Genesis isn't Literal... it's a Meme!
How Bugs Bunny helps us see what we miss when we read the creation story of Genesis 1
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” So opens Genesis, the first book in the Bible. It feels appropriate that the Bible opens with a story of creation - so appropriate that generations of Christians have insisted this account - God creating the world through speech alone, over the course of seven days - is literal.
With the advent of the scientific method, a strictly literal interpretation of Genesis 1 (and more broadly 1-11, which is all a cohesive literary unit) has become increasingly difficult to maintain. Not that this is a new problem, exactly (stares in Galileo). Some groups - like Answers in Genesis, who is behind the $120 million+ Creation Museum and Ark in Kentucky - spin increasingly bizarre pseudo-scientific theories that work to harmonize scientific theories and discoveries with a literal reading of Genesis.1
But rejecting a literal reading of Genesis isn’t new - plenty in the history of the church have read Genesis as something other than a literal account of the origins of the earth. Lots of pastors, theologians and church leaders throughout history have read Genesis not literally but literarily - that is, according to the genre it is.
Genesis 1 is a beautiful, powerful text. It’s a poetic middle finger to the forces of colonization and death, an affirmation of the innate dignity and worth of every human life. How do we know? Well… fortunately we have Bugs Bunny.
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