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[#07] Genesis 1:9 – Let the Waters Be Gathered Together

By Jeremy Myers
1 Comment

[#07] Genesis 1:9 – Let the Waters Be Gathered Together
https://media.blubrry.com/one_verse/traffic.libsyn.com/redeeminggod/07_Genesis_1_9.mp3

One Verse PodcastHave you ever realized that in Genesis 1, God doesn’t actually create dry ground? Instead, He simply pushes back the waters so that the dry ground appears.

Have you ever tried to push back water so that you create a little space of dry ground in the midst of the water? It’s pretty much impossible, isn’t it? Yet we see God doing this in Genesis 1:9, the text we are looking at today, and we are going to see why Moses wrote about the water and the dry ground this way.

We will see that just as with every other verse in the creation account, Moses is making a theological point that his Hebrew audience would have recognized and understood.

And when we see his point, we will also see what Moses was teaching about sacred spaces, religious spaces, or holy ground. If you think that God is more present in your church building, or on top of some sacred mountain, or in a special prayer sanctuary, you will want to listen to today’s episode and listen to what Moses has to say about these sorts of places.

Genesis 1:9

The Text of Genesis 1:9

Genesis 1:9. Then God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear’; and it was so.

In this discussion of Genesis 1:9 we look at:

  • What it means for God to push back the waters instead of raising up the land.
  • The Egyptians creation myth about Atum and the creation of land.
  • Why it is theologically important that God did raise up the land.
  • What Genesis 1:9 teaches us about sacred places and holy mountains.

Resources for Genesis 1:9:

  • Logos Bible Software
  • Sailhamer on Genesis – Amazon or CBD
  • Keil & Delitzsch on Genesis – Amazon or CBD
  • Gibson on Genesis – Amazon or CBD
  • Walton, Ancient Israelite Literature – Amazon
  • Subscribe and Leave a Review on iTunes

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God is Redeeming God, Redeeming Scripture Bible & Theology Topics: creation, Genesis 19, podcast, the waters

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The Waters of the Flood and ANE Cosmology

By Jeremy Myers
12 Comments

The Waters of the Flood and ANE Cosmology

the waters of the floodIn seeking to understand what is going on in the account of the flood and why the waters that came upon the earth, we must understand the Ancient Near East cosmology. That is, what they thought about how the world worked, and what connections existed between the spiritual realm and the physical realm.

The Waters in the Ancient Near East Cosmology

In reference to the flood, one of the most important points to grasp is that in ancient Middle Eastern cosmology, the waters of the world—especially large bodies of water such as the ocean and the sea—were considered to be the dwelling places of powerful deities.

Though he goes by different names in different cultures one of the more prominent pagan deities was Yamm, the god of the sea. As such, when we read in numerous places in the Bible about the raging waters, and God’s control of them, it is not that God is fighting the waves of the ocean, but that God is viewed to be at war with Yamm, the god of storms and chaos (cf. Ps 69:1-2; 74:13; 77:16).

In his book, God at War, Greg Boyd shows the depth and breadth of this imagery throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. In reference to Genesis 1, he says that all ancient Near Eastern people would have understood the imagery of the “the deep” and “the waters” which covered the earth.

Such imagery was prevalent in ancient creation myths, and typically, when the gods of these myths set out to bring order to the chaotic waters, they did so through war, battle, and violence (Greg Boyd,  God at War, 159-164). The Hebrew God of Genesis 1, however, needs no violence. He brings order to the chaos with nothing more than His voice (Greg Boyd,  God at War, 86). He simply commands the anticreation chaotic waters to retreat, and they do! Yamm is shut up behind closed doors by the command of God.

At the end of the creation account, God gives dominion over the earth to mankind—the pinnacle of His creation. The dominion over the earth is understood as the rulership, control, or authority over the earth. But when Adam and Eve sinned, when they fell to the temptation of the serpent, they forfeited their dominion over the earth, and gave that authority to a different “god of this world.”

[Read more…]

God is Uncategorized Bible & Theology Topics: cosmology, Genesis 1, Genesis 6, Genesis 6-8, Greg Boyd, the flood, the waters, Theology of Angels, Theology of Sin, When God Pled Guilty, Yamm

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