The Beginning of the Universe

However, the creatio ex nihilo hypothesis is remedy tenaciously held on to by Fundamentalist interpreters of the Bible. But the Brobdingnagian majority of scholars and theologians, of the so-called "mainline" Christian denominations, as sanitary as many Jews, withdraw rejected the ex nihilo interpretation. They nominate d adept so on the grounds that this account was a later addition made by post-Exilic Jewish priests (following Ezra's legislative proclamations in Jerusalem), sometime after 397 B.C (Campbell 102), and a considerably coherent time after the Book of Genesis had already been disposed(p) canonical status. These post-Exilic rabbis are determined by their zeal to systemize the Biblical books. And probably non too little influenced by the creation legends of their Levantine predecessors - Sumer-ians and Akkadians - introduced a number of new interpretations to the already extant versions of the Pentateuch, and reworked and amplified these to suit their needs. The older versions of

creation, however, are unanimous in declaring that God did not take a crap from "nothing," but, on the contrary, formed the military personnel (universe) from the disorganized matter already existing in chaos. In other words, God is not credited with having created matter, but to have developed it and used it to fabricate the univers

fashioning of the world from already existing materials, and that God obligate upon these materials that order and regularity which we are now privileged to observe. From this, then, valet emerged.

e. This does not necessarily imply, however, that He did not also create the chaos, or primal matter; but, this inference cannot, with certainty, be drawn, shut out from the highly disputed Priestly Text mentioned earlier.

These accounts clearly tell the

Delfgaauw, Bernard: Evolution: The possibleness of Teilhard de Chardin, The Fontana Library (Collins & Son), 1961; Translation,

It is beyond the researcher's capacity to brook the temptation of comparing this creative event, or events, of Genesis with the Theory of Evolution, where it is recognized that, by some yet fully-disclosed and fortuitous incident, a series of differentiated life forms emerged from an earlier prototype.

engender the 2 separate sexes, and was unable to reproduce humankind until this division had occurred. The " poke fun" version may be a more cosmetic, and so more acceptable, form of this Janus-type model recounted in Genesis 5, 1-2. At any event, Adam was created with both sexes; for Eve, the female was indeed derived from Adam, the male, and was not created, except inferentially, as a separate being. In the one case, the double-sexed being "divided," and, in the other, the female emerged from the male, transformed from one of his ribs. In both accounts, there was a change, a transformation, an evolution. The sex roles were not distinct, nor very consequential, until this separation was effected; and, this occurred, almost as an afterthought on God's part, some time after the original work on of creation had been consummated.

Unpublished Notebooks, transcribed and annotated by Paul H.

and multiply, " (Genesis 1, 22). breeding was now to be the

Campbell, Campbell, Joseph. The Masks of God: Oriental Mythology, Vol. II.

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