Ge. 2: Naked without Shame

Further observations on previous reading:
Creation, although it could have been instantaneous, was a process. With that precedent, who am I to expect immediacy in certain aspects of life?

Chapter two begins with saying that the heavens and the earth were completed. What God did, He apparently did right the first time. No redos or mulligans.

Rest is blessed of God. Rest is separate from our work. Rest should take up a whole day. God didn't rest because He was exhausted. He rested because he should have.

The next part is too amazing to just break down into interpretation. From the King James Version, I give you Genesis 2:7:

"And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."

Spectacular. Ponder that for a moment.

This God breathes life into what heretofore was a pile of dust. Lifeless...soulless. Nothing.
What an amazing display of power. What a way for the Almighty to connect to man. Can two beings be drawn any closer together? What intimacy. What a way to begin life. Can you imagine? Exhaling from your lungs on your first breath the very breath of God. He could have spoken and told the man to breathe. Instead, God comes into our space, our face, and gives life from himself.

No animals are recorded as receiving this kind of treatment. The very idea that we are mere "great apes" does a disservice to all mankind, and completely negates the above exchange between God and Adam.

I wonder at what age Adam was? I wonder how old he would have been, had he been born? Something tells me that this was a land before time, before the ravages of age. Maybe he had the glorified body we are promised at our own resurrection?

Eden seems like it would have been a very cool place. Pristine streams watering every kind of beautiful flowers and fruited trees that were, "pleasing to the eye." You have your choice in this endless river valley of the best kinds of food available to you.

Then we are introduced to the concept of good vs. evil for the first time. The tree of life, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Adam was put in the garden to care for it. He was given a very clear instruction. "That tree...that is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Do not eat from that tree, or you will die." Die? Was there any concept of death? Could we fairly expect Adam to grasp the gravity of this command? Or maybe the command itself wasn't the point. It was the expectation of obedience. It was God issuing His will, and the choice suddenly being available to abide in it, or to wander outside of it.

I wonder what God had him doing the whole time that would make Adam be thankful for a woman.

As I reread that, I realize the slam on women that is inherent. It wasn't my intent. The intent was to wonder about the various tasks Adam had to do throughout the day(s?) of labor that completely exhausted him. Tasks that made him long for a companion. Again, the creation of the woman could have been instantaneous. Instead God goes through a rather bizarre process of causing Adam to sleep (to this point, sleep may have been unnecessary and an undiscovered treasure), taking a rib (a rib of all things, and the significance is currently lost on me, but I'll look into it), and closing up the place. Again, we can expect process from God. How rare it must be then when our requests are granted with immediacy or with simplicity in the way we expect it.

God's conventions are unconventional.

The idea of the woman being taken "out of man" combines man and woman in just the perfectly designed way. Man and woman are designed and created to be one flesh.

And they were naked, and they felt no shame.


Questions I have for God:
1. Why the choice of trees to begin with?
2. How did all these animals show up to be named, and who recorded it? Everything comes from some Latin or Greek name (which...has to come from somewhere I suppose.)

Ge. 1: Why not start at the beginning?

Why not start at the beginning...

"In the beginning God..."

So begins the most fascinating book.

In reading through the first chapter of Genesis, there is one way to describe God as He creates something where there was not. This God is just about the most powerful being I could imagine being conceived.

He was there at "the beginning," which is the only way we as people can grasp the concept of an eternal God. So don't try to go past that. It's scary and pointless, like Chemistry class.

With a word, He said, "Light." And light appeared. Something I just used to skip over as a kid. Eh, God says something, and it is done. Immediately. But lately, I've been pondering over this idea. Light never existed before God thought of it. It wasn't like us walking into a dark room, and turning on the light switch. Its like walking into a dark room, and inventing light. How does one go about inventing something we so readily take for granted like light? There was nothing giving off light, no fire, no bulb...just...light. Man.

I'm not going to get into day-age creationism, but scripture says, "there was evening, and there was morning - the first day." Admittedly, this is before the Earth was in orbit around the sun, but I won't die on that hill.

"And God said," is repeated a buncha times in the chapter. He didn't consult a committee. This shows me He is certain of all things.

Evolution is another debate that ensnares well-meaning Bible-thumpers like me. Not so much plant evolution, but it should be noted that in verse 11, God creates vegetation bearing fruit with the seed already in it. According to what I'm reading here, seeds protected by fruit are not the result of millennia of Survival-of-the-Fittest. They are the result of God wanting them to be there. Now. The same can be said for animals. God says all were created according to their kind. Not the result of millennia of of Survival-of-the-Fittest. They are the result of God wanting them to be there. Now. Fish, birds, wild animals, livestock, creatures that move along the blah blah blah, and so on. Now. And this isn't a cobbled-together creation theory among Christian theologians and scientists using external Bible passages to assemble what we think happened, and pass it along in Sunday School. It's all pretty much right there in Chapter 1.

The image of God is something I don't readily grasp. But here we are. Are we an image of God in that we reflect His glory, or are we theomorphs?

Verse 16: God created two great lights - the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night. Foreshadowing....

Toward the end of chapter one, God says we were created to be vegans. Originally. And lets be careful, cruelty-free had nothing to do with it. But, at least we had every green plant for food.

Throughout the chapter, God is quoted as saying "This is good. That is good." What kind of amazing standard is that, to have created something, and said, "Good?" Perfect. Complete.

I wish I could have seen light for the first time in light's existence. How mind blowing would that be? Especially hanging around God, and not really having a good grasp of his omnipotence. I imagine the sky lifting from the ocean like some massive worldwide ocean liner suddenly rocketing out of the depths, when God created sky. The sheer sound and spectacle of such a catastrophic miracle would take my consciousness away, I think. I imagine continent-wide full grown trees suddenly carpeting the land, lakes forming, and the flight of the first birds, taking off with an instinct that flight is nothing new, and completely natural.

What a beautiful miracle, what a perfect entrance for this God.

Questions I have for God (Admittedly limited by my own humanity, and context of my own knowledge):
1. What were you and what were you doing before creation?
2. What made that light?