Does Genesis 1 describe the Universe?

[Tcg]

Some claim that Genesis 1 describes the creation of the universe and yet an examination of the text reveals that the author doesn't have any concept of planets other than the earth. Beyond that, the author doesn't even understand that the earth is a planet. This is an example of Ancient Hebrew concept of cosmology:




Why do some claim that Genesis 1 describes the universe when the author shows no knowledge of our solar system much less the universe?


Tcg

[brunumb]

I don't think that is any reason to not accept its advice on how to order our lives and the world around us.

I keep re-reading Genesis 1 and for the life of me cannot see how one could extract "its advice on how to order our lives and the world around us" from it. It simply reads as an account of creation with an exclamation that humans are the "top of the tree" as they no doubt regarded themselves when they came up with the story.

[JoeyKnothead]

I don't think that is any reason to not accept its advice on how to order our lives and the world around us.

I keep re-reading Genesis 1 and for the life of me cannot see how one could extract "its advice on how to order our lives and the world around us" from it. It simply reads as an account of creation with an exclamation that humans are the "top of the tree" as they no doubt regarded themselves when they came up with the story.

Ya gotta read it with the holy ghost, and the belief, and quit reading it all devil like.

[Tcg]

I don't think that is any reason to not accept its advice on how to order our lives and the world around us.

I keep re-reading Genesis 1 and for the life of me cannot see how one could extract "its advice on how to order our lives and the world around us" from it. It simply reads as an account of creation with an exclamation that humans are the "top of the tree" as they no doubt regarded themselves when they came up with the story.

Ya gotta read it with the holy ghost, and the belief, and quit reading it all devil like.

I also wonder what it means to order the "world around us?" I can cut the grass in my yard and whatnot, but I'm not sure that qualifies. The term "world around us" seems to cover more than I can groom. If God in Genesis 1 is assigning that duty to me he may have picked the wrong guy. Even Elon Musk with all his brains and money seems bent on leaving the world around him and resettling elsewhere in our little solar system. A solar system of which the author of Genesis 1 is completely unaware.


Tcg

[brunumb]

I don't think that is any reason to not accept its advice on how to order our lives and the world around us.

I keep re-reading Genesis 1 and for the life of me cannot see how one could extract "its advice on how to order our lives and the world around us" from it. It simply reads as an account of creation with an exclamation that humans are the "top of the tree" as they no doubt regarded themselves when they came up with the story.

Ya gotta read it with the holy ghost, and the belief, and quit reading it all devil like.

I kinda lost my Bible-glasses too, so that doesn't help either. But seriously, could someone please explain exactly how I am missing the so-called life-lessons allegedly contained in Genesis 1.

[theophile]

I don't think that is any reason to not accept its advice on how to order our lives and the world around us.

I keep re-reading Genesis 1 and for the life of me cannot see how one could extract "its advice on how to order our lives and the world around us" from it. It simply reads as an account of creation with an exclamation that humans are the "top of the tree" as they no doubt regarded themselves when they came up with the story.

There are a lot of indications in Gen 1 if we care to acknowledge them. So my apologies for the length, but a lot to unpack here.

First, there is plurality in God / God's order. See Gen 1:26, "Let us make humankind in our image...". Here the writer reveals that God has not been alone in what God has been doing, but is in fact an "us". i.e., God is more a 'many' than a 'one' in Gen 1, which politically speaking means there's a democratic element in what is commonly expected to be a monarchic rule. This gets emphasized again in Gen 1:27 when God creates humankind as man and woman, i.e., the plurality and difference within God's nature gets expressed as gender difference in humankind. That's one important message which unfortunately was missed through centuries of brutal monarchic rule in God's name: the recognition and even embrace of difference.

But that begs the question of who / what the plurality is that God is referring to. Gen 1 is not explicit on this, but I would argue the only candidate - i.e., the only thing that is not God or something God has made in Gen 1 is the deep / abyss and all that it contains.

So I would venture from this that God : the deep as man : woman in Gen 1.

On this coupling (God and the deep) it is worth noting the Enuma Elish, where 'the deep' would arguably be Tiamat, the dragon goddess of the sea. Gen 1 differs from this myth in a key respect: Tiamat is not slain as she was in the Enuma Elish (her dead body providing a site for the world), but is instead subdued by God into partnership... She is a participant in the creation of the world, not something that must be destroyed before the world can be. (See also Job 41 where God describes the subduing - not the killing - of Leviathan, a similar 'sea monster' as Tiamat / the deep.)

Granted, the relative standing of man to woman (or God to the deep) is an open and interesting question in Gen 1, but there is no reason to conclude an asymmetrical relationship between them, i.e., that man rules over woman and can / should suppress her voice. The indication is simply that there is difference in God, and as such a possible tension but also the possibility for collaboration... A risk of opposition but also of coming together and partnership... In a word, a voluntary union or marriage... and that this is good.

Which brings me to my second and related point, indicated by the mode in which God speaks. In God's repeated usage of the jussive "Let." i.e., "Let there..." "Let us..." Here we see that God's mode of rule isn't to demand, or to force, or to necessarily perform something ex nihilo to get God's way. All we can say from the text is that God simply calls out for something to be.

So I would suggest, based on the preceding, that God is literally calling out to the deep / abyss for help (just as God gives Eve to 'help' Adam in Gen 2:18). And that the deep (or some within the deep) answer the call. They become part of the "us" / multitude of God in the process of answering the call, expand the boundaries of the heavens and the earth, . (Just think of the "Here I am" response from biblical heroes who similarly answer God's call. Or of Job 38:7's reference to the "children of God" gathered together and "shouting for joy" as the foundations of the earth are laid). This is another important learning that builds on the first: difference is not to be eradicated and destroyed - nor merely just recognized - but actually partnered with.

Which gets to the third, final, and most important indication in Gen 1 for how we should live / order our lives, which is the mandate that God gives us in Gen 1:28. What God throughout Gen 1 has been calling out for help for in effecting:

"Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it."

This verse captures what God has been doing up to this point, and how we need to continue ordering our lives and the world around us. It says, quite clearly, that the focus of our lives should be on making the heavens and the earth a place where life can prosper.

This has significant implications if you think about it. For example, our destruction of the environment is completely contrary to this (we should have a different order there as humankind). As is our continued allowance of poverty and hunger for literally billions of human beings. As is our failure to recognize and 'let be' different forms of life (different gender expressions for example). We should be creating the conditions for life to express itself, not suppressing different kinds of life out of fear, lack of knowledge, or whatever else.

I could go on. But to summarize, Gen 1 shows us the consistent application of a life-pursuing principle. It shows us what the pursuit of life means for our politics, and how we should include and recognize difference in the works that we do. It shows us not to fear and eradicate that which we don't know, but to subdue it into partnership. It shows us a gathering movement and organization around this principle / approach, while hinting at where the real power lies (not in God but in the deep who answers the call, and in doing so extends the bounds of God's dominion). Finally, it sets us a clear mission and purpose in our lives, which in itself marks a stark difference and departure from how we've ordered the world so far.

So overall, it gives some pretty strong advice on how we should order our lives and the world around us I think.

[Difflugia]

[Replying to theophile in post #115]

Your poetic understanding of "subdue" () doesn't fit how the Bible uses the word. I've transliterated it in the following verses to let others decide themselves what the word means in context and whether or not it implies a mutually beneficial partnership, like the ideal (and decidedly nonbiblical) relationship between a man and woman. I included plenty of context so we may inhale the full biblical meaning:

2 Samuel 8:9-14

When Toi king of Hamath heard that David had struck all the army of Hadadezer, then Toi sent Joram his son to King David to greet him and to bless him, because he had fought against Hadadezer and struck him; for Hadadezer had wars with Toi. Joram brought with him vessels of silver, vessels of gold, and vessels of bronze. King David also dedicated these to Yahweh, with the silver and gold that he dedicated of all the nations which he kibof Syria, of Moab, of the children of Ammon, of the Philistines, of Amalek, and of the plunder of Hadadezer, son of Rehob, king of Zobah.

David earned a reputation when he returned from striking down eighteen thousand men of the Syrians in the Valley of Salt. He put garrisons in Edom. Throughout all Edom, he put garrisons, and all the Edomites became servants to David. Yahweh gave victory to David wherever he went.

2 Chronicles 28:9-10

But a prophet of Yahweh was there, whose name was Oded; and he went out to meet the army that came to Samaria, and said to them, "Behold, because Yahweh, the God of your fathers, was angry with Judah, he has delivered them into your hand, and you have slain them in a rage which has reached up to heaven. Now you intend to kb the children of Judah and Jerusalem as male and female slaves for yourselves. Arent there even with you trespasses of your own against Yahweh your God?

[theophile]

I don't think that is any reason to not accept its advice on how to order our lives and the world around us.

I keep re-reading Genesis 1 and for the life of me cannot see how one could extract "its advice on how to order our lives and the world around us" from it. It simply reads as an account of creation with an exclamation that humans are the "top of the tree" as they no doubt regarded themselves when they came up with the story.

Ya gotta read it with the holy ghost, and the belief, and quit reading it all devil like.

I kinda lost my Bible-glasses too, so that doesn't help either. But seriously, could someone please explain exactly how I am missing the so-called life-lessons allegedly contained in Genesis 1.

Just read what it says. Don't force-fit later ideas or popular Christian notions like omnipotence, which Gen 1 doesn't mention.

Also, you may call this "twisting" or "whitewashing" or whatever else, but my strong advice when reading the bible is to focus on the little things. The bible's real message, in my opinion, is always found in its subtleties... It's almost the literary / hermeneutical version of Paul's message in 1 Corinthians 1:27: "God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong..." i.e., It is the small, unnoticed words / statements in the bible that overturn and confound the 'obvious' readings / interpretations...

For example, we could read Gen 1 (as popularly done) as the revelation of an all-powerful God-King creating the heavens and the earth ex nihilo in a grand display of power and might. But there are little indications in the text that disrupt such a reading if you stop to think about them. Things like, in my prior post, God's own reference to Godself as an "us."

It throws a bit of a wrench into the works, right? Into this concept of God as some omnipotent old man in the sky? Now sure, later Christians will claim Gen 1's foresight of the Trinity or whatever else, but none of that feels right, right? It all feels like a force-fit onto Gen 1 and should, by my suggestion, push us to look closer at what is really going on.

That is my advice when reading the bible. Read what it says. Follow the little leads. That is where treasure lies.

[theophile]

[Replying to theophile in post #115]

Your poetic understanding of "subdue" () doesn't fit how the Bible uses the word. I've transliterated it in the following verses to let others decide themselves what the word means in context and whether or not it implies a mutually beneficial partnership, like the ideal (and decidedly nonbiblical) relationship between a man and woman. I included plenty of context so we may inhale the full biblical meaning:

2 Samuel 8:9-14

When Toi king of Hamath heard that David had struck all the army of Hadadezer, then Toi sent Joram his son to King David to greet him and to bless him, because he had fought against Hadadezer and struck him; for Hadadezer had wars with Toi. Joram brought with him vessels of silver, vessels of gold, and vessels of bronze. King David also dedicated these to Yahweh, with the silver and gold that he dedicated of all the nations which he kibof Syria, of Moab, of the children of Ammon, of the Philistines, of Amalek, and of the plunder of Hadadezer, son of Rehob, king of Zobah.

David earned a reputation when he returned from striking down eighteen thousand men of the Syrians in the Valley of Salt. He put garrisons in Edom. Throughout all Edom, he put garrisons, and all the Edomites became servants to David. Yahweh gave victory to David wherever he went.

2 Chronicles 28:9-10

But a prophet of Yahweh was there, whose name was Oded; and he went out to meet the army that came to Samaria, and said to them, "Behold, because Yahweh, the God of your fathers, was angry with Judah, he has delivered them into your hand, and you have slain them in a rage which has reached up to heaven. Now you intend to kb the children of Judah and Jerusalem as male and female slaves for yourselves. Arent there even with you trespasses of your own against Yahweh your God?

'Subdue' is a complex word of huge importance in the bible and I don't claim to have perfectly captured it in my post.

To unpack some of that subtlety...

If I was to extend my thinking a bit, past Gen 1 to Gen 3 and the fallen world that comes into effect, I would say that our mandate and mission to subdue life takes on a fallen form. In a fallen world, 'to subdue' means 'to destroy'. It means to bring peace through the destruction of life and difference in this world...

That is a terrible thing, because in this way it becomes the exact opposite of what it was meant to be in the beginning, when God showed us how to subdue the deep and create the conditions for life in this world. (Again, the deep unlike Tiamat is not slain...). But a very interesting verse that you site, and why God would continue to give David victory...

To that (potentially), I would say there are times that 'subdual' in the form of 'destroying life' is 100% called for and consistent with our mission to fill the earth. Sometimes weeds need to be cut back so that the other plants can grow. Sometimes we form oppressive (fallen) orders that need to be forcefully removed... Things like Egypt. Or the Nazis in WW2. Or the blanket of greenhouse gases cooking the world.

'Subdue' is a complex word because of how expressive it is of our mission, and how complex that is.

[William]

[Replying to theophile in post #118]

To that (potentially), I would say there are times that 'subdual' in the form of 'destroying life' is 100% called for and consistent with our mission to fill the earth. Sometimes weeds need to be cut back so that the other plants can grow. Sometimes we form oppressive (fallen) orders that need to be forcefully removed... Things like Egypt. Or the Nazis in WW2. Or the blanket of greenhouse gases cooking the world.

'Subdue' is a complex word because of how expressive it is of our mission, and how complex that is.

Therefore it is possible that The Father will never give the nod to Jesus returning to Earth.

It hasn't happened so far, and a lot of subduing has been going on in the last 20 centuries leading up to the possible/probable near-extinction event climate change promises to deliver...perhaps it is part of the plan to subdue the weeds which are the very thing which caused the climate change - the very thing which will be weeded from the Earth.

I say 'near-extinct' - because there are a handful of human beings who have invested their talents into at least giving themselves and those closest to them a chance of surviving that which most will not be able to survive.

Perhaps their efforts are the truest interpretation of what "Subduing the world" actually refers to.

[brunumb]

So my apologies for the length, but a lot to unpack here.

Sorry, but that involved more than unpacking. It involved a heap of creative synthesis that is simply not in the narrative.