A Walk Through Genesis One
The Bible starts with the Torah (Hebrew for The Law) or Pentateuch (Greek for The Five Books). These five books are often referred to as the Books of Moses, as he was considered the primary originator of the oral forms these stories are based upon. These books are:
Genesis (Grk for "Beginnings", which refers to heroes and leaders that lead up to the People of Israel)
Exodus (Grk for "Departure", refers to the liberations of Israel from slavery in Egypt)
Leviticus (Grk for "Levitical Laws", refers to the Tribe of Israel called Levi, the priestly tribe)
Numbers (Curiously, English, stories of Israel journeying from the wilderness into the Promised land)
Deuteronomy (Grk for "Second Law").
Genesis tells the beginnings of Israel tracing it all the way back to our first parents. It has two Creation stories that tell two different stories. We are going to walk through Genesis 1, the first creation story, together.
Genesis One
"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters."
The two key concepts that the rest of the chapter answers is "Without form" and "void". On Days 1, 2, 3, God forms the creation and on the corresponding days of 4, 5, 6 He fills the void with creatures. This is the structure of the rest of the first creation account until we crown the week with the Sabbath Day of rest.
TIME
On Day One God creates time, according to St. Augustine. Time is a creature, a thing, to God. Scientists tell us that space and time are unified into a single field called spacetime. Einstein knew that a thing could not exist in a particular place in space without also occupying a particular point in time. On Day Four, God creates the sun, moon, and stars that "rule over" time. The sun marked not just the day, but also the year. The moon tells us the moonth, or month. Stars measure out the eons and ages.
An interesting note: the sacred author of Genesis 1 did not call them by name, but said "the greater one" and "the lesser one" because the names given them by the surrounding peoples were the names of their false gods and goddesses.
SEA AND SKY
On Day Two God creates the boundaries of the seas and sky, or "heavens." On Day Five, God fills the seas and sky with corresponding creatures of birds and fish. So the theme of Form/Void continues on days Two and Five.
DRY LAND
On Day Three God creates the dry land and vegetation and so on Day Six He creates the creatures that live on the land, both the land animals and the creeping things that creep upon the earth. Then the creation narrative dramatically shifts to a conversation that God has with Himself:
"Let us make man in our image, after our likeness"... "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them."
I want to draw out three lessons from the special creation of Man, Male and Female.
First, notice that man is considered a whole image only when united together as male and female. I find it fascinating that in that day and age the sacred author wrote without distinction that both men and women were equally made in the divine image and likeness of God. There is no denigration of the feminine at all in this story.
Second, notice how humanity and the beasts are created on the same day. We animals start out together. The Church defined human persons as "rational animals." We are not angels trapped in bodies. Our souls are spiritual and rational, but we are utterly embodied beings. Christianity is not a flight from the body or hatred of the body.
Third, the language of "image and likeness" does not just refer to our unique structure as rational animals surrounded by irrational animals. It is a Hebrew expression for "fathering a son." We see this exact expression used just a few chapters later in Genesis 5: 1-3: "When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created. When Adam had lived a hundred and thirty years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth." More on this later.
THE SABBATH REST
But Creation does not end with creating but resting. God makes the Seventh Day holy and calls man, male and female, to enter into that divine rest. So creation is described as a procession, first the forms, then the creatures that fill the forms are made, culminating in the king and queen of creation, Man. But it doesn't end there but continues into the Seventh Day. This Day crowns the work of creation with worship. The whole point, then, of this creation account is to orient the whole universe and not just humanity towards the glory and praise of God.
Speaking practically, the Sabbath rest was so strict in ancient times that merely carrying something in your hands was considered "work" and was forbidden. Man is not reducible to work, to his activities and status and production. This Seventh Day is a war against defining and limiting human persons by what they do. God tells us who we are and how we are valued in His divine eyes.
MADE FOR FAMILY
Remember how I said in a previous essay that in the ancient world everything was family-centered? This is where these concepts help us interpret the Bible. The sacred author of Genesis 1 is telling us that the first human persons created by God, in the beginning, were created as finite, creaturely son and daughter of the Father. It would not be until the coming of Jesus Christ that we see why. Jesus revealed to the world that God was not just like a father, but that He is Father from all eternity. It is Who He is and thus it is What He does.
When God works in the world in the Bible it is often described in family or marital terms. God is a husband to Israel His bride or God is a father and Israel is His firstborn son. But in the New Testament we find out that, as I just said, God is Father because He is eternally fathering His eternal, infinite, uncreated Son.
What are the implications of this?
Our first parents, from the first moment of their existence, were created in a covenant family bond with God and one another. These folks, we can call them Adam and Eve, were created full of grace, innocent of sin, and in union with God their Father. Our first parents were not just the first rational animals but were the king and queen of Creation. God gave them dominion over everything that existed. Moreover, their Garden paradise was not just a fun place to hang out but was their palace AND their temple, from which they worshipped God.
So when we dive into Genesis 3 and the story of The Fall, we will see that it cost them dearly. They rejected, and so lost, the sonship they had with God. They were dis-inherited. The self-exiled. This sin now begins to undo everything in the human family because our covenant representative failed miserably.
Thank God He would send His eternal Son in the fullness of time to bring the rebels home.