Creation + Evolution = Evoleation

Genesis 1:1-2:3

Chapter 1

Verses 1-2
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

Verses 3-5
And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from darkness. God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning - the first day.

Verses 6-8
And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning - the second day.

Verses 9-13
And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so. God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas." And God saw that it was good.
Then he said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seeds according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit wtih seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning - the third day.

Verses 14-19
And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so. God made two great lights - the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning - the fourth day.

Verses 20-23
And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky. So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kins, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth." And there was evening, and there was morning - the fifth day.

Verse 24-31
And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to their kind." And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and 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.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created him.
God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."
Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground - everything that has the breath of life in it - I give every green plant for food." And it was so.
God saw all that he made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning - the sixth day.

Chapter 2

Verses 1-3
Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.
By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
LINK

The following are my thoughts on the passage above. As I stated last blog entry that I had had an incredible experience reading this passage, I feel obligated to share what I found. So what follows will follow the general linear path of reading the passage, but will be all over, jumping ahead, jumping back. But I will try to bring things all to a nice close at the end (keyword try). A side note: after writing my thoughts on the passage, I then went and discussed what I had read with a man who has three Masters Degrees...two of which are in religion. He shared more about what the ancient Hebrew originally meant, as well as other observations that other educated people have made about the same passage. So as I claim most of what is said, I do also attribute some of the more "high-end" knowledge to this person.

The first thing that I noticed when reading this passage was the overwhelming feeling that this passage sounded a lot more like a narrative story than a historical account. It all sounds more like a guy at a bar or a guy sitting around a campfire retelling an ancient story, as opposed to a historical account...just a thought though.

I found it interesting that in verse 2 of chapter 1 it talks about the earth being "formless and empty" but at the same time it says that the Spirit of God was "hovering over the waters." Water...something that hadn't even been created yet, right?

Again, I feel the need to side-note, that a lot of what I say throughout this is just interesting thoughts that I had, and not necessarily something that I found reason for. But to be interested in something that I've read in the Bible is more that I can say about my recent readings of anything in the Bible.

It says in verse 3 that God created light. But says nothing about God creating darkness. Whenever we think of there being nothing at some point (before anything was created) we think of darkness. But then there's that person who says, "Well darkness is in fact something." So the argument can be made that it is impossible to truly comprehend 'nothing'. So the verse says that God created light, but then it says in verse 4 that "God saw that the light was god, and he separated the light from darkness." So God created the one thing, light, yet somehow he separates that one thing from something else (darkness) that it does not even talk about him creating. So the question opens up, "So where did darkness come from?" Some would say that darkness is simply the absence of light. This has profound implications if referenced with the question, "Did God create evil?" If darkness is the absence of light, then evil is the absence of good (or God). This is thought can potentially spark an incredibly deep discussion, but to save at least some time, I won't continue the debate today.

Something that I find kind of interesting is that every day ends with "and there was evening, and there was morning - the _____ day." But whenever we think of day, we think of morning as coming first and evening being the end of the day. But for whatever reason, morning is the end of the first day (or at least the last thing). Again...just interesting.

Day two starts with God creating an "expanse between the waters to separate water from water" (vs. 6). So two things jump out right away: 1) there are waters above and below the expanse, and 2) again, there's a reference to water, when the story of creation has not even introduced water yet as being one of God's creations. So I go back to verse 1 where it says, "God created the heavens and the earth." Well then, what does this 'earth' that's spoken of include? Is it simply that verses 1 and 2 are a huge summary of the entire creation story and what continues is a detailed account of what verses 1 and 2 speak of? Is it like the difference between micro and macro? Again this sounds less like a historic account and simply a story. Think of an essay: there's usually an intro (broad statements about the whole essay), then the body (detailed reasons to support the main claim/story), and then the conclusion (maybe there will be one at the end of the passage?)

Verse 7 speaks about water being "under the expanse" as well as being "above the expanse." What is the expanse? Later in verse 8 it says that God calls the expanse "sky." So there's water below the sky, which I am assuming that we come in contact with as humans, but what is this water above, essentially, the sky? Some would say that all of what the Bible calls "the Flood" was just the waters above the expanse falling upon the earth. But is that it, or is it something else?

Now as I was looking for clues for evolution to exist within the constraints of creation, I found my first example in verse 9 and 10. Nine starts off with land appearing and then the separation of the seas where the land comes in. So there's land. Not until verse 11 do we hear about land providing vegetation. Because I do not believe that the earth was created in seven 24-hour days like we know them as today, I also see the potential in this verse. The fact that there is no time period designated between land appearing and then vegetation occurring, makes me believe that there is a possibility that vegetation could have not come for millions or even billions of years later. Some evolutionists would claim that the earth did not start with the luscious ecosystem that it is today, but that it started out as simply rocks and earth (sounds like creation) and that over millions and millions of years organisms slowly became more complex, starting with single cell organisms like bacteria and fungus, slowly evolving into multi-cell organisms and then FINALLY into the ecosystem that we see it as today. Now not until after I read the whole thing through, wrote out my thoughts, was it brought to my attention that vegetation requires photosynthesis. Photosynthesis requires sunlight. So God created light, he created land and seas, and then vegetation...but no sun (at least not until fourth "day"). So how does the earth vegetate without the sun to photosynthesize? I don't have any form of an answer, but thought that this fact was worth noting.

Day four is when we finally have the things created that are needed to count the 24-hour days that we are accustomed to: sun, moon, stars. This is my biggest example of how the world could be billions of years old (like evolutionists say) and not just 6 thousand years (like typical creationists believe). If the things required to record a twenty-four hour day did not exist prior to the fourth day, this means that there's no way to claim that they had to be three twenty-four hour days. So if this passage is essentially a story, stories like parallel structure. you don't have this parallel structure of "days" without them either all be the same exact measurement (24 hours) or the word "day" means something more along the lines of "back in the day" or "in the day of our Lord". Neither are finite time periods or are even structural for that matter.

The fifth "day" starts with the creation of the "great creatures of the sea" and "every winged bird" (vs. 21). I was informed that the Hebrew word for "winged bird" didn't actually mean bird like we think of it today (i.e. eagle, falcon, cardinal). It meant more literally "insects". This is more proof of evolution existing within the Christian creation story, and can include natural selection. Insects (just like all organisms) start out simple and become more complex. The earth starts with land (rock, earth) and then begins to vegetate (plants, trees, complicated compared to rocks). In the same sense, the world started as insects (flies, beetles, smaller creatures) and grows into other animals (dinosaurs?)

But really it is not until the sixth "day" that we can start talking about dinosaurs. This is when "land animals" (vs. 24) come into the picture. I'm in an environmental science class right now, and it is said that through natural selection that we really don't even see today one-hundredth of one percent of all the species throughout history. So I'm going to take a guess that these "land animals" looked a lot more like what we now call "dinosaurs" than the animals that we see today (golden retrievers, poodles, squirrels, cat).

Here's a part that hints at the whole trinity concept. Verse 26 has God saying "let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule..." Two interesting things. God references himself as "us", and then he talks about man as being a "them". So in this case, man is more mankind or humanity than it is about male man. If you go on to verse 27 it says that "God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." All of a sudden, "man" is clarified into being both male and female. And a side-note, it sounds a little ironic that the fact that man is made in the image of God is stated three times...trinity?

Look at verse 29 and 30. It says "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit in it. They will be yours for food." So plants and trees are the foods for man. It then goes on to say the same thing for the "beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground - everything that has the breath of life in it." So all living things at this time eat plants, and that's it. That means that all this time, all of mankind were vegetarians. Nowhere does it say that man is given permission to eat animals/meat.

Day seven, God rests. Now why would the dude that created everything into being with his words need rest? Is he tired? (A pretty "human" characteristics for a god!?!)

I didn't include them, but if you then go into chapter 2 of Genesis, it talks about the creation of Adam and Eve. This adds to my belief that Genesis is more of a narrative than a historical account, and that the world is closer to 8 billion years old than 6 thousand. Chapter 1, verse 1 talks about God creating "the heavens and the earth". The remainder of chapter 1 and some of chapter 2 talk about the creation of the earth. Now chapter three talks about one part of one "day" within the creation story. Something I also thought about was: so where does the creation story end, and the world that we know it as begin? Does it start exactly after man is created? Or is it later? This is what to think that the world was created in six "days", and that what we are experiencing now is still the seventh "day". John the Baptist always talked about the "day of the Lord is upon us". Well, maybe what he's saying is that we're still in the seventh "day". In chapter 2 it also talks about the creation of the female version of man: woman. And it talks about Adam being placed into a "deep sleep" (vs. 21). How long was this sleep? What happened during this sleep? Ice Age? The extinction of dinosaurs?

One of the last things that I was told is that in the ancient Hebrew, the difference between "a day" and "the day" are easily confused. So read all those "days" again but substitute "the _____ day" for "a _____ day". It would sound more like, "and there was evening, and there was morning - a first day." If this is simply a first day, then could there not then be another first day? More than just one "first day"? This is a wicked stretch, but...aliens? If Genesis is the creation story for mankind and this world, then what other creation stories could there be? All I'm saying is that there is the possibility.

So comment back. I know that I gave you PLENTY to think about. Let me know what you think. Peace.