Essay on Genesis, Ch. 1 - 3
The first Hebrew word, call it W1, in the First Book of Moses is translated into English (NIV) in the book of Genesis as “in the beginning.” According to the Bible-hub Interlinear web resource, W1 occurs only four other times in the Old Testament, where it is translated as “early in the reign of …” If one assumes that the creation of the universe deserves its own sense for W1, then we might postulate that W1 can bear either of two senses: first, as an absolute or logical “beginning” of time itself or, second, as a “relatively early time near the beginning of a phase, process or reign elsewhere defined.” In the case of Genesis 1:1, W1 is taken to refer to absolute or logical priority: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
Analysis requires that we seek to remove the quotation marks surrounding the word “beginning” in the phrase “the ‘beginning’ of time itself.” Let A be the phrase “the ‘beginning’ of time itself.” Let B be the phrase “time itself.” By saying that “A is logically prior to B,” we mean that B must be understood in terms that include A (as a matter of knowledge); as well as that “if B exists, then A exists” (as a matter of ontology). It would seem that the offending quotation marks can indeed be dropped.
In contrast, consider the events C and D. By saying that C is temporally prior to D, we are saying something about four-dimensional space-time that is both consistent with special relativity and informative regarding the so-called “time-stamps” associated with C and D. When relativistic effects are negligible, then “C being temporally prior to D” means that “the time value associated with C is less than the time value associated with D.
In English, the absolute (logical) versus temporal distinction seems reasonable: We may say things like “In (or at) the beginning of the war, each side had ten warships” (absolute beginning). We might also say that “In the beginning of the war, each side failed repeatedly before finally launching ten warships” (relatively early in a temporal process, or during some imprecisely defined “days of yore”).
In German, the same absolute (logical) versus temporal distinction is indeed picked up in the Schlachter 2000 translation of Genesis 1:1, but to the opposite effect: In all German usage known to the current writer, “Am Anfang” could potentially bear either of the aforementioned two senses. However, Schlachter renders Genesis 1:1 as “Im Anfang,” which seems to refer exclusively to the sense of “relatively early in a process.” Generally, the present writer expects reliable translation, good German, and helpful and accurate notes in Schlacher. But in this instance, online Luther resources verify that Martin Luther translated Genesis 1:1 as “Am Anfang schuf Gott Himmel und Erde.”
“In the beginning,” the logical necessity of Genesis-1 creation was about to be embraced (comprehended in thought). The earth and the deep (the sea below and the heavens above) were desolate (formless), empty, and dark (Gen. 1:2); as well as seeming metaphorically to cry out for some ex-nihilo creation. The Spirit of God was “hovering above the waters,” setting the stage for God to proclaim a six-fold “Let there be …” On each of the Six Days of Creation (Gen. 1:3-31), God would “speak some aspect of the world into existence.”
In the Six Days of Creation portrayed by Genesis 1:3-31; six differing, overlapping, non-consecutive time intervals of universal creation and development occur. This six-fold plan of creation featured the following: There was to be initial radiation, inorganic phase separation (solid - liquid - gas), organic plant life, astronomical development of stars, organic animal life in the water and in the air, and organic land-based animal life including mankind. On the Sixth Day, creatures that could be referred to as man, mankind, Menschen, or “generic adam” (he who is taken from the earth) appear in Gen. 1:26-27. In the words of Gen. 2:1, “So were the heavens and the earth completed in their vast array.”
Tto the nearest integer multiple of five billion, the universe’s inaugural radiative blast (Big Bang) has dominated about fifteen billion years of universal development; and the declaration “Let there be light” (Gen. 1:3) can therefore only refer to one metaphorical day, namely, the First Day of Creation. Moreover, there is no expectation that - - for example - - organic plant life (Day 3) must develop before stellar development (Day 4) can occur. The developments or tasks envisioned by the Six Days of Creation are only logical prerequisites for the overall creative process. This reading is consistent with a Biblical understanding in which metaphor and literal interpretation peacefully coexist.
Among the events of the Sixth Day of Creation in Gen. 1:26-27, God is said either to have “made mankind in our (Trinitarian) image” or to have “created mankind in His (God’s) own image.” However, He had not yet explicitly “added form” to the dust of the earth, which is the material cause of mankind (Gen. 2:7). Indeed, in Gen. 2:5, no Mensch was even available to cultivate newly available agricultural land.
In view of the labor shortage appearing in Gen. 2:5, it would seem to be more appropriate to redefine the term “mankind” in Gen. 1:26-27 as “the set of all hominids.” Then the subset of all hominids, referred to in Gen. 2:7, can be relabeled as man, mankind, Menschen, or “generic adam.” This subset of hominids refers, at first, to Adam and Eve, when they lived in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 2:8). Later, upon being driven out of the Garden after the Fall of Man (Gen. 3:7-24), Adam and Eve would also have descendants falling into this subset. Man, mankind, Menschen, or “generic adam” have a prescribed, restrictive relationship with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:17). In contrast, while the members of the set of all hominids may have logged an enormous number of travel miles during epic adventures accessible to archaeology, these migrations did not earn all hominids a special relationship to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
The old-earth timeline portrayed by the Days of Genesis 1 differs from the young-earth timeline developed in Genesis 2. (See the blog post of Nov. 10, 2025.) Genesis 1 deals with the six metaphorical days of Biblical creation. These are not six intervals of physical time, but rather are representations of six tasks logically required to have been accomplished before the whole panoply of heavens and earth could finally be assembled and proclaimed to have been “completed in all their vast array.” Internal to each of these six metaphorical days, there may be temporal processes; but, overall, there seems to be no unifying time allowing sequential completion of all six tasks. In contrast, Genesis 2 only begins its account of mankind and the Garden of Eden after the “heavens-and-earth completion” proclaimed by Gen. 2:1. Evidently, the Big Bang, planetary formation, and hundreds of thousands of years’ worth of archeological data had all started in the remote past, long before the Genesis 2 story.
In Genesis 2:10-14, the four rivers flowing in the vicinity of the Garden of Eden are mentioned: the Pishon (near the land of Havilah), the Gihon (near the land of Cush in southeastern Mesopotamia, not in Africa), the Tigris (east of Ashur, or ancient Assyria), and the Euphrates (no data here, but it is the river flowing through ancient Babylon). Owing to radical landscape changes due to the later, catastrophic flood, the locations and flow directions of these rivers do not sound entirely familiar.
“Adam” and “Eve” as proper names appear only gradually in the Book of Genesis. For example, the NIV English translation of “adam” (he who is taken from the earth) changes from “a generic man” to “the particular man named Adam” in Gen. 3:20. Next, Adam chooses to name his wife “Eve.” Thus, Genesis 3:20 seems, momentarily, to be the first verse with both Adam and Eve mentioned as proper names. Regrettably, however, the Schlachter 2000 German translation still uses Mensch (generic adam) as the person doing the wife-naming in Gen. 3:20. Eve, or Eva, means life, living, or the mother of all the descendants of Adam.
In Gen. 3:1-6, the tempting snake was more deceptive than any other animal in the fields and was therefore capable of inducing Eve (who also induced Adam) into eating from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In Gen. 3:22, God deplores the fact that man now knows good and evil, because man now needs only to reach out and to eat from the fruit of the tree of life in order to live forever. In order to avoid this final, forbidden step (Gen. 3:23-24), God first banished Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. God then strategically placed cherubim (angelic creatures) and a flaming sword to guard against, and presumably to prevent, mankind’s return from exile back into the vicinity (Garden of Eden) of the tree of life.