If creation is unceasing, how are we to understand Genesis 2:1-3?

Faith & Science Conversation
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Doing a cursory scan of the 22 English translations (the NASB among them) listed at BibleHub.com for Genesis 2:1-3, I see most translations using the same key words as the NASB with the following occasional exceptions:

Gen 2:1
finished (in place of completed)

Gen 2:2
ended (in place of completed)
ceased (in place of rest)
stopped working or stopped the work (in place of rest)

Gen 2:3
stopped working or stopped (in place of rested)
ceased (in place of rested)
done (in place of made)
in perfection (in place of made)

Of course, all these words reinforce, rather than depart from, the meaning derived from the terms used in the NASB.

The Strong’s concordance meaning for the key words found in the NASB are as follows:

Genesis 2:1
“completed” - 3615 kalah (477b); a prim. root; to be complete, at an end, finished, accomplished, or spent

Genesis 2:2
“completed” - (same as above)
"work’ - 4399 melakah (521d); from the same as 4397; occupation, work
“done” - 6213a asah (793c); a prim. root; do, make
“rested” - 7673a shabath (991d); a prim. root; to cease, desist, rest
"work’ - same as above
“done” - same as above

Genesis 2:3
“rested” - same as above
“work” - same as above
“created” - 1254a bara (135b); a prim. root; to shape, create
“made” - same as “done” above

As you can see, Ben, there is nothing here that would move us away from the impression left by a reading of the passage in the NASB with respect to the point at issue - that God’s rest in this passage is explicitly associated with the completion of the intended work, and that no reference at all - whether explicit or implicit - is made to any stoppage because of weariness on His part.

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42

I mean contemplating how thinking would be different outside of time and space. I can only think in time and space. I don’t know how my thinking would change if I existed outside time and space. When someone says “God is not bound by time and space as we are,” I have no argument with that person but neither do I have any idea what thinking outside time and space is like. I could speculate, but such speculation feels utterly futile to me.

Not really. I fully embrace a creatio continua that has God actively involved in many, even innumerable, ways with His creation. (Down with Deism!) I just have to ascribe some meaning to Genesis 2:1-3, and it seems to me that the subset of His activities that created “the heavens and the earth and all that is in them” (Ex 20:11; Neh 9:6; Ps 146:6; Jer 51:48; Acts 4:24; 14:15) were what ceased. Obviously, the various biblical speakers who referenced creation in this way were not insisting that they, or any other products of procreation, were on hand at the very beginning. There would be new people, new cows, new trees, etc. The speakers’ point seemed to be that God gave us a completed - not an incomplete or unfinished - creation.

I remember when I first planted a garden in my backyard. I put in much work afterward tending that garden, but the work I did in the beginning was foundational and distinct from all the “tending” work that followed. I marked off the boundaries, I plowed the unplowed ground, and planted the first crop. Has my “tending” work been similar in some ways to my founding work? Yes. Does this mean there is no distinction to be made between originally establishing a garden and tending it? No. Starting a garden and tending a garden are two distinct sets of activities - similar, but distinct.

Creation is the house God built. Lots of activities were to take place in it. One day there would even be a new house. But that does not mean that He gave us an incomplete or unfinished house to start with. This is what Genesis 2:1-3 communicates to me. As I continue to say, I am open to a different interpretation of Genesis 2:1-3. That’s what this discussion is about.

I was not trying to argue with you. I was only trying to be responsive to your contribution by interacting with it.

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Agreed. Moreover, it had not yet rained. I supposed there could be many aspects of creation not fully revealed in the beginning. However, that does not mean they were not there in dormancy or otherwise hidden from immediate human view.

The fossil record is beyond my ken to sort out. More pertinently, it is beyond the scope of this thread. As my question is independent of how long someone thinks a Genesis 1 “day” lasts, and of how someone defines a Genesis 1 “kind,” it is also independent of whether someone thinks Noah’s flood was local or global. I am not saying that those questions are unimportant, but I just don’t want us to stray from the intentionally narrow focus of reconciling Genesis 2:-3 with creatio continua.

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Thank you for your detailed reply - overall I agree with what you say. I think that God created a complete thing which is subject to change and variation, and these too are there because that is what God created. with this in mind, I now better understand your question as dealing with a completed as opposed to an incomplete creation. Genesis states that God declared what He made as good - this can only be so if it completely good (not half good half not good).

This well stated, and my remark on using language by us, who are in time and space, is insufficient to fully discuss God’s creative attributes is similar. I refer to Orthodox theology because these matters have been discussed at length, for the reason you state; yet God has chosen to reveal His works to us, and we endeavour to understand within our limitations. After we expend all our effort and our best attempt to obtain a truthful understanding, we then turn to God for the hope and faith that He understands our limitations.

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@Mike_Gantt

Another thought on the matter. When you say that the text has to mean something … you are aware, yes?, that you have presented to us three verses from which to extract meaning.

And yet those 3 sentences are part of a much longer story cycle.

Many, many people have presented a set of paragraphs, or even the whole chapter. And so, in the process, many sentences are set aside because they are not seen as “central” to the allegory or parable in question.

By limiting your selection to 3 sentences, you pretty much intend to limit the room for interpretation!

So this makes another aspect of your proposed challenge relatively invidious.

Definition:
adjective: Invidious
in·vid·i·ous
•(of a comparison or distinction) unfairly discriminating; unjust.
synonyms: unpleasant, awkward, difficult; More undesirable, unenviable.

Let’s list the relevant factors, compared to the Job text on Snow/Hail
A. 3rd Person statement in Genesis, vs. a Quote from Yahweh in Job

B. A 3 sentence fragment of a much bigger story cycle,
vs. a 2 part comparison within a long chain of 2 part comparisons.

C. The text in Genesis says God is done creating, but doesn’t say there will be no further creations, and doesn’t actually specify animals. After the 6th day, there is an assertion that no more animals can be created, but this would leave the following conundrums: i) Hyper-creation after the animals leave the ark? ii) Hyper-creation found in the Australian marsupials who spread-out to fill ecological niches filled by placental mammals elsewhere in the world; iii) the animals that don’t appear to have been around before the flood, but suddenly appear after the flood?

Versus:

The text in Job is of a known fictional device (treasury or warehouse) combined with a fictional practice (storing snow & hail for use on Earth at the right time).

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As I’ve said, I see no anthropomophism in Genesis 2:1-3. When I rest, I take a sitting or prone position. I see no reference to either - or anything like them - in the passage.

I think my view of Genesis 2:1-3 can be described as either literal or figurative. That is, it is literal in the sense that I take the words in their plain sense. But it could also be considered figurative as I do not see God as resting in the same way that we do - that is, with a body that must be managed to the purpose. Therefore, I think the literal/figurative labeling can be confusing.

Understanding “rest” to mean in this context a “cessation of the labors heretofore described” I have no problem picturing God doing this - just as I have no problem picturing Him ceasing to receive animal sacrifice after a considerable period of time in which He received animal sacrifice. You can find many other examples of God ceasing to do something. It doesn’t at all mean He’s inactive; it just means that He’s ceased the particular activity identified in the context.

I think I’ve made it clear to others, if not to you, that I thoroughly and emphatically support the idea that God has been at work from the beginning of creation until now. If He were to go inactive, I couldn’t take my next breath. And, yes, it’s creative work He still does, not just maintenance work. Yet this does not mean that His inaugural creative work cannot be distinguished from His ongoing creative work as Genesis 2:1-3 seems to do. A carpenter who builds a house for himself and his family does not stop carpentry when the house is completed…but that does not mean that his ongoing carpentry is finishing the house, especially if he has declared the house as complete, which Genesis 2:1-3 seems to do.

It was my willingness to give up preconceptions that brought me to the BioLogos Forum.

May I ask you, since you do not see Genesis 2:1-3 as I do, what does it mean to you? I’ve been pretty successful at getting people to tell me what Genesis 2:1-3 doesn’t mean to them, but I seem to be failing at getting anyone to tell me what it does mean to them.

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@Mike_Gantt

One:
You cannot arrive a valid answer to your question of “creation continua” by restricting the number of sources that we are allowed to use. That would be like someone saying to explain the New Testament, but leave out the part about Jesus.

Two:
Did you just say that “new creatures” could have been there all along but could have been hidden? So when Galileo asked the Vatican visitors to look at the moon’s mountains through the telescope, one said that the moon was still a perfect sphere because those mountains were covered with a perfect layer of invisible plains. Not missing a beat, Galileo said that on top of the invisible layer of smooth plains there was another layer of invisible mountains!

Three:
The fossil record is not beyond your ken. It’s perfectly understandable. What may be beyond your ken is finding a way to explain how Creationism can be consistent with the fossil record.

Four:
Genesis includes the definition of kind: those animals that are able to bring forth new generations are “of the same kind”. A horse and a donkey produces an infertile mule; thus, horses and donkeys are not of the same kind.

General observation: The Hebrew scholars conceived that God created the Earth over and over and over again … until he got it right. Is this plausible? Well, it certainly fits what happened even with this “good Earth”: when humans went astray, he wiped them out to start over. When Sodom went astray, he wiped Sodom out.

Who is to say what will trigger God to have to start any particular thing over again … or what creatures he wants to end up with when we reach the End of Days?

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I’m pretty convinced of the interpretation that God “taking up his rest” is synonymous with God taking up his rule (in the temple of his creation). His rest in creation is the sign of his continued indwelling presence. His work of subduing chaos and bringing order to the world was accomplished, and the world was now a fit domain for its ultimate sovereign. God is an artist whose ongoing creative work is essential to his being, so I do not think that taking up rule entails ceasing to make things, design things, plan things, imagine things, or bring his domain into ever increasing order and shalom.

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The Creation is a gift from God and not something necessary or essential to His being - this is poorly worded by you.

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I was saying creativity is essential to God’s being as the Creator, just as love is essential to his being. Saying creativity and love are essential attributes of God does not entail that his creation or the objects of his love are essential to his being. I was focusing on the divine action part of “creative work,” not the resulting product of the act of creating. Substitute “creativity” if “creative work” is too confusing.

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51

This was the sentence I could not figure out, and sent @GJDS a short message asking to clarify.

Unfortunately his edit didn’t fix the original tortured sentence. Here is a clarification to what I was confused about.

God creates comments instantaneously? Except for one comment that grew? Which comments are being referred to? Or is this comments made by others about instantaneous creation? In which case one what is growing? Is ‘the’ a typo for ‘that,’ or is there some other typo I haven’t recognized because I don’t understand the whole sentence? Should it be “comments such as?”

I appreciate the attempt, and your edit makes sense in and of itself, but not of the original sentence!

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It is possible to attempt too literal an interpretation of a figurative expression. If, for example, you are attempting to understand what is meant when it is said that someone has “kicked the bucket,” you can wear yourself out looking for the something that someone has actually kicked. There is no direct analog for the verb “kick” nor is there a direct analog for noun “bucket,” yet the expression “kicked the bucket” does mean something - and most people know what it is.

Your argument from Job is akin to saying that if the expression “It’s raining cats and dogs” were to be found anywhere else in the Bible, any reference to a cat or dog in Genesis, were there to be any, would have to be taken figuratively.

(By the way, a person who gets too focused on cats and dogs is likely to miss the fact that this expression is just a way some people describe a heavy rain. Figurative speech, by its very nature, does not always conform to precise patterns, but it always has meaning. That’s why it’s good to not take it too literally.)

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Curtis,

I’m struggling to understand why you characterize me this way. I cannot think of anything I’ve said in this thread, or the prior one for that matter, wherein I argued that a given verse must be taken literally. As I’ve said, Jesus has taught us that figurative interpretations can be even more valuable than literal ones. The point for me is to try to take the expression the way God wants us to take it.

As a general rule for deciding, I try to let the passage itself dictate its nature to me. Then I look to the surrounding context. Then I look to the rest of the Bible. Then I look to my own common sense and experience with life. Then I consult with others (whether in person or in print). If, after going through all these steps, I still cannot decide whether an expression is literal or figurative, I try to avoid relying on it for my faith until I have more information.

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(Actually, Jesus did not explain the Prodigal Son; He just told the story…but we’ll leave that aside.) You seem to be saying that Genesis 1 is no less a parable than is the Prodigal Son. If so, where in Genesis do you think the parable ends and history begins? And how did you come to this conclusion?

As I keep saying, I am willing to interpret Genesis 2:1-3 figuratively; I just need you to give me a figurative interpretation to take. Then I can make a good-conscience decision about whether or not to adopt it. You are being absolutely clear that you do not take Genesis 2:1-3 literally; I need you to be just as clear about how you take it figuratively, not just that you take it figuratively.

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My apologies, I depicted your positions too strongly.

It appears that your tendency (and rightly so) is to read the Bible literally unless there is something else that would suggest a more figurative interpretation. Correct me if I am wrong (this is me being more measured this time!), but it seems as though the only thing you find worthy of indicating a figurative reading of a passage is a different passage – whether it is a larger context or something in a completely different location. Your own observations or observations of experts in science don’t seem like highly reliable reasons for you to consider figurative interpretation.

But what if the Bible (and Genesis 1-11, in particular) was never intended to be a source of scientific knowledge? Would observations collected by the divinely-imbued skills of thought and reason not take a more important role in how we perceive His creation?

It sounded in your first thread as though you want someone to prove to you Biblically that it is acceptable to accept an old earth and evolution. In this thread, you want someone again to Biblically show how Genesis 2:1-3 doesn’t mean that any and all forms of creation ceased at the end of the sixth day. As valuable as the Bible is, I contend that there are a lot of answers to important questions that cannot be found in it. Observation of what He made can be a valuable asset as we pursue some of those “how did it happen” questions.

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Agreed. Yet we have to focus on something. My first thread on this forum was about reconciling the Bible with evolution. I decided to narrow the focus for this second thread. Is a three-verse passage too short? Perhaps, but it is longer than a focus on one word (like “day” or “kind”) or one verse. Consider me as having taken the “Goldilocks” focus - not too long (e.g. the Bible) and not too short (e.g. a single word or a single verse.

It’s more like this passage chose me than I chose it. Having learned about creatio continua in the previous thread, this passage came to mind. I was struck by the conflict between the two - at least given the way some people here were interpreting creatio continua.

I like Genesis 2:1-3 for a couple of other reasons, too. I perceive it to have received far less attention in the age of the earth debates than Genesis 1. Why not cover some new - relatively speaking - ground? Second, it is a day - however long that you think the “days” are - different from all the others. That would seem to deserve some attention, too. Why a day - again, no matter how long you think the day is - just for doing none of the things you’ve been doing the previous six? It is not intuitive - at least not to this 21st-century American - that a period of cessation should be included in a creation account.

Therefore, I think there are good reasons for a discusion of Genesis 2:1-3 v. creatio continua. It’s something that puzzles me. I wanted to see if it puzzled anyone else.

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Perhaps you have forgotten that I am a biblical man and not a scientific man. I’m looking for biblical answers.

This, too, I see as being in conflict with Genesis 2:1-3.

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Thanks for offering a positive answer to my question, @Christy.

I wouldn’t at all feel comfortable substituting the word “rule” for “rest,” simply because I can’t consider them synonyms (and www.thesaurus.com didn’t nudge me that direction either). Nevertheless, let us for discussion’s sake assume that “rule” could be substituted for “rest” in this passage. Let us then see what that leaves us.

Gen 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts.
Gen 2:2 By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.
Gen 2:3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

(The words I’ve made bold are the ones that refer to the activity described in Genesis 1.)

You can see that, even with your emendation, we still have a coda to the creation account which pronounces that creation complete. If creatio continua is an insistence that creation is always continuing then I don’t see how creation can be called complete now, much less back then, and therefore I don’t see how it can fail to be in conflict with Genesis 2:1-3.

Obviously, you don’t see a conflict between the two. Please help me understand why not.

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I am willing to consider a figurative interpretation of the Scriptures based on the findings of science. The whole purpose of my coming to this discussion forum is that I have not been able to find, either in my own mind or in the minds of others I have encountered, been able to find an alternative interpretation of the Bible that would allow for evolution. It was the scientific community saying “Evolution!” that provoked my search - not anything I read in Scripture. After that first thread, I decided to narrow the focus of my question here to Genesis 2:1-3 v. creatio continua.

I do not consider it as intended to convey scientific knowledge, but it does appear to be intended to convey historical knowledge.

I think science might be able to give some insight as to how things happened, but I can’t see it being a more reliable source than the word of God when it comes to what happened - at least insofar as the Bible is willing say. I don’t think the Bible attempts to say everything about everything. There are many things about which it is silent. In those areas, I allow for the word of men to speak. And I think it’s incumbent on us to speak. God expects us to learn from other sources than just the Bible.

Agreed, for reasons that I give above.

Please note that my question in this thread actually has nothing to do with science - at least not directly. It is a question about the conflict I perceive between Genesis 2:1-3 and the theological doctrine (quoted to me in the first thread by more than one participant) called creatio continua.

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Well in general He did explain the parables to the apostles at least. That’s what I get for going off the top of my feeble head.

For sure history begins in Genesis 12. Which just happens to coincide with the beginning of recorded history in general. I base this conclusion on the historical synchronicity of the Bible with events in the surrounding cultures. You are aware of my thoughts on “inspired history” or the transmission of accurate history over thousands of years.

Here goes.

From before time began God, single as in One, has existed. He created heaven and earth and everything in them. This is important because it shows God created the “things” that other cultures considered to be gods.

God created man with the ability to chose to worship God or not. The consequence of choosing not to worship God is spiritual death (eternal separation from God) not physical death. We were created mortal, hence The Tree of Life in the garden story.

Man always chooses not to worship God and so a Redeemer was needed.

That is it in a nutshell.

I glanced over Genesis 1-11 as I was writing this and was taken by how much of the first 11 chapters are taken up with Noah. There is no way to take the flood literally and even taking it as a regional flood is difficult.

The Tower of Bable story does not some connections with other local history but I am not sure what the intent of that story is for sure.