Professor – I’ve spent a week thinking about your contention that your deity wrote and gave us the Bible. You have made for yourself a rather large mountain to climb.
Students – We can’t deny that. But what is a hypothesis that can’t stand the heat? There’s no value in hiding anything. The long climb starts with one step, so here goes.
The first verse of the Bible mentions the name of the first cause (Exhibit A) as “God.” But this term is generic and diluted by the English translation. It could refer to the deity of any religion, not to the deity of the Bible. Since the so-called “Old Testament” comes to us in the Hebrew language, the title of God is actually “Elohim”, a much more precise and pregnant term than merely “God,” though still rather basic and general. This word is used 2602 times (2507 for the true God) in the Tanakh, or Old Testament. It can be used for the true God, the false gods, angels (supernatural beings), or human leaders. The “im” ending makes the noun masculine and plural, but when used for the true God, it is coupled with singular masculine verbs. So at the outset of the Bible we are faced with a plural deity – Elohim. In the Hebrew portion of the Bible there are four words for the English “God” – El, Elah, Elo’ah, and Elohim – but again these are descriptions of the deity, not his name.
El means power and strength, and is first used in Gen. 14:18 –
“And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; now he was a priest of God Most High (El Elyon).”
Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures Elohim makes himself known to his people through the multifaceted virtues of his being. Here are some instances:
El Elyon – God most high – Genesis 14:18
El Shaddai – The all-sufficient breasted God – Genesis 17:1
El Roi – The God who sees me – Genesis 16:13
El Olam – The Everlasting God – Genesis 21:33
El Kanno – The Jealous God –– Exodus 20:5
El Rachum – The God of Compassion – Deuteronomy 4:31
El Haggadoi – The great God – Deuteronomy 10:17
El Yeshurun – The God of the righteous people – Deuteronomy 32:15
El De’ot – The God of knowledge – 1 Samuel 2:3
El Hannora – The Awesome God – Nehemiah 9:32
El Hakkavod – The God of glory – Psalm 29:3
El Chaiyai – The God of my life – Psalm 42:8
El Sali – The God of my strength – Psalm 42:9
El Yeshuatenu – The God of our salvation – Psalm 68:19
El Yisrael – The God of Israel – Psalm 68:36
El Hashamayim – The God of the heavens – Psalm 136:26
El Hakkadosh – The Holy God – Isaiah 5:16
Immanuel – God with us – Isaiah 7:14
El Gibbor – The mighty God – Isaiah 9:6
El Yeshuati – The God of my salvation – Isaiah 12:2
El Channun – The Gracious God – Jonah 4:2
Each term, or description, has a reason behind it. Most compelling to us is El Shaddai – the all-sufficient God with an udder, or breast. Not only do we see the feminine side of Elohim in this term, we see that he came to his servants at a time in their lives when they most needed a mother to reach down and lift them to a breast of nourishment and assurance and comfort. Abraham had sired Ishmael outside Yahweh’s sanction, and for thirteen long years of silence he waited for the return of the voice and appearance of his creator. Finally, El contacted him as El Shaddai, his heavenly “mother” to set things right.
When Jacob left home after depriving his brother of the blessing, he was naturally afraid of what might befall him at the hands of Esau. El Shaddai came to him with comfort and reassurance that only a mother can bring.
When heartbroken Jacob had to give up his youngest son to the Egyptian lord in order for his family to survive the famine, he sent his sons back to Egypt under the care of El Shaddai.
Professor – It dawns on me how inadequate are translations of the original language.
Students – Yes. We have been ill-served by them. We don’t know how translations in other languages are in comparison to English, but if they are similar, then people everywhere are pretty much in the dark. Any student of the Bible should have good lexicons at hand to discover the nuances of the words. They are indispensible. What we have to say next is a good example of what we’re talking about.
As rich and meaningful as are the descriptions associated with Elohim, there is something intimately closer to Elohim’s creatures, and it appears in the second chapter of Genesis. “This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made earth and heaven” (2:4). Here is the introduction of the Tetragrammaton, which means “the four letters” YHWH, a name too holy for conservative Hebrews to say out loud. This is the name of Elohim as he deals with his creation. This is Elohim coming near to his creatures to let himself be known by them. This cannot be overemphasized. He is the deity in search of a covenant people. Elohim had a purpose in creation and that was to connect with his creation, in particular with his chosen people. Modern usage adds vowels to assist in the pronunciation, thus Yahweh.
Professor – Is there a danger in adding gender to Elohim?
Students – If, as we hypothesize, Elohim wrote the Scriptures through human agency, he is responsible for the gender usage. He is the creator of both man and woman, which we contend proves he is both, but for the sake of dealing with his creatures, he is the Father, the male. That is not to say the male element dominates the female, but in deference to order, one must take the lead. Now back to Yahweh.
This name was first made known to Moses in Exodus 3:15 when Moses received instructions on how to approach Pharaoh and the Israelites.
“Elohim, furthermore, said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘Yahweh, the Elohim of your fathers, the Elohim of Abraham, the Elohim of Isaac, and the Elohim of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is My name forever, and this is My memorial-name to all generations.”
In the scriptural record Yahweh is used over 6500 times. In 1:1 it is Elohim who created and restored the Earth, but chapter two attributes this work to Yahweh. This is not a mistake, as some would allege, but rather a further revelation of the triunity of Elohim, the plural deity. Elohim is the first, and Yahweh is the second. Although the Hebrews refuse to acknowledge the actual plurality of Elohim, choosing instead to make him the plural of honor and fullness and excellence and “the greatest God of all,” that is merely their preference. The Bible reveals a triune deity of three distinct persons.
Genesis 1:1 says,
“In the beginning Elohim created the heaven and the Earth.”
It does not say how he did it. For that we have to go to the first three verses of the New Testament gospel of John.
“In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.”
Paul further explains:
“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:15).
According to the Bible, creation came through speaking, and that speaking through the second person of the triune deity – Yahweh. Not only so, but this second person Yahweh also holds the universe together. Every particle in it has power, some weak, some strong, and they either attract or repel one another. But whether they are giant galaxies or subatomic particles, they harmoniously spin and vibrate and remain intact instead of flying apart. String theory may explain this phenomenon, but behind it all there is one who created and maintains.
Professor – How shall I take “Logos”?
Students – The speaking out of a thought. It is the Word that expresses the Mind. This is Yahweh the Son expressing and performing the mind of his Father Elohim. The thought is there to create, and the Word is there to speak the thought into being. The first cause Elohim, the overarching deity, “the great God of all,” moves and acts through the second person of his plurality, Yahweh, who is the Logos, the Word. What he speaks he conveys. Out of him – this conscious, triune “person” – comes material according to his speaking. This explains why language in word and in number is found in every facet of inner and outer space. He conveys himself by language.
In Genesis 1:2 we are brought into several ideas that demand our attention if we are to understand the Bible. It reads:
“The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.”
The situation is more dramatic than it reads. To grasp the full import requires a look into the Hebrew words. Rather than “the earth was,” implying that it was made that way, a better translation is “the earth became,” indicating that something cataclysmic occurred to change it. “Formless” is tohu, which means a wasteland, a place of confusion and chaos. “Void” is bohu, a place of emptiness. Therefore, something happened after verse one to turn the Earth into an empty wasteland. we say this because of something Isaiah wrote:
“For thus says Yahweh, who created the heavens (He is the God who formed the earth and made it, He established it and did not create it a waste place, but formed it to be inhabited), ‘I am Yahweh, and there is none else’” (45:18).
The original creation was not as we find it in Genesis 1:2.
Professor – What happened?
Students – The short answer is rebellion, rebellion among the angels. Angels were the first of Yahweh’s creation. He asked Job in 38:4-7:
“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding, Who set its measurements? Since you know. Or who stretched the line on it? On what were its bases sunk? Or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God (angels who had all their being from him) shouted for joy?”
Chief among the angels was the Morning Star Lucifer, the archangel. Isaiah records the demise into his adversarial role. Isaiah 14:12-15 reads:
“But you said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, and I will sit on the mount of assembly in the recesses of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’ Nevertheless you will be thrust down to Sheol, to the recesses of the pit.”
In pronouncing judgment on the king of Tyre, Ezekiel describes the king’s animating force, the evil archangel.
“Thus says the Lord God, ‘You had the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering: the ruby, the topaz and the diamond; the beryl, the onyx and the jasper; the lapis lazuli, the turquoise and the emerald; and the gold, the workmanship of your settings and sockets, was in you. On the day that you were created they were prepared. You were the anointed cherub who covers, and I placed you there. You were on the holy mountain of God; you walked in the midst of the stones of fire. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created until unrighteousness was found in you’” (Ezekiel 28:12-15).
Jeremiah writes this in 4:23:
“I looked on the earth, and behold, it was formless and void; and to the heavens, and they had no light. I looked on the mountains, and behold, they were quaking, and all the hills moved to and fro. I looked, and behold, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens had fled. I looked, and behold, the fruitful land was a wilderness, and all its cities were pulled down before the Lord, before His fierce anger.”
“Formless” (tohu) and “void” (bohu) are the exact same Hebrew words found in Genesis 1:2. Isaiah said Satan would ascend above the clouds to wrest the throne from the Almighty. Being the caretaker of Earth before Adam, he and his subordinate angels were living on the Earth in cities under clouds when rebellion overtook him. The watery judgment of Genesis 1:2 dislodged him and his minions from the Earth, allowing for the restoration of the corrupted Earth and the creation of human beings in Yahweh’s image. Satan occupies the heavenly realms now, but when he is cast conclusively out of heaven he takes with him one third of the fallen angels. John writes of this in the Apocalypse in 12:4:
“Then another sign appeared in heaven: and behold, a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads were seven diadems. And his tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth.”
Paul adds this in Ephesians 6:12:
“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.”
And Peter:
“Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).
Professor – The Bible is not so simple.
Students – No, it’s not. It has a lot of layers.
Professor – Please continue. I find it fascinating.
Students – According to the Bible, this rebellion is the origination of evil (Exhibit B) in the cosmos. Formerly the covering cherub was Lucifer the archangel. In his rebellion he became Satan the adversary, as well as the tempter, the destroyer, the dragon of the Apocalypse, who is responsible for the ruined and wasted and darkened condition of the Earth in Genesis 1:2. Elohim had created perfectly, but due to the insurrection and the ruination wrought by his enemy, he had to judge creation by water. Here is Peter regarding the situation:
“For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished” (2 Peter 3:5-6).
Professor – I know several rather thoughtful friends who have a big problem with the concept of the deity intervening in the affairs of Earth, especially in the affairs of human beings. Being Jewish, I have no problem with the concept. Are you familiar with that objection?
Students – Certainly. Not only with an intervening creator, but also with a literal interpretation of Genesis. But to us, it seems that this is the interpretation that accounts best for what the Bible is saying.
The example of this is at hand. Critics summarily dismiss this literal interpretation of the devil, his minions, and his activities; but the result of his rebellion speaks for itself. Had Elohim failed to intervene in the affairs of his creation, all would have been lost, for such is the implacable evil of this enemy. Though he can usurp and ruin creation to such a degree as to warrant wholesale judgment, there is evidence that as this age nears its end he will step up his assault on his creator and his creation. John, writing of such a time, says this:
“For this reason, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them. Woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, knowing that he has only a short time” (Revelation 12:12).
This brings us back to Genesis 1:2 and the intervention of the plural deity in his creation. In the midst of a chaotic and wasted and dark condition, the Spirit of Elohim is hovering, brooding over it all, the Hebrew meaning of the verb rachaph.
“The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.”
The third person of the plural deity – ruach – is the breath or Spirit of Elohim. This third person acts in the feminine role of a brooding hen, seeking to restore and coax life out of a dead Earth that is standing in water and out of water.
In the first two verses of the book that forms the second half of our hypothesis (nature and Scripture as the twin revelations of the creating deity), we find characteristics of Elohim that are unfathomable in nature. He is plural in being – overarching as Elohim; expressive as Yahweh; executing as the Spirit. He is purposeful, determined, patient, concerned, and caring for creation. As the Spirit he patiently broods in order to bring forth life out of death.
The record of Genesis beginning with verse two and the brooding Spirit is not one of creation, but of restoration, of regeneration. Creation happened in the first verse. “Elohim created the heaven and the earth.” Period. Done. But something happened to the Earth as evidenced in verse two, and I’ve already touched on this. Earth was judged by a catastrophic flood, over which the Spirit hovered to restore, to regenerate, to reconstruct. According to 2 Peter 3:6, this was the world that “then was,” and there is the heavens and earth which “are now.” Same Earth; two different times, or ages. The “world” (kosmos) is not the “earth,” but rather that which happens on the Earth – the conditions prevailing upon Earth’s surface. What happened between the two verses, between creation and an Earth destroyed by water?
Professor – It must be the rebellion.
Students – We believe so.
Professor – This is hard to take as a scientist.
Students – We understand. We take classes, so we know. But it is also hard to refute. If our hypothesis is accurate, the same deity, or person, is responsible for both the information in the book and the information in nature. They shouldn’t conflict.
Professor – So explain further this rebellion.
Students – What happened was watery judgment on the pre-Adamic world due to the rebellion and fall of Lucifer and his minions. Science pegs the age of the Earth at around 4.5 billion years, and who knows but that in ten years it might be ratcheted up or down a couple hundred million. Suffice it to say, the Earth is old. Sometime during those ages the archangel Lucifer, literal administrator of God’s creation, particularly the Earth, rebelled against his creator and led a failed angelic coup against Elohim’s throne. In his fury and malignancy he ruined the creation that was in place to support human beings. Genesis 2:4 says,
“These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.”
Note the plural “generations.” We had an antecedent world, a previous age, or ages, one that Lucifer, or Satan, the adversary of Elohim, corrupted through the wickedness of rebellion. It was that ruined creation that came under Elohim’s watery judgment. This is what we see in the second verse of the book – an Earth covered by a death flood that had destroyed the cosmos, the world before Adam.
Professor – What about the plural heavens?
Students – We are not told much about that in the canonized Scriptures, however, the Book of Enoch goes into detail about 10 levels, or dimensions, of the heavens. There are hints of this, one being Paul’s explanation of being “caught up to the third heaven” (2 Corinthians 12:2). So Enoch may very well be correct in his assessment. He is a good source of information since Jude quoted him in his short letter.
Anyway, it was this cataclysmic convulsion and flood that gave the Earth its topography, its petrology and its fossils. This event could have been the Pleistocene Extinction. Cedric Leonard says this:
Some geologists may be softening their traditional stand against axial tilts and other rotational variations which could be the cause of world catastrophes. Dr. J. R. Heirtzler of the Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory observed that there has been “a revival of a 30-year-old theory that the glacial ages were caused by changes in the tilt of the earth’s axis . . . there is clear evidence that large earthquakes occur at about the same time as certain changes in the earth’s rotational motion.” He goes on to say: “Whatever the mechanism of these changes, it is not hard to believe that similar changes in the earth’s axial motion in times past could have caused major earthquake and mountain-building activity (see my Archeology page: Tiahuanacu) and could even have caused the magnetic field to flip” (Heirtzler, 1968). It has also been found that the end of the Pleistocene was attended by rampant volcanic activity (Hibben, 1946).
More recently Prof. Stephen Jay Gould, professor of geology at Harvard University, after studying the geological and paleontological record intensively, has championed the cause for open-minded consideration of catastrophism and uniformitarianism. He concludes that both concepts are represented equally in the geological record (Gould, 1977).
Prof. Hibben appears to sum up the situation in a single statement: “The Pleistocene period ended in death. This was no ordinary extinction of a vague geological period which fizzled to an uncertain end. This death was catastrophic and all inclusive” (Hibben, 1946).
Perhaps the best indicators of Earth’s antiquity and of the activity upon it are the Greenland Ice Sheet Project Two (GISP2) and the European Greenland Ice Core Project (GRIP) – two ice cores over 3,000 meters in depth. Close in proximity, these cores produced a record going back 110,000 years from 1950, and show some very interesting and revealing data.
The measurement of SO4 ions, or acid, in the Earth’s atmosphere spiked during the years 7000 BP (before 1950) and 13,000 BP because of volcanic activity. It is the most active period of time in the 110,000-year ice core record. This may have been the time when Elohim judged the Earth in the years preceding Adam. This might have been the Pleistocene Extinction. The second verse of Genesis verifies this assertion:
And the earth was (hayah- become, come to pass) without form (tohu – wasteland, wilderness, place of chaos) and void (bohu – emptiness, waste); and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
The Hebrew words make it clear that Earth was a dead planet in verse two. It had become an empty, chaotic wasteland because of the judgment, and it set the stage for six, literal, 24-hour days of restoration and regeneration. The very ground upon which this restoration occurred, the material used by Elohim to call forth the plants and animals, and to form Adam was the repository of death from a previous age. God did not create Adam on a benign and pristine Earth. It had been the scene of cataclysmic upheavals that overturned the surface of the Earth, grinding (plate tectonics) and burning (volcanism) and flooding out life in all its forms. Thus, Peter’s observation that the Earth was standing in water and out of water, like a fishing bob.
Professor – I’ve never heard any of this before.
Students – It takes some tough unconventional thinking.
Professor – I’m starting to see that.
Students – It’s one of the reasons we stand by our hypothesis. No other writing exposes the source and execution of evil like the Bible does. Who but Yahweh could have revealed it to humankind?
Professor – So what is in store for tonight?
Students – We think it best to move chronologically.
Evil is now present in the cosmos. Enter the agent created to deal with it – human beings.
According to the record of the second book (nature and the Bible), on the sixth day of restoring the Earth Yahweh created the first human being (Exhibit C). He did not simply call him into being, but rather “formed” him. Genesis 2:7 describes this formation:
“And the Lord God (Yahweh) formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living soul.”
The Hebrew word for “formed” is “yatsar” which means to mold and shape like a potter would form a vessel. The first man was formed of earth, of dirt, fabricated by Yahweh as a vessel to contain him. In order for the prototype human to interact with the physical realm he had to have a physical body, the outer shell of the vessel. Into this outer shell, Yahweh breathed the breath of life and the breath of the Almighty became the human spirit— the faculty in the human vessel whereby he may contact and contain Yahweh himself. I think this is what is known as the “image of God.” Jesus said,
“that which is born of Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6).
Paul said
“the Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God” (Romans 8:16).
It is by the spirit of a human that Yahweh contacts us, that the human vessel receives him, that the human knows him. It is in the deepest part – the human spirit – that Yahweh resides. It is there that the man bears his image (Genesis 1:23) and receives his life. So important is the human spirit in Yahweh’s creation and for his purpose, that Zechariah made it the center of all of Yahweh’s creative work.
“Thus declares the Lord who stretches out the heavens, lays the foundation of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him” (12:1).
The combination of the body and spirit produced the soul—the personality of the man found in his mind, his emotion, and his will. A truly fulfilled person is one who brings his capacity to think, to emote, and to decide under the direct influence and control of his creator-filled spirit. A soul thus regulated in turn regulates the behavior of the body and the three-part being becomes an extension, an exhibition, a display of the divine life residing within the human vessel.
To iterate for emphasis, a human is a three-part being composed of a body, a soul and a spirit. This account in Genesis 2 begins the Scriptural development of this fact. The soul contains the capacity to think (mind), to feel (emotions), and to decide (will). The spirit has within it the ability to contact and worship and fellowship with Yahweh; to know right from wrong as Yahweh does – conscience – and to have a deep sense of Yahweh and knowledge of him, of situations, and of other people that supersedes our mind – the intuition.
Why did Yahweh make the first man this way? Because this is the way Yahweh is comprised and humans are made in his image.
Professor – Was this your argument about the first cause?
Students – What do you mean?
Professor – You said Yahweh created the cosmos by wanting to, by thinking it through, and by determining to do it, and then doing it. It seems to me the same thing is in play with the creation of the human.
Students – You’re correct. That’s how we see it. To carry it further, Yahweh’s intention is that, like him, the man could be filled with his divine life containing his characteristics, his attributes, his essence, and his nature. It was fully possible for the man to be the same as Yahweh had he been faithful to turn away from the temptation to disobey and to allow Yahweh to have access to his thinking, his emotions, and his decisions; to actually reside within him to guide him, to energize him, to use him for his purposes. But we know the enemy of Yahweh lurked in the shadows to frustrate and to destroy.
This was the scene over which the Spirit of Elohim brooded (rachaph) like a hen upon her nest, bringing forth life out of death. Because of the present evil at the time of the first couple’s creation, Elohim commanded them to be fruitful and to fill the Earth and subdue it. Had the first couple begun life on a newly created Earth, there would have been nothing to conquer and subdue; but there was. At that time, an enemy croached in the shadows waiting to work his evil upon the new race. Genesis 1:28:
“Elohim blessed them; and Elohim 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.’”
For Adam and Eve to subdue and conquer the rebel spirit required a life stronger than their own, though perfect and innocent. This life they would find in the simple act of obedience to Yahweh in partaking of the tree of life, a representation of the eternal, incorruptible life of the Creator. Whether this tree was an actual fruit-bearing tree is not the issue; the issue was the first couple’s need to obey and to ingest a higher life, the life of Yahweh that would have enabled them to carry out their mission. Had they obeyed and taken in the real life, the eternal life, they would have been prepared for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They would have been able to recognize their place and mission in the battle-scarred universe, and how they were to handle the enemy they were created to confront and conquer. They failed, and, through disobedience, they took into their being the satanic life that polluted and poisoned them to the core, even to the DNA coding on their information package. This is how the sinful nature was passed down generationally, even to this day. Every human being is born defiled by the enemy of his soul, being genetically tainted by the evil element. The original sin of disobedience, of willful rejection of Yahweh’s prohibition, in this world – the world of Adam – allowed the enemy of Elohim and of every human soul to invade and infect with evil itself the first couple of the current age.
Professor – Is this the so-called original sin?
Students – Yes. It started here.
Professor – If I hear you correctly, you are not saying there was anything magical about the fruit of the tree of knowledge.
Students – Correct. The issue before the original couple was obedience to Yahweh’s prohibition.
Professor – So you’re saying that they would have eventually taken the tree of knowledge?
Students – Had they taken the tree of life first, that would have prepared them for the tree of knowledge.
Professor – What would they have known in the way of knowledge?
Students – Looking back, we would say they would have realized they were in enemy territory, and were facing a truculent and intractable foe bent on destroying them. That’s why they needed the higher life, which would have filled them had they been obedient, and enabled them to handle their situation. As it worked out, we are all filled with the evil life, up to the present day.
Professor – That I cannot deny. Even a cursory glance at the world should convince anyone.
Students – But there are detractors who would beg to differ. That’s what makes no sense to us.
To deny the sin nature (Exhibit D) is to deny the empirical evidence of six thousand years of human history. Jeremiah wrote,
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (17:9)
Paul said,
“there is none righteous, no not one. There is none that understands: there is none that seeks after God. They are all gone out of the way; they are together become unprofitable; there is none that does good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulcher; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips; whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; destruction and misery are in their ways.” (Rom. 3: 10-16)
There is no person who ever lived, save Jesus, and no person alive today who can refute this indictment. If the corruption brought on by disobedience in the garden was not systemic, even down to the genes a person passes on, then there must be some explanation for the rampant evil in the world that never abates, but rather increases with time. We have not heard of one.
Professor – Some would argue that every baby born into the world is a blank slate to be written on by the environment.
Students – And yet even newborns are selfish and demanding and easily angered. All babies are prime examples of bad behavior right from the jump.
Professor – I can’t argue. My kids are the same. So are you implying that the human nature is a result of Satan’s attack?
Students – According to the record, it is more than an implication. It was an attack on the information package in every cell of the first couple. Satan injected himself into them in an attempt to render them useless to Yahweh. But he didn’t stop there.
Professor – What do you mean?
Students – This next may surprise you, but to understand the intransigence of Satan, we have to be aware of the fallen archangel and his consuming hatred of anything emanating from the hand of Yahweh, including, especially, his highest creation – human beings. Not only does he oppose Yahweh’s plan, but also he resorts to any means he can devise to thwart, ruin, and destroy it. In regard to human beings he primarily attacks through genetics, for, according to Genesis 3:15, he has “seed” – the genetic ability to procreate, to pass on his angelic genes, in violation of the established order of the restoration. Genesis says “after their kind.” But this dark lord was unrestrained in his rebellion, and the record reports that his followers broke free of angelic restraint to copulate with human women.
“Now it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose” (Genesis 6:1-2).
The product of this union was what the Hebrew calls “Nephilim,” which means “fallen ones.”
The question one must ask is why would Satan stoop to this level of wickedness?
Professor – That is a good question. How would you answer it?
Students – We need to go back to the creation of the first couple and their encounter with this dark spirit.
Once the serpent, the physical manifestation of Satan, did his work to deceive the woman into disobedience, the man knowingly and deliberately followed. When Yahweh confronted them in their futile attempt to cover themselves with fig leaves, he prophesied for the first time in Scripture, a prophecy that Satan took to heart, and one that would play out until the end of the Bible and the end of time.
“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel” (Genesis 3:15).
Both seeds – Yahweh’s and Satan’s – came through the woman. This could not happen unless it happened genetically. Through the couple’s disobedience to Yahweh’s prohibition concerning the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the enemy of their souls was able to enter into their physical being and mutate their genetic information (DNA) with the introduction of his evil nature and presence; in other words, his genetic makeup. What was at that time the innocent body, mutated into what the Bible refers to as “flesh.” What was once the innocent soul, became the “self.” The fallen one had then and there sired his progeny, a progeny under his control that would attempt to overwhelm the coming seed destined to crush his head.
The Hebrew word for “bruise” means to crush. Satan heard the word from Yahweh himself that Eve’s progeny would come to destroy him. It became incumbent upon him to destroy or be destroyed. He had accomplished a huge first step in his pernicious plan by causing the fall of the first couple.
Professor – Before you get into that, can I return to something you said earlier before I forget?
Students – Sure.
Professor – I heard you mention a 6000-year time frame.
Students – We did. We’re putting a lid on the duration of human beings.
Professor – That’s bold.
Students – Maybe, but we think we have a case.
Although there is no time restriction on the natural world (that we know of), the Bible is very embedded with the number 7. It records a six-day restoration of Earth with a seventh day of rest. Peter wrote, “But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day” (2 Peter 3:8). Seven days times a thousand years equals 7000 years (Exhibit E). From Adam to Abraham was 2000 years; from Abraham to Jesus was 2000 years, and from Jesus to the present is nearly 2000 years. That leaves another 1000-year period, which is the Messiah’s kingdom of rest.
Professor – Why seven?
Students – If you weigh all the evidence throughout Scripture, it is a perfect number, a number that designates divine perfection. Let us explain.
The number seven is noteworthy throughout the Scriptures. Here’s a sample:
• Seven days make up a week.
• Enoch, who walked with Yahweh and was taken up, was the 7th generation from Adam.
• Noah’s ark was loaded in seven days, and included seven of the clean beasts.
• Abraham received a seven-fold covenant from Yahweh in Genesis 12:2.
• That same covenant was repeated seven times to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
• Seventy persons became the nation of Israel.
• The Law of Moses contained seven feasts for the people.
• Solomon built the Temple in seven years.
• To accomplish perfect atonement on the Day of Atonement, the priest sprinkled sacrificial blood on the mercy seat, before the mercy seat, before the veil, on the horns of the golden altar, on the horns of the brazen altar, round about upon the altar, and poured the remainder at the foot of the brazen altar.
• The Jews spent seventy years exiled in Babylon.
• Jesus performed seven miracles, or signs, in the gospel of John.
• Jesus uttered seven “I am” statements in the same gospel. “I am the bread of life;” “I am the light of the world;” “I am the door;” “I am the good shepherd;” “I am the resurrection and the life;” “I am the way, the truth, and the life;” and “I am the true vine.”
• While hanging on the tree until death, Jesus uttered seven statements.
• There are seven “ones” related to the Spirit and the Body of Christ in Ephesians 4:4-6: one body and one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father of all.
• In Revelation we find seven angels, seven congregations, seven seals, seven trumpets, seven vials, seven lamp stands, seven stars, seven plagues, seven spirits, seven eyes, seven lamps, seven thunders, seven heads, seven crowns, seven mountains, and seven kings.
This is just a short list, but it highlights the pervasive concept of seven in Scriptures, and it provides enough evidence to support the theory that humanity (that is, human beings made in Elohim’s image as per Genesis 1:27) is around 6000 years old. This is contingent upon our original hypothesis that first cause delivered through human agency a compilation of writings that constitute his thoughts and purposes and actual speaking – the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures.
Professor – So you’re saying that Adam was made 6000 years ago?
Students – We are.
Professor – I can just see some of my colleagues now. Their heads would explode.
Students – We’re not saying that the Earth is young or that Adam was the first human ever created. Evidence proves otherwise. If they have a better hypothesis, we’d like to hear it. If they base any of their theories on mathematics, they’ll not succeed, as we have seen in the book of nature.
Professor – That’s true. So how does this progress? The couple is created in the deity’s image, is damaged by Satan, and humanity has a lifespan of six thousand years.
Students – Seven thousand.
Professor – Okay. So where are you heading? I think you were talking about Adam and Eve’s progeny after their disobedience.
Students – We were. Coming up is a real plot twist.
The two have just sinned. Satan has taken up residence in them. Being in the flesh of his target was a huge step in his plan to destroy humanity. He was embedded in his enemy and it would only be a matter of time for him to work out the details of destruction. The scene is fraught with irony. The one whose weakness and failure brought about the disobedience was the same one through whom would come the promised one who would crush the head of the great antagonist at the expense of his bruised heel. Here is the promise of the incarnation of the Son of Elohim – Yahweh as a lowly man. What Satan meant for ill and for the destruction of humankind, Yahweh turned for good in the single greatest prophecy ever uttered – “He shall bruise your head.” And for eternal emphasis, Yahweh’s judgment on the ancient foe comes not in a direct blow from on high, but from the seed of a weak and fearful and guilty woman. When did it occur to him that nor only was he resident in humans, but also he was trapped there as well? Here is the delicious irony. Though he was near to destroy, he could not extract himself, and could be carried to his demise in that same flesh. This is why he feared the incarnation, and did all he could to prevent it.
Professor – That’s a twist I never expected.
Students – The caveat in all this was the necessity of a perfect human being as a sacrifice to carry out the bruising.
Professor – That would have to be Jesus, then.
Students – Correct. But we’re jumping ahead.
The first child born to Adam and Eve was Cain, whose progeny turned out to be the “seed of the serpent.” It was through him that men learned the cosmos outside the presence of Yahweh (Gen. 4:16). This opened the door to appalling evil that proliferated among humanity in contrast to the line of Abel, born after Cain. No sooner had Yahweh promised Eve that her seed would crush the serpent’s head, than Satan feverishly embarked on his scheme to destroy the human race as Yahweh’s chosen conduit for that seed. He knew that only the complete contamination of the race would negate that promise and his subsequent demise. So rabid was his fear and hatred of the promised seed that he compelled his rebel minions to materialize into men to seduce and rape (implied in “whomever they chose”) Earth’s women for the sole purpose of producing an irredeemable offspring that would contaminate Yahweh’s chosen vehicle— the human race— through which would come the promised seed. From this forbidden union, a union that violated Yahweh’s reproductive paradigm of “after their kind,” unnaturally large and strong offspring (a race of giants) came forth, proliferated and dominated the human race with the intention, we can surmise, of irredeemably contaminating the pure Adamic stock. Satan designed this contamination and destruction of humanity to eradicate any possibility that the dreaded seed of the woman would ever see the light of day; for if it did, his plan to eventually rule the universe by removing humanity as Yahweh’s chosen vehicle would utterly fail. To this day this plan has never altered or abated. If anything, it is ratcheting upward.
Professor – Tell me more about these Nephilim.
Students – This aberrant mix of the fallen angelic seed with the human seed of the women produced offspring of great stature and strength and ability. They filled the Earth with murder and mayhem as they marauded through the true Adamic stock. We can only speculate that the fallen angels made themselves very desirable to women, who apparently offered themselves as willing partners. We don’t know how quickly this forbidden propagation spread over the Earth, but the pure human stock either died off through attrition or was destroyed by the violent interlopers. Only a godly remnant of pure and righteous human beings stood between the wicked fiend and the total annihilation of the human race. It became more and more apparent that Yahweh had no choice but to judge the Earth once again, and with the same instrument – water.
Emerging humanity became riddled with Satan’s internal and external assaults. We should not be unaware of this modus operandi because these attacks exist in every person’s daily life in one degree or another. What was unique about this time in history was the presence of the hybrid Nephilim, the product of the illicit union of two different species – human and angelic.
Here is the record:
“Now it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God (rebellious angels) saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose” (Gen. 6:1-2).
Not only had the angelic seed spread its DNA contamination throughout the Earth, but also the rampant and unbridled evil bore the bitter fruit of violence, violence against the highest of Elohim’s creation – human beings. Finally Elohim had enough and had to intervene with judgment.
Professor – You paint a rather ugly picture of the beginning.
Students – It was bleak. Corrupted humanity had to be judged.
Much has been written about Noah’s flood (Exhibit F) and the ark with all its animals. Some claim that it is a mere story meant to teach a lesson. Others say it is taken from cultures that predate Moses and the children of Israel, such as the Sumerian account and the Epic of Gilgamesh. Hindus have their story; Native Americans have theirs; and the Greeks have something similar. In all of these the deity decides to punish humanity for various reasons, chief among them violence. The leading character in these cultures is warned to build a vessel to carry him over the impending flood. It is too incredible that flood myths were devised out of whole cloth without the phenomenon of an actual event. People are simply not that ingenious, especially when all the ancient cultures have essentially the same story.
Yahweh had great reason to judge humanity the way he did. When Eve delivered her first two sons, Cain and Abel, the prophecy delivered to the serpent –
“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel” (Gen. 3:15) –
began at once to be fulfilled. Through his own volition, Cain became the seed of the serpent (Satan), opening the door to the illegal copulation between the fallen angels and human females. Cain’s rampage against his brother was a harbinger of things to come.
Professor – I find it interesting that the trigger for the judgment was violence and not something else.
Students – That is true. Moses did not say that Earth was filled with lust, or theft, or extortion, or deception. He said violence because the end of all flesh is violence. Violence is the hallmark of corruption. In a corrupt world, when humans cannot work out their differences through communication, they resort to violence. In a corrupt world, the victim of adultery will kill. A victim of theft will kill. Corruption is the removal of restraint, and people left to themselves and guided by their fallen natures will plunge into violence. Imagine the Earth before the flood. Dominated by the angel/human hybrid, the Nephilim, who were prodded by their leader to destroy the pure human race through DNA or murder, society was a dreadful scene of mounting carnage. Violence, the apex of corruption, filled the Earth. It didn’t just appear here and there, but it filled the Earth. Jesus taught that the end times would mimic the days of Noah. He said there would be wars (violence) and rumors of wars. The Earth then was and will be at the end of time filled with violence. This is the leading characteristic, the end result, the satanic goal, of corruption, because violence destroys people, the only agency through which Yahweh accomplishes his eternal purpose.
Notwithstanding the widespread violence on the Earth, this contamination of the pure human stock had to be eradicated. Seth replaced murdered Abel in the line of righteousness that would eventuate in Yahweh taking on the flesh of a man in order to redeem humanity. Yahweh was determined to preserve this line before it was totally wiped out by the violence of the Nephilim. It was close. There were only eight people left on the Earth at the time the flood came who were of pure human stock. Among those in that holy pedigree was Enoch, who walked with Yahweh and was translated. He sired Methusaleh, whose name means, “when he dies, it will come.” It is a testament to the mercy of Yahweh that Methusaleh lived longer than any other man – 969 years – before the flood came. Methusaleh’s son Lamech, Noah’s father, died five years before the flood, leaving Noah, his wife, and his three sons and wives to carry on the righteous line after the flood. Without the Bible we would have no access to these alarming and appalling details. No other culture has a book we can consult on these monumental events. What they have is oral tradition and human imagination. I submit for consideration the consistency and accuracy of the Bible that time and scholarship cannot diminish, but rather strengthen.
Professor – You’re throwing down the gauntlet.
Students – We get pretty passionate about our hypothesis. We’re expecting to remain that way until we find a better one.
Professor – Continue on.
Students – We have the players on the world stage—Yahweh, Noah, and his three sons and wives vs. Satan, his angels, and the entire human population—as the drama begins to unfold. Yahweh, through his infinite wisdom, has chosen to limit himself in the affairs of men and will proceed only as those faithful to him cooperate with his intentions. He always prefers to work through his faithful followers to secure his purpose. At this juncture in time, Satan succeeds again in forcing Yahweh’s hand of judgment, but this time there is a man and his family to span the gap between the old and the new, to give passage to the coming seed of promise that will crush the head of the adversary. The tiny thread is thin and taut between hopelessness and hope, between extermination and salvation, between death and life, but it holds. Noah walked with Yahweh and produced sons, one of them faithful, one of them so-so, and one of them evil. That was all Yahweh needed to keep alive the promise of the coming one – the seed of the woman.
Following the flood Noah’s son Ham followed in the steps of Cain and became Satan’s agent on the judged Earth. Through him and his progeny – Ham begat Cush; Cush begat Nimrod, the builder of Babel – Satan had a way. “Now Cush became the father of Nimrod; he became a mighty one on the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord; therefore it is said, “Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the Lord.” The beginning of his kingdom was Babel and Erech and Accad and Calneh, in the land of Shinar” (Genesis 10:8-10). This signaled the beginning of idolatry, the replacement of Yahweh with likenesses in nature. Nimrod built the famous ziggurat after the people clamored for unity.
“They said, ‘Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth’” (Gen. 11:4).
The people chafed under the low ceiling of judgment and rejected Yahweh, and built a ziggurat with its shrine to idols. The result was the confusion of tongues and the dispersion to all corners of the Earth.
Professor – Then all people came from this one place?
Students – According to the record that is true for the most part. Some from Japheth may have migrated earlier to other places, but most did not stray far from Babel. Some would complain that this simple narrative could not possibly account for the human population on the Earth today. Nonsense. Simple math can prove how easy it would be for four pairs to repopulate the Earth to the current number, even with the very conservative growth rate of one half of one percent – 0.50% – half the rate from 1999 to 2012. That yields a doubling of the population in 150 years. So in 4500 years since the flood, there would be thirty doublings of population. With this low growth rate there would be 33 billion since 4500. So any argument that such growth from the time of Babel is impossible just doesn’t stack up to the math.
Professor – Science isn’t going to like this either.
Students – Have you noticed how many scientific concepts are destroyed by mathematics?
Professor – Seems like it, although scientists will push back.
Students – But they shouldn’t. Not when dealing with math. When they look back to the ancient past, they stand on Darwin, and Darwin’s theory is destroyed by mathematics.
Professor – So you discredit all the population theories?
Students – Those based on math we don’t. The population spread from Babel works out mathematically.
Professor – I’ll have to take your word on this one. I’m sure there are mathematicians in our audience who will double-check you.
Students – We have no doubt about that.
Professor – So where do we go from here?
Students – To Babylon, sir.
Out of the bowels of idolatry in Ur of the Chaldees (Babylon), Yahweh called forth a Shemite named Abram (Exhibit G) to be the father of his chosen people through whom he would preserve a conduit for his first advent into the human race. His name means “Exalted Father.” In that call (Gen. 12:1-3) there are seven promises to the first Hebrew. Seven again.
“Now the Lord said to Abram,
‘Go forth from your country,
And from your relatives
And from your father’s house,
To the land which I will show you;
(1) And I will make you a great nation,
(2) And I will bless you,
(3) And make your name great;
(4) And so you shall be a blessing;
(5) And I will bless those who bless you,
(6) And the one who curses you I will curse.
(7) And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.’”
Noteworthy here is the covenant-seeking Yahweh intervening to carry out his purpose. He approached Abram, not vice versa, and presented him with instructions and promises. Abram was completely within his human agency to refuse, but he did not refuse; rather he obeyed, not fully at first, but eventually he made his way into the land shown to him by Yahweh.
Abram is the first major character of complexity in the Scriptures. He was not the first to call upon the name of Yahweh, for that honor belongs to Adam’s grandson Enosh (Gen. 4:26). Nor was he the first to worship Yahweh, for in the land of Canaan he met Melchizadek, the priest of El Elyon – The Most High. He cannot be called the first righteous man, for that was Abel and Noah. But Abram is the first on record to be met by the “word of Yahweh” (Gen. 15:1). He is also the first Hebrew, and the first to be circumcised as a sign of covenant. He is first to undergo a name change – Abraham, which means, “Father of a multitude.” Out of his loins would come the nation of Israel, but not without great trouble, for prior to Isaac, Abraham followed his wife’s suggestion to sire the chosen one through Sarah’s handmaid Hagar. Ishmael was rejected as the promised son. Only he would continue the line of the “seed of the woman” in order to bring in the Messiah. Abraham’s indiscretion led to a thirteen-year hiatus in which Yahweh did not communicate with him. Finally, Yahweh came to him in his ninety-ninth year to rescue his servant from despair. He saved him from his miserable existence after Ishmael, and moved him into the divine promise of Isaac, the child from who would come Jacob and a multitude. From Abram and Ishmael to Abraham and Isaac. At this juncture Abraham is circumcised.
Professor – Why did Yahweh demand circumcision? It’s a very controversial practice these days.
Students – Good question. Why not the removal of an ear lobe or a tip of a finger? Remember this encounter came thirteen years after the birth of Ishmael in which Abraham and Sarah contrived a plan to produce the promised seed. Ishmael was the product of human ingenuity and strength, which they utilized to do for Yahweh what only Yahweh could do. Their impatient and clever hearts expressed themselves through Abraham’s phallus, and the offending organ had to be cut, had to suffer loss, had to be checked. That is circumcision. Though it is an outward act that Abraham had to inflict upon himself and those of his household, the lesson was for his offending heart. This was a deep lesson that the first Hebrew and his coming nation had to learn, for they had been selected by Yahweh to be his passage into humanity, and that passage had to be pure and unadulterated by the mischief of human cunning.
Satan, as always, was not far away. Even as the people were enslaved to Pharaoh, they came under his edict that all their male infants were to be killed. This was Satan’s attempt to destroy the nascent nation before it began, and, except for the tears of Moses when discovered in the Nile by the daughter of Pharaoh, he would have succeeded. The crying of the infant captured the heart of royalty, and he was brought into the palace. The line of Christ – the seed of the woman – was preserved in the infant Moses, because eighty years later he would lead the Israelites out of Egypt. Had he not lived, the nation, conceivably, could have perished in slavery. Though he failed here, Satan never rests. How many times he thwarted the purpose of the chosen nation in the land of promise. Israel’s history is a sad litany of one sin after another.
Professor – That is true. I remember that from my early schooling. Continue. But the moderator stood and ended the session and turned over the venue to the audience for questions.