The Bible, Simplifiedਨਮੂਨਾ

Genesis 1, the creation story, was not written to be a science textbook. None of the original audience would have read it that way.

It’s a poem.

Reading this poem as a science textbook misses the point of how incredible it would have been for the original audience to learn about God in this way.

So what was the author trying to teach the audience?

Well, for starters, who was the audience?

Traditionally, Genesis is thought to have been written for the Israelites at Mount Sinai after they were liberated from slavery in Egypt.

And what did the Israelites do as slaves?

They made bricks for Pharaoh. Day after day. For hundreds of years. All they knew was work; their entire identity was rooted in it.

So at the foot of Mount Sinai, God inspired Moses to write a poem teaching the Israelites that God created humans with purpose and called us “very good.” God considered them even more important than the rest of creation. Not only that, but God’s words taught them the importance of rest and invited them to participate in it.

This is why you’ll see the idea of Sabbath repeated all throughout Scripture and why Jewish people take it so seriously. The Bible begins with a poem all about rest!

The poem continues in Genesis 2 by detailing how God created man. It says God formed him from the dust on the ground and breathed his own life, his spirit, into the man’s nostrils, turning him into a living being. God called the man Adam, which is the Hebrew word for “humanity.” This shows that this story isn’t just about the first man. It’s about all of us.

Prayer

Father, thank you for making me part of your creation, and thank you for the beautiful story of how you brought everything into existence. Amen.