Creation or Evolution

Denis Alexander

• Publisher: Monarch Books
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780857215796
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Religión y ciencia

Creation or Evolution helps you make sense of the complex common ground between the biblical doctrine of creation and the scientific evidence behind the theory of evolutionary.

With the guidance of neuroscientist Denis Alexander - a passionate believer in both the Bible and science, you can build a fully integrated understanding of the tricky questions that have divided so many for too long.

This book combines the latest genetic research with an exploration of what we mean by creation and evolution to overcome the common scientific and religious objections to each. He addresses the argument that evolution is atheistic and discovers who Adam and Eve really were.

An enthusiast for both the biblical and scientific contributions to our understanding of God and creation, he shows how the concept of The Fall be reconciled with evolutionary theory. Finally he asks the big question: how could a God of love create a world where people kill each other and inflict so much suffering?

Read Creation or Evolution and you will discover that maybe you don't have to choose. And you will have the arguments and responses to help others overcome their objections to biblical faith without abandoning the scientific facts.

Chapter 1

What Do We Mean By Creation?

All Christians are, by definition, creationists. The writer of the letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament expresses this very clearly when he writes:

By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. (Hebrews 11:2)²

We cannot come to know God personally by faith without also believing that he is Creator of all that exists. The Apostles’ Creed affirms: ‘I believe in God the Father, maker of heaven and earth’, a declaration central to the beliefs of all mainstream denominations. So Christians are by definition those who believe in a creator God; they are creationists.

Now of course there is the slight problem that in common usage the term ‘creationist’ is attached to a particular set of beliefs held by some Christians, as well as by some Muslims and Jews, and these beliefs relate to the particular way in which it is thought that God has created. For example, some creationists believe that the earth is 10,000 years old or less. Other creationists believe that the earth is very old, but that God has intervened in a miraculous way at various stages of creation, for example to bring about new species. Since words are defined by their usage, we have to accept that this is the kind of belief to which the word ‘creationist’ refers. But this should not mask the fact that in reality all Christians are creationists in a more basic sense – it is just that they vary in their views as to how God created.

Sooner or later (generally sooner) discussions about creation and evolution come down to how Christians interpret the Bible. Were Adam and Eve real historical people? Was the fruit on the tree in the Garden of Eden symbolic, or like fruit on the trees in the nearest orchard? Was there any physical death before the fall? Can one believe in both the Genesis account and evolution at the same time?

The only way we can answer such questions is by reviewing what the Bible says about creation and considering whether it tells us anything about how God created living things. But before even embarking on that important task, we first have to think about how we interpret the Bible.

Interpreting the Bible

Have you ever met a fellow believer who tried telling you, ‘Well I don’t interpret the Bible – I just read it the way it is’? I have. I’ve also read such comments in print, not just in casual conversation. But of course most Christians are well aware that we are all involved in interpretation when we come to the biblical text.

The challenge of translation

For a start most of us do not read the Bible in its Hebrew or Greek original form, so we are dependent on translators to render the translation as faithful to the original text as they can. This is not always easy. For example, Hebrew has four words for you, distinguishing between masculine and feminine, as well as singular and plural, whereas English has only the one. Comparison of different English translations will quickly reveal that interpretation is involved in the precise rendering of many different verses, although in no case does this affect any basic Christian doctrine.

It is often quite difficult to bring out during translation the nuances of the original text in the way that the author clearly intended. The NIV version of Genesis 2:25 – 3:1 reads:

The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame. Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made.

But the English loses the fact that the Hebrew words translated ‘naked’ (arom) and ‘crafty’ (arum) are almost identical in spelling and pronunciation and serve to connect the two verses. One attempt at a translation closer to the text makes the key words rhyme:

And the man and his wife were nude… Now the serpent was more shrewd…

But I suspect that this would get the kids giggling on the back row in church if tried when reading the lesson, so perhaps best not.

Light is constantly being shed on the meaning of Hebrew words by newly discovered texts in languages other than Hebrew. The corpus of ancient Hebrew literature still only consists of the Old Testament, the Dead Sea Scrolls (far shorter than the Old Testament), a few parts of the apocrypha and some short inscriptions. The King James translation was carried out in the early seventeenth century before archaeology was known and without any modern sense of comparative linguistics (the rules that govern the relationships between one language and another). Furthermore, languages like Akkadian (Babylonian and Assyrian) were completely undeciphered at that time and these have sometimes helped us understand the meaning of Hebrew words.

We might be surprised to read the injunction in the King James Bible to ‘Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish’ (Proverbs 31:6) and in fact ‘strong drink’ is mentioned 21 times in the King James Old Testament text, translating the word sekar. But in more recent translations like the NIV we read: ‘Give beer to those who are perishing’, and sekar is now generally translated as ‘beer’ in place of ‘strong drink’ in the NIV. How come? Did more recent translators get cold feet about having so much ‘strong drink’ in the Bible? Not so – the Bible comes down hard on drunkenness in any translation. The actual reason is more prosaic. Akkadian texts were discovered in which sikaru, a word sounding very like the Hebrew, clearly means beer because it is described as a ‘sweet beer made from grain’,³ and this was sufficient to swing the translations in favour of beer.

As a Turkish speaker, and someone who has been for many years a supportive associate of those working to translate the Bible into modern Turkish, I have a special interest in that fascinating language. As with all translations, the team faced big challenges as they came to tackle certain passages. For example, how were they going to render Romans 12:20? In the English translation it reads: ‘If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if your enemy is thirsty, give him something to drink. In this way you will heap burning coals on his head.’ Now imagine a Turkish reader encountering the New Testament for the very first time without any Bible commentaries available. What might the reader make of this particular verse? Wisely the translators rendered in Turkish the final phrase of this verse to read ‘In this way you will make that person ashamed’.⁴

There are hundreds of examples like this that keep Bible translators intellectually and spiritually challenged all the way round the globe. We should pray for them. It is a tough task, but a task that reminds us that whether we like it or not we are already beginning to engage in the interpretative task of others as soon as we start reading our Bibles in any language other than the original.

Some key principles in interpreting the Bible

The next stage of interpretation involves our own grappling with the text, using this kind of checklist:⁵

• What kind of language is being used?
• What kind of literature is it?
• What is the expected audience?
• What is the purpose of the text?
• What relevant extra-textual knowledge is there?

The first two points in the list are particularly important when we start investigating what the Bible teaches about creation. The biblical authors use a very wide range of literary styles to convey God’s message to us. ‘All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness’ (2 Timothy 3:16), but this does not mean that the Holy Spirit suppresses the author’s personality, culture, language and idiosyncratic style. This is where the biblical view of inspiration is so different from that of the Qur’an. Muslims believe that the Qur’an has existed for all eternity in heaven in the Arabic language and was communicated to Mohammed in a series of visions in a particular cave. Mohammed is therefore viewed by Muslims as the mouthpiece of God’s revelation without himself contributing to the text. In contrast, Christians believe God inspired the authors of the 66 books of the Bible to write texts over a period of up to 1,500 years bearing the indelible stamp of their own particular interests, context and culture. Bible-believing Christians have no doubt that what Scripture says, God says,⁶ but it is God speaking through real flesh and blood people, not through robots. As the writer to the Hebrews starts his letter (Hebrews 1:1):

In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways…

The range of literary and linguistic styles used in Scripture is indeed extremely wide. When we use our own mother tongue in a given culture, we automatically fill in the correct meanings of texts and of speech almost without thinking about it. When we’re driving and see a sign saying ‘Warning, Heavy Plant Crossing’, we don’t look out for incursions into the road ahead from passing rhododendrons. When we hear someone described as having a ‘chip on their shoulder’, we do not look for bits of wood sticking out of their anatomy next time we meet them. If someone ‘got out of bed on the wrong side’ this morning, we know to keep well clear, not to interrogate them on the layout of their bedroom. Our daily language is saturated with idioms, metaphors, hyperbole, irony, slang and subtle humour, imbued with the flavour and character of the national culture in which it originates.

As we read different materials in our own language our minds effortlessly adapt to the context, even though in the course of a day we may be faced with understanding dozens of different literary styles. One moment we are reading our daily newspaper, the next moment cooking recipes, then a historical novel, or maybe Harry Potter, then a legal document relating to a house purchase, then some cartoons on the back of the newspaper, then a scientific paper (for some) or a business report (for others). We would not dream of understanding one type of literature as if it were another, but automatically interpret statements according to their literary context. When I read in an estate agent’s description of a house for sale that ‘it requires some attention’, I interpret accordingly (e.g. the house has been derelict for more than a year and needs major refurbishment); but if a kind friend has read a draft of my latest book and says, in a classic piece of British understatement, that ‘Chapter 9 needs some attention’, I will take a second look at that chapter very carefully. When Slughorn says ‘I must give you warning that Felix Felicis is a banned substance in organised competitions…’,⁷ then I read the literature accordingly, not as if I were an athlete reading the warning in a sporting manual prepared for the next Olympics.

Context makes a huge difference to nuance. If I say ‘I am broken-hearted that the technician has broken his promise to mend the broken equipment’, this uses the same word in three different ways and only the context determines how literal the meaning is. My recent favourite on this point is the mother quoted as saying: ‘You cannot expect your kids not to go out. You don’t want them staying at home, fixed to the computer’⁸ – the sort of remark any sensible parent might say, we think, and move on. But it makes a lot of difference to know that this was the particular mother whose 14-year-old son had just sailed a boat single-handed across the Atlantic – a unique achievement. Knowing the context changes the nuance entirely – some ‘going out’!

Those who have been reading the Bible for a long time will also tend to interpret texts almost automatically according to the type of literature being read. Others just starting out might need more help (of course commentaries can be useful): but all of us need to be on our guard against reading one type of biblical literature as if it were another. This point becomes clearer when we consider that the types of literature used in the Bible include prose, historical narrative, poetry (in many different styles), prophetic writing, parables, apocalyptic writings, correspondence, theological essays, biography, genealogy, legal discourse, census data, hymns, descriptions of dreams and visions, and much else besides. We can be seriously misled if we treat one kind of narrative as if it were another, missing the main point of the passage altogether.

When Nathan the prophet told King David a parable in 2 Samuel 12, the king became very involved in the story. It was a real tear-jerker about injustice in which the rich man kills the poor man’s only ewe for dinner, when actually the rich man had plenty of his own. To which story King David cries, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this deserves to die! He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.’ Then Nathan said to David, ‘You are the man!’ David had become so emotionally involved with the actual parable, not to say blind to his own sin, he had missed the point entirely that Nathan meant him and his adultery with Bathsheba, with its subsequent cover-up and arranged death of her husband Uriah the Hittite.

At other times the biblical writers give us both a straightforward narrative and a figurative account of the same events, in order to drive home the key theological message. For example, Ezekiel 16 says figuratively what Ezekiel 22 says by way of a more straightforward narrative account, and Ezekiel 23 does the same for the more historical account provided in Ezekiel 20.⁹

Jesus himself often spent time trying to persuade his liste...