What Genesis 1 Really Says

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Elioenai

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What Genesis 1 really says (in my opinion):

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1In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

The heavens are made, this includes the stars, the sun, our solar system.
God has set up our physical universe, creating everything out of nothing.

Light exists as of verse 1. Time is created and "begins".

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2The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
The earth has an atmosphere of dense gases and dirt, so dense that no light can piece through to the surface. The surface is covered in water.



We know that light exists now not only because of the reference to the heavens in verse 1 (by definition, the "heavens" shine light, thus light already existed by the time they were created), but we also know that light already exists because there is water. Water cannot be in a liquid form without heat. Heat is electromagnetic radiation (light).


Point of Reference for what happens next: Over the waters. The narrative now continues from the point of view of the Spirit.



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3And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.

From the point of view of the narrative, light has pieced the surface of the waters where the Spirit is. God has made the atmosphere of the Earth translucent.

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4And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness.

5God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.

The Earths rotation and the translucent atmosphere give the Earth is daily cycle of night and day.

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And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
"Day" in this verse is the Hebrew word "Yohm". Yohm can mean many different periods of time, 12 hours, 24 hours, a year, an epoch.
The phrase "there was evening and there was morning" does not always mean a literal sunset and sunrise, this phrase can also be an indicator of the beginning and ending of a "Yohm".


At this point in the narrative, there is no evidence for which duration of time is indicated by "Yohm". It is my conclusion from looking at the rest of the chapter that the only duration that makes sense is that of epoch.


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6And God said, "Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters." 7And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. 8And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

God develops the atmosphere so that it is hospitable for life.


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9And God said, "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear." And it was so. 10God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.


God stabilizes plate tectonics and assures that the Earth will not be entirely covered in water.


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11And God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth." And it was so. 12The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 13And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.


God creates life by divine feat. Plant life begins the transform the compostion of the planet, introducing the chemical foundation for an ecosystem that will one day include mammals.


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14And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, 15and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth." And it was so.


The moon is introduced (or has been introduced and stablized at this point). The obliquity (tilt) of the Earth and the rotation rate is stabilized to be more like what we experience today. More on these verses after the next few verses...


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16And God made the two great lights--the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night--and the stars. 17And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

The beginning of this section "and God made the two great lights" is a past tense action (the past tense of this statement can be supported by investigating the Hebrew as well). This section in nearly word for word identical to verses 4 and 5, to draw the readers attention to what God had already done. What is special about repeating it here is that the atmosphere of Earth is no longer translucent, now it is transparent like our current atmosphere. For the first time the clear sun light is seen and no longer diffused by the dense translucent atmosphere. This change in the atmosphere corresponds with the increased consumption of carbon dioxide by the plants and the increased production of oxygen that will be needed by the next type of life forms that God will create.


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20And God said, "Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens." 21So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22And God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth." 23And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.


By divine miracle God creates more life. These types of organisms provide essential components to the planatary ecosystem for the Earth to eventually become hosiptable to even greater forms of life.


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24And God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds--livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds." And it was so. 25And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

Each type of life form that God creates relies on the stable ecosystem created by the life forms of the prior epoch.


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26Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."

27So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

28And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth." 29And God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. 30And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food." And it was so. 31And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.


God creates Adam and Eve by divine miracle. We know that alot more happened in the 6th Yohm by looking in chapter 2, lets go there:


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5When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up--for the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, 6and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground--



One of the reasons why the epoch duration of Yohm makes sense is because of this passage. If 24 hour days had been the true duration of Yohm in Genesis 1 then we know that the Earth is already populated by plants. For the 24 hour day interpretation to be true God must create the plants and then they must die off about 48 to 72 hours later.



The transparent atmosphere certainly included rain, so this passage is not talking about rain having never happened before.


What it is saying is that in the area where God will create Eden, it is just after the season of winter. Spring has yet to come (no rain, plants have not yet begun to spring up from the ground). This is consistent with what we know about the climate of the area of mesopatamia today.


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7then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. 8And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

God creates Adam, and creates a fantastic place for him to live.


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10A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. 11The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. 13The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. 14And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.


We know the general area and thus the climate of the area surrounding Eden.


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15The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."


Adam is given work. He is told the single most important command thus far, all the while Eve has yet to be created.


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18Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him." 19So out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field.



Adam's initial task includes naming the many different organisms that God has created. This is another support for the usage of Yohm not being a literal 24 hour day, because this would take some time, I will tally up the total number of events that happen on the 6th Yohm in the next few verses.



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But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him.


Adam learns through naming the animals and exploring the world that there is no one else like him, this is not a shallow realization (another point against a 24 hour Yohm).


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21So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23Then the man said,

"This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man."


The words Adam speaks here are very revealing, "at last" is an indicator that some time had passed in his life.


For Adam's story, it basically comes down to this, does God teach deep spiritual truths in a few hours? Does greater gratitude come after a few hours or after waiting a long time?


The list of things that happen in the 6th Yohm:
God created a garden in Eden.
God gave Adam alone the initial command not to eat of the tree.
God brought many animals to Adam to name.
God created Eve.


From this standpoint there is no justification for a 24 hour Yohm. The text makes no claims that are exclusive to a 24 hour interpretation and it makes many claims that are only reasonable with a Yohm that is an epoch.


As well, the 7th Yohm does not end in Genesis, and Paul tells us that it is yet to come. Jesus says that his Father is still working to this day, that does not mean that this is not the 7th Yohm (which would contradict Paul) only that when God rests in the 7th Yohm he is resting from a specific type of activity: Creation.


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A final note; many people dislike the epoch interpretation of Genesis because they believe that making God take time to create things decreases his power and majesty. Little do they realize that the 24 hour interpretation is just as much of a violation of this principle as the epoch interpretation. If it takes 24 hours for God to create something, God did not create it instantly. Even 1 second is too much time for God in this paradigm.


That God created time itself and has dominion over it in every way is much overlooked and misunderstood. We know that time is not linear, it is not a constant. Time warps, speeds up and slows down, this is basic physics in our day and age.


To say that God "wouldn't do it that way" is to impose a human viewpoint on his actions and to be totally ignorant of the fact that God can bend time as we bend a string.


That God would "spend time"on creating our planet and all of the life forms on it helps our human perspective to see how much love he has bestowed upon all of creation.


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By the way, this entire interpretation could be supposed by looking at the findings of science and agrees totally with every scientific finding about the history of the Earth and the appearance of life forms recorded in the fossil record. To read more about this sort of interpretation see Reasons.org, and specifically the book "The Genesis Question" by Hugh Ross.
 

Pats

I'll take that comment with a grain of salt
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And Welcome to CF :wave: Welcome, also to OT :wave:

Here's another thread where we discussed this in the Creationist forum:

http://www.christianforums.com/t2681930-genesis-11-2.html

At least for just the first couple of versus.

I'll re read your post when I'm awake and post more here, I think. But I noticed by the tone of your OP that you seem to be up for a debate?

Thanks for informing us what Gen. 1 really says... I think your views are a little staunch and reading information into the modern english version of the text wich did not exist amongst the ancient Jewish culture the passage was written by and originally addressed to.

GN,
Pats
 
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