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OT Professor Todd Beall: take Genesis 1 as written, rather than crave secular respectability

Todd Beall, Ph.D., Professor of Old Testament, Capital Bible Seminary, Lanham, MD:

In fact, it is fascinating that the day-age advocates insist (correctly) that Gen 1 speaks of the days in sequential action, while the framework hypothesis advocates insist (correctly) that the days of Gen 1 are literal 24-hour days. Only the literal 24-hour day view holds that the days are both sequential and literal 24-hour periods. …

Why not take the words of Gen 1 at face value, as simple, straightforward sequential narrative of God’s miraculous creative activity? If that causes some intellectuals to label us as “narrow-minded clowns”, then so be it. The claims of Christ are narrow (John 14:6: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no man comes to the Father but by Me”); the Gospel is narrow; and the cross is regarded as foolishness by the wisdom of this world (1 Cor 1:18–31). But it is true nonetheless. Heb 11:3 says that “by faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.” Do we really think that contemporary science is more authoritative than God’s revelation? Sometimes our intellectual pride may get in the way of our faith: if the inerrant Scripture in Gen 1 states that God created the world in six literal days, then why should we not simply accept it, rather than try to find all kinds of ways to explain it away? Sometimes the plain, simplest, most natural reading of the text is, indeed the best. Such is the case with Gen 1, despite all the attempts to explain it in some other, more complicated way.

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Reference

  1. Todd Beall, Christians in the public square: How far should Evangelicals go in the Creation-Evolution debate?, Evangelical Theological Society, 15 November 2006.