As a quick recap of what we discussed last episode regarding creation day 4 – the appearance of the Sun, Moon, and Stars, remember, this wasn’t necessarily the creation of the sun, moon, and stars, but the first appearance of them. We discussed the Hebrew mazzeroth, or “the Zodiac”, as it is sometimes translated, and the Biblical warnings against astrology. And we discussed the number of stars being comparable to the number of grains of sand on all the beaches and deserts of the entire planet. And yet, amazingly, God calls them each by name!
Which brings us now to creation day 5, which will see the appearance of animals— sea creatures and birds – but no land mammals yet
20 And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.” 21 So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23 And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.
Again, as we pointed out in an earlier session, this creative act begins with “And God said”. The universe could not come into being without God’s will. You cannot cross from nothing to something without God’s input. Likewise, here in these verses, neither will living creatures be created without God’s input. You cannot cross from non-life to life without God’s input.
“Let the waters swarm”, some translations read “team”, KJV reads “Let the waters bring forth abundantly”. Just to be clear, water does not have the power or capacity to spontaneously generate life. The origin of life requires the creative act of God. So don’t be confused by the KJV translation reading “Let the waters bring forth”. Some people, Theistic Evolutionists particularly, use this verse and translation to try and argue that “see, here is an example of where naturalistic processes and evolution and the origin of life takes place”.
And don’t be confused or concerned when you hear how science has proven how life began. As the so-called father of evolution Charles Darwin imagined, in some hypothetical warm little pond, when the right bag of chemicals got together, and were given the just-right dose of electricity, like Frankenstein or something. That story may as well begin with “Once upon a time…in a land long, long ago…”
No, origin of life researchers are no closer to figuring out how life began than they were 60 years ago. They have no idea how life began. None!
There are some people who seriously believe that science has answered all of the difficult questions in life. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Scientifically speaking, we still have absolutely no idea how life began. Scientists can’t even agree on a definition for what life is! That’s right! There have been over 100 definitions for life that have been proposed, and yet there is still no broadly accepted definition of life!
Listen, science doesn’t have all the answers. We have no idea how consciousness arose. We have no idea how the universe came into existence. The list goes on, and it is long.
But we do know this much: all of those things require information. And meaningful, specified information comes from intelligence, it comes from a mind. And the source of that information, that mind, is God.
“According to their kinds” – there is that phrase again. And it means the same thing it did when referring to vegetation reproducing after its own kind. Sharks have baby sharks, whales have baby whales. I will speak more regarding what exactly ‘kinds” is referring to in the next session when we discuss land animals
The “great sea creatures”, some translations “great sea monsters”. That word is the Hebrew word “taninim”. This is a word referring to a sea creature worshipped by other nations
By emphasizing that God created the “great sea monsters”, it basically serves to strip them of any perceived divinity they may have been given by pagan nations
These verses contain the second use of the Hebrew word bara, the word for “create”. We haven’t seen this word used since verse 1, when God created the heavens and the earth. If you remember, bara is referring to something God creates new for the very first time, out of previously non-existent material.
Well, the sea animals and birds are made out of existenting materials. They are made of the same stuff we are. The same things the plants are. The same elements all things are made of. They are made from carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, sodium, etc. Many of the elements of the periodic table.
But in addition to these elements, there is something new about these creatures. These creatures have a soul. The Hebrew word used is “nephesh”, which describes a soulish creature. So we begin to see the appearance of some of the Nephesh creatures, creatures which have a soul, a particular kind of life, capable of expressing what Hebrews would consider “soulish” attributes, such as nurturing their young, displaying some emotions, they are self-aware, etc.
Now this is quite different when we get to Day 6 and God creates humans, which have the elementary materials, the carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, etc., the nephesh, or soul, but then also another characteristic, the spirit, which animals do not have
And so what we have here is God making something, these first animals out of existing material, the elements we are all made of, but then also creating something brand new (bara), which is the soulish feature
An observation – If you want to sum up this creation day 5 in a couple of kindergarten sentences, it would go something like this: First there were no animals, and then God spoke, and then there were animals
What we see in the fossil record bears this out! In what scientists refer to as the Cambrian explosion, which describes an explosion of the number of animals, almost all animal body plans suddenly show up in the fossil record…with no pre-cursors, no animals before them. IOW, there were no animals, and then there were animals. Just like our kindergarten sentence. And just like the Bible describes!
In fact, 80% of the mathematically possible skeletal designs, meaning 80% of the body plans, show up right here!
Even the infamous evolutionary biologists and outspoken atheist Richard Dawkins admits in his book, The Blind Watchmaker, “The Cambrian strata of rocks are the oldest in which we find most of the major invertebrate groups. And we find many of them already in an advanced state of evolution, the very first time they appear. It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history
You think? I wonder why it is that we don’t see older animal fossils evolving and leading up to these already advanced animals? Could it be because there aren’t any? Could it be because God created these animals that way from the beginning, just as these verses on creation day 5 describe?
Even Charles Darwin was aware of the problem the Cambrian explosion presented to his theory. But he dismissed it by claiming that we just haven’t found the fossils yet. Meaning we haven’t found the fossils that led up to these advanced animals. We haven’t found the transitional fossils yet, but we will.
Well, we have been digging all over the earth for 160 years now, since 1859 when Darwin published his book On the Origin of Species, looking for these supposed evolutionary fossils, and still no answer. No answer for the Cambrian explosion! How long do you look before you finally admit they are not there??
So to summarize Day 5, we see the appearance of essentially, the sea creatures and the birds
Next session we will tackle the very busy Day 6, which includes land mammals, and the pinnacle of God’s creation – humans!
Thank you for listening to this study through the book of Genesis. If you know of anyone else you think may be interested, consider sending them this link. Until next time, take care and God bless