Tag: Genesis 1

The Vault

Posted on by jovial_cynic
I just had this epiphany today. I’ve always wondered about day #2 of creation in Genesis 1, because it’s the only day God doesn’t say is “good.”

I think I have an answer. The focus isn’t the separation of the waters (chaos above, chaos below)… but about the “vault.”

Some bibles say “firmament,” and some say “vault,” but the image is this space created between the waters that separates the waters above from the waters below. And it’s inside this separation where God separates water from land. Inside this special place.

I often think about working against the curses of Genesis 3 & 4, and how we’re meant to shine as lights in the darkness. A part of our Christian prayer is “on earth, as it is in heaven.” And it’s a prayer to create a protected space in this life where God can be seen clearly…

This protected space is like a vault that holds back the waters of chaos & darkness. It’s space where water is gathered away from land, which represents humanity. And life flourishes on that land.

When we pray “on earth, as it is in heaven,” we’re praying for the firmament.

So why does God not say “it is good?”

Perhaps it’s because it isn’t good *yet.* It represents the good we MUST DO later, after the curse of sin. It WILL be good.

Beginning with the End in Mind

Posted on by jovial_cynic
While we may see death/rebirth, night/day as perpetual cycles, an eternity of repetition, the Scriptures teach us something different. Something better.

Genesis 1 ends in the daylight. It ends VERY GOOD. It ends in flourishing.

Genesis tells us the beginning and the end.

Male and Female in God’s image

Posted on by jovial_cynic
Don’t let anyone ever tell you that women are not also created in God’s image. When God made the world, He instructed us plainly: He made them both in His divine image.

Genesis 1:27 is declarative.

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

Genesis 1:27 (NIV)

Green

Posted on by jovial_cynic
Did you know that GREEN is the first color mentioned in the Bible?

I don’t have a particular theological point for this, other than it happens to be my favorite color, and it makes me think of life.

And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground –everything that has the breath of life in it– I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

Genesis 1:30 (NIV)

Firmament

Posted on by jovial_cynic
Separations:

Light/Darkness: Good/Evil.
Water below/above: ???
Land/Water: Humanity; God’s work of removing wickedness & chaos from us.

I’m wrestling with the firmament: a vault God put in the water to shove half the sea into the sky. This is what the Hebrews understood. Why?

The ancient people believed that earth had a dome over it, where an uncrossable sky-sea existed, beyond which was God’s realm. The flood waters involved the dome opening and allowing water to fall.

That’s the mythology.

But what is the symbolism? And why is it not “good?”

The dividing of the sea into the “waters below” and “waters above” is on day 2 of the creation story, and it’s the only day where God does not say that He “saw that it was good.”

Is it not good? Is it bad? Does it point to the grief of the Flood story? I don’t know.

Sea of Terror

Posted on by jovial_cynic
To the ancient Hebrew mind, Genesis 1:21 does not describe peaceful waters filled with whales and fish.

It’s filled with sea monsters, dragons, serpents, and wriggling swarming things.

It’s a place of terror.

So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
Genesis 1:23

This isn’t just assumptions about history. The word “great sea creatures” is the Hebrew word that describes “dragons, sea monsters, serpents.”