Day 1. Genesis 1-3

Genesis 1-3

The book of Genesis is commonly attributed to Moses. It is the first book of the "Torah" or the Five Books of Moses (Pentateuch). It is believed that the Torah was inscribed by Moses while on the mount (in the wilderness). The Torah is the basis for that bible codes stuff, as the Torah is believed to have been written letter for letter from how God told Moses to write it.

Genesis 1

¹ In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

It begins. According to James Ussher, that date was October 23, 4004 BC.

Despite a full century of scientific insights attesting to the antiquity of life and the greater antiquity of the Earth, more than half the American population believes that the entire cosmos was created 6,000 years ago. This is, incidentally, about a thousand years after the Sumerians invented glue. --- Sam Harris, The Case Against Faith.

⁷And 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.

The firmament. No one is exactly sure what the firmament is. Many people believe it was like an ice crystal shield that protected the earth from things. It would have kept harmful radiation out and kept in more oxygen.

So on day 1, God made light and darkness; on day 2, he made the firmament.

⁹And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

¹⁰And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

Then he made grass and trees and stuff. That ended day 3.

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:

Then he made the sun and the moon. That made day 4.

²⁰And 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.

Birds and water creatures were day 5.

²⁴And 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.

Land creatures.

²⁶And 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.

And man were made on day 6.

Ok, who is "OUR" image? Most people take that to be God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Of course, this is Genesis, so it's Hebrew, so there's only God the Father. Who are the remainder of "our"? Is it the angels?

²⁷So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

On day 6, he made male and female. Them, plural.

²⁹And 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.

At this point, people were all vegetarians.

Genesis 2

²And 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.

The omnipotent, all powerful god of the bible, rested.

⁵And 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.

⁶But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.

It hadn't rained yet. Up until the flood of Noah (in a couple days) there was no rain.

⁷And 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.

Welcome to creation story #2. Creation story #1 ended on day 7 when god rested. Remember he made "them" on day 6. Now he's making a special person.

⁸And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.

We know this guy as Adam. Since then, Eden has gone away.

The other night, while watching "How the Earth Was Made" Episode Sahara, they mentioned that the Sahara wasn't always a desert, that it had been green before. They said that because of a wobble in the earth's orbit, that the Sahara becomes green. The last time the Sahara would have been fully green was during the Neolithic Subpluvial, or Holocene Wet Phase. This time would have ended around 3000 BC. At the end, there would have been a massive migration of people out of the area. Now, take that with the dates of creation in 4004 BC, and it's possible that Eden could have been what is now the Sahara desert.

¹⁵And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

Exactly what he was dressing and keeping, is unknown. Remember prior to "the fall" (coming soon) there were no weeds. So what exactly did Adam have to do?

¹⁶And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:

¹⁷But 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.

"For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."

Remember. In the day... thou shalt surely die.


This leads to several questions.

Why did God put the tree there? Many people say it's because God thought everyone had to have a choice. Why? Also, if you don't know the difference between good and evil, how are you going to be able to make an educated pick? You aren't. Adam was told not to do something, however, he had no idea of the concept of "wrong".

Additionally, he had no concept of the word "die". If Adam was made on day 6, then nothing at this point had died yet. If Adam was created at some other (after day 6) point, then still, there was no death.

Adam had no idea what "good and evil" is, and no idea what "death" is.

¹⁸And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.

So God made Eve...

¹⁹And 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.

Nope, the first help meet for Adam was every beast, and every fowl of the air... Except... according to the creation story in Genesis 1 (right above) God first made animals (Gen 1:24), then he made people (Gen 1:27). Additionally, in Gen 2, we see man was made, and THEN the fowl of the air was made. However, in creation story #1, we see fowls of the air were made a whole day before beasts and man (Gen. 1:21).

²¹And 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;

²²And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

God took a rib from Adam and made Eve out of it.

²³And 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.

²⁴Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.

Verse 24 makes absolutely no sense in this narrative. Why would Adam say verse 24? This had to have been added at some point after. Adam didn't have a father and mother. Eve had just been created, they wouldn't know that a man should leave his father and mother. They wouldn't know what it was.

Genesis 3

¹Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

The serpent talks. Why did Eve not freak out at the presence of a talking serpent? Talking animals must have been present at this time. Sure, there are parrots that talk now, but they don't make up their own sentences, they only mimic. Also, the only talking snakes now are in Harry Potter movies.

³But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

⁴And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

⁵For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

The story is now changing. I often hear preachers saying that the serpent (commonly referred to as the Devil/Satan) lied. That this was the first lie. Remember what god said to Adam about the tree, "in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die". If that's a promise, "in the day". Then the serpent didn't necessarily lie.

It is now believed that the fruit of the tree wasn't an apple, but was a pomegranate.

⁶And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

Eve ate first, then Adam.

Additionally, if the serpent lied, then the serpent had knowledge of good and evil. Had the serpent already eaten of the tree?

⁸And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.

God goes walking around the garden for a bit, leaves them alone for 5 minutes and suddenly they eat from the tree.

God calls Adam, Adam responds that he was afraid because he was naked, God said "did you eat from the tree?"

¹²And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.

¹³And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.

Everyone blames someone else.

¹⁴And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:

¹⁵And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

Because of the thing that this one serpent did, (and it might have been the devil) God cursed it forever.

¹⁶Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

Women will have labor pains.

¹⁷And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

¹⁸Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;

See, there were no weeds prior to the eating of the fruit. Exactly what tending and dressing Adam had to do in the garden is beyond me.

¹⁹In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

And now, god promises death. He then kills the first things, and makes skin coats for them. The first death recorded in the bible, is an animal that god killed to make clothes for Adam and Eve.

²²And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:

²³Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.

Who is the us? So God kicked Adam out of Eden.

²⁴So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

Cherubims are a type of angel. These aren't the cute little angel, these are fierce creatures with flaming swords. Did they turn Eden into the worlds largest desert?

So here's some points to ponder from Genesis 1-3.

1. Was Adam the person created in Genesis 1:26?
2. Are there two separate creation stories?
3. Who lied? God said on the day they eat they will die, they didn't die that day.
4. If there were only 2 people, why didn't god erase them and start over?
5. Why did god put the 2 trees in the garden?