Genesis 1:10-31 (<~~ click here to read this on BibleGateway).
I left off last time on the third day at Genesis 1:10, where God gathered all the land together and all the sea together, and saw that it was 'good.' Whenever I read that verse in the Bible, I actually think of Pangea. It's interesting that God gathers all the land together in one place - instead of the land being spread out over the earth as it is today - and all of the sea together in one place, instead of being interspersed throughout the earth as it is today. This is exactly what Pangea was said to be like, and I guess the spreading out of the continents had something to do with the tectonic plates on which each continent is located.
According to the Bible - with all the seas in one place and with all the land in one place - the idea of Pangea seems to be supported. God, in verse 11 creates vegetation. Actually, there's no mention of him literally 'creating' vegetation, but He simply calls for the earth to sprout vegetation. Here is where the third day ends (although in my last post I think I placed the end of the 'third day' at verse ten, I was wrong).
In verse fourteen, we finally get to the creation of the "lights in the expanse to separate day from night" (1:14, NASB) and I find it odd that God is just now creating these lights to separate day and night when, for three days, 'evening' and 'morning' have been clearly distinguished. Not to mention the fact that light and darkness have already been separated from one another in Genesis 1:4. So what's going on, here? Why is God separating light and darkness twice? Perhaps God was lighting another part of the universe with his other lights, and with the sun and the moon He was lighting the earth. Who knows. God spends the entire fourth day creating these lights.
The fifth day (beginning at Gen 1:20) is spent creating the animals that swim in the sea and the animals that fly in the air. God blesses the animals, saying 'Be fruitful and multiply.' I wonder what God's blessing on the animals was? Is God's blessing on the animals simply a command or an ability to procreate? Or could it have been a superior physical and spiritual nature that was lost after Adam and Eve's blunder in the garden? This passage also makes me think about the theory of evolution. Based on what I know so far about evolution, I don't see any reason why evolution and the creation story need to be mutually exclusive. It seems like God sets the process in motion, and allows things to just continue naturally as He has designed them.
On the sixth day, God made all of the animals that live on land. This is also the day in which God creates humans. God creates humans in His image and in His likeness. There are two things I want to mention about this passage. (1) Many Christians use this verse to imply that God exists eternally in three persons - also known as the doctrine of the Trinity. I can understand why they do so, after all the verse says, "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness..." (Gen. 1:26, emphasis mine). However, in languages like Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, etc, a powerful King or a God uses the plural when speaking because it is a reference to the King (or God) and His power. It is a linguistic thing that, when translated to English, really doesn't translate. So I try to avoid using this verse to prove the Trinity. The other thing (2) I wanted to mention about this verse is that God says that humans will be made in His image and in His likeness. Is this just a repetition in order to drive home a point? Or, is God referring to our being made in his spiritual image and physical likeness (or vise versa?) Does God even have a physical likeness or image? Do human being literally look like God?
Later in the Bible (1 Corinthians 11:7), we will hear that the man is the image and the glory of God, while woman is the glory of man. I often wonder how literally verses like this should be taken.
So, God gives humans dominion over all of the animals in the earth - but not over the earth itself. He blesses humans with the ability and the command to procreate and he tells us to fill the earth and subdue it. In some translations, God is reported as saying to 'replenish' the Earth. I wonder why those translations use the word replenish? Is it a linguistic error, or an implication that there was something on Earth before humanity? God, who is eternal, probably has been in the business of creation long before He created Earth and its inhabitants. And I'm sure the story of God's creation will continue long after humans are extinct. It's amazing to think about.
God gives us every 'seed-yielding' plant for food. I find it interesting that at the very beginning of human history - we are given dominion over the animals, but not the permission to eat them. This means that in our most perfected state, we may have used animals for work or companionship - but we were vegetarians.
Animals were not given permission to eat one another, either. Nowadays, we rely on certain meats for the protein and iron that is important to our heath. But here in Genesis, meat is unnecessary. I wonder if our genetic makeup changed along the way, somehow? And not just ours, but that of the animals too (since they don't seem to have been eating one another at this time).
God saw everything that He made and He says that it is good. And I wonder why God keeps calling everything 'good?' What does He mean by that? Is there something tangibly good about the makeup of the universe...?
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