VideoSimon Smart talks to John Walton, Professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College and author of The Lost World of Genesis One, about the importance of reading the first chapter of Genesis in its original context to help us see what it is, and isn’t, teaching us.
This is a short segment from a longer interview. To watch the full interview, click here.
Transcript
SIMON SMART: One final question: what gets you excited to get out of bed and delve into these ancient texts?
JOHN WALTON: What gets me very excited is the opportunity that I have to offer people new ways of thinking that can help them find their way. There’s a lot of people that lose their faith over thinking about science and Scripture – they’re convinced by some of the claims of science, they’ve been told that they can’t hold that view of science or else they have to throw away their faith, and far too many decide to throw away their faith. I’m presenting options and information that says – no, there’s an awful lot of room to consider seriously what science is suggesting, and it doesn’t involve throwing away your faith. If we could be more careful readers of Genesis 1, closer students of what the text is doing and how it’s doing it, we’ll find that there’s not nearly as much conflict as we might have thought.