Old Testament scholar and author John Walton (Old Testament Professor at Wheaten and author of Zondervan’s NIV Application Commentary on Genesis) offers some important reminders with regard to how we should approach a reading of the book of Genesis. First and foremost, says Walton, we have to approach Genesis for what it is, which is an ancient text. Therefore, we must interpret it through a lens of what we know of the Ancient Near East and attempt to ask the questions the original author(s) would have been asking.
Here’s a video with Dr. Walton explaining these very matters:
Related to the above video, John Walton discusses the content of Genesis 1 and how it should be read. The account in Genesis is not intended to be an account of material origins, says Walton. Therefore, if that is so, the Bible has no narrative of material origins—and if that is so, we don't need to defend the Bible's narrative of material origins against science's narrative of material origins. I think it’s imperative that we ask contextual questions about what the original authors would have been trying to convey through the text of Genesis ch.1 and not laying on the text questions it wasn’t meant to answer (e.g., creationism vs. evolution, literal or non-literal, etc.).
Check out what Professor Walton has to say:
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