CHAPTER 1

Bereshith: The very first word is a source of debate. The traditional rendering has been: "In the beginning God created...." This seems to express making out of nothing. But the later version says: "When God began to form or create...."

The difference comes from some oddities in bereshith bara.

[The first vowel in be, instead of ba, seems to indicate construct state -- one which in translation yields English of. Also the ending in th is usual for construct, not absolute state. But it is replied that: since the construct state would not take an article, the preposition should be be. But the absolute state would take an article, which would give its vowel a to the be changing it to ba. - There are some nouns with construct in -eth: esheth (wife). Zorewell, Lexicon, lists bereshith as absolute, and compares aharith. - If we really want to take bereshith as construct, we should emend the bara to bero (construct infinitive). Not even Rashi did this, who first proposed the later version (great medieval Jewish commentator: Rabbi Shelemoh Ben Yishaq: 1041 - 1105 A. D).]

The newer version ---"when God began to form..." is not found until Rashi. The Septuagint had: "In the beginning God made..." (Greek has no verb for create = make out of nothing. The Palestinian Targum reads: "From the beginning the Son of God perfected the heavens and the earth...." However it is not a translation but a free rendering. Net result: the grammatical picture is irregular. Older Hebrew tradition favors the usual translation.

The newer version could fit with an idea that God did not create, but formed preexistent matter. NJBC seems to favor it.

Creation out of nothing? The verb bara is used only with God as its subject. But it does not always mean making out of nothing. Cf. Isaiah 45.7 "I form light and create darkness. I make peace, and create evil." On the thought cf. Amos 3.6. But in 2 Mac 7, 28 it is explicit that God made things out of nothing.

There was a frequent ancient concept that a word spoken by a person in power would bring about what he said. Thus in Isaiah 55.10-11 God says that just as rain and snow come down from the heavens, and do not go back to Him without accomplishing that for which they were sent, "so also the word that comes forth from my mouth will not come back to me empty." In some pagan lands there was a similar belief in the power of the word. In Egypt the god Atum named the parts of his body and the gods came into being. Some had a concept of creation out of nothing -- though Greeks and Romans, and many foolish moderns think matter was always there without a cause.

Earth was tohu and bohu: The two Hebrew nouns go together to express the notion of formlessness to express positive confusion or chaos.

The Spirit of God moved over the waters: Here Spirit seems to mean the breath or wind, God's power. But was there a thought this early of the Third Person of the Holy Trinity? Not likely. However: There are some hints:

1) Old Testament Hints: There is certainly no clear revelation of the Trinity in the OT. Some have tried to see some hints of it. The word elohim has a plural ending, yet is often used for God (it may also stand for angels or human judges). However, it usually gets a singular verb. It may be a sort of plural of majesty.

There are a few places where a plural verb is used:

Gen 1.16: "Let us make man in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves." COMMENT: This could be merely the plural of majesty. However, it is introduced by a singular expression: "Elohim said."

Gen. 3.22: "See, the man has become like one of us."-- COMMENT: Introduced by singular "Yahweh Elohim said".

Gen. 11.7: "Come let us go down and confuse their language." COMMENT: Introduced by singular: "Yahweh said" in v. 6. Is 6.8: "Whom shall I send? Who will be our messenger?" COMMENT: Note the shift from I to our. B. De Margerie (The Christian Trinity in History, tr. E. J. Fortman, St. Bede's, Still River, 1981, p. 4) notes that these four texts come at special points in the history of humanity. He also asserts that "the OT did not yet have at its disposal a clear and distinct concept of human personality nor of person in general." (Cf. references there in note 7. The word nefesh though at times translated as soul or person, is really rather vague. The Fathers commonly argue from such passages as these to the Trinity. Cf. St. Augustine, Contra sermones Arianorum 16.6.1. PL 42.695. St. Epiphanius in Panarion 23.1. PG 41.383 calls this explanation the common one. St. Gregory of Nyssa, Oratio Catechetica. III. PG 45. 17-20, suggests polytheism is a garbled likeness of the Trinity. Cf. J. Finegan, Myth & Mystery, Baker, 1991, pp. 59-60. Also the fact that the Schmidt school of anthropology asserts that the lowest primitives had one God, a Sky-Father- cf. Indo-European Dyaus-pater. While it does not prove Schmidt right, yet it is interesting to notice that history does show in many instances that when a people has high material affluence, religion tends to suffer. The U.S. and Japan are examples today.

Firmament: Raqia stands for a solid extended surface, between the waters above and the waters below. Clearly this reflects a popular conception. But just as we say the sun rises - when we know it is the earth that rises -- so the sacred writer simply made use of common or popular language.

Dominion: In v. 26 and 28 God gives man dominion over lower creation. God Himself of course has all dominion. So this is a share in God's dominion, as is indicated by the words immediately before: Let us make man to our image and to our likeness. There seems to be no difference in image and likeness. But the content of both is expressed by dominion. Man is like God in having that dominion, under Him. Since the basic rights come from God, only He could give them, and only He, not the state, can take them away.

Hence it is clear that we cannot speak of animal "rights" against man: they are given no dominion. A right is a claim given by God to have, to do, to call for something. God in v. 30 gave to animals the plants for food. But again, there is no mention of any "dominion" for animals. Since the basic rights come from God, only He could give them, and only He, not the state, can take them away. Therefore "all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights."

Many experiments have been done to try to see or develop intelligence in animals, especially primates. Science News of Jan 20, 1996. pp. 42-43 sums up the results to the present. The primates show no trace of reflexive self-awareness. Nor will they ever. Mechanistic scientists like to consider the brain in a mechanical way. They can even identify which part of the human brain is active when the person does or experiences certain things. But no experiment finds any sign of abstraction, the process we use when after seeing many dogs, for example, we abstract -- pull way -- everything distinctive of any individual dog. Only spiritual intelligence can do that. So no medium - canvas, marble, bronze etc. can ever hold the likeness of my concept of dog, for example. which I get by abstraction. The physical side of the brain has as it were a parallel, a resonance, which psychologists call somatic resonance. It may even be possible to locate the place of resonance to real abstract thought. But the physical part cannot really hold anything abstract, even though a computer may be programmed to play chess, which involves running through myriad possible combinations with lightning speed. But there is no abstraction in the computer any more than in the primate.

May we then use animals for medical experiments? Yes: The animals have no strict rights: we have the obligation to use our dominion rationally.