by John H. Walton
Published in 2009 by InterVarsity Press
Summary: A debate has been raging for nearly a decade now regarding the creation of the earth and humanity. On one side is the fundamentalists who insist that the Bible is literal history and that God created the earth exactly as it is written in Genesis chapter one. The other side is that of the evolutionists who completely remove God from the equation and look exclusively to science to find creation explanations. There exists many points in between and the rhetoric has grown so loud that at times it is difficult to even formulate a decent understanding of belief regarding creation. Enter the scene Mr. Walton, not a scientist, not a fundamentalist, but a professor of Old Testament from Wheaton College who specializes in Ancient Near East Backgrounds and Hebrew.
He is more interested in what the text is trying to tell the original Hebrew audience than in trying to respond to the creation debate and he has done a marvelous job of presenting a brand new understanding of the creation account in Genesis that allows God to create via any means He wants yet is completely true to the text thus giving the fundamentalist an opportunity to adopt a literal understanding that doesn't require ridiculous scientific calisthenics trying to make the text materially true. His basic position is that Genesis one is not an account of material origins, rather it is an account of functional origins with God giving order, structure and purpose to the universe He created. He organizes the book into 18 propositions that build on each other to help us move into his argument a piece at a time. In the end he has written a profound theological book that is incredibly relevant to our modern lives but that is rooted in the culture and text of the ancients.
Review: This is a book review and not a theological review, defense or explanation, but it is hard to separate the two. First, Walton is a gifted communicator and has written a book on very difficult theological issues that is very accessible to any lay person. His format helps to move has through the argument he wants to make in an orderly, understandable way that helps us to digest each piece before we move to the next, and each piece of the argument builds upon that which has come before. He cannot help at times to use "theological" terminology, but he explains both the words and the concepts behind them. Words like teleology and disteleology which become integral to his argument, but one walks away completely understanding both the words and the concepts. He presents an argument that Genesis One is about functional origins, giving everything in the world place and purpose, working from the Hebrew text of scripture and from everything we have this far discovered about the Ancient Near Eastern culture. In the end he also evaluates some of the other theories out there to make a contrast and help us better understand the whole of the creation argument and exactly what stakes people have in it. Again, this is a book review so I will not delve into a theological evaluation, but, as a pastor, I will simply conclude with this, "I think every Christian and non-Christian who is invested in the creation argument should read this book!"
Reading Recommendation: YES, the author has written a very readable book on a complex and controversial subject that will at a minimum make you rethink why you believe what you believe, but may even challenge you to adopt a new way of thinking about the creation account!
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