Reading the Bible: Genesis, Chapter 1
Creation of Time
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Intro: I started seriously reading the Bible once a week (no big reason). This is a summary of what I took from the first episode of Bereshit (Genesis).
6-day creation
most people know the story of the creation of the world in 7 days. day 1 for creating order; day 2 to create the sky and ocean; day 3 to create the land and vegetation; day 4 to create the sun, moon, and stars; day 5 to create all core animal species; day 6 to create all animal sub species and also to create the man and woman. God claims that man will rule all the other creatures, and let him name the creatures one by one. on the 7th day, God stopped to rest.
Creation of time
Nice anecdote. During the creation of stars, the text mentions a link between the stars and time (“…Let there be lights in the sky to separate the day from night, and signify events, days and years” [Genesis 1:14]. Only in the next verse, it is also said that the light will also be used to shine on the land. Meaning that Time, is the more important purpose of the stars.
Explaining the existence of Dinosaurs
On the 5th day, it is written “God created the giant crocodiles and all other living souls swarming (on land), those who swim the waters and all flying creatures. God saw this as good.” [Genesis 1:21]
These giant crocs probably refer to the dinosaurs.
Location of Garden of Eden and it’s existence
Then comes the story of the Garden of Eden. The bible actually gives quite well the area of its location. Somewhere in between these 4 rivers here. interestingly this area has very fertile land, and it covers also the land of Israel and Egypt (most of the places the bible travels to).
Tree of Life and eternal life
There were also 2 important trees in the garden: the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life. Adam and Chava ate from the first tree and received the ability to differentiate good from bad. It also said that if they were to eat from the Tree of Life, they would have received eternal life (Genesis 3:23). Actually, that is the only reason that God takes Garden of Eden out of reach of humans, since he didn't want them to have eternal life.
Man and wife
one of the first things I found interesting is the creation of the wife. it is explained that God didn't want the man to stay alone, so he put him to deep sleep, took one rib, and created the woman. a kind of surgery…
anyway, man woke up and called her wife. Actually, the two words in Hebrew are quite close: Ish (man), Isha (wife). the idea to the name is that the wife was taken out of the man’s body.
man also explains that the bond between the two is unbreakable. my biggest surprise is that the man says that this bond is far more powerful than the bond between a person and their parents. my surprise comes since there were NO parents at this point in time :) [Genesis 2:24]
The snake and the apple
then comes the part with the snake. we all know that snake convinced the wife to eat, and then she convinced the man, and after that God banished them from Garden of Eden and took it away from the earth forever.
but I was surprised to discover the way God finds out about this and the “punishments” he gave to the three.
after they ate the fruit, man and wife understood they are naked, and put some leaves to cover their intimate places. when God was walking around the Garden, he searched for the man and called out his name to come out. my first surprise is that God obviously knew that man already ate the fruit, but the story is told as if he wasn't aware of that… [Genesis 3:9]
then when asked for the reason WHY man decided to eat the fruit even though God forbade it, the man blamed the woman for convincing him. asking the woman she blamed the snake.
so even our first ancestors were already using blame as a method of getting away from responsibility…
the punishments were: the wife would forever suffer from sadness around the load of pregnancy and giving birth, as well as that the man will rule over her.
and the man he will forever be a slave for working the land, and sadly eating from it. probably meaning, you will work your ass off but you will not be able to enjoy it.
only then God called the man Adam and the wife Chava (Eve) in the Hebrew name (her name has several meanings, and one of them is Life or Animal, since she was the mother of all that is living).
From Kain until Noah
then comes the story about Kain and Hevel, and the first murder between humans. Adam and Chava gave birth also to Seth, as “replacement” to Hevel. both Kain and Seth brought many people to the world.
the dynasty of Seth is described until reaching Noah.
the most interesting part of this phase to me, was that the age of men was between 700–1000 years. this is quite a smart way to solve the issue of creating healthy children even if they span from the same parents or DNA. when living to 1000 years, evolution happens in your lifetime (in a way). the same couple is capable of giving birth, growing the child, and sending him away to find a wife. and then repeat this process over and over again.
At some point, God decides to limit the age of men to 120 years, after witnessing their bad behavior. In Jewish culture, we wish on birthdays to “reach 120 years”, since this is counted as the maximum age possible.
Then God is saddened for the bad ways the animals have taken, and decides to destroy the entire creation, and recreate it with Noah. This is also how religious will explain the destruction of Dinosaurs and other animal species…
