Genesis Creation Accounts (AQA GCSE Religious Studies B): Revision Note

The literary type of the Genesis accounts

• The Catholic Church teaches that the two Genesis accounts of creation in the Bible should not be interpreted literally

• It accepts that they come from a time when myths were common and that they reflect the time in which they were written

  • Genesis 2 was probably written around 950–900 BCE, and Genesis 1 was a poem written around 400 BCE. But spoken (oral) versions of both would have existed long before that time

• Both accounts can be seen as myths, and they should not be read literally

• However, Christians believe that they contain deep spiritual truths about the role of God in Creation

• Catholics believe these truths are:

  • God created everything

  • Everything that God made was good

  • Humans are the pinnacle of God’s creation, made in the “image” of God

• The Church teaches that when people interpret these texts today, they must look at the deeper truths that the writers intended to convey:

• Because Catholics do not need to interpret the Genesis accounts literally, they are free to accept scientific accounts about how the world came into existence, such as the Big Bang theory and the theory of evolution

• Pope Francis explained this in 2014, saying:

Different Christian understandings of the Genesis accounts

• Not all Christians interpret the Genesis Creation stories in the same way

• Fundamentalist Christians interpret the Bible more literally

  • The Bible is the divinely inspired Word of God and therefore must be accurate in all ways

• Fundamentalists would argue that the Genesis Creation account is a factual account of what happened and that it should be taken at face value

• The world and everything in it were literally created in six days, as Genesis 1 describes

  • This rules out the theory of evolution

• Some would also say that the world is much younger than scientists claim

  • They might agree with Archbishop Ussher, who worked out in the seventeenth century that the Earth was created on 23rd October 4004 BCE 

  • This means that they believe the Earth is just over 6,000 years old

• Fundamentalist Christians have different interpretations of the Creation accounts

  • Some would say that the Earth is older than Ussher claimed but would still say that the Earth was made in six days

  • Others would say that the word “day” did not mean a 24-hour period but a longer period of time

    • This means they believe that the world was created in six “time periods” and in the same order described in Genesis 1

  • Some people accept the Big Bang theory, as Genesis 1 starts with God’s first command: “Let there be light”

    • They do not agree with evolution, as Genesis 2 shows that God made humans separately from animals, rather than humans evolving from animals

• Catholics would say that those who take the Genesis stories literally and call scientists wrong are making a “category mistake”

  • This means they are reading the texts in the wrong way, seeing poetry and myth as factual, historical accounts