Today we turn to a new interpretation of Genesis chapter 1, which is called the literary

framework interpretation.

The literary framework view has been very ably explained and defended by the French

biblical scholar Henri Blochet in his book in the beginning.

According to this view, the author of Genesis is not interested in chronology.

He is not attempting to relate one day after another in a chronological

fashion. Rather, the days serve as a sort of literary framework on which he hangs his account

of creation. He wants to describe how God creates all of life, all of the world,

and he uses the framework of a week of six days as a literary structure on which to hang his account.

But he doesn't intend for this six days' on which to hang his account.

But he doesn't intend for this six-day week to be taken literally in a chronological fashion.

Now ever since the Middle Ages, commentators have noticed that there seems to be a sort of parallelism between days one

to three and days four to five.

Blochet maintains that on the first three days God creates the domain or the space for a certain thing to inhabit, and then on the second

three days, he creates the occupants of that space or domain.

So, for example, on day one, he creates day and night.

And then on day four, he creates the sun, moon, and stars.

On day two, he creates the firmament, which separates the waters above from the waters below and the birds which will fly in the sky above.

And then on day three we have the creation of the dry land as as well as the vegetation.

And parallel to that is day six in which God creates the terrestrial animals and finally man. So one and four are correlated,

two and five are correlated and three and five are correlated, and three and six are correlated.

Notice that on days three and six you also have a parallel in that you have a double

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