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December 23 2006

From the Good Earth to the New Earth

The Earth That Was: The Good Earth

What was the earth like after God created it? God himself called it Good. For God to call something good, it had to be perfect. This is in keeping with God’s character and power. The earth that we live on today is far from perfect, and cannot be the original earth God had created.

We can speculate on the Good Earth that God created. It must have had (1)ideal topography, (2) ideal weather conditions, (3) ideal water supply, (4) ideal landscape, (5) ideal growth conditions.

From the events of the Third Creation Day we may speculate the earth was a single land mass, because the waters were commanded to gather to one place (into one ocean). Another clue is regarding its shape. The Bible mentions the ‘four corners of the earth’ in other places. We know our present earth is so irregular, so it does not have identifiable four corners. Is it possible that Noah’s descendents assumed the earth had four corners because they had heard that the pre-Flood earth had four corners? To idealize the land mass, we may conceive that the earth was a supercontinent of square shape. To optimize the climatic conditions, we may assume the center part was more elevated than the borders. Where would we place the Garden of Eden? If the rivers flowed out of it, it had to be at top elevation.

Based on these arguments, I have proposed an idealized earth shown schematically below. The Garden of Eden is placed at the center, at top elevation. The earth (land) is square, and has four corners. More evidence will be given later (under FLOOD) to support the speculation that the earth was a single land mass and had mild and uniform climate.


The ‘Good Earth’

How Long Did the Good Earth Last?

The Good Earth lasted for ten generations from Adam to Noah in whose lifetime the Flood destroyed the earth.. Hebrew Bible chronology (followed in the English Bibles) gives the total time span as 1656 years. However, the Greek Septuagint Old Testament (quoted in the New Testament) gives a time span of 2262 years. The time of the Six day Creation according to the Hebrew chronology (adopted in the English Bibles) is 4000 years before Christ. However, according to the Septuagint text, Creation took place some 5,500 years before the birth of Christ. The early Church Fathers adopted the Septuagint chronology. If we adopt the Hebrew chronology, the date of the destruction of the Good earth by the Flood would be 2348 BC, because Christ is believed to be born 4 BC, and Creation would be dated 4004 BC (this is the famous Ussher chronology). If we follow the Septuagint, the date of the Flood would be about 3,300 BC. The Septuagint time frame fits better with known historical dates. The Egyptian pyramids, for example, are dated as early as 2800 BC which would make them antediluvian. Yet, the pyramids are post-Flood structures. In the Septuagint time frame the pyramid date would be some five hundred years after the Flood.

The Present Earth

We shall now briefly discuss the earth we live on, the only earth we have known in secular history. ‘Earth’ in this context is strictly the land mass, but will carry the extended meaning of Planet Earth.

You have to look at a physical map or globe of the earth to realize how imperfect and irregular the land mass is. See below such a map.


The Present earth

First, it is not a single land mass, but is divided and fragmented into large chunks (continents) and small fragments (islands). Third, much of the earth is wasteland – deserts, ice covered areas, mountains and canyons. Fourth, the distribution of the land mass is such that severe climatic variations occur. Such nature events as hurricanes and tornadoes are the result of such uneven distribution. Fifth, the earth’s crust is not a single shell, but is broken into at least a dozen major pieces (‘plates’) and these points of separation are characterized by volcanic activity. There area live volcanoes in many parts of the earth, on land and under the oceans. There are specific earthquake zones. These items belong to Plate Tectonics which will be discussed in the FLOOD section.

Our present earth is far from the Good Earth God had created in six days. Is there any evidence that the continents were once part of a single land mass?

The answer is Yes. Look at the map below. Our scientists have been able to reassemble the continents like a Jigsaw Puzzle. This supercontinent they call Pangea. Following evolutionary dating, they assert that Pangea started breaking up some 200 million years ago, and it took many millions of years to reach the present pattern of continents.


Pangea

Biblical Perspective of the Breakup of Pangea

According to Genesis, God had created a perfect land mass, the Good Earth. After ten generations spanning about 2,000 years, God destroyed the earth (land mass) by a universal Flood. This destruction is described in Genesis chapters 6-9. Curiously enough, the first mention of islands is after the Flood (Gen.10:5).

The Flood was an event of unprecedented magnitude. Most Creation Scientists underestimate its magnitude. They are content to establish it was universal, covered all land mass, destroyed all life and caused the deposition of fossils in sedimentary rock layers. They assume the continents were pretty much the same way before the Flood (how unbiblical!). They do not accept that after the Flood we had a new arrangement of land mass. I am stating here that the breakup of the Supercontinent was the major event of the Flood.

What about the time frame for the event? Was it 200 million years ago or 5,000 years ago that the breakup happened? To find the answers, you need to go to the next major section, FLOOD MYSTERIES. I shall cover the Flood event in detail, its causes and effects. You should be ready for a lot of surprises.

The Earth That Will Be: The New Earth

Now I am going to introduce you to a totally New Earth that will appear in the future. It is not a figment of my imagination. It is revealed in the Bible. To find it, you have to go to the last two chapters of the Bible (just as you found the Good Earth in the first two chapters of the Bible). The last book of the Bible is Revelation. Without this bookthe Bible will be an unfinished Book and Earth history will be incomplete.

We are introduced to the New Earth in Revelation 21:1:

    "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away…" (KJV)

I am most excited about this New Earth. This is where God’s people will live forever. Evolution gives us no hope like this. Notice the usage ‘new heaven and new earth’ It is not just the earth that God renews; it is also the heaven.

‘Heaven and earth’ were first introduced to us in Genesis 1:1. We saw that these represented the earth’s inhabitable land and its atmosphere (and all life). The ‘first heaven and first earth’ of Revelation 21:1 is not this earth, but the present imperfect earth. The Good Earth that God created was perfect, and did not need renewal. But it was destroyed by God’s judgement of a wicked earth. The earth that emerged from the Flood was an imperfect earth full of divisions and inhospitable features. It is this earth (and its atmosphere) that will be renewed in the future.

Just as the antediluvians had corrupted the earth they had lived on, the peoples of this world have been polluting and corrupting our world for thousands of years. It will reach a point of climax when it will no longer be inhabitable for healthy living. It is at that point that God would step in and clean up the earth. But it is more than cleaning up. God is going to put together all land masses into a single Supercontinent which will continue through eternity. I am not talking about a renewed and peaceful millennial Earth that Christ will establish at his Second Coming after defeating the forces of the Antichrist (Revelation 13 – 19). The millennial earth would still have continents and islands. It will have better features than our present world, but it will not be the unified earth in the real sense.

Events That Lead to the New Earth

I want to take you to Revelation 20: 11-15:

    ‘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 whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire" (KJV)

This majestic account is generally known as the Last Judgment or the White Throne Judgment. Why am I quoting this? Because it contain clues to the formation of the New Earth. Until now you may have noticed them because you had not heard about the Keys I had introduced earlier when I analyzed Genesis One. The Bible is consistent in its use of the words ‘heaven’ and ‘earth’.

What we see in the verses quoted above is the disappearance of our present ‘heaven and earth’ . They ‘fled away’ Since ‘earth’ is land, what really happens is the sudden and fast movement of the land masses. This is analogous to the movement of land masses during the Flood and before the Six Day Creation. First. God moved the loose land masses into the single Supercontinent, the Good Earth; then He broke up Good Earth into fragments. Both these events were major earth events that involved the breakup of the earth’s crust with terrific force, the fluidization of the rocks beneath and the slippery movement of the pieces at great speed propelled by the forces of separation. No life could exist under such conditions. The earth was a fiery mass with lava streams everywhere. Such an event will happen to our present earth in order to create the New earth.

It is most interesting to note that the mention of ‘lake of fire’ in the context. The ‘lake of fire and brimstone’ is the ‘hell’ of the Bible. All the wicked people are judged and cast into this fiery pit. When the earth opens up, the ‘lake of fire’ will be visible from one end of the earth to the other. It is the fiery lava stream that will be flowing when the earth opens up. It is like millions of volcanoes erupting at the same time. We are told that the wicked people will be thrown into this lava stream.

The Earth Reunited

The verse that follows the description of the Last Judgment is Revelation 21:1 we already saw, where the New Earth appears. Many people have erroneously inferred that our planet earth would be fragmented and would disappear, and God would create a new planet earth. This is untrue.

John, who was given the Revelation, was caught up above (Rev. 4) to observe the events down below. From his vantage point above he saw the land masses moving away rapidly and the fiery hell opening up. Then the New Earth appeared. What really happens is that the land masses unite into a single land mass away from his sight. Since planet earth rotates on its axis, the united Earth appears after awhile. In Rev. 21:1 there is one statement that has puzzled many: ‘"’there was no more sea" . You should know better now. From John’s point of view from above the united Earth was so large, that he could not see the ocean surrounding the earth. What an amazing confirmation of the single land mass! The earth was sealed up again and there was no more hell visible.

A sketch of the Ideal New Earth is shown below. Note that it is similar to the Good earth, but the central part, the square, is much larger than the one in the Good Earth. This is because the square part is the New Jerusalem, a very large City compared to the Garden of Eden.


The ‘New Earth’

The New Jerusalem

This is my favorite. Rev. 21:2 states:

    "And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband" (KJV).

Jerusalem was God’s holy city on earth where God’s Temple was established in the past. During the millennium (Rev. 20:8 and Old Testament prophecies such as found in Isa. 4, Micah 4:1 and Ezek. 40). Jerusalem will become the exalted capital of the world, but at the end of the millennium Satan and his armies will move against it to destroy it. It is in this context God intervenes and defeats Satan. There will be no more forces of evil. The Last Judgment follows and the New Earth appears.

The New Jerusalem is the ultimate capital city of the world because it will have God’s eternal presence. God’s people will live in it forever (Psalm 37:11; Matt. 5:5)..

How is it that the believers think they will go to heaven and live there forever? The Bible also reveals that God’s people will inherit the earth and live on it forever.

Both statements are correct because God’s heaven will be on God’s earth! The New Jerusalem comes down from heaven It is the most glorious place we can think of. It is immense, and is a city with high walls, pearly gates and foundations of precious stones. The throne of God will be in it, and God’s people will see His face forever.

Reading further down in Rev. 21 and 22 we get a graphic picture of the New River of Life flowing from the Throne are twelve Trees of Life. The city is square with a size of 1,500 miles (it is not clear whether each side is this long or it is the total circumference).

Compared with the Garden of Eden of the Good Earth, the New Jerusalem is the city of ultimate perfection. The Garden of Eden was the prototype of the New Jerusalem. It had only one Tree of Life. The river that flowed out of the Garden watered the land. In the New Jerusalem the river that flows out of the Throne area waters the New Earth (we can assume it branches out).

We are further told of the New Jerusalem that it is the Tabernacle of God (Rev. 21:3). This is most significant. The Old Testament Tabernacle was first constructed at Mt. Sinai. It had a Holy Place and a Most Holy Place. God’s presence on the Ark of the Covenant was manifested in the Holy of Holies which could not be approached by any man except the High Priest. Even he could enter it only on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), and he had to carry the blood of sacrifice. No man could approach God without first cleansed of all sin.

The New Testament clearly shows that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, opened the way to the presence of the Father by his death on the Cross. His blood was the atonement for all mankind’s sin. We can boldly enter the presence of God as believers.

When Jesus died on the Cross, the veil that separated the Most Holy Place from the Holy Place was from down from top to bottom. This signified that all believers can approach Go directly.

The New Jerusalem is like the Most Holy Place: it is a square, and it has God’s presence. The Tabernacle has a tent-like covering; the New Jerusalem would also look a like a tent over the square city. It was on top elevation (Rev. 21:10). This is why I have placed the New Jerusalem, a perfect square, at the center, top elevation in a square earth. It is for this reason I had a similar shape proposed for the Good Earth. The Most Holy Place had only one entrance; but the New Jerusalem has 12 entrances, from all sides, to approach God. All of God’s people have direct access to God.

The New heaven is the atmosphere surrounding the New earth. It will be pure and clear as was the atmosphere of the Good Earth.

A schematic of the New Jerusalem is shown below with the Holy City, God’s Tabernacle’ on Earth. Again, the sketch is not to be taken literally or to scale.


The ‘New Jerusalem’

Three Heaven and Three Earths

As I have stated repeatedly, the Bible is consistent with its usage of words and phrases throughout.

We have seen three earths: the Good earth, the Present earth and the New Earth. The apostle Peter under divine inspiration wrote the following (2 Peter. 3:5-13):

"…there were heavens and earth long ago, created by God’s word out of water and with water; and by water that first world was destroyed, the water of the deluge. And the present heavens and earth, again by God’s word, have been kept in store for burning…But we have this promise, and look forward to new heavens and a new earth, the home of justice" (NEB)

Notice that the words ‘heaven’ and ‘earth’ have the original meanings given in Genesis. It is the land that perished by water. Planet earth was never destroyed, and will not be destroyed in the future.

How To Secure Your Place in the New Heaven and Earth

Revelation 21:27 clearly warns us that "Nothing impure will ever enter it, Nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life (NIV)

Jesus said he was the only way to the Father. He alone paid the price for our redemption to be reconciled to God. It is for this reason that we need to have our names in the Book of Life kept by Jesus, the Lamb of God. We need to be born to the Kingdom of God through Christ. Then we become a New Creature (2 Cor. 5:17).

God cannot accept anything or anyone less than perfect in His Kingdom, because it will make Heaven imperfect. The only way we can be perfect is through the righteousness of Christ. Hence do not count on your good life and good works to go to heaven as evolution implies. Christianity is unique among all religions that it rejects self perfection and salvation by works.

As I close this section I am reminded of some beautiful Creation songs that we sing such as: ‘How Great Thou Art!’, `You are Lord of Creation and Lord of my life..’, ‘Ah Lord God, Thou hast made the heavens and the earth…’ (Jer. 32:17). Let us praise and worship God our Creator who has revealed Himself to us in the Bible.

Note: The Creation models of the earth I have presented above were first published in an article I wrote in the Bible Science Newsletter, December 1976 issue under the title, "In Search of the Ideal World". In 1991 I gave a television presentation on it in CTV, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as "From the Good Earth to the New Earth".

Copyright © 2000 by T. V. Oommen

Making Sense of the Six Day Creation The Biblical Flood Explained

Related Posts

Creation Mysteries

Making Sense of the Six Day Creation

Introduction

All of us have wondered about Creation: how things really got started. Our scientists are constantly searching for answers. They have explored the material universe from subatomic particles to the distant nebulae. Living things are the greatest puzzle because no scientist has been able to make even the simplest unit of life in the laboratory.

The Bible starts with Creation: ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth’ It does not tell us how things were created, but who created them. The reason should be obvious: even in our scientifically advanced age the intricacies of Creation are too complex to understand. We have limited understanding of many creative processes which could throw some light on Creation itself.

My attempt in this section is to help you to follow the Creation acts of God as described in Genesis. There has been much confusion about what exactly God created in six days, and when he created them.

I do not subscribe to evolutionary interpretations because I find that evolution is totally false. I take the Bible literally which means the Six Day Creation took place in six consecutive days a few thousand years ago. All life, past and present, were created in this time span. However, I have found that the Bible does not attempt to describe the creation of the Universe and fix a time for it. These conclusions may be startling to some of my readers accustomed to hearing about a young universe. But I shall show that both the Bible and Science would lead to the conclusion I have reached from many years of study.

In this section on Creation Mysteries I shall focus on the Six Day Creation and other Creation Events described or mentioned later in the Bible. The next section, Flood Mysteries, would cover evidence for a universal flood some 5,000 years ago, the massive death of animals, burial of trees, and the formation of fossils. Evolution’s false interpretation of fossils will be exposed. You will also be able to understand many mysteries of the past and the peculiarities of the earth we live on.

Your outlook on Creation would be dramatically changed after you study this section. You will be glad you did this study.

Why Study Genesis?

Genesis means Origin. It makes sense to study Genesis, the opening book of the Bible, if we are interested in origins. Our scientists often think that they can understand origins bit by bit by prolonged study. Unfortunately, most scientists have been trapped in the camp of evolutionists, so their thinking and reasoning processes have been colored by evolutionary assumptions. I have concluded that evolution would never lead to a proper understanding of origins. The reason is, evolution assumes an automatic progression from the simple to the complex. Our own scientists know that to make anything complex they need to plan and design and control the factors that govern the formation of the complex items. Any reasonable person should conclude that the complexity of life and the vastness of the universe demand a super-intelligent and all-powerful Creator whom we call God. Genesis starts with this God, and it then becomes easy to understand how all complex forms of life can appear in six literal days.

The study of Genesis is indispensable for anyone who would like to explore the past. Genesis is the only book that satisfactorily covers the story of the earth and of mankind. The so-called Creation Myths of many ancient cultures have truth mixed with fantasy to the point we cannot separate the two. They, however, have some similarities with the Genesis account of Creation and could be valuable on occasions. Without much further comments, let us move on to the Creation Story of Genesis.

The Genesis Account of Creation

The Genesis account of Creation is found in the opening chapters of the Bible, chapters 1 and 2. Genesis 1 may be considered a summary account, while Genesis 2 elaborates specific creation acts. These are not two disconnected creation accounts as some liberal interpreters insist.

Genesis 1 contains 31 verses, and Genesis 2 contains 25 verses. Some problems arise regarding chapters and verses. The original Bible manuscripts do not have chapter and verse division. These were added many centuries later. So, how do we know where the first creation account ends and the second begins?

There is a problem related to translations. Take, for example, the English translations. If you read the creation account in different translations, they are not identical. This is to be expected because the English language changes all the time in usage. The language of the King James Version (1611 AD) has archaic words that are not in current usage. The translators try to use modern usage. However, that is not the only reason for new versions. The original Hebrew and Greek (also Aramaic) languages used are not always well understood, and more studies reveal newer and better renditions. The availability of newer manuscripts by accidental discoveries is yet another reason for revision. Thus, when the King James Version was made, they had to rely on the available manuscripts such as the Latin Vulgate (a fourth century translation to Latin from the original tongues) and later manuscripts in the original tongues, Hebrew (10th cent) and Greek (5th cent.). More ancient manuscripts such as the Codex Sinaiticus (4th century Greek translation) and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Hebrew manuscripts of 1st century) became available more recently which led to further translations and versions as we have today.

When it comes to the Genesis account of Creation, the translators have taken some freedom in certain key verses. On top of that, the chapter divisions made much later have caused some confusion.

Genesis One Creation account is frequently called the Six Day Creation because the Creation Acts took place in six days.

The Six Day Creation: Highlights

According to Genesis One, the main events of the Six Day Creation are:

  • Day 1: Light (Gen. 1:-3-5)
  • Day 2: Firmament to separate waters (Gen. 1: 6-8)
  • Day 3: (Dry) land, vegetation (Gen. 1: 9-13)
  • Day 4: The Heavenly bodies (sun, moon and stars), Gen. 1: 14-19)
  • Day 5: Aquatic and aerial life (fish, birds), Gen. 1: 20-23
  • Day 6: Land animals, reptiles, man (Gen. 1: 24-31)

    In Genesis Two, the creation of man and woman (Adam and Eve) is the main theme. We shall go into it later.

    The Six Day Creation: Questions

    There are some puzzling and legitimate questions regarding the Six Day Creation. These are summarized below:

      1. Are the Creation Days literal 24 hour days? Scientists (evolution influenced) tell us that all life is very ancient, and each type of living things appeared after millions of years after the previous one had appeared. How could all life appear in such short time?

      2. How does one explain the Light of the first day of Creation when we are told the sun and the moon and the stars appeared only on the fourth Creation Day?

      3. The stars are known to be many, many light years away, which also mean that when they appeared, their light had to reach the earth instantly, not after many, many years, even millions and billions of years.

      4. The earth appears to be a few billion years old by scientific dating methods, so why does Genesis imply it is only six to seven thousand years old?

      5. Dating of fossils (by evolutionary methods) show that ancient life spanned some 600 million years, but Genesis implies that no fossil should be dated more than six or seven thousand years. Does Genesis preclude `prehistoric life’ ?

    Questions on the Opening verses

    Equally puzzling questions can be asked about the first two verses of Genesis. I shall present the King James Version (KJV) of Gen. 1:1,2:

    Valid questions such as the following are legitimate:

    1. What does ‘In the beginning’ mean? Does it mean the beginning of the Six Day Creation? If so, it would appear that heaven and earth were first created, so what remained to be created in the six days? Just Life?

    1. Verse 2 says the earth was formless and void and there was darkness over the face of the deep (the ocean). Furthermore, the Spirit of God was moving over the waters (of the deep). Does this mean that before the Six Day Creation the Earth was there, but was covered with water and darkness? It would appear logical because the first three days of creation removes the darkness, the waters and dry land appears. What does it mean by ‘formless and void’ in referring to the earth? If ‘void’ means empty, it makes senses because the earth was filled with life later. But what does ‘formless’ mean?

    So the opening verses pose difficulty in the light of the creation acts of the six days.

    Popular Views on the Six Day Creation

    1. The Fundamentalist View

    The fundamentalist view is that the Genesis account is literal and the world came into being in six literal days about six thousand years ago (as deduced from biblical chronology). They further assert that the whole universe came into being ‘out of nothing’ (creatio ex nihilo).

    2. The Progressive Creation View

    This view holds that the creation days are literal, but there were huge time spans in between the days during which gradual changes happened. Evolution is not accepted, though. God simply chose to step in after prolonged periods to create the next set of life forms etc., in a literal day.

    3. The Gap Theory

    This holds the view that God made an original earth with life including prehistoric creatures such as the dinosaurs in the remote past. Lucifer, the exalted angel, ruled the earth. When Lucifer sinned, God destroyed the earth which accounts for the ‘chaos’ alluded in Gen. (1:2) by the phrase, ‘formless and void’. Then in recent times, God recreated the earth with life as we see now. Isa. 14:12-15 and Ezek. 28:13-15 are quoted in support.

    4. Theistic Evolution

    As mentioned before, this view holds that God used the method of evolution to ‘create’ life over millions of years. The order of creation is somewhat the order of evolution (this is not strictly true). The American Scientific Affiliation of Christians promotes this view.

    Critique of the Popular Views

    All the above views except the fundamentalist view, accept the antiquity of the earth and life itself, thereby avoiding a direct confrontation with evolution. These views have to be rejected in the light of the best evidence of science alone. There is no proof that the so-called prehistoric life spanned millions of years. Direct radiocarbon dating has been possible on fossils which show the life forms were only several thousand years old (see later). The millions of years you hear have been arrived at by layer dating. If a fossil is found in a certain layer of the sedimentary rocks, the age ascribed to that layer is given to the fossil. This method is totally erroneous because the very assumption that the layers were deposited gradually along with the prevalent life forms is wrong. Creationists have shown that the sedimentary layers of the earth have been formed over a very short period of time during a mighty earth event known as the Flood. We shall examine the Flood in detail later. The Flood was universal, and occurred some 5,000 years ago. All ‘prehistoric life’ should be called ‘antediluvian life’. There is no need to accept the long ages proposed for the appearance of life. The only remaining position appears to be the fundamentalist position. But is that true?

    The fundamentalist position suffers from misinterpretation of the Genesis account and the rejection of the best scientific evidence. This may surprise many people because they profess to be scientifically minded and at the same time literal interpreters of the Bible. My study has shown that the best interpretation of Genesis and the best evidence of Science agree on one fact: all life is recent, but the heavens and the earth as popularly understood are very ancient.

    Creatio ex nihilo (creation out of nothing) argument has to be rejected because the Hebrew word used for ‘created’ (bara) in Gen. 1:1 does not always carry that meaning. In fact, when referring to this verse in other biblical passages, the word ‘made’ (asah) is used such as ‘God made heaven and earth’ and the word asah is used to imply forming out of pre-existent material. We shall see below that the Six Day Creation was limited to the creation of inhabitable land, atmosphere and all living things. I call it Special Creation.

    The Six Days of Creation are Literal Days Without Gaps

    The Hebrew words used for ‘day’ (yom) and ‘days'(yamim) in Genesis One leave no room for a liberal stretching of the duration of the day. Words such as the first day, the second day are always used in the Bible to signify literal days. Also, when it says one day, two days, six days etc., it always means literal days. Third, the usage, ‘evening and the morning’ is always used for 12 hour periods. If they represented long periods, no life would survive with long periods of light followed by long periods of darkness. Earth’s temperature would be unbearably hot or cold. Fourth, the Creation days are compared on a one to one basis in Exodus 20:9-11 where it says, ‘Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy….for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day.’. Fifth, Adam was created on the sixth day, and died 930 years later (Gen. 5:5) which does not allow any room for long time spans. Six, all life is interdependent. They had to appear in a short time to survive for mutual survival.

    Analysis of the Opening Verses (Gen.1:1-2)

    The key to interpreting the Genesis account of creation is the proper understanding of the opening verses and some key words found in the Creation account.

    For starters, I shall point out that not all English Bibles render the first verse as a complete sentence. The Hebrew manuscript of Genesis also is not in favor of a complete sentence for the first verse. Let us look at some of the English versions that deviate from the traditional rendering:

    The New English Bible, NEB (Oxford), 1970:

    In the beginning of creation, when God made heaven and earth, the earth was without form and void, with darkness over the face of the abyss, and a mighty wind that swept over the surface of the waters

    The New American Bible, NAB , 1971:

    In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless wasteland, and darkness covered the abyss, while a mighty wind swept over the earth

    The New Revised Standard Bible, NRSV, 1989

    In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept swept over the face of the waters

    The Torah,1962 (The Jewish Publication Society of America)

    When God began to create the heaven and the earth – the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the water –

    Why did these versions change from a complete sentence to a dependent clause for Gen. 1:1? Because the Hebrew of the opening verses allows such a rendering. The opening words of the Hebrew Bible are: Beresit Bara Elohim which is rendered in most versions as Beginning Created God, or In the Beginning God Created. However, Bible scholars point out that Beresit is translated ‘In/At (the) beginning of’ in all the other contexts in the Old Testament. Most Bible translators prefer a complete sentence for the opening verse. This practice continues to this day.

    There are some serious implications when we render the first verse as a dependent clause. First, it appears that in the beginning of Creation, that is, the Six Day Creation, there was Earth which was unformed; there was water covering the earth. There was no land mass because it was all submerged in water. There was also darkness surrounding the waters. This gives us the impression of a primitive planet earth submerged in water and enveloped in darkness. Second, God caused a mighty wind to blow on the face of the waters. The word rendered wind in Hebrew is ruach which may also be rendered spirit. Most translators chose ‘spirit’ and capitalized it as ‘Spirit’ meaning the Holy Spirit.

    I shall show later that ‘wind’ is a more fitting rendering than ‘spirit’ in the context. Why? Because the events of the Six Day Creation are mighty physical events. God caused the mighty wind to blow away the darkness (caused by dark vapors). Some might argue the darkness was due to the absence of light. This is true, but contrary to popular belief, the sources of light were all there! I mean to say that the sun and the moon and the stars were all in existence before the Six Day Creation, but their light could not reach the earth due to the dark vapors and the waters. It is in this context God commands, ‘Let there be light!’ For the first time, sun rays penetrated the dark vapors, and light was admitted, nor created. It was possible from that time onwards to differentiate between day time and night time as the earth turned on its axis. Without light, such differentiation would not be possible even when the earth was turning on its axis.

    Two Keys to Unlock the Creation Mystery

    God provided the keys to understand the Creation story in Genesis One, but the Bible readers including the scholars have missed it. No wonder they are coming up with all sorts of fanciful explanations. What are these keys?

    In Gen. 1:8 God defined what He meant by the word heaven. In Gen. 1:10 He defined the word earth. Let us look at these definitions God gave us:

      Gen. 1:8: "God called the firmament heaven" (KJV)
      Gen. 1:10: "God called the dry land earth"

    So what is ‘heaven’ in Genesis? It is not the universe; it is not Space. It is simply the expanse, or the dome we see stretched out where the heavenly bodies appear. This expanse or firmament is like a vault, but is an illusion. In popular language the word ‘sky’ would be an adequate word. But we read later that the birds flew in the firmament of heaven, hence we can extend the meaning of ‘heaven’ to the ‘atmosphere’ which is filled with air.

    The word ‘earth’ is even more fascinating. It is not Planet Earth that is meant here. This is the biggest mistake that Bible interpreters make. ‘Earth’ in the Bible is ‘land’ from Genesis to Revelation, and occasionally it also means ‘people of the earth’ as in Gen. 10:25 (we shall examine this verse in the FLOOD section). The ancient people had no word for Planet Earth. They used a combination of words such as, ‘the earth, sea and all that are therein’ a usage we find in the Bible frequently. Since land is flat, we might say the earth is flat according to the Bible. This is no laughing matter.

    With this understanding we shall go back to Gen. 1:1-2. "In the beginning…God created the heavens and the earth" The creation of the heaven (firmament) and the creation of the earth (land) are the creation acts of Day 2 and Day 3. So the opening verse of Genesis simply refer to the creation acts that were to follow. Gen. 1:2 is very interesting: it says the earth was formless. This makes sense because as long as land was under water, there was no earth! The earth appeared only on the third day.

    The Six Day Creation Explained

    Now it is a fairly easy job to explain the Six Day Creation. The basic assumptions are: (1) the universe was already there with all the heavenly bodies.(2) Planet earth was rotating and revolving around the sun just as it is today. But the land mass was submerged in water, and there was a dark envelope over it.

    Day 1: The first Creation act was the admission of light (not the creation of light). The light that hit the earth was sunlight! But the sun was not visible because the atmosphere was overcast and still very cloudy. It is possible that the darkness was due to a heavy and thick envelope of water vapor (or frozen ice), but it is also possible that hydrocarboniferous vapors released from the earth’s interior during its formation was also responsible. God did not create Planet Earth just before the Six day Creation. Planet earth could be a few billion years old.

    Day 2: In order to create land on the third day, God had to remove the waters surrounding the land mass. We can assume geological activities that released much heat, causing the waters to boil and evaporate, creating the ‘waters above the firmament’. A primitive sky was formed with much rain clouds hanging from it. I do not believe there was a water vapor canopy around the earth from this time onwards. If there was one, it had to be extremely thin, because to see the sun and the moon and the faint stars, the sky had to be clear by the fourth day.

    Day 3: God caused the land masses to rise and this caused the waters to recede into one large ocean around it. The earth’s crust is a shell of rock, and land masses are granite ‘blocks’ imbedded in the basaltic rocks beneath. The usage, ‘Let the waters gather to one place’ indicates there was only one ocean. In other words, all the fragmented land masses joined together into a single land lass, forming a Supercontinent. This was the Good Earth God had created. More of it will be discussed later. We shall also see how and when the present continents were formed. The earth (land) was wet, so God created only Plant life. How God made these plants is not told, but God could have placed the seeds in the soil and let them grow in an instant at His command.

    Day 4: The sun and the moon and the stars appeared in the sky. They were not created on the fourth day. ‘Made to appear’ is the correct rendering, not ‘created’. Until the fourth day, the sky was very overcast, but the continuing action of the wind cleared the sky so much that even the faint stars could be seen. These stars were there for millions and even billions of years ago, and the fact that their light reached on the fourth day alone testifies to the fact that they were in existence for a very long time. It takes millions and even billions of years for light to reach the earth from the distant stars.

    Day 5: Now the ocean and the atmosphere were both clean and filled with breathing air, so oceanic life and aerial life could be introduced. As in the case of the plants, these life forms were not necessarily formed out of nothing, but could have been born from the eggs and embryos God had first created and planted in the waters and on the ground.

    Day 6: Land animals, reptiles and finally man were created. The earth was dry enough by the sixth day. Again, God could have first formed the embryos which grew ups into adult forms in the span of a day. Man’s creation is given more coverage in Genesis 2 which we shall examine below.

    We see the biblical phrase, ‘after its kind’ used each time a major branch of living things is introduced. In modern terminology, the word ‘Species’ would be appropriate. Evolution has never shown that one species would transform to another. All scientific evidence suggests that such major jumps are impossible. We do see minor variations within a species, and evolutionists make the assumption that given millions of years, one species would convert to another. We shall see later that the fossil showcase does not warrant anyone to make that assumption.

    The Creation Acts may be considered the ‘Opening Ceremony’ conducted by the Creator. Everything had been meticulously planned so that when God gave the command things would appear almost instantly. This would be like the Chairman of an automobile company pressing a button when a finished car would appear. We know that behind this feat was an assembly line, a blue print and expert labor. God would not have done the Creation Acts any other way. They demonstrate His wisdom and power.

    The Creation story properly ends halfway in Gen. 2:4 (in the popular Bibles) not with Gen 1:31. The chapter and verse divisions appeared in the Bibles much later and there are errors in the division. Thus, the proper ending would be: "This is the story of the making of heaven and earth when they were created".(NEB)

    The Psalmist exalted God’s creation frequently. Psalm 19 is one example "The heavens declare the glory of God…"

    The Second Creation Account

    The so-called Second Creation Story begins in the middle of Gen. 2:4 in most Bibles, but begins with verse 5 as a new section in the Bibles which rendered Gen. 1:1 as a dependent clause. In my view this division is the more logical one.

    The New English Bible starts this second account similar to the first Creation account, starting with ‘When the LORD God made earth and heaven…’ Notice two differences: God here is qualified by LORD. In truth, the word LORD is a substitution for the personal name of God which was never to be pronounced, being too holy. The English letters corresponding to the personal name in Hebrew are YHWH with no vowels. Scholars now think the pronunciation would be somewhat like ‘Yahweh’, not as ‘Jehovah’ as rendered in the Revised Version (1885; equivalent American Version, 1901) and in the Jerusalem Bible (also some other Bibles). The Jewish people substituted YHWH with the word ‘Adonai’ which means ‘Lord’ which is the basis for the LORD usage. ‘LORD God’ would be ‘Yahweh Elohim’ in Hebrew. The second difference is that instead of ‘heaven and earth’ we see ‘earth and heaven’.

    There is a reason for these changes. The Creator God is now introduced as a personal God who is going to be involved with the affairs in earth because mankind was to be inhabiting the earth, and man was created in God’s image. The second Creation account therefore focuses on mankind and their environment.

    Was There Rain Before the Flood?

    We read that before man was created on the earth there was no rain, and the ground was kept wet by streams. This refers to the condition of the earth from the third Creation day to the sixth. Many Creationists assume there was no rain on earth before the great Flood for ten long generations from Adam to Noah. This is another misunderstanding of the Creation story. Adam and Eve and all mankind got rain which was necessary for the growth of vegetation and for the rivers to flow. But there were no rainstorms, for God had controlled the weather. This was why the wicked people could not believe there would be a deluge and heavy rain. There was no rainbow because heavy rain clouds were never formed before the Flood. During the Flood the atmosphere was all dark and violent. God waited after the Flood to give mankind the rainbow, a sign of God’s Promise.

    Where Was the Garden of Eden?

    People have tried to locate the Garden of Eden based on the references to the four branches flowing out a river from Eden, two of which are Euphrates and Tigris. There are two rivers by these names in Mesopotamia (‘the land between the rivers’) flowing out of the region of Mt. Ararat in eastern Turkey. There are no other major rivers flowing out of this mountainous region. The other two rivers, Pishon and Gihon are not known by their names today, but they are described as flowing through or around the lands of Havilah and Cush (later on identified with Ethiopia). Some scholars think that instead of branching out, these rivers joined the main river flowing from Eden, and they think the meeting place was somewhere on the mouth of the Persian Gulf where there is evidence of some dried out riverbeds.

    My own belief is that the rivers mentioned are not the same rivers known by the same name today. The original river system with the tributaries was destroyed in the Flood. The survivors of the Flood named the major rivers near Ararat (where the Ark landed) using the pre-Flood names. More on this will be said later when we discuss the Flood.

    The Creation of Man and Woman

    Man is distinct from all other living things; he is the most advanced of all Creation; furthermore, he shares divine attributes of thinking, reasoning, judging and so on. This why it is said man was created in the image of God (Gen.1:27).

    We know Adam was created on the Sixth Creation Day. When was Eve created? God let Adam feel lonely for a while, and it was after that he formed Eve out of his rib. Man was formed from the dust of the earth, that is from the elements of the earth. Yet, he was not made to die, but live eternally. God had made the body wonderfully with the ability to grow and adapt, heal and rejuvenate. Perhaps Eve was created some time later, well past the seventh day. But since Eve was taken out of Adam, the blessing God gave to Adam applied to her also. Gen. 5:2 says they were both called Adam when they were created for the same reason.

    The exalted status of man in God’s creation is the main subject of Psalm 8 by David. Shakespeare’s Hamlet wondered, ‘What a piece of work is man! In my Creation Alternative (see BOOKS), I have the last chapter devoted to man, ‘Fearfully and Wonderfully Made’ (title borrowed from Psalm 139:14).

    We shall not go further into the story of mankind described in Gen. 3 where the Fall of mankind is described and the subsequent curse that fell on all creatures and the earth itself. We know that as a result of the Fall, evil things began to appear on earth, and rapidly multiplied until it resulted in the massive judgment of God by a universal Flood.

    The Ancestry of Man

    You have seen evolutionary charts of the ancestors of man starting with the apes or ape-like creatures about 60 million years ago, with modern man, homo sapiens, appearing more than one or two million years ago. The question is, how does Adam and Eve fit into this scheme? The biblical record shows they were the first created human beings who had no ape-like ancestors, and God created them only several thousand years ago. I shall show what tricks evolutionists have been playing with human ancestry when I discuss the fossil evidence.

    How Old Is The Earth?

    The answer very much depends on what you mean by earth. If it is land mass, I would say, it is only a few thousand years old as Genesis would indicate. If you consider earth to be Planet Earth, I would say tit is very old, and could be a few billion years old as the scientists say. This is where I disagree with the fundamentalists who assert Planet Earth and the Universe are very young. My answer is, the Bible does not say that. I have shown biblical proof for it. To support their assertion, they have to assume all sorts of unreasonable things: the speed of light was almost infinite at the beginning and has been slowing down ever since. Also, they assume that God gave an appearance of old age to much of His Creation which would ‘account for’ the antiquity of Planet Earth. All I can say is that they are in violation of God’s explicit revelation of what earth really is. I shall later discuss radiometric and other types of dating of rocks (see Flood Mysteries Section).

    Note on Biblical Days

    Just as God defined ‘earth’ and ‘heaven’ in Genesis One, He also defined ‘day’, see Gen.1:5, God called the light "day". Throughout the Bible, ‘day’ represents only ‘daytime’ and not the 24 hour ‘day’ in popular usage. God’s creation acts took place only in ‘daytime’.

    The usage, ‘evening and the morning was the – – day’ after each Creation Day has been misunderstood Another rendering, more accurate, is ‘evening came, morning (came), the – – day’. What it simply means is that the daytime ended with the evening, followed by night which ended with (just before) the next morning. I may add that the terms ‘evening’ and ‘morning’ may mean ‘dusk’ and ‘dawn’ respectively. The daytime was divided into 12 equal parts which included the dawn and the dusk. The length of the day varied according to the time of the year and the geographical location, so the ‘hour’ also varied in length, not fixed like the ‘hour’ we use. Our usage of ‘day’ as 24 hour period is not biblical, but secular.

    The biblical ‘day’ did not start at sunset and end at sunset as popularly believed. It started at dawn and ended after twilight (‘evening’). So the Sabbath does not start Friday evening; it starts Saturday morning and ends Saturday evening. The ‘sunset to sunset day’ came from Babylonian reckoning.

    By the way, the names of the week we use currently are after pagan gods or after the planets, which is a shame. The names of the months also recall pagan gods or zodiac signs. Even the English world ‘God’ has a pagan origin. The Bible uses ‘Elohim’ and ‘Yahweh’, the latter being the Personal name. We should have kept these names in our Bibles.

    (For more information on the ‘Day’, please refer to www.icyahweh.org)

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