Origins (of Man)

The Garden of Eden

When the Lord God made the heavens and the earth, no grass or plants were growing anywhere. God had not yet sent any rain, and there was no one to work the land. But streams came up from the ground and watered the earth.

The Lord God took a handful of soil and made a man. God breathed life into the man, and the man started breathing. The Lord made a garden in a place called Eden, which was in the east, and he put the man there.

Genesis 2:4-8
Written in Hebrew, one of the oldest languages on earth. Believed to have been written around 1450 BC. The oldest manuscripts discovered date back to 2,000 years ago.

[This is the 2nd message of this series]

Whichever side we are on in the origins of life discussion, we should also be aware (especially if we aren't) that the Jewish Scriptures, the ancient (old) sacred (holy) writings of the ancient Hebrews have been written down several hundreds of years before Christ. Yes BC.

Creation Theory

The Book of Genesis offers a unique if not fascinating view of how we originated.

Science offers another view (several theories actually, and these theories keep changing as scientists, their techniques and as technology becomes more and more complex and sophisticated). 

Other belief systems have their own views.

Creationism is the theory or shall we say the (religious) view that the universe, humans and everything else have a Source. All these just didn't come about because of a series of very (unbelievable or) fortunate sequence of events through an improbable highly complex and yet unexplainable series of circumstances. And we are not yet even factoring in how to explain 'something out of nothing' or the still missing links, the laws of physics and other laws of science.

A Reasonable Explanation

The Book of Genesis says the Lord God created the heavens and the earth. And it has not changed its position since it was first written down, not like scientists tend to do whenever some new ground breaking discovery takes place or when something comes up that they have no recourse but to revise whatever current theory they are betting on.

Garden of Eden

Well the supposed Garden of Eden did not look anything like any garden, at least not in the beginning.

It would most probably look more like any other planet in our solar system.

If we look at the images and video footages of the landscape of Mars being transmitted from the Mars rover right now, it would probably look like those.

There is no rain in Mars, at least not the same rain that we have here in our planet. There is no water there.

I believe scientists have long theorized that there is water under the surface of Mars. And yes there very well may be.

In much the same way, in the beginning there was water beneath the earth's surface and as there was no rain just yet, the bible said that water came out from under the ground.

So after the water appeared, grass and plants sprouted, hence the garden.

Humans

In the first chapter of the Book of Genesis, there was a separate account where there were other things appearing over a period of time, plantlife, sealife, land animals and flying animals. And then came the humans.

The genesis account says humankind came from the ground, from dirt, this is why we have the phrase ashes to ashes dust to dust (as we came from so will we become).

The body will decay and become nourishment for the earth.

Now humans are not mere animal life, humans have soul and spirit. These are from the Lord God breathing God's breath of life into the dirt.

From then on humankind became the dominant species on earth.

Old Testament Manuscripts, Wikimedia Commons

All these as written (first recorded) on clay, stone or wood) several thousand years ago. Hundreds of copies written in ancient manuscripts are housed in different museums all over the world. 


Origins (the Series)




Image Credit: mars.nasa.gov
"Image of the Week" for Week 10 (April 18 - 24, 2021) of the Perseverance rover mission on Mars

Church of the Lost Sheep 2012

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