Joe Dude's Bible Thoughts: Genesis 2

The first part of the chapter makes it sound like God created the world in six literal days, since he rested on the seventh day and made it holy. There's this whole argument about whether "day" was "24 hours" or "a really long time" and the Hebrew word used means "day" and not "day-age" or something like that. But just think about it -- if each "day" was "a really long time", God did what with the seventh day? Set apart and made holy "a really long time". I don't think so.

I remember when I was a new believer and read through Genesis the first time. I thought it was weird there were "two accounts" of creation. It's not really two accounts though. Genesis 1 (and the first part of 2) goes through all of creation at a high level, while Genesis 2 focuses on creation of mankind on the sixth day. Though if that day was really just 24 hours long, a whole lot of stuff happened on that day to Adam -- getting the rule about the tree, naming the animals, going into a deep sleep, etc.

What's the deal? I've no idea, but scratching my head for a long time trying to figure it out precisely seems to distract from the larger truth of God creating everything!

It's pretty interesting that the Bible specifically mentions the beauty of the trees as well as their usefulness for food. I often discount "pretty" things, especially man-made "pretty" things, but God didn't just make a practical world, he made a beautiful world, and he did it for a reason. Perhaps I shouldn't be quick to ignore that aspect of God.

I wonder how the four rivers mentioned line up with anything we can see today. Really if this world started out with the continents together (Pangaea I think they call it) and there was also this great catastrophic world wide flood, they probably wouldn't line up at all. Yet the names Tigris and Euphrates in Genesis do line up with what I remember from geography/history in school. Interestingly, isn't the that area known also as the (or a) "cradle of civilization" in the secular world as well?

Man had a job from the beginning. God put man in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. But since this was God's perfect world still, I'll bet there was only joy in this work, no toiling and suffering yet.

Notice how many rules God gave man? One. One stinking rule. I bet the fruit on that tree looked really really good. Isn't that how sin is? It looks like a pleasurable thing, and the knowledge in the back of your head that something isn't right just attracts you to it more! I know this to be true from my B.C. days when I reveled in my own wickedness -- with idleness, greed, and lust ruling my mind and heart. I knew it wasn't right, and that made me like it more when I was sin's slave.

"It is not good that man should be alone" is so true. Just having my wife on the bed next to me as I write this is a blessing. I would be very lonely and incomplete without her. Even though Dog could teach man loyalty and Cat could teach man humility, he really needed Woman. :-)

It might seem odd that the chapter talks about leaving father and mother and becoming one, when there were no other people yet. Remember the words were written down a long time after creation actually happened. I think the greater point here is that this was God's original design for marriage. One man and one woman, joined together and faithful to each other -- no divorce. This is emphasized when we learn much later in the Bible that the marriage between husband and wife is supposed to be a picture of Christ's love for his church.

I'm not advocating the whole nudist thing, but it had to be pretty freeing that they were both naked and not ashamed. After all, they were brand new and innocent. On top of that, there were no other naked people to lust after, were there? Just the first husband and the first wife together in paradise. Awesome. Yeah, there seems to be this whole other symbolic layer on top of that also that obtuse guys like me don't get without listening to others. I'll get into that next time.