Genesis 1

[Monergism]

I wish to commentate on the entire Bible, and I have decided to start with Genesis. Now, because Genesis opens as, "In the beginning," was not certain what to make of it. If anyone wishes to explain this to me, I would be be glad to understand it further. Here is what I have so far.

1. In the beginning. בית (beth) is the preposition, "In." It refers to a house or place and also contains the sense of a building, or a household, hence, Bethel, "the house of God," or Bethlehem, "the place of food." The opening sentence is בראשית (bereshith), and it is the name of the first book of the Torah. This is in line with the pattern of naming the other books of the Torah with the beginning word or words. בראשית contains the word ראשית (reshith), translated as "first," and it derives from the Hebrew word, ראש (rosh), that is, "head." There have been various translations to בראשית. "In the beginning" is the traditional rendering. Another may be, "When God began," and it makes sense in light of ancient Near Eastern creation mythology. Enuma Elish, for example, begins, "When in the height heaven was not named." The gifted grammarian, Rashi has it that if we are to understand that Moses was speaking in the sequence of creation, that is to say that the heavens and earth came first, it should have been written, "At first [בראשונה; barishona] He created the heavens and the earth."

 

[OldWiseGuy]

Regardless of the translation of GenOne I interpret it to refer to that time when God began the age of man as we know him/her/us by first preparing a fairly suitable habitat for him on the surface of the ruined remains of a yet older one, whose history is not clear.

 

[ContentInHim]

In the beginning .....

And God knew the end even from the beginning!

 

[JohnDB]

God created a beginning and is governing the end.
The phrase of Genesis 1:1 is part of a poem. All of the Pentateuch is written in Prose. (it assisted them in memorization of the whole thing)
God is the creator of time itself...He is not subject to it as He does not fit inside of such a box.

What I find most interesting is that the verb used for Created in Hebrew is "Bara" which is a prepositional verb without an object of a preposition used at all..There is an implication of a material used when this verb is used to describe what kind or what was used to make the thing with. Example: He created a wooden table, He created a stone table.

IN other words there is nothing there to describe what the heavens and earth was made from...not even a word to say nothing...it is purposfully left out. It is an incomplete sentence.

 

[zeke37]

"in the beginning",

some teach that it is equal to "generations" hence the name genesis.

others teach that it is better translated as "creation"

Notice that God does not state when this creation took place, but only that He created them.

unlike 'olddwdiseguy', I feel that this time is BEFORE the time of mankind as we know him....

I believe the age of mankind (set up) started in Gen1:2.


in His service
c

 

[JohnDB]

The word Genesis is either from the Greek or the Latin Language and is the equivalent to the Hebrew Bereshith.

Genosis...it is the first word of the book...That is how all of the Books of the Pentateuch were named except for Leviticus which was enscribed Pertaining to the Levites

 

[A Brother In Christ]

I wish to commentate on the entire Bible, and I have decided to start with Genesis. Now, because Genesis opens as, "In the beginning," was not certain what to make of it. If anyone wishes to explain this to me, I would be be glad to understand it further. Here is what I have so far.

1. In the beginning. בית (beth) is the preposition, "In." It refers to a house or place and also contains the sense of a building, or a household, hence, Bethel, "the house of God," or Bethlehem, "the place of food." The opening sentence is בראשית (bereshith), and it is the name of the first book of the Torah. This is in line with the pattern of naming the other books of the Torah with the beginning word or words. בראשית contains the word ראשית (reshith), translated as "first," and it derives from the Hebrew word, ראש (rosh), that is, "head." There have been various translations to בראשית. "In the beginning" is the traditional rendering. Another may be, "When God began," and it makes sense in light of ancient Near Eastern creation mythology. Enuma Elish, for example, begins, "When in the height heaven was not named." The gifted grammarian, Rashi has it that if we are to understand that Moses was speaking in the sequence of creation, that is to say that the heavens and earth came first, it should have been written, "At first [בראשונה; barishona] He created the heavens and the earth."

god is plural.. points to trinity

Job 38:4-7 beginning of our galixy
Heb 1:10 beginning

Created in vs 1 is created from nothing

vs 2 without form ... Isa 45:18.... points to judgement
darkness refers to judgement
ezek 28:14

1peter 1:12
2 peter 3:5-6
col 1:15-16

vs 3 light is not the sun
sun is made in gen 1:14-19
isa 66-1-2

 

[OldWiseGuy]

quote=zeke37;35450145
unlike 'olddwdiseguy', I feel that this time is BEFORE the time of mankind as we know him....

I believe the age of mankind (set up) started in Gen1:2

Zeke,

If you reread my post (#2) you'll see that we agree on that point.

 

[plmarquette]

some say that there is a gap between genesis 1.1 and 1.2 .. and the hebrew words used tend to indicate that the earth may have been populated prior to adam and its beings controlled by satan prior to the fall ... for the word is a " re-creation or restoration " not a creation from scratch ...

 

[bennyk]

some say that there is a gap between genesis 1.1 and 1.2 .. and the hebrew words used tend to indicate that the earth may have been populated prior to adam and its beings controlled by satan prior to the fall ... for the word is a " re-creation or restoration " not a creation from scratch ...

I am one of those people who believe there is a gap between 1.1 and 1.2. It all hinges on this line...

"and the earth was formless and void" (or something like that)

I've read/heard that it should be better translated as...

"and the earth BECAME formless and void"

This would explain things such as dinosaurs, Neanderthal man, the 15 billion year old earth, etc. None of these early inhabitants were created in God's likeness though (only man was), so the Neanderthal man would be no different from an animal.

Then the general belief is that there was a catastrophic event that caused all life on earth to cease, many believe it to be the fall of Lucifer or the birth of darkness (I use OR as in "AKA" not as in an option, fall of lucifer and birth of darkenss are essentially the same thing, I think).

And also, if one believes this isn't true because of the created-in-seven-days thing, at the end of each of the days, it says...

"there was evening and there was morning, the nth day"

I've read that evening would've actually better been translated as "disorder", and morning as "order". The source I read from actually said that the Hebrew words used actually meant "disorder" and "order". It is surprising that it would be said, "evening, THEN morning", rather than "morning, THEN evening" simply because we think of morning as the beginning of our day.

Anyways, the point of my rambling on was to say that the seven day creation probably wasn't seven 24-hour-days, but 7 days just as periods of time.

Remember...

"to God one day is a thousand years, and a thousand years is one day" (I believe that is the verse, don't remember the verse # or chapter #, but I think I got it accurately)

Thanks and God bless,
--Benjamin

 

[dimwhitt]

In the beginning God created the heavens and earth and the earth was without order and empty and darkness covered the deep and the Spirit of Gos was moving over the water and God said...

= creation of all things out of no things
= no place for a gap in time (he makes - He makes orderly "and there was evening and there was morning the first day ..... second day..... etc.)

Genesis is not written in prose
it is highly structured but it is not purely poetic, metaphorical, or allegorical - it contains alot of history

it was written to give Israel a sense of where they have come from and where they are going (at the time of Moses)

 

[A Brother In Christ]

In the beginning God created the heavens and earth and the earth was without order and empty and darkness covered the deep and the Spirit of Gos was moving over the water and God said...

= creation of all things out of no things
= no place for a gap in time (he makes - He makes orderly "and there was evening and there was morning the first day ..... second day..... etc.)

Genesis is not written in prose
it is highly structured but it is not purely poetic, metaphorical, or allegorical - it contains alot of history

it was written to give Israel a sense of where they have come from and where they are going (at the time of Moses)

some say that there is a gap between genesis 1.1 and 1.2 .. and the hebrew words used tend to indicate that the earth may have been populated prior to adam and its beings controlled by satan prior to the fall ... for the word is a " re-creation or restoration " not a creation from scratch ...

god is plural.. points to trinity

Job 38:4-7 beginning of our galixy
Heb 1:10 beginning

Created in vs 1 is created from nothing

vs 2 without form ... Isa 45:18.... points to judgement
darkness refers to judgement
ezek 28:14

1peter 1:12
2 peter 3:5-6
col 1:15-16

vs 3 light is not the sun
sun is made in gen 1:14-19
isa 66-1-2

 

[zeke37]

Zeke,

If you reread my post (#2) you'll see that we agree on that point.

You are of course correct. I don't know what I thought I saw/read??? My apologies.

in His service
c

 

[zeke37]

In the beginning God created the heavens and earth and the earth was without order and empty and darkness covered the deep and the Spirit of Gos was moving over the water and God said...

= creation of all things out of no things
= no place for a gap in time (he makes - He makes orderly "and there was evening and there was morning the first day ..... second day..... etc.)

Genesis is not written in prose
it is highly structured but it is not purely poetic, metaphorical, or allegorical - it contains alot of history

it was written to give Israel a sense of where they have come from and where they are going (at the time of Moses)

Hello Dimwhitt, do you have the ability to study in Hebrew? Here are 3 words from the Strong's...(was)(without form) and (void).


was

H1961
היה
hâyâh
haw-yaw'
A primitive root (compare H1933); to exist, that is, be or become, come to pass (always emphatic, and not a mere copula or auxiliary): - beacon, X altogether, be (-come, accomplished, committed, like), break, cause, come (to pass), continue, do, faint, fall, + follow, happen, X have, last, pertain, quit (one-) self, require, X use.




without form

H8414
תּהוּ
tôhû
to'-hoo
From an unused root meaning to lie waste; a desolation (of surface), that is, desert; figuratively a worthless thing; adverbially in vain: - confusion, empty place, without form, nothing, (thing of) nought, vain, vanity, waste, wilderness.


void

H922
בּהוּ
bôhû
bo'-hoo
From an unused root (meaning to be empty); a vacuity, that is, (superficially) an undistinguishable ruin: - emptiness, void.


these 3 words can send your theology for a loop. the world became a desolate/confusion, undistinguishable ruin

But who should we believe, the Bible, or tradition? I chose/choose to believe the Bible. But it is important to realize and remember that the Bible wasn't written in English.


There was a world (age) before this one, the one where Satan fell, also referred to as 'before the foundations of the world'. This is how God knows and preordains some to certain tasks...or how He can love Jacob and hate Esau before they were even born.... or when He chose Elijah. This is when He predestined His election.

This second age, the age of the flesh is our chance to get back in God's good graces, by only one way...Christ.

Paul went to the 3rd age of Heaven. There are not 3 different heavens, or earths, but 3 different ages. Paul (in vision) went to Paradise, after the Millennium and Judgement and saw wonders he can not describe.

So, age 1 a long time ago (unspecified) until the Gen 1:2.

Gen1:2 forward, this age...of the flesh.

Paradise, no flesh and the third age.

in His service
c

 

[dimwhitt]

these 3 words can send your theology for a loop. the world became a desolate/confusion, undistinguishable ruin

But who should we believe, the Bible, or tradition? I chose/choose to believe the Bible. But it is important to realize and remember that the Bible wasn't written in English.


There was a world (age) before this one, the one where Satan fell, also referred to as 'before the foundations of the world'. This is how God knows and preordains some to certain tasks...or how He can love Jacob and hate Esau before they were even born.... or when He chose Elijah. This is when He predestined His election.

This second age, the age of the flesh is our chance to get back in God's good graces, by only one way...Christ.

Paul went to the 3rd age of Heaven. There are not 3 different heavens, or earths, but 3 different ages. Paul (in vision) went to Paradise, after the Millennium and Judgement and saw wonders he can not describe.

So, age 1 a long time ago (unspecified) until the Gen 1:2.

Gen1:2 forward, this age...of the flesh.

Paradise, no flesh and the third age.

in His service

i dont see how these words change the normal meaning of the sentence
you are reading too much into the text with a gap theory

 

[zeke37]

...because the Hebrew words do not mean what the English conveys.

the world became a desolate/confusion, undistinguishable - vain ruin



In Isaiah we learn that the Lord did not create the world Tohu Bohu (to-hoo, bo-hoo) in vain, but rather to be inhabited.

Isaiah 45:18 For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.


God never said when He created the world. He just said He did it. Period.

And then He said it "became" a confusing vain undistinguishable ruin, not that He created a void and formless.

Do you believe that Satan drew 1/3 of the souls away from God, before Adam was formed?

That time was between Gen 1:1 and Gen 1:2.

and thus, God ended that way of life and set up this one. The earth was here, souls lived here and God destroyed it (because of the rebellion of Satan, and rebuilt it for the flesh existence.

in His service
c

 

[dimwhitt]

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void,

translation according to your own documentation
"the earth came to exist desolate and empty"

​

 

[dcyates]

I am one of those people who believe there is a gap between 1.1 and 1.2. It all hinges on this line...

"and the earth was formless and void" (or something like that)

I've read/heard that it should be better translated as...

"and the earth BECAME formless and void"

Although I don't claim to be a Hebrew scholar, I do know this is not how Gen 1.2 should be translated. Genesis 1.1-2 could be legitimately rendered as either, "At the beginning of God's creating the heavens and the earth, when the earth was wild and waste (tohu va-vohu; "formless and empty"), darkness was over the surface of the Ocean, the mighty wind of God was hovering over the face of the waters--" or "When God began to create heaven and earth--the earth being unformed and empty, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the water--God said...." In other words, no matter how we translate it, it should indicate that this is predominantly a description of the state of the earth 'In the beginning'; when there was only the primeval watery chaos, the earth was without order and empty, particularly of life. God then spends the first 3 days bringing order to the chaos and then the next 3 days filling his creation.

This would explain things such as dinosaurs, Neanderthal man, the 15 billion year old earth, etc. None of these early inhabitants were created in God's likeness though (only man was), so the Neanderthal man would be no different from an animal.

We live in an age of science (though with the rise of the environmental movement it's all too quickly becoming post-scientific) and, in the face of such scientific discoveries as the theories of the 'Big Bang' and such developments as the theory of Darwinian evolution, we unfortunately tend to want to squeeze the creation account of Gen 1&2 into a scientific framework. Gen 1&2 is not a scientific treatise on how everything came to be. Nor is it even intended to constitute a historical account of what happened at the dawn of creation. What it is meant to be is theological; it was intended to counter all the other creation accounts that the Hebrews would have been exposed to, with their many warring gods.

Then the general belief is that there was a catastrophic event that caused all life on earth to cease, many believe it to be the fall of Lucifer or the birth of darkness (I use OR as in "AKA" not as in an option, fall of lucifer and birth of darkenss are essentially the same thing, I think).

How can this be, since darkness precedes the creation of light?

And also, if one believes this isn't true because of the created-in-seven-days thing, at the end of each of the days, it says...

"there was evening and there was morning, the nth day"

I've read that evening would've actually better been translated as "disorder", and morning as "order". The source I read from actually said that the Hebrew words used actually meant "disorder" and "order". It is surprising that it would be said, "evening, THEN morning", rather than "morning, THEN evening" simply because we think of morning as the beginning of our day.

Wherever you read this, they were wrong. The most literal translation would be, "There was setting, there was dawning, __ day."

Anyways, the point of my rambling on was to say that the seven day creation probably wasn't seven 24-hour-days, but 7 days just as periods of time.

No, I believe you're correct here, the creation of the cosmos was not accomplished in six 24-hour days. But the days enumerated in Gen 1 were intended to be understood as 24-hour days. It's kind of tough to get around the "there was evening, there was morning" qualifiers.

But again, the Bible's creation account is intended to be read theologically. This was meant to communicate how God wished his people to conduct their lives: to work six days and then rest on the seventh.

Remember...
"to God one day is a thousand years, and a thousand years is one day" (I believe that is the verse, don't remember the verse # or chapter #, but I think I got it accurately)

Psalm 90.4

Thanks and God bless,
--Benjamin

Thank you, Benjamin, and God bless you, as well.

 

[zeke37]

2 Peter 3:8

 

[dcyates]

2 Peter 3:8

Right. That's the NT quotation of Psalm 90.4.