Re-reading Genesis: Is Science really the issue?

The problem of reading the early chapters of Genesis as literal history is usually framed as a conflict between Scripture and Science. But, as some literalists suggest, it would then just be a matter of waiting for Science to catch up with Scripture. Scientific theory is shifting sand. Evolution is ever evolving. When scientists are constantly reinterpreting their own material, some wonder why it should be assumed that the problem lies with our interpretation of Scripture? Perhaps they will solve the conflict from their end.

I love Science, but we must admit it’s a pretty flexible medium. In the past decade cosmologists have come to agree that 80% of the matter and energy in the universe is “dark matter” and “dark energy”, which is to say, unknown and, heretofore, unknowable. That’s a pretty big hole in our knowledge. And, in recent years, it has become conventional “wisdom” among serious cosmologists that there may be an infinite number of universes that are completely undetectable from our particular universe. There are also theoretically necessary, yet undetected particles in our universe. And lately there have been questions raised about the “absolute” limit of the speed of light.

It seems, what Science knows it doesn’t know, is increasing faster than what it knows it does know. So, I can understand people being reluctant to change their beliefs because of this week’s, or even this century’s scientific “facts”. Perhaps we’re on the verge of discovering that this particular universe really is about 6,000 years old, or that dinosaur bones actually are the debris left by a worldwide flood.

But Science isn’t the main challenge to a literal reading of Genesis 1-11. It’s the internal inconsistencies that make you wonder. And it’s not just the old classic poser “Where did Cain get his wife?” Consider the following:

• How could there be one brother (Abel) specialized in herding, and another (Cain) in tilling the ground, when there was only a handful of people in the world? Surely this kind of agricultural and economic specialization requires some time to develop and a relatively large community. (Genesis 4:2)
• When Cain is driven out of society by God, he expresses the fear that “... whoever finds me will kill me." (Genesis 4:14) Who are these people out there that he so fears.
• Cain not only goes out and finds a wife, but he begins to build a city. (Genesis 4:17) How could Cain be building a city at such an early point in human development?
• Cain’s great, great, great grandson was Lamech. We are told he fathered Jabal (the father of those who live in tents and raise livestock), and Jubal (the father of all who play the harp and flute). What does it mean to be the father of those who live in tents, or play the harp? If this is history, it’s a very strange kind of history indeed.
• How could the animal populations recover if every species were reduced to a single mating pair, or even three and a half pair as in the case of a few? (Genesis 7:2-5) What did the lions and tigers eat?
• The story of Abraham begins in chapter twelve and, but for fact that he’s 75 years old, it reads much more like history than the previous chapters. Abraham leaves his country, Haran, and goes to Shechem in the land of Canaan. From there he goes to Bethel, on toward the Negev, and down into Egypt where he has dealings with a Pharaoh and his officials. We can identify the places and peoples: Perizzites, Chaldeans, Sodomites (the literal folk of Sodom), Amorites, Jebusite, etc. The problem is, if you calculate the generations given (Genesis 10-11) you find that all this happened about 350 years after the entire world had been destroyed in a flood, reduced to one human family and a mating pair of just about everything else?

The fact is, quite apart from Science, the text itself suggests that it should not be read as a literal history of the creation, destruction, and re-creation of the earth.