Please read very carefully and then give me your interperation of it. "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." This is a serious question and please no bashing of each other. Thanks so much.
2007-11-28 14:38:07 · 37 answers · asked by carmeliasue 6 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
I was wondering if anyone, (no one did, believers or non-believers) that one word is plural. It states 'heavens' not 'heaven', but only one earth. So is there more then 'one heaven'???
2007-11-28 14:49:33 · update #1
Sorry, left out a word in the last post. The word 'noticed' should be placed after anyone.. thanks.
2007-11-28 14:50:31 · update #2
good thinking
but i dont know
because when i go to church
the pastor usually says
the heavens when he is talking about location.
and the heaven doesn't make sense
i think it has to depend on what version you have too.
2007-11-28 14:58:57 · answer #1 · answered by pepsiandpickles 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Ok, as long as we are clear it's not about if it's right, wrong or indifferent....
I think it means that before there was anything, there was God. Hard to grasp that God was before the beginning, but i think in the context of the writing, it works. It's an explanation of how everything was created. So, in the beginning, God (who was already around) created the heavens (the space around us) and earth (the globe we live on.
Keep in mind that at this time, the heavens were thought to be solid...a firmament that was arched across the sky. So, it was a pretty limited idea of creation, actually. It is simply a description of how the earth and the surrounding sky (heavens) got here. Not so much the how, as the who.
2007-11-28 14:44:57 · answer #2 · answered by Night Owl 5 · 2⤊ 0⤋
The Bible is written in phenomenological style. This style was familiar to the ancients, who often wrote that way. For example, they might say, "the sun rises in the east" when we actually know that the earth rotates. This does not make it "false and unscientific" to say that the sun rises. It makes it understandable to those who might have read it over four thousand years ago. They would have had neither the concept nor the vocabulary to describe the earth rotating on axis. That is why the "heavens and the earth" to the ancient phenomenologist would actually mean "everything that exists".
So, this sentence would fit perfectly within something as modern as the "Big Bang" theory. Perhaps you might say, "There once was nothing, until a great power brought everything that exists into being" Does that make sense?
Ex nihilo, nihilum
2007-11-28 14:48:38 · answer #3 · answered by greengo 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
In the beginning God made the Heavens and the Earth. Hmmm...my interperation? Well, what I think it means is the when God decided to create something so he created Earth. And everything on it. Then he had to make something to put on it so he made Adam then Eve and they reproduced. He also created animals. But then after the humans that God created died, or passed away he had to create somewhere for them to go. So he creted Heaven. And when the Devil turned from a angel to a demon he created a place called hell. But God cannot allow soul's to go to Heaven unless they are completly pure, or if they are a saint. So he also created Purgatory, "the cleansing" fire. Unlike hell, the burning fire, Purgatory is a cleansing fire to cleanse you sins and make you pure enough to go onto Heaven. But that's the way I think of it.
2007-11-28 14:46:00 · answer #4 · answered by tiff<3jay 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
That's not really a quote. In many children bibles that is the first sentence. It just explains that in the beginning of all time god created heaven and earth. A place where people live and when they move on. I think its really self explanatory
2007-11-28 14:48:24 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
1 of the first things god did in the begging was 2 create earth and heaven
2007-11-28 14:43:51 · answer #6 · answered by jose c 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
It's not a question, but I also like to take this chance to say that this quote from the bible is not meant to be taken as some kind of documented statement of the exact steps, formula, measures and time frame God used when He did create the heavens and the earth.
2007-11-28 14:44:06 · answer #7 · answered by Linda J 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
It is the answer to the eternal question "Where do we come from" for people who lived in the area of what is now Israel and/or Palestine hundreds of years before Jesus. It presumes that there was a beginning, that there is/was a creator, and that the heavens moved around the earth.
2007-11-28 14:44:57 · answer #8 · answered by mz112ungu 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
That God was here before anything else and with a thought created all.
Problem with that logic is, if nothing was here, how was God here. To me this is kinda like the old which came first the chicken or the egg... catch 22, the chicken lays the egg so it must have been the chicken BUT the chicken hatches from the egg.
You prolly need to believe that God is an Omnipresent being (always existing) in order for the whole quote to work.
2007-11-28 14:43:33 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
When he said 'in the beginning' he is NOT referring to the beginning of everything but the beginning of our story... his plan for us when we live in mortality...
Then he created heavens (yes there are more than one heaven) --- levels of heaven even --- and of course, the Earth which is the most crucial to his plan for us... the Earth is like Hogwarts school for us to learn...
2007-11-28 14:46:07 · answer #10 · answered by Youth of Noble Birthright 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You aren't saying exactly what you are looking for, but my understanding of this is that it is self-explanatory. God created the heavens and the earth in the beginning. Before that, there was no heaven or earth, there was nothing.
2007-11-28 14:41:43 · answer #11 · answered by nymormon 4 · 6⤊ 2⤋