Quick wrap of of Genesis 2 – God is satisfied with what He’s created so he takes a little break and then makes some rivers and Adam and Eve.
1 – Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
2 – And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
3 – And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.
4 – These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,
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.
6 – But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.
I do not understand, and I didn’t understand it when I was Christian, why God needed to rest. Sure, if he created the entire universe in a week He probably deserved a rest. But if He’s supposed to be perfect then why couldn’t He just keep going?
The commentary on BibleGateway that I linked to above mentions that God did not rest as one that was weary, but as one that was pleased. Wouldn’t that fall under pride? He took a break because he was pleased of His work. Pride is one of the “big 7″ sins, and yet God seems to be able to have the sin of pride without issue.
Every time I’ve heard Jesus’s perfection mentioned it is in line with the fact that He was without sin. Two problems here. One, Jesus and God are supposed to be one according to the theory of the Trinity. So if God sinned the sin of pride then so did Jesus. And if God sinned ruining the definition of perfection then Jesus cannot be perfect, also under the theory of the Trinity.
And I’ve seen what happens to my grass without rain. How did the plants grow before rain?
7 – And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
This is the second time that God has created Man, the first being Gen 1:27. The first time Man was created in God’s image, the second Man was created of dust of the ground (I’ve also heard clay). Which is it? Are we in God’s image or are we mud?
Maybe He didn’t like the first draft of Man and Woman. Maybe He created two different tribes. It’s possible that having separate tribes is what allowed Adam and Eve’s children to find wives when there was no mention of other families. Or maybe it’s two separate myths, which is the explanation that seems most sensible to me.
8 – And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
9 – And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
10 – And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.
11 – The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;
12 – And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.
13 – And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.
14 – And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.
15 – And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
16 – And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
17 – But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
If you look at the country of Ethiopia today, and especially during the 80s, it is certainly not a land blessed of God. Famine, disease, and death are all very prevalent.
It is also very convenient that all of the areas mentioned in this verse are in the same part of the world that civilization began. Yes, from a Christian point of view I could see that it would make sense because God put civilization there and it would fit in with that world view. But it also fits, and this is what I believe, that civilization began and God was formed to explain how it came to be. It’s a chicken and egg type problem that could be argued without end.
I have a real problem with verse 17. God created the world and then put Adam in it to be a caretaker. But he also set Man up for failure by putting the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden. It is the eating of the fruit that caused sin. God could have easily avoided the whole problem of sin by leaving the tree out, but allowed it anyway. For now I’ll stop there, but I’m sure I’ll have more issues when I get to the chapter where they eat from the tree.
18 – And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
19 – And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
20 – And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
The animals were also created in Gen 1. This leads me back to my thoughts of two separate creation myths merging in to 1 from the previous post.
21 – And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
22 – And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
23 – And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
24 – Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
25 – And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
And Woman is created for the second time, this time from Adam’s rib. I’ve had high school aged children who honestly believed that men had one less rib than women because of this story. Check the x-rays, men don’t. But that says something about how literally some people take the Bible.
