Genesis 1 portrays God as unique among the so-called gods of the ancient world, a God who loves and intimately cares for his people. Instead of describing scientifically what happened in the beginning, Genesis 1 is telling us who God is and why he alone is worthy of trust and worship.
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” The first words of scripture are some of the most recognized and familiar words of scripture. Because we live in our modern world, we unknowingly bring a context and meaning to the text. We read Genesis 1 as an introduction to creation rather than an introduction to God’s relationship with humanity.
In doing this, we bring our own questions to the text. But these are not the same questions that the original audience would have had.
Genesis 1:1-5 If we imagine the world of the ancient Israelite, we see the questions that they would have had. We see the struggles that they would have had. And then we can read these familiar words with a fresh perspective.
Genesis 1:14-19 Notice that the Hebrew word for sun does not appear in this text. The Israelites would have been familiar with the stories of the Babylonians and the Egyptians, and the Egyptian creator God (Re) was the sun god! So Moses is correcting the old way of thinking and leading the people to the true God.
When we think about what this means to us, we don’t struggle with idolatry like ancient people did. It’s more subtle for us. We must confront the idols of our time: success, comfort/security, technology, or control, just to name a few.
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