Gen 1: 4 Analysis
Todd S. Beall, Ph.D. (toddbeall@gmail.com)
Professor of Old Testament, Capital Bible Seminary, Lanham, MD
Evangelical Theological Society
Nov 19, 2010
On March 24, 2010 BioLogos released an interview with Bruce Waltke in which he stated that for
Christians to deny the reality of evolution would “make us a cult, some odd group that’s not really interacting with the real world.”1 His remarks, actually taped during a November workshop, sparked a flurry of repercussions, culminating with Waltke’s resignation from the faculty of Reformed Theological
Seminary in Orlando on April 6, 2010. That resignation has sparked outrage from many in the evangelical community who have denounced RTS as being too narrow-minded on this issue.2
The interpretation …show more content…
Even Westermann agrees that Gen
1:1-2:4 “is a narrative.”26 Collins calls it “exalted prose narrative,” acknowledging that it is not poetry, and that “we are dealing with prose narrative,” yet trying still to maintain the possibility of a non-literal hermeneutic.27 Though acknowledging that Gen 1 is narrative, Waltke then concludes that the genre is “a literary-artistic representation of the creation”–which, in fact, is not a genre type at all.28 The best that
Stek can do is to call it sui generis (its own genre), which emphasizes the uniqueness of Gen 1. Surely we would agree with Stek that in theme Gen 1 is unique; but it is hardly unique in form.2
9
Indeed, Gen 1 is presented in a normal narrative form. The standard form in Hebrew for consecutive, sequential narrative prose is the waw consecutive imperfect.30 Genesis 1 contains 50 waw consecutive imperfect forms in its 31 verses, an average of 1.6 per verse. This represents more waw consecutive forms than all but 3 of the first 20 chapters in Genesis.31 By contrast, in the poetic section of
Gen 49:1b-27 (Jacob’s blessing of his sons), there are only a total of eight waw consecutive forms, or
Professor of Old Testament, Capital Bible Seminary, Lanham, MD
Evangelical Theological Society
Nov 19, 2010
On March 24, 2010 BioLogos released an interview with Bruce Waltke in which he stated that for
Christians to deny the reality of evolution would “make us a cult, some odd group that’s not really interacting with the real world.”1 His remarks, actually taped during a November workshop, sparked a flurry of repercussions, culminating with Waltke’s resignation from the faculty of Reformed Theological
Seminary in Orlando on April 6, 2010. That resignation has sparked outrage from many in the evangelical community who have denounced RTS as being too narrow-minded on this issue.2
The interpretation …show more content…
Even Westermann agrees that Gen
1:1-2:4 “is a narrative.”26 Collins calls it “exalted prose narrative,” acknowledging that it is not poetry, and that “we are dealing with prose narrative,” yet trying still to maintain the possibility of a non-literal hermeneutic.27 Though acknowledging that Gen 1 is narrative, Waltke then concludes that the genre is “a literary-artistic representation of the creation”–which, in fact, is not a genre type at all.28 The best that
Stek can do is to call it sui generis (its own genre), which emphasizes the uniqueness of Gen 1. Surely we would agree with Stek that in theme Gen 1 is unique; but it is hardly unique in form.2
9
Indeed, Gen 1 is presented in a normal narrative form. The standard form in Hebrew for consecutive, sequential narrative prose is the waw consecutive imperfect.30 Genesis 1 contains 50 waw consecutive imperfect forms in its 31 verses, an average of 1.6 per verse. This represents more waw consecutive forms than all but 3 of the first 20 chapters in Genesis.31 By contrast, in the poetic section of
Gen 49:1b-27 (Jacob’s blessing of his sons), there are only a total of eight waw consecutive forms, or