Matt Farina - Tech / Faith / Life

God created man. At least that's what Genesis 2 says. The way Genesis says God created man has some pretty large implications on who we are and what our lives mean. After Genesis quickly covers creation it slows down for man and gives some more detail. Let's take a look at what it says.

The book of Genesis not only teachers us about creation and where we came from but about how God brought order to His creation. This order can be seen in the order of creation and how creation work was divided up. At the same time, God said creation was good, not morally neutral.

Let's take a look at what he did.

The first book of Genesis talks about creation, or the start of it all, in a very different way from other texts. The ancient texts of the time when Genesis was written spoke of the creation as an accident of the gods. Today accounts talk about it being an accident or something that came out of chaos. Yet, in the Bible we see something that starkly contrasts that. Lets take a look at what it says and what that means.

Digging into the details of the first sentence in the first book of the bible brings out details and life that we don't see by reading the sentence in English. There is significance that shouldn't be overlooked and is worthy of geeking out over. When I read:

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." -- Genesis 1:1

I read a sentence that is short and to the point. But, when we dig into Hebrew there is so much more there. So, let's dig in.

We are all biased when we look at the world around us. No one has clear glasses. Some are rose colored, some are brown, and still others are green. These biases we have affect what we look at and how we think about it. Before we look at something new in an honestly subjective or objective way we need to accept our biases and sometimes drop them.

Our teachers, through life, have biases, too. This affects what they teach and how they teach it. Sometimes they teach something that is not the truth because they believe it so strongly. Still, others teach the truth and people won't even listen to them because of a bias.

Before we can honestly dive into something of controversy, like evolution, creation, Genesis, or God, lets look at some of the biases we have.

Digging into controversial issues brings up a number of soul searching questions. Not about the topic at hand but about how we are going to approach the topic and how we are going to look at the information at hand. This is especially true when we deal with things like creation vs. something else, where no person can show you, or will ever be able to show you, definitive proof that any of the theories posed is the truth. So, who wants to ask some tough questions of ourselves???

When most people think of the book of Genesis they think about creation. While, Genesis does teach about creation, creation is about 4% of the book and is only 2 of the 50 chapters. The book of Genesis contains much more than creation. This includes the first time many of the essential teachings of Christianity are taught. So, lets dive into a brief overview of a few of the really important ones.

Genesis is, possibly, the most controversial book of the bible. The way the creation story told in Genesis contradicts popular science is enough to make most people feel weird about it. Even many Christians shy away from Genesis to stay away from this weirdness. Some Christians don't believe the creation story and buy into the ideas of popular science. But, what does the book of Genesis really say? What does science say? Including scientific theories that aren't as popular and scientific knowns that are rarely taught to us in schools.