Reading Genesis 1 with Geoff Johnson - Episode 028

Carey Griffel: [00:00:00] Welcome to Genesis Marks the Spot where we raid the ivory tower of biblical theology without ransacking our faith. My name is Carey Griffel, and today in our episode I have a special guest and I'm going to do another thing that I've kind of done before. I've done a reading of Genesis one, where I've compared two ways that we can interpret it.
 I went through a reading that was more scientific versus one that was more contextual to the worldview of the ancient person. So I think it's time to do a little more of that type of compare and contrast reading because it's fun and it's useful. So we're gonna read two different translations and we're going to talk about Genesis one versus Genesis two, although we're not gonna get too far into that conversation just yet because turns out Genesis one is pretty interesting and there is a lot to say [00:01:00] about it. So this will be continued later, but I have been joined today with my friend Geoff Johnson, and we have picked two different translations and we're going to each read the version that we've picked, and then we're gonna talk about those versions.
 There's no shortage of places you can hear about the first few chapters of Genesis. I really don't want to reinvent the wheel here, but at the same time, this is a podcast where I'm centered on Genesis, so it's pretty essential we do our own deep dives here. 
So there's a couple of points to what I'm doing here and why. For one thing, I, just enjoy reading Scripture out loud with people and talking about it, because every time you do that, you tend to get kind of a different perspective and you might see things in a way that you've not seen, and other people will comment on things that you've not thought about before. And Scripture is kind of meant to be read out loud. [00:02:00] So that's also part of this. But also I want to talk about Genesis one and Genesis two with other people, because a lot of people think that Genesis one and Genesis two are related, and of course they are, but how are they related? Are they the same story from a different perspective? Is Genesis two zoomed in from Genesis one? Are they different authors? Were they written in different time periods? We have all of these questions and I think that by reading the chapters together and reading them in different versions and really delving into the meaning and purpose of the text that we can see, we can kind of come up with some of these answers. We might be wrong. It's always possible that our interpretations are wrong, and so that's part of why we want to read over and over and talk to other people because by doing that, there's a possibility we get more right as we [00:03:00] read and as we study and as we understand. And if we don't get more right, we might be able to let go of our preconceived notions a bit and decide that maybe we don't need to have such firm answers for everything all the time.
That's part of the goal of my study for me personally. The more legitimate possibilities I seem to come across, the more I realize I'm not all that infallible in my own interpretation, and that's really not a bad thing. 
But anyway, in this episode, we're pretty much just going through Genesis one and touching a bit on Genesis two, and we will be getting more into that comparison as we move forward with another reading in another episode.
 But for now, I hope you can enjoy this one and I hope it might be a little bit enlightening, and I hope maybe this encourages you to do some public reading [00:04:00] with friends or bible study partners as well.
 Okay, so I am here with my friend Geoff Johnson. And we are going to be reading Genesis one , and we're going to be comparing them and we're going to be looking at different translations in those chapters. So I'm gonna go ahead and let Geoff introduce himself and talk a little bit about what he does and where you could find him online.
Geoff Johnson: I am just a fan , of your podcast, I must say. I'm honored and privileged to be asked to be here on Genesis Marks the Spot because I listen to it every week. But for myself, I do not have a theology degree. I'm not a PhD. I do have a post-graduate degree in English. So I have a master's degree, but I am passionate about Bible study.
I have been teaching Sunday school classes for a long time, and anybody who comes to them or listens to them will tell you that [00:05:00] they're not your average Bible class that you might get. I study the scholarly materials, and I bring as much of that as I can to my classes. And since Covid, I have been recording my classes, one of the few things that might be a positive to come out of it.
And about two months ago I started sharing polished version of my class material online at the Storeroom of Scripture , on YouTube. So if you look on YouTube for Storeroom of Scripture, you'll find it. And I've been sharing my classes there. We just finishing up the book of Daniel right now and going to start.... might have have enough hubris to think that I can actually tackle the book of Revelation. So we're starting that next, next week. And that's, my class is normally a book by book study in the Scriptures. I'm not always in eschatology like I have been with Daniel and will be with Revelation. In fact, I've kind of avoided [00:06:00] it till recently. But that's where we are right now. So I'm teaching the book by book and periodically I, I do topical studies as well.
But I would love to have you come visit the Storeroom of Scripture and I'm excited to look through Genesis today. 
Carey Griffel: Yeah, I really highly recommend anyone who's interested in Revelation and, and I hear most people tend to be, and if you are, really just go ahead and subscribe to Geoff's channel and follow along, because I've seen some of his preparation for his class and it is just phenomenal stuff.
And I'm not a person who likes eschatology, and so I'm going to be following along and learning a lot. That's going to be great. So, but today we're gonna talk about Genesis. We're gonna do kind of a, a deep dive into that. I'm not sure how far we're gonna get into Genesis one and two, but we are going to be reading two different versions and talking about what we think the text might be [00:07:00] saying and some different options there.
 So I'm going to be reading the New King James version, and partly I chose this as a foil for what Geoff chose. And partly I chose this because I grew up with the King James version, but I had no idea that there was a New King James version. And oddly enough that's easier to understand than the King James version.
 So I'm going to go ahead and start with that today. And I'm just gonna go ahead and start reading. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The Earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep and the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. So that's the first two verses of Genesis one.
Geoff Johnson: Alright, and then the Lexham English Bible is the translation I chose. I chose it because it keeps the word Yahweh in the [00:08:00] running text as a proper name. And I, I like seeing the proper name of God reflected as a name, and I also chose it because it tends towards formal equivalence instead of dynamic equivalence. So it hews a little closer to the original phrasing of the Hebrew, which can make it awkward at times, just like the New American standard. But that it's a tradeoff i, I accept , to be a little more literal. 
So here's the Genesis one and two from the Lexham English Bible. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, and darkness was over the face of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.
Carey Griffel: So, so far, I think they're pretty similar. The idea of without form and void and formless and empty, those are kind of good parallels to [00:09:00] understand the concept of the Hebrew terms that are underneath that. And I've talked a little bit about that in previous episodes. There's also the instance of the face of the deep, which is both the same in my version and Geoff's version, but my version goes to the face of the waters at the end, whereas Geoff's version goes to the surface of the waters. Do you think that's much of a difference there, Geoff? 
Geoff Johnson: Oh no. Not in meaning. The face of the waters, the word face in Hebrew is used for any kind of surface. The face of a building would be its wall the face of this or that. It's just a flat surface, so it doesn't mean much. But I do like the imagery. Hebrew is just always using metaphors to describe things. And the face of the earth is one example. It is the, the word in Hebrew [00:10:00] is literally the same word that you would use to describe someone's literal face, their eyes and nose and mouth of a person. So it is that word, the word for face, but it's used metaphorically here to talk about this surface of the water. It's also used otherwise for the surface of the earth. It is that thing that's on the top, the flat part that you can see with your eyes. And it in that way it's like our face, because that's our surface. That's, that's the thing that you can see about other people and look in their face and see what, what's there. So, yeah, I, I like the metaphorical language of face in the New King James, but surface is also the meaning that's being conveyed there.
Carey Griffel: Yeah. And what do you think about these first two verses as far as the rest of the days of creation? Is it, is it the first creative act or does it describe something else other than that? 
Geoff Johnson: Well, I think [00:11:00] it's not the first creative act. I'm in line with Dr. Heiser's arguments on this interpretation of verse one and others who say that it is describing , when God began opening condition, when God began creating the heavens and the earth, you might say this was the situation, the earth was formless, empty, darkness was on the face of the deep.
 And to me, that sets up the main problem, the problems that God will overcome through his creative acts, he's going to give the earth form. He is going to fill it so it is no longer empty and he will bring light to it. So to me that this is describing the starting conditions when God began, which starts in verse three.
Carey Griffel: Yeah. Let's move on to that one. Verse three In the New King James version says, [00:12:00] then God said, let there be light. And there was light, and God saw the light, that it was good. And God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light day and the darkness he called night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.
Geoff Johnson: Yeah. Well, a lot of the Lexham English Bible is almost verbatim. Starting back in verse three. And God said, let there be light. Yeah, I wonder how many translations have something else there. I mean, that's just like, let there be light is like the quintessential what God said in creation. So that is what it says.
God said, let there be light. And there was light and God saw the light, that it was good. And God caused there to be a separation between the light and between the darkness and God called the light day and the darkness. He called night and there was evening and there was morning the first day.[00:13:00] 
Carey Griffel: Yours has just a few more words, but otherwise it seems pretty similar. 
Geoff Johnson: I think the Lexham English Bible with caused there to be a separation is trying to pick up on the Hebrew verb form, which is a causal form. . In Hebrew, different verb forms, one can mean it's something done to me and another can mean it's something I did to someone else.
And in this case it is God causing the separation between the light and between the darkness. 
Carey Griffel: So would you say that's more of a focus on God or the, the fact of the separation, or do you think it matters? 
Geoff Johnson: Oh, definitely the focus puts it on God being the cause of the separation. Mm-hmm. God caused the separation to be. Like [00:14:00] in one sense God separated. It's the emphasis is on the things he's separating, the light and the darkness. Here, it seems to be the focus is on the separation itself. God caused the separation to occur between the light and the darkness. So the separating is put on the emphasis there as opposed to the result of the separation, which is light and dark.
It's a subtle difference and there's, I don't know that there's a lot of theological insight to be had in noting the difference. But I do think that there's just a little more emphasis in the, that Hebrew verb on what God is actually doing, which is to cause a separation. The separation is the thing that God is causing and the result of the separation is light and dark.
 And I think both our translations end with the first, [00:15:00] first day, right. And I have learned that the Hebrew here is actually different. The first day is actually day one. It's it, which is different, a different way of saying it. It's not first, second, third, it's not the ordinal number in the order in which it was, but it's the cardinal number one. Day one , is happening.
 And again, how much distinction there can be or theological meaning behind that, I don't know. But I think it is interesting to note that the writer could have said first day, like he says second and third, but chose to say day one, that echad, that one, day one. I don't know if there's meant to be some echo in the Shamah, hear oh Israel, the Lord thy god is one echad, or anything along those [00:16:00] lines. But it is interesting that it comes up right here and is different than how the rest of the days are described. 
Carey Griffel: Yeah, it's almost like the day is labeled and named instead of just, well, here's the very first day of all of history, perhaps. Mm-hmm. Yeah. . Okay, so let's go on to the next part.
 Starting in verse six, New King James version says, then God said, let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters and let it divide the waters from the waters. Thus, God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament, and it was so, and God called the firmament heaven. So the evening and the morning were the second day. 
Geoff Johnson: Yeah. We're gonna have something to talk about here for sure. 
Carey Griffel: Right? 
Geoff Johnson: I'll read number verses six through eight here in the [00:17:00] Lexham English Bible, and God said, let there be a vaulted dome in the midst of the waters and let it cause a separation between the waters.
So God made the vaulted dome and he caused a separation between the waters, which were under the vaulted dome and between the waters, which were over the vaulted dome. And it was so, and God called the vaulted dome heaven. And there was evening and there was morning a second day. 
Carey Griffel: Yes. Yeah. The Lexham English Bible has a very interesting translation of that section.
Geoff Johnson: Yeah. They, they use the, the term raquia, Hebrew word, and they translated as the vaulted dome. You know, the word firmament has become so commonly used in English to describe the heavens that we hear about the [00:18:00] firmament in the sky and we think of stars and maybe clouds or maybe things that are above us, but we, we just think of stars and space normally, in my mind. But vaulted dome doesn't evoke that image. Vaulted dome is definitely applying the ancient near Eastern idea that God put a tangible dome above the face of the earth in order to create the separation between waters. 
Carey Griffel: And it seems to make a, difference in what it's talking about, how it's doing the separation, that, how the dome is separating in the Lexham English Bible. Because it says he caused the separation between the waters, which were under the vaulted dome and between the waters, which were over the vaulted dome.
That seems more complex than [00:19:00] just, there's a thing that separates two types of waters. 
Geoff Johnson: And notice that same verb form to cause something. In the first day, it is God causing the separation between the light and the dark. In the second day, God creates the vaulted dome, but it's the vaulted dome that causes the separation between the waters above and the waters below.
So God is still ultimately the cause, but the thing that's doing the separating is what God created, that is, the dome. 
Carey Griffel: So he's using something else in order to accomplish his purposes on day two. Yeah, I was listening to something recently about these words that are connected to the, vaulted dome and the separation, and there's kind of a distinction that you could make that there is supposed to be space [00:20:00] between things. it's hard to really get this across in just a simple phrase in English, right? Because you can use a prepositional phrase, like under something or over something or from something. And those can mean different things in different contexts, right? So I think that maybe that's what the Lexham English Bible is trying to get at is that it's not necessarily as straightforward as there's a thing in between two other things, right?
Like it's focusing on the fact that there is legitimate stuff under it and above it, if that makes sense. 
Geoff Johnson: And the thing that's above it belongs there. The things that are above it belong there, and the things that are under it belong there. And God has created a separation between them because it would [00:21:00] be improper for the things below the dome, to be above it, and for the things above the dome to be under it.
That I think, is kinda the premise behind the sin of the watchers in Genesis six, that there's a separation between the beings that properly reside above the firmament in the heavens, and those beings, us humans who live beneath the firmament on the earth. And those sons of God in Genesis six, violated that separation by coming to Earth without invitation.
 Now, God does send angels, beings that reside above the, the firmament. He does send angels to earth to interact with people on various missions to communicate with us on one thing or another. But these sons of God in Genesis six, Without invitation, without reason or proper cause [00:22:00] violated that separation and then violated it beyond just coming to earth, but then reproducing with human women.
 That was a total violation of the separation that God had intended, and I think it does trace its way all the way back to God creates this raquia, the vaulted dome and says things belong above it and things belong below it. And that's the way they should be. Now I also think, thinking about the distinction, God made that distinction to be temporary.
He, he separated the heavens from the earth for a purpose and for a time. But he had from before the foundations of the earth been planning to unite heaven and earth through his son. That's from Ephesians chapter one. So this separation was always meant to be a [00:23:00] temporary condition for a purpose, his own purposes, but it was meant to be eliminated, removed, this distinction removed eventually in his own time and in his own way through the son, through Christ. And it is our constant violation of his plan of trying to do it on our own terms and in our own way through the, the watchers in Genesis six, the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11, that we are trying to unite heaven and earth in our own way, and that is a recipe for disaster.
Carey Griffel: Yes, absolutely. I've been thinking about that a lot, about how we think of these, you know, Genesis three in particular, as the fall. But it's really the boundary crossing that is the genuine problem. And that's what we see here in Genesis one over and over, is boundaries and separation. Like, God is ordering [00:24:00] things in a particular way because there's purposes behind that.
And when those boundaries are crossed or eliminated or disregarded, there are consequences to that. 
Geoff Johnson: Totally agree. And we can't always understand the purposes. God's purposes are often inscrutable, but that doesn't mean that they're not legitimate and that violating them will still bring terrible consequences.
Carey Griffel: Yeah, and that's why we can look at the entirety of Scripture to see what those purposes are, rather than pulling out little verses here and there. It's, it's the whole narrative and the whole story arc that matters rather than proof texts. But that makes it a lot harder to study and to understand, I think. 
Geoff Johnson: Yes, if you can't just isolate a few verses and come to your own conclusions then it is harder because you need to read more [00:25:00] and think more about what it is the Scripture is telling you.
Carey Griffel: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so let's move on to the third day, which is a very interesting one. I'm gonna go ahead and read the whole section about the third day, starting in verse nine of the New King James version. Then God said, let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place and let the dry land appear and it was so, and God called the dry land earth and the gathering together of the waters he called seas, and God saw that it was good.
 Then God said, let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself on the earth. And it was so, and the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, [00:26:00] whose seed is in itself according to its kind.
And God saw that it was good. So the evening and the morning were the third day. 
Geoff Johnson: Alright? And here's the LEB. And God said, let the waters under heaven be gathered to one place and let the dry ground appear. And it was so. And God called the dry ground earth and he called the collection of the waters seas. And God saw that it was good. And God said, let the earth produce green plants that will bear seed, fruit trees bearing fruit in which there is seed according to its kind on the earth. And it was so. And the earth brought forth green plants bearing seed according to its kind, and trees bearing fruit in which there was seed according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning a third day.
Now I'll just interject here, and I'm [00:27:00] borrowing a little bit from what we talked about with chapter two, but notice how on each of these days, God is calling the light day. On day one, he makes the separation. He calls the vault of dome heaven, verse eight. And then in verse 10, he calls the dry ground earth, he calls the water seas. When he creates Adam and puts Adam into the garden, and then he starts creating the animals, he brings them to Adam to see what he will call them. I'm just struck when I saw this the first time that God is inviting Adam to join him in naming things because that's what God has been doing through all of the first chapter, is naming the things that he creates.
But here in chapter two, or when we get to chapter two, he creates Adam and then he still creates the animals. But he shares the responsibility by giving Adam the task of naming them, [00:28:00] calling them something. So to me, this is just that divine function of naming the things that are created. It gets shared with Adam. I, I just find that profound. 
Carey Griffel: Yeah. We don't tend to think of names as too important these days. Like they might matter a little bit if you, you want your kids to have an interesting name or unique name, or maybe a family name. But back in the day, back in the ancient time, naming things was, a way to have power over them and dominion over them. So I, I feel like that's part of mankind's dominion over creation as well. 
Geoff Johnson: That's true.
Carey Griffel: So we have the, the different words for the vegetation in my version and your version. Mine says, bringing forth grass and the herb that yields seed and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself. [00:29:00] And yours says, green plants that will bear seed, fruit trees bearing fruit in which there is seed.
So it's, it's like mine has three different things and yours only has two. Oh, that's weird. 
Geoff Johnson: So I've got green plants that bear seed and fruit trees bearing fruit in which there is seed. And yours had grass for green plants, right? 
Carey Griffel: Grass and herb and fruit trees. 
Geoff Johnson: And herbs. I don't have herb. Hmm. 
Carey Griffel: Well it's like they're separating two terms i, it looks like, because mine says grass and herb and your says green plants, it's like it's separating the green plants into two separate things in the New King James version. 
I'm looking in some other versions. The ESV has, let the earth [00:30:00] sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit. So the E S V uses vegetation as an overall encompassing idea of the plants yielding the seed and the fruit trees, it looks like. 
Geoff Johnson: I'm looking at the Hebrew underneath the Lexham English Bible, and I can see that green plants is in the original Hebrew, two separate nouns. Mm-hmm. And they're both in absolute form, which means there's no necessary relationship between the two. It's just two nouns, one right after another. And so I think that what is happening there in the New King James is they're taking the first noun, which is related to the color green. And they're thinking of that as a thing in itself. The greenery, the the green things. And then the next one is the word that's translated [00:31:00] plants. And they're probably dealing with that as a separate thing. The, the, the plants, which they call herbs. And I have to look at the etymology, I haven't, I don't have that word study up, but it probably is related to something that could be translated herb. So they're seeing, instead of green plants, they're seeing two things. And frankly, with the Hebrew being two absolute nouns, that's probably closer in intent that we have two separate things listed instead of green plants. 
Carey Griffel: Mm-hmm. Yeah, because green plants, so the, in English green plants, green would be an adjective and not a noun. 
Geoff Johnson: Right. But it is definitely a noun in, in Hebrew and 
Carey Griffel: mm-hmm.
So we're not having that adjective in the Hebrew is what we're saying. Right. 
Geoff Johnson: It's not an adjective. No, it's not the adjective green as the color. It's a thing that is green. And [00:32:00] I, the HALOT, the, the Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament does define that noun as grass, or it can be used of spring, the season, because that's when grass emerges, I presume that that's the idea. Again, metaphorical language for the spring time is to call it the grass season. And because that's when grass emerges. So yes, that first word is not an adjective green. It is a noun that means green things or grass. 
Carey Griffel: Yeah. And just doing a really quick word study on that, it looks like it's, it is translated as grass in many places in the Old Testament. So that's fascinating. 
Geoff Johnson: One thing I'll note talking about Hebrew language here is that the word seed, Zara, is used not just for plants, but for people. [00:33:00] When it talks about like the seed of the woman, it's the same Zara. In Hebrew, there seems to be a concept that human reproduction and plant reproduction and animal reproduction are all a process of planting seed and growing from that seed.
And so when it talks about the plants reproducing according to its kind, that is like similar language to humans producing an image, like when it talks later in, in chapter, is it four? About Adam and Eve, and they have a son who is in their image. That's because he came from their seed and they reproduce according, you know, humans reproduce according to our kind, just like the animals reproduce according to their kind.
That is the, [00:34:00] the idea. It's it's your seed, Zara, that is what carries on to the next generation. 
Carey Griffel: All right, so, awesome. This is good stuff. So let's move on to the fourth day in the New King James version. We're starting in verse 14. Then God said, let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night and let them be for signs and seasons and for days and years, and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth.
 And it was so. Then God made two great lights. The greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also, God set them in the fermament of the heavens to give light on the earth and to rule over the day and over the night and to divide the light from the darkness.
 And God saw that it was good. So the evening and the morning were the fourth day. 
Geoff Johnson: And the LEB says, and God said, let there be lights in the vaulted dome [00:35:00] of heaven to separate day from night and let them be as signs and for appointed times and for days and years. And they shall be as lights in the vaulted dome of heaven to give light on the earth.
And it was so. And God made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day and the smaller light to rule the night and the stars. And God placed them in the vaulted dome of heaven to give light on the earth and to rule over the day and over the night and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good.
And there was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.
The first thing that always strikes me as I'm reading through this passage is the whole secondhand way the stars get mentioned at the end of verse 16. Oh yeah. And there were some stars too. 
Carey Griffel: Oh yeah. There's, there's stars. There's stars.
That is amusing. And, and I, yes. It seems like that's probably quite [00:36:00] purposeful especially with how... I mean, humanity has been enamored with the stars for all of history. We still are. And of course, ancient people assigned those to be particular meanings for deities and, and other things. So I, I think that's, there's probably a, a real reason that they are understated in chapter one here.
Geoff Johnson: Absolutely. The sun, of course, is usually the lead god of any pantheon , the sun god whether it's Apollo, or Ra, or whatever. The sun god is not the top dog, is right there in the top three of whatever pantheon we're talking about. And it is definitely a point of the writer of Genesis one, that the sun is nothing more than a functionary for Yahweh.
God is the top dog. The sun [00:37:00] is just performing a function that God has assigned to it. Same with the moon and the stars. 
Carey Griffel: Yeah. They're no different than how the firmament or the vaulted dome or the raquia... God is using that for his own purposes. He's doing the same thing here. 
Geoff Johnson: Right. And in fact in day one, God separates-- causes to be separated-- the light from the darkness.
And here he creates the sun and the moon to separate the light from the darkness in verse 18. So like he will do with man in which he does part of the creation, and then he lets man function in naming it, here he is creating the sun and the moon. And he says, okay, I've got the separation in place, but I want you to help me maintain it, and I'm going to give you authority to maintain that separation from light and darkness so that you can [00:38:00] function in that way.
 So it is it's one of the quandaries in this passage is what does it mean for the sun and the moon to rule? In what way do they rule things? If they're just a ball of gas and a bit of rock in the sky, how is God giving them rulership? Well, of course, I don't think the ancient world imagined them to be a ball of gas and a rock.
 They did affiliate those things with divine beings, even if they weren't themselves divine, they were put in motion by divine, force. But here he is still giving them rulership. And I think we can still read that effectively as the fact that was how the day and the night happened. The, the day and the night happened because the sun comes up and the sun goes down.
So the sun has that influence over day and night. And so in that case, [00:39:00] the day and the night are defined by the motion of the sun. And so that is how they rule. Also the appointed times. How do you know when it's a Sabbath day? Well, because the sun has gone up and gone down seven times. We know that it is a certain day because we look at the heavens and we count the motion of the stars, of the sun, of the Moon.
How, how do we know that it is Rosh Hashanah? How do we know it's the. The day to, to celebrate the trumpets? Well, because it's the new moon. We see the, the moon in its certain phase, and then we know it's time to do this. So they definitely did rule those appointed times because that's how they were determined.
Carey Griffel: Yeah. They, didn't just mark a paper with some squares and numbers that, that's not how they kept their calendars. 
Geoff Johnson: No. They kept their calendars in [00:40:00] giant circles of stone, like Stonehenge. 
Carey Griffel: Right. Yeah. Very physical and practical for their day-to-day lives because they were very wedded to those cycles in ways that we we're not really like that today.
Geoff Johnson: No. I, there are probably people who live in a town like New York City who barely see a star, mm-hmm. Maybe not even see the sun. They're inside all the time. You know, they're just we are totally disconnected in our, in most modern American cultures anyway, from the rhythms of the sun and the moon and the stars.
I often, when I walk outside at night, I'm taking out the trash or whatever, I'm going out in the evening, I always look up and look for Orion and I say hello to Orion. It's the one constellation....I mean, it's so big and well [00:41:00] defined. It's the one constellation I can look up and I know if I'm looking at Orion and I can see it quite clearly I have trouble even identifying the Big Dipper or others.
But Orion, I know by sight. And so I can kind of connect with some of these things a as connection. And I know that there are certain times of year I'm going to see Orion. When I walk out at seven o'clock and the other times that I won't, I won't see 'em then, but I, there is a tiny little connection that I have that, that connects me to the ancient world because they, every night, looked up to see the stars and the constellations and relate to them.
And that told them something about their lives and what the pattern and rhythms of their lives were. 
Carey Griffel: Yeah, so a lot of meaning there. All right, so let's go on to the fifth day of creation. Starting in verse 20. In the New King James version, it says, then God said, let the waters abound [00:42:00] with an abundance of living creatures and let birds fly above the earth, across the face of the firmament of the heavens.
 So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves with which the waters abounded according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them saying, be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas and let birds multiply on the earth.
So the evening and the morning were the fifth day. 
Geoff Johnson: And God said, let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures and let birds fly over the earth, across the face of the vaulted dome of heaven. So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves with which the waters swarm according to their kind and every bird with wings according to its kind.
 And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them saying, be fruitful and multiply and fill [00:43:00] the waters in the seas and let the birds multiply on the earth. And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.
Carey Griffel: I love the imagery in this section. Yes. It's like you're, really picturing the animals moving around here, I think.
Geoff Johnson: Oh, yes. And I think that the Lexham English Bible captures a bit of the hebrewism with Let the water swarm with swarms is, that is like the underlying Hebrew, which uses a noun form and a verb form of the same word to describe these swarming creatures. And that happens a lot in Hebrew.
And unfortunately, most English translators try to avoid what seems redundant to our English ears. But to me it's beautiful language. I don't care if it's redundant, it is striking and beautiful. 
Carey Griffel: Mm-hmm. Yeah. it kind of hits your brain in a [00:44:00] different way, I think, when you see that language like that. 
Geoff Johnson: And notice that in this verse, the translators in the LEB kept the face over the, the, the birds fly over the earth across the face of the vaulted dome of heaven.
So again, we have the word face. It means a surface. This kind of pushes against the idea of the atmosphere being the, separation, the firmament. That's the modernist, kind of scientific interpretation of... the firmament is just the atmosphere, the layer of air between us and outer space. And how does the layer of air have a face, have a surface?
It just really wouldn't the, the waters have a surface, a face. The earth has a face the surface, and so does the vaulted dome. It has a surface, a face, and the birds fly across [00:45:00] the face of the vaulted dome and the stars are in the vaulted dome. 
Carey Griffel: Yeah. That's, yeah. That's like they're embedded into it.
Mm-hmm. The other thing that really strikes me here is that it's the sea creatures and the birds who are supposed to be fruitful and multiply. That's also applied to humanity, of course, but the, earthly animals are not here told, they're not told to be fruitful and multiply in Genesis one, and I've always wondered why that is.
Geoff Johnson: Oh, why? I see the, the birds and the, and the sea creatures are told to be fruitful and multiply, but not the land creatures. Mm-hmm. 
Carey Griffel: They, they are told that after the flood, The land creatures can then be fruitful and multiply. So I don't know what that means. 
Geoff Johnson: That's a moment for meditating, [00:46:00] noticing something like that.
Yes. And then meditate on it. I, I have wondered what is the connection between water creatures and, and birds? Why are they created together on the same day? But to me it is sort of like the water creatures live in the waters below. And the birds, they don't quite live in the waters above, but they're close to it.
And a flock of birds flying in the air does resemble a school of fish swimming in the sea. In that they, they all move together in generally the same direction. If you disturb it, they all turn and swim off in, in the same direction, in the water, or they fly off in the, in a similar direction. So a flock of birds and a school of fish do have a lot of affinity to each other.
And they, they. Do move in groups normally. So I, it's just interesting that these sort of flocking or swarming creatures of the sky and of the sea are [00:47:00] together. One affiliated with the waters below and one loosely affiliated with the waters above the, the firmaments. 
Carey Griffel: Yeah. I think this is a really good evidence for the idea that the first three days are the environments being created and the second set of three days are the environments being filled up.
Geoff Johnson: Agreed. And look, when we get to talking about possibly the connections between Revelation and Genesis, I'm wondering if there isn't something to do with birds having that affinity with the heavenly realm and the, the face of the vaulted dome because birds in the book of Revelation have a kind of special status too.
Just noticing. 
Carey Griffel: Aha. Something for future delving into. I love it. Let's go to day six and [00:48:00] there's a lot here, but I think I'm just gonna go ahead and read the whole day. Starting in verse 24, in the New King James version. Then God said, let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind, cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind.
And it was so. And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, let us make man in our image according to our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air and over the cattle, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.
 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God, he created him, male and female, he created them. Then God blessed them and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it. Have [00:49:00] dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.
 And God said, see, I have given you every herb that yields seed, which is on the face of all the earth and every tree whose fruit yields seed. To you it shall be for food. Also to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food.
 And it was so. Then God saw everything that he had made. And indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day. 
Geoff Johnson: And God said, let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kind. Cattle and moving things and wild animals according to their kind. And it was so. So God made wild animals according to their kind and the cattle according to their kind and every creeping thing of the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. [00:50:00] 
And God said, let us make humankind in our image and according to our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of heaven and over the cattle, and over all the earth and over every moving thing that moves upon the earth. So God created humankind in his image, in the likeness of God he created him, male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and rule the fish of the sea and the birds of heaven and over every animal that moves upon the earth. And God said, look, I'm giving to you every plant that bears seed, which is on the face of the whole earth.
And every kind of tree that bears fruit, they shall be yours as food. And to every kind of animal of the earth and to every bird of heaven and to everything that moves upon the earth in which there is life, I'm giving every green plant as food. And it [00:51:00] was so, and God saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good.
And there was evening and there was morning, a sixth day. 
Carey Griffel: There's a lot here. But what I'm kind of excited about is that now, here at the end, I'm seeing three different types of vegetation that matches with the three different types we were talking about earlier. That's exciting. When I notice things like that,
Geoff Johnson: I'm, yeah, I'm noticing that, that same phrase, green plant there which happens in verse 30, towards the end, I'm giving every green plant as food. Is again, those same two nouns. So it could be, again, it could be herb and grass, but here is green plant. What did the New King James say there at the end? I'm giving what as [00:52:00] food? 
Carey Griffel: Let's see. I have given you every herb that yields seed, which is on the face of all the earth and every tree whose fruit yields seeds and to every beast of the earth, to every bird and creeping thing, I've given every green herb for food. So it doesn't use grass green herb, but it does use the word green.
Let's go ahead and skip into chapter two just for a second, because this connects so well. When chapter two begins, we have, starting in verse five, before any plant of the field was in the earth and before any herb of the field had grown, for the Lord had not caused it to rain on the earth and there was no man to till the ground.
So we, we have vegetation here and, and this is one reason why people think that there's a contradiction between chapter one and chapter two. And I think part of that is the way chapter two[00:53:00] describes itself. In verse four, where it says in the New King James version, it says, this is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created.
So that kind of indicates to people, well, this is retelling the entire story of the creation of the world. Now I think there's a better way to look at that phrase and it's purpose there. I don't think it's literally saying, this is a repetition of Genesis one in the same way that Genesis one presents creation.
But that's kind of another whole topic of discussion we can't get into right now. But I, I think the difference in the terminology and the words used there, there's reasons for that difference. And I, I, I mean, we don't even have time to point that out too much right here. But I just wanna kind of leave that there since we're kind of talking about that now.
We, we kind of need to wrap this up, but[00:54:00] we didn't get as far as I had kind of thought we might, which it makes sense when you're starting to talk about Genesis, there's a lot to say. 
Geoff Johnson: Should we go ahead and finish the seventh day? So we finished the whole seven days.
Carey Griffel: Yeah, let's go ahead and, finish that and maybe we can, I can have you back and we can kind of continue this line of thought that we've got. I'd love to. Okay, great. 
So the seventh day starts in chapter two and in the New King James version, it says, thus the heavens and the Earth, and all the host of them were finished.
And on the seventh day, God ended his work, which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because in it he rested from all his work, which God had created and made. 
Geoff Johnson: And mine says, and heaven and earth and all their array were finished.
And on the seventh [00:55:00] day, God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. And God blessed the seventh day and he sanctified it because on it, he rested from all his work of creating there was to do.
I have to admit, I do not like the translation array in verse one of chapter two, heaven and Earth and all their array. The word in Hebrew is Saba. It's the word for a host like in the Lord of Hosts. It's usually plural. Sabaot. Hosts here it is singular. And I think that is meaningful because he creates heaven with the stars and the sun and the moon.
And we didn't talk about it back then, but that is, he also created angels at some point. He created denizens of the heavenly realm. If you look at the book of [00:56:00] Jubilees from Intertestamental Times in Second Temple literature, then he created them on day one when he created light. And I guess that makes sense to them because angels were beings of light. They were part of God's light on Earth as it were. So angels were equated with light or associated with it. 
I've heard people like Mackie at the Bible project and others argue for day four when the, the sun and the moon and the stars are created, and I kind of gravitate to that. But at some point, he creates the heavenly host as it's referred to throughout Scripture, later, the heavenly host. But he also created, then, the people, humankind and the animals and the birds and the fish and all of that, which would be the earthly host, the, the, the denizens below the heavens.
But here in this verse, beautifully, the heaven and the earth and all their host, [00:57:00] singular, were finished. There is a sense in which all God's created beings are part of his one and whole host. So he is the God of all of them because he created all of them, and we are all in one sense, the host of God, singular.
So to me that is a beautiful way of communicating that here in in chapter two. 
Carey Griffel: Yeah, that's a great thing to be ending on because we tend to, to have these separations of things... which, rightly so to some degree. But at the same time, we are all God's creations and we are all part of that working out of what God is doing in creation, in both the heavens and the earth. And that's, that's such a great thing. 
But yeah. So we kind of run out of time and I thank you, Geoff, for joining me [00:58:00] today and, and I hope you'll join me again as we continue on , to Genesis two because I, there's more that I think that we need to connect with there. 
Geoff Johnson: Absolutely. Thank you. It's been my pleasure.
Carey Griffel: No, thank you.
 Okay, well that is a wrap for this episode and I want to again, thank Geoff for coming on the podcast and reading with me. I know that there were a few things that occurred to me that I hadn't thought about before, and I hope that the same can be said for you or at least that something was brought to your mind in a really helpful way.
 Thank you once again for listening, and thank you to those who share the episodes who have enjoyed the episodes, who have rated the podcast and thank you to those who have emailed me and reached out to me to give me encouragement because that is really useful.
 [00:59:00] For those just tuning in, I hope you are enjoying the content. And for those who have been listening for a while, I hope you are still enjoying the content. I do have a new website up. I'm still maybe working on the domain name.
 I am in the process of getting my website completely functional and with the transcripts there and everything, so you can find all of the things in one place. You can actually review on my website, you can give me your email address so that you can be notified of special things going on and receive a newsletter that I'm going to be doing.
I have a Patreon set up as well, and I have a whole list of other things I'm going to be doing in connection to the podcast. So stay tuned and I hope you all have a blessed week and we'll see you later.[01:00:00]