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#Genesis 1 #BibleForBeginners #Bible #BibleStudy #KnowYourBible
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God has embedded multiple teaching tools in the Bible to help communicate His message. He wants to be understood, but He does not throw His pearls before swine (Mat 7:6). His gold and silver requires some digging, but treasure can be unearthed for those willing to look for it (Pro 2:1-6). All of the Bible’s teaching tools are introduced in the first chapter of Genesis, so that once learned, they can then be used to study the rest of the book. Three of the most common teaching tools are:

Plain meaning of the text. God’s Word means what it appears to mean, upon the simple reading of an accurately translated text.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Gen 1:1

Our universe is a product of special design by an intelligent Creator, and not a product of random chance.

And God saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. Gen 1:31

Since evening and morning occur in every 24-hour cycle of time, God completed His creation in six 24-hour days, and not six eons of time.

Hebrew paragraph divisions. God’s paragraph divisions, when He has concluded one topic and is ready to go on to the next, are present in the original Hebrew of the Scripture. These divisions have been preserved by the Hebrew scribes who faithfully copied every letter of the Bible without variation. They were discarded by the English translators, because admittedly, they sometimes do not make sense to human logic. But that is the point, God has divided His paragraphs the way He has because He is trying to teach us something we could not discover by human logic. Where the paragraph divisions aren’t are often just as telling as where they are.

There are two kinds – a weak division and a strong division. We mark the strong divisions with {p} since the Hebrew word for it begins with the ‘p’ sound. The strong division indicates a new topic.

Gen 1:1-31 Hebrew paragraph divisions

Gen 1:1-5 {p} First day of Creation: space, time, matter, energy (light)
Gen 1:6-8 {p} Second day of Creation: firmament of the heavens
Gen 1:9-13 {p} Third day of Creation: dry land, plant life
Gen 1:14-19 {p} Fourth day of Creation: lights in the firmament of the heavens
Gen 1:20-23 {p} Fifth day of Creation: birds, sea life
Gen 1:24-31 {p} Sixth day of Creation: animal life on land, man

The divisions highlight that the days of Creation are significant. This teaching tool is a second witness to a recent creation, for there are Hebrew words for other lengths of time, such as years or eons, if those units of time were meant. But God chose the Hebrew yom – “day” – the regular 24-hour day. A day as a unit of time, is one of the few that do not depend on the sun, moon, or stars for marking it. The 24-hour day is the time it takes for the earth to revolve on its axis one revolution; no sun or moon is needed.

Patterns and repetition. The Bible often establishes patterns in the narrative. The repetition draws our attention to the fact that it cannot be coincidence; therefore God is trying to make a point about something.

One of the first patterns in Gen 1 is the repeating phrase, “God saw that it was good.”

And God saw the light, that it was good … Gen 1:4, in the first day.

… and God saw that it was good. Gen 1:12, in the third day.

And God saw that it was good. Gen 1:18b, in the fourth day.

… and God saw that it was good. Gen 1:21b, in the fifth day.

And God saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was very good. Gen 1:31a, in the sixth day.

God marked every day “good,” that is, not characterized by disease, predation, or death. It is a completely opposite narrative to the one told by darwinism, that Creation happened through the agency of disease, predation, and death.

Sometimes the pattern previously established is broken, to draw attention to the break. The above pattern breaks in the second day, where God marks nothing good. The Hebrew scholars say it is because on the second day, an angel rebelled against God, earning his new name, “satan,” meaning adversary. We can read about the war in heaven begun on the second day, in Rev 12:7-9.

For questions about God and the Creation, these are good resources:

Answers about biblical creation – Answers in Genesis
https://answersingenesis.org/creation/

Evidence for Creation – Institute for Creation Research
http://www.icr.org/evidence

Evidence for the Fine-Tuning of the Universe – God and Science
http://www.godandscience.org/a....pologetics/designun.

The above is an excellent article; my only caveat is that I am not a universe is billions of years old girl. See Starlight and Time by Dr. D. Russell Humphreys for another, more Scriptural way to look at the question of age.
http://www.icr.org/article/sev....en-years-starlight-t

Intelligent Design – Discovery Institute
http://www.intelligentdesign.org/index.php

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