The Bible's Creation Narrative:Before the Beginning

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Genesis 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved over the face of the waters.

St. Augustine's View.

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• The "formless and empty" earth — Hebrew tohu w' bohu:— He concluded: the material earth did not yet exist.The earth in verse 2 is created in potential but not actual.

St. Augustine (354-430) said that the setting here is before the beginning.

… I agree! Let's look a little further…

• The Spirit "moved" over the face of the deep.— Hebrew rachaph:

"to brood over young ones, to cherish young."

The spirit is "brooding over the waters … like that of a bird that broods over its eggs." Ad lit I.18.36.

… Looking forward to the Creation of Day One?

Gesenius Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon (1846)

Describing the Indescribable.

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How do you talk about the scene before the beginning?- Emptiness- Nothingness - Formlessness- Shaplessness- Blackness- Chaos

The Rig VedaAncient Hindu Scripture

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• Rig Veda: Early Sanskrit document composed 1700-900 BC. Long oral tradition until finally put into writing.

• Hymn 129 "Nasadiya Sukta" concerns Creation

- name means "not the nonexistent"

- Composition possibly contemporary with Genesis(But I'm not ready to go to the stake over this!)

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Concepts

The Matter of Terms in Genesis 1:2

image source:http://www.geocreationism.com/

"We might say that by the term 'water' the sacred writer wished to designate the whole of material creation. In this way he would show whence all things that we can recognize in their proper kinds had been made and formed, calling them water." St. Augustine, Ad. Lit. I.5.10

• What is the Abyss or Deep? Symbolizes a vast, wild, dangerous, fickle,

lawless place with no place of safety, no safe haven.

• What is water? Symbolizes shapless fluidity

• What is darkness? Symbolizes absolute emptiness, the opposite

of light, which is introduced in Day One.

Creation in Potential?In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (Gen. 1:1)

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St. Augustine's Solution: (Ad. Lit. V.5.13)

• Instantaneous Creation of Everything "in Potential" -- God "Created potentially, for time would bring them into view in the ages to come."

- i.e. created "formless and empty",• Later, "fleshed out" – but that was not the

creation.

St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theol. Ques. 66, Art. 1)http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1066.htm#article1

"Whether formlessness of created matter preceded in time its formation?"

Today's Suggestion: God DID create in time (but not "by the clock"), for a very good reason…

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What does verse 1 describe?

How does Genesis 1:2 relate to Science?

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• The entire universe had a beginning—13.77 Billion years ago- Before this, what we call "outer space" did not exist.- The universe has expanded since the beginning

-- at a little less than the speed of light (~300,000 kps)- This expansion is NOT into space, but into emptiness.

(-- some say into the multiverse but that is unprovable conjecture)- All of science is confined to the universe; it can say nothing provable about

what happens outside of the universe.

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Conclusion:

• Genesis 1:1 is a "title" for the Genesis Creation Narrative.

• The setting for Genesis 1:2 is before the beginning.- The terms used (deep, darkness, water) describe profound

emptiness, nothingness before the beginning.-- This is in keeping with contemporary usage in the Rig Veda.

- The Spirit is pictured as "brooding" or "nesting" in preparation for the creation that is about to commence.

• The Concept of "creation in potential" is not taught in these verses.

• The setting agrees with a scientific view that outside the universe is nothingness, not "empty space" because space is part of the universe.