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Note: This is a new bible study I’m working on, it’s not 100% finish. My goal is to design a bible study that presents the truth of the word of God and the account of creation from a scientific view and biblical view. Essentially a defense of the creation account of the bible. This part is on Genesis 1:1, more will be added to this part. I will not be posting each part on here like I do other studies. If you would like to follow me and support me on writing this bible study, you can do so through Patreon. I will post updates to this bible study on there and then when it’s all finish, I will give all the supports a free physical copy of this bible study. Keith West | Christian Faith Based Content | Patreon

The whole bible study will be Genesis 1-4, what your about to read will be only Genesis 1:1. Literally just one verse. The whole bible study will be 4 chapters. I plan on expanding on the information on Genesis 1:1 also, but this is where I’m at so far. I hope you enjoy and I hope you support the ministry.

Genesis 1 – ESV Version

1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 

EVS Count – Heavens (203 times), Beginning (99), Earth (859)

The word earth shows up 4 or 5 times more in the bible than the word heavens. The word world shows up 233 times. Now some verses might say earthquake, but not all 859 of those words will. The word earthquake shows up about 19 times in the bible. 

Why does the word earth show up more times in the bible than the word heavens? When Jesus returns to the earth, the saints will inherit the earth, Jesus said so in the sermon on the Mount. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” Matthew 5:5. This is one of the cool moments in Scripture where Jesus says something and everyone takes it one way but it actually means something completely different. Bible-Hub wrote the meaning perfectly, “Biblical meekness is not weakness but rather refers to exercising God’s strength under His control – i.e. demonstrating power without undue harshness.” 

When I read this meaning of meekness I think of a leader that has all the authority in the world to completely destroy their enemies, but instead, the leader doesn’t do so. A great example is Jesus on the cross, the creator of the world hanging on the cross dying and being mocked by his own creation, He could have called down judgment in any form possible and he doesn’t. This is the Meekness that we as the church must display towards our enemies. Jesus had every right that day to do anything he wanted to but didn’t. We need to be just like Jesus. 

This is why we see the word earth show up so many times in the bible, it’s because God is in love with his creation. He has the earth and humanity at the center of his heart, so much so that he literally died for the world. One day the bible says that Jesus will reign for 1000 years on earth in Israel. This teaching is widely debated among Christians, but I believe that there will be a literally 1000-year reign of Christ on earth. I will explain why I believe that when we get to day 7. 

What does “In the beginning” mean? According to Bible-Hub, the Hebrew word being used is בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית, which means ‘absolute beginning’, but the absolute beginning of what? That’s the big question, did God himself have a beginning? No, he didn’t, God is before the beginning. God created the beginning. In order for this world, space, and all creation to exist, we need three things to happen at the same time. Time, Space, and Matter. God is outside of time. He created the idea of time, we will see this on day 4 when he created the stars, sun, and moon for seasons, days, and years. In our small human mind, we can’t fully understand how God is outside of time, but that is why we are not god and He is because there are things that we will never understand about creation. That is actually a good thing too, because if our god is small enough that we can fully understand him, he no longer can be god, but we ourselves are now god to whatever we created. God isn’t in a box, it’s the opposite, we are in the box and that box is called creation. 

Why is the word heavens plural? Have you ever noticed that in the bible? If you study astronomy, astronomers will call space “heavens” or “heaven”. “The purpose of life is the investigation of the Sun, the Moon, and the Heavens” – Anaxagoras, Philosopher. Anaxagoras got it wrong, the purpose of life wasn’t the investigate the Sun, Moon, and Space. It is to glorify God who created the Sun, Moon, and the Heavens. There is a reason god tells his people Israel not to look to the heavens for answers, but to look to Him, because people tend to think that the heavens will give them the answers to life like this Philosopher thought and instead it gave him death and he is most likely in Hell right now because he got the purpose of life wrong.  

What is the Purpose of Life? King Solomon was the wisest King in all Israel, he was the son of David who was called a man after God’s own heart. Solomon took his wisdom and made Israel the mightiest nation on earth and he made a lot of foolish choices in his life that you can read about. He wrote the book of Ecclesiastes at the end of his life as a reflection of his life and instructions to his son and people. After 12 chapters of him complaining about how life is so painful and pointless, Solomon ends the all book off with these two verses, Ecc 12:13-14 – “13 The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. 14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.” 

So, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. So we learn a few things from this one verse, first, there was a beginning, next God was before the beginning, he actually designed the idea of time. If you want to attack the bible, you have to prove that God isn’t the creator. If you can prove that the world was created by random chance, you can cause the whole bible to fall apart and be worthless, but that is why meaning atheists are now turning to the idea that there is a higher power but they will not believe in the God of the bible. See the problem isn’t with how the world was created or why it was made. It’s not about whether there is a heaven or hell. People inherently hate God, so they chose to believe anything other than Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God…”

Name of God – אֱלֹהִ֑ים

God’s name changes forms throughout the bible. In Genesis 1:1 ’ĕ-lō-hîm is the form of the name of God being used. The word is Noun Masculine, which is a blow to the face of anyone claiming God could be a woman, Genesis 1:1 uses the word for God as points to him being masculine and not feminine. Finally, ’ĕ-lō-hîm is the name of God used when the bible wants to call God the creator. It points to God’s Creator  “In the beginning, ’ĕ-lō-hîm” or “In The Beginning, The Creator Created the Heavens and the Earth.” Literally that is exactly what Genesis 1:1 is saying. You can’t deny that creation didn’t have a creator, but I promise you the creation we’re inside of most definitely had an intelligent creator behind it and the bible testifies to this truth.