I know, I say that a lot about different books of the Bible. But Genesis is quite special: I believe that Genesis contains ALL Bible truth in seed form. It is truly the book of beginnings. It is the once upon a time that opens up the scriptures.
I plan to stroll through this book at a leisurely pace and enjoy it to the fullest. You are welcome to come along with me. I have no idea how long it will take. There may be interruptions if the Lord gives me insight on something else. So anyway, buckle up and get ready!
Right off the bat, I want to note that people have two world views to choose from. The very first phrase of the scriptures, which I mentioned in my last post, forces a person to choose one or the other.
Here is a quick review of that Hebrew phrase, in case you have forgotten:
Beresheet – in the beginning
Bara – created (from nothing, not formed with already-created elements)
Elohim – God (plural word, unity in a diversity)
Et – unstranslatable as a word, see my previous post here for further insight
Hashamayim – the heavens
Ve-et – and/a connector
Haaretz - the land/earth
So the two world views that are available to people are these:
Only one of these views can answer the big questions: Who am I? How did I get here? What am I? Whose am I? What is my ultimate purpose? What will happen after I die?
If all is an accident, then nothing really matters. We are simply matter. We can do whatever we want. If we choose the second view, then we are responsible to pay attention to the Designer.
If someone opens up a Bible for the first time, he or she will be slammed with the words "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth."
If you can handle the first phrase of The Book, the rest is pretty easy. If you cannot, then the rest of the Book will "beat the tar out of you" (to quote a preacher friend of mine).
There are many people in the world today who fall into the first category. Their worldview is based on something like, "In the beginning, there was nothing. Suddenly, nothing exploded and somehow became something, including you and me and the apple tree."
This first category is pushed by most of our schools and believed by most people in the scientific community. No wonder there are so many today who believe it, illogical as it is. Evolution truly is a secular, humanistic religion that requires a whole lot more faith than belief in a Designer. Sadly, it is taught today as "science."
I heard a story once of a student who brought a model of our solar system to school. He then told his teacher that he did not make it; the parts just came together by themselves over a period of time. "Ridiculous!" said the teacher. But how much more ridiculous is it to assume that the well-ordered (and much, much bigger and far more complex) universe that we live in came together the same way, given enough time? Completely illogical.
Let me just talk about the amazing Bible for a moment. Why should we believe the first phrase, let alone the rest of it?
The Bible is a miraculous book, and by its nature, it proves itself to be true. It is a complete story, integrated and whole, from start to finish. There are 66 books, written over a period of nearly 2000 years by over 40 authors, most of whom did not know each other. Impossible! No other book comes remotely close to such a miraculous writing.
Have you ever sat around a campfire and told a group story, the kind where someone starts out with the first sentence and then you go around the circle and everybody adds to it? Every single time I have played that campfire game, the story has ended up as a disjointed and goofy narrative.
There are things in the Bible that could not have been known or fabricated by its writers - prophecies that eventually came true. No other book in the world can do what this Book does. You can tear out pages and even entire books from within the Bible, and still get the same message. Why? Because the entire Book points to Yeshua the Messiah, from page to page and cover to cover. It is an amazing tapestry made up of pictures of Him.
The tag line at the top of my blog is from Proverbs 25:2 and says: It is the glory of God to conceal a matter,but the glory of kings is to search out a matter. Think of that! It is a ROYAL HONOR to search out the things that the LORD has hidden for us.
Let me give you just one crazy example. There was a Rabbi from the 1500s named Moshe Cordova, who studied bible codes. Apparently, he had a lot of time on his hands to count letters. But what he came up with is mind-blowing. Listen to this:
Go to Genesis, and in the Hebrew, find the first letter Tav. Ok, found it? Great. (It's the sixth letter in.) Now count forward 49 letters - seven times seven - and the very next letter will be a Vav. Now count ahead 49 letters and the very next letter will be a Resh. Yep. And do it one more time, and the next letter will be a Hey. What does it spell? Torah. Torah is the Hebrew word for instruction.
Ok, maybe that is a coincidence. So go to Exodus and do the same thing. This time the Tav will be the eighth letter in. Amazingly the same pattern shows up when you count forward from the Tav, forming the word Torah with every 50th letter.
Still a coincidence? Go to Leviticus. Oops. the pattern disappeared. Oh well. It must have been a fluke.
Moving on...
Wait a minute! Just for fun, let's skip Leviticus and look at Numbers. The pattern is a little different here. This time, locate the first Hey (you'll find it seven letters in). Count forward 49 letters, and the next letter will be a Resh. Count forward another 49 letters, and the next letter will be a Vav. One more time and it takes you to a Tav, Hmmm. Torah spelled backwards.
And what about Deuteronomy? Hopefully you guessed it... Torah shows up backwards again in the very same pattern.
So you have the word Torah secretly pointing twice from both directions, toward the book of Leviticus - the middle book of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible).
So is there something else in Leviticus? You bet there is. Find the first Yod. Count seven letters forward and you will discover that the next letter is a Hey. Count seven more and you'll then find a Vav. And seven more and then the next letter is a Hey. The very name of the LORD Himself emerges - YHVH; the name that nobody can agree on how to pronounce.
So the word Torah is hidden like bookends and points to the name of our Creator God! This pattern is impossible to achieve from a human standpoint. Similar patterns can be found in the Greek of the New Testament. The Bible is truly a supernatural book!
Anyway, back to Genesis. We have touched on verse 1, which has a New Testament equivalent in John 1:1-3. See if this sounds familiar:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.
Of course this verse is talking about Yeshua, whom you can find on every page of your Bible.
Wasn't that fun? Stay tuned for more adventures soon!
Click here for the next post on Genesis.
- Everything is a result of a cosmic accident
- Everything is the result of a design by the Designer.
Only one of these views can answer the big questions: Who am I? How did I get here? What am I? Whose am I? What is my ultimate purpose? What will happen after I die?
If all is an accident, then nothing really matters. We are simply matter. We can do whatever we want. If we choose the second view, then we are responsible to pay attention to the Designer.
If someone opens up a Bible for the first time, he or she will be slammed with the words "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth."
If you can handle the first phrase of The Book, the rest is pretty easy. If you cannot, then the rest of the Book will "beat the tar out of you" (to quote a preacher friend of mine).
There are many people in the world today who fall into the first category. Their worldview is based on something like, "In the beginning, there was nothing. Suddenly, nothing exploded and somehow became something, including you and me and the apple tree."
This first category is pushed by most of our schools and believed by most people in the scientific community. No wonder there are so many today who believe it, illogical as it is. Evolution truly is a secular, humanistic religion that requires a whole lot more faith than belief in a Designer. Sadly, it is taught today as "science."
I heard a story once of a student who brought a model of our solar system to school. He then told his teacher that he did not make it; the parts just came together by themselves over a period of time. "Ridiculous!" said the teacher. But how much more ridiculous is it to assume that the well-ordered (and much, much bigger and far more complex) universe that we live in came together the same way, given enough time? Completely illogical.
Let me just talk about the amazing Bible for a moment. Why should we believe the first phrase, let alone the rest of it?
The Bible is a miraculous book, and by its nature, it proves itself to be true. It is a complete story, integrated and whole, from start to finish. There are 66 books, written over a period of nearly 2000 years by over 40 authors, most of whom did not know each other. Impossible! No other book comes remotely close to such a miraculous writing.
Have you ever sat around a campfire and told a group story, the kind where someone starts out with the first sentence and then you go around the circle and everybody adds to it? Every single time I have played that campfire game, the story has ended up as a disjointed and goofy narrative.
 |
| Story time around the campfire |
There are things in the Bible that could not have been known or fabricated by its writers - prophecies that eventually came true. No other book in the world can do what this Book does. You can tear out pages and even entire books from within the Bible, and still get the same message. Why? Because the entire Book points to Yeshua the Messiah, from page to page and cover to cover. It is an amazing tapestry made up of pictures of Him.
The tag line at the top of my blog is from Proverbs 25:2 and says: It is the glory of God to conceal a matter,but the glory of kings is to search out a matter. Think of that! It is a ROYAL HONOR to search out the things that the LORD has hidden for us.
Let me give you just one crazy example. There was a Rabbi from the 1500s named Moshe Cordova, who studied bible codes. Apparently, he had a lot of time on his hands to count letters. But what he came up with is mind-blowing. Listen to this:
Go to Genesis, and in the Hebrew, find the first letter Tav. Ok, found it? Great. (It's the sixth letter in.) Now count forward 49 letters - seven times seven - and the very next letter will be a Vav. Now count ahead 49 letters and the very next letter will be a Resh. Yep. And do it one more time, and the next letter will be a Hey. What does it spell? Torah. Torah is the Hebrew word for instruction.
Ok, maybe that is a coincidence. So go to Exodus and do the same thing. This time the Tav will be the eighth letter in. Amazingly the same pattern shows up when you count forward from the Tav, forming the word Torah with every 50th letter.
 |
| Torah in Hebrew |
Moving on...
Wait a minute! Just for fun, let's skip Leviticus and look at Numbers. The pattern is a little different here. This time, locate the first Hey (you'll find it seven letters in). Count forward 49 letters, and the next letter will be a Resh. Count forward another 49 letters, and the next letter will be a Vav. One more time and it takes you to a Tav, Hmmm. Torah spelled backwards.
And what about Deuteronomy? Hopefully you guessed it... Torah shows up backwards again in the very same pattern.
So you have the word Torah secretly pointing twice from both directions, toward the book of Leviticus - the middle book of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible).
So is there something else in Leviticus? You bet there is. Find the first Yod. Count seven letters forward and you will discover that the next letter is a Hey. Count seven more and you'll then find a Vav. And seven more and then the next letter is a Hey. The very name of the LORD Himself emerges - YHVH; the name that nobody can agree on how to pronounce.
 |
| YHVH, or Yahweh, or Yehovah, or Jehovah. The name of our God. |
So the word Torah is hidden like bookends and points to the name of our Creator God! This pattern is impossible to achieve from a human standpoint. Similar patterns can be found in the Greek of the New Testament. The Bible is truly a supernatural book!
Anyway, back to Genesis. We have touched on verse 1, which has a New Testament equivalent in John 1:1-3. See if this sounds familiar:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.
Of course this verse is talking about Yeshua, whom you can find on every page of your Bible.
Wasn't that fun? Stay tuned for more adventures soon!
Click here for the next post on Genesis.
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