Creation: A Poetic Account

By Amie May

Considering a problem

In Genesis 1:11, 12, we read that God is creating plant life and everything relating to it. Yet, it isn't until Genesis 1:14 that the "luminaries" are created, one of which would be the sun itself.

"Photosynthesis" is the process by which plants convert sunlight to energy. Basically a chemical called "chlorophyll" (which gives plants their green pigment) changes sunlight, carbon dioxide, nutrients, and water into life sustaining food.  Plants cannot live without sunlight.

Knowing how life is sustained for plants presents a problem: The seeming existence of plant life before the existence of sunlight. Certainly it is true that with God all things are possible. How though, are we to make sense of this being the story of God bringing nature into being as we know it, yet it isn't as we know it?

Some solve the apparent problem of chronology in Genesis 1 by viewing it as a wholly metaphorical account. In so doing, they preserve the important message that the figurative conveys. Through this perspective, we are able to examine the allegorical (symbolic) meaning behind the "luminaries", the "light" and even the "fowls of the air".

Others solve the problem by viewing it as mystery. Those having this literal view of creation maintain God as the origin of the universe. Through this perspective, we are able to visibly consider the vastness of God and the unsearchableness of his ways. We are able to experience his work, just by smelling a flower, jumping upon hearing thunderclap, or feeling the breeze blow through our hair. It offers us a sense of tangibility.

Do we just leave it, relegating it to metaphor or mystery, as wonderful and deep as these may be? It can be difficult to put the mind to rest in pondering it, and it has been the fuel for many heated debates.

All of this is not even considering the seeming problem of the flow from Genesis 1 into Genesis 2. How can sense be made of Adam being created in Genesis 2 after having already been created in Genesis 1? Are they different creation stories? Could they be the same creation story told in different words?  Could there be another explanation? 

Rhyming ideas

The writing of Ancient Hebrews is chalked full of a poetry familiar to the readers of that day, and understandably, not so much today. The most frequent form of Hebrew poetry is called "parallelism". This can be understood as a rhyming of ideas of sort in that the same thing is being communicated, in more than one way.

One example of the biblical usage of Hebrew parallelism is:

"For You are my lamp, O Jehovah; and Jehovah shall light up my darkness." (2 Samuel 22:29)

God being the lamp is the same as God lighting the darkness.

In Genesis 1:1, God is recorded to have "created" the heavens and the earth. The word "barah" is translated "create" in that usage and it literally means "fatted". The concrete thinking ancient Hebrews had no word which reflected "something from nothing" like the modern application of the word "created" implies. Rather, "barah" could be understood as one blowing up a balloon (fattening it with air), feeding cattle (fattening on grain), or even pitching a tent (fattening it with space).

Genesis 1:3 begins to describe a light coming to this newly created "tent" called "heavens and earth". Light and dark are then separated and given names. By Genesis 1:5, the author reinforces that all creation is included within these verses by naming this day "echad" ("unified"/"one").

The verse itself is commonly translated, "And God called the light, Day. And He called the darkness, Night. And there was evening, and there was morning the first day. "

The word "echad" specifically, is translated "first". It is translated elsewhere within Green's Literal Version that way as well. For example:

"And Lamech took two wives to himself: the name of the first was Adah; and the name of the second was Zillah." (Genesis 4:19)

Truer to the original language in this case, the King James Version reads:

"And Lamech took unto him two wives: the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah."

Succession is assumed. If Lamech married Adah just before Zillah, and Zillah before any else (or to the exclusion of any else) then logic dictates that Adah be the "first" wife, while "Zillah" be the second.  Both versions are therefore correct.

The word "echad" is also often translated "one", for example:

"Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife and they shall become one flesh." (Genesis 2:24)

"Hear, O Israel, Jehovah our God is one Jehovah." (Deuteronomy 6:4)

"Echad" actually means "unity" or "one". Though the succession of the day in which light was created can be assumed, since it proceeds all of the other days, there is something to be said in also preserving that it was the day of unity; the day which contained all of the others.

The original writer had the option to choose the Hebrew word "rishon" which means very literally "first in succession", yet chose not to. Rather, staying true to parallelism, the same thing (the creation of the "tent" or "heavens and earth") is being communicated in more than one way.

In following with this and keeping to the tent analogy, a poetic image unfolds.

* The tent is created when light comes into being; and light and darkness named.

* The tent is also created when divisions occur within it. An example of such is the dividing of the waters below (seas) and waters above (skies) in Genesis 1:6, 7.

* The tent is also created when these divided places (rooms) are filled. The waters below are filled with "swarmers" and the waters above with "luminaries".

The story of the creation of this "tent" is therefore told in three ways:  (1) Fattening,
(2) dividing, and (3) filling. Understanding Hebrew parallelism calls into question reading the Genesis 1 story chronologically at all. Rather, the story poetically and logically unfolds before us in a rarely seen way.

The narrative current

This also solves the problem as to whether Genesis 2 is a continuance of Genesis 1, or whether it is a separate story all together because it doesn’t matter.  The story in Genesis 2 actually zooms into the tent, inside a single room (wherein humanity lay).   Like Genesis 1, Genesis 2 serves to set the stage.

"And Jehovah God formed the man out of dust from the ground, and blew into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." (Genesis 2:7)

The bolded above is translated from the word phrase "et ha'adam". This very mechanically translated (word per word) would be "this the man". In Genesis 1, "the man" (aka "humanity") was created. Genesis 2 is specifying which "the man" - "this" one. Out of humanity therefore, 'this human' was formed out of dust.

Genesis 2:4 reads, "These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created in the day that Jehovah God was making earth and heavens."

We can understand from that, that "the generations" of the heavens and earth (in Genesis 2) were created in the same day that God made the heavens and earth (in Genesis 1). If you will recall, that "day" was "echad". These generations are therefore contained within that same tent, though as I said before, in a single room within it. You could say that from this point, the room becomes a tent (aka "heavens and earth") to itself.

The biblical narrative lens seems to continually be zoomed in as pages are passed over, and time within the story ticks along. More and more stories are built upon the stage set early in the book of Genesis. 

Of "this human" ("Adam"), for example, we read of Cain and Abel and their lives, and of Seth. Of Seth, the bible records the "begats" which would bring us to the next subject, for example Noah and his life. This continues in kind and seems to culminate with the birth of Jesus himself, the story then taking another turn - the narrative lens zooming out again, widening our field of vision.

A preserved flow is one of beauty, testifying to a direction and attesting a plan. It presents to the reader a story in poetic rhythm, as a spirit dancing within a song.

In conclusion

The apparent issue of a literal chronological creation vs a wholly metaphorical adaptation then becomes a non-issue, while preserving the important points treasured by both.

It no longer matters which chronological day that the grass sprouted because that day, and the day that the sun was created, are both contained by "one" ("echad") day.

There is no more compromise of important metaphorical language because the literal universe actually becomes a witness to the symbolic as well as to the meta-narrative (story within a story).

Arising though, is another angle from which to view creation: the poetic account.

Recommended reading: "Learning to Use Literary Structure in Bible Study"