In The Six-Day War in Creationism, Gene Nouhan offers insights on Genesis in the light of the following historical teachings in Christianity: 1. The Attributes of God, 2. The Purposes of the Bible, and 3. The Mission of the Church. The Young Earth Reform Movement denies, in one way or another, all three.
Many fundamentalists think the purpose of the Genesis Creation account is to give us a science on origins and a literal history of what happened at creation. By doing so they assert a 6000-year-old earth from proof-texting on the six days of creation, flood geology, and an obvious misunderstanding of Romans 5:12 by assuming it means animals had eternal life before Adam sinned! Yet we know that humans existed in the Americas for some 15,000 years and possibly longer.
Even Augustine (AD 354–430) erroneously stated, “It is too absurd to say that some men might have traversed the oceans, and crossed from this side of the world to the other that are descended from [Adam].” Of course, Augustine did not know about anthropology and the long history of human development including, archeology, paleontology, and Ancient Near Eastern literature to give him the background.
There is no science in the Bible; at least not the kind we are familiar with. The sun and stars do not revolve around the earth though the Bible assumes that ancient speculation. On anatomy, the Bible says things like emotions are in the bowels, our thoughts are generated by our heart muscles, and conception is the result of sperm alone. Those ideas are purely observational in the Ancient Near East; they had to be since there were no advanced instruments to make any other observations, nor was there a storehouse of collected knowledge with its distribution at the time. And God wasn’t interested in clearly up optical illusions. Those cultural mistakes were not taught in the Bible. They were simply the common assumptions of the day.
The “science” in the Late Bronze Age was “naked-eye-science”. Today we do not determine whether primitive tribes are human with biblical texts interpreted by fundamentalists, but with DNA. So, what does this mean for Genesis? It means that science is not in the orbit of the Bible’s purposes.
So, what is?
It is God’s self-disclosure and His plan for the creation that gradually develops through the pages of the Bible and culminates in the Incarnation. This focus has a real impact on our understanding of Genesis.
Galileo said the Bible tells us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go. That may be his most profound observation. We cannot use Genesis to do science; instead, we should ask what is the author trying to say about God and his purposes? Genesis shows that God is beyond the universe while pagan deities were described as products of the universe. Genesis shows God cares about creation especially the human family that He made in His image and offers an unending Divine Rest pictured by the continuous 7th Day of creation (Hebrews 3-4).
Genesis plays a critical role in setting the stage for the themes of election and redemption that unfold throughout the Bible. These implications have a profound effect on the meaning of creation in Genesis that eventually leads to the New Creation in the New Testament.
That is what The Six-Day War in Creationism is all about.
Creation and Redemption (Old and New)
The New Creation and ultimate redemption in Christian cosmology is found in John 1:1-14:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind… to all those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God… The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”
The Young Earth Movement constantly focuses on a cosmology designed for an ancient tribal people in the Ancient Near East under the Old Covenant, as if it is the Mission of the Church to do so, which is to abandon the real Mission described in detail in Part V of the book.
From the exile out of Eden and the saving grace of Jesus in the New Testament, the Bible consistently presents a narrative of creation, and recreation or redemption. This theme is vital for understanding the Bible’s purpose: to offer hope and a solution to the problem of separation from God through union with Him in Christ.
Conclusion
Through The Six-Day War in Creationism, Gene Nouhan provides insight into the Bible’s blueprint, highlighting its purposes with clarity and depth. It is a reminder that Christians have always been free to interpret the days of creation literally or figuratively without prejudice to scripture or the Mission of the Church. Nouhan’s work encourages a deeper appreciation for the Bible as an ancient text that cannot be treated like a modern historical or scientific treatise. Nouhan offers numerous striking insights into the nature of God, the purposes of the Bible, and the Mission of the Church.