The Lost World of Genesis One by John H. Walton: introduction

I have recently read The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate, by John H. Walton. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2009. I hope to post on the book several times over the next few weeks. (Walton has a Wikipedia page, but the information on it is minimal. It does say that Walton is a professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College.

So what does the book have to say? In summary, Walton makes a bold claim. He claims that the creation account in Genesis 1 was not understood, by contemporary listeners or readers, as being about making things, but that it was about arranging things so that various entities had a function within a created world. How is that possible? After all, the words used speak of creation, and doesn't creation mean making things? Walton says that that's what it means to us, in the 21st century, but it's not what it meant to the ancient world. (He says clearly that God can, and did, make things, in the way that we mean it.)

How is this possible? See here for a Biblical example of how our understanding is not the same as that of people in Biblical times.

Walton is an expert in creation myths from Near East cultures. That doesn't mean that he believes Genesis 1 is a myth. But he uses his knowledge to shed light on the way people thought at about the time Genesis was written. I hope to set forth what Walton thinks they thought -- what he thinks Genesis 1 and 2 meant to the people who first heard and read them.

Thanks for reading.