Where to begin.....

Sometimes the best place to begin is at the beginning...

Mark

Still Pondering?

Genesis, which means "beginnings" tells us how God created the world, how sin entered the world through the choice of the man and woman that God created and how God loves Man in spite of his sin.

Queenie, what can you share about the first two chapters of Genesis from your perspective.

TST, you get a shot too as long as you're here. Just some observations about the first two chapters of the book of Genesis.

Mark

PS Anyone else joining in, if you post you have to contribute, so let's get with it. We should be done with Genesis in a couple years if everybody joins in...

Prov.25:28 Like a city whose walls are broken down, is a man who lacks self control.

SMB & I were just now discussing this verse. I am wondering your thoughts about the idea that Both Adam & Eve were lacking in self control when they were tempted in the Garden of Eden. Did lack of character precede the first act of sin?

Maybe it was a lack of true boundaries for both of them. Neither of them seemed to really believe God and fell for the serpent's lie when they were tempted. (He's never had to come up with another one, BTW 'cause the first one worked so well for him.)

Lot's can be said about the fall, but that doesn't appear until chapter 3. What about creation and the first two chapters. Time to get to chapter 3 is coming, just let's get by 1 and 2 first, since we need to find out where Adam and Eve came from before we can figure out what happened to them.

Mark

Didn't I mention there'd be homework?

What can we say about God based on chapters 1 and 2 of Genesis?

Work with me here guys...

Mark

Adam & Eve walked with and were taught solely by God himself. With no worldly past they still entered into sin (no public schools to blame, no rotten parents, no disfunctional family).

They made a choice. They disobeyed. They did not even begin to comprehend the consequences of the choice or the disobedience.
Agree?
Disagree?

TST, I agree I think, just trying to get to Gen 1 and 2. 3 can take days to discuss and then no one will want to talk about 1 and 2.

Mark

I'm sorry Mark,

I'm in the slow learners section.........I'll get back into chapter 1 & 2 now...lol

Sometimes I find myself in "special class" as well...

I see the theme of God making something from nothing weaving in and out of the first chapter. God can take something formless and create not just a work of art, but bring it to life with such intricate attention to detail that it amazes me. He cares about every single little detail around me and in me.

Mark [/quote]

Ok I'll take the first shot at it....

God had a plan, but it was more like a blank canvas. He added components one by one and made sure things were to his liking before moving on. Even then he made "adjustments" in verse 4-5 there is a clear separation between day and night (I interpret as good and evil)but in verse 16 he creates the moon to give light in darkness.

He also shows himself as fatherly because he provided for all of man's needs before creating him from dust, then after giving him dominance over all living things he gave him what he would need most... woman.

3 days...with a rookie like me, we might be a month. LOL

One of the first questions that comes to my mind as I read the story of the creation is "where did God come from." We actually learn later, in Exodus, that God's name means "I Am" implying that God is self existent. Since God is self existent and all other things have a cause or source for their existence, all other things therefore are ultimately created by God. In other words, everything we can see, hear, touch, taste, smell or perceive of in any way or manner, has as its ultimate source, God. This does not simply refer to the physical world either, but to everything that there is or might be that is as of yet undiscovered or unrealized.

The word used for God in Genesis, is a word that is plural and yet is used exclusively with the singular masculine pronoun, he.

The word for day, yom, can refer to any set or repetitive time period. Some scholars debate whether it means a day, an age, or an epoch, while others say that when used in OT writings and used in conjunction with the concept of morning and evening it always refers to a 24 hour day. Suffice it to say that what ever the period of time being referred to by the word in this passage, the result is still the same. God created all that there is from His own sheer will. It was not simply fashioning something from ingredients or components that already existed, but the universe and all matter, space and time within it were the result of God wanting them to be.

Chapter 1 verse 2 says that the earth was formless and empty. Some suggest that between verse 1 and verse 2 that the great battle in heaven between God and Lucifer took place and the result was the destruction of the earth. In my thinking however, this is not the case since verse one begins with a phrase that indicates the origin of the heavens and the earth and then simply describes the earth as being without form or shape until God intervened. This to me does not imply some prior event that is heretofore unknown or unspoken in the passage, but that this is the beginning of all that there is.

So basically, in the beginning, God...and before the beginning, God...Since God is the source and the reason for the beginning of all that there is, including time, which means in part that He exists outside of time and other dimensions that we can perceive, since He exsisted before they came into exsistance, solely by an act of His will.

And after He created the earth, God made plants, and animals, again of his own will and actions. Some have tried to say that God set things in motion and then stepped back to watch, leaving evolution to do the rest of the creating, and yet, the passage does not hint that this could be the case at all. It specifically says that God created these things, as their complete forms, does not say that he used or allowed one form to be modified into another or that He gave the whole process a nudge and then sat back to observe.

When it comes to Man, which is the Hebrew word Adam which means the Man, the passage specifically states that God made him from "the dust of the earth." Now we can say this means that Man is made up of dirt or lint balls or whatever we would like, but in reality, it simply means that Man is made of the same things as the rest of the earth with one important additional detail. It says in 1:27, "Let us make man in our own image."

A couple observations here. Of all the creatures God created, only Man is mentioned as being made in God's own image. This raises Man above the animals in that God clearly made man to fulfill a purpose, yet to be stated, but that can quickly be found as we read on. The second thing is that annoying plural word being used again, in that God says "Let us make Man in our own image. But in the next verse, 1:28, it says that God created Man in His own image, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them."

And this also leads us to something some point to as being a problem within the text, in that God has at this point created male and female and it isn't until the next chapter that we read of Eve being made form a piece of Adam. But this is really a worthless argument since a common literary method of introducing any character to a story is to mention him by name and then back track within the story to show how he came to the point where we first met him. In this case, the fact that the female is mentioned does not reduce the validity of the next chapter where we learn how it was that the male and female persons came into existence.

When God had finished His creative endeavors, He took a break, or rested. There are a couple of lessons in this for us today, one being the concept of Shabbat or Sabbath, which simply means "seventh" and refers to the seventh day. God set an example to us that we should set aside a day to rest and recover from our activities, though He himself requires no actual rest, since He does not require sleep or recovery from any activity since He does not tire and therefore does not need to recuperate. He created the entire universe and all that it contains, and perhaps even things outside of the universe as yet unknown to us, since we are finite and God is infinite, by the force of His will alone. He did not have to labor to accomplish what He did, simply to speak it into existence.

The idea of Shabbat is also very important in terms of what it means to His people. When God commanded the Israelis to keep the Sabbath, He was making them very different than those around them. In the world of that day, only the very rick even got a day off, let along one day a week from cradle to grave. The idea of avoiding all work on one day per week made them stand out from all other peoples of the world in that day.

More about Shabbat when we get to Exodus.

Anything anyone wants to add or ask about Genesis chapter one before we go on?

I still want to here what you guys have to say about this...

Mark

TMTS,

Don't get too wrapped up in analogies that point to concepts that are not clearly taught in scripture. The idea of light and dark standing for good and evil is a popular one in many religions, but in this case simply means what it says, daylight and darkness...

The idea of a good and evil force, sort of a yin and yang or some such is not a biblical concept since those other religions all consider both good and evil to be self existent and the battle between them to be eternal. But the bible teaches that God created all things, including Lucifer whom He created as an angel who then rebelled against God because He wanted to be like God himself. (another poor choice made)

More on this in Chapter 3.

Good observation about God establishing all that Man required in order to survive before He created Man. God works that way. He always has just what we need ready for us right when and where we need is. Gee, it's almost like He knows what is going to happen before it happens...

Queenie,
Are you reading along here. Have you got anything to add or challenge from you Jewish teachings?

Mark

Hi Mark,

So take it for what it is, no more no less. I get it.

You mention that some believe that there was a battle between God and Lucifer. I don't see where they would get that from.

Those who believe this relate to the story of how Lucifer rebelled and took a third of the angels with him. Those who believe this think that they were cast out of heaven onto the earth and this was what caused the earth to become formless and dark, since they say, God would not create anything that had no form or function. While that might be a true statement, I don't see that God was done creating the earth until after it was no longer formless.

Much of this kind of thinking comes to us by the fact that the scriptures came to us today in English through the King James translation of 1611 and later. Because our words don't always mean the same things they did in 1611, we sometimes lose a bit of what is being said or in some cases might miss it completely until we understand the context of what is being said. In this case, the King James said "void and without form" and so it is easy to see that God would not create nothing as part of creating the earth. But once we realize that the passage really simply means that God made the earth and the heavens, here referring to the sky, stars and rest of the universe, he did it out of nothing at all...

Does that help?

Well you began without me...

I understand it to be that G-d made the world in 6 days and he saw that it was good.

On the 7th day he rested.

It was after breathed life into Adam and then made Eve from Adam's rib. G-d told them they could pretty much do anything they wanted as long as they didn't eat from the tree of knowledge.

I believe that Eve was created to be a helpmate to Adam. But in simplistic terms she met up with the serpent and he convinced her that what G-d was saying wasn't really important and got to disobey G-d and she ate from the tree.

When G-d asked Adam what had happened, I am pretty sure he lied and covered it up and G-d got mad. And he punished them with having to work all their days and woman will have pain in childbirth.

Am I close?