Week 2 Genesis LG
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I want to give you a bit of a perspective about the timeline of creation and the views over time
The Severn Days the Divide the World
Philo: A Treatise on the account of the creation of the world as given by Moses: Philo is a first century Jewish /Hellanistic Philosopher
Section III.13
“the world was made in six days, not because the creator stood in need of a length of time, but because the things created required arrangement; and number is a kin to arrangement; and of all numbers, six is, by the law of nature, the most productive four of all the numbers, from the equal unit upwards it is the first perfect one, being made equal to its parts and being made complete by them; the number three being half of it, and the number two a3 of it, and the unit a sixth of it…”
-Philo
Ancient writers took the six days of creation as an act of ordering after all, Six days would have seemed like a long time in the minds of the ancient jews to create the earth
Justin Martyr and Irenaeus both argued that the earth could have been made in long Epoch’s
Biased on Verses like Psalm 90:4 and 2 Peter 3:8
4 A thousand years in your sight
are like a day that has just gone [1]
But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.
Clement of Alexandria, in the second century, thought creation could not take place in time at all since time was born along with things which exist. He therefore understood the days to communicate the priority of created things, but not the timing of their creation. A little later origin, the most prominent the illusion of his time pointed out that in the Genesis account, the sun was not created until the fourth day. He made the obvious objection “now what man of intelligence will believe that the first, the second and the third day, and the evening and morning existed without the sun, moon, and stars?”
Augustine believed that God created everything in one moment.
One of the major tensions in the discussion of the early chapters of Genesis is between those who think that the author intended the book to be read as history and those who regard the authors intention as the conveying of time-less truths through figurative theological language.
For centuries it wasn’t necessary about a 24 hour debate or a time period debate, Genesis 1 was seen as a logical ordering rather than a chronological ordering…
Johann Gottfried Von Herder (1744-1803) Said that the days of creation formed an artistic framework
There were two triads of days
Day Forming Filling Day
1. Light Stars 4
2 Sky/Seas Sea Wind Creatures 5
3 Seas/dry land/Veg Land Animals/humans 6
What Changed? Why did the world suddenly break into a new earth and old earth debate ?
Charles Darwin & The theory of human evolution was a significant challenge to the narrative of God creating the earth
As a result of Darwin and the advent of modern archeology the christian world began to split into young earth and old earth camps
The young earth camp is more of a response to evolution: That God created the world in 6 literal days and on the 7th day he rested
Young Earth
Theologians, Pastors, and Apologists
Ken Ham – founder of Answers in Genesis and the Creation Museum/Ark Encounter, one of the most recognizable modern YEC leaders.
Henry Morris (1918–2006) – coauthor of The Genesis Flood (1961), considered the father of modern scientific creationism.
John C. Whitcomb (1924–2020) – coauthor of The Genesis Flood with Morris.
Kent Hovind – evangelist known for debates and videos promoting YEC (though controversial for legal issues).
Ray Comfort – evangelist and apologist who promotes YEC views through Living Waters.
John McArthur- Influential Pastor Grace Bible Church
Scientists and Apologists
Andrew Snelling – geologist with Answers in Genesis.
Jonathan Sarfati – chemist and author, associated with Creation Ministries International.
Kurt Wise – Harvard-trained paleontologist, outspoken YEC advocate.
Danny Faulkner – astronomer with Answers in Genesis.
Old Earth Theologians
Theologians, Pastors, and Apologists:
Augustine of Hippo (354–430) – while not “old earth” in the modern sense, he rejected a strict 24-hour view of Genesis “days” and saw them more figuratively.
B. B. Warfield (1851–1921) – Princeton theologian, co-developer of the doctrine of biblical inerrancy, open to evolution within God’s providence.
C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) – affirmed God as Creator but accepted much of modern science.
J. I. Packer (1926–2020) – respected theologian who leaned toward an old-earth reading of Genesis.
Norman Geisler (1932–2019) – apologist and theologian who defended an OEC perspective.
Scientists and Apologists:
Hugh Ross – astrophysicist, founder of Reasons to Believe, one of the most prominent OEC advocates today.
Francis Collins – geneticist, head of the Human Genome Project, founder of BioLogos. (He is more often categorized as theistic evolutionist, but he affirms an old earth and divine creation.)
John Lennox – Oxford mathematician and apologist, accepts an old earth while rejecting atheistic evolution.
Organizations that lean OEC:
Reasons to Believe (Hugh Ross’s ministry)
American Scientific Affiliation (broadly encourages harmony between science and faith, includes many OEC scientists)
Not everyone believed the earth was 6,000 years old
Plato & Atlantis:
Plato was the one who wrote about the mythical land of Atlantis. He lived in 360 BC and believed that Atlantis was 9,000 years before his time. Certainly in the ancient world there was already an ancient world belief
The word Day: Yom
God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
This is the first time that the word day is used in scripture and there are two meaning for it in the same verse
Day as in just the day light: 12 Hours
John 11:9: 9 Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Anyone who walks in the daytime will not stumble, for they see by this world’s light.[4]
The next area in scripture where there is critical difference of the word day is the seventh Day
By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
What do we notice about the seventh day that is different from every other day ?
God rests from creation activity but another day still bursts forth
The seventh day is known as the “eternal day”.
Why? “There is no evening and morning”
Now: All of this to say:
What if both things are true? What if the earth is a billion years old but it was created in six days?
Last week we read Genesis 1:1-2
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
And could the rest of the days be 24hour days as we know them?
Sure! Genesis 1:1-2 is an unspecified amount of time
Now Can we know any of this for sure?
No, We cannot know 100% for sure which is right.
But This does bring us to an incredibly important point and the point
Arguments evolve over centuries:
The writings of commentators build over centuries…This is why it is important to understand world history and how people have thought over the centuries
Ok that is the Rest of Genesis 1:1-2
Now lets finish the rest of Chapter 1
And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.
And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.
Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.
And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.
And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” 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. God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.
And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 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.
God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.
Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.
By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
let’s notice the 7’s
Something that you wouldn't be able to see becuase we read this in english is that
Verse 1 is 7 words
Verse 2 is 14 words that is 7+7
There are 7 days
7x the bible says God made
and there are 6 times that God says his creation is good and one time that he caps it off with a “Very Good”
Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary Number Systems and Number Symbolism
Thus seven came to symbolize completeness and perfection. God’s work of creation was both complete and perfect, and it was completed in seven days. All of mankind’s existence was related to God’s creative activity. The seven-day week reflected God’s first creative activity. The Sabbath was that day of rest following the workweek, reflective of God’s rest (
The Six Days of Creation:
A few things to notice:
And God Said: God speaks the world into existence. This is important because it is not a God that has to make something or who needs raw materials. This is a God who speaks and it comes to be
God is the God who’s words create worlds.
The Psalmist reflect in this and said
For he spoke, and it came to be;
he commanded, and it stood firm.
Day 1
Day 1
And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
The first remedy to a dark earth is light
“The divine word shatters the primal cosmic silence and signals the birth of a new cosmic order.”
Laster Jewish theologians would use this day to talk about how God spoke Israel into existence to be a light to the nations
Jesus would tell Jews and people who put their trust in him that they are the light of the world
The light is assumed to be God’s presence since it is not specifically stated what the source of light is Ps 104:2
The Lord wraps himself in light as with a garment;
he stretches out the heavens like a tent
The Apostle Paul used this verse to talk about the role of Christians in the world ‘
For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.
When God calls something good it signifies that he alone is the judge of all things
God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
God shows his superiority over night and day by naming them night and day;
Naming denotes superiority
Being the namer is an important position in the Hebrew mind, the one who names is both superior over and steward of or caretaker over.
God names creation, Man names the creatures. It defines the roles and the relationship of who is over what
Kennith Matthews on whether it was 6/24 hour days of creation or not
Genesis 1–11:26 (1) First Day of Creation (1:3–5)
If we keep in mind the colloquial use of the language, “day” cannot have its common meaning before the sun is created. The very expression “evening and morning” demands the planetary arrangement of our solar system that does not come into existence until the fourth day. On the other hand, “evening and morning” in a literal sense had figurative meaning for the Hebrew reader in Psalm 90, also attributed to Moses. God’s “day” (yôm) is as a thousand years, but human life is like daylight (yôm) that passes by or as a nightwatch, and youth gives way to old age like “evening” overtakes “morning” (90:4–6). Also the seventh day does not have the concluding refrain “evening and morning,” which suggests its continuation for some period and thus its nonliteral nature. Theological significance is attached to this feature by the writer to the Hebrews (4:1–3). As the climactic seventh day of the six-day series, it implies that all six days are nonliteral. The weight of the arguments favors a nonliteral “day,” but definitive answers to the meaning of “day” and the duration of creation remain elusive.
Day 2
Day 2
And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.
To separate water from water
There was water suspended above the sky
To the Hebrew mind, clouds pour fourth rain, It doesn’t mean there was somw kind of Dam suspended above people’s heads…>What is the water in the sky? Rain
In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.
God called the vault “sky” for the third time he names something and thus shows his superiority over it
This is the only thing he doesn’t call good
The Mystery of Day 2
The absence of God calling day two of creation "good" in Genesis 1 has been noted by various commentators. One article suggests that this omission is because nothing was created on the second day; only a division was made[1]. Another perspective proposes that the work of distinguishing the waters was only begun on the second day and completed on the third, thus the approval for both days is combined[2]. Some rabbinical sources offer additional explanations, including that the second day's work involved things not evident to human senses, or that the firmament (sky) created that day is not considered a permanent part of the universe[2]. Interestingly, one article mentions a mystical interpretation related to numbers, suggesting that the second day lacks approval because the number two is seen as imperfect, deviating from the unity of one[2]. Despite these various interpretations, it's important to note that the articles do not provide a definitive answer to the query, and the exact reason for this omission remains a subject of scholarly discussion.
[1] Ethelbert W. Bullinger, The Companion Bible: Being the Authorized Version of 1611 with the Structures and Notes, Critical, Explanatory and Suggestive and with 198 Appendixes, vol. 1 (Bellingham, WA: Faithlife, 2018), 3.
[2] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (London: Burns Oates & Washbourne, n.d.).
Day 3
Day 3
And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.
Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.
Kennith Matthews holds that God calling something good was delayed until the third day because final separation of the waters was achieved
Unlike the first two days of creation, the third day includes a second act of creation. After the appearance of the land masses, God creates vegetation upon the land
Genesis 1–11:26 (3) Third Day of Creation (1:9–13)
The vegetation is of two kinds, expressed in general categories: (1) plants producing seed and (2) fruit trees whose fruit possess seeds. Here is the first occurrence of the term “seed” (zeraʿ), which takes on all-important thematic-theological significance in Genesis (e.g., 3:15; 9:9; 12:7). It most often has the metaphorical meaning “offspring” and speaks of the children of an individual or family (e.g., 4:25). The motif of “seed” as family is joined by the recurring rubric tôlĕdôt (“generations”) and points toward the elective promises of God for all Israel through Abraham’s “seed” (e.g., 12:7; 15:5; 22:17–18). Here it is enough to observe that the “seed” of plants and fruit trees is inextricably associated with its “parent,” an assumption that is consequential for understanding the outworking of God’s covenant blessing for the appointed lineage.
Genesis 1–11:26 (3) Third Day of Creation (1:9–13)
The vegetation, like the waters, is given prescribed boundaries: they reproduce “according to their various kinds.” “Kind” (min) is used for broad categories of animals, birds, and fish (e.g., 1:21, 24–25; 6:20; 7:14). Any attempt to correlate “kind” with a modern term, such as “species,” is unwarranted, though the awareness of distinctive “kinds” is closer to a “scientific” description than is found in pagan cosmogonies. Just as “separations” are integral to creation, so are distinctions among living beings as indicated by their “kinds.” Creation and procreation according to “kind” indicates that God has established parameters for creation. But the term is never used of humanity, showing that we are a unique order of creation. Furthermore, ethnic distinctions are incidental to the commonality of the human family.
Day 4 gets a little crazy
Day 4 gets a little crazy
And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.
We should talk about this a little bit. What are sacred times? Festivals!
Festivals that wouldn’t happen until the passover, the feast of booths
The feast of weeks…etc...
All of the sacred festivals of the Old testament are part of the sacred times
The night lights have a governing or a ruling aspect…
A Commentary on the Book of Genesis: Part I, From Adam to Noah (Genesis I–VI 8) Fourth Paragraph the Story of the Fourth Day (1:14–19)
The luminaries were given three functions by the Divine command: (a) to separate day from night; (b) to be for signs and for seasons and for days and years; (c) to serve as luminaries and to give light upon the earth. In verses 17–18, all these functions are mentioned again, according to the recognized rule, in similar, but not completely identical, terms
Faithlife Study Bible Chapter 8
The prophets of Yahweh often condemned worship of the planets, the sun, the moon, and the stars (astral worship; see
One of the ways that we should understand the creation though is that the Hebrew people saw stars as angelic beings.
There is no sense of a scientific perspective of Stars in the Bible, no one is thinking about galaxies that are millions of light years away, They are thinking that these things move so they are living beings.
We have to remember that this is a people that have a supernatural world view and not a people who have the scientific method in mind
“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone—
while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy?
If you think this is crazy then what do we do about a story that we tell in church all the time
How you have fallen from heaven,
morning star, son of the dawn!
You have been cast down to the earth,
you who once laid low the nations!
You said in your heart,
“I will ascend to the heavens;
I will raise my throne
above the stars of God;
I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly,
on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon.
In essence, borrowing the language of
One last word about the sky creature idea: Let’s just say for a second that you are a hebrew slave in Egypt and you have this narrative in your head. That the sun moon and stars were created on Day 4 of creation. Why might that be important?
because in your narrative all of creation is subservant to the Lord….The creation is just that, a creation…not the creator!
In contrast to the Egyptian Sun god.
Day 5: Filling the Water
Day 5: Filling the Water
And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” 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. God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.
The Great creature of the sea (Tannin)! But before the fall the great creature of the sea is essentially obedient to the Lord
It was you who crushed the heads of Leviathan
and gave it as food to the creatures of the desert.
In that day,
the Lord will punish with his sword—
his fierce, great and powerful sword—
Leviathan the gliding serpent,
Leviathan the coiling serpent;
he will slay the monster of the sea.
In the rest of the Old Testament the Leviathan would come to represent these great evil kingdoms
The leviathan was seen as a forerunner to the serpent in chapter 2
God told this creation to be fruitful and increase in number
This is the first place we see being fruitful and increasing
There is nothing to fear in creation, whether it is in the heavens or below the earth, it is all good
And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 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.
God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.
The sixth day was not just reserved for humans…Wild animals and livestock were also made according to their kind.
Then God says let us make mankind in our image
Now there are competing ideas around what this means
Many people just explain this as trinity: And while Yes I do believe that God is triune and he is 3 in 1
The rest of the old testament seems to paint a different picture
we need to think about what we talked about last week about Psalm 82 and what is happening with God and other spiritual beings
The ancient idea of God is that God is the head of a divine council where a number of other Elohm serve God
And these other spiritual beings were present at creation: Remember back to a minute ago when we looked at Job 38:4-7 that the angels shouted for joy at creation!
Probably the more likely way of understanding Genesis 1:27 is that God was saying to the divine council, come let us make man in our image…
It is not to say that we are not the image of God, we are…It is not to say that we are created by the divine council, we are created by God, but somehow these other divine beings were either involved or present
Genesis 1–11:26 Excursus: Interpreting the “Image of God”
The language of 1:26 reflects this idea of a royal figure representing God as his appointed ruler
Psalm 8 seems to reflect this reality
What does the image of God do?
The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible Image or Imager?
1. Both men and women are equally included.
2. Divine image bearing is what makes humankind distinct from the rest of earthly creation (i.e., plants and animals). The text of
God blessed them and his blessing is that they fill the earth and subdue it.
It is to do the same creative work that God has been doing.
God had been filling the earth and taming the chaotic waters and now he looks to humans and he is like, here you go…you are made in my image…You go and do it now.
What they ate
Seed bearing plants & trees with fruit and seed
Animals got every green shrub for food
No one lived at the expense of one another
No chickens, no eggs
All that God made was very good
