The First Day

 From a purely esthetic viewpoint, man considers the first day as the day of creating of all things. However, this is only the first day of creation for all things that relate to man and his existence, not to the everlasting and ever present universe.

 And thus the Book of Genesis, has generated much debate about where and why.

We in the West think of Adam and Eve as the beginning. But it is the beginning of our understanding ourselves, and not the beginning of beginning. Or, a tale about the “end time”. For God, there is not only no end time, there is no time!

There are many works around the words "In the beginning," and its Hebrew word bere'shit where it is formerly rendered from. There is also the derivative bara', that can be translated as created. 

Then we move onward to the Greek translations or meanings into creatio ex nihilo. This leaves us with the consideration of a temporal clause, that implies the existence of matter. This was proposed by Rashi around 1105AD.

This leads us to the existence of the Earth as the mythical name Tehom (The Deep), which is the Hebrew equivalent of the Babylonian "Tiamat"

Therefore, the Tiamat has the earth in existence at the time of God's creating. This leaves us talking with a chap named Unger. Ungar, and many others, have something called the Gap Theory, which can be found in Unger's Bible Handbook, p37.

How does all of this confusion come about. Simply put, there has to be a place and pre-time for the fall of Satan to take place. And, he must have a place to fall to. For when Adam and Eve were created, the fallen Satan existed.

Since the Hebrews did not have a word for universe, the fact that Moses indicated in Exodus 20:11, that the heavens and earth were made in six days, is not contradictory. for this still allows the greater universe to exist and contain something that was re-shaped and then called The Earth.

Heavens 

Throughout the scriptures, heaven has various contexts concerning places of existence.

There is the Heaven of divine glory where angels and happy spirts have their residence. The place of Enoch's visit.

At other times, it is a reference to the great expanse  that houses the sun, moon, and stars.

And, finally it is a reference to the the air and surfaces of the earth that we inhabit in our daily lives.

These interpretations must be taken in context to the text that is being read. However, it by no means, and by no way diminishes the fact that our visible world was created in six days. Meaning, the world of man, not the universes of God.

Studying the first passages of the Book of Genesis, we can look at the many interpretations relating to just the English Language Translations Over Time.

Thursday, October 24, 2002