Bible Studies

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How do you begin to understand God who is timeless, immortal, and eternal Spirit? How do you begin to comprehend His awe-inspiring power? Can anyone probe the mind of God to find out what prompted Him to create humanity? God’s awesome act of creation still defies any completely scientific explanation. But it certainly inspires the human imagination to consider what might have happened.

I imagine everyone has a story. For centuries, the Hebrew people had listened to stories about Yahweh, their God who created, cared for, and continually communed with them. They preserved their traditions in the form of sagas. I imagine families huddled together listening to narratives of God’s miraculous intervention to deliver them from the enemies’ oppression. These sagas reinforced their faith in Yahweh, their Creator, and Divine Warrior. And I imagine their faith grew with their understanding of God’s presence and power in creating them and charting their history as a people.

The Hebrews drew on the rich oral tradition to write down their own story of their Sovereign God’s presence in the unfolding of their history. They imagined that, at some point in time, God moved to create humankind. Two creation stories depicted a primeval history of humanity that served as a background to their patriarchal history and religious traditions. In Genesis, the first creation story portrayed a God of order, precision, and perfection. Nothing was wasted. Not even a breath. And God declared that it was all “very good.” This reflected the perspective of the community of Priestly writers in the sixth century when the people of Israel were in exile in Babylonia. These writings served to reaffirm their religious heritage and reestablish their religious identity. They affirmed that God, who had been with them in the beginning and had restored order to the chaos that existed, would again restore His people. That gave them hope to endure the hard times.

In the second story, the creation order is reversed and man is created first, then the garden, animals, birds, and cattle. Woman also is not created until later when she was formed from the man’s rib. The writers used Yahweh, instead of Elohim, for the name of God which is translated as the LORD God. These and other differences suggest that the second creation story was composed by another group of writers, called Yahwists, some time during the ninth century. Although the Yahwists’ version was written earlier, chronological sequencing was not considered as important to the redactors. Both stories are interwoven in the final version and, to the casual reader, it is hard to distinguish where one story ends and another begins. As a matter of fact, the traditional Sunday School creation story is actually a further redacted version using elements of both stories such as the seven days of creation, woman being created from the man’s rib, and a woman being responsible for the downfall of mankind.

It is possible that the redactors wanted to preserve a sense of continuity by linking both stories to create a saga-cycle—a continuous sequence of beginnings and endings very much like our own lives. Each day forms a unit of our life story with a beginning and an end linking our past with our present. Both stories declare that creator God is the source of life. The differences in the two versions reflect differences in the theology, focus, and perspective of the writers.

I imagine that if we only had the first creation story ending with God’s blessing and consecrating the seventh day as a “Sabbath” day for rest and worship, we would be bewildered. Our response would likely be …Is that it? You’ve got to be kidding! Look at my messy life and these stress marks from trying to stay alive! I’m sorry. I can’t relate to that picture perfect view. From where I sit, it’s just too blurry for me.

And so in the second story the spotlight is first on man, then woman, and then the serpent. The serpent is introduced and the mess begins. As the dialogue between the woman and the serpent progresses, doubt and defiance replace trust and dependence on God. The blessing of choice brought the curse of corruption and the ultimate downfall of humanity. It was the end of Eden for humanity, but not the end of humanity for God. He already had a plan for another garden—the garden of Gethsemane. But that would come later…

Let us go back to the beginning of our stories. The Greek word “Genesis” means beginning or origin. Genesis 1:1-2 states that “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” The limited lens of religious tradition taught us that God created the heavens and the earth out of nothing. But take a closer look.

You will see that there were clearly two pre-existing things—darkness and waters. When we focus on the “formless void,” we miss the first move that God made when he created the earth. A wind of change, a burst of creative energy “swept over” the waters. God moved before He even spoke the first word.

I can imagine God, with a broad flourish, banishing the “watery chaos,” and dazzling the darkness with light. The “watery chaos” reflects the influence of Babylonian creation stories. In the Babylonian version of creation, the goddess Tiamat, representing watery chaos was destroyed by Marduk, the main god. He sliced her body in two and used parts to create the heavens and earth. In the Hebrew creation story, God’s awesome power is unparalleled and stands out in comparison to the petty conflicts and violence of the gods in the Babylonian story.

The first creation story showed how God transformed watery darkness to light and life (Gen. 1:3, 26). When the Spirit of God moved or “swept” over, instead of destruction, there was transformation and life. God has moved throughout millennia in ways beyond our human understanding. Who would have thought that both Jews and non-Jews would claim these creation stories as a part of their sacred tradition? However, our tradition begins with the Hebrew Bible but does not end with it as we have a New Testament. Our salvation story began when the Spirit of God moved at the beginning of creation. God’s creative energy still continues today. Sometimes we experience that same Spirit moving over the watery chaos of our lives, transforming and restoring us to a right relationship with God.

For much of our lives, we struggle with the “formless void” of an unknown and uncertain future. We do not have the foreknowledge of God to see form in the midst of formlessness. But we possess the power of creating a present that is in keeping with God’s will and purpose. We can let the Spirit move over our hopes, dreams, plans, and goals, and trust God to work with us and through us to continue his redemptive purpose on this earth.

The second creation story tells us that Adam and Eve lived in a special garden that God planted for them. It was called Eden. Eden means delight and the word garden in the Hebrew is gan which means “a fenced garden.” It is interesting to note that gan came from ganan which means “to hedge about, defend, protect.” Man and woman were in God’s protective custody in the garden.

There are twelve references to “garden” in Genesis 2-3. That is enough to get anyone’s attention. God knew that humanity needed boundaries to protect them. Those boundaries were not only physical, but they were also spiritual. There was a reason why the tree of knowledge of good and evil was off limits, and a bad choice brought a life of delight to an end.
Man and woman were sent away from the garden. They ended up wandering around in the world instead of enjoying the wonder and delight of Eden living.

They had left the garden, but God had not deserted them. There was a second garden, the Garden of Gethsemane—which means “oil press.” It was the garden where Jesus prayed until he broke out into a sweat that poured down his face like drops of blood—the blood that would later pour down from his back, his forehead, hands, feet, and sides. But he had prayed, “Not my will, but thy will be done.” And God’s will was done. Divine humanity faced humiliation and death, but that was not the end of the story.

There is still another garden. The Jerusalem News reported a stolen body. But those who had been with Jesus and had listened to his teaching knew otherwise. An empty tomb, folded grave clothes, and the missing body in the garden proclaimed the risen Messiah. The body was missing from the tomb but Jesus’ disciples saw and touched the miracle of a resurrected body. Later, they watched as he disappeared into the heavens. And that is where we find the final garden.

It is fitting that our salvation story as written in the Bible should begin and end with a garden. Like bookends holding all the books of the Bible together on a shelf, the Garden of Eden is at the beginning and at the end is an unnamed celestial garden. In the New Jerusalem described in John’s vision, there is mention of a tree of life bearing fruit, a river, and eternal sunlight (Rev. 22:1-5). I imagine that once again, we have come full circle to the perfect garden where we see God face to face and have no reason to hide.

Our salvation story tells us that God spoke to us through Christ, and God still speaks and creates a future and a hope for us. When God speaks we are made whole, transformed, healed, forgiven, and restored. God creates joy after mourning as he created morning after night. God creates possibility out of impossible situations that assault our soul. God creates strength in the midst of the stress of multiple roles in work, family, church, and seminary. God creates and transforms in every given moment, with every breath. God determines our beginning and our end. And God has the final word.

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Jennifer Heron is a writer, speaker, and teacher with over twenty-five years of ministry. She is a seminarian and self-described servant leader. Jennifer currently teaches workshops on spiritual journaling. She is a member of the Christian Writers Fellowship International and the International Women Writers Guild. She has published poetry and inspirational articles online and in local newsletters. Website: http://jenniferheron.writerswebpages.com/.

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