11.6.06
The Creation...
Genesis is a tricky book, because the account of the Creation is so polemical. And I do not wish to enter into that polemic. Passions are so strong on either side that this is never a constructive discussion but a battlefield with no winner. Surely this is not a way to progress, but to leave the gap between science and religion wide open.
The Bible and Science needn't fight. There is a trend among scientists to accept Creationism and use the Bible along with Science to study the formation of our universe. The Bible and Science can be complimentary, two accounts, that put together can help us further our knowledge of where we come from.
I have a problem when Science denies the Bible and wants to work on its own instead of using the Bible's help. When so-called "findings" are so remote from what God has revealed, I reject these findings. The painter's explanation has more value to me than the art critic explaining the same work. I also have a problem with hard-line Christians who oppose any scientific finds and interpret the Creation account literally.
It is important to remember that the ancients were more liberal with the Creation account than some Christians today. I believe in what the Bible says, but those words have a meaning we might not understand and they were given at a certain time, to certain people and for a specific reason.
Having said that, I also believe that the Word of God does not change, and that the texts are still relevant, and always will be. You just need to interpret it for yourself, but also go back to its original meaning.
If we take the first words of the Book of Genesis: "In the beginning", we may tend to believe that there was nothing before God "created" the Earth, but scholars explain that the expression should have been rendered as "When God created the Earth..." Therefore we do not know if matter was present and if some life existed before the "darkness and chaos" of the text.
The creation account shares many similarities with ancient Mesopotamian texts, but also has its own flavour. In those myths, man was a slave to the gods, whereas in Genesis, mankind is "in the image of God", meaning that men and women represent God on Earth, and are kings and queens. And while Science explains the formation of the universe focusing on the universe, Genesis explains the said formation focusing on man, the pinnacle of the Creation.
Light, in the text, is the first thing God created. In the chaos covered in water and darkness, was a wind of God, expressing that he had mastery over the chaos. God commanded and then made. Or he makes with helpers, as there is the idea of an assembly of gods, although Yahweh takes the decisions. See for example: "let us make man in our likeness".
The phases of the creation account are similar to the "findings" of Science.
First, the darkness is dispelled, and light appears. Then the water recedes and the dry land appears. God calls light "day" and the land he calls "earth", as the redactor wants to express that God is the master of his creation.
From a theological point of view, it is interesting to see that the chaotic darkness is not destroyed but shares the stage with the light. Night and Day, like the Ying and the Yang, the opposites that complete each other. This balance is important to God too. God also repeats in the text that each stage of the creation is "good". The world is a beautiful place and God's masterpiece.
After creating, or organizing, the light and the dry land, vegetation sprouts... life begins.
Later come the fish in the sea and the birds. Later still come the animals on the land. The last stage, or last phase or "day", is the creation of Mankind. Man is organic, or "taken from the earth" to use the biblical language. God gives the Man life, the spark, and I think this is consciousness, because animals were given life without this idea of breathing life into them. So there is something divine that got inside the human being.
The Bible and Science needn't fight. There is a trend among scientists to accept Creationism and use the Bible along with Science to study the formation of our universe. The Bible and Science can be complimentary, two accounts, that put together can help us further our knowledge of where we come from.I have a problem when Science denies the Bible and wants to work on its own instead of using the Bible's help. When so-called "findings" are so remote from what God has revealed, I reject these findings. The painter's explanation has more value to me than the art critic explaining the same work. I also have a problem with hard-line Christians who oppose any scientific finds and interpret the Creation account literally.
It is important to remember that the ancients were more liberal with the Creation account than some Christians today. I believe in what the Bible says, but those words have a meaning we might not understand and they were given at a certain time, to certain people and for a specific reason.
Having said that, I also believe that the Word of God does not change, and that the texts are still relevant, and always will be. You just need to interpret it for yourself, but also go back to its original meaning.
If we take the first words of the Book of Genesis: "In the beginning", we may tend to believe that there was nothing before God "created" the Earth, but scholars explain that the expression should have been rendered as "When God created the Earth..." Therefore we do not know if matter was present and if some life existed before the "darkness and chaos" of the text.
The creation account shares many similarities with ancient Mesopotamian texts, but also has its own flavour. In those myths, man was a slave to the gods, whereas in Genesis, mankind is "in the image of God", meaning that men and women represent God on Earth, and are kings and queens. And while Science explains the formation of the universe focusing on the universe, Genesis explains the said formation focusing on man, the pinnacle of the Creation.
Light, in the text, is the first thing God created. In the chaos covered in water and darkness, was a wind of God, expressing that he had mastery over the chaos. God commanded and then made. Or he makes with helpers, as there is the idea of an assembly of gods, although Yahweh takes the decisions. See for example: "let us make man in our likeness".
The phases of the creation account are similar to the "findings" of Science.
First, the darkness is dispelled, and light appears. Then the water recedes and the dry land appears. God calls light "day" and the land he calls "earth", as the redactor wants to express that God is the master of his creation.
From a theological point of view, it is interesting to see that the chaotic darkness is not destroyed but shares the stage with the light. Night and Day, like the Ying and the Yang, the opposites that complete each other. This balance is important to God too. God also repeats in the text that each stage of the creation is "good". The world is a beautiful place and God's masterpiece.
After creating, or organizing, the light and the dry land, vegetation sprouts... life begins.
Later come the fish in the sea and the birds. Later still come the animals on the land. The last stage, or last phase or "day", is the creation of Mankind. Man is organic, or "taken from the earth" to use the biblical language. God gives the Man life, the spark, and I think this is consciousness, because animals were given life without this idea of breathing life into them. So there is something divine that got inside the human being.
... Of Mankind
The creation of mankind is hard to understand and we are not supplied with much more information regarding this. What about the theory of Evolution?
Well, maybe there was some evolution, and when conscience entered the creature, it became the "first" man? I have no idea!
And maybe this is not for us to speculate on this. If God had intended to make it clearer, I believe he would have done so. He probably deems we know enough as it is, and the miracle of life is still not understood by anyone honest enough to admit it. The theory of Evolution is being questioned by scientists all around the world.
To me the saddest thing about this theory is that as he believes he comes from the beast, the Man lost sight that he holds a spark of the Divine inside. He then turns into a beast again, as he is persuaded he's nothing more than an animal that came into existence by chance, and not a creation of God, not an eternal soul in a tabernacle. We are so much more than what we think. Mankind is precious to God.
What I know from the Bible and from Science is that human beings appeared at the end of that fantastic formation of our world. The Bible expresses that we are kings, that we are in "God's likeness". We physically look like God and Earth was formed for mankind. Humans were meant to rule, but respect, the world and its creatures. Indeed, in the text, the first man gives names to the animals and God validates these names. He has dominion over them and the rest of the Creation, but there was no bloodshed: The man was commanded to be vegetarian and eat of the fruits and cereals the land produced.
Flora carries its own seed in the text, but the Man does not, hence the differentiation of the sexes: God created the humans (created in his likeness) male and female. It tells me that male fatures need to be completed by female ones, and vice versa, in order to be "whole" and closer to God.
Mankind cannot be on its own, people need a counterpart, to relate to others.
God commanded the man and the woman to have children to replenish the land and to be the masters of the place, the garden, he had given them. They were meant to raise a family and rule the world, reporting only to God.
The woman is a part of the man, in the image of God as much as her male counterpart. In the text, they were equal. The idea that the woman is ruled by her husband is not what God had intended, it only came after the Fall. How sad it is that the Fathers of the Church used Genesis to undermine women and made up that the Fall was because the man and the woman had sex!
God "saw that the creation was good", not just its components, but as a all, and he rested, making the first Sabbath.
The Gnostics' account of the Creation differs in the sense that it is a lesser god who created the Earth and that the woman came to the man in order to open up his eyes, hence making them eating of the fruit a necessity. Once again, the ancients accepted variations in the telling of the creation of our world and of the human race, and I don't think we should close our eyes to other accounts from other faiths or from Science, as long as we don't make these accounts weight any more than Genesis.
Well, maybe there was some evolution, and when conscience entered the creature, it became the "first" man? I have no idea!
And maybe this is not for us to speculate on this. If God had intended to make it clearer, I believe he would have done so. He probably deems we know enough as it is, and the miracle of life is still not understood by anyone honest enough to admit it. The theory of Evolution is being questioned by scientists all around the world.
To me the saddest thing about this theory is that as he believes he comes from the beast, the Man lost sight that he holds a spark of the Divine inside. He then turns into a beast again, as he is persuaded he's nothing more than an animal that came into existence by chance, and not a creation of God, not an eternal soul in a tabernacle. We are so much more than what we think. Mankind is precious to God.
What I know from the Bible and from Science is that human beings appeared at the end of that fantastic formation of our world. The Bible expresses that we are kings, that we are in "God's likeness". We physically look like God and Earth was formed for mankind. Humans were meant to rule, but respect, the world and its creatures. Indeed, in the text, the first man gives names to the animals and God validates these names. He has dominion over them and the rest of the Creation, but there was no bloodshed: The man was commanded to be vegetarian and eat of the fruits and cereals the land produced.Flora carries its own seed in the text, but the Man does not, hence the differentiation of the sexes: God created the humans (created in his likeness) male and female. It tells me that male fatures need to be completed by female ones, and vice versa, in order to be "whole" and closer to God.
Mankind cannot be on its own, people need a counterpart, to relate to others.
God commanded the man and the woman to have children to replenish the land and to be the masters of the place, the garden, he had given them. They were meant to raise a family and rule the world, reporting only to God.
The woman is a part of the man, in the image of God as much as her male counterpart. In the text, they were equal. The idea that the woman is ruled by her husband is not what God had intended, it only came after the Fall. How sad it is that the Fathers of the Church used Genesis to undermine women and made up that the Fall was because the man and the woman had sex!
God "saw that the creation was good", not just its components, but as a all, and he rested, making the first Sabbath.
The Gnostics' account of the Creation differs in the sense that it is a lesser god who created the Earth and that the woman came to the man in order to open up his eyes, hence making them eating of the fruit a necessity. Once again, the ancients accepted variations in the telling of the creation of our world and of the human race, and I don't think we should close our eyes to other accounts from other faiths or from Science, as long as we don't make these accounts weight any more than Genesis.
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