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Green Leaf

February 10

God has power over nature.

Plant

Reflection

00:00 / 03:31

The first reading begins a 10-week journey through the pre-history portion of Genesis, the first eleven books.

Today, we read the first half of the first of two creation accounts. This emphasizes God’s transcendence over all created things; the second, beginning at Genesis 2:4 includes the account of the Fall and expulsion from the Garden, taking an anthropomorphic approach.

The first two verses, the introduction begins with the well-known: “In the beginning…”. This can also be translated; “When God began to create…”, which emphasizes God’s existence before and separate from His creation. God is not merely the greatest creature, He exists before, above and outside His creation and creatures. As He will subsequently inform Moses, He simply is.

The New American Bible translation used in our Mass gives us “a mighty wind…” over the waters. In other translations, the more literal Revised Standard Version, CE, for example, translates the original Hebrew “ruah” as “the Spirit of God…”. Fathers of the Church including Jerome and Athanasius recognize the second and third persons of the Trinity here.

While other primitive societies had their own accounts, creation invariably came from conflict and pre-existing material. The Hebrew account is unique in that God is the sole actor; there are no other “gods” involved, and God creates “ex nihilo”: from nothing.

The six days are meant to indicate the orderliness with which God went about His work. Included in the account is a day of rest, which was laid down as a specific day of worship, again, unique to the Hebrew culture. Other cultures would worship strictly ad hoc.

God begins His actions by separating and ordering the elements and His action of filling or adorning the spaces created. The creatures are introduced in an increasing order of dignity. It is worthwhile to note that the stars, sun, moon, and planets are not as other cultures thought, gods, but created things of the greatest, the sole, God.

Each of the steps; “days”, of creation had 5 steps: Announcement: “and God said…”, Command: “let there be…”, Report: “and it was so…”, Evaluation: “…it was good…”, Temporal framework: “it was evening…”.

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