Goofyness has hit.

Okay, this post has set all seriousness aside.  I translated Genesis 2:15

Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.

So, I'm thinking about God putting the man in the garden.  The picture of God creating man that Leonardo da Vinci painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

So my warped brain had this image of God putting man in the Garden pop into my mind. 

Okay, enough said on this matter.   Next post will be back to serious.

LORD

Starting in Genesis 2:4 the term translated as LORD:

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,

The above is the King James Version.   It is translated LORD also in NIV, NASB,  NLT among others.  The original Hebrew is what we would pronounce Yahweh.  That means that if one were to read the Hebrew as it is written, it would be Yahweh Elohim.  Prior to this point, if you read Genesis; you will just see "God" without "LORD".  It makes one wonder why a writer would start adding the extra word.

If you have read about Moses talking with God in Exodus (wouldn't that just be the coolest thing?) Moses says:

“Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you.’ Now they may say to me, ‘What is His name?’ What shall I say to them?”

God responds by saying:

God said to Moses, “I AM THAT I AM”

The Hebrew for that is

If you look at the first and the last word, you will see a similarity to the word above.   If you consider, the "I AM THAT I AM" to LORD consider that God IS!   We know that God has no beginning and no end.  Have you ever considered eternity?  One time I remember reading on a church reader board

Eternity is not time after time but lack of time  

Consider that statement with the statement of "I AM"  God doesn't say "I've been around forever."  He says "I AM"  He just "BEs".    Maybe that's why Moses (or whoever) used the name Yahweh.    Isn't it cool what you find out when going back to the Hebrew?

Another interesting note is that the Jewish tradition is to substitute the word "Adonai" instead of Yahweh for fear of the name being blasphemed.   It is believed that translators followed the same tradition by using the word LORD.

I stumbled across an interesting thought when looking up the history of YHWH at Eliyah.com about the use of LORD and Adonai.  I'm not sure I totally agree with the writer's thoughts but I wanted to put the link here because it was interesting to read.

There's more information on YHWH on Bible-researcher.com

Meanwhile may the LORD God bless you....
YHWH Elohim.....

Garden of Eden

Yup, once again I realized something I never thought about before.
When someone says "The Garden of Eden" what do you think about?  Is the garden Eden?  Is Eden all garden?  I always equated Eden with the Garden.  I always thought about the garden named Eden.

Well, consider this,  Genesis 2:8

The LORD God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden

I read that as the garden being planted in the East of Eden.   Wow, makes me wonder how the rest of Eden is.  Hmmm.   Once again, this isn't critical to our lives or theology but it certainly made me realize that all of Eden wasn't likely a garden.  I'm sure it was beautiful but was it a garden?

In Genesis 2:5 it says

Now no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground.

So that means that there were no plants yet.  After God put in the garden, was the rest rock?  Dirt?

In Genesis 2:6 and 2:7, God caused a mist to water the land and created man. In verse 8 He plants the garden and puts the man there.

After that, in verse 9 He caused all kinds of plants to sprout from the ground.  In the midst of garden He puts the two trees.   Can you picture it?

Water water everywhere

So now our little blue marble has day and night.  Starting in verse 6 God starts dealing with all that water. Verses 6 and 7 say:

Let there be a space between the waters, to separate the waters of the heavens from the waters of the earth.” And that is what happened. God made this space to separate the waters of the earth from the waters of the heavens.

The Hebrew says that God separated the waters from the waters.  Now, look up into the sky.  Would you call that "water"?   I guess in reading all of this and thinking about the writing of it.   I know there are those who don't believe that the Bible came from God but I'm looking at these little details.

If you were writing about making sky and oceans would you call the sky waters?  The same word is used in the Hebrew for both waters.  Mayem
   Would you even think about separating the water?  Hmmm?

Well that's what was written.

Also, the word rakea in Hebrew describes what has been put between the waters above and the waters below.  That can be translated as "solid surface".   Hmmm.. now, the land hasn't appeared yet.  The separation of the waters happens on day 2.

 The gathering of the waters happens on day three.

After he has the dry ground appear he has the earth cause seeds to sprout.  Now, the word for dry ground is not the same word that is used above between the two waters so that's not the solid surface.

Another thought I had was regarding when the big flood came with Noah, many wonder where all the water came from.  It must be on this blue marble somewhere because it was there at the beginning.  God had to tuck parts of it away and gather it together for the oceans.  I guess, it all came out of those areas to flood the earth again.  

This is so fascinating

Still stuck on the earth and the sun.

Yup, I know I said this post would be all about water but I was just translating Chapter 2 verse 4.

This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.

Now, I'm sure you've all seen this picture where we are just a little speck in a big galaxy.  Of course there are bigger galaxies and many other clusters of stars.  Makes you feel kind of insignificant doesn't it?

Well before you feel insignificant, look at the verse quoted above.  What does it say God made?  Did he make the heavens and the earth (as some translations have) or did he make the earth then the heavens?  The Hebrew has the earth and the heavens.

If you consider, in chapter 1 verse 2:

Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

We know that there was water on the earth but note, it was DARK.  God doesn't add light until verse three.   Now here is this little blue marble sitting out there in the middle of the heavens.  Okay maybe it was mostly white since it was covered with water and there was nothing to warm it yet.

It wasn't until verse 3 that God made the light.

Now, here's a thought.  God put the earth out there before he did all the other stuff.  Here's earth out there in the universe just sitting and waiting for some light.  This is the earth that God created to put us on. Man is the crown of God's creation and he put that little blue marble out there for us then put the light around it.

Make you feel a little more loved and important?

Me too.

Now, on to the waters.

Was it light everywhere in the Universe? How long was the day?

I am trying, in this blog; to avoid the traditional theological conundrums that we have all heard about. This is all about things that come flying into my brain while doing all this translating then hearing what others have to say.

This might be interesting to ponder.  In Genesis 1:3:

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

The Hebrew word used here is a future tense of the word translated at different points as "be, become, come to pass".
In the past when I thought about God doing all this creating, I pictured Him swinging his arms (well He MIGHT have arms) about like a painter as he creates things.
When I read this and translated it, I pictured God sitting on His incredible throne relaxed, not putting in any effort and saying "Light will be."  Nothing fancy, not expending any effort.  Just making a statement and POOF, everything was light.

Was light everywhere?  Well, after God saw that the light was good, he separated the light from the darkness in verse 4.

God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.

Now, have you ever thought about that statement?   If he had to separate the light from the darkness, they were together before that.  Hmmm.. a mix of light and dark, was the whole universe kind of gray?   I would love to hear some thoughts about that.  I know this all has very little importance but pondering it is fun.

After God did all this he called the light "day" and darkness "night".  Verse 5 says.

God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning of the first day

God accomplished all of this in the first day.  How long was that?  Well, in 2 Peter 1:8 it says:

But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.

So it could have been a thousand years.  But wait?  Would a day be a normal day if there was no light and dark?   And if it wasn't a normal day would it be more "like" a thousand years or . much longer?

Have I made your brain hurt with all of this?  I know we won't ever know the answers but it sure is fun to contemplate.

The next post will be loads of fun.  All about water.  (Glub)

Which is older, the Earth or the Sun?

Oh, this is getting fun.  In Genesis 1:1-2, it says that God created the heaven and the earth and the earth was dark.

¹ In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. ² Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

 Now, I always figured the sun was older, scientifically speaking.  Even Answers.com agrees with that assessment.  I couldn't find where they get their info.  I'm sure since it's on the internet, it's true eh?

Wait though, lookie what I found all over the internet today while asking which is older.  I just happened to pick Yahoo.  Isn't this interesting?  I believe I remember in school (mind you this was a few years ago) hearing how the Milky Way formed then the individual stars came together out of a sort of nebula and after that the planets formed. Wellsir, all this new scientific stuff about the age of water on the earth being older than the sun.

Now, mind you what is translated "the deep" is actually the word for sea AND later on scripture indicates that the earth was covered with water.   That means the whole earth was dark thus it must have been first.  Well what do you know.  The Bible tells it like it is.


This brings us back to the same type of question I asked yesterday.  If man would have written the Bible without input from God, why not make the sun first.  Heck, it's bigger and is needed for life on earth.

Of course there is the argument that people used to believe that the earth was the center and the sun rotated around it.

BUT!  Why say that the earth was formless and darkness covered the deep?  That would indicate that there was no light, especially when the next verse talks about God creating the light. Even if the sun revolved around the earth, why create the earth first?

Next post will be about the light.

Why did Man make God plural if he dreamed God up?

Okay, first post here.  The first thing I noticed in the very first verse of Genesis.  In English we read "In the beginning God...".   Well, the Hebrew word used here is Elohim.

In Hebrew the "im" ending is like us adding S on the end of a word to make it plural.  Now, I ask you, if man invented God like some say, why did he make God plural.

We read the Bible and see that God is triune, three in one.  We know there is the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Ponder this for a moment though.  You are going to sit down and write out history.  More than likely history that has been passed down verbally for generations.  You want to tell the story of creation. Now, if you were going to dream up a god would you come up with one that is not singular?  The whole idea of a triune God is too hard to comprehend for those of us who believe in a triune God.

Others may have already thought of this but I've read the Bible so often and not given this heavy thought.  While struggling through translating I have LOTS of time to think about each scripture so I think of things that I hadn't pondered in depth before.