[Question] So the first one: the Bible says God
created the earth in seven days.
How does the big bang theory fit into
this? [Craig] The big bang theory would be
incompatible with a literalistic
interpretation of Genesis chapter 1. An
interpretation that takes the days to be
consecutive 24-hour periods of time.
However, since the time of the church
fathers such as Augustine up until the
present century, most biblical scholars
don't adopt that sort of literalistic
interpretation of the opening chapter of
Genesis. And I say that not on the basis
of modern science but on the basis of
the text itself there are indications in
the text itself that the author didn't
intend this to be taken in a sort of
wooden literalistic way. And so someone
like Saint Augustine, for example, knew
nothing of modern cosmology or geology
but didn't take this in a literalistic
way and I think that that is correct. I
would say that there are many different
non-literal ways of construing Genesis 1
that are open to biblically faithful
Christians today and that are wholly
consistent and consonant with the data
of modern cosmology. [Questioner} So do you want to fit
that sort of story into that theory at
all? Or you just say it's poetic? [Craig] Okay now
this is a good question if I understood
your question. You asked do I want to fit in
right that cosmology into the Genesis
story, and I want to say emphatically no.
This is a hermeneutic called Concordism
where you try to read the findings of
modern science back into these ancient
texts and I think textual scholars and
interpreters of literature will say this
is an illegitimate hermeneutic,
that is say theory of interpretation.
This is the sort of interpretation that
tries to find hints of say modern
television in the Bible, tries to read
modern science back into these
narratives and that's not the way to
read ancient literature. You put yourself
within the horizon or the shoes of the
original ancient author himself and ask
how would he and his audience for whom
he wrote understand this and while I
think that the narrative, as I said, is
compatible with modern science, it's a
mistake hermeneutically to try to read
modern science back into it and so I
think we need to let these documents
stand on their own and interpret them
using the standard hermeneutical tools
for reading ancient literature.
