1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The Earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.Only two verses, but, as you will see, these two verses set the theme for not only the Torah/Pentateuch, but for the entire Bible, old and new testaments.
With that in mind, my thoughts on these two verses will take some time to lay out. I had originally wanted to make one big post but it was taking forever, so I thought I'd break it up. I don't know how many parts will be in this multi-post undertaking (probably around five to ten), but I'll do my best to stay on track.
There are countless commentaries on the biblical account of the origin of our world and of us as humans; too many to comment on. No doubt some of my thoughts may overlap with others. That's fine. Some folks have similar perspectives, others differ.
Just a note: I probably won't get too deep into the Hebrew meanings of words on account of I don't really know Hebrew, outside of looking up words and then giving my opinion. So I'll take the English translation and work with that, pull what I can from what I have. And, just so you know, I'll be reading out of the New King James Versiona.
Let's start with Genesis 1:1:
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.Already, I detect five main mysteries:
- What exactly is "the beginning"?
- Who is "God"?
- What is meant by "created"?
- What are "the heavens and the earth"?
- Whose account is this?
This little verse has a lot going on. The mysteries are naturally connected to each other so my notes will also naturally overlap. Hardly anything in the Bible is isolated.
1. What exactly is "the beginning"?
The easy answer is, "The beginning of time and everything!" But that's not exact, nor can it be truly understood. Time is something that we use to help us give structure to our lives. In infinity, time is irrelevant. So there is no beginning of time. You may ask, "If there is no beginning in infinity, how can the Bible state, 'In the beginning...'?" Good question. Hence the mystery.
Some will say that this is the beginning of all existence, even the existence of God. That also doesn't make sense. Nothing can create itself, even in a spiritual sense. There is the dueling philosophies which ask, "Did God create us or did we create God?" That too is a good question. No doubt we humans create deities all the time. Yet, the fact that humans tend to create things does not mean that we were not created. Artificial Intelligence (AI)b creates things yet it too was created. That said, I don't recommend watching the movie "A.I. Artificial Intelligence"c because it goes on and on and on... But, not wanting to go on and on about that, I'll move on.
If we get hung up on what the beginning is, we will not truly understand the following verses, chapters, books, gospels, letters, or anything else in the Bible and its corresponding belief system. We're at a crossroads already. We have to make a decision as to which path of interpretation to tread: one of physics or one of metaphysics. Neither are exclusive, yet making this distinction at this juncture is paramount.
It is seemingly obvious to assume that we are reading about the beginning of our physical world. And that's fair. However, that view is narrow and problematic, not so much in the sense that it gives us problems with our faith, but that it gives any rational human problems with the accuracy of science, nature, and history. We'll dig deeper into this when we get to Mystery #5.
For me, this "beginning" speaks more of our own personal existence, since that's all we can really prove. By that, I mean that there was a beginning to each of us, a beginning of our own individual lives. Many will claim that they have been reincarnated and that this life is the next in a long line of lives. I don't doubt their belief. But even if we take that into account, there still is only one body being inhabited by one consciousness (multiple-personality disorders notwithstanding). It is this consciousness and it's fleshy vessel (i.e., our body) of which I speak.
To clarify, when I read about the creation story in the Bible, I read it more as analogous account of the origin of life and the origin of each man's life and how those are mirrored. The Bible is not a science book and it is not a text book spouting mere facts. It is so much more. And when we start to wrap our brains around "so much more,", the words spring off of the page and live; we gain a greater understanding of ourselves and how we fit into this grand system of nature, the earth, the universe, and all our physical environment.
In the next blog, I will move on to Mystery #2: "Who is 'God'?"
a I like the New King James Version of the Bible because it reads in the poetic way the King James Bible reads but without "thee" and "thou" and such.
b Artificial Intelligence (AI) is, in my opinion, the greatest threat to humanity. Machines have no soul and therefore are only calculating. Additionally, because they can be programmed to create, then learn, then create, then learn, and so on, they can create anything that suits their fancy. Giving a machine (without a soul) that ability is super dangerous, at least in my opinion it is.
c "A.I. Artificial Intelligence": While being "Certified Fresh" at Rotten Tomatoes, I would say that it would have fared better had it stopped 45 minutes sooner. Seriously. If you don't believe me, go check it out.
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