2 Jan. The story of God's creation (continued)
"This is the story of the creation of the sky and the earth. When the Lord God first made the earth and the sky, there were still no plants on the earth."
"Nothing was growing in the fields because the Lord God had not yet made it rain on the land. And there was no person to care for the ground, but a mist would rise up from the earth and water all the ground."
"Then the Lord God took dust from the ground and formed a man from it. He breathed the breath of life into the man's nose, and the man became a living person..."
"Then the Lord God said, 'It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is right for him'."
"From the ground God formed every wild animal and every bird in the sky, and he brought them to the man so the man could name them. Whatever the man called each living thing, that became its name. The man gave names to all the tame animals, to the birds in the sky, and to all the wild animals."
"But Adam did not find a helper that was right for him. So the Lord God caused the man to sleep very deeply, and while he was asleep, God removed one of the man's ribs. Then God closed up the man's skin at the place where he took the rib."
"The Lord God used the rib from the man to make a woman, and then he brought the woman to the man."
"And the man said, 'Now, this is someone whose bones came from my bones, whose body came from my body. I will call her "woman", because she was taken out of man'."
"So a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, and the two will become one body."
(Genesis 2:4-24)
Did you know that there are two parallel accounts of the Creation at the beginning of the Book of Genesis?
The first account is in Genesis 1:1-2:3 (see yesterday's passage and commentary); the second account follows in Genesis 2:4-3:25. Neither is intended as a detailed scientific explanation, but both accounts affirm that God created the earth and mankind - although some details in the two accounts differ.
In the first account, God created man and woman at the same time (see Genesis 1:27), while in the second account he created man first (see Genesis 2:7) and then created woman later (see Genesis 2:21-23).
In the first account, God created the animals before man (see Genesis 1:24-26); in the second, he created the animals after man (see Genesis 2:18-19).
Some people believe that the details of the creation story in the Bible are literally true. Many however, believe that the creation accounts contain a fundamental truth – that God created all that exists – but are happy for modern science to discover the details of how this might have occurred.
The photo shows a spring bringing life-giving water to the Judaean desert near Masada.
You can read more from the Biblical account of creation @ https://www.thebiblejourney.org/biblejourney2/23-the-journeys-of-adam-enoch-noah-abraham/the-biblical-account-of-creation