1:10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.
So we get a 4th and 5th name from God. And it's clear that this is in fact the "creation" of earth. Also, we again have an insecure God checking that it's good.
Besides that, there's not much new here. Let me take this opportunity to present a hypothesis about the rather mysterious waters above the heaven.
Right now, we have a 3-level universe. At the bottom, we have the earth on one side and the seas on the other. Above that, we have the heaven. And above that, more waters. This is the world view being described, a world view that someone must have thought was reasonable. I don't have a problem with the flat earth or single sea; those are pretty understandable conjectures for someone who didn't grow up after the moon landing. But why would someone think there is water above heaven?
This is my theory: When you look at the ocean, it looks blue. And when you look at the sky, it looks blue. So, perhaps someone thought a good answer to that ageless question "Why is the sky blue?" was "Because there's an ocean behind it." or "Because it's an ocean." So, the waters above the heaven are obviously there to make the sky blue.
This is only a guess.
This theory, then, would make heaven either the atmosphere or the sky. Which brings me to an odd point about myself. Now that I think about it, I'm not really sure what the sky is. Is it the same as the atmosphere? Is it some not-really-there blue backdrop above the atmosphere? Is it just what you see when you look up? I just tested that idea, and that's definitely ceiling, not sky.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Land
1:9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
First, in case there were any doubts about "Heaven" being the same as "the heaven", this lays them clearly to rest.
Reading this, after the reinterpretation triggered by the last verse, the "and it was so" carries much less of a wallop. I merely picture a bunch of committee members scurrying around with buckets and shovels. This is the "creation" of the earth; it doesn't come from nowhere, but is merely made by organizing the water and the land.
One interesting linguistic point is that this is not a "dividing". The dry land is not explicitly being divided from the water, as the light was from the darkness, or the waters above from those below. Does that make this somehow different? It certainly seems similar. It all makes you think of God as someone who would sort his M&Ms by color.
My last observation on the text is the "in one place" bit. This suggests an earth with a single ocean (and perhaps also that there is more dry land than ocean, but that may be stretching).
On a completely unrelated note, I just noticed that when I hover over one of the buttons in the editor I'm using to write this, it says "Justify". Apparently, if I click on it, it will provide some sort of justification for my blogging. Another button says "Align right", which presumably would drastically change my politics.
First, in case there were any doubts about "Heaven" being the same as "the heaven", this lays them clearly to rest.
Reading this, after the reinterpretation triggered by the last verse, the "and it was so" carries much less of a wallop. I merely picture a bunch of committee members scurrying around with buckets and shovels. This is the "creation" of the earth; it doesn't come from nowhere, but is merely made by organizing the water and the land.
One interesting linguistic point is that this is not a "dividing". The dry land is not explicitly being divided from the water, as the light was from the darkness, or the waters above from those below. Does that make this somehow different? It certainly seems similar. It all makes you think of God as someone who would sort his M&Ms by color.
My last observation on the text is the "in one place" bit. This suggests an earth with a single ocean (and perhaps also that there is more dry land than ocean, but that may be stretching).
On a completely unrelated note, I just noticed that when I hover over one of the buttons in the editor I'm using to write this, it says "Justify". Apparently, if I click on it, it will provide some sort of justification for my blogging. Another button says "Align right", which presumably would drastically change my politics.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
The second day
1:8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
Now we're getting somewhere. The "firmament" (whatever that may be) is in fact "Heaven" (whatever that may be). So we've gotten to the creation of Heaven. But hold on, wasn't that created way back in the first verse? "God created the heaven and the earth." Barring a subtle distinction between "Heaven" and "the heaven", we've got a problem.
God created heaven, and then two days later created heaven. We have a few options for resolving this:
1. God actually created heaven twice. Not very satisfying.
2. Whoever wrote this wasn't capable of being coherent for eight verses. Also not very satisfying.
3. Despite all of the hints I've discussed, this story isn't progressing serially. Let's go with that one.
Looking back, we can completely reinterpret the first few verses. The first verse could be an overview: "In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth." And then it goes into detail: "The way that happened was this. Before God did his creating, the earth was formless, empty, dark, watery. The Spirit of God was out for a swim, when God grew bored with the darkness and decided to create some light."
A quick point before I go into this interpretation in any more detail. If this is the correct interpretation, the first few of sentences are terribly unclear or misleading. Until you hit the 8th verse, you have a much more straightforward interpretation to go with. So, we have strong evidence here that the document is badly written.
This interpretation makes the first verse much less impressive, frankly. If the earth and water and darkness and God were all already around, "In the beginning" doesn't sound like "In The Beginning Of Time" so much as it sounds like "Our story begins one evening". "God created the heaven and the earth" doesn't sound like "Wham! God made heaven and earth from nothing." Instead, it now reads more like, "I'm going to tell you the tedious process by which God with great difficulty succeeded in creating heaven and earth." In fact, since the earth was already around, God didn't even really create it at all, so much as he shaped it from existing materials, made it go from unformed to formed, empty to full. So, this makes God sound less like the magical all-powerful Creator the more straightforward interpretation of the first verse suggests, and more like a talented sculptor or builder.
This is in keeping with the impressions of God we got from later verses: pretty much human-like, maybe even a committee. It also suggests that perhaps there were more details to the magic-sounding parts that have been omitted for brevity. "God said, Let there be light. And he dug in the earth until he found a methane source, and then he found a couple of pieces of flint, and there was light." So the impressiveness of God drops way off.
Ok, let's get back to verse 8. God gives a name to Heaven, as he did to Day and Night.
And this was the second day. That's particularly odd, given that we now associate day and night with the rotation of the earth, which doesn't necessarily seem to be the case here; all we apparently have is light separated from darkness; why the cycling between Day and Night? The first day we could understand as the creation of light after endless darkness, but what led to the second evening and morning?
And we're not much closer to understanding what is meant by "heaven" yet, although we now know that it's a firmament.
Now we're getting somewhere. The "firmament" (whatever that may be) is in fact "Heaven" (whatever that may be). So we've gotten to the creation of Heaven. But hold on, wasn't that created way back in the first verse? "God created the heaven and the earth." Barring a subtle distinction between "Heaven" and "the heaven", we've got a problem.
God created heaven, and then two days later created heaven. We have a few options for resolving this:
1. God actually created heaven twice. Not very satisfying.
2. Whoever wrote this wasn't capable of being coherent for eight verses. Also not very satisfying.
3. Despite all of the hints I've discussed, this story isn't progressing serially. Let's go with that one.
Looking back, we can completely reinterpret the first few verses. The first verse could be an overview: "In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth." And then it goes into detail: "The way that happened was this. Before God did his creating, the earth was formless, empty, dark, watery. The Spirit of God was out for a swim, when God grew bored with the darkness and decided to create some light."
A quick point before I go into this interpretation in any more detail. If this is the correct interpretation, the first few of sentences are terribly unclear or misleading. Until you hit the 8th verse, you have a much more straightforward interpretation to go with. So, we have strong evidence here that the document is badly written.
This interpretation makes the first verse much less impressive, frankly. If the earth and water and darkness and God were all already around, "In the beginning" doesn't sound like "In The Beginning Of Time" so much as it sounds like "Our story begins one evening". "God created the heaven and the earth" doesn't sound like "Wham! God made heaven and earth from nothing." Instead, it now reads more like, "I'm going to tell you the tedious process by which God with great difficulty succeeded in creating heaven and earth." In fact, since the earth was already around, God didn't even really create it at all, so much as he shaped it from existing materials, made it go from unformed to formed, empty to full. So, this makes God sound less like the magical all-powerful Creator the more straightforward interpretation of the first verse suggests, and more like a talented sculptor or builder.
This is in keeping with the impressions of God we got from later verses: pretty much human-like, maybe even a committee. It also suggests that perhaps there were more details to the magic-sounding parts that have been omitted for brevity. "God said, Let there be light. And he dug in the earth until he found a methane source, and then he found a couple of pieces of flint, and there was light." So the impressiveness of God drops way off.
Ok, let's get back to verse 8. God gives a name to Heaven, as he did to Day and Night.
And this was the second day. That's particularly odd, given that we now associate day and night with the rotation of the earth, which doesn't necessarily seem to be the case here; all we apparently have is light separated from darkness; why the cycling between Day and Night? The first day we could understand as the creation of light after endless darkness, but what led to the second evening and morning?
And we're not much closer to understanding what is meant by "heaven" yet, although we now know that it's a firmament.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Waters which were
1:7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
Who could have seen this coming after the "Let there be a firmament" in the previous verse?
This was predictable, but it adds to our knowledge in one specific way: the division was between low and high, "under" and "above". Actually, a little startling. When I picture water being divided, I see a left/right division. This is interesting and different, but still not terribly informative, since we still have no clue as to what the firmament was.
One interesting point is that this is different from the creation of light. Instead of the firmament just suddenly being, we now have God explicitly making it. Which definitely points to God as a committee; why else say you want a firmament and then make it, unless you're one subcommittee communicating with another?
A less interesting point is that the last phrase "and it was so" is completely pointless. What are the other options, " ... just kidding, no firmament"?
Who could have seen this coming after the "Let there be a firmament" in the previous verse?
This was predictable, but it adds to our knowledge in one specific way: the division was between low and high, "under" and "above". Actually, a little startling. When I picture water being divided, I see a left/right division. This is interesting and different, but still not terribly informative, since we still have no clue as to what the firmament was.
One interesting point is that this is different from the creation of light. Instead of the firmament just suddenly being, we now have God explicitly making it. Which definitely points to God as a committee; why else say you want a firmament and then make it, unless you're one subcommittee communicating with another?
A less interesting point is that the last phrase "and it was so" is completely pointless. What are the other options, " ... just kidding, no firmament"?
Monday, September 21, 2009
Let there be a firmament
1:6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
Here's something new. Instead of a word (like "God" or "heaven") where I worry about piles of preconceptions affecting my interpretation, we have a word "firmament" which means absolutely nothing to me. I know the word only insomuch as I am familiar with this verse (and some which follow shortly). To the best of my knowledge, I've never heard the word used outside of quoting Genesis. Perhaps it was in everyday use back in King James' time, or perhaps the translators punted.
So, I'm going to hold off on doing much interpretation of this, since it's not yet clear what this firmament might be.
Ok, one thing we can say is we're repeating the style of the light creation. God is speaking, "Let there be a firmament." Here's it more drawn out, though. Instead of just slapping on "and there was a firmament", instead we have God explaining where the firmament is, and what the purpose of the firmament is, at least at a basic level. It's in the waters, and dividing them from themselves. Again, this basically reads like God sketching firmament plans for a contractor: So we've got these waters over here, see? And the firmament is gonna go right here, so that it divides these waters on this side from these other waters on the other side. That way, the waters aren't just all right up against each other. I hate the way my waters are touching like that.
So, dividing the waters from the waters seems to be the purpose of the firmament, although it's not made clear why one would want to divide the waters from the waters.
Oh, and what waters? That's less than clear at this point. The waters were there back in verse 2, when the earth was without form. Since not much has happened since besides the creation of light, presumably the earth is still without form, and these are the same waters mentioned then. Are they oceans? What oceans are we separating from what other oceans?
Ok, 6 verses and 2 divisions. God divided the light from the darkness; and now he wants the waters divided from the waters. He's a divider, not a uniter.
Which brings us to the point that there's an astounding amount of repetition in these lines. Every phrase begins with "and". This is our second "And God said, Let there be...". This line alone contains "the waters" three times. Poetry? Indoctrination? Bad writing? An accurate reflection of the way people speak? God only knows.
Here's something new. Instead of a word (like "God" or "heaven") where I worry about piles of preconceptions affecting my interpretation, we have a word "firmament" which means absolutely nothing to me. I know the word only insomuch as I am familiar with this verse (and some which follow shortly). To the best of my knowledge, I've never heard the word used outside of quoting Genesis. Perhaps it was in everyday use back in King James' time, or perhaps the translators punted.
So, I'm going to hold off on doing much interpretation of this, since it's not yet clear what this firmament might be.
Ok, one thing we can say is we're repeating the style of the light creation. God is speaking, "Let there be a firmament." Here's it more drawn out, though. Instead of just slapping on "and there was a firmament", instead we have God explaining where the firmament is, and what the purpose of the firmament is, at least at a basic level. It's in the waters, and dividing them from themselves. Again, this basically reads like God sketching firmament plans for a contractor: So we've got these waters over here, see? And the firmament is gonna go right here, so that it divides these waters on this side from these other waters on the other side. That way, the waters aren't just all right up against each other. I hate the way my waters are touching like that.
So, dividing the waters from the waters seems to be the purpose of the firmament, although it's not made clear why one would want to divide the waters from the waters.
Oh, and what waters? That's less than clear at this point. The waters were there back in verse 2, when the earth was without form. Since not much has happened since besides the creation of light, presumably the earth is still without form, and these are the same waters mentioned then. Are they oceans? What oceans are we separating from what other oceans?
Ok, 6 verses and 2 divisions. God divided the light from the darkness; and now he wants the waters divided from the waters. He's a divider, not a uniter.
Which brings us to the point that there's an astounding amount of repetition in these lines. Every phrase begins with "and". This is our second "And God said, Let there be...". This line alone contains "the waters" three times. Poetry? Indoctrination? Bad writing? An accurate reflection of the way people speak? God only knows.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Darkness he called Night
1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
Ok, first a completely straightforward interpretion. The darkness existed before the light was created (and separated from the darkness). This darkness was a long night, and the separation of light from darkness marked the first morning.
How long did the darkness exist? It was around in verse 2, before the creation of the light in verse 3. It wasn't explicitly created; perhaps it was around before The Beginning.
To me, day and night are related to my position on the earth relative to the sun, and change with the rotation of the earth or with my moving around on earth. But this Day and Night seem to be just light and darkness, separated somehow from each other, not tied to the sun and earth.
Is the creation of light (or its separation from darkness) the same as the first morning, or are they somehow distinct? It's not entirely clear, but the juxtaposition of the naming of Day and Night with the first evening and morning makes it seem like it was intended that they are the same.
With that interpretation, the chronology is:
0. The Beginning. God is already there, and perhaps darkness.
1. Heaven and earth are created.
2. It is clearly night; and probably at least as far back as The Beginning.
3. Light is created, but not separated from darkness. The first pre-dawn.
4. Separation. Almost the first morning, but we're not calling it that yet.
5. Day and Night are named by God. And now we're officially identifying the previous time as Night, the current time as Day, and asserting that the first morning is completed.
There's an emphasis here on the naming of Day and Night. And, interestingly, those words are God's. Of course, this is just an English translation, so not so much. But in the original, whatever that may be, presumably these are words that come directly from God.
Words, of course, have sounds; this again suggests that God is speaking, that God has a mouth, that God is a physical being. Further, words have purpose: communication. This suggests that God is speaking to someone else. This again suggests a committee or contractor.
Naming the light and darkness occurs immediately after dividing them from each other. This again suggests a sequentiality to the verses. However, mentioning the evening at the point suggests a quick jump backwards. The last phrase, then, can be considered a summary of everything that went before. We now have a completed description of the first day after The Beginning.
Ok, first a completely straightforward interpretion. The darkness existed before the light was created (and separated from the darkness). This darkness was a long night, and the separation of light from darkness marked the first morning.
How long did the darkness exist? It was around in verse 2, before the creation of the light in verse 3. It wasn't explicitly created; perhaps it was around before The Beginning.
To me, day and night are related to my position on the earth relative to the sun, and change with the rotation of the earth or with my moving around on earth. But this Day and Night seem to be just light and darkness, separated somehow from each other, not tied to the sun and earth.
Is the creation of light (or its separation from darkness) the same as the first morning, or are they somehow distinct? It's not entirely clear, but the juxtaposition of the naming of Day and Night with the first evening and morning makes it seem like it was intended that they are the same.
With that interpretation, the chronology is:
0. The Beginning. God is already there, and perhaps darkness.
1. Heaven and earth are created.
2. It is clearly night; and probably at least as far back as The Beginning.
3. Light is created, but not separated from darkness. The first pre-dawn.
4. Separation. Almost the first morning, but we're not calling it that yet.
5. Day and Night are named by God. And now we're officially identifying the previous time as Night, the current time as Day, and asserting that the first morning is completed.
There's an emphasis here on the naming of Day and Night. And, interestingly, those words are God's. Of course, this is just an English translation, so not so much. But in the original, whatever that may be, presumably these are words that come directly from God.
Words, of course, have sounds; this again suggests that God is speaking, that God has a mouth, that God is a physical being. Further, words have purpose: communication. This suggests that God is speaking to someone else. This again suggests a committee or contractor.
Naming the light and darkness occurs immediately after dividing them from each other. This again suggests a sequentiality to the verses. However, mentioning the evening at the point suggests a quick jump backwards. The last phrase, then, can be considered a summary of everything that went before. We now have a completed description of the first day after The Beginning.
Light from the darkness
1:4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
God sees; again, this suggests a God with eyes; a physical, human-like God.
Ignoring modern metaphorical meanings, which I assume don't apply here, "saw the light" is a pretty odd phrase in some ways. Technically, eyes are essentially photon detectors; everything seen is light. But, usually, we talk of seeing something which is reflecting light (or occasionally, generating it). That is "When I turned on the light, I could see the sofa, dusty under the gray dim bulb." But here we have light, without any particular source ("and there was light"), and that's what God is looking at.
One last, minor point on the first phrase. This again is suggesting a strong, solid sequentiality to these events. Make the earth, describe the earth. Make the light, see the light.
More interesting is what the next phrase seems to tell us about God. God saw that the light was good. This implies to me that before that, God didn't know that the light would be good. That the light could have been flawed. If God was the creator of the light, this means that God was half-expecting himself to screw up.
Alternately, this could again be interpreted as God hiring a contractor. God said to the contractor, Let there be a kitchen. And the contractor made a kitchen, and God saw the kitchen, and the kitchen was awful. And God said, small-claims court. And the kitchen got better.
Or, from the committee viewpoint, after the action subcommittee made the light, the quality assurance subcommittee signed off on the light being good.
Regardless of whether God was expecting himself to ruin the light, or some committee to ruin it, this is distinctly a God who is not all-powerful, all-knowing. This is a God with limitations, with the potential for imperfection or failure.
On to the second clause. I'm going to refrain from using the phrase "God divided" to try to argue that God was a mathematician.
Darkness was mentioned a couple verses back, and I wrote that I consider darkness to be an absence of light. But this seems like a darkness which is more real, more of an equal of the light. It also suggests that light can be somehow mixed with darkness, which seems just as odd. I'm not clear on what that could even mean.
Further, we have a two step process: creating light, and then separating it from darkness. (Checking that it's good may be a third step.) Again, at best this is a God who can make light from nothing, but who can't make it already separated from the darkness.
So, in these 4 verses we have a portrait of God, speaking and seeing, powerful but insecure, impressive but imperfect.
God sees; again, this suggests a God with eyes; a physical, human-like God.
Ignoring modern metaphorical meanings, which I assume don't apply here, "saw the light" is a pretty odd phrase in some ways. Technically, eyes are essentially photon detectors; everything seen is light. But, usually, we talk of seeing something which is reflecting light (or occasionally, generating it). That is "When I turned on the light, I could see the sofa, dusty under the gray dim bulb." But here we have light, without any particular source ("and there was light"), and that's what God is looking at.
One last, minor point on the first phrase. This again is suggesting a strong, solid sequentiality to these events. Make the earth, describe the earth. Make the light, see the light.
More interesting is what the next phrase seems to tell us about God. God saw that the light was good. This implies to me that before that, God didn't know that the light would be good. That the light could have been flawed. If God was the creator of the light, this means that God was half-expecting himself to screw up.
Alternately, this could again be interpreted as God hiring a contractor. God said to the contractor, Let there be a kitchen. And the contractor made a kitchen, and God saw the kitchen, and the kitchen was awful. And God said, small-claims court. And the kitchen got better.
Or, from the committee viewpoint, after the action subcommittee made the light, the quality assurance subcommittee signed off on the light being good.
Regardless of whether God was expecting himself to ruin the light, or some committee to ruin it, this is distinctly a God who is not all-powerful, all-knowing. This is a God with limitations, with the potential for imperfection or failure.
On to the second clause. I'm going to refrain from using the phrase "God divided" to try to argue that God was a mathematician.
Darkness was mentioned a couple verses back, and I wrote that I consider darkness to be an absence of light. But this seems like a darkness which is more real, more of an equal of the light. It also suggests that light can be somehow mixed with darkness, which seems just as odd. I'm not clear on what that could even mean.
Further, we have a two step process: creating light, and then separating it from darkness. (Checking that it's good may be a third step.) Again, at best this is a God who can make light from nothing, but who can't make it already separated from the darkness.
So, in these 4 verses we have a portrait of God, speaking and seeing, powerful but insecure, impressive but imperfect.
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