“Creation” stained glass window from the Presbyterian Church of the Way, Shoreview, MN
Genesis 2 (NRSV)
Now as we are coming into summer, Old Testament minor prophets and New Testament theological doctrine seem perhaps a bit heavy, demand too much thinking. So let’s go back to the great foundational stories of our faith — Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. Let’s go back to Genesis! I encourage you to read the accounts of these Bible characters with new eyes, looking for the goodness of God, the presence of Christ, and the working of the Holy Spirit. And let’s also praise the Lord for the examples to stir our faith within this “cloud of witnesses.”
And again, for subscribers — to get the full picture, click on the book and chapter at the top of your opened DWELLING (today it says 812.) Genesis 2) and that will bring you to our homepage, which makes it easier for you to read and get to the links and comment!
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. 2And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. 3So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.
4These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.
Another Account of the Creation
In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, 5when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground; 6but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground— 7then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.
_________________________
Poetry:
“The Creation,” by James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938).
_________________________
8And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9Out of the ground the Lord God made 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 the knowledge of good and evil. 10A river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four branches. 11The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; 12and the gold of that land is good;
This is the first mention of gold in the Bible. And here is the last:
Revelation 21:18-21 (English Standard Version)
The wall was built of jasper, while the city was pure gold, clear as glass. The foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with every kind of jewel. The first was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, the fifth onyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, the twelfth amethyst. And the twelve gates were twelve pearls, each of the gates made of a single pearl, and the street of the city was pure gold, transparent as glass.
bdellium and onyx stone are there. 13The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Cush. 14The name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. 15The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.
16And the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; 17but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”
_________________________
Reflections on work/vocation:
God places humankind in the garden with specific duties (work) and specific instructions (boundaries and limits). Although we often think of work and limits as negatives, God gives them to Adam as positives. How can work and limitations be positives for us?
Ephesians 2:10 – “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
VOCATION:
It comes from the Latin vocare, to call, and means the work a person is called to by God.
There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than of Society, say, or the Superego, or Self-Interest.
By and large a good rule for finding out is this. The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need most to do and (b) that the world most needs to have done. If you really get a kick out of your work, you’ve presumably met requirement (a), but if your work is writing TV deodorant commercials, the chances are you’ve missed requirement (b). On the other hand, if your work is being a doctor in a leper colony, you have probably met requirement (b), but if most of the time you’re bored and depressed by it, the chances are you have not only bypassed (a) but probably aren’t helping your patients much either.
Neither the hair shirt not the soft berth will do. The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.–Frederick Buechner
“True work is play.”
–Madeleine L’Engle
“The works of monks and priests, however holy and arduous they be, do not differ one whit in the sight of God from the works of the rustic laborer in the field or the woman going about her household tasks, but that all works are measured before God by faith alone.”
–Martin Luther
Music:
18Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.” 19So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner.
21So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman, for out of Man this one was taken.” 24Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. 25And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.
.
_________________________
from This Day with the Master,
by Dennis F. KinlawPIONEERS BY DESIGN
Some of the most delightful surprises in my life have come from the portions of Scripture that seem most objectionable to the world. Out of these controversial passages come the most illuminating insights. For example, the Creation story, which is normally read through a fog of confusion, has become the very basis of my intellectual freedom. Genesis 1 and 2 lay the foundation for all the rest of Scripture and human history.
- Lesson 1: There is only one God. He is the Creator of all things.
- Lesson 2: All that he has made is good.
- Lesson 3: He has made the world not only for my enjoyment, but for my mastery, and not just for control, but for stewardship.
These lessons reveal that I am free—or rather, obligated—to explore and discover all that is part of my world. This offers the most exciting challenges. Anything that gives me a better understanding and control of his purposes in this world is a valid Christian calling. God has given human beings a marvelous curiosity and has placed us in a world designed to encourage our curiosity.
God’s people have largely forgotten this command because we are preoccupied with ourselves. Our forgetfulness though does not nullify God’s command. Christians, of all people, should feel the most comfortable in intellectual pursuits. Christians are the people whose basic philosophy justifies study. We were made to discover the world that God has given us. We are pioneers by design. If we choose to see ourselves in that light, our approach to all life will be different. We will diligently seek to learn and grow. We will delight in the world he has given us.
_________________________
Simple Secrets of the Kingdom
Study 3 – The Creation of Man in the Image of God
In our last study, we learned that God created in Genesis by event and process. God uses the same methods to create new life in us daily. It is God’s Word that makes this change take place. In today’s study we will see how God’s Word gives us dignity because we are created in His image. We will also see the conflicts that this identity creates for us because we are in the world. Click here for AUDIO or VIDEO.
_________________________
The New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
What is it about today’s account of God’s creation that makes one consider that it is a story distinct from the story we were able to listen to yesterday?
One of the main considerations lies in the original Hebrew and, so, may be easily missed in translation. It is this author’s use of two Hebrew “words” (recall that there are no vowels in Hebrew and that Hebrew is written and read right to left) to name the supreme being (or supreme beings, as we saw in yesterday’s story) – א ל ה י ם י ה ו ה, transliterated ‘elohim yahweh, but most often translated “the Lord God” (or, earlier in the history of translation, “Jehovah God” (see FN1 below); the word “Lord” which does not appear in the text (so much for “inerrancy”) coming from another Hebrew “word” – א ד נ י, transliterated ‘edonay, and most often translated “Lord”; for the Jews, the name of the supreme being is considered so sacred that it cannot even be pronounced [except once a year by the High Priest in the Holy of Holies, which, of course, no longer exists], so, it is by convention that the English phrase “the Lord” is used in place of the sacred name) – as over against the one “word” – א ל ה י ם, transliterated ‘elohim, but most often translated “God” in yesterday’s story. And, despite the overwhelming trend to consider anything predicated to either one of these names as, thereby, being predicated under both names, these names for “God” are remnants of the names for different gods (see FN2 below).
I first saw this when translating Ephesians Chapter Six (from the Greek into English), in particular, Ephesians 6:2, which is a reference to the Tanakh (Exodus 20:12 [and so, one turns to the Greek of the Septuagint and then, also, the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Coptic, as an aid in translation). And, one of the translations caught my eye - "Honor your father and mother in order that Yahweh (your Elohim) gives long days upon this red land." "Yahweh," the name of the writer's (or speaker's) God and "Elohim," the name of the reader's (or listener's) God (see FN3 below).
But in addition to the names is the differing "conduct" of the supreme being(s) named by these names. We find a heightening of tension between the creator and the human creature, as well as a narrowing of the focus between them in this second story of creation. The "man" is now restricted to the garden of Eden and his free mastery is also restricted in that the fruit of a certain tree - the tree of knowledge of good and bad - cannot be eaten.
And, if there is a hint of anxiety in "the Lord God's" confrontation with "the man" in this second story of creation, then with the creation of "the woman," the Lord God's anxiousness grows more acute. It is almost as if this creation occurred on the sixth day - to provide an explanation of why, in the first creation story, "God" did not "see that they were good." For in this second story, we move from "God's" servant human image in the first story - "Be responsible for . . . every living thing that moves on the face of Earth", etc. (Genesis 1:26 - 28 [The Message version]) – to the story of human transgression (Genesis 2:25 – 3:7; cf. 3:8 – 19) and, eventually, “God’s” regret (Genesis 4 – 11)!
And so, the interior life of Western human beings around the shame of sexuality begins in this peculiar and culturally determined way, sparked by “the Lord God’s” question, “Who told you that you were naked?” And this is a story that to untangle will take much more space than a comment allows. Perhaps more comment will be offered when we arrive at the two stories of “the flood” in Genesis 6 – 9.4
FN1 Cf. Dr. Ralph F. Wilson’s article “Correct Spelling and Pronunciation of Yahweh vs. Jehovah.”
FN2 Not to go necessarily the way of Marcion, but one can certainly see, given the psychological description of modern human being as “ambulatory schizophrenic,” how attempting to conflate the predicated differences subsumed in the stories around these names for the one God (not to mention the stories surrounding the other thirty-four “names” for God used in the Hebrew), one could be left in a schizophrenic state.
FN3 One is reminded of poor Paul in Athens, discussing the “junkyard of idols” in that city with the Jews and other like-minded people in their meeting place, or in the city streets with anyone who would come along – Epicureans and Stoic intellectuals to boot (“There were always people hanging around, native and tourists alike, waiting for the latest tidbit on most anything.” Acts 17:21 [The Message version]). Paul’s audience at the Areopagus was really split at his mention of Jesus being “raised from the dead.” This is understandable when one considers some of the Greek (Hellenistic) forms of the resurrected god motif circulating at that time (in alphabetical order): Adonis, Apollonius of Tyana, Ascelpius, Attis, Demeter, Dionysus, Hercules, Hyacinth, Orpheus, Persephone, Zalmoxis (some forms from other regions include: Sumer: Inanna [or Ishtar {confused with Tammuz}]; Rome: Mithras; Egypt: Osiris; India: Krishna; Germany: Baldur, et cetera, et cetera). So, while Paul was saying “My Jesus . . . “, the devotees of Apollonius were probably hearing “Your Apollonius . . . .”
FN4 Meanwhile, to begin, I would recommend: overall, Jack Miles, God: A Biography [New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1995], and for faith / religion and sexuality, any of the annotated works for your age group at the WWW site of the Religious Institute.
Originally posted on the Dwelling In The Word blog on January 25, 2012 at 12:34 AM with Moderator acceptance