Sunday, July 3, 2011

The differences between 1st account and 2nd account

  As most of my friends know, I'm a Christian, so I have been to Church every Sunday.  However, I have never tried to compare each account of Genesis. It may be theologically a good idea.  I always realize how deep the Bible is when I read it.  Roughly speaking, there are three differences between 1st account and 2nd account.  These are 1)how to call God, 2)length of the creation, and 3)the sequence of events.
  First of all, while God is called just "God" in 1st account, he is called "the Lord God" in 2nd account.  Why is it different?  I guess that's because God has been the only existence which can think about other things until he created others.  Then, nobody has been able to recognize God.  However, after he created some things which could recognize themselves and others, it became possible that God was called "the Lord".  At the moment he created us, he became the Lord.  I think the author has tried to show us the moment God became OUR God.
  In addition, the lengths of the creation are different.  God took 6days to create the base of the world such as ocean, land, and stars.  On the other hand, he has created creatures including human beings for only one day.  Some people believe that it may be easier to create creatures than the world.  Meanwhile, some number theorists who try to connect mathematics with the Bible pay attention to numbers themselves like "6" and "1".  "6" is called "perfect number" because "1+2+3"(they are factors of 6) is 6 and "1*2*3" is also 6.  The number "6" shows us that God is perfect.  In the mean time, the number "1" is the basic number of everything. "1" never rejects anything, and can accept everything.  So the number "1" is regarded as a symbol of coexistence.  Although I don't know the meaning of differences of these lengths, I think that a day is different from a day we imagine.  A day in the Genesis could be a thousand years.  Because God also create time, he can control the length of time.
  Finally, the sequence of events is different.  In 1st account, God created vegetation, and then created human.  However, in 2nd account, it's opposite.  He created a man at first, and then others.  If I can say something from Christian's point of view, it may show that people are very special for God.  All of other things were created for people.  Ocean, land, sky, Sun, Moon, etc are necessary for people before human was created.  Animals, vegetation, cattle, and partnership are necessary for them after human was created.  Of course, it doesn't mean people can do anything to other creatures.  When people get a power to control them, people get also responsibility to deal with them other creatures well.
  Although Genesis is controversial part and some people may misunderstand what is actually written, I like Genesis.  I don't believe that kind of things actually historically happened.  But I believe that God created this world no matter how long he took for it.  Anyway, most Christians don't believe that men are superior to women because of what is written in Genesis.  Only few people who are very conservative believe that.  It's actually absurd.  Don't misunderstand it!!

5 comments:

  1. Very Well organized! I liked the explanation of "6":)

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  2. It's interesting!! I didn't think the lengths of the creation may be different from the day we expect.

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  3. Wow you have many interesting ideas since you are a christian! and I like the picture :). However, I thought that 6 refers to a demon number because 666 symbolizes devil... but it is considered as a perfect number!

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  4. I totally agree with you about the time, it is the same in my religion... time back then represent thousands and thousands of years, not like or normal day.. the other thing about animals yes God has created them to serve us and help us to go on with our daily living but never to abuse them and mistreat them... As for women in my religion women and men are equal.. however, some very conservative people (uneducated I like to call them) do not act so. Nice post...

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  5. This is an interesting post, Chieu! I admire your ability to interpret the Bible in a way that doesn't make your mind the slave to the "science" of the world as it existed so long ago. It is good to have a theology that has room for comparisons, questioning, and the findings of modern scholarship.

    As for symbolic numbers, in the Bible and in the ancient Near East, usually, 7, 40, and multiples of those numbers are considered the best numbers. Sometimes 8 is a "climax" to 7; in addition, 3 and 12 seem to have been important, too.

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