The Creation of the World

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0:01 Okay, last week we talked about typology. And typology comes from the Greek word from which we get type, which is when we transliterate it, it's a tupos. Okay, and so that's, and it's like saying an imprint. That's the, that's what this Greek word means. Like an imprint or a stamp or an impression. A figure, basically, is what it would be like.

0:50 So if I were to make a footprint, if I spoke Greek, I would say tupos. But my foot, the reality that it's an image of, would be an antitupos. And anti means in place of. So it's like if I put my foot right over that footprint, it's in place of the footprint. And it's like the reality. And we saw two different places in scripture. I believe it was Romans 5, 14, where we saw tupos being used. That Adam is a type of Christ. Adam is a tupos of Christ. And then we saw Peter talking in 1 Peter 3, 21 about how baptism is the antitupos of the ark and the floodwaters, which both saved Noah, his wife, his three sons, their wives, and it destroyed sinful humanity.

1:48 So we have antitupos, which you could say it's in place of the imprint. It's in place of it. That's what anti means. And so when we're studying Genesis 1, when we're studying about Adam, we're studying about a type of Christ. And so there are going to be some really cool things that we're going to see tonight, how Adam is this type of Christ. Also, we talked about how covenants, a covenant is a kinship bond. So when you enter into covenant, you become family. It's like a family bond.

2:38 And we see this most usually in marriage, where two distant people become husband and wife in the covenant of marriage. And you enter into a covenant through an oath. You have to swear an oath. No oath, no covenant. It's a sine qua non, that without which there is none. And the Latin word for oath is sacramentum. So if we're going to be interpreting the Bible, we need to interpret it with Hebrew eyes, not 21st century American eyes. Americanized. Not Americanized, but Hebrew eyes. And so this is Hebrew thought. Hebrews knew.

3:28 It's kind of like it doesn't even need to be said. In the same way that we don't even need for it to be said that, you know, to be baptized, you need water. You know, it's kind of like it goes without saying. We all know that. It's in the back of our minds. Well, in the same way, a Hebrew knows that he needs the oath to enter into the covenant. And here's also, if you want to know what covenant is in Hebrew, it's berith. Okay? Berith. So if you're ever looking on the internet and you want to know whether or not that word in the Old Testament is covenant, you want to look for that word. Now let's, also, the Hebrew word for oath, while the Latin is sacramentum, the Hebrew word word is Sheva.

4:18 Sheva. And Sheva is a word with two meanings. It means both seven, and it also means oath. Okay? It has two meanings to it. So, I wouldn't actually say that seven is considered a perfect number. I would say that the reason that you have seven, seven is all over the Bible, and the reason for that is because of its covenantal significance, because the word oath happens to be the same word as for seven. Okay? And, you know, I wonder if we get seven from Sheva. You know, it looks kind of similar. If you take out this H, take out that, I mean, it's kind of seven, you know? Well, so maybe the word seven, maybe that word in the English language has a Hebrew etymology.

5:12 I don't know. But let's turn to Genesis chapter 21. Genesis chapter 21. And let's go to verse 27. Hebrews 21, verse 27. Then Abraham took sheep and cattle and gave them to Abimelech. And the two made a pact. That's what my New American Bible says. Well, I actually went and looked it up in the Hebrew, and the word is berit, which is actually covenant, not pact.

6:06 But, so I actually, in my Bible, I scratched out pact, and I put berit, so I would know. That's what it was. It's a covenant. Abraham also set apart seven ewe lambs. Seven ewe lambs. And Abimelech asked him, what is the purpose of these seven ewe lambs that you have set apart? Now, it's not like Abimelech is standing there, and he's like, what are you doing? No, rather, this is like a court of law, you know? Who is the witness? You know, who presents his case to the court? It's kind of like that type of language. Abraham answered, the seven ewe lambs you shall accept from me, that thus I may have your acknowledgement that the well was dug by me.

7:04 This is why the place is called Ber Sheva. Okay, so the place is called Ber Sheva, Hebrew. The two of them took an oath there. When they had thus made the pact in Ber Sheva, Abimelech, along with Phicol, the commander of his army, left and returned to the land of the Philistines. Okay, so basically, you have Abraham giving seven ewe lambs when he's entering into this covenant with Abimelech. And so, this is kind of an explanation for why this place is called Well, which is what Ber means, of the seven, or of the oath. And if you look in my footnotes in my Bible, it says this, Ber Sheva.

8:11 The Hebrew name really means the well of the seven. That is, the place where there are seven wells. Alluded to in the episode of the seven ewe lambs. But it can also be interpreted to mean the well of the oath. Well, which is it? Is Ber Sheva the well of the seven, or is it the well of the oath? It's both. Because Sheva means both seven and oath. And this is important to understand, because whenever we see sevens, the seventh day, seven, we have, thinking as a Hebrew, that's kind of like saying, oh, I see an oath there. Because what is oath?

8:59 It's seven. It has the same words. So there's kind of like a double meaning there. And this is why seven is such a popular number in our culture. Not because it's a prime number. Not because, you know, everybody just happens to like seven more than three or more than five. Even though those are prime numbers, too. But it's because, again, we live in a Judeo-Christian culture. That we live in the Western culture. Our culture, our ways of thinking, were formed by the Catholic Christendom in Western Europe. This is the way that we think. This is how our society is ordered. This is how we have universities, et cetera. It comes from this Catholic culture for these thousands of years in the West. Okay, so let's go back to the Genesis narrative in the first three chapters.

9:54 And I want to talk about a prominent feature of Hebrew historiography. Now, the word historiography means to write down history. To have something to be written is, you know, is the word graphic. You know, that's where we get the term graphic from, or a graph. It's written down. And a prominent feature of writing down history for the Hebrews was the use of mythos. Mythos.

10:46 And mythos is something different than what we mean today when we say myth. Okay, we would say, oh, that's, we want to separate myth from fact. You know, fact from fiction. And we seem to equate myth with fiction. But that's not really what mythos is. Mythos is the telling of real history using figurative or metaphorical elements. It's kind of telling a story like a riddle. It's kind of like, you know, Wizard of Oz was actually a play put on to, for political reasons. The man behind the curtain and the lion and the scarecrow and the tin man. These were all political figures in the time.

11:37 And that play was meant to tell real history, tell about a real story using mythical type of elements. And those were real people represented by figures and metaphors. So, this is what we find in Genesis. We find metaphor. We find certain ways of writing that are not totally fictional. This is real history. There really were, you know, we really do have original parents, original couple, Adam and Eve. We really, they really were upright and unfallen. And they really did commit the first sin, which leaves us with disordered passions, weakened wills, and darkened intellects. This is real history. But the author was writing it in kind of a metaphorical way so that we would get the meaning of what he wanted to say.

12:33 And he would say it with these figures, these types of speaking, that we're supposed to unlock. We're supposed to figure out for ourselves. And I really like the term riddle because that's really what Genesis 1 to 3 and a lot of the Old Testament is like. It's like a riddle. This is why Bible study is so much fun because we get to, you know, put the pieces of the puzzle together and get to figure out the riddle. Okay, the author of Genesis was not interested in the how of creation. He's not telling us science. This is not what he's trying to affirm. Okay? He's not trying to tell us, you know, exactly how many days the universe was created and exactly how God did it and what chemical elements he used and the exact span of time that it took. And the author's not interested in that.

13:26 That's not his, you know, for us to think that he meant that, it's kind of like being ventriloquist. We're putting words in his mouth. But rather, what the author of Hebrews was interested in is the what. What did God create? Who's involved? Who is God? Who are we? And the why. Why did God create? The who, the what, the why. These are the things that the author of Genesis is interested in. And so he speaks in these figures. Now, one of the things that's really cool that this textbook did is it put together in a framework the creation narrative, God creating. And would somebody like to read, just starting with Genesis 1.1 and just to start reading?

14:25 Who's interested in reading? Okay, Barbara. Right here, the first story of creation? Yeah, just go ahead. In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless wasteland, and darkness covered the abyss, while a mighty wind swept over the waters. Then God said, let there be light. Then God said, let there be light, and there was light. God saw how good the light was. God then separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. Thus evening came, and the morning followed, the first day. Then God said, let the water under the sky be gathered into a single basin, so that the dry land may appear. Then God said, let the water under the sky be gathered into a single basin, so that the dry land may appear.

15:39 God called the dry land the earth, and the basin of water he called the sea. God saw how good it was. Then God said, let the earth bring forth vegetation, every kind of plant that bears seed, and every kind of fruit tree on earth that bears fruit with its seed in it. And so it happened. The earth brought forth every kind of plant that bears seed, and every kind of fruit tree on earth that bears fruit with its seed in it. God saw how good it was. Evening came, and morning followed. The third day. Then God said, let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate day from night.

16:30 Let them mark the fixed times, the days, and the years, and serve as luminaries in the dome of the sky to shed light upon the earth. And so it happened. God made the two great lights, the greater one to govern the day, and the lesser one to govern the night. And he made the stars. God set them in the dome of the sky to shed light upon the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. God saw how good it was. Evening came, and morning followed. The fourth day. Then God said, let the water team with an abundance of living creatures, and on the earth let birds fly beneath the dome of the sky. And so it happened.

17:18 God created the great sea monsters and all kinds of swimming creatures with which the water teems, and all kinds of winged birds. God saw how good it was. God saw how good it was, and God blessed them, saying, be fertile, multiply, and fill the water of the seas, and let the birds multiply on the earth. Evening came, and morning followed, the fifth day. Then God said, let the earth bring forth all kinds of living creatures, cattle, creeping things, and wild animals of all kinds. And so it happened. God saw how good it was. Then God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and the birds of the air, and the cattle, and over all the wild animals, and all the creatures that crawl on the ground.

18:17 God created man in his image, in the divine image he created him, male and female he created them. God blessed them, saying, be fertile, and multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all the living things that move on the earth. God also said, see, I give you every seed-bearing plant, all over the earth, and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit on it, to be your food. And to all the animals of the land, all the birds of the air, and all the living creatures that crawl on the ground, I give all the green plants for food. And so it happened. God looked at everything he had made, and he found it very good.

19:08 Evening came, and morning followed, the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth, and all of the array, were completed. Since on the seventh day God was finished with the work he had been doing, he rested on the seventh day from all the work he had undertaken. So God blessed the seventh day, and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work he had done in creation. Such is the story of the heavens and the earth at their creation. At the time when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, while as yet there was no field shrub on earth, and no grass of the field had sprouted, for the Lord God had sent no rain upon the earth, and there was no man to till the soil, but a stream was welling up out of the earth, and was watering all the surface of the ground.

19:59 The Lord God formed man out of the clay of the ground, and blew into his nostrils the breath of life. That's good for right now, brother. Thank you so much. Thank you. I really appreciate it. You did a wonderful job reading. Our radio personality. Okay, good. So we see how Genesis very first begins with God created the heavens and the earth. And then he says, okay, well the earth is a formless wasteland. Formless wasteland. It's tohu abahu. That's the Hebrew. Not formless wasteland, but it's a formless emptiness, is really more of the literal connotation. So it lacks form, and it's empty. The first three days, we're given the forms. Okay, we're given day and night, sky and sea, land and vegetation.

20:51 Those first three days. The second three days, we get the rulers over those realms. Okay, we got the sun, the moon, and the stars to rule over the day and the night. We got the birds and the fish to rule over the sky and the sea. And we've got the man and the beast to rule over the land and vegetation. And then man is to have dominion. Dominion is used twice. So that's kind of an emphasis that the author is giving us. That man has dominion over all of these different creatures. And so man is kind of like the ultimate ruler. And in the time of, when Israelites were reading this, Israelites didn't live in a time of democracy and oligarchy and this type of thing. They lived in a time of dynasties. You know, pagans had kings.

21:40 And so when they saw the word, when they saw dominion, dominion meant more kind of like that man. And let's use the word Adam. That's what Adam's name is. Adam, Adam means mankind. What we see is that man is a king. He has kingship over creation. And that's why God, you know, created him. And as you have these particular rulers that fill up these realms and take care of the problem of emptiness, so man, in kind of a penultimate way, has this kingship. But then we have God resting. And of course we know that God doesn't have to rest. God is, you know, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipotent.

22:31 He has no need for rest. And so, God is doing this. God is resting on the seventh day. On the seventh day. And the rabbis, the early church fathers, saw this as God covenanting himself to creation. They saw this as the great Shavah. The great, this is the term that they would use. The great Shavah. Okay? We see this in intertestamental literature. When I say intertestamental literature, I mean between the Old Testament and the New Testament, the Jews had other literature that never made it into the Bible. Like first, Enosh, like Jubilees, these various writings. And biblical scholars read this literature because it lets us know how the Jews at that time interpreted the Old Testament, what their thought was.

23:25 And so it gives us a greater idea into how to interpret scriptures. We want to interpret it as Jews, not as Americans. Or maybe as American Jews. I don't know. Depends on your ethnicity. Okay, so we see the seventh day as kind of like the great oath. And so God, in a certain sense, is creating, is outhing himself. He's sevening himself by resting on the seventh day with all of creation. And God calls man to rest on the seventh day later in the Mosaic Law. That's one of the ten commandments, one of the ten words, the Decalogue, given to Moses on Mount Sinai. He says, you know, for six days you will work and all your beasts and your cattle and your asses and your oxes will work.

24:17 But then on the seventh day, all of you are going to rest. The reason for that is that God wants for man to consecrate the six days of the work week to himself, to God. He wants for Adam to consecrate and to sanctify his kingship. So that Adam is not merely just, so that mankind, Adam, is not just, not just going to be a secular ruler, but is going to be one who prays, who sanctifies, who makes holy his work. And so the Sabbath was known by the Jews as being the sign of the old covenant, the sign of the covenant between God and all of creation. Remember how in the first session I showed you guys the different covenant mediators?

25:13 We had Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Jesus. And we had the six covenants that were made, the six covenant forms. No, and we also had this, not only the six covenant forms, marriage, family, tribe, nation, dynasty, international kingdom, but we also had the covenant signs. Well, the sign of this covenant, of the old covenant, the Jews saw as what the Sabbath was, this resting. And each time that the Jew kept Sabbath, he was renewing this covenant, this old covenant. It was a way of keeping covenant with God, keeping the Sabbath. Okay, so to be a good Jew, you had to keep Sabbath. And even today, Jews will say, you have to keep Sabbath. This is the way that you keep covenant with God.

26:21 Because again, we don't look at the Bible with the worldview of a, you know, a BC Hebrew. But with a little bit of Bible study, we can't, because we can look back at the Hebrew and see what certain things meant. Now, a way of writing with mythos, okay, with this riddle type of language that tells real history using metaphor. One thing that we know for sure is that when you spot repetition, you'll look for something called parallelism. It's a literary device, okay? So, when the author says, and God said, he says it ten times. Ten times.

27:08 And that's important, because elsewhere in Scripture, we'll see God saying ten times. In the Pentateuch, in the first five books of the Bible, which have the certain unity, because they have Moses as their source. Wherever we see God saying something ten times elsewhere, we'll see a correlation. And certain things are repeated, that happen with Adam, are repeated for Noah. So, we can see parallels there between Adam and Noah. There are also parallels, such as evening and morning. Evening came, and then morning, the fourth day. There was evening came, then morning, the fifth day. So, we have these other repetitions.

27:55 We also have the repetition of, and God said it was good. And God said it was good. And God said it was not good. What was not good? That the man was alone. Who said that? Okay, if I had a Hershey's kiss, I would throw it to you right now. Okay, good. But I don't, so. So, the narrator is supplying the reader with repetition in order to interpret the story. In order to interpret the story. Now, this is what's kind of cool. Is that I went into my Bible software, and I kind of confirmed this, because I saw this in some of my notes from class. And I was kind of like, I want to look this up. This wasn't just being, you know, fed to me.

28:44 But it's really cool, because in between Exodus 33, 22, and 39, 42, Moses is constructing the tabernacle, which is kind of the equivalent of what's later to become the Jerusalem temple. It's where God resides among his people in the Levitical priest's minister. Well, when Moses was constructing the tabernacle, we have the phrase, the Lord had commanded Moses ten times. Okay, so, so we have the construction of the tabernacle, the Lord commands Moses ten times, and here God says ten times.

29:40 And whenever we see repetition, we should look for parallels. We should look for interpretive keys. Also, in Genesis 1, 31, and 2, 3, God saw everything that he had made. He saw everything he had made. And behold, it was very good. And then God blessed the seventh day. In Exodus 39, 43, Moses saw all the work. And behold, they had done it as the Lord had commanded. And Moses blessed them.

30:34 Again, we see repetition. We see a parallel between Moses having his people had completed the construction of the tabernacle, so he saw it. And behold, they had done it. And so Moses blessed them. And so we have over here, we have God blessing the seventh day after he looks at it and pronounces that it's good. Again, we have parallels. Also, at the end of the Genesis creation narrative, in Genesis 2, verse 2, and verse 3, at the end of creation, at the end of the creation narrative here, we have the holiness of the Sabbath, the holiness of the seventh day being pronounced.

31:27 Also, at the end of the making of the tabernacle, in Exodus 31, 17, Now, I know that 31, 17 comes before this. It comes before what we just talked about. But Exodus is not chronologically put together. Okay? You'll have things happen before they happen. It gets kind of confusing sometimes. Because you'll have the, you know, you have the construction of the tabernacle, and then you have the construction of the tabernacle. It's like, do we have two tabernacles? No. It's just a, it's, it's two different accounts put one after the other. They're just not in chronological order. So don't let this confuse you. But in Exodus 31, 17, the holiness of the Sabbath is declared. Okay?

32:16 Again, this is repetition. This is parallelism. And I'd like to propose to you that what the author of the Pentateuch, of the Torah, wants for us to see, is that God is creating creation as a temple. Kind of like a macro temple. A huge temple. You know? By which, why does he create? Well, for the seventh day, for worship. To worship God. Because what happens at the temple, what happens at the tabernacle for the Israelites? Worship. Who's present at worship? The priests. The Levites.

33:04 Okay. Now, I, I might need to, I, hire some people to go around with palm branches and stick you guys as I see a couple of people dozing off. You know, I was watching some cool, a cool movie one time, and they were the Puritans in church. And they were like this. And then somebody would come by and they would like, whap them with rulers. And I kind of like that. I think we should have that at mass. What do you guys think about that? Huh? Okay. Okay, I know you guys are hating me now. I know you're, you're, uh, saying all sorts of bad things about me. Okay. Now, notice that before Genesis 2, 4, okay, look in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 2, verse 4. And what does, what does Genesis 2, 4 say?

34:02 Okay. What is it? Keep going. Okay. The Lord God. At the time, the Lord God. Now, that term, Lord God, do you see it anywhere before Exodus 2, 4? Lord God. Can somebody find the secret verse before Genesis 2, 4 that says, Yahweh, Lord, okay? Yahweh, Elohim. Okay. Yahweh, Elohim. Lord God. It's nowhere before, it's nowhere before 2, 4. Now, can you find it after 2, 4?

34:52 Yeah, it's right after. It's right after, right? Every other reference to God is Lord God. Not just God, but Lord God. Well, for an Israelite, Yahweh was the covenant name of God. Those who were in covenant with God called him Lord. But those who were outside of covenant with God just referred to him as Elohim, God. Okay, so Yahweh has a covenantal connotation. And so, notice that before 2, 4, do you have the Sabbath? Do you have the seventh day, the Shavah? The day of Shavah? No.

35:39 There's no oath, so there's no covenant, so there's no Yahweh Elohim, there's just Elohim. And we wouldn't know this if it weren't for biblical scholarship and knowing about how Israelites thought, right? We would just go, huh, that's really interesting. They go from Elohim to Yahweh. And so, you know what some biblical scholars have done? They've gone, oh, these must be two totally different accounts of creation. Because one refers to God as Elohim, one refers to Yahweh Elohim. These must be two totally different accounts of creation. And later on, an editor just put them right together like that. And we have clear, firm evidence that these were two totally separate creation narratives. But I'd like to propose to you that that's not the case. That there's a purpose why the author switched from one to the other. Not because we have two authors and two separate creation stories, but we have one author telling two creation stories that fit hand in glove.

36:36 And there's a reason for this switch. And that is the seventh day. The great oath. The day that God covenants himself to creation through Adam. Through the covenant mediator, Adam. Okay, now let's go ahead and continue. We have Genesis 2-4. And Barbara, would you be so kind as to continue reading in Genesis 2-4? Such is the story of the heavens and the earth at their creation. When the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, while as yet there was no field shrub on earth, and no grass of the field had sprouted, for the Lord God had sent no rain upon the earth, and there was no man to till the soil, but a stream was welling up out of the earth and was watering all the surface of the ground, the Lord God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and so man became a living being.

37:44 Then the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and he placed there the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the Lord God made various trees grow that were delightful to look at and good for food, with the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and bad. A river rises in Eden to water the garden. Beyond there it divides and becomes four branches. The name of the first is Pishon. It is the one that winds through the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. The gold of that land is excellent. Bedelium and Lapis Lazuli are also there. The name of the second river is the Gion.

38:36 It is the one that winds all through the land of Cush. The name of the third river is the Tigris, and it is the one that flows east of Asher. The fourth river is the Euphrates. The Lord God then took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden to cultivate and care for it. The Lord God gave man this order. You are free to eat from any of the trees of the garden, except the tree of knowledge of good and bad. From that tree you shall not eat. The moment you eat from it, you are surely doomed to die. The Lord God said, It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a suitable partner for him. So the Lord God formed out of the ground various wild animals and various birds of the air, and he brought them to the man to see what he would call them.

39:29 Whatever the man called each of them would be its name. The man gave names to all the cattle, all the birds of the air, and all the wild animals, but none proved to be a suitable partner for the man. So the Lord God cast a deep sleep on the man, and while he was asleep, he took out one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. The Lord God then built up into a woman the rib that he had taken from the man. When he brought her to the man, the man said, This one at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. This one shall be called woman, for out of her, man, this one has been taken. That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one body.

40:23 The man and his wife were both naked, yet they felt no shame. Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the animals that the Lord God had made. The serpent asked the woman, Did God really tell you not to eat from any of the trees in the garden? The woman answered the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden. It is only about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, You shall not eat it, or even touch it, lest you die. But the serpent said to the woman, You certainly will not die. No, God knows well that the moment you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods who know what is good and what is bad. The woman saw that the tree was good for food, pleasing to the eyes, and desirable for gaining wisdom.

41:17 So she took some of its fruit and ate it, and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized that they were naked, so they sewed fig leaves together, and made loincloths for themselves. When they heard the sound of the Lord God moving about in the garden at the breezy time of the day, the man and his wife hid themselves from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. The Lord God then called to the man and asked him, Where are you? He answered, I heard you in the garden, but I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid myself. Then he asked, Who told you that you were naked? You have eaten then from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat.

42:08 The man replied, The woman whom you put here with me, she gave me the fruit from the tree, so I ate it. The Lord God then asked the woman, Why did you do such a thing? The woman answered, The serpent tricked me into it, so I ate it. Then the Lord God said to the serpent, Because you have done this, you shall be banned from all the animals and from all the wild creatures. On your belly shall you crawl, and dirt shall you eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers. He will strike at your head while you strike at his heel. To the woman he said, I will intensify the pangs of your childbearing. In pain shall you bring forth children, yet your urge shall be for your husband, and he shall be your master.

43:02 To the man he said, Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat, cursed be the ground because of you. In toil shall you eat its yield all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to you as you eat of the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face shall you get bread to eat until you return to the ground from which you were taken. For you are dirt, and to dirt you shall return. The man called his wife Eve because she became the mother of all the living. For the man and his wife, the Lord God made leather garments with which he clothed them. Then the Lord God said, See, the man has become like one of us, knowing what is good and what is bad.

43:55 Therefore, he must not be allowed to put out his hand to take the fruit from the tree of life also, from the tree of life also, and thus eat of it and live forever. The Lord God therefore banished him from the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he had been taken. When he expelled the man, he settled him east of the garden of Eden, and he stationed the cherubim and the fiery revolving sword to guard the way to the tree of life. So, if creation is shown through parallelism or repetition to be a temple, what makes a temple a temple is the sanctuary, the holy of holies, the inner court, the place where God dwells.

44:49 And in the Jerusalem temple, only one person was allowed to go into the holy of holies only one day out of the year. Yom Kippur, which is Hebrew for day of the atonement. And so the high priest entered once a year, only the high priest, into the holy of holies, and he would offer sacrifice in there. And so that's what made the temple a temple. And if, let's say, somebody had gone in and took the holy of holies and just took it out of the temple, it's no longer a temple. It's just another building. And that's what makes it a temple. And this is also part of the reason behind the veil tearing when Jesus died. Because when the veil tears, guess what?

45:36 There's no separation between the holy of holy and the rest of the temple. So the temple is no longer a temple. And this symbolizes how the temple is no longer a temple because there's no longer a holy of holies because it's no longer separated. The veil's been separated. So guess where the temple is now that Jesus has died? The church. Jesus, his mystical body, is now the temple. But we'll get to more of that in the New Testament. We'll see, get more into temple imagery. But, so the temple needs a sanctuary. And what's really cool is that it talks about how God was walking in the garden. Genesis 3, 8. God was walking in the garden. The Hebrew word is halak.

46:26 I'll go ahead and write it up here. This is a transliteration of how it sounds. It's halak. And the same term is used in elsewhere to talk about God's presence in the tabernacle. Okay, here's one place in the Bible, 2 Samuel 7, 6. I have not dwelt in any house since the time I brought the children of Israel out of Egypt, even to this day, but have walked in a tent and in a tabernacle. Halak. Okay? We also have both the Garden of Eden. The Garden of Eden is in the east, we're told. And then when Adam is expelled from the garden, Adam and Eve, they're expelled to the east.

47:17 We're to see that the entrance to the Garden of Eden is from the east. Well, among not only Israel's temple and tabernacle, when I say temple or tabernacle, I mean that Israel, Moses built the tabernacle and Israel was a nomadic people wandering in the wilderness for 40 years with the tabernacle, with God's holy presence dwelling in the tabernacle. And then when they eventually cross the Jordan River and settle in the land of Canaan, where Abraham had lived and where he almost sacrificed Isaac, that place, later on David had wanted to build a temple for the Lord. And the Lord said, no, you're not going to build the temple, rather your son Solomon will. So Solomon built the temple. Okay, so that's why I say first it's a tabernacle and then it becomes a temple because the tabernacle is a tent and then the temple is made out of, you know, wood and stone and all sorts of things.

48:18 Okay, so not only the temple and the tabernacle but also all pagan sanctuaries and temples were all entered only by the east. This is a, this is across the board, this is a, the phenomenon is that whenever you build a tabernacle or something like that, you always enter from the east. Always from the east. And so we could see how maybe this is a sanctuary because it's entered from the east. But let's go a little bit further and look at some more of the, of the imagery that we're given. Now, to tell you guys the truth, I mean, who cares about Havilah and there being gold there and who cares about there being Bdellum and Onyx there? I mean, are we, if we find the Garden of Eden, I guess we're supposed to look for lots of Bdellum and Onyx and gold.

49:06 I mean, what's the point? Why is the author telling us this? I mean, he only has so much space. Why is he telling us these things? Well, again, we're given hints, interpretive clues. God used extensively gold to fashion the furnishings for the tabernacle and later the Jerusalem temple. Almost everything's made out of gold. The ark is covered with gold. The vessels are made out of gold. The altars. All these things are made out of gold. Gold here, gold there, gold everywhere. And when the pagans eventually came into and ransacked the temple, such as Nebuchadnezzar, they stole all the things out of the temple. They wanted all that stuff. Why? Not because Nebuchadnezzar wanted to go worship with it, but because it was valuable.

49:53 It was gold. Gold was very, very indicative of the sanctuary, of Israel's sanctuary. Also, Bdellum. Bdellium is only mentioned elsewhere in the Pentateuch, in Numbers 11.7. The only other place. I did a concordance search. And it's mentioned because the Israelites are trying to describe what the manna looks like. You know, the Israelites are in the desert. This miraculous bread comes down from heaven and they're like, man, what does it look like? Well, they say it looks like Bdellium. The only other place you can find it in the Pentateuch. But what was really neat is that the manna was stored where?

50:41 After, you know, after the Israelites were fed the manna, they eventually ended up storing some. They're like, man, this stuff's got to be worth something, you know? I mean, bread from heaven. I mean, we're not just going to eat it all. We're going to keep some. What did they do with it? They kept it in the Holy of Holies next to the Ark of the Covenant or in the Ark, we're told, in the Epistle to the Hebrews. So there's kind of a relation there. Also, Onyx, most translations translate this in Genesis 2.12 as O-N-Y-X. And Onyx was used extensively to decorate the high priest's vestments. So when Aaron was getting his priestly vestments and they were making them for Aaron, the high priest, Moses' brother, his ephod had lots of Onyx on it.

51:33 Onyx was also used to decorate the tabernacle inside the Jerusalem temple. When you look at how the temple was constructed and what it was constructed of later on in the Old Testament, you'll see Onyx everywhere. And get this, in this intertestamental literature, you know, I told you about 1st Enosh in Jubilees. There are other writings. In Jubilees, we read, in Jubilees 8.19, Noah knew that the Garden of Eden was the Holy of Holies and the dwelling of the Lord. Hmm. So the Jews, I mean, they were just like, well, you know, Noah knew this. You know, so this is kind of what this is, again, this is Israelite thought in intertestamental literature.

52:22 Also, Adam is commanded to Abodah and Shamar, the Garden of Eden. Abodah and Shamar are only used together in three other places in the Pentateuch. And they're used as commands to the Levites of what the Levites are supposed to do in the tabernacle. They are to Abodah, which means to keep, and to Shamar, which means to guard. You know, keep it up. You know, clean the vessels, you know, make sure everything's purified, you know, keep house. And then guard it. Guard it zealously for many intruders. And so here's a passage from Numbers 3.7. And they shall Shamar, you know, et cetera, to do the service, the Abodah.

53:16 And if you guys want the passages, you can find it in Numbers 3.7 and verses 7 and 8 in Numbers 3. Numbers 8.26, chapter 8, verse 26. And in Numbers chapter 18, verses 5 and 6. And so again, again, what we're doing is we're reading the Bible canonically. We're reading, we're interpreting books with other books because, again, the Pentateuch is one. You know, it has Moses as its source. It's not separated. But rather, the author is writing both in Numbers and in Genesis to try and correlate the truth to through parallelism. Okay. also, the reason I wrote this down here is that, you know, Adam and Eve, when they felt, when they, you know, they were naked, but they didn't notice it.

54:08 They weren't ashamed. But then when they had sinned, they were ashamed and they covered themselves with leaves, fig leaves, is the translation that we read from, that Barbara read from. Well, after that, you know, God gives the curse both to the serpent, the woman, and the man. And then, it has this beautiful passage. It says, Yahweh Elohim made coats to cover their nakedness. And the word for coats is kethoneth. Now, it could have been something else. You know, it could have been many, he could have created lots of different types of clothing, but he made specifically kethoneth. Well, in Exodus 28, Exodus 28, chapter 28, verses 40 to 42, I'm going to cut out a little bit of it because it's a little long, but I'm going to give you some of it.

54:59 And for Aaron's sons, and remember, Aaron's sons are the priests, the high priests. For Aaron's sons, you shall make kethoneth, coats. And you shall put them upon Aaron and upon his sons, and shall anoint them and ordain them and consecrate them that they may serve me as priests. And you shall make for them linen breeches to cover their naked flesh. Okay? Again, we see Adam, we see this type of language, it's like priestly type language. All throughout here, the east. Oh, the cherubim, the two cherubim that guard the entrance to the east. There were also cherubim that were constructed that guarded the inner sanctuary of the Jerusalem temple.

55:53 the two huge cherubim were made for the Jerusalem temple. God commanded graven images to be made for the Holy of Holies. And so you have the two, so if you guys ever see like renditions, pictures of the Jerusalem temple, what it would have looked like in the Holy of Holies, two huge angels, their wings just spread over, you know, huge. And so we have the two angels in the Holy of Holies, we have the two angels here in the Garden of Eden. Also, get this, in the, we're told when the tabernacle and the temple are constructed, guess what are major images that were put all over the walls and the curtains? Palm trees and flowers. Like a garden.

56:41 Like the Garden of Eden. This is the imagery. It's also really cool because if you look at Baptist trees from the early church, they made them like the Garden of Eden. And they would have like a little, they would have a little statue of Noah, a little statue of Adam, a little statue of Eve running water, palm trees, flowers. These are what the Baptist trees looked like. And they would baptize by immersion in those running water streams and the bishop would come in and would anoint them with oil and it was just amazing. It was so replete with symbolism and imagery and smells and bells and all kinds of cool things. Alright. Smells and bells. Bells and smells. You know, all those good things. Okay, so, again, we can see by interpreting the text canonically with the other books of the Bible, looking at some of the clues that were given, we can see that creation is being shown as a temple and the Garden

57:33 of Eden is being shown as the sanctuary within the temple that makes the temple a temple with no sanctuary, no temple. And so Adam is to serve as a high priest. Adam is to keep and guard the Garden of Eden. And so we could seek keep to till, you know, to keep up the garden. But what about guard? What about guard? Intruders? You know, was there an intruder that happened? Yes. And it was not a little green gardener snake. The word used for serpent is Nahash. And elsewhere in the scriptures, this is not a little green snake in a tree. This is a venomous serpent.

58:21 It's used to describe Leviathan, the mythical sea monster. It's used in Genesis 12 to describe the dragon who wants to consume the offspring of the woman in Genesis, I mean, in Revelation 12. This is Nahash in Hebrew thought is something that's deadly, that will kill you. Now, one of the first, what's also kind of cool is you heard that man was formed out of the dust of the ground, right? Well, just to let you know why the dust of the ground, why didn't God just create him like poof? Why does the Genesis author use this language? Well, ground is adamah. There's a play on words. You know, it's kind of poetry.

59:09 You know, Adam was created from the adamah. You know, it's a play on words there. Okay, so let's step back for a moment and look at the creation of man. He was created in the image and the likeness of God. The image and the likeness. In the tisalam, the tisalem, the image, and the demuth, the likeness. Let's turn to Genesis 5-3. Someone else is made in his own likeness after his own image. The same two Hebrew words, tisalem and demuth. Genesis 5-3. Who would like to read that? Go ahead and raise your hand. All right, right here.

59:57 She has four Bible translations in our Bible, so we're getting the good translation here. When Adam had lived 130 years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness after his image and named him Seth. Oh, so to be made in someone's image and likeness means that you're their son. Well, let's turn to Luke, Matthew, Mark, Luke, the third gospel, chapter 3. Having you guys flip all over the Bible here. Luke chapter 3, verse 38. By the way, if you guys want these cool little Bible tabs that allow you to just flip to any book instantly, I'm putting in an order. I'm going to have these, so have no fear. If you're looking over at your friend, you're going, how'd you get those rainbow-colored looking tabs?

1:00:43 Well, they got them from me because we did Bible study before or RCIA or something, and we're getting more. But Luke 3, 38. What does it say? This is a genealogy of Jesus. Luke is giving, where's Jesus come from, his lineage? He traces Jesus' lineage, not all the way back to just Adam, but all the way back to God. This is really neat. What does he say? Go ahead. The son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God. Oh, so Adam is a son of God. He's not just a beast, but he's a son of God. He's made in God's own image and likeness. This is divine sonship. And what does the covenant do again? The covenant creates kinship to where God is father and you are son or daughter and we are brothers and sisters.

1:01:37 Again, this is covenant kinship. And so in the original covenant, Adam is given sonship. What makes you someone's son or daughter? that you love each other a whole bunch? Is that what makes you someone's son or daughter? I'm sorry, what is it? Birth or adoption? Okay, birth or adoption. To get even more precise, to share one's own nature, to share someone's own nature, makes you a parent, a biological parent. So what makes Raleigh Lewis Weber my father is that I have his DNA.

1:02:26 Actually, I have my own set of DNA, my own blood type. You get this at the moment of conception. But he's my father because I have his DNA. Now, Kermit here is not my father, are you? Now, we'd have to do some sort of a DNA test to find that out, right? Because that would have to be your DNA. I'd have to have your DNA for you to be my father. Well, get this. We are not naturally, I'm a natural level, we are not, I know this will strike some of you as just almost blasphemous maybe, but it's not. It's true. We are not children of God naturally. We are creatures. And this is what Islam understands so well.

1:03:13 But they don't have a way for you to become a child of God. because we don't share God's DNA. I mean, we're natural. We're not, we're made out of flesh and bones. We're creatures. The difference between God and us is infinite. The gap between him and us. I mean, he is so transcendent, so other. And yet, you know, because of Christianity, you know, this is where we get the term children of God, et cetera, and we have this thought. And so, for Christians, yes, we are children of God, because guess what? We got God's DNA through the covenant, the Holy Spirit, that indwells our very own flesh and souls. So did Adam. Okay, because Adam, God breathed life into Adam, and Adam became a living being.

1:04:08 So, this didn't happen to the orangutans and the giraffes and the dinosaurs. So, were they not alive? Were they just dead from the get-go? No, they were alive. What the author of Genesis is trying to show us is that Adam was a living being. He wasn't just a natural, you know, like anything else, but he had this added gift of life. He was a son of God. He was made in the image and likeness of God. He was given this supernatural life. And God said, do not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. In the day you eat of it, you shall muth And in Hebrew, you shall die-die. You shall double-die.

1:04:54 You shall die the death. And in Hebrew, you didn't have, like, fun, funner, funnest, or great, greater, greatest. You would say, fun, or great, great, is how you would say it. You know, when the angels say, holy, you know, the Lord of hosts, dominus, sabayot, sanctus, dominus, sabayot. The reason they say holy, that's like saying you're really holy. If they would have said holy, holy, you're holier, but if you're holy, you're holy. This is the way Hebrews spoke. So, God is saying you will die, die. You will die in the day you eat of it.

1:05:40 And the Nahash, this venomous serpent, says you will not die. Well, we know the narrative, we've read it. Did they die? Spiritual, it doesn't say spiritually anywhere. It doesn't say, where'd you get that from? Because, from the book, from the book, very good. Because we, God, God cannot err, God cannot lie, but he says in the day of it, you will really die. You will really die in the day you eat of it. the serpent says, no, you will not. Well, the serpent was right on the outward appearances, but God was really right, because the real death is spiritual death.

1:06:28 Is the death the losing of the divine sonship? The losing of God's DNA? The losing of this livingness? And the early church fathers, called this sin of Adam the losing of the likeness, but Adam retained the image. So, humanity still has the ability to be in covenant with God, to be in right relationship with God, still has the ability to become children of God, but they've lost that likeness. And this, St. Augustine coined the term in the late 4th century as original sin. Not that all of us have sinned, like personal sin, not like, you know, since Adam's sinned, that means that I'm guilty for his sin.

1:07:18 No, it's just that I don't inherit what Adam couldn't give me. Adam can't give me God's DNA, he can't give me this life because he's forfeited it, so the rest of the human race doesn't have it, and so what do we need? We need the covenant, we need this kinship bond, we need the Holy Spirit, we need this likeness again. this is the way the early church fathers spoke of it, Adam kept the image but lost the likeness, it's just a way of speaking, scripture doesn't say he lost the likeness, but he kept the image, it's just a way of speaking theologically about it. And so we have this Nahash, okay now, right now I want you to clear your heads, clear your heads of all children's books, of all veggie tales, of all little green gardener snakes hanging from the tree, trying to entice Eve to eat this fruit.

1:08:14 Now when this Nahash, this venomous serpent, with this, he's just, he's deadly, he's venomous, he's, yeah, I mean this is the, this is the image we're given. Well here's a Nahash saying you will not die if you eat a bit. God says you will die and who ends up talking with the serpent? Adam? Does Adam go, oh, hold on, no talking to my bride, uh-uh, you come to me. No, he stands there and he's silent. Okay, you guys just, okay, it tastes good, okay, good. Okay, we said. Adam would not exercise his priestly service.

1:09:02 He would not shamar. By the way, why was there a tree of life? Adam and Eve, death came, we're told in Genesis 3, because of sin, original sin. Original sin is the term Augustine gave to it. So why do we have a tree of life? What do you need life for if you're already immortal? Hmm. Okay, Adam we know has a fear of death. We know he knows what death is because God's telling him don't eat of it because you'll die, you'll die. So Adam has to have a conception of what to die means. We have the tree of life, the serpent comes and Adam will not shamar, he will not sacrifice himself, his physical well-being, for the sake of his bride. In so doing, the Nahash prevails and guess what the punishment is?

1:09:55 It fits the crime. God says you won't suffer self-sacrificially, well I'm going to make you suffer and you're going to learn how to suffer self-sacrificially. Why does God do this? Because God in his essence, we're told through the Paschal mystery, through Christian revelation, that God is a trinity. He is the father completely selflessly and eternally loving the son. The son is completely imaging this gift and what proceeds from the father through the son with spy rates is the third person in the blessed trinity, the Holy Spirit. This eternal selfless life-giving love. And God is creating man, Adam, to participate in this life, to give of himself, to be self-sacrificial.

1:10:43 And Adam fails in the test. And again, Adam again is a tupos, and Christ is the anti-tupos. And what does Christ do? Where does Christ begin his passion? What's the first mystery of the sorrowful mysteries of the rosary? The garden of Gethsemane. The garden. And this is why Mel Gibson's rendition of the passion has a snake being stomped on at the very beginning in the garden of Gethsemane. Jesus didn't start his passion in the garden for no reason whatsoever. And remember how the bride of Adam came from his rib, from his side? Well, Christ is self-sacrificial, he's suffering for his bride, he takes the cup of suffering from the angel in Gethsemane.

1:11:35 He goes all the way up to the cross and then blood and water come forth from his side. And guess who's standing right there at the foot of the cross? The beloved disciple in Mary. And Christ at the moment of redemption of being the new Adam says to Mary, not Mary, but he says, woman, behold your son. behold your mother. And in the Proto-Evangelium, the first gospel in Genesis 3, we're told that God says, I will put enmity between you and the woman.

1:12:23 And Eve, the woman, was taken from the side of Eve, his bride, woman, this woman term. Christ, the new Adam, upon the cross, suffering as high priest. Christ is our high priest, right? We only have one high priest, that's Christ. And he says to John, and what's Eve's name? What did it say when Eve was called Eve? What does Eve mean in Hebrew? Mother of all the living. And Jesus tells a beloved disciple that this is your mother. You know why biblical scholars tell us that John referred to himself as the beloved disciple in this gospel and not as John? Because he wants to associate himself with all Christians. Anybody who reads this gospel can lay their head upon the chest of Christ in the last supper celebrated in the Eucharist or in personal prayer.

1:13:20 We are all beloved. All of us who have been reborn in Christ. All of us who have experienced the birth of salvation. And he's writing, you know, we know that the beloved disciple is John through biblical study and through looking, you know, it's kind of hard, we have to look and see. We know that that's John, but it actually doesn't happen to John, it happens to the beloved disciple because John is telling us, look, here's the new Adam upon the cross, here's the new Eve, blood and water coming forth from the side of Christ. In John's gospel, how does he begin it? With the baptism of Jesus with water, with Jesus saying, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water in the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Then at the end of chapter 3 of John, you have Jesus going out with his disciples and baptizing.

1:14:09 Then you have water given from the well, you know, Jesus is offering the living water, the zoe, to the Samaritan woman at the well. Water is a theme all throughout John's gospel. Also, you have blood. In John's gospel, Jesus says, unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you will not have life within you. For I tell you that my flesh is true food indeed, and my blood is true drink indeed. So blood is also a part of John's gospel. And at the very end, you have Adam, you have Jesus with water and blood coming forth from his sight. And the early church fathers, especially in St. John Chrysostom, the bishop tells us that blood and water in John's gospel, that John is telling us that the church, the bride of Christ, is formed from the sight of Christ through the water of baptism and through the blood of the Eucharist.

1:15:11 And this is what John meant. John's gospel is very sacramental. He's talking about the worship of the church. And he's using these symbols that go all the way back to Genesis. And go all the way back to Genesis. He's using this imagery. Have you ever wondered how, you know, John begins his gospel, in the very beginning of John, he says, in the beginning, in arche, in ologos, in the beginning. Of course, he's writing in Greek, not in Hebrew. And he says, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him. The word, God spoke creation. And without him, nothing came to be.

1:16:00 What came to be through him was life. And this life was the light of the human race. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. Well, where else have we seen in the beginning, and God creating through his word, and there being light and darkness? Genesis, right? And what happens in Genesis 2? We have a marriage between Adam and Eve. What happens in John 2? The wedding at Cana. And Jesus calls Mary woman. And who are the only two people named at the wedding at Cana? Jesus and Mary. Now, we have the steward, we have the servants, but the only two people named are Jesus and Mary.

1:16:46 Mary is called woman. And then, you know what happens in chapter 3 of John's Gospel? What does John the Baptist call himself? In John chapter 3. This is in John 3, 29. The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The best man who stands and listens for him rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice. So this joy of mine has been made complete. He must increase, I must decrease. John the Baptist calls himself the best man, calls Jesus the bridegroom. What is the church?

1:17:34 The bride of Christ. The book of Revelation, also written by John. You have the bride of the lamb come down from heaven. Now you guys see how we're using typology here? And we're not, I'm not making this up, guys. I'm taking this from biblical scholarship. John made this up. And John didn't make it up. God made it up. The primary author of the scriptures. Isn't this Bible study exciting? And it's going to get more exciting as we get into Noah, as we get into Abraham, and Moses, and David. So let's go ahead in close in prayer. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Heavenly Father, you are so gracious and good. And we thank you so much for these gold mines, for these riddles, for these amazing masterpieces that you have created in scripture.

1:18:24 But we thank you most especially for who is spoken of as the center of scripture. That word made flesh, Jesus Christ, through whom and only through whom mankind finds salvation. We give you so much praise and thanks. Please be with us this week. Please cure the afflicted. And if you do not cure them, we ask that through their suffering they would be made more holy. We give you praise, honor, glory, and we love you. Amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Amen.