Creation (Genesis 1)

The account in Genesis 1 describes the creation of the universe and specifically Earth, by God. A large debate among Christian circles is whether or not the account should be taken literal or figuratively. As we will see the science and for that matter logic does not support a literal interpretation of the Genesis 1 creation account. So let us dive into the text:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Off the bat, we have the creation of the universe.

Beginning. The Hebrew translation of this word literally means "at the head" but lacks a definite article. So this phrase does not HAVE to mean a literal, finite beginning. This beginning can be from any point in time, when does not matter. What matters in the text was not what preceded this beginning but what happened after this point. God (Elohim) created the heavens and the earth. The focus of this one passage is on God creating the heavens and the earth. Why does this matter? Because in the swirl of creationism vs science many creationists suppose that since there was a beginning as said in the Bible, they use the divine causation argument to support their pseudo-science. This is clearly not true from the text. The text mentions a beginning, but no time reference as to what beginning this was. There could have been 15 other beginnings before the one mentioned in Genesis 1:1, but those do not concern the reader of the text. What does concern the reader of the text is "God created the heavens and the earth."

Created. The Hebrew for this word is bara and it always associated with God. Only God can bara something. This is an ambiguous phrase in Hebrew, but we know it means creation of some kind. Several possible meanings are "God willed something to be" "God spoke something to be" God called something to be" etc. However, the emphasis is not on "God created", but rather on what God created. The text gives us the phrase heaven and earth. This phrase in Hebrew is a generic phrase that means "everything."

So already in just one verse we have "In some specific beginning, Elohim bara(God specific creation) everything. Okay creation passage done, let's wrap that up and move to Genesis 2. Kidding, but many scholars including early church fathers believed this verse described the creation account. Specifically Augustine of Hippo disagreed with a literal interpretation of Genesis 1:1 and held that all of creation occurred in an instant. Of course Augustine who lived in a world not graced with the science of today was wrong and that creation did not occur in an instant, much less 6 days. But you may ask, what's the point of the rest of Genesis 1? and I'll do my best to explain.

First, read the text. I won't bore you with a wall of the creation account and you can follow the hyperlink provided above.

But we find that God had 6 days where he did something and on the 7th day God rested. After each day, God also proclaimed that his creation was good. Aside from the parallels with other creation accounts in other cultures which I shall attempt to address later, the text is very poetic. To demonstrate I shall make a makeshift chart.

Day 1 Creates Light and Dark | Day 4 Creates Sun, Moon, stars
Day 2 Creates Sky and Seas | Day 5 Creates Birds and Aquatic animals
Day 3 Creates Earth and Plants | Day 6 Creates Terrestrial animals and Humans.

Day 7 Rest

The paralleling text is rather interesting and one of the further notes as to why it is a figurative creation account rather than literal. First of all, God creates light and dark 3 days before the illumination bodies filled the sky. What's up with that? Literally that cannot be true; it's illogical. But if we read this has a figurative piece we get a theme out of the account. God creates a plan which is "good" and God fulfills the plan which is "good." Day 1-3 are seen as the structure days where God creates something that he plans to fill with something else. He creates light and dark on Day 1. Day 4 he creates the sun for the light and the moon and stars for the dark, thus day and night are born. Day 2 He separates the waters above (the sky) from the waters below (the seas). Day 5 God fills both these with Birds for the sky and aquatic animals for the seas. Day 3 God lifts the land from the depths below and allows vegetation to grow on it. This land and vegetation is for the terrestrial animals and humans. God creates a plan, God fills a plan. The day of rest signifies an end to the account.

Now, I am going to back up a second. After Genesis 1:1 and before Creation, Genesis reads "and the earth was void and without form" So much for the Intelligent Design notion. If God created the earth in Genesis 1:1 than He created it flawed for it was void (empty) and had no definite shape. Science explains to us the formation of the earth, the development of inorganic material which in turn gave rise to carbon-based chemicals which in turn gave rise to organic material. Genesis does not even come close to accurately describing the science. So there are several conclusions one can make.

The first conclusion is that Genesis is irrelevant and wrong, therefore, not to be taken seriously. One can reach that conclusion, especially if belief in God is not present there is no need to take Genesis has important. Fair enough. But the point of this isn't to attack Genesis, but rather support or clarify the text. I do not think that Genesis is irrelevant in the slightest for it gives an insight into the Old Testament and therefore an insight into Theology. The second conclusion is that Genesis missed the mark when it came to science. After all, the author(s) of Genesis clearly were not men of science, or at least modern science, and when writing the text human error can in fact take place. Yes, but that assumes a literal reading of the text was what was intended by the authors. Due to the literary technique of the writing of Genesis 1, the odds of it being history seems far fetched as it does not have the same diction or syntax used in later history books of Israel. So we come to a third conclusion: the text has a purpose and context which transcends the actual Creation account.

I have already explained how the Creation account has a theme of God creating a plan and God fulfilling that plan. This is a good theme, but why bother writing it like it is? Literary poetry, felt like it, show how poetic "creation" was, etc are all valid explanations, but the one I think I'll stick with is context of the authorship. Conservative biblical scholars believe that Moses wrote the Pentateuch. Most scholars believe Genesis was written over time sometime during the Babylonian captivity.

Mosaic authorship: If Moses was the author of Genesis than the purpose of the book would be 1) To explain who God is 2) What God has done 3) Display God as sovereign over the false gods of surrounding nations and 4) Establish a basic history that the Hebrew people coming out of Egypt would know. The story of Creation, Adam and Eve, Noah's Flood and Babel, all have parallels with other cultures mythologies. Likewise, some of the stories involving Abraham, Issac, and Jacob also have some relations to stories from other nations. This suggests that some blending of stories passed down orally from generation to generation. If Moses chronicled Genesis during the wilderness period than these stories taken from accounts from the people he talked to would have been considered historical Patriarchs. The account of creation, adam and eve, noah's flood and tower of babel, may not need to be taken literally since they were most likely not stories that were passed down but seem to have been created by Moses himself to explain various themes. The Patriarchs however would have been regarded as historical.

Documentary Hypothesis authorship: The documentary hypothesis stipulates that during different eras of Israel's history, the text of Genesis was added to, edited and/or deleted from. If this was the case the purpose of the text would be completely allegorical and not historical. Creation, Adam and Eve, Noah's Flood, and Babel would all be thematic of some attribute to God and the Patriarch's would be considered folklore (either true with major embellishments, or not true to tell a story).

In my opinion, either authorship works in the Genesis 1 study because neither require the text to be read literally. In both cases, the authorship suggests that the creation account was meant to show the characteristics of God in a way that would be familiar with the people. Also remember, Israel was called to be a holy nation (Exodus 19:6). If this was the case then they would desire to have their own story of creation. This does not mean they believed the account to be literal, but rather had one so the average Israelite would be complacent and not tempted to go worship Baal because the Canaanite creation account was so much better.

Furthermore, the creation account even though it has similarities too other cultures' creation myths is rather unique. It states that God created everything. In other mid-eastern myths the earth was already there and seems to match the Genesis 1:2 description that it was void and formless, and the all-father/mother deity would do some magic and the earth would have form and be filled with things. Usually the deity would create or breed with the earth to create other Gods. The Genesis 1 creation story is unique in that God is already proclaimed sovereign over everything. There is no Earthmother that God would breed with to create things or other gods. In keeping with authorship context, Genesis 1 would have been this way to show the Israelites, God's sovereignty. Added with the literary analysis of plan being created and plan being fulfilled, one can assume that Genesis 1 was clearly not meant to be read literally, but rather dealt with various themes relating to God.

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The purpose of this commentary is for fun debate, and discussion. Not for any serious biblical scholarship. Although I consider myself learned, I am no credible scholar and so the information above may or may not be accurate. This is why in part I want to have a discussion relating with this issue.

Furthermore, I hope to do more commentaries on Bible passages such as this one. If anyone has a request for a commentary on a specific story in the Bible PM me and I will write one.

Until then

Willhud9

Good post, Willhud! For myself, I don't think Genesis was either literal or metaphorical. (I've always wondered what exactly Genesis was supposed to be a metaphor for?) I agree it uses figurative language, though: I think few ancient Jewish and Christian scholars took "6 days" to mean 6 24-hour days.

I think what you highlighted is correct: the Genesis account would have been in stark contrast to the creation myths in Europe at that time. In Genesis, the sun, moon and stars are created objects, whereas in most other myths these would have been considered gods. So the Genesis account would have cut under such pagan beliefs, making religious assimilation difficult. Why give offerings to the sun if it is just an object? etc.

willhud9 wrote:Creation (Genesis 1)

The account in Genesis 1 describes the creation of the universe and specifically Earth, by God. A large debate among Christian circles is whether or not the account should be taken literal or figuratively. As we will see the science and for that matter logic does not support a literal interpretation of the Genesis 1 creation account. So let us dive into the text:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Off the bat, we have the creation of the universe.

Beginning. The Hebrew translation of this word literally means "at the head" but lacks a definite article. So this phrase does not HAVE to mean a literal, finite beginning.

Actually "head" and "beginning" both are what this word means. It's not typologically uncommon for words in languages to mean both: in a sense, the head is the beginning of the body (counting upwards). Claiming that it "literally" means "at the head" is going a bit far, really. A Hebrew speaker of the time the text was written probably would have understood it relatively literally. (However, I would like to find a discussion of Rashi's translation: "at the beginning of God's creating the heavens and earth, ...", I am not entirely sure whether he assumed the text had been wrongly vocalized by the masoretes or whatever reasoning he used.) (Note: I natively speak one language that does conflate head and beginning and end!)

willhud9 wrote:This phrase in Hebrew is a generic phrase that means "everything."

I would seriously ask for a source on such a claim. It does sound like a rather natural generic phrase for "everything", but it also sounds like something that does need some backing up.

The paralleling text is rather interesting and one of the further notes as to why it is a figurative creation account rather than literal. First of all, God creates light and dark 3 days before the illumination bodies filled the sky. What's up with that?Literally that cannot be true; it's illogical.

Light did exist previously to stars in the Big Bang model as well, so ... no, it's not illogical. Of course, by the models people had back in those days, it probably was considered illogical.

willhud9 wrote:the odds of it being history seems far fetched as it does not have the same diction or syntax used in later history books of Israel. So we come to a third conclusion: the text has a purpose and context which transcends the actual Creation account.

[/quote]
Although I do agree with you on this, do we have sufficiently non-biblical ancient Hebrew and Aramaic texts to know this? (Aramaic is relevant because Aramaic literature probably influenced even early Hebrew literature in diction and such.)
.

If Genesis is to be taken literally, does that mean there is meant to be water above the sky?

Zwaarddijk wrote:Actually "head" and "beginning" both are what this word means. It's not typologically uncommon for words in languages to mean both: in a sense, the head is the beginning of the body (counting upwards). Claiming that it "literally" means "at the head" is going a bit far, really. A Hebrew speaker of the time the text was written probably would have understood it relatively literally. (However, I would like to find a discussion of Rashi's translation: "at the beginning of God's creating the heavens and earth, ...", I am not entirely sure whether he assumed the text had been wrongly vocalized by the masoretes or whatever reasoning he used.)

I thought Rashi, like many Jews read reshit (ראשית) in a construct relationship with the clause headed by bara (ברא), "the beginning of (god created the heavens and the earth)". The normal question to resolve the issue is "the beginning of what?"

To clarify for other readers, the creation begins in Gen 1:3 when god utters his first words. V.2 is the state before god acts on the cosmos. "At the beginning of god's creating the heavens and the earth, the earth was without form and void, darkness was over the face of the deep and a wind of god hovered (like a bird) upon the face of the deep. God said, 'let there be light'" and so started the creation by turning the lights on.

spin wrote:

Zwaarddijk wrote:Actually "head" and "beginning" both are what this word means. It's not typologically uncommon for words in languages to mean both: in a sense, the head is the beginning of the body (counting upwards). Claiming that it "literally" means "at the head" is going a bit far, really. A Hebrew speaker of the time the text was written probably would have understood it relatively literally. (However, I would like to find a discussion of Rashi's translation: "at the beginning of God's creating the heavens and earth, ...", I am not entirely sure whether he assumed the text had been wrongly vocalized by the masoretes or whatever reasoning he used.)

I thought Rashi, like many Jews read reshit (ראשית) in a construct relationship with the clause headed by bara (ברא), "the beginning of (god created the heavens and the earth)". The normal question to resolve the issue is "the beginning of what?"

Right, yeah, at the point that I wrote my post, I was actually not aware that construct relationships could work with clauses just as simply as that (as it turns out, the teacher at my Biblical Hebrew class pointed this out the very next day).

spin wrote:

Zwaarddijk wrote:Actually "head" and "beginning" both are what this word means. It's not typologically uncommon for words in languages to mean both: in a sense, the head is the beginning of the body (counting upwards). Claiming that it "literally" means "at the head" is going a bit far, really. A Hebrew speaker of the time the text was written probably would have understood it relatively literally. (However, I would like to find a discussion of Rashi's translation: "at the beginning of God's creating the heavens and earth, ...", I am not entirely sure whether he assumed the text had been wrongly vocalized by the masoretes or whatever reasoning he used.)

I thought Rashi, like many Jews read reshit (ראשית) in a construct relationship with the clause headed by bara (ברא), "the beginning of (god created the heavens and the earth)". The normal question to resolve the issue is "the beginning of what?"

To clarify for other readers, the creation begins in Gen 1:3 when god utters his first words. V.2 is the state before god acts on the cosmos. "At the beginning of god's creating the heavens and the earth, the earth was without form and void, darkness was over the face of the deep and a wind of god hovered (like a bird) upon the face of the deep. God said, 'let there be light'" and so started the creation by turning the lights on.

And the light was before the sun?!

paarsurrey wrote:

spin wrote:

Zwaarddijk wrote:Actually "head" and "beginning" both are what this word means. It's not typologically uncommon for words in languages to mean both: in a sense, the head is the beginning of the body (counting upwards). Claiming that it "literally" means "at the head" is going a bit far, really. A Hebrew speaker of the time the text was written probably would have understood it relatively literally. (However, I would like to find a discussion of Rashi's translation: "at the beginning of God's creating the heavens and earth, ...", I am not entirely sure whether he assumed the text had been wrongly vocalized by the masoretes or whatever reasoning he used.)

I thought Rashi, like many Jews read reshit (ראשית) in a construct relationship with the clause headed by bara (ברא), "the beginning of (god created the heavens and the earth)". The normal question to resolve the issue is "the beginning of what?"

To clarify for other readers, the creation begins in Gen 1:3 when god utters his first words. V.2 is the state before god acts on the cosmos. "At the beginning of god's creating the heavens and the earth, the earth was without form and void, darkness was over the face of the deep and a wind of god hovered (like a bird) upon the face of the deep. God said, 'let there be light'" and so started the creation by turning the lights on.

And the light was before the sun?!

Yup.

(If you want science, try an astrophysics book.)

Again to clarify, this creation is very structured. The first three days involve giving form to the cosmos:

1) light and dark,
2) sea and sky, and
3) land.

The second three days involves filling those spaces:

4) sun, moon and stars,
5) fish and birds, and
6) animals.

(This is the same notion found in the o.p.)

In this cosmological scenario obviously light came before the sun. The structure of creation was ordained when it talked of "without form and void". The first three days resolved the "without form" and the second three resolved the state of being void. It would be utterly ridiculous to suggest that the people who held this understanding of creation would have believed that god created the world state "without form and void".

Note the words "God made two great lights--the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night--and the stars." The light (thus day and night) was created on day 1. The sun and the moon on day 4 to rule over the day and night. The sun and moon are not seen as sources of the light, which preexisted them, but as apt rulers.

spin wrote:

paarsurrey wrote:

spin wrote:

Zwaarddijk wrote:Actually "head" and "beginning" both are what this word means. It's not typologically uncommon for words in languages to mean both: in a sense, the head is the beginning of the body (counting upwards). Claiming that it "literally" means "at the head" is going a bit far, really. A Hebrew speaker of the time the text was written probably would have understood it relatively literally. (However, I would like to find a discussion of Rashi's translation: "at the beginning of God's creating the heavens and earth, ...", I am not entirely sure whether he assumed the text had been wrongly vocalized by the masoretes or whatever reasoning he used.)

I thought Rashi, like many Jews read reshit (ראשית) in a construct relationship with the clause headed by bara (ברא), "the beginning of (god created the heavens and the earth)". The normal question to resolve the issue is "the beginning of what?"

To clarify for other readers, the creation begins in Gen 1:3 when god utters his first words. V.2 is the state before god acts on the cosmos. "At the beginning of god's creating the heavens and the earth, the earth was without form and void, darkness was over the face of the deep and a wind of god hovered (like a bird) upon the face of the deep. God said, 'let there be light'" and so started the creation by turning the lights on.

And the light was before the sun?!

Yup.

(If you want science, try an astrophysics book.)

Again to clarify, this creation is very structured. The first three days involve giving form to the cosmos:

1) light and dark,
2) sea and sky, and
3) land.

The second three days involves filling those spaces:

4) sun, moon and stars,
5) fish and birds, and
6) animals.

(This is the same notion found in the o.p.)

In this cosmological scenario obviously light came before the sun. The structure of creation was ordained when it talked of "without form and void". The first three days resolved the "without form" and the second three resolved the state of being void. It would be utterly ridiculous to suggest that the people who held this understanding of creation would have believed that god created the world state "without form and void".

Note the words "God made two great lights--the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night--and the stars." The light (thus day and night) was created on day 1. The sun and the moon on day 4 to rule over the day and night. The sun and moon are not seen as sources of the light, which preexisted them, but as apt rulers.

A good post.

I've read a number of bible verses which if taken literally refer to waters in the heaven. Have I taken a wrong interpretation of the verses? Any comments appreciated.

questioner121 wrote:I've read a number of bible verses which if taken literally refer to waters in the heaven. Have I taken a wrong interpretation of the verses? Any comments appreciated.

At least there's water in the sky - the sky is a vault that keeps the waters up, so they don't drop down on the earth. Or are you thinking of something else?

questioner121 wrote:If Genesis is to be taken literally, does that mean there is meant to be water above the sky?

If it is, we'd better hope the earth isn't rotating otherwise the waters may break !

Zwaarddijk wrote:

questioner121 wrote:I've read a number of bible verses which if taken literally refer to waters in the heaven. Have I taken a wrong interpretation of the verses? Any comments appreciated.

At least there's water in the sky - the sky is a vault that keeps the waters up, so they don't drop down on the earth. Or are you thinking of something else?

I was thinking of there being liquid water in the heavens above the sky. That's how I understand the bible verses. I''d appreciate any commentary regarding verses which talk about the waters in the heavens.

twistor59 wrote:

questioner121 wrote:If Genesis is to be taken literally, does that mean there is meant to be water above the sky?

If it is, we'd better hope the earth isn't rotating otherwise the waters may break !

True.

questioner121 wrote:

Zwaarddijk wrote:

questioner121 wrote:I've read a number of bible verses which if taken literally refer to waters in the heaven. Have I taken a wrong interpretation of the verses? Any comments appreciated.

At least there's water in the sky - the sky is a vault that keeps the waters up, so they don't drop down on the earth. Or are you thinking of something else?

I was thinking of there being liquid water in the heavens above the sky. That's how I understand the bible verses. I''d appreciate any commentary regarding verses which talk about the waters in the heavens.

When god separated the waters, he placed something called the raqia to hold the waters above. This raqia is frequently and not badly translated as "firmament", as it was solid. The word is derived from a verb used to describe the beating of metal (eg gold and silver), so the firmament is intimated here to be like (shiny) sheet metal. Elsewhere there is talk of opening the windows of heaven to cause rain (eg Gen 7:11; Mal 3:10 -- this latter regards blessings but uses a metaphor of rain).

One should note the idea in Ps 148:4, "Praise Him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that are above the heavens." (I don't expect too much consistency. Different writers had different conceptions.)

spin wrote:

questioner121 wrote:

Zwaarddijk wrote:

questioner121 wrote:I've read a number of bible verses which if taken literally refer to waters in the heaven. Have I taken a wrong interpretation of the verses? Any comments appreciated.

At least there's water in the sky - the sky is a vault that keeps the waters up, so they don't drop down on the earth. Or are you thinking of something else?

I was thinking of there being liquid water in the heavens above the sky. That's how I understand the bible verses. I''d appreciate any commentary regarding verses which talk about the waters in the heavens.

When god separated the waters, he placed something called the raqia to hold the waters above. This raqia is frequently and not badly translated as "firmament", as it was solid. The word is derived from a verb used to describe the beating of metal (eg gold and silver), so the firmament is intimated here to be like (shiny) sheet metal. Elsewhere there is talk of opening the windows of heaven to cause rain (eg Gen 7:11; Mal 3:10 -- this latter regards blessings but uses a metaphor of rain).

One should note the idea in Ps 148:4, "Praise Him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that are above the heavens." (I don't expect too much consistency. Different writers had different conceptions.)

You put it better than I was going to.

Also the creation account is also supposed to give a, according to some scholars, structure to the Heavens, 1st heaven, 2nd Heaven, 3rd Heaven, in relationship to earth and her atmosphere, surface and watery depths.

GakuseiDon wrote:Good post, Willhud! For myself, I don't think Genesis was either literal or metaphorical. (I've always wondered what exactly Genesis was supposed to be a metaphor for?) I agree it uses figurative language, though: I think few ancient Jewish and Christian scholars took "6 days" to mean 6 24-hour days.

I think what you highlighted is correct: the Genesis account would have been in stark contrast to the creation myths in Europe at that time. In Genesis, the sun, moon and stars are created objects, whereas in most other myths these would have been considered gods. So the Genesis account would have cut under such pagan beliefs, making religious assimilation difficult. Why give offerings to the sun if it is just an object? etc.

Israel-----The meaning of the verb (sara) is uncertain and explained in many ways, chiefly because it is limited to contexts which discuss the struggle of Jacob with the Angel of the Lord, insinuating that where our language uses the common verb 'struggle,' the Hebrew uses a word that is specifically reserved for a certain action: the action of struggling with God.

BDB Theological Dictionary reports for (sara) the Arabic cognate of persist, persevere, and relates it to the word (sora), rows, which only Isaiah uses, in 28:25. More interesting even is the word (misra), a unique word that probably means rule or dominion, and which Isaiah uses in the highly Messianic passage of 8:6, "...and the government is on His shoulder." Nobody knows what the root of this word is but linguists have arrived at the conclusion that it must be identical to , the word that gave rise to the name Israel.

It gets even better when we look at the verb (sarar), meaning to rule, reign, act as prince. Derivative (sar) means prince, and (sarah) means princess and is (near) equal to the both the name of Jacob's grandmother Sarah and the root-word of Israel.

We can not say with certainty what the name Israel is supposed to mean, although it seems to reflect a certain inability of the Almighty God, namely the not being able to defeat a man like Jacob. We can be sure that God doesn't lack the physical strength to eradicate any human being, so we must conclude that the destruction of Jacob would go against the very nature of God. Perhaps the name Israel denotes God's continuous effort to keep Jacob going, even though Jacob continues to fight God.

I believe that since Jews think of Eden as man's elevation, the myth was simply meant to be a story of coming of age. A rite of passage IOW.

http://www.mrrena.com/misc/judaism2.php

If read a certain way, this motif of a rite of passage shines through nicely. Even the expulsion of A & E.

It represents to me to be Israel's version of the following.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGx4IlppSgU

I could be wrong but I highly doubt it.

Oh. As to literal reading. Get serious. Jews were never that stupid and in fact, were and are brighter than Christians.
That is why Christians hate Jews and Gnostics and killed many of us.

http://www.raceandhistory.com/historica ... exodus.htm

Regards
DL

Where does the word heaven come from?

questioner121 wrote:Where does the word heaven come from?

"heaven" comes from Old English heofon, which comes from proto-German himinaz or himilaz. Some English friends inform me in their speech, it no longer can refer to the sky above us, but is exclusively a word with a religious meaning.

It's cognate to German Himmel, Swedish himmel(en), Dutch hemel. But uh, what's the point of your question?