Before Genesis

Besides God, what existed before the physical creation written about in the Book of Genesis?

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The Instructor

Originally posted by RJHinds
Besides God, what existed before the physical creation written about in the Book of Genesis?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMs1Eg-Z_ys

The Instructor

Nothing much, just THE WHOLE UNIVERSE AND THE EARTH. Other than that it was pretty empty. And probably other universes as well, perhaps an infinite number of them.

Originally posted by RJHinds
Besides God, what existed before the physical creation written about in the Book of Genesis?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMs1Eg-Z_ys

The Instructor

that is a good question, RJ 🙂

with god, there are an infinite amount of possibilities
perhaps, god had a whole other universe made in it's image?

god is great, so who says we were the 1st incarnation?

Originally posted by RJHinds
Besides God, what existed before the physical creation written about in the Book of Genesis?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMs1Eg-Z_ys

The Instructor

The Natural State

Originally posted by RJHinds
Besides God, what existed before the physical creation written about in the Book of Genesis?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMs1Eg-Z_ys

The Instructor

Genesis 1:2—

V’ha’aretz hayetah tohu v’bohu v’choshek al-p’ney t’hom v’ruach elohim m’rachpet al-p’ney ha’mayim

“the earth had been confusion and chaos, and darkness obscured the face of the deep; and a wind of elohim hovered above the waters.”

—My translation (as is the transliteration from the Hebrew). Here is Richard Elliot Friedman’s: “when the earth had been shapeless and formless, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and God’s spirit was hovering on the water” (Commentary on the Torah: With a New English Translation and the Hebrew Text). Of course, there are many available translations.

Note: hayetah (“had been” ) is in the perfect form, indicating something already done or completed—hence there was something there: the earth, the deep, the waters and the wind/spirit of/from god/gods (elohim). Friedman notes: “This verse rather means that “the earth had been shapeless and formless”—that is, it had already existed in this shapeless condition prior to the creation. Creation of matter in the Torah is not out of nothing (creation ex nihilo), as many have claimed.” (Ibid; italics in original)

Commentary from The Jewish Publication Society translation: “This clause describes things just before the process of creation began. To modern people, the opposite of created order is ‘nothing,’ that is, a vacuum. To the ancients, the opposite of the created order was much worse than ‘nothing.’ It was an active, malevolent force we can best term ‘chaos.’” (The Jewish Study Bible)

Thus, the creation of Genesis 1 is not the creation of something out of nothing, but of cosmos out of chaos.

Further, a passage in the Zohar brings in the concept of a “singularity”, based on the unknowability of how things were before b’reisheet (“in/at/by the beginning” ): “Beyond that point, nothing is known, so it is called Reisheet, Beginning . . .” (The Zohar, Pritzker Edition, translation and commentary by Daniel Matt) This is my preferred understanding—that tohu and bohu refer to conditions prior to the singularity, where the known laws of the cosmos break down; but not that any scientific understanding is somehow embedded in the Torah or the Zohar.

Originally posted by vistesd
Genesis 1:2—

V’ha’aretz hayetah tohu v’bohu v’choshek al-p’ney t’hom v’ruach elohim m’rachpet al-p’ney ha’mayim

“the earth had been confusion and chaos, and darkness obscured the face of the deep; and a wind of elohim hovered above the waters.”

—My translation. Here is Richard Elliot Friedman’s: “when the earth had been shapeless an ...[text shortened]... eginning . . .” (The Zohar, Pritzker Edition, translation and commentary by Daniel Matt)

" To modern people, the opposite of created order is ‘nothing,’ that is, a vacuum."

It is far less comprehensible. I don't know about these "modern people" but a vacuum implies empty space. In the modern view, the "opposite" or predecessor of ex nihilo created order would not be an empty space. It also implies temporally ordered succession of events (time) which would also be nonexistent, there being no ordering of events. There would be no "beforeness" before ex nihilo creation, and the created order would not come about "after" it. One might say the created order would exist instead of nothing or instead of chaos.

Originally posted by JS357
" To modern people, the opposite of created order is ‘nothing,’ that is, a vacuum."

It is far less comprehensible. I don't know about these "modern people" but a vacuum implies empty space. In the modern view, the "opposite" or predecessor of ex nihilo created order would not be an empty space. It also implies temporally ordered succession of events ...[text shortened]... y the created order would exist instead of nothing or instead of chaos.

Agreed.

Originally posted by vistesd
Genesis 1:2—

V’ha’aretz hayetah tohu v’bohu v’choshek al-p’ney t’hom v’ruach elohim m’rachpet al-p’ney ha’mayim

“the earth had been confusion and chaos, and darkness obscured the face of the deep; and a wind of elohim hovered above the waters.”

—My translation (as is the transliteration from the Hebrew). Here is Richard Elliot Friedm ...[text shortened]... down; but not that any scientific understanding is somehow embedded in the Torah or the Zohar.

Your translation is wrong. The answer to the question is God's spiritual creations came before the physical creations in Genesis. Genesis does not pertain to the beginning of eternity, only to the beginning of the physical. Eternity has no beginning or end.

HalleluYah !!! Praise the Lord! Glory be to God! Holy! Holy! Holy!

The Instructor