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Creation according to Genesis, without tainting the newtral article with an atheistic POV referring to the first two chapters of the Bible's Book of Genesis. will simply refer to the two books o Genesis a being the basis of the Creationism belief that some or all of the various forms of life on earth were brought into being by God as Creator. A similar version exists in the Koran. There are some editors of this article that are insisting on labeling the first two chapters of Genesis as a "creation myth," a characterization that is offensive to Christians, Jews, and Muslims who hold the Bible in high regard and considering it "holy" or "sacred," and "God-breathed." Many of those demanding the term "myth," even while attempting to define it less noxiously, we have a general, shared sense that myths are stories shared by a group that are a part of their cultural identity, there is no completely satisfactory definition of the term myth. People contrast myth with science and religion. Usually, this comparison is unfavorable, with myth relegated to the area of lies. Chapter 1 describes God's creation of the world by divine speech in six days,, culminating in the sanctification of the seventh day as the Biblical Sabbath, the divinely-ordained day of rest. Man and woman are created to be God's regents over this new creation. Chapter 2 recounts God's planting a garden in which he places the first man, and from whose rib (or side) God fashions the first woman. The chapter ends with an injunction on the sanctity of marriage.

Interpretations of these creation narratives range from understanding them to have a meaning that is literally true (e.g., direct creation of each “kind,” or species, separately and almost simultaneously) to interpreting the texts as expressing important religious ideas in a metaphorical form. Proponents of the literal understanding have been the most prominent in raising issues of educational policy in the United States and elsewhere and in shaping the public debate regarding the validity of evolution generally.

The narrative

The modern division of the Bible into chapters dates from c. AD 1200, and the division into verses somewhat later; the distinction between Genesis 1 and 2 is therefore a relatively recent development.

First account: Creation week

Genesis 1:1–2:4

The creation week narrative consists of eight divine commands executed over six days, followed by a seventh day of rest.

• First day: God creates light ("Let there be light!")Gen 1:3—the first divine command. The light is divided from the darkness, and "day" and "night" are named.
• Second day: God creates a firmament ("Let a firmament be...!")Gen 1:6–7—the second command—to divide the waters above from the waters below. The firmament is named "skies".
• Third day: God commands the waters below to be gathered together in one place, and dry land to appear (the third command).Gen 1:9–10 "Earth" and "sea" are named. God commands the earth to bring forth grass, plants, and fruit-bearing trees (the fourth command).
• Fourth day: God creates lights in the firmament (the fifth command)Gen 1:14–15 to separate light from darkness and to mark days, seasons and years. Two great lights are made (most likely the Sun and Moon, but not named), and the stars.
• Fifth day: God commands the sea to "teem with living creatures", and birds to fly across the heavens (sixth command)Gen 1:20–21 He creates birds and sea creatures, and commands them to be fruitful and multiply.
• Sixth day: God commands the land to bring forth living creatures (seventh command);Gen 1:24–25 He makes wild beasts, livestock and reptiles. He then creates Man and Woman in His "image" and "likeness" (eighth command).Gen 1:26–28 They are told to "be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it." Humans and animals are given plants to eat. The totality of creation is described by God as "very good."
• Seventh day: God, having completed the heavens and the earth, rests from His work, and blesses and sanctifies the seventh day.

Literary Bridge

Genesis 2:4

These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.

The phrase "These are the generations (Hebrew תוֹלְדוֹת; tôledôt) of the heavens and the earth when they were created" lies between the creation week account and the account of Eden which follows, and the first of ten phrases ("tôledôt") used to provide structure to the book of Genesis. Since the phrase always precedes the "generation" to which it belongs, the "generations of the heavens and the earth" should logically be taken to refer to Genesis 2; a position taken by most commentators. Nevertheless, other commentators from Rashi to the present day have argued that in this case it should apply to what precedes.

Second account: Eden narrative

Genesis 2:4–25

The Eden narrative addresses the creation of the first man and woman:

• Genesis 2:4b—the second half of the bridge formed by the "generations" formula, and the beginning of the Eden narrative—places the events of the narrative "in the day when YHWH Elohim made the earth and the heavens..."
• Before any plant had appeared, before any rain had fallen, while a mist watered the earth, Yahweh formed the man (Heb. ha-adam הָאָדָם) out of dust from the ground (Heb. ha-adamah הָאֲדָמָה), and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils. And the man became a "living being" (Heb. nephesh).
• Yahweh planted a garden in Eden and he set the man in it. He caused pleasant trees to spout from the ground, and trees necessary for food, also the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. (An unnamed river is described: it goes out from Eden to water the garden, after which it parts into four named streams.) He takes the man who is to tend His garden and tells him he may eat of the fruit of all the trees except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, "for in that day thou shalt surely die."
• Yahweh resolved to make a "helper" suitable for (lit. "corresponding to") the man. He made domestic animals and birds, and the man gave them their names, but none of them is a fitting helper. Therefore Yahweh caused the man to sleep, and he took a rib, and from it formed a woman. The man then named her "Woman" (Heb. ishah), saying "for from a man (Heb. ish) has this been taken." A statement instituting marriage follows: "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh."
• The man and his wife were naked, and felt no shame.

Genesis 1-11: Primeval History

Genesis 1-2 opens the “primeval history” of Genesis 1-11. This unit within Genesis forms an introduction to the stories of Abraham and the Patriarchs, and contains the first mention of many themes which are continued throughout the book of Genesis and the Torah, including fruitfulness, God's election of Israel, and His ongoing forgiveness of man's rebellious nature. It is therefore impossible to understand either Genesis 1–2 or the Torah as a whole without reference to this introductory history.

Ancient Near East context

Civilizations of the Ancient Near East conceived the Earth as a flat disk with infinite water both above and below it. The dome of the sky, was thought to be a solid metal bowl—tin according to the Sumerians, iron for the Egyptians—separating the surrounding water from the habitable world. The stars were embedded in the under surface of this dome, and there were gates in it that allowed the passage of the Sun and Moon back and forth. The flat-disk Earth was seen as a single island-continent surrounded by a circular ocean, of which the known seas—what we call today the Mediterranean Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the Red Sea—were inlets. Beneath the Earth was a fresh-water sea, the source of all fresh-water rivers and wells. It is this world-view which lies behind the Genesis creation story.

The Genesis creation story is comparable with other Near Eastern creation myths. According to the Enuma Elish, which has the closest parallels, the original state of the universe was a chaos formed by the mingling of two primeval waters, the female saltwater Tiamat and the male freshwater Apsu. Through the fusion of their waters six successive generations of gods were born. A war amongst the gods began with the slaying of Apsu, and ended with the god Marduk splitting Tiamat in two to form the heavens and the earth; the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers emerged from her eye-sockets. Marduk then created humanity, from clay mingled with spit and blood, to tend the Earth for the gods, while Marduk himself was enthroned in Babylon in the Esagila, "the temple with its head in heaven."

The similarities between Genesis and the Enuma Elish are apparent, but there are significant differences. The most notable is the absence from Genesis of the "divine combat" (the gods' battle with Tiamat) which secures Marduk's position as king of the world, but even this has an echo in the claims of Yahweh's kingship over creation in such places as Psalm 29 and Psalm 93, where he is pictured as sitting enthroned over the floods.

Exegetical points

"In the beginning..."

The first word of Genesis 1 in Hebrew, "in the beginning" (Heb. brēšît בְּרֵאשִׁית), provides the traditional Jewish title for the book. The inherent ambiguity of the Hebrew grammar in this verse gives rise to two alternative translations, the first implying that God's initial act of creation was ab nihilo (out of nothing), the second that "the heavens and the earth" (i.e., everything) already existed in a "formless and empty" state, to which God brings form and order:

1. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void…. God said, Let there be light!" (King James Version).
2. "At the beginning of the creation of heaven and earth, when the earth was (or the earth being) unformed and void.... God said, Let there be light!" (Rashi, and with variations Ibn Ezra and Bereshith Rabba).

The name of God

Two names of God are used, Elohim in the first account and Yahweh Elohim in the second account. In Jewish tradition, dating back to the earliest rabbinic literature, the different names indicate different attributes of God. In modern times the two names, plus differences in the styles of the two chapters and a number of discrepancies between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, were instrumental in the development of source criticism and the documentary hypothesis.

"Without form and void"

The phrase traditionally translated in English "without form and void" is tōhû wābōhû (Template:Lang-he). The Greek Septuagint (LXX) rendered this term as "unseen and unformed" (Greek: ἀόρατος καὶ ἀκατασκεύαστος), paralleling the Greek concept of Chaos. In the Hebrew Bible, the phrase is a dis legomenon, being used only in one other place.Jer. 4:23 There Jeremiah is telling Israel that sin and rebellion against God will lead to "darkness and chaos," or to "de-creation," "as if the earth had been ‘uncreated.’"

The rûach of God

The Hebrew rûach (רוּחַ) has the meanings "wind, spirit, breath," but the traditional Jewish interpretation here is "wind," as "spirit" would imply a living supernatural presence co-extent with yet separate from God at Creation. This, however, is the sense in which rûach was understood by the early Christian church in developing the doctrine of the Trinity, in which this passage plays a central role.

The "deep"

The "deep" (Heb. תְהוֹם thôm), is the formless body of primeval water surrounding the habitable world. These waters are later released during the great flood, when "all the fountains of the great deep burst forth" from under the earth and from the "windows" of the sky.Gen. 7:11 The word is cognate with the Babylonian Tiamat, and its occurrence here without the definite article ha (i.e., the literal translation of the Hebrew is that "darkness lay on the face of thôm) indicates its mythical origins.

The firmament of heaven

The "firmament" (Heb. רָקִיעַ rāqîa) of heaven, created on the second day of creation and populated by luminaries on the fourth day, denotes a solid ceiling which separated the earth below from the heavens and their waters above. The term is etymologically derived from the verb rāqa (רֹקַע ), used for the act of beating metal into thin plates.

Great sea monsters

Heb. hatanninim hagedolim (הַתַּנִּינִם הַגְּדֹלִים) is the classification of creatures to which the chaos-monsters Leviathan and Rahab belong. In Genesis 1:21, the proper noun Leviathan is missing and only the class noun great tannînim appears. The great tannînim are associated with mythological sea creatures such as Lotan (the Ugaritic counterpart of the biblical Leviathan) which were considered deities by other ancient near eastern cultures; the author of Genesis 1 asserts the sovereignty of Elohim over such entities.

The number seven

Seven denoted divine completion. It is embedded in the text of Genesis 1 (but not in Genesis 2) in a number of ways, besides the obvious seven-day framework: the word "God" occurs 35 times (7 × 5) and "earth" 21 times (7 × 3). The phrases "and it was so" and "God saw that it was good" occur 7 times each. The first sentence of Genesis 1:1 contains 7 Hebrew words, and the second sentence contains 14 words, while the verses about the seventh dayGen. 2:1–3 contain 35 words in total.

Man, Woman and the Image of God

The meaning of man and women having been created in the "image of God" has been much debated. The ancient Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria and the medieval Jewish scholar Rashi believed it referred to "a sort of conceptual archetype, model, or blueprint that God had previously made for mankind." Maimonides, preeminent medieval Jewish philosopher and one of the greatest Torah scholars, suggested being made in the image of God referred to man's free will.

Latter Day Saints (The Mormons) say that God is just an exalted man, who has "a body of flesh and bones." LDS teaches that Temple Mormons can progress to Godhead, just as God the Father did.

Microbiologist Richard Deem cites some other abilities and attributes of God that he sees as also having been included in the creation of humans. Among them are creativity, consciousness, personality, abstract thinking, body, soul and spirit, moral judgments, and social skills and learning. He considers it likely that "in the image of God" refers to the characteristics of the human spirit and the ability to make moral judgments—things that are not found in any animal species, even those to whom we are said to be closely related.

Structure and composition

Structure

Genesis 1 consists of eight acts of creation within a six day framework. In each of the first three days there is an act of division: Day one divides the darkness from light; day two, the waters from the skies; and day three, the sea from the land. In each of the next three days these divisions are populated: day four populates what was created on day one, and heavenly bodies are placed in the darkness and light; day five populates what was created on day two, and fish and birds are placed in the seas and skies; finally, day six populates what was created on day three, and animals and man are place on the land. This six-day structure is symmetrically bracketed: On day zero primeval chaos reigns, and on day seven there is cosmic order.

Genesis 2 is a simple linear narrative, with the exception of the parenthesis about the four rivers at 2:10–14. This interrupts the forward movement of the narrative and is possibly a later insertion.

The two are joined by Genesis 2:4a, "These are the tôldôt (תוֹלְדוֹת in Hebrew) of the heavens and the earth when they were created." This echoes the first line of Genesis 1, "In the beginning Yahweh created both the heavens and the earth," and is reversed in the next line of Genesis 2, "In the day when Yahweh Elohim made the earth and the heavens...". The significance of this, if any, is unclear, but it does reflect the preoccupation of each chapter, Genesis 1 looking down from heaven, Genesis 2 looking up from the earth.

Composition

According to the tradition the first five books of the Bible were written by Moses, but today many scholars accept that the Pentateuch "was in reality a composite work, the product of many hands and periods.” In the first half of the 20th century the dominant theory regarding its origins was the documentary hypothesis, which supposes that the Torah was produced about 450 BC by combining four distinct, complete and coherent documents, with Genesis 1 from one source (called Priestly source ), and Genesis 2 from another (Jahwist ). Since the last quarter of the 20th century there has been renewed interest in alternative theories which see (Genesis 1) as an editor adding to an existing document, rather than as a complete and independent document; like the documentary hypothesis, contemporary theories also see Genesis 1-2, with their strong Babylonian influence and anti-Babylonian agenda, as a product of the exilic and post-exilic period (6th-5th centuries BC). The renewed emphasis on the final form of the biblical text has also tended to redirect attention to its overarching theological coherence.

Theology and interpretation

Questions of genre

The genre of Genesis 1-2 (and Genesis 1–11, the larger whole to which the two chapters belong) remains subject to differences of opinion, and modern scholars can only make informed judgments. One inevitable conclusion is that Genesis 1-2 represent theology: the chapters concern the actions of God and the meaning of those acts. Possibly, the authors also believed they were writing a scientific, accurate description of the cosmos and its beginnings as known to them: a flat earth surrounded by infinite water and a solid sky-dome set with stars. A recent study of the numerological basis of Genesis speculated about the authors' possible intentions to give "a scientific description of Creation from the perspective of ritual, and without myth." The story is also presented with a clear chronological progression as part of a history that leads from the moment of first creation to the destruction of the First Temple. This led Thorkild Jacobsen to classify it as "mythical history".

The theology of Genesis 1-2

Traditional Jewish scholarship has viewed it as expressing spiritual concepts (see Nachmanides, commentary on Genesis). The Mishnah in Tractate Chagigah states that the actual meaning of the creation account, mystical in nature and hinted at in the text of Genesis, was to be taught only to advanced students one-on-one. Tractate Sanhedrin states that Genesis describes all mankind as being descended from a single individual in order to teach certain lessons. Among these are:

• Taking one life is tantamount to destroying the entire world, and saving one life is tantamount to saving the entire world.
• A person should not say to another that he comes from better stock because we all come from the same ancestor.
• To teach the greatness of God, for when human beings create a mold every thing that comes out of that mold is identical, while mankind, which comes out of a single mold, is different in that every person is unique.

Among the many views of modern scholars on Genesis and creation one of the most influential is that which links it to the emergence of Hebrew monotheism from the common Mesopotamian/Levantine background of polytheistic religion and myth around the middle of the 1st millennium BC. The "Creation week" narrative forms a monotheistic polemic on creation-theology directed against pagan creation myths, the sequence of events building to the establishment of the Biblical Sabbath (in Hebrew: שַׁבָּת, Shabbat) commandment as its climax. Where the Babylonian myths saw man as nothing more than a "lackey of the gods to keep them supplied with food," Genesis starts out with God approving the world as "very good" and with mankind at the apex of created order.Gen. 1:31 Things then fall away from this initial state of goodness: Adam and Eve eat the fruit of the tree in disobedience of the divine command. Ten generations later in the time of Noah, the Earth has become so corrupted that God resolves to return it to the waters of chaos sparing only one man who is righteous and from whom a new creation can begin.

Creationism

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Creationist interpretations of the Genesis narratives range from understanding them to have a meaning that is literally true (e.g., direct creation of each “kind,” or species, separately and almost simultaneously) to interpreting the texts as expressing important religious ideas in a metaphorical form. According to the Oxford Encyclopedia of Evolution, a central philosophical question is how, if at all, creationism and evolution can accommodate each other. This question is captured by Michael Ruse's title, Can a Darwinian Be a Christian? (2001), but the converse of that question is also relevant: Can a religious person, a Jew, Christian, or Muslim, specifically, reasonably accept evolution?

• Quick creation. The most publicly vociferous, politically active, and widely publicized creationists, at least in the United States, adopt the literalist view that God created the world in six 24-hour days. Advocates of this position suggest that the scientific evidence for an old-earth, incremental geology and for macroevolution conflicts with “necessary inferences” from scripture. To accept the scientific conclusions would call religion into question. They generally believe that if one element of the biblical narrative is shown to be untrue, then all others will follow: "Tamper with the Book of Genesis and you undermine the very foundations of Christianity.... If Genesis 1 is not accurate, then there's no way to be certain that the rest of Scripture tells the truth." Thus a literal genre, Genesis as history, is substituted for the symbolic Genesis as theology, and the text is placed in conflict with science.

• Less-literal creationisms. As scientific evidence for some form of evolution has progressively increased in modern times, so has the relevance of the theological tradeoffs articulated by Augustine who wrote:

sually, even a non-Christian knows something about the Earth, the heavens, and the other elements of the world. … It is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics. … If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life and the kingdom of heaven … ?

— Augustine (fourth century CE)

Increasing scientific evidence, combined with what some creationists see as inconsistencies between the first two chapters of Genesis, has brought about a variety of interpretations which proponents of each claim to capture Genesis' real meaning. One suggestion is that the “days” of creation were each in fact millions of years long. "Another possibility is that geological time spans millions of years, but new kinds, or species, were created only on a few widely separated days. Separate views are that organisms evolved gradually but were destroyed at the fall of Satan, then re-created in six days, or that organisms evolved gradually but that revelation occurred in six days."

• "Young Earth" creationists believe that the seven "days" of Genesis 1 correspond to normal 24-hour days.

• Day-age creationists, more willing to adjust their religious beliefs to accommodate current scientific findings, hold that each "day" represents an "age" of perhaps millions or even billions of years. Creationists read Genesis 2 as history, holding that God breathed into the nostrils of a being formed out of dust, and from his side (or rib) the first woman was formed.

• Broad-based religious rejection of literalism. Several Christian groups came together in opposition to an Arkansas law requiring a young earth, flood geology (the deluge) approach be taught in parallel with any public school presentation of evolution. These included “the resident Arkansas Bishops of the United Methodist, Episcopal, Roman Catholic, and African Methodist Episcopal Churches, the principal official of the Presbyterian Churches in Arkansas, other United Methodist, Southern Baptist, and Presbyterian clergy …” (Judge William R. Overton, McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education, 529 F. Supp., 1255 e.d. Arkansas, 1982 ). Similar rejection is explicit in the many statements noting the lack of conflict between evolution and religion issued by various religious denominations and scientific groups.

• Progressive creation. Progressive creationists accept an old earth, normal geology and microevolution (the evolution that occurs within a species). They attribute the appearance of major new forms, such as humans, found in the fossil record without clear antecedents to new acts of creation by God. Progressive creationists view creation as ongoing across geological time and progressive in the sense of creating both more complex forms and gradually greater diversity. By asserting the separate creation of humans, this approach preserves the literalness of Adam and Eve, and thus of original sin.

• Gradual creation (theistic evolution). "Many mainline Christian churches now accept an old earth, normal geology and the evolution of all organisms from very distant common ancestors. Evolution is seen as the way that God has created all organisms, including humans." The official Catholic position is that there is no conflict between religion and the evolution of our bodies. However, our souls are individually created and did not evolve. This approach accommodates the key scientific facts while preserving the literalness of Adam and Eve, the first two of our ancestors into whom God chose to implant souls. It thus also preserves the literalness of original sin.

• Finally, some other religious groups and philosophers simply accept evolution fully. This is easiest when science and religion are seen as dealing with distinct realms of knowledge, as in Stephen Jay Gould's “Non-overlapping Magisteria” (1997) , with wisdom arising from combining science (the basis for effective action) and religion (the key source of values). Such approaches advocate a variety of solutions to the problem of evil other than a literal Adam and Eve. For example, Adam and Eve can be taken as a metaphorical statement of an intrinsic human propensity to sin or to disobey God.

See also

• Biblical criticism
• Creation myth
• Documentary hypothesis
• Enuma Elish
• Hexameron
• Sacred history
• Timeline of the Bible

Notes

1. The argument is based on several grounds, notably the fact that Genesis 1 uses the phrase "heavens and earth" to introduce and close the Creation, while the account in Chapter 2 is introduced by the phrase "earth and heavens." Advocates of the other view argue that 2:4 is designed as a chiasm (Wenham, 49)
2. The lack of punctuation in the Hebrew creates ambiguity over where sentence-endings should be placed in this passage. This is reflected in differing modern translations, some of which attach this clause to Genesis 2:4a and place a full stop at the end of 4b, while others place the full stop after 4a and make 4b the beginning of a new sentence, while yet others combine all verses from 4a onwards into a single sentence culminating in Genesis 2:7.
3. in some translations, a stream
4. Some modern translations alter the tense-sequence so that the garden is prepared before the man is set in it, but the Hebrew has the man created before the garden is planted.
5. `ezer: Most often used to refer to God, such as "The Lord is our Help (`ezer)"Ps. 115:9 and many other Old Testament verses. (Strong's H5828)
6. Hebrew tsela`, meaning side, chamber, rib, or beam (Strong's H6763). Some feminist scholars have questioned the traditional "rib" on the grounds that it denigrates the equality of the sexes, suggesting it should read "side": see Reisenberger, Azila Talit. "The creation of Adam...." in Judaism: A Quarterly Journal of Jewish Life and Thought, 9/22/1993 (accessed 09–12–2007).
7. The lack of punctuation in the Hebrew makes it uncertain whether or not these words about marriage are intended to be a continuation of the speech of the man.
8. For a schematic representation of the structure of the "primeval history", see table iii of this document from McMaster University (table i contains a breakdown of the "history"according to the documentary hypothesis); for a more detailed discussion, see "Pentateuchal Research", Encyclopedia of Christianity (somewhat dated, but scholarly).

References

1. Browning, W. R. F. (1997). A Dictionary of the Bible (myth). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0192116918. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
2. see NIV's translation of Genesis 2:21
3. ^ Nelson, Craig E. "Creationism." Encyclopedia of Evolution. Ed. Mark Pagel. © 2002, 2005 by Oxford University Press, Inc.
4. Gordon Wenham, "Exploring the Old Testament: Volume 1, The Pentateuch", SPCK, (2003), p.5.
5. Frank Moore Cross, "The Priestly Work," in Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, 1973. The other nine are for 2 Adam , 3 Noah,Genesis 6:9 4 Noah's sons Genesis 10L1, 5 Shem,Gen. 11:10 6 Terah,Gen. 11:27 7 Yishmael,Gen. 25:12 8 Isaac,Gen. 25:19 9 Esau,Gen. 36:1 and 10 Jacob.Gen. 37:2
6. ^ Gordon J. Wenham. Genesis 1-15 (Word Biblical Commentary). Word Books, Texas, 1987.
7. footnote Gen. 2:18 in NASB
8. Kvam, Kristen E., Linda S. Schearing, Valarie H. Ziegler, eds. Eve and Adam: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim readings on Genesis and gender. Indiana University Press, 1999. ISBN 0253212715.
9. ^ For a description of Near Eastern and other ancient cosmologies and their connections with the Biblical view of the Universe, see Paul H. Seeley, "The Firmament and the Water Above: The Meaning of Raqia in Genesis 1:6-8", Westminster Theological Journal 53 (1991), and "The Geographical Meaning of 'Earth' and 'Seas' in Genesis 1:10", Westminster Theological Journal 59 (1997).
10. ^ Bandstra, Barry L. (1999), "Enuma Elish", Reading the Old Testament: An Introduction to the Hebrew Bible, Wadsworth Publishing Company.
11. Wenham, Gordon. Word Biblical Commentary Vol. 1 Genesis 1-15. Word, 1987. ISBN 0849902002
12. ^ Harry Orlinsky, Notes on Genesis, NJPS translation of the Torah
13. "Hashem/Elokim: Mixing Mercy with Justice" in The Aryeh Kaplan Reader
14. The seventy faces of Torah: the Jewish way of reading the Sacred Scriptures, by Stephen M. Wylen
15. H.B. Huey, vol. 16, Jeremiah, Lamentations, "The New American Commentary" (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2001, c1993), p. 85; Holladay, Jeremiah 1, p. 164; Thompson writes, "it's as if the earth had been ‘uncreated.’", Thompson, Jeremiah, NICOT, p. 230;
16. Noted by Hermann Gunkel—see Ernest Nicholson, "The Pentateuch in the Twentieth Century", 2002, p.34.)
17. ^ Victor P. Hamilton. The Book of Genesis (New International Commentary on the Old Testament). William B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1990.
18. Vocabulary of Biblical Hebrew, Texas A&M University.
19. Meir Bar-Ilan, The Numerology of Genesis (Association for Jewish Astrology and Numerology, 2003)
20. Gordon Wenham, Genesis 1-15 (Commentary, Word Books, 1987. p. 6
21. Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pp. 345-46)."
22. Doctrine and Covenants 14:7"
23. Deem, Rich. "Man, Created in the Image of God: How Mankind is Unique Among All Other Creatures on Earth." Web: 10 Jan 2010.
24. Bandstra, Barry L. (1999), "Priestly Creation Story", Reading the Old Testament: An Introduction to the Hebrew Bible, Wadsworth Publishing Company.
25. David Carr, “The Politics of Textual Subversion: A Diachronic Perspective on the Garden of Eden Story”, Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 112, No. 4 (Winter, 1993), pp. 577-595.
26. Richard Elliott Friedman, "The Bible With Sources Revealed", (Harper San Francisco, 2003), fn 3, p. 35
27. Speiser, E. A. (1964). Genesis. The Anchor Bible. Doubleday. p. XXI. ISBN 0-385-00854-6.
28. Documentary Hypothesis (notes from John Barton, "Source Criticism," Anchor Bible Dictionary) describes both the documentary hypothesis and the Mosaic authorship tradition.
29. E.O. James. "Creation and Mythology: A Historical and Comparative Inquiry", (1969), pp.28 ff
30. Rabbi Yitzchak Etshalom, "Reassessing B'resheet 1-3"
31. Meir Bar-Ilan, The Numerology of Genesis", (Rehovot: Association for Jewish Astrology and Numerology, 2003), pp. vi + 218
32. Thorkild Jacobsen, "The Eridu Genesis", (JBL 100, 1981), pp.513-29
33. Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin 37a.
34. For a discussion of the roots of Biblical monotheism in Canaanite polytheism, see Mark S. Smith, "The Origins of Biblical Monotheism"; See also the review of David Penchansky, "Twilight of the Gods: Polytheism in the Hebrew Bible", which describes some of the nuances underlying the subject. See the Bibliography section at the foot of this article for further reading on this subject.
35. Meredith G. Kline, "Because It Had Not Rained", (Westminster Theological Journal, 20 (2), May 1958), pp. 146-57; Meredith G. Kline, "Space and Time in the Genesis Cosmogony", Perspectives on Science & Christian Faith (48), 1996), pp. 2-15; Henri Blocher, Henri Blocher. In the Beginning: The Opening Chapters of Genesis. InterVarsity Press, 1984.; and with antecedents in St. Augustine of Hippo Davis A. Young (1988). "The Contemporary Relevance of Augustine's View of Creation". Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith. 40 (1): 42–45. {{cite journal}}: External link in |Format= (help); Unknown parameter |Format= ignored (|format= suggested) (help)
36. T. Jacobson, "The Eridu Genesis", JBL 100, 1981, pp.529, quoted in Gordon Wenham, "Exploring the Old Testament: The Pentateuch", 2003, p.17. See also Gordon J. Wenham. Genesis 1-15 (Word Biblical Commentary). Word Books, Texas, 1987.
37. Literalist minister/theologian John MacArthur, in Eugenie C. Scott, "Evolution vs Creationism: An Introduction", University of California Press, 2005, ISBN 978-0520246508, pp. 227-8
38. Conrad Hyers, "The Meaning of Creation: Genesis and Modern Science", 1984, p. 75
39. Augustine, Saint. On the Literal Meaning of Genesis. Translated by J. H. Taylor. New York, 1982.
40. Answers in Genesis—What Was Adam Like?

Bibliography

• Anderson, Bernhard W. Creation in the Old Testament (editor) (ISBN 0-8006-1768-1)
• Anderson, Bernhard W. Creation Ver Bernhard W. Understanding the Old Testament (ISBN 0-13-948399-3)
• Benware, P.N. "Survey of the Old Testament," Moody Press, Chicago IL, (1993).
• Bloom, Harold and Rosenberg, David The Book of J, Random House, NY, USA 1990.
• Davis, John, Paradise to Prison—Studies in Genesis, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1975, p. 23
• Douglas, J.D. et al., "Old Testament Volume: New Commentary on the Whole Bible," Tyndale, Wheaton, IL, (1990)
• Friedman, Richard E. Who Wrote The Bible?, Harper and Row, NY, USA, 1987.
• Nicholson, E. The Pentateuch in the Twentieth Century: The Legacy of Julius Wellhausen Oxford University Press, 2003.
• Reis, Pamela Tamarkin (2001). Genesis as Rashomon: The creation as told by God and man. Bible Review '17' (3).
• Rouvière, Jean-Marc, (2006), Brèves méditations sur la création du monde L'Harmattan, Paris.
• Spurrell,G.J. Notes on the Text of the Book of Genesis, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1896.
• Tigay, Jeffrey, Ed. Empirical Models for Biblical Criticism University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, PA, USA 1986

External links

Sources for the Biblical text

• Chapter 1 Chapter 2 (Hebrew-English text, translated according to the JPS 1917 Edition)
• Chpater 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 (Hebrew-English text, with Rashi's commentary. The translation is the authoritative Judaica Press version, edited by the esteemed translator and scholar, Rabbi A.J. Rosenberg.)
• Chapter 1 Chapter 2 (King James Version)
• Chapter 1 Chapter 2 (Revised Standard Version)
• Chapter 1 Chapter 2 (New Living Translation)
• Chapter 1 Chapter 2 (New American Standard Bible)
• Chapter 1 Chapter 2 (New International Version (UK))

Other resources

• Alexander Heidel, "Babylonian Genesis" A classic text, at Wikibooks
• "Enuma Elish", at Encyclopedia of the Orient Summary of Enuma Elish with links to full text.
• "Epic of Gilgamesh" (summary)
• Hexaemeron—Catholic Encyclopedia article
• Jacob Boehme's vision on Genesis His book Mysterium Magnum.
• Mark S. Smith, "The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel's Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts", Bible and Interpretation.
• Paul H. Seely, "The Firmament and the Water Above", The Westminster Theological Journal 53 (1991) ANE cosmography
• Paul H. Seely, "The Geographical Meaning of 'Éarth' and 'Seas' in Genesis 1:10", Westminster Theological Journal 59 (1997)ANE cosmography.
• Religious practices in late 7th century Israel
• Review of Benjamin R. Foster, Before the Muses: An Anthology of Akkadian Literature (2005) Includes comments on parallels between ancient Mesopotamian literature and biblical texts.
• Review of James P. Allen, The Egyptian Pyramid Texts (2005)
• Review of John Day, Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan (2000).
• Six Days of Creation: Islamic View
• The Multiple Authorship of the Books Attributed to Moses

• Misplaced Pages neutral point of view disputes from December 2009
• Creation myths
• Sacred history
• Torah events
• Hebrew Bible chapters