You might already be aware that there is a wide variety of descriptions of the created world in
the Bible. Yet, none of these descriptions can be easily reconciled to scientific
observations about the world if they are read naively and literalistically—that is,
without taking into account their literary forms and historical contexts.
In this video, we will examine the specifics of how God’s act of creation
and the created world itself are described in the Bible.
Most generally, the Bible presents creation as a process of God’s production of the physical
universe that involves some type of “forming” or “manufacturing” of the created world. While there
are a few places in the Bible where this process is described with a narrative account—the most
well-known of which is Genesis 1–2—it is much more common for the biblical authors to make some type
of passing allusion to God’s act of creation as a means of expressing a broader theological truth.
There are, in fact, three basic theological truths about creation
that the Bible communicates through these creation accounts and allusions to creation: first, the
world is created by means of God’s power; second, it is created with God’s characteristic wisdom;
and third, it is created for God’s presence. In the remainder of this video,
we will focus on the first of these three main aspects of the biblical presentation of creation,
saving the second and third of these truths for subsequent episodes.
The first aspect of God’s creation—that it comes about through divine power—is communicated in
both creation accounts and allusions to creation throughout the Bible. Yet,
this power is not described abstractly with terms like “omnipotence” as we might be accustomed to do
in theology. Instead, the authors of the Bible rely on mythic cosmic imagery to depict God
as a divine warrior fighting against and conquering forces of evil and chaos—often
as embodied by primordial, supernatural monsters.
A good example of this can be found in Psalm 74 (13-17) which reads
“You stirred up the sea by your might; you smashed the heads of the dragons on the waters.
You crushed the heads of Leviathan, gave him as food to the sharks. You opened up springs
and torrents, brought dry land out of the primeval waters. Yours the day and yours the night too; you
set the moon and sun in place. You fixed all the limits of the earth; summer and winter you made.”
In this poetic passage, the psalmist describes God’s act of creation as following upon his defeat
of dragons as well as a creature called Leviathan. In the context of the Psalm,
there is an implicit rhetorical argument at work: if the most powerful (and possibly supernatural)
creatures that have ever existed were easily destroyed and turned into fish food by God,
then how much more powerful must God be? Yet, the question remains: how are we to
understand the message of Psalm 74 in light of scientific theories regarding the origin
of the universe? If we agree that the world was not really created when God defeated
primordial dragon-like monsters and then rearranged pre-existing elements,
then do we immediately need to admit that Psalm 74 contains error and stands in need of correction?
In response to such questions about Psalm 74,
it is important to draw upon the doctrine of dual authorship and inspiration that we outlined
in the first video—not only must we examine the historical context and genre of these
lines but we must also interpret them in relationship to the whole of Scripture.
Regarding the genre of Psalm 74, it is most important to note that it is poetry,
which means that the presence of highly figurative language is to be expected,
so that not everything may be taken at face value. More precisely, this poem is a form of prayer
called an individual lament; that is, it is a type of prayer characterized by a complaint to God
about a problematic situation that is followed by an impassioned plea for God to provide a remedy
to the problem. Thus, the figurative language in the poem is ordered to these rhetorical ends.
To understand how this is so, we need to turn to the historical background of these words,
which involves two different historical contexts. The first is that of ancient Canaanite literature;
Psalm 74 plays on imagery from ancient Canaanite creation accounts
to describe God’s power. The Canaanites—the neighbors of the ancient Israelites—believed
that the world was created as the result of a primal battle
between a storm god and a sea goddess who, coincidentally, looked very much like a dragon.
Beyond this, there is a second historical context in need of consideration:
namely the proximate situation for which the author composed Psalm 74. Based on the
allusions in the lament of the first part of the psalm, scholars agree that it originated
during a period of time when Judah (the southern kingdom of Israel) was invaded by the Babylonians,
who desecrated and destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem and then exiled the people to Babylon.
By considering these historical backgrounds of Psalm 74,
we can come to appreciate how the psalmist drew on ancient Canaanite myths to affirm the unparalleled
power of God in the face of an existential threat to Israel. By asserting his belief in God’s power,
the psalmist builds up confidence in himself and anyone who may be joining him in prayer,
before then imploring God to act on behalf of Israel by conquering her adversaries,
who are symbolically associated with the forces of chaos and evil in the Psalm.
Thus, even though the author employed historically-conditioned language that
might be considered deficient in its presentation of creation from a scientific point of view,
he nonetheless expresses a transcendent truth:
namely, God has the power to save his people from absolutely anything.
There is one final aspect of Psalm 74 to consider briefly before concluding this video:
it is not a complete description of God’s creation of the world,
nor is it meant to be. As we have seen, the Psalm uses historically conditioned language to praise
God for his sovereign power in creation as a prelude to a prayer of supplication.
This necessarily shapes and limits its description of God’s creative act.
In order to get a “complete” picture, one would need to take the whole of the Bible—from Genesis
to Revelation—into consideration. A quick example will suffice: if we look at Genesis 1, we see that
it repeatedly describes God’s act of creation as coming about through his word; God only needs to
speak, and his creatures come into being in a manner that perfectly conforms to his command.
Taken together, Psalm 74 and Genesis 1 give a fuller picture of God’s act of creation than
either could on its own: first, God’s act of creation, while involving no struggle,
forcefully demonstrates his insuperable power; and second, while this creative
power is universal in scope, extending from the heights of the stars to the depths of the oceans,
it continues to be operative in a personal manner, providing for the needs of his people.
Having thus considered the biblical notion of divine power
as the means of creation, we will turn in the next video
to the Bible’s understanding that the world was created with God’s characteristic wisdom.
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