Interesting thread. Did you know that George McCreaty Price also wrote probably the best Commentary on Revelation by any Adventist writer? His book "The Time of the End" He goes way beyond our traditions, his interpetations are very much alive and being fulfilled right before our very eyes, but sadly we are more familiar with our traditions than Prices "The Time of the end" that we are missing Bible prophecy being fulfilled before our very eyes and are preparing for Satan to attack us from different directions. Sadly this book is out of print, but FIND A COPY AND READ AND RE-READ IT!!!
As for this thread, there is a very interesting article in Ministry magazine in the spring (I believe March-April) 1983 that should be must reading, pointing out information in the geneologies. A careful study of Mrs. White, while definetly holding on to a litteral 7 day creation and a fairly young earth, does have more room than the traditional 6,000 years.
Also, I just opened e-mail and found this that a friend sent to me. It is an essay by John McCall. He is actually talking about the trinity and the second member of the Godhead, but he is using things from the creation story. I hope you find this useful.-- Kevin H
God as Power/God as Person
The term "God" refers to an Infinite Being; this Being exists outside of time and space. God -- out of love -- chose to to create self-aware beings with free choice. These created beings (all of us in the universe) exist as finite beings; all began at a particular time, and are locked within time; it is always "now" and not "then". These created beings (all of us in the universe) exist as finite beings; all of us exist at a particular limited place within space; we are always "here" and not "there".
As an Infinite Being, God is unknowable to any created being, all of us existing (by necessity) within time and space. Out of love, God determined to self-limit and come into time and space to communicate with the objects of "His" love.
Alright, that's the part about God. Let's now review what these newly-created beings, with free choice need to know:
The new creations need to know that they are utterly dependent on God for life to continue. They need to know that God as the source of all life and being is owed complete respect and obedience. They need to know God as Absolute Power, with a demonstration within time and space, where they can comprehend it. This demonstration is absolutely necessary. By itself this revelation of the Infinite God in time and space would not breed reverence and awe (biblically, proper fear). Instead, over time, it would breed a different kind of fear: terror. And the terror would cut off creatures from God.
The separation would lead to death. Which would breed terror in the survivors, leading to complete death.
What was needed was something on a personal level. How would the angels, the populations on the inhabited worlds, and eventually (last of all) the human race get to interact with God? How would they come to know what God was like as a person? What in fact IS God like as a person? Would there be any way for the Infinite One to enter time and space as a person? That is an even greater bridge in the communication gap than God as Power!
Since God created both time and space, and since God is an Infinite Being, it is perfectly possible for God to appear within time and space as a Person also. There is indeed a problem, but the problem has nothing to do with God. The problem is how the created beings will relate God as Power to God as Person and keep them together in their minds.
And remember, of course, that there is only ONE God, an Infinite Being who is coming into time and space in various ways to communicate love to them.
Does the Bible speak to the issue of God as Person? Remember, when we're talking Bible, and God's interaction with man, we're talking eons after the creation of the universe and the angelic and unfallen races. But as we said before, God is perfectly consistent in the way God is revealed to thinking creatures. What happened later with man is exactly what God did earlier with other created beings.
The place we want to begin is at the creation of mankind. As we proceed to look at creation, in Genesis 1 and 2, we're going to notice some really odd things that aren't usually noticed by the average Bible reader. But they are things that are extremely significant, and tell us crucially important things about God, and how God communicates with the beings God creates.
So we will look closely at Genesis 1 and 2 and open up the Scripture. But first, for the ignorant and unstable (Paul's very correct terminology) let's state as a rule:
ALL CANONICAL SCRIPTURE IS INSPIRED BY THE SPIRIT, AND OF
COMPLETE DOCTRINAL AUTHORITY
IT FOLLOWS THAT IT DOES NOT MATTER AT ALL WHO IN PARTICULAR
WROTE THE PASSAGE
WHAT IS IMPORTANT IS THAT EACH SCRIPTURAL AUTHOR
WAS GUIDED BY THE SPIRIT
That's a rule that applies to every verse of Scripture, no matter who wrote it or when. Keep that in mind, don't be alarmed, and as we point out certain things you may not have known, be assured that we will explain how they fit into God's self-revelation. It will become apparent as we move along why the rule just stated is so important. The key thing to remember is that we have a PRESUPPOSITION, something we presume to be true that will guide us as we go along. And that is a presupposition we found in Scripture: that what we find in our canon of Scripture is there by the intent of God, who inspired it all, even though different writers wrote material in different places, at different times, under different circumstances.
Oddities in the Creation Story
A long time ago Bible readers noticed some interesting and curious things about the story of creation in Genesis. For one thing, the story seems to have two beginnings. The first opener is in Genesis 1:1 (of course), but there is another recurring opener of new stories in Genesis a little further on. Words that are as familiar as openers as "Once upon a time" are found scattered all through Genesis at the beginning of new stories. The stories generally begin with a genealogy, placing the actors within a line of history, so that we can know where we are in time. The words are:
These are the generations of....
These are the generations of the heavens and the earth, when they were created. Genesis 2:4a
These is the writing of the generations of Adam [mankind] when God created man.... Genesis 5:1
These are the generations of Noah; now Noah was a righteous man and.... Genesis 6:9
These are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japhet.... Genesis 10:1
These are the generations of Shem: Shem was.... Genesis 11:10
And these are the generations of Terach: Terach was the father of.... Genesis 11:27
And these are the generations of Ishmael, Abraham's son.... Genesis 25:12
And these are the generations of Isaac, Abraham's son.... Genesis 25:19
And these are the generations of Esau, who is Edom... Genesis 36:1
And these are the generations of Esau, the father of the Edomites.... Genesis 36:9
These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen.... Genesis 37:2
If you look up these verses in a Bible, be sure you are using a word translation, that attempts to translate every word, not a modern sense translation, that frequently departs from the actual wording in the Hebrew original. The problem with "sense" translations is that they are frequently wrong. They only tell us what the translators thought the original meant, and often their words they use actually disguise the meaning. This is one reason we insist readers learn to do exegesis, or at least what it is, and not insist to us that they are right when they don't have a clue what the Bible actually says. This is the reason that though all the above verses are exactly the same in the original, they are translated differently from verse to verse; which means a modern reader would not be able to spot the pattern that is so significant.
Clearly, these genealogical records and the stories they introduce come from a period hundreds and hundreds of years before the time of Moses. Such records were kept when writing was in its infancy, in pictographs and in the Eastern Fertile Crescent and beyond (Iraq/Iran, where the stories are set) in cuneiform, a kind of pictures created by using wedge shapes from the ends of reeds. These shapes were pressed into small clay bricks, which then became permanent records when they were fired in a kiln.
It is interesting to note that these clay bricks generally had a running heading at the top of the tablets. And these "toledoth" or "generations" incipits (the beginning of a literary piece) in Genesis may indeed have originally been the headings or titles of ancient tablets (already ancient in the time of Moses) on which the stories were originally preserved.
Well, be that as it may, Genesis 2:4 has the first of the series, and indicates the beginning of a new series, a shift to a new document, different from what immediately precedes it. As genealogical markers, the first one in Genesis 2:4 is interesting in that there are no "generations" to record. Instead, what is recorded is the beginning of "the heavens and the earth" from the moment of man's origin. Contrary to popular misinterpretation, the phrase (found in many other places) refers to the earth plane and what can be seen from it. We'll look closely at why the ancient readers would have understood the phrase to refer to the earth plane and the sky visible above it, and not the entire universe.
The concept of "the universe" as we know it was unknown to men in the Ancient Near East, and we must always read what is written from the viewpoint of the writer and original intended readers. I have seen many useless fundamentalist interpretations, giving all kinds of information and misinformation about the planet, when the concept of "planet" was yet centuries into the future, and not found among the Semites of the East, but originated with the Greeks at a time when the Old Testament was already finished.
Now let's look at the details of the creation events as recorded between Genesis 1:1 and the "toledoth/generations" notice in Genesis 2:4 and see how they compare to the record of creation after the "toledoth" notation, to see how they compare the one to the other. What we want to know, since we have two clear beginnings (and an obvious ending in Genesis 2:3 and another clear ending in 3:24) is whether -- as this structure implies -- we actually have two distinct creation accounts. And if so, how do they compare, the one to the other? Why would there be two descriptions of the same event? If there are two, are they very very similar? Or are they so different, as liberal scholars claim, as to be in utter contradiction? Why would they be different?
Two Complementary Views of Creation
Almost everyone with any familiarity with the Bible has some general sense of the first creation description. It isn't a narrative story, but a rigidly structured prose poem set within the structure of the seven days of the first week. That the week involved was intended by the author to be a literal week of seven days is beyond any question whatever. Various attempts to square the creation sequence with evolutionary theories have resulted in trying to reinterpret the "days" as ages or eons of evolutionary development.
This is manifestly not what the author intended, and in fact is the opposite of what was intended, as we shall see. The idea has to be dismissed immediately as outlandish, contrary to the grammatical meaning clearly expressed, and also shows a complete lack of understanding of the background to the passage.
Now, we have noted that there is a second "Once upon a time" appearing at Genesis 2:4. That is, another story begins there. And that second narrative is, in some ways different. Often complementary, the two accounts give us a larger picture than either of the two phases would have given by themselves, but nevertheless they are quite different. One important factor (and the reason this is being discussed here) is that the complementary parts of the total creation narrative tell us much about how God communicates to created beings.
The mode of creation in the first sequence is that the divine Creator -- termed "Elohim" which is "gods" plural in Hebrew -- announces the plan to create mankind to the heavenly court. The Creator is an exalted ruler, the Master of the Universe, and His word has creative power. He simply commands or wills, and all the enormous complexity of the world of mankind is called into existence. In the second sequence, a true prose narrative, with nothing like the time/space structure of the first, man is "formed/fashioned" by the Creator -- now named "YHWH Elohim" (that is, Yahweh God) -- by the Creator using the fine red clay of the earth to fashion (the word describes what a fine potter does in making expensive pottery or an artisan creating a fine statue, etc.) the body of "adam" or "the human".
Here the Creator is literally down in the mud, and the first fashioning of man is not the complete story. A second later step will result in a true race of beings. Even more, however, is the surprising fact that before anything else in the world is created, mankind is made. And yet at that point mankind has no particular place within time and space to exist, until "YHWH Elohim" does some other work.
This involves us in the question of sequence. So, to be clear, let's remind ourselves of the sequence in the tight, carefully-worded first narrative. It is important to note here that the wording and terminology is very different between the two creation sequences. The first narrative is filled with technical terms, drawn from priestly literature. Terms for the building of "the heavens and the earth" are often terms from the technical aspects of building an ancient temple. And many of those terms were usually reserved for sacred literature, and not used in regular prose. Yet they appear in the first creation account.
And then these unusual terms disappear at Genesis 2:4 not to be seen again until the building of the Wilderness Sanctuary late in the Book of Exodus. But that event is far later in time. The text of the first story is stately, it is sparse, it is spare, it is cryptic, it is awe-filled. The English translation completely masks the care and mood of grandeur in the precise and poetic wording and syntax.
So here is the sequence of creation as we know it so well:
1. The future world is in darkness. It is "tohu we vohu" or "in total chaos" when Elohim (plural) begins the creation sequence.. There is no visible land, but Elohim's Spirit is blowing across the darkened primeval ocean. Elohim orders light (not the sun, moon, or stars) to enter the sphere of the future world. First Day.
2. Elohim builds a "raqia" or solid dome of atmosphere between upper and lower oceans. Spatial relationships begin. This non-water open space is called "the heavens" or more precisely, "the sky". "The heavens" misleads moderns to think of the modern concept of the universe. Second Day.
3. Elohim separates water and land, creating Earth and Sea. On the Earth vegetation, both plants and trees, are ordered to exist. Third Day.
Remember, as we proceed, that in each case the Master of the Universe, "Elohim" inspects the results with care, and pronounces each pleasing, appropriate, functional, up to Elohim's moral standard, all of which are contained in the Hebrew "tov" which is translated misleadingly "good".
4. Lights appear in the raqia, as viewed from the earth. The greater light (the author cannot use the term "sun" since its only names were names of pagan gods) marks days, the lesser light (again, not named since the name is a pagan deity) marks the night, and both mark off seasons. They are not "signs" as our Masoretic Text misreads the ancient Hebrew, the Palestinian and Egyptian text types reading the original correctly. Lest anyone get confused, the cryptic note is added that Elohim is also the creator of the stars, which were understood to be attached to the raqia, which rotated. Fourth Day.
5. Things that swarm in the seas and air are ordered to exist by Elohim. Swarms of sea creatures now inhabit the Sea, and vast flocks of birds fill the air. As always after God speaks the result is inspected and pronounced appropriate, functional, morally appropriate, and most of all, pleasing to Elohim. Fifth Day.
6. All land animals, from the creeping to the behemoths now are ordered into existence. They are runners-up to Elohim's jussive to the heavenly court, "Let us make mankind in our image." That leads to the next-to-last and nearly ultimate creation by fiat in this sequence. After the animals and everything else has been created, we see that all this was stage-setting for the final act, the ordering of mankind (adam/mankind) into existence. Here we find that "adam/mankind" is both male and female. There are then several sentences of reflection on the role of man in the new creation, as its sub-ruler.
Finally, though the Masoretic Text contains an error, the structure says that God ceased his works on the sixth day. That leads to what scholars call "The Creation Sabbath," the hidden mystery revealed only much much later when Israel was created. On the seventh day God "ceased" from his creative works, putting an unexplained blessing into the seventh day. (What the blessing was will only be discussed in Exodus; we never hear of the sabbath or any hint of sabbath-keeping again in Genesis, or in Exodus either, until the actual creation of Israel, a creation that finalizes the creation being described here.) Sixth day.
Don't confuse the later concepts of "rest" with the verb "sabbath" here. The Hebrew verb means, simply, "to cease/desist" and that is how it must be rendered. For, of course, God hasn't actually "worked" at all in this view of creation. Rather, the Majesty seated in the heavenly court has simply ordered things into existence, and then ceased from doing so. The idea of the Master of the Universe calling life into existence by fiat needing "rest" is ludicrous.
Alright, so in summary, we have here a very awesome view of the distant and exalted Elohim. The picture involves the whole of the earth and the structures around it. The narrative is filled with highly technical terms used for the building of temples, terms that reappear only in the building of the Wilderness Sanctuary. This story is definitely what we would call an "overview" picture, not localized in any sense. And Elohim, who is the Mover in all this, is entirely consistent with the exalted, distant, awesomely powerful and deeply mysterious picture of God we saw in the first study.
In addition, the narrative is tightly structured around two features: the sequence of events, involving the timing of events, especially the sequence of days. Consistent with ancient numerology, the sixth day suggests something forebodingly evil, though the concept of evil or the fall of man is never, even briefly, discussed. That is the day that man and his associated animals were created. By contrast, the seventh day suggests the completion and perfection of the original creation, the implication of all that "seven" meant in ancient numerology.
The other aspect of the tight structure is space itself. Everything begins with the earth "tohu we vohu" or "utter chaos" and as the creation proceeds, order comes out of chaos; the land has a place; the sea has a place; the sky has a place; the sun and moon know where to shine; the sea creatures and land animals and birds know where their place is. Finally, man comes into existence and is given lordship over it all.
Then, too, the poetic and highly structured and lordly language give the whole picture a compelling sense of drama and awe, so different from what we are going to encounter next in the narrative.
And finally, the complex "broken chiasm" structure is apparent here. Rather than go into details covered in the exegetical studies, we will simply point out here the general structure:
Day 1: Elohim separates light from darkness
Day 2: Elohim separates water from sky (the dome of "the heavens")
Day 3: Elohim separates out dry land; vegetation appears
Day 4: Elohim fills in the light with the sun, and the darkness with the moon, stars also give light
Day 5: Elohim fills the water with fish and the sky with birds ("the heavens" being the sky over the ground)
Day 6: Elohim puts animals and man on the dry land; vegetation given as their food
Day 7: Elohim desists from doing further creative works; blesses the seventh day (no command to keep
yet); pronounces everything perfect
We have emphasized also not what is said but what is left unsaid. Apart from the distant imperial view of God and the highly structured account of creation, the story is wildly incomplete. In fact, as it stands, it is so incomplete as to be incomprehensible. What Elohim wrought was a perfect world, with conditions utterly unlike anything the ancient readers would have recognized. If this was all there was about to know creation, we'd be wondering why it was ever written; we would be left with more questions than answers. Not a hint of how the perfect world alleged here became the world in which we live! And no hint of how "Elohim" views the world today, so different from the one it is here alleged He actually created!
Which leaves the obvious question, Why is this story, so structured and so absolute, also so unfinished? What is there about the use of this same structure in regard to the Wilderness Sanctuary and the Temple on Zion that is being said? And is there any chance of actually communicating with the Majestic God described in this account?
This is a story for another day. Right now we have to move quickly to the other side of the second "once upon a time" and do some comparisons.
Two Names, Two Views of God
The opening prose narrative of the second creation story is almost disconcerting, after what we have just read, even looking at it so briefly and in so little depth. The story is different in many ways. For one thing it no longer is interested in the world as a whole. And it clearly is not interested in the time-structure and spatial-structure of the first creation account. Here is how it reads, and compared to the prior story, this is quite breezy, if also surprisingly complex:
In the day that the LORD God [YHWH Elohim, Yahweh God] made the earth and
the heavens [reverse of the First Creation Story] when no plant of the field was yet in
the earth, and no herb of the field had yet sprung up -- for the LORD God [Yahweh
God] had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no man to till the ground,
but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground -- then
Yahweh God formed/fashioned man from the red clay of the ground, and breathed/blew
into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being. Genesis 2:4b-7
One thing that stands out rather dramatically is that the picture of God is different on one side than on the other!
Another thing is that the order of events is completely reversed in this prose account.
Further, there is little interest (as we discover as we read on) in the entire earth, for the narrative soon centers on a sacred grove, a grove belonging to Yahweh Himself, where He places mankind as His gardeners.
Interest in this sacred grove is so great that details about how the earth was DIFFERENT at that time (especially as regards dealing with growing things) comes up immediately. In the prior story we heard nothing of this difference between the perfect world of creation and the current messy world, and in fact, nothing of any difference at all, or how the current world came to evolve from the prior perfect world. We noted that on that all-important fact the previous story left us hanging.
That distinction between the two stories all by itself should suggest that the person or persons who put these accounts together knew exactly what he was doing and why. Which is to say, the liberal argument that the two creation accounts are so different that they are in hopeless conflict, mutually exclusive, and cannot be historical accounts founders upon the very content of the accounts.
While Yahweh, this Person, is still "Elohim" or Absolute Deity, in some way, He is also very much an interactive Person. These two pictures of God almost imply multiple gods, but the central confession of Israel constantly denied this:
Hear O Israel! The LORD our God is one LORD! or
Hear O Israel! The LORD our God, the LORD is One! or
Hear O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone! Deuteronomy 6:4
And so we must deal with the major anomaly in the two literary pieces about the creation. Just as ELOHIM is used as the only name for God in 1:1 to 2:4, after that the Divine Being is called only YAHWEH ELOHIM, Yahweh-God. Now, names were very important in the ancient world, because they defined the nature of the thing being named.
A shift from a descriptive word ("Elohim/Ultimate Deity") to a personal name ("He causes everything to exist") is not merely a literary shift, but a shift in the view of how the Divine Being is seen. We saw the imperial majesty of the distant Overlord of the Universe in the first account. Now we have something different: now we have God, still, but God encompassed in a PERSON, fashioning red clay/mud (down in the mud!), walking on earth in His sacred precincts, talking face to face with His new creatures, searching for them (supposedly) and doling out judgment on disobedience.
The continuation of the narrative moves us even further away from the prior story and into the detail, the emphases, which this story is interested in and will expand:
The whole concept of the method of creation is different. Gone is the setting in the heavenly court, the divine "jussive" and command that instantly creates. While the verb "created" ("bara") is still present, the actual work is real work this time The kind of physical work that makes humans sweat. (And though it is real work, we will not hear one word about "cessation" or anything like a "sabbath"!)
Down in the red ochre (Hebrew "adamah") Yahweh "fashions" using "yatsar," a verb which describes an expert potter fashioning fine pottery, or a sculptor working on a statue, or an artisan fashioning any other work of art. From the "adamah" He brings forth "Adam" (not now "human being" but an individual with a name reflecting his earth-nature. The verb therefore also has in it the concept of forming an idea, a plan, and carrying it out. We even see Yahweh thinking as He proceeds. This anomalous shift will continue and deepen throughout Genesis.
Somewhat more troubling to the fundamentalist viewpoint is that both stories make an explicit issue of the order of events. And yet they emphasize different things in describing their differing order. It is tru that the order of events does not agree. At all. Of course, this anomaly arises precisely because the story is not at all interested in how Elohim created the entire earth and its related structures in the cosmos; this story is interested in how Yahweh proceeded in creating the sacred grove, and what was involved in placing it in the eastward of "the eden." And placing man (who has been in narrative-suspended animation so far) there. Now, this "eden" was an ancient word (Sumerian, in fact) for the upland tableland in the mountains of the "Armenian Knot," the place where several mountain ranges originate and fan out in different directions. More on this below.
And Yahweh-God planted [really, He "planted" just as you and I would]
a garden/sacred grove in Eden, eastward, and there he placed the man whom
he had formed/fashioned. Genesis 2:8
Contrast this fashioning of mankind first in the order of events, with the first account, where mankind is the last and crowning act of creation events before Elohim desists. The text is very explicit about this. Further, the concept of "adam" has changed. It meant "mankind" in the first creation story, and included male and female immediately and automatically. Here, however, the same word meand "the man" as an individual. And it means "the man" as distinct from "the woman" who is going to share the story. This is one of several shifts in the meaning of terms between the two accounts.
Before we read the next verse, you need to know that liberal scholarship has argued for the last two centuries that Genesis 3, the story of the Fall of Man, is not a part of this second narrative. That claim is made to safeguard the liberal view that Genesis contains two complete and mutually-exclusive creation stories. The liberal commentator wants to capitalize on the differences to conclude that the two stories are so incompatible that they cannot be seen as complementary, but rather in hopeless contradiction. (Fundamentalists are even worse, denying there are two different creation accounts, which does not actually provide an answer to the liberal argument.)
If, however, the Fall of Man is part of this second story, we have instead this:
THE STORY IS ABOUT: THE CREATOR IS: THE METHOD IS: THE LOCALE IS:
Genesis 1:1-2:3 THE HEAVENS ELOHIM FIAT/COMMAND HEAVENLY COURT
AND EARTH, THE COSMOS
Genesis 2:4-3:24 ADAM YAHWEH PERSONAL WORK EARTH PLANE
AND EVE AND THEIR FALL ELOHIM
Modern studies show that this section (Genesis 2:4 to 3:24), which may appear simple, is in fact a series of chiasms within chiasms, and highly complex. The language is such that it is beyond argument that from the outset, the author is intent on explaining the fall of man and the entrance of sin. He immediately adds to his description of the sacred grove/garden the ominous presence of a tree that contains knowledge (experience, there being no "knowledge" in the abstract in Hebrew thought) about good and evil! And places near it another tree that is equally dangerous: the tree of life that transmits eternal life. The possible combustion here could result in an immortal sinner!
Again, contra Fundamentalism, and what most of you have been taught, Genesis knows NOTHING about a planet, or a universal flood on such a planet. The earth is exactly as pictured everywhere in Scripture, and to that end we once again include a picture of the earth sitting on the primeval waters, as in the second commandment and Psalm 24 (and everywhere else in the Ancient Near East, for that matter):
The heavenly Cosmic Mountain was behind the North Star, the star around which the solid dome, or raqia, rotated. The stars were attached. The earth floated on the primeval ocean, which was freshwater (of course) not salt.
You shall not make any graven for yourelf a grave image or any likeness of
anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that
is in the waters under the earth.... Exodus 20:4
The earth is Yahweh's and the fulness thereof,
The world, and those who dwell therein.
For he has founded it upon the seas
And established it upon the rivers. Psalm 24:1
The 7-headed dragon, Leviathan, lurked in the dark underworld, waiting to rise up and control the earth.
...Yahweh with his hard and great and stron sword will punish Leviathan the
fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon
that is in the sea. Isaiah 27:1
Once again we interrupt ourselves to remind people that the Fundamentalist view of inerrancy was born before modern exegesis was possible. The bogus idea that anything inspired by a perfect God would be perfect in science, for instance, is exactly what this series is about. Like Christ Himself, the Bible is a perfect mingling of the divine and human.
In speaking to the people of the Ancient East, if God had introduced useless and extraneous information, such as the earth being a planet suspended on nothing, the resulting hullaballoo would have entirely obscured the message of salvation. The message would have been rejected before it was heard. The idea that God would have screwed up communication with His ancient people by discussing a "planet" and other incomprehensible ideas undermines the whole purpose of the Bible.
THE BIBLE IS ABOUT EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION BETWEEN GOD AND MAN.
AND, AS WE HAVE ALREADY NOTED, THAT CONSISTENTLY MEANS THAT GOD COMES DOWN TO MAN'S LEVEL, AS HE DID WITH ALL HIS CREATURES IN THE UNIVERSE. IT DOES NOT MEAN THAT GOD BRINGS HIS CREATURES UP TO HIS LEVEL, BECAUSE THAT IS SIMPLY IMPOSSIBLE. CREATURES, AS CREATED BEINGS, MUST GROW OVER TIME, THEIR EXPERIENCE TEACHING THEM MORE AND MORE ABOUT GOD. THIS IS THE ONLY WAY TO AVOID FORCING THE WILL.
Despite the Fundy misinterpretation, the inspired author knows nothing about a flood so severe it changed the face of the PLANET earth. He knows just where the sacred garden/grove was located, and tells his readers. because he expects them to be able to understand what he is saying. Of course, he would be scratching his head if you asked him about a "planet" and a flood that changed the surface of that planet. He fully expects that his readers, too, will know exactly where he is talking about. And his description is so clear that we can also know the locale. He even mentions the fine gold of Havilah as a leftover of the special blessings that part of the earth once received by being right where the waters that fed the earth emanated from the Garden in Eden.
.
Read verses 10 to 14 of Genesis 2. It gives an entirely different picture of the nature of the flood than modern Fundies -- with no exegetical background -- portray. The same inspired writers who preserved the flood narratives for us preserved the creation narratives, and knew there was no conflict. Only when modern misconceptions are introduced does trouble begin!
If you want to read a brief but fascinating account of how a modern Egyptologist found and traveled in Eden, and came to the Mountain of God (the original Cosmic Mountain) you can read about it on the link given below. The four rivers of Eden are still there, still flowing. The Land of Nod still lies to the east of Eden and still carries its original name to this late day. Gold is still found in the Land of Havilah. The "gan" or walled garden enclosing a sacred grove is matched by the topography. And the Mountain of God is still bathed in the red ochre that gave Adam his name. Ignore his occasional liberal bias; he is far better than most liberal scholars:
http://www.sightedmoon.com/?page_id=26 If all the rivers of Eden are still flowing, if one of them still "winds around" (the meaning of its name) the canyons of the mountains it traverses, if the topography of the Eden is still the same, if both Eden and Nod are right where they used to be, then the family of Noah recognized the post-flood earth that had been cleansed of sin as the one they had known before the rains came. The the idea of a "planetary flood" (which the Bible neither describes nor contemplates in the story of Noah) is bogus. As is so much of the evolution-versus-special-creation argument.
The Bible teaches the absolute authority of the Creator who accomplished the literal creation of the Race of Adam, and the creation narratives (both of them) -- and references to them scattered throughout Scripture -- never lessen the basic and fundamental nature of that truth. (Regardless of how confused those who call themselves "fundamentalist" today may be.)
We have noted some of the differences between the first and second stories. Both touch on creation, but on different aspects, and the major difference is that a different concept of God -- signaled by a different name -- is presented. In 2:16 we are told that Yahweh Elohim
... commanded the man, saying 'You may freely eat of every tree of the garden,
but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day
that you eat of it, you shall die.' Genesis 2:16
Note that this is before the woman is created. She has not received the command directly, but by being half of the man. But this warning ties the creation part of the narrative to the temptation and fall part of the narrative. They are not separate works. We also note that the warning given here was not carried out; the new humans did not die the at the very time of their disobedience. Some sort of basic explanation will later be called for to explain this additional anomaly.
We have already noted that "commanded" does not necessarily mean a conversation, and it definitely did not mean that in the first creation story. But here, once again, the meaning has shifted. We discover further into the story that Yahweh Elohim appears regularly within the Garden (talk about being limited in time and space!) and walks around in the cool part of the day! And that part of His purpose in doing so is to hold discussions with His new creatures.
Next, as part of this new and different view of God, we hear (as we will so very often) Yahweh explaining His thinking to His subjects. Clearly, man is something of a learning experience for other beings. And the new man must also learn. Lacking any experience, he is given opportunity to view and name the new creatures that will be part of his life. In Hebrew thought, recall, the name of a thing described its essential nature. So this was a learning experience, a chance to observe the animals and their natures and find language (the learning of language being part of the maturation process) to fit those natures. And the man is to observe that the animals come in pairs and he is without a corresponding half.
Yahweh has already explained His thinking to His audience (in this case, both the readers, and, we are expected to know, the assistants and associates, members of the "heavenly" court, here traveling with Yahweh to earth, who are ever and always at hand wherever God is.
Then Yahweh God said, 'It is not good that the an should be alone. I will make
him a fit [appropriate] helper for him.' Genesis 2:18
After their disobedience, the new pair hide themselves, giving us a clear picture that they conceive of God as finite in nature. (Seeing God as a FINITE Being was key to the whole rebellion of Lucifer; who could think they could overcome God if they understood His Infinite Deity?) Yahweh is walking in the garden in the cool of the day. Despite his nature as Elohim, Infinite and Majestic God, He is also Yahweh, God in Person. He condescends to the level of inexperienced couple, even asking "Where are you?" as if He does not know.
(Every adult who has ever played "hide and seek" with a toddler has done exactly the same thing.)
And they [the man and woman, no longer just "mankind" as in the first story]
heard the sound of Yahweh God walking in the garden in the cool of the day,
and the man and his wife hid themselvesfrom the presence of Yahweh God among
the trees of the garden.
But Yahweh God called to the man, and said to him, 'Where are you?'
Genesis 2:8,9
There then follows a judgment scene in which it becomes immediately clear (in case we had forgotten) that Yahweh, though encompassed in personal form, is the absolute Master of all that is. He quickly reorders the very nature of human life and several levels of reality in the recent creation; changes are ordered to fit the new situation. And (ironically) we are given to understand that those changes were instantaneous and accomplished by fiat; Yahweh can be both personal and absolute at the same time.
Immediately after this first judgment scene in Scripture, Yahweh further comments on His next course of action. By now we see what will soon become a standard pattern: Yahweh does not remain in solemn splendor in a remote heavenly court, much less in light unapproachable, but frequently visits the earth in person; but like Elohim, He is constantly attended by servants, members of His court, and He constantly gives them verbal explanations of what He is thinking or why He is taking a certain course of action.
Then Yahweh God said, 'Behold! The man has become like one of us, knowing
good and evil! So now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life,
and eat, and live forever....' [The sentence is grammatically unfinished; they are
to draw their own obvious conclusions. So Yahweh God sent him forth from the
garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man,
and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a flaming sword
which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life. Genesis 3:22-24
There is an enormous amount of Scriptural material to be covered regarding this second revelation of the Infinite God. And we need to look at it in some detail, to get down the patterns, the purposes, the ways, in which God as Person was revealed, first to the beings of the universe and finally to mankind. In first study we noted that the Infinite God appeared in time and space FIRST in a way that showed GOD AS POWER.
ARE THESE TWO DIFFERENT PERSONS, OR JUST ONE PERSON CHANGING SHAPE AND MODE OF REVELATION? WE WILL ANSWER THIS QUESTION THAT SO VEXED THE EARLY CHURCH IN DETAIL IN A LATER STUDY. FOR NOW WE ARE SIMPLY GOING TO NOTE THE QUESTION, AND GIVE A PRELIMINARY ANSWER, WITH THE BIBLICAL PROOF TO FOLLOW: THESE ARE TWO DIFFERENT PERSONS AND MODES OF REVELATION, NOT A SINGLE REVELATION CHANGING MODES. WE CALL THEM "GOD, THE FATHER" AND "GOD, THE SON" AND WILL, SHORTLY, EXPLAIN THE ORIGIN AND IMPLICATION OF THESE TITLES.
WE NOTED, AS TO THE WORK OF "GOD, THE FATHER" THAT A REVELATION OF THE INFINITE GOD WITHIN TIME AND SPACE SHOWING GOD AS POWER, MAJESTY, AWE, AND JUSTICE WAS NECESSARY. BUT WE ALSO NOTED THAT THIS REVELATION ALONE WOULD NOT HAVE BRED LOVE, BUT ONLY FEAR. AND WE NOTED THAT THE GREAT LACK AT THAT POINT WAS ANY WAY TO KNOW GOD AS A PERSON, TO INTERACT WITH GOD AS A PERSON, TO WATCH, TO TALK, TO LISTEN, TO BE TAUGHT, TO SEE GOD'S THINKING MADE AUDIBLE BY A PERSON.
WE HAVE ALREADY SAID, THEREFORE, THAT THIS SECOND REVELATION OF THE INFINITE GOD, GOD AS A PERSON, WAS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY.
BUT NOW LET US REVERSE THE QUESTION, AND ASK, WHAT IF THE INFINITE GOD HAD CHOSEN NEVER TO APPEAR AS AN AWESOME BEING DWELLING FOREVER IN LIGHT UNAPPROACHABLE? WHAT IF GOD HAD APPEARED ONLY IN TIME AND SPACE AS A PERSON? WOULD THAT REVELATION HAVE BEEN SUFFICIENT?
Think it through. If it had been sufficient by itself, there would not have been two such different revelations and appearances of the Infinite within time and space. If created beings had been exposed only to a person, appearing in a form such as themselves, this might, by itself, have bred affection, at least initially. But over time, creatures would have begun to wonder why this person continued to exercise absolute control over them. And they would have chafed under that control, wondering if it was necessary or even good for them. Given enough time, a difference of opinion between someone and God as a Person would most certainly arise. (Free choice being really free meant that sooner or later someone would begin to make the wrong choices!)
They might have said, "Well, we love you of course, and appreciate all you have done and tried to do, but now we need to do it on our own. Your thinking is not always our thinking, and besides, we cannot be absolutely sure that you are the Source of life. Yes, you create, but perhaps that is an ability we will all have if we evolve upward. How do we know you in fact are not a person of like nature with us, only further evolved? At that point disrespect, and even contempt, would have developed, for there would be nothing in the universe constantly reminding created beings that God is always awesome and needs to be feared, which is to say, respected in the ultimate sense.
SO WE COME TO THE ANSWER OF WHETHER THE WORK OF THE SECOND PERSON OF THE GODHEAD, THIS SECOND REVELATION OF GOD, THIS TIME AS A PERSON, WOULD HAVE BEEN SUFFICIENT BY ITSELF. THE ANSWER IS A RESOUNDING NO! THE SECOND REVELATION, WHAT WE CALL "GOD, THE SON" (WE WILL EXPLAIN THESE TERMS LATER) IS NECESSARY BUT NOT SUFFICIENT.
WHEN WE HAVE COMPLETED FURTHER STUDY ON THIS SECOND REVELATION, WE WILL CONSIDER THE QUESTION: IS THE WORK OF "GOD, THE FATHER" AND "GOD, THE SON" SUFFICIENT WHEN TAKEN TOGETHER? OBVIOUSLY, THE VERY REVELATION OF GOD IN MAJESTY AND LIGHT UNAPPROACHABLE AND GOD AS A PERSON CREATES SUCH DISSONANCE THAT CONFUSION COULD ARISE UNLESS GREAT CARE WERE EXERCISED TO EXPLAIN TO CREATURES THAT BOTH WERE INFINITE GOD REVEALED IN TIME AND SPACE.
But next, let's go deeper into Scripture and find out much more than you ever imagined was there about this second revelation of the Infinite One, God as Person, within time and space.
Next: Yahweh, the Walking Talking God, or Revelation Deepens
-- John MacCall
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