Genesis "and it was good" problem:

[Mark Quayle]

The objects that God created, were good. How we live our life, through time, is different than a simple physical object.

Both statements are not in English, nor expressed from a current human POV. But even we know that "good" doesn't usually mean, 'perfect', or even, necessarily, 'entirely satisfactory'. We also know that, "not good", can easily be a focus on a particular aspect of what is not perfect.

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

Genesis 1 describes how God created the heavens and the earth, "and it was good." This statement is repeated multiple times in Genesis 1.

I've heard from many people (including myself) who believe that Creation, at the beginning, was perfect. Everything was good, and there was nothing bad about it.

And I've believed this for a very long time, until I got into a lengthy discussion with someone, and read more closely in Genesis 2... "God saw that it was not good for the man to be alone." But God created everything so far, and "it was good". Here it says that "it was not good." How do you reconcile these two passages?

By appreciating it as a wonderful work of literature.

 

[RDKirk]

By appreciating it as a wonderful work of literature.

Teaching literature.