Chris Legg, LPC

God, speaking to Moses (or maybe it was Adam and passed down to Moses), decides to reveal to him the creation of the Earth… and it is shown to him from the perspective of Earth.

Moses, in his own mind (or maybe in God’s great video screening room with actual 360 degree visual and sound) finds himself seeming to float above a mass of blackness – nothing to describe – formless… void.  The only thing, the ethereal presence of the Spirit seeming to hover over the inky depths of blackness.

Then a voice.  “Let there be light.”

Suddenly there is light – an expansive expression of energy passing through the universe, and to Moses’ eyes, it is like a switch has been flipped (did Moses cover his eyes from the sudden brightness?)  Maybe Moses has just experienced what we flippantly call “The Big Bang”.  Every year, we discover new properties of the quanta (“packets” of light).  Light.

Dark.  Void. Deep.

Then, Light.

All of this passing in seconds before Moses’ eyes… though I doubt Moses is experiencing a clear passage of time… only knowing that time is passing, as he sees light spreading at unimaginable speed.

Then the roiling mass of new energy and new matter that is spinning below his feet –at 1,000,000x speed begins to come together.

New scene.  Darkness.

Light again and it is clear that things are different.  Time has passed.  It is a new day.

The thing Moses knows to call Earth is covered with roiling deep and liquid water.  Time is still flying by.  The gasses and liquids begin to cool as Moses looks down onto the surface of the new planet.  Swirling, as Moses watches, the gasses begin to form in different layers the matter begins the process of cooling, solidifying, water draining away from sky.  In his ears, he hears God name the sky “Heaven.”

Fade to black.  It is good.

Light.  A measure of time has passed again.

Water, sky (the source of light must be hidden by the swirling mass of clouds – likely rich with various elements… most of which are not transparent!)…

And land begins to explode out of the waters.  Massive, incredible volcanic and tectonic activity, all passing by in super-sped up visuals.  Water pouring off of these new mountains, islands, and continents.  Perhaps, again from the perspective of on high, Moses watches the continents roving together, and seas and oceans gathering together to fill the spaces in between the lands

Then, sweeping across the land like the Genesis project from Star Trek, green.  God speaks and the first living things begin to form and grow.  At first, algae, fungi, moss, then ferns and plants… millions of years fly by in moments and trees are there – some of them bearing fruit!

Back to black.  Good.

Light, now more distinct… the roiling clouds seem to be fading.  Gasses being converted into Oxygen, Nitrogen and other transparent elements.  Moses, seeming to be standing on algae covered land, is looking up when the source of the light is revealed.  The sun.

At this speed of the movement of time, the sun slips in seconds across and below the horizon and the moon is suddenly lit by the sun’s light in reflection from the other side of the world!  Under the new, brighter sun, the plants are flourishing.

And this time, “day” and “night” begin to have some kind of basis for comparison.  But things are still moving, being exposed to Moses on this great “video screen” in his mind…

He is standing on a beach in his mind’s eye as the light fades up again – and he can see the ocean.  A fish leaps from the waves and his mind follows it, diving deeper and seeing the swarms of living things in the waters.  Breaking the surface again his eyes see birds flying across the sky… and God proclaims it good once again…

Fade to standing back on land, or maybe even souring over the lands like those birds… seeing different climates and ecosystems pass beneath him.  Below him, animals – thousands of thousands of species.  He can tell basics – beasts, livestock, creeping things – but it is too much too fast.  The traveling seems to be intentional and directional now…  God is pleased.

Suddenly, Moses is standing in a garden.   He overhears God speak, “Let us make man in our image…”

He sees them from afar, like Ebenezer Scrooge watching the man and woman, wandering about and then standing before God voice as God commands them and instructs them…

Ok, that makes the point…

I have other theories and questions and even flights of fancy that are little more than thoughts.  Due to the uniqueness of  the creation event, I doubt if anything will ever fully integrate what we think we know of biology and what little we have revealed to us about the garden.

Lord knows (I mean that literally) that I am honestly not trying to claim or teach any doctrinal stance…

But I have a strong belief that when natural science insights and biblical understanding seem to come into conflict it is imperative that we, as Christians and/or scientists must learn to be humble enough to accept that we are apparently not done… that our understanding of AT LEAST one of them is wrong (or minimally, incomplete).  Many times, the scientific community has been forced, after further work, to admit error in previous conclusions… and so has the Christian community (do some research on the Spanish Inquisition and the treatment of heliocentric theorists).

It seems like the traditional understanding of a young Earth is in conflict with the scientific findings.  Since it is impossible for both to be true at the same time, then our understanding of at least one must be wrong.

How would that happen?  One option is that we are wrong about what we think is being told to us in Genesis 1, if we think it is giving us a timetable.

Anyway, this little thought project has been entertaining for me – and enlightening that some of the order of Genesis 1 still doesn’t fit as well as I would like.  Certain things would have to overlap in order for this idea to work as an integration technique… fruit bearing plants before the sun is exposed and before there are animals would need some work, for example… were the days clear and cut and dry?

Was Moses being shown only one thing at a time from one locality at a time?  Maybe what God showed him was localized to a place where there were plants but no animal.  However, I enjoy thinking it through.

I am in awe of the deep Old Testament.

There is such raw power and yet a simplicity like teaching to a child…

However, there are times that I am not sure how to treat or appreciate it – and sometimes even how to let the Truths there speak to me… but I want to understand!

Clearly, there is more to what we find there than just what we find.  The entire process of creation is wrapped up in 2 or 3 chapters!?

I think it obvious that there was more to the story!  Heck, I can’t explain salary caps in the NFL in 3 shot chapters.  Look at my articles – I cannot explain even the simplest ideas in less than 10 pages across 2 or 3 weeks (even intros to songs took two weeks!)

I think God wants to make it clear THAT He spun the fiery balls of Fusion sometimes light hours across… not HOW He did it.  At times, He is gracious enough to tell us WHY He does certain things… but even that is not always clear.

Now, because of that, I love to wrestle with what is hard about the deep Old Testament.  Sometimes it sounds like old Native American legend… sometimes like great stories of might, sometimes like detailed history… and I believe that it is all exactly what it is supposed to be…. And all Truth.

So, I am always trying to understand it from the perspective that it would have been originally understood – this is impossible for us, I know, but I like trying.

So here is a new “what if” for you…

(and you know how we love a good “what if?”)

What if the account of Genesis 1 is the description of something seen, rather than told?  What if, instead of God describing creation to Moses (or to whomever it was given first), He showed him?

What this would mean is that what we have is what the person (who I will call Moses from this point on since I think it makes sense that he is the one who wrote it, at least) experienced – from their own perspective… without commentary or explanation from God (or at least very little).

This isn’t out of the ordinary – and is, in fact, common in the Bible.  Aside from Ezekiel’s wheel within a wheel, Daniel’s dreams and visions, and Peter’s animal blanket, we have the clear example of John’s Revelation!

All throughout Revelation, John tells us what he sees and experiences – and even hears, but rarely does anyone interpret it for him.  This has led to some wild and imaginative speculation over the years, but the room is there to try to figure out what John was seeing that he described the way he did.

What if Genesis 1 is the same thing?

I have always imagined John as experiencing many of the events of Revelation as though he were in some kind of complete surround experience – similar to a whole room of audio and visual equipment…

So that when he sees a giants flaming mountain crashing down from space into the waters, maybe his perspective is from above the atmosphere, following the stone as it passes into the atmosphere, flames beginning to wreath all around it and smashing toward… or in the case of Wormwood, blowing toxified water back into the atmosphere!

In another scene, the “screens” go black.

Another scene might be like standing on the streets of future Jerusalem watching two witnesses consume people with fire.

In another an angel stands with him and asks “Do you want to see the Bride?”  and the next thing he knows, his perspective a massive city is sweeping toward him from the sky – brazen with light streaming through crystal walls and gold streets.

You see what I mean?

If you want to experience it most powerfully of all, take a second and read Revelation 4 & 5.

Now, back to Genesis.

What if that is what Moses experience is like?  Might it not answer some of our difficult questions?

The main difference is that, because the visions of John are from the future, he doesn’t always have words to give them, so he just describes.

What Moses experiences is from the past, so he has words to use… or at least words that make sense to him?

Let me re-create it and see if it works.

Next week…