The Creation Study

By Min Wang-de Jong

Genesis, the first chapter in the Bible, was written almost 3,500 years ago. It is an ancient story, and it is where our class began to study the life of Jesus Christ, accepting that the writers of the Old and New Testaments were working together in spirit and were inspired by the spirit to express how divine and human beings evolve together. Thus far, we have spent almost 2 months meditating on Genesis 1 and learning how to approach it in different ways. One such way, which I will now share with you, is to approach it as a narrative, or story, using the following steps:

Step 1: Study the language

The Old Testament was written in ancient Hebrew. We therefore need to research any word which stirs our feelings not only in Genesis, but also in the whole Torah, the entire Old Testament, and even the New Testament, searching for the various meanings used by the Bible writers under different circumstances. This kind of objective research about a word, rather than our modern feeling for it, gives us the foundation from which to learn the story objectively. 

Bibles and Bibles and more books on the Bible
Seminary library bookshelf, December 2024

Step 2: Study the verbs

We gain access into God’s activities through the verbs in Genesis 1, especially when we hear that God created human beings in his image and after his likeness. The story does not describe God’s appearance, so we must experience his image through his activities. Studying some small details can help us with this. For example, the word “image” in Hebrew is a masculine noun, whereas the word “likeness” is feminine. While we can imagine God striking a balance between masculine and feminine, which activities have more masculine qualities and which more feminine? This becomes our job to think about and study.

Step 3: Study the adjectives

In Genesis 1, God creates light, trees, fish, birds, and beasts, and sees that they are good. On the 6th day, God sees that all the creatures on Earth are very good. Only good exists. Nothing is not good. For me, the word good at this point signifies God’s all-embracing love for everything he has created. What I also noticed, however, was that after creating heaven on the second day God did not say if it was good or not good, leaving room for our own feelings about heaven.

Step 4: Synthesize steps 1-3

We hope that working with by the first three steps has allowed us to grasp the meaning of the story, with the help of the Holy Spirit.

A Genesis blackboard diagram by Rev. Patrick Kennedy, Fall Trimester 2024

Many questions lived in my heart during the above process, including: 

·     What motivated God to create the Earth? 

·     What is the role of the darkness? 

·     How are the Sun, Moon, and Stars to rule over day and night? 

·     How are human beings, made after God’s likeness, expected to subdue the Earth and have dominion over all other creatures? 

We all have our own perspective of the meaning of the creation story. Everyone studying Genesis 1 will understand it differently and will create their own story based on characters, plotlines, conflicts, crisis, and possible solutions. For my part, I view God as loving, caring, thoughtful, and omnipotent, and what follows is my creation story based on my understanding of Genesis 1.

Long, long ago, there was a being. We do not know what to call it. It had both masculine and feminine aspects in total balance. When it thought, it hovered over the face of water like a mother. When it created, it had the power to make heaven and earth like a father. Now let us call it He, because He had the might to move air, water, and earth to create a new space and time. Although He had everything in Him, He longed for a big family with whom to share all He had in His life, especially His ordering of space and His course of time, His righteousness and His holiness. 

In the Earth’s beginning, it was without form and void. The solid earth was under the deep waters and darkness covered the face of the deep. The darkness did not want the father to know its secrets, because the father was full of light and life. The distance between the father and the darkness thus became a huge abyss. The father decided to give part of his light and his life forces to the Earth. This part was like a son born from his father. The son could shine into the darkness and play with it, but the darkness did not like it and tried to cover it, too. The father therefore took the son back and the darkness reigned again, and it was evening. When the father gave away the son, it was morning. In this way, the son grew stronger and stronger. The father saw the son was good and loved him.

The father used the air to make a firmament to separate the waters. The warm waters rose above the firmament. Because the father had given his son away, he also became much lighter and dwelled above the firmament. The cooler water was heavier and sank down to the deep. But the darkness did not understand it. It did not want any water to leave the abyss and tried to cover them. The lower water and the earth under the water did not want to separate from the father, so they cried and created turmoil. The father heard them and gathered the waters under the firmament together, letting the dry land, earth, appear. In the earth, all the minerals were in the rich soil. In the father’s mind, who or what can reach him and stand on the earth and connect with all he had? Plants were the answer. But they needed the father’s life forces and light to grow. The father and the son therefore made two great lights shine on the earth: the Sun to rule the day and become the dwelling place for the son, and, in case this blazing light left no space for the darkness, the Moon to rule the night with the stars to shine into the darkness. The Earth admired the father’s ideas and offered the space to let the plants grow.

But plants cannot move, cannot make sounds. The father therefore made the birds in the air and the fish in the waters, and animals to roam the earth. With his breath in them, the Earth was full of his life. 

But none of them can think like the father, and give life away like the father. And now, because he gave away his light, his life forces, and his breath, he became lighter and lighter. The abyss between him and the darkness became even wider. The father decided to create human beings in his image with all the elements at his disposal—fire, air, water and earth—and after his likeness, in order to give to them his light, his life forces, and his breath. And create them he did, even though giving all this away would make him so light and so far away from them. And they are to connect the father with all his creatures on the earth, to reveal him on the earth, to subdue the darkness inside them, and to take care of the birds, the fish, and every living thing on the  earth. And the non-moving plants can become food for all living creatures.

After all his giving—his light, his son, his living forces, his breath, his life—the father rested in everything existing on the earth. But he knew that the human being had to face the darkness, to let the darkness understand he also loves the darkness. The father is in everything on earth and has becomes so light, and he expects that one day we can also become just as light by giving away our light, our life to others, and dwell with him again.

Our Author: Min Wang-de Jong,

Knowing Christ Student

Min was born in China. She has lived in Camphill Community since 2009. Presently she is living in Camphill Village, Copake, New York. In 2023 she joined the North American Seminary. Because of illness,now she is in the hybrid year of knowing Christ in the seminary.