So, God 'let' the lights appear.  You recall that I said that the word 'let' means to allow something to happen.  I 'let' you out of the car.  I 'let' the dog out.

From Genesis 1:2 "And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep."  It was the earth that was void, dark, and without form--not the heavens.  There was water, and creatures in the water--we know this because of verse 20--which I will discuss later.

So when God said, "Let the lights appear," the heavens were now visible.  All the atmospheric junk around the earth that interfered with a clear view of the heavens was swept away.

When I began this blog, I said there were three words that I found interesting.  One was "Create".  One was "Let".   And the third was "Made," which can be best described as meaning to take something and do something else with it.   In Gen. 1:7,  God 'made' the firmament.  (Science says the firmament is still expanding.)

 Now we come to the second time that the word 'made' is used.  Verse 16-18. "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.  And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth.  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."  How long did this take?  Who knows.  It doesn't tell us.

This is the first time the moon is mentioned.  And when the moon began rotation around the earth, something strange took place.  Tides.  Tides change everything.  Life from the oceans--that was already there from when God created the heavens and the earth back in the first verse--can adapt to the changing tides.  Critters crawl onto the land more easily.

Remember, it was land-life that was destroyed.  Not sea-life.  Animals in the water have remained as they always were.  A million year old shark fossil looks like a shark today.  So do crickets.  Roaches. Crocodiles, etc.  Animals that could live in a dark wet place survived the end of the dinosaurs.

Genesis 1:14-15  "And God said, "Let" (there's that word 'let' again; remember, the word means to allow a process to occur.  It is not creative) 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; And "let" them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so."

There are three more verses on this subject of 'lights'. (vs. 16-18) This is the longest passage on any subject so far. Lights in the firmament.  The heavenly expanse.

I've always wondered why this was so important to God that he gave five verses on this subject and nothing on dinosaurs.  Or on the life forms in the water, or on what happened in the verses between vs. 1 and vs. 2.  But He didn't.

We are getting ready for man to appear in this story.  The lights in the firmament will speak to man concerning God.  Concerning creation, and Creator.

Psalms 19:1-3,  "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows his handwork.  Day unto day they utter speech, and night unto night they show knowledge.  There is no speech, nor language, where their voice is not heard."

Jesus said, "I am the light of the world..."

Also, "Let your light shine before men..."

Also, "Don't put your light under a basket..."

Remember, the reason I am going through this again is so that you can guide your children and grandchildren into a solid faith that the Biblical account of Genesis is accurate.  It is not a book of science, however, it meshes with known scientific facts perfectly.   Adam was the first man that held the breath of God, and all people since then have a "God space" within them that searches for meaning, for a supreme source.  Every tribe, every clan, every people that have been found has tried to worship something.  We know within ourselves that there is a Creator.  "...the invisible things of Him...are clearly seen...but they became vain in their imaginations...and changed the glory of...God into an image...to birds, and...beasts, and creeping things."  Rom.1:19-24  We make idols.

Jeremiah described a desolate earth in 4:23-26:  "I beheld the earth, and lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light,  I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly.  I beheld, and, lo, there was no man and all the birds of the heavens were fled.  I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the Lord, and by his fierce anger."

Had men been there?  If the cities were broken down,  someone must have built them.  Which implies that there were people before all this happened.  Birds fled.  Fruit no longer grew on trees.

Did this happen between Gen. l:1 and Gen. 1:2?   God doesn't tell us.  So there isn't much use in speculating.  Archeologists have found very old human bones.  How old?  Well, that depends on methods of dating--which are not very exact.  (More on this later.)  But certainly older than the Biblical account of Adam--if we trace the years of Jewish records.

As far as I am concerned, the story of Genesis begins when God starts over.  When the sun breaks through the darkness and light allows trees to grow, birds to fly--when "The earth brought 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." Gen. 1:12

Gen. 1:13  And the evening and the morning were the third day.

When you are on vacation, you meet some of the most interesting people.  Especially taxi cab drivers.  They come from all over the world to big cities such as Paris--to find a new life.  Some of them speak English.  Some don't understand anything you say.  But somehow, with hand signals, and street names, they get you where you are going.

I met a young man from Greece when I ordered a cheese and ham crepe at a walk in cafe.  He was so very pleasant.  I asked him if he was a Christian and he said, "Yes."  So we talked about his family and why he was in Paris.  And if he was staying or going back home to Greece.  Like most people of other nationalities, he was going to make some money and go back home.  I gave him my blog card, and he said he would read it.  Who knows.

But people don't go home again.  They stay.  It's too hard to make any money.

Becky's husband Craig always leaves a big tip when someone serves us and does a good job.  He believes in helping the working poor.  "They are trying.  We should help."  I think that is a good thing to do as well.  Not that we don't help all poor people,  but when someone is poor and working hard, they need a special lift.  There ought to be a reward for working hard.  Craig and Ken are the two most generous men I have known.  And they have always been that way.  Even back when they didn't have much to give.  Now that Ken is gone, it's all on Craig.  

God has blessed us.  We should do so for others.

I made it for ten days with one small bag.  The first time I went to Paris, I got everything in a backpack.  I am always amused--when we check in--at how many bags some people have.  Bags that they have to deal with as they get from one place to another.   Not me.  Two pairs of pants.  Four shirts.  Underwear, meds, and toothbrush.  Lipstick in my purse, etc., and I am good to go.  Becky always says you need two things.  Your meds and your passport.  I have never needed more than what I have taken.  Of course Becky goes overseas four times a year.  She has the rig-a-ma-role down.

I am going to finish the Genesis account starting tomorrow.

We always stay at the Grand Hotel Leveque on the Rue Cler.  This street is wonderful.  No cars.  Just food stands, crepe shops and everything you can imagine on three blocks.  It is different since Rick Steves found it.  Once he advertised it, it went more commercial.  But it is still wonderful.  Becky just happened to find it first, so the first few times we went, the street was filled with local people.

And of course, our friend Christophe met us at the entrance to the hotel with kisses and kisses.   On both cheeks.  I love it.  Every time I came in the door, I got kisses on the left cheek, then the right.  Then left and right all over again.  He is the sweetest man.  Becky goes to Paris so often that they have become good friends.  God gives us friends.  All kinds of friends.  They are the best part of life.

We all went out to dinner together one night and it was lovely. Christophe, his wife Carrine, (I bet I didn't spell her name right) and another lady that works at the hotel, Francoise.  French food is to die for.  That is, French food in a "real" French restaurant.

We had an incident on the return flight out of Paris.  We were revved up on the runway ready to take off when the pilot throttled back the engines and said, "We are returning to the gate."  It seems that a woman in the back of the plane was not cooperating with the no smoking rule and refused to comply. She said, "I'm on French soil.  I can smoke if I want to."  The flight attendant said, "You are on an American plane.  You will put it out."   Security couldn't get her to get out of her seat, so the French Police came aboard with their guns and forcibly removed her.  The flight attendant won.  And when everything was over, she came  back and laughingly said, "Anyone else back here want to cause any trouble?"  Everyone was clapping.

But it made us an hour late into D.C. and we only had sixty minutes to clear customs and make it a mile and a quarter to the next gate.  Becky put Carolyn and me in wheel chairs and the attendants raced us through the crowds.  We made it.  A little excitement never hurt anyone.

God is good.  But I can't help but remember when Ken got back to America after Viet Nam, he said: "God willing, I'll never leave home again."  I'm not sure I'm there quite yet.  But I'm close.  



 

The reason I have been re-posting the Genesis story from four years ago is because I have been out of the country and couldn't mess with taking my Mac.  So, I left three weeks of posts for Pat to send out for me.  Thank you Pat.

I just wanted to see Paris one more time.  First time I went was 28 years ago.  And three or four times in between those two times.  Well, I've seen it.  I don't plan to ever go to Paris again.  The slanted sidewalks and the cobblestone streets are too much for someone my age to walk on.  My friend Carolyn went with me and agrees.

I was amused at all of the old people who used two canes.  A short one for the high side of the sidewalk and a long one for the low side.  But they still had a hitch in their git-along.  I ended up wasting two days sleeping from jet lag (I had never had that problem before) and read two books.  I just couldn't work up the enthusiasm to go revisit the sights.  Way too much walking.  Too many stairs.   "Taxi" became my byword.  Whereas before, I took a bus or the Metro.  No problem.

But on two days, we took "field trips" on the train to see the tapestries of the Apocalypse at Anjou.  Woven in the 1300's depicting many scenes from the book of Revelation.  Very interesting.  Huge.  Around 786 feet wide by 20 feet high.  Ninety scenes, of which 71 survive.  Back then, nobody could read.  The Gutenberg press hadn't been invented, and so "Preaching" came in the form of the scenes of the Bible depicted in stained glass or tapestries.

One of the train trips was to see a number of huge castles.  Also, Leonardo da Vinci's home and inventions.  Interesting. Carolyn and I ate chocolate crepes while the others explored the castles.  Too much walking.  I'll have to watch those kind of things on TV on the Discover channel from now on.
It is humbling to admit that I can't do what I used to do.  It's also irritating.

When I returned, I learned that my two 18 inch Koi had bit the dust.  I had turned the pump off because it had turned cold, but while we were gone the weather turned miserably hot and they died.  I feel terrible about it.  I'm the girl that can hardly bring myself to kill a bug.  And I have to take full responsibility for what happened.  It makes me very sad.  The two small ones survived.  I'm sure God forgave me.  The fish didn't.

Genesis 1:11-12  And God said, 'Let' (there's that word again) the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding fruit after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and  God saw that it was good.  And the evening and the morning were the third day.

I've always thought this was such a provocative verse.  The seed that was in itself.  What does that mean?  Perhaps that each tree had fruit with the seed inside the fruit.  Or perhaps the earth brought forth seed that was in itself.  I personally think it was both.  I think some seeds survived those first destructions.  Perhaps in pockets that the waters didn't reach.  I don't know.  What I do know is that many plants--such as gingko trees--survived.  And new plants appeared.

It's probably time to say the word 'evolution'.

We are losing our wisdom teeth.  Some people are still born with four.  Some with two, and some with none.  Most people don't have room in their mouth for wisdom teeth.  We no longer 'gnaw' our food.  But this is 'natural selection'.  We don't really need wisdom teeth anymore.  Things change.  They 'evolve'.  But Darwin's theory of evolution is an entirely different ball of wax.

It used to be that if you had diabetes, you were doomed.  People died before they reproduced.  But then we found cures and treatments.  As  a result, diabetes is no longer rare.  People with a gene for certain types of diabetes now live to pass that gene on.  (Of course we are also 'naturally selecting' to overeat and get diabetes.

Four word combinations:  Natural Selection.  Evolution of a species.  Survival of the fittest.  And Darwin's Theory of  Evolution.  Just exactly what do we know is true?  Well, let's start with the Bible.  I believe it is the inerrant word of God.  Everything else has to fall in place with God's word.

The first three combinations happen.  Darwin's theory didn't.  That is now a known scientific fact.  So science is struggling to explain where we came from.  One current theory is outer space.  Anything to avoid saying that there is a Creator.  That there is a God.

 Jeremiah described a desolate earth in 4:23-26:  "I beheld the earth, and lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light,  I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly.  I beheld, and, lo, there was no man and all the birds of the heavens were fled.  I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the Lord, and by his fierce anger."

Is Jeremiah quoting Genesis 1:2.  It sounds like it.  It also sounds like God's anger prompted him to "Break down" the earth.

Had men been there?  If cities were broken down,  someone had built them.  Birds fled.  Fruit no longer grew on trees.  It sounds like there had been animals, trees, men, cities.  What does this mean?

Did this happen between Gen. l:1 and Gen. 1:2?   God doesn't tell us.  So there isn't much use in speculating.  Archeologists have found very old human bones.  How old?  Well, that depends on methods of dating--which are not very exact.  (More on this later.)

If we use the genealogy of the Biblical account, Adam would have been created around 6000 years ago.  At most 10,000.  But....this is much younger than the carbon dating on human bones that have been uncovered.  Is there a contradiction?  Personally I don't think so.  I will try to simplify all this as we progress through the Biblical account.

As far as I am concerned, the story of Genesis begins when God starts over.  When the sun breaks through the darkness and light allows trees to grow, birds to fly--when "The earth brought forth grass, the herb yielding seed and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: (it was already there--waiting on God to do whatever he was going to do), and it was so." Gen. 1:12

Gen. 1:13  "And the evening and the morning were the third day."

When I used to drive back and forth to the college where I taught, (55 miles each way, every day, 110 miles a day for almost 20 years), I drove in rain sleet, snow and fog.  The fog was the worst.  You couldn't see at all.  I would get behind a semi and drive by his tail lights praying that the person driving the semi could see the road ahead of him.  It gave new meaning to the phrase, "I'm in a fog."  It was so dense on those October mornings that I literally could stretch out my arm and not be able to see my fingers.

Fog?  Maybe God was separating something like that when he separated 'the waters from the waters.'  The world was in a fog?  I don't know.  All we know is that the waters had to be separated.

Some animals that were left behind--and lived through a great destruction, (between vs. 1 and vs. 2 perhaps.)  They probably couldn't see very far, but had a keen sense of smell to seek prey.  They were meat eaters.  But plants, for the most part, were vanishing for lack of sunlight--causing a huge disruption in the food chain.  Plant eating animals began to die out.  Perhaps those meat eating animals (that ate the plant eaters) began to eat each other.  Who knows.  Domino effect.  Extinction happened rapidly.  Millions of species were lost.  But not those that could live in water.

Vegetation had to be types that were able to live without the sun.  Some plants lived. Certain types lived under water.  In the fossil record there are a lot of ferns.  Plants that lived in murky conditions.

So.  Land appears.  The sun is out.  The fog is gone.  The atmosphere is cleared of ash and perhaps  debris.  Think of the Oklahoma dust bowl as thick as dense fog.  The earth was blacked out in the dust bowl.  People who were in the field couldn't find their way back to the houses.

Genesis 1:9-10  "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.  And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas:  And God saw that it was good.

God is preparing something.  Something different is happening.  Very different than what was before.

You recall that I told you there were three words that I found interesting in the first chapter of Genesis.  The third word  that I talked about is the word "made".

This word is a little bit different from 'create' and 'let.'  It means to take something that is already there and 'make' something from it.  i.e.: I made my daughter a dress.  I didn't make the fabric.  I didn't make the thread, the pattern, the buttons, the lace, etc.,  I just took those things, and made something else.  Something new.  Something different.

God 'made' the firmament...out of what was already there.  The waters settled, the fog went away, the air cleared.  You could see the blue sky.

Genesis 1:8-10 "And God called the firmament Heaven.  And the evening and the morning were the second day.  And God said,  'Let' (there is that word again) the waters under the heaven be gathered together into one place, and 'let' the dry land appear: and it was so."

Upheaval.

Mountains are pushed up from the bottom of the water.  Land masses are shaking.  Continents shifting.  Always moving.  Always changing.  God put it in motion.  It is a continual process that still is going on today.

Our world has never been static.  It is always rearranging itself.  And God is the rearranger.  He is still God.  We can see his work in the past through fossils.  We can see his work in the skies through a telescope.  He is the Creator.

In the beginning......God.  He was.  He is.  And He always shall be.

Genesis  1:6-8

"And God said,  Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.  (Notice that the scripture uses the word "let" twice.  God isn't creating anything; he's just rearranging things.  Allowing things to happen.)

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.  And God called the firmament Heaven.  And the evening and morning were the second day."

This seems to indicate that not only was it dark, and void, and without form--but that it was a wet murky mess.  Exactly the atmosphere for some animals to survive in, and for others to die out.

Fish would have been just fine.  Fossil history includes many many species of fish as far back as you want to go.  They don't really change all that much over the millennium.  They just keep looking like fish.  Their differences are small, different perhaps, but fish just the same.

There are many animals that survived whatever happened between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2.  We have their bones.  We have their fossils.  This is why I believe that there was most probably a "gap."  There was a period after the dinosauric age in which water life continued, but in which most forms of land life died out.  Note that I said "most."

I think it is probable that a gap occurred between verse one and two.  But this is a just a theory--the gap theory.  Many scientists who are Christians concur.  It fits the scientific evidence of the dinosaurs.

The world is entering a new stage.  It is being prepared for new kinds of animals.

As the sunlight cut through the atmospheric dust and ash, we read:

Genesis 1:3-5  "And God said, Let there be light, and there 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 morning were the first day."

Sunlight, and darkness.  That means there was rotation.  Did rotation begin before this moment?  Did the earth rotate in twenty-four hours?  The Bible doesn't say.  Don't get into an argument about how fast, or how slow rotation was.  It was simply rotation.  There was night, and there was day.

Catastrophic events on earth can change the rotation and tilt of the earth.  We have seen that happen a number of times when volcanos and earthquakes occur.  A recent earthquake in South America affected rotation and the "time" it takes for a rotation.

Think what an asteroid would do.

Where were the North and South poles?  There is adequate evidence that our even our North and South poles have shifted.

But rotation settled in, and earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanos changed the topography of the world.

The dinosauric age came to an abrupt halt.  They began to die out.  I just bought a child's book on the "Wonderful world of Dinosaurs" by Disney that gives a great overview of the different kinds, categories, and a general time line of the dinosaurs.

There is also a section on a giant asteroid impact that says that dust and ash shot into the atmosphere worldwide and blocked sunlight.  The impact would have caused earthquakes, tsunamis and acid rain.  Scientists today think that is what happened.

I'm through with all that.  Simply wanted you to know about the "blocked sunlight", because that brings us to the second word I told you that I was interested in.  "Let."

Genesis 1:2  "And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness (blocked sunlight) was on the face of the deep.  And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters."
Genesis 1:3 "And God said, Let..."

I take this word to be very different from "create".  You recall I said that 'create' meant to make something where nothing had been before.  Something entirely new.  But "let", put simply, means to allow something to happen.  For instance, "I'm going to stop at the corner and let you out of the car."   Nothing is created.  Someone is in control of the car.  They stop, open the door, and you get out.  They "let" you out.

Genesis 1:3  "And God said, let there be light: and there was light."   He didn't have to create it, he did that back in Genesis 1:1  The only thing God had to do was restore it.  Let sunlight pierce the darkness.

Here's what I think may have happened.  In the beginning, God created everything just like he wanted it.  It wasn't void; it wasn't empty;  it wasn't dark.  We know for a fact that there were animals.  Some looked strange in terms of what we think an animal should look like.  But in reality, we have some strange looking animals living today.

Some animals survived whatever partially destroyed the world between Genesis1:1 and 1:2.  Great forces picked many animals up and washed them into heaps.  Dirt settled and encapsulated them for us to dig up years and years later.  Great floods washed trees from one part of the earth to another.  Some of them were petrified.  One on top of the other for miles and miles.

But most of the animals that survived lived in water or in murky marshes.  They survived in a dark, void environment.  Those land animals that ate plants lost their source of food and began to die.  Which caused the food chain to begin to deteriorate.

What would cause such darkness?  Volcano eruptions that spewed ash?  Fire?  Whatever it was, when you couple an Asteroid  impact with anything else, it would be like trying to walk across a room with a shallow saucer of water without spilling it.  Slish, slosh.

Jeremiah 4:23-27 "I beheld the earth, and lo, in was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light...the mountains...trembled and all the hills moved lightly...there was no man and all the birds of the heavens were fled.  I beheld, and lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness and all the cities thereof were broken down..."

Very similar to Gen. 1:2.  But this account tells that there were men, birds, mountains, fruit, cities.  Is Jeremiah talking about what happened between Gen. 1:1 and 1:2?

The earth is covered with clues.  Asteroids in the Gulf of Mexico and Northern Russia.  Fossils.  Archaeological artifacts.  Floods.  Volcanos.  Changes in polar magnetism.  The list goes on.  The earth has been under assault for millions of years   Years counted in days.  Days counted as one rotation.  Which may not have been 24 hours.  It could have been longer or shorter.  Genesis doesn't tell us.

I believe there is no error in the book of Genesis.  The more fossils that are found, the more archaeological artifacts that are found, the stronger my conviction.

The past is recorded in the ice in the Arctic.  Huge plugs are pulled from the ice and the yearly layers look like stripes on a popsicle.  Volcanos erupt, soot fills the atmosphere and dribbles down on the ice which holds the record like a diary.  The earth reveals its secrets.  The layers can be counted in years. Volcanic eruptions from thousands of years ago can be dated.

Fossils found in the highest mountains tell us that those mountains were once a seabed. The fossils tell us of creatures that existed "once upon a time".  They were alive.  Now they are gone.

But something interesting is held in these records.  A cricket 'then' looks like a cricket now.  A shark 'then' is recognizable as a shark now.  A fly preserved in a drop of amber looks like a fly today. The list goes on.  And another interesting fact: creatures once declared extinct show up alive in our ocean depths.  It so happens that they weren't extinct after all.

So "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."  I believe he did.  How?  I don't know.  When?  I don't know.  (Certainly a long time ago.  Which some religious groups think is heresy.)  Where?  I don't know  Why?  I don't know.  But I believe in creation.  I believe in a supernatural designer.

What?  Well, that is where the controversy begins with people who take different sides of the three possibilities.  1. God, 2. Accidental event from nowhere and nothing.  3. Alien invasion

In the first group--those who believe in God--the question concerning what happened next is not agreed upon.  You can't know what Genesis doesn't say.  There are many speculations which is another story.  Let me say that I, after much study and much zoological, mathematical and chemical pondering, believe in dinosaurs (duh) and that there were probably  millions of years between verse one and verse two.  This theory is sometimes referred to as the "Gap Theory".  I definitely believe there was a gap because in verse two we find something terrible has occurred.

Genesis 1:2a   "And the earth was without form, and void;  and darkness was upon the face of the deep.

This doesn't sound like a creative work to me.

So what happened?

I don't believe that something came from nothing.   The only other possibility is that something came from something.  We were created.  The question is how.  There are two possibilities unless you believe we came from space.   (Mercy.  ET call home.)

1. God did it
2. Somehow we evolved from a spark of nitrogen that mixed with some oxygen and other stuff (that supposedly came from the same place the nitrogen did) and created a cell. This cell divided?  The science is iffy here.  But eventually enough cells hung together to make a worm.  The next step was the acquisition of a spine so a little wormy creature called the amphyoxis (probably spelled wrong) got a gelatin type of cartelidge down its back...and so on...until we got humans.  This is a very short synopsis of a tiny part of Darwin's Theory of Evolution.  The only problem is that something still had to come from something.  Well, no, that's not the only problem.

Which brings me to the first word:  "Create"

I don't really consider myself a Bible scholar.  But when I started checking on this word "create" I found that it was used three times in the first Chapter of Genesis and once more that I could find.  (If you find a Hebrew reference for other places, let me know.)

This word means "Do (design) something completely unique."
Genesis 1:1  The heaven and earth
Genesis 1:21  Great whales, creatures that move, birds
Genesis 1:27 Man
Psalm 51:10 A new heart  (David cried out to his God to let him start over.  Let him be clean again.)

Obviously, I believe in God.

There is a Creator.  Something didn't come from nothing.  There was a beginning.  Something was there before the moment of the beginning of our world.

"In the beginning, God...."  He was there.

"...created..."

There are three words in the first chapter of Genesis that hold my interest.

The first word is 'created'.

The second is 'made'.

The third is 'let'.

Scientists want to  find out when the 'big bang' occurred.   What ever you want to call it, it was the beginning.  When did it happen?  Where did it happen?  Who can say.  But how it happened, well that's another story.  The existence of a Creator is evident.  All of this came from somewhere--and I for one will never believe that it all came from nothing.  I believe it was "In the beginning, God..."

Why defend "Genesis"?  Well, there are three major points on which the world will challenge your faith.  There are other points,  but these are the 'biggies'.
   1.  The Virgin birth of Jesus
   2.  The resurrection of Christ
   3.  The Biblical story of creation

I will leave the Virgin birth up to scholars who are certainly smarter than I am.  But it always seemed to me that the major evidence on the subject was Joseph's acceptance of this truth.  God spoke to him through a messenger, an angel.  In their culture, under the circumstances, she would have been "put away".  But Joseph embraced her.  He married her.  He raised her child.  He helped her flee to Egypt to keep her child from being killed.

The resurrection of Christ, on the other hand, is one of the most magnificent historical events that was ever recorded by man.  Witnessed by thousands.  Not just Christians, but documented by others as well.     When Christ died, the disciples went back to the same lives that they had lived before they met Jesus.  But something happened that changed them all.  So dramatic that they gave up their lives to carry the story to the world.  And died in the process.  They didn't do this as a group;  they each one died alone.  You don't ever have to apologize for believing in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  It happened.

The creation story, however, is under siege.  'They' think you are stupid if you believe it.  Like I said when I started this blog,  I went to college to find out just exactly what the scientific world knew.  I wanted to know the truth.  Once I started taking classes, I just couldn't stop.  I read everything I could get my hands on.  And my faith in this book called "Genesis"was strengthened with every class I took.

The ultimate question is whether there is a "God" or not.

If you say no, then you have to explain all this stuff around us.  Where did it come from.  Dirt, trees, bugs, and more precisely, humans--yourself. It poses a dilemma.   The last I heard, Stephen Hawking (the smart guy in the wheelchair with Lou Gehrig's disease) is trying to prove that something can come from nothing.  It seems like a last ditch effort to avoid admitting there is another "something" that created all this.

If you say yes, then you must make a decision about this God.  Is he 'good'.  Is he 'evil'.

If he is evil, well, there you go.  You have to find a way to appease him.  Like they did in some of the cultures of the past.  Sacrifice babies, cut off people's heads, build the Tower of Bable.

If he is good, now that's another story.  Questions arise:  why, when,  how...  Why make humans?  When did he do it?  How was it done?  And does he want to communicate with us?  And where would you find an answer to such questions?

There are old,  old documents that address this subject.  Collected by the Jews.  One of the documents is called "Genesis".  The collection is called the "Old Testament".

"In the beginning...".  That's how it starts.

I have written nine-hundred and eighty three days since I began doing this.  A large number of you have joined me lately, so I think I will repost a couple of the entries that I made back when I began.

I was interested in the book of Genesis, because young people were going to high school and college and being ridiculed for believing the creation story.  I wanted to explain how science and scripture fit together.

I wanted to reassure them that the Bible is true from cover to cover and that there is no error in it.  And like I said a week ago, if you find conflict, either you don't know enough Bible, or you don't know enough science.

Since I am a zoologist, and a mathematician, it was like putting a puzzle together for me.  Meshing science and scripture in perfect accord.

Maybe this will give you help with your children, grandchildren, or anyone else who questions the Biblical creation story.  Hope so.