Whether it's at the heart of recent controversy in public school curriculum or of popular works of science fiction, the question of how the earth and its inhabitants came into existence stimulates discussions and imaginations in today's culture. Despite its contemporary appeal, however, the question is quite ancient. For millennia, thoughtful human beings have considered their origins and offered explanations in the form of stories, sometimes in response to different explanations popular in their day. The following discussion will examine the biblical answer to this question—how the Bible presents God as Creator, destroyer, and re-creator of the earth and life. The goal is to help clarify how the biblical texts depict God's relationship with creation and to consider its implications for the contemporary debate between matters of "science" and "faith."

In the Beginning

As the book of Genesis opens, we encounter a God who sets heaven and earth in order through speech (Genesis 1:1–2:4). God speaks, and light dawns on a world of watery chaos and darkness. God sees that the light is good, separates it from the darkness, and names these newly separated entities day and night. Thus begins a six-day process of bringing order to disorder as the following appear: sky; land; vegetation; sun, moon, and stars; living creatures; and human beings, who are made in divine image. After setting limits on what may be eaten and encouraging fertility for both human and non-human creatures, God rests on the seventh day.

Juxtaposed with this cosmic account of the good earth's creation is a second story that presents a more intimate and conflicted picture (Genesis 2:4–3:24). Here, the dust of a dry and vegetation-less earth is fashioned into a single human into whom God breathes life. God plants a garden and sets limits on what Adam can eat within Eden. Creatures of land and sky are crafted from the same dry earth while Eve is crafted from Adam's rib. Thus begins an intriguing tale of deception, nakedness, blame, and punishment as Adam and Eve transgress the limits God set and, consequently, receive new boundaries in their relationship with the earth, each other, and God.

The exercise of human volition tests God's well-ordered system again as Cain grows angry over God's response to his sacrifice (Genesis 4). Abel becomes the first unfortunate victim of extreme sibling rivalry, which implicates the troubled relationship between God and Cain. Violence, once introduced into the new earth, escalates generation after generation, leading God to conclude that the good earth is populated with utterly evil-minded humans. The remedy is the destruction of all life on earth, save for a select group of human and animal life aboard a floating ark (Genesis 6–9). The ensuing deluge enables a process of re-creation as the watery chaos ends in a new command to multiply, as well as revised eating restrictions. God hangs an archer's bow in the sky and promises never to use such means of destruction again. God's covenant with Noah is depicted as the first in a series that continues the creative process: God establishes a system of divine-human relations which undergoes subsequent replacement or modification.

Knowing the Competition

The biblical stories are not the first accounts of a struggle between cosmic order and chaos in the ancient Near East. Earlier Mesopotamian stories depict a world formed out of a watery abyss, a paradisical land, humans made of clay, a special tree with a crafty serpent, as well as a great flood with a boatload of survivors. The destruction of sea monsters, creation of rivers, and appointing of sun and seasons as depicted in Psalm 74:13–17 resemble actions attributed to Marduk, the chief Babylonian deity. Yet, in the presence of these similarities are key differences. Contrary to the biblical stories, for instance, the Mesopotamian stories demonstrate keen interest in the emergence of the gods and their embattled relations, a paradisical life after the flood for the stories-heroes, and their attaining immortality. These similarities and reversals suggest that the originators of the biblical stories utilized existing themes in order to depict Israel's god as the true creator and master of the elements, which were often personified as gods in the religions of Israel's neighbors.

The biblical stories speak of origins as a means to demonstrate not only why Israel's god is worthy of worship but also why it is incumbent upon human beings to offer it. It presents an ancient cosmology that viewed the land and sky surrounded by waters. Centuries of scientific study and observation have rendered this view obsolete and prompted increased scrutiny of the biblical accounts, leading many to conclude that the texts should not be read so literally: but doing so would actually misconstrue their intent, which is religious rather than scientific. However, some remain committed to either upholding the biblical view of creation with all of its details (for example, Young Earth Creationists) or finding correspondence between what science and the Bible says (for example, some adherents of Intelligent Design).

Essentially, each approach makes a decision about how to interpret the Bible. The question that needs to be asked is, then, on what basis is it made? Whether or not one believes in the existence of a divine power obviously influences the decision, but is not necessarily the deciding factor. While the belief that the Bible is inspired and authoritative for one's faith community could underlie any of these approaches, the latter two typically hold to a stricter view of inerrancy—the belief that the Bible does not mislead or contain errors in historical details or matters of faith. For many in these circles, to deny the legitimacy of the biblical creation accounts would be to impugn God's character and undermine the veracity of the entire Bible. Yet why this is so seems to depend upon a particular understanding of how we obtain knowledge rather than the contents of the Bible itself. That is, a straightforward relationship between the text and truth is assumed that obscures the dialectical nature of the biblical texts, which often present concepts in tension with each other. Ironically, it is this same manner of reasoning that encourages some science-minded individuals to reject the Bible's message entirely since part is deemed to be in error.

The Nature of Literature

Regardless of whether one is reading a story or interpreting physical phenomena, subjectivity plays an important role. What's important to remember is that, unlike nature, literature is a human product and has standards of investigation that differ from the natural sciences. Issues of genre, the dynamics of language, and the social realities of the story's originators should inform how we read. A failure to recognize a genre could result in misreading the story. For example, when we read a parable we understand that the events described are not "true" in a historical sense but are narrated to convey, for instance, a moral lesson. Language itself presents a number of challenges to understanding a text's meaning. Words typically have a range of meanings, which can change over time, and the way words are put together into sentences can result in ambiguity that is difficult to resolve in translation (thus the variety of versions of the Bible). Besides these challenges, words may be used figuratively (as in the case of parable and poetry) or hyperbolically, which may be difficult to recognize in written form. For example, tone of voice and body language provide clues as to whether a speaker is being sarcastic or exaggerating. For stories that likely originated as oral compositions, these aspects could significantly shape meaning, yet could only be communicated through their performance. Historical realities, besides affecting origination, further affect how the stories are heard and used over time.

What factors do we use to determine that a story's message is true in its teaching rather than its details? Might the option of science or faith be a false dichotomy? What are the consequences of our interpretations? While there are some questions that neither science nor the Bible can answer, these are a few that need to be considered as the origins of life are discussed. If past history is any predictor of the future, then the question of human origins will continue to endure and stimulate new ideas.