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This is the commentary on Genesis 1 from The Pulpit Commentary. I thought it gave an interesting perspective.
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That this initial section is not history is apparent from the circumstance that the occurrences it describes belong to a period of time which antedates the dawn of history. That it is not science is evinced by the fact that, in some, at least, of its particulars, it refers to a condition of our globe concerning which even modern research has attained to no definite conclusions, which in all of them it claims to be regarded not as uttering the findings of reason, but as declaring the course of nature. That still less can it be myth must be obvious to any who will carefully contrast it with those heathen cosmogonies which it is said to resemble. Only the most absolute devotion to preconceived opinion can render one oblivious of its immense superiority to them in respect of both simplicity of construction and sublimity of conception. The absurdities, puerilities, and monstrosities that about in them are conspicuously absent from it. It along ascends to the idea of a creation ex nihilo, and of a supreme Intelligence by whom that creation is effected. Unlike them, it is destitute of either local colouring or national peculiarity, being no more Jewish than it is Assyrian or Indian, Persian or Egyptian. The inspired original, of which heathen creation-stories are the corrupted traditions, it may be ; impartial reason and honest criticism alike forbid its relegation to a common category with them. Since, then, it is neither history, nor science, nor mythology, it must be REVELATION ; unless indeed it be regarded as either "the recorded intuition of the first man, handed down by tradition," a theory successfully demonstrated by Kurtz to be altogether inadequate, or the inductive speculation of some primitive cosmogonist, a solution of its genesis scarcely less satisfactory. To characterize it as a pious fraud, of post-Mosaic origin, written to uphold the Jewish week cycle and the institution of the Jewish sabbath, is not only to negative its inspiration, but to invalidate the Divine authority of the whole book, to which it serves as an introduction. Happily its inspiration is a much less violent supposition than its invention, and one which is susceptible of almost perfect demonstration. Rightly viewed, its inspiration is involved in the simpler question of its truthfulness. If the Mosaic cosmogony is true, it can only have been given by inspiration ; and that it is true may be said to be, with rapidly augmenting emphasis, the verdict of science.
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Emphasis original
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That this initial section is not history is apparent from the circumstance that the occurrences it describes belong to a period of time which antedates the dawn of history. That it is not science is evinced by the fact that, in some, at least, of its particulars, it refers to a condition of our globe concerning which even modern research has attained to no definite conclusions, which in all of them it claims to be regarded not as uttering the findings of reason, but as declaring the course of nature. That still less can it be myth must be obvious to any who will carefully contrast it with those heathen cosmogonies which it is said to resemble. Only the most absolute devotion to preconceived opinion can render one oblivious of its immense superiority to them in respect of both simplicity of construction and sublimity of conception. The absurdities, puerilities, and monstrosities that about in them are conspicuously absent from it. It along ascends to the idea of a creation ex nihilo, and of a supreme Intelligence by whom that creation is effected. Unlike them, it is destitute of either local colouring or national peculiarity, being no more Jewish than it is Assyrian or Indian, Persian or Egyptian. The inspired original, of which heathen creation-stories are the corrupted traditions, it may be ; impartial reason and honest criticism alike forbid its relegation to a common category with them. Since, then, it is neither history, nor science, nor mythology, it must be REVELATION ; unless indeed it be regarded as either "the recorded intuition of the first man, handed down by tradition," a theory successfully demonstrated by Kurtz to be altogether inadequate, or the inductive speculation of some primitive cosmogonist, a solution of its genesis scarcely less satisfactory. To characterize it as a pious fraud, of post-Mosaic origin, written to uphold the Jewish week cycle and the institution of the Jewish sabbath, is not only to negative its inspiration, but to invalidate the Divine authority of the whole book, to which it serves as an introduction. Happily its inspiration is a much less violent supposition than its invention, and one which is susceptible of almost perfect demonstration. Rightly viewed, its inspiration is involved in the simpler question of its truthfulness. If the Mosaic cosmogony is true, it can only have been given by inspiration ; and that it is true may be said to be, with rapidly augmenting emphasis, the verdict of science.
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Emphasis original
