A Daily Genesis
Genesis 1:20-23
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, 08-24-2015 at 11:08 PM (972 Views)
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[B][COLOR=#ff0000]†.[/COLOR] Gen 1:20 . . God said: Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and birds that fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.[/B]
The Hebrew word for "birds" is [I]'owph[/I] (ofe) which just simply means covered with wings rather than covered with feathers. It's a rather unusual word because it includes not only creatures with feathers, but according to Lev 11:13-23, 'owph also pertains to bats and flying insects. The English word "birds" was obviously an arbitrary translation since owph is ambiguous.
What did those early winged creatures look like? My money is on the Pterosaurs (pterodactyls). Precisely when God phased out those early skin-winged creatures and replaced them with feather-winged creatures isn't stated; but since no winged creatures are reported created on the sixth day, then we have to give the birdies a share of the fifth; so I think we're talking about a pritt-tee long fifth day. What I mean is; I don't think it prudent to rule out the possibility that those early skin-winged creatures were the ancestors of later-to-come feather-winged creatures.
How can water be used to create both winged creatures and sea creatures? Well, it can't be any harder than creating terra creatures from the dust of the earth seeing as how the very same elements are dissolved in earth's waters; and in point of biological fact, land creatures are composed of not only dust, but also water. Dehydrate an air-breathing land creature, and it will die.
"bring forth swarms" is derived from [I]sharats[/I] (shaw-rats') and means: to wriggle, i.e. (by implication) swarm or abound. Sharats, strictly speaking, simply indicates large numbers; like in Ex 1:7 where Yhhv's people multiplied like rabbits, and in Ex 8:3 where ka-zillions of frogs infested the land of Egypt.
Sharats is a different word than the ones translated "bring forth" in Gen 1:12 and Gen 1:15. The word in Gen 1:12 is from [I]dasha'[/I] (daw-shaw') which means: to sprout. The word in Gen 1:15 is from [I]yatsa'[/I] (yaw-tsaw') which is a word of action and/or motion and means: to go, to cause to go, send away, or to bring out, or proceed.
It's important to note that winged creatures were just as distinct a creation as aqua creatures. So winged creatures didn't evolve from creatures who once lived in the sea. Winged creatures are a separate genre of life in their own right, and absolutely did not evolve from some other order of life.
The word for "creature" is from [I]nephesh[/I] (neh'-fesh) which distinguishes conscious life from non-conscious life. For example: though saguaro cacti are alive, they aren't nephesh because saguaro cacti aren't sentient beings; viz: they aren't self aware.
Nephesh shows up first in Gen 1:20-21 as sea creatures and winged creatures.
Next it shows up in Gen 1:24 as terra creatures; viz: cattle, creepy crawlies, and wild beasts.
It shows up again in Gen 2:7 as the human creature.
It shows up again in Gen 2:19-20 as the creatures to whom Adam gave names.
It shows up again in Gen 9:8-16 as all conscious life aboard the ark, including Noah and his family.
Some say that animals are people too. Well . . they're certainly not human, but according to the Bible, they are very definitely just as much a nephesh as a human being. So I guess we could consent, at least to some degree, that critters are people too; in their own way.
[B][COLOR=#ff0000]†.[/COLOR] Gen 1:21a . . God created the great sea monsters, and all the living creatures of every kind that creep, which the waters brought forth in swarms,[/B]
"sea monsters" is from [I]tanniyn[/I] (tan-neen') and/or [I]tanniym[/I] (tan-neem') which mean: a marine or land monster. Tanniyn is sometimes translated "dragon" as in Isa 27:1
It wasn't a tanniyn, however, that swallowed Jonah. That creature was either a [I]dagah[/I] (daw-gaw') a [I]dag[/I] (dawg) or a [I]da'g[/I] (dawg). All three words mean a fish.
[B][SIZE=1]NOTE[/SIZE]:[/B] The reason I quoted the three Hebrew words for "fish" is because to tell the truth, translators are not always confident how best to represent a Hebrew word with the English alphabet. In point of fact, there are ancient Hebrew words that nobody really knows what they mean so translators are forced to take educated guesses here and there.
"of every kind that creep" in this case regards only aquatic creatures that creep e.g. starfish, lobsters, crayfish, newts, clams, and crabs et al. The terra creepers are coming up in a little bit.
But what about aquatic dinosaurs? Well . . according to Discovery's web site "Walking With Dinosaurs" paleontologists believe there were some amphibious reptiles such as plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs, but those creatures didn't have the gills necessary to be truly aquatic like Nemo and his dad Marlin.
[B][COLOR=#ff0000]†.[/COLOR] Gen 1:21b . . and all the winged creatures of every kind.[/B]
"kind" is from [I]miyn[/I] (meen) and means: to portion out: to sort; viz: species.
In other words: God created a variety of winged species all at once, rather than just one specie like He did with man.
"From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth" (Acts 17:25-26)
Man is a one-of-a-kind specie. From just one man's genetic chemistry came all the other variations of Man; ranging anywhere from Pygmies to Eskimos; and has to make you wonder how that works if evolution is total bull. Well; I don't think it's wise to relegate Darwin to the category of total bull. I mean, just look at how well pathogens adapt and mutate in order to cope with antibiotics. That's a natural process and the pathies don't even have to give it any thought. I believe Darwin was on to something, but shot himself in the foot by leaving intelligent design out of the equation. An origin of living species theory is incomplete without an originator of life.
God built mysterious genetic reactions into living organisms that give them the ability to make adjustments to themselves in order to survive-- adjustments that are triggered by conditions in their respective environments. It's because of those kinds of involuntary adaptations and mutations that I'm very curious sometimes what the original humans really looked like.
[B][COLOR=#ff0000]†.[/COLOR] Gen 1:21b-22a . . And God saw that this was good.[/B]
The Hebrew word for "good" in this instance is [I]towb [/I](tobe) which is horribly ambiguous. It's meanings range from morally good, to good looking, to a job well done, to something that's good to the taste; and to a whole lot of other things in between; e.g. a good show, good food, as good as it gets, satisfactory; etc, etc.
[B][COLOR=#ff0000]†.[/COLOR] Gen 1:22b . . God blessed them, saying: Be fertile[/B]
The blessing of fertility is pretty amazing. It not only enables creatures to reproduce their own bodies, but also to transfer the breath of life from one generation to the next.
[B][COLOR=#ff0000]†.[/COLOR] Gen 1:22c . . and increase, fill the waters in the seas, and let the winged creatures increase on the earth.[/B]
Aqua creatures exist in the most unlikely places. When the crew of the bathyscaphe Trieste descended into the 35,761 feet Challenger Deep located in the deepest part of the Mariana Trench in 1960, they didn't really expect to find anything living down there; but to their surprise, the saw a flat fish similar to sole and flounder. The video camera on board the Kaiko probe spotted a sea cucumber, a scale worm and a shrimp at the bottom. The Nereus probe spotted a polychaete worm (a multi-legged predator) about an inch long.
[B][COLOR=#ff0000]†.[/COLOR] Gen 1:23 . . And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.[/B]
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