The creation story, told in the first chapter, is called by scholars the priestly account. It is post-exilic and, so, relatively late. The foundation consists of mythical ideas which go back to the mists of antiquity. From these were derived certain terms which are scarcely translatable into English. The reader has been further confused by a poetic and inexact rendering of many Hebrew phrases. The "spirit of God" is literally the "wind of God," an idea which probably is historically connected with the Babylonian tale of how Marduk uses the wind as his instrument in his fight against Tiamat, the monster of the deep. Tiamat has become Tehom, translated as the "deep."
In spite of the lapse in verse 26, into the language of polytheism, the priestly account represents a late theological level in which creation is conceived as the passage of will and word into existence. The effect is { 40} majestic and intensely dramatic in its simplicity. Yet how else can critical thought portray creation? An omnipotent, personal God is necessarily conceived as one who has the power to call things into being. To ask how he does this is meaningless, for it ignores the stark power which is assumed. In accordance with the genius of the Semite, then, God was pictured as a monarch whose very will brought forth without effort. But a little reflection must convince us that this conception neither makes creation thinkable in any genuine sense nor proves its occurrence. We have merely attained the idealization of the creation myth, its most perfect form.
The Christian conception of the creation rests largely upon the Hebrew account. The uncritical way in which this was studied and accepted, previous to the rise of modern science and the higher criticism, remains a marvel to those who are not acquainted with the psychology of religion. Sanctioned by religion, idealized myth naturally held its own until something positive arose to dispute it. The Church Fathers, the scholastics, and the leaders of the Reformation accepted the stories in Genesis as revelations. They believed that there was a God and that he had revealed to man what he had done and what his plan of salvation was. These myths fitted into their view of the world as an essential and harmonious ingredient of it. What motive would there be for skepticism? Luther states that "Moses is writing history and reporting things that actually happened." "God was pleased," says Calvin, "that a history of the creation should exist." Of course, no really educated man of to-day can accept this attitude unless he wishes to sin against his reason. It is { 41} unfortunate that there has not been sufficient openness of mind to make possible a wider extension of the knowledge which scholars have been accumulating. The only candid thing to do is to class these Hebrew stories of the creation with the myths which grew up in other parts of the world. All represent attempts to picture a beginning of things as they are, by appeal to a magnified and magical personal agency. Those early thinkers did the best they could do with the ideas they had at hand. They were innocent of our modern understanding of nature as a scene of impersonal, causal processes. To try to find science in mythology is like looking upon Dante's _Divine Comedy_ as a tale of real adventure.