1In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
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1:1-2:3
1In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
God created heaven and earth. [1]
2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
The earth was formless and the ocean was dark.
The spirit of God moved on the surface of the waters.
3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
God said, "Let there be light." [2]
He saw that the light was good and separated it from darkness.
He called the light "day" and the darkness "night". [3]
5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
And there was morning and evening on the first day. [4]
6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
7 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.
God said,
Let there be a firmament [5]
to separate the water from the water.
8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
God called the firmament "Heaven".
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.
God said,
Let the waters be gathered together and let dry land appear.
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.
God called dry land "Earth"
and the gathered waters "Seas".
He saw it and thought it was good.
11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, 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.
God said,
Let grass, herbs, and fruit trees come out of the earth. [6]
12 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.
13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.
God saw it and thought it was good.
14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
God said,
Let there be lights in the firmament to divide day from night.
Let them be for signs [7]
to mark the seasons, days, and years.
And give light to the earth.
16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
God made two big lights: the sun to rule the day,
and the moon to rule the night. [8]
He made the stars also. [9]
17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
God set the lights in the firmament
to provide light for the earth. [10]
18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
And to rule over the day and night.
God saw it and thought it was good.
20 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.
God said,
Let moving creatures and birds come out of the earth. [11]
21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forthabundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
And God created whales, birds, and moving creatures.
He saw it and thought it was good.
22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.
23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
Have as many offspring as you can.Fill the earth and seas.
24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
God said,
Let living creatures, cattle, creeping things, and beasts come out of the earth.
25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
So God made the beasts and creeping things of the earth. [12]
He saw it and thought it was good.
26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
God said,
Let's make man in our image to look like us. [13]
Let them have dominion over every other living thing. [14]
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
God created humans, male and female, in his own image. [15]
28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
Have as many children as possible, overrun the earth, and do whatever you like with all the other living things. [16]
29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
I have given you every plant as food for you. [17]
30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.
I have also given every plant as food for the animals. [18]
31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
God saw everything he created
and thought it was very good. [19]
Compare with Gen 2:4-25 in which the order of events is entirely different.
The Genesis 1 account conflicts with the order of events that are known to science.
The earth and "heaven" are created together "in the beginning," whereas according to current estimates, the earth and universe are about 4.6 and 13.8 billion years old, respectively.
Also in the first creation account, the earth is created before light, sun and stars; birds and whales before reptiles and insects; and flowering plants before any animals. The order of events known from science is in each case just the opposite.
These are God's first spoken words. It's not clear who he was talking to.
God continues to talk (to himself?) throughout the creation process. (See verses 6, 9, 11, 14-15, 20, 22, 24, and 26.)
But after creating animals, God stops talking to himself and begins talking to them. (See verse 22.)
Yet he didn't make the light producing objects (the sun and the stars) until the fourth day (1:14-19).
And how could there be "the evening and the morning" on the first day if there was no sun to mark them?
When did the first day begin? Did God create heaven and earth before or during the first day? And when did his spirit move on the waters? Did day 1 begin with the creation of light?
It's impossible to tell from the text, but it seems more likely that God began his workweek with with the creation of light. So I'm calling everything before that "Day Zero".
God spends one-sixth of his entire creative effort (the second day) working on a solid firmament. This strange structure, which God calls heaven, is intended to separate the higher waters from the lower waters.
God placed the sun, moon, and stars in the firmament so that they can be used "for signs". This, of course, is exactly what astrologers do: read "the signs" in the Zodiac to predict what will happen on Earth.
But the moon is not a light; it only reflects light from the sun. And why, if God made the moon to "rule the night", does it spend half of its time moving through the daytime sky?
God spends a day making light (before making the sun and stars) and separating light from darkness; then, at the end of a hard day's work, and almost as an afterthought, he makes 1024 stars.
Then why is only a tiny fraction of stars visible from earth? Under the best conditions, no more than a few thousand stars are visible with the unaided eye, yet there are hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy and a hundred billion or so galaxies. Were they all created "to give light upon the earth"?
Notice that the waters brought forth the living creatures -- God didn't create them directly.
The same language is used to describe the origin of land animals verse 11 in and plants in verse 24.
From what were the animals created?
This couldn't be true, of course, since millions of other species existed for millions of years before humans existed. But this verse is used by fundamentalist Christians to justify their mistreatment of other species and disregard for the environment. After all, they believe that God created the other species just for them, so they can do whatever they please with them.
God created humans -- male and female -- in his own image. So does this mean that God is both male and female?
This verse is used to justify Christian opposition to birth control.
Since many plants have evolved poisons to protect against animals that would like to eat them, God's advice is more than a little reckless. Would you tell your children to go out in the garden and eat whatever plants they encounter? Of course not. But then, you are much nicer and smarter than God.
All animals were originally herbivores. Tapeworms, vampire bats, mosquitoes, and barracudas -- all were strict vegetarians, as created by God.
God purposefully designed a system that ensures the suffering and death of all his creatures, parasite and host, predator and prey.
Christian Response
Prior to 1:14, the author made sure to mention that the evenings and mornings were constituting each day of God's creation. However, within 1:14, God separates light in the firmament to represent calendar phenomena, such as seasonal change, days, and years. What was determining a full day's duration prior to this?
I have read/heard somewhere that the interpretation of the word "day" as measurement for time in the Bible is up for debate. For some, Biblical "days" are only in tune with when sunlight is present, meaning only half of a 24-hour day. For others, a "day" is a thousand years, but is to be taken less as a form of measurement and more as a reference to a grand event (The Day of Judgment).
..then you have those who recognize a "day" as the standard 24-hour period we know it as modernly, in tune with the rotation of the earth. However, this contradicts the beginning of Genesis where the creation of the "heaven and the earth" was the "first day" despite our sun not being created until "day" four. Again, with THIS in mind, what was constituting a day's time duration prior to the fourth day of creation?
Of course, we all have to start at the beginning. The beginning of the Bible, The 'beginning' of the universe, allegedly, and the beginning of my notes.
This is the first, yes, FIRST creation account. There are 2 of them for a reason I'll most likely go over in my Chapter 2 comment, but let's just say that scholars are 100% certain that the first five books of the Bible had multiple authors.
Now, this chapter has been taken apart piece by piece by pretty much everybody and their grandma, and most of the points I can think of have already been discussed by this site and its creator's notes below this very comment section, so I'm going to keep my notes on this chapter short.
This chapter, while possibly making sense from a literary or a primitive standpoint, does not make any sense when you consider modern scientific understanding. There's the fact that plants were created before there was a sun for them to photosynthesize from, and there's God giving all the animals plants to eat, implying that all animals were vegetarian before the Fall (Which is a belief I wasn't aware of until I found out who Ken Ham was...), and then there's God making humans 'in his image.'
What image? Physical image? Mental image? Moral image? Emotional image? Some other form of image? Perhaps, it's a mix of multiple of these. Oh, wait, in 1:26, it says 'Our' image, which implies that early forms of Hebrew religion were polytheistic, but if you point this out to a fundamentalist Christian, they'll most likely say something like "Oh, no! God is referring to himself and the angels/the trinity/him and Jesus/what-have-you! You're taking it all out of context!" which is the most convenient excuse.
"And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." - 1:31
Well, it won't be for long, considering that shit will be hitting the fan soon, as it often does in the Bible. Also, how can a world filled with suffering, war, hatred, starvation, disease, and death be 'very good'? Either 'good' as a concept has no meaning, or God is some sort of psychopath.