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The Unique Cosmology of Genesis 1 Gerhard F The Unique Cosmology of Genesis 1 Gerhard F. Hasel Michael G. Hasel he opening chapters of the Bible (Gen. and “knows” humanity in its totality. But T 1–11) contain the history of begin- in the biblical Creation, these realities are nings, focusing on natural and historical expressed in their totalities as originating beginnings and the ensuing history of the from the Creator. The totalities of God’s world and humankind.1 Nowhere else in created world and what is in it depicts how Scripture is found such a comprehensive the origin and continuing existence of the and detailed narration of the origin of the world and life is expressed in time and earth and humanity. space. While this is important in itself, it re- Today, there are many who believe that ceives greater significance when one it is unnecessary to engage in a dialogue be- recognizes that the Genesis account for tween the biblical presentation of Creation the origin of the universe (cosmology) in and the scientific quest for understanding the Creation account is without rival. No- the world and humanity. But such dialogue where in the ancient Near East or Egypt and interaction are not only desirable, has anything similar been recorded. The they are essential. The sciences can deal unique words about Creator, creation, and only with partial spheres of knowledge but creature—of God, world, and humanity in not with totalities. Genesis 1; 2—set the entire tone for the This totality is already revealed in the wonderful and unique saving message of first verse of the Bible: “In the beginning the Bible. It can be said without hesitation God created the heaven and the earth” that the world and humankind were in the (Gen. 1:1).2 This simple sentence makes beginning and remain now in the hands four basic affirmations that are completely of the Creator. Scripture is able to speak new and profound in the human quest for about an end of the world and humanity an understanding of the world’s origin and only because God is the Creator of that themselves.3 world and humanity. The first affirmation claims that God made the heaven and the earth “in the beginning.” The Genesis Cosmogony of Totality There was, then, a time when this globe and This awe-inspiring Creation account its surrounding atmospheric heavens did not in Genesis contains the first conception exist. In ancient Near-Eastern mythologies, of the world and humankind as totalities the earth had no beginning, and in Greek from their beginning. No one experiences philosophical thought, the world existed 14 He Spoke and It Was from eternity. By the use of the words “in the of desolation and waste, the word create in beginning,” however, the Genesis cosmol- the first verse of Genesis must signify the ogy fixes an absolute beginning for Creation. calling into existence of original matter in The pregnant expression “in the beginning” the formulation of the world. separates the conception of the world once The fourth affirmation deals with the and for all from the cyclical rhythm of pagan object of Creation, the material that is mythology and the speculation of ancient brought forth by divine creation, namely metaphysics. This world, its life and history, “the heaven and the earth.” These words, is not dependent upon nature’s cyclical “the heaven and the earth,” are in the He- rhythm but is brought into existence as the brew language a synonym for our term cos- act of Creation by a transcendent God. mos. A close study of the forty-one usages of The second affirmation is that God is the the phrase “heaven and the earth” reveals Creator. As God, He is completely separate that they do not mean that God created the from and independent of nature. Indeed, entire universe with its thousands of gal- God continues to act upon nature, but God axies at the time He created the world. The and nature are separate and can never be focus remains on the planet Earth and its equated in some form of emanationism or more or less immediate surroundings. The pantheism. This is in contrast to the Egyptian elevated ideas expressed in this first verse concepts in which creator-god Atum himself of the Bible set the tone for the entire Gen- is the primordial mound from which arose esis cosmology. all life in the Heliopolis cosmology, or where, in another tradition, Ptah is combined with Modern Interpretations of “the land that rises” in the Memphis theol- Biblical Cosmology ogy. In Egyptian cosmologies, “everything It is widely believed that the biblical is contained within the inert monad, even cosmology is a myth describing a three- the creator God.”4 There is no separation in storied universe with a heaven above, a flat Egypt between god and nature. earth, and the netherworld underneath. If The third affirmation is that God has this understanding is coupled with the as- acted in fiat creation. The special verb for sumption that the Bible supports a geocen- “create,” bara’, has only God as its subject tric, or “earth-centered,” universe, then it throughout the Bible. That is in the Hebrew seems hopelessly dated. Thus, many mod- language—no one can bara’, or “create,” but ern scholars have become convinced that God. God alone is Creator, and no one else the biblical cosmology is historically and may share in this special activity. The verb culturally conditioned, reflecting a primi- bara’ is never employed with matter or tive and outdated cosmology of the ancient stuff from which God creates; it contains— world. They argue that the biblical cosmol- along with the emphasis of the phrase “in ogy should be abandoned and replaced by the beginning”—the idea of creation out of a modern, scientific one. nothing (creatio ex nihilo). Since the earth is New Testament scholar Rudolf Bult- described in verse 2 as being in a rude state mann wrote some decades ago that, in the The Unique Cosmology of Genesis 1 15 New Testament, “the world is viewed as Where has the interpretation come a three-storied structure, with the earth from that the Bible presents a geocentric in the centre, the heaven above, and the picture? This idea arose in post—New Tes- underworld beneath”5 made up of hell, the tament times, when leading theologians place of torment. Other modern scholars adopted the Greek Ptolemaic cosmology believe that the cosmology of the Old Tes- of second century A.D. and interpreted the tament literally depicts such a picture of a Bible on the basis of this nonbiblical con- three-storied universe, with storehouses cept. The famous trial of Galileo in the sev- of water, chambers of snow and wind, and enteenth century could have been avoided windows of heaven. This is depicted in a had theologians of the church recognized vaulted canopy of the heavens above a that their interpretation of certain Bible flat earth, at the center of which is a na- texts was based on the cosmology of the pa- vel, with waters under the earth including gan mathematician-geographer Ptolemy. rivers of the netherworld. Such a mytho- Although we are freed today from the logical cosmology is now out of date, wrote Ptolemaic cosmology, a vast number of Bultmann. Modern people cannot believe biblical scholars still read the cosmology of in such a mythological cosmology while the Bible through the glasses of what they simultaneously flying in jets, browsing the believe to be the pagan cosmologies of the Internet, and using smartphones. ancient Near East and Egypt. In the final In modernist thinking, this leaves open analysis, these ideas are based on a faulty only two alternatives: (1) accept the as- interpretation of certain biblical passages. sumed mythological picture of the world It is important to recognize this claim, at the price of intellectual sacrifice, or (2) stating that the cosmology of the Bible is abandon the biblical cosmology and adopt mythological, is of fairly recent origin. whatever happens to be the latest scien- But the Bible, properly and honestly in- tific theory. terpreted on its own terms, is, in fact, ac- But these two alternatives are false. Do ceptable to the modern mind and does not we find, after careful investigation, any present the kind of cosmology so widely evidence in the Bible for a three-storied attributed to it. universe? Does the Bible support the no- tion of a geocentric universe? If anything, The Biblical Concept of Cosmology the Bible is human-centered, or more accu- The widespread notion that the biblical rately, it is centered on the interrelation- cosmology reflects a pagan picture of the ship between God and humans. In the Old three-storied universe has cast its shadow Testament, God is the center of everything broadly. But there is a question whether an- but not the physical center. The Bible does cient mythological cosmologies truly had a not provide information for a physical cen- clearly defined three-storied universe. ter. According to it, the solar system could The ancient Egyptian view in the Mem- be geocentric, heliocentric, or something phite theology was that the permanent else. place of the dead was in the West. In the 16 He Spoke and It Was Amduat of the New Kingdom, the deceased and goddess of the primeval world ocean are swallowed with the sun by Nut in the in the national epic Enuma Elish. Tĕhôm is West, travel through the twelve hours of said to contain an “echo of the old cosmo- the night, and emerge with the sun in par- gonic myth,”8 in which the creator-god adise, experiencing daily regeneration and Marduk engages Tiamat in battle and slays re-creation.
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