Imagine a young man in his late teen years. He has recently moved to the city to go to school. In the course of his study, he becomes convinced that Genesis 1 is no longer consistent with the most sophisticated intellectual trends of the day. He rejects the Christian faith in which he was raised,…

On and off between the years 1542-1563, Calvin wrestled with and returned to Genesis; his commentaries have been known and loved ever since, especially in the English-speaking world. They remain a well-worn resource for preachers and teachers, with Genesis not the least within the Canon. The Calvin Studies Society translations are widely available. Calvin’s sermons are…

Martin Luther, so the conventional wisdom says, was a “Pauline” theologian, the doctor of justification by grace through faith alone. It comes as something of a surprise, then, to learn that his work as professor of Bible was not centered in Paul, nor even in the New Testament. Instead, he lectured mostly on the Old…

In a well-known passage from his Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, Thomas Aquinas makes a distinction between two different kinds of doctrine, each of which “pertain to the faith” in different ways. First, there are doctrines that constitute “the substance of the faith in itself” (per se substantia fidei); second, there are doctrines…

St. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio (c. 1217–1274) placed a high value on the doctrine of creation, as is manifest in his several discussions of the doctrine throughout his career. Getting clear on creation, Bonaventure believed, entailed not only knowing the creature better, but also knowing the creature in terms of the Creator. Higher still is the…

Learning from missteps is often just as important as having exemplars to emulate. The Venerable Bede offers contemporary readers some of both when it comes to interpreting Genesis 1. Relatively little is known about Bede’s life in Northrumbia at the Wearmouth-Jarrow monastery; we don’t even have a monastic rule from Bede’s time. While some have…

Genesis 2:7 states, “Then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” But what does “the breath of life” refer to? Is it the Holy Spirit? Is it a life force? Is it a human soul?…

Augustine (A.D. 354-430), the “Doctor of Grace” from north Africa, is arguably the most significant theologian in the Western tradition. He had once been a Manichee, during which time he would have affirmed a kind of good vs. evil dualism, as well as seeing matter as evil, and seeing creation as an act of necessity….

Basil is finding a new level of popularity in young-earth creationist (YEC) writings, and no wonder. He explicitly turns away from the allegorical approach that led Origen and later Augustine to embrace instantaneous creation, and professes a literalism in his Homilies on the Hexaemeron that seems to spare Genesis 1 from the sorts of interpretive…

Modern readers typically view the Genesis creation narratives through the lens of science. Does the text confirm or contradict contemporary scientific accounts of the origin of life? If the former, the reader attempts to demonstrate their congruence; if the latter, the reader either rejects the prevailing scientific consensus or rejects the veracity of scripture, at…

Irenaeus did not author a commentary on Genesis, as did other early Christian thinkers. Nor did he write as much about the creative activity of God as other early theologians. But no early Christian used creation to such advantage as Irenaeus of Lyons. To appreciate what Irenaeus made of the creative activity of God it…

As a member of my church’s education committee, I share the duty of planning and organizing the topics and teachers for the various adult Bible classes. All adult classes work through the same biblical books, and we are used to kicking around names of potential teachers within the congregation and then assigning them to a…