Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden 2

People should not doubt that the Supreme Divine Creator is all-powerful. It is wrong to think He needed to test Adam and Eve at all. {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 1)}

God had given an instruction to safeguard them. God knew what could happen but they did not listen out of their own choice. When He fretted that Adam had become “like one of us“, God was not talking to some other gods or other beings but speaking in the Royal We, like any higher person still uses the Pluralis Majestatis today. (Genesis 3:22) The author of the Testimony of Truth wants us also to look negatively at the Maker and says:

But what sort is this God? First he maliciously refused Adam from eating of the tree of knowledge, and, secondly, he said “Adam, where are you?” God does not have foreknowledge? Would he not know from the beginning? And afterwards, he said, “Let us cast him out of this place, lest he eat of the tree of life and live forever.” Surely, he has shown himself to be a malicious grudger! And what kind of God is this? For great is the blindness of those who read, and they did not know him. And he said, “I am the jealous God; I will bring the sins of the fathers upon the children until three (and) four generations.” And he said, “I will make their heart thick, and I will cause their mind to become blind, that they might not know nor comprehend the things that are said.” But these things he has said to those who believe in him and serve him! {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 1)}

It is the same as parents who noticed their children having done something wrong. They know where they are, and when they are hiding they mostly also know exactly the place where they are hiding, though still ask them to say where they are, trying to give them a chance to come out themselves and to show themselves in the condition they are.

 

English: Yale Papyrus Fragment from the Nag Ha...
Yale Papyrus Fragment from the Nag Hammadi Gnostic Library Codex III, containing The Dialogue of the Savior (Yale Beinecke Library). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Alexander Rivera of The Aeon Eye dedicated to research and ideas regarding scholarship in theology, various ancient texts spanning different cultures of all ages, comparative mythology, philosophical exegesis, apocrypha, patristics, the Nag Hammadi Library and the Bible, believes the author of the Testimony of Truth designating the serpent as a positive figure, telling the story from the view of the serpent.

Concerning the text also distinguishing Christ as the “Son” or messenger he talks about the “unknown Father” which is distinct from the “Lord God” of Genesis or the Lawgiver which was equated by many Gnostic groups such as the Sethians, Naasenes and the Valentinians with the Demiurge or the “Craftsman” who fashioned the cosmos from a chaotic pre-existent “prima materia”.

The Marcionites held a similar position, but lacked the speculative and imaginative cosmologies that were a staple in later Gnostic mythology, but held both the creator god as a lesser god and the Good, Supreme God as distinct, but co-eternal beings in a constant state of antagonism (we see this idea carried into the later doctrines of the Manichaeans and the Cathars). The Demiurge did not derive from the Supreme God by emanation or by a fall of another aeon. {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 1)}

Scripture wants us to believe the Maker of all things, the Maker of the Universe is a God of Order and Clarity, who is a God of Love.

Marcion, much like his Gnostic predecessors denied that the God of goodness could have created the cosmos of corruption and entropy. Therefore, in his place, the creator god was assigned as author of the physical universe, while treated as an inferior being, not good, but only just. He is also the author of evil (as Isaiah 45:7 boldly asserts), as he is as much a lover of war (Exodus 15:3), erratic blood-lust in his constant demand for animal and human sacrifice, rejoicing in death (Deuteronomy 28:63), condoning slavery including sexual (Exodus 21:1-11), commanding the Israelites to rape, pillage and destroy at a moment’s whim (1 Chronicles 21, Deuteronomy 3, Joshua 6) all the while contradicting his own commandment of “Thou shalt not kill”. At his express command, the world is turned into a place of pain and “thorns” (Genesis 3:18)

English: A lion-faced deity found on a Gnostic...
A lion-faced deity found on a Gnostic gem in Bernard de Montfaucon’s L’antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The saying by the prophet Isaiah that the Elohim would be a God of evil is indicating that the Most High Maker Who has no peer, no God but Him, allows evil to come over people, even making His People arm them for battle. It is true that the Bible says even though man does not recognize Him, He does this so people will recognize from east to west that there is no God but Him. Already early at the Creation God made it clear that out of the void it was Him Speaking and making it to happen. From the very start of the universe the living creatures had to know that it was Him Who made them. All had to understand that it is Him The One Who forms light and creates darkness. It was Him Who created out of chaos order and brought about peace and created calamity. Waters had to flow, air had to flow, but now that man had interfered with creation and disturbed the peace and tranquillity they themselves brought great misfortune over themselves, not out of God’s Will but out of their will. It where they who wanted to rule the world and have everything to say, so God allowed them to arrange the things like they want to do it. But up until now they still not have given any proof to be capable to order the world decently.

True, God by giving everything in the hands of incompetent human beings made that affliction became master of mankind. Though He allows all those things to happen in the hope that at one point those people will come to recognise that He alone is the Divine Supreme Maker Who deserves all worship and honour. God is patient enough to find enough people who are willing to recognise that the Elohim Hashem Jehovah is the Most High Lord over the Lord of lords, Who accomplishes all these things.

People shall also have to notice that certain things that happen may look at one moment good but at an other may look bad, like the changing skies with clouds sending down showers of deliverance. Also figuratively people shall get to see that the earth shall have to absorb the ‘showers’ from God so salvation may grow, and deliverance may sprout up along with it. This all in the knowledge that it is the Divine Supreme Being Who creates it.

Isa 45:5-8 MKJV  I am Jehovah, and there is none else, no God besides Me; I clothed you, though you have not known Me;  (6)  that they may know from the rising of the sun, and to the sunset, that there is none besides Me. I am Jehovah, and there is none else;  (7)  forming the light and creating darkness; making peace and creating evil. I Jehovah do all these things.  (8)  Drop down from above, O heavens, and let the clouds pour down righteousness. Let the earth open, and let salvation bear fruit; and let righteousness spring up together. I Jehovah have created it.

 

Lots of Christians accuse Muslims to have a cruel God (Allah), because they hear stories of what that God says and do not seem to know that they have the same God saying naturally the same things. But those hard words God speaks in the Old Testament, which many Christians do not know, are part of God reacting on the bad things the people did.

That God allows it all to happen is that otherwise an intervening God would again being able to become the accused as being a dictator, only allowing that to happen what and how He wants it, not giving any liberty to man. That was the charge in the Garden of Eden. God was wrongly accused as wanting all right to govern Himself. Man forgot that they were given freedom to name and manage their own world.

Those who want to believe the world that God only executes the law without mercy or compassion when it is convenient for Him are the one the Bible is calling satan or adversary. The opponents of God, the antagonists and objectors are the ones who are mentioned many-fold in the Bible. The ones who want the world to believe that God would be a person of king-like jealousy and pride, with great appetite for praise and sacrifices are the ones who gave breath to the enemy and what motivated many early Christians to interpret “the Lord God” as either an ignorant but just creator or at worst, a malicious and belligerent demon called “Ialdaboath”. {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 1)}

Many assume wrongly that Jesus is talking about his heavenly Father being the father of evil and the one owning this world, but The Elohim has given the world in the hands of man, God’s adversary. It is not about God when there is said

He was a murder from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. {John 8:44 / Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 1)}

Jesus is giving reference to the “father of lies” who is not his heavenly Father, but the master of evil, God’s adversary (the ‘devil‘), who can be any human person who doubts the existence and the right of power of God.

Alexander Rivera points out:

it was Yahweh who said that they would die if they ate from the Tree of Knowledge, whereas the snake said that they wouldn’t—and of course, as we know, they didn’t. All that they Serpent said is that they would become as gods, which Yahweh confirms when he says, “Look, they have become as gods. Now we must remove them from the garden, lest they eat of the tree of life and live forever.” The night preceding his crucifixion, the Johannine Jesus says in John 12:31-33:

Now is the judgment of this world. Now the prince (archon) of this world will be cast out.

The prince or “archon” is a direct reference to the Demiurge, the “god of this aion” as Paul calls him 2 Corinthians 4:4. Before, the creator God said to both Adam and Eve “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” On the other hand, the Serpent said pointedly: “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 1)}

The author of Genesis let us know that Adam and Eve where cast out of the Garden of Eden and would have to face death, because God told them so and that all their offspring would have to face the problems and will have to die as well. This penalty form one to the other generation is a thorn in the eye of many Christians as well, but otherwise God would intervene again and could be accused of favouritism, giving partiality to His own people.

The eyes of both of them were opened, making them aware of what they had and what they now had to loose. Eve in her heart had hoped to get more wisdom. She did not want to believe that they would die. How could the one Who made them, losing them again? Reason why we do not follow the Gnostic writings is that they continue to follow the path of Eve and the adversaries of God who want us to believe that it was the Serpent who was right and  the creator God Who was the one who had lied.

He said that Adam and Eve would die if he ate the fruit, but neither died. Instead, the Serpent was telling the truth. As a matter of fact, the creator himself ended up agreeing that the Serpent was right! The creator Lord God had proved himself to be a chronic liar as well as plagiarizer. To the Gnostics, the entire stratum of material creation was a failed and botched attempt to imitate an unknowable world of light. Likewise, the “Good Book” or “Word of God”, which being the Bible itself is based principally on pre-Biblical Babylonian and Egyptian texts. {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 1)}

Rivera looks also at the claim of St. Augustine of Hippo in Adversus Haeresis, 46, 147-153, that the Manichaeans had also taught that “Jesus the Splendor” or the “Third Messenger” was the Serpent that illuminated the minds of both Adam and Eve of their predicament and their divine origins.

Before the arrival of the Serpent in the Garden, man was in a state of ignorance and was blinded to his true position—as automatons in blind servitude to their creators. This is confirmed by an unnamed Manichean text in which the 8th century historian, Theodor Bar Konai quotes:

Jesus the Splendour approached sinless Adam and awoke him from the sleep of death, that he might be delivered of innumerable demons… Then Adam examined himself and realized, who he was. {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 1)}

Man has always played with the idea of being master of creation becoming superior to its Creator. In the races of worldly people, human artefacts have become objects of fear for their creators – for example statues and images and everything that is made by human hands as representing a god. In Christendom we still find many Christians who have that urge to bow down in front of graven images, though the Maker has clearly demanded not to do so. Several Christians made them crosses, statues of Jesus, Mary and several saints where they bow for and where they burn candles for or in certain countries even provide food and clothing. Though this is all abomination in the eyes of God.

People made themselves many male and female gods and also in Christendom we can find people who worship a ‘mother of god‘, though the God of gods has no mother and no beginning being an eternal Spirit.

We can agree with Alexander Rivera who writes in his blog The Aeon Eye:

Ultimately, the aim of the creator god is to align mankind as the reflection of the creator rather than something far grander. {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 1)}

Trees, fruit and seeds have always played an important role in many cultures and were often used symbolically as well.

Rivera writes:

As we can see, the Tree was an important universal symbol for not only the Gnostics, Simonians, Valentinians, etc, but to groups like the Jewish-Kabbalists, alchemists and many occult groups throughout the ages. The Tree is highly associative with the idea of the descent and crucifixion (and eventual ascent and resurrection) of spirit into and from matter as seen in Sophia-Achamoth’s fall from the celestial world and into the prima materia which parallels the Genesis account of the fall of Eve, the “mother of the living”. In Plato’s Timaeus, do we find the account of the Fall of Atlantis, (as strange as it might sound) which could be read as symbolic of the Divine tragedy and catastrophe so predominant in Gnostic cosmology and theology. {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 3)}

We too look at the seed of Adam which brought forth the seed of Abraham, giving us the servant David, giving seed to next generations bringing into the world a new light, a seed without intervention of a man.

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Please do find the very interesting articles by Rivera:

Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 1)

Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 2)

Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 3)

Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 4)

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Preceding posts:

Coming to the creation of human beings in the image of God

Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden 1

Scripture about Creation and Creator Deity

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Additional reading:

  1. Creation Creator and Creation
  2. Creator and Blogger God 1 Emptiness and movement
  3. יהוה , YHWH and Love: Four-letter words

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  • Gnostic Salvation And Rebellion Against God’s Law (hammeringshield.wordpress.com)

    For Gnostic Christians, the story of salvation is the story of human beings learning of their true position in the world and of their taking the necessary steps to escape the bondage of the evil Creator God. The Gnostic goal was the return of their Spiritual Light, which the Creator God had trapped within their bodies, to the Father Of Light.

    Many Gnostics believed that the Savior was sent by the Father Of Light to help us in this quest. Others, like Marcion, believed that the Savior was sent by another deity entirely, an “Alien God” completely uninvolved in the creation of our particular cosmos, but who, knowing of our condition, took pity on us and sent the Savior to deliver us.

  • What If God Were NOT Good? (hammeringshield.wordpress.com)
    The beliefs we today associate with Christianity and the Bible became the orthodox set of beliefs, the form of Christianity in which God is good. But there was another form of Christianity, that of the Gnostics. Unlike the Orthodox Christians, many Gnostic Christians believed God to be a malevolent being. Both types of Christians believed in the Savior, but they had different versions of his mission. And whereas Orthodox Christians believed in salvation via faith in the divinity of the Savior, the Gnostics believed that salvation is to be obtained via knowledge (“gnosis“) of our true condition, hence their name.
  • Deceptive Practices (culturalatheist.wordpress.com)
    The first lies recorded (although we know he was already telling them in heaven) are the the lies about God’s character. He lied to Adam and Eve about God’s love and care for them. The lies were relational.What if Satan’s deceptive practices begin with or are grounded in lies about others? It would be in his best interests if we think the worst about others – their beliefs, their practices, their intentions and character. I also suspect that we reveal our acceptance of the lies and our culpability in spreading them when we say, “All (insert person or group) are (insert belief, practice, intention).”
  • Can a Gnostic army fix the world? (vaticproject.blogspot.com)
    God gave us dominion over the animals to care for them, and that is in Genesis.  And Christ reinforced those sentiments, so I don’t know where he got that, unless he has not read the Bible, which is possible.  In fact, it was Christ who brought a new coverant stopping the slaughter of animals by the Jews and instead offered himself as the redeeming sacrifice.  So, I am not sure where he got that, but be it as it may,  just focus on the recommendations which I think are reasonable, actually.   How do you protect society from those that murder at will for no earthy good reason, especially little children and babies.
  • Humble beginnings: a rib and an apple (annabelfrage.wordpress.com)
    As a little aside, when God in Genesis 1 creates Adam, the name denominates mankind rather than a specific dude. In Genesis 2, however, God moulds Adam the man from the earth and breathes life into him. It is this Adam who is gifted with Eve, lest he become too lonely playing with himself.
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    The tree, however, was always on their minds, a little teaser that now and then had them taking a couple of steps in its direction before remembering it was out of bounds. Eve would pick an apple from another tree and bite into it, eyes stuck on the perfect, Christmas-red apples that hung from the Tree of Knowledge. She bet those apples tasted sweeter, were crunchier and jucier. Adam would pick an apple and eat it while watching Eve, considering just what he would do to her after their meal. men are, at times, rather singleminded…
  • Great Day (theotherjc.com)
    God is…my Father. That’s a revelation that doesn’t come easily to everyone but one we need to get. We can be disappointed by our own Father but without realising it not notice that God has filled our lives with many Fathers. Thanks to Rachael for sharing her journey in this in such an honest way.
  • Jesus the Phoenician – Karim El Koussa on GW Radio (gnosticwarrior.com)
    “Yāwshu (Jesus) is the son of the Canaano-Phoenician Most High God Ēl-Alyon, being the Son of the Virgin Lady Maryām by the Divine Will of the Lord, who blessed this conception of a child that would be named Immanuel. He would live among us as “God Ēl with us,” a Nazarene, sacredly chosen to consecrate himself for keeping the word of God in his heart, mind, and spirit, healing the human race from its many errors and sins. He is the Galilean Meshiha (Messiah) who would anoint the people—who believed in him, his mother, and Father, and who believed in the Great Message he came to deliver, Love and Peace—with sacred water, the purest form of what is considered as the origin of life here on earth. He is the Khristós (Christ) who came and had himself crucified on the altar of life so that we may be clean and have life abundantly. He is the Good Shepherd.”
    ― Excerpt from Jesus the Phoenician
  • Fear & Loathing In… God? (cwoznicki.com)
    How can God loath his chosen people? How does that even make sense? In one of John Webster’s sermons on this very Psalm he addresses how this can be. Honestly its one of the best explanations of God’s wrath and hatred and anger that I have ever read…
  • Trust (activeinspiration.wordpress.com)
    Trusting in riches instead of our Father means you can’t attain to a relationship with God, you have replaced God with riches, thus you can’t attain, only fall.
  • Scripture of the Day, 3/13 (sowegalive.com)
    1 Timothy 2:5 For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,

Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden 1

The Aeon Eye with Alexander Rivera looks also at the very beginning of the Bible and the Torah where we are presented with the idea of the origins of mankind in the Primordial Garden of Eden that we first see in the Book of Genesis, the Bereshith.

Alexander Rivera remarks:

The traditional Orthodox reading of this story, of course, presents the age-old legend as literal evidence for the claim of mankind’s original sin and subsequent fall from primordial perfection and divine grace, as if God was still holding an eternal grudge against mankind for eating a fruit that he created in the first place, and still cursing mankind and the world for a multitude of generations after the fact. From this disobedience to God, alienation was given rise from the creator and humanity was once again condemned under the Law that God later gave to Moses at Mt. Sinai. In this reading, humanity is specifically condemned because of their inherently wickedness due to their rebellion and disobedience. And so the story goes, God had to send his innocent Son to die a cruel death to shed his blood to atone for the transgressions of a sinful and destitute humanity. Yet, beneath this callous, misanthropic reading lies a deeper layer of spiritual truth.

English: Adam and Eve were both naked & were n...
Adam and Eve were both naked & were not ashamed, as in Genesis 2:25: “And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.” (KJV) illustration from the 1728 Figures de la Bible; illustrated by Gerard Hoet (1648–1733) and others, and published by P. de Hondt in The Hague; image courtesy Bizzell Bible Collection, University of Oklahoma Libraries (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In the previous Readings from the Scriptures we could see how the female got tempted to get to know more about good and evil and how there was a delight to the eyes, the tree to be desired to make one wise. When she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat she wanted her partner also to be part of her disobedience to the Elohim. She lured him into eating of it as well, though God had prohibited them to touch the tree.

By eating of this tree of the forbidden fruit the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig-leaves together, and made themselves aprons. Suddenly the innocence of nakedness made place for an uncomfortable feeling. Their discomfort being so naked for each other and for the rest around them gave them a bad feeling.

Throughout history the story of the beginning of sin got merciless made in a weapon to unconscionably  threaten people with demons, un-heavenly creatures who would damage the human soul and torture the human beings who got tempted by their words and actions. Their living quarters being deep under the ground in the burning alcoves of the underworld.

In the Bereshith, the Tanakh, the Holy Jewish and Christian Bible the adversary of God, could be any tempter, but people wanted to see not themselves in it but preferred to see an extra-terrestrial being in it, giving the noun satan (adversary) the surnames Satan and Lucifer. We do not know if it is like Alexander Rivera thinks that this interpretation would have come into the picture much later with the Book of Wisdom (2:23-24) revealing in this version:

For God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of his own eternity. Nevertheless through envy of the devil came death into the world: and they that do hold of his side do find it.

Irenaeus, the Bishop of Lyons, writes in Against Heresies 5.23, which started the ball rolling for the Orthodox exegetic interpretation:

But that God was true, and the serpent a liar, was proved by the result, death having passed upon them who had eaten. For along with the fruit they did also fall under the power of death, because they did eat in disobedience; and disobedience to God entails death. Wherefore, as they became forfeit to death, from that [moment] they were handed over to it.  

Originally the serpent was the metaphor for the creeping evil, the danger that could come up to man, and by moments could have been very beautiful and attractive, very cunning. In life we can encounter slyness and man has found ways to use subtlety and tricks to bring deceit, not always playing clever or subtle games.

In the Revelation of John 12:9, the serpent is equated with a dragon, a devil or satan, which many people take to be a specific figure with the name Satan or Lucifer:

The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.

In the Book Wisdom is told that God created man unto His own likeness without corruption. Nevertheless through envies of the devil, the inner-thought of man going against the given purity of the Master Creator, came death into the world. Everybody in the creation of the Most High has elements of Him in him or her and by this gift of God has the possibility to feel the essence of the Creator in themselves. It are the wicked thoughts which separate from God and do come into the mind of those who think themselves wise or want to test God. Eve clearly wanted to test the Elohim. Therefore the Power of Jehovah had to come to her to condemn her. It was His Spirit Which filled the world but has all the right to give and take and man doubted His rights.

Wis 1:1-7 WEBA  Love righteousness, all you who are judges of the earth. Think of the Lord with a good mind. Seek him in singleness of heart,  (2)  because he is found by those who don’t tempt him, and is manifested to those who trust him.  (3)  For crooked thoughts separate from God. His Power convicts when it is tested, and exposes the foolish.  (4)  Because wisdom will not enter into a soul that devises evil, nor dwell in a body that is enslaved by sin.  (5)  For a holy spirit of discipline will flee deceit, and will depart from thoughts that are without understanding, and will be ashamed when unrighteousness has come in.  (6)  For wisdom is a spirit who loves man, and she will not hold a blasphemer guiltless for his lips; because God bears witness of his reins, and is a true overseer of his heart, and a hearer of his tongue:  (7)  Because the spirit of the Lord has filled the world, and that which holds all things together knows what is said.

Wis 2:21-24 WEBA  Thus they reasoned, and they were led astray; for their wickedness blinded them,  (22)  and they didn’t know the mysteries of God, neither did they hope for wages of holiness, nor did they discern that there is a prize for blameless souls.  (23)  Because God created man for incorruption, and made him an image of his own everlastingness;  (24)  but death entered into the world by the envy of the devil, and those who belong to him experience it.

For to the light of day succeeds night, but against wisdom evil does not prevail (Wisdom 7:30) Adam and Eve having had evil thoughts of God by giving heed to their wish to know as much as God knows. They were not  not ashamed concerning their soul and now it was to late to hide for God. Sirach 7:1 tells us not to do evil so will no evil overtake you. Now the relationship between God and man got disturbed and they knew very well that they had done wrong.

That satan and lucifer are not wicked beings, can also been seen in other places in Scriptures where the evangelist John equates Jesus Christ with Lucifer, the Latin word for “light-bearer” which stems from the “Latin Vulgate” Bible, produced by Jerome, commissioned by Pope Damascus in 382 A.D. In Revelation 22:16, “Jesus” proclaims that:

“I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.”

In the verses about the penalty coming over the man and female, the 1° Adam and Eve, the Creator offers a solution and talks about the evil being crushed by the foot of the send one, the darkness eliminated by the light. The ‘Light” spoken off in the Bible refers then to the promised one, who got born in Bethlehem out of the tribe of God’s servant King David.

Of course, the Latin “Lucifer” (“Lux Ferre”) was associated with the planet Venus, which is called “Phosphoros”, the “morning star” or “dawn-bringer”, who was both a minor god in Greece and Rome, who according to the Greek Historian Diodorus Siculus, was a:

…son of Atlas, who was fond of astronomy, and once, after having ascended Mount Atlas to observe the stars, he disappeared. He was worshipped with divine honours, and regarded as the fairest star in the heavens. (Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.) {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 1)}

We have goodness in us but there is also badness which “lies in wait to turn things that are good into evil” (Sirach 11:31). When Jehovah’s Word came into the world everything got created and out of chaos came order, but that does not mean that disorder would have gone for ever. In the Plan of God everything should stay in good order, but man got the right to order things themselves as well. Jehovah God is a God of order. Normally man had to be the seal of full measure, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.  Man was placed in the beautiful Garden of Eden, the Garden of God.

To dwell in the awesome presence of a perfect and holy God, many would agree that those being there in the Garden of God had to be perfect. What went wrong is seen in the reaction of the woman ignoring God’s commandment. there was light that made an end to darkness, which was set up on the holy mountain of God.  This light is also called “Lucifer” in Scripture who also fitted the name, ‘Son of the Morning’ being perfect in its ways from the day that it was created, until unrighteousness was found in it.  (Ezekiel 28:2-19)

A "Son of Light" bad and good. Lucifer the evil one.
A “Son of Light” bad and good. Lucifer the evil one.

Man got its insides filled with badness, a violence against the Will of God, and this the Bible calls sin. We come to hear in the Scriptures that splendour and beauty did not last forever. It is told that Lucifer while ministering, began to consider his own position of prominence and became prideful, believing that he deserved more than what he already had. He wanted to become like the Most High. This is the main problem of what went wrong in the Garden of Eden. This is also still the problem of today. There were those who wanted to be like God in a bad sense of having the same power as God, wanting to be God. This became the reason to cast them out as ‘wrongoers’, ‘wrongdoers’ or sinners as profane ‘out of God’s mountain’.

Lucifer was also known by the Greeks as the Titan Prometheus, the son of Iapetus. (As a side-note compare this description of Phosphoros with Isaiah 14: 13-14: “For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most high”). {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 1)}

Man was stripped of his beauty, his position, and his rights to heaven. The lucifer got his light dimmed. Lucifer’s name, ‘son of the morning,’ was given to a far more deserving individual, the Son of God. He is the seed of the New Generation, the beginning of the New World. Jesus Christ is called the ‘Bright and Morning Star’ (Revelation 22:16).

Today, the one promised in the Garden of Eden, who was in the dark for a long time, has become the light of the world again and is now back close to God, seated at the right hand of the Most High Divine Creator. The 2° Adam is now dwelling in the presence of the Almighty. Christ’s words hold true, even ‘in the account of Satan’:

Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Matthew 23:12).

In what has happened in the Garden of Eden we have an example which we should seriously take at heart. We shall have to look deep in our heart and question ourselves which position we do want to take in. We should see and understand what the 1° Adam and Eve did wrong and how we can avoid falling in the same trap as they did. We should come to understand that recalcitrance and aversion to God will make us weaker and defenceless. The rebellious attitude will bring us only in the dark, like it did with Adam and Eve being brought in a grim world.

We should know that still today the adversary of God is willing to control the world, therefore it is also said that ‘Satan’s attempt’ to control this world system is nothing to take lightly.

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Preceding articles:

The very very beginning 2 The Word and words

Genesis – Story of creation 5 Genesis 3:1-12 Eating of the fruit-tree of knowledge

Genesis – Story of creation 6 Genesis 3:13-24 Enmity and curse

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Additional reading:

  1. Christendom Astray The Devil Not A Personal Super-Natural Being
  2. Satan or the devil
  3. Messenger of Satan
  4. Satan the evil within
  5. Lucifer
  6. Listening and Praying to the Father
  7. The Soul confronted with Death
  8. Fragments from the Book of Job #5: chapters 32-37
  9. Fragments from the Book of Job #6: chapters 38-42
  10. Epicurus’ Problem of Evil
  11. Heavenly creatures do they exist

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  • Vos on Creation (greenbaggins.wordpress.com)
    If the creation history is an allegory, then the narrative concerning the fall and everything further that follows can also be allegory. The writer of the Pentateuch presents his work entirely as history (Reformed Dogmatics, volume 1, p. 161).
  • Imagination: What does the Bible say? (endtimesprophecyreport.com)
    they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward
  • Did Plato influence the Book of Genesis? (lionoftheblogosphere.wordpress.com)
    the belief among Orthodox Jews is that the book of Genesis is very old, but as the web page points out, there are no outside historically dated references to the book of Genesis until the second century B.C., which is two hundred years after the founding of Plato’s Academy.
  • We Will Always Be Tempted (birdchirp.wordpress.com)
    The devil is as dangerous to us as he was to Adam and Eve. Peter refers to him as “a roaring lion…seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet.5:8). According to Jesus, he is the prince of this world (John 12:31). We must remember, however, that the devil rules as a usurper.
  • Servants of God (christopherjmoorewriter.wordpress.com)
    if we choose to put ourselves above God, then ultimately we will join Satan in the eternal fires of hell. It’s our choice. Jesus, in allowing himself to be crucified for our sins provides another way.All we have to do is repent of our pride, put Christ as the centre of our lives and be his servant – feed the hungry, visit the prisoners, comfort the sick and dying. These charitable acts provide us with the opportunities to be servants of God. And we don’t have to travel to distant lands to perform them, just look around you, the area where you live. There are plenty of God’s children who need and deserve your help.
  • Where Are You? (psychologytoday.com)
    God doesn’t rage or leave. God simply responds by asking the first question of the Torah: “Ayeka?”Translated literally, Ayeka means, “Where are you?” and upon first pass, that question seems silly for a Higher Power to be asking. First, why does it matter where they are hanging out? Second, shouldn’t God “know” anyway?
  • By Faith? (hiwaychristian.wordpress.com)
    Take note as to how all the creatures involved in creating what is creation, did not hear the reason until some distance into the building.  And even while salvation among men is in full swing, the angels still long to look into these things.  Unless the translation is wrong, I noticed that Peter did not use the past tense of the word “long”.Remaining obedient though  we have no clue, is not only essential now, it is a pattern of behavior for all God’s creatures for eternity.  And this ought to renew our devotion to serve without full understanding.  Frankly folks, that will be our state of affairs forever.
  • Psalm 80 (embodiedtorah.wordpress.com)
    The theology of this verse reminds me of the comment on the first verse of Genesis by the medieval French commentator Rashi, in which he explains that the purpose of beginning Torah with creation, rather than with the first mitzvah given to Israel in Exodus 12, is to remind us that the world belongs to God. In this Psalm, God is a gardener and the world is God’s garden.
  • The Fear of Man is a Trap (codybateman.org)
    Nearly everyone has heard of Abraham and his faith in God. What most do not realize is that he struggled with Fear. You see, Abraham had a drop-dead gorgeous wife and he knew it too. Because of her beauty, he feared that the wicked ruler of the land they were passing through, might kill him in order possess his wife.
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    Today, the whole world remains blessed by the faithfulness of God toward Abraham. How so? Because our Savior, Jesus Christ, eventually came from that same line of Abraham and his beautiful wife!

Coming to the creation of human beings in the image of God

When we look at the universe we can see that from chaos came order. But straight from the beginning we also get some idea of the Creator Himself. We come to know how He places everything one after an other making also clear differences between things, like darkness and light, which pleased Him. Order and regularity came part of our universe, having different moments, time dived by day and night.

Tetragrammaton YHWH Je-Ho-Vah, god's Name illuminating
Tetragrammaton YHWH Je-Ho-Vah, God’s Name illuminating

The myths humans created for themselves did not give any clear explanation of the reasons why and how. The eternal Creating Force, the Adonai Elohim Hashem Jehovah, on the other hand showed the world His love by giving it all possibilities, creating a place for each, plants with seeds for the earth (3° Phase), animals for in the waters and for in the heavens (5° Phase). After those animals in the waters God let them come on land to find their way over there and all sorts of wild animals came into being (6° Phase). When we look at the evolution presented by many scientists the Bible is not in contradiction with their findings.

Problem with man is that they expect everything to have been already like they see it today. They expect human beings to have been as well physically as psychologically formed like man today? They forget that it is their pride which makes them not accepting that they themselves had to develop and are still developing.

Question should not be how many minutes, hours, days were literally used, but how and why God did it a certain way. We should come to accept that the Divine Creator did it His Way, with a preconceived plan. God created everything according to His Wish and out of love. The saying that God saw what he had made and found it nice, finding it good, indicates that God considered it sufficient and according to His Wishes.

In the 6th phase of creation, having wriggling organs and crawling bodies God also wanted a reflection or mirror image of Himself. Several Christians do want us to believe that God created after the animals an imperfect being unable to follow God His commandments, but when we look at the words of God, I do not think so. Because after God had created man in His image He, like in the previous phases was pleased with what He had created and said it was good.

Like God was pleased with His work we should also be pleased with our work when we try to do our best and when we want to live according to the Will of God. Having God, every time He established something, looking at it and being satisfied, it tells us that God has a feeling and can be pleased with what happens.

God being satisfied and closing each day with pleasures shows us that God found it was perfect, so the elements where like God wanted them to be. Many times it is said that the Elohim saw that it was excellent. If things would not have been like God wanted it this would not have been written down.

Elohim employed two intense lights, the larger sunlight to rule the day, and the lesser moonlight to rule the night; the stars He made too in the cosmos of heaven to shine light upon the earth. (Genesis 1:18)
Elohim blessed great serpents, and every living creature that creeps and moves, which the waters teemed forth abundantly, after their species, and every winged flying creature after its species; and Elohim inspected and it was valuable in estimation. (Genesis 1:21) To those things God said to branch off and multiply, filling waters of the seas, space in the heavens, space on earth. Clearly in God His Plan creatures had to increase. He wanted a universe full of living creatures. (Genesis 1:22,24)

In the 1st book of Moses, the Bereshith we find a picture of the total beginning, the beginning of the universe. At the end of it an opening is made to the next chapter where is been given a resume of the last creation by the birth of the cosmos and the earth when they were accomplished, in the day when Jehovah Elohim fashioned the earth and cosmos, and every organism of the field before it existed in the soil, and every green plant of the field before it sprouted: for Jehovah Elohim had not sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to work the soil. Then there ascended a cloudiness from the earth, and watered the whole surface of the land. As in the first chapter again we hear that it is God’s Voice demanding the earth to bring forth the living creature after their species, animals, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth after their species; and it was firmly done. (Genesis 2:4-6; 1:24-25)  And Elohim made the creatures of the earth after their species, and beasts after their species, and every thing that creeps upon the earth after their species; and Elohim inspected and it was valuable in estimation.

It is interesting to note that only after all those creeping things the  Elohim spoke to fashion a being in His image, and after His likeness. Again we hear the created element had to be in the likeness of God. You may wonder if God would make something which would dissatisfy Him? though there are may Trinitarian Christians who want us to believe the man God created was so imperfect it is impossible for him to follow the Will of God. If that would be so, would God have created him and be satisfied? I do not think so.

Creatures in the created surroundings, nature given to plants, animals and man.
Creatures in the created surroundings, nature given to plants, animals and man.

Like with the previous creatures the living creature made in God’s image had enough elements similar to the Godly qualities that God looked at these creatures and also was pleased and asked them to multiply too. He even was so pleased with them and placed them in His plan of creation that He gave them dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the flying creatures of the sky, and over the beasts, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. (Genesis 1:27)

So Elohim created man in His own image, in the image of Elohim was mankind created; male and female fashioned He them.  And Elohim blessed them, and Elohim spoke to them, asking them to be fruitful and become many, and fill the earth and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the flying creatures of the sky, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth. (Genesis 1:28-29)

Throughout history man shall have to remember that the Adonai has given His Word to make the things coming into being but also giving it the ability to have every green plant bearing seed, which is upon the surface of all the earth, and every tree, containing the produce of the tree bearing seed, to the living creeping or flying  creatures it being for food. (Genesis 1:30-31)  It was done and the Elohim inspected every thing that He had accomplished, and behold, it was valuable in estimation. And the sunset and the sunrise were the sixth phase of His creation.

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Preceding articles:

  1. Genesis 1:26 God said “Let us make”
  2. The very very beginning 1 Creating Gods
  3. Scripture about Creation and Creator Deity
  4. The very very beginning 2 The Word and words
  5. Something from nothing
  6. Means of creations
  7. Genesis – Story of creation 1 Genesis 1:1-25 Creation of things
  8. Genesis – Story of creation 2 Genesis 1:26-31 Creation of man

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Additional reading:

  1. Reading of contrasts
  2. The True God, Divine Creator or God of gods
  3. Are Science and the Bible Compatible?
  4. Creator and Blogger God 1 Emptiness and movement
  5. Creator and Blogger God 10 A Blog of a Book 4 Listening to the Blogger
  6. Cosmos creator and human destiny
  7. Incomplete without the mind of God
  8. A dialogue about the earth moving and spinning around the sun
  9. Is it “Wrong” to Believe that the Earth is a Sphere? Inclusive the first generation of Christadelphians their views
  10. Gods hope and our hope
  11. Tu B’Shvat, the holiday of the trees
  12. A “seed” for the blessing of all mankind would come through the family of Abraham
  13. Dependence
  14. Marriage of Jesus 9 Reason for a new marriage

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  • Let everything that hath breath…praise YHWH (doyouseethelight.wordpress.com)
    It was a challenge to blast my shofar while I was shivering. I was having fun praising YHWH!
  • Be Strong, Be Bold (hrhome.wordpress.com)
    Read what Elohim said directly to Joshua after Moses died.
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    Did you catch the fact that Elohim commanded him to be strong and bold? It wasn’t simply a suggestion, it was an order. Let’s strive to follow in those footsteps, keep our eyes on YHWH, be careful to obey His Word, and live in His strength.
  • 11. Babylonian Talmud of the Pharisee & the Zohar (12160.info)
    For the rabbis oral Torah was an integral part of the Torah given to Moses on Sinai, but it was passed on orally through the generations.”[7]  The stress upon the Oral Torah by the Pharisees is what caused the Pharisees to confront Jesus about His disciples breaking the “tradition of the elders.”
  • Reasons of Misotheist and Atheist (new.exchristian.net)
    Greek mythology is different, for natural disasters are made by them
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    Islam teaches that everything is God’s will; therefore Allah wills it not to intervene…always.
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    Scientists observations suggests that stability on universe is an illusion

    a1. Eternal chaos of the cosmos only shows us that by time and chance, life on earth or on other planets (only a theory) will eventually die

    a2. Some creationist scientists’ argument about perfectly tuned universe for the sake of life is invalid for by time and chance life on earth flourished but also by time and chance it will die.

    b. Allowing war, chaos, and evil

    a1. Maybe God/gods is/are sick psychopaths who loves to watch action movies on real life

  • Hannah’s Hope (codybateman.org)
    The story of Hannah could easily become our story. As Hannah was quietly crying out to God in her distress, another person (Eli), who was watching from a distance, wrongly judged her as being a drunkard. He misjudged both her character and her situation horribly.
  • Thursday, 5 March 2015 : 2nd Week of Lent (First Reading) (petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang.com)
    This is what YHVH says, “Cursed is the man who trusts in human beings and depends on a mortal for his life, while his heart is drawn away from YHVH! He is like a bunch of thistles in dry land, in parched desert places, in a salt land where no one lives and who never finds happiness.”
  • Desert Island Texts: The Shema (jewishnews.co.uk)
    The first word with its complexity of meaning between ‘hear’, ‘listen’ and ‘understand’ already provides a deepening into the centrality of my being, helps me to become myself, to nourish my soul – the soul of ‘Israel’, that is, the angelic side of Jacob, the heel, the trickster and I am both. Can I be a Jew on a desert island, without community, without others? The word ‘Israel’ will give me much to ponder, of my history and the history of my people. I shall wonder what might be happening in the world outside, to Israel the state, and in Europe.
  • Dog Poop And Leash Signs (dogpoopsigns.com)
    In New York City, for example, estimates show that there are about 2 million dogs. With just over 8 million human inhabitants, this would mean that roughly 25% are dog owners (assuming of course that no one owns more than one dog). Consider, then, that according to Citizens Committee for NYC, these dogs produce around 275,000 tons of feces per year. That’s 275 pounds per dog. Consequently, NYC streets are like a minefield littered with dog poop. Many a careless pedestrian will notice a funky smell emanating from their feet and only realize they’ve stepped in poop once they tread across the living room carpet. After receiving many complaints, NYC officials took action and passed a statute in 1978 called the Canine Waste Law, threatening a fine for up to $250 for each violation. The code also prohibits dog owners from allowing their pets to poop “on a sidewalk of any public place, on a floor, wall, stairway or roof of any public or private premises used by the public, or on a fence, wall or stairway of a building abutting a public place.” Violators failing to scoop their dog’s poop can be ticketed by authorized employees of NYC’s Departments of Health, Sanitation, or Parks and Recreation.

Means of creations

In the different cultures habiting this planet we can find many symbolic narratives of how everything came into being. Lots of stories were created to give people an idea how the world might have began and how people first came to inhabit it.

Mythology is an important feature of every culture. Various origins for myths have been proposed, ranging from personification of nature, personification of natural phenomena to truthful or hyperbolic accounts of historical events, to explanations of existing ritual.

Creation on the exterior shutters of Hieronymus Bosch’s triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights (1480–90)

Concerning the myths telling about the beginning of the universe we have to notice that in most of them there is no mention of a ‘oer god’ or ‘primal god’. The primitive gods in the myths all seem to come from something, be it an egg or other element of nature. The rudimentary elements all seem to be ignited by some force or by a reaction to an action.

In most of the creation stories we can find the same element over and over again: first having disorder or chaos and than coming bit by bit more order and structure in things. Most of them seem to agree on the ‘dim’ past or the ‘darkness‘ and ‘chaos‘ there must have been. Only in moderner versions we notice the trend to come to a a static universe with a finite space but all seem to look at it as an unbounded (analogous to the surface of a sphere, which has a finite area but no edges). This spheric idea might perhaps brought the dust-ball, fireball or egg in some stories. people also have been intrigued with darkness and light, intrinsic luminosity or the brightness of an object or surroundings caught the eye and attention. For this reason also in many stories we can find several figures to be spoken of as being a light in this world. Also in Christianity we find such a referral to Jesus for example, him being the light in this world and him being a new creation. (About that light and New Creation later more.)

We always should remember that it are ‘Creation myths‘, stories trying to explain things we human beings can not understand yet? It does not mean that there would not come a time that we shall see more clearly in to the matter. Science develops and more and more people come to see further in history and start finding more out about creation, telling us how things began. We always should keep in mind that those stories about creation are told in metaphorical terms to explain our sense of who we are in the context of the world, and in so doing they reveal our real priorities, as well as our real prejudices. Our images of creation say a great deal about who we are.

Modern science has propounded many theories as to how the primieval gaseous substance evolved into the present harmony of the universe. These theories may be called scientific cosmogonies; and the account of the origin of the world given in Genesis, i and ii, is styled Mosaic cosmogony. {Cosmogony}

Scientists investigate cosmology with the tools of empiricism and rationality, but creation myths define human reality in very different terms. They were also written in pre-scientific times where the oral story to get most of the people a good idea was more important than the accuracy. Moses in the same way did not want to give a detailed explanation how everything exactly came into being. In a certain way is that not so much of importance for humankind or for how we cope with life. The Book of books is there to give mankind a guide, a manual for life, not a scientific study book.

While creation myths are not literal explications they do serve to define an orientation of humanity in the world in terms of a birth story. They are the basis of a worldview that reaffirms and guides how people relate to the natural world, to any assumed spiritual world, and to each other. The creation myth acts as a cornerstone for distinguishing primary reality from relative reality, the origin and nature of being from non-being. {Sproul, Barbara C. (1979). Primal Myths. HarperOne HarperCollinsPublishers. ISBN 978-0-06-067501-1, p. 6}

The Old Testament story brings us the founding-stone and in the New Testament the evangelist John tries to build further on it and continues in the lines of the First Creation, looking at a New Creation, in both instances having a voice out of darkness bringing light. Moses and John focus on that Voice, uttering words, and by bringing out the Word having the things or persons coming into existence. As such we hear that God spoke and it came into being. There was darkness and God spoke in the darkness and there was light. The Word of God sounded and heavens and earth came into being. In the same way God Spoke and the first living creatures came squirming through waters and earth. Wriggling elements started filling the world, in the air (heavens), on the ground and in the waters.

Science can only give a fairly dry description of the physical processes underlying creation. Science never has any intention to go looking behind the core element of what they can see. They are not primarily interested in looking for a godhead behind everything. They probably shall also not be able to come to the finest details of creation and to reveal God’s role.

Aker, an ancient Egyptian personification of t...
Aker, an ancient Egyptian personification of the horizon. Two lions symbolize ‘yesterday’ and ‘tomorrow’ with the sun-disk rising between the symbolic horizon between them. The hieroglyph for ‘sky’ spans across the top. Based on New Kingdom tomb paintings and the book of the dead. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Jesus also tried people to understand that God His Ways are not catchable for our limited human brain. He also wanted us to reassure us we should not worry too much about certain matters. It is good to investigate things. But by doing our research we may never forget the most important matter in life. Jesus also wanted to sooth his followers reassuring them we can trust The One Who is behind everything, and that He has provided for everything to be able to live and to be part of this creation and shall be fitting in the Plan of God.

Mat 6:24-34 NHEBJE  “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Mammon.  (25)  Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious for your life: what you will eat, or what you will drink; nor yet for your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?  (26)  See the birds of the sky, that they do not sow, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns. Your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of much more value than they?  (27)  “And which of you, by being anxious, can add one moment to his lifespan?  (28)  And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They do not toil, neither do they spin,  (29)  yet I tell you that even Solomon in all his glory was not dressed like one of these.  (30)  But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today exists, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, won’t he much more clothe you, you of little faith?  (31)  “Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What will we eat?’, ‘What will we drink?’ or, ‘With what will we be clothed?’  (32)  For the Gentiles seek after all these things, for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.  (33)  But seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.  (34)  Therefore do not be anxious for tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Too many Christians are loosing site of the essence of the Word of God, by going to deep into details, wanting to explain those things which are not essential for faith. We do not need to know exactly what came first and how and how it really looked like and what it had to eat or how it ate. It is sufficient to know Who was behind everything and how He let it evolve to come to the situations where it is today and how it shall still evolve in the coming years or centuries. We may not forget that after the prophesied Word War III or Armageddon there shall still be another thousand years, where we shall probably have to face a further evolution.

In the old times it was enough to tell in an easy way how things are. As such we get in Psalm 139 a description by the Psalmist’s own creation in his mother’s womb. A great deal is known about how babies form, and it is clearly through natural processes — but at the same time, Psalm 139:13 describes that God wove the embryo himself. But the Bible doesn’t tell us how God creates things, and Psalm 139:6 suggests that we couldn’t understand even if he told us.

Psa 139:13-16 NHEBJE  For you formed my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother’s womb.  (14)  I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. My soul knows that very well.  (15)  My frame wasn’t hidden from you, when I was made in secret, woven together in the depths of the earth.  (16)  Your eyes saw my body. In your book they were all written, the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there were none of them.

God was and is everywhere. No human being, no animal nor plant can hide from Him. God is an all-knowing God without any limitations. We shall have to face our own limitations which are different for each of us.

Psa 139:2-12 NHEBJE  You know my sitting down and my rising up. You perceive my thoughts from afar.  (3)  You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.  (4)  For there is not a word on my tongue, but, behold, Jehovah, you know it altogether.  (5)  You hem me in behind and before. You laid your hand on me.  (6)  This knowledge is beyond me. It’s lofty. I can’t attain it.  (7)  Where could I go from your Spirit? Or where could I flee from your presence?  (8)  If I ascend up into heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, you are there!  (9)  If I take the wings of the dawn, and settle in the uttermost parts of the sea;  (10)  Even there your hand will lead me, and your right hand will hold me.  (11)  If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me; the light around me will be night;”  (12)  even the darkness doesn’t hide from you, but the night shines as the day. The darkness is like light to you.

We might even be limited to come to understand the deepest thoughts of the Creator, but being created in His image, The Creator wants us to get to know Him and has given us His Word, the Bible to tell us that He is The Creator God, the Elohim Hashem Jehovah Who is One and Who created all things (e.g. Isaiah 45:12, Hebrews 11:3), and why He created them.

Isa 45:11-13 NHEBJE  Thus says Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker: “You ask me about the things that are to come, concerning my sons, and you command me concerning the work of my hands!  (12)  I have made the earth, and created man on it. I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens; and I have commanded all their army.  (13)  I have raised him up in righteousness, and I will make straight all his ways. He shall build my city, and he shall let my exiles go free, not for price nor reward,” says Jehovah of hosts.

God His word is there for us to receive enough information to continue. While many people would like to know more, that limited information in the Book of books is what God chose to tell us.

Having God’s Word we should be able to find the most essential things for life and should we able to find reasons enough to trust this Divine Creator. With those Words we should have enough building-stones to create our fortress of trust in God. those Words should take us and nit us a life of faith, worthy of the Divine Creator.

Heb 11:1-3 NHEBJE  Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, proof of things not seen.  (2)  For by this, the elders obtained testimony.  (3)  By faith, we understand that the universe has been framed by the word of God, so that what is seen has not been made out of things which are visible.

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Preceding articles:

  1. Background to look at things
  2. The very very beginning 1 Creating Gods
  3. The very very beginning 2 The Word and words
  4. Scripture about Creation and Creator Deity
  5. How Many Persons Created the Heavens and the Earth?
  6. God, the Father, the Sole Creator of Heaven and Earth
  7. From waste and void coming into being by God’s Word
  8.  Something from nothing

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Additional reading:

  1. God’s forgotten Word 3 Lost Lawbook 2 Modern scepticism
  2. Creation Creator and Creation
  3. Other stories about the beginning of times
  4. Creator and Blogger God 1 Emptiness and mouvement
  5. Serve him without fear
  6. Written to recognise the Promised One
  7. Searching, light, fear and deliverance
  8. You Need Light for Your Path
  9. Increased in wisdom in favour with God
  10. Is it “Wrong” to Believe that the Earth is a Sphere? Inclusive the first generation of Christadelphians their views
  11. Bible containing scientific information
  12. The mythical conflict of science and Scripture (1)
  13. The mythical conflict of science and Scripture (2)
  14. Science and the Bible—Do They Really Contradict Each Other?

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  • Mythicism Making Christianity More Meaningful (vridar.org)
    He sounds a lot like Thomas Brodie who as a continuing practicing Roman Catholic finds the truth of the Christ Myth adds a new dimension of meaning to his faith. So will those people who imagine that “mythicism” is a plot by angry atheists to destroy Christianity please come to their senses! Some of us really are more interested in exploring the evidence for the sake of understanding. (See also an earlier post of mine: Is the Christ Myth a Threat to the Christian Faith?)
  • Living by the myths (renewamerica.com)
    When one thinks of myths, the mind typically races to those classical tales of the ancient Greek and Roman gods. In the Roman Pantheon were stories of the way the universe, the world, the gods and mankind came into existence. The story of Deucalion and Pyrrha is the Greek myth that supplants the biblical story of Noah and the Flood. Many scholars believe the reference in Genesis chapter 6 to the fame of “mighty men, men of renown,” and their many exploits may be the roots of much classical mythology.Often myths of old were an alteration of what God had actually revealed concerning himself. Distortion, perversion, and counterfeit are the ways of the deceiver, Satan.

    However, myths are not exclusive to antiquity. Every culture has them and they are the means by which people seek to explain the world in which they live.

  • Accepting Scientific Explanations (venitism.blogspot.com)
    If Adam did not literally exist, then he did not literally commit the first sin, thus there’s no need for Christ to die on the cross and the whole Bible collapses.This argument, which is indeed short-sighted, may well be the reason why hardline Christians cling so hard to Creationism in the first place and why the science-denial involved in it has become one of their two big emphases at present.
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    The funny thing is that Christianity as a whole neither rises nor falls on a literal reading of Genesis–only fundamentalism/evangelicalism does. Their leaders have chosen to pin their entire religion on something this comically erroneous. The fight is not between atheists and Christians, or even between science and religion, but rather between those who understand and accept scientific explanations for our universe and those who deny and/or misunderstand those explanations. And there are Christians in both of those camps. Christianity itself isn’t the enemy; zealotry is. Indeed, we must not fall into the trap of thinking that Creationism is any sort of monolithic belief; even when surveys ask Christians what they think about the subject of evolution and the universe’s origins, a lot depends on precisely how the questions get asked. When asked questions in a way that doesn’t threaten Christians’ compartmentalizations of religion and science, they tend to fall along more sensible lines.
  • House of Cards and the ‘Old Testament’ God (stream.org)
    Frank Underwood, after asking for a moment to himself to contemplate the priest’s message, looks defiantly up at the statue of Jesus and says that he rejects Christ’s offer because he sees it as weak and silly. Frank prefers the power-first-and-last “Old Testament God,” but only because he has molded Yahweh into his own perverted image. Like so many of us on a daily basis, Frank has created one straw-man version of God to like and one to hate, based entirely on his own craving for power and control.
  • Inhabiting Eden: Christians, Scripture, and the Ecological Crisis – Public Lecture to Discuss Faith-Based Environmentalism (prweb.com)
    While ancient people, including the community that produced Scripture, understood their deep connection with and dependence on the natural world, recent generations have lost much of this wisdom. The environmental choices humans make do affect the future. She will explore paths to a renewed awareness of humans’ place on earth.
  • A Unification of Creation and Evolution (robertjrgraham.com)
    When people say that “god created the heavans and the earth in six days and on the seventh he rested”, who can say how long one of god’s days is. Why are we so egotistical as to believe that his day is the same as our’s. We don’t know god (Most of us who believe in god do so because we want to not because we have proof.) but if there is a god why can’t his, her or it’s day be a thousand or a million or even several billion of our years.Chapter 2, verse 7 of the book of Genises states “then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” It does not state how long this took or what form the being we call man originally took. God’s image can be many things. We have no way of knowing. Additionally, although the bible is supposed to be the word of god, it was written by humans and therefore subject to human interpretation.

    When we create something we start out with one thing and then add to it and alter it untill we finish and with some creations, such as a garden, we never finish adding to and altering it. Who says that god could not have started with one cell and through evolution added to it and altered it untill it became a human being. Who can say for sure that he, she or it is still not adding to and altering mankind. Who can say that god did not make us in such a way that we would continue to evolve without his, her or it’s intervention. Who can say that the process is finished.

  • Who Were The Real ‘Gods Of Eden’? (earthweareone.com)
    The Sumerian scribes and their Akkadian successors inscribed clay tablets with a wealth of information about the gods. One such text, commonly known by the name of its hero, Atra-Hasis, describes the background to the creation of man, when the gods themselves were involved in the painstaking extraction of minerals from Earth:

    “When the gods, as men, bore the work and suffered the toil – the toil of the gods was great, the work was heavy, the distress was much.”

    Conditions were so severe that, after 40 periods of hardship, the gods rebelled against their leader Enlil. A council of the gods was then called, at which the god Ea (alias Enki) provided the solution:

    “While the Birth Goddess is present, let her create a Primitive Worker, let him bear the yoke, let him carry the toil of the gods!”

    The ensuing passages of the Atra-Hasis describe what appears to a modern-day reader as a cloning process, in which the goddess Nin-ti (‘Lady Life’) made fourteen pieces of ‘clay’ and impregnated fourteen ‘birth goddesses’.

  • anthropomorphic God or theomorphic humans (larrysmusings.com)
    In the Vedic philosophy/religion of India, the atman, or spiritual monad (soul), is qualitatively like God’s spirit.  It is eternal and imperishable.  The atman can exist in the spiritual universe or in the material universe (as in this world).  Quantitatively, the atman is infinitesimal when compared to God’s infinite Spirit, His infinite mystic power.So, too, we humans have bodies in the form of God’s.  Per the Vedic teachings, we are, in our human bodies with one head, two arms, and two legs, in the form that God has.  In Hindu religious art (both in paintings and in sculpture), Lord Krishna is sometimes depicted with 2 arms, and at other times is depicted with four arms – but always with one head, and two legs. Perhaps, this form is the most advantageous for consciousness to have experiences.

    So we see that it is not just in Christianity that we are told that humans were created in the image and likeness of God.  And, “in the image and likeness” encompasses both our spiritual component and our physical body.

  • The Old Testament: For and Against – A debate between Christopher Jon Bjerknes and Lasha Darkmoon (Part 1) (darkmoon.me)
    Christopher John Bjerknes launches an all-out attack on the Old Testament and tell you why he thinks this is an evil and dangerous book. Bjerknes can be described as an unabashed and indeed virulent anti-Semite.  He takes the line that the Jews themselves are an evil race, without any redeeming features, and that the Old Testament is one of the earliest manifestations of that intrinsic evil.
  • A Universe Not Made For Us – Carl Sagan on Religion [9:14] (ethicsvideolibrary.wordpress.com)
    Carl Sagan begins with a discussion of the variety of creation stories and how most heavens and hells are simple extrapolations of our own politics.  Instead, science is slowly discovering more about the world we live in.  And it turns out, the universe is more different than anything we could have imagined and, ultimately, does not care about us or in fact could care.

The very very beginning 2 The Word and words

In the previous chapter The very very beginning 1 Creating Gods, I pointed to a first big mistake many people make. Lots of people do think there were more people involved in the creation of the universe. Lots of people make the wrong assumption by taking nouns for names and making objects in persons, as such making words being people, like they also make wisdom a person. For titles they also use them as names and make for something what can used for any body, like the adversary or satan, one specific person with such a name, as Satan.

One Creator

The first chapter of B'reshit, or Genesis, wri...
The first chapter of B’reshit, or Genesis, written on an egg, in the Jerusalem museum (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In the Bereshith, the book of the Beginnings or Genesis 1:1  is written that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Gen 1:1 בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית H7225 be·re·Shit In the beginning  בָּרָ֣א H1254 ba·Ra created  אֱלֹהִ֑ים H430 E·lo·Him; God  אֵ֥ת

This Most High Elohim the Adonai, had a name and is the Only One True God, Former or Maker of heavens and earth. In many bible translations, mainly published after 1960, the ‘a’ and ‘the’ and capitals left away or interchanged, plus omitting the Name of God and replacing Adonai or Elohim with lord instead of Lord made it very difficult for readers to see the difference between the different Biblical characters spoken of, the Lord God Most High, the Lord of Lord of lords, the lord Jesus or any lord. Because of this many could not any more see clear between The God of gods and a god.

Isa 45:18 כִּ֣י H3588 ki For  כֹ֣ה H3541 choh thus  אָֽמַר־ H559 ‘a·mar- For thus saith  יְ֠הוָה H3068 Yah·weh the LORD

 

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1 ASV)

“For thus saith Jehovah that created the heavens, the God that formed the earth and made it, that established it and created it not {1} a waste, that formed it to be inhabited: I am Jehovah; and there is none else. {1) Or [in vain]}” (Isaiah 45:18 ASV)

“Before the mountains were brought forth, Or ever thou {1} hadst formed the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. {1) Heb [gavest birth to]}” (Psalms 90:2 ASV)

It does not say “gods” created, but speaks of a Singular Person. About That Figure we are also told He or It is not a man but a Spirit.

“{1} God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship in spirit and truth. {1) Or [God is spirit]}” (John 4:24 ASV)

The followers of Christ Jesus, Jeshua the Messiah, had like he had, only One God, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, Who is the heavenly Father of Jesus and us and is Only One. This One from the beginning later has given a new Adam by whom the world could start anew and all things could be as remade or reborn again.

“yet to us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we unto him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him.” (1 Corinthians 8:6 ASV)

“Hear, O Israel: {1} Jehovah our God is one Jehovah: {1) Or [Jehovah our God, Jehovah is one]; Or [Jehovah is our God, Jehovah is one]; Or [Jehovah is our God, Jehovah alone]}” (Deuteronomy 6:4 ASV)

“That they may know that {1} thou alone, whose name is Jehovah, Art the Most High over all the earth. {1) Or [thou, whose name alone is Jehovah, art etc]}” (Psalms 83:18 ASV)

Created by speaking

The storyteller of the beginnings let us know that it was in a world of chaos were the earth was without order, and empty; and darkness  upon the face of the deep, that the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. There it was at the early beginnings of everything that God let His Mind go over things and used His Spirit to let it come to Power saying something. He uttered words and spoke, demanding that there would be something and it came to being. And every time He had spoken and had come into existence He looked at it, saw that it was good, and than went over to create the next thing. Only because the Maker allows something to be it can come into existence even gods come into being because God allows them to exist.

H853 ‘et  הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם H8064 hash·sha·Ma·yim the heaven  וְאֵ֥ת H853 ve·’Et  הָאָֽרֶץ׃ H776 ha·’A·retz. the earth
Gen 1:2 וְהָאָ֗רֶץ H776 ve·ha·’A·retz, And the earth  הָיְתָ֥ה H1961 ha·ye·Tah was  תֹ֙הוּ֙ H8414 to·hu without form  וָבֹ֔הוּ

“And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep: and the Spirit of God {1} moved upon the face of the waters. {1) Or [was brooding upon]}” (Genesis 1:2 ASV)

H922 va·Vo·hu, and void  וְחֹ֖שֶׁךְ H2822 ve·Cho·shech and darkness  עַל־ H5921 ‘al- upon  פְּנֵ֣י H6440 pe·Nei [was] upon the face  תְה֑וֹם H8415 te·Hom; of the deep  וְר֣וּחַ H7307 ve·Ru·ach And the Spirit  אֱלֹהִ֔ים H430 E·lo·Him, of God  מְרַחֶ֖פֶת H7363 me·ra·Che·fet moved  עַל־ H5921 ‘al- over  פְּנֵ֥י H6440 pe·Nei the face  הַמָּֽיִם׃ H4325 ham·Ma·yim. of the waters
Gen 1:3 וַיֹּ֥אמֶר H559 vai·Yo·mer said  אֱלֹהִ֖ים H430 E·lo·Him And God  יְהִ֣י H1961 ye·Hi Let there be  א֑וֹר H216 or;

“And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.” (Genesis 1:3 ASV)

Jehovah God asked it to be there and it became there.

Gen 1:6 וַיֹּ֣אמֶר H559 vai·Yo·mer said  אֱלֹהִ֔ים H430 E·lo·Him, And God  יְהִ֥י H1961 ye·Hi Let there be  רָקִ֖יעַ

“And God said, Let there be a {1} firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. {1) Heb [expanse]}” (Genesis 1:6 ASV)

In this way God spoke and everything came into being, but once it had started, having a beginning it received a cause. God being the Ultimate Power knows everything and brought to a cause the need to be sufficient, or adequate.

Today’s atheists, who like to use words like ‘rational’, ‘reasonable’ and ‘scientific’ in describing their beliefs, believe that the greatest beginning of all — that of the universe — had no cause whatsoever! Some admit it is a problem, but they claim that saying ‘God did it’ explains nothing because you then have to explain where God came from.

This is what brings the only dogma people should have. This brings up the only thing which demands a belief without a proof and without being able to see it. All the rest in the world and what we do believe can be proven and is available to our minds to be justified and unruffled. But to proof that there is that God Creator is almost impossible, though we being created in His image have elements of Him in us and have the feeling of His Power in us and can see it around us, in nature in things that happen. When looking around us we can see the complexity of our planet and how things are made up, which points to a deliberate Designer who not only created our universe, but sustains it still today.

Scientists are convinced that our universe began with one enormous explosion of energy and light, which we now call the Big Bang. This singular start to everything that exists which scientist are wanting to explain already for ages and of which their findings not ever were in contradiction to the Bible we can find it explained simply so that everybody could understand the beginning of the universe, the start of space, and even the initial start of time itself. The Bible had never the intention to be a thorough book of scientific explanation. It is meant to be a handbook for everybody. The Holy Scriptures want to present an easy to follow and easy to understand manual.

The Word given

The Word of God brought everything into being: heaven and earth, mountains and rivers, and every living thing. In the beginning, God called into existence by speaking, which is an uttering of sounds which forms words.

A big mistake of many Christians is that they consider those words to be different persons. they look at it as being a god person and another god person. They are mislead by misinterpreting the way the evangelist John looks at the creation of the world all together and looks at a new world he has seen come to into existence.

The apostle John, perhaps being the favourite young disciple of Jeshua (Jesus Christ), saw in Jesus the beginning of a New Creation in which Jesus is the 2° Adam, also created by the Word of God according to the Word God had given at the beginning of time. Namely, it was in the beginning God had spoken, had created the 1° Adam after He had made light (day 1), skies or heaven (day 2), put the earth into good shape having at His command the waters of the earth gathering together at certain places, forming seas and oceans, lakes and rivers, so that in other parts, the dry land became visible (day 3), after God’s further command, earth was made to produce all kinds of plants, grass, and trees, shrubs and flowers, each contained its own seed for further growth and reproduction, came the 4th day on which the sun, moon, and stars were created to shed light upon the earth.

By God His speaking there was set a time for day and a time for night, a time for the week, the month, and the year, and a time for each of the four seasons and soon after an other time was set to restore what that 1° Adam had ruined.

After God by His speaking had called for the seas to get filled with fishes and other water animals and to have in to the air above the earth flying animals on the 5° day he continued on the 6° day to created all the other animals, large and small, those that walk and those that creep or crawl on the earth. And towards the end of the sixth day, God putting His breath into a body which He made of earth and clay made a living soul. This was the human. This first man created being called Adam, which means first man of red blood. It was a man of flesh and blood made in the image of God.

Given to recognise

To this human being God granted high mental ability that one could think and reach one’s own conclusions. Jehovah God also gave the human the power of speech,giving them the possibility to create words, and He made humans superior to all other creatures of the earth which he could give names for himself and use them for himself.

This created being could be aware of that omnipresent Creator Deity and we too should by His works be able to come to recognise Who God is.

“For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, [even] his everlasting power and divinity; {1} that they may be without excuse: {1) Or [so that they are]}” (Romans 1:20 ASV)

Nobody has an excuse not able to come to see or understand creation and the Hand behind it, because everything around us declares the Hand and Work of God.

“1 «For the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David.» The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament showeth his handiwork. 2 Day unto day uttereth speech, And night unto night showeth knowledge. 3 There is no speech nor language; Their voice is not heard. 4 Their line is gone out through all the earth, And their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a {1} tabernacle for the sun, {1) Heb [tent]}” (Psalms 19:1-4 ASV)

“Lift up your eyes on high, {1} and see who hath created these, that bringeth out their host by number; he calleth them all by name; by the greatness of his might, and for that he is strong in power, not one is lacking. {1) Or [and see: who hath created these? he that etc]}” (Isaiah 40:26 ASV)

All people, creatures of the Most High Maker, should have the feeling deep in them. They all, having some elements of Him, should have some feeling that there is that Maker, God Who doesn’t come and go. God lasts. He’s Creator of all you can see or imagine. He doesn’t get tired out, doesn’t pause to catch his breath. And he knows everything, inside and out. (Isaiah 40:28)

Though by time lots of people still did not come to know their God, Jesus having given His Word to reunite man with His good creation, made His Word, His Speaking or His Word of Promise, to become reality, having it come onto this world, being born some two thousand years ago. The child born out of the tribe of king David was that long ago, in the Garden of Eden promised Messiah. (see The very very beginning 3 Messiah’s total point of origination)

The Word, God and a god

“In [the] beginning the Word was, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god.” (NWT)

“The Word was in the beginning, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a God.” (The New Testament in An Improved Version)

Or literally there is written in the book of books, the bible, which we consider the infallible Word of God:

Yah Chanan (#Jo 1:1-3): In the beginning the Word having been and the Word having been unto God and God having been the Word he having been, in the beginning, unto God all through his hand became: and without him not even one being whatever became.

Traditionally or total at the origin of all things, there was the Word, the expression of the Most High Elohim Hashem Jehovah. By that coming out of breath from His ‘Mouth’ all the creatures of the earth and the powers of nature where created and placed in the control of the other creature, called human.

Having the saying “the Word was a god” makes many Christians wanting to see that such word was not only just ‘a’ ‘god’ but ‘the God’. They transfer the title of any higher person, like Apollo, Zeus, Erebus, Gaea, Tartarus, Pharaoh, Moses, even angels, are called gods, to making Jesus from a god into the God.

People seem to forget that in the beginning the Word already existed, because the Elohim Maker of everything was already in existing. The Divine Maker is the Supreme Being without a beginning, meaning never born nor created. He had no mother, though several Christians want Him to have a mother like the many gods have their Mother Earth Gaea.

The Word was with God because it is something which comes into existing by using the Mind, and God used His Power, the Holy Spirit, to bring forth His thinking and His speaking. It was God’s Voice that sounded over all chaos and made order, because God is a God of order and not a god of disorder and not a god of confusion.

God His Voice bringing forth Words, had each Word of very high value and as such was His Word highly placed and as such being ‘a god’. But the evangelist John is not only talking of the beginning of the world in general. He sees the Old World and a New World. For him Jesus is the beginning of the New World, the New Creation. And Jesus is also brought forward by the speaking of God already at the beginning of the world, though he only came into being so many thousands of years later. That Nazarene man John and some others had followed as good disciples, he considered the 2° Adam and the long awaited promised Messiah.

As Jesus was the core-figure of the movement ‘The Way‘, a Jewish sect some two thousand years ago, John, Stephen and many others saw in him also a very special rabbi and prophet, a sent one from God, who might, by many, also be considered a god, like there where many gods honoured in John’s time and still now. Though we may not forget that a god is not at all the same as The God, the Creator of heaven and earth, Who was worshipped by Jesus Christ as the Only One God Who was greater than him (Jesus) and any other human being. Jesus was the son of God and not a god son.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1 ASV)

“but when the fulness of the time came, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law,” (Galatians 4:4 ASV)

“Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father doing: for what things soever he doeth, these the Son also doeth in like manner.” (John 5:19 ASV)

“Ye heard how I said to you, I go away, and I come unto you. If ye loved me, ye would have rejoiced, because I go unto the Father: for the Father is greater than I.” (John 14:28 ASV)

 

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Preceding post: The very very beginning 1 Creating Gods

Next chapters:

Readings from Scriptures: Genesis – Story of creation 1 Genesis 1:1-25 Creation of things

Readings from Scriptures: Story of creation 2 Genesis 1:26-31 Creation of man

Readings from Scriptures: Genesis – Story of creation 3 Genesis 2:1-15 Story of Adam and Eve

Readings from Scriptures: Genesis – Story of creation 4 Genesis 2:16-25 Warning for Adam and Eve

The very very beginning 3 Messiah’s total point of origination

Readings from Scriptures: Genesis – Story of creation 4 Genesis 3:1-13 The fall

Readings from Scriptures: Genesis – Story of creation 4 Genesis 3:14-24 consequneces of the fall and solution

 

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Additional reading:

  1. Pluralis Majestatis in the Holy Scriptures
  2. How are we sure God exists?
  3. Only one God
  4. God is One
  5. Challenging claim 4 Inspired by God 3 Self-consistent Word of God
  6. Bible word of God, inspired and infallible
  7. Bible power to change
  8. Bible basic intro
  9. Creator and Blogger God 1 Emptiness and mouvement
  10. Does He exists?
  11. Hashem השם, Hebrew for “the Name”
  12. I Will Cause Your Name To Be Remembered
  13. Lord or Yahuwah, Yeshua or Yahushua (Video)
  14. Jehovah Yahweh Gods Name (Video)
  15. Use of /Gebruik van Jehovah or/of Yahweh in Bible Translations/Bijbel vertalingen
  16. Trusting, Faith, calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #2 Calling upon the Name of God
  17. Trusting, Faith, calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #3 Voice of God #1 Creator and His Prophets
  18. He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him
  19. Jesus begotten Son of God #3 Messiah or Anointed one
  20. Self-development, self-control, meditation, beliefs and spirituality
  21. Experiencing God
  22. Jesus and his God
  23. Jesus begotten Son of God #11 Existence and Genesis Raising up
  24. Titles of God beginning with the Aleph in Hebrew
  25. Another way looking at a language #5 Aramic, Hebrew and Greek
  26. Hashem השם, Hebrew for “the Name”
  27. A look at evolution from a Christadelphian perspective
  28. People Seeking for God 7 The Lord and lords
  29. Lord in place of the divine name
  30. Men as God
  31. Fragments from the Book of Job #4: chapters 27-31
  32. Bad things no punishment from God
  33. Two states of existence before God

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  • The Lord Protects (ectordzro.wordpress.com)
    Who is like you oh believer, a person saved by the Lord? The Lord is your shield and helper means God helps you by protecting you.  He being your glorious sword implies the Lord fights battles on your behalf in other to protect you, as you live in His spirit of excellence.
  • The Principle of Intellectual and Spiritual Freedom (circleofasiamission.wordpress.com)
    In understanding the occult position, one will at once understand the position of the Yazdān traditions possessed by the Kurds; but it would not be realistic to understand the position of Blavatsky or the secret doctrine all at once. Her position is totally from the esoteric position, symbolical, astronomical, & philosophical.
  • All The Ways I Killed People As The Son Of Satan (kotaku.com.au)
    Lucius is a sad-looking little boy. He’s also the spawn of Satan. The original Lucius pretty much followed the plot for The Omen: you’re the son of Satan, now go and kill everybody in your house one by one. Think Hitman, but as an evil demonic kid. Despite being somewhat fun, it felt very restrictive in that it only allowed you to use specific items on specific people in a pre-scripted way.
  • ‘Satanic capital’ claims dismissed (bbc.co.uk)
    In the most recent census, 17 people in Bolsover wrote Satanism as their religion.This suggested it had the highest concentration of Satanists in England and Wales.

    But the Church of Satan believes many people had lied on their census forms because they “think it is funny”.

  • “The Devil Made Me Do It”: Savage Crimes Committed In The Name of Satan (madworldnews.com)
    Satanism seems to be growing at a rapid rate. These “churches” are devoted followers of the devil, Lucifer, Satan, or any number of names. They include Luciferianism, Palladists, Our Lady of Endor Coven, and even Atheistic Satanism (people who believe in the devil, but not God). They choose a more materialistic religion that they feel embodies “the flesh,” claiming their religion champions individualism, epicureanism, secularism, and egoism, while propagating a worldview of naturalism, Social Darwinism, and Lex Talionis.

The very very beginning 1 Creating Gods

Nothing, none, something or more present

For many people the beginning of everything is a very big mystery. Some think there was just emptiness or a void or that there was darkness and only Chaos.  According to Greek mythology, the origin of everything, and the first thing that ever existed was Chaos. It was the primordial void, the source out of which everything was created, including the universe and the gods.

Plural form

For many there were gods who took care of everything coming into being. Also lots of Christians do believe that there were gods who created everything together.  The biggest mistake those so called Christians make, is that they believe that there was a God the Father, a god the son and a God the Spirit who together created the universe and everything around. They do not understand that The Creator is, was and always shall be the Most High Being and as such has not only the title of god, like any high being, but also speaks in the plural form with the Pluralis Majestatis or Royal We.

Speakers employing the “royal we” use it to distinguish their private life with their function, or when they are directors, editors, writers, etc., they use it to avoid the personal I or to represent a collective viewpoint. A person in function, like the Creator, the Maker and makers of things, creators of pieces (artists, theatre and film directors, choreographers, etc.), directors (bosses or managers of institutions, universities, schools, factories, industrial or technological sites), leaders of a Courtney or group (kings, queens, presidents, führers, popes, cardinals, priests, pastors, youth-leaders, club-leaders, cheerleaders) will use the plural form when they speak as creator, artist, director or in function.

Gods and Big Bang

16th century manuscript of Theogeny: “the genealogy or birth of the gods” poem by Hesiod (8th – 7th century BC) describing the origins and genealogies of the Greek gods, composed circa 700 B.C. It is written in the Epic dialect of Homeric Greek.

We may find people who believe in mythology where out of the void appeared Erebus, or an other god as the personification of the deep darkness and shadows and brother of Gaea (earth), Tartarus (underworld) a god, third in rank after Chaos and Gaea, preceding Eros (love), and Nyx (night).

There are a various amount of viewpoints on creation, but we want to stick to the one which is told by the Divine Creator Himself.
We, as Christians do believe in an eternal Creator divinity, and as such in a spiritual Supreme Being or eternal Spirit God, which had no beginning, has no birth and no ending, cannot die. That Supreme Being out of the darkness created “Light“. You might call it “Big Bang” or the “Supreme Light”, that does not matter so much, but important is that you can find yourself in accepting that from nothing something came into being and there came light.

All those who say that this or that was there or that the Big Bang was the first thing, should wonder how and out of what this big bang came into being. For sure they would say that “Before” the Big Bang there was Blackness, nothingness, something, void and should wonder what was the next thing “after” the Big Bang.

Crepuscular rays of light shining through clouds in the sky

In the knowledge that “one day” for God is in the eyes of man a “thousand years” we can think of it that there have been a long period over this coming into being from one element into the next one, because on the second day of God sky or celestial dome was created. It was or is what we do know as the wideness which includes the atmosphere and outer space.

Coming into being

The “void” or “emptiness” and the “atmosphere” came into being because that One and Only One God Who declared to be the “One that is the One Who is the Being” (The “I Am the I am” or “The I Am Who Is”): I am that I am Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh אהיה אשר אהיה

3 Syllables Name: Je-Ho-Vah, by which the whole world should know God's Name
3 Syllables Name: Je-Ho-Vah, by which the whole world should know God’s Name

He presented Himself with a tetragrammaton, a word with three syllables, which makes it unlikely the two syllable word Yahweh or Jahweh would be His preferred name. He said: “אני יהוה  ani Ye-ho-vah.” This is the famous tetragrammaton, or name of three syllables and four letters, which we write Jehovah Yehovah, Yehveh, Yeveh, Jhuh, Javah, etc. The letters are Y H U H or YHWH. The religious Jews never pronounce it, and the true pronunciation is utterly unknown, but when you ask a Jew how they  would pronounce it or speak yourself Hebrew you will find out that Jehovah is the right rendering of God’s Name of which God Himself says “That is my name – A name peculiar to myself.”

 אני יהוה הוא שׁמי וכבודי לאחר לא־אתן ותהלתי לפסילים׃

“I am Jehovah, that is my name; and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise unto graven images.” (Isaiah 42:8 ASV)

7  ስለዚህ የዕውሮችን ዐይን ታበራለህ፤ በጨለማው ጒድጓድ እስር ቤት ውስጥ ያሉትን እስረኞችን ታወጣለህ።

All people in the world should come to know the Name of God. He does find it important that His creatures should know Him by His Name and know that He only is the Most High ever. Probably shall find no other people called the same because God the Divine Creator said He is the only One with that Name, which may not be taken in vain.

‘That men may know that thou, whose name alone is JEHOVAH, Art the Most High over all the earth.” (Psalm 83:18 Lange)

Psa 83:17  (83:18) יבשׁו ויבהלו עדי־עד ויחפרו ויאבדו׃

“That they may know that {1} thou alone, whose name is Jehovah, Art the Most High over all the earth. {1) Or [thou, whose name alone is Jehovah, art etc]}” (Psalms 83:18 ASV)

Exo 20:7  לא תשׂא את־שׁם־יהוה אלהיך לשׁוא כי לא ינקה יהוה את אשׁר־ישׂא את־שׁמו לשׁוא׃

“Thou shalt not take the name of Jehovah thy God {1} in vain; for Jehovah will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name {1} in vain. {1) Or [for vanity] (or [falsehood])}” (Exodus 20:7 ASV)

Later He reminded Moses of His great name and that He is the covenant-making and covenant-keeping God, who will absolutely fulfil His promises (Exodus 6:2-5). The name denotes not Who is the eternal existence and that unchangeable truth and omnipotent Power which give fulfilment to His promises.  It were as though He said, “I am Jehovah, for I am now to do what I have declared to be My purpose.” Compare, for further illustration of this name, Exodus 7:5 and Ezekiel 28:22.

Exo 6:2  וידבר אלהים אל־משׁה ויאמר אליו אני יהוה׃
Exo 6:3  וארא אל־אברהם אל־יצחק ואל־יעקב באל שׁדי ושׁמי יהוה לא נודעתי להם׃

“2 And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am Jehovah: 3 and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, as {1} God Almighty; but {2} by my name Jehovah I was not {3} known to them. {1) Heb [El Shaddai] 2) Or [as to] 3) Or [made known]}” (Exodus 6:2-3 ASV)

 

Exo 7:5  וידעו מצרים כי־אני יהוה בנטתי את־ידי על־מצרים והוצאתי את־בני־ישׂראל מתוכם׃

“And the Egyptians shall know that I am Jehovah, when I stretch forth my hand upon Egypt, and bring out the children of Israel from among them.” (Exodus 7:5 ASV)

Eze 28:22  ואמרת כה אמר אדני יהוה הנני עליך צידון ונכבדתי בתוכך וידעו כי־אני יהוה בעשׂותי בה שׁפטים ונקדשׁתי

“and say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I am against thee, O Sidon; and I will be glorified in the midst of thee; and they shall know that I am Jehovah, when I shall have executed judgments in her, and shall be sanctified in her.” (Ezekiel 28:22 ASV)

It was not at the creation that The Divine Creator would let His Divine name be known, but that does not mean it was not important not Him bringing everything to existence.

The world came to know Who had created everything and all people should be fully aware of that.

Jer 32:17  אהה אדני יהוה הנה אתה עשׂית את־השׁמים ואת־הארץ בכחך הגדול ובזרעך הנטויה לא־יפלא ממך כל־דבר׃

“Ah Lord Jehovah! behold, thou hast made the heavens and the earth by thy great power and by thine outstretched arm; there is nothing too {1} hard for thee, {1) Or [wonderful]}” (Jeremiah 32:17 ASV)

Already in the first book of Mozes (the Bereshith, the book of the Beginnings or Genesis) we are told that it where no gods but God alone Who created man in His image and how heaven and earth were created.

Gen 1:27  ויברא אלהים את־האדם בצלמו בצלם אלהים ברא אתו זכר ונקבה ברא אתם׃

“And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” (Genesis 1:27 ASV)

Gen 2:4  אלה תולדות השׁמים והארץ בהבראם ביום עשׂות יהוה אלהים ארץ ושׁמים׃

“These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that Jehovah God made earth and heaven.” (Genesis 2:4 ASV)

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Continues with:

The very very beginning 2 The Word and words

Readings from Scriptures: Genesis – Story of creation 1 Genesis 1:1-25 Creation of things

Readings from Scriptures: Story of creation 2 Genesis 1:26-31 Creation of man

Readings from Scriptures: Genesis – Story of creation 3 Genesis 2:1-15 Story of Adam and Eve

Readings from Scriptures: Genesis – Story of creation 4 Genesis 2:16-25 Warning for Adam and Eve

The very very beginning 3 Messiah’s total point of origination

Readings from Scriptures: Genesis – Story of creation 4 Genesis 3:1-13 The fall

Readings from Scriptures: Genesis – Story of creation 4 Genesis 3:14-24 consequneces of the fall and solution

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Additional literature:

  1. I am that I am Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh אהיה אשר אהיה
  2. God of gods
  3. Only one God
  4. Attributes to God
  5. Titles of God beginning with the Aleph in Hebrew
  6. Pluralis Majestatis in the Holy Scriptures
  7. Trusting, Faith, calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #3 Voice of God #1 Creator and His Prophets
  8. People Seeking for God 2 Human interpretations
  9. Seeing or not seeing and willingness to find God
  10. Being Religious and Spiritual 1 Immateriality and Spiritual experience
  11. Being Religious and Spiritual 4 Philosophical, religious and spiritual people
  12. Philosophy hand in hand with spirituality
  13. The Divine name of the Creator
  14. Hashem השם, Hebrew for “the Name”
  15. Jehovah Yahweh Gods Name
  16. God about His name “יהוה“יהוה
  17. YHWH and Love: Four-letter words
  18. Pure Words and Testimonies full of Breath of the Most High
  19. A viewpoint on creation
  20. The World framed by the Word of God
  21. Creation gift of God
  22. Creator and Blogger God 1 Emptiness and mouvement
  23. Creator and Blogger God 3 Lesson and solution
  24. Cosmos creator and human destiny
  25. Did the Inspirator exist
  26. Without God no purpose, no goal, no hope
  27. Story of Jesus’ birth begins long before the New Testament
  28. Are Science and the Bible Compatible?
  29. Science and the Bible—Do They Really Contradict Each Other?
  30. Science and Religion Harmonized (Once and For All…)
  31. “Before” and “after” the Big Bang
  32. Blackness, nothingness, something, void
  33. Accommodation of the Void
  34. Nothingness
  35. How do trinitarians equate divine nature

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  • A Call To My Greek Mythology Bloggers – which Greek God is this? (clairecatacouzinos.wordpress.com)
    My only guess is that this statue is of the Greek God “Adonis” – Aphrodite’s lover, and the god of beauty and desire. Or perhaps, but not likely, the Greek Hero, Hyakinthos – Apollo’s lover who died by a discus.
  • ‘Olympus’ Coming To Syfy Channel: Greek Action Drama Promises Battle Of The Gods [Video] (designntrend.com)
    A new series about the life of mortals living among the many gods and monsters of Olympus is on its way to SyFy channel. The 13-episode mythology action drama began filming in August of 2014 in Vancouver. No specific release date has been set so far, but it’s slated to air in the spring of 2015.According to the Hollywood Reporter, the synopsis for the series centers on how a handful of brave men and women banished the gods to the realm of the Underworld, otherwise known as the Kingdom of Hades.
  • Re: Pantheon: (Dis)Grace of the Gods (bay12forums.com)
    At the dawn of time, or perhaps, simply a beginning, since there were no sun to determine a “dawn” yet, there were 6 deities.These deities crafted a world over which to reside, and declared themselves to each be rulers of their own regions, that the others would not interfere in the others’ places.The three Gods of Domain were Althax, Lord of the Sky, Enthros, Lord of the Sea, and Darus, Lord of the Earth.The three Goddesses of Dominion were Enya, Lady of Creation, Ori, Lady of Destruction, and Juno, Lady of Balance.
  • Phoenix (mythology) (en.memory-alpha.org)
    The Phoenix was a bird from Greek mythology that was known for being reborn as it arose from the flames of its predecessor.