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Genesis 1:1 - “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

When God created the heavens, exactly what did He create?  Both young and old earth theologies generally interpret this to be a reference to something physical, as opposed to the Heavenly dimension.  This leaves two possibilities for interpretation: 1)The skies, which could include the entire atmosphere or only the firmament, 2)The celestial bodies.

The Skies
The idea that “heavens” refers to the sky, is based on the events of Day 2, when God created the firmament (i.e., the space between the oceans and the clouds), and called it “heavens”.  From a literary perspective, this is a perfectly acceptable interpretation.

The Celestial Bodies
The possibility that “heavens” refers to the celestial bodies is based on the events of Day 4, when the sun, moon, and stars were made visible in the firmament.  From a literary perspective, this too is a perfectly acceptable interpretation.

Which is it?
To answer this question, of which is the correct biblical interpretation of Genesis 1:1, let us turn to Geology.

Geologically speaking, at some time before there was light shining on the deep, there was an earth with no ocean.  It was already a satellite orbiting the sun, which was already acting as the center of our solar system.  The solar system was already traveling through an arm of the Milky Way galaxy, which was already on its trip through the universe.  In other words, the celestial bodies were in place, when the sky and earth’s atmosphere were not.  Therefore, the geocreationist interpretation is that “heavens” refers to the celestial bodies.

An Introductory Summary?
The popular interpretation of Genesis 1:1 is that of an introduction to the Creation Account, a summary if you will.  Though a completely acceptable interpretation from a literary perspective, it is also unnecessary.  That is, it just so happens that before there was light upon the deep, God created the earth and the celestial bodies.  Now, it is completely possible that God created the heavens and earth before saying “Let there be light”, and yet Moses wrote Genesis 1:1 as a summary of the Creation Days to come, but that seems overly complicated to me.  I find it far simpler to interpret the verse based on its parallel to the physical reality, that “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 7th, 2006 at 10:51 pm and is filed under Word Studies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.