Early World I- Genesis 1-3
NOTES
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- Fixing of the 'formless and void'
Genesis 1:1 tells us that in the beginning the world was "formless and empty." The plot proceeds by showing us how God sets out to fix this - first, by giving the world form and then filling it.
In Days 1-3, God creates the "form" or the "realms" of the world - the day and the night; the sky and the sea; the land and the vegetation.
In Days 4-6, God fills these realms with "rulers" or "governors" - the sun, moon & stars (which "rule over the day and over the night"; verses 14-19); the birds and the fish to fill the sky and the seas; and man and beast, which rule the land.
- God speaks His Word
Something also to note, as we read these first few verses of the Bible. How does God create? By speaking His Word. He says "Let there be…" and things come into being. We know by reading the Old Testament in light of the New Testament, that the Word of God by which He created the world is Jesus (see John 1:1-3; Colossians 1:16-17).
- Trinity (God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit)
One more interesting thing to point out. We may have a hint of the Church’s doctrine of the Trinity in these early verses of Genesis.
Notice that we have three divine actors here - there is God, there is the Word that He speaks, and there is the Spirit that’s describe hovering over the face of the deep (seeGenesis 1:2). Note that the New American Bible translates this "a mighty wind." But it’s more accurately translated in the Revised Standard Version: "The Spirit of God," which follows the Vulgate, the Church’s official Latin edition ("spiritus Dei) and the Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament ("pneuma Theos").
Notice, too, that God appears to be talking to Himself in the plural: "Let Us make man inOur image, after Our likeness" (Genesis 1:26-27). Why didn’t God say, "Let Me make man in My image, etc."?
We don’t know. Scholars and saints have puzzled over this for years. We mention it here because it may be our first hint of what Jesus will later reveal - that God is three divine Persons in One: Father, Son and Holy Spirit (see Matthew 28:19).
- Man & Woman as the height of creation
- Test of love failed
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| The Fall |
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- Proto Evangelium (new Adam & new Eve)
Summary
- Fixing of the 'formless and void'
- God speaks His Word
- Trinity (God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit)
- Establishing of the Sabbath ( Covenant making)
- Man & Woman as the height of creation
- Test of love failed
- Proto Evangelium (new Adam & new Eve)
Questions:
1. There may be two hints of the Trinity in Genesis 1. What are they?2. What is the meaning of the Sabbath day?
3. What does it mean to say that God created man and woman "in His own image"?
4. How is Adam both a firstborn son and a priest?
5. What does it mean that Genesis 3 is told in "figurative language"?
6. What does the Hebrew word nahash mean?
7. If God created all and it was seen as good, where did evil come from?
8. What was Adam’s sin?
9. God told Adam and Eve that they will die if they ate the fruit, while Satan asured them that they would not die. Explain?
10. Name 3 ways that Jesus is depicted in the New Testament as the "New Adam." Name 3 ways that Mary is depicted as the "New Eve."
Possible Answers:
1. The Trinity is evident in God the Father who creates, there is the Word that He speaks, and there is the Spirit that’s describe hovering over the face of the deep. God appears to be talking to Himself in the plural: "Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness" (Genesis 1:26-27). Why didn’t God say, "Let Me make man in My image, etc."? Our is most likely Father, Son and Spirit.
2. God, by His act of establishing the Sabbath, is making a covenant with His creation, and especially with all of humanity, represented by the man He created in His own image. That seems to be what Jesus is getting at when He says: "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath" (Mark 2:27-28).
3. It means that the human person is a child of God.
4. Adam is described in Genesis as a first-born priest. We also note that he’s given the command to "be fertile and multiply" (see Genesis 1:28). Adam is to be the first-born son of God and the father of a people. Since, he’s also a priest, it follows that his people are intended to be a priestly people.
5. Scholars tell us that Genesis is best understood as an example of the ancient literary style know as mashal - "a riddle" or a "proverb" in which there are layers of double meaning. The story turns on a number of tricky passages, and words filled with multiple meanings: life, death, wise, trees.
6. The Hebrew word used to describe the "serpent," nahash, implies something much more deadly. Throughout the Old Testament nahash is used to refer to powerful, even gigantic, evil creatures. Isaiah calls the nahash a sea dragon, the great Leviathan (see Isaiah 27:1). Job also uses nahash to depict terrible sea monsters (see Job 26:13). This is clearly the image the Book of Revelation has in mind when it describes "a huge red dragon" in the heavens, "the huge dragon, the ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, who deceived the whole world" (see Revelation 12:3,9). The Church, of course, has always interpreted the serpent in Genesis 3 as Satan, the Devil in slithering form (see Catechism, nos. 391-395).
7. We know that Satan has "the power of death" (see Hebrews 2:14-15).
8. Adam failed a test of his love - not only of his love for Eve, but his love for God. God gave Adam the responsibility of guarding the garden sanctuary, the dwelling place of God and man. In the confrontation with the serpent, he failed in his duties. He didn’t protect the garden or his wife or himself. So Adam was on the scene the whole time. Why didn’t he speak up, why didn’t he take up the serpent’s challenge? That seems to be the point. In his fear for his own skin, Adam left his wife hanging, left her to fend for herself. He was "her husband," the text emphasizes. Husbands are supposed to stand up for their wives - even lay down their lives for them. That’s what marital love is (see Ephesians 5:25).
9. Adam and Eve do die the moment they eat the fruit - spiritually. The truth in Satan’s lie was this: Adam and Eve would not die a physical death once they ate the fruit. Adam and Eve lost something greater than natural life when they sinned; they lost supernatural life, the life of grace in their souls. Seduced into trying to be like God without God, they died the death. Yes, they chose the fruit freely, like God they exercised free will. But their freedom only led them into slavery. Their eyes were indeed opened, and they discovered their nakedness and were ashamed.
10. As Adam called Eve "woman," we see Jesus call Mary "woman" (compare Genesis 2:23and John 2:4). As Eve disregarded God’s commands, Mary offers herself freely to the will of God and says "Do whatever He tells you" (see Luke 1:38; John 2:5). Finally, as Eve was the "mother of all the living," Mary is given by Jesus to be mother of the people of God (compare Genesis 3:20 and John 19:26 and Revelation 12:17).
He comes, not to do His own will, but the will of the Father who sent Him. He comes to serve and to offer His life as a ransom for many (see Mark 10:45; John 15:13). Jesus enters a garden and experiences the curses of Adam - the dread of death, falling to the dirt, sweating blood from his face in His agony (compare Genesis 3:17-19 and Matthew 26:36-46; Luke 22:44). He is crowned in thorns and stripped naked (see Matthew 27:29, 31). And He is led to a "tree," the Cross - which the early Church saw as a symbol of the Tree of Life in the Garden (see Acts 5:30; Galatians 3:13; 1 Peter 2:24). Yet on the Cross He was obedient, saying to God in prayer: "Not as I will, but as You will" (see Matthew 26:39). He does not grasp at "equality with God" as Adam did (see Philippians 2:5-11), but lays down His own life in sacrifice for the sake of the "garden" - the world, for His bride, the Church. Adam’s bride Eve was created from his side while he slept. The Church, the bride of Christ, was born from His side, which was opened by the soldier’s lance while he slept in death on the cross. His side issued forth blood and water, symbols of baptism and the Eucharist (seeGenesis 2:21-22; John 19:34; Catechism, nos.766; 1067). Finally, the resurrected Jesus appears in a garden ("in the place where he had been crucified") to a "woman" and is mistaken as a "gardener" - perhaps a reference to Adam’s task to be keeper of the garden of paradise (see John 19:41; 20:14-18).
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