Daily Genesis

Webers_Home · #21 3rd August 2009, 10:41 AM

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†. Gen 2:1 . .The heaven and the earth were finished, and all their array.

There are big questions that many philosophers and scientists have been unable to answer. What makes things alive? What is the origin of the spark of life? Man can build anything; even go up and walk on the moon; but he can't make anything come to life, and he can't figure out why living things live, nor even why they should get old and die. Everything in the universe is aging, including the universe.

How does the human brain, a 3-pound lump of flabby organic tissue, produce the phenomena of memory, consciousness, and self awareness? How does it make us all behave so similarly at times, and yet endow each of us with a unique and irreproducible existence? Why does Man have a sense of justice, of fair play, and a desire for revenge? Why does he strive to be right rather than wrong? Why does Man want his life to count for something? Why isn't Man amoral like the other creatures? Butterflies are free, why aren't we? And why does anything exist at all? Why not nothing, instead of something? Satisfactory answers to those questions can only be found in the activity of a creator.

Look down at your writing hand for a moment— revolve it a little this way and a little that way while examining its many features. It is very light weight, yet mechanically strong and nimble; able to perform a wide variety of tasks; from playing a piano, to sewing on a button, or fixing plumbing under the sink. With the application of a manicure, some lotion, jewelry, and a trendy nail polish, the human hand can be made quite lovely; yet at the same time it remains an efficient, complex machine of lubricated levers and joints and cables constructed of living, sensitive tissues rather than metals or plastics, and wires and batteries.

Your hand, as marvelous as it is in its own right, represents merely a speck in the grand parade of complicated structures in the cosmos; and its existence by chance has about the odds of the unabridged Webster's dictionary resulting from an explosion in a print shop.

The genetic structure of living things is mind boggling in itself. The number of genes, or units of DNA, composing organisms ranges from 6,000 units in yeast to 100,000 units in humans. Encoded within those 100,000 human genes are three billion bits of information. Each unit of DNA stores 30,000 bits equal to 3.75 kilobytes per unit for a grand total of 375 gigabytes of data crammed into a human's DNA molecules too small to be seen with the naked eye.

More than 200 years ago, Carolus Linnaeus began counting and classifying the world's species, and today biologists still cannot say how many there are. However, on two things they all agree: they are nowhere near a complete count, and the final tally will fall somewhere between 3 million and 100 million species. Taxonomists identify and categorize roughly 13,000 new species of life every year. At that rate, it could take centuries to complete the census. Remarkably, each and every specie on earth has its very own unique genetic code. That just can't be the result of chance and a huge explosion.

Nobel Prize winner, author of several best-selling books, and recipient of at least a dozen honorary degrees, Physicist Steven Weinberg (who views religion as an enemy of science), in his book, The First Three Minutes, wrote: "The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it seems pointless. But if there is no solace in the fruits of our research, there is at least some consolation in the research itself . .The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of a farce and gives it some of the grace of tragedy."

What a dismal appraisal. To a brilliant, secular man like Mr.Weinberg, the human experience is an exercise in futility. The universe? It's devoid of meaning— just a three-dimensional mural that people find fascinating and interesting— a curiosity. The quest for knowledge seems the only thing that gives men like Weinberg any purpose to exist at all.

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Webers_Home · #22 3rd August 2009, 10:42 AM

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As I recently contemplated the expense involved in launching and maintaining the Hubble Space Telescope, I couldn't help but wonder why NASA did it. In what way have Americans benefited from the mountain of tax money spent on that scope? All they have really gained is entertainment. The images from Hubble are beautiful and awe-inspiring; and the scientific data gained from its on-board instrumentation delights the intellect; but from the point of view of practicality, the HST serves no humanitarian purpose whatsoever except to reinforce Steven Weinberg's opinion that the universe (without a God to give it meaning), is indeed quite pointless.

People have only two choices for the origin of the universe. Either it always existed, or it had a beginning. There really are no other rational selections. It's highly unlikely a well ordered cosmos always existed because it is the natural tendency of unsupervised order not to remain stable; but to deteriorate towards disorder and chaos. For example: we now know the sun is dying and moving steadily towards its death. When that happens, the solar system will go into deep freeze and all life on earth will cease. In point of fact, every star in the universe is gradually burning out.

Agnostics and atheists claim there exists no empirical evidence supporting the existence of a supreme being. But they are foolishly invalidating the testimony of the universe and of the world of nature when they say things like that. There exists far more evidence to prove the reality of a supreme being than does to prove otherwise.

†. Ps 19:1-4 . .The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.

Mr. Weinberg feels that religion is an enemy of science. He is wrong. Religion provides answers to the questions science cannot answer. Religion gives meaning and purpose to human existence; which would otherwise languish in science somewhere between a farce and a tragedy.

Georges Lemaître proposed the universe came into existence with a big bang ,and actually, the second verse of the Bible strongly suggests a cataclysmic beginning of just that type. But questions must be asked: Banged from what? From whence came the matter and the energy that banged? And what about the immense void housing the bang? Where did that come from? Is there something beyond it? Is the void infinite, or does it have dimensions? If there is an infinite void, and if there is infinite matter, then why should it be thought unreasonable to believe in an infinite Being?

Alexander Friedmann's theory of an expanding universe was lent some credibility by Edwin Hubble's discovery that galaxies, in all directions, appear to be moving away from each other at tremendous velocities. Some felt that the effects of universal gravity would limit the cosmos' expansion and make it slow down; eventually stop it from expanding, and make it shrink back to its original state and bang all over again; perpetuating a never ending cycle of banging and shrinking. But we now know from the Supernova studies of Saul Perlmutter and Brian Schmidt, that the universe is not only expanding, but contrary to expectations, the velocity of its expansion is accelerating; viz: gravity is not slowing the expansion down at all, it's actually speeding up, so the cosmos will never of its own accord stop expanding in order to shrink itself back into one solid glob of highly condensed matter.

That discovery was very discouraging for cosmologist Alan Sandage since he was once a proponent of the theory that the universe would some day shrink upon itself; and called the discovery of the ever increasing velocity of the expanding universe a "terrible surprise." In a special 2002 collector's edition of U.S. News and World report, a paragraph says that at a 1998 cosmologists conference in Berkeley California, Mr. Sandage told the gathering that contemplating the majesty of the big bang helped make him a believer in God; and willing to accept that the creation could only be explained as a miracle.

The theological idea of creation ex nihilo (out of nothing); is looking better all the time as inflation theories increasingly suggest the universe emerged from no tangible source. And although theorists energetically fantasize an endless parade of explanations for the origin of the universe, they have been doing so within the context of the known laws of physics; the meanwhile having no clue about the origin of those laws. In other words: they cannot explain where those laws came from in the first place— nor can they explain why the known laws control matter and energy the way they do rather than some other way.

Dr. Robert Jastow, founder of the Goddard Institute for space studies at NASA, in his book: God And The Astronomers; said; "Strange developments are going on in astronomy. One of these is the discovery that the universe had a beginning. And that means there has to be a Beginner. The scientist has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak, and as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."

C.L.I.F.F.
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Webers_Home · #23 4th August 2009, 11:24 AM

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†. Gen 2:2 . . On the seventh day God finished the work that He had been doing, and He ceased on the seventh day from all the work that He had done.

The Hebrew word for ceased is from shabath (shaw-bath') and means: to repose, i.e. desist from exertion; (used in many implied relations).

The seventh day, although included among the days of creation week, is a peculiar day because it lacks the boundaries of an evening and morning like the others; but is instead an open-ended period of repose; in other words, I cannot limit the seventh "day" to the length of a 24-hour civil day. The previous 24-hour days were filled with the business of construction. But at the end of the sixth, God stopped creating stuff for the cosmos and hasn't created anything new for it since; ergo: the seventh day is neither a pause nor an intermission. This is very significant.

The seventh day of the civil week was later utilized to memorialize God's creation labors.

†. Ex 31:12-17 . .Then Yhvh said to Moses: Say to the Israelites; You must observe my Sabbaths. This will be a sign between me and you for the generations to come, so you may know that I am Yhvh, who makes you holy.

. . Observe the Sabbath, because it is holy to you. Anyone who desecrates it must be put to death; whoever does any work on that day must be cut off from his people. For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of rest, dedicated to Yhvh. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day must be put to death.

. .The Israelites are to observe the Sabbath, celebrating it for the generations to come as a lasting covenant. It will be a sign between me and the Israelites forever, for in six days Yhvh made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He abstained from work and rested.

The primary purpose of the Sabbath, then, is to remind the Jews from whence they and the cosmos came: it's origin, its source, and its maker.

The Sabbath was never a holy day of obligation in the garden of Eden, nor was it a holy day of obligation up to the Flood; nor was it a holy day of obligation after the Flood in either Abraham's, Isaac's, or Jacob's day; nor was it a holy day of obligation at any time during the people of Israel's sojourn in the land of Egypt up to the time of their liberation under the leadership of Moses and Aaron.

In that respect then, Sabbaths are pertinent to a rescued people rather than just anybody who happens to be looking in. Christians have a Sabbath too, but it's not the Genesis day. The New Testament's Sabbath is perpetual (Heb 3:1-4:16) and based upon Christ's work on the cross rather than upon God's six days' of work manufacturing the old creation. Believers are members of a new creation (Isa 65:17, 2Cor 5:17, Rev 21:1) where the old Sabbath has neither application nor jurisdiction.

†. Col 2:16-17 . . Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.

C.L.I.F.F.
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Webers_Home · #24 5th August 2009, 12:17 AM

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In any treatment of the Genesis story, one has to factor in the age of the earth; which geologists are pretty sure now is somewhere around 4.5 Billion years; and is very easy to substantiate.

For example, both the Alps and the Rockies were at one time ancient sea beds. How do we know? Because of the fossilized remains of sea creatures indicating that the Alps and the Rockies did not always exist at their current elevations. In point of fact, the Alps are actually shrinking as erosion is steadily tearing them down so that the height and shape of the Alps today are not even the same as when Hannibal crossed them to attack Rome.

Then there is also the testimony of past ice ages, the evidence of unbelievable massive volcanic eruptions such as those that continue to shape the Yellowstone area, and the forces of plate tectonics; not to mention the fossilized remains of dinosaurs; the vast coal and oil deposits, and the layers of salt formed by the evaporation of ancient seas that once inundated the area where the Great Lakes exist today. No joke, something like 1,700 feet below the surface of the Great Lakes is a really immense, thick, multilayered deposit of salt from the evaporation of seas that existed many, many years prior to the Lakes, and there are land masses, islands, and reefs that came into being by the deposit of the remains of multiplied zillions of teensy little marine organisms over long, long periods of time.

It is nothing short of intellectual dishonesty to ignore the findings of Geology and Paleontology. Bible believers have got to come to grips with true science or end up looking like fanatical buffoons. It is far better to formulate a theory, no matter how unworkable, to harmonize the age of the earth with the Genesis record than to just ignore the findings of science and hope they go away.

A popular theory going around is the so-called gap theory, which inserts a lengthy, undisclosed interval of time between Gen 1:1 and Gen 1:2 meaning that somewhere between the universe's original creation, and that second verse, the original underwent some kind of catastrophic event that made it necessary for God to reconstruct it; sort of like a plastic surgeon reconstructs someone's face after an accident.

Another possibility is that undisclosed intervals of time lapsed between each of the six days; meaning that Man was created a pretty good number of years after all else.

Either theory, or one of their variations, are okay by me; but it is absolutely unacceptable to have no theory at all. The earth's geology itself simply will not permit a young age. No, today's earth, and the universe it resides in, are easily proven to be much older than the relative youth that many of today's theologians prefer. All I can say to them is that stubbornness has never been a virtue. It's okay to keep the six days; but at the same time, they should get to work finding a way to harmonize those days with true science.

C.L.I.F.F.
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Webers_Home · #25 5th August 2009, 08:53 AM

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†. Gen 2:3 . . And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because on it God ceased from all the work of creation that He had done.

The phrase declared it holy is from the word qadash (kaw-dash') which means: to be clean, or to make, pronounce, or observe as clean. Pronouncing something clean, or observing something as clean, doesn't mean it's actually clean. It's just regarded as if it were clean. That principle is a very important factor in the plan of salvation because people destined for Heaven have been declared innocent of all charges against them, even though they aren't. (e.g. Luke 18:13-14, Acts 13:39, Rom 3:21-26).

This is the very first time in the Bible, and the only place in the whole book of Genesis, where God's word purified a created thing. Some definitions of clean are: unadulterated, pure, sanctified, free from dirt, unpolluted, free from contamination or disease, spotless, immaculate, unsoiled, untainted, innocent, blameless, faultless, blameless, chaste, decent, sinless, undefiled, and/or set aside for a special purpose.

In the case of Gen 2:3, and in many other cases as well, the status of cleanness is often a conferred status, rather than an intrinsic condition.

†. Isa 6:5-7 . . I cried, “Woe is me; I am lost! For I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my own eyes have beheld The King Lord of Hosts.” Then one of the seraphs flew over to me with a live coal, which he had taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. He touched it to my lips and declared, “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt shall depart and your sin be purged away.”

That happened on the day Isaiah was commissioned to begin his evangelism career. Although Isaiah was by nature a sinful being, God declared him purified so he could represent The King Lord of Hosts as a "clean" man instead of as a common man. Jesus did the same thing for his apostles.

†. John 15:3 . .You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.

It wasn't necessary for Isaiah, or for Jesus' men, to earn their cleanness; nor was it necessary for them to try their best to be ultra pious men. Cleanness was conferred upon them the same as God conferred it upon the seventh day. Neither the seventh day, nor Isaiah, nor Jesus' men are actually pure in and of themselves. The status is a declared status rather than an earned status.

Sinners, who by nature fully and rightfully deserve to go straight to Hell, have an opportunity to escape through the principle of conferred cleanness.

†. Eph 2:4-10 . . But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions— it is by grace that you have been rescued. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

. . God rescued you by His sympathy and kindness when you believed; and you can't take credit for this; it's a gratuity from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.

†. Ps 32:1-2 . . Happy is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered over. Happy the man whom Yhvh does not hold guilty,

C.L.I.F.F.
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Webers_Home · #26 6th August 2009, 12:25 PM

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†. Gen 2:4a . . Such is the story of heaven and earth when they were created.

And a very concise story it is. Some have proposed that a second creation story begins right about here. But it really doesn't. The author will now reveal a little behind the scenes detail in the next section— similar to the end of a Hollywood movie on DVD when they show us how they did all those incredible special effects in Matrix.

The word when is from yowm which is the very same word used for each of the individual six days of creation. Since yowm in Gen 2:4 refers to a period of time obviously much longer than a typical 24-hour civil day, then some feel that the six days of creation could just as easily have been days of longer duration too.

But each of the days of creation are specifically bounded by an evening and a morning. Here in Gen 2:4, yowm isn't specified that way; but comprises the entire six days. The length of a day in Scripture is sometimes ambiguous unless the author adds something to the text to clarify it; and in the record of creation, something was— Evenings and Mornings.

If creation theorists wish to separate each of the six days with discrete epochs that would be okay. But it is not okay to expand the length of each individual day beyond the obvious 24-hour periods that evenings and mornings define.

†. Gen 2:4b . .When Yhvh God

Right here is the very first time in Scripture where God's most famous of His names appears. Up to this point, The Creator has been identified by the generic noun 'elohiym (el-o-heem') which means: gods, divine beings, or civil authorities. The noun is plural but doesn't necessarily mean The Creator is a plural being. Sheep, fish, and deer are plural too but don't always indicate more than one of each. So plural nouns don't eo ipso denote more than one item. There are other gods named in the Bible, such as Baal and Dagon, of whom the word 'elohiym is used and those gods are not composite entities (e.g. 1Kings 18:25-29, Judges 16:23).

The Creator's new name is yhvh (sometimes written Yehovah and sometimes Yahweh) which means: (the) self-Existent or Eternal. In other words: He was, He is, and He will be. So in any direction in time that we care to look, as far ahead or as far aft, Yhvh has either been there already, or He is going to be up ahead when we get there since He is an entity who was never born and will never die.

Yhvh is not just another eternal life, no, on the contrary, He is the eternal life as well as the dispenser of all forms of life; which sets him apart from all other living things. Although believers have eternal life (John 3:36, John 5:24, John 6:47, 1John 5:13) they are not eternal entities like their maker. In order to be classified a true eternal entity, one cannot have a beginning. In addition, Yhvh is able to dispense life, while believers can receive life, but they cannot dispense it. So then, eternal life can be defined as the life of God as opposed to the life of creatures like angels, insects, beasts, birds, fish, and Man.

Eternal Life is not to be confused with Immortality. Life and Immortality are juxtaposed at 2Tim 1:10 where the two terms are connected with a conjunction. They aren't connected with a verb, so that you can't say Life is Immortality; no, Life and Immortality are two distinctly different states of being. Immortality refers to the nature of one's physical body; while Life refers to the nature of one's existence; e.g. animal life, plant life, human life, angel life, and God life.

When Jesus of Nazareth said to his countrymen at John 8:58; "Before Abraham was, I am." he could make no higher claim. It's no wonder they wanted to stone him. Had Jesus said "I was" that would have been bad enough, but to say "I am" makes any human being the greatest of blasphemers (and the greatest of liars) because only Yhvh holds the "I am" distinction among the Jews. (Ex 3:14)

No one actually knows how to pronounce Yhvh; which is just as well since it is a death offense, (and an insult as well) to speak that name in a disrespectful way.

Yhvh's appellation is so sacred among pious Jews that they make every effort to avoid speaking it except under very special circumstances. In some of their writings, in order to avoid using the four sacred letters comprising the tetragrammaton, they write instead The Name or Hashem. So Ex 20:3 could be written: "I, The Name, am your god" or: "I, Hashem, am your god."

NOTE: The Bible's God is commonly referred to with masculine pronouns. Why masculine? Because Yhvh is a king, and kings are males rather than females.

†. Isa 44:6 . . Thus testifies Yhvh, the king of Israel, and His redeemer, Yhvh of hosts: I am the First and I am the Last; other than Me there is no god.

C.L.I.F.F.
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Webers_Home · #27 7th August 2009, 10:07 AM

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†. Gen 2:4c-7a . . made earth and heaven— when no shrub of the field was yet on earth and no grasses of the field had yet sprouted, because Yhvh God had not sent rain upon the earth and there was no man to till the soil, but a flow would well up from the ground and water the whole surface of the earth —Yhvh God formed man from the dust of the earth.

Verses 4-7 reiterate that Man didn't evolve over millions and millions of years from some lower order of life. He was created just like you see him— a viable human being. And he was created on a day of his own distinctly separate from the other five days of creation; and directly from the Earth itself; not from some yucky protoplasmic goo slithering on a rock in a brackish prehistoric backwater lagoon somewhere.

The word formed is from yatsar (yaw-tsar') which means: to mold into a form; especially as a potter; figuratively, to determine (i.e. form a resolution)

The word dust is from `aphar (aw-fawr') which means: dust (as powdered or gray); hence, clay, earth, mud

So mankind was sculpted out of the Earth like a piece of pottery. However; if no water were mixed in with the dust, humans would just crumble and blow away like a bowl of flour; and we do too. If people go without water for too long, they become dangerously dehydrated and eventually die. Then, if left to the course of nature, they dissolve.

The word flow, in verse 6, doesn't really tell it right. It's from 'ed (ade) which means: a fog. It's a very rare Hebrew word and appears only one more time in the whole Bible.

†. Job 36:26-30 . . See, God is greater than we can know; the number of His years cannot be counted. He forms the droplets of water, which cluster into rain, from His mist. The skies rain; they pour down on all mankind. Can one, indeed, contemplate the expanse of clouds, the thunderings from His pavilion? See, He spreads His lightning over it; it fills the bed of the sea.

Job understood 'ed to mean water vapor. So the flow of Gen 2:6 isn't really a flow like moving water in a creek, but fog, mist, and/or humidity.

Man isn't entirely an animated form of clay. Dust consists of the basic metallic, non metallic, and gaseous chemical elements such as carbon, calcium, phosphorous, hydrogen, oxygen, iron, sodium, and stuff like that constituting all natural things. More than a hundred elements are known to exist in nature and many of them can be found in living things.

C.L.I.F.F.
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Webers_Home · #28 8th August 2009, 10:45 AM

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†. Gen 2:7b . . He blew into his nostrils the breath of life,

The word for blew is from naphach (naw-fakh') and means: to puff, in various applications (literally, to inflate, blow hard, scatter, kindle, expire; figuratively, to disesteem).

God personally gave Man his first breath of air by puffing it into his lungs Himself. However, it doesn't do a bit of good pumping air into the lungs of a corpse. They won't come alive like that; it's been tried. So, what is it that made Man come alive? In fact what made anything come alive? What makes bugs, and birds, and fishes, and reptiles, and Man alive and viable? It's the breath of life— not just atmospheric gases; but a powerful mysterious energy within creatures that makes them sentient and conscious. God had just freshly created a human being and there it lay; perfectly good organic tissue; but it was dead. It was neither sentient nor vigorous until God energized it with the spark of life.

Scientists have yet to find a way to initiate Life, nor yet have they been able to construct a creature. They can't even come close. All I ever seem to hear about is evolution and the Big Bang. But why don't we talk about the really simple things in life that could never be produced by either evolution or a gigantic explosion. Things like a sneeze, a blooming flower, a wasp collecting mud to build her nest, the feel of crisp air at dawn when the birds begin to chirp, a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, the sensual power of a lass upon a young man's heart, and the effect of music upon the soul. And what about the human brain? How does a 3-pound lump of flabby organic tissue produce the phenomena of memory, consciousness, and self awareness?

†. Gen 2:7c . . and man became a living being.

To this good day, after years of intensive research, science is still nowhere near an understanding of the nature of consciousness. Exactly how the human brain makes everyone behave so similarly at times, while endowing each individual with a unique and irreproducible existence, is yet a total mystery. Solving that mystery might require another century of study, and some neuroscientists and philosophers believe that comprehension of what makes you the me that you are; may always remain unknowable.

Neuroscience— the scientific attempt to deduce how the brain works —has succeeded in unraveling critical chemical and electrical pathways involved in memory, movement, and emotion. But reducing the perceptions of a John Coltrane solo, or the palette of a Hawaiian sunset, to a series of interactions among axons, neurotransmitters and dendrites still fails to explain what makes an event special.

The words living being are from two words: chay (khah'-ee) and nephesh (neh'-fesh). We saw those words earlier in Gen 1:7 and Gen 1:20-30 regarding sea life, land life, and atmospheric life (birds); excluding vegetation. Although Man is a higher form of life than all the rest of the creatures, he is, nevertheless, an animal-like being; and except for his apparently higher consciousness; Man is little more than a brute in his essential nature.

†. Ps 49:10-12 . . For one can see that even wise men die; the stupid and the senseless perish too; and leave their wealth to others. Their inner thought is, that their estates are forever, and their dwelling places to all generations. They have called their lands after their own names. But man's pomp will not sustain him; he is little different than other perishable beasts.

C.L.I.F.F.
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Webers_Home · #29 9th August 2009, 10:32 AM

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†. Gen 2:8a . .Yhvh God planted a garden in Eden,

That garden, like Man's first breath, was done for him personally by his maker. The remainder of Earth's flora was planted in a large scale, professional manner. But the garden was specially prepared for Man like someone might build a home for their family. It's true that Man is a creature and Yhvh isn't his actual biological kin. But Man is much more than just another nephesh like as if he were pet canary or something. No, human beings were made in God's image, and are as close to being God's kin as a creature can possibly get in the natural world.

The word for garden is from gan (gan) and means: a garden as fenced. So the garden wasn't just a nondescript parcel of acreage with apricots and turnips growing on it. The garden (which very likely was a full-blown farm complete with orchards) was walled in like a defensive hamlet. If dinosaurs existed in Adam's day, then his food supplies would require protection inside a fortress. At this time, no land animals were carnivorous so there was little to fear for his life. But just a few of those big lumbering behemoths could easily eat a man out of house and home in no time at all if they weren't kept out; not to mention the appetites of ordinary deer and bear. They would want to come in and help themselves too.

Here in Oregon deer are very plentiful; so much so that some people regard them as pests rather than game animals. A friend built their new home adjacent to timber lands where deer commonly come down out of the hills to browse on people's lawns like cattle on pasture grass. Our friend had no luck cultivating a rose garden because deer would come at night and eat her roses' buds before they had a chance to bloom.

†. Gen 2:8b . . in the east

East in that verse was an east that the author of Genesis understood. Out west here in Oregon, we consider east to be New York; while the world considers the Orient to be east. For the purposes of modern navigation, everything towards sunrise from the meridian of Greenwich England around the world to Samoa is East longitude, and everything towards sunset around the world to Samoa is West longitude. So if you were standing in Mexico, then Greenwich would be to the east; but if you were standing in Australia, then Greenwich would be to the west. It's all a matter of perspective.

For Bible purposes, the State of Israel is oftentimes regarded the geo-political center of the Earth. Its position is spiritually elevated too. So whenever you go to Jerusalem, you go up. And when you leave, you go down. It was from the east (east of Jerusalem) that magi came to pay their respects to the young Jesus (Mtt 2:1).

Just exactly where "the east" was in Adam's day is hard to tell. But the garden itself is not to be confused with Eden. The garden was located "in" Eden; an ancient pre-Flood unspecified geographic region. Some people think Eden was somewhere in Africa. But with what scientists know today about plate tectonics and past geophysical forces of nature, Africa is a shot in the dark.

The word Eden is from `eden (ay'-den) and/or `ednah (ed-naw') and means: pleasure, and delight. So Adam's farm was in a very nice location and we could, if we had a mind to, name his spread Happy Valley or Pleasant Acres.

†. Gen 2:8c-9a . . and placed there the man whom He had formed. And from the ground Yhvh God caused to grow every tree that was pleasing to the sight and good for food,

The exact site where God did the work of creating Man is unknown but there's no reason to doubt he was created right there in the garden; his intended home. And I think we can safely assume the garden was already viable and productive when Man arrived. God didn't just throw him in the water to sink or swim. He gave Man a suitable habitat right from the get go. Adam wasn't a hunter-gatherer like some sort of nomad; no, he had a place to settle down and call home.

So Man's first impression of his maker was one of caring, providence, and support. Adam was in no way a desperate cave man struggling to survive in a hostile world by courage, daring, and ingenuity. Man came into being by the designs of a Superior Intelligence who looked out for the unique creature made in His own image right from the first, and got him off to a good start.

C.L.I.F.F.
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Webers_Home · #30 10th August 2009, 10:40 AM

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†. Gen 2:9b . . with the tree of life in the middle of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and bad.

Some say that the fruit of those two trees was inert, and the effect they produced within people was spiritual, not biological— that the one would not actually make you live longer, nor would the other actually make you any wiser. But I'm not so sure about that. The world we live in today isn't precisely the very same world in which Adam lived. On average, people enjoyed much better health in those days than they do now— nor yet do we truly understand the original couple's nutritional requirements; since God modified Man's diet after the Flood was over.

The tree of life contained something that stops the aging process. Exactly how the ingredients of a natural fruit could be so rich in nourishment as to halt the aging process in the human body is unknown. A very active field of modern scientific research in our own time is gerontology— the study of the phenomena of the aging process. As yet, gerontologists have no significant understanding of the aging process, and therefore no clue as to what treatments, or nutrients might be employed to stop it.

The word for good in 2:9 is from towb (tobe) and means: good (as an adjective) in the widest sense; used likewise as a noun, both in the masculine and the feminine, the singular and the plural (good, a good or good thing, a good man or woman; the good, goods or good things, good men or women), also as an adverb (well).

Towb isn't restricted to moral judgment. Even a tasty meal or an entertaining movie can be good.

The word for bad is from ra` (rah) and means: bad or (as noun) evil (natural or moral)

ra', like towb, isn't restricted to moral discernment. It includes anything that is bad for us like poison ivy, playing with matches, E-coli, toxic chemicals, eating without washing your hands, and going to bed without brushing your teeth.

From the gist of upcoming verses, it's readily apparent what the author meant by "knowledge of good and bad". The expression implies an intuitive moral discernment in matters of right and wrong. Man was created innocent. Moral discernment wasn't programmed into his intuition. He was supposed to learn about things regarding ethics and morals via Divine tutelage; not by trial and error nor by self initiative— and certainly not by doing something bad like eating off a forbidden tree to see what happens.

†. Gen 2:10 . . A river issues from Eden to water the garden, and it then divides and becomes four branches.

The verb issues is yatsa' is in the present tense; so then whoever wrote Gen 2:10, did so while the land of Eden yet existed. The authorship of Genesis has yet to be positively established. A verse like 2:10 strongly suggests that the data used to compose Genesis, was progressively accumulated in hand-me-down journals or in oral rote, generated by people who lived prior to the final compiler's input.

It is very possible that the account of creation, and the garden of Eden, was at first recorded (or memorized) by Adam, who then passed his version down to trusted kin who in turn passed it down, along with input from their own eras, to their kin and thereby kept the name of God alive in a world composed mostly of people who care very little for knowledge of their maker.

It's not a bad idea for God-fearing parents to save the most important pieces of their biblical libraries and pass them on to their children in the hope of preventing their own posterity from losing the knowledge of God and subsequently sinking into worldly, dead-end theories and philosophies.

C.L.I.F.F.
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