HEAVENS ABOVE
The majority
of Biblical translations use the word ‘God’ in place of the word ‘Elohim’ that
was used in the original Hebrew texts of the Torah. But the word 'God' is just a title and can relate to anyone or anything.
In today's world money and possessions have become 'Gods' to many people as they are more important than anything else in their life. To put anything or anyone in an elevated position, and/or to worship it in any way, is to make it a God!
However, the Hebrew word Elohim means ‘Powers’... and is
plural... meaning more than one!
So there was more than one 'God' who created our universe, planet and all things that live in or on it.
The reason the original translators chose God instead of Gods was to make the texts 'fit' with their belief in a One Creator principal. It is Patriarchy forcing it's control onto the populations precisely to denigrate all other religions... many of which have more than one 'God'!
From this point on I will use the word Powers whenever the word Elohim was used in the original texts.
From Genesis
chapter 1 through to chapter 2 verse 4 it tells the story of the 6 ‘days’ of
creation by the Powers.The Hebrew word used in the original texts is 'YOM' ... and a YOM is an undefined period of time.
The English word 'day' is the exact opposite of the meaning of Yom because it defines a time period of 24 hours!
So all translations where the word 'day' is used are WRONG.
Because
there is no English equivalent of the word Yom I will revert back to using it
in place of ‘Day'
The following is my rendition and
understanding of the texts in Genesis;
Genesis 1
The First
Yom:
1. In the beginning of creation, when the Powers made the
Shamayim/heavens and aphar/
dust/ashes/soil/land/ground,
2. The planet was without form and void;
with darkness over the surface of the abyss, and the creative forces of the Powers
moved like a mighty wind over the surface of the waters.
3. The Powers said, “Let there be light!” and they created a great luminary to separate
light from darkness.
4. The Powers saw that the light was
good as it divided the darkness.
5. The Powers called the light ‘Dawning’, and the darkness they called
‘Evening’. This was the end of the FIRST YOM.
SUMMARY
The Powers have created the Universe
and all the Galaxies and planets(heavens) with the very beginnings of our
planet being like a huge mass of water ‘suspended’ in the abyss of space by a
‘mighty wind’.
In verse one it also states that the Powers created ‘earth’
meaning soil or dirt!
Then the Powers created a ‘great luminary’ which is what we know as our Sun.
We
now had Dawnings and Evenings or, 'days' as we now call them.
The following quote is from Wikipedia...
[Shamayim
(שמים), is the
Hebrew word for heaven that has been translated into the English ‘heights or
‘sky’ and means the ‘dwelling place of
the Elohim and other heavenly beings’ and also denotes a component of the cosmos,
the other elements being the earth (Erets)
and the underworld (Sheol). In
post-Hebrew Bible literature (including the Christian New Testament), it has
been (incorrectly) translated to mean the ‘abode of the righteous dead’.
From about 300 BCE the three-tiered cosmos was largely replaced by a newer
Greek model which saw the earth as a sphere at the centre of a set of seven
concentric heavens, one for each visible planet plus the sun and moon, with the
realm of God in an eighth and highest heaven, but although several Jewish works
from this period have multiple heavens, as do some New Testament works, none has
exactly the formal Greek system.
In the course of the 1st millennium CE Jewish scholars developed an elaborate
system of Seven Heavens, their names being Vilon (וילון, also called "arafel"), Raki'a (רקיע), Shehaqim (שחקים), Zebul (זבול), Ma'on (מעון), Machon (מכון), and Araboth (ערבות), where Ofanim, the Seraphim,
and the Hayyoth and the throne of the Lord are located.]
... and they have used the Hebrew word 'Erets' for 'earth'. In this context Erets means the planet and not the soil or dirt which is the 'aphar'.
All the Yom of creation may have taken thousands, hundreds of thousands or even millions of years... but certainly longer than 24 hours.
Archaeological evidence is constantly changing due to discoveries of ancient cities and historical evidence that their were civilizations on this planet long before the supposed 6 to 7 thousand years that the Bible has been around. There is, so far, enough evidence to suggest that there were advanced civilisations in existence well before the Mesopotamian cities were built. Some artefacts suggest that huge stone cities existed even up to 200,000 years ago.
I wanted to be an archaeologist in my early teens... but my parents told me I was being ridiculous as, "There was nothing left to dig up!" That was over 40 years ago... and there has been so much dug up over that time period that I do regret not making my own choices back then. My daughter always says, every time there is a new discovery, "But Mum, there is nothing left to dig up!" At least I can still laugh!
