Board index ‹ Specific Bible verses, texts, and passages ‹ Genesis

[Squid]

What did Genesis 1 tell the Israelites about the gods of the surrounding, pagan nations?

[jimwalton]

• YHWH Elohim has no beginning. He was neither born nor created. He did not ascend His throne by origin or victory in conflict.
• It was YHWH Elohim who brought order out of disorder.
• It was YHWH Elohim who maintains and sustains the functions of creation and has His own purposes within it.
• YHWH Elohim is the guarantee of order in the cosmos, and He is the repudiation of accident or chance (fate and fatalism).
• YHWH Elohim made the world for us, but in another sense made the world for Himself, to be His temple
• People were made not as slaves of the gods, but to serve Him as priests and priestesses, and to be His representatives—co-regents even—on the Earth.
• YHWH Elohim is the majestic and powerful source of all there is (i.e., scientific naturalism is untrue).
• YHWH Elohim is separate from creation (i.e., pantheism is untrue).
• YHWH Elohim is personal.
• The miserable condition of humanity is not the result of some defect in God's creative work.
• There is only one God (i.e., polytheism is untrue; there are no other gods to bring into existence either by procreation or separation).
• There is a God (i.e., atheism is untrue).
• The cosmos came about by God's creation (i.e., radical materialism [the eternity of matter] is untrue).
• Special revelation by divine act is possible. The covenant is the mechanism by which God reveals Himself.
• Humanity has the capacity and the means for an intimate relationship with God.