is made visible. 

We can take away that these creation myths are infinitely valuable, if used properly. Just as with anything else, an ounce of humility and creativity goes a long way in reading and making meaning out of these stories. 

What are your favorite takeaways from the creation stories of Genesis 1 and 2?