Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 86:1 (Spring 2024)
Article: The Creation Account Of Genesis 1:1–3 Revisited
Author: Bruce K. Waltke

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The Creation Account Of Genesis 1:1–3 Revisited

Bruce K. Waltke

Bruce K. Waltke is Professor Emeritus of Biblical Studies at Regent College, Canada. He served as Professor of Old Testament at Westminster Seminary from 1985–1991. His magnum opus is his two-volume commentary on Proverbs published as part of the New International Commentary on the Old Testament.

This article defends the view that the passage “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth [i.e., the inhabitable world]” (Gen 1:1) summarizes the six-day creation narrative (Gen 1:3–31) and does not refer to an initial creation before the six-day creation, which is the traditional view; and that “the earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep” (Gen 1:2) refers to the state of the proto-earth that later “appeared” out of the waters on the second day, not to the state of the alleged initial proto-earth. This exegesis is derived from the syntax of the Hebrew text and is corroborated by an examination of Isaiah’s interpretation of Gen 1:1–2 (Isa 45:18) and by the analogous syntax of the second creation account in Gen 2:4–7. This interpretation leaves the church with the antinomy that Scripture clearly teaches that only the comprehensively sovereign God created everything and did so ex nihilo, and that Scripture does not attribute the origins of natural or moral evil to God.

I. Introduction

Contemporizing my exegesis of Gen 1:1–3 presented at the Buermann-Champion Lectures at Western Conservative Baptist Seminary in 1974,1 I argued that “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (v. 1) forms a frame with “thus the heavens and the earth were finished” (2:1) around a pericope that narrates the origin of the world as we know it (Gen 1:2–31). Genesis 1:1 looks ahead to the creation of the heavens and the earth,

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and Gen 2:1 looks back upon their creation and their host. I also argued that “the earth was וָבֹהוּ תֹהוּ tōhû wābōhû [‘a state of “desolation and emptiness�...