Weaver1has's Blog

The Importance of Free Time and the Bibles teachings on it.

Introduction

Sometimes we take free time for granted but there is always a danger that quietly without you realizing it companies and political pressure group can start to undermine your freedoms and liberties.  In some jobs one is forced to work at the Weekend.  Other jobs working is necessary such as in hospitals and other services.  Taking these things into account Israel’s covenant with God gave the Sabbath as a gift for the peoples spiritual, mental and physical refreshing.

1. Spending time with God
2. Family time
3. Communal time for the good of society

There are many non-religious and religious views on the Sabbath rest:

• Some people don’t take any break whatsoever.
• Jews take Saturday off.
• Christians are supposed to take Sunday off.
• The Victorians with the Trade Unions were responsible for Saturday and Sunday as days of rest.

If we were to work seven days a Week, we would soon burn out and the mortality rate would shoot up as more people would die younger through illnesses and fatigue due to burn out.   As a society we don’t seem to learn because companies through the back door and modern culture have put wealth in front of wellbeing.  Society seems to have forgotten that not only are we physical beings, but we are also spiritual beings.  Up to now I haven’t brought religion into the discussion so that resting is actually and should be seen as universal phenomenon.  Since the 1970’s with the advent of new shop opening times, restlessness has again entered into our society in the 21^st century. The unions actually played an important role in workers having two days of rest and now it seems to be the case that society again is pushing society to be full of workaholics which has the effect of many early deaths.

Genesis 2; 1-3 is therefore seriously important for any society to have healthy citizens.  Sunday early closing times were relinquished and although it had a religious dimension it was also good for society at large. The onslaught against the Bible recently in the West is growing all the time with many Christians finding themselves in court over their faith. I read this morning on my phone that the Bible itself was banned in many primary schools in Utah.  The world is going crazy and over time certain religious liberties we had are being eroded as other meta narratives push into ‘fertile Christian territory’. 

With the relaxed Sunday shopping laws, it was annoying for a lot of people not being able to buy even small groceries but at least you had time for your families.  Protection for the Lord’s Day is now gone but perhaps the next push is to stop people going to a spiritual house and spend time with the Divine.

Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. 2 By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made. Genesis 2:1-3

Parsing of key verbs in Genesis 2. 1-3

Verse 1 

The root verb Cala (pual passive form of the piel)(to complete) which begins at the beginning of the Hebrew sentence has a perfect meaning.

Verse 2

Completed; The same root verb kala (piel active) has a perfect meaning.

Rested; שָׁבַת shabath; a prim. root; to cease, desist, rest, Perfect in meaning.

Verse 3

All the following verbs are perfect or perfect in meaning; blessed, sanctified, rested, created; (preposition accomplished (infinitive))

Comments on these three verses.

The general creation story has now come to an end with the seventh day being sanctified by God.  Here everything is in the perfect.  In English the perfect tense carries the idea of a completely completed action.  Bt the end of the sixth day all plant life, animal life and human life reached their completed number, and everything was perfect. There were no mistakes in God’s creation as everything was good and perfect. Although it says that God rested, it does not mean that God got tired because He does not get tired.  It means that on the seventh day God was full of joy and was enjoying His creation. This resting also has serious implications for the whole of the human race as it has universal implications for how we treat human and animal life. We are expected to Follow God’s pattern and also rest at least one day a Week.

Below are some other reflections from the history of the Church:

Benson Commentary

“Exodus 31:17. On the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed — And, as the work of creation is worthy to be thus commemorated, so the great Creator is worthy to be imitated by a holy rest on the seventh day. The expression, was refreshed, is spoken after the manner of men. It seems to signify that delight and complacency with which God surveyed all his works, and pronounced them good, Genesis 1:31. Of this divine pleasure we may form some faint idea, by comparing it to that solace and refreshment which a benevolent mind enjoys upon bringing into execution some noble and arduous, some generous and well concerted plan for advancing the glory of God and good of mankind.”

Matthew Poole’s Commentary

“It is a sign, a sign of the covenant between us, that I will be their God, and they will be my people; both which depends upon this amongst other duties, and upon this in an eminent degree.

Was refreshed; not as if he had been weary with working, which surely he could not be with speaking a few words, nor can God be weary with any thing, Isaiah 40:28; but it notes the pleasure or delight God took in reflecting upon his works, beholding that every thing he had made was very good, Genesis 1:31.”

(From biblehub.com/commentaries/exodus/31-17.htm)(Image taken from wikipeadia)

The Sabbath in the Life of Israel and then the Church

The Sabbath has universal meaning, but it also has particular meaning for Israel and the Church:

• It is found in the 10 Commandments, the constitution of Israel.
• The Sabbath is respected by the Christian Church although some theological confusion is found between the original Sabbath and the Lord’s Day.

Exodus 20.8-11

 “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore, the LORD blessed the sabbath day and made it holy. Exodus 20:8-11

Then later in the same book it says;

16 So the sons of Israel shall observe the sabbath, to celebrate the sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant.’ 17 It is a sign between Me and the sons of Israel forever; for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, but on the seventh day He ceased from labor, and was refreshed.”

18 When He had finished speaking with him upon Mount Sinai, He gave Moses the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written by the finger of God. Exodus 31:16-18

Take special notice of verse 17;  It is a sign between Me and the sons of Israel forever; for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, but on the seventh day He ceased from labour, and was refreshed.” Exodus 31:17

The Sabbath is a covenant with Israel for all generations between the Lord and his people.  Verse 17 is an amazing verse because it says that God was refreshed.  In the same way God wants his people to be refreshed.  For Christians the Sabbath took on a new meaning with the death and resurrection of Jesus.  Under the new covenant Christians are supposed to keep Sunday Holy.  This does not mean that the Sabbath was abrogated (overturned as a Commandment). 

What more can be said about the relationship between the Lord’s Day and the Sabbath.  Firstly the Sabbath is made up of two parts:

• Moral
• Ceremonial

For some only the ceremonial aspect is not needed but the moral aspect stays. 

On the seventh day God was refreshed and enjoyed His Creation.  We are invited to also have recreational spiritual time.  One thing is certain though that the Lord’s day is on a Sunday and from Bavincks quotation he says that Sunday is the Christian Sabbath instituted by the Apostles:

“As it is of the law of nature that, in general, a due proportion of time be set apart for the worship of God; so, in his Word, by a positive, moral, and perpetual commandment, binding all men in all ages, he hath particularly appointed one day in seven for a Sabbath, to be kept holy unto him:a which, from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, was the last day of the week; and, from the resurrection of Christ, was changed into the first day of the week,b which in Scripture is called the Lord’s day, and is to be continued to the end of the world, as the Christian Sabbath day”

Exod 20:8, 10-11; Isa 56:2, 4, 6-7. • b. Gen 2:2-3; Acts 20:7; 1 Cor 16:1-2. • c. Rev 1:10. • d. Exod 20:8, 10 with Mat 5:17-18. Taken from (apuritansmind.com/westminster-standards/chapter-21/). (image taken from wikipedia)

Reflection

For many Christians in the UK the Sabbath is seen as a Sunday not a Saturday for the reasons above and it is ingrained into British society.  We have seen that even God was refreshed on the seventh day.  This are to follow the Lord’s pattern and celebrate the new creation in the work of Christ.  There is no set view on this in the Churches but it is obvious that the Apostles instituted Sunday as the new Sabbath.  Perhaps this happened because of the persecution that Christians faced in the Early Church.  I don’t know the answer to this yet. 

Simple Bibliography

• Reformed Ethics; Herman Bavinck; edited by John Bolt;Baker Academic; Chapter 17.
• Bible Hub.
• Olive Tree Bible App
• Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament
• apuritansmind.com

These are some books I have considered.  I have also watched and read videos by Rabbi Sacks. Some of my views are from memory.

When God created people it was a beautiful thing. This Friday I am focusing on the perfection of Adam and Eve and hence the whole of the human race. Whether a person is a fundamentalist, liberal or conservative all have to agree that Adam and Eve were perfect. What I mean here is that whether the story is taken allegorically scientifically or literally the basic idea of the human being is perfection. I know that there was a Fall (Adam and Eve’s sin) after this perfection but this is another topic for next Week.

Day 6

26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; 30 and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to everything that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food”; and it was so. 31 God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. Genesis 1:26-31 NASB

Verse 26 to 27 puts mankind on a different level. God in His Triune glory said;” Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness”. Saint Augustine says about this:

“For God said, “Let us make man in our image and likeness”: a little later, however, it is said “And God made man in the image of God.” It would certainly not be correct to say “our,” because the number is plural, if man were made in the image of one person, whether Father, Son or Holy Spirit. But because he is made in the image of the Trinity, consequently it was said “in our image.” Again, lest we choose to believe in three gods in the Trinity, since the same Trinity is one God, he said, “And God made man in his image,” as if he were to say in his [own triune] image.” (Taken from catenabible.com/com/5838d595205c248f42e51850 ).

A Jewish interpretation of this would be that God was talking to the angels in heaven. Both views however are arguments from silence. However, the Christian view might disqualify the Jewish view by saying that God would not share his glory with creatures however wonderful.  Augustine hit the anil on the head when he mentions the plurality of the God head in relation to his image and then God’s own image in the singular:

אֶת־הָֽאָדָם֙ בְּצַלְמֹ֔ו בְּצֶ֥לֶם אֱלֹהִ֖ים Genesis 1:27

Prep-b | N-msc | 3ms

      bə-ṣal-mōw,

Anyhow in the Hebrew image (tselem) is repeated twice in the preposition position.  Both words belong to God (Elohim) the subject.

Then after that Moses says male and female he created them.  The woman is not an after thought of God’s creation and we need to realize that the first creation story for me is God telling us the story in big brush strokes. It is not until the second creation story that we see God’s work under the magnifying glass. Humanity has a special place in God’s Heart and this should encourage us even more to worship a holy God who loves and cares for his creation.

Because of this special relationship God has with humanity Man is elevated to a position of Gardener. He was to tend Eden, not destroy it.  For the natural Man before the Fall, he was in full communion with God and God used to come and have fellowship with him.  Adam and Eve at this point were innocent and had no sin, they were perfect and would never have tasted death.  

Verses 26- 31 Other Considerations

In the light of what has been said Man in the image of God has been commanded to rule over this creation.  I liked what  study.org said here:

“Exegetical Considerations

The first two occurrences of this word are in Genesis 1:26 and 28, where newly created mankind is said to have:

    …have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. ( Genesis 1:26)

The use of this word makes it clear that mankind’s role in the created order is to “rule” over creation. Our role is not to trample it under our feet but to rule as vice-regents of God.” (From; studylight.org/language-studies/hebrew-thoughts.html?article=912)

The context is that we were to take care of God’s creation and mange it, not destroy it.  Before the Fall my own view is that Mankind would have been vegetarians because we shared the same life as animals. 

For example in Genesis 1.20 living creature; נֶ֣פֶשׁ חַיָּ֑ה

                             Genesis 2.7 living being; לְנֶ֥פֶשׁ חַיָּֽה

The term makes it clear that we share the same type of being for our existence.  Perhaps because of this in the sacrificial system of the Old Testament an animal was allowed to be sacrificed in the stead of the human being.  I once heard that Rabbi Sacks say somewhere (I cannot remember where) that God allowed this so that we would not end up sacrificing each other.  It was the better of the two evils.  The only big difference between the animals and Man is that the animals came to being from the spoken word.  Man on the other hand when he was created, God was getting seriously involved forming man from the dust and breathing into him. In the creation of the plants and animals God was speaking, in the creation of Man God was speaking and doing (emphasis is on doing actions).

Reflection

Animal souls and human souls are referred to as living beings. The translators however have differentiated, using the word ‘being’ or ‘creature’. The Hebrew does not make any differentiation. Humans and animals are creatures, but the big difference is that our human reflection comes from God directly. 

In terms of ruling this creation, God’s aim for us was to keep His garden in pristine condition. I have this conclusion because after each day God said that it was good (perfect and no flaws). In the sinless state death would never have entered the world.  Animals would not have died, and they certainly would not have been eaten.  Trees and plants would always have been in good shape without thorns and thistles.

This ideal picture is the measure by which we came from.  Everything at the beginning of creation was perfect and it runs against the grain of accidental evolution.  In evolution Man is seen as having started from a bad position and as time moves on, he is perfected. The Book of Genesis goes in the opposite direction. Man, and creation was absolutely perfect…

There was no death in the Garden of Eden this includes animals.  There is much I want to say here about the new birth for creation too but if Adam and Even never sinned Christ would not have needed to have died.  These questions we will look at after the Fall when Man falls from God’s glory into a sinful state.

Day 5

20 Then God said, “Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens.” 21 God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind; and God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23 There was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.

24 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind”; and it was so. 25 God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind; and God saw that it was good. Genesis 1:20-25 NASB

By the end of day 4 the earth was now in a position to host all types of life; sea life, air life, land life including humans.  At this time there was no sin in the world.  Nature by the end of day 5 worked absolutely perfectly. There is no mention of death until the Fall of Adam and Eve.

Verse 20

20 Then God said, “Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens.”

All living creatures were to live out their lives in the expanse of the heavens (firmament, below God’s pavement).  These creatures are the ones found in the sea and the air (birds, bats)

Verse 21

21 God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind; and God saw that it was good.

Moses here continues to reinterpret myths of the area (Egypt, Canaan, Mesopotamia).  In these myths the creatures of the deep were seen to be servants of some divine being such as Yam (the sea god).  Moses reinterprets this and says that these are just created creatures. They do not have a divine function and are in the same category as the birds (no extraordinary functions).

Verses 22-23

22 God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23 There was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.

On the fifth day God blesses the sea creatures however large and the birds of the air and were told to multiply.  This Divine command is still in force today as they continue to multiply.

Verses 24-25

At the very end here God creates the land animals and they are from the earth. 

24 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind”; and it was so. 25 God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind; and God saw that it was good.

Reflection and analysis.

Even on day 5 we find a critique of the gods.  Creatures however big are just creatures created by a living. There is no Yam the so-called sea god or Baal the god of the storms.   All the land animals are seen as ‘good’. 

In this first creation story, God is referred to as just Elohim (the general impersonal word for God). In the end of the first creation story God is still only referred to as Elohim but He says that we were created in God’s image, and we are expected to rule (manage) earth. In the second creation story God is referred to as ‘Lord God’ and has God’s personal name. In the second creation story of Man God gets really close up in the pinnacle of the creation story.  We haven’t reached there just yet.

So then we share certain types of organic life with the rest of nature; we need food, rest, water, air like the animals but as the same time we are also from above, we have God given rationality that helps us to solve problems at a deeper level and also to have communion with our holy God.

For further reading you can read the notes below taken from; biblehub.com/commentaries/genesis/1-20.htm

Notes

There are some very interesting points about the living creatures in this commentary.  I have included it in my notes because I will be referencing to it quite a lot  but also to Von Rad’s commentary.  

“Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

20–23. The Fifth Day. The Creation of Water Animals and Flying Animals

20. Let the waters … life] The rendering, “bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life,” fails to give the full meaning of the original. Literally, the words mean “let the waters swarm swarms, even living soul”: and the purpose of the command is that the waters are to teem with myriads of living animals. Hence the R.V. margin, “swarm with swarms of living creatures” is closer to the original; but it fails to reproduce the phrase “living soul,” in apposition to the word translated “swarms.” No translation is satisfactory which fails to give prominence to the thought, that the waters are to teem with things endowed with a wondrous new gift, the active principle of animal life, which the Hebrews called nephesh, and which is nearly represented by the Greek ψυχή. We might, therefore, translate “let the waters swarm with swarms of creatures, even with countless things which have life.”

That there should ever be any difficulty in deciding whether an organism belonged to the vegetable or to the animal “kingdom would never have occurred to an ancient writer.

The rendering “the moving creature” went wrong in following the ancient versions, which supposed that the word rendered in the margin “swarm,” denoted only “creeping things” or “reptiles.” LXX ἑρπετὰ ψυχῶν ζωσῶν. Lat. reptile animae viventis. This gives an entirely false impression. The command is for the creation of all sorts of water animals.

and let fowl fly] Rather, “and let winged things fly.” The command includes all creatures with wings, e.g. bats, butterflies, beetles, insects, as well as birds.

in the open firmament of heaven] This rendering scarcely reproduces the sense of the Hebrew words, which literally mean “in the face of,” or “over against, the firmament of heaven.” The idea is that winged things are to fly “above” the earth, and “in front of” the vault of heaven. The R.V. margin, on the face of the expanse of the heaven, is cumbrous and obscure. The meaning seems to be that the flight of winged things shall be in mid air, “in front,” as it were, of the solid “firmament of heaven,” which was not remote. The winged creatures would continually be visible against the sky.”

Before we begin our discussion, my question is what is your point of view about the creation of the world?

Humanity has not yet been created and at the beginning of Genesis God had already created light and darkness:

Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.  God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.  God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day. Genesis 1:3-5

On a superficial reading of the English text, it is interesting to note that the ‘light’ in Genesis 1. 3-5 is a singular noun. As we continue reading ‘light’ is now in the plural.  Let’s read this fourth day then:

Ones view may differ as people now live in the 21st Century. Perhaps a person has been influenced by the latest scientific discoveries or  a person might think this story is only a myth and not true. Or one has a faith and these words are from God. Before making any judgement however I hope you read this article to the end and perhaps you will be convinced that there really is a Higher Order. The ancients were not any less intelligent than the so called modern man. If you want to know what each place is on the map go to (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonian_Map_of_the_World)

14 Then God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years; 15 and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. 16 God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also. 17 God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18 and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good. 19 There was evening and there was morning, a fourth day. Genesis 1:14-19

Although light as a noun is used twice here in Genesis 1 there is a difference in function. 

In Genesis 1. 3-5 the function was the creation of day a basic time unit. 

In Genesis 1. 14-19 the function of time becomes more nuanced and user friendly for animals and humans with how light refers to ‘seasons, years and day…’

The timeline has moved on from the basic ‘day’ to the collection of days that make up the four seasons which make up a year. The expanse had already been created but now God has been painting the canvas with small lights (stars) the sun in the daytime and the reflective light of the sun on the moon at night time.

At the moment I have just done a cursory reading of the text yet we have learned quite a lot.  From a brief description I already have some questions and statements:

1. Why two stories of light creation?
2. What are the qualitative and functional differences of these two separate days?
3. How did the ancients perceive the lights in the heavens in early human history?
4. Why the two stories use singular and plural for light.
5. God shows his love for life in the small detail.
6. God’s work is perfect.
7. Chaos created by God was tamed by an intelligent Being (God). 
8. This flies against the theory of accidental creation of life.
9. This goes against the theory that humanity and creation are moving towards perfection as everything God touched was already perfect for the miracle of life.
10. Evolution in its principle state needs to be rejected because it writes God out of the history of the world and is offensive to most Abrahamic religious dogma.

This does not mean that I am too critical with modern views.  We will however look at some views from Old Testament scholars about the creation story including ancient views such as Josephus.  The other thing to realize is that the theory of evolution was not first created by Charles Darwin.  Not at all, the ancient Greeks were playing with these ideas in the West.  There are also the Eastern religions that see history not as a straight line but circular!  

Gerhard Von Rad sees in these pages a critique of much of the mythologizing that took place in places such as Babylonia and Egypt for example with the worship of these heavenly bodies of the sun moon and stars. Genesis goes against the grain by pointing out that the Genesis story puts all the heavenly objects with the realm of created things and dependence on God for their existence.  These astral bodies are merely part of God’s creation.

From my perspective I feel that Genesis 1 is a critique of Egyptian religion first and then the other religions.  It makes more sense that way because this was the land in which the Israelites were made slaves and it is from this land that they were liberated by the Lord (Ha Shem). In Deuteronomy 4. 19 we read:

“ And beware not to lift up your eyes to heaven and see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, and be drawn away and worship them and serve them, those which the LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven. 20 But the LORD has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, from Egypt, to be a people for His own possession, as today. Deuteronomy 4:19-20 NASB”

So, then you can see the parallel between Genesis 1 and Deuteronomy 4.  The Jewish Encyclopaedia puts the main emphasis on Egypt but it also made the point that before God called Abraham he also worshiped the sun, moon and stars (until he was liberated by the Lord You will find more information online at …jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13990-star-worship (I usually leave the first part of the link out for security reasons.))  My view is a contrast to the old liberal view that we should first look at Mesopotamia. If you want to follow this through then I used the International Critical edition on Genesis by Skinner, from 1910. 

I really don’t understand why modern scholarship overlooks Deuteronomy 4.19.  Moses here makes it plain that this influence of worship came from Egypt! My argument here would be that the Torah is a unit of work attributed to Moses Thus it makes perfect sense to interpret Genesis firstly from the advantage point of the Torah. I think this is a mistake by these early 20^th century scholars.  They go digging in the various parts of the Middle East and forget to read the Torah and for the literary clues we find in there. Let’s not forget that Egypt was a highly developed country of its time.  Egypt still holds a lot of secrets for example with metallurgy and the cutting of stone. The metals they used in those days was inferior to some of the tools we use today, yet they manged to cut granite and polish it which is one of the hardest rocks on earth. Tutankhamun’s dagger for example was made from iron and nickel which came from a meteor.  Iron in the ancient world was very rare commodity but they were highly skilled in making this sword (from…en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutankhamun%27s_meteoric_iron_dagger)

Genesis is the first book of the five books of Moses (Torah). Thus there is an inner harmony for the first five books. Whether or not Moses wrote the Torah or was influenced by Moses or whatever the background the important point is that we need to take the whole five books as a unit. As a unit, there is no need to cut the book into various bits especially Genesis with dating such as this is Elohistic or this is Yxxstic thus this section is earlier than this section. There is no need for that. Perhaps these scholars ought to have paid a closer attention to the Rabbis thus no need for massive scholarly mistakes. Julius Wellhausen and others put together a documentary hypothesis in the19^th century to try to work out the age of Genesis. The oldest book in the Bible from its internal evidence is actually the book of Job.

Reflection

Whatever the date God gave us times and seasons. This creative act on this day was a perfect and good creation. Having a natural rhythm of light and darkness, hot and cold. Everything is now ready for the next day with the creation of the animals.