The Seven Days

Introduction

This is not the book I expected to write. I always enjoyed putting my thoughts on paper and often felt there was a book in me. Academic essays, the occasional article for a community magazine, a short story for a grandniece’s birthday, the attempted mystery novel: These sporadic efforts to be an author kept a small flame alight through the years.

This small flame burst into a consuming fire when I asked a question that only occurred to me in late adulthood. I have read the Bible for most of my adult life, yet I was rarely able to locate a particular book without consulting the table of contents. The placement of various books did not make sense to me. Since the Bible is composed of many different types of literature, I just presumed that the Bible’s structure had evolved throughout the ages. What is written there is what is important, not where it is located. I accepted this premise until I thought to ask, if “all scripture is God-breathed”(2 Tm 3:16) and the entire Bible is the Holy Book of scripture, then wouldn’t the Bible’s structure also be inspired by God?

After decades of study, church leaders concur that the Bible is one complete, coherent story and are teaching it as such. To help facilitate this perspective of one coherent story, there are books now that provide a strictly chronological reading of the Bible.

However, a unified story of any merit demands a well-crafted underlying framework that supports the story’s cohesive narration. So, if the Bible is one overarching story, then its peculiar structure should support reading it as such, without alteration. With this in mind, I decided to read my Bible using the literary analysis method of correlating sense and structure.

The opening story of Genesis is a cosmology—a creation account of the origin of the heavens and the earth. The first chapter of the Bible is the only one of its kind in 1,189 chapters of the entire sixty-six-book canon. Its uniqueness sets it apart from the rest. Yet in any well-crafted literary work, the major themes to be developed throughout are subtly woven in its opening pages. From this underpinning, the rest of the story unfolds without loss of concept, building to the final pages, where it culminates in a cogent, satisfying conclusion. Rather than a unique, stand-alone account, could this first story of creation instead be the key to the structural organization of the entire biblical story line?

I found I could not decipher any connecting themes if I read the cosmology as a single, unified story. Consequently, I deconstructed it into seven component parts, seven days. I then further separated each day from the others and looked at only that day’s content. Each day’s content is comprised of two elements: the subject matter and the number associated with it. Once both features of each day were analyzed, they brought forth a twofold revelation: a unique theme and the means by which to track it through the entire Bible. Therefore, I approached the seven-day cosmology of Genesis not as a separate stand-alone account but as a set of seven keys to unlock thematic information that would reveal the unifying logic behind the structure of the Bible.

Day One

The first day is quite naturally the beginning, and its associated number is one. One is the beginning number. There can be no other number without one. How can there be two unless there is one? When there is zero, there is nothing to count. There is nothing before, and everything after originates with one. In all languages, the number one means unity and primacy. Therefore, one is the number that symbolizes the unity and primacy of God, the Creator of all.

“Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light” (Gn 1:3 NKJV). In the Hebrew, the first spoken word of God translates into a two-word command: “Be light.” Light is; nothing can be added to or subtracted from its description. Thus, it can be considered perfect. By calling forth light that is, light that is perfect, God announces himself[1] the first time he speaks.

By announcing himself, God makes himself known. He must want to be known, for there was no reason for God to call forth the being of light otherwise. One is complete in itself. Being complete in oneself, what would be the reason for being known? To what purpose would God be known? He would not want to be known in order to be just robotically acknowledged. How would that be any different from not being known?

Calling forth light is, therefore, God’s call for relationship—between the known and the knower. This relationship of knowing God benefits only the knower, for God is complete in himself. The knower, in knowing God, does not change anything for God. By definition, God cannot be added to or subtracted from. However, the knower benefits beyond imagining in this relationship. The knower is given not only life but also reason, for how else can God be known?

This is an act of perfect love, for only love desires to do something that would benefit only the recipient. We exist because God loves us—freely and without any merit on our part. Therefore, by deciphering the elements of day one, we can now know the essence of God’s nature. “God is love” (1 Jn 4:16 NASB). And love by its very existence is expressed to others. Consequently, our relationship with God is based entirely on his unmerited favor, or grace, for us.

[1] Hebrew is a binary grammatical language. All nouns are grammatically either masculine or feminine. The Hebrew Bible uses the masculine pronoun since the noun for the name of God is masculine. Therefore, in keeping with Hebrew tradition, the masculine pronouns are used when referring to God in this text.