The Breath of Life

As previously discussed, Genesis 1 is a sequential summary of what God created on each day of the creation week.  Genesis 2 provides additional details about the creation week.  Likewise in Genesis 2:7-9, additional information is given about the creation of man, including the breath of life God gave him.  

And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. 8 And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. (Gen. 2:7-9)

Please notice a few things.  First, God made man from dirt.  The chemical composition of the human body is mostly oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen.  These elements make up about 96% of the human body.  The vast majority of the chemicals in common dirt are also these four elements.  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composition_of_the_human_body; http://organiclifestyles.tamu.edu/soilbasics/soilchemical.html)  Therefore, the biblical account is consistent with what we see in scientific research.   Continue reading

The Seventh Day

It took God just 6 days to create everything.  This is a testimony to His omnipotence.

Genesis 2:1-3  Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.  2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. 3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.

That creation was “finished” means that there was no more creation out of nothing (ex nihilo).  All physical matter had been created.  Of course, the created matter could change through various means (chemical, nuclear, etc.), but from this point, matter could neither be created or destroyed (First Law of Thermodynamics).  Continue reading

God Made Everything Very Good

Genesis 1:31 And God saw every thing that he had made , and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Everything that God made is described as “very good”.  This indicates the perfect nature of God’s creation.  Sin had not entered the universe at this point.  Adam and Eve are best thought of as “innocent”—they had the ability to sin, but had not done so yet.

There are some logical conclusions to this sinless state.  First, physical death was not a possibility.  Sin brought sickness, pain, suffering, and death as is seen in Genesis 3 and numerous other passages in the Bible. Continue reading

Food in Eden

Eating in the Garden of Eden was meatless as is explained in the verses below.

Genesis 1:29-30  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.  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.

In Eden, food came from plants.  This was true for the land animals too.  Some may scoff that some animals cannot survive without meat.  That may be true in our fallen world, but not in Eden.  Even in a fallen state, some animals which normally eat meat sometimes choose not to.  (See No Taste for Meat and Unexpectedly Vegetarian Animals – What Does It Mean?)  The prohibition against eating meat ended after the Flood of Noah.  (Genesis 9:3)  So there is no biblical reason to practice vegetarianism in our current dispensation.