RECLAIMING GENESIS
By Melvin Tinker
Monarch Books. 219 pages. £8.99
ISBN 978-1-85424-997-5
This book is the latest from a gifted author with a well-deserved reputation for clear, biblical writing that informs the mind and warms the heart.
In tackling the early chapters of Genesis, Tinker’s main aim is to expound the actual text of chapters 1-12, with matters of genre and questions of science and faith front-loaded into an extended Preface entitled ‘Creation, Evolution and Genesis’. This approach certainly has the advantage of keeping the main expositions focused on the text itself (which is helpfully reprinted from the NIV at the start of each of the ten chapters of the book), although it is not without problems, as we shall see.
No questions asked
The Preface contains a useful discussion of the role of Christianity in the rise of science. Young earth creationism (although not the old earth variety) is briefly mentioned, before the author develops his preferred ‘complementarian’ approach to science and Scripture, which, in his view, entails accepting theistic evolution. It is curious that, in a 19-page discussion, no space is found for mentioning the scientific case for questioning evolution, namely intelligent design. Professor Behe’s UK lecture tour last November showed, not least in the rigorous but gracious way he responded to his many critics, that this is an issue that will not go away.
The Preface does, however, draw approvingly on John H. Walton’s controversial The Lost World of Genesis 1, as when Tinker writes: ‘In the first few verses [of Genesis] we have God not so much bringing material things into being, but bringing about order…’ (p.29, emphasis in original). Unsurprisingly, he then skips directly to quote 1.2, since 1.1 would hardly bolster the case! We are thankfully spared Walton’s re-imagining of the meaning of the Hebrew bara, but it is unfortunate that recent robust and scholarly defences of the traditional ex nihilo doctrine do not get mentioned at this point.
Looking to the gospel
The main expositions are vintage Tinker: accessible, text-based, Christ-exalting writing with a wonderful array of contemporary allusion and application. Here is a treasury of well-digested comment, a veritable mine for busy preachers. Describing Abram as a ‘nondescript Arab’ (p.210) may be anachronistic over-reach, but more representative of Tinker’s vivid style is his description of Lamech at 4.23 as ‘testosterone man, the primordial Terminator’ (p.144). Eden is a ‘royal park’ (p.71); Satan’s infamous question in 3.1b is ‘the first case of “reinterpreting” God’s Word and indeed “deconstructing” it, choosing what to believe and what to discard’ (p.88); ‘Adam discovers the treachery of the serpent; Noah discovers the treachery of the grape’ (p.183). Pressed into service are Augustine, Calvin, Pascal, Jonathan Edwards, Dostoevsky, Chesterton, and a host of modern cultural references — yet always in an appropriate manner and never just for show. There is invariably a forward look to the gospel and much practical application of the text to everyday life.
Problems
Tinker is undoubtedly correct to say (p.33) that his expositions can be read and valued whatever one’s view of the relations between creation, evolution and Genesis. But this is not to say that there are no problems with his preferred position. He is happy to describe Adam and Eve as ‘our first parents’ (p.43), yet a theistic evolution text quoted approvingly at the foot of page 18 claims that Adam and Eve were not the progenitors of the whole human race, but rather a couple of Neolithic farmers to whom God chose to reveal himself in a special way — a very different formulation.
Non-Christian enquirers would find the book’s style and approach very accessible and gospel-oriented. But they would surely expect some discussion of e.g. whether the diversity of human languages can actually be traced to the tower of Babel, as Tinker appears to accept, but which standard accounts of human history would dismiss out of hand.
What is at stake?
Let’s be clear: what is at stake goes well beyond the various theories of how to interpret the days of Genesis 1. Tinker suggests a parallel between interpreting the early chapters of Genesis (he doesn’t restrict his argument to ch.1) and the Book of Revelation, suggesting that God may expect us to read the former in the same way as he expects us to read the latter (pp.31-32), and that a ‘faithful’ reading may not be the same as a ‘literal’ one. But apocalyptic is a quite different genre to Hebrew narrative. Is this ‘literal’ vs. ‘faithful’ distinction really much different from the attempts to put a wedge between history and theology in the study of the four Gospels, which Tinker would undoubtedly reject?
Re-designating the early chapters of Genesis as ‘figurative narrative’ (p.28) may cordon them off from meaningful interaction with history and science. Whether that is a satisfactory endeavour must be open to question.
Alistair Donald,
Church of Scotland minister, Chaplain to Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh
