The Miracles of Creation Genesis One The Miracles of Creation

“The Creation of Adam,” About 1511 P. J. Wiseman Ancient Records and the Structure of Genesis: A Case for Literary Unity An eyewitness account So who wrote Genesis One? Michelangelo (1475-1564) “The Creation of Adam,” About 1511

Genesis One and Rom. 5:12 A problem for the evolutionist or the old- earth creationist in Rom. 5:12, “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned …” What is the problem? See also Mark 10:6, “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’”

Is Genesis One Prose or Poetry? Stephen Boyd studied the verbs that appear in narrative sections and those that appear in poetic sections of the Old Testament. His finding: That the likelihood that Genesis One is narrative (i.e. prose) is 99.99%.

Prose vs. Poetry Boyd selected 97 biblical passages. 48 of them were narrative prose. 49 of them were poetic. Diagram of a logistic regression (next slide)

522 Texts 295 Narrative 227 Poetry

The nature of statistics is that all results are stated in terms of probabilities. So strictly speaking, we can say that with two choices for the genre of Genesis 1:1-2:3 (poetry or narrative), this text is narrative, not poetry, with a very high degree of probability. Or to put the results in scientific terms: the text is a narrative with statistical certainty. In other words, It is statistically indefensible to argue that this text is poetry.

The Meaning of “Day” 1. In more than 2,200 occurrences, the word day is never used in the Old Testament to mean a long period of time. 2. When the word day is used with a specific number, it always means a 24-hour day. 3. When used in a number series, day always means a 24-hour day. 4. The mention of “evening and morning” for the six days of creation is a reference to the daily interchange of light and darkness. 5. The passages in Exod. 20:11 and 31:17 make no sense unless the days of creation are 24-hour days.

The Meaning of “Day” 6. Consistency in the interpretation of time references in the rest of Genesis, such as the great ages of the patriarchs, requires us to understand the days of Genesis One as 24-hour days. 7. There is no reason to assume that light could not have existed before the creation of the sun, the moon, and the stars. God is the source of light. 8. Whenever the word day is used in the plural, it always means a 24-hour day. 9. Critical Old Testament scholars, no longer needing to work out a compromise between creation and evolution (since they don’t think Genesis is historical at all), admit that the word means a 24-hour day.

Language in Genesis One A simplicity of style Verses 6-7, and 9-10, “water” and “seas” rather than “river” or “lake” or “sea” Verses 11-12, “vegetation,” “plants,” and “trees,” not fescue, and sycamore trees Verse 16, “two great lights,” “the greater light,” and “the lesser light” rather than “the sun” and “the moon” Verses 24-25, terms for various types of animals The idea of naming

The Miracles: separate verbs Day One The first: Gen. 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” The second: Gen. 1:3, “Let there be light.” The third: Gen. 1:4, “and he separated the light from the darkness.” Raphael

Day Two The fourth: Gen. 1:6, “Let there be an expanse between the waters…” The fifth and sixth: Gen. 1:7, “So God made the expanse and separated the water…”

Day Three The seventh and eighth: Gen. 1:9, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let the dry ground appear.” The ninth: Gen. 1:11, “Let the land produce vegetation, seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.”

Day Four The tenth: Gen. 1:14, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky…” The eleventh: Gen. 1:16, “God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. (He) also (made) the stars.” The twelfth: Gen. 1:17, “God set them in the expanse of the sky…”

Day Five The thirteenth & fourteenth: Gen. 1:20, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly…” The fifteenth: Gen. 1:21, “So God created the great creatures of the sea…”

Day Six The sixteenth: Gen. 1:24, “Let the land produce living creatures… And it was so.” The seventeenth: Gen. 1:25, “God made the wild animals according to their kinds…” The eighteenth: Gen. 1:27, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

Why Eighteen? How are they distributed? There are three miracles of creation on each day (3 x 6 = 18). Why three per day? My conclusion: To teach us that the Triune God is the Creator and no one else. But also: To anticipate both deism and naturalism.

Threes Some have traditionally seen the Trinity hinted at in vv. 1-3: “God created,” “the Spirit of God was hovering,” and “And God said.” They have also seen the Trinity at v. 26: “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, …” But also … There are 3 things created on Day One. There are three acts of separation (vv. 4, 7, and 9)

Threes On Day Three, God creates three types of plants. On Day Four, God creates three types of luminaries. On Day Five, God creates three types of creatures. On Day Six, God notes three types of land animals. On Day Four, God notes the three functions of the luminaries: separate, give light, and govern.

Threes On Day Five, God gives the birds and aquatic creatures three commands: be fruitful, increase, and fill. On Day Six, God makes three parallel statements about the creation of mankind. There are three sections in which the word create (bara’) occurs (vv. 1, 21, 27) There are three places where God says, “Let there be…”

Threes On Day Six, the verb “create” (bara’) appears three times. On Day Four, God gives three narrower purposes of the luminaries: for signs, for seasons, and for days/years. God calls, or names, three different times (vv. 5, 8, and 10). God blesses three times (vv. 22, 28, and 2:3).

Conclusion Threeness is rampant in Genesis One. There is even some double threeness (e.g., six creative days; “And it was so” appears six times; “that it was good” appears six times). There is no other place in all of Scripture where things come in threes this often—a total of twenty-three times! I conclude that God left His signature on the creation account of Genesis One! He really wrote it!