The universe’s origin in Genesis 1-3

The Creation Story in the Bible

The Bible provides a precise account of the creation of the cosmos and all things that are found in it, which is where the origin of the universe may be found. The Jewish Study Bible is this. The existence of a supreme entity (God) who produces by speaking, telling mankind of the universe’s beginnings, is put into perspective in the holy book.

The First Day

In the beginning, according to the Jewish Bible, God first created a blank, darkly veiled heaven and earth. God then gave the command for light to exist, and it did. He distinguished Day from Night by separating the pleasant light from the darkness. This culminated into having mornings and evenings. These creations were done on day one.

The Second Day

On the second day, God then commanded that there be a dome at the middle water to separate the water from waters and it was done. The dome was the sky.

The Third Day

On the third day, God let the water under the sky gather in one place, and let the dry land to appear. The gathered water was the seas while the dry land was the earth. This was good in the eyes of God and therefore he commanded the earth to bring forth vegetation, grass, and trees.

The Fourth Day

On the fourth day, God made two great lights that were assigned times to rule, the sun that was to rule the day and the smaller light, the moon to rule at night. These were the lights in the sky to light the earth.

The Fifth Day

On the fifth day, the sea creatures and living things were created. He blessed them to be successful and multiply to fill the seas and earth respectively.

The Sixth Day

On the sixth day, God commanded the earth to bring forth all kinds of living creatures and behold it was as commanded. This was appealing to God. On this very day, God created humankind in his likeness and image, letting humankind rule over the fish in the seas, birds in the air and everything on the earth and to multiply and fill the earth. He then gave the humankind food from seed and fruit – bearing plant, every wild animal, birds, and creatures that crawled. God was pleased with His creation as the heavens and earth creation was complete.

The Seventh Day

On the seventh day, God rested for he had finished creation and made the day holy.

The “J” Story and “P” Story

This is the chronological story of creation or the “J” story. The “P” story is deemed to have been written later and is recorder in the second Chapter of Genesis. In this account, man and animals are formed form the soil. The account is also short and non-elaborative with the created man and woman remaining unnamed. Last but not least, the account has no commands but God doing the creation by hand much like a construction.

Comparison with the Enuma Elish Myth

The Enuma Elish is similar to this account in that the Babylonian god Marduk created the story’s version of earth in six stages. Human beings according to this story were created form the remains of the god’s that Marduk had defeated and particularly the ones who instigated the fracas that had ensued before the creation. In this sense, we see that in this story, man also became godlike since he was created form the remains of gods. Additionally, the biblical version of strife in heaven is mimicked by the Enuma version of the gods fighting against Marduk.

Conclusion

The supreme being of God hails all the way from creation to commanding of events that occur on earth. It is noticed that all He created was by word of mouth. Just from speaking and it was done. God had the ability to create man from dust and breathe into him the breath of life. This indeed shows how supreme God is. However, the creation story often bears resemblance to other myths in various cultures such as the Babylonian culture discussed in the preceding paragraph. Despite the similarities, the Bible is distinct and recognized as the authoritative source. The various distinctions in the accounts in the bible are largely attributed to the different times and views of the authors.

Works Cited

The Jewish Study Bible. Oxford University Press, 2004.