Is There One Creation Story or Two? (Part 3 of 3)

Day 6 opens with the creation of “the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so” (Genesis 1:24). You’ll again note that each living thing was to reproduce after its kind, not evolve from one living thing into something else. Christian Darwinians take note.

Then came the creation of the male and female, formed in the image and likeness of God himself. Many feel this was the creation of Adam and Eve. But was it?

"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness . . . So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (Genesis 1:26-27).

Interestingly, the Hebrew word for man is ’adam (small a), while the word for Adam is ’Adam (large A—both minus the diacritical marks). ’adam (small a) means “ruddy, i.e. a human being (an individual or the species, mankind, etc.)” (James Strong, Hebrew and Chaldee Dictionary, Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Abingdon Press, 1973.)

Is There One Creation Story or Two? (Part 2 of 3)

Day 2 begins:

“And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.” (Genesis 1:6-8).

At this point I’m assuming the earth had coalesced into a globe of its present size and shape. As Day 2 begins, the earth was surrounded by a cocoon of water of some sort. This is not unlike a babe being surrounded by a placenta of waters. Of course, the waters surrounding the earth may have been far more extensive than a cocoon. We have no way of knowing, but I like the symbology of the earth being wrapped in a womb of water. As to there being water in outer space, you might want to check out the article,
“Water in Space More Abundant than Expected”.

But what is a firmament? The Hebrew word suggests “an expanse” or “visible arch of the sky.” The Hebrew word for heaven suggests “the sky,” “perhaps alluding to the visible arch in which the clouds move.” It also refers to “the higher ether where the celestial bodies revolve”—basically, the sun and everything you can see in the night sky. Based on the Hebrew, it would appear the firmament is none other than the earth’s atmosphere. (See the NASA photo below.)


Earth’s atomosphere (a NASA photo)

Is There One Creation Story or Two? (Part 1 of 3)

It has long been an established “fact” that Genesis 1 is the chronology of the physical creation of the earth. But is it really?

At first glance, it would certainly seem so. Everything appears to follow a certain logical order leading up to the creation of the male and female in verses 26-28. Yet, there are other indications that there may be more than meets the casual eye on this subject.

Whatever the case may be, there is so little information in the creation story as to leave one with many more questions than answers. And perhaps it was intended to be so. Either that, or we have lost a great deal of information over the ages through multitudes of translations and apparent omissions.

Remember also: This was Moses’ version of what he saw. I’m sure he was quite speechless after seeing all this. Think of the time Moses lived in. I would have to wonder if he even had the vocabulary to verbalize what he saw. Hence, we have this really short version in our Bibles.

Personally, I don’t believe God ever intended Genesis 1 to be a full account of the creation of heaven and earth. If he did, then why don’t we have it?

Is There a Mother in Heaven? Part 3 of 10—We Must Know God

Whether there is or is not a Mother in heaven is determined in large part on what kind of a God our Father in heaven is. Would you agree to that?

If God is as the Catholic and other churches describe him, then we can pretty much rule out there being a Mother in heaven. If, on the other hand, our heavenly Father is a personal God, the door is at least open to the idea. Let’s see why this is so.

Here’s what Jesus said: