And Light Is

And God saith, `Let light be;' and light is.
Genesis 1.3 Young’s Literal Translation

Wow! I like this translation.

Early Genesis is not the only ancient creation story. As discovered in the mid 1800s, other cultures of the Ancient Near East had their own renditions of how our world came to be, the Egyptians, Sumerians, and most notably the Babylonians with their Enuma Elish. Because of fascinating similarities with Genesis 1, when Enuma Elish first came to light, theories abounded that the biblical author had copied from or was at least influenced by it and the other stories from older traditions.

More recently scholarship has focused on the remarkable differences. The Hebrew story breaks radically from the understanding of other cultures. In Enuma Elish there are many gods, and the world is formed as a direct result of their conflict with each other. In Genesis, there is one God. No conflict. His power is such that he can create light with only is word. Let there be light and light is. So be it!

If you’d like further reading on the similarities and differences between Genesis 1 and Enuma Elish, see this article by Peter Enns.
http://biologos.org/blogs/archive/genesis-1-and-a-babylonian-creation-story

Sources

It's time for a disclaimer. I make no assertion of any expertise whatsoever on the topic of early Genesis and the origins of the universe, origins of our world, origins of life, origins of humanity. I am not a primary source. But I have become interested in the topic and been reading and listening to those who do have some expertise, both scientists and Bible scholars and some who are both. Of course, there is no consensus.

Beloved author, lecturer, church watcher and founding author of the religion department at Publishers Weekly, Phyllis Tickle says, quite seriously, that one shouldn't go into the pastorate today without having a degree in physics.

Here are some of the things I've been reading.

By John C Lennox, Professor of Mathmatics at Oxford: Seven Days that Divide the World, lectures on the internet
By John H Walton, OT scholar at Wheaton: The Lost World of Scripture, The Lost World of Genesis One, lectures on the internet, lecture in Urbana
By Robin A. Parry: The Biblical Cosmos: A Pilgrims Guide to the Weird and Wonderful World of the Bible
By Henri Blocher, Professor of Theology at Faculte Libre de Theologie Evangelique, France: In the Beginning: The Opening Chapters of Genesis
By Francis S. Collins, geneticist and head of the Human Genome Protect: The Language of God
By Johnny Miler, professor emeritus at Columbia International University, and John Soden, author: In the Beginning. . . We Misunderstood
By Christine Hayes, Professor of Religious Studies, Yale: Introduction to the Old Testament, online Open Yale course
By Bruce Fouke, Professor in Geology, Microbiology, and the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, at UIUC: The Emergence of Life--Osher Lifelong Learning course
By Peter Enns, Professor of Biblical Studies at Eastern University: The Bible Tells Me So
The Jewish Study Bible

Brooding God

and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. NIV

What a fascinating picture: dark mysterious waters covering our planet and the Spirit of God hovering over them. Some translations say brooding, fluttering, moving.

The Message translates it this way:

Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness. God’s Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss.

I wonder if God was seeing everything that would come from this watery abyss if he invested in taming it: first the disobedience, then the subsequent suffering, loss, hunger, betrayal, addiction, disease, greed, despair, fear, war. Could he see all that as he brooded over the waters? If so, he must have been able to see the love, companionship, sacrifice, giving, poetry, joy, and beauty as well. Apparently he decided making our world was worth the cost.

tohu wabohu

The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep. . . . NIV

Traditionally translated formless and void, the Hebrew is tohu wabohu. Some scholars further interpret the meaning as hostile to habitation. Wheaton College text professor John Walton emphasizes that it’s non-functional. The earth is here, but covered with primeval waters it serves no purpose. Other creation stories from the Ancient Near East also begin with these dark waters. They are the non-functional chaos out of which God will bring order and set up a habitation for the creatures soon to be made in his image.

How old is the earth?

Genesis 1

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1.1 NIV

Although long familiar with this profound assertion, I am recently reading it with new attention and awareness. For one thing, I had assumed it was part of the first day of the six days of creation. Not so, points out Oxford mathematics professor John Lennox. His evidence from the text: a careful look at Genesis 1 noting the chapter divisions into six days all of which begin with “And God said;” all of which end with “And there was evening, and there was morning—the [first/second/third/fourth/fifth/sixth] day.” NIV These repetitive patterns are not uncommon in Hebrew.

Observe that the “And God said” for day one begins in verse 3, not verse 1. This puts verse 1, God’s creation of the heavens and the earth, outside of the six days of creation week—previous to those days. It could have been immediately before; it could have been eons before, maybe even 4,500,000,000 years, or more, before. Thus, says Lennox, the Bible makes no claim as to the age of the earth. Very interesting.

Oops. Out of Order with Genesis 4

NIV Gen 4.1 - 6

Adam made love to (1984 lay with, KJV knew) his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said, “With the help of the LORD I have brought forth a man.” 2 Later she gave birth to his brother Abel.
Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. 3 In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the LORD. 4 And Abel also brought an offering—fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering,5 but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.
6 Then the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? 7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? ... .”

v1 Adam lay with his wife Eve. New NIV translation of made love to seems weird to me here.

Q Where did this happen?
A? Hebrew Bible (JSB) reports one scholar saying knew could be read had known, as in it happened earlier, before the fall, in the Garden of Eden. This could mean that we weren’t all "conceived in sin" tho, and apparently this interp doesn’t have much support. Can't buy it.

Q But if Eve didn't get pregnant until they were ousted from the garden, I've gotta wonder why. If God meant them to re-create, why wasn't it happening in the garden before they sinned?
A? Maybe they sinned on their very first day together. That would be discouraging, tho not surprising.

v1 Observation: Even with the curse on childbirth, Eve acknowledges that God helps her through it. The word help is in both NIV and JSB, but Young’s Literal says: “I have gotten a man by Jehovah.” This one sounds like an immaculate conception! So I'm rejecting this conjecture too.

Q v4 Is this judgement capricious of God since we see no prior instruction of expectations to the young men?
A? Hebrews 11:4 clarifies that Able gave by faith.
A? JSB points out that Able gave “the choicest of the firstlings;” whereas Cain gave “the fruit of the soil.”
So JSB sees it as Able gave the best and Cain gave only, meh, whatever was available.
But that's not ringing true to me. Cain was so upset that I think he must have put a lot into his offering.

Q v6 God asks Cain why he is distressed. “If you do right, you’ll be accepted.” How is Cain to know what is right? There is no mention of faith as criteria.
A? Cain, like (or from) his parents, would have had the knowledge of good and evil.
He would have had a conscience, correct?

Q v6 Why was giving the best of the flock right while the fruit of the ground was unacceptable?
A? Because Adam, made from dust, was fruit of the ground?
NO. Tho Adam was made up from the dust of the ground, he, unlike vegetation & other animals, was special creation, not produced by ground.
(Gen 1.11 & 12 “The land/earth produces/brings forth vegetation.” Combo NIV & JSB; Gen 1.24 “Let the land produce living creatures.” NIV; Gen 1.24 “Let the earth bring forth every kind of living creature.” JSB BUt God created man in his own image. Gen 1.27)

A? Because the ground was cursed?
Cain’s gift came from the cursed ground! Maybe a reminder of sin? Maybe.

A? Because Cain’s gift came as a result of Cain’s own work to overcome the curse?
Cain worked to produce an acceptable gift; Whereas Able just accepted and returned what came from God.
Able kept flocks while Cain worked the soil (v 2).
There’s more work to working than to keeping, right? Able just had to sit back and watch the animals, by God’s providence, multiply. Then he chose the best and gave it back to God as sacrifice.
God did what was necessary, and Able, by faith, accepted that.
Now that seems more reasonable to me.

Election Judge Experience

My neck is stiff; my mouth is dry from talking; and I’ve never sat in the same chair for so long. But I’m having a good time. It’s November 4, my first day to serve as an election judge.

After signing up for the job, my first surprise was the requirement of a four-hour training. Why would anyone need four hours of training to mark names off a list and point to a booth? I was soon to find out.

Turns out that helping with an election is not so simple. For one thing, the helpers set up and tear down the polling place—a complicated process involving laptops, wifi hot spot, privacy booths, signs, Voter Assistance Terminal, ballot box/tabulator, ballots, affidavits, and on and on. Secondly, they have to know what to do with all these things on Election Day. It’s quite a process, well managed by Rose Redmon and Matthew Grandone.

With the number of details to be covered there was a high potential of the training being a bore. It was not. The young man who taught, Matt, was articulate and animated. The morning passed easily as he led with demonstrations and instructions, all recorded for us in a manual of over sixty pages. The reply to one participant’s question was something like, “you’re judges. Use your good judgment.” This was when I realized the responsibility of the position.

The five judges of Precinct 37 met each other when we arrived for set up at 9:00 Monday night. We worked together through the carefully detailed instructions, one of us reading each step aloud, the others enacting. “Use the black key from the clear pouch in the second section of the red binder to unlock flap #2 of the ballot box and place in the DOWN position.” Right! (Or something like that.) We set up computers, machines, and booths. Fortunately one of us was computer savvy. After an hour we came to the page in the instruction manual which says: STOP. Everything else was to be done election day.

After a short night’s sleep, we arrived in the rain at 5 the next morning. First on the agenda was taking the judges of election oath. We then verified that we were in the right place with the correct ballots for that precinct. We finished setting up and at exactly 6:00 unlocked the front doors.

Except for an occasional ten-minute break, a steady stream of people flowed past our tables from 6 a.m. until 7 p.m. Sometimes they had to wait in line. Our team of five worked together well and enjoyed the camaraderie. After the first morning rush, my opposite-party partner and I hit our stride: find name in the data base; check the two signatures; give brief instruction while handing out the correct ballot. Over 80% of the time it was simple.

Slowdowns came when someone wasn’t in the system or had moved or changed a name. In such cases the voter might need to fill out an affidavit, or we might need to call the Election Judge Hotline. At that point most people could vote provisionally or go to the Brookens Center to correct his or her information and vote there.