Is it Creation, Evolution or Intelligent Design? Was there a “Big Bang”? What is a “Black Hole?” Are the so-called Dinosaurs mentioned in the Bible? Are Science and Religion compatible Friends or incompatible Foes? (This study is jam packed with Bible quotations … For the sake of flow, biblical passages are sometimes repeated for emphasis and convenience)
“For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth” (2Cor 13:8)…
“Truth cannot contradict truth, and will never go against God, for he is the one and only Absolute Truth” (All Heavenly Faiths’ stance)
"When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth" (Attributed to Sherlock Holmes - TV fictional character-)
“Numberless are the world’s wonders, but none are more wonderful than man himself” (Sophocles)
“Fate determines what will happen to us, while ideas, convictions and intentions are no more than phosphorescent epiphenomena” (Joseph W. Krutch)
PRELUDE
“I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hid these things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them unto babes” (Matt 11:25).
Although he opposed Christianity and passionately defended paganism, Lycaeus Proclus (410- 485AD), the Greek philosopher and dialectician, wrote this opinion in one of his commentaries: “The first principle in NeoPlatonism is the One (to Hen). It is the principle which produces all Being. For this reason, the NeoPlatonists thought that the One could not itself be a being. If it were a being, it would have a particular nature, and so could not be universally productive of all being. Because it is beyond being (epekeina tes ousias is a phrase from Plato's Republic 509b), it is also beyond thought, because thinking requires the determinations which belong to being: the division between subject and object, and the distinction of one thing from another. For this reason, even the name The One isn't a positive name, but rather the most non- multiple name we can think of, a name derived from our own inadequate conception of the simplicity of the first principle. The One causes all things by conferring unity on them, and in NeoPlatonism existence, unity, and form tend to become equivalent. The One causes things to exist by donating unity, and the particular manner in which a thing is one is its form (a dog and a house are one in different manners, for example). Because the One makes things exist by giving them the unity which makes them what they are, the Neo-Platonists thought of it also as the source of the good of everything. So the other name for the One is the Good. The first principle isn't double, however. Instead, all things have a double relation to it, as coming from it (One) and then being oriented back towards it to receive their perfection or completion (Good)”.
Wikipedia’s commentary on the opinion: “The particular characteristic of Proclus' system is his insertion of a level of individual ones, called henads (Greek hen from neutral heis “One” and suffix ad “same”) between the One itself and the divine Intellect, which is the second principle. The henads are beyond being, like the One himself, but they stand at the head of chains of causation (seirai or taxeis) and in some manner give to these chains their particular character. They are also identified with the traditional Greek gods, so one henad might be Apollo and be the cause of all things apollonian, while another might be Helios and be the cause of all sunny things. The henads serve both to protect the One himself from any hint of multiplicity, and to draw up the rest of the universe towards the One, by being a connecting, intermediate stage between absolute unity and determinate multiplicity.
In terms of his sources, the One is like a combination of the Platonic Form of the Good, because it confers being and intelligibility on all things, and Aristotle's Unmoved Mover, which is the final cause of all things.
Coming between the One and the henads (some scholars think after the henads) are the two principles of First Limit and First Infinity, which are the principles of the fertile production (Infinity or Unlimited, apeiron) and the controlled nature of the production (Limit, peras) of all things.
Plotinus speaks about the generation of Intellect from the One, and Intellect's attempt to return to the One in a thinking which is also a desiring. Proclus systematizes this production through a threefold movement: of remaining, procession, and return, (mone, proodos, epistrophe). Intellect remains in the One, which means that it has the One as its origin. It proceeds from the One, which means that it comes to be as a separate entity. But it returns to the One, which means that it doesn't cut itself off from its source, but receives the good which is its identity from the One. This threefold motion is used by Proclus to structure all levels of his system below the One and above material reality, so that all things except those mentioned remain, proceed, and return.” (Wikipedia web site/Proclus). (Highlighting & emphasis are of the author’s).
Allow me to ponder and wonder: if a pagan could write such a compelling statement without believing in God, what is our excuse not to see God in his creation? And second, if we can not fathom what he, the mortal, has written, how can we conceive and perceive what God, the omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent and more importantly immortal, has written? Our world, since the beginning to the end of time, is and always will be no more than a vast classroom in our unending journey towards increased knowledge through discoveries and observation. A learning institution of its own for all ages and all walks of life, and I do invite you to explore with me that classroom of ongoing show of pandemonium and commotions.
The validity of a theory is generally accepted in the scientific milieu if no one disputes or proves it wrong. It is and will remain a theory, educated or uneducated guess and speculation. Based on the few questions I posed at the beginning of this study, I will show and prove from the Bible itself that our biblical creation story is parallel and analog to that of atheists’ evolution theory on all fronts except that man evolved from Lemur (This type of primate was the evolutionary predecessor of monkeys and apes (simians), which I will also prove them wrong through their own theories. I will give you the tools to defend religiously, scientifically and academically not theoretically our steadfast faith in the creation story. The following story is just the right one to realize the flying debris of theories:
“One day a university professor challenged his students with this question: “Did God create everything that exists?” A student bravely replied: “Yes, he did, God created everything?" The professor answered: "If God created everything, then God created evil since evil exists, and according to the principal that our works define who we are then God is evil". The student became quiet before such an answer. The professor was quite pleased with himself and boasted to the students that he had proven once more that the Christian faith was a myth”. Another student raised his hand and said: "Can I ask you a question, professor?" "Of course", replied the professor. The student stood up and asked: "Professor, does cold exist?” "What kind of question is this? Of course it exists. Have you never been cold?" The students snickered at the young man's question. The young man replied: "In fact, sir, cold does not exist. According to the laws of physics, what we consider cold is in reality the absence of heat. Everybody and every object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy, and heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit energy. Absolute zero (- 460 degrees F) is the total absence of heat; all matter becomes inert and incapable of reaction at that temperature. Cold does not exist. We have created this word to describe how we feel if we have too little heat.
The student continued: "Professor, does darkness exist?" The professor responded: "Of course it does". The student replied: "Once again you are wrong, sir, darkness does not exist either. Darkness is in reality the absence of light. Light we can study, but not darkness. In fact we can use Newton's prism to break white light into many colors and study the various wavelengths of each color. You cannot measure darkness. A simple ray of light can break into a world of darkness and illuminate it. How can you know how dark a certain space is? You measure the amount of light present. Isn't this correct? Darkness is a term used by man to describe what happens when there is no light present".
Finally the young man asked the professor: "Sir, does evil exist?" Now uncertain, the professor responded: "Of course as I have already said. We see it every day. It is in the daily example of man's inhumanity to man. It is in the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the world. "These manifestations are nothing else but evil". To this the student replied: "Evil does not exist, sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is not like faith, or love, that exist just as does light and heat. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God's love present in his heart. It's like the cold that comes when there is no heat or the darkness that comes when there is no light". The professor sat down.”
This dialogue is believed to have taken place between an unnamed professor and the student Albert Einstein, but no confirmation of its authenticity. Nevertheless, it forwards a very valuable lesson, whereas the above story is in parallel to this biblical passage: “Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God has showed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were they thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. And changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things” (Rom 1:19-23).
I am positive many of us never read the word of God and live on hearing bits and pieces but never ascertain for ourselves to know our enemies. I assure you, you will gain much knowledge to ready yourself to cross the “t”s and dot the “i”s and face Satan and his demons the atheist skeptic world while praising the Living Loving God for his infinite wisdom, which is nurturing food for the ignorant and stumbling stone for the wise.
I must make a disclaimer that many a time, you will read very disturbing questions that I pose within the study, but I assure you that I am only quoting these claims and questions disseminated by the misled atheists and proponents of evolution, as my belief in God’s creation process with his purpose and plan is steadfast and unwavering because I believe that his word is true “in season and out of season” (2Tim 4:1-5), while I repeat with King David, “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows his handiwork… Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, Lord, my strength, and my redeemer” (Psa 19:1, 14).
When it comes to atheists, I believe this statement of Paul fits them to the tee: “Who oppose and exalt themselves above all that is called God or that is worshipped; so that they as Gods sit in the temple of God, showing themselves that they are God” (2The 2:4). I am also reminded by this quote, which corresponds with God’s word in Ecclesiastes below, because humans never learn while being taken as sheep to slaughterhouses by the defunct theories of atheists scientists/philosophers and misled clergy: “It is well known that the man who first made public the theory of irrationals perished in a shipwreck in order that the inexpressible and unimaginable should ever remain veiled. And so the guilty man, who fortuitously touched on and revealed this aspect of living things, was taken to the place where he began and there is forever beaten by the waves” (Scholium to Book X of Euclid V).
“He has made everything beautiful in his time: also he has set the world (Eternity) in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God made from the beginning to the end… for who shall bring him to see what shall be after him?” (Eccl 3:11, 22)… “Whether there is knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy (discover) in part. But when that which is perfect is come (2nd coming of Christ), then that which is in part shall be done away…. For now we see through a glass, darkly” (1Cor 13:8-10, 12).
The many deities in their revelations, especially the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God, seem uninterested in responding to our inquisitiveness but rather they feed our abject ignorance, as it also seems they only tell us what we need to know about them, their creation process, and their mysteries: “These are parts of his ways: but how little a portion is heard of him, but the thunder of his power who can understand?” (Job 26:14). It is evident that they are only interested in how we respond to them in faith in our constant search for truth not lurid myths, half- truths and utopian fairytales. That kind of faith that is constantly seeking the Kingdom of God to ultimately reach the Kingdom of Heaven through cumulative and progressive illumination, understanding, and absorbance rather than total comprehension, given that our ignorance travels at supersonic speed in presumptuousness, resistance and denial. Our genuine faith revolves around our intended original relationship with God, admitting our fall from grace, repent, ask for forgiveness, and continually praising God in the righteous and orthodox way we conduct ourselves and live holy as he is Holy.
Many religions advertise that they rely on synthesized, inspired or descended thoughts, whether divine or manmade, transmitted by way of revelations in religious books or generated through manmade scientific, mystical, bioethical and logical reasoning, mostly devoid of any real spirituality, by their major and minor religious scholars. Humans are expert in reading between the lines or reading into the lines as they always fail to read the lines themselves, which in the process resulted in billions of defunct treatises, dissertations, theories and hypotheses of what supposedly these scriptures are saying. If the scriptures are presented in a simple form, the religious scholars who experienced a striking visionary bolt of lightening, rush to claim that they must have a catch; if they are mysterious, they resort to traditions and suiting to their claims’ sciences among others to interpret them, and when they are mythical in nature, they invite all the deities of the world for background, rationalization and corroboration.
In the mach and mire of organized religions, dime a dozen heresies and the hundreds of factional gurus, we are plagued with manmade innovative, progressive and conflicting doctrines, dogmas, edicts, decrees and visions within one religion, faith and system or another serving as temporary road maps for the adherents to adopt and comply. What was scripturally and/or dogmatically sound doctrine yesterday is obsolete and sacrilegious today, because Christians forgot that: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Heb 13:8). When we read the words of any deity, we are told implicitly and explicitly that their words are never ever changing eternal truths that only require us to meditate on and abide by in educated faith not blindly while exploring and increasing our knowledge.
I reached the conclusion that, at the absence of any authentic orthodox scripture abiding believers, and if they exist, they are often blind, legalistic and fanatic folks, the rest of the so- called religio-politico-ethnical adherents are oscillating and vacillating between organized and institutionalized religions, liberal theologies, secular fundamentalism, specialized sciences, and deification of a human, all influenced by atheistic humanism of ideologies and philosophies bridging spiritualism with materialism, when it suits them, in nightmarish and blasphemous secularism and sham positivism.
Many are the proponents of the story of creation combined with evolution. Albert Einstein (1879-1955) reportedly said: “Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind”, as well as “The harmony of natural law reveals an intelligence of such superiority that compared with it all the systematic thinking of human beings is utterly insignificant”; and Charles Darwin (1808-1882) who wrote the “Origin of species” (1859) was dubbed the father of “evolution”, while the Belgian scientist Catholic priest Msgr. George Lemaître (1894-1966) was dubbed the “Father of the Big Bang Theory” (in 1933).
We may disagree with them and others about God’s story of creation but we may also decide to agree with them about God’s “Intelligent Design, Creative Process and Big Bang” concept, which awed all of them when they could not fathom the inexpressible and inexplicable compelling intelligence, wisdom, beauty, meticulousness and dexterity with which this universe came to be. If we ever to reconcile between religion and science, we ought to tackle biogeny, religions, geology, mathematics and biomimetics (biomimicry) among many others.
Regardless which side one takes in the creation vs. evolution debacle, these earnest scientists did not invent the wheel anew, all they did like others, is allow their minds to catch fire, while gazing in awesome wonder of the body and soul inseparability of religion and science, and to stimulate and develop new approaches to explain the marvels and the philosophies of nature of the geological and molecular biological systems of our universe and to crack some of the secrets behind this brilliant handiwork design we attribute to God:
“You have made heaven and earth” (Isa 37:16)… “For you’ve created all things, for your pleasure they are and were created” (Rev 4:11)… “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works” (2Tim 3:16-17)… “Now therefore, what have I here, says the Lord, that my people is taken away for naught? They that rule over them make them to howl, says the Lord; and my name continually every day is blasphemed” (Isa. 52:5)… “Give therefore your servant an understanding heart to judge your people that I may discern between good and bad” (1kgs 3:9)… “Teach me good judgment and knowledge: for I have believed your commandments” (Psa 119:66).
Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727) said once: “The most elegant system of suns and planets could only arise from the purpose and sovereignty of an intelligent and mighty Being. He rules them all as the sovereign Lord of all things”.
Wernher Von Braun (1912-1977), one of the leading scientists in the development of rocket technology, has said: “One cannot be exposed to the law and order of the universe without concluding that there must be design and purpose behind it all. Through a closer look at creation we ought to gain a better knowledge of the Creator”.
Many scientists, who embrace universalistic and humanistic approaches, hoist the flag of “Big Bang” and “evolution theory”. They claim that humans belong to the Animal Kingdom and self-evolved in such to be that intelligent animal and all our human progress is due to our ongoing desire to grow beyond our animalistic origin. If we believe we evolved from Lemur and Ape “Homo Erectus”, which makes us isomorphs, then we must conclude that being a reflection of God who created us “Homo Sapiens” with unique DNA in “his own image and likeness” (Gen 1:27), and who gave us an eternal soul in a mortal body, is also the first such self- evolved from nothing Lemur or Ape, and who elevated himself to be the creator of this intelligently designed universe.
The God of creationists did reconstruct supernaturally and historically what he originally created in eternity while the minds of evolutionists did formulate theoretically not scientifically the history of this so-called self-evolved universe: “Symbolizing the godlike growth in power of an extremely advanced computer (Multivac) as it creates a new universe from the ashes of a dead one, drawing comparisons and suggesting an explanation for the biblical Book of Genesis” (Isaac Asimov: “The Last Question”).
By all accounts, commentaries and his autobiography, Charles Darwin the non-conformist believed in his early years in the existence of God as a first cause and the ultimate lawgiver; he even studied to be a clergyman. In his middle age, he allowed his brain to construct realities and theories, which started from his perceptions of inequality, injustice and misery in this world but overrode his senses, where he became lukewarm, provisional and exploratory writing his thesis, the “Origin of Species”, which he defended first then admitted it was an absurd conclusion; then in his later years; he espoused his early years’ convictions and said that he deserved to be called a theist. I will let Charles himself explain as one may glean from the dialogue between Lady Hope and Charles Darwin just days before he died, of which I am citing brief excerpts:
“… He held an open Bible which he was always studying. “What are you reading now?” I asked. “Hebrews” he answered, "still Hebrews… The Royal Book, I call it”. Then he placed his fingers on certain passages and commented upon them. I made some allusions to the strong opinions expressed by many unbelievers on the history of the creation and then their treatment of the earlier chapters of the book of Genesis. He seemed distressed, his fingers twitched nervously and a look of agony came across his face as he said: "I was a young man with unformed ideas. I threw out queries, suggestions, wondering all the time over everything. And to my astonishment the ideas took like wildfire. People made a religion of them”. Then he paused and after a few more sentences on the holiness of God and the grandeur of this Book, looking at the Bible which he was holding tenderly at the time, he said: “I have a summer house in the garden which holds about thirty people. It is over there (pointing through the open window). I want you very much to speak here. I know you read the Bible in the villages. Tomorrow afternoon I should like the servants on the place, some tenants and a few neighbors to gather there. Will you speak to them?” “What shall I speak about?” I asked. “Christ Jesus”, he replied in a clear emphatic voice, adding in a lower tone, and “His salvation. Is not that the best theme?”… (Source: the Bombay Guardian, 03/25/1916, by Prof. Hannington Enoch in Evolution or Creation (Union of Evangelical Students of India, Box 486, Madras 7, India, 1966, pp. 165-167)… (Bolding is mine).
The two camps unanimously agree that our cosmos is governed by fixed laws but the bona fide divergence between the theist proponents of creationism, and the deist and the agnostic who subscribe to: “Every man in the chambers of his imagery; for they say: the Lord sees us not; the Lord has forsaken the earth… that say in their heart: “The Lord will not do good, neither will he do evil”” (Eze 8:12; Zeph 1:12), together with the atheist proponents of evolutionism and naturalism is about the age of our earth, the Big Bang and the origin of life. For creationists, the earth is only about +/-10,000 years old whereas for evolutionists, the earth is millions of years old but got a facelift, which is exactly what the Bible, especially the Book of Genesis, is forwarding, as you will ascertain from the quoted and explored Hebrew and Greek texts in this study and not from the translations of the Bible:
“Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things? Shall the earth (Country) be made to bring forth in one day? Or shall a nation be born at once? For as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children. Shall I bring to the birth, and not cause to bring forth? Says the Lord: shall I cause to bring forth, and shut the womb? Says your God… For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, says the Lord” (Isa 66:8- 9, 22).
“This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil" (John 3:19)… The many parts of this study are geared towards showing biblically that there is no collision between the story of creation and the corresponding claims of the evolutionists, except origin of humans, once we revisit the events of the minor and major disputed subjects in the biblical narratives in their original Hebrew.
The major subjects of controversy of Genesis’ six days creation story are:
1- The Creation Story: a) The Beginning; b) The Creation of the Earth and the Heaven; c) The State of the Earth; d) The “FIAT” Creation and the “Manual” Making; e) The end time of Heaven and Earth; 2- a) The “Big Bang” Theory; b) The “Black Holes”; 3- “It is Good… Very Good”; 4- The literal Six Days’ Creation Work; 5- The Animals, Birds, Fishes especially the Dragons and the Dinosaurs; 6- a) Humans, and Who Created them? b) Angelic Orders as “Men”; 7- The Giants and the Dwarfs (Hobbits);
The lateral ones are: 8- The other ‘WORLDS” & “Lucifer”: Satan/Devil & his Demons; 9- The “SIN” before and after Adam’s Fall; 10- The Kingdom of God & the Kingdom of Heaven; 11- “Lilith”: the alleged 1st wife of Adam before Eve; 12- “Atlantis”, etc.
On a side note and before I dissect the particulars of the first four verses of Judeo-Christian Genesis chapter 1, I would like to introduce you the parallels documented in other cultures, which all echoes similarities to the Judeo-Christian as well as Islamic accounts. You can visit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_creation_myths, to read about all cultures’ creation stories. These are just few to digest:
Chinese Genesis Few extracts to digest: “Of old in the beginning, there was the great chaos, without form and dark”. “The five planets had not begun to resolve, nor the sun and the moon to shine. In the midst thereof there existed neither forms nor sound”. “Your sovereign goodness is infinite. As a potter, you have made all living things”. “The sovereign created man”.
You can find illustrative and extensive in depth details at these websites and others or just type “Chinese Genesis”: https://www.voiceofprophecy.com/ http://www.icr.org/article/genesis-chinese-pictographs/ http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Hanzi_of_Genesis http://www.noahs-ark.tv/chinese/bible-evidences-chinese-language-characters-words-creation-genesis.htm http://www.slideshare.net/DaveSinNM/the-story-of-genesis-in-the-chinese-characters
Hindu Genesis Few extracts to digest: “The Hindu creation myth says that before this time began, there was no heaven, no earth and no space between. A vast dark ocean washed upon the shores of nothingness and licked the edges of the night”. “From the depths a humming sound began to tremble, Ohm. It grew and spread, filling the emptiness and throbbing with energy”. “Brahma remained in the lotus flower, floating and tossing on the sea. He lifted up his arms and calmed the wind and the ocean. Then Brahma split the lotus flower into three. He stretched one part into the heavens. He made another part into the earth; with the third part of the flower he created the skies. The earth was bare. Brahma set to work. He created grass, flowers, trees and plants of all kinds. To these he gave feeling. Next he created animals and the insects to live in the land. He made birds and many fish. To all these creatures he gave the sense of touch and smell. He gave them the power to see, hear and move. The world was soon bristling with life and the air was filled with the sound of Brahma's creation”.
Please browse these websites and many others: http://www.crystalwind.ca/mystical-magical/pantheons-and-myths/hindu/the-hindu-creation-story http://www.read-legends-and-myths.com/hindu-creation-myth.html http://iskconeducationalservices.org/HoH/concepts/112.htm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_mythology
Egyptian Genesis: The theory of “The divine semen”. The Egyptian cosmogonies were based on eight gods of which the three gods of the three metropolis cities. Nevertheless, the concepts revolved around a primordial ocean, a primeval hill, and the deification of nature. These three cosmogonies deal specifically with how the god(s) created the world. They do not directly address the creation of humans and animals”. The god Khnum (the potter god) is credited with the creation of man and animals. “From the beginning of time, there was only the watery chaos, called Nu. Atum (Amun, Amen), the sun god of the city of Heliopolis rose up from the Chaotic waters with his thoughts and will. With no place to stand in the watery chaos where he appeared, he created a hill. It was said that the Temple of Heliopolis was built on top of this hill. With the creation of the hill, it represented as the coming of light into the darkness of Nu. In the fifth-Dynasty, Atum is the same god as the sun god, Ra, Re or Khepri. Since he was the only god in the world, he want to create more gods, but without a mate he can not reproduce, so he made a union with his shadow”.
Please browse these websites and many others: https://bible.org/article/genesis-1-2-light-ancient-egyptian-creation-myths http://booksnthoughts.com/the-biblical-vs-egyptian-creation-stories-1/ http://www.ancient.eu/Egyptian_Mythology/ http://www.bigmyth.com/myths/english/2_egyptian_full.htm http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/m/mythology/summary-and-analysis-egyptian-mythology/the-creation
Inca Genesis: “In the beginning, the earth was covered in darkness”. “Out of a lake called Collasuyu (modern Titicaca), the god Con Tiqui Viracocha emerged, bringing some human beings with him. Then Con Tiqui created the sun, the moon and the stars to light the world. Out of great rocks Con Tiqui fashioned more human beings, including women who were already pregnant”. “Con, the Creator; was in the form of a man without bones. He filled the earth with good things to supply the needs of the first humans”. http://www.crystalinks.com/incacreation.html
More websites to visit about all the other cultures’ creation stories, which are in one way or the other parallel to the Judeo- Christian Genesis: http://listverse.com/2014/01/11/10-creation-myths-as-strange-as-the-bible/ http://www.gly.uga.edu/railsback/CS/CSIndex.html http://dept.cs.williams.edu/~lindsey/myths/myths.html http://www.livescience.com/11316-top-10-intelligent-designs-creation-myths.html
And now back to our subject at hand. Many a time we tend to forget that the books of the Bible together with their chapters and verses were not written in any chronological order. The biblical God did not dictate verbatim his words, except where it states that God said, but inspired some 40 writers of all walks of life and levels to write them in their own styles. Believers and unbelievers alike can only see the true big picture once they gather all dispersed and scattered passages of the puzzle and place them in their chronological, logical and/or subsequent order. Let us now dissect these verses hoping to digest what the Hebrew words and texts intimate:
These are the main culprit heating the debate of creationism vs. evolutionism resulting from the interpretation of the Book of Genesis, especially the seemingly pregnant laboring sequences of events of the first day in the first 7 verses introducing us to the first of many shrouded mysteries. In the hundreds of documentaries, commentaries, theses and dissertations I read about the subject, whether written by religious or secular Jews, Christians or Muslims, I found a consensus considering these 7 verses as “FIATs=Abracadabra Be, and there it was”: “For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm… for he commanded, and they were created” (Psa 33:9; 148:5) in line with the “FIATs” of creations from the 2nd day to the 5th day, but as anyone can ascertain that there is only one single “FIAT” relating to God’s verbal command in Gen 1:3: “Let there be LIGHT”; while the second part of Gen 1:1 clearly confirms that it is not a “FIAT” but what God did manually with his hands, which is the same Hebrew verb for the act with which he made/formed Adam Gen 2:7-8:
,(’Rā-shēth=רֵ אשִׁ ית :Gen 1:1 “In the beginning (Hebrew ,”Bara’) the heaven and the earth=בָּרָּ א :God created (Hebrew
בֹּהו( Tohuw), and void = תֹּהּו( Hä-yä) without form=הָּיָּה :Gen 1:2 “And the earth was (Hebrew Choshek) was upon the face of the deep. And=חֹּשֶׁ ְך:Bohuw); and darkness (Hebrew= the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters”,
,”owr/'ore): and there was light'=אֹור :Gen 1:3 “And God said: “Let there be light” (Hebrew
tobe), and God divided=טֹוב :Gen 1:4 “And God saw the light, that it was good (Hebrew …”bawdal) the light from the darkness=בָּדַל :Hebrew)
Gen 1:5 “And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day”,
Gen 1:6 “And God said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it ,”bawdal) the waters from the waters=בָּדַל :divide (Hebrew
בָּדַל :asah) the firmament, and divided (Hebrew=`עָשָ ה :Gen 1:7 “And God made (Hebrew =bawdal) (setting apart manually) the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.”
We also can find these words repeated verbatim in Hebrew in one verse of Isaiah using the main verbs of contention in Genesis, which, due to bad translations in all languages and lack of discrimination, the debate is getting uglier and uglier: “For thus says the Lord that yatsar» the earth= יָצַר=« bara'» the heavens; God himself that FORMED= בָרָ א=« CREATED בָרָ א=« kuwn» it, he CREATED=ּכּון=« asah» ; he has established=`עָשָ ה=« and MADE it yatsar» it to be inhabited: I am the Lord” (Isa= יָצַר=« bara'» it not in vain, he FORMED= 45:18).
chuwl) often translated as=חּול) You will also read in this study another Hebrew word “formed” whereas it properly conveys the meaning of “Remade, Refashioned”… (Confer with Psa 89:11-12; 90:2, 4 as you may further in this study)… Let us embark on this journey of enlightenment guided by the Holy Spirit while continually praising God for his wonders, no matter how incomprehensible they are to us.
“But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased” (Dan 12:4)… “So that you incline your ear unto wisdom, and apply your heart to understanding; Yea, if you would cry after knowledge, and lift up your voice for understanding … and find the knowledge of God. When wisdom enters into your heart and knowledge is pleasant unto your soul: discretion shall preserve you, understanding shall keep you” (Prov. 2:2-3, 5-7, 10-11).
I- The Creation Story: a) The Beginning (Gen 1:1)
“Let them praise the name of the Lord: for he commanded, and they were created” (Psa 148:5).
Rā-shēth’” was used in the Bible 49 times denoting among=רֵ אשִׁ ית“ The Hebrew word others: 1) “Beginning/Initiation” (Gen 1:1, 10:10 and Jer 28:1), 2) “Former State and Times” (Job 42:12, Isa 46:10), and 3) “First of its Kind” such as first creation, first born, first fruit (Gen 49:3, Prov 8:22, Rev 3:14, Job 40:19, Deut 33:21 & others).
If we disregard for a moment the debate about Gen 1:1, the compelling denominator of the use of the word “Rā-shēth’” in the remaining 48 verses speaks, beside creating from nothing, of the BEGINNING of procreation, regeneration, reproduction and more importantly manufacturing or making something new by reshaping and refashioning it. From reading the texts of the above passages, we can conclude from the contexts that they speak of very specific circumstances and once-in-a-life-time unique events as per recorded history. Take a walk with me to explore what God is teaching us in these 4 verses, but first let us praise His Holy Name for His wisdom and mysteries:
Moreover and besides the Father’s “FIATS”, when we read the below passages, among the many others of the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit, we realize that the common denominator is that one of his main functions is being the TRANSFORMER and MAKER of things and people by creating brand new things and people and by REFASHIONING a PREEXISTING ENTITY since ETERNITY, be it our earth, Jesus and our hearts and spirits: “And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters… You send forth your spirit, they are created: and you renew the face of the earth” (Gen 1:2; 104:30)… “She was found with child of the Holy Ghost… Who is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation” ((Matt 1:18; Col 1:15) “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (Psa 51:10)
1- The beginning/initiation of one of a kind never happened before event such as “God created the Heaven (singular: vault/dome) and the Earth (mass as whole not part)”, that is one heaven supported by foundation and pillars on one earth as the first of this kind of creation; then in the process of the six days creation more heavens were created but only one EXISTING earth, which he pulled out of the waters: “Let the dry land appear… The earth was without form and void” (Gen 1:2, 9), then he RESHAPED, REFASHIONED, EMBELLISHED, DRESSED, EQUIPPED and POPULATED it to sustain life; in other words, he breathed life into it as he did breath life in Adam’s nostrils after fashioning him from wet clay: “Says the Lord who stretches forth the heavens, and lays the foundation of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him” (Zec 12:1).
The beginning of one of a kind “FIAT” creation of animals, birds, fishes, plants, trees, etc. together with the manual creation of Adam in contrast with his previous creations of angelic orders, spirits and worlds. Jesus was first Mary’s first and only born and his birth was also the first and only birth of its kind in his conception as a result of the sacred marriage of heaven and earth in contrast to the sacrilege marriage between the celestial sons of God with the daughters of men (Gen 6:2-4). Let us not forget his dual natures and wills, and the one of its kind concept of the God-man. All these creation occurrences in spite of their dissimilarities are known as beginnings of someone or something NEW, and that is why in reciting any creed, we confirm a fact that belongs to Jesus only: “Born of the Father before all ages… begotten, not made” (1John 5:1), yet while it forwards his non creation, it conveys and cement his pre-existence.
2- The same word also alludes to former state and times as confirmed in verse two, where no form to that earth immersed in water, apparently with no life of any kind and no humans unless we consider the angelic orders as alien inhabitants. Judaism, Christianity and Islam confirm repeatedly and concurrently that God has destroyed universes and generations, before our universe and generations existed: “And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods. They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them: and they perished from among the congregation” (Num 16:32-33; 26:10)… “The Lord makes the earth empty, and makes it waste, and turns it upside down, and scatters abroad the inhabitants thereof” (Isa 24:1)…
“For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, PERISHED: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men” (2Pet 3:5-7).
When we carefully read every word of St. Peter, we realize that Peter is not talking about Noah’s flood because the world that then was (heaven and earth) together perished from the waters, where with Noah, only the earth, but rather about what was before the creation of our world when earth was immersed in water. He also confirms that our new fashioned earth is surrounded by water.
The many findings and changes that we come to unearth about the geological history of our fairly young Earth has proven time and time again that the earth has suffered many cataclysmic events and transformations, and then other cosmic events including Noah’s flood happened, which the science of the fossils and the dating methods are conforming in line with the many biblical passages in this study.
I- The Creation Story: b) The Creation of Earth and the Heaven (Gen 1:1)
”Asah’=עָּשָּ ה“ & ’Bara=בָּרָּ א"
“Then the channels of waters were seen, and the foundations of the world were discovered at your rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath of your nostrils” (Psa 18:15, 2Sa 22:16)… “That I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth” (Isa 51:16)… “I have made the earth, the man and the beast that are upon the ground, by my great power and by my outstretched arm” (Jer 27:5)… “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have ordained; what is man that you take thought of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” (Psa 8:3-4)… “For, behold, he that formed the mountains, and created the wind, and declared unto man what is his thought, that made the morning darkness, and treaded upon the high places of the earth, The Lord, the God of hosts, is his name” (Amo 4:13)… “When He utters His voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens, And He causes the clouds to ascend from the end of the earth; He makes lightning for the rain, And brings out the wind from His storehouses” (Jer 10:13)…
The Hebrew verb translated “created” is “Bä-rä’/Bara’”, which in Hebrew and Arabic means literally “Sharpened” as in pencil/picture or “exceedingly and conspicuously Peaked and masterfully and adroitly Excelled” in his masterpiece creation. It is the same verb used in Gen 1:27; 5:1-2 in God creating Adam from clay. It also means metamorphosis of recreating, refashioning, transforming and renewing status, conditions, circumstances, creatures and beings. Does that imply God re-perfected only what he originally designed and created since Eternity? All the biblical passages concur with this thesis. God created everything since eternity from nothing by his previous “FIATs”, but not the one heaven and the one earth we have now: “For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s and he has set the world upon them” (1Sa 2:8)… “Let the dry land appear” (Gen 1:9).
)Asah’=עָּשָּ ה“ & ’Bara=בָּרָּ א( He had rested from all his work which God created and made“ Used together… These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created Asah the earth and the heavens” (Gen 2:3-’=עָּשָּ ה Bara’, in the day that the Lord God made=בָּרָּ א( 4).
בָּרָּ א( I have made the earth, and created man upon it… For thus says the Lord that created“ asah); he has`עָּשָּ ה) chuwl) the earth and made it=חּול) bara') the heavens; God himself that formed= chuwl) it to be=חּול) bara') it not in vain, he formed=בָּרָּ א( kuwn) it, he created=ּכּון( established inhabited” (Isa 45:12, 18)… “Mine hand also has laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand has spanned the heavens: when I call unto them, they stand up together” (Isa 48:13)…
As you can ascertain, both “Created through “FIAT” and Made with his HANDS” above are used twice side by side to confirm that God has, with his hands, refashioned that heaven ,”Asah denotes among other meanings “acquire”, “attend”, “produce’=עָּשָּ ה .and that earth “transform” or “improve” besides made and fashioned, and implies someone using his unique creativity, ingenuity, craftsmanship and originality to create from nothing, or to regenerate, refurbish and embellish an existing creation or works that he originally made in a primitive or different form; but here, whether brand new or regenerated old one, we have God as the Creator of all the eternal past, present and future creations and worlds.
These are but few self-explanatory biblical passages to digest and explore: “The heavens are yours, the earth also is yours: as for the world and the fullness thereof, you have founded yacad=laid), The north and the south you have created them… Before the mountains=יָּסַד) them chuwl=remade) the earth and the world, even from=חּול) were brought forth, or ever you had formed everlasting to everlasting, you are God… For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past” (Psa 89:11-12; 90:2, 4)… “Thus says God the Lord, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that which comes out of it; he that gives breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein” (Isa 42:5)… “Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?... Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who has created these things… the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth” (Isa 40:12, 26, 28). “Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure than his maker?” (Job 4:17)… “Woe unto him that strives with his Maker… Shall the clay say to him that fashioned it asah)” He made me not? or shall the thing framed say of him that framed it, He had no`עָּשָּ ה) understanding? (Isa 29:16)...
“I have declared the former things from the beginning; and they went forth out of my mouth, and I showed them; I did them suddenly, and they came to pass” (Isa 48:3)
All the +/- 70 related Bible’s creation verses are contained in this study and 90% of them confirm beyond any shadow of doubt as you will ascertain for yourself, that the earth from eternity or previous creation existed in one form and God transformed it into another in the six days creation story in parallel with Gen 1:2.
“Who has ascended up into heaven, or descended? Who has gathered the wind in his fists? Who has bound the waters in a garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is his son's name, if you can tell?” (Prov 30:4)... “The most high God, possessor of heaven and earth” (Gen 14:19, 22)… “I am the Lord that makes all things; that stretches forth the heavens alone; that spreads abroad the earth by myself” (Isa 44:24)… “The Lord by wisdom has founded the earth; by understanding has he established the heavens… “The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was… While as yet he had not made the earth… when he appointed the foundations of the earth” (Prov 3:19; 8:22-23, 26, 29)… “Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the Lord's your God, the earth also, with all that therein is” (Deut 10:14).
I- The Creation Story: hä-yä Gen 1:2= הָּיָּה c) The State of the Earth WAS
“Have you not heard long ago how I have done it. In days of old I formed it; now I have brought it to pass” (2Kgs 19:25)
In Gen 1 verse 1, we read that God, at an unspecified time and space, created “The (One) Heaven and The (One) Earth” followed by other heavens, which corresponds to Gen 2:1 “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them” and which seems to leave us to believe they both were completely and newly created and looking great, then in verse Gen 1:2, God drops the geological ball and informs us of the dilapidated and decayed state of that earth. In Genesis 2:4 God confirms the narratives of Genesis chapter 1: “These are Bara’), in the=בָּרָּ א( the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created Asah( the earth and the heavens” (Also Exo 31:17; 32:12). Once’=עָּשָּ ה“) day that the Lord God made again, we see both used together
hä-yä”, although translated in=הָּיָּה“ The many speculations sprung from the Hebrew verb many languages as “was” in the past tense, its meaning denotes also “became” or “lied in place” or “still cadaver/carcass” existing but as if ruined and almost extinct. It seems that its remains were no more than dough ready to be refashioned through an ongoing creative process over a span of historical time starting at verses 3 through 31 and beyond. A number of scientists reportedly allege that verse 2 corresponds with the end of the Pleistocene era (about 12000 to 14000 years), where geological and archeological evidences show cataclysmic aftereffects and aftermaths of global extinction and severe drop in global climate temperatures. The same studies show that all life perished from the face of the Earth for a while before God regenerated the remains of the old heaven and earth and “set the foundation of heaven on pillars on that regenerated and improved earth” (Zec 12:1)… “For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and he has set the world upon them” (1Sa 2:8)… “He spreads out the northern skies over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing” (Job 26:7)… “Of old you founded the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands” (Psa 102:25)… “Who has laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed forever” (Psa 104:5).
I- The Creation Story: d) “FIAT” Creation and “Manual” Making (Gen 1)
“You have a mighty arm. Strong is your hand, and high is your right hand” (Psa 89:13)
’Asah( (Gen 1:31, 2:2-4). is a recurrent theme of six days’=עָּשָּ ה“ & ’Bara=בָּרָּ א( ”Created and Made“ creation story found in the first 5 chapters of Genesis, seconded by passages in Exodus, Isaiah, Psalms, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Job, Zechariah, Proverbs, Samuel, among many others. I already cited and commented on few of them, as you can see in these two consecutive sample passages: Gen 1:6: “And God said: “Let there be “FIAT” a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it “FIAT” divide the waters from the waters” followed by Gen 1:7: “And God (Manually) made the firmament, and divided (Manually refashioned) the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so”.
In recapitulation of the creation of the One Earth and One Heaven, this is what we have learned from the biblical passages:
I. Alluded to their preexistence since eternity: “You renew the face of the earth” (Gen 1:2; Psa 104:30)… “Of old you founded the earth and the heavens are the work of your hands” (Psa 102:25)… “…Or ever you had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, you are God… For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past” (Psa 89:11-12; 90:2, 4).
Although the first 5 verses of Genesis 1 with their events took place in the 1st day of creation, there seems to be an implied stillness and deafening silence between verse 1 and 2 suggesting disruption and resulting in a huge historical and chronological gap and pause. What did happen to halt God creation process? Did the persons of the Trinity disagree with each other about how to create this world of ours after seemingly failing in the previous ones? I can only speculate that this passage of Jeremiah could be a clue to the silence gap as it seems to confirm somehow that there was a world before our world, otherwise how can we explain the existence of a raw fetus EARTH and Heavens, in spite of being without form and void, having its own eco-system, cities, birds, fruits, mountains, hills but was only missing “light” and “man”, as we also read “and there was not a man to till the ground” (Gen 2:5), unless Jeremiah is speaking of the darkness at the end of times, which does not correspond because our universe includes “Light” and “Man”:
“I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light. I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly. I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled. I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the Lord, and by his fierce anger. For thus has the Lord said: “The whole land shall be desolate; yet will I not make a full end. For this shall the earth mourn, and the heavens above shall be black: because I have spoken it, I have purposed it, and will not repent, neither will I turn back from it” (4:23-28).
Jeremiah statement in Hebrew is a carbon copy of Gen 1:2 word for word including grammar ,(Tohuw =תֹּהו( ּ Hä-yä) without form=הָּיָּה :and syntax, namely: “And the earth was (Hebrew ”…(Choshek=חֹּשֶׁ ְך) Bohuw); with no light (darkness=בֹּהו( and void
II. Status of the Earth during the day of present creation:
“And the earth was without form, and void; darkness was upon the face of the deep” (Gen 1:2)…. “A land of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkness… Dead things are formed from under the waters, and the inhabitants thereof. Hell is naked before him, and destruction has no covering. He stretches out the north over the empty place, and hangs the earth upon nothing” (Job 10:22; 26:5-7).
III. God’s Re-Creation of his Masterpieces: While as yet he had not made the earth… When he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment: when he appointed the foundations of the earth” (Prov 3:19; 8:22-23, 26, 29)… “That I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth” (Isa 51:16)… “And God said: “Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place (singular). Let the dry land appear. And God called the dry land Earth. And the gathering together of the waters he called Seas (Plural)” (Gen 1:9-10)… “The heavens were of old. The earth standing out of the water and in the water” (2Pet 3:5-7)… “For thus says the Lord that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he has established it, he created it not in vain, and he formed it to be inhabited” (Isa 45:9, 12, 18)… “Mine hand also has laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand has spanned the heavens: when I call unto them, they stand up together” (Isa 48:13)… “I am the Lord that makes all things; that stretches forth the heavens alone; that spreads abroad the earth by myself” (Isa 44:24)… “He spreads out the northern skies over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing” (Job 26:7)… “When the earth quakes; it is I who hold its pillars firm” (Psa 75:3)… “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them” (Gen 2:1).
IV. He made the inert Heaven and Earth ALIVE: “The foundations of the world were discovered at your rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath of your nostrils” (Psa 18:15; 2Sam 22:16)… “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth” (Psa 33:6).
I- The Creation Story: e) The End Time of Heaven and Earth
In few passages, the Bible tells us straightforwardly and without any ambiguity that, after the return of our Lord Jesus, the heavens and the earth will be regenerated, refashioned and redesigned. If we to accept at face value the regeneration of the heavens and earth that the Bible states that it will unequivocally happen in the future as inescapable fact, why cannot we accept reservedly the same facts of what that same Bible implies for the 1st creation? What makes it inconceivable for our present universe to have been regenerated? Let us heed what the Lord God is telling us: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart; and lean not unto your own understanding” (Prov 3:5).
“The Lord said: “The whole earth shall be desolate; yet I will not eradicate it, (Make a full end)” (Jer. 4:27)… “For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. But be you glad and rejoice forever in that which I create: for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy” (Isa 65:17-18)… “And Jesus said unto them: “Verily I say unto you: “That you who have followed me, in the regeneration (new Heaven and Earth) when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Matt 19:28)… “And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them…And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death…And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea” (Rev 20:11, 14; 21:1).
Revelation 21:1 of above contrasts the state of our earth at the time of its first creation as being void hidden under waters and seas. In the final regeneration, there will be no water or seas. Since water represents baptism and baptism symbolizes regeneration, then in the new heaven and new earth, there is no need for waters to live or be bodily or spiritually regenerated.
“Whom shall he teach knowledge? And whom shall he make to understand doctrine? They who are weaned from the milk and drawn from the breasts. For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little” (Isa 28:9-10).
The word “Eternity” is another sore thumb poking at the eyes of the proponents of evolution. They say if God is eternal, no beginning and no end, where does he come from and where does he live? How did he form himself? They say if God is eternal, omnipresent and omniscient, how could he make so many mistakes in creating worlds and realms of angels, spirits and humans that backfired? “And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart… And God said unto Noah: “The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth” (Gen 6:6-7, 13).
The simple answer, God is and will be independently Sovereign and everything he created is and will be dependently sovereign since God created all angelic orders and humans in his “own image and likeliness” (Gen 1:27; 5:3), and gave them their freedom of will and choice: “Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever” (Gen 3:22).
“This day the Lord your God commands you to do these statutes and rules. You shall therefore be careful to do them with all your heart and with all your soul. You have declared today that the Lord is your God, and that you will walk in his ways, and keep his statutes and his commandments and his rules, and will obey his voice… if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts” (Deut 26:16-18; Heb 3:15).
The purpose of this freedom is to have a spiritual union with him for his own glory: "Even everyone that is called by my name: for I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him" (Isa 43:7)… "As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you" (Isa 62:5)… “For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (Hab 2:14)… "So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God" (1Cor 10:31)… “O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for you have created all things, and for your pleasure they are and were created” (Rev 4:11)… “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isa 6:3), where his sovereignty prevails and where angelic orders and humans can reap the fruits and the rewards of their choices: “Why do my people say: “We are free to roam; we will come to you no more” (Jer 2: 31)… “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life so that I may take it again;: no one has taken it away from me, but I lay it down on my own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again” (John 10:17-18).
In the light of the above, God refashioned what he originally created in previous worlds and universes with new set of small and super gigantic inhabitants be it universes, galaxies, planets, plants, animals, nature and/or mortals as well as equipped it with more elaborate and sophisticated life-sustaining bionetwork together with solar, planetary and luminary systems and eco-systems. As I said earlier, God is not interested in feeding us with a shovel but progressively with an almost invisible very tiny baby spoon the meticulous details of his creation plan and process. His ambiguous and seemingly often contradicting coded statements, especially with the Bible, started with the first mysteries in the first chapters of the Bible, namely the first four verses of Genesis 1, and if contemplated in Hebrew, their original language, will cement the scientific age of the universe including our present one earth and one heaven to be in the millions if not in the billions of years. We should remember that God is eternal and with eternity there is no set number to be had.
II- “Let there be LIGHT… there was LIGHT” …
A) The “Big Bang” Theory (Gen 1:3) B) The “Black Holes” (Gen 1:2-Job 26:7)
A) The “Big Bang” Theory (Gen 1:3)
“Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who has created these things, that brings out their host by number: he calls them all by names, by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one fails” (Isa 40:26).
“I AM THAT I AM” (Exo 3:14)… “I AM THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD” (John 8:12) “YOUR LORD SHALL BE UNTO YOU AN EVERLASTING LIGHT” (Isa 60:19)
“His lightnings enlightened the world: the earth saw, and trembled” (Psa 97:4)
“He reveals deep and hidden things. He knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with him” (Dan 2:22).
“The Big Bang could not have been a random explosion. Rather, all observations point to an incredibly finely-tuned, carefully orchestrated chain of events that could lead to the solar systems necessary for intelligent life” (Creationist Fred Heeren: “Show me God”).
"Every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together” (Isa 40:4-5).
,owr/'ore, and it has two meanings: the first: Light'=אֹור :Gen 1:3: “Let there be light”, (Hebrew and the second: Flashes of Lightning. “Let there be light” is also the beginning of one of its kind “FIAT” occurrence of Light/Big Bang, which became a metaphor for spreading knowledge and dispelling ignorance. With that thought I will not bore you with scientific jargons and explanations because neither you nor I are scientists but humble and obedient believer in the Creator. The purpose of this study is to enlighten and prove from the word of God that there is no contradiction between religion and science and that the so-called secular Big Bang theory is in fact a very well documented biblical, geological and historical reality.
Let us together explore this highly controversial and debatable theory in layman’ terms: Big Bang is a theory that was launched by the Belgian creationist scientist Catholic priest Msgr. George Lemaître (1894-1966) but the term was coined by Fred Hoyle in 1949 to simply refer to the pre-creation. I have already cited every verse that says God expanded, extended, stretched, spread, planted, regulated, etc. to correspond to what scientists are talking about:
1- “State of this small concentrated one mass universe being extremely hot and dense with all kind of chemicals, elements and compounds” dates back to millions and billions of years, which in the creation process it underwent a massive:
2- “Physical Expansion, Spreading, Positioning and Regulation of every part, particle and atom”, and finally the fact that:
3- “This process has produced and is producing gravitational waves in an inflationary universe, where the distances between the galaxies are rapidly and constantly increasing until today, whereas in the past, they were tightly closer”:
“He (God) has made the earth by his power, he has established the world by his wisdom, and he has stretched out the heavens by his discretion” (Jer 10:11-12; 51:15), to which 85% of creationist evolutionist scientists subscribe believing in God’s creation story in contrast to +/- 15 of atheist scientists with same belief but with claims of self evolvement. Big Bang in itself is not a theory, it is a genesis fact spelled out in the actions of God’s creative mind and hands as confirmed verbatim by him.
The biblical and physical LIGHT/Big Bang did light up the darkness of (the inertia that engulfed) the face of the deep” (Gen 1:2), the earth and the heavens, in short, the collective raw status of the cosmos, the preexisting and old but newly Light/Big Bang created world: “The mountain burned with fire unto the midst of heaven, with darkness, clouds, and thick darkness” (Deut 4:11)… “By his spirit he has garnished the heavens” (Job 26:13).
“I know that you can do everything, and that no thought can be withheld from you… therefore have I uttered what I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not... I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye sees you” (Job 42:1-5)… “Surely, just as I have intended so it has happened, and just as I have planned so it will stand” (Isa 14:24).
Very ignorant few claim that God needed light because of the darkness; that is why he created light first. To their chagrin, God did not need a light to see what he is doing because by all accounts he is the light and the enlightenment; he is the divine and supreme creator that stimulates sight and makes things visible and invisible as well as the furnace that makes all things to ignite and start their materialization into existence: “The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes” (Psa 19:8). He created the light as the one and only energy to do his commands to create, energize, activate and execute his “FIATs”. That energy was his own power and light in action: “Who is this, robed in splendor, striding forward in the greatness of his strength?” (Isa 63:1)… “By his light I walked through darkness” (Job 29:3), and his Big Bang/Light was his own hands to start the creation process by:
“Renewing the face of the earth” (Psa 104:30)… and to “plant the heavens, and to lay the foundations of the earth” (Isa 51:16)… with his “hand he also has laid the foundation of the earth, and with his right hand he has spanned the heavens: when he called unto them, they stood up together” (Isa 48:13)… “I am the Lord that makes all things; that stretches forth the heavens alone; that spreads abroad the earth by myself” (Isa 44:24)… “He spreads out the northern skies over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing” (Job 26:7)… “Thus says God the Lord, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that which comes out of it; he that gives breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein” (Isa 42:5)… “I have made the earth, and created man upon it… For thus says the Lord that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he has established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited” (Isa 45:9, 12, 18)… he has established the world by his wisdom” (Jer 10:11-12; 51:15). “The most elegant system of suns and planets could only arise from the purpose and sovereignty of an intelligent and mighty Being. He rules them all as the sovereign Lord of all things” (Sir Isaac Newton 1643-1727).
Let us fathom what goes in the scientists’ evolutionary minds when they read that the earth that God described as void and without form with this simple illustration: the consensus among the creationist evolutionist as well as atheist scientists that the void and without form earth might have been discharging and oozing all kinds of highly explosive gases of all levels of flammable intensities or spreading iridium toxic gases and when God said “Let there be light”, the spark “FIAT” activated iridium toxic gases which triggered the incidence of a “Big Bang” cosmic explosion, hence the birth of the theory, but as I said earlier it is not a theory but a fact as David Psalm 104 is a reflection of Genesis 1:
“You who covers yourself with light as with a garment: who stretches out the heavens like a curtain; who lays the beams of his chambers in the waters; who makes the clouds his chariot; who walks upon the wings of the wind; who makes his angels spirits; his ministers a flaming fire; who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed forever. You covered it with the deep as with a garment: the waters stood above the mountains. At your rebuke they fled; at the voice of your thunder they hasted away. They go up by the mountains; they go down by the valleys unto the place which you have founded for them. You have set a bound that they may not pass over; that they turn not again to cover the earth… He appointed the moon for seasons: the sun knows his going down. You make darkness, and it is night… O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all: the earth is full of your riches; so is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts” (1-9; 19-20; 24-25).
Because of our abject ignorance, this debatable theory of “Big Bang” became a consensus taboo to the majority of Judeo-Christian Muslim believers that they blotted it out of their dictionaries and they placed a sign reading: “Do not go there”. It is not fair to paint all evolution scientists with broad brush, because aside of few blasphemous atheists, the majorities are creationist scientists who believe in God’s Creation Story with some sort of evolutionary cosmic origins of this somehow static in its foundations, pillars and constitution yet moving universe, the least of it, the constant changes in the galaxies.
I already proved from the words and declarations of the Almighty God that Big Bang/Light took place and that he personally stretched, spanned, landscaped, regulated and fashioned every entity he created and made. When we examine old maps, we find that many continents and countries within were connected to each other and now they drifted apart; we are witnessing the climate global warming possibly resulting in the many catastrophic incidences taking place today. It suffices that “light year and speed and warp” are the results of “let there be light”. That “Light” is not only lighting the earth but all the constellations of all the known and unknown planets and galaxies of all the skies and all the heavens, the only place this light did not reach yet is the hearts and minds of many lost in their worlds humans pretenders and speculators.
The above was the actual and explicit biblical Light/Big Bang confirmation by God’s own words, which is not different from what the honest creationist scientists proclaim and advocate, and now here below is a biblical metaphor of this Light/Big Bang phenomenon:
“The seed is the word of God” (Luk 8:10-11)… “By myself I have sworn, my mouth has uttered in all integrity a word that will not be revoked” (Isa 45:23): what God created in six days was a result of one “word/seed” when he uttered: “Let there be Light” that triggered a chain reaction and exploded into billions and trillions of epiphenomenal seeds carefully designed and purposed to take their right place in this ever changing universe? Whether we choose to call it creation or substituted by evolution “Big Bang”; all the creation passages in the Bible point implicitly, explicitly and emphatically to such magnificently and intelligently purposed and executed event: “And I will make your seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall your seed also be numbered” (Gen 13:16; 28:14).
Let us not forget what God said in His eternal word: “Everything existed from the beginning but knowledge increases=But you, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased…How long shall it be to the end of these wonders?” (All Bible; Dan 12:4-6) as well as St. Paul’s statement, “For now we see through a glass, darkly” (1Cor13:12). In this regard, could it be possible that the inventors of horse chariot and carriages over the centuries dreamt of motorized cars, spacecrafts and sea crafts as we have today? Many did the like of Leonardo Da Vinci and Julian Verne. Ancient and modern historians, philosophers, theologians and scholars, such as the Jewish historian Josephus, St. Augustine, St. Basil, St. Thomas of Aquinas, Fr. George Lemaître, Philo, Origen, Einstein, Darwin among many prominent others believed in certain “Big Bang” triggered by God command “Let there be LIGHT” (Gen 1:3).
The many nuances about the “eureka” different Lights/Big Bang (Hebrew ‘owr/‘Ore= light and lightning) in verses 3, 14-19: What kind of light he created in verse 3, since we know he created the sun and the moon in verses 14-19? That same one light in verse 3 is that “Big Bang” explosion the evolutionists talk about since the same Hebrew word means also “thundering lightning”. That same one “light/explosion” which God created; he has separated in Gen 1:14-19 to create the sun and the moon, the planets, the galaxies, the stars, etc. Does it imply the existence of previous worlds, which God seems to operate without light on an earth without form and void, so had he to re-invent himself in creating new sources of light and heat to sustain life for humans, animals and plants among others in our newly refurbished, refashioned and regenerated present world? We all know that the Creation events were about how God formed the formless, how he straightened the chaos and the disarray of the lifeless universe by filling the emptiness and dispelling the darkness, and finally how he breathed life into all. God, after the creation of our universe, said that in the same way he created it he will, in unspecified time in the future, give his command so: “The stars of heaven and their constellations will not show their light. I will cover the heaven, and make the stars thereof dark. The rising sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light… But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare… “For thus says the Lord of hosts: “Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land” (Isa 13:10; Eze 32:7-8; 2Pet 3:10, Hag 2:6, etc.).
“It is he that builds his stories in the heaven, and has founded his troop in the earth; he that calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out upon the face of the earth: “The Lord is his Name” (Amos 9:6).
B) The “Black Holes” (Gen 1:2-Job 26:7)
“Where is the way where light dwells? And as for darkness, where is the place thereof” (Job 38:19)…
“Keep that which is committed to your trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called” (1Tim 6:20-21)…
“The worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible” (Heb 11:3)…
“As the host of heaven cannot be numbered, nor the sand of the sea measured… Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth…(the One) that stretches out the heavens as a curtain, and spreads them out as a tent … neither faints nor is weary; his understanding is unsearchable” (Jer 33:22; Gen 22:17; Heb 11:12; Isa 40:21-22, 26- 28)...
In Gen 1:2 & 4, we read: “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep …and God divided the light from the darkness”. In other words, the whole universe was a huge “Black Hole” until God lighted up.
The observable evidence in the universe for scientists is predicated on: time, space, matter and energy, which the Bible concurs with and outlines, not necessarily with orderly and explicit clarity but rather randomly and metaphorically, even in the terminologies, etymologies and syntaxes of the original Hebrew and Greek languages of the Bible.
“The glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differs from another star in glory” (1Cor 15:40-41).
All stars and eventually planets like finite humans have a life cycle and expire no matter within few years of their creation or after billions of light years. A “Black Hole” in simple layman term is: a radiant, shining and sweltering fiery star within galaxy/galaxies suffers a massive heart attack referred to as a “gravitational collapse” where, no matter the size, that star will disintegrate, deform and become depleted in a spacetime and loses 1) its gravity, 2) its thermodynamic and 3) its radiation, and where all gases spiral inward, burn then evaporate and dry up; the process is like an extremely high density fire devouring with super speed a colossal hay stack.
For example, if the size of the vestigial star was originally hundreds/thousands of miles in diameter, it will shrink to negligible miles in diameter. By losing its luminosity, that once vibrant star becomes inert “black” in color and forms a “hole” in that galaxy, thus radiating and reflecting nothing. “Black Holes” are traps that 1) attract and absorb other passing by stars, no matter what their super speed is, thus growing to form “Supermassive Black Holes” consisting of millions of stars, 2) a vacuum that sucks the lives of other big and small stars, 3) gravitationally deflector of any light.
Many already disintegrated and faded away, and many more, detected by scientists, will expire in due course. “Black Holes” are zombie dwellers of the cemeteries of the heavens.
Job is posing a valid question to scientists: “Can you bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or lose the bands of Orion?” (Job 38:31).
The Book of Enoch, besides its use by Beta Israel Jews, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and Mormons, has no canonical standing in the Judeo-Christian faiths. Nevertheless, quoting from it as historical book cements the idea that what science is discovering nowadays is as old as the creation of this world:
“And I saw there something like an invisible cloud; for by reason of its depth I could not look over, and I saw a flame of fire blazing brightly, and things like shining mountains circling and sweeping to and fro... And I saw a deep abyss, with columns of fire fall, which were beyond measure alike towards the height and towards the depth… And there I saw seven stars of the heaven bound together in it, like great mountains and burning with fire” (Enoch 108:4; 18:11; 21:3).
Matthew referred to the abyss of “Black Hole”: “And cast you the unprofitable servant into outer darkness” (25:30 in contrast to 25:23). And Jude stated: “Wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these” (1:13-14), and we have Isaiah who confirmed: “I (God) clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering” (50:3).
Matthew and Paul give us a glimpse of the decaying, deteriorating and doomed universe starting with but not limited to “Colliding and Crashing Asteroids” and “Black Holes”: “But immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken… You, Lord, in the beginning have laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of your hands. They shall perish; but you remain; and they all shall wax old as does a garment. And as a vesture shall you fold them up, and they shall be changed” (Matt 24:29; Heb 1:10-12).
In the Book of Revelation, John expands on what Matthew and Paul said: “There was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casts her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places” (Rev 6:12-14).
I hope that scientists have answers to Job’s questions in chapter 38, some verses were already quoted in this study:
“Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said: “Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy? “Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt? “Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place, that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it? The earth takes shape like clay under a seal; its features stand out like those of a garment. The wicked are denied their light, and their upraised arm is broken. “Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates of death been shown to you? Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness? Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth? Tell me, if you know all this. “What is the way to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside? Can you take them to their places? Do you know the paths to their dwellings? Surely you know, for you were already born! You have lived so many years. “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail, which I reserve for times of trouble, for days of war and battle? What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed, or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth? Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain, and a path for the thunderstorm, to water a land where no one lives, an uninhabited desert, to satisfy a desolate wasteland and make it sprout with grass? Does the rain have a father? Who fathers the drops of dew? From whose womb comes the ice? Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens when the waters become hard as stone, when the surface of the deep is frozen? “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades? Can you loosen Orion’s belt? Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Beard with its cubs? Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set up God’s dominion over the earth? “Can you raise your voice to the clouds and cover yourself with a flood of water? Do you send the lightning bolts on their way? Do they report to you, Here we are? Who gives the ibis wisdom or gives the rooster understanding? Who has the wisdom to count the clouds? Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens when the dust becomes hard and the clods of earth stick together? “Do you hunt the prey for the lioness and satisfy the hunger of the lions when they crouch in their dens or lie in wait in a thicket? Who provides food for the raven when its young cry out to God and wander about for lack of food?” (Job 38:1-41).
III- “Good… very Good” … Gen 1:4
“For I am confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phi 1:6)
“I have not spoken in secret, in some dark land” (Isa 45:19)… “You are good and do good” (Psa 119:68)… “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good” (Rom 8:28)… “For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude” (1Tim 4:4).
Gen 1, verses 4, 10, 12, 18, 21, and 25 ended with, “and God saw that it was good” and in verse 31, “it was very good”. The most logical explanation is that God, by these statements, is confirming his goodness and loving-kindness towards his created worlds and creatures. He prepared a perfectly balanced universe for all of them to live in complete bliss in intimate union with him.
Although the opponents of the Creation Story do not believe that God created this world, they still humor themselves with these questions: Does that mean that God was a hedonistic contractor and decorator, whose “FIATs” commissioned the works, then went daily on an inspection tour and found the works up to his code and pleasure? Were Angelic orders carrying out the works of the commands of God? What happened to “be, and it is” doctrine? We read “God ended his work, which he had made” (Gen 2:2), does it imply geologically refashioned and regenerated in a “creative process” rather than completely new creation? Did not he know what he wanted to create for him to exclaim and trance? What happened to his infinite “plan” and “Purpose”, “Omniscience” and “Foreknowledge”? Did not he believe what he was able to do with his own eyes, to boastfully exclaim: “It is good … very Good?” Yet, God keep reminding us that: “his ways are not our ways, his thoughts and works are not our thoughts and works” (Isa 55:8).
At first look, it seems to us humans that everything God made backfired. Some of the previous worlds rebelled, sinned and he destroyed or at least temporarily punished them; then he created the orders of Angels and Spirits realms with Lucifer as the best of the best, but he too rebelled; and finally he created Adam and Eve who also transgressed and sinned, then some of his angelic creation lusted after the daughters of men and married them, as you will read under “Giants”. With all these discrepancies, no wonder the proponent wolves of evolution theory, we call scientists, are inquisitively and meticulously grilling and fiercely attacking the proponents of the creation story revered by the three Heavenly Faiths. To these wolves and others, God says:
“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth, declare, if you have understanding? Who has laid the measures thereof, if you know? Or who has stretched the line upon it whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? Or who laid the corner stone thereof, when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” (Job 38:4-7)… “He stood and measured the earth” (Hab 3:6)… “But ask now the beasts and they shall teach you; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell you; or speak to the earth, and it shall teach you: and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto you. Who knows not in all these that the hand of the Lord has done this?” (Job 12:7-9).
IV- The “Work” of the Literal Six Days’ Creation … Gen 1:
“If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath… Thus says the Lord: “If my covenant be not with day and night and if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth” (Jer 31:37; 33:25).
“In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day” (Exo 20:11)… “Do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2Pet 3:8)… “Indeed, let God be true but every man a liar. As it is written: “That you may be justified in your words, and may overcome when you are judged” (Rom 3:4).
The Hebrew text uses the word “work” in the singular, which only means all the different creative acts of God were considered one multifaceted work in resemblance to the inseparable Triune God being one in essence but in three manifestations: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. So, the materialization and the crystallization of his creation process appeared over a literal six days.
“… And the evening and the morning were the sixth day… And on the seventh day God ended his work (singular) which he had made… And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made… These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens” (Gen 1:31, 2:2-5). Did it take God six days (Exo 20:11, Heb 1:2), of which each day is a literal 24 hours over a little more than 7000-10000 years ago, to finish his work? The answer is a resounding “yes”. Does that mean, as God followers and believers in his creation story, we should negate the repeated verifiable geologic findings, the accurate regular sequences time after time of the fossil history data for life on earth as well as the methods for testing it by carbon-14 and radiometric decay scales for dating, no matter how questionable they are? The answer is a thundering “no”. Many uninformed believers, especially Judeo-Christians and Muslims hide often behind Noah’s flood as the culprit for the fossils’ burial but the fact of the matter as I have explained in this study, the Bible totally supports the fossil science and opens a window on the real age of the earth to be a great extent more than the 7000-10000 years in its previous uninhabited form.
The six days’ process in itself is an evolution of some sort. All Heavenly Faiths adopt to great extent such evolutionary process but draw the line when certain evolutionist scientists claim that human “spirit and body” are the result of the “forces of living matters” thus mixing spiritualistic with materialistic and reductionist origins.
In Gen 1:14, we read: “And God said: “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years”, thus cementing a specific almanac, regardless if one follows the Jewish, the Julian, the Gregorian, the Chinese, the Muslim, the Egyptian, the Mayan or any other kind of calendars. Our atheist scientists, like the King of Persia at the time of Daniel: “speak out against the Most High and wear down the saints of the Highest One, and they intend to make alterations in times and in law for a time, times, and half a time” (Dan 7:25).
We also read these quotes: “It will take 2,300 evenings and mornings… And the vision of the evening and the morning which was told is true: wherefore shut you up the vision; for it shall be for many days” (Dan 8:14, 26) in line with (Gen 1:5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31)… “They will trample on the holy city for 42 months. They will prophesy for 1,260 days” (Rev 11:2-3)… which, beside the calculations, a day still represents a 24 hour span of time adding one morning and one evening to equal one day, whether the Hebrew word “Yom” is explicitly used or implied. Yet, the Lord can only: “change times and seasons” (Dan 2:21).
We all heard of supernatural miracles, which violates and defy one or more of the laws of nature, science and logic, and where the most erudite past, present and future, failed to come close to explain them. They happened and are happening to others everyday or maybe to us, but although we may not understand their ramifications, they are documented and verifiable. As believers, we accept them as “divine intervention”, but for non believers, even if it hits them in the face and happens to them, they will attribute it to luck, good genes and wrong diagnosis.
With this in mind, how can we explain Jesus’ miracles: Jesus used to ask how long the sickness was, or when this person died, such as with the crippled at the Bethesda pool, 38 years (John 5:3), the blind man, since birth (John 9:19, 32), another blind man, 18 years (Mar 10:49), the woman diseased with blood issue, 12 years (Matt 9:20), Lazarus dead, 4 days (John 11), the son of the widow in his way to be interred 1 day (Luk 7:11-17), etc. My question is: when these folks were healed or revived, did it take one second, one minute, one hour, one day, one week, one month, one year or years to reverse days and years of deformity, illness and decay and for this or that person to be restored to full function, including reversing death sentences? How could God perform all these and other miracles in an instant “FIAT”?
When the Virgin Mary could not count or name the miraculous and instant events happening to her by the Holy Spirit, she referred to them collectively as “μεγαλεῖος=Megaleios”= magnificent, splendid, wonderful, incredible, amazing Works or great Things”. The Greek adjective was used only two times in Luk 1:49 and this verse at Pentecost: “… We do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works “μεγαλεῖος=Megaleios” of God. And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another: “What means this?” (Act 2:11-12). With the greatness of these two occasions, the perfection of the six days’ creation is even greater.
We can find the common denominator in all the six days creation of “be and there it is”: “The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters” (Gen 1:2)… “He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire” (Matt 3:11)… the Holy Spirit supernaturally impregnated Mary the moment she uttered: “I am the handmaid of the Lord, be it to me according to your word” (Luk 1:38). Are you still questioning the literal six days creation span?
V- The Animals, the Birds, the Fishes The Dragons, the Serpents and the Dinosaurs
“So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, Both small and great beasts” (Psa 104:25).
“Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that has life, and fowl that may גָּדֹול fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales (Hebrew tanniyn plural: Tanninim=beast of beast) and every living creature that moves, which the תַ נִׁין gadowl waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind… And God blessed them, saying: “Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps upon the earth after his kind” (Gen 1:20-25).
One of the most bizarre trumpets blasting the atheist evolutionists blow in the face of creationists beside their defunct theories, after the discovery of fossils of some 500 species of small and huge weird looking reptiles and dragon-like monsters, supposedly dating back to millions of years, is summarized in their claim that the “Dinosaurs” are not mentioned in the Bible and that the earliest of the Books of the Bible, the Book of Job, is simply a fictional book. For that reason, the story of God creation in six days 7000 years ago is dead on arrival.
In answer to their defunct and unfounded claims, I would like to set the records straight for all these skeptics together with those of “little faith” in their Creator and his word:
From the Creation story, we get the following consistent facts:
- Whether the narratives of the Book of Job are fictional or real, the undeniable fact it was written over 5 millennia ago; so skeptic atheists and evolutionists should not read it as a religious but as a historical reference book of records. As one can see in this study, Job was not the only one who documented the existence of these monstrous creatures. Can Atheists claim that David’s Psalms, Isaiah, Jeremiah and others are also fictional books?
- God created all genera and species of fish and fowls on the 5th day of the creation of our present world as confirmed in Genesis 1 verses 20-25. The monstrous beasts, classified today within “Dinosauria”, of the sea and the air were created on the 5th day as per verse 21 and those of the land in verse 24 as well as Adam in verse 26 in the 6th day.
- Job, among other biblical figures, speaks of these monstrous dinosaurian beasts in full details confirming that God created them at the same time he created Adam as you will read in Job chapters 40 and 41 hereinafter.
The “Dinosauria” fiasco, these are the recorded facts:
- The first recorded unearthing took place in 1822, thanks to the English geologist Dr. Gideon Mantell who stumbled on unfamiliar animal remains, unfamiliar to him and the world, as never before seen such large species reptile. - By 1841, nine new species were unearthed; among them were “Megalosaurus” (10-20’ mega-lizard) and “Iguanodon” (25’ Iguana-like), “Hylaeosaurus” (25’ armored forest reptile). - Around the same time, the British paleontologist and creationist Sir Richard Owen, after seeing the huge bones, claws and teeth, he coined the name “Dinosauria” from Greek “deinos” meaning "terrible", "fearsome", or "formidable" and “saura” meaning “lizard” or “reptile” to refer to their size and majesty. - The scientific world has dealt before with the so-called stock of Saurian reptiles. - Charles Darwin, the proponent father of the idea of the evolution theory with its “Big Bang” farce, was a contemporary of all these discoveries and he wrote his “Origin of Species” about 1859 influenced by the “Dinosauria” remains’ unearthing, and the injustice and misery of humans at the hands of a just God. - Today, as per a 2006 report, there are about 500 “Dinosauria” genera fully studied, classified and displayed in various museums around the world. - Contrary to what the evolutionists want us to believe, not all “Dinosauria” genera and species were having very large bodies and structures, weighing between 60-80 tons and standing 30-200 feet high, which they claim that in no way Noah would have been able to accommodate in his ark. The verifiable fact is that from the 500 species, there are air, land and sea so-called dinosaurs, many were much smaller than the chickens even tiny birds, and very few were very large. It is estimated that the average general size of any so-called “Dinosaurian” was about that of a medium size vulture, giraffe, hippopotamus or crocodile. - The adjective “Pre-historic” is often tagged to many events and phenomena that we cannot understand let alone explain. With the lack of documentation and records of the historical present, we rush to formulate theories stressing an alleged historicity of an event and hide behind “Once upon the time before our era”. - Few scientists throughout history were and are adamant at shoving down our throats their defunct theories, while repenting before their death to acknowledge the one and only Creator of all, the Sovereign and Mighty God. - Finally, the translators of the Bible in different languages did not know the coined word “dinosaurs” to use it, so the majority used “dragons”, some “whales” while the rest “Serpents” for these gargantuan creatures. The word “Tanniyn=Dragon” used all through the translated Old Testament in all non-Hebraic languages, which might be coined from the Greek “Drakon”, copied from the New Testament use of the word, probably borrowed from the Greek mythology.
Our recorded history proved that these air and land creatures, like all the animal, fowls, birds and human kingdoms, were vegetarians until after Noah’s flood as we read:
“God said: “Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creeps upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat” (Gen 1:29-30).
After the devastation of Noah’s flood, scarce edible vegetations were left, so some animals, vultures and Noah’s family resorted to meat and fish as part of their diet. In tandem, no housing was left, so persons used caves as their dwelling places, hence the coined word “cave man”. Job makes reference to cave men: “For want and famine they were solitary; fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste. Who cut up mallows by the bushes, and juniper roots for their meat… To dwell in the cliffs of the valleys, in caves of the earth, and in the rocks” (Job 30:3-4, 6).
The verifiable fact that many other species and genera of animals, fish and fowls are now extinct or threatened to be extinct in the present 7 millennia is due, besides diseases, fires and draughts, to the games of hunting for whatever reason be it prized trophies or their paraphernalia, for food or their furs, skins, etc. and not because of Noah’s Flood, as the Bible unequivocally confirms from Genesis to Revelation and recorded history that there was no physical death of animals or humans before Adam sinned, and consequently there could not have been any animal fossils including dinosaur bones before sin. In this regard you may read Gen 1:29-30, 2:17; Acts 3:21; Rom 5:12, 8:20-22; Heb 9:22; 1Cor 1:15; Rev 21:1-4, 22:3.
From the old literatures and depictions of the world, be it factual or fictional, we read about and see all shapes and sizes of actual as well as mythical creatures fitting the bill of today’s “Dinosauria” frenzy, and we are acquainted with people encountering such bestial creatures, the likes of St. George’s (Al-Kadr) many depictions of slaying dragons. The first such recorded mention of these creatures called in Hebrew/Arabic “Tanniyn” and generically translated in many languages of the different versions of the Bible as “Whales” while others as “ Dragons”, “Serpents”, “Sea Monsters” and even “Unicorns”, is found in Genesis: “And God created great whales (dragons, serpents), in short beasts of beasts, and every living creature that moves, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every erets) and upon the Earth'=אֶׁרֶׁ ץ :winged fowl after his kind…the beast of the Earth (Hebrew Adamah=surface of the earth, usually the Hebrew Adam and Adama=the‘ =אדמה :Hebrew) living man made of the living earth and returns to it) after his kind” (1:21, 25) denoting germinatively genera and species of such big and small creatures of the “Sea”, the “air” and the “land”, starting with those you need a microscope to see to the hugest of them all.
gadowl/gä·dole'” translated “great” is to emphasize their=גָּדֹול“ The tagged Hebrew adjective largeness, which is the same adjective used in verse 1:16 “And God made two great lights; the greater “gä·dole'” (in stature, magnitude and extent) light (the Sun) to rule the day, and the lesser (in stature, magnitude and extent) light (the Moon) to rule the night” to expressly draw a parallel that the sun is much bigger than the moon and by extension the earth and other planets. Accordingly, using the same adjective for these humans, reptile and dragon-like creatures only imply that it is a great deal bigger than the other humans, animals, fowls, birds and fishes. The second most reliable mention of these different dragons beast is found in the oldest Chinese mythology depicting land and sea dragons and flying dragons as well.
Before we delve into our Bibles to see what other names these larger than conventional creatures are called, let me establish one crystal clear biblical fact about Noah’s Ark: God has meticulously and divinely designed it, Noah only built it; God gave the list of which and how many animals, fowls and birds will be preserved regardless of their sizes and sent them toward the Ark, and Noah complied and watched them file in and take their places. It was not up to Noah to decide which genera or species can be saved or made extinct, if applicable; nevertheless it was God sovereign will and plan for his own purpose. Did God decide no more such huge creatures as well as other genera and species? The answer is no, because Job, David, Isaiah and Ezekiel among others who documented the sighting of these beasts after Noah.
Could this statement by the prophet Hosea explain the extinction of some beasts, fowls, birds and fish? I only can assume that it is a possibility to reflect both the past and the future of events as he reiterates what Noah was experiencing with his people and God’s forthcoming wrath:
“Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwells therein shall languish, with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven; yea, the fishes of the sea also shall be taken away” (Hos 4:3).
The other names and descriptions that we find in the Bible are used to describe the mammoth humans and the gargantuan animal kingdom creatures referred to as “Giants” and “Beast of Beasts” to reflect their unusual sizes as if they were doubled or multiplied over and over in stature. The Book of Job and others give a handful of these “Beasts of Beasts” with their minute detailed descriptions, which practically fit few of the displayed in museums reconstructed fossil skeletons if applied to today’s gamut of what we call “Dinosauria”.
There are sufficient biblical, historical and geological evidences that such genera and species we call today “Dinosauria” existed, soared over the skies, roamed the earth and journeyed through the seas at different times in the far and near past; all we have to do is visit the hundreds of museums all over the world and/or the hundreds of Internet sites to see their reconstructed fossil skeletons on displays. As a first of the narratives about these gigantic creatures, let us together start with the Book of Job chapters 40 and 41 to meet various genera of the first created real “Dinosauria” of the Bible creation’s story.
be·hā·mohth'” or as in=בַהֲמֹות“ In Job 40:15, we read about a land beast Job calls in Hebrew Hebrew/Arabic “Bāhimāt” or “Bāhimā”, the word connotes plurality to mean “beast of beasts”, which was transliterated into other languages as is, such as “behemoth” in English. Job gives us in verses 16-24 a full detailed description of this beast appearance including its food and cites Palestine and Trans-Jordan where they lived. Few scientists and scholars equate it with today’s genera and species of the “sauropods”, the most common species of dinosaurs in the world, such as the “Diplodocus” (long necked whip-like tailed gargantuan lizard-like) or “Brachiosaurus” (long necked armed gargantuan reptile)”, both weighed between 60-80 tons and their sizes extended to about 75-200 feet while their necks could be raised up to 40 feet in the air as well as their tails extended about another 40 feet. Some had long necks but short tails.
“Look at the behemoth, which I made along with you and which feeds on grass like an ox. What strength he has in his loins, what power in the muscles of his belly! His tail sways like a cedar; the sinews of his thighs are close-knit. His bones are tubes of bronze, his limbs like rods of iron. He ranks first among the works of God (Gen 1:21), yet his Maker can approach him with His sword. The hills bring him their produce, and all the wild animals play nearby. Under the lotus plants he lies, hidden among the reeds in the marsh. The lotuses conceal him in their shadow; the poplars by the stream surround him. When the river rages, he is not alarmed; he is secure, though the (River) Jordan should surge against his mouth. Can anyone capture him by the eyes, or trap him and pierce his nose?” (40:15-24).
Scientists say Behemoth Clip from Internet Is similar to Brachiosaurus
After getting acquainted with our first named biblical genera and species of the many Land so-called today dinosaurs, the “Behemoth”, let us now say hello to our first biblical genera and species of the many Godzilla sea dinosaurian beasts Job calls “Leviathan” (Hebrew Plural), the genera and species that on earth there is not their like, the blistering fiery lava spitting enormous monsters, of whom Job writes “he is a king over all the children of pride” (41:34) in line with our saying today “the lion is the king of the jungle, the eagle is the king of the skies”, etc. to reflect their majesties and eminence above their comparable peers. These Leviathan fit the descriptions of the aquatic dinosaur we call today “Plesiosaurus” (large gavial-like) or “Sauropterygian reptile” (Turtle-like or lizard flippers) while others say “Sarcosuchus” (armored crocodile). Their average weight ranged between 60-80 tons and their sizes extended to about 75- 100 feet.
After we read Job 41:1-34 below, we should not wonder where movie makers came up with their Godzillas and fire spitting dragons’ configurations, because Job gave them every possible detail in writing as we read:
“Can you draw out Leviathan with a hook or his tongue with a cord which you let down? Can you put a hook into his nose or bore his jaw through with a thorn? Will he make many supplications unto you? Will he speak soft words unto you? Will he make a covenant with you? Will you take him for a servant forever? Will you play with him as with a bird? Or will you bind him for your maidens? Shall the companions make a banquet of him? Shall they part him among the merchants? Can you fill his skin with barbed irons or his head with fish spears? Lay your hand upon him, remember the battle, do no more. Behold, the hope of him is in vain: shall not one be cast down even at the sight of him? None is so fierce that dare stir him up: who then is able to stand before me? Who has prevented me that I should repay him? Whatsoever is under the whole heaven is mine. I will not conceal his parts, or his power, or his comely proportion. Who can discover the face of his garment or who can come to him with his double bridle? Who can open the doors of his face? His teeth are terrible round about. His scales are his pride, shut up together as with a close seal. One is so near to another that no air can come between them. They are joined one to another; they stick together, that they cannot be sundered. By his sneezing a light does shine and his eyes are like the eyelids of the morning. Out of his mouth go burning lamps and sparks of fire leap out. Out of his nostrils goes smoke, as out of a seething pot or caldron. His breath kindles coals, and a flame goes out of his mouth. In his neck remains strength and sorrow is turned into joy before him. The flakes of his flesh are joined together: they are firm in themselves; they cannot be moved. His heart is as firm as a stone; yea, as hard as a piece of the nether (millstone). When he raises up himself, the mighty are afraid: by reason of breakings they purify themselves. The sword of him that lays at him cannot hold: the spear, the dart, or the habergeon. He esteems iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood. The arrow cannot make him flee: slings tones are turned with him into stubble. Darts are counted as stubble: he laughs at the shaking of a spear. Sharp stones are under him: he spreads sharp pointed things upon the mire. He makes the deep to boil like a pot: he makes the sea like a pot of ointment. He makes a path to shine after him; one would think the deep to be hoary. Upon earth there is not his like, who is made without fear. He beholds all high things: he is a king over all the children of pride”
Leviathan French artist painting Paul Gustave Doré
Clips from Internet And King David wrote about “Leviathan”:
“O Lord, how your works are manifold. In wisdom have you made them all: the earth is full of your riches; so is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts. There go the ships: there is leviathan that you have made to play therein. These wait all upon you; that you may give them their meat in due season. What you give them they gather up: you open your hand, they are filled with good. You hide your face, they are troubled: you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. You send forth your Spirit, they are created: and you renew the face of the earth” (Psa 104 24-31).
“You divided the sea by your strength; you broke the heads of the sea monsters in the waters. You crushed the heads of Leviathan; you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness” (Psa 74:13-15)… “Let those curse it who curse the day, and who are prepared to rouse Leviathan” (Job 3:8).
Isaiah wrote: “In that day the Lord with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea” (27:1).
Its closest parallel seems to be Rahab, the sea monster of the Red Sea; although Rahab is associated with Egypt, it mythically refers to a huge sea monster. This creature is equally mysterious and not mentioned by name outside of scripture.
Then we have the Sea Monster (the gigantic and fearful crocodile) of the Nile River: “The great monster that lies in the midst of his rivers, that has said: “My Nile is mine, and I myself have made it”. “I will put hooks in your jaws and make the fish of your rivers cling to your scales. And I will bring you up out of the midst of your rivers, And all the fish of your rivers will cling to your scales” (Eze 29:3-4).
“And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his head… and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born… And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceives the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him… And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth. And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” (Rev 12:3-4, 7-9, 16-17).
Let us not forget the beasts of Daniel’s times and all the other monsters mentioned in the Book of Revelations. The depths of the oceans still hold many mysteries unknown to us. As you can see and ascertain for yourself there are all kinds of “Dinosauria” including giant and miniature humans in the Bible. Who can say religion and science cannot cohabit when both emanated from the melting pot of God’s knowledge guarded chest and information bank?
VI- a) Humans, and Who Created them? Gen 1:27 b) Angelic Orders as “MEN”! (Dan 9:21; Rev 21:17)
a) HUMANS
“For ask now of the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and ask from the one side of heaven unto the other, whether there has been any such thing as this great thing is, or has been heard like it?” (Deut 4:32).
“So God created man (no gender) in his own image, in the image of God created he him (singular: Adam=starter of humanity); male and female (specific genders) created he them (dual or plural)” (Gen 1:27 & Matt 19:4) as reconfirmed in “Male and female created he them (dual or plural); and blessed them, and called their name (both) Adam in the day when they (dual or plural) were created” (Gen 5:2) and between “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Gen 2:7) leading to the belief that there were two steps of human creations.
“Thus says the Lord God to these bones: “Behold, I will cause breath to enter you that you may come to life” (Eze 37:5)… "Your hands have made me and fashioned me together round about… Remember, I beseech you, that you have made me as the clay; and will you bring me into dust again? Have you not poured me out as milk, and curdled me like cheese? You have clothed me with skin and flesh, and have fenced me with bones and sinews. You have granted me life and favor …" (Job 10:8-12)… "Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return " (Job 1:21)… "As you know not how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child: even so you know not the works of God who makes all" (Eccl 11:5)… “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh” (Gen 2:23),
The contradictory assertions apparently revolve around: a. Does “in his own image and likeliness” mean that God, in a first process, created the first Male spirit only? b. Has he then, in a second process, confined the Male spirit to a body made from the dust of the ground? c. Since God finished all his creation works in six days, are we to deduce that the female was also created on the sixth day as Adam, as Genesis 1:28 and 5:2 suggests or much later as Genesis chapter 2:18, 21-23 forwards? d. Yet in Gen 1:28, we read that God: “blessed them (Both), and God said unto them (Both): “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it”. e. Was there another set of created spirits turned humans, the like of a certain alleged “Lilith” being the first wife of Adam made of the dust of the ground? More details about “Lilith” in this study hereinafter? f. Ezekiel 28:13-19 tells us that Lucifer’s dwelling place before his fall and the creation of Adam was the Garden of Eden, but we read in Genesis 2:8 “And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed”. Which statement is correct? Was there one garden in Eden or many? g. Did Lucifer originally occupy certain garden of the many gardens of Eden or was he all over, and then God decided to set aside the eastern part to place Adam in it? h. If Lucifer was banished from Eden never to come back, how did he sneak in without God detecting it and get access to the eastern part to tempt Eve? i. The other confusing verses are found in Gen chpt 3: “And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him: “Where are you? And he said: “I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself” (8-10). Is not God omniscient and omnipresent? How could not he detect Satan’s sneaking in or not see Adam and Eve hiding? “Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? Do not I fill heaven and earth? Says the Lord?” (Jer 23:24).
By all accounts, the Bible is not written in a chronological order, so Genesis chapter 1 is no more than a creation summary of headlines and highlights, whereas in Genesis chapters 2-5 and other books are the details of that creation process. No contradiction whatsoever, all you need is patience and study.
For the creationists, God, the scientist of all scientists and the creator of science, created since eternity the eternal spirit and about +/- 7000 years ago the heavens and the earth, the animal kingdom and the human vessel mortal body; for the evolutionists, both spirit and body were materialized millions of years ago from nothing incarnating into self-evolved animals, that started as Homo Erectus=upright/standing man” before millions of years, then to ““Homo Erectus- Homo-Habilis=handyman” for another millions of years and finally became “Homo Sapiens=man who thinks”.
Both godly creationists/evolutionists as well as atheist evolutionists agree that the process had a start and a beginning; the chief divergence sits with who started the ball rolling? The godly say God, while the atheists and few creationists evolutionists scientists give a chronology of the various life-forming self-evolving processes on earth starting with the appearance of:
400 million years ago: Ordovician (Fish), Silurian (Plants) Devonian (Tetrapods-Crocodiles-like), 300 million years ago: Carboniferous (Reptiles), Permian (Mammal-like Reptiles), 200 million years ago: Triassic (Dinosaurs & Mammals), 100 million years ago: last Mesozoic era: Jurassic (Birds), Cretaceous (Flowering Plants), From 100 to 0 years: Tertiary (Saurian Horses & Monkeys), Quaternary (Apes & Cave Humans).
In the light of the above, evolutionists tell us that at between 100 million and the 0 year, a mass extinction of life of Saurian stocks took place, and then out of nowhere humans evolved from Tertiary monkeys and apes to Quaternary “cave man “Homo erectus” self-evolving miraculously into a more civilized “Homo Sapiens” starting the human race the way we know it today.
Just because there are morphological and anatomical similarities between hominids apes, monkeys and humans does not make it a fact that we are descendants of these animals. If we are descendants from these animals, how come they still exist in their God created forms? Do not they aspire to self-evolve into humans like their ancestors? Mice, rats are the closest to humans and have also great morphological and anatomical similarities with humans. How come humans did not self evolved from mice and rats? Did man self-evolve from cross breeding between apes and monkeys like what happens between horses and donkeys to produce mules? Has a scientist ever tried to mate a human with ape/monkey or vice versa and produced anything? I am sure some have tried and failed in their experimentation. Just because some humans look like monkeys does not make them descendants of monkeys.
It is a fact that science already proved that the DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid), Protein and RNA structure of humans and animal kingdom species do not match. The humans have 46 chromosomes in total, of which 23 is in each sperm and 23 in each egg. Accordingly, the chromosomes of human sperm and human egg do not match animal, bird, and reptile, which have different DNA, Protein and RNA and numbers of chromosomes sperm and eggs, and which makes it genetically impossible for human sperm to fertilize any egg other than human and vice versa.
If the atheist scientists’ claim is true, then who did create that first animal and how did that first animal self-evolve and self-infuse life? Nothing in this universe can self-evolve from nothing. Did that first animal help another animal to self-evolve so that they can mate and start humanity? If apes/monkeys were capable of self-evolving into humans and self-infusing life, why are they still animals like God created them? With these assumptions, theories and presumed capabilities, WHY DO ANIMALS AND HUMANS DIE?
b) Angelic Orders as “MEN/HUMANS” (Dan 9:21; Rev 21:17)
We read in Gen 1:28 that God has asked Adam and Eve to “replenish the earth and subdue it”. At the first reading of the command, it simply means what it says, but when we apply it to the different creations of God in different times and spaces, we realize God is apparently drawing a parallel between the humans and the angelic beings which he also calls man/men:
“… even the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning …” (Dan 9:21). “And he measured the wall thereof … according to the measure of a man, that is, of the angel” (Rev 21:17)… “Is he the man (Lucifer=Satan) that made the earth to tremble and that did shake kingdoms” (Isa 14:16)… "Now it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God (the angels) saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. Then the Lord said, 'My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh" (Gen 6:1-3).
Perhaps the command was given to Adam and Eve before their “fall” while they were in the state of “innocence”. It seems that God is telling them to reproduce themselves within the same state and by “subdue” to teach their descendants the same while controlling the other creatures of the world, because the old and previous worlds have rebelled, sinned, and were annihilated, banished or sentenced to eternal perdition.
VII- The Giants and the Dwarfs (Hobbits);
We read about the monstrous in size supermen people the Bible calls “GIANTS”, from the “Homo Sapiens” genera, whose statures ranged between 8-11 feet or more, the like of Goliath the Gittite and his brother who were respectively slain by David (1Sa 17:4) and by Elhanan (2Sa 21:19). God, being an equal opportunity Creator, has applied his code of all sizes and weights to all his creatures be it humans, animals, fowls, birds, fish, seas, rivers, trees, mountains, heavens, planets and galaxies among many others. Giant human skeletons were lately discovered and unearthed all over the world, ranging in size between 8-18 feet in height.
Do the rocky land “Yeti” and “Sasquatch” (7-10ft tall), the alleged bipedal ape-like giant “Bigfoot / Snowman / Woodman” exist or have they existed sometime ago? Some claim to have found their foot remains and foot prints and some produced photos of their sighting all over the world. Their remains were unearthed around Mt. Everest in the Himalayans and Northern California as well as Mexico among others.
Yeti Sasquatch
Clips From Internet
Does anyone know why all the gigantic breathing living creatures are extinct today? Some say the die-off was due to an asteroid that struck the earth 65 million years ago that vaporized on impact spreading iridium toxic gases throughout the stratosphere; others allege that much before the asteroid struck massive “Deccan Traps Volcanoes” erupted blasting clouds of carbon and sulfur dioxides from the bowels of the earth resulting in global climate warming and acid rain. If this is true, how can we explain the so-called “Dinosauria” fossils geologists and paleontologists discovered somehow intact when everyone knows that with these alleged perpetrators the bones and fossils disintegrate beyond recognition? I am sure someone out there has an answer, plausible or not. Please do not blame it on Noah for all of these creatures existed after him and were scripturally and secularly documented.
“Lo, a tree in the midst of the earth, and the height thereof was great. The tree grew, and was strong, and the height thereof reached unto heaven” (Dan 4:10-11).
“There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown” (Gen 6:4)… “And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak that come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight” (Num 13:33).
What about the dubbed “Homo Floresiensis”, manifestly shocking to scientists and paleoanthropologists, whose skeletons were recently discovered as never before known species of miniature dwarf humans that all populations over the centuries grew no taller than 3’ to 3’ 3” and weighed about 55 lbs and their skulls about the size of grapefruits? With their remains, scientists found remains of dwarf elephants, giant rodent, Komodo dragons and 10 feet long lizards. Few of these dwarfs “Hobbit-like” people are still alive and live on the remote Flores Island east of Bali in Indonesia, others were found in Australia, where the other remains were found in caves, hence the name “Homo Floresiensis”. They were dubbed by dig workers as the "Hobbit," after the tiny creatures from the film “Lord of the Rings”.
VIII- The other “WORLDS” & “LUCIFER”: Satan/Devil & his Demons
THE WORLDS
The Judeo-Christian Bible use of the word “worlds” in the plural is found explicitly in two verses and implicitly in three, of which some are listed below. For all purposes, this word is to encompass all created worlds be it heavens, planets, near and far galaxies, angels and spirits realms, Garden of Eden, Paradise, one Heaven as the Throne of God and one Earth as His footstool, the Earth as well as previous shapes of extinct earths and heavens and not to forget, Hell, Hades, Lake of Fire and Brimstone, the bottomless pit, abyss together with the earthly and heavenly Jerusalem, add to that the realms of principalities, powers, dominions, (Col 1:16), etc.
“God has in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he has appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds” (Heb 1:2)… “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear” (Heb 11:3)… “Although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. For he spoke in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, and God did rest the seventh day from all his works” (Heb 4:3-4)… “For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s and he has set the (inhabited) world upon them” (1Sa 2:8)… in contrast to our one world found in Matt 13:35, 25:34; Luk 11:50; John 17:24; Eph 1:4; Heb 4:3, 9:26; 1Pet 1:20; Rev 13:8, 17:8.
The confusion about the different worlds has emanated from the conflicting biblical passages that speak on one hand that God will not destroy the earth but regenerate it and give it to the righteous and meek (Psa 37:29; Matt 5:5), while on the other hand, the many passages of doom and gloom that speaks of leaving it desolate or even to obliterate it altogether and replace it.
“Hold your peace at the presence of the Lord God: for the day of the Lord is at hand: for the Lord has prepared a sacrifice, he has bid his guests… And it shall come to pass at that time, that I will search Jerusalem with candles, and punish the men that are settled on their lees: that say in their heart: “The Lord will not do good, neither will he do evil”… That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, and against the high towers. And I will bring distress upon men that they shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the Lord: and their blood shall be poured out as dust, and their flesh as the dung” (Zeph 1:7, 12, 15-17).
LUCIFER
“Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them. And the Lord said unto Satan: “Whence come you?” Then Satan answered the Lord, and said: “From going to and fro in the earth and from walking up and down in it” (Job 1:6-7; 2:1-2). Did Lucifer embark on his rebellion at the moment God initiated the creation process and God decided to deal with him before resuming his creation, after which God realized that he tarried long so he completed the process in six days? Did it take one day or unspecified number of years to deal with Lucifer and his accomplice demons? All Heavenly religions believe that Lucifer rebelled before the creation of the world, and that he tempted Eve and Adam after their creation by God in the Garden of Eden, a very familiar site, since it was his dwelling place from which he and his cohorts were cast away. Adam and Eve in tandem were banished from the same place to the newly created earth. Did the creation of our present universe take place before Adam and Eve’s fall or after? Let us see what the scripture hint to:
“You have been in Eden, the Garden of God; every precious stone was your covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond; the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper; the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of your tabrets (tambourine) and of your pipes was prepared in you in the day that you were created. You are the anointed cherub that covers; and I have set you so: You were upon the holy Mountain of God; you have walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. You were perfect in your ways from the day that you were created, till iniquity was found in you. By the multitude of your merchandise they have filled the midst of you with violence, and you have sinned: therefore I will cast you as profane out of the Mountain of God: and I will destroy you, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; you have corrupted your wisdom by reason of your brightness: and I will cast you to the ground, I will lay you before kings, that they may behold you. You have defiled your sanctuaries by the multitude of your iniquities, by the iniquity of your traffic; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of you, it shall devour you, and I will bring you to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold you. All they that know you among the people shall be astonished at you: you shall be a terror, and never shall you be any more” (Eze 28:13-19).
“How are you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning? How are you cut down to the ground, which did weaken the nations? For you have said in your heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Yet you shall be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. They that see you shall barely look upon you, and consider you, is he the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms. That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners? All the kings of the nations, even all of them, lie in glory, every one in his own house. But you are cast out of your grave like an abominable branch, and as the raiment of those that are slain, thrust through with a sword, that go down to the stones of the pit; as a carcass trodden under feet. You shall not be joined with them in burial, because you have destroyed your land, and slain your people: the seed of evildoers shall never be renowned. Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers; that they do not rise, nor possess the land, nor fill the face of the world with cities. For I will rise up against them, says the Lord of hosts, and cut off from Babylon the name, and remnant, and son, and nephew, says the Lord. I will also make it a possession for the bittern, and pools of water: and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, says the Lord of hosts. The Lord of hosts has sworn, saying, “Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand” (Isa 14:12-24). (The context points out to the death of the King of Babel, the despot being the image of the Devil).
God allowed in our era Satan to tempt Job and Jesus among many others, and Satan also shook by his own rebellion God’s angelic kingdom and realm, would it be plausible that God also allowed him to shake other previous worlds and kingdoms or did he do it on his own as the prince of all created worlds? Based on the above two passages, we have to deduce that other worlds or universes with nations, kingdoms and kings existed, otherwise why should God inspire Isaiah and Ezekiel among others to write such statements, which events correspond to an extinct ancient era. The Bible tells us that Lucifer is the prince of past as well as of our present world and still holds the physical throne over this world and more influential than God in this world until the second coming of Christ.
Jesus pointed out that Judas Iscariot is a devil: “Did I myself not choose you, the twelve, and yet one of you is a devil?” (John 6:70).
“Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea, for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has but a short time” (Rev 12:12)… “And the devil said unto him (Jesus), “All this power will I give you, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it. If you therefore will worship me, all shall be yours” (Luk 4:6-7), which is similar and in sharp contrast to what Jesus declared of himself “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth” (Matt 28:18)… “Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1Pet 5:8). A constant struggle is raging between the Creator and his pretending creations and dominions.
which literally means "RED", and Adamah ,"אדם" On a side note, Adam in Hebrew is admoniy=Hairy RED (Gen 25:25). I='ַאדְמֹּנִׁי :RED Ground” as well as Esau in Hebrew=אדמה" is am not sure if there is any coincidental connection with the color of the Dragon, which is RED. In the New Testament, the word “Dragon” is used purposely as well as randomly prefixed by “red,” in the Book of Revelations, of Satan, the once uniquely most beautiful celestial creature of God, like the earthly Adam, turned fearsomely hideous and abhorrent as prince of darkness, fire and brimstone, who replaced his luminous immaculate wings with seven heads and crowns and ten horns. The use is metaphorical to denote his using his old charm while being that devouring monster in tempting people, engaging in the final confrontation with God, because he knows, at the end of times, he will be lethally defeated lost ”'ַאדְמֹנִי" and Admoniy ”אדמה" Adamah ,"אדם" once and for all. In conclusion: Adam their firstborn birth rights and God intended purpose because they became sons of disobedience Num 14:18; Job 8:4; Eze 33:12, Eph 2:2, 5:6; Col 3:6).
IX- The “SIN” before and after Adam’s Fall
“Whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began” (Act 3:21). “For you have created all things, for your pleasure they are and were created” (Rev 4:11).
The entire Bible is clear vis-à-vis death, disease, suffering, misery and calamity, which entered into our world as the direct result of Adam’s sin. The other fact is the sin of Satan and his demons is not redeemable and they are cursed forever, but the sin of the humans was redeemed by our Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us; for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree" (Gal 3:13; Deut 21:23, Act 5:30; 1Pet 2:24, etc.).
That same Jesus told us: “You will have suffering/tribulations in this world: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). To have a satisfying answer to why God did and do allow suffering and death while claiming that he loves us, we must consult with Job who lost everything and afflicted with leprosy, Isaiah who was sawn in half, Jeremiah who lamented all his life, the apostles who were slain, and last but not least, the God/Man Jesus who said: “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and be raised up on the third day” (Luk 9:22).
In short, we have to EARN God’s Love and Trust by doing his will in order for the declaration of John to apply: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world; but that the world might be saved through Him… so that we may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death; in order that we may attain to the resurrection from the dead… And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (John 3:16-17; Phi 3:10-11; Rom 8:28).
Thus the Holy Spirit spoke through the prophets confirming the presence of sin and spiritual death before the creation of Adam and Eve and their disobedience. In Ezekiel Chpt 28 verses 15-16, God said to Satan: “You were perfect in your ways from the day that you were created, till iniquity was found in you. By the multitude of your merchandise they have filled the midst of you with violence, and you have sinned”. After the disobedience of Lucifer and his cohorts, God sentenced them to spiritual death more than the angelic physical metamorphosed appearance, which God deformed. God also sentenced Adam and Eve to spiritual rather than physical death affecting their human body. At the Judgment Day, Adam and Eve and humanity will receive their punishment or reward, while Lucifer and his demons will be stripped of all their powers and deception to join the lost forever.
Does anyone know why it took God over +/-5000 years to send Jesus to restore the fallen man? Why did not he restore and redeem Adam and Eve’s innocence in the Garden of Eden instead of expelling them and all humanity after them? Why did not God send Jesus on his second coming to defeat Satan forever? I believe God is answering us with his insight in these verses:
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways” (Isa 55:8)… “Yet you say: “The way of the Lord is not equal”. Hear now: “Is not my way equal? Are not your ways unequal?” (Eze 18:25)… “Thus shall you say unto them: “The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens. He (God) has made the earth by his power, he has established the world by his wisdom, and he has stretched out the heavens by his discretion” (Jer 10:11-12; 51:15).
I am not sure why many scholars cite this passage of St. Paul to the Romans as possible accurate evidence to the existence of sin and death before our Adam has been even created, unless it is distilled from good and bad angelic beings as being also called in the Bible “man/men” as you already read in # 6-b earlier taking into account that it is evident that St. Paul speaks only of our present world excluding any other world:
“Therefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: for until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come” (Rom 5:12-14).
X- The Kingdom of God & the Kingdom of Heaven;
When reading the Bible to have a complete view of what Genesis is forwarding for all the past, present and future creations of God, many a time one do not pay close attention to certain terms and terminology and assumes that the one term is synonymous to the other without taking into consideration the “Doctrinal differences” between them. The cause and effect between the terms are usually as wide as the one between the doctrines of “Law” and “Grace”, although the cause is “Sin”, the effect is that both bestow “atonement”, yet one is meritoriously offered by humans and the other by the God-man Jesus without merit on our part. The following study deals with the “Kingdom of Heaven” vs. the “Kingdom of God” that we encounter repetitively and copiously in the New Testament, of which I am citing few self-explanatory passages: A- Kingdom of Heaven
“Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven… But I say unto you, swear not at all; neither by Heaven; for it is God's throne: Nor by the Earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King” (Matt. 5:19, 34-35)… “And from the days of John the Baptist until now the Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force” (Matt. 11:12)… “Verily I say unto you, “except you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. He who therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matt 18:3-4)
B- Kingdom of God
“I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Luk 5:32 & Mar 2:17)… “But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the Kingdom of God is come unto you” (Matt 12:28)… “And he said, “Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables... The seed is the word of God” (Luk 8:10-11)… “And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the Kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said: “The Kingdom of God comes not with observation: Neither shall they say: “Lo here or lo there”. For, behold, the Kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:20-21)… “Jesus answered, My Kingdom is not of this world: if my Kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my Kingdom not from hence” (John 18:36)… “When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying: “Lord, will you at this time restore again the Kingdom to Israel?” And he said unto them: “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father has put in his own power. But you shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and you shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth” (Act 1:6-8).
This is just a very brief and concise summary of the differences, the “Kingdom of Heaven” refers to and deals with the spiritual truths and aspects of the worlds of God, His Throne, Jesus sitting at the right hand, the Holy Ghost, giver of life, the gamut of angelic orders, bliss, paradise, eternity, a Kingdom with Jerusalem as its earthly capital until elevated to heaven at the end of times, but more importantly here it forwards a literal physical Kingdom soon to come inhabited by all the faithful believing in Jesus, Jews and gentile in their transformed bodies.
“And the Kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the Kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him” (Dan 7:27).
The “Kingdom of God” deals first and foremost with the faithful believers’ “spiritual warfare” and the “embodiment of Christ Church” in this world: “Know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, and which you have of God, and you are not your own?” (1Cor 6:19). We are commanded first to seek it then to have it within our hearts, souls and minds if we hope to blissfully move from this created world to the heavenly one or if we are lucky enough to be picked to inherit the earth, as Jesus said; nevertheless to the Jews, it only meant and still means to fulfill their earnest desire to have the Messiah as their religious leader as well as political and military King of not any earthly kingdom but a unique and powerful ruling kingdom of Israel over the world with Jerusalem as its capital, as evidenced by the prophets Jeremiah (23:5), and David’s Psalm (48:2). Thus, the Jews, Jesus’ own people, missed the boat then but hopefully they will hop aboard before his second coming.
“Seventy weeks are determined upon your people and upon your Holy City, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy. Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times” (Dan 9:24-27).
As you can see from the above few passages, there is an unremitting struggle between the forces of good and evil in the concept of the Kingdom of Heaven and in the acceptance of the Kingdom of God on earth, and there is a continuous fighting with the Jews to stop them from fulfilling their unfounded dream. It is an ongoing struggle between spiritual and carnal deliverances, between heavenly and worldly worlds, and between righteousness and wickedness.
XI- “Lilith / Lamia”: the alleged 1st wife of Adam before Eve
The many speculations are driven by the various beliefs, in the religious, mystical and secular circles, that there was another woman before Eve called “Lilith” or “Lilitu” (Apparently a nocturnal Mesopotamian creature described among others as the “female night being/demon”, or the “stormy spirit wind”, or the “flying demoness”, or the “Queen of the Night”, or the “Moon”, or as in “The maiden that stole the light”), while others equate her with “Lamia” (the witch stealer of children) as certain Jewish scholars teach in their sacred books of Kabbala, Midrashim and Mishnah as well as the Tanakh, the Jewish Biblical Canon, probably triggered as someone put it by divine “Rabbinic Fantasies” based on their Talmudic doctrines and traditions of biblical and mythical demonology.
She is described to be as splendidly beautiful as Lucifer, the Star of the Morning, and that she lived next to the flaming sword from which she was created.
Their assumptions are somehow woven from the narratives of the prophet Isaiah “The wild beasts of the desert shall also meet with the wild beasts of the island, and the satyr shall cry Liyliyth and Arabic: Laylat=night) also shall rest there, and find=לִׁילִׁית :to his fellow; the screech owl (Hebrew for herself a place of rest” (Isa 34:14) as well as from many rabbinic legends and writings, to name few:
The Kabalistic Midrashic “Book of Zohar” (Raphael Patai’s translation 81:455), Hebrew meaning “Splendor”, is a manuscript written in Aramaic attributed to a certain Rabbi Simon Bar Yohai (Rashbee) and his son Eleazar ben Simon who allegedly wrote it over thirteen years hiding in a cave in Israel, fear of the Romans. The book was reportedly been discovered by a certain Rabbi Moses Ben Shem Tov de Leon of Spain at the end of the thirteen century A.D. after being hidden for thirteen centuries (Gutwirth 22). The Book represents a compilation of many other books and legends. Here below the text of chapter 3 verse19:
“Come and see: There is a female, a spirit of all spirits, and her name is Lilith, and she was at first with Adam. And in the hour when Adam was created and his body became completed, a thousand spirits from the left evil side clung to that body until the Holy One, blessed be He, shouted at them and drove them away. And Adam was lying, a body without a spirit, and his appearance was green, and all those spirits surrounded him. In that hour a cloud descended and pushed away all those spirits. And when Adam stood up, his female was attached to his side. And that Holy Spirit which was in him spread out to this side and that side, and grew here and there and thus became complete. Thereafter the Holy One, blessed be He, sawed Adam into two, and made the female. And He brought her to Adam in her perfection like a bride to the canopy. When Lilith saw this, she fled. And she is in the cities of the sea, and she is still trying to harm the sons of the world”.
Then this passage 1:19:
"And God said: “Let there be lights ..." (Gen 1:14). "Lights" is written defectively, meaning that croup was created for babies. After the illumination of the first light was concealed, a shell was created for the kernel, and this shell spread and produced another shell. When she emerged and ascended and descended, and came to "the tiny countenances,"(babies) and wished to join herself to them, to take shape within them, and never to leave them. But the Holy One, blessed be He, took her away from there, and brought her down below when He created Adam, in order to regulate this world. When she saw Eve, who was attached to Adam's back, and whose beauty was like that of the realms above, and when she saw her perfect image, she flew from there and wished, as at first, to join herself to "the tiny countenances." The keepers of the celestial gates did not allow her to approach. The Holy One, blessed be He, upbraided her and dispatched her to the depths of the sea, and she dwelt there until Adam and his wife sinned. Then the Holy One, blessed be He, brought her out of the depths of the sea, and she rules over all infants --- "the tiny countenances" of mankind -- who deserve to be punished because of the sins of their fathers. She goes to and fro in the world, and comes to the terrestrial Garden of Eden, and sees the Cherubim guarding the gates of the Garden of Eden, and she dwells there by the flaming sword, because she originated from the side of that flame. When the flame turns she flees and goes through the world, finding infants who ought to be punished, and she smiles at them and kills them. This happens when the moon is on the wane, and the light diminishes. And this is the meaning of me'orot (lights)”.
It seems that "defectively" above refers to the Hebrew text “me'orot” (Lights) which probably should be read “me'erat” to mean “curse” since “Lilith” was an accursed creature. (The Wisdom of the Zohar 540-541)
There are many versions to this disharmonious narrative including but not limited to these statements found in the apparently medieval text book called the “Alphabet of Ben Sira”. Historians and scholars can not seem to agree on a date, some say about 700 years before Christ, others sometime after Christ, and while some claim it is a medieval Muslim invention of the 10th-12th century. The alleged author, Yeshua, son of Shimon, son of Eleazar Ben Sira of Jerusalem, to whom this work is attributed, is also the author of the book of “The Wisdom of Jesus son of Sirach or simply Sirach” (Ecclesiasticus=preacher, not to be confused with the Book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible). The Book is canonically accepted by some Jews as well as the Catholic and Greek Orthodox Churches. It seems that this story took place during Jews’ Babylonian bondage. The story stated that King Nebuchadnezzar received Ben Sira’s responses to his 22 questions each starting with the letters of the Hebrew Alphabet in a row. The story of Lilith represent the fifth letter of the Hebrew Alphabet thus it makes up the fifth response. This is the entire response for you to ponder on:
“Soon afterward the young son of the king took ill. Nebuchadnezzar Said: “Heal my son. If you don't, I will kill you”. Ben Sira immediately sat down and wrote an amulet with the Holy Name, and he inscribed on it the angels in charge of medicine by their names, forms, and images, and by their wings, hands, and feet. Nebuchadnezzar looked at the amulet: "Who are these?”
The angles that are in charge of medicine: Snvi, Snsvi, and Smnglof (pronounced: Senoy, Sansenoy and Semangelof). After God created Adam, who was alone, He said: “It is not good for man to be alone” (Gen. 2:18). He then created a woman for Adam, from the earth, as He had created Adam himself, and called her Lilith. Adam and Lilith began to fight. She said: “I will not lie below” and he said: “I will not lie beneath you, but only on top; for you are fit only to be in the bottom position while I am in the superior one”. Lilith responded: “We are equal to each other inasmuch as we were both created from the earth”. But they would not listen to one another. When Lilith saw this, she pronounced the Ineffable Name and flew away into the air. Adam stood in prayer before his Creator: “Sovereign of the universe” he said: “the woman you gave me has run away”. At once, the Holy One, blessed be He, sent these three angles to bring her back.
“Said the Holy One to Adam: “If she agrees to come back, fine. If not, she must permit one hundred of her children to die every day”. The angels left God and pursued Lilith, whom they overtook in the midst of the sea, in the mighty waters wherein the Egyptians were destined to drown. They told her God's word, but she did not wish to return. The angels said: “We shall drown you in the sea”. “Leave me”, she said: “I was created only to cause sickness to infants. If the infant is male, I have dominion over him for eight days after his birth, and if female, for twenty days”. When the angels heard Lilith's words, they insisted she go back. But she swore to them by the name of the Living and Eternal God, “whenever I see you or your names or your forms in an amulet, I will have no power over that infant”. She also agreed to have one hundred of her children die every day. Accordingly, every day one hundred demons perish, and for the same reason, we write the angels' names on the amulets of young children. When Lilith sees their names, she remembers her oath, and the child recovers".
However, it is probably gleaned from the character "Obizuth" in the original “Epic of Gilgamesh” where some presume that it is one and the same with “Lilith”. The pseudepigraphic “Testament of Solomon” according to many commentators and translators believe this encounter between Solomon and a female slayer of children is implying that she was “Lilith”:
“And I adored the Lord God of Israel and bade another demon present himself. And there came before me a spirit in woman's form that had a head without any limbs, and her hair was disheveled. And I said to her: “Who art thou?” But she answered: “Nay, who art thou? And why dost thou want to hear concerning me? But as thou wouldst learn, here I stand before thy face. Go then into thy royal storehouses and wash thy hands. Then sit down afresh before thy tribunal and ask me questions, and thou shalt learn, O king, who I am”.
And I, Solomon, did as she enjoined me, and restrained myself because of the wisdom dwelling in me, in order that I might hear of her deeds and apprehend them and manifest them to men. And I sat down and said to the demon: “Who are thou?” And she said: “I am called among men Obizuth, and by night I sleep not, but go my rounds over all the world and visit women in childbirth. And divining the hour I take my stand, and if I am lucky I strangle the child. But if not, I retire to another place, for I cannot a single night retire unsuccessful. For, I am a fierce spirit of myriad names and many shapes. And now hither, now thither, I roam. And to westward parts I go my rounds. But as it now is, though thou hast sealed me round with the ring of God, thou hast done nothing. I am not standing before thee, and thou wilt not be able to command me. For I have no work other than the destruction of children and the making of their ears to be deaf, and the working of evil to their eyes, and the binding of their mouths with a bond, and the ruin of their minds, and paining of their bodies”.
When I, Solomon, heard this, I marveled at her appearance, for I beheld all her body to be in darkness. But her glance was altogether bright and cheery, and her hair was tossed wildly like a dragon's, and the whole of her limbs were invisible. And her voice was very clear as it came to me. And I cunningly said: “Tell me by what angel thou are frustrated, O Evil Spirit?” But she answered me, “By the angel of God called Afarof, which is interpreted Raphael, by whom I am frustrated now and for all time. His name, if any man know it, and write the same on a woman in childbirth, then I shall not be able to enter her. Of this name the number is 640.” And I, Solomon, having heard this, and having glorified the Lord, ordered her hair to be bound and that she should be hung up in front of the Temple of God, that all the children of Israel as they passed might see it and glorify the Lord God of Israel, who had given me this authority with wisdom and power from God by means of this signet”. (Encyclopaedia Judaica 246; Brunel 721; Schwartz 1988; Gaster 157-159).
Whether you choose to fantasize with the Rabbis in their “one thousand and one night” amusement theme of Adam’s bigamy and believe such stories or brush it aside, it will neither earn you a place in Heaven nor draw you closer to God.
XII- Atlantis
Let us bear in mind that over the years, many cities with their structures and inhabitants including animals and birds were swallowed and buried down deep into the earth or the sea because of God’s wrath, massive earthquakes and other geological cosmic elements and what we unearthed so far does not amount to a very tiny glimpse of the tip of the iceberg. With time, more and more of the excavations will unearth more and more of these extinct civilizations and locales with their diverse inhabitants.
The first mention of such utopian place is found in Plato’s works of “Tamaeus and Critias” (ca 360 B.C). The many books and records on civilization rely on Plato’s account in one way or another and few claim that there existed a continent or an island called Atlantis, after the mythological Greek God Atlas who is depicted as a Greek Titan being the god of the earth carrying the heavens on the back of his neck. Few world authors claimed the existence of other lost continents: most famous are Mu and Lemuria.
Lycaeus Proclus (5th century AD), the Greek philosopher surnamed the “successor”, intimates us in his commentary on Plato’s “Tamaeus” with a description of the geography of the alleged Atlantis: "That an island of such nature and size once existed is evident from what is said by certain authors who investigated the things around the outer sea. For according to them, there were seven islands in that sea in their time, sacred to Persephone, and also three others of enormous size, one of which was sacred to Pluto, another to Ammon, and another one between them to Poseidon, the extent of which was a thousand stadia; and the inhabitants of it—they add—preserved the remembrance from their ancestors of the immeasurably large island of Atlantis which had really existed there and which for many ages had reigned over all islands in the Atlantic sea and which itself had like-wise been sacred to Poseidon”.
Our universe dates back to about 6-7000 years ago, but promoters of Atlantis date it back to about 10,000 years ago. The “humanist” promoters of the many theories have woven it from the many circulated Greek mythologies’ legends, of which I am citing two such legends:
1- They claim that humans lived in Atlantis along side “Duel Monsters” represented by the giant Titans and the many shapes and sizes dragons. We read about the “Stone of Oreichalkos” (as if it was an asteroid or space ship manned by soldiers) darted from the far space and crashed into earth. Whoever touched the stone, whether humans, Titans or dragons, knew their true character tendencies. The story goes to confirm that half of the humans, Titans and dragons became wicked and evil and the other half remain doleful and peaceful. They reported that the alleged leader of the evil side was an Atlantian named Darteaz and that he ruled along with the great Leviathan (mentioned in Job) who was far too powerful to be defeated by the forces of good.
2- That there was a war of some sort between the gods and the giant Titans, in which the 3 legendary dragons in the Greek mythology, Tamaeus and Critias along with Helmos were injured, where Tamaeus was pierced in the eye, Critias in the fang, and Helmos in the claw. The final outcome of that war sounded as an atomic blast “Big Bang” resulted in Atlantis altogether to sink in the deep ocean and vanish from the face of the earth. For our study, I summarize the many claims as we are told that:
- Atlantis existed before our present creation and saw its demise after Adam, - Atlantis was the most beautiful continent on Earth. More than a Heaven on Earth. - The Garden of Eden was an island called “the Island of Atlas”, hence Atlantis, - Atlantis was the birth place of man, - The city of Atlantis was a thriving paradise, - Atlantis had sophisticated civilization, advanced technologies and superior military powers and presence, - The angels, sons of God, mated with women on Atlantis, so God destroyed them with their seeds and sank the Island, - God never talked about Atlantis in the Bible, because he did not want anyone to know that mysterious paradise which he decided to sink to the bottom of the deep seas. - Some claim its remains are beyond the strait of Gibraltar in the Atlantic Ocean, the majority place it with the Mediterranean Sea locales, especially around the strait of Sicily, while others place it within the Bermuda Triangle. - All extinct creatures, be it man or mammals, used to live on Atlantis, their remains that we discover today were washed away during the sinking of Atlantis.
“They that seek the Lord understand all things” (Prov 28:5)
All the above unsettling probes and explorations are evidently a proof of our inability to reconcile between the narratives of Genesis with at least the verifiable facts of the geological history, thus we strip God, the Potter of all, of his absolute authority, sovereignty, wisdom, plan and purpose. In our less educated carnal mind, our blind belief system does not equip us to conceive and accept from the available physical evidences. Humans are bicameral, i.e. having a left and right brain chambers, the right being active (subjectively conscious but lazy and forgetful) while the left is somehow dormant (objectively subconscious). Many believers fail to go to that dormant side, the filing cabinet of intelligence and records, because they find themselves lost in its mazes, and because only there and in the deepest vaults of their hearts, they will discern the truth about God and His creations process and realize that only the Sovereign God can change the physical and material laws of nature, erase old creations or improve them as well as create new worlds. God is omnipotent and can do all of these and more but never be in subjection to them: “Counsel is mine and sound wisdom; I am understanding; power is mine” (Pro 8:14).
Let us see some of the extraordinary awesome powers of our Lord God, as nothing is impossible in his omnipotence:
st - The Creation of our world was the 1 such intervention. (Genesis/Exodus). - The parting of the Red Sea. (Exo 14:21). - The donkey talking to Balaam. (Num 22:28). - The burning bush without being consumed. (Exo 3:2). - Turning the shadow of the sundial back. (2kgs 20:9). - Stopping the Earth’s rotation for 24 hours. (Josh 10:12-14). - 40 days/nights of non-stop torrential rain. (Noah’s Flood). (Gen 7:4). - The Conception and Virgin Birth of Jesus. (The Gospels). - Jesus’ God-Man phenomenon. (The Gospels). - The Trinity’s Oneness and Essence in three manifestations. (John’s Gospel). - All Jesus’ miracles, above all the 5 loaves and 2 fishes. (Matt 14:19). - Jesus rebuking the winds. (Matt 8:26). - Raising Lazarus and others from death. (The Gospels). - Jesus’ Resurrection. - Jesus entering the house to appear to his disciples through solid walls in his body as if He was a ghost. (The Gospels). - Jesus’ bodily ascension to Heaven. (The Gospels). - The invisible hand writing on the wall. (Dan 5:5). - The many appearances of angels in human forms. (Bible). - The many appearances of the Triune God. (Bible). - The Lord sent out a great wind into the sea (Jonah story) (Jonah 1:4). - God speaking to Job through the whirlwind. (Job 40:6). - “The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent's meat. (Isa 65:25). - The speaking dragon: “Speak, and say, “Thus says the Lord God; Behold, I am against you, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, the great dragon that lies in the midst of his rivers, which has said, “My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself” (Eze 29:3).
The Conclusion
As I said in the beginning of this study, humans love to read between the lines but not the lines themselves. They claim to know it all when in reality, they know nothing. They are expert at formulating theories and then grasping at straw. In conclusion, the simplest answer to all the above is to discern and believe, and to read the word of God, search and explore his works, rather than listen to the speculations, succumb under the atheist attacks, get sidetracked by the hypotheses, become offensive instead defensive by arming ourselves with God’s wisdom in finding out the wonders of his Work and Creation.
We should ask ourselves which is more important our salvation, our close loving relationship with Jesus and our fellowmen or the futile debate whether the age of the earth is about 7000- 10000 years or millions or billions of years. This same anguish is experienced by believers triggered by the unfounded atheist and evolutionist attacks about Jesus having brothers and sisters, being married to Mary Magdalene, being homosexual, a guru, an “E Pluribus Unum” phenomenon, a sage and a prophet no more, etc…
“That you be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as god sits in the temple of God, showing himself that he is god” (2Thes. 2:2-4).
Our one and only God, whom the atheists, Universalists and humanists dubbed, besides unknown phenomenon, mystical, legendary and non-existent, we have created our own gods to represent our understanding. The atheists claim that we, the blinded believers, are like chameleons who decided to dress the deities once with Halloween rags and once with majestically divine costumes and bestow on them baselessly all powers and attributes.
While The Bible does not reveal a lot, yet, many of the events mentioned in the Bible have been historically and scientifically proven time and time again, and many more will reconcile once knowledge increases. My belief in the word of God is unflinching no matter what the abjectly ignorant world throws my way. I also strongly believe in sound and unbiased science, of which past, present and future generations have and still benefit of its advancements and findings. As with many sincere open-minded believers, it is often so hard to pin where they both melt or reconcile with each other.
I can not claim that the Bible is a complicated Book to read and understand, and let not the statement of St. John apply to us: “And I wept much, because no man was found worthy to open and to read the book, neither to look thereon” (Rev 5:4) or the Apostle Jean speaking of the darkness in our hearts and minds: “And the light shines in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not” (John 1:5) because God himself said “Whereby, when you read (my word/book), you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ, which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men” (Eph 3:4-5), and “Read my word and abide by, and I will enlighten and guide you with my Holy Spirit” (Isa 34:16, 51:18; Psa 32:8, 48:14, 73:24; John 16:13). If we diligently read the Bible, the Teacher himself who inspired it, the one and only Creator of all, heavens and earth, big and small, living or dead, will make its truths plain and crystal clear.
God is exhorting us to heed his word: “That they may see, and know, and consider, and understand together, that the hand of the Lord has done this, and the Holy One of Israel has created it” (Isa 41:20). So, please let us not blame God for our myopic and wavering “knowledge” and “little faith”. My hope for us is to grow focusing on Jesus, the Cherished Son, through whom, for whom and by whom all things were created. Disagreement over interpreting the quasi non-doctrinal creation vs. evolution is not a pre-requisite to our spiritual life and salvation. Let us therefore wonder with Edwin Hubble (1889-1953), the famous astronomer, who wrote about what interests him in how God created the world: “I am not interested in this or that phenomenon in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details”.
If we earnestly and wholeheartedly seek the truth, then we must look to Emmanuel (=God with us) (Isa 7:14, 8:8; Matt 1:23) Jesus who “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men” (John 1:3-4) and “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him” (Col 1:16), and who also said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life” (John 14:6) inasmuch as if we follow Him being the way, he will lead us to His truth, and “His truth will set us free” (John 8:32) so that we may have faith as a mustard seed (Matt 17:20) and life abundantly (John 10:10) through Him, by Him and in Him being “the Author and Perfecter of our faith” (Heb 12:2).
Our Lord God had thundered in a very loud once-in-a-life-time “Big Bang”…
“Surely as I have thought and purposed, so shall it stand” (Isa 14:24), Because I have spoken it, I have purposed it” (Jer 4:28).
And we should likewise thunder back:
“You created all things, . and because of your will they existed, and were created” (Rev 4:11)
In conclusion, I have this honest question: look at the below rendering (taken from Internet: Konklusjoner ang. evolusjons ikoner) that evolutionists love to parade and exalt and tell me what happened to the dinosaurs in the middle? Did they get wiped out and became extinct during Noah flood or other cataclysmic event!?!?!? Any fossils or any remains found? While we believers believe that what our God created, he created everything in sequence, distinction, excellence and perfection; the evolutionists invented and still blunder armed with ambitions, mirages and delusion: