1
Introduction
How We Got Here

The Lost World of Genesis One appeared in 2009. Many of the ideas there had already been introduced earlier in my commentary on Genesis.1 Two years later, a full academic monograph, Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology, was published to fill in the details for a scholarly audience. Two other Lost World books pertaining to Genesis then followed, The Lost World of Adam and Eve (2014) and The Lost World of the Flood (2018).

For the story of how the ideas took shape, however, we have to begin a couple of decades earlier. I was raised in a family where the Bible mattered. My four siblings and I learned biblical content early and well. Our context was nondenominational, traditional, and evangelical, and therefore passively young-earth creationists (though others in that same context would have been more militant on that count). No other options besides a young earth were considered, but it was not a big issue. That continued to be my default position even through much of my time teaching at Moody Bible Institute (1981-2001). Nevertheless, alternative ideas were subtly taking shape in my mind.

As early as my master's work (Wheaton College, 1975), I had taken an interest in Genesis as I began to learn Hebrew and study the Old Testament academically. When I got into my doctoral program (Hebrew Union College, 1976-1981), I began to understand the untapped significance provided by interacting with the cultures and literature of the ancient world. I studied Akkadian, Ugaritic, and Aramaic, and translated texts as well as studying the history and culture. As I did so, the cognitive environment of the ancient world unfolded. I was particularly interested in comparative studies that brought an understanding of the ancient world alongside the Old Testament to unpack cultural ideas inherent in the text. This led to my decision to do my dissertation on the Tower of Babel. In that work, I first began to combine a close, fresh reading of the Hebrew text with an exploration into the world of the ancient Near East. I investigated what type of tower this was, how such towers functioned, and what they stood for. I also researched what it meant to "make a name" in the Bible particularly and in the ancient Near East in general.2

It was never my intention nor inclination to suggest that the biblical authors borrowed and adapted literature from Babylon or Egypt (though many working in comparative studies have those preconceptions). I was more intrigued by the light that the literature shed on how people in the ancient world thought differently from us in so many ways. Besides issues of general comparison, I also wanted to interact with ancient Near Eastern background information as I performed exegetical analysis on particular passages such as the Tower of Babel to see what additional insight our knowledge of the ancient world could provide.

When I began teaching at Moody Bible Institute, I regularly taught a book-study course in Genesis. When asked, I used to tell my classes that I held an "uncomfortable young-earth position." Young earth had been my default position since childhood, and I had read widely about other alternatives. I found proposals such as the gap theory or the day-age theory to be inconsistent with the grammar and syntax of the Hebrew text.3 So I remained in the young-earth camp because I could not see another option that would preserve what I considered essential to the demands of biblical authority. If I were to stretch the language in the ways required by those views, I would no longer be tracking with the authors of Scripture. Even so, I described myself as uncomfortable with the position because all the research and reading that I had done in Genesis and in the ancient Near East increasingly gave me an unsettled feeling. I became convinced that I was missing something important, but I could not put my finger on it. I struggled to put all the pieces together-careful reading of Hebrew, ancient Near Eastern perspective, and commitment to biblical authority-and I just could not work it out. Were questions about the age of the earth tracking with the authors of Scripture? That seemed dubious to me, but I could not identify an alternative path.

During those years at Moody, I also used to take my fourth-semester Hebrew students through Genesis 1, and that is the context in which all the pieces finally fell into place for me. It actually happened during a class session. I was putting them through their paces in the Hebrew text and had posed my typical set of questions. I pointed out to them that the seven days of creation began with elements such as earth and water already there (Gen 1:2). We talked about the fact that as the days began, the activities focused on issues such as time (day and night) and fecundity (sprouting of plants)-not on things such as terraforming mountains and lakes. I finally asked aloud the very simple, yet complexly significant question, "What kind of creation account is this, anyway?" And the shoe dropped. All the pieces that I had been working with over decades of study fell into place. I had finally framed the right question, and we cannot get good answers if we are not asking the right questions.

In a lecture in 1856, Louis Pasteur was talking about how discovery works, in light of the fact that so often it looks like it happened suddenly, by accident-by chance. He proposed, "In the fields of observation, chance favors the mind that is prepared." Decades of preparation had led up to that moment in Genesis class, and very suddenly, a new approach became not only possible but almost obvious and inevitable. My modern context and my presuppositions had prevented me from recognizing that there were other ways to think about creation and that those needed to be explored. The rest of the class period (not to mention the rest of my life) was spent unpacking the new approach opened up by new questions.4

As the publications began appearing, I was increasingly asked to speak on these topics. By now I have given presentations hundreds of times, from classes at Wheaton to lectures on both Christian and secular campuses across the country, from churches and pastors' conferences to academic conventions, from lectures in dozens of countries around the world to over a hundred podcasts and radio interviews. The books have additionally been translated into a number of other languages.

It has been a great privilege to have these opportunities, but perhaps one of the most important benefits is that as I have strived to communicate new ideas clearly and have interacted with audiences (whether friendly, nervous, confused, or even passively hostile), I have learned. I have found that some terminology was not as clear as it needed to be, so I have chosen alternatives. I have figured out what aspects of the presentation needed to be addressed at the beginning and how to approach some of the more controversial issues, anticipating the struggles my audiences will be experiencing. I have gotten better at packaging challenging ideas in ways that people can receive them. I have heard just about every question imaginable and have found that there is some consistency to them.

I also continue to learn how important tone is. I have never been a confrontational person; I am not an in-your-face debater who is going to take down the other position. I want to understand where people are coming from that may lead them to disagree with me. I understand the young-earth position (since I was raised that way) and respect that those who hold it feel they are defending the integrity of Scripture. I do not want to dampen that passion. Occasionally those passions turn into anger, and I have learned that the angrier an antagonist gets, the more gentle and conciliatory I need to be. Hostility is best met with graciousness, which is not always easy. I have tried to find ways to express that I am still learning and growing and that there is still much that continuing scholarship can contribute to broaden and widen our understanding of the Genesis account. A refrain that I often repeat is that it is not my intention to present the "right" answer and to expect everyone to adopt my conclusions. Instead, my job is to be a faithful interpreter and to put information on the table that others may not have so that they can make more informed decisions. I have learned that even when I have heard a question dozens of times, I need to listen carefully to the way it is posed to try to understand what concerns the questioner has.

People sometimes get concerned that if interpretation requires a technical level of information, that it makes the Bible inaccessible to them. I have heard the complaint that the need for linguistic, literary, and especially cultural information effectually takes the Bible out of their hands and makes them dependent on specialists.5 The fact is, however, that we depend on specialists all the time for information that is important to us. Andrew Brown makes the point convincingly:

Now I defend the right of the thinking person to be a self-starter in any area of knowledge and not wait humbly at the gate to be invited in and shown around. We cannot remain at the mercy of the academic elite. But when I suspect something is wrong with my car, I could prop up the hood and, with my limited insight into automotive engineering, begin to unplug anything that looks plugged in, clean anything that looks dirty, and pour some liquid into any convenient-looking opening. It would be better to open a service manual for the car...