My Twenty-Five Theses On Early Genesis

The church recently celebrated (or perhaps mourned on the Catholic side, though I should think anyone who does not relish paying for indulgences should at least be happy for the pressure to reform brought about by his effort) the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther nailing his ninety-five thesis to the door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany. This act by a relative nobody kicked off the Reformation.

My disagreements with most churches over how to view early Genesis is not nearly so big a deal, nor so serious, as all of that. I am not counting myself as another Martin Luther, though I can be inspired by what he did that day to do something on a much smaller area. So here it is: I think that the church is getting Early Genesis very wrong. These errors are inducing some people, especially young people, to question their faith. Others never even consider that the Bible could be true because of what I view as the errors of the church in what they are teaching about early Genesis. But my most fundamental objection is that what they are teaching about the text is not what God wants them to teach about it. They are putting words in His mouth that He did not say. 

When they are not ignoring early Genesis, they are taking a very Jewish view of the it. This cannot be correct because the key to understanding the accounts is to view them through the lens of Christ. In the Middle Ages the church defended the view of the solar system advanced by Pagan Greek Philosophers. They also took a skewed view of certain scriptures to support this incorrect idea. This misplaced confidence caused the church much trouble. I see the something similar going on today with Early Genesis.

The 95 theses of Martin Luther did not try to prove all of his points in the text of the document. It was more like a series of propositions that he advanced for debate. I will take a similar view here, though the supporting scriptural evidence for all of my theses is laid out in the book "Early Genesis, the Revealed Cosmology". Some of you may think that you know of scriptures which disprove some of these theses below. I once thought so too. The book addresses them in detail. I have linked to excerpts from the book on five of the twenty-five theses so that you may evaluate whether what I say is so. With that said, here are my twenty-five theses on Early Genesis....

1. Scripture does not teach that Adam was the progenitor of the entire human race, rather his role is to serve as a shadow of Christ, and through his wife Eve begin the Messianic line. (video one, video two)

2. Scripture does not teach that creation was in a state of sinless perfection before the fall of Adam. Creation was subjected to futility (the capacity to, for a period of time, disagree with or operate in the absence of God) in the beginning with the hopes that some portion of humanity might, by the grace of God, become fit for eternity with Him in a sinless creation. (LINK) (LINK TWO)

3. Other humans existed with and likely before Adam, and they were not in a state of sinless perfection, but a state of innocence because no law with a penalty for sin had been given. (LINK)

4. Scripture does not teach that inheritance from Adam was the mechanism by which sin passed to the whole human race, but that rather the human race will always spiral deeper into sin unless connected to God. Scripture teaches that sin was always a latent condition in nature and in human hearts but was not animated prior to Adam because there was no law given to man. It is the sin of each and all individual persons rather than inheritance from Adam, which puts men under sin. (LINK)

5.  Early Genesis was neither the work of much later scribes nor written from scratch by Moses, rather Moses edited material from the heirlooms of his people- tablets of accounts from many early patriarchs in scripture. Only very minor notes were later added for clarification by those who preserved the word. What I am proposing is that a modified version of "The Tablet Theory" best explains early Genesis. The material is best understood as the accounts of the patriarchs of the Bible reporting on what they say of the generation before them. (video)

6. Whether or not the modern mind cares to accept it, the first chapter of Genesis is meant to be the account of Creation Itself. It is best understood as the Heavens (including High Heaven or the Supernatural Realm) and the Earth communicating to Adam their account of God's work within them, culminating with Man.

7. The heavens and the earth were created by God before the start of the first "day" an unknown period of time before the first day begins. The first day does not begin until Genesis 1:3. (LINK)

8. Each of the days of Creation is a "work day" for creation, not a solar day. The day begins when a Word from God enters creation, bringing illumination and reversing the trend which would otherwise occur of creation descending into darkness and chaos without His Word to order and sustain it. The days end when "it is so" in the heavenly realm and God pronounces things in the natural universe "good" (which means 'suitable' not perfect).

9. Time itself passes differently in High Heaven as compared to the natural universe. Events which seemed to have already occurred there have not yet manifested in this realm. The realm above responds to God's Word quickly, perfectly, and completely. Down here, its a process. The "days" of Genesis chapter one are not 24-hour days, in particular not on this earth because events rapidly accomplished in heaven took a long time to work themselves out here. (video)

10. The most "literal" reading of the days of Genesis chapter one would not even be 24 hour days, but twelve hour nights! That most literally describes the time between "evening and morning". What we think of as their "literal" meaning is not their truest or most literal meaning at all, because the spiritual world is more real and literal than our own world. The process I described in thesis #8 therefore applies and is more "literal" in the truest sense than a "24 hour solar day". (LINK)

11. The text of Genesis chapter one is describing each day of creation on two levels. The text is both describing  what is happening in the world we see and the world we do not see. In the realm above when God speaks a command it becomes reality quickly, and perfectly ('it was so'). In this realm, it is a process and God sometimes has to perform some additional act to make the land below on a suitable ('it was good') track to mirror what "is so" already in the realm above. (video)

12. Genesis 1:27 is not solely about the creation of Adam and Eve. The text should read "God created the Man in His own image" and this portion is referring to the uncreated Logos fusing with created humanity in the timeless heavenly realm. It is not a coincidence that Yahweh Elohim does not appear until after Genesis 1:27 for this reflects that God the Son has become incarnated, though not in corruptible flesh but as Christ is now. Therefore the incarnation was not God's back-up plan which He resorted to when things failed to go as He anticipated, rather it was His plan from "the beginning"and it was initiated in Heaven in the beginning as recorded in Genesis chapter one. (Video)

13. Scripture teaches that God the Father is not visible to men - only God can see God the Father. Therefore all of the recorded instances in scripture where "Yahweh" or "Yahweh Elohim" is seen by men were in fact God the Son coming down from heaven. The term "Theophany" or "Christophany" which refers to an appearance by God in human form prior to the Advent are all this same Person, the Heavenly Man, created in Genesis 1:27 (though the Logos was not created). God did not hop in and out of human form numerous time in the Old Testament for these appearances, but rather it happened once "in the beginning" and The Man in heaven, the Image of the Father, made these appearances. (same video as in #12)

14. The seventh day of creation spoken of in Genesis chapter one was not the seventh solar day in the life of Adam. The scriptures teach that the true Sabbath day did not even begin until after the crucifixion. The Sabbath day was blessed because in it God redeemed His creation which He had made, and this is the rest referred to. (LINK)

15. Genesis chapter two (after verse six) is not a retelling of the same account as chapter one. Rather it is a different but related account. One might be considered like "The Rise of the Roman Empire" and the other "The Life of Julius Caesar."  For example, a much more limited set of animals is created in chapter two than in chapter one. These animals are meant to be "helpers" to Adam on his mission and are thus different from wilder versions of similar creatures created in chapter one.

16. Adam and Eve were not created as immortals. The plan for those who walk with God was not physical immortality in our present bodies on this earth but rather translation into the next realm prior to death. This life is preparation for the real one, in the land above, though ultimately the two realms can be merged. Physical death existed before the fall of Adam. (Link)

17. Scripture assumes that the reader understands that there were other human beings around besides Adam and his family. The account of Cain's exile as well as other scriptures indicate that other families of humans were walking the earth, not just the family of Adam. In addition, the fairest view of the evidence is that Adam came along later, after mankind had gone astray from God's purposes for them. Adam was created to bring an already-errant mankind back toward God.

18. The "sons of God" referred to in Genesis chapter six are not angles or some other form of non-human Divine Being, or even the offspring of Cain, but rather the households of the other sons of God besides the house of Adam. Adam's offspring called themselves by the name of Yahweh, indicating they had a special and personal relationship with God in a way the other houses of men did not. Even still, those other houses of men were also "sons of God". (video)

19. The genealogies in early Genesis do not contain "gaps" as some would have it, but it is likely that the dates proposed by Bishop Usher are miscalculations.  I believe that the long-lived (because they spent time in the presence of Yahweh not because human lifespans were longer in general) patriarchs were used like calendars. Unless the text makes it clear that the next generation is a direct son, then the proper counting of the years is from birth of the patriarch to his death, at which point one of his near descendants became the reference patriarch. This method of counting would put the creation of Adam at the key period (for the rise of civilization) of around 13,100-13,600 years ago. (LINK)

20. The flood was not global in extent, but would have been global in consequences if not for God's plan to save Noah and those with him on the ark. That is, the line leading to Messiah would have been cut off and the whole world would have gone to ruin. (video)

21. Though the Divine Name and the term "Elohim" can be used more or less interchangeably to refer to either God the Father or God the Son later in scripture, in early Genesis Yahweh refers to God the Son and Elohim refers to God the Father. In the Garden they are in unity of will but it is God the son acting. Very much like during the incarnation, though they share one nature after the fall of Adam they have separate wills, which the Son must align with the Father through a process. Early Genesis is very Trinitarian. Thus in the account of the flood it is important to note whether the Father or the Son is doing the speaking to truly sort through what is happening. (Link)

22. The Ark did not contain every type of animal God created in Genesis chapter one, rather a close reading shows that it contained only animals from the more limited set of creatures Yahweh-Elohim made for Adam in Genesis chapter two. There were no Pandas or Kangaroos or even Tigers or giraffes on the ark. These were stock from the "help" animals God created especially for Adam, which were not spread over the earth but concentrated among the sons of Adam. If the house of Adam was obliterated, these special domesticates would be endangered as well. (video)

23. The place in the flood account which records that all the high hills were covered is not God the Father speaking, nor God the Son speaking, but is rather the record of Shem, Ham, and Japheth reporting what they saw. Thus the Holy Spirit is not testifying that all the mountains of the earth were covered, but rather that Shem, Ham, and Japheth reported them as covered. (video from thesis 21)

24. God was setting up His covenant using what happened to Noah. This is why God chose to bring a flood to wash away the wickedness of His chosen people the Adamites, preserving only the faithful. The answer to "why didn't God just have Noah and the animals migrate if it was not a global flood?" is that God was painting a picture of baptism. Baptism is not where the outside world is destroyed but it is where the unbelief in a believer is destroyed. A believer preserves that which is faithful in him through water in obedience to God. God could have called for migration, or a plague, or brought fire from heaven. He did all those things to cleanse wickedness from His people in the Old Testament, but none of those methods were a shadow of baptism.

25. The table of nations in Genesis chapter ten says that the nations were divided by the descendants of Noah, not that they were the direct ancestors of every member of those nations. The great bulk of humanity survived the flood, and indeed most did not even personally experience the flood because it was about judging God's special people, the line destined to bring Messiah. Indeed a close look at the text of the account of Babel (which occurred before and set up the dividing into nations in chapter ten), make it pretty clear that when the clan of Noah came down from the hills sometime after the flood they found other people in Shinar (Mesopotamia). They were the natural nobility of the indigenous people. Abraham, Issac, and Esau gathered huge personal households around them consisting mostly of non-family members.  So did Noah's more immediate descendants. These households became the core of new nations. (video)

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Every one of the theses above and more is discussed in detail in this book. If you have access to an Kindle Unlimited account then it can be downloaded in Ebook form for no charge, though I think the paper version is a better reading experience. And remember, you can be wrong about Early Genesis but right about Christ. Every Christian is a person who has admitted "I was wrong", that's essential to repentance. So there is nothing unchristian about changing your views on what the Scripture says, so long as Christ is still the point, and so long as He is still God made flesh.