Creation in Genesis

The Book of Genesis literally means the ‘book of the generation’. The word ‘generation’ means that which has proceeded from, or been brought into existence, or been born. To ‘generate’ something is to cause it to exist. The Book of Genesis gives the account of how the universe, including all life, came to exist. It also contains the history of the creation of different languages and people groups, and the beginning of the nation of Israel.

The details contained in the first several chapters of Genesis are very specific, and use very specific language to describe what God created, by what mechanism, and in what order. There is no Biblical or textual reason to believe anything other than a literal 6-day creation of the universe, including the heavenly bodies, and the earth with its plant and animal life, by God’s utterance of their creation using no prior material or substance, and in the form specific to what each object was. In other words, a dog was a dog.

Observations about detail of account:

1) defined as “genealogy of the heavens and the earth” (genealogy = account of descent…by enumeration (Oxf)

2)  Gen 1:3 identifies a separation of light from darkness, defining both “night and “day” by them respectively.

3)  Gen 1:3 after defining day and night, “and evening was and morning was, the first day”. Therefore, “Yom” defined as one period of evening/dark-time and one period of morning/light-time.

4)  Subsequent verses conclude the account of every creative day as “and evening was, and morning was the [#] day”. Every creative day is assigned one day, defined in terms of a normal rotation of light/dark periods.

5)  Long days are precluded, therefore time needed for evolution not available.

6)  Gen 1:14-19 – God is recorded as making “greater and lesser lights” to “rule” the “day” and the “night”.  Prior to this day, there were no celestial lights created, yet the “ruling” by what we now know to be the sun and moon conformed to the “evening/morning” cycles already set by God prior to creating their respective “lights”. In other words, the lights did not drive the light cycles.

Science has concluded that the consequence to the earth if the period of direct sun were either decreased or increased even a small amount would be catastrophic and permanent. Both Scripture and natural science contradict the possibility of these being other than normal, 24-hour days.

7)  -all creatures created “after their kind”.  (type or class created directly; genetics to accommodate changes of colour, size, stature, fur type, eye colour, etc.)

8)  God stated to have created humans male & female.  Reinforced by Jesus to have been in the beginning (Mt 19:4)

9)  – man created in God’s image.  –untrue if He placed His image into something that was not “man”, or first adapted some other creature into which He placed His ‘image”.

10)   Gen 2:7 – man formed from the dust of the earth. (also all creatures 2:19) Did He form man of the dust of the earth, or evolve him from another creature? If not from the dust of the earth, Genesis 3:19 becomes meaningless.

11)   formed first male, then formed a female from his body.  True or false?  Paul stated it as fact (1Tim 2:13; 1Cor 11:8-9,12)

12)   Gen 2:18-20 states that man was alone at first in his “kind”, and that this was not “good” for him.  Woman created afterward specifically for man’s benefit. Does not reconcile with each gender evolving separately.

13)   -all creatures to reproduce “after their kind”; all plants to reproduce and bear seed “after their kind”.   Offspring would be genetically consistent with the parent(s), and remain so thru’ generations.  Language here reinforces that intent.

14)   -called to be fruitful & multiply, filling their particular respective environments. Specific types created in and for specific environments. Context demonstrates necessity of continuation of kind.  Reinforced by vv. 11 & 12.

15)   Mechanism of reproduction (seed) of each type is specified, limiting offspring to genetic duplication. (cf: 1Cor 15:38-39)

16)   Gen 2:1 “Thus [“in this manner” or “therefore”] the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.”  God created, and the creation was finished. This statement disallows any evolution of new things after this time.  (ie: if we allow evolution as a possible mechanism for creation of new ‘kinds’, it would have to have stopped happening once the sixth creation day ended.)

17)   Gen 2:4-5 “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, and every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew…”  They were made to be what they were before they had been or had grown: they weren’t, then they were what they were supposed to be. Contradicts evolution of plants.

18)   Gen 2:7 – upon forming man of the dust of the ground, God breathed the breath of life into him, making him a “living soul [being]”. Concurrent events.

19)   Gen 2:21-24 – woman is said to have been formed from Adam’s bone, making her of one flesh with him, rather than being a separate flesh.  Is woman of one flesh with man, or did she evolve independently?

20)   All original creation declared by God to be “good” or “very good”.  Since He subsequently declared violence and killing as sin, they could not be present in this “good” creation since no sin could be present in a “good” creation.

21)   The origination of sin is accounted in Gen 3.

22)   The introduction of death into creation is accounted, with its cause identified, in Gen. 3. Prior to this, there was no death. (cf Rom 8:20) Therefore, there were no millions of years of fossils prior to Adam, which counters the gap theory as well as any evolution theory.)

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