Tonight I shall complete my Bible Study with my church members on the first two chapters of Genesis. When one compares the Hebrew MT and Greek LXX versions, one comes up with a number of differences. In the Hebrew, Gen 2:2 has God completing the work of creation in 7th day while in the LXX it is in 6 days, and hence the usual 6-day creation narrative. Second, on the day the Lord completed the heavens and the earth, pointing to just a day or one day (yom) in Gen . Thus, the creation account although said to be over 6 or 7 days, it is actually just one day or a day understood symbolically that God created the world at a particular time, known only to Himself and revealed to Moses of what we have in the Genesis' creation accounts.
When I say, creation accounts in the plural, it is clear chapter 2 of Genesis explains further what is mentioned in the first creation account including how the plants and trees came about, the creation of man/Adam and later the woman, the wife of the man. Interestingly, the Garden of Eden is said to be located in the East and the man is taken by God and put into the garden and tasked to till/work and tend the garden. This is almost parallel to the call of God's servants, the prophets when Amos spoke thus: "The Lord God took me from following the flock and said to me: Go and prophesy to my people, Israel" (Amos 7:15). This means, God's servants called by God are taken by God from ordinary pursuits into God's extraordinary pursuits and tasked to work in His garden or Temple, to labour in the harvest fields and to keep God's house in order like the priests of old. It will be fascinating to see how I go tonight, and I trust in the Lord that interest will still be there as it was in the first class last week for God's glory.
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