Daily Genesis

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Hello;

My wife's daily devotions always include reading a portion of the Bible; and it's usually in conjunction with Dr. J.Vernon McGee's daily half-hour radio program: Thru The Bible.

My home-spun devotional, based on the book of Genesis, will give everybody some things to think about for roughly 482 days: every day of the week, Sundays included.

BTW: this is a devotional; not a debate. Please make sure your comments contribute rather than confront. I assure anyone who feels compelled to take issue with me here on the thread that they will get nothing in return but a stony wall of silence. Devotionals are supposed to be reflective, rather than reactive; so keep the peace, and leave your guns at home.

C.L.I.F.F.
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The author of Genesis is currently unknown; but commonly attributed to Moses. Scholars have estimated the date of its writing at around 1450-1410 BC; which is pretty recent in the grand scheme of Earth's geological history— a mere 3,400 years ago.

Genesis may in fact be the result of several contributors beginning as far back as Adam himself; who would certainly know more about the creation than anybody, and who entertained no doubts whatsoever about the existence of a supreme being since he knew the Creator himself like a next door neighbor. That would explain why the book begins with an in-your-face deistic account of the origin of the cosmos, rather than waste words with an apologetic argument to convince agnostics that a God exists.

As time went by, others like Seth and Noah would add their own experiences to the record, and then Abraham his, Isaac his, Jacob his, and finally Judah or one of his descendants completing the record with Joseph's burial.

Genesis is quoted more than sixty times in the New Testament; and Jesus himself authenticated its Divine inspiration by referring to it in his own discourses (e.g. Mtt 19:4-6, Mtt 24:37-39, Mk 10:4-9, Luk 11:49-51, Luk 17:26-29 and 32, Jn 7:21-23, Jn 8:44 and Jn 8:56).

†. Gen 1:1a . . When God

What was God doing in the dateless infinite past before the current universe came into existence? (I say current because there's another in the works. Isa 65:17, 2Pet 3:10-13, Rev 21:1) Who really knows? But a creative genius like that couldn't possibly have been sitting around for zillions of years staring at the walls with nothing to do.

The word for God is from the Hebrew 'elohiym (el-o-heem'). It's a plural word and means, ordinarily: gods. Its uses are very broad and can even apply to human beings in positions of authority like in Psalm 82 and Psalm 45. 'Elohiym isn't really the Almighty's personal name, but a nondescript deistic label that pertains to all sorts of gods, along with, and including, the supreme one.

†. Gen 1:1b . . began to create heaven and earth

The word for heaven is from the Hebrew word shamayim (shaw-mah'-yim) and means: to be lofty; the sky: as aloft and/or the heavens— perhaps alluding to the visible arch in which the clouds move, as well as to the higher ether where the celestial bodies revolve. So heaven can mean the breathable air in our planet's atmosphere as well as the stratosphere and the vast celestial regions of space.

The word for earth is from 'erets (eh'-rets) and means: to be firm; the earth (at large, or partitively a land) 'Erets is sometimes spelled with a zee; eg: ERETZ Magazine, or in the phrase Eretz Israel— meaning, of course, the land of Israel.

Jesus of Nazareth made this comment about the creation of Man; which has a bearing on the meaning of the phrase "began to create."

†. Mtt 19:4 . . Haven't you read; he replied, that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female

Wasn't the human race actually created on the sixth day? Yes, it was. So apparently Jesus understood the word beginning to be an inclusive term comprising the entire creation endeavor, not a precise instant, because he obviously meant the human race was created during the construction of the cosmos, but not right at the gun.

C.L.I.F.F.
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†. Gen 1:2a . . the earth being unformed and void

The Hebrew word for unformed is from tohuw (to'-hoo) and means: to lie waste; a desolation (of surface), i.e. desert; figuratively a worthless thing; adverbially in vain.

The word for void is from bohuw (bo'-hoo) and means: to be empty; a vacuity, i.e. (superficially) an undistinguishable ruin.

The terms tohuw and bohuw don't imply the complete absence of matter; no, they speak of ruin and chaos. The very same wording is used in another part of the Bible regarding the land of Israel in utter ruin because of God's judgments against Yhvh's people.

†. Jer 4:22-28 . . For My people are stupid, they give Me no heed; they are foolish children, they are not intelligent. They are clever at doing wrong, but unable to do right. I look at the earth, it is desolate and empty (tohuw and bohuw); at the skies, and their light is gone. I look at the mountains, they are quaking; and all the hills are rocking.

. . I look: no man is left, and all the birds of the sky have fled. I look: the farm land is desert, and all its towns are in ruin— because of Yhvh, because of His blazing anger. (For thus testified Yhvh: The whole land shall be desolate, but I will not make an end of it.) For this the earth mourns, and skies are dark above— because I have spoken, I have planned, and I will not relent or turn back from it.

(If you've ever wondered why the so-called "land of milk and honey" is anything but; well; there's the answer.)

The construction of planet Earth, was an orderly step by step process. If you were to visit a housing tract under construction out here in the West, you wouldn't see the beautiful homes that people move into. You would first see the neighborhood as unimproved land.

Then the surveyors come and measure and mark the locations for water, sewer, power, and property lines. Then huge earth moving machines come in and scrape off the topsoil. After that, smaller machines cut in streets and storm drains, and mold the land into home sites while the utilities people install sewer lines, electricity, water and gas pipes, and cables for television and telephone.

Then other workers show up and start pouring foundations while yet others are pouring sidewalks. Then carpenters show up and begin framing. Pretty soon, roofers are nailing on shingles, and the structures begin to resemble homes. Before you know it, a real neighborhood appears with parks, paved roads, and street lighting. But at first, everything is confusing and disordered; and all the building materials are laying around in heaps and piles looking more like a refuse disposal site than a habitable neighborhood.

That's the way the Earth began: as a chaotic heap of building materials, which were then utilized to construct a habitat for living organisms.

†. Isa 45:18 . . For thus testified Yhvh, The Creator of heaven who alone is God, who formed the earth and made it, who alone established it— He did not create it a waste, but formed it for habitation:

The big question of course is where did the Earth's building materials come from? Did they always exist, or did God invent them just especially for the Earth that's now in existence? Were those materials left-overs from another Divine project prior to the current universe, or maybe even parallel to it?

Regardless of how, or out of what, they were made, the origin of the materials has to be founded in a Creator. It is both maddening and futile to consider any other possibility. By faith we understand much more about the origin of the cosmos than ever could be understood by the unaided mind of natural reason. Faith doesn't violate reason; on the contrary, faith is both a friend and a help to Man's rational understanding of his own existence.

†. Heb 11:3 . . By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's vocal command, so that what is visible was made from something invisible.

Galileo believed that science and religion are allies rather than enemies— two different languages telling the same story; a story of symmetry and balance . . heaven and hell, positive and negative, right and left, up and down, night and day, hot and cold, God and Satan. Science and religion are not at odds; no, in reality, science is just simply too young to understand.

As an example of science's youth, it was only recently in the 20th century that man discovered plate tectonics and how large-scale movements of the earth's lithosphere buckled the earth's crust and formed great mountain chains like The Rockies. I'm talking about multiplied thousands of years of human existence where nobody knew anything about those plates. Yes, science is but a little child, lost in the big city, trying to find it's way back home without ever having done it before, nor even knowing which direction to go to get there.

C.L.I.F.F.
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†. Gen 1:2b . . with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the water—

At this point, there was no ordered cosmos, nor any planets, nor an Earth, nor anything solid: just a massive chemical matrix, while the wind of God held it all in place like corralled livestock; because as yet, no physical laws were in force to make matter behave the way it does as we know it.

The birth of the cosmos, involving water and wind, provides a striking parallel to regeneration: the second births of John 3.

†. John 3:5 . . Jesus answered; "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit."

†.John 3:8 . .The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.

Ancient Jews understood the wind of Gen 1:2 to be God's spirit.

T~ and darkness was upon the face of the abyss, and the Spirit of mercies from before the Lord breathed upon the face of the waters. (Targum Jonathan)

T~ and the Spirit of mercies from before the Lord breathed upon the face of the waters. (Jerusalem Targum)

Targums are very old Aramaic paraphrases of the Hebrew bible. They were authoritative, and spoken aloud in the synagogues along with the Hebrew of the Torah and Haftarah readings. Public readings of the Scriptures in ancient synagogues were accompanied by a translation into Aramaic because that was the spoken language of most Jews in Israel and Babylonia during the Talmudic era. The normal practice was that after each verse was read from the sacred Torah scroll, an official translator known as the Turgeman, or Meturgeman, would then recite orally an Aramaic rendering.

Targums were utilized in the synagogues before, during, and after the times of Jesus— being necessary because many of the Jewish people of that day could not understand Hebrew. That's still true today. Because of their assimilation and world-wide dispersion, the vast majority of modern Jews cannot read, nor speak, nor understand the Hebrew language. Today, no doubt the most important, and the most influential translations of the Scriptures are no longer in Hebrew or in Aramaic, but in English.

The Targum of Onkelos is commonly included along with a traditional Torah scroll in modern synagogues, but its teachings have pretty much fallen by the wayside and for the most part, ignored.

Anyway; the universe was dark, and undisciplined; and all the cosmos' building materials were a swirling, chaotic mass of matter— but totally lacking the natural energies and forces that would hold things in place and make them react with each other.

†. Gen 1:3 . . God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.

Those are the very first recorded words of God spoken during the creation of the universe. The Hebrew word for light in that passage is from 'owr (ore) and means light in every sense of the word; which Webster's defines as: illumination, truth, a set of principles and standards, spiritual illumination, served (as coffee) with extra milk or cream, ignite, guide, animate (give life to), dawn, and others. So that the word Light isn't narrowly defined, but has a very broad application.

The illumination of Gen 1:3 is not said to actually glow, and no glowing celestial bodies were created until the fourth day— so that during the interim, even while Light was in the universe, you still couldn't see anything.

According to the Bible, the light of Gen 1:3 is not a supernatural kind of light, but a created kind of light rather than light introduced into the void from outside. On the contrary, it was from within, and was a kind of light with the potential to forge the universe into a living, active, organized, energetic structure rather than just a heap of debris.

†. 2Cor 4:6 . . For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

The light shined out of darkness, not into darkness as if it was introduced to dispel the dark and brighten things up. A safe assumption is that at least one of the meanings of the light of Gen 1:3 refers to the natural laws of physics that would regulate how matter in the current cosmos would behave.

Without the laws of physics, the universe would instantly fragment itself and nothing would hold together. There'd be neither natural nor artificial light, no energy, no motion, no gravity, no magnetism, no atomic attraction, no molecules, no liquids and no solids. The laws of physics were created to make matter behave the way it does and to hold the entire creation together in a cohesive, understandable, sensible unity— converting the Earth from a condition of tohuw and bohuw (chaos and waste) to one of order and usefulness.

†. Pro 8:22-31 . .Yhvh created me at the beginning of His course as the first of His works of old. In the distant past I was fashioned, at the beginning, at the origin of earth. There was still no deep when I was brought forth, no springs rich in water; before [the foundation of] the mountains were sunk, before the hills I was born. He had not yet made earth and fields, or the world’s first clumps of clay.

. . I was there when He set the heavens into place; when He fixed the horizon upon the deep; when He made the heavens above firm, and the fountains of the deep gushed forth; when He assigned the sea its limits, so that its waters never transgress His command; when He fixed the foundations of the earth, I was with Him as a confidant, a source of delight every day, rejoicing before Him at all times, rejoicing in His inhabited world, finding delight with mankind.

That passage speaks of intelligent physical laws that were created specifically for the current cosmos— laws that controlled its behavior and substance right from the very first day of its wild and wooly inception.

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The Memra

Since God Himself in person is somehow untouchable, it's necessary to provide a viable link between the forbidden Being and His earthly creations. One of the important links regarded in ancient rabbinical thought was The Word, called memra' in Aramaic (from the Hebrew and Aramaic root, 'mr which means: to say— the root used throughout Genesis 1 when God "said" and the material world came into reality and existence). The memra' concept— that of a Divine Verbal Mediator between the forbidden Being and the creature Man— occurs hundreds of times in Aramaic Targums.

God's word has been of utmost importance ever since the first day of creation week. It's the primary way that the forbidden Being, implements His will. It's also how He communicates and interacts with human beings, and how He reveals Himself in a way they can understand. On the one hand, God has done this somewhat through human writings. But there is much more to God's speech than just ink and letters. Those materials merely constitute an inert, man-made record. On many occasions, when God's words were actually expressed, they effected far more power and impetus than that of a mere page of historical information.

Why did God even bother to speak during creation? Why didn't our maker just do His work silently without utterance or sound? To whom, or for whom, was He speaking when He said; "Let there be light."

There's a creative, dynamic force in The Almighty's voice, a power and energy in His words, a tangible release of Divine life. His word is an extension of His nature, a movement of His will— alive, powerful, and effective— not just letters, syllables, and sounds. There is vigor and activity in God's words extending far beyond the applications of thought and communication.

According to the Targums, which were at one time accepted as sacred Jewish beliefs, God's word is an entity; actually The God himself. The Memra' is to be worshipped, and served, and obeyed, and prayed to as God. The Jewish apostle John (who's Hebrew name was Johanan), no doubt schooled in the Targums several years before he met Jesus, opened his gospel with these words:

†. John 1:1-3 . . In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made.

Modern Judaism accuses Johanan of fabricating his Christian ideology from Greek philosophy. However, John 1:1-3 was a very Jewish belief back in Johanan's day, and nothing said in that verse would have raised a single objection from any of his peers and contemporaries because that passage reflects 100% Targum teachings that were commonly dispensed in the synagogues of his day.

The Targums taught that God's word— The Memra' —reigns supreme upon The Almighty's throne.

T~ Deut 4:7 . . For what people so great, to whom the Lord is so high in the Name of the Word of the Lord? But the custom of (other) nations is to carry their gods upon their shoulders, that they may seem to be nigh them; but they cannot hear with their ears, (be they nigh or) be they afar off; but the Word of the Lord sits upon His throne high and lifted up, and hears our prayer what time we pray before Him and make our petitions. (Targum Jonathan)

According to the Targums, Jacob, an important progenitor of the people of Israel, worshipped God's word as his own god.

T~ Gen 28:20-21 . . And Jacob vowed a vow, saying: "If the Word of Yhvh will be my support, and will keep me in the way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father's house in peace; then shall the Word of Yhvh be my God. (Targum Onkelos)

C.L.I.F.F.
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†. Gen 1:4-5a . . God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night.

The Hebrew word for Day is yowm (yome) which means to be hot: a day (as the warm hours).

The word for Night is layil (lah'-yil) which means, properly, a twist; viz: the flip side of day— dark and cold (or at least darker and cooler than the daytime).

The terms Day and Night identify the two portions of a 24-hour civil day: nighttime and daytime. This may seem like an insignificant detail, but when studying crucifixion week in the New Testament, then terminology becomes crucial in order to arrive at the correct day of the week upon which Jesus was crucified.

It's essential to apply God's literal definitions of Day and Night to Jesus burial and resurrection if one is to have any hope of deducing the correct chronology of Easter week. When people muddy the waters with the aspects of strict 24-hour Hebrew time-keeping, that's when they start coming up with some very unworkable theories. So-called Good Friday— conveniently positioned in Christendom's religious calendar —is the most unworkable theory of all, and has subjected Christianity to decades of perpetual mockery by the disbelieving world because even a 3rd grader can easily deduce that it's impossible to produce three Nights between Friday afternoon and Sunday morning.

Anyplace there's light, there is no true darkness because light always dispels darkness. However, darkness is powerless to dispel light. So then, light is the superior of the two and rules the dark. That is a biblical axiom; and, typically, light is good, and dark is just the opposite.

The creation of Light gave the liquid matrix the potential to become something ordered and useful. The absence of Light locked the creation into a condition of chaos. Light has huge significance in the Bible. Whether in the form of atomic energy, spiritual truth, good times, or all that is noble; true Light (in the biblical sense) always brings with it blessing and order, and Dark always brings just the opposite.

Hell, although a region of continual fire and burning, is a place of perpetual darkness.

†. Mtt 8:11-12 . . I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

The region of the dead is also said to be dark, even though light be there.

†. Job 10:20-22 . . My days are few, so desist! Leave me alone, let me be diverted a while before I depart— never to return— for the land of deepest gloom; a land whose light is darkness, all gloom and disarray, whose light is like darkness.

In contrast, the 60th chapter of Isaiah characterizes Messiah's kingdom as a place of perpetual Light.

†. Isa 60:19-20 . . No longer shall you need the sun for light by day, nor the shining of the moon for radiance [by night]; for Yhvh shall be your light everlasting, your God shall be your glory. Your sun shall set no more, your moon no more withdraw; for Yhvh shall be a light to you forever, and your days of mourning shall be ended.

†. Gen 1:5b . . And there was evening and there was morning, a first day.

Some confusion exists because of the Bible's various applications of yowm. In Gen 1:4-5a, it indicates daytime only. But here in Gen 1:5b, it indicates both daytime and nighttime: a full 24 hours.

Technically, the hours between an evening and a morning are only half of a civil day; viz: the Night. In order to have a full 24-hour day, we would need two evenings. However, it's agreeable to construe that evening is the onset of Night, and morning is the onset of Day; so that biblically, a full civil day is correctly marked off by those two terms.

Was there really an evening and a morning? No, of course not. The Sun wasn't in existence yet. So, evening and morning are merely technical terms that mark off periods of time. But, how long was the first day; twenty-four hours, one thousand years, one million years?

What terms could be more suitable for the author to convey to his ancient readers the true length of those first few days other than the terms evening and morning? In other words, there are no other words as those are the perfect ones because everybody in the author's own day knew exactly what he meant. The normal, and the universal, understanding of a period of time marked by an evening and a morning is a civil day of twenty-four hours. Standard days thoroughly disagree with the so-called findings of science, but I'll comment on that later.

The first day of creation began in utter darkness. Then light was created. Thus the evening came first, and the morning came last. Biblical days always begin at sundown so that darkness rules the first half of the day, and light rules the final half. During the early moments of the first day of creation, all was chaos. Then came the Light, and from that point on, things started coming together and making some sense.

C.L.I.F.F.
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†. Gen 1:6a . . God said: Let there be an expanse

The word for expanse is from raqiya` (raw-kee'-ah) and means: a great extent of something spread out, a firmament, the visible arch of the sky.

Raqiya` is flexible. We look up at the sky at night and see blackness and stars. We look up at the same sky in the day and we see brightness, birds, clouds, the sun; and sometimes the moon. The Bible uses raqiya` like that too. It can be outer space where Orion and The Pleiades reside, it can be the sky above your head, or the breathable air right in front of your face.

We today have the advantages of modern science to aid our understanding of the book of Genesis. Man has discovered a great deal about the celestial void since Adam's day. Abel, Seth, Noah, and Abraham knew hardly nothing at all. When those guys looked up, they just saw sky; not really understanding exactly how far up, nor how far out, it went. For all they knew, the universe extended no further than the inside surface of a big spherical canopy surrounding their terrestrial home; and which they thought was possible to reach by erecting either a long ladder, or a very high tower, like the Tower Of Babel in Gen 11:4, and like Jacob's staircase in Gen 28:12. Without the benefit of telescopes, there was really not too much they could see for themselves in those days.

The Earth, which began in Gen 1:2 as a formless, unidentifiable, nondescript, sloshy liquid matrix comprising all the essential elements needed to construct it, was thus hung in a void, apparently supported by nothing at all— at least from the ancients' point of view.

†. Job 26:7 . . He it is who stretched out Zaphon over chaos, Who suspended earth over emptiness.

(Zaphon is a mystery word; sometimes translated Heaven, and sometimes translated North.)

†. Gen 1:6b-7 . . in the midst of the water, that it may separate water from water. God made the expanse, and it separated the water which was below the expanse from the water which was above the expanse. And it was so.

The huge liquid matrix, from Gen 1:2 that would soon become planet Earth, was by now spherical in shape. When crew members up in the Space Shuttle let small amounts of fluid loose in a zero gravity environment, the fluids soon shape themselves into shiny liquid spheres floating around the cabin. That would also be the natural response of the matrix to the laws of physics after once God created Light. Prior to Light, the matrix couldn't be spherical because there were no physical laws to cause atomic cohesion and so God's spirit had the job of keeping the matrix corralled in Gen 1:2 until Light took over in Gen 1:3.

Nobody yet really fully understands what Light is. But we do know that wherever there's Light— even the invisible wave lengths —there is energy. The creation of Light, and subsequently the laws of physics, energized the matrix, and made it settle down and behave.

Although the universe is now controlled by well known natural laws, God temporarily overpowered those laws during the cosmos' formation. He had to. How else was He to get matter to do things contrary to its natural behavior? It isn't natural for gases to hover as a layer in a pool of liquid in the presence of gravity. Air wants to form a bubble and rise to the surface. It won't stay suspended in a pool of liquid as a stable, defined layer. Yet here during Earth's formation, air, derived from the chemistry of the matrix, was introduced into the matrix and divided it into two distinct masses of liquid; one below the air, and one above it. That is quite remarkable.

†. Gen 1:8a . . God called the expanse Sky.

From the point of view of a person on the ground, the sky is all one big seamless chunk of air space. Scientists have given the different levels of sky names to differentiate them. Genesis blends all the strata into just one word. But when you look up, it does appear to be all one sky.

We can easily guess what is meant by water that is below the sky. But what about water that's above it? Is there really water above the sky? Not anymore, because the water that was above the sky soon became dissolved in it.

The atmosphere holds roughly 2,900 cubic miles of water in the form of vapor. Suppose you had a tank one mile wide, and one mile high. How long would it have to be to contain 2,900 cubic miles of water. Answer: 2,900 miles long. A tank that length would stretch from San Diego California to the Brooks Range in Alaska.

Now supposing we again make the tank one mile wide, but this time only as tall as the Eiffel Tower. How far would a tank of those dimensions containing 2,900 cubic miles of water go? The Eiffel Tower is 984 feet tall; which is .1863636 miles. So a tank 1 mile wide, and .1863636 miles tall, whose volume is 2,900 cubic miles, would be 15,561 miles long.

If that tank was poked into the Earth, it would go all the way through the planet, out the other side, and keep going for another 7,634 miles into space; which is roughly 31 times further out than a Space Shuttle orbit.

Laid South to North, the tank would stretch from Antarctica past Bangladesh to the North Pole; and keep going over the pole southwards for yet another 3,151 miles to Minneapolis Minnesota. The number of gallons of water in a single cubic mile is 1,100,956,999,000 gallons. That's over 1.1 trillion gallons of water. Multiply those gallons by 2,900 to obtain the number of gallons in the form of vapor dissolved at any given time in Earth's atmosphere; and you get 3.2 quadrillion— which is fourteen zeroes after the 2. A quantity of that volume would look like this:

3,200,000,000,000,000 gallons.

C.L.I.F.F.
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†. Gen 1:8b . . And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.

When the word day is used in Scripture without qualifiers— as in Gen 2:4 where a day encompasses the entire creation week —then there's room for speculation on the meaning of the word. But the terms Evening and Morning leave no room for debate. In the Bible, those terms normally imply solar days consisting of twenty-four hours apiece.

The author wrote Genesis for people living in his own day, not in the 21st century. It's nothing less than rank unbelief to construe a day of creation to mean geological eras in order to appease philosophical musings and modern scientific theories. That is downright cowardly, and reveals a lack of confidence in the Scripture records. If we would but approach Genesis from the author's point of view, and with the understanding of the peoples who lived in his own day, then the creation story becomes a whole lot easier to digest.

The seven days of creation became the basis for the seven days of the Hebrew civil week.

†. Ex 20:8-11 . . Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of Yhvh your God: you shall not do any work —you, your son or daughter, your male or female slave, or your cattle, or the stranger who is within your settlements. For in six days Yhvh made heaven and earth and sea, and all that is in them, and He rested on the seventh day; therefore Yhvh blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it.

There in Ex 20:8-11, Yhvh himself defined the precise length of creation days, along with the length of creation week. That should settle it for conscientious Bible students.

†. Gen 1:9 . . God said: Let the water below the sky be gathered into one area, that the dry land may appear. And it was so.

In order for dry land to appear, there must first be land; so this is apparently the day in which it was made. Essentially, the earth consists of three major parts— the gaseous atmosphere, the liquid hydrosphere, and a solid body composed of the lithosphere, mantle, and core. Although the atmosphere has a thickness of more than 700 miles, about half its mass is concentrated in the lower 3.5 miles. The hydrosphere, in the form of the oceans, covers approximately 70.8 percent of the surface of the earth. The lithosphere, consisting mainly of the cold, rigid, rocky crust of the earth, extends to depths as much as 60 miles in some places. The mantle and core plumb a combined depth of approximately 3,900 miles and make up the lion's share of the Earth's mass.

The amount of water indigenous to planet Earth is just amazing. At the ocean's deepest surveyed point, the Challenger Deep— located in the Mariana Islands group, at the southern end of the Mariana Trench —the water's depth is over 11,000 meters; which is about 6.8 miles: 36,000 feet. That depth corresponds to the cruising altitude of a Boeing 747. At that altitude, probably about all you're going to see of the airliner without straining your eyes is its contrail.

If the Earth's crust were to be smoothed out so that there were no mountains nor valleys nor basins for the oceans, and all the ice melted, it would be covered with water to a depth of over 8,000 feet. It was necessary to deform the Earth in order to make huge basins for the water to settle into so there could be some dry land. Just think of the incredible pressure required to manipulate the earth's crust to make room for those hollows. And when you shove in one place, something has to give in another; so when God made low spots in the crust for oceans, it buckled resulting in mountains and highlands.

†. Ps 104:5 . . He established the earth on its foundations, so that it shall never totter. You made the deep cover it as a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. They fled at your blast, rushed away at the sound of your thunder— mountains rising, valleys sinking to the place you established for them. You set bounds they must not pass so that they never again cover the earth.

The Earth is a marvel of chemical, and geological engineering. It has just the correct amount of solid mass, just the right amount of liquid mass, and just the right amount of gaseous mass. Within those three categories I would add that the earth also has just the right amount of molten mass too because without that molten mass, tectonic plate subduction would not be a possibility.

Each phase of Earth's construction was guided by precise step by step recipes and processes that God first figured out in His head; and then implemented with powers that are just far too complex for Man's puny little mortal mind to comprehend.

†. Isa 40:12-14 . .Who measured the waters with the hollow of His hand, and gauged the skies with a span, and meted earth's dust with a measure, and weighed the mountains with a scale and the hills with a balance? Who has plumbed the mind of The Lord, what man could tell Him His plan? Whom did He consult, and who taught Him, guided Him in the way of right? Who guided Him in knowledge and showed Him the path of wisdom?

†. Job 38:4-6 . .Where were you when I laid the earth's foundations? Speak if you have understanding. Do you know who fixed its dimensions or who measured it with a line? Onto what were its bases sunk? Who set its cornerstone . . ?

†. Isa 48:13 . . My own hand founded the earth, My right hand spread out the skies.

†. Gen 1:10 . . God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering of waters He called Seas. And God saw that this was good.

"Good" meaning that the land and the seas were perfectly suitable for the purposes that God intended for them.

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†. Gen 1:11a . . And God said: Let the earth sprout vegetation

The elements God used to create plant life for the Earth, were drawn from the Earth, just as later He will make Man out of the Earth too. So far, the Earth itself, plus everything destined to be a part of the Earth, has come out of the shapeless, liquid matrix of Gen 1:2.

Although God verbally commanded vegetation into existence, it didn't just pop into being without some prior planning. After all, how could God create a maple tree if He didn't have some concept of its biological structure, or even what it would look like? No, God is a highly intelligent master architect, and a skillful engineer. He began with a concept, organized his thoughts into a workable plan, and then set out to make it all a reality. A genius without par: Almighty God at work.

Doesn't vegetation need soil? Yes of course. However, nature's method of eroding rocks to make soil would have taken far too long— perhaps 300 years to a millennium to make just one inch of soil. So it was necessary to furnish the Earth with a starter kit of soil prior to creating the vegetation destined to live in it. Soil needn't have been a direct creation. All God had to do was crumble and blend the lithosphere that He already created on the second day.

The soil requirements of different plants vary widely, and no generalizations can be made concerning an ideal soil for the growth of all plants; e.g. avocado trees; which grow just fine in the relatively dry climate and alkaline soil of San Diego; do poorly in the acidic soil and much wetter climate of Portland Oregon. There are upwards of 30,000 different soils in the USA alone. So it was necessary for God to exercise discretion in preparing the first soils suitable for the varieties of vegetation that He would plant all over the world.

The primary components of soil are; 1) undissolved inorganic components produced by the weathering and breakdown of surface rocks; 2) soluble nutrients used by plants; 3) various forms of organic matter, both living and dead; and 4) gases and water.

One thing that could not possibly have been in soil's beginning was dead organic matter because nothing had lived prior to the third day of Earth's life; so it would be a while yet before nature would begin doing its work to provide soils with a measure of humus. But very soon now, God would create organisms to live in the soils to help keep them healthy and fertile— earthworms, nematodes, bacteria, microbes, moles, gophers, shrews, mites, springtails, fungi, actinomycetes, termites, and ants— and of course all the vegetation that not only grows in the soil, but dies and mixes back into it to help generate humus.

FYI: Jeffery Dukes, a biologist, ecologist, and dabbler in biogeochemistry at the University of Massachusetts, figured out that one(1) gallon of gasoline represents roughly 100 tons of plant matter: equivalent to 40 acres of wheat. The annual consumption of gasoline in the USA— about 131 billion gallons —is equivalent to 25 quadrillion pounds of prehistoric biomass; and that's not even factoring in all the other fossil fuels like coal, natural gas (a quadrillion contains 15 zeroes). Since 1751, roughly the beginning of the industrial revolution; humans have burned an amount of fossil fuel equivalent to all the vegetation, of every variety imaginable, that lived on the Earth for a period of 13,300 years.

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†. Gen 1:11b-12a . . seed-bearing plants, fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.” And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation: seed-bearing plants of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it.

The structure of seeds is quite remarkable. They carry genetic coding necessary to produce a complete replica of the parent plant from which they came. Some seeds, such as those of the willow, are viable (capable of growing into healthy organisms) for only a few days after falling from the parent tree. Other seeds are viable for years— e.g. seeds of the Oriental lotus have been known to germinate 3,000 years after dispersal.

Many of the original animals, including Man, were vegetarians. Because of that, the need for food would be immediate and they could not tolerate any seasonal delays necessary to grow it.

All plant, animal, and human life were created adult. The old adage; "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" is easily resolved when it's realized that only a fertilized egg can produce an embryo. Fertilization requires contributions from both an adult male, and an adult female. Seeds, whether plant or animal, are produced only by adults; and the seeds must be fertile before they will germinate. Thus, pollination was essential. And pollination is possible only among adult plants.

All plants, those then and those now, were created on the third day. Every plant since then, and all that will ever be, pre-existed in the cell structures, and in the DNA, of the original flora. This principle of living things holds true not just for vegetation, but for animal and human life too. The cosmos was completed in six days. After that; God stopped creating. Nothing has been created since then; no, not even newborn babies. God produced the origin of species, but from then on, the various species reproduced themselves.

†. Gen 1:12b . . And God saw that this was good.

The word for good is from towb (tobe) which not only serves as an adjective, but also as a noun. So when God inspected His handiwork and pronounced it "good" it was not only a job well done; but it was a job done just right. His creation was like Mozart's music— you cannot improve upon what is already perfect: displace a single note, and there would be diminishment; displace a phrase, and the whole structure would fall.

†. Gen 1:13 . . And there was evening and there was morning, a third day.

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†. Gen 1:14a . .God said: Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky

On the fourth day, God spent time up in the higher reaches of the Sky. It might seem odd that God began work on the surface of the Earth, and then before He was finished, stopped short and moved off into space. Why not finish building down here on the planet first?

Because many types of plant and animal life need sunlight if they're to be strong and healthy. At this point in the creation, planet Earth was very dark and freezing cold. The dark side of the Moon gets down to 279º below zero; so it was time to turn the Earth into a greenhouse.

Oxygen is a must gas for sustaining life on earth and a very large percentage of it is produced by photosynthesis which is a chemical process that won't work without light. No doubt God introduced a starter kit of oxygen into the atmosphere, but it would eventually wax stale without some sort of filtration system and a method for replenishing breathable oxygen. Plant life plays a major role in both filtration and replenishment; hence the need to get the Sun shining as soon as possible.

The atmosphere contains about 19.5-23.5 percent oxygen at any given time and even with all the fossil fuel burned around the world, destruction of rain forests, and volcanic activity, the percentages remain fairly constant.

These lights here in verse 14 are luminous objects; and one of them; the Moon, doesn't generate its own light. It reflects light from the Sun. But for all practical purposes, both of them shed light upon the Earth just as God intended for them to do.

†. Gen 1:14b . . to separate Day from Night;

There was already Day and Night, even before luminous bodies were created. God established those boundaries on the first day. So light and dark are conditions not entirely dependant upon the presence of, or the lack of, natural illumination. The main purpose of the lights was to distinguish the two conditions; to graphically, and visibly, show that Day and Night are incompatible. This is not only true in the physical world; but also in the spiritual as well.

†. 2Cor 6:14 . . Do not be yoked with those who are different, with unbelievers. For what partnership do righteousness and lawlessness have? Or what fellowship does light have with darkness?

Darkness and Light have nothing in common. They are diametrically opposed to each other.

†. Gen 1:14c . . they shall serve as signs for the set times— the days and the years;

The word for signs is from 'owth (oth) and means: a signal; such as a flag, beacon, monument, omen, prodigy, evidence, etc.

The Sun and the Moon are very useful time keepers. The period of time between full moons, roughly 29.5 Earth days, is handy for dividing the year into major divisions. Though the moon doesn't divide the year into equal months, it is nevertheless close enough for practical purposes. If you were to tell somebody your intention to visit them in five moons, they would have a pretty good idea when to get ready for your arrival.

The Earth's orbit is handy too because it makes the Sun appear to move along a vast circular path in space called the Ecliptic. The Sun's location along the Ecliptic, relative to the stars, at any given time, is always against the backdrop of one of the signs of the Zodiac. So a person familiar with those signs, can, without even looking at a calendar, come pretty close to telling you the month of the year. That may not seem important to us modern city slickers, but if you were a farmer or a rancher living in ancient times, or even today living in a third world country, that information might come in very handy. When the Sun gets back to the same place in the Zodiac, everyone is older by one solar year, depending on their sign.

†. Gen 1:15-18a . . and they shall serve as lights in the expanse of the sky to shine upon the earth. And it was so. God made the two great lights, the greater light to dominate the day and the lesser light to dominate the night, and the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the sky to shine upon the earth, to dominate the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness.

Stars illuminate the Earth too. They may appear too dim for that purpose, but that's because our unaided human eyes are not all that sensitive. If you have never looked at the universe at night through a pair of binoculars, by all means try it sometime. You will be amazed at its brilliance! Some animals' eyes are more sensitive to light than the human eye so starlight is perfectly adequate for their nocturnal way of life.

The man who concerted construction of the Palomar telescope, George Ellery Hale, was dismayed at all the starlight going to waste in our world. That's why he was so obsessed with building instruments with huge mirrors to collect and focus starlight from a surface area much larger than his own eye.

The pupil diameter of the average human eye in the dark is roughly 7 millimeters; yielding a surface area of about 38 square mm. Palomar's 200 inch mirror yields a surface area of approximately 20,268,299 square mm. That is a significant gain in light collection; a ratio of about 2,895,471 to 1.

Every square inch of your neighborhood is bathed in starlight on a clear night. If you could see all of it falling around your house, you might have to squint or wear dark glasses when you went out at night.

Astronomers say that many of the stars are so far away that radio signals from quasars, and illumination from distant galaxies, takes millions of years to get here traveling at the breath-taking speed of 186,282.4 miles each second. So people have attempted to estimate the age of the universe by calculating the light-years between us and distant objects. Big Mistake!

Even if it were possible to accurately measure extremely large distances in space, it still wouldn't tell us much about the age of the universe because the cosmos was created fully functioning at the very outset. The instant God made those far away stars, they became visible on Earth— no waiting period. He just punched their light right on through. It was His intent in Gen 1:15 for the stars to shine upon the earth, and they did so on day four, not after many thousands and millions of years of delay.

But what's the point of putting all those objects out there in deep space? Well, for one thing, they decorate the night like the ornaments people put up during holidays. The night sky would sure be a bore if it was totally black. Think of the night sky like you would think of a beautiful tapestry, or a celestial Sistine Chapel. It makes better sense that way than to try and find some other meanings for it.

†. Ps 19:2 . .The heavens declare the glory of God, the sky proclaims His handiwork.

The universe is simply a magnificent work of art. It was never meant to be a home for Mr. ET. Sadly, many thinking people like Carl Segan look to the sky for the wrong reasons. Never look to the sky for the wrong reasons. Look to the sky for inspiration. Look to it for an exhibit of your maker's genius.

†. Rom 1:19-22 . . For what can be known about God is evident to them, because God made it evident to them. Ever since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what He has made. As a result, they have no excuse; for although they knew God they did not accord Him glory as God or give him thanks. Instead, they became futile in their reasoning, and their senseless minds were darkened. While claiming to be wise, they became fools

†. Gen 1:18b-19 . . And God saw that this was good. And there was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.

C.L.I.F.F.
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†. Gen 1:20 . . God said: Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and birds that fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.

The Hebrew word for birds is `owph (ofe) which just simply means covered with wings rather than covered with feathers. It's a rather unusual word because it includes not only aerial creatures with feathers, but according to Lev 11:13-23, `owph also pertains to bats and flying insects.

The wording of Gen 1:20 may appear that birds swarmed in the waters, when in fact they never have. Some birds may be amphibious, like the American Dipper, but they don't live in water. They live in the open air. Gen 1:20 reveals the origin of birds, but not their habitat.

How can water produce birds and sea creatures? Well, it can't be any harder than producing terra creatures from the dust of the earth seeing as how the very same dust exists in earth's waters.

bring forth swarms is actually all one word, derived from sharats (shaw-rats') and means: to wriggle, i.e. (by implication) swarm or abound. Sharats, strictly speaking, simply indicates the presence of large numbers; like in Ex 7:25-29.

Sharats is a different word than the ones translated bring forth in Gen 1:12 and Gen 1:15. The word in Gen 1:12 is from dasha' (daw-shaw') which means: to sprout. The word in Gen 1:15 is from yatsa' (yaw-tsaw') which is a word of motion and means: to go, to cause to go, send away, or to bring out, or proceed.

It's important to note that water creatures were created separately— and on the very same day as the fowls. So birds didn't evolve from creatures who lived in the sea. Birds are a distinct creation of their very own— a separate genre of life in their own right, and absolutely did not evolve from some other order of life.

The word for creature is from nephesh (neh'-fesh) and means: a breathing animal, viz: one that breathes atmospheric gases to survive— whether in free air or dissolved in water. A nephesh is different than vegetation. Although vegetation is alive, it isn't stated to be sentient.

This is the very first mention of a nephesh. According to Gen 2:7, nephesh are not only the animal world, but that Man himself is a nephesh too. The word nephesh implies an innermost being, a mind, a consciousness of one's existence, a sense of individuality, and a consciousness of one's surroundings. Some say that animals are people too. Well . . they're certainly not human, but according to the Bible, they are very definitely just as much a nephesh as a human being. So I guess we could consent, at least to some degree, that the beasts are people too; in their own way.

†. Gen 1:21a . . God created the great sea monsters, and all the living creatures of every kind that creep, which the waters brought forth in swarms,

sea monsters is from tanniyn (tan-neen') and/or tanniym (tan-neem') which mean: a marine or land monster. Tanniyn is sometimes translated Dragon— as in Isa 27:1

†. In that day Yhvh will punish— with His great, cruel, mighty sword —Leviathan the elusive serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent: He will slay the dragon of the sea.

It wasn't a tanniyn, however, that swallowed Jonah. That creature was either a dagah (daw-gaw') a dag (dawg) or a da'g (dawg). All three words mean: a fish.

of every kind that creep in this case regards only aquatic creatures that creep e.g. starfish, lobsters, clams, and crabs. The terra creepers are coming up in a little bit.

But what about aquatic dinosaurs? Well . . according to Discovery's web site— Walking With Dinosaurs —there were never any fully aquatic dinosaurs; viz: dinosaurs with gills. Paleontologists believe there were some marine reptiles such as plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs, but those animals weren't true dinos.
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†. Gen 1:21b . . and all the winged birds of every kind.

kind is from miyn (meen) and means: to portion out: a sort; viz: a species.

God created a variety of bird species all at once, rather than just one from whom all the rest of the birdies evolved. Man, however, wasn't created that way.

†. Acts 17:25-26 . . From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth;

Man is a one-of-a-kind specie. From just one man's genes came all the other variations of Man; ranging anywhere from Pygmies to Eskimos.

†. Gen 1:21b-22a . . And God saw that this was good. God blessed them,

This is the very first recorded instance of a Divine blessing, and it wasn't given to the vegetation, just to nephesh.

†. Gen 1:22b . . saying: Be fertile

Fertile of course being just the opposite of sterile. The word for fertile is from parah (paw-raw') and means: to bear fruit (literally or figuratively). Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel, were all sterile women until they were repaired by miracles. Too many women take their children for granted; just ask the ones who can't have any.

†. Gen 1:22c . . and increase, fill the waters in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.

Sea creatures exist in the most unlikely places. When the crew of the bathyscaphe Trieste descended into the 35,761 foot deep Challenger Deep located in the deepest part of the Mariana Trench in 1960, they didn't really expect to find anything living down there; but to their surprise, the saw some flat fish similar to sole and flounder where the pressure is about 15,945 pounds per square inch which is roughly equal to the weight of a block of Portland cement measuring 5.5 feet x 5.5 feet x 5.5 feet. If all the weight of that block were concentrated on an area no larger than a 25¢ piece, you'd have a pretty good idea of what 15,945 pounds per square inch represents.

Normal atmospheric pressure is roughly 14.7 pounds per square inch. Take away that pressure, and you wouldn't be able to draw a breath because the atmosphere's pressure is what pushes air into your lungs when you inhale. People can't inhale in a zero-pressure atmosphere. All they can do is exhale because a zero-pressure atmosphere is a vacuum.

Anyway, to put that depth in perspective; the dimensions of my palm and open fingers are roughly 4" x 7" which is 28 square inches. At the bottom of Challenger Deep, the cumulative force on my palm and open fingers would be about 446,460 pounds. But in water, the pressure is all around, so if we add the pressure from the backside of my hand, then the combined pressure on my hand would be 892,920 pounds and that's not factoring in the edges of my hand nor the inside surfaces of its fingers. Those 892,920 pounds aren't just dead weight, but rather, the measure of a squeeze— a monster hand-shake —that would compress my entire hand into a rather grotesque sight in no time at all.

Without the blessing of fertility, nephesh couldn't reproduce. Although reproductive systems are built into all nephesh; those systems are merely glands and plumbing without the miracle of fertility. God himself personally enabled the reproductive systems of nephesh to transfer life. That is very interesting, and to this good day, the transfer of life from one generation to another is still a great big mystery.

Although vegetation is alive, it's not a conscious, sentient kind of life. When plants pass on their life in a seed, it is not the same kind of life nor the same kind of event as when a nephesh passes its life onto its offspring. The life of a plant's offspring happens through the mindless chemistry of genetic programming; whereas the life of a sentient, conscious creature is more than chemistry and genetics, but also a spark of Divine. Therefore the life of a sentient, conscious creature has value far over and above the value of plant life to such an extent that plant life has zero importance as a life form; viz: it's quite expendable.

Some fruitarians might have something to say about that. According to one of Hugh Grant's blind dates in the movie Notting Hill; fruits and vegetables have feelings, and cooking is cruel. Fruitarians (according to the blind date) eat only things that have actually fallen from the tree or bush, and are in fact dead already. Picking and cooking fresh fruits and vegetables right off their parent plant would therefore be an act of murder according to Hugh Grant's date.

†. Gen 1:23 . . And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.

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†. Gen 1:24-25 . . God said: Let the earth [produce] every kind of living creature: cattle, creeping things, and wild beasts of every kind.” And it was so. God made wild beasts of every kind and cattle of every kind, and all kinds of creeping things of the earth. And God saw that this was good.

This grouping of creatures isn't specifically given the blessing of fertility. But if God would bless sea creatures and birds, why ever would He not bless the cattle too who are just as much, if not more, important than birds and sea life? But since they've been reproducing all this time, then I'd have to say there is sufficient empirical evidence to support the assumption that that they were equally blessed with fertility just like everything else.

The word for living creature is from nephesh (neh'-fesh); the same word used in verse 20 regarding birds and aquatic life. That word implies an innermost being, a mind, a consciousness of one's existence, a consciousness of individuality, and a consciousness of one's surroundings.

Terra critters consist of the very land masses upon which they live. They, like Man, weren't created out of thin air; but rather, God used all-natural earthly materials and ingredients already at hand to manufacture them. Neat-O

Not only are the animals and plants and birds and fishes indigenous to planet Earth; but they are part of it too and blend right back in when they die and decompose. Dead life doesn't introduce foreign substances into the environment. It actually replenishes the environment and benefits the planet.

A prime example is the rain forest. It actually lives on death. The soil in a rain forest is not all that good for farming, and those who burn off the trees soon discover that they must move on after a few years because rain forest soil will not support farming for very long. The rain forest thrives upon the decomposition of its own unique ecosystem. Remove the system, and the region becomes pathetically inadequate to support commercial kinds of plant life introduced into its soils.

The word for cattle is from behemah (be-hay-maw') and means: a (mute) dumb beast; especially any large quadruped or animal (often collective) These kinds of animals are the species from which come those that can be domesticated for Man's uses. They can pull plows and wagons, provide tallow for candles, hide and wool for clothes, meat and dairy for table, carry loads on their backs, and give people rides.

The plural of behemah is behemowth (be-hay-mohth') a word which some have construed to indicate Dinosaurs; citing Job 40:15-24 as their proof text. But even if Job 40:15 did indicate a specie of Dinosaur, it would be limited to one that ate grass like an ox, lived near lakes and rivers, and drank lots of water.

The animal to which God referred was familiar to Job, who lived in a region called the land of Uz (Jer 25:20). In Bible times, lands were typically named after the men who pioneered their settlement. The first mention of an Uz is Gen 10:23, a grandson of Noah born to his son Shem after the Flood. There's no information regarding that Uz's habitat.

The next Uz named is one of Esau's grandsons (Gen 36:28). He settled in an area known in the Bible as Moab (Lam 4:21) which was situated on the east side of the river Jordan; a river specifically named in Job 40:23. That particular Uz seems to me the most likely named in Job 1:1; which of course precludes Dinosaurs since Esau came after his grandfather Abraham; who lived a mere 430 years prior to the Ten Commandments (Gal 3:17) which are thought to have been recorded around 1450 BC. Adding 430 years to that goes back to 1880 BC, which is nowhere near the Jurassic era.

Unfortunately, Job 40:15 is the sole location in the whole Bible where behemowth is used so there's no way to make comparisons with other contexts. The fact of the matter is, nobody yet has been able to conclusively identify the animal about which God spoke in that passage; so its identity is wide open to theory, debate, conjecture, and opinion.

It's no accident that some of the animals are so useful to Man. God made them for the express purpose of serving people. Although they're nephesh, same as Man, that doesn't make them equals with Man. However, although they are below the rank of Man, people have no right to be cruel to animals. But Man does have the right, by the Creator's fiat, to take advantage of them; and to induct them into slavery for Man's benefit.

creeping things is from remes (reh'-mes) and means: a reptile or any other rapidly moving animal. Dinosaurs would've been included in this grouping.

wild beasts is from chay (khah'-ee) which doesn't mean wild beasts at all. It means: life, alive, living, raw, fresh, and strong. Chay is a nondescript classification and is the very same word as in verse 20, where it regarded swarms of aquatic life. This time chay regards swarms of unspecified terra life.

God seems to enjoy making things in very large numbers. About 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. Whether or not every one of the known species of life all existed in Adam's day is impossible to know for sure; what with the number of extinction's, and genetic hybridizing and mutations that surely must have occurred since then.

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†. Gen 1:26a . . And God said: Let us make Man

The introduction of the plural pronoun us into the narrative at this point has given rise to some interesting speculation regarding the identity of the antecedent. To whom was God referring when He said us?

According to Jewish folklore, it means that holy angels assisted God in putting the cosmos together. And who really knows? Maybe they set out plants and trees and dug watercourses; sort of like gardeners and engineers.

According to the pragmatist, it's merely a rhetorical kind of expression; like when you see a link on a web page and click on it, thinking to yourself; "hmmm. Let's see where this goes."

According to some, the plural pronoun means there is more than one God out there.

And to others, the plural pronoun indicates that God, although a lone individual, is somehow a composite unity— a man of many parts; so to speak.

One way to resolve this issue is to parse the words in the verse. The Hebrew word for God is 'elohiym (el-o-heem') which is, you guessed it, a plural noun, and it doesn't necessarily have to be capitalized. Translating it god and/or gods is just as accurate as translating it God and/or Gods.

So then, Gen 1:26a could be translated The gods said: "let us make Man" or as The Gods said: "let us make Man".

There's yet another way to come at it. I pointed out in msg #5 the existence of an entity known in sacred Jewish literature as The Memra (The Word Of The Lord) of whom Targums say:

Deut 4:7 . . For what people so great, to whom the Lord is so high in the Name of the Word of the Lord? But the custom of (other) nations is to carry their gods upon their shoulders, that they may seem to be nigh them; but they cannot hear with their ears, (be they nigh or) be they afar off; but the Word of the Lord sits upon His throne high and lifted up, and hears our prayer what time we pray before Him and make our petitions. (Targum Jonathan)

And:

Gen 28:20-21 . . And Jacob vowed a vow, saying: "If the Word of Yhvh will be my support, and will keep me in the way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father's house in peace; then shall the Word of Yhvh be my God. (Targum Onkelos)

The Bible's God, in all His fullness and presence, is somehow a distinctly separate person than His word though they are both one and the same God and occupy one and the same throne. That rather odd situation easily justifies the use of a plural pronoun.

The possibility of the Bible's God talking to Himself may seem odd; but I really don't think that's so strange— I mean, after all, human beings talk to themselves all the time, and nobody seems to think much of it.

Regarding Man's creation; all the other creations up to this point were impersonal. Like when a building contractor erects a shopping center. It's just a job . . just a task. But when that same contractor comes home and remodels his wife's bathroom on the week-end; then it becomes personal. It would appear then, that Man is the only thing God ever created in this cosmos that His heart was really in it.

The lack of details regarding the incredible processes of creation aggravates many intellectuals because Genesis reveals so little; hardly any scientific information at all. Many, many questions still remain unanswered regarding the origin of the universe, the ice age, and the Jurassic era. But that stuff is Biblically superfluous. I think the first parts of creation actually made God impatient and He could hardly wait to get to the people part of creation because the soul of the Bible's God desires interaction with human beings.

People mean something special to Man's creator. And I believe that's why He said to himself "let us" make man. I really like that because it makes me feel special. I'm not just another mass-produced swarm of nephesh like the dumb animals and the bugs and the fishes, and the birds and the beasties. I'm somebody. All the other creations— the water, the land, the air, space, stars, and all the rest— were merely tasks; just chores. But Man himself was neither a task nor a chore. People were a Divine labor of love. The human beings were what God was really after all along; and the all rest of it's just habitat.

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†. Gen 1:26b . . in our image, after our likeness.

Because of the terms "image and likeness" there are some who believe that the Bible's God is a human being; or at least looks like one. But according to the New Testament's Jesus, God is a spirit being, not a human being.

†. John 4:24 . . God is spirit

According to the New Testament's Jesus, spirits don't have solid physical bodies.

†. Luk 24:36-39 . . Now as they said these things, Jesus Himself stood in the midst of them, and said to them, "Peace to you." But they were terrified and frightened, and supposed they had seen a spirit. And he said to them, "Why are you troubled? And why do doubts arise in your hearts? Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Handle me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have."

Moses warned Yhvh's people to avoid making any kind of mannequin, figurine, or statue representing God since no one has any true concept of what the Bible's God actually looks like in person. (Ex 4:10-19)

There exists absolutely nothing in nature physically resembling God— neither Man, nor beast, nor plant, nor bird, nor bug, nor reptile nor anything out in the void. The terms "image and likeness" don't mean duplicate and/or doppelganger; no, not by any means. Rather; they're similar to Knighthood— a conferred honor in rank and status.

Man's image and likeness of God is the principle upon which the death penalty was founded in Gen 9:4-6. Not because Man is a god, nor because Man physically resembles The God in any way; but because Man was honored with a God-like status.

†. Ps 8:5-9 . . what is man that You have been mindful of him, mortal man that You have taken note of him, that You have made him little less than divine, and adorned him with glory and majesty; You have made him master over Your handiwork, laying the world at his feet, sheep and oxen, all of them, and wild beasts, too; the birds of the heavens, the fish of the sea, whatever travels the paths of the seas.

Man certainly doesn't act like God, nor does he look like God; but nevertheless, he holds the rank of God-likeness. And because of that, it is very wrong to take human life without just cause. It is just as wrong to take human life without cause as it would be wrong to take God's life without cause. Not because Man is equal with God. (Far from it. You won't see God getting drunk, beating his kids, and cheating on his income taxes). But because human life is to be respected as if it were God's own genetic posterity.

†. Ps 82:6 . . I said; You are 'elohiym (Gods), and all of you are sons of the Most High.

Aside:

†. John 10:33-36 . .The Jews answered him, saying: For a good work we do not stone you, but for blasphemy, and because you, being a man, make yourself God.

. . Jesus answered them: Is it not written in your law "I said you are Gods." If He called them Gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken) how do you say of him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world: You are blaspheming for saying "I am the Son of God"?

(chuckle) Jesus had his Jewish opponents over a barrel. If he was a blasphemer for claiming to be God's son, then God too was a blasphemer for ranking His people as God's offspring, and also for ranking them right up there with God.

How does being God's biological offspring make somebody God? Well, it's just simple genetics. Bats give birth to bats, coyotes give birth to coyotes, raccoons give birth to raccoons; viz: they reproduce themselves according to their own specie; not some other species. So then, if God were to reproduce, He would give birth to God: His own specie; not some other specie.

But Jesus' Jewish countrymen grossly misunderstood him. He wasn't claiming to be God's biological offspring, but rather, he was claiming the right to David's throne because God promoted Jesus' grandfather to the rank of His own firstborn son.

†. Ps 89:20-27 . . I have found my servant David; with my holy oil I have anointed him . . I will make him my firstborn; higher than any king on earth.

From that point onwards, every king of the Davidic dynasty succeeding David, had the right to refer to themselves as God's son.

†. Ps 45:6-7 . .Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: the scepter of thy kingdom is a righteous scepter. Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.

That Psalm clearly speaks of a Davidic king that God himself addressed as God. There's just no getting out of it. So then, since Jesus believed himself David's royal descendant, then his Old Testament studies would quite naturally lead him to believe himself God's son.

†. Luke 1:32-33 . . He shall be great, and shall be called the son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.

C.L.I.F.F.
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†. Gen 1:26c . .They shall rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the cattle, the whole earth, and all the creeping things that creep on earth.

The word for rule is from radah (raw-daw') and means: to tread down, i.e. subjugate; specifically, to crumble off.

I saw a pretty interesting bumper sticker some time ago that went like this: "We are not above the Earth, we are of the Earth."

Well . . I appreciate the Native American philosophy behind that statement. It's very folksy. But the Bible's God decreed that Man is very definitely above the Earth, and has the God-given right to subjugate every living thing on the planet including the whole earth itself: its forests, its grasses, its rivers, its seas, its soil, its rocks, its air, its minerals, its mountains, its valleys, and even its tectonic plates.

†. Ps 8:4-9 . .When I behold Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and stars that You set in place, what is man that You have been mindful of him, mortal man that You have taken note of him, that You have made him little less than divine, and adorned him with glory and majesty; You have made him master over Your handiwork, laying the world at his feet, sheep and oxen, all of them, and wild beasts, too; the birds of the heavens, the fish of the sea, whatever travels the paths of the seas.

†. Gen 1:27a . . And God created man in His image,

Although Adam was made in the image of God, his imagery isn't precise. The Hebrew word used to describe Adam's imagery in Genesis is tselem (tseh'-lem); which means: a phantom, i.e. (figuratively) illusion, resemblance; hence, a representative figure, especially an idol.

The shadow of a tree is something like Adam's likeness of God. On the ground, a tree's shadow is little more than an irregular puddle of contrasts, just a patchy smirch. But when we look up, oh! the tree comes alive with color and detail. We can see how tall it is, the features of the bark, and the shape and texture of the leaves and how they are arranged on the branches. And then we notice that the tree is an ecosystem in itself; a habitat for insects and other creatures invisible in the tree's shadow. When we look at ourselves, we don't really see God at all; no, all we really see is something akin to God's shadow.

Man is not actually the Almighty's biological offspring. If he were, then Man would be God too because if God were to reproduce; He would engender a God being, not a human being. Since like begets like, then God would beget God— more of Himself. That's just simple genetics.

It's very evident, in the first chapter of Genesis, that the Bible's God didn't engender Man; nor did God clone Man from Himself; no, God manufactured Man out of the natural resources already existing in the freshly created cosmos— resources that didn't exist until God created them. So Man is definitely not of the God specie. He is a terrestrial specie of life, just like all the other creatures that God manufactured.

The word for Man is from 'adam (aw-dawm') and means: ruddy i.e. a human being (an individual or the species, mankind, etc.). 'Adam is derived from a very similar word that means: to show blood (in the face), i.e. flush or turn rosy.

Is that an indication of Adam's color? Was he a Red Man, like we sometimes call Native Americans? Maybe; but it's far more likely he was brown; although nobody really knows for sure. However, all human life, regardless of race or color, are 'adam because this is the only occurrence on record where God made human beings. After the sixth day, He stopped creating and made no further additions to the cosmos.

Man's face is remarkable. He can actually communicate with it, and is capable of expressing and projecting an incredible range of thought and emotion in his face without saying a single word; and all without thinking about it. Not many animals can do that. Most especially alligators. You can never tell what those big ol' plugg uglies are thinking by looking at their face because it's always the same no matter how they're feeling at the time.

On numerous occasions, the Bible's Jesus identified himself as "son of man" which literally means "son of Adam". That title was neither new nor unique in Jesus' day. God addressed the prophet Ezekiel as "son of man" on at least 93 occasions; and in every case, the Hebrew word for man is the same as it is here in Genesis: 'adam which is the proper name of the human race God created in the beginning (Gen 1:26-27, Gen 3:9, Gen 5:2).

The Bible's Christ is very complicated. He was Adam's creator (John 1:1-3, John 1:14) and he was Adam's biological offspring (Luke 3:38). So the Bible's Christ is both creator and creature. He came from heaven, and he came from dust. He is human and he is inhuman. He was a mortal being while at the same time existing as an immortal being. He was a material being while at the same time existing as an asomatous being. He was an eternal being while at the same time existing as a temporal being. The Bible's Christ is verily a catalogue of contradictions and impossibilities.

I think it is very noteworthy that Jesus didn't refer to himself as "a" son of man, but rather, as the son of man, which well-trained Jews would instantly correlate to a passage in Daniel regarding their long-awaited Messiah.

†. Dan 7:13-14 . . In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of Adam, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was ushered into His presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom the one that will never be destroyed.

C.L.I.F.F.
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[nino.natividad]

Thanks for this one! God bless you.

 

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†. Gen 1:27b . . in the image of God created He him; male and female He created them.

Some women would be offended to be called a him. It does seem sexist, I agree; but is a Biblical reality nonetheless. Regardless of one's gender, all human beings are of the genus Man and can be legitimately referred to as a him or as a he. Bible students really have to watch for that because when they run across the word man in the Bible, it doesn't automatically indicate males.

Both genders were embodied within the male when God created Man. Though her body was actually formed at some later date, the female was nevertheless created the sixth day right along with the male. We know that because the author said; "in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them." So him equals them, and the male was both the male and the female in the beginning. Man was created on the sixth day only. No other human beings have been created since then.

God mass produced all the other living things because they were stated to be "swarms". But Man wasn't made in swarms. No, he was made a solo specimen, a lone individual, and then later God multiplied the loner to produce the very first couple. Thus, the entire human race stems from just that one individual male; even his own wife; so that in reality, Eve was Adam's first child.

†. Gen 1:28a . . God blessed them and God said to them: Be fertile and increase,

That's essentially the very same blessing that God bestowed upon the birds and the aquatic life; and is implied to include the land animals too because they were obviously fertile and increasing right along with the rest.

Some interpret that Gen 1:28 to be a mandate requiring married people to have children. But the wording is so obviously a blessing rather than a mandate; especially since God said the very same thing to the birds, and the fish, and the reptiles, and the bugs, and the beasts. It's always best to consider blessings as gratuities unless clearly indicated otherwise. Some blessings have to be earned, like rewards and wages; but not this one. It was neither requested nor was it earned; and it was freely given without any strings attached and nothing asked in return.

Without the gift of fertility, Man would be just as sterile as a soup spoon. So it was a very essential blessing. And a very interesting blessing it is because the blessing of fertility empowers living things to pass their own kind of life on to a next generation. God quit creating after six days. So unless creatures were enabled to reproduce, all would soon die out and become quite extinct in a very short time.

†. Gen 1:28b . . till the earth and master it; and rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and all the living things that creep on earth.

The word for master is from kabash (kaw-bash') which emphasizes coercion and force; and means: to disregard; to conquer, and to violate.

The word rule is from radah (raw-daw') and means: to tread down; to subjugate.

kabash and radah are very strong language. Those two words combined leave no room for doubt regarding Man's supremacy in the sphere of things. God blessed Man (both genders) with the authority to dominate and to violate planet Earth at will, and exploit it to his own advantage. I'm sure that's unacceptable to tree huggers and to the Earth Liberation Front; but there it is in black and white. Man answers to no plant nor animal on this entire globe. The whole Earth is Man's private property. If aliens ever come here, they can be arrested for trespassing.

C.L.I.F.F.
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[Webers_Home]

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†. Gen 1:29-30 . . God said: See, I give you every seed-bearing plant that is upon all the earth, and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit; they shall be yours for food. And to all the animals on land, to all the birds of the sky, and to everything that creeps on earth, in which there is the breath of life, I give all the green plants for food. And it was so.

In the beginning, both Man and Beast, even the lions and tigers, and apparently all the dinosaurs too, were vegetarians. Precisely what kind of diet God intended for sea life is not stated.

That raises an interesting question. Why do carnivores have teeth so uniquely suited for killing other creatures and ripping their flesh? Well, I think it's obvious that they didn't use their teeth like that in the beginning. In Messiah's future kingdom, carnivores won't be carnivorous any more, and wild animals will no longer pose a threat either to Man or to each other.

†. Isa 11:6-9 . .The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand into the viper's nest.

. . They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of Yhvh as the waters fill the sea.

NOTE: "the earth will be full of the knowledge of Yhvh" indicates that one day there will be only one religion, one god, and one set of beliefs about that god. Everyone's beliefs will be the same; viz: no more diversity, no more debates, no more conflicts, and no more denominations. Thanks be to Yhvh there will no more be violent religions like Islam; for salvation is of the Jews, not the Arabs.

†. John 4:22 . . Salvation is of the Jews.

†. Gen 1:31 . . And God saw all that He had made, and found it very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Some feel that the cosmos was created incomplete, not quite up to snuff— that it was to Man that God entrusted the task of bringing the Earth to perfection. But that is very doubtful. Why ever would God, after an overall inspection, conclude His work by pronouncing it all good— and not just good, but very good. Why would He do that if in truth it wasn't?

And besides, Man hasn't improved the planet at all. He has actually ravaged it and left it with terrible damage— indiscriminately obliterated habitat, wiped out animals to extinction, scarred and poisoned the land, filled the atmosphere with toxins and greenhouse gases, destroyed soil and waterways with massive pollution, and seriously upset the balance of nature.

It seems that everything Man touches, he ruins; and as if the earth isn't enough, he's moved out into space where in just the 51½ years since Russia launched its first Sputnik into low earth orbit, Man has littered the sky around our planet with 13,000 catalogued pieces of space junk, which is only a fraction of the more than 600,000 objects circling the globe larger than one centimeter (a centimeter is a little over 3/8ths of an inch). He's even deposited 374,782 pounds of stuff on the Moon, including Alan Shepherd's golf balls.

So; when God looked over His work and "found" that it was very good, does that mean He was surprised it came out so good? (chuckle) No. It would be a poor craftsman indeed who couldn't look over their work with pride and satisfaction in a job well done.

I believe the Bible's God knew precisely what He was doing, and where He was going with creation; and was highly pleased that it came out exactly as planned. I seriously doubt that God was feeling His way along like experimenters in medicine and rocket science. He did it all in just six days. Nobody could build a fully functioning cosmos and all of its forms of life within that tiny little time frame unless they knew what they were doing from beginning to end.

†. Ps 104:24 . . O Yhvh! . . what a variety of things you have made! In wisdom you have made them all.

C.L.I.F.F.
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