It may seem a minor point to some that Genesis 1:3-5 refers to one day. It is
not called the first day in all translations. Likewise the text speaks of a 2nd day, a 3rd day, and so on. A reference to the day doesn't occur until the 6th, the day in which man is created in the image of
God. Besides, light is still separated from darkness so the supposed “first” day isn’t about a time period that has an end. As God rests, all 6 of the Genesis Days of Genesis 1 are ongoing, as we shall
see in a later graphic.
With so little to show that the days are about time as much as they are about
the details in the text, I long ago chose to stay focused on the details and
the graphics that can be constructed from the text. The results of this focus has been 24 years of surprising and exciting
discoveries and I believe this is because I chose not to enter into circular
arguments about periods of time. Not about the past or about the future. My composite illustration of the Creation Plan shows that the 6 Days are not
limited to a horizontal time line – which became man’s limitation (a finite lifetime) since the fall in the Garden and the flood of
Noah.
Curiously enough, the graphics approach is what led me, eventually, to
understand why God offered up what appears to be an alternate version of
Creation with the Genesis 2 verses about the people God "formed" of the dust of
the earth and into which He breathed the "breath of life". These are the same beings where "woman" was "taken out of man" (Genesis 2:23)
as opposed to being “created” in the image of God, “male and female” (Genesis 1:27). Whereas, those who died in the flood of Noah were “all in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life.” (Genesis 7:22, “flesh” Genesis 6:3, 7:21.
There is no conflict between the supposed accounts of creation in Genesis 1 and
Genesis 2 because they are not the same story. Though Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 appear, on the surface, to both be speaking about
Creation they also seem to offer conflicting order of events – that is unless examined much more closely. The content of my Creation project is partially devoted to showing how these
accounts are not in conflict and how their differences permit a more
comprehensive understanding of major points of the Bible.
To simplify what I am getting at let’s say that Genesis 1:1-2 is an exceptionally brief synopsis of the period in
which man was formed of the “dust of the earth” discussed in Genesis 2. Genesis 2:4 stipulates that it is about to relate “the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day the
LORD God made earth and heaven. Since there is no single “day” in Genesis 1:3 – 2:3 in which God created earth and heaven this must refer to the “beginning [when] God created the heavens and the earth” Gen.1:1. (See Overview A area graphic). There is no suggestion in the Bible text as to
how long the “beginning” was before God organized the creation according to the “days” of Genesis 1:3 – 2:3 (Overview B above).
The individual words used in Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 2:4 provide a positive link
for these two passages and supports a position that the Genesis 2 account of
the man and woman are relating back to Genesis 1:1 and not the “days”. Using the Septuagint (click for online version) as a reference, in order to bypass any possible Babylonian influences in
English from Hebrew translations, we find that the word for heavens in “the beginning”
Genesis 1:1, 1:9 and Genesis 2:4, “in the day that the LORD God made earth and heaven” is οὐρανὸν. (The discovery of many fragments in the Dead Sea scrolls agree with the
Septuagint.) This particular word, οὐρανὸν, is used only one time within the “days” and that instance does not relate to a second day where God calls the expanse /
firmament heaven (RASV) but to a third day when God gathered the waters “below heaven into one place”. All of the other references in the creation days (Genesis 1:6, 7, 8, 14, 15, 17 & 20) is to the expanse (also firmament) God called Heaven. This shows a direct connection between Genesis 2:4 and Genesis 1:1, about the
very beginning.
This arrangement of the text is very confusing to most people because it is in
such a jumbled order. But nothing in the Bible suggests that everything written in Genesis follows an
ever-forward time-line. It is simply man’s tendency to try to see things that way. There is also nothing simply put in the Bible to lend to the opinion of some
that the Genesis 1 vs Genesis 2 accounts were written by different people or
that they are in any way contradictory. To say otherwise is to deny the factuality of the Bible and to provide a fleshly
(logical) answer to a spiritual question, i.e. an assumption from scholarly
overkill or spiritual ignorance. The words stand for the scholar and the uneducated alike, and are all true
despite man’s lack of comprehension.
To confirm the position that Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 are not in conflict, it
deserves noting that Genesis 4:25 begins the account of Adam’s line through Seth, which continues through the book of Exodus. It clearly states that they are “created” (ἐποίησεν) in the image, and likeness, of God (Genesis 5:1-3). This stands in direct contrast to the man of Genesis 2 who was “formed” (ἔπλασεν = molded) of the dust of the earth, and where woman was “taken from the man”. They are not contradicting one another but showing us a difference that is very
key. God is clearly making a distinction to us about “man” descended of Seth and those not descended of Seth – man created in the image of God vs man formed of the dust. This does not suggest that there were actually two Adams but that man was not in the “image of God” until the line of Seth (Genesis 5:3), “of Adam, of God” (some translations read “the son of Adam, the son of God”) Luke 3:38. It was not until this point that God “blessed them and named them Man” Genesis 5:2.
Too, God emphasized to us in Genesis 1:27 He “created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” By reiterating “He created them” it should be obvious that the “blessed” man and the woman were individually created in God’s image, that the woman’s flesh and bone was not taken out of man as in Genesis 2, proving that these
stories are intended to shed light on something we don’t ordinarily think of when we rush through a reading of Genesis. Slow down and look at what it actually says. The Genesis 2 account of man and woman relates to Genesis 1:1, not The Days of
Genesis 1:3-2:3.
Some teach that there was a “pre-adamic race” on the earth based in part on certain Bible translations that say God commanded
the man created on the 6th day to “replenish” the earth. Other translations say “fill” or “fulfill” the earth. Either way the idea that a race of people populated the earth before man was
created in the image of God would be consistent with what I am illustrating
here. A “race” of people before man was created in the image and likeness of God would, by
this accounting, be the man molded of the dust.
