Genesis 1 and 2 ~ Creation

[Laura798]

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• Gen 1:9 . . 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.

At this point, dry land as yet had no soil because at first it would've been
bare rock; and there's not only a lot of it, but quite a bit of it is very scenic
too.

One of my favorite geological wonders is Arches National Park in Utah USA,
and another is Canyon Lands National Park, also in Utah. Some very smart
people have yet to figure out how nature formed the amazing features in
those areas; but I guessing that God, the most skillful painter/sculptor that
there is, did it because He wanted to leave His mark on the Earth by creating
something spectacular.

"He set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be moved. You
covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the
mountains. At your rebuke they fled; at the sound of your thunder they took
to flight. The mountains rose, the valleys sank down to the place that you
appointed for them. You set a boundary that they may not pass, so that they
might not again cover the earth." (Ps 104:5-9)

That passage is stunning; and clearly way ahead of its time. Mountains
rising, and valleys sinking speaks of magma pressure and tectonic plate
subduction-- on-going titanic forces that keep the Earth's surface in a
perpetual state of alteration.

Now, it's right about here that young-earth theorists have a problem
because it's obvious from physical evidence that much of the Earth's higher
elevations were inundated for a very long time before they were pushed up
to where they are now.

Take for example Mount Everest. Today its tippy top is something like
29,029 feet above sea level. The discovery of fossilized sea lilies near its
summit proves that the Himalayan land mass has not always been
mountainous; but at one time was the floor of an ancient sea bed. This is
confirmed by the "yellow band" below Everest's summit consisting of
limestone: a type of rock made from calcite sediments containing the
skeletal remains of countless trillions of organisms who lived, not on dry
land, rather, underwater in an ocean.

Anyway; soil formation is a very slow process, sometimes taking as long as
a millennium to make just one inch; which at first would consist of little
more than powdered rock. In order for soil to become really productive, it
needs organic material mixed with it. So it's my guess that the very first
vegetation that God created were species that thrive on stone, and little by
little their remains would amend the powder to increase its fertility.

Some of the lyrics of one of AC/DC's songs says: "It's a long way to the top
if you wanna rock 'n roll". Well, it was an even longer ways to the soil from
which human life was eventually brought into viable existence.

• Gen 1:10 . . And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together
of the waters He called Seas: and God saw that it was good.

"good" meaning not that the dry ground and seas are morally acceptable,
but rather, perfectly suitable for the purposes that God had in mind for
them.

NOTE: There are Hebrew words in the Bible for marshes, rivers, and
streams; but I've yet to encounter one for lakes and ponds. In other words
"seas" suffices not only for oceans; but also for smaller accumulations. (A
rather curious sea is located at 1Kings 7:23-26)
_

Hi Webers,

I'm just now looking at this forum so not sure exactly where you stand, but Genesis says this is an 'account' of Creation. It is laid out as an account in simple terms so that even a child would be able to understand it. You mentioned the arches in Utah--those were created by the worldwide flood just as The grand canyon was--we see a myriad of creatures encased in sediment--this is only possible if it happened quickly--otherwise the would rot--the even have fossils which show creatures being birthed. Genesis says God created the world in six days and I believe it--we need to remember God spoke it into being--also he spoke it into being 'outside of time'--therefore time is irrelevant. Six days is how we would have observed it had we been there on the first day. It's difficult to wrap our minds around since we live inside of time.

Also you mentioned something about the sea and mountains--i can't view at the moment, but it sounds like you think it would take a great length of time to occur, however scripture says that 'mountains rose up and valleys sunk down' this is noted in Psalms and elsewhere--this also occurred during the world wide flood when water burst forth from under the ground from tectonic shifts. This article explains it better than I can.

If continental separation did occur, the only place within the Bible framework where it could fit would be during Noah's Flood. The cause of Noah's Flood is described in tectonic terms: "all the fountains of the great deep broken up" (Genesis 7:11). The Hebrew word for "broken up" is baga and is used in other Old Testament passages (Zechariah 14:4; Numbers 16:31) to refer to the geologic phenomena of faulting. The mechanism for retreat of the Flood waters is also associated with tectonics. Psalm 104:6,7 describes the abating of the waters which stood above the mountains; the eighth verse properly translated says, "The mountains rose up; the valleys sank down." It is interesting to note that the "mountains of Ararat" (Genesis 8:4), the resting place of the Ark after the 150th day of the Flood, are in a tectonically active region at the junction of three lithospheric plates.11

https://www.icr.org/article/continental-drift-plate-tectonics-bible/

 

[Webers.Home]

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• Gen 1:26a . . And God said: Let us make Man in our image, after our
likeness.

The introduction of the plural personal pronouns "us" and "our" into the
narrative at this point has given rise to some interesting speculation
regarding the identities of the antecedents.

The Hebrew word translated "Man" is 'adam (aw-dawm') which, in this case,
simply refers to human life; i.e. humanity. It's actually a specie name rather
than a proper name.

According to Gen 5:3 and Heb 1:1-3, image and likeness basically refers to
progeny, i.e. offspring.

Natural children are born in that position. But Man wasn't born from God--
i.e. via procreation --rather, Man was created, viz: Man exists as God's
handiwork, sort of like how Geppetto made for himself a little wooden son
named Pinocchio.

Now, Geppetto and Pinocchio both look human, though one is for real and
the other a doll. But Man's creator isn't human, nor does He look human.
God is spirit whereas Man is physical, and God is eternal whereas Man is
temporal, and God is self-sustaining whereas Man requires sustenance. So
we have to be careful to keep the progeny aspect within reason.

It's likely best to reckon that the creator endowed Man with His image and
likeness rather than Man inheriting the status as a child born in the home.

As God's kin, humans have a status far and away above the status of every
other form of life on Earth.

• Gen 1:26b . . let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air,
over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move
along the ground.

Humanity's sovereignty, power, and control over nature is primarily where
we find the exercise of its image and likeness of God; in other words: Man
does not answer to nature-- just the opposite --nature answers to Man. (Ps
8:4-8)

The word for "rule" is from radah (raw-daw') and means: to tread down, i.e.
subjugate; specifically: to crumble off.

I saw a pretty interesting bumper sticker some time ago that went like this:

We Are Not Above The Earth;
We Are of the Earth.

Well . . I respect Native America's cultural sentiment underlying that
statement; and must admit that I agree with it to a certain extent. But the
creator decreed that though Man is of the earth; he is very definitely above
it too, and has the God-given authority to subjugate every living thing on
the planet including its forests, its grasses, its rivers, its seas, its soil, its
rocks, its air, its minerals, its mountains, its valleys, and even its tectonic
plates and the earth's very atmosphere itself. According to Heb 2:8,
humanity is on track to dominate even more.
_

 

[Webers.Home]

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• Gen 1:27 . . So God created man in His own image, in the image of God
He created him; male and female He created them.

It's okay to pity people who refuse to be identified by their gender and
prefer to be known as non binary, i.e. as neither male nor female. But there
is no just no way on God's green earth that Bible-believing Christians should
ever be supportive of the non binary movement because the image and
likeness of God finds its completeness in distinct male and female gender
identities.

There's a term for people who believe themselves to be someone and/or
something other than what and/or who they really are. I think it might be
called Dissociative Disorder. There was a time when society confined people
with those kinds of conditions to psychiatric facilities for observation and
therapy, but nowadays political correctness requires that they be "included".
But God-honoring Christian churches dare not accept into their membership
someone known to identify themselves as non binary.

"See to it that no one misses the grace of God, and that no bitter root grows
up to cause trouble and defile many." (Heb 12:15)

A bitter root is one belonging to a species unfit for human consumption.
When you find noxious vegetation sprouting in your garden, you've got to
get out there with a hoe and dig that stuff up before it spreads out of
control.

NOTE: The pronoun "them" in Gen 1:27 is a bit ambiguous. It can refer to
the first couple; but it can just as easily refer to the human species in total.
In other words: Gen 1:26-27 speaks of all of us; and by extension, so does
Gen 2:16-17 because according to Acts 17:26, that's how it worked out.

Some women would be offended by association with a male pronoun but it's
a biblical designation nonetheless. Regardless of one's natural gender, all
human beings are of the 'adam species and can be legitimately referred to
as a him or as a he because all of us, regardless of gender, are extensions of
a solo specimen; including Eve because she was made with human material
taken from a man's body. Bible students really have to watch for that
because when they run across the word "man" and/or "men" in the Bible, it
doesn't always indicate males only.
_

 

[mustaphadrink]

One of the problems which atheists, in particular, get all het up about is the seven days of creation and the 6,000 years to its origin. They claim that evolution denies the possibility of that. What they don't see is that most of what they claim is conjecture and cannot be proven. Most of evolution is speculation and has to be taken on trust, not evidence.

They also confuse macro and micro evolution and claim micro evolution is the same as macro evolution. An example of micro evolution is a dog who lives in a cold climate has long hair and the same dog who lives in a warm climate has short hair. To the atheist that is evidence for macro evolution.

Now in Genesis, the bit that throws everything into conjecture is where it says that God created the heavens and the earth and it was without form or void. None and I mean no one can say with any certainty how long the heavens and the earth were without form and void. Was it a year, 10 years, 100 years, 1,000 years, a million years, a billion years....... No one knows.

What we do know is that there was an unmeasured length of time between "In the beginning, God created" and God said, " let there be light." At the end of the day (sorry about the pun) the only thing that matters is that in the beginning God which means there was nothing and no one before him, and the act of creation was a God-given experience. it didn't just happen as atheists are so keen to tell us.

At the end of the day (there I go again) everything that is in the bible and everything that we believe hinges on Genisis 1 being true.

 

[Webers.Home]

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• Gen 1:28a . . God blessed them and God said to them: Be fruitful and
increase,

Some interpret that verse to be an edict requiring married people to have
children; and that they have no business getting married for any other
reason. But the wording is so obviously a blessing rather than a law.

It's always best to regard blessings as benefits, approvals, and/or
empowerments unless clearly indicated otherwise. Some blessings have to
be merited (e.g. Deut 28:1-13) but not this one. It was neither requested
nor was it earned-- it was freely given without any strings attached and
nothing asked in return.

Without the empowerment of fertility, Man would be just as sterile as a soup
spoon. So it was a very essential blessing. And a very interesting blessing it
is because the blessing of fertility empowers living things to pass their own
kind of life on to a next generation. God wrapped creation after six days. So
unless creatures were enabled to reproduce, all would soon die out and
become quite extinct in a very short time.

Libido therefore, is an essential element of the blessing of fertility. God
intended for His creatures to reproduce; and to ensure that they did, He
wired them all with an attraction to the opposite sex of their own kind rather
than instilling within them a sense of duty.

It isn't necessary to cajole creatures to mate; no, they will do so on their
own, propelled by built-in sensual proclivities and predilections. Had libido
not been included in the blessing, human life would've become an
endangered species within just a few generations. Anybody familiar with the
birds and bees understands very well that attraction is crucial to
multiplication.

NOTE: The popular interpretation of Matt 5:27-28 is extremely contrary to
the blessing of fertility. It has served to warp thousands of innocent young
psyches, and burdened men with unnecessary guilt complexes over sex and
the human body.

• Gen 1:28b . . fill the earth and master it; and rule the fish of the sea, the
birds of the sky, and all the living things that creep on earth.

The Hebrew word for "master" is from kabash (kaw-bash') which emphasizes
coercion and force; and means: to disregard; to conquer, and to violate.

The word for "rule" is from radah (raw-daw') and means: to tread down; to
subjugate.

kabash and radah are very strong language. Those two words combined
leave no room for doubt regarding Man's supremacy in the sphere of things.
God blessed humanity with the authority to dominate and to violate planet
Earth at will, and exploit it to his own advantage. Man answers to no plant
nor animal on this entire globe. The whole Earth is within the scope of
humanity's purview. If aliens ever come here unannounced, they can be
arrested for trespassing, and/or charged for parking because this earth is
'adam's domain.

But the interesting thing is; the 'adam specie is also the monarch of the
whole cosmos; not just the dinky little third rock from the Sun where he
hangs his hat.

"For in that He put all in subjection under him, He left nothing that is not put
under him." (Heb 2:6-8)

• Gen 1:29-30 . . God said: See, I give you every seed-bearing plant that is
upon all the earth, and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit; they shall be
yours for food. And to all the animals on land, to all the winged creatures of
the sky, and to everything that creeps on earth, in which there is the breath
of life, I give all the green plants for food. And it was so.

Prior to the Flood; humans, beasts, creepy crawlies, and winged creatures
too-- even the lions and tigers and hawks and eagles and pythons, vultures
and crocodiles --subsisted on vegetation. Precisely what kind of diet God
intended for aqua life isn't stated. But even today there are a number of
aquatic species of vegetation important to the survival of a variety of
creatures that live in water.

This raises an interesting question: why do carnivores have teeth so
uniquely suited for killing other creatures and ripping their flesh? Well, I
think it's clear they didn't use their teeth like that at first.

For example; buck-toothed beavers have incisors that could take your hand
off but they don't use them for that purpose. Male musk deer have saber
like upper canine teeth and their diet is moss and grass and sometimes
twigs and lichen. And everybody knows about Wally the walrus' big ol' tusks;
which he doesn't use to kill his food, but rather, to plow up the sea bottom
in search of his favorite mollusks.

Though the fossilized remains of a therapsid called Tiarajudens eccentricus
exhibits saber tusks, it is believed to have efficiently chewed leaves and
stems with interlocking incisors and cow-like molars.

In the future kingdom of God, carnivores won't be carnivorous any more,
and nothing in the animal kingdom will any longer pose a danger to either
Man or to each other. (Isa 11:6-9)
_

 

[Hakawaka]

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NOTE: The popular interpretation of Matt 5:27-28 is extremely contrary to
the blessing of fertility. It has served to warp thousands of innocent young
psyches, and burdened men with unnecessary guilt complexes over sex and
the human body.

_

What is your interpretation of those verses?

 

[Webers.Home]

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What is your interpretation of those verses?

I much prefer to keep this private lest others see my response and start up
never-ending bull sessions that muddy the waters and steer us away from
the first and second chapters of Genesis.
_

 

[mustaphadrink]

Did you hear about when God had a chat with Adam and said to him "Adam I want you to go down that valley: Adam said "What is a valley" so God told him. Then he said "Go over that stream". Adam said, "What is a stream?" So God told him. Then he said "On the other side you will find a cave," Adam said, "What is a cave, God?" So God told him. He then told Adam he would find Eve in the cave and they were to procreate. Adam said, "What does it mean to procreate?" So God told him and Adam trotted off to find Eve. "That will keep him busy," thought God.

However, it wasn't too long before he was back again. "How come you are back so soon? asked God. "I really don't know," said Adam. "By the way God, what is a headache?"

 

[Hakawaka]

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I much prefer to keep this private lest others see my response and start up
never-ending bull sessions that muddy the waters and steer us away from
the first and second chapters of Genesis.
_

Can you make a topic about it then?

 

[Webers.Home]

.

Can you make a topic about it then?

Go to the link below

Why We Will Never Go Back To Roman Catholicism

When you get there, scroll down the page to "Erotic Fantasies".
_

 

[Webers.Home]

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

Some feel that the cosmos-- all of its forms of life, matter, and energy --was
created incomplete, not quite up to snuff: that it was to Man that God
entrusted the task of putting on the finishing touches. But that is very
doubtful. Why ever would God, after an overall inspection, conclude His work
by pronouncing it all good-- and not just good, but "very" good. Why would
He say the creation was very good if in truth it was incomplete?

In reality, humans haven't improved the planet at all. They've actually
ravaged Earth and left it with terrible damage-- leveled mountains, dried up
rivers, emptied lakes, drained marshes, indiscriminately obliterated habitat,
wiped out animals to extinction, scraped away perfectly good cropland and
replaced it with warehouses and factories and malls and residential
communities.

A prime example of this kind of destruction is INTEL's massive Ronler Acres
Campus located on what was once agricultural land in Hillsboro Oregon.
Thousands of cubic yards of perfectly good topsoil was scraped away during
construction of the facility. What did they do with it? Was it transferred
elsewhere in order to use it for farming? No, instead INTEL used it to build a
massive privacy berm all around the facility where the soil will never again
grow food. NIKE did the very same thing with the topsoil scraped away
during construction of its facility in Beaverton.

Denuded watersheds have caused unnecessary erosion and stream
sedimentation. Man dams rivers, thus disrupting ancient fish migrations.
He's over-exploited natural resources, filled the atmosphere with toxins and
greenhouse gas emissions, poisoned aquifers, contaminated soil and
waterways with chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides; littered the
oceans with billions of pounds of plastic, made possible super germs, and
seriously upset the balance of nature.

It seems that most everything 'adam touches, he ruins; and as if the Earth
isn't enough, he's moved out into space where in the years since Russia
launched its first Sputnik into low Earth orbit on Oct 04, 1957, humans have
littered the sky around their planet with 13,000 catalogued pieces of space
junk, which is only a fraction of the more than 600,000 objects circling the
globe larger than one centimeter (a centimeter is a little over 3/8ths of an
inch). Humans have even discarded 374,782 pounds of litter on the Moon,
including the golf balls that astronaut Alan Shepherd left behind.

So; when God looked over His work and "found" that it was very good, does
that mean He was surprised it came out like it did? (chuckle) No. It would be
a strange craftsman indeed who couldn't look over their work with
satisfaction in a job well done.

I believe the universe's architect knew precisely what He was doing, and
where He was going with His work; and was highly pleased that it came out
exactly as planned. I seriously doubt that God was feeling His way along like
experimenters in medicine and chemistry. Nobody could build a fully
functioning cosmos and all of its forms of life, matter, and energy unless
they knew what they were doing from beginning to end.
_

 

[Webers.Home]

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• Gen 2:1-2 . .The heaven and the earth were finished, and all their array.
On the seventh day God finished the work that He had been doing, and He
ceased on the seventh day from all the work that He had done.

The seventh day is unique. The other six days were bounded by an evening
and a morning. The seventh day is not bounded; which means it has not yet
ended; viz: God has been on a creation sabbatical ever since, and has
created nothing new for the current cosmos since the end of day six; i.e. the
Earth that I live on today is the very same planet that God created in the
beginning.

Granted the Earth's topography has been altered quite a bit since Noah's
day, for example there is no longer any river systems connecting the Tigris
and Euphrates with Ethiopia. However, I consider those alterations as little
more than remodeling; so to speak. In other words; though a home
undergoes remodeling; it's the same home though it may have a different
look.

Though it's stated in that passage that the creator finished His work and
ceased creating things for the current cosmos; yet people are still under the
impression that He creates new souls every time a baby is conceived in its
mommy's womb. But the seventh day isn't bounded by an evening and a
morning; ergo: it has not yet ended; which means God hasn't gone back to
creating things for the current cosmos.

Adam's progeny-- you and I and all the others --are not direct creations; no;
we're reproductions; viz: there's no need for mankind's creator to take a
hand in producing baby souls, or any other kinds of souls for that matter
because He created all life on earth as sustainable, transferable kinds of life.
The blessing of fertility is a remarkable blessing because it enables living
things to reproduce themselves sans divine micro management.

• Gen 2:3 . . And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because
on it God ceased from all the work of creation that He had done.

The phrase "declared it holy" is from the word qadash (kaw-dash') which
means: to be clean, or to make, pronounce, or observe as clean; viz:
sanitize. Pronouncing something clean, or observing something as clean
and/or conferring upon something the status of clean and sanitized, doesn't
mean it's intrinsically clean. It's just regarded as fully dedicated to God's
purposes; which is exactly what the word "sanctified" implies. The Hebrew
word for "sanctify" is also qadash: the very same word as for "declared it
holy".

• Gen 2:4 . .These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when
they were created, in the day that Jehovah God made earth and heaven.

The Hebrew word for "day" in that verse is yowm (yome) which is the very
same word for each of the six days of God's creation labors. Since yowm
here refers to a period of time obviously much longer than a 24-hour
calendar day; it justifies categorizing each of the six days of creation as
epochs of indeterminate length.

Gen 2:4 is the very first time in Scripture where the name Yhvh appears.
The correct pronunciation is currently unknown. Sometimes it's pronounced
Yehovah, sometimes Jehovah, and sometimes Yahweh.

The appellation is so sacred among pious Jews that they make every effort
to avoid speaking it except under very special circumstances. In some of
their writings, in order to avoid using the four sacred letters comprising the
tetragrammaton, they write instead "The Name" and/or sometimes
"Hashem". So Ex 20:3 could be written: "I, The Name, am your god" and/or
"I, Hashem, am your god."

NOTE: Yhvh is commonly referred to with masculine pronouns because He's
a king; and kings are always males rather than females; e.g. Isa 44:6.
_

 

[InspiredByGod]

How many in this forum believe the literal creation accounts in Genesis 1 and 2?

______________________________________________________________________________________________
It depends on the words used to translate it into English.
Take the word "day".
It can mean 24 hours or MUCH, MUCH longer!

Gen 5:1- This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him.

 

[InspiredByGod]

Plus you have words used interchangeably with OTHER words, such as "soul"!

 

[Webers.Home]

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• Gen 2:5 . . and every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and
every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord God had not caused it to
rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.

Bible students have to exercise caution when reading that section in order to
avoid making the mistake of concluding that human life was created prior to
vegetation; when we know for a fact from the day-by-day account in the
first chapter that humans were the very last to be put on earth. Gen 2:4-7 is
only saying that when God created vegetation on day three, it wasn't
permitted to flourish right away.

• Gen 2:6 . . a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of
the ground.

The Hebrew word for "mist" is 'ed (ade). It's a very rare word and appears
only one more time in the whole Bible at at Job 36:27 where it's apparently
speaking of the process of evaporation; which typically produces water in
the form of fog, dew, humidity, and vapor; which are very gentle ways to
irrigate young plants and/or bare ground.

Had God brought rain prior to flourishing ground cover, the land would have
eroded something awful and millions of cubic yards of perfectly good dirt
would have washed into creeks, and streams, and rivers to be carried out to
sea where it would be lost in perpetuity. Water in the form of dew, fog,
humidity and vapor is a whole lot more gentle on bare ground than falling
water and/or running water. ( California's coastal redwoods obtain a large
percentage of their moisture from fog. )
_

 

[Webers.Home]

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• Gen 2:7a . . And the Lord God formed a man's body

Mankind's creator didn't give birth to humanity like women give birth to
children or baby chicks hatch from eggs; no, humans aren't God's biological
progeny-- humans are God's handiwork like the glass products
manufactured by craftsmen in Murano; where they make things from scratch
using mostly sand for their base material.

• Gen 2:7b . . from the dust of the ground

The Hebrew word for "dust" is a bit ambiguous. It essentially refers to
powder, but can also be translated clay, earth, mud, mortar, ashes, and/or
rubbish; viz: the human body wasn't spoken into existence ex nihilo; God
constructed it from already-existing physical matter.

NOTE: Sooner or later most people eventually run afoul of the passage
below so I think it best if we include in our discussion of the creation story.

"I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works; and that
my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee, when I
was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being incomplete; and in thy book all
my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as
yet there was none of them." (Ps 139:14-16)

The Hebrew word for "substance" is 'otsem (o'-tsem). It appears in only
three places in the entire Old Testament: Ps 139:15, Deut 8:17, and Job
30:21.

There lacks a consensus on the word's precise meaning. Based upon what I
found in the Strong's Concordance, `otsem apparently refers to the
constitution of something.

The Hebrew word for "curiously wrought" is raqam (raw-kam') which has to
do with skilled needlework, i.e. embroidering, knitting, etc, which produce
multicolored handmade articles rather than made by machines; suggesting
that the human body-- all of its intricacies --was crafted by the hand of God.

The Hebrew words for "lowest parts of the earth" always, and without
exception, refer to the netherworld; viz: underground. (e.g. Ps 63:9, Isa
44:23, Ezek 26:20, Ezek 31:14, Ezek 31:16, Ezek 31:18, Ezek 32:18, and
Ezek 32:24)

Some folk prefer to apply Ps 139:15 to a woman's womb; but I think it best,
and far more sensible, to interpret it as relating to the author's creation
rather than his conception because everyone is made, and has been made,
from the dust of the ground; which is from the Hebrew word 'adamah (ad
aw-maw') meaning soil.

Well then, from whence came soil?

Some of soil's minerals are derived from the disintegration of meteors that
burn up in the atmosphere-- commonly referred to as star dust. But that
only accounts for a small percentage. The bulk of soil's parent materials
come from the disintegration of the Earth's own rocks.

So: from whence came the Earth's rocks?

Many of the Earth's rocks are, and were, formed underground and end up on
or near the surface via natural processes like volcanism, continental plate
subduction, and mighty earthquakes, etc. Once on the surface, the action of
wind, water, and temperature begin to erode rock and make dust with it.

In a nutshell: The author of Ps 139:14-16 believed that God saw his bodily
constituents while they were not yet even soil but were still underground,
deep in the Earth where they were being formed into rock which would later
be broken down to make soil.

So then, from whence came the physical matter to make rock? Well; that
information is located in the very first two verses of the Bible; which says to
me that in the very beginning God saw every human being that was ever to
exist before even one began to walk the Earth.

God could've-- had He wanted --created h.sapiens from nothing more than
rock dust (cf. Luke 19:37-40 and Matt 3:9) but instead waited till the Earth's
rock dust was amended with organic material.

After rock, and after vegetation, God then created all forms of life that lives
ashore which would of course include not just birds, bugs, and beasts, but
also all forms of life living underground, e.g. night crawlers, grubs, microbes,
and nematodes, etc. When life ashore passes away, its remains are not lost
to oblivion, no, they're valuable for further amending rock dust with even
more organic material.
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• Gen 2:7c . . and breathed into it the breath of life,

The transition from soil to soul is made possible by the mysterious force
called the breath of life. If that spoke of atmospheric gases, then it would be
possible to revive a corpse with artificial respiration; so we have to conclude
that the breath of life is an energy vastly more powerful than anything found
in nature.

The word "life" is commonly employed to speak of all living things. But why
are some forms of life more sentient than others? And how is it that all
humans are constructed basically the very same way yet each has its own
personality, and a sense of individuality?

There is no real individuality in products manufactured on an assembly line.
They're all cookie-cutter duplicates and they can all be operated and
maintained by the very same set of instructions.

But people are not like that. We're not cookie-cutter duplicates
manufactured on an assembly line. Though our bodies are all basically
designed and constructed with the same number and manner of parts that
all function the same way; we each have a mind of our own and a will of our
own. In other words: human life isn't mechanical, rather, it's intelligent,
thoughtful, and introspective. And each one is best reckoned with on an
individual basis rather than the oneness of a Borg hive collective.

The breath of life isn't unique to humans. Every creature aboard the ark with
Noah was alive due to the breath of life, and every creature that drowned in
the Flood too. (Gen 7:12-23)

• Gen 2:7d . . and man became a living soul.

The Hebrew word for "soul" is nephesh (neh'-fesh) which isn't unique to
human beings. Its first appearance is at Gen 1:20-21 in reference to aqua
creatures and winged creatures; again at Gen 1:24 as terra creatures; viz:
cattle, creepy crawlies, and wild beasts; and again in Gen 2:7 as the human
creature; and yet again at Gen 9:10 to classify every living thing aboard
Noah's ark.

Soul is somewhat ambiguous. It can be said that creatures are souls and
also that they have souls. But here in the beginning, nephesh simply refers
to consciousness, individuality, and self awareness.

NOTE: According to Matt 10:28, the body and the soul are perishable.
However; though the body is perishable by any means, the soul is perishable
only by divine means; i.e. the deaths of body and soul aren't necessarily
simultaneous, viz: the soul lives on until such a time as God decides to give
it either a thumb up or a thumb down.
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• Gen 2:8a . .The Lord God planted a garden in Eden,

The Hebrew word for "garden" is from gan (gan) which means a garden as
fenced (or possibly just a tract with definite boundaries and dimensions). If
walled, I assume to protect it from foraging animals; which makes sense
seeing as how the garden would be Adam's primary food source. I'm
guessing it was very likely a full-blown farm complete with grains,
vegetables, and orchards; and meant for husbandry.

• Gen 2:8b . . in the east

"east" in that verse was an east that the author(s) of Genesis understood.
Out west here in Oregon, we consider east to be New York and Chicago;
while the world considers the Orient to be east. For the purposes of modern
navigation, everything towards sunrise from the meridian of Greenwich
England around the world to Samoa is East longitude, and everything
towards sunset around the world to Samoa is West longitude.

So if you were standing in Mexico, then Greenwich would be to the east; but
if you were standing in Iran, then Greenwich would be to the west. It's all a
matter of perspective.

Just exactly where "the east" was in Adam's day is hard to tell. But the
garden itself is not to be confused with Eden. The garden was located "in"
Eden; an ancient pre-Flood unspecified geographic region. Some people
think Eden was somewhere in Africa but that's just a shot in the dark.

The word "Eden" is from 'eden (ay'-den) and/or 'ednah (ed-naw') and
means: pleasure, and delight. So Adam's farm was in a very nice location
and we could, if we had a mind to, name his spread Happy Valley or
Pleasant Acres.

• Gen 2:8c-9a . . and placed there the man whom He had formed. And from
the ground Yhvh God caused to grow every tree that was pleasing to the
sight and good for food,

The exact site where God did the work of creating Man is unknown but
there's no reason to doubt he wasn't created right there in his intended
home. And I think we can safely assume the garden was already viable and
productive when Man arrived. God didn't just throw him in the water to sink
or swim. He gave the man a suitable habitat right from the get go. Adam
wasn't a hunter-gatherer like some sort of rootless nomad; no, he had a
place to settle down and call home.

Man came into being by the designs of a Superior Intelligence who looked
out for the unique little creature made in His own image right from the first,
and got him off to a good start; which was fortunate because at that point in
time, humans were an endangered species seeing as how there was only
one breeding pair in existence.
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• Gen 2:9b . . with the tree of life in the middle of the garden,

The tree of life doesn't give life; but rather, according to Gen 3:22 has
something in it that sustains immortality. It's also a good source for natural
remedies (Rev 22:2). Exactly how the chemistry of any plant could be so
rich in nourishment as to stop the human body from getting old and falling
apart is currently unknown.

A very active field of modern scientific research in our own time is
gerontology-- the study of the phenomena of the aging process. As yet,
gerontologists have no significant understanding of the aging process, and
therefore no clue as to what treatments, or nutrients might be employed to
stop it.

NOTE: It's very possible the tree of life existed as a grove rather than a solo
specimen because according to Gen 1:11, fruit-bearing vegetation was
meant to reproduce.

• Gen 2:9c . . and the tree of knowledge of good and bad.

The Hebrew word for "good" in 2:9 is from towb (tobe). It's an ambiguous
word and isn't restricted to morals, ethics, or scruples. Even a tasty meal or
an entertaining movie can be towb.

The word for "bad" is from ra' (rah) It's another ambiguous word; and
includes anything that's bad for us like poison ivy, playing with matches,
E.coli 0157-H7, toxic chemicals, salmonella, eating without washing your
hands, bungi jumping, investing in penny stocks, walking on train tracks,
pimples, a sore throat, and going to bed without brushing your teeth.

From the gist of upcoming verses, it's readily apparent that the knowledge
of good and bad implies an intuitive sense of right and wrong.

Though Man was created intelligent; he was basically uneducated. A sense of
right and wrong wasn't programmed into his intuition. He was supposed to
learn right and wrong via Divine tutelage; not by trial and error nor by self
initiative-- and certainly not by doing something patently foolish like eating
from a tree known to be unsuitable for human consumption.
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• Gen 2:10a . . A river issues from Eden to water the garden,

The verb "issues" is in grammatically present tense; indicating whoever
wrote Gen 2:10, did so while the land of Eden yet existed.

The authorship of Genesis has yet to be positively established. A verse like
2:10 strongly suggests that the data used to compile Genesis, was
progressively accumulated in hand-me-down journals or in oral rote,
generated by people who lived prior to the final compiler's input.

The Hebrew word for "river" is nahar (naw-hawr') which is another of those
ambiguous Bible words. It can indicate a stream or a sea and/or
metaphorically: prosperity. It was stated previously in Gen 2:6 that the face
of the whole ground was watered by fog; which suggests that the Eden river
was either an aquifer or something similar to the slow-moving water of the
Florida everglades.

• Gen 2:10b-11 . . and it then divides and becomes four branches. The
name of the first is Pishon, the one that winds through the whole land of
Havilah where there is gold,

The Pishon river has yet to be positively identified.

The Hebrew word for "Havilah" is Chaviylah (khav-ee-law'); which means
circular. It's not only a place-name but also a person-name (e.g. Gen 10:7,
Gen 10:29) which may indicate that the land of Havilah was named after an
antediluvian individual who settled in that area.

• Gen 2:12 . . (The gold of that land is good; bdellium is there, and lapis
lazuli.)

Again, the author used a present tense verb. The gold "is" good, not was
good-- strongly suggesting the author actually lived in the period he wrote
about.

Bdellium is a gum resin similar to myrrh; obtained from various trees. The
author could have been referring to amber; a hard yellowish to brownish
translucent fossil resin that takes a fine polish and is used chiefly in making
ornamental objects like beads and such. Bdellium was the comparison Moses
used to describe the color of manna in Num 11:7.

In ancient Egypt lapis lazuli was a favorite stone for amulets and ornaments
such as scarabs; it was also used in ancient Mesopotamia by the Sumerians,
Akkadians, Assyrians, and Babylonians for seals and jewelry. Lapis jewelry
has been found at excavations of the Predynastic Egyptian site Naqada
(3300–3100 BC), and powdered lapis was used as eye shadow by Cleopatra.
In ancient Mesopotamia, lapis artifacts can be found in great abundance,
with many notable examples having been excavated at the Royal Cemetery
of Ur (2600-2500 BC).

• Gen 2:13 . .The name of the second river is Gihon, the one that winds
through the whole land of Cush.

Cush of the post-Flood world is associated in Scripture with both a region of
Arabia and the present-day land of Ethiopia. But the exact geographic site of
the Cush of antediluvian days is impossible to know. If it's the same, then
we can be pretty sure that the Earth underwent some dramatic geological
events in the distant past because it is now impossible for any river in
Ethiopia to connect in any way at all with the Tigris and Euphrates rivers of
today's world.

• Gen 2:14a . .The name of the third river is Tigris, the one that flows east
of Asshur.

According to Assyrian monuments, the Tigris was known to the post Flood
ancients as the Chiddekel, or the Hiddekel. Asshur was located in modern
day Iraq south of Mosul on the western bank of the Tigris river in between
the Great Zab and the Little Zab rivers.

• Gen 2:14b . . And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

The Tigris and Euphrates rivers of today headwater not too far from Elazig
Turkey; flowing roughly (very roughly) parallel to each other from out of
Turkey, past Syria and Mesopotamia, and down into modern-day Iraq before
joining together and emptying into the Persian Gulf.

The general picture in Genesis 2 is that of a major watercourse (the Eden
River) feeding an immense aqua system supplying water to a very large
geographic area comprising parts of Turkey, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Nubia,
Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, Palestine, Jordan, Syria,
Mesopotamia, and Iraq.

It would appear that the Eden River itself head-watered possibly in what the
world today knows as Russia; but it is impossible to tell exactly where it
came from because that region no longer generates a south flowing monster
river system such as the one from Eden described in the second chapter of
Genesis.

The third and fourth rivers no longer connect to a larger river that elsewhere
branches off and flows to Ethiopia. It's pretty obvious from the author's
geographical descriptions that the world's current topography didn't exist
prior to the Flood. The antediluvian world was shaped quite different than
the one we live in now. The Tigris and Euphrates of today are but remnants
of an ancient irrigation system that at one time made the entire Middle East
a very beautiful and fertile region; but to look at it today; you'd never guess
it.
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