Genesis 1
1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
7 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.
8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.
11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.
14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.
23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.
31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Genesis 2 1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.
4 These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,
5 And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.
6 But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.
7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
8 And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
9 And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
10 And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.
11 The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;
12 And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.
13 And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.
14 And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.
15 And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
18 And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
19 And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
20 And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

-- David Ortiz (cyberpunk1986@hotmail.com), July 27, 2003

Answers

Response to Bible Series - In the beginning

Topics to discuss in this series: Feel free to ask anymore questions. (Note: When submitting answers, try to reply to one question in one reply; don't try to answer all of them in one reply.)

How old is the Earth?

How long were the days of Genesis 1?

Are dinosaurs millions or just thousands of years old?

Do Genesis 1 and 2 contradict each other?

Should Genesis be taken literally?

During the six days of creation, were angels created and when did Satan fall?

If God didn’t create the sun until day 4 in the creation week, then how could each of the previous 3 days have had a morning and an evening?

-- David Ortiz (cyberpunk1986@hotmail.com), July 27, 2003.

Should Genesis be taken literally?

Yes it should.

-- David Ortiz (cyberpunk1986@hotmail.com), July 27, 2003.

I agree, Genesis should be taken literally.

-- Kevin Walker (kevinlwalker572@cs.com), July 28, 2003.

Creation as literally depicted in Genesis is indeed supported by faith (and needs to be, since it is not supported by anything else, certainly not the Pope, nor the Roman or Anglican hierarchies). Evolution, on the other hand, is supported by evidence.

Any science teacher who denies that the world is billions (or even millions!) of years old is teaching children a preposterous, mind-shrinking falsehood. These men disgrace the honourable profession of teacher.

(Richard Dawkins)

-- __ (__@__.__), July 28, 2003.

What about the dinosaurs? I believe that dinosaurs lived with humans and the Flood wiped out most of the dinosaurs.

-- David Ortiz (cyberpunk1986@hotmail.com), July 28, 2003.

Here's the proof.

-- __ (__@__.__), July 29, 2003.

Macro evolution (the change from one species to another i.e a fish to a land mammal)has never been observed or supported by the fossil record - no intermediary species have ever been discovered. Micro evolution ( natural selection) which Darwin observed in the galapagos finches, does occur, yet this does not require any intermediary or transitionary species but merely the best selection of what is already available and does not require any new spontaneous genetic information as Macro evolution does. Having no observable evidence to support Macro evolution yet having supportable evidence for Creation ( thermodynamics, fossil record etc.) it seems it would take a greater faith to believe in evolution than it would Creation

-- Gillian Dickenson (Gilliantwin@msn.com), February 07, 2004.

"Mutation" vs. "Modulation". Things mutate. I'm not sure if anything modulates.

My definitions follow:

mutation- a gradual change from its original parts and process with one Source as its catalyst.

modulation-a change brought about from external force or source with one Source as its catalyst.

We should also consider Evil as a catalyst.

...............................

-- rod (elreyrod@yahoo.com), February 07, 2004.

Just because evolution can't be proved does not mean the "Creation" story is scientific fact. We just don't have the exact understanding yet. Perhaps someday we will, we know more about the workings of the cosmos now than we did 500 years ago. I'm not a scientist, or a geologist, but I believe there is sufficient evidence that proves the world is older than 10,000 years. I feel fortunate that I was taught both theories.

-- Jim Furst (furst@flash.net), February 07, 2004.

I agree with you Jim and Rod.

Even Genesis proves it is not a scientific book.

Why?

The first 6 chapters of Genesis state people lived longer. They even include God's name as yahweh.

Yet, Exodus states Moses was the first to use it. Even they say the information in the first five books of the Bible comes from the Book of jasher and The Book of he wars of Yahweh.

So someone after Moses added the creation story.

It wasn't there originally.

Plus genesis relates the story of Joseph and his family. Moses ancestor, Levi is vilified.

So not even moses could have written Genesis.

-- Elpidio Gonzalez (egonval@yahoo.com), February 07, 2004.

Gilgemesh(sp?) pre-dates Moses.

I agree that Genesis is not a "science" book. Evolution does not bother me nor does Creationism, but I cannot isolate one and reject the other. If we look at the universe and try to make some theoretical explanation, we are stumped for an answer. How God created everything is His deal, not ours, I suppose.

.....................

-- rod (elreyrod@yahoo.com), February 07, 2004.

Jim makes the comment that there is evidence to support a theory, well, yes. But, I can't help but to think that we are looking at a snapshot of existence and that evidence will support that quark of existence. It would be nice for us to finally get the whole picture once we arrive in Heaven.

It is a fundamental belief that man existed alongside the dinosaurs. I used to think that to be an insane assumption. Now, I'm not so sure that such a notion is false. But, of course, such a notion conforms to the Creationism belief. Again, I can't bring myself to believe only in Creationism. Jim's remark about the "evidence" is very sobering.

......................

-- rod (elreyrod@yahoo.com), February 07, 2004.

Elipdio,

Jesus said that Moses wrote Genesis " And beginning at Moses, He expounded unto them in 'all' the scriptures, the things concerning Himself"

-- Gillian Dickenson (Gilliantwin@msn.com), February 08, 2004.

There is the Books of tThe Law: Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy as we know them today, Gillian.

Yet, in the beginning there was the Book of jasher, The Book of the Wars of Yahweh. The Books of the law say so.

Num 21:14 Wherefore it is said in the book of the wars of the LORD, What he did in the Red sea, and in the brooks of Arnon,

Jos 10:13 And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. [Is] not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.

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2Sa 1:18 (Also he bade them teach the children of Judah [the use of] the bow: behold, [it is] written in the book of Jasher.)

Only Deuteronmy is in the First person, Gillian.

Genesis 7-50 is the story of Joseph and his family, not Moses. His father Levi is accused of being a murderer.

The Man of Yahweh

-- Elpidio Gonzalez (egonval@yahoo.com), February 10, 2004.

Elpidio,

There are actually quite a few books mentioned in scripture that are not scripture, e.g. those you mention plus 'the book of Nathan the prophet, the book of Gad the seer, the book of Shemaiah the prophet, the book of Jehu etc.

Yet the fact that they were not preserved to us today and were allowed to disappear, and Jesus said nothing about their omission or inclusion in the Word of God,(on the contrary He believed we had all the inspired scriptures in the Old testament of the time and I see no reason to disbelieve Him), would indicate that they were books of their time and not Holy Writ.

Bless you...

-- Gillian Dickenson (Gilliantwin@msn.com), February 11, 2004.

They exist, Gillian, though not entirely.

They were used by the compilers and revisers of Exodus, Numbers, Judges, Kings, Samuel,...

They were like rough drafts for these revisers.

What we have, Gillian are final revised versions, not the originals.

That is why I can question scripture.

The Christian Yahwist/The Man of Yahweh.

-- Elpidio Gonzalez (egonval@yahoo.com), February 11, 2004.