{"id":5498,"date":"2009-08-07T12:20:47","date_gmt":"2009-08-07T12:20:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2009\/08\/genesis-one-3.html"},"modified":"2009-08-07T12:20:47","modified_gmt":"2009-08-07T12:20:47","slug":"genesis-one-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/08\/genesis-one-3.html","title":{"rendered":"Genesis One 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Walton.jpg\"<\/span>We are in a conversation and discussion about John Walton’s (professor at Wheaton) new book, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate<\/a><\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

(By the way, if you’d like a wonderful and God-shaped exposition of Genesis 1-3, I suggest the brand new book by Marva Dawn called In the Beginning, God: Creation, Culture, and the Spiritual Life<\/a>\"\"
\n<\/strong><\/em>.) Now back to John Walton …<\/p>\n

Proposition 3: “Create” concerns functions.<\/p>\n

We return now to the question we also asked Wednesday: What does the word “create” mean? Does it mean “bring something into material existence” or does it mean “give something a function in an ordered world”?<\/p>\n

<\/b>Chp 3 examines what the Hebrew word bara<\/i> (“create” — Genesis 1:1) means. Walton examines the meaning of the word bara<\/i> in the Bible and comes to these two conclusions: <\/p>\n


\n
1. The Subject of bara<\/i> is always God: creating, then, is a divine activity and only a divine activity.<\/p>\n

2. The Object of bara<\/i> is never unambiguously material reality but probably only and always functional reality. “No materials for the creative act are ever mentioned, and an investigation of all the passages [in the Bible] … substantiate that claim” (43).<\/p>\n

3. The idea then that “create” means creatio ex nihilo<\/i>, creation out of nothing, is imposed on the Bible from a materialistic ontology. The Bible isn’t, Walton argues, talking about material ontology but about a functional ontology.<\/p>\n

4. “In the Beginning” (Genesis 1:1) refers to the 7-day period of creation in Genesis 1:2ff.<\/p>\n

His translation: “In the initial period, God created by assigning functions throughout the heavens and the earth, and this is how he did it” (46).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are in a conversation and discussion about John Walton’s (professor at Wheaton) new book, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate. (By the way, if you’d like a wonderful and God-shaped exposition of Genesis 1-3, I suggest the brand new book by Marva Dawn called In the Beginning, God:…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science-and-faith"],"yoast_head":"\nGenesis One 3 - Jesus Creed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/08\/genesis-one-3.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Genesis One 3 - Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We are in a conversation and discussion about John Walton’s (professor at Wheaton) new book, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate. 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