Genesis third day of creation

The Third Day of Creation
Genesis 1:9-13

The Third Day of Creation: Genesis 1:9-13

under the sky


under the sky

▪ “That is, the terrestrial waters.”


the dry land


the dry land

▪ “The terrain now visible to
man.”


Let the earth bring forth


▪ This creative act constitutes an
exception to the norm that
God’s word directly effectuates
the desired product. Here the
earth is depicted as the
mediating element, implying
that God endows it with
generative powers that He now
activates by His utterance.


▪ The significance of this singularity
is that the sources of power in
what we call nature, which were
personified and deified in the
ancient world, are now emptied of
sanctity. The productive forces of
nature exist only by the will of the
one sovereign Creator and are not
independent spiritual entities.
There is no room for such a
concept for the fertility cults that
were features of ancient near
Eastern religions.” (The JPS Torah Commentary:
Genesis; Commentary by Nahum M. Sarna; The Jewish
Publications Society, Philadelphia, PA 1989 p.9)


Some examples of the deification of natural
things in the ancient Near East


Egypt

▪ Anuket:
goddess of the Nile


Egypt

▪ Aten:
The sun disk


Egypt

▪ Geb:
the earth


Egypt

▪ Heryshef:
god of the riverbanks


Egypt

▪ Min:
god of fertility


Egypt

▪ Nefertem:
god of the sunrise


Egypt

▪ Naunet:
god of water


Egypt

▪ Ra:
the sun god


Egypt

▪ Shu:
god of the air and sky


Egypt

 Yamm:
the god of the sea


Assyria and Babylon

▪ Apsu:
underworld ocean;
begetter of the skies
and earth


Assyria and Babylon

▪ Tiamat:
primeval chaos; bearer
of the skies and earth


Assyria and Babylon

▪ Anu:
sky god


Assyria and Babylon

▪ Ea (Enki, Nudimmud):
god of the waters


Assyria and Babylon

▪ Sin (Nannar):
moon goddess


Assyria and Babylon

▪ Shamash (Babbar,
Utu):
sun god


Assyria and Babylon

▪ Ishum:
god of fire


Assyria and Babylon

▪ Adad:
a storm god associated
with lightning


Assyria and Babylon

▪ Tammuz (Dumuzi,
Adonis):
vegetation


Assyria and Babylon

▪ Nissaba (Nisaba):
cereal grain harvest


vegetation:

 Hebrew deshe’


vegetation:

 Hebrew deshe’
 the generic term,
which is subdivided
into plants and fruit
trees.


vegetation:

▪ Leviticus 27:30


vegetation:

▪ Leviticus 27:30
▪ All tithes of the land,
whether in grain from
the fields or in fruit
from the trees, belong
to the LORD, as sacred
to him


vegetation:

▪ Gen.1:29-30


vegetation:

▪ Gen.1:29-30
▪ God also said: "See, I give you
every seed-bearing plant all over
the earth and every tree that has
seed-bearing fruit on it to be your
food; and to all the animals of
the land, all the birds of the air,
and all the living creatures that
crawl on the ground, I give all the
green plants for food." And so it
happened


seed-bearing


seed-bearing

▪ That is, endowed with
the capacity for self-
replication


seed-bearing

▪ “God puts limits on the expanse of
water so that earth can appear.
From the earth God calls forth
vegetation that is able to
reproduce itself. (“with its seed in
it,” v. 11). Fruitfulness is not
something dependent on the
gods of fertility, but God has put
the power of reproduction in
vegetation itself. Here again the
author shows a world that is not
under the control of pagan
deities.” (Collegeville Bible Commentary: Genesis; Pauline A.
Viviano; The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota 1985 p.11)


Pope Benedict XVI
▪ God made the world so that there
could be a space where he might
communicate his love, and from
which the response of love might
come back to him. From God’s
perspective, the heart of the man
who responds to him is greater
and more important than the
whole immense material cosmos,
for all that the latter allows us to
glimpse something of God’s
grandeur.” (Homily of His Holiness Benedict XVI; Saint
Peter's Basilica, Holy Saturday, 23 April 2011)

Genesis third day of creation

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