ISCAST Distinguished Fellow Professor Tom McLeish responds to questions about the biblical creation story in Genesis by reminding us that there are numerous creation narratives in the Bible. In his book Faith and Wisdom in Science and in a blog post, McLeish points to over 20 different references to creation, “all using different metaphors, pictures, language.”
He reminds us of the principle of the harmony of Scripture (often referred to as “Scripture interprets Scripture,” and, drawing on Romans 12:6, called by John Calvin the “analogy of faith”). McLeish says, “we ought to read them all together, interpreting each in the light of the others,” and he notes that such a plethora of stories makes it difficult to speak of any one particular story that should be interpreted “literally.”
McLeish says the following in his blog post:
So where are these 20 creation stories? Well, for a fuller account of the main structural ones, I do try to cover this in chapters 3, 5, and 6 of Faith and Wisdom in Science. Alternatively, an excellent account of seven very central stories can be found in William P. Brown’s The Seven Pillars of Creation. It is important to understand that priority should not be assigned necessarily to those creation accounts that come early in the canonical biblical ordering (like Genesis). Remember that the Bible is really like a library, with a history/law section, poetry, wisdom, prophets, gospels, letters—all on different “shelves.” Nor should priority follow length—some creation stories are condensed right down to the essential nuggets of heavens and earth, foundations and boundaries (the most condensed on my list is Psalm 102:25). But these may well represent the earliest and most basic. Genesis 1 and 2 are certainly highly evolved and later than some on the list.
And what are those 20+ stories McLeish lists? In no particular order, they are:
1. Proverbs 8 The birth of wisdom and her co-creative role
2. Psalm 33 The creative word
3. Psalm 104 Dynamic creation: fruitfulness at the boundaries
4. Jeremiah 10 True (the world) and false (idols) creation
5. Jeremiah 4 An “anti-creation” story: rolling it all back when humans disobey
6. Isaiah 28 Creation and the husbandry of agriculture
7. Isaiah 40 Numbering the structures of the cosmos
8. Isaiah 45 Creation is the backdrop to history
9. Isaiah 11 The hope of a new creation
10. Hosea 2 A new covenant with creation
11. Genesis 1 The cosmos is God’s real temple
12. Genesis 2 Creation as ordering and forming
13. Psalm 89 Creation is God’s dominion
14. Psalm 8 Humankind’s glory in creation
15. Psalm 19 Creation re-echoes God’s creative word
16. Psalm 102:25 Foundations of the earth and heavens
17. Job 26 Spreading out the skies and suspending the earth
18. Job 28 Wisdom is the perception and measure of creation with God
19. Job 38 Measuring out the foundations of the earth and heavens
20. John 1 Logos as the creative form
21. Revelation 21 The new creation
Tom McLeish is Professor of Physics at Durham University in the UK. More details can be found here on the ISCAST website.
And a PS: Our thanks to John Pilbrow who notes that in the deuterocanonical writings, the Wisdom of Solomon chapter 13:1-9 (with its resonances of Romans chapter 1) is also a creation story.
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