The Creation - Genesis

[A Kennaugh]

[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']I see the creation according to Genesis 1 as Spiritual. The earth created in Genesis 1:2 was without form and void, but the earth that is talked about here, is the earth within us, our mind of understanding. It was without form and void, there was no understanding or knowledge of God.

Also as Jesus explained the parable of the sower and the seed in Luke 8:4-15, the earth is the word of God being sowed in our mind of understanding. To make it a bit clearer, the earth in the following verses (Isaiah 1:2, 66:8, Revelation 12:16, Habakkuk 2:14; Ezekiel 43:2) form a picture, that the earth is a person, because it shows that the earth has a mouth, breasts, hips and knees.

If this was not Spiritual, then why did God then create the Light on the first day, but the sun was only created on the third day? Looking at diamonds and gold, we can see that earth is millions of years old, but the creation of which Moses wrote, inspired by the Holy Spirit, is the beginning of people receiving the Holy Spirit. Because God already made man (the first Adam), but the second man Adam received the Holy Spirit - 1 Cor 15:45. God created everything millions of years ago, but the Bible shows the beginning of people receiving the Holy Spirit - because God is Spirit, and we should serve Him in Spirit and in truth.

I see the whole Bible as being Spiritual, and helps and encourage us on this Spiritual journey.[/FONT]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']Please give me your views and understanding regarding the creation?

[/FONT]

 

[Nails74]

I see the creation according to Genesis 1 as Spiritual. The earth created in Genesis 1:2 was without form and void, but the earth that is talked about here, is the earth within us, our mind of understanding. It was without form and void, there was no understanding or knowledge of God.

Doesn't verse 1 pretty much set the context here?

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. [Genesis 1:1]

That sounds quite physical to me.

 

[Look Up]

The early chapters of Genesis including the creation account form an introduction to the Books of Moses. One of the patterns, though sometimes subtle, is that the past foreshadows the future (or present was foreshadowed in the past).

Thus the garden of Eden, for example, is presented as like the Tabernacle--the place where God is. Fallen Adam and Eve are cast out on the east side of the garden and the entrance to the Tabernacle is toward the sunrise. Separation of water from land, light from dark, heaven from earth and so on in the creation account in some way foreshadows (I think) the ceremonial separations of the Mosaic code (clean from unclean, man from God). Noah is a kind of Adam in that both are told to be fruitful and multiply, both are progenitors of the human race "from scratch," both sin in association with nakedness, and both narrative mention man being made in the image of God.

Furthermore, the Mosaic demands and punishments are predicated on the origin of sin in man, and the sacrificial system forms a way to restore the relationship of man to God similar to the way things were before Adam sinned, though because of sin, there is a separation between man and God.

The creation account itself bears clear marks of ancient poetry, and there seems a correspondence pattern between days 1 and 4, 2 and 5, and 3 and 6 (which might help explain the apparent problem with "light"). But there is no reason to think ancient readers would have "spiritualized" the account into something other than giving God credit for the origins of the universe.

God's authority in the Books of Moses is based in part on the fact that He created in six days (cf. the Sabbath demand as recorded in the Exodus version of the Ten Commandments, Exo. 20). Central to the creation account is the garden that was made for man, and the Mosaic books hint at a time when man's relationship to God will be restored as at the beginning (e.g., Deut. 30 if memory serves).

Also worthy of note is the apparent credence Jesus gave to the Adamic and generally Mosaic accounts. One's view of the creation account is tied to the question, "Who is Jesus."

As to the Bible being "Spiritual," it depends what you mean. Personification, metaphor, lament, praise, analogy, parable, allegory, and other literary or poetic devices are meant to be taken naturally as such where they occur, but that does not mean there is no correspondence with history or human behavior.

In particular, the historical facts of Jesus' birth, death, and resurrection are very much viewed as historical, and the New Testament presents itself and the Jewish canon (the Old Testament) as "christological" in the sense that Christ Jesus is at the center of things. And one who has Jesus has the Spirit also.

 

[A Kennaugh]

Hi Nails74,

Thanks for your reply.

Everything in the Bible seems physical, but it also got a Spiritual meaning, if it wasn't explained physical, we wouldn't have been able to understand it. If you look at the verses (Isaiah 1:2, 66:8, Revelation 12:16, Habakkuk 2:14; Ezekiel 43:2), it shows that the earth has a Spiritual meaning and is a person. If Jesus did not explain the parable of the sower (Luke 8:4-15), would we have thought of the ground as physical and that if we are farmers we have to physically make sure that the ground is good? It is the one parable Jesus did explain, and it has a Spiritual meaning. The ground/earth is the mind of a person.

 

[Look Up]

P.S. In the Babel account (Gen 11) following the Flood narrative, people do the opposite of "fill the earth" from the creation account by joining together to build a centralized city and tower (ziggurat) of Babel, in part in order to "make a name" for themselves. Instead, God scatters the people (by confusing their language) and so restores a creation-account program of filling the earth with inhabitants.

Then in the next chapter (Gen 12), God by ironic contrast "makes a name" for a descendant of Shem (Noah's son), namely Abraham, the patriarch from whose line the Israelite nation sprung. The name "Shem," by the way, may be translated as "Name," further suggesting the Babel/Abram irony is intentional. Ultimately, restoration and future blessing will be accomplished by God in His program rather than via man and his program, or so the story line implies.

There are other links in the narrative, but I thought the above might help fill in a large gap connecting creation-of-man past with people-of-God "present."

 

[A Kennaugh]

Hi Look Up,

Thanks for your reply.

Yes, I agree God created everything, the natural earth and Jesus was definitely made flesh. But what I am trying to say is that I think it is Spiritual. On the 6th day God created man. When you read further, on the 7th day God rested, but also (Gen 2:6-7) the earth was watered (the Word of God) and then the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground (still on the 7th day) (the earth - old understanding - but after it received the water/Word of God, man was made a living soul who has received the Holy Spirit) and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. So what is the difference between the man - 6th day and the man 7th day? The first man God created on the 6th day (was a man with a soul) but the man God created on the 7th day (was a man with a quickening spirit/ a man who has received the Holy Spirit). It shows it also in 1 Cor 15:45 - "And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam was made a quickening (life-giving) spirit". Which means when we have received the Holy Spirit and we testify, we are preparing the ground to receive the good seed (Luk 8:4-15). That's what is meant by quickening spirit, a life-giving spirit, we now sow the seed, are we not helping someone to understand the Word of God, bringing light to the soul, creating new life in someone? Thus is called a life-giving spirit, for when we have received the Holy Spirit, we can not hold our peace or be quiet anymore, but we want to tell everyone of what we have seen.

 

[A Kennaugh]

It shows in 1 Cor 15:44 - 45, it is sown a natural body/6th day/first Adam/living soul and raised a spiritual body/7th day/second Adam/quickening spirit.

 

[Nails74]

If you look at the verses (Isaiah 1:2, 66:8, Revelation 12:16, Habakkuk 2:14; Ezekiel 43:2), it shows that the earth has a Spiritual meaning and is a person.

These are figures of speech...

Personification...
Listen, heavens, and pay attention, earth, for the Lord has spoken: “I have raised children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against Me. [Isaiah 1:2]

Metonymy...
Who has heard of such a thing? Who has seen such things? Can a land be born in one day or a nation be delivered in an instant? Yet as soon as Zion was in labor, she gave birth to her sons. [Isaiah 66:8]

Metaphor...
But the earth helped the woman. The earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the river that the dragon had spewed from his mouth. [Revelation 12:16]

Similie...
For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord’s glory, as the waters cover the sea. [Habakkuk 2:14]

I don't see your point in this one...
He led me to the gate, the one that faces east, and I saw the glory of the God of Israel coming from the east. His voice sounded like the roar of mighty waters, and the earth shone with His glory. [Ezekiel 43:1-2]

 

[Look Up]

Hi Look Up,

Thanks for your reply.

Yes, I agree God created everything, the natural earth and Jesus was definitely made flesh. But what I am trying to say is that I think it is Spiritual. On the 6th day God created man. When you read further, on the 7th day God rested, but also (Gen 2:6-7) the earth was watered (the Word of God) and then the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground (still on the 7th day) (the earth - old understanding - but after it received the water/Word of God, man was made a living soul who has received the Holy Spirit) and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. So what is the difference between the man - 6th day and the man 7th day? The first man God created on the 6th day (was a man with a soul) but the man God created on the 7th day (was a man with a quickening spirit/ a man who has received the Holy Spirit). It shows it also in 1 Cor 15:45 - "And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam was made a quickening (life-giving) spirit". Which means when we have received the Holy Spirit and we testify, we are preparing the ground to receive the good seed (Luk 8:4-15). That's what is meant by quickening spirit, a life-giving spirit, we now sow the seed, are we not helping someone to understand the Word of God, bringing light to the soul, creating new life in someone? Thus is called a life-giving spirit, for when we have received the Holy Spirit, we can not hold our peace or be quiet anymore, but we want to tell everyone of what we have seen.

Hi A Kennaugh,

It may be that with the above description, a light is beginning to dawn in me as to what you are arguing. Let me try another round of banter, ping for pong.

When you use the word "Spiritual" thus far, I would prefer to replace that word with ones like "hermeneutics," "allegory," and "symbolism" possibly among others, including "spiritual."

Certainly there has long been a tradition of allegorical interpretation (hermeneutics having to do with principles of interpretation) such as one may read in the writings of Philo of Alexandria (died ca A.D. 50), and the Bible itself at times uses what may be termed allegory such as in Gal. 4:21-31 in the NT.

My concern is first to rely on inspired interpreters (like Paul interpreting Genesis in Gal. 4) and second to prefer reading symbolism, allegory, and generally interpretative models according to clues in the text itself. A pattern in early Genesis for example suggests "going east" and the like means leaving God's presence (e.g., the angel guarding the garden against fallen Adam and Eve on the east side, Cain traveling east, Babel being "eastward" (if the text is original), and Lot preferring eastern grazing grounds toward Sodom while Abraham agreed to land apart from Lot's choice).

Naturally also, chronologically later Scripture may allude to or apply earlier Scriptures in some sort of "this is like that" fashion (e.g., Matthew 2:15 of Hosea 11:1--"out of Egypt I called my Son").

In other words, my concern with some allegorical and symbolic interpretations is that they can lose hermeneutical controls and slide into fanciful if devout agendas foreign to the text, again not that there is no symbolism or allegory in the Bible. Be that as it may, I cannot dismiss offhand your suggestion that watering the land in the creation account represents the spread of the word of God, the latter at least in part being the agent of creation ("God said and it was so") even while the literal watering took place. You may be correct at least in that "this is like that," though I see no hint that the author of the creation account personified the earth the way Jesus later did in the parable of the sower.

On the other hand (assuming I represent your position accurately), it seems to me and to others more natural to take the Genesis 2 account of the creation of man to constitute a differently nuanced and expanded version of the creation of man account from Genesis 1 without freighting one with only physical and the other with only spirit ("living being") significance. I could be wrong, but the clues in the text itself do not seem necessarily to support such distinction, not least because it is unlikely at the Genesis 2 stage that man was thought to have separate physical and spiritual (or soul-ish) parts. The text implies that Adam was one whole living being, male and female.

In 1 Cor. 15:45, Paul presents Jesus as like Adam insofar as He is progenitor of a race of humans, the first Adam of an earthly race, the second Adam (Jesus) of a spiritual race. Paul as far as I understand does not hint that this follows from any Genesis 1 versus 2 distinction. And as an aside, I would urge that Revelation 12:16 be interpreted in light of apocalyptic genre, of which not only John's Apocalypse, but also parts of Daniel, Zechariah, and (apocryphal) 2 Esdras are examples.

Even if my interpretation is off-base at least somewhere and yours correct, I hope I have illustrated my appeal to interpret authorial intent according to clues within the text itself (applied to the Bible or to any other piece of writing). I would also add that the consistency of the Bible over time and multiple authors relies in no small measure on allusion to the worldview, narratives, and symbols of past revelation, particularly as related to the apex and culmination of the history of God's special revelation to man, namely Jesus Christ. Past revelation points forward to Christ, and Christ was foreshadowed in the past. Nor does this mean reading later theological development back into earlier writings, but rather seeing partial development and emergence of thought according to earlier author intent. A shadow may accurately outline an object without revealing all its nuances.

 

[jpcedotal]

Gen 1:1

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. (KJV)
[FONT=&quot]בראשית ברא אלהים את השמים ואת הארץ[/FONT] (Hebrew in Hebrew text)
[FONT=&quot]Bereshith bara Elohim eth hashshamayim veeth haarets [/FONT](Hebrew in English text)

Author’s Note:
First, let me emphatically state that this paper is just a short opinionated commentary, not an exhaustive study of Genesis 1:1 (though it did take longer than I first anticipated). I have consciously made an effort to use phrases like “I think” or “I believe” in areas where I have made a personal statement of belief and/or opinion. Also, I tagged all outside sources credited in constructing the “facts” of this essay. Please read this as simply a good starting point to pursue your own Biblical study whether it is in agreement with what I have written or not. – JPC

Introduction:
This statement is clear, direct, and stated very “matter-of-factly”. I do not want to take away in any fashion this “first glance” approach to Genesis 1:1. Who? God. Did what? created the heaven and the earth. When? in the beginning. This verse does not try to prove God exists in any way; it demands that the reader already believes this to be fact. God is real and He created all that we see and all the we do not see. This simple, yet profound, statement MUST be believed on an intimate level in order for the rest of the Bible to have any personal meaning. All Biblical truth is built on Genesis 1:1. Dr. Vernon McGee states it this way:

This is a majestic verse. It is a tremendous verse. I am of the opinion that it is the doorway through which you will have to walk into the Bible. You have to believe that God is the Creator, for he that cometh to God must believe that He is.http://www.christianforums.com/#_edn1
​

The follow essay is an attempt (1) to give the Biblical background of this verse, (2) to break down each phrase into a Hebrew word study, and (3) to explore other verses in the Bible that relate to Genesis 1:1.

[FONT=&quot][/FONT] Thru the Bible Commentary By J. Vernon McGee

 

[jpcedotal]

The "meat" of the essay is in my blog if anyone would like to read further...didn't think it would be respectful to copy the whole thing on this thread...

 

[Look Up]

Another hermeneutical P.S. Our experiences may shape our interpretation. Our sense of God as Father in some respects may be colored by what we think of our human father or of some human father model. Our experience with suffering made add urgency and belief to our reading of suffering and its purposes in the Bible. Our conviction of personal sin may cause us to fear or feel revulsion at the accounts of sin in the Bible in a way that we could little understand if we have scant knowledge of our own sin.

This is not to say that at some level we cannot understand matters about which we have little personal experience. One does not have to have seen a king to know what the experience might be like. One need not have been around at the creation of the world to get some understanding of what it might have been like from reading Genesis 1.

Nor is it to say the text of Scripture (or of something else) possesses only the meaning we bring to bear upon it--as some argue. Rather the text has its own set significance and our interpretation may be influenced in part by our experience ... as well as by other factors such as our understanding of language, of the sweep of the Bible, and after re-reading, of themes in Biblical books, antecedent theology, and parallel passages.

 

[Harry3142]

A Kennaugh-

We need to ask ourselves two questions when we read The Creation Stories found in Genesis:

Why were they written?

Who were their intended readers?

We can better understand why it was written when we realize that it was not the first creation epic. Egypt had its own story which predated the writing of Genesis. And in Egypt's story it also took 6 days to create all that was created, but the first five days were spent by the gods and goddesses in creating other gods and goddesses, some of whom took the forms of animals on land and sea, while others displayed themselves as planetary objects such as the sun, moon, and stars. There were over 40 different gods and goddesses in the egyptian pantheon, and each of them had its own particular physical representation. You can read the Egyptian Creation Epic here:

www.theologywebsite.com/etext/egypt/creation.shtml

The people to whom Moses wrote The Creation Story were people who had learned this earlier epic themselves while they labored in Egypt. It as how they identified the objects in the sky that gave them light, and it was how they viewed the animals they saw around them. So Moses had to 'reprogram' them so that they would no longer see everything around them as divine in-and-of itself.

This he accomplished through the writing of Genesis 1:1 to 2:3. By the time that the reader had finished that passage, the sun, moon, and stars were no longer gods and goddesses, but merely objects which gave them light. And the animals they saw around them were all merely animals, rather than their being the physical representation of a god or goddess. Moses had stripped all of the gods and goddesses of their divinity, and in the end revealed that divinity to only be attributable to God, who could never be seen, and therefore could never have any idol made in his likeness.

In the second creation story (Genesis 2:4-25) Moses dealt with another teaching of Egypt. Since according to their epic man had been created on the same day as all the other animals, the early teaching of Egypt taught that only royalty had a soul. All common men would simply return to the dust of the earth, while those of royal lineage would proceed to another world. And this was stated to be due to their ancestors including gods and goddesses as parents.

Moses countered this with his story of Adam's being a unique person from the very beginning. God and Adam could talk directly to each other. Adam had been given his own area in which to live, namely, The Garden of Eden. Adam had named the other species of animals, a sign of authority at that time. And Adam's helpmate, Eve, had been created through divine causes rather than simply another animal. Man was to be seen as apart from all other species of animals, due to the unique manner in which both Adam and Eve were created and the closeness that they had with the Creator of all that exists.

Both Adam and Eve were also different in another respect: Unlike the other species of animals, they could deliberately disobey God. They were as innocent as all the other animals when they were created, but they had the means by which to destroy that innocence, namely, The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. It was their decision as to whether they would shun its fruit and so remain innocent, as the other species of animals are yet today, or eat of that tree and acquire the unique attribute of being able to recognize certain acts and conditions as being evil, and other acts and conditions as being good.

Although The Creation Story, as it is called in Genesis, is seen today as a fable, it succeeded at what it was intended to accomplish. No longer would the people see gods and goddesses when they gazed at the sky, or when they looked at the animals around them. Instead, they would recognize that their only deity had created all that they now saw, but was himself over and above all that he had created. He was to be seen as a seperate being who had existed long before the earth was formed, and would continue to exist long after the earth itself had ceased to be.

Also, the people would now realize that at one time in the past they too had been as innocent as the other animals. But that had ended when their ancestors had acquired a knowledge that no other animal has to this day, namely, the knowledge to recognize good as good and evil as evil, and choose for himself which path he will take.

 

[thesunisout]

I think what you're doing is buying into the scientific philosophical paradigm and reinterpreting the bible through it. In actuality, it is supposed to be the other way around, that we use scripture to interpret the world and not the world to interpret scripture. The bible warns of this:

Colossians 2:8

See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.

The main controversy is over dating methods, and what you may not be aware of is that there are dozens of dating methods which point to a young Earth. This is the side you never hear about in the media:

Here are a few of them:

Evidence for a Young World - Answers in Genesis

And here is a good video explaining how dating methodology works in science:

How old is the Earth - Creation or Evolution? - Seminar by Don Patton - YouTube

As far as your question about light, God created light in Genesis 1:3

Genesis 1:3

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

What was the source of that light, and how did it shine upon the Earth is not said. All that is required for morning and night on the Earth is a source of light and a rotating Earth. Clearly there was some kind of light source, and it didn't come from stars or the sun, because they hadn't been created yet. Revelation tells us something interesting:

Revelation 21:23

And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.

God Himself may have been the source of light. Whether it was God or something else, it doesn't exactly say, but it does indicate there was a light source other than the sun or stars at that point.

You also commented on gold being proof of an old earth, but as they have discovered about coal and precious gems, gold can be formed rapidly:

rapid gold deposit

As for diamonds, the carbon 14 in them proves they can't be very old:

Diamonds May Be a Creationist's Best Friend

I used to be a firm believer in the old age of the Earth, and evolution, but after investigating the evidence, I was shocked to find that it was virtually non-existant. You have to see past the picture that the atheistic scientific establishment is painting and look to the empirical evidence that is offered for proof for their theories. What they portray as proven fact is really a collection of just-so stories that are based on flimsy, circumstantial evidence. Consider this quote from a paleontologist:

paleontology is a historical science, a science based on circumstantial evidence, after the fact. we can never reach hard and fast conclusions. These days its easy to go through school for a good many years, sometimes even through college, without ever hearing that some sciences are historical or by nature inconclusive.

John H Horner Dinosaur lives 1997

Either the bible is literally true, or it isn't. Either you believe what it says or you don't. The bible says death came by the sin of Adam. The bible says God created a world without death that was "very good". Millions of years of death and disease piled under the Garden of Eden is not "very good".

Look at this passage in exodus 20:8-11:

8 Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
10 But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.
​

Did the Jews rest for millions of years on the Sabbath? No, because God created the world is six literal days and rested on the seventh literal day. If you can't believe one commandment, there is no reason to believe any of them.

Jesus Himself testified of the literal truth of Genesis when He said:

Matthew 19:4-5

Haven't you read, he replied, that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female, 5 and said, For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh?

God made them male and female in the beginning, they didn't gradually evolve over billions of years from bacteria.

So, you really need to pursue this further and not buy into the lie of the world, because the basis behind this lie is to write God out of the picture. It is not something you can compromise with because it undermines the entire bible, and leads to radical reinterpretations that make the truth to no effect. You cannot compromise on truth.

Everything in the bible has a spiritual meaning underlying it, but this is not a licence to allegorize. Jesus Himself literally fulfilled the prophecies that predicted His coming. You could have allegorized being crushed for our iniquities as being being grieved in His heart for our sins, or you could have allegorized riding a donley to jerusalem as indicating His humility, but you would have completely missed the literal fulfillment. He also testified to the literal truth of the flood, jonah, the exodus and many other events in the Old Testament.

So, before you commit yourself to this intrepetation, I think you should start seriously investigating the other side of the equation, that the bible means what it says it means, with an open mind, and let the Holy Spirit guide you. God bless.

[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']I see the creation according to Genesis 1 as Spiritual. The earth created in Genesis 1:2 was without form and void, but the earth that is talked about here, is the earth within us, our mind of understanding. It was without form and void, there was no understanding or knowledge of God. [/font]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif'][/font]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']Also as Jesus explained the parable of the sower and the seed in Luke 8:4-15, the earth is the word of God being sowed in our mind of understanding. To make it a bit clearer, the earth in the following verses (Isaiah 1:2, 66:8, Revelation 12:16, Habakkuk 2:14; Ezekiel 43:2) form a picture, that the earth is a person, because it shows that the earth has a mouth, breasts, hips and knees. [/font]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif'][/font]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']If this was not Spiritual, then why did God then create the Light on the first day, but the sun was only created on the third day? Looking at diamonds and gold, we can see that earth is millions of years old, but the creation of which Moses wrote, inspired by the Holy Spirit, is the beginning of people receiving the Holy Spirit. Because God already made man (the first Adam), but the second man Adam received the Holy Spirit - 1 Cor 15:45. God created everything millions of years ago, but the Bible shows the beginning of people receiving the Holy Spirit - because God is Spirit, and we should serve Him in Spirit and in truth. [/font]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif'][/font]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']I see the whole Bible as being Spiritual, and helps and encourage us on this Spiritual journey.[/font]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']Please give me your views and understanding regarding the creation?[/font]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif'][/font]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif'][/font]

 

[Look Up]

Hi Harry3142,

That the Genesis creation account fits with Mosaic themes need not imply the creation ... or Flood, Babel, and patriarch accounts were written out of thin air in Moses' day. Likely there were accounts that were passed along the generations from long before Moses which were then incorporated into the books of Moses.

The Genesis creation account may represent an older tradition than the Egyptian creation account, or similarities may suggest common sources, for example. To claim the Egyptian creation account is older than the Genesis one may be more than the evidence warrants.

Further, while there is evidence in Exodus that the plagues were directed against the Egyptian gods of Moses's day, there is little evidence in the Genesis creation account suggesting a deliberate attempt to counter an Egyptian creation account. It may have functioned that way for Mosaic-generation readers, it's just that the text of Genesis does not seem to be all that concerned about contrasting itself with an Egyptian creation account. More likely the two simply had some earlier source or two in common.

Recall how similarities (and differences) between the Genesis and Epic of Gilgamesh Flood narratives raise similar issues.

 

[thesunisout]

Babylon and Sumeria are post flood civilizations. There are flood myths in almost every culture, many resembling the story of Noah, because they were passed down from that time. Much like a game of telephone, critical details are going to be changed or ommitted the further you go down the line. Jesus testified to the literal truth of the flood:

Luke 17:27

They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.

I think we can trust Jesus knows what He is talking about. He is saying this is the literal history of our world. He also vouched for the Creation account by saying that God made them male and female in the beginning.

You have to realize that Satan doesn't have any original ideas and simply copies what God has said and puts his own spin on it. Satan can understand prophecy and of course he was there in the beginning so he has created many of these myths to cast doubt on the truth. Your worldview seems to presuppose there isn't a deception when the bible clearly says he has deceived the whole world.

Hi Harry3142,

That the Genesis creation account fits with Mosaic themes need not imply the creation ... or Flood, Babel, and patriarch accounts were written out of thin air in Moses' day. Likely there were accounts that were passed along the generations from long before Moses which were then incorporated into the books of Moses.

The Genesis creation account may represent an older tradition than the Egyptian creation account, or similarities may suggest common sources, for example. To claim the Egyptian creation account is older than the Genesis one may be more than the evidence warrants.

Further, while there is evidence in Exodus that the plagues were directed against the Egyptian gods of Moses's day, there is little evidence in the Genesis creation account suggesting a deliberate attempt to counter an Egyptian creation account. It may have functioned that way for Mosaic-generation readers, it's just that the text of Genesis does not seem to be all that concerned about contrasting itself with an Egyptian creation account. More likely the two simply had some earlier source or two in common.

Recall how similarities (and differences) between the Genesis and Epic of Gilgamesh Flood narratives raise similar issues.

 

[DreamerOfHearts]

Yeah, everything is ultimately spiritual and has deeper meanings, even the everyday things we do.

The whole world, the whole universe is spiritual beneath the material and exists and is sustained as if thoughts in God's mind.