After declaring the creation of the universe (Gen 1:1-2), the narrative of Genesis 1 documents eight "God said’ decrees that mandated the transformation of the earth (Gen 1:3-31) along with the creation of various forms of life, while concurrently establishing a daily living pattern for man by means of the unique wording of a six-day refrain. In a nutshell - that’s the essence of Genesis 1!
Hi Ray,
is there some point to this for discussion or is this just a blanket statement? I happen to agree with the notion that Genesis 1 is the only creation account, however, its not news as this discussion is a regular on these forums.
Are you leading to a different angle to the usual ANE vs YEC there?
“Essence”? No. Major point? Sure. It’s actually an aspect of the opening Creation account being cast in the “royal chronicle” genre: the account assumes the standard ANE idea that the creation of the world involved a battle by deity over chaos, and the “God said” theme is saying, “Battle? YHWH-Elohim spoke, and what was it!” It thus served as a polemic ridiculing all other ANE deities by making them look weak and ineffective: they had to fight to established order; YHWH-Elohim just spoke and things were so.
In the “temple inauguration” genre, the message is different because the nature of the temple is different: all other ANE deities needed humans to build temples for them, and the humans had to make images of those deities to sit in the temples; the Genesis writer is saying, “Nope – no human slaves necessary; YHWH-Elohim built His own temple by commanding it to be!, and it’s all of Creation! Besides which, humans aren’t slaves of deity, they’re the images in YHWH-Elohim’s (cosmic) temple!” Again, it ridicules the pagan deities while teaching about Yahweh.
Great theme, but not the whole essence – indeed a great enough theme that an apostle later picks it up when he notes that God spoke to things that didn’t even exist, and they came to exist.
Perhaps it is unwise, even dangerous to claim a specific and exclusive understanding of any part of Scripture?
Richard