Genesis 1:26-31

2006.Apr.25 23:03

In which humanity is created

Read Genesis 1:26-29 | Full Chapter

Wow, I will get through Genesis 1 in less than two months! But then, since I imagine this will be a lifelong project, that’s not so bad. Still, I want to linger on these things, this creation bit, because I get to see my God making something so important to him. Fortunately, this part gets a bit repetative after the first two verses.

Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them”.
(Genesis 1:26-27)

There are three important things about humanity in constrast to all the other creations.

1. God makes us in his (their?) image.
2. We are to rule over the rest of creation.
3. God makes a point that we are sexual beings, and ought to procreate.

God created us in his image. Actually, this version, and others I remember, use the word “our”. I assume this is referring to the mad crazy trinity bit, or duality(?) for some, although I don’t really see that made explicit. Still, the use of the plural is super-duper (sp?) important. So make sure I come back to that. Making us in his image means that we are similar to god. In particular, if we want to understand God’s personality, his drives, desires, etc, we can look at humanity. No way? Most humans want to be worshipped; we want to see ourselves as gods and have others recognize it; we want security, but also adventure; we enjoy feeling powerful but also desire to help others; we want genuine friendship; we hurt when we’re betrayed by those we counted as friends; we like to laugh; we have emotions; etc. Yeah, we’re rather like him. But then, there is that difference: We’re not God, and as long as I think I am–or could be–I will always position myself as a rival to God, which precludes friendship. Who wants to live with a rival?

And then there’s the plurality. Of the three sentient species (God, angelic beings, and humanity), God and humanity can be seen as a collection of individuals, or as a unit (maybe angels/demons can to, but they’ve yet to mentioned, and this entry will be long enough anyway). There’s been much ado about the Trinity throughout the church’s history, and relatively little to do about the corollary for humans. God sees us both as individuals and as a whole. Those of us who choose him and renounce our claim to godhood will be part of the bride of Jesus (as best I currently understand the concept). And yet, how we fight amongst ourselves. We ought to be more like the various pieces of God, working together instead of tearing apart. And I, being the cynic…

God then places into the hands of humanity governance over all sorts of things on the earth, although we are still subject to the governance of things like the sun and moon, and rotation of the earth (time, to wit), putting us in our place, if we ever pay that much attention. If we are to understand God enough to form a friendship, we must understand both the burden and benefits of power. And so, he has placed us in an environment in which we can learn that. Oddly enough, we tend to shun the opportunities to really understand and grow in authority.

Finally, God makes it explicit that humanity is to include women and men (that is, Eve is not an afterthought, more later), and that they should procreate.
God uses marriage and children to teach us more about him, and to teach us about love and commitment. Marriage is his example to us of the kind of relationship he wants with us. It also gives us a feeling of the connection we could have had as a species if not for sin, and does indeed give us a true, intimate connection, a view of what he longs for with us. Also, he sees us as his children, and so, too, we learn about him.

Then there’s the multiply and subdue the earth bit. I’m not sure I have anything clever to comment about that beyond what I just wrote. We’ve done good at multiplying but tend towards overrunning the earth–authority misused at times. And he does give us to "”every tree which has fruit yielding seed”" (Genesis 1:29, NASB) to eat, making you wonder about that forbidden fruit. But, whatever else, he sums it up by saying its very good.
It might bursts some bubbles, but God really likes us. He really does.

Genesis 1:20-25

2006.Apr.17 19:50

Fauna

Read Genesis 1:20-25 | Full Chapter

God uses day five and part of six to make animals (actually, he uses all of six to make animals, but since I’m saving the humans for my next entry…).
Specifically, he makes sea monsters and cattle. Well, those are the two that get the most specific attention. The cattle make sense, especially under the general domesticated quadrupeds definition, as these tend to play a large part in human civilizations. But the sea monsters? Weird.

Anyway, these animals are distinquished from humanity in that they are not specified as being made after God’s image. Why all these animals? What does God want us to know from them? Well, first I would say that he likes variety.
He wants us to be different from each other. He does not want us to be ultra-conformists devoid of individuality. While he wants to change us more into his image, it is not a monochrome image. He wants more than that; our different experiences are wonderful to him. After all, who wants friends just like themselves? Of course, we might do with a few less sea monsters.

Genesis 1:13-19

2006.Apr.11 21:38

God fiddles with light

Read Genesis 1:13-10 | Full Chapter

In which God apparently decides that the light should be gathered into large burning balls of gas, and reflected off of at least one large ball of dust. Hee hee, funny one God, time to take your meds…

So, remember back in verses 3 through 5? God creates light, separates it from darkness and calls the former day and the latter night. I guess all that playing with plants (can you say opium?) gave him an idea. The light should come from something! But what? I know, nuclear reactions! Yay! In that he assumedly already got gravity going (what did the earth orbit?), nuclear reactions shouldn’t seem that odd. So, he makes the stars, including our favored sun, and the moon, which reflects the sun’s light, visible during most nights. He does this for four reasons, that is, real reasons, not the opium:

1. To give light to the earth (17)
2. To separate the light from the darkness (18)
3. To be signs for seasons, days, and years (14)
4. To govern the day and night (18)

Each of these reasons reveals the importance which God places on light and its counterpoint darkness, and continues to create finer distinctions.

The various light sources give light to the earth and separate light from darkness. These two things have already been done, earlier in the chapter, but now those roles are the responsibility of the stars, moon, and various other cosmic entities. Instead of simply “there is light”, there are the givers of light. We can see, but now we know why we can see. God does not want us just to know that there is goodness, but that there is a source of goodness, that in the larger sense, there are not just distinctions, but sources thereof.

God furthermore creates the methods for determining and recording time. He designs to "”let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years”" (Genesis 1:14, NASB) , bringing to mind when the Psalmist exhorts God to "”teach us to number our days / That we may present to You a heart of wisdom”" (Psalm 90:12, NASB) . God is timeless, by all appearances, yet he sets in motion for us to recognize times and seasons, to view our lives within a progression, and mark that time. Time necessarily relates to mortality. We are constrained to a brief span. Without God, we are under the control of time. Yet, when we recognize time, and learn to number our days, to realize the briefness of its span, we grow in wisdom. We can see where our claim to godhood must end, and how Jehovah is above this constraint and offers us a way out of it. It is one more step towards that great distinction of life/death, righteousness/sin, with God or set against him. We also see, by numbering our days and those of the species, the cycles of failure as humankind tries to establish its own godhood and destroys part of itself.

While we are not able to govern time, God does give the sun and moon a governance thereover. He shows us again the foolishness of our pride. The sun and moon, their positions, determine days and seasons. We, in all our intellect and self-reliance, cannot do that. These objects, one of burning gas, one of dust, do something we cannot. And yet we claim godhood and cling to that claim, a claim which keeps us from our friendship with the one true God who actually, really loves us. The opium, again? I’m pleased to say it’s not.

Genesis 1:11-12

2006.Apr.05 17:24

Flora

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God makes plants. This is good, since later creations will eat them. Additionally, these plants do a couple of things:

1. They sprout from the earth; or, more precisely, the earth sprouts them
2. They bear seed, or fruit with seed, after their kind

The attributes suggest that God is designing them to reflect his plan for humanity, in addition to providing sustenance.

God orders (or allows from the “Let”) the earth to "”sprout vegetation…and fruit trees”" (Genesis 1:11, NASB) . God builds up his ideal location for humanity, that is earth, but he also reflects humanity in this. Humans are created from the earth, and sustained by the things of the earth. We, like flora, are constrained to an environment. And one, considering the size of the universe, indeed of the planet, that is pretty darn small. We are dependent, explicitly, on the earth. Why would that be important to God? Because he is teaching us to depend on him. These environmental constraints remind us that we are now gods, at least not on the level of Jehovah. We see this constraint all around us, and plants, which must hold root, dependant on the earth, are an excellent example.

The plants also have seed, after their kind. (Side note: Sorry for the bad transition sentences. My essayist skills have diminished.) Once again, we see God creating distinctions, now adding to it that of generations. Also here is the concept of parenthood, although not of rearing.
In all, that is, God is presenting the concept of connection with prior generations, that each species can be seen as its own entity. As Adam and Eve are one, even more so prior to the seperation caused by sin, so we as humanity act as one. This point is solidified is the concept of the bride. God desires friendship and companionship. However, due to the natural claim to godhood of sentient beings–anyway, I think it’s inevitable–that companion must be matured, with things added and things cut off. We as humanity are the bride, but only those unwilling to renounce their godhood and turn to Jesus will be cut off.

And so, once again, I am left wondering how I got from the first point to this. Coming up: God plays with light some more!

Genesis 1:5-10

2006.Mar.28 20:26

In which God names (and makes) stuff

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In Genesis 1:5, God names something for the first time recorded. He calls the light (that is the separated from darkness light) “day”. God is actively creating language as well as “stuff”. In particular, he is creating a vocabulary, introducing those things which he wants us, humans, to identify distinctly. He then calls darkness, “night”, and in verse 7 distinguishes between “earth” and “sea”. As with separating light and darkness, God is using words to train us to think in distinctions, in boundaries.

Okay, that’s not where I thought I was going with this. But it makes sense.
Then, the question is why this would be so important to him as to occupy a fair part of the creation story–or perhaps, so important to those who wrote it–begging around twenty questions; since I choose to believe God could speak even through us crazy humans, I’m not going to indulge them at the moment. It seems, he is building up to the distinction between the trees, and between righteousness and sin.

It is important that these distinctions relate to where it is easiest for humans to thrive. Humans are better suited to land than water, to light than darkness. Both the sea and darkness impede our natural abilities, the former through a less suitable environment, the latter through loss of sight. While we can survive in these situations, trying to act out normal tasks is draining and difficult. On the other hand, night is when we tend to get rest. The heavens, likewise a domain ill-suited for humans, is one which we equate with God, oddly enough. Again, it is distinguished from the earth, but it also has its own set of water–clouds, I assume–again, distinct.

So, even the less hospitable of the pairs provide good things. So, what am I saying here? I have no idea. Perhaps because the tree of knowledge does contain something good: knowledge (2 Peter 1:6, tells us to grow in knowledge among other things). However, it is also destructive. It is that choice between living with something that brings both bad and good, versus living only in good. Could any of us really have chosen the latter? Would it have been better had we not eaten of the forbidden fruit. Well, now, that is a complicated question.

None of the above makes much sense, does it? Oh, well, these are my rambling thoughts.

Genesis 1:3-4

2006.Mar.19 14:19

Creating Light

Read Genesis 1:3-4 | Full Chapter

Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.
(Genesis 1:3-4, NASB)

God’s first step, post creating “the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1) is to create light. It’s interesting that it specifies “light” rather than, for example, “energy”. (http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/9_literal.html also uses the term “light” in its translation, so I’m going to more or less accept that). Creating light, particularly in contrast to “energy”, implies sight. And then he separates light from darkness. That is, he prepares a situation in which most humans can visibly see for part of the time. The use of sight, light and darkness are often used, in the Bible and elsewhere, to symbolize spiritual realities.

Then, it seems clear, that God deliberately wants us to get used to the idea that we don’t know everything, and he is, indeed, explicitly hiding some knowledge, some understanding from us. This is reiterated with the trees, later. In this, God calls light “good” but has no recorded comment here on the darkness. The darkness is not so much good, perhaps, as necessary. The darkness of the night is the absence of one sort of energy, just as a lack of certain knowledge is also the absence of a desire to sin in humans. To see some of the things God can see, we must be aware of the ability to hurt others. It might have been nice had that knowledge remained absent, but, then…well, perhaps that’s another subject.

Genesis 1:1-2

2006.Mar.06 16:08

Above the Void, a Plan

Read Genesis 1:1-2 | Full Chapter

From Genesis, Entry 1

So, God’s chilling. Or whatever a omnipotent being apparently largely unaffected by time does before time begins. Since the subject of this blog category is neither metaphysics, nor philosophy, I’ll skip the required descussion on God’s self-existance. I’m more concerned with the relationship between God and I.

Let’s suffice it so, he has a plan, whilst chilling. So, he creates the heavens and earth (Genesis 1:1). Insofar as for the time being, I assume he had a plan by this point, I can’t exactly engage my wish of fanciful: “Well, I guess I’ll make a…earth!” Okay, I have some metaphysical thoughts on that. But I will refrain. Still, this seems a little disconnected. I’ll get to a point later.

Now here may be one of my favorite things ever written, from the NASB: "”The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters”" (Genesis 1:2, NASB) .

Why so cool? Because this is the one time I can think of that we really see, in the Bible, God just…chilling. Think of that, God hovering over a formless earth, moving across the waters. What was he thinking.

Okay, so, I am going to jump into theology for a moment. Here’s my theory.
Trying to refine my understanding, to correct, alter, drop if need be, this theory, is one of the major reasons that I am trying this step-by-step through the Bible. I imagine it will take most of my life, should I keep it up. Cool.

Here’s my guess:

God wants friendship.

Let me back up. To know God better, to begin to understand his reasons, motives, desires, I have several resources, among them: the Bible, the Holy Spirit, worship, prophecy, talking about him with other people, etc. All these being great, they also leave me wondering how I can understand him on a more “human” level.

There is one more source: myself. "Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness”" (Genesis 1:26, NASB) . That implies to me that I am enough similar to God that I can gather some of his desires by looking at my own. Among them, friendship. I’ll have a lot more to say about this when I actually get to that verse, say, sometime around June.

So, let’s propose that God wanted friends. And that’s what maybe he’s thinking as he hovers over the deep. About me and you, being his friends. But he knows it’s not as simple as just saying “Hey, you’re my friend”. And if you question the difficulty of that, I encourage a look at your friendships.

I hope to post in this once a week.