The Framework Interpretation of Genesis One

The doctrine of creation is rather a direction; not a proposition to be affirmed so much as a habit of the mind (and the heart) to be practiced. The doctrine of creation directs disciples to believe, see, feel and judge everything that is as the handiwork of a personal, loving and wise God. (Kevin J. Vanhoozer)

1. A Conservative Evangelical Interpretation

The framework interpretation is not liberalism and is based on strong exegetical arguments. It focuses on the theological meaning of the text rather than tangential scientific concerns. It regards Genesis One as history, not as myth, legend or mere parable. It is a conservative evangelical view of Genesis One. The main proponents of this view have been Reformed evangelicals who affirm that, in the simplest and most straightforward terms, the creative acts of God in Genesis One really happened. This point is critical to understand, but is too often either misunderstood or deliberately distorted by opponents.

The framework interpretation has a conceptual link with Augustine’s interpretation of Scripture. Although Augustine believed in an instantaneous creation he would agree that the days are a figurative arrangement written for our teaching rather than a chronological history. The framework view also has conceptual links with the Day-Age view, but whereas the latter thinks that the ‘days’ are literally epochs and the week a figurative one, the former regards the ‘days’ are literally days and ‘week’ is figurative. The attitude to mainstream science in both interpretations are also similar – not uncritically accepting, but not uncritically rejecting it either.

2. An Old Earth Interpretation

Strictly speaking the framework interpretation is compatible with both Young Earth Creationism and Old Earth Creationism, but is usually maintained by Old Earth Creationists who accept the scientific consensus on the age of the universe and the earth.

The framework interpretation teaches that the Bible does not address the scientific questions of when the creation took place, or how it was actually accomplished. As such it is fully compatible with an Old Earth understanding of the age of the universe and the earth. The framework interpretation removes any potential conflict with information gained from God’s general revelation by observation and analysis of data. Framework advocates tend to accept that the serious criticisms levelled against Young Earth Creationism are legitimate, and that mainstream science is correct in assessing the ages of the universe in general and the earth in particular. Young Earth Creationism, on the other hand, requires all orthodox science to be substantially and massively wrong, across all kinds of fields, including geology, oceanography, biology, physics, astronomy, etc. And such matters as the speed of light, sedimentary rocks, radiometric dating, dinosaurs, geology, etc are simply dismissed as incorrect or corrupt and evil. Young Earth Creationism plays fast and loose with the science all the time and is very selective in its use and abuse of scientific method.

3. A Literary Interpretation

In essence the framework interpretation regards the creation week of Genesis One as a literary framework or pictorial device that frames God’s creative work as a week of ordinary solar days. The literary device is used by Moses as a teaching tool for all God’s people in all times and places, including Israel in the period following their exodus from Egypt, long before scientific questions were even being asked far less answered.

The framework interpretation does not regard Genesis One as poetry. It recognises that the passage bears none of the hallmarks of Hebrew poetry. Yet though not poetical, neither is Genesis 1:1–2:3 straightforward history. The prose is highly stylised and almost mathematically precise in its use of the numbers three, seven and ten, so symbolic in the Bible. It is impossible to notice the tremendous literary skill involved. There is a marked contrast in style between Genesis One and Genesis 2:4 onwards. Genesis One might be called ‘exalted prose’ or ‘semi-poetical’ (Edward J. Young) or ‘hymn-like’ prose designed to draw its readers into the worship of Elohim, the Hebrew God who is the focus of the chapter (and the whole Bible). It is certainly a literary masterpiece, which appears to be weaved with the precision and art of an ornate tapestry. The framework interpretation simply states that the historical events of Genesis One did not happen in the literal timescale or order that the events are portrayed in Genesis One. The difference in style between Genesis One and the rest of the book (from Genesis 2:4 onwards) is remarkable in this regard. The framework view understands that through the artistry of Moses, creative acts that are too vast and complex for anyone to understand even in our scientifically literate age, could be grasped and understood by ordinary people all through history. And the artistic construct Moses used was a week of seven days into which all of God’s creative acts are arranged and pictured.

The framework interpretation says in effect that Genesis One is like an art gallery showing a series of pictures, each portraying a creative act of God, and together forming an analogy between God’s work of creation and our weekly pattern of work and rest. It should be noted that the pictures are of real, historical events, but they remain distinct from the events themselves. Just as a passport photograph of a person is a true depiction of the person, but the picture is not the person, and is neither the same size nor shape as the person, so the days of Genesis One, the framework view says, are depictions of creation on the scale of a week of days, rather than descriptions of actual days.

Each picture-day shows the creative activities of God. It portrays God going to work during daylight hours and resting during the hours of darkness – just like a typical agricultural worker in ancient Israel. This is a major clue that the working week is a figurative one and an analogy is being drawn between God’s creative work and the weekly labour of human workers. After all God does not grow weary literally, not does he have a problem seeing in the darkness of night.

This view sees the days are ordinary solar days – all six of them – but the week is figurative. It is sometimes claimed ‘evening and morning’ means 24-hour days. But this is simply incorrect. The phrase means the period of darkness between sunset and sunrise and is the period in which workers would stop work and rest. The words are equivalent to ‘dusk till dawn’ in English. Psalm 55:17 uses a different formula when it means a full 24 hour day – ‘evening, and morning, and noon.’ The fact that Days One to Three are themselves solar means the sequence of days is not chronological since the sun is mentioned again on Day Four. Nowhere does Scripture say the light on Day One was not sunlight and in fact the use of sunrise and sunset on Day One points to the sun already existing. This points to the figurative nature of the text.

The framework also has a number of didactic and polemical functions. The week draws an analogy between God’s creative acts and human work in there being a pattern of six days of work followed by a day of rest. The six creation days are like six picture frames arranged in an art gallery to show God’s working week followed by a day of rest.

The framework interpretation thus argues that Genesis One presents historical truth or true history in a non-chronological, thematic form. This interpretation sees in the days of Genesis One a pattern of warp and weft that reveals both a 123–456 logical sequence and a 14–25–36 topical parallelism. The sequential element is intended to be a pattern for the covenant people to follow as they work six days and keep a weekly sabbath.

4. A Straightforward Interpretation

Some have dismissed the framework interpretation as being very difficult to understand, but we do not accept this appraisal. In fact, it is no more or less complex a view than any other interpretation. At a simple level, the creation week can be understood by a child – God created the world in six days and then rested on the seventh day, and so we are to work six days and rest one day a week. That is the teaching of the framework view at the simplest level, just as it is the teaching of more literal views.

The framework interpretation only becomes more complex when we approach it with more complex questions. But exactly the same can be said of the other views. The literal 24-hour view in particular requires the speculations of creation science and flood geology to sustain its claims once a certain level of scrutiny is reached. It is therefore unfair to label the literary approach to Genesis One as hopelessly complex as if this was in contrast to other views.

5. A Satisfying Interpretation

The framework interpretation states that the days of Genesis One are presented in a non-chronological order yet arranged in a sequential pattern designed to teach the readers about how God’s creative acts formed and filled the earth to make it a suitable home for mankind and how and God has given mankind a weekly sabbath rest of one day in seven. Rather like a tapestry with threads running in two directions, the warp and weft of Genesis One includes the topical and parallel arrangement of days that has been noted by many commentators throughout history, but it also contains a sequential march of days that clearly points to the creation of mankind as the pinnacle of creation and onwards to the story’s climax in God’s rest on the seventh day.

There is a strong parallelism between the days as has been noted by many Old Testament scholars. Meredith Kline’s scheme is typical:

Creation Kingdoms

Day 1. Light
Day 2. Sky and Seas
Day 3. Land and Plants

Creation Kings

Day 4. Light Bearers
Day 5. Birds and Fish
Day 6. Animals and Mankind

Day 7. Sabbath Day of Rest

The parallelism features the concept of dischronologisation where the events of Day One when light is created and is viewed as God giving form to the universe are then repeated on Day Four where the same light source – the sun – is mentioned as a light bearer filling the heavens. This is known as temporal recapitulation and is a common narrative device in Hebrew narratives.

The parallelism seeks to focus the attention on the seventh day and is a teaching tool to show the importance of observing the weekly sabbath rest to God. But the parallels also This points to a strong link between the creation of plants and mankind. The reason for this becomes apparent in Genesis 2 and 3 where man’s relationship to the plants is closely linked with the covenant relationship between man and God before the Fall in terms of life in the Garden and the trees of life and of knowledge.

However, there is also a strong sequential march over Days 1-3 and then Days 4-6 followed by Day Seven. Robert Godfrey’s idea is that the key to interpreting Genesis One comes in verse two. Immediately after the creation of the earth and heaven the focus of the narrative turns to the earth and there are four problems of chaos that need to be solved before the newly created planet can be a suitable home for God’s image bearers, human beings. The four problems are: darkness, wateriness, formlessness and emptiness. God is then pictured as a workman, working from sunrise till sunset and then resting at night, each day fashioning the earth to be a suitable home for his image bearers. On Days One to Three God sorts out the issue of darkness, wateriness and formlessness by creating light, sky and sea, and land and vegetation, then on Days Four to Six God sorts out the problem of emptiness by creating the light bearers, birds and fish, land animals and finally mankind. The point to remember is that this ‘form and fill narrative’ is logical and historical it must be noted, but it is not chronological.

6. A Narrative Interpretation

The framework interpretation agrees that Genesis One is written as a narrative or story. This is shown by the presence of the ‘waw consecutive’ verb form characteristic of Hebrew narratives. Those committed to a Young Earth 24-hour day interpretation often use this fact to argue against the framework view. In fact, this is not the significant problem for the framework interpretation that some literalists seem to think. There are many biblical narratives that present historical information in a non-chronological or topical arrangement. This is known as dischronologisation. Ezra 4:1-24 is a clear biblical example. The same happens in the Gospels, for example in the temptation of Christ. There is also a device known as temporal recapitulation. This is where an event is repeated out of chronological sequence for some other purpose. The framework interpretation sees Genesis One as a narrative of a week of creation acts. Within the narrative structure, the events are presented sequentially, but it is clear that the narrative is not purporting to report events in the actual chronological order in which they occurred. Indeed, it is our view that Moses was completely unconcerned with the chronological order of events, preferring to impose his own form and fill narrative structure on the creative acts. A similar argument would apply to the numbered sequence of days.

It is for this reason that the framework interpretation is not phased by literalist claims that the days are portrayed as ordinary solar days of 24 hours. Indeed, the framework view completely agrees this is the case. However, they are not literal 24-hour days but literary days.

7. An Exegetical Interpretation

Opponents may dismiss the view as a compromise with ‘atheistic science’ and other such cavils, but above all the framework interpretation is grounded in the exegesis of the biblical texts. The exegetical case for the framework interpretation is based on a number of different biblical arguments.

a) The Unending Seventh Day

The Bible indicates that the seventh day of creation week is an unending day and that at the present time in human history we are still living in the seventh day. If this is so, then the seventh day in Genesis One is figurative and there is no reason the same cannot be true of the other days. Hebrews 4 treats the seventh day as ongoing and shows that creation week was not a normal human week of seven 24-hour days. This makes sense since the seventh day in Genesis One has no ‘evening and morning’. Hebrews 4:3-5 explains why this is so. God’s people are called to enter into God’s own Sabbath rest. This argument is well-handled by Lee Irons in his section of The Genesis Debate book.

b) ‘Because it had not rained’ (Genesis 2:5)

Genesis 2:5 shows that ordinary providence was at work in the creation period. It states that plant growth was dependent on rain falling. This indicates that much longer periods than 24 hours must have passed during the time that plants grew on the earth on Day Three. So the days of Genesis One cannot be literal 24-hour days. This is one of the key arguments of Meredith Kline and Mark Futato in their seminal essays on the framework interpretation.

Similarly the events of Day 3 indicate it was much longer than 24 hours in duration. The simple reading here is against the literal 24-hour view. Genesis 1:11 says the land ‘sprouted’ or ‘produced’ vegetation. It does not say that God simply created the vegetation out of nothing, but that it sprouted and grew. This process takes months, not minutes. The eminent Old Testament scholar, Edward J. Young, states: ‘And the work of the third day seems to suggest that there was some process, and that what took place occurred in a period longer than twenty-four hours.’ (In the Beginning: Genesis Chapters 1 to 3 and the Authority of Scripture)

c) The Temporal Recapitulation of Days One and Four

As we have previously mentioned, the fact that Day One talks about the creation of light and has an evening and morning (using words that literally mean ‘sunset’ and ‘sunrise’) means that the sun was created on Day One and is the source of light from Day 1 onwards. When the sun is mentioned again on Day Four as the ‘greater light’ this is a typical example of Hebraic recapitulation in a narrative. The focus second time round is on the sun as light bearer, filling heaven, and its functional purpose in setting day and night and in marking the seasons by its height above the horizon.

d) The Long Day Six

A plain reading of Day Six reveals that too many events happened on this day for it to be realistically a period of less than 12 hours (remember literally evening and morning is the period from dusk till dawn). From Genesis 2, we learn much of what had to have happened on that Day Six. God planted the Garden of Eden and had it grow to maturity (so there would be fruit on the trees) and no mention is made of this happening instantaneously. The text does not say God created the plants and trees mature. Also all the animals were created by God and then brought to Adam to be named by him. Adam also named the birds. During this same day, the text indicates Adam had time to get lonely – the word for ‘Now’ in Genesis 2:23 could be translated ‘At long last!’ It is a word that shows Adam’s relief. Why would he be lonely if he had only been created a few hours? Patience is a virtue, not a vice. So how would unfallen Adam not have patience, and how could he be dis-satisfied with all that God had given him in such a short time? Especially bearing in mind he was in perfect fellowship with God and had so much to see and do. Then in the same few hours, Eve was created as well. The great Reformed theologian, Herman Bavinck makes the point that it is unlikely this would all happen in a few hours. It is simply not feasible that Day Six was a literal 24-hour day.

8. An Analogical Interpretation

Meredith Kline talks about a concept called ‘two register cosmology’ which basically says that there is heavenly time and earthly time, and Genesis One talks about earthly things created in heavenly time. His language can at times be quite difficult to understand. The concept would be better simply viewed as analogy or anthropomorphism – that the creation days are not identical to our 24-hour days but are instead analogous to our days. The Genesis days are God-days, not human-days. The reason Genesis One is written as a week of days is so that the creative work of God can be readily understood by the ordinary men and women of God. Time indicators are merely anthropomorphisms for simple people to understand God’s unimaginably long and complex creative time periods.

C. John Collins writes: ‘God’s rest is not the same as [as ours] but is analogous to ours, he will go back and read the passage looking for other instances of analogy. Then he will see what the significance of the refrain is: it, too, is part of an anthropomorphic presentation of God; he is likened to the ordinary worker, going through his rhythm of word and rest, looking forward to his Sabbath. The days are God’s work days, which need not be identical to ours: they are instead analogous.’ (Collins in Did God Create in Six Days? pp. 138-39)

The Bible is full of analogies and it would not be out of place for Genesis One to be written in the same way. An analogical view is how we find the New Testament sometimes interpreting the Old Testament. In Matthew 4 the 40 days in the wilderness is an analogy of the 40 years in the wilderness of the Israelites. Mankind is an analogy of God – created in the image of God, but not identical to God. As Van Til has argued, even our knowledge is analogical to God’s knowledge.

Creation can only be understood properly when we see the relationship that exists between heaven and earth. Scripture teaches that the earthly is a picture of the heavenly or as something that is a copy of heavenly. Examples include the tabernacle and temple, the sacrificial system, David’s throne, and the Sabbath rest. All involve divine realities and human analogies. In no case is the earthly shadow identical to the heavenly reality or ‘archetype’. It is important to note that it is not that the creation days are a symbol of our days, but that our days are symbolic of those momentous creation days of God. Both Herman Bavinck and W. G. T. Shedd (‘God-divided days’) suggest the creation days were alike our days in one way, but not like our days in other ways.

A common argument against the framework view is that Exodus 20:11 plainly means that creation week was just an ordinary week of time like our weeks. The fact that the creation week can be viewed as an exemplary analogy takes the sting out of this argument. The point surely in the commandment is that we are to work and rest because God worked and rested, even if our days and God’s days are on a different scale this would not affect the example or command.

9. A Didactic and Polemical Interpretation

Genesis One is primarily constructed as a theological text to teach the covenant people about God and his acts of creation and secondarily as polemical text showing the superiority of Yahweh, the covenant God of Israel, over the pagan agricultural fertility gods of the nations that surrounded Israel and against the pagan creation myths of other nations. It is no accident surely that the very things that the pagans worshipped as gods or where they thought the gods lived are specifically mentioned as things created by Yahweh: the sun, moon and stars, the sea, the sea monsters and the crops for example.

In stark contrast, it is made clear that God made everything and he is not part of the created order, but rather stands above and beyond it. The Genesis account will not even let anyone delude themselves that the universe has always existed. The idea of eternal matter is alien to the biblical narrative. In the beginning God – and God alone existed – and he created everything else out of nothing by his powerful word.

In writing his polemic, Moses seems to have used the traditional creation stories in his world and adapted them. The narrative shows the true God superior to any pagan false gods like the sun and moon, the stars, or the great sea creatures. It is not a text written to answer modern scientific questions about origins.

10. A Commendable Interpretation

The framework interpretation stands up to exegetical scrutiny and focuses on the theological meaning of Genesis rather than getting caught up in a modern phoney war with science. As such it allows the sacred text to speak to readers on its own terms and to present the covenant God to his covenant people as the creator and ruler of the world. As such he is to be worshipped, loved, obeyed, enjoyed and glorified.

11. Further Reading

Books

· Henri Blocher, In the Beginning: The Opening Chapters of Genesis

· C. John Collins, Science and Faith: Friends or Foes?

· W. Robert Godfrey, God’s Pattern for Creation

· Lee Irons with Meredith G. Kline: ‘The Framework Interpretation’ in David G. Hagopian (ed.), The Genesis Debate: Three Views on the ‘Days’ of Creation

· Robert C. Newman, Perry G. Phillips & Herman J. Eckelmann, Jr, Genesis One and the Origin of the Earth

· Joseph A. Pipa & David Hall (eds.), Did God Create in Six Days?

· David Snoke, A Biblical Case for an Old Earth

· John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One

· Mark S. Whorton, Peril in Paradise

· David Wilkinson: The Message of Creation (Bible Speaks Today)

Articles (most are available online)

· C. John Collins, ‘Reading Genesis 1:1-2:3 as an Act of Communication: Discourse Analysis and Literal Interpretation’ in Joseph A. Pipa & David Hall (eds.), Did God Create in Six Days?

· Mark Futato: ‘Because it Had Rained: A Study of Genesis 2:5-7 With Implications for Genesis 2:4-25 and Genesis 1:1-2:3’ (1998) Westminster Theological Journal 60(1): 1-21

· Meredith G. Kline, ‘Because It Had Not Rained’ (1958) Westminster Theological Journal 20(2): 146-157

· Meredith G. Kline, ‘Space and Time in the Genesis Cosmogony’ (1996) Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith (48): 2-15

· Lee Irons: ‘The Framework Interpretation: An Exegetical Summary’ (2000) Ordained Servant 9(1): 7-11

· Donald M. Poundstone (Chairman), The Report of the (OPC) Committee to Study the Framework Hypothesis

· Mark E. Ross, ‘The Framework Hypothesis: An Interpretation of Genesis 1:1–2:3’ in Joseph A. Pipa & David Hall (eds.), Did God Create in Six Days?

· Peter J. Wallace, ‘The Archetypal Week: A Defense of the Analogical Day View’

· Rowland S. Ward, ‘Length of Days in Genesis’

NOTE
A PDF version of this essay is available for downloading at http://www.scribd.com/doc/44424533/The-Framework-Interpretation-of-Genesis-One