There's a lot we can talk about in this section, so let's just start.
Creation
Day 1...God separated...light from dark
Day 2...God separated...the waters above from the waters below (seas). He called the space between "heaven".
Day 3...God separated...the waters under heaven (seas) from the dry land (earth).
God also filled...the land with plants.
Day 4...God filled...heavens with lights (sun, moon, stars) as vessels for the light. They were given for signs, and seasons, and days, and years.
Day 5...God filled...the seas and heaven with water creatures and birds. This includes the tanniym...the dragons.
Day 6...God filled...the land with land-based creatures and man.
We must also remember that there are two different Hebrew words used in this week of creation.
One is bara, which means to create out of nothing, or to create something that didn't exist up to that point. It is used 3 times in the first chapter of Genesis. Our English translations use the word "create" for the Hebrew bara.
Verse 1...God created all matter and energy.
Verse 21...God created living creatures. Something was new in these living creatures, something that nothing had up to that time. I call it the soul. It is a breath of life.
Verse 27...God created human life. Again there was something new here. Man has the soul, the breath of life. But he was created in God's image. Living creatures didn't have that. I call this the spirit.
The other word used in chapter 1 of Genesis is asah, which is translated "make" or "made". God made the lights, land, water, sky, plants, sun, moon, stars, etc.
Does the creation story appear in other cultures?
Yes. Emphatically yes. Not to all the detail given us in scripture, but with striking similarities. At one time I had found a website that listed 260 different creation stories in cultures worldwide. I can't find that site now, but Wikipedia has a page with a variety of stories here . Many tales include the theme of the tree of life.
The origin of the seven-day week.
God established it. In Exodus 20:8-11 He says that the reason for it is because of the pattern of creation week.
The seven-day week is almost universally observed. But it is a puzzle to those who don't believe in the Bible. They can't figure out how it started. It is easy to see that the year is connected to the sun and the month to the moon, but the week? And it's been that way since the beginning.
Not too terribly long ago, Josef Stalin tried to make a 10 day week. Work 9 days and have one day off. Call the days by numbers. It's interesting that he said the reason he wanted to make this change was that he wanted to erase all religious memories. Note that he recognized the source! Only thing was, it didn't work. People couldn't work that much. By the way, in Russia, Sunday is called Resurrection Day.
How would you describe the earth during this time? Now, that's based on the Bible.
One land mass, one area of sea.
Waters above heaven and waters below.
No rain, earth watered by a mist.
Likely: a more uniform climate? no wind? less rugged terrain? more edible vegetation?
How would you describe mankind?
Had language from the beginning.
Built cities.
Animals were tame.
Accomplished in technology. (metallurgy, animal husbandry, musical instruments, construction, boat building.
I will go on in the next post.
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