GENESIS – THE BEGINNING
The New Jerusalem Bible indicates: Genesis, the story of origins, sets the scene for the whole Bible. It is the first book in our Bibles and it is the first of five scrolls in the Pentateuch the Hebrew Scriptures (Torah). Jack Hayford says “Genesis gives the beginning of almost everything, including the beginning of the universe, life, humanity, Sabbath, death, marriage, sin, redemption, family, literature, cities, art, language and sacrifice.” So let us begin.
The Creation of the World, Paradise, and the Test of Free Will and The Fall are the titles for the first three chapters in The New Jerusalem Bible. The first three chapters present us with many questions. The first bit of trivia from The Apologetics Study Bible:
Twisted Scripture: Genesis 1:1-2
The creation story has been interpreted in various ways. Some Christians believe a time gap exists between these verses, with verse 1 referring to God's initial creative act and verse 2 describing a world plunged into chaos and darkness, possibly through the expulsion of Satan from heaven. Only later in the chapter does God choose to create human beings (v. 27). According to this gap theory, millions of years could have passed between verses 1 and 2.
Using similar logic, those followers of the New Age movement who believe in the existence of the lost continent of Atlantis place the rise and fall of the ancient civilization between verses 1-2. Edgar Cayce, known as the "sleeping prophet," taught that Atlantis existed 10 million years ago and was inhabited by spirit beings. After a cataclysmic destruction ("chaos and darkness"), the spirits of the inhabitants eventually took up residence in the bodies of Adam and Eve and the others who populated God's new creation (v. 27). Thus all earthlings originally resided in Atlantis.
—Apologetics Study Bible, The
Two creation accounts, Atlantis, Edgar Cayce, all of this in the first chapters of Genesis? Not only that but “The Hebrew word for "God," Elohim, is grammatically plural—Apologetics Study Bible, This has been interpreted by some, including the Masons in Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol, to mean that we are all gods. Wow, all of this and more in our first read. This is why prayer and the leadership of the Holy Spirit is essential.
Bible. English. New Jerusalem Bible. 1990.
The New Jerusalem Bible.—Reader’s ed.
The New Jerusalem Bible. New York : Doubleday, 1985
Hayford’s Bible Handbook
Copyright 1995 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Hayford, Jack W. ; Thomas Nelson Publishers: Hayford's Bible Handbook. Nashville : Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1995
The Apologetics Study Bible —Apologetics Study Bible, The
Copyright © 2007 by Holman Bible Publishers. Database © 2007 WORDsearch Corp.
Addendum to Genesis 1 – 3
Over the years in my Bible studies I have used many reference resources ranging from very conservative to extremely liberal. One such resource that I have avoided until recently is the Holman Christian Standard version published in 1999. I recently acquired a copy of The Apogetics Study Bible in the Homan Christian Standard Version. In my opinion the Bible texts are sound but the study portions are very conservative to the extreme. However, I have found the “Twisted Scripture” portions to be quite interesting and illustrative of the point that we must be extremely careful in our interpretation. You will find that I will use some of these throughout this study. Here are two that go with the readings for January 1st.
Twisted Scripture: Genesis 1:27
Modern-day vampires trace their origins to this verse and the mythical figure of Lilith, who was supposedly created before Eve. The legend of Lilith derives from a theory that Genesis has two creation accounts (this verse and 2:7, 20-22). The two stories allow for two different women. Lilith does not appear in the Bible (apart from a debatable reference comparing her to a screech owl in the Hb text of Isa 34:14). Some rabbinic commentators, however, refer to Lilith as the first created woman, who refused to submit to Adam and fled from the garden. Eve was then created to be Adam's helper. After their expulsion from the garden, Adam reunited for a time with Lilith before finally returning to Eve. Lilith bore Adam a number of children, who became the demons of the Bible. According to kabbalistic legend, after Adam's reconciliation with Eve, Lilith took the title Queen of the Demons and became a murderer of infants and young boys, whom she turned into vampires.
Twisted Scripture: Genesis 3:15
Many Pentecostal Oneness sects use this verse to promote the serpent seed theory. William Branham, a faith healing evangelist of the 1940s, taught that Eve's sin in the garden was an illicit sexual affair with the serpent, resulting in her pregnancy. The serpent's seed was Cain and his descendants. Scripture is clear that the first sin was not sexual but rather consisted of Adam's disobedience to God's command not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (2:16-17).
(The Apologetics Study Bible. Copyright 2007, Holman Bible Publishers. Nashville, Tennessee)
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1 comment:
Now, let me see ... where have I heard that name - William Branham. Why he is a Jeffersonville, Indiana native and his church is still headquartered here.
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