Genesis

For the British rock band, see Genesis (band). For the Sega video game console, see Mega Drive.

Genesis is the first book of the Hebrew Bible (Torah) and of the Old Testament in the Christian Bible. It tells the story of the Creation of the universe and man by God, the Fall of mankind and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden, the story of Noah, Cain and Abel, the testing of Abraham's faith by God, and the founding of Israel. It is followed by Exodus.

Name

The name Genesis is the Greek name for this book used in the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament. In Hebrew, the book is called B^erēšît. The name denotes the opening word of the book and means 'beginning' or 'origin' in English.

Author

The authorship of the book has traditionally been ascribed to Moses, though during the twentieth century a number of scholars proposed that portions of the book existed in writing before Moses collated the book.

Content

The first 11 chapters of the book of Genesis present a view of the Creation and the first generations of man on this earth.

Chapter 1

Chapter 1 describes God's creation of the heavens and the earth, with the earth originally "without form, and void". (v. 1-2)

• On the 1st day, God creates light, calling the light day, and the darkness night - the evening and morning are said to be the first day. (v. 3-5)
• On the 2nd day, God splits the water, dividing the water above from the water below with a firmament. (v. 6-8)
• On the 3rd day, God gathers the waters under heaven into one place so dry land may appear, and commands the earth to bring forth grass, herbs with seeds, and fruit trees with fruit. (v. 9-13)
• On the 4th day, God creates lights in the firmament of heaven to divide the day from night, a greater light for the day, a lesser light for the night, as well as the stars. (v. 14-19)
• On the 5th day, God commands the waters to bring forth moving creatures with life, whales and moving creatures to "fill the waters in the seas" and birds to fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. (v. 20-23)
• On the 6th day, God commands the earth to bring forth cattle, creeping things (poss. reptiles and/or insects), and beasts of the earth. He then creates man in his own image to have rule over birds, marine life, land life, and all the earth, and blesses the new humans, telling them to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it, taking rule over all the creatures. He gives the herbs and fruit trees to all his creations as foods. (v. 24-31)

Interpretive Difficulties

With the advance of science and the adoption of Darwinistic Evolutionary Theory as the primary theory of the origin and development of life in the twentieth century, many scientists, as well as theologians, felt unable to accept the Genesis account of the origins of the world and of man, given the short amount of time they were said to occur in, as well as the order involved.

For Creationist believers from both Judaic and the Christian backgrounds, the apparent contradiction between Genesis and modern science has produced a dilemma, revolving around the central question: Is the Bible really the infallible Word of God? Many now hold to a theory called Day Age which implies 2 Peter 3:8, "But beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day," allows for interpreting the days mentioned in Genesis as much longer periods of time.

When polled by Gallup, 40% of Americans believe that the statement, "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so" is more accurate than "Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process" (38%) or "Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process" (16%). These numbers have held relatively constant over Gallup's 10 polls from 1982-2010.

Therefore, there is still a slightly greater percentage of Americans that believe God created mankind within the last 10,000 years (Creationism) than believe God created us over millions of years from less advance forms of life (Evolution). Atheistic evolutionists who believe God played no role in the process have grown from a low of 9% in 1999 to their present 16%.

Day Age

Day Age theory is the attempt by Theistic Evolutionists to reconcile modern Evolutionary belief with the seemingly conflicting Biblical account of Genesis. The argument centers around 2 Peter 3:8, that such a verse provides precedent for interpreting the days in Genesis 1 as much longer time periods. As cited at the website for Reasons to Believe, the Presbyterian Church conducted a 2-year study concluding there were four views possible for the word 'day' used in Genesis chapters 1-3. The study cited the use of the word day in Isaiah 11:10-11 and denied that the Day Age theory was merely a response to Darwinism, but had existed "from ancient times".

The American Scientific Affiliation has referenced the views of Augustine from the 4th century as precedent for Day Age theory, who said he had:

"worked out and presented the statements of the book of Genesis in a variety of ways according to my ability; and, in interpreting words that have been written obscurely for the purpose of stimulating our thought, I have not rashly taken my stand on one side against a rival interpretation which might possibly be better. I have thought that each one, in keeping with his powers of understanding, should choose the interpretation that he can grasp. Where he cannot understand Holy Scripture, let him glorify and fear for himself... (pp. 43-44)

It is a laborious and difficult task for the powers of our human understanding to see clearly the meaning of the sacred writer in the matter of these six days". (p. 103)

Young Earth

The websites for Creation Ministries International, Apologetics Press, and the Institute for Creation Research have denied the interpretation of a day being equivalent to a thousand years, stating that the use of the words "like" or "as" in saying "a day is as a thousand years" indicate a simile, and share a likeness rather than being directly equivalent. As Apologetics Press and ICR, also note, even if the 6 days mentioned in Genesis were each exactly 1 thousand years, it would not be nearly sufficient for the millions of years required by Evolutionary theory. ChristianAnswers.net notes that there is no indication the Hebrew word 'yom' is intended as anything other than a literal, 24 hour day from Genesis chapter 1, and ICR that the word is overwhelmingly used in all cases in the Old Testament as reference to a 24-hour day.

Guy N. Woods once pointed out, as also mentioned by ICR, that the plants were created on the 3rd day before the sun according to Genesis, and could not have survived a 'day' of millions of years:

"Botany, the field of plant-life, came into existence on the third day. Those who allege that the days of Genesis 1 may have been long geological ages, must accept the absurd hypothesis that pla≈≈nt-life survived in periods of total darkness through half of each geologic age, running into millions of years."