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Hello; and welcome to the very first book of the Bible.

 

As of today's date, I'm 74 years old; and an on-going student of the Bible since 1968 via sermons, seminars, lectures, Sunday school classes, radio Bible programs, and various authors of a number of Bible-related books. Fifty-plus years of Bible under my belt hasn't made me an authority; but they've at least made me competent enough to compose a home-spun journey thru Genesis; practically verse by verse from the origin of the cosmos to Joseph's burial in Egypt.

 

I've experienced varying degrees of success with this particular topic. On some forums, it's attracted literally thousands of views; while on others substantially less.

 

Barring emergencies, accidents, vacations, unforeseen circumstances, and/or insurmountable distractions, database errors, difficulties, computer crashes, black outs, brown outs, deaths in the family, Wall Street Armageddon, thread hijackers, excessive quarrelling and debating, the dog ate my homework, Executive Orders, visiting relatives, brute force, ISIS, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Carrington events, gasoline prices, medical issues, and/or hard luck, the forces of nature, and the aging process; I'm making an effort to post something new every day including Sundays and holidays.

 

Some really good stuff is in Genesis: the origin of the cosmos, the origin of life on Earth, Adam and Eve, the origin of marriage, the Devil, the first lie, the first transgression, the origin of human death, the origin of clothing, the first baby, Cain and Abel, the first murder, the Flood, the tower of Babel, and the origin of Yhvh's people.

 

Big-name celebrities like Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac and Ishmael, Rebecca, Jacob and Esau, and Joseph are here too.

 

Not here are Moses vs. Pharaoh and the parting of the Red Sea. That story is in Exodus; Samson and Delilah are in Judges, David and Goliath are in 1Samuel; and Ruth and Esther are in books of the Bible named after them.

 

Cliff

 

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Genesis 1:1

 

 

The author of Genesis is currently unknown; but commonly attributed to Moses. Seeing as he penned Exodus (Mark 12:26) it's conceivable that Moses also penned Genesis; but in reality, nobody really knows for sure.

 

Scholars have estimated the date of its writing at around 1450-1410 BC; which is pretty recent in the grand scheme of Earth's geological history-- a mere 3,400 years ago.

 

Genesis may in fact be the result of several contributors beginning as far back as Adam himself; who would certainly know more about the creation than anybody, and who entertained no doubts whatsoever about the existence of an intelligent designer since he knew the Creator himself like a next door neighbor.

 

That would explain why the book begins with an in-your-face theological account of the origin of the cosmos, rather than waste words with an apologetic argument to convince skeptics that a supreme being exists. I mean: if the complexity of the cosmos-- its extent, its objects, and all of its forms of life, matter, and energy --isn't enough to convince the skeptics; then they're pretty much beyond reach.

 

As time went by, others like Seth and Noah would add their own experiences to the record, and then Abraham his, Isaac his, Jacob his, and finally Judah or one of his descendants completing the record with Joseph's burial.

 

Genesis is quoted more than sixty times in the New Testament; and Christ himself authenticated its Divine inspiration by referring to it in his own teachings. (e.g. Matt 19:4-6, Matt 24:37-39, Mk 10:4-9, Luke 11:49-51, Luke 17:26-29 & 32, John 7:21-23, John 8:44 and John 8:56)

 

Gen 1:1a . . In the beginning God

 

The word for "God" is from the Hebrew 'elohiym (el-o-heem'). It's a plural word and means, ordinarily: gods. 'Elohiym isn't really the creator's personal moniker, rather, a nondescript designation that pertains to all sorts of gods, along with, and including, the supreme one.

 

Gen 1:1b . . created the heaven and earth.

 

The word for "heaven" is from the Hebrew word shamayim (shaw-mah'-yim) and means: to be lofty; i.e. the sky; perhaps alluding to the visible arch in which the clouds move, as well as to the higher void where the celestial bodies reside, i.e. the universe.

 

So the word "heaven" is ambiguous and can mean the breathable air in our planet's atmosphere as well as the stratosphere and the vast celestial regions of space.

 

The Hebrew word for "earth" is 'erets (eh'-rets) which is yet another of the Bible's many ambiguous words. It can indicate dry land, a country, and/or the whole planet.

 

Anyway; Genesis 1:1 merely reveals the origin of the cosmos without going into detail. It's a "Once upon a time" sort of statement with a story to follow.

 

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Genesis 1:2-4

 

 

Gen 1:2a . . And the earth was without form, and void;

 

That statement reveals the earth's condition prior to the creation of an energy that would make it possible for its particles to coalesce into something coherent.

 

Curiously, scientists have not yet been able to figure out what gives particles their mass. In point of fact, the multi-billion-dollar Large Hadron Collider was constructed for the specific purpose of finding a special particle called the Higgs Boson (a.k.a. the God particle) because it's believed that the Higgs particle "creates" a field that somehow grants other particles their mass.

 

Gen 1:2b . . and darkness was upon the face of the deep.

 

This particular "deep" I believe can be safely assumed to be the void; viz: the seemingly infinite space housing the known universe.

 

Gen 1:2c . . And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

 

The "waters" at this point in the earth's history probably weren't the liquid commonly known as H2O. It's just a "place-holder" name; viz: a convenient label for the colossal soup of freshly created particles that would eventually be utilized to construct the universe's physical properties.

 

The Spirit's job, therefore, was as a sort of cattle wrangler circling the herd and keeping all the various particles together so they didn't drift away and get lost because as yet there were no forces at work keeping things together.

 

Gen 1:3 . . And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

 

The creation of light was a very, very intricate process. First God had to create particulate matter, and along with those particles their specific properties, including mass. Then He had to invent the laws of nature to govern how matter behaves in combination with and/or in the presence of, other kinds of matter in order to generate electromagnetic radiation.

 

Light's properties are curious. It propagates as waves in a variety of lengths and frequencies, and also as quantum bits called photons. And though light has no mass; it's influenced by gravity. Light is also quite invisible to the naked eye. For example: you can see the Sun when you look at it, and you can see the Moon when sunlight reflects from its surface. But none of the Sun's light is visible to you in the void between them and that's because light isn't matter; it's energy. The same goes for one of those laser pointers. You can see it as a spot on a target, but you can't see the laser's beam between its source and the target.

 

The same laws that make it possible for matter to generate electromagnetic radiation also make other conditions possible too; e.g. fire, wind, water, ice, soil, rain, life, centrifugal force, thermodynamics, fusion, dark energy, gravity, atoms, organic molecules, magnetism, color, radiation, refraction, reflection, high energy X-rays and gamma rays, temperature, pressure, force, inertia, sound, friction, and electricity; et al. So the creation of light was a pretty big deal; yet Genesis scarcely gives its origin passing mention.

 

2Cor 4:6 verifies that light wasn't introduced into the cosmos from outside in order to dispel the darkness and brighten things up a bit; but rather, it radiated out of the cosmos from inside-- from itself --indicating that the cosmos was created to be self-illuminating by means of the various interactions of the matter that God made for it; including, but not limited to, the Higgs Boson. In other words: the illumination existing throughout the cosmos is a natural variety of light rather than supernatural.

 

You know it's curious to me that most people have no trouble readily conceding that everything else in the first chapter of Genesis is natural, e.g. the cosmos, the earth, water, sky, dry land, the Sun, the Moon, the stars, aqua life, winged life, terra life, flora life, and human life.

 

But when it comes to light they choke; finding it impossible within themselves to believe that Genesis just might be consistent in its description of the creative process. I mean, if all those other things are natural, why wouldn't light be natural too? In point of fact, without natural light, planet Earth would become a cold dead world right quick.

 

NOTE: The interesting thing about the laws of nature is that they're not absolute laws. No; they are created laws-- created as a companion to the created cosmos to regulate how the cosmos, with all of its forms of life, matter, and energy, behaves. Seeing as how God designed and created those laws, then He knows the secrets to manipulating them in order to make things in our world behave quite contrary to common sense.

 

Take for example the floating axe head in 2Kgs 6:5-6. Solid chunks of iron don't float. That's unnatural. Another example is the fire-proof bush of Ex 3:2. A bush that's impervious to fire is unnatural. It should have flared up and Moses knew it too but it didn't because God can easily modify the natural behavior of everything He ever created.

 

Gen 1:4a . . And God saw the light, that it was good:

 

God declared that light is good; but He didn't declare that darkness is good. In point of fact, darkness typically represents bad things in the Bible; while light typically represents good things. It's been an axiom from the very beginning.

 

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Genesis 1:4b-5a

 

 

Gen 1:4b-5a . . and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.

 

Defining the properties of day and night may seem like a superfluous detail, but comes in very handy for organizing the days and nights related to Christ's crucifixion and resurrection per Matt 12:40.

 

Gen 1:5b . . And the evening and the morning were the first day.

 

Just exactly how long were the days of creation? Well; according to Gen 1:24-31, God created humans and all land animals on the sixth day; which has to include dinosaurs because on no other day did God create land animals but the sixth.

 

However; the fossil record, in combination with scientific dating methods, has thus far strongly suggested that dinosaurs preceded human life by several million years. So then, in my estimation, the days of creation should be taken to represent epochs rather than 24-hour events. That's not an unreasonable estimation; for example:

 

"These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens." (Gen 2:4)

 

The Hebrew word for "day" in that verse is yowm (yome) which is the very same word for each of the six days of God's creation labors. Since yowm in Gen 2:4 refers to a period of time obviously much longer than a 24-hour calendar day; it justifies suggesting that each of the six days of creation were longer than 24 hours apiece too. In other words: yowm is ambiguous and not all that easy to interpret sometimes.

 

Anyway; this "day" thing has been a chronic problem for just about everybody who takes Genesis seriously. It's typically assumed that the days of creation consisted of twenty-four hours apiece; so people end up stumped when trying to figure out how to cope with the 4.5 billion-year age of the earth, and factor in the various eras, e.g. Triassic, Jurassic, Mesozoic, Cenozoic, Cretaceous, etc, plus the ice ages and the mass extinction events.

 

NOTE: Galileo believed that science and religion are allies rather than enemies-- two different languages telling the same story. He believed that science and religion compliment each other-- science answers questions with which religion doesn't concern itself, and religion answers questions that science cannot answer.

 

For example: theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking understood pretty well how the universe works; but could never scientifically explain why it exists. Well the only possible answer to the "why" is found in intelligent design; which is a religious explanation rather than scientific.

 

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Genesis 1:6-10

 

 

Gen 1:6a . . And God said, Let there be a firmament

 

The word for "firmament" is raqiya' (raw-kee'-ah) and means: a great extent of something spread out, i.e. probably all that can be seen when we look up; the entire void from ground level to the vast celestial regions of outer space

 

Gen 1:6b-8 . . in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven.

 

"Heaven" is translated from shamayim (shaw-mah'-yim) and in this case; just means sky rather than paradise.

 

Shamayim and raqiya' are juxtaposed in Gen 1:17.

 

At this point in time, I think we can safely assume that "water" is no longer a place-card name for the colossal soup of particles God created in Gen 1:2, rather, the molecular combination with which we do our laundry, cook pasta, and irrigate crops.

 

We can easily guess what is meant by water that's below the sky. But is there really water that's above it? Yes, and it's a lot! According to an article in the Sept 2013 issue of National Geographic magazine, Earth's atmosphere holds roughly 3,095 cubic miles of water in the form of vapor. That may seem like a preposterous number of cubic miles of water; but not really when it's considered that Lake Superior's volume alone is estimated at nearly 3,000.

 

Our home planet is really big; a whole lot bigger than people sometimes realize. It's surface area, in square miles, is 196,940,000. To give an idea of just how many square miles that is: if somebody were to wrap a belt around the equator made of one-mile squares; it would only take 24,902 squares to complete the distance; which is a mere .00012644 the surface area.

 

Some of the more familiar global warming gases are carbon dioxide, fluorocarbons, methane, and ozone. But as popular as those gases are with the media, they're bit players in comparison to the role that ordinary water vapor plays in global warming. By some estimates; atmospheric water vapor accounts for more than 90% of global warming; which is not a bad thing because without atmospheric water vapor, the earth would be so cold that the only life that could exist here would be extremophiles.

 

How much water is below the expanse? Well; according to the same article; the amount contained in swamp water, lakes and rivers, ground water, and oceans, seas, and bays adds up to something like 326.6 million cubic miles; and that's not counting the 5.85 million cubic miles tied up in living organisms, soil moisture, ground ice and permafrost, ice sheets, glaciers, and permanent snow.

 

To put that in perspective: a tower 326.6 million miles high would exceed the Sun's distance better than 3½ times.

 

Gen 1:8b . . And the evening and the morning were the second day.

 

Bear in mind that at this point, there was no sun to cause physical evenings and mornings. So we can safely assume that the terms are merely place-cards indicating the completion of one of creation's six-step processes and the beginning of another.

 

Gen 1:9 . . And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

 

Shaping the earth's mantle in order to form low spots for the seas and high spots for dry ground was a colossal feat of magma convection and volcanism combined with the titanic forces of tectonic plate subduction; all of which require beaucoup centuries to accomplish.

 

At the ocean's deepest surveyed point-- the Challenger Deep; located in the Mariana Islands group, at the southern end of the Mariana Trench --the water's depth is over 11,000 meters; which is about 6.8 statute miles (36,000 feet). That depth corresponds to the cruising altitude of a Boeing 747. At that altitude, probably about all you're going to see of the airliner without straining your eyes is its contrail.

 

Africa's Mt Kilimanjaro is the tallest free-standing mountain on earth at 19,341 feet above its land base. If Kilimanjaro were placed in the Challenger Deep, it would have about 16,659 feet of water over its peak. Were the tallest point of the Himalayan range-- Mt Everest --to be submerged in the Challenger Deep, it would have about 7,000 feet of water over its peak.

 

The discovery of fossilized sea lilies near the summit of Mt Everest proves that the Himalayan land mass has not always been mountainous; but at one time was the floor of an ancient sea bed. This is confirmed by the "yellow band" below Everest's summit consisting of limestone: a type of rock made from calcite sediments containing the skeletal remains of countless trillions of organisms who lived, not on dry land, but in an ocean.

 

"He established the Earth on its foundations, so that it shall never totter. You made the deep cover it as a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. They fled at your blast, rushed away at the sound of your thunder-- mountains rising, valleys sinking to the place you established for them. You set bounds they must not pass so that they never again cover the Earth." (Ps 104:5-9)

 

Psalm 104 is stunning; and clearly way ahead of its time. It says that the land masses we know today as mountains were at one time submerged; and it isn't talking about Noah's flood. The speech of "mountains rising, and valleys sinking" isn't Flood-speak, no, it's geology-speak.

 

I seriously doubt that the Psalmist knew about the science of tectonic plates, magma pressure, and the forces of subduction, but he was clearly somehow aware that the Earth's crust is malleable. And that's true. With just the right combination of temperature and pressure, solid rock can be made to bend; even forced to hairpin back upon itself like taffy.

 

Gen 1:10 . . And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

 

"good" meaning not that the dry ground and seas are morally acceptable, but rather, perfectly suitable for the purposes that God had in mind for them.

 

NOTE: There are Hebrew words in the Bible for marshes, impoundments, rivers, and streams; but I've yet to encounter one for natural lakes and ponds. In other words "seas" suffices not only for oceans; but also for all the smaller accumulations of naturally occurring water.

 

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Genesis 1:11-13

 

 

Gen 1:11a . . And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass,

 

This is the very first mention of life on earth; and what's interesting about it is that life on earth wasn't created from nothing, rather, by means of ingredients taken from the earth itself.

 

Gen 1:11b-12 . . The herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

 

According to Gen 2:4-5, the land's plant life was dormant in the beginning; it didn't actually flourish until the atmosphere began producing precipitation.

 

NOTE: It's believed by science that there was an era in Earth's youth called the Carboniferous period when it was blanketed by dense jungles and forests. As those plants and trees died, and were buried beneath layers of sediment; their unique chemical structure caused them to be "cooked" into solid coal; and there is really a lot of it.

 

Why isn't the Earth currently blanketed by dense jungles and forests? Well; the earth's conditions today cannot produce enough humidity, nor enough rain, nor enough global warming to sustain the kinds of heavy vegetation that once existed in the Carboniferous era. In other words: the earth, over time, has managed to give itself a remarkable make-over; and at least one element of its make-over are the mountains.

 

The ranges now in existence; e.g. the Andes, the Himalayas, the Rockies, the Urals, the Appalachians, the Cascades, the Brooks Range, the Alps, etc; and the various minor inland and coastal ranges didn't always exist. Those were shoved up over time by the forces of tectonic subduction, volcanism, and magma pressure. Even Yosemite's massive granite monoliths haven't always been there. They were formed deep underground and then somehow shoved up to where they are now.

 

Anyway, point being; those ranges have a very great deal to do with the earth's current weather systems.

 

Gen 1:13 . . And the evening and the morning were the third day.

 

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6 hours ago, Zuno_Yazh said:

 

Gen 1:13 . . And there was evening and there was morning, a third day.

 

This is not KJV.  The KJV reads:   Gen 1:13 And the evening and the morning were the third day. 

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Genesis 1:14

 

 

Gen 1:14a . . And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven

 

On the fourth day, God spent time up in celestial regions. It might seem odd that He began work on the surface of the Earth, and then before finishing, stopped short and moved off into space. Why not finish building down here on the planet first?

 

Many types of plants and animals need sunlight if they're to be strong and healthy. At this point in the creation, planet Earth was very dark and freezing cold. For example: the dark side of the Moon gets down to like 279º below zero; so it was time to turn the earth into a greenhouse.

 

A major player in the earth's water cycle is evaporation, which is driven by the Sun. By means of evaporation, the earth's atmosphere gets enough water vapor to form the clouds that produce precipitation.

 

The Sun also plays a role in temperature variations that make conditions like humidity and fog possible. Temperature variations also play a role in the process of erosion; which assists in soil formation.

 

Many varieties of vegetation depend upon the annual cycle of the four seasons of Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter; seasons which would not be possible without the Sun.

 

Oxygen is a must gas for sustaining life on earth and a very large percentage of it is produced by photosynthesis which is a chemical process that works best in sunlight. No doubt the original atmosphere contained oxygen enough, but would eventually be absorbed by oxidation and other kinds of chemical activity. Plant life plays a major role in both filtration and replenishment; hence the need to get a Sun shining as soon as possible.

 

The atmosphere contains on average 19.5 to 23.5 percent oxygen; even with all the fossil fuel burned around the world, along with the destruction of savannas, prairies, woodlands, wetlands, and rain forests, coupled with volcanic activity; the percentage remain fairly stable.

 

We today are aware that the Moon doesn't generate its own light; but prior to that discovery, people no doubt regarded the Moon as a sun; especially seeing as how from the perspective of Earth, the Sun and the Moon appear to be exactly the same size in diameter, and both appear to circle the Earth.

 

Gen 1:14b . . to divide the day from the night;

 

On the first day of the creative process; God defined Day as a condition of light; and defined Night as a condition of darkness. Here, it's further defined that Day, as pertains to life on Earth, is when the Sun is up; and Night is when the Sun is down.

 

These definitions occur so early in the Bible that they easily escape the memories of Bible students as they slip into the reflexive habit of always thinking of Days as periods of one earth rotation of 24 hours. That's okay for calendars but can lead to gross misunderstandings when interpreting biblical schedules, predictions, and/or chronologies, e.g. Matt 12:40.

 

Gen 1:14c . . and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

 

The word for "signs" is from 'owth (oth) and means a signal; viz: indicators. For example: the mark that God put on Cain was an 'owth. (Gen 4:15)

 

The Sun's movement across the sky is very useful for keeping time. It probably didn't take long for early men to realize they could divide a day into convenient elements by utilizing shadow.

 

"seasons" is translated from either mowed' (mo-ade') or moed` (mo-ade'). Those words are translated "congregation" numerous times in the Old Testament relative to special dates on the calendar, viz: appointments.

 

While the Sun is useful for keeping track of solar increments, the Moon is useful for marking off lunar increments. For example: were you to tell somebody your intention to visit them in five Moons, they would have a pretty good idea when to get ready for your arrival; so long as you both used a common definition of "moon". To some, a moon is new moon, while for others a moon indicates full moon.

 

If the Sun and the Moon were the hands of a clock; the Sun would be the minute hand and the Moon would be the hour hand; so to speak.

 

Years in the Old Testament are sometimes based upon a 30-day month; and they're not always marked by the Sun's position in space relative to the stars. More about this later when we get to Noah.

 

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On 4/3/2018 at 5:10 AM, Zuno_Yazh said:

Gen 1:3 . . And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

 

The creation of light was a very, very intricate process. First God had to create particulate matter, and along with those particles their specific properties, including mass. Then He had to invent the laws of nature to govern how matter behaves in combination with and/or in the presence of, other kinds of matter in order to generate electromagnetic radiation.

 

Light's properties are a bit curious. It exists as waves in a variety of lengths and frequencies, and also as theoretical particles called photons. And though light has no mass; it's influenced by gravity. Light is also quite invisible. For example: you can see the Sun when you look at it, and you can see the Moon when sunlight reflects from its surface. But none of the Sun's light is visible in the void between them and that's because light isn't matter; it's energy.

It is always interesting when man tries to explain away the things of God in terms of human thinking. The fact of the matter in this instance is that God "spoke" light into existence instantaneously, not as a series of events that had to take place for light to exist. The first three words of Gen. 2:3 affirm this as fact and at God's  prerogative.

The other properties of light mentioned may or may not be a part of the equation of "light". But they are all a part of the instantaneous action of God speaking them all into existence at once.

The author here states that Photons are "theoretical" particles, I submit that they are not "theoretical" all all, since anything theoretical is not absolute, it comes from the fertile mind of man, like the "theory of evolution". Photons have properties that can be seen, counted, and measured, thus they are in the realm of real world physics in which scientists can study them. 

The author also states that "none of the Sun's light is visible in the void between them". This is not correct and can be demonstrated. Just because light is not visible to the naked eye of man, it does not follow that light is not visible with man made aids. I have observed this first hand using special wavelength filters.

So, to say that light is not visible between them is not entirely correct.

The author goes on to state that the properties of light have "mass" and then contradicts himself by stating that "And though light has no mass; it's influenced by gravity."

So, just because someone says something, it doesn't necessarily follow that it must be true. Sorry for the text format change, it just happened and I couldn't change it.

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1 hour ago, Jim_Alaska said:

So, just because someone says something, it doesn't necessarily follow that it must be true.

 

Jas 3:1 . . My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation.

 

"masters" is translated from the koiné Greek word didaskalos (did-as'-kal-os) which refers to instructors. Well; I knew the risk I'd be taking by posting a home-spun commentary on the book of Genesis. I'll no doubt be called on the carpet to face the music for my errors and for any and all misleading statements; but were I to wait till I was certain that my comments were 110% infallible and speaking for God ex cathedra, that might never happen.

 

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Genesis 1:20-23

 

 

Gen 1:20-21a . . And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind:

 

How can water alone be used to create living things? Well, it can't be any more difficult than creating the entire cosmos ex nihilo; i.e. from and/or out of nothing.

 

The word for "creature" is from nephesh (neh'-fesh) which distinguishes conscious life from non-conscious life. For example: though saguaro cacti are alive, they aren't nephesh because saguaro cacti aren't conscious, i.e. nephesh refers to all critter life great and small; but never to non critter life.

 

Nephesh shows up first in Gen 1:20-21 as sea creatures and winged creatures.

 

Next it shows up in Gen 1:24 as terra creatures; viz: cattle, creepy crawlies, and wild beasts.

 

It shows up again in Gen 2:7 as the human creature.

 

It shows up again in Gen 2:19-20 as the creatures to whom Adam gave names.

 

It shows up again in Gen 9:8-16 as all conscious life aboard the ark, including Noah and his family.

 

Some say that animals are people too. Well . . they're certainly not human, but according to the Bible, they are very definitely just as much a nephesh as a human being. So I guess we could consent, at least to some degree, that critters are people too; in their own way.

 

The Hebrew word for "fowl" is 'owph (ofe) which just simply means covered with wings as opposed to covered with feathers. It's a rather unusual word because it includes not only creatures with feathers, but according to Lev 11:13-23, 'owph also pertains to bats and flying insects. The English word "fowl" was obviously an arbitrary translation since owph is ambiguous.

 

What did those early flyers look like? Well; I suggest that at least some of them had to be Pterosaurs because on no other day but the fifth did God bring about winged critters. Precisely when and/or how God phased out those early skin-winged creatures is one of science's thorniest mysteries. It's reasonable to assume that whatever exterminated the Pterosaurs should have exterminated everything else with wings too; but somehow birds, bats, and flying bugs are still with us.

 

It's important to note that winged creatures were just as distinct a creation as aqua creatures. So winged creatures didn't evolve from creatures who once lived in the sea. Winged creatures are a separate genre of life in their own right, and absolutely did not evolve from some other order of life.

 

"great whales" is from tanniyn (tan-neen') and/or tanniym (tan-neem') which mean: a marine or land monster. Tanniyn is sometimes translated "dragon" as in Isa 27:1

 

It wasn't a tanniyn, however, that swallowed Jonah. That creature was either a dagah (daw-gaw') a dag (dawg) or a da'g (dawg). All three words indicate nondescript fish.

 

NOTE: The reason I quoted the three Hebrew words for "fish" is because the fact is: translators are not always confident how best to represent a Hebrew word with the English alphabet. In point of fact, there are ancient Hebrew words that nobody really knows what they mean so translators are forced to take educated guesses here and there.

 

"every living creature that moveth" would include not only critters that swim but also critters that creep, e.g. starfish, lobsters, crayfish, newts, clams, and crabs et al.

 

But what about aquatic dinosaurs? Well; according to Discovery's web site "Walking With Dinosaurs" paleontologists believe there were some amphibious reptiles such as plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs, but those creatures didn't have the gills necessary to be truly aquatic like Nemo and his dad Marlin.

 

Gen 1:21b . . and God saw that it was good.

 

In other words: He was satisfied.

 

The Hebrew word for "good" in this instance is towb (tobe) which is horribly ambiguous. It's meanings range from morally good, to good looking, to a job well done, to something that's good to the taste; and to a whole lot of other things in between; e.g. a good show, good food, as good as it gets, satisfactory; etc, etc.

 

Gen 1:22a . . And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply,

 

This is the very first place in the Bible where the Hebrew word for bless shows up. It's somewhat ambiguous, but in this case I think it's pretty safe to assume that it means to furnish freely or naturally with some power, quality, or attribute; i.e. provide, endow, and/or empower. In other words: the blessing of fertility was a providential act; and no doubt included microscopic creatures as well as those visible to the naked eye.

 

Providence is common in the Bible; especially in Genesis.

 

Gen 1:22b . . and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

 

Winged creatures have the advantage of flight; which, in my estimation, makes them more fortunate than creatures confined to water. The wingers get a much better world view from above than those below. Flying broadens one's horizons, so to speak, and gives us a bigger picture. Amphibious flyers, e.g. cormorants and grebes, have the best of both environs; they see things from above as well as from below.

 

Aqua creatures exist in the most unlikely places. When the crew of the bathyscaphe Trieste descended into the 35,761 feet Challenger Deep located in the deepest part of the Mariana Trench in 1960, they didn't really expect to find anything living down there; but to their surprise, they saw a flat fish similar to sole and flounder.

 

The video camera on board the Kaiko probe spotted a sea cucumber, a scale worm and a shrimp at the bottom.

 

The Nereus probe spotted a polychaete worm (a multi-legged predator) about an inch long.

 

Gen 1:23 . . And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

 

/

Edited by Zuno_Yazh
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On 4/8/2018 at 8:45 AM, Zuno_Yazh said:

 

Jas 3:1 . . My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation.

 

"masters" is translated from the koiné Greek word didaskalos (did-as'-kal-os) which refers to instructors. Well; I knew the risk I'd be taking by posting a home-spun commentary on the book of Genesis. I'll no doubt be called on the carpet to face the music for my errors and for any and all misleading statements; but were I to wait till I was certain that my comments were 110% infallible and speaking for God ex cathedra, that might never happen.

 

I found your comments to be interesting in that you took the time to try to reason out a very complex subject. It was mostly in the realm of science that I took exception, especially when an attempt was made to correlate the scientific with the spiritual, or Scripture.

I confess to having the scientific advantage pertaining to my reply to your post. What really piqued my interest was from a standpoint of both scientific as well as spiritual. I just felt the need to address both the spiritual as well as the scientific aspects of your post in my reply.

Regarding the scientific aspect I have the advantage of many years experience in the capacity of an atmospheric research scientist while employed by the UCLA Plasma Physics Laboratory. My area of research was not limited to the atmosphere in the near earth realm, but also upper regions at altitudes of 90-110 km. We made extensive use of lasers, high tech telescopes and complex computer diagnostics in our research. As you might imagine, light, or the lack of it played a huge role in our work.

In closing I would encourage you to continue your studies and research. You have an inquiring mind that lends itself to both the spiritual as well as natural aspects of Scriptural details if properly applied. I look forward to your continued examination and exposition in regard to the book of Genesis.

May God richly bless you as you serve Him.

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On 4/4/2018 at 12:13 PM, Zuno_Yazh said:

Gen 1:5b . . And the evening and the morning were the first day.

 

Just exactly how long were the days of creation? Well; according to Gen 1:24-31, God created humans and all land animals on the sixth day; which has to include dinosaurs because on no other day did God create land animals but the sixth.

 

However; the fossil record, in combination with scientific dating methods, has thus far strongly suggested that dinosaurs preceded human life by several million years. So then, in my estimation, the days of creation should be taken to represent epochs rather than 24-hour events. That's not an unreasonable estimation; for example:

 

"These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens." (Gen 2:4)

 

The Hebrew word for "day" in that verse is yowm (yome) which is the very same word for each of the six days of God's creation labors. Since yowm in Gen 2:4 refers to a period of time obviously much longer than a 24-hour calendar day; it justifies suggesting that each of the six days of creation were longer than 24 hours apiece too. In other words: yowm is ambiguous and not all that easy to interpret sometimes.

 

Anyway; this "day" thing has been a chronic problem for just about everybody who takes Genesis seriously. It's typically assumed that the days of creation consisted of twenty-four hours apiece; so people end up stumped when trying to figure out how to cope with the 4.5 billion-year age of the earth, and factor in the various eras, e.g. Triassic, Jurassic, Mesozoic, Cenozoic, Cretaceous, etc, plus the ice ages and the mass extinction events.

 

NOTE: Galileo believed that science and religion are allies rather than enemies-- two different languages telling the same story. He believed that science and religion compliment each other-- science answers questions with which religion doesn't concern itself, and religion answers questions that science cannot answer.

 

For example: theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking understood pretty well how the universe works; but could never scientifically explain why it exists. Well the only possible answer to the "why" is found in intelligent design; which is a religious explanation rather than scientific.

So, as I read your postings, it appears to me you believe in evolution, or in theistic evolution. Or, do I read you wrong?

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Gotta say Alan, "this day thing" has NOT been a "chronic problem" for me, and I take Genesis VERY SERIOUSLY.

Thanks for pointing it out.

I have no problem destroying science falsely so called in regard to their dating methods, because I am one person who thinks the word ASSUMPTIONS is not easily passed over.

And the dating methods - ALL OF THEM - are so full of assumptions that no thinking person can take them seriously UNLESS they are blinded by presupposition and bias (the scientists pushing these lies), or worse still ignorance (the ones who listen to these false prophets of science without question - blind faith in science).

 

The six days of creation were six literal 24 hours days.

The phrase evening and morning indicate it.

The word Yowm used carries as its primary and first meaning a ltieral day going from evening to morning to the next evening. Yes it does have as a secondary meaning an indeterminate period of time such as "an age" but this is indicated by the words surrounding it, and those words are "evening and morning" indication a literal 24 hour period in themselves.

Further to that, God numbers the days, IN THEIR ORDER - not just a day here and a day there, but First, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth - even in the Hebrew the days are given specific order numbers.

And the order of events that God has Designated happened on each of the days (Not ages) that included an evening and a morning does not match anything like the worlds false ideas of evolution.

Hence, I have no problem with the meaning of the word Yowm.

I read the Bible for what it says, I don't tell the Bible what it means.

The Bible doesn't allow anything other than 6 days, science has not proven the millions of years.

No problem for me:

Rom 3:3-4  For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?  (4)  God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.

Works for this too...

 

Oh, and I know of only one "Mass extinction event", because God stopped it from being a total destruction of all life on earth by getting some bloke to build a big boat for his family and bunch of animals.

The other funny names for supposed ages?  well they are made up by someone with a  good imagination.

 

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