I am going to summarise each chapter of the book The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate, written by John H. Walton. Dr. Walton is an Old Testament Professor at Wheaton College and has written numerous articles on Ancient Near East literature/thought. The book has eighteen chapters and consists of 191 pages, and each chapter is provided as a kind of a proposal in interpreting and understanding the opening chapter of the Bible. Here goes the first chapter.
Genesis chapter one is ancient cosmology. Since it talks about ancient cosmic geography, one should not impose modern scientific reading into the text. Their cosmological understanding is different from ours. Scientific understanding changes over time. So concordism -- biblical texts have scientific information embedded in them -- is not the right approach to read and understand the Scripture. Ancient people thought that the sky is strong enough to support the residence of heavenly beings or that human being think and feel with their intestine (not with their brain). God did communicate what he wanted to communicate, but did not really communicate that human understanding about cosmology or anatomy was wrong. Moreover, the ancient did not have the distinction between 'natural' and 'supernatural'. For them the works of deities pervaded every aspect of their life. So it's not the law of motion/gravity that guides that solar system; it's the work of a deity.
NB: I try to give a description of the text correctly. But for further engagement, best is to read the book. Dr. Walton may or may not get things right, but I trust his sincerity and faithfulness to do justice to the Word.
I have a few ideas about this myself. I think the first three days of Genesis can be interpreted algebraically. The creation of light has to be two things: metaphor and prophecy. Metaphor for God’s wisdom being made known (which is the wisdom of Himself) and literally as the division of forces at the opening of the Big Bang occurring at the speed of light, eventually leading to electromagnetic radiation (visible light). The second day translates nicely into the idea of the Higgs Field: a field that divides the electroweak force into the electromagnetic and the weak nuclear forces (a dome dividing the waters from the waters?). I’ve put these ideas into a book! ‘The Bones of Moses’ is available from www.createspace.com/4730520. The title is about the idea of those foundational myths being the foundation of the Laws of Moses.
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