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GENESIS

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Creation by Moralisee
Genesis is the first book of the Bible. It consists of 50 chapters, beginning with Creation, and covers 2,400 years of Biblical history. There are at least five stories of creation in the original Jewish Bible. Of these Genesis explores the nature of the relationship between God and mankind.

Genesis is filled with murder, adultery, greed, jealousy, rape and incest as well as well as godly pronouncements and acts of loyalty and goodness. As is true with most of the Bible, most of the important figures are male. The female figures that are represented either mute or flawed, with Eve being the most famous example.

In Genesis, man is portrayed as a creature of the world with a consciousness that separates him from other animals. God is portrayed as being a creator and as living in another world. Man’s consciousness is the link to that world. Man is characterized both as a creature of the world but also as one with the power to transcend it.

Historians believe Genesis is based on popular orally-passed-down stories that were complied between 10th and 5th century B.C. Thus far archaeologists and historians have not come up with proof that Garden of Eden or the Tower of Babel really existed. But beginning with story of Abraham in Chapter 12 many of the places and customs that are described are consistent with historical fact although there is no evidence that major figures like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph really existed.

Orthodox Jews read Genesis as the literal truth. They reject evolution and geological ages and other basic principals of modern science the same way that fundamentalist Christians do. The great Christian theologian, St. Augustine, who lived in the A.D. 5th century, is among those to argue that Genesis was not intended to be taken literally. Many today see it as the Jewish creation myth.

Geocentrism Websites and Resources: Bible and Biblical History: Bible Gateway and the New International Version (NIV) of The Bible biblegateway.com ; King James Version of the Bible gutenberg.org/ebooks ; Bible History Online bible-history.com ; Biblical Archaeology Society biblicalarchaeology.org ;

Judaism Virtual Jewish Library jewishvirtuallibrary.org/index ; Judaism101 jewfaq.org ; torah.org torah.org ; Chabad,org chabad.org/library/bible ; Internet Jewish History Sourcebook sourcebooks.fordham.edu

Christianity: BBC on Christianity bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity ; Christian Classics Ethereal Library www.ccel.org ; Sacred Texts website sacred-texts.com ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Christian Origins sourcebooks.fordham.edu ;

Biblical Images: Bible in Pictures creationism.org/books ; Bible Blue Letter Images blueletterbible.org/images ; Biblical Images preceptaustin.org

In 2009, after five years of work, R. Crumb, the great 60s era illustrator who created Fritz the Cat, Mr. Natural and keep on Truckin’, produced his version of Genesis, which he regards as great myth and subtitled it “All 50 Chapters” and “Nothing Left Out.” Crumb sticks close to story line and his embellishments are based more on historical research than his lurid imagination. The work is in black and white and extraordinary, even inspired, in its detail. His depiction of God came to him a “very powerful cream.” His family trees bring clarity to “lists of begats.”

Timeline of Early Old Testament (3800-2001 B.C.)

October 7, 3761 B.C.: The beginning date of the Hebrew calendar, according to scholar Rabbi Yossi ben Halafta, a 2nd century Rabbi. Adam & Eve created (Year 1 of Jewish calendar).

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Creation
3630 B.C.: Seth born
3525 B.C.: Enosh born
ca. 3500 B.C.: Chalcolithic Period, first settlement
3435 B.C.: Kenan born
3365 B.C.: Mehalalel born
3300 B.C.: Yered born

3300 B.C.: First confirmed settlement of Gaza at Tell as-Sakan
3138 B.C.: Enoch born
3074 B.C.: Methusaleh born
2886 B.C.: Lemech born
2831 B.C.: Adam dies
ca. 2800 B.C.: Early Dynastic period (Akkad)

2704 B.C.: Noah born
ca. 2700-2400 B.C.: Old Kingdom period (Egypt)
ca. 2500-2200 B.C.: Ebla flourishes
ca. 2500 B.C.: First houses built in Jerusalem
ca. 2300-2200 B.C.: Priestess Enheduanna, first known author in the world
2203 B.C.: Shem born
2150 B.C.: The Flood
2100-1700 B.C.: Middle Kingdom period (Egypt)
[Source: Jewish Virtual Library, UC Davis, Fordham University]

Creation

Genesis begins in the King James version with: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 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. And God said, Let there be light. And the was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day."

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God Creates the Heavens According to the Everett Fox version, regarded as closest to the Hebrew original:

At the beginning of God's creating
of the heavens and the earth.
when the earth was wild and waste.
darkness over the face of Ocean.
rushing-spirit of God hovering over
the face of the waters.
God said: Let there be light! And
there was light.
God saw the light: that it was good.
God separated the light from the darkness.
God called the light: Day! and the
darkness he called: Night!
There was setting. there was dawning: one day.

On the second day God made the heavens. On the third day he made the land, the seas, plants, trees and plants. On the forth day he made the sun, moon and stars and the alternating cycle of day and night. On the fifth day he made he made the fishes and birds.

On the six day God made land animals and "man in his own image, the image of God created him; male and female created he them." "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." When God takes a rib from Adam, the sexes are differentiated. On the seventh day God rested.

Who Said the World Began in 4004 B.C.

Irish prelate and scholar Archbishop James Ussher (1581-1659) was the person who fixed the date of creation in the year 4004 B.C. by examining the scriptures. During the Middle Ages most people weren't concerned with investigating ancient history because they believed the Bible recorded the events between Eden and Jerusalem adequately and the Greeks and Romans recorded the development of the Mediterranean. The world outside the Holy Land and Europe did not exist and most people did not think about what happened before Biblical Times.

An Irish prelate by the name of James Ussher (1581-1656) is the source of the generally accepted view among creationists that God created the world at 9:00am on October 26, 4004 B.C. Ussher was expert in Semitic languages, who had studied ancient texts from the Middle East and Europe nearly his entire lifetime before he announced the date in 1654. The assertion gave credibility to Christian belief that the world was created in a single week and no species existed before or were added afterwards.

The Jewish rabbi Natan Slifkin, based on his literal reading of Genesis, claims the world began in 3759 B.C. After declaring this he was condemned by leading rabbis and Jewish scholars. One of Rabbi Slifkin’s supporters told the New York Times, “the same scientists who tell you with such clarity what happened 65 million years ago — ask what the weather will be like in New York in two weeks time.”

schematic for Creation occurring in 5554 BC

Creation from Genesis

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 1:2 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. 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. [Source: King James Version of the Bible, gutenberg.org]

1:4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. 1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. 1:6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. 1:7 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.

1:8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. 1:9 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. 1:10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. 1:11 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. 1:12 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.

The "earth" in Genesis is not the globe. Rather, Genesis speaks of God using pillars (buckling of the land) to raise the earth or fruitful place up between the liquid waters and the waters in the atmosphere. This fruitful place or earth created a place where animal and plant life could exist. If man can evolve from matter, then the ancient mind would say that the gods can also evolve. And in the ancient literature they do, based upon the "survival of the fitest."

Third, Fourth and Fifth Day of Creation

Genesis 1:13 And the evening and the morning were the third day. 1:14 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: 1:15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. 1:16 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.

1:17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, 1:18 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. 1:19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. 1:20 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. 1:21 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. 1:22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel

1:23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. 1:24 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. 1:25 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.

God Creates Man and Takes a Day of Rest

Genesis 1:26 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. 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.1:28 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. [Source: King James Version of the Bible, gutenberg.org]

1:29 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. 1:30 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. 1:31 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. 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.

2:2 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. 2:3 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. 2:4 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,

2:5 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. 2:6 But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. 2:7 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.

Image Sources: Wikimedia, Commons, Schnorr von Carolsfeld Bible in Bildern, 1860

Text Sources: Internet Jewish History Sourcebook sourcebooks.fordham.edu “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); “ Encyclopedia of the World’s Religions” edited by R.C. Zaehner (Barnes & Noble Books, 1959); “Old Testament Life and Literature” by Gerald A. Larue, New International Version (NIV) of The Bible, biblegateway.com; Wikipedia, National Geographic, BBC, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Times of London, The New Yorker, Reuters, AP, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, and various books and other publications.

Last updated March 2024