Questions on Genesis 1
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QUESTION 1
Answer | Next questionWho wrote Genesis? How do we know this?
ANSWER 1
Back to the Question | Next questionMoses wrote Genesis. We know this by Holy Tradition.
Now it is Moses who has composed this history; Moses, who, when still at the breast, is described as exceeding fair;1 Moses, whom the daughter of Pharaoh adopted; who received from her a royal education, and who had for his teachers the wise men of Egypt; Moses, who disdained the pomp of royalty, and, to share the humble condition of his compatriots, preferred to be persecuted with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting delights of sin; Moses, who received from nature such a love of justice that, even before the leadership of the people of God was committed to him, be was impelled, by a natural horror of evil, to pursue malefactors even to the point of punishing them by death; Moses, who, banished by those whose benefactor he had been, hastened to escape from the tumults of Egypt and took refuge in Ethiopia, living there far from former pursuits, and passing forty years in the contemplation of nature; Moses, finally, who, at the age of eighty, saw God, as far as it is possible for man to see Him; or rather as it had not previously been granted to man to see Him, according to the testimony of God Himself, "If there be a prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream. My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all mine house, with him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently and not in dark speeches." It is this man, whom God judged worthy to behold Him, face to face, like the angels, who imparts to us what he has learnt from God. Let us listen then to these words of truth written without the help of the "enticing words of man's wisdom" by the dictation of the Holy Spirit; words destined to produce not the applause of those who hear them, but the salvation of those who are instructed by them. [St Basil the Great, "Homily I.-In the Beginning God Made the Heaven and the Earth", http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-08/Npnf2-08-09.htm]
QUESTION 2
Answer | Next questionThe word "Genesis" means what?
ANSWER 2
Back to the Question | Next questionGenesis means "creation" or "generation".
The Jews knew this book as "Bereshith", i.e., "in the beginning", because this is the first word of the book. [Eastons Bible Dictionary]
QUESTION 3
Answer | Next questionWhat was the first thing created?
ANSWER 3
Back to the Question | Next questionThe angelic host, in the invisible world.
[Gen 1:1] In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
5. It appears, indeed, that even before this world an order of things existed of which our mind can form an idea, but of which we can say nothing, because it is too lofty a subject for men who are but beginners and are still babes in knowledge. The birth of the world was preceded by a condition of things suitable for the exercise of supernatural powers, outstripping the limits of time, eternal and infinite. The Creator and Demiurge of the universe perfected His works in it, spiritual light for the happiness of all who love the Lord, intellectual and invisible natures, all the orderly arrangement of pure intelligences who are beyond the reach of our mind and of whom we cannot even discover the names. They fill the essence of this invisible world, as Paul teaches us. "For by him were all things created that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers" or virtues or hosts of angels or the dignities of archangels.To this world at last it was necessary to add a new world, both a school and training place where the souls of men should be taught and a home for beings destined to be born and to die. Thus was created, of a nature analogous to that of this world and the animals and plants which live thereon, the succession of time, for ever pressing on and passing away and never stopping in its course. Is not this the nature of time, where the past is no more, the future does not exist, and the present escapes before being recognized? And such also is the nature of the creature which lives in time,-condemned to grow or to perish without rest and without certain stability. It is therefore fit that the bodies of animals and plants, obliged to follow a sort of current, and carried away by the motion which leads them to birth or to death, should live in the midst of surroundings whose nature is in accord with beings subject to change. Thus the writer who wisely tells us of the birth of the Universe does not fail to put these words at the head of the narrative. "In the beginning God created;" that is to say, in the beginning of time. Therefore, if he makes the world appear in the beginning, it is not a proof that its birth has preceded that of all other things that were made. He only wishes to tell us that, after the invisible and intellectual world, the visible world, the world of the senses, began to exist. [St Basil the Great, "Homily I.-In the Beginning God Made the Heaven and the Earth", http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-08/Npnf2-08-09.htm]
QUESTION 4
Answer | Next questionHow did God create the world?
ANSWER 4
Back to the Question | Next questionGod created the entire visible and invisible world out of nothing.
"Since, then, God, Who is good and more than good, did not find satisfaction in self-contemplation, but in fits exceeding goodness wished certain things to come into existence which would enjoy His benefits and share in His goodness, He brought all things out of nothing into being and created them, both what is invisible and what is visible. Yea, even man, who is a compound of the visible and the invisible. And it is by thought that He creates, and thought is the basis of the work, the Word filling it and the Spirit perfecting it". [ An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, by St John Damascene BOOK II CHAPTER II ]
By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. [Psa 33:6]
QUESTION 5
Answer | Next questionWhat does ex nihilo mean?
ANSWER 5
Back to the Question | Next questionOut of nothing. It is a famous Latin phrase.
QUESTION 6
Answer | Next question[Gen 1:2] And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
Explain what the "Spirit of God" is.
ANSWER 6
Back to the Question | Next question
The sacred writer wishes to enumerate to you the elements of the world, to tell you that God created the heavens, the earth, water, and air and that the last was now diffused and in motion; or rather, that which is truer and confirmed by the authority of the ancients, by the Spirit of God, he means the Holy Spirit. It is, as has been remarked, the special name, the name above all others that Scripture delights to give to the Holy Spirit. and always by the spirit of God the Holy Spirit is meant, the Spirit which completes the divine and blessed Trinity. You will find it better therefore to take it in this sense. [St Basil the Great, Homily II, "The Earth Was Invisible and Unfinished." http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-08/Npnf2-08-10.htm#P2053_583374]
QUESTION 7
Answer | Next questionWhat is very unique about God creating the light? Hint: it has to do with order.
ANSWER 7
Back to the Question | Next questionGod created the light, but not the normal sources of light - the Sun and stars. they were created later.
[Gen 1:3] And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
QUESTION 8
Answer | Next question[Gen 1:6-7] And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. {7} And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
What was the firmament?
ANSWER 8
Back to the Question | Next questionHeaven.
[Gen 1:8] And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
QUESTION 9
Answer | Next question[Gen 1:11] And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
What is the biological mechanism by which this is accomplished?
ANSWER 9
Back to the Question | Next questionGenetical inheritance.
Nature always makes a horse succeed to a horse, a lion to a lion, an eagle to an eagle, and preserving each animal by these uninterrupted successions she transmits it to the end of all things. Animals do not see their peculiarities destroyed or effaced by any length of time; their nature, as though it had been just constituted, follows the course of ages, for ever young. [St Basil the Great, Homily IX.-The Creation of Terrestrial Animals]
QUESTION 10
Answer | Next question[Gen 1:16-18] And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. {17} And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, {18} And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
What are the two lights?
ANSWER 10
Back to the Question | Next questionThe sun and the moon.
QUESTION 11
Answer | Next questionAre human beings like the sun or the moon? Why
ANSWER 11
Back to the Question | Next questionThe moon, because the light that comes from us is "reflected" - it is not our own light, but the light of God. Also because of our constnaly changing nature.
BQ:[James 1:17] Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
To all this the properties of the moon are near akin; she, too, has an immense body, whose splendour only yields to that of the sun. Our eyes, however, do not always see her in her full size. Now she presents a perfectly rounded disc, now when diminished and lessened she shows a deficiency on one side. When waxing she is shadowed on one side, and when she is waning another side is hidden. Now it is not without a secret reason of the divine Maker of the universe, that the moon appears from time to time under such different forms. It presents a striking example of our nature. Nothing is stable in man; here from nothingness he raises himself to perfection; there after having hasted to put forth his strength to attain his full greatness he suddenly is subject to gradual deterioration, and is destroyed by diminution. Thus, the sight of the moon, making us think of the rapid vicissitudes of human things, ought to teach us not to pride ourselves on the good things of this life, and not to glory in our power, not to be carried away by uncertain riches, to despise our flesh which is subject to change, and to take care of the soul, for its good is unmoved. If you cannot behold without sadness the moon losing its splendour by gradual and imperceptible decrease, how much more distressed should you be at the sight of a soul, who, after having possessed virtue, loses its beauty by neglect, and does not remain constant to its affections, but is agitated and constantly changes because its purposes are unstable. What Scripture says is very true,"As for a fool he changeth as the moon [Ecclus. 27.11] [St Basil the Great, Homily VI -The Creation of Luminous Bodies]
QUESTION 12
Answer | Next question[Gen 1:26-27] And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. {27} So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
What is the "image of God"?
ANSWER 12
Back to the Question | Next questionFree-will, the ability to freely choose between good and evil.
Cattle are terrestrial and bent towards the earth. Man, a celestial growth, rises superior to them as much by the mould of his bodily conformation as by the dignity of his soul. What is the form of quadrupeds? Their head is bent towards the earth and looks towards their belly, and only pursues their belly's good. Thy head, O man! is turned towards heaven; thy eyes look up.10 When therefore thou degradest thyself by the passions of the flesh, slave of thy belly, and thy lowest parts, thou approachest animals without reason and becomest like one of them.Thou art called' to more noble cares; "seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth."12 Raise thy soul above the earth; draw from its natural conformation the rule of thy conduct; fix thy conversation in heaven. Thy true country is the heavenly Jerusalem;13 thy fellow-citizens and thy compatriots are "the first-born which are written in heaven." [St Basil the Great, Homily IX.-The Creation of Terrestrial Animals]
QUESTION 13
Answer | Next questionDo animals have a soul?
ANSWER 13
Back to the Question | Next questionYes, but it is inferior to man's soul, since it is not made in the image of God.
Thus when the soul of brutes appeared it was not concealed in the earth, but it was born by the command of God. Brutes have one and the same soul of which the common characteristic is absence of reason. [St Basil the Great, Homily IX.-The Creation of Terrestrial Animals]
QUESTION 14
Answer | Next questionWhat did God intend for people to eat?
ANSWER 14
Back to the Question | Next questionPlants
[Gen 1:29] And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
QUESTION 15
Answer | Next questionWhat did God intend for animals to eat?
ANSWER 15
Back to the Question | Next questionPlants
[Gen 1:30] And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.
QUESTION 16
Answer | Next questionGive verses in chapter one, which proves that the Trinity Father Son and Holy Spirit were all, involved in the creation.
ANSWER 16
Back to the Question | Next question[ Genesis 1:26] And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
And God said "Let us make man." Does not the light of theology shine, in these words, as through windows; and does not the second Person show Himself in a mystical way, without yet manifesting Himself until the great day?Where is the Jew who resisted the truth and pretended that God was speaking to Himself? It is He who spoke, it is said, and it is He who made. "Let there be light and there was light." But then their words contain a manifest absurdity. Where is the smith, the carpenter, the shoemaker, who, without help and alone before the instruments of his trade, would say to himself; let us make the sword, let us put together the plough, let us make the boot? Does he not perform the work of his craft in silence? Strange folly, to say that any one has seated himself to command himself, to watch over himself, to constrain himself, to hurry himself, with the tones of a master! But the unhappy creatures are not afraid to calumniate the Lord Himself. ...
"And God said let us make man." Tell me; is there then only one Person? It is not written "Let man be made," but, "Let us make man."... The perfect man attains the dignity of an angel; but what creature can be like the Creator?
Listen to the continuation. "In our image." What have you to reply? Is there one image of God and the angels? Father and Son have by absolute necessity the same form, but the form is here understood as becomes the divine, not in bodily shape, but in the proper qualities of Godhead. ... To Whom does He say, "in our image," to whom if it is not to Him who is "the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person," "the image of the invisible God"? It is then to His living image, to Him Who has said "I and my Father are one," "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father," that God says "Let us make man in our image." Where is the unlikeness in these Beings who have only one image?
"So God created man," It is not "They made." Here Scripture avoids the plurality of the Persons. After having enlightened the Jew, it dissipates the error of the Gentiles in putting itself under the shelter of unity, to make you understand that the Son is with the Father, and guarding you from the danger of polytheism. He created him in the image of God. God still shows us His co-operator, because He does not say, in His image, but in the image of God. [St Basil the Great, Homily IX.-The Creation of Terrestrial Animals]
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