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Words of a Fether

I am the way, the truth, and the life;
no one comes to the Father except through me. ~Jesus

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Genesis 1:1-2:3

Main Lesson List  > Old Testament  > Genesis  > Genesis 1:1-2:3

Introduction

We have to begin our study of the book of Genesis with some general information about the first 5 books of the Bible, known as the Pentateuch or Torah, which the Bible itself attributes to Moses.

  1. LXX timeline from Adam to Abraham
  2. LXX timeline from Abraham to Moses
  3. Did Moses really write Genesis?
  4. Did Moses write the book of Genesis?
  5. genealogy
  6. Hebrew was the world's oldest alphabet
  7. Hebrew is Greek

So there were about 560 years from the birth of Jacob/Israel to the Exodus. If the Exodus occurred around 1446 BC during the reign of Pharaoh Amenhotep II, then the Pentateuch was likely written around 1400 BC. If so, the language was likely to have been Proto-Sinaitic, which was followed by Paleo-Hebrew. This in turn was eventually translated into the Greek LXX. Yet on the other hand, there is substantial, albeit controversial, research that argues for Greek being the mother of all languages.

But when it comes to Biblical texts ascribed to an individual, it's not necessarily that this person did the actual writing, but that they were the primary subject or authority. Thus when the NT, including Jesus, quotes from the Pentateuch and attributes it to Moses, it means by or about or on the authority of Moses. We could also look at the book of Esther as an example. Certainly only Esther herself could know many of the details, but it's unlikely that she herself wrote the words; in her position as queen, it's almost guaranteed that a scribe would have written it for her. And at least some of the material likely came from her older cousin Mordecai. This hardly invalidates the historical accuracy of the account, or she being the author, and the same holds true for the Pentateuch and the rest of the Bible.

On Alleged Two Creation Accounts

Chapters 1 & 2 are not, as some claim, two separate creation accounts, but rather the ancient near eastern custom of giving an introduction and then adding detail. I'll be working primarily from this Greek interlinear. I would encourage you to compare it to what I'm about to read as my own take on it. Please also understand that I make no claims to expertise in Greek, especially classical Greek, and rely on my understanding of the grammatical principles of language in general. We will include ch. 2 verses 1-3 because they really are part of the first account, both grammatically and contextually.

Text and Commentary

1:1-5 In the beginning, God made the sky and earth. At first the earth was a vast and featureless watery abyss, dark and invisible. But the Spirit of God compressed the water, and God gave a command: Let light appear! It did, and God was pleased with this. So he divided light from darkness, calling them Day and Night. Evening and morning passed, the first day.

1:6-8 God then gave a command: Let there be a strong support to divide the waters! So he made the strong support, putting some water above it and the rest below. He called the strong support Sky, and he was pleased with this. Evening and morning passed, the second day.

1:9-13 God then gave a command: Let the waters beneath the sky gather into one place, so that dry land can appear! It happened as God commanded: the waters gathered themselves and dry land appeared. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters Seas, and he was pleased with this. Then God gave another command: Now let the earth produce pasture plants with seeds to make more just like themselves. The same for trees; let them have seed-bearing fruit! So it was done. Plants appeared with their seed to reproduce, and trees appeared bearing fruit with seed to reproduce. God was pleased with this, and evening and morning passed, the third day.

1:14-19 God then gave a command: Let there be luminaries in the strong support of the sky, to give light on the earth and to distinguish between day and night! Let them also serve as signs, and to mark off times, days, and years! So it was done. God made the two primary luminaries— the greater one to mark the beginnings of days, and the lesser one to mark the beginnings of nights— and the stars. He put them in the strong support of the sky, to shine on the earth and mark the beginnings of days and nights, and to separate light from darkness. God was pleased with this, and evening and morning passed, the fourth day.

1:20-23 God then gave a command: Let living souls that crawl emerge from the waters, and let creatures with wings fly on the earth under the strong support of the sky! So it was done. God made huge sea creatures, along with the crawling things and winged creatures with feathers, each according to its own kind. God was pleased with this, and he blessed them with these words: Grow and multiply, fill the waters in the seas! And let the flying creatures also multiply on the earth! Evening and morning passed, the fifth day.

1:24-25 God then gave a command: Let all of these living souls emerge from the earth, each according to its kind: those with four feet, those that crawl, and wild animals! So it was done. God made all of these according to each one's kind: the wild animals of the earth, the cattle, and all that crawl on the earth. God was pleased with this.

1:26-28 God then gave a command: Let us make Human, like us, not only in form but also in function, having authority over the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the cattle all over the earth, and those that crawl on the earth! So Human was made, male and female, resembling God. He blessed them with these words: Grow and multiply, fill the earth and dominate it! Have control over the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the cattle all over the earth, and everything that crawls on the earth!

1:29-31 God added, Look! I've given food from the earth's seed-bearing plants, and trees with seed-bearing fruit. This is not only for you but also for the wild animals on the earth, the birds of the sky, and everything that crawls on the earth. Everything having the breath of life will have all the green plants for food. So it was done, and God was very pleased with it all. Evening and morning passed, the sixth day.

2:1-3 This completed the sky and earth, the entire system. On the sixth day God finished the task of creation, so on the seventh day he rested from that work. That's why God pronounced a blessing on that day and set it apart from the rest.

1:1-5 The first sentence is essentially the introduction to the creation account, so any and all theories, about whether earth started out this way or was ruined from an earlier state, are inventing things the text never hinted at. The Greek phrase rendered compressed here can mean either to come near or to press on. Light as a thing or phenomenon did not yet exist, and of course it couldn't have come from the sun at this point. But here and throughout the chapter, the phrase Evening and morning passed, the nth day leaves no room for speculation over its duration; I challenge critics to present a case for how Moses could have made it any clearer that a normal solar day was meant.

1:6-8 The strong support (trad. firmament) in either Hebrew or Greek, along with its use in other passages and its context here, describes something hammered out and capable of holding something heavy. Here it holds up an unknown amount of water, which some try to claim can mean just about anything but literal water. Sky and heaven are part of the semantic range of one word, whether in Hebrew or Greek, and here it is singular. The result is that earth is surrounded by water.

1:9-13 God separates water and land, then makes land plants.

1:14-19 The luminaries are in the strong support, not above it. Their stated purpose is to serve not only as lights but also as a calendar and clock, and as indicators of warnings or messages from God. There is no hint of earth orbiting the sun (which was impossible for the first three days), nor that earth spins or moves.

1:20-25 Notice that birds and creatures that crawl under water were made from the water, not the ground, in contrast to the land animals. Notice also that birds fly under the strong support, though the grammar could possibly allow throughout.

1:26-31 When it comes to the creation of human beings, notice first of all that no mention is made here about them being produced by either water or ground. Remember that this is still a summary, more concerned with sequence than technicalities, especially for the creation of mankind. So when it says that male and female were made, it is not saying that Adam was androgynous or that there was an entire race of humanoids(?) before Adam. All such theories are pure speculation. And of course to dominate the world is not a license to abuse, pollute, or destroy. As for diet, all living things ate fruit with seeds in it. There was no death or decay or suffering, but this would soon change.

Does God resting from the work of creation mean that all mankind for all time must rest on what we call the Sabbath Day? Not at all; nothing is said here about people having any such obligation, but only what God did. We should also be aware that the word translated God is theos up to this point, the same word used throughout the New Testament.