Genesis 1&2 The Beginning - Scriptural, Scientific and Historical Perspective.

[Seve]

Dear Readers,

As we all know by now, Today, we are still living in Gen 1:27 and the rest of Genesis 1:28-31 takes place AFTER Jesus returns at Armageddon.

In fact, here's how I see it, below:

The present 6th Day, is also the Day of Salvation and the Day of Judgment for ALL including humans. ALL Human kind physically Live and Die on this present 6th Day.

2Co 6:2 (For He saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, NOW is the day of salvation.)

The begging question now becomes - Do Humans still physically die nowadays? If so, then the End of God's 6th Creative Day is still FUTURE because … when God's work is finished (brought to perfection), there will be No More Death (Rev 21:4).

1Co 15:26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.

At the end after the Final Judgment, Satan and Death will be cast into hell. Then, Death has been defeated, and we will rise before the beginning of the 7th Day to be with our Lord on the 3rd Heaven.

Gen 1:31 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.

Finally God's Creation of the perfect 3rd Heaven is complete and Earth is Safe for a thousand years. Then, and only then, will the God, Who sees the end from the beginning, says, It was very good, at the end of the present 6th Day of labor in which God is making a perfect heaven and filling it with His Immortal Children, called Christians.

As we all know, the 7th Day is right AFTER the present 6th Day, the Day of Salvation, correct?

God Bless

 

[Seve]

Dear Readers,

Gen 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.

The word finished (Gen 2:1) in Hebrew means brought to perfection since that is HOW God's work always ends. Notice also that ALL the host of Heaven (including the last sinners to be saved) are present in Heaven at this time, since, Christians are among the Host of Heaven.

Gen 2:2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from ALL his work which he had made.

The 7th Day, the Great Sabbath, which God sanctified (set apart) is the Day of Rest when ALL Christians will cease from our labor on Earth and we will join Jesus for the Age of Joy in the New Heaven and New Earth which will Never End because the 7th Day has No Evening and No End.

This explains WHY God used the Hebrew language. It shows that His blessing of this Day (Sabbath) is FUTURE, since it is written in Hebrew ImPerfect Tense, which means that the action is not yet complete.

Gen 2:3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it (set apart): because that in it he had rested from ALL his work which God created and made.

Why others insist that this 7th Day of God (Gen 2:3) is based on a 24hrs Day, is beyond me. The Sabbath was created for us and NOT for God himself, since, God does not grow tired or need rest. He rested (past tense) as an example to us so that we would rest on the Sabbath day, just as he did, ETERNALLY.

Continue to study and realize that I am Edifying The Great Sabbath, the 7th Day (Gen 2:3), when ALL Christians will cease from our labor on Earth and we will join Jesus for the Age of Joy which will never end because the 7th Day has no evening and no end.

There remaineth therefore a Rest (Sabbath) to the people of God. (Heb 4:9)

God Bless


Isaiah 42:16
And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them.

 

[JRT]

Over the past several decades I have been following and participating in the debate between young earth creationists, old earth creationists, creation scientists, intelligent designists and scientists. Over that time I have noticed an unfortunate tendency for the rhetoric to become more and more extreme, more dishonesty and more accusations of dishonesty. And now over the past few years I have seen great inventiveness on the part of creationists mainly in their Bible interpretations and their attempts to reconcile Bible with science. The scientists by and large have avoided the extremes of this debate.

 

[Arsenios]

You have an interesting take on Genesis.
Isn't this really using science to interpret the Bible instead of letting the Bible speak for itself?
You wouldn't get that the day mentioned in Genesis meant thousands or millions of years without looking at science

The answer of Fr. Seraphim Rose is that the account of the Creation of the Kosmos in Genesis is outside of time...

"Genesis, Creation and Early Man" Fr. Seraphim Rose

https://www.sainthermanmonastery.com/Genesis-Creation-and-Early-Man-p/gen.htm

iow - Time itself had not "yet" [] been created...

Hence "evening and morning, the first day"...

And the Orthodox understanding of Genesis is that it was expressed in the understanding of the universe of its time (cultural science)...

And that understanding (I am forgetting the name of that culture, but its science included astronomy) is not the same as the one inaugurated by Copernicus...

The point being that God will reveal Himself to His Holy Ones kathos (according to) their (fallen) understanding's terms of their time...

I wonder if our thread starter, Steve, is familiar with this seminal work of Seraphim Rose...

fwiw, The Orthodox understanding is that we are now, since Christ's Incarnation, in the 8th Day...


Arsenios

 

[Andrew]

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, Genesis 2:4

That verse comes right after God sanctified the 7th day, the verse implies "generation" as a creative force so in Gods view it only took Him ONE day to create the heavens and the earth. A correct translation of the first verse of the Bible would read "In the creation God made the heavens and the Earth"...

 

[Josiah]

I usually avoid any discussions of Scripture and Science. Especially since I am a Christian who upholds the inerrancy of Scripture and one with a Ph.D. in physics. I tend to keep these quite departmentalized. But.... quickly....


On the one hand, SCRIPTURE is inerrant, no man is. Something can SEEM very obvious to fallen, puny, limited man that's just not so. EVERYONE brings to the table assumptions, a world view; everyone reads the bible with glasses. And rarely are they aware of how their prescription impacts how they "see" things, what they "read." Several times in history, Christianity has gotten involved in what WE'D regard as "science." And every time, they did so because "the Bible clearly says...." And every time, the church as been wrong. Every single time. And eventually - with great embarrassment - had to admit that. And the reliability of Scripture became doubted by many (sidebar: Science can insist what religious says too, and is always wrong). Truth IS Truth - it matters not at all whether that Truth is revealed by a Jewish physicist or a Christian Bible teacher, ALL truth is Truth and comes from God. Truth cannot contradict Truth. You can shout all day long that the sun doesn't exist. But it does. Christians must not fear or deny Truth. However it is revealed. IMO, as I read Genesis 1-2, it seems obvious there are TWO different accounts there... and if we take them as 21st century geophysics and biology, then.... Houston, we gotta a problem. BUT could it be these Chapters are not modern geophysics or biology.... at all? Maybe Christians (whether with NO science knowledge or 6 Ph.D.'s in science) can just admit we don't understand how all this applies in science? Scientist, can we admit this is all very new, very small, our knowledge doubles about every 7 years, maybe 600 years from now we'll have a better handle?

On the other hand, it's HARD for me to just dismiss any physical "take" on the stuff in Genesis 1-2. The Bible makes a point about the Sabboath.... And Jesus is called the "New Adam".... and the Bible talks about death existing because sin CAME into existence (not here from the start). IF I just chuck this all up to "well, Christians use to insist the sun revolved around the Earth too).... well..... some very fundamental things in Christian theology come into jeoprody. Was sin always a part of things (thus, perhaps GOD put it into place - passively at least)? Was there no Adam and thus it's meaningless to have a Second Adam? And that's just the start of the list.... We've got a different set of issues here than when we were all in a whirl over whether the Earth is flat, whether the sun revolves around the Earth, etc.


Luther said that humility is the foundation of all sound theology. I think that applies to a lot of things.


For now, I'm in a "watch" mode. I strongly suspect I will be for the rest of my life.



Josiah



.

 

[JRT]

I think it problematic to conflate Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 and following. These are two different stories written several centuries apart with two quite different points of view. Genesis 2ff is actually the oldest version and was written around 950 BC. It focuses primarily on the relationship between Adam and Eve and God. It tries to answer some of life's most puzzling questions like why are we different from animals and why is life so difficult. It does this from a rather primitive point of view and deals with age old problems like the conflict between the nomadic herdsman and the settled farmer. On the other hand Genesis 1 was written some 400 years later likely by priests during the Babylonian Exile. It is much more sophisticated and abstract in its approach and makes no attempt whatsoever to deal with the issues raised in Genesis 2ff. Neither one can be expected to be scientifically accurate.

 

[Seve]

The beginning of our Cosmos is dated at some 13.8 Billion years ago in man's time, scientifically speaking... BUT was on the 3rd Day of Genesis in God's time.

Man was MADE a living soul in the beginning on the 3rd Day and lived with YHWH, the Son of God, as his meet, during the Creation of our Worlds, for Billions of years, before, he disobeyed and was made in a perfect body with Shekinah Glory. But lost his glory after he disobeyed the 1st commandment of the Lord and sinned on the 6th Day.

Adam was physically formed (like a potter would mold a clay) on the 3rd Day, BEFORE the First Stars, which were not made and put forth it's light until the 4th Day. Gen 1:16 - millions of years after the Big Bang. He was BEFORE any other creature brought forth from the water on the 5th Day, Gen 1:21. This included the creation of the sons of God (prehistoric mankind) brought forth from the waters some 3.7 Billion years ago, in man's time.

In the Day, Adam and his generations were Created spiritually in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:26-27; 5:1-3) - both A&E have already committed their original sins; sent out of the garden of Eden; Cain had already killed Abel. This Creation Event took place during the Seth generations; only after Man began to call upon the name of the Lord (Gen 4:26).

Gen 5:1-3
v1 This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him;
v2 Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.
v3 And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth:

Of course, Cain, who was a Murderer and a Liar from the beginning, was NOT included in the generations of Adam IN THE DAY they were created in the image and likeness of God - Gen 5:1-3 or Born Again, spiritually in Christ.

Therefore, NOT everybody is created in the image and likeness of God from the beginning or natural birth, unless, one call upon the name of the Lord and Born Again, spiritually in Christ.

1 Cor 15:45-46 And so it is written, The first man Adam was Made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. v46 Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.

God bless

 

[Seve]

Beware of those Ancient Traditional Teachings who will always try to force their doctrinal biased view into the issues at hand, while refusing to acknowledge whether or NOT they are really Born Again Christians or just Christian Petenders.

They do NOT understand that Genesis Agrees in EVERY way with EVERY other discovered Truth so they invent their own Spirit-free view. This view does NOT agree with either Scripture, Science nor History so they claim there is One Truth for the Bible and another for scientists and historians.

This is FALSE because, God's Truth will always agree with EVERY other discovered Truth or you the have the WRONG interpretation of Scripture, since, there is ONLY One Truth and God's Truth will always ALWAYS agrees with EVERY DISCOVERED TRUTH. The fault is NOT with God's Truth, BUT with man's ability to understand what is written in the Scripture, because, as the heaven is higher than the earth, so is God's thought is higher than man's thought.

God Bless