Genesis 1:1- In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
The first verse of the Bible lays down the ultimate truth. In the beginning, before everything else happened of any import to this universe, the starting point of our biblical imagination and our spiritual timeline… God created the heaven and the earth.
Since our scriptures originally come from the Hebrew, it is also important to note that rabbis believe that the shape of the first character in this verse, which looks like a backwards “C”, is of significance. They believe that the entire body of scriptures opens with a letter that prevents you from going anywhere but deeper into the scriptures. Or in other words, we should not worry about what happened before the creation of the heaven and the earth. There words are these, “In the same manner that the letter beth is closed on all sides and only open in front, similarly you are not permitted to inquire into what is before or what was behind, but only from the actual point of Creation[1].”
We are also introduced to God in this passage. This is the first mentioning of God in the scriptures. When something is first mentioned it tends to be mentioned in a way that sets precedence, or sets and example for every other time that think is mentioned. The word that is used in describing God in this passage is “elohiym”, which translated has a plural meaning to God, which would be the case if God exists as a triune being, which his Word shows us. The Jews radically deny the plurality of God due to the passage in Deuteronomy 6:4 which states this, “Hear O Israel, the Lord our Elohiym is one Lord.” Also around the Jews at the time of their birth as a nation was rampant paganism. When the Jews left Egypt, there was a plague of gods that they left behind… the last thing they wanted to cling to was more gods.
I was taught at my Catholic University that the main point of what Moses was trying to do in writing this passage was not to give a scientific account of what transpired at creation but to assign responsibility. I agree with the ownership aspect of this statement. It is always important for man to realize that the God of the Bible created us. If we were created, this means that we must have been created for something… to determine this “something” we must continue digging into this book.
The choice of the word create here is “bara” which literally translates, “to shape, fashion, create (always with God as the subject)”. In my mind this seems to highlight the idea that God had something to work with… something to shape. The word actually has roots in carving something. Does this mean that the creation story we see here in Genesis does not include the beginning of all things (i.e. matter), I don’t know. I would not be surprised either way. This choice of the word here may add weight to the Gap Theory of creation or God’s never ending process of turning the page in His glorious story of infinity. We do know that at the end of this creation, that God will create a new heavens and a new earth[2]… but does this mean he starts from scratch? I don’t think we can say one way or the other.
It is also interesting to note that God created both the heavens and the earth at the same time… or at least it appears that way here. What is the importance of that? Maybe God’s intention was that physical and spiritual complement each other. I think Adam most likely understood this dynamic to the best extent we will understand this on this side of life. If the physical were not important, why did God even create the physical world? If the physical were not important, why is God going to create a new heavens and a new earth in the future? If the physical were not important, why then did he give his resurrected Son a body made of flesh and bone[3]? When we live in the glory of our Creator, we will be like His Son[4].
No comments:
Post a Comment