For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 6:23

Genesis: Fundamental to the Christian Faith – Genesis 1:1

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Genesis: Fundamental to the Christian Faith – Genesis 1:1

3 October, 2021

Series: Genesis Series

Book: Genesis

Pastor Simeon Western

Pastor Simeon Western

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Scripture: Genesis 1:1

In this lesson, we will consider some further ways that Genesis is fundamental and essential to the Christian faith. The foundations of the Christian faith are so important to have right. Psalm 11:3 says, “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?”

Review of last lesson:

  1. Authorship – Moses. The events recorded in Genesis were prior to Moses’s time but He was moved of the Holy Spirit to record those earlier events (2. Pet. 1:21). Further, Moses likely had access to ancient records which he used under the guiding hand of the Holy Spirit. For example, “This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him;” (Gen. 5:1) This is entirely in harmony with the doctrine of the inspiration of the Scriptures.
  2. Date – Moses likely would have written between 1446-1406 B.C.1
  3. Interpretation – Genesis needs to be interpreted according to the normal, literal method of interpretation. If the plain sense makes sense, seek no other sense!

The importance of the first and last Books of the Bible cannot be overstated. The devil hates most the two books which describe his entrance and exit, Genesis and Revelation.” Illustration: Two strainer posts in a fence. Get them wrong and everything in between will be out of alignment.

Henry Morris: “If the Bible were somehow expurgated of the Book of Genesis (as many people today would prefer), the rest of the Bible would be incomprehensible. It would be like a building without a ground floor, or a bridge with no support.”2

In this lesson, we will consider some further ways that Genesis is fundamental and essential to the Christian faith. The foundations of the Christian faith are so important to have right. Psalm 11:3 says, “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” Consider the importance of Genesis in relation to…

Epistemology

  1. Definition: Epistemology is “the theory of knowledge, especially with regard to its methods, validity, and scope, and the distinction between justified belief and opinion.”3
  2. Application: Your beliefs about God and the origins of the universe will powerfully shape your worldview. Henry Morris writes, “The Book of Genesis gives vital information concerning the origin of all things – and therefore the meaning of all things – which would otherwise be forever inaccessible to man. The future is bound up in the past. One’s belief concerning his origin will inevitably determine his belief concerning his purpose and his destiny. A naturalistic, animalistic concept of beginnings specifies a naturalistic, animalistic program for the future. An origin at the hands of an omnipotent, holy, loving God, on the other hand, necessarily predicts a divine purpose in history and an assurance of the consummation of that purpose. A believing understanding of the Book of Genesis is therefore prerequisite to an understanding of God and His meaning to man.”4 Belief in the Creator and the creation account as recorded in Genesis will be foundational to your views on things such as:
    1. Gender & sexuality.
    2. Marriage & the family.
    3. The sanctity of human life (i.e., abortion, euthanasia).
    4. The ultimate questions of life such as where did the universe come from? Why are we here? Why do we have to do? What is the purpose of life?

Cosmology

  1. Definition: The word means, “The science of the origin and development of the universe.”5
  2. Application: All other man-made systems of cosmology start with matter energy as the starting point whereas Genesis starts with the eternal God.
    1. For example, the Babylonian account of beginnings describes a war between the great Babylonian deity Marduk and Tiamat. “Marduk proves himself stronger and prevails, cleaving her into two monstrous halves, the upper of which he fixes in place as the heavens, in which in turn he fixes the heavenly bodies; and the lower of which halves, on the other hand, he sets in place as the earth. Then he compounds material of his own blood for the creation of man.”6 Another example is the Phoenician cosmogony which has the idea of a world egg that hatches to produce the world.7
    2. The Genesis account of creation refutes all of man’s false philosophies (“isms”) concerning the origin and meaning of the world:8
      1. It refutes atheism, the belief that there is no God, because this chapter confirms there is a God and that the universe was created by God.
      2. It refutes pantheism, the belief that the universe is God, for God is transcendent9 (superior) to that which He created.
      3. It refutes polytheism, the belief that there are many gods (e.g., Hinduism), for one God created all things. Note: It is significant that in a world saturated with polytheism at the time Genesis was written, we should be presented with the truth of Monotheism. Another testament to the authenticity of Genesis. Dictionary)
      4. It refutes materialism, for matter had a beginning.
      5. It refutes dualism, because God was alone when He created.
      6. It refutes humanism, the concept that there is no God outside the created world10, because God, not man, is the ultimate reality.
      7. It refutes evolutionism, because God created all things.
    3. Many anti-creationists claim that a ‘literal’ understanding of Genesis is antithetical to proper science and that accepting Genesis as literal history is to regress to the dark ages. In fact, the opposite is true. Jonathan Safarti cites Peter Harrison of the University of Oxford who wrote The Bible, Protestantism and the rise of natural science in 2001. In this book, he presents the contrast between the erroneous secular view and the historical reality. “It is commonly supposed that when in the early modern period individuals began to look at the world in a different way, they could no longer believe what they read in the Bible. In this book I shall suggest that the reverse is the case: that when in the sixteenth century people began to read the Bible in a different way, they found themselves forced to jettison traditional conceptions of the world.” He goes on to state emphatically, “Strange as it may seem, the Bible played a positive role in the development of science…Had it not been for the rise of the literal interpretation of the Bible and the subsequent appropriation of biblical narratives by early modern scientist, modern science may not have arisen at all. In sum, the Bible and its literal interpretation have played a vital role in the development of Western science.”11
    4. Sarfati further quotes Stephen Snobelen, Assistant Professor of History of Science and Technology, University of King’s College, Halifax Canada who writes in a similar vein: “Recent work on early modern science has demonstrated a direct (and positive) relationship between the resurgence of the Hebraic, literal exegesis of the Bible in the Protestant Reformation, and the rise of the empirical method in modern science. I’m not referring to wooden literalism, but the sophisticated literal-historical hermeneutics that Martin Luther and others (including Newton) championed. It was, in part, when this method was transferred to science, when students of nature moved on from studying nature as symbols, allegories and metaphors to observing nature directly in an inductive and empirical way, that modern science was born. In this, Newton also played a pivotal role. As strange as it may sound, science will forever be in the debt of millenarians and biblical literalists.”12
    5. In reality, the pioneers of modern science were Theists, if not born- again believers. David Cloud writes, “Most branches of modern science were invented after the Reformation by men who believed in divine creation and were deeply influenced by the Bible. The following is a list of Christians who were fathers of various fields of modern science. These men believed in the God of the Bible and divine creation and were deeply influenced by a biblical worldview. The vast majority of these were British.”13
      1. Antiseptic Surgery (Joseph Lister)
      2. Atomic Theory (John Dalton)
      3. Calculus (Isaac Newton)
      4. Chemistry (Robert Boyle)
      5. Comparative Anatomy (Georges Cuvier)
      6. Computer Science (Charles Babbage)
      7. Dynamics (Isaac Newton)
      8. Electrodynamics (James Clerk Maxwell)
      9. Electromagnetics (Michael Faraday)
      10. Electronics (Ambrose Fleming)
      11. Energetics (William Thompson)
      12. Field Theory (Michael Faraday)
      13. Fluid Mechanics (George Stokes)
      14. Galactic Astronomy (William Hershel)
      15. Gas Dynamics (Robert Boyle)
      16. Glacial Geology (Louis Agassiz)
      17. Gynaecology (James Simpson)
      18. Hydrography (Matthew Maury)
      19. Ichthyology (Louis Agassiz)
      20. Isotopic Chemistry (William Ramsay)
      21. Model Analysis (Lord Raleigh)
      22. Natural History (John Ray)
      23. Neuropathology (John Abercrombie)
      24. Oceanography (Matthew Maury)
      25. Optical Mineralogy (David Brewster)
      26. Palaeontology (John Woodard)
      27. Pathology (Rudolph Virchow)
      28. Plasma physics (Michael Faraday)
      29. Reversible Thermodynamics (James Joule)
      30. Statistical Thermodynamics (James Clerk Maxwell)
      31. Stratigraphy (Nicholas Steno)
      32. Taxonomy (Carolus Linnaeus)
      33. Thermodynamics (William Thompson)
      34. Thermokinetics (Humphry Davy)
      35. Vertebrate Palaeontology (Georges Cuvier)
    6. Consider four specific examples (See pg. 153-154 of Cloud’s book)
      1. Isaac Newton (1642-1727) was a prominent figure with his theories on light, motion, gravity, calculus, and celestial mechanics. He constructed the first reflecting telescope. (The earliest known working telescope was constructed in 1608.) He established the scientific method. Newton was a Christian who opposed the restoration of Catholicism in the Church of England under King James II. In his 1687 book Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) he wrote, “This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being Atheism is so senseless. When I look at the solar system, I see the earth at the right distance from the sun to receive the proper amounts of heat and light. This did not happen by chance.”
      2. Robert Boyle (1627-1691) the father of modern chemistry, said, “The vastness, beauty, orderliness of the heavenly bodies, the excellent structure of animals and plants; and the other phenomena of nature justly induce an intelligent and unprejudiced observer to conclude a supremely powerful, just, and good author” (Works, Vol. IV, p. 25).
      3. Michael Faraday (1791-1867), one of the fathers of modern physics, was a Christian who held the Bible to be God’s Word. He wrote, “… the Christian who is taught of God … finds his guide in the Word of God … and looks for no assurance beyond what the Word can give Him The Christian religion is a revelation, and that revelation is the Word of God No revival and no temporal teaching comes between it and him. He who is taught of the Holy Spirit needs no crowd and no revival to teach him; if he stand alone he is fully taught” (Selected Exhortations Delivered to Various Churches of Christ by the Late Michael Faraday, Dundee: John Leng and Co., 1910).
      4. James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) a father of the science of electrodynamics, was a Bible-believing Christian who said, “I believe, with the Westminster Divines and their predecessors ad Infinitum, that ‘Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him for ever’” (Lewis Campbell and William Garnet, The Life of James Clerk Maxwell, 1882). In his final illness, Maxwell reasserted “his firm and undoubting faith in the Incarnation and all its results; in the full sufficiency of the Atonement; in the work of the Holy Spirit. He had gauged and fathomed all the schemes and systems of philosophy, and had found them utterly empty and unsatisfying–‘unworkable’ was his own word about them– and he turned with simple faith to the Gospel of the Saviour” (Campbell and Garnet).
    7. Illustration: A young woman teacher shared with her class of small children that she was an atheist. She asked her class how many of them were atheists. Not really knowing what atheism was, and wanting to be like their teacher, their hands shot up into the air, that is all but one. Lucy did not raise her hand. The teacher asked why she did not raise her hand like the rest of the class and she replied: “Because I am not an atheist.” “What are you?” the teacher asked. Lucy answered, “I am a Christian.” The teacher than asked Lucy why she was a Christian. Lucy quickly answered: “Because my mummy and daddy are Christians.” The teacher then said: “That is no reason to be a Christian. What if your mummy and daddy had been fools, stupid people? What would you be then?” After a pause, Lucy answered: “I’d be an atheist!”

Theology

Genesis has been called the seed plot of the Bible. Every subject of major importance can be traced back to its “first mention” in Genesis. In fact, “all the foundational doctrines and morality of the Christian faith can be found in Genesis, at least in embryonic form.”14 As examples, consider the following 10 doctrinal disciplines that are founded upon Genesis:

Theology Proper: The Doctrine of God

Genesis reveals so much about God. In just the first chapter, God is mentioned 32 times in 31 verses by Name and a further 11 times by use of personal pronouns. For example:

  1. We learn there is One God and yet He is Triune in nature.
    1. The first mention of God in Genesis 1:1 comes from the Hebrew word Elohim which is a plural found in a singular setting: the uni- plural name of God.15 Yet the verb “created” is singular.16
    2. In fact, we see the Trinity in the first 3 verses of the Bible.
      • God (Vs. 1)
      • The Spirit (Vs. 2)
      • The Word (Vs. 3; John 1:1, 14)
    3. We see the Trinity in Gen. 1:26 – “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…”
    4. Spurgeon’s Catechism has this question: “How many persons are there in the Godhead?” The answer is, “There are three persons in the Godhead, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost and these three are one God, the same in essence, equal in power and glory.”
    5. To fully understand the doctrine of the Trinity, we need to rest of Scripture but Genesis lays down the foundation from the very first chapter.
  2. We learn much about God from His Names in Genesis such as:
    1. Elohim (Gen. 1:1)
    2. YHWH (Jehovah) (Gen. 2:4)
    3. El Elyon – God Most High (14:18-22)
    4. El Roi – God who Sees (16:13)
    5. El Shaddai – God Almighty (17:1)
    6. El Olam – Everlasting God (22:23)
    7. Jehovah Jireh – God will provide (22:14)
    8. God of Abraham (26:24)
    9. God of Abraham and Isaac (28:13)
    10. El Elohei Yisrael – God of Israel (33:20)
    11. El Bethel – God of Bethel (Bethel = house of God) (35:7)
    12. The Mighty One of Jacob (49:24)
  3. We learn much about God’s attributes in Genesis such as the fact that:
    1. God is Self-existent – no one made God. He is eternal. Psalm 90:2 “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.”
    2. God is Personal – He speaks and can be known. The phrase “And God said” occurs 10 times in Genesis chapter 1. This refutes the Deist position that God exists but He is unknowable and distant from His creation.
    3. God is Creative – creation again testifies to this truth. In Genesis 1 we see God as the Master Craftsman fashioning the universe. In fact, we could say that Genesis 1 is the story of the Creator more than the story of the creation (though the creation described is literal history). “What an imagination God must have! What an artist! Six thousand varieties of beetle. No two blades of grass are the same. No two snowflakes. No two clouds. No two grains of sand. No two stars. No two faces. No two sets of fingerprints are the same. What astonishing variety and yet in harmony for it is a uni-verse.”17
    4. God is gracious – “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.” (Gen. 6:8)
    5. God is merciful – “But the LORD was with Joseph, and shewed him mercy…” (Gen. 39:21).
    6. God is just – the judgment of the worldwide flood upon sinful mankind and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah reveals the mind of God towards sin.
    7. God is sovereign – Joseph is an excellent example of the Providential workings of God.

Christology: The Doctrine of the Son

  1. Genesis reveals the first prophecy of the Messiah in Genesis 3:15 – “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” Here Christ is referred to as the “seed of the woman” which clearly implies that the Messiah would not have an earthly father. Thus, the truth of the Virgin Birth in embryonic form is found in the opening chapters of Genesis.
  2. The Athanasian Creed: “Furthermore it is necessary to everlasting salvation; that he also believe faithfully the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the right Faith is, that we believe and confess; that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man; God, of the Essence of the Father; begotten before the worlds; and Man, of the Essence of his Mother, born in the world. Perfect God; and perfect Man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting. Equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead; and inferior to the Father as touching his Manhood. Who although he is God and Man; yet he is not two, but one Christ. One; not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh; but by assumption of the Manhood by God. One altogether; not by confusion of Essence; but by unity of Person. For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man; so God and Man is one Christ.”18

Pneumatology: The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit

Genesis reveals two main truths concerning the Third Person of the Godhead:

  1. The Holy Spirit was active in Creation (1:2).
  2. The Holy Spirit strives against sin (6:3).

Bibliology: The Doctrine of the Scriptures

  1. Genesis is fundamental to Bibliology as it is the first Book of the Bible. “Genesis sets the scene for the ‘big picture’ of the Bible: Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration.”19
  2. “The Book of Genesis is in reality the foundation of all true history, as well as of true science and true philosophy. It is above all else the foundation of God’s revelation, as given in the Bible. No other book of the Bible is quoted as copiously or referred to so frequently, in other books of the Bible, as in Genesis.” Not only is Genesis frequently referenced in the other O.T. writings but “there are at least 165 passages in Genesis that are either directly quoted or clearly referred to in the New Testament. Many of these are alluded to more than once, so that there are at least two hundred quotations or allusions to Genesis in the New Testament.”20

Anthropology: The Doctrine of Man

Genesis makes very important contributions to the doctrine of man. Consider the following list21:

  1. God created both male and female equally in His image (1:26); man is the result of direct creative acts and did not evolve from apelike ancestors.
  2. We see from the creation of Adam (2:7) the beginning of the teaching that man has both a material aspect and immaterial aspect.
  3. In mankind’s sinless original state, men and women were to marry and have children (1:28, 2:24), work (2:15), and exercise dominion over the rest of creation (1:28).
  4. Man fell into sin (3:1-8). Work becomes toil (3:17-18), and male- female relationships are marred (3:16).
  5. Death is the ultimate punishment for sin, which includes physical death (3:19) and separation from God (2:17, 3:19).
  6. Only after the Fall are children actually conceive3d (4:1). And one result of the Fall is that childbearing is very painful for women (3:16). Men begin to keep animals and till the ground (4:2), build cities (4:17), make musical instruments (4:21), metal tools (4:22), and call on God’s name (4:26). After the Flood, man is commanded to execute murderers (9:5-6). This is the beginning of human government, which enables the authority under which punishment to constrain sin of various types can be meted out (See Rom. 13).
  7. The origin of the nations, particularly the Gentiles (Ch. 10).
  8. The origin of the main language families at Babel (11:1-9).
  9. The origin of the Jewish nation (10:21-31, 11:10-50:26).

Hamartiology: The Doctrine of Sin

  1. It is impossible to understand sin without Genesis and its record of the Fall. Genesis reveals a perfect world created by a perfect God. A world in which there was no sin or imperfection. Seven times in Genesis 1 God said of his creation that it was “good”. The seventh time, after God had finished the work of creation, he declared that it was “very good” (Gen. 1:31). This again refutes the notion that there before creation week there were billions and billions of years of disease, death and destruction. The stage is set for the tragedy of the fall and sin’s entrance into God’s perfect universe. In Genesis, the first Book of the Bible, paradise is lost, in Revelation, the last Book of the Bible, Paradise is regained.
  2. In Genesis we also see the devasting results of the fall in the murder of Abel, the wickedness of the pre-flood world and its subsequent annihilation in the judgment of the world-wide flood and the evil depravity of Sodom and Gomorrah and God’s judgment of fire and brimstone.
  3. It is pivotal to Paul’s argument in Romans 5:12-21 where he explains that death came as a result of Adam’s sin. The same truth is also found in the Great Gospel chapter of 1 Corinthians 15:21-22 “For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.”
  4. Challenge: You are either in Adam or in Christ. If you stay in Adam, you will perish for eternity in hell but if you trust Christ as Saviour, you will spend eternity in heaven with Him.

Soteriology: The Doctrine of Salvation

  1. The truth of blood atonement and salvation by faith rather than works is seen in Abel’s acceptable sacrifice (Gen. 4:4). In Abel’s sacrifice we see the start of the teaching that there is no remission of sins “without the shedding of blood” (Heb. 9:22). In fact, the writer to the Hebrews picks up the truth of Abel’s offering in the great faith chapter (Chap. 11). “By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh.” (Vs. 4). Jude uses the “way of Cain” as an illustration of false teachers in Jude 1:11. Cain’s way was the way of works (fruit of the ground), a bloodless way. Abel’s offering was the way of faith and the shedding of blood for sin.
  2. The truth of salvation by grace is seen in the account of Noah who “found grace in the eyes of the LORD.” (Gen. 6:8).
  3. The truth of Christ as the only way of salvation is pictured in Noah’s ark. There was only one way of escape from the judgment of the flood and only one door of entrance into the ark of safety. 1 Peter 3:21 says, “when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.” Hebrews 11:7 “By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.”
  4. The truth of justification by faith is seen in the example of Abraham who “believed in the LORD; and he counted to him for righteousness.” (Gen. 15:6). This was before he was circumcised, which is a work (Gen. 17). This is foundation to Paul’s argument in Romans 4. “What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God. For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” (Vs. 1-5)
  5. The truth of substitutionary atonement is seen in Genesis 22:1-13 where Abraham offers a ram for the burnt offering in place of his son Isaac. What a picture of Christ, the Lamb of God who would come and take away the sin of the world (John 1:29, 36). Gen. 22:7-8 “And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.”
  6. Note: If there was no literal fall, what need have we for the cross?

Demonology: Doctrine of Fallen Angels

  1. We are introduced to Satan in Genesis 3 and his role in luring man into sin. The first words Satan uttered to mankind 6,000 years ago were “Yea, hath God said?” and he has been saying the same thing ever since!
  2. Many also hold the view that we are introduced to fallen angels in chapter 6 but we will discuss that in more detail when we get to that chapter.

Israelology: The Doctrine of Israel

  1. Genesis records the formation of the Jewish nation with the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
  2. Genesis records the Abrahamic covenant with its promise concerning the land of Canaan and how it would belong to Abraham and his descendants (Gen. 12:7; 15:18; 17:8, 24:7). The dispute over land in Palestine was settled by God Almighty thousands of years ago. The land belongs to Israel, not anyone else!

Eschatology: The Doctrine of Last Things

While Eschatology is not the dominant theme of Genesis, it lays the foundation for this doctrine like all other doctrines of the Bible. There is…

  1. The truth of life after death. Genesis reveals that when a man dies, he is “gathered to his people”. We see this reference in relation to Abraham (25:8), Ishmael (25:17), Isaac (35:29), Jacob (49:29, 33). In fact, God promised Abraham “And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age.” (15:15) Genesis also reveals the existence of heaven as the abode of God (28:12- 13).
  2. The truth of the return of Christ. While not specifically mentioned in Genesis, we know from Jude 1:14 that the second coming of Christ was preached by faithful Enoch. Further, the rest of the Bible’s teaching on end times would be impossible to understand apart from Genesis which introduces us to God’s grand plan and scheme for man and the cosmos.

Conclusion

Do you know Christ as Saviour? Genesis clearly reveals the reality of our sin and the remedy in Christ.

How is your foundation as a believer? Do you have complete confidence in God’s Word or has the devil eroded your foundation with his theories?

References

  1. H. Richard Hester, Old Testament Bible History, p. 17.
  2. H Morris, The Genesis Record, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1994, p. 17.
  3. Oxford Dictionary 2021, https://www.lexico.com/definition/epistemology?locale=en; Viewed 1/10/21.
  4. Ibid, pp. 17-18.
  5. Oxford Dictionary 2021, https://www.lexico.com/definition/cosmology?locale=en; Viewed 1/10/21.
  6. H.C. Leupold, Exposition of Genesis, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, Michigan USA, 1971; pp. 27-28.
  7. Ibid, p. 28.
  8. List adapted from Henry Morris, pg. 38.
  9. In relation to God, “existing apart from and not subject to the limitations of the material universe.” (Oxford
  10. The system of thought that attaches prime importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters (Oxford Dictionary). Humanism places man at the centre rather than God.
  11. Cited by Sarfati, p. 67.
  12. Ibid, pp. 67-68.
  13. D Cloud, The Bible and Western Civilization, Way of Life Literature, pp. 150-151
  14. J Sarfati, The Genesis Account, Creation Book Publishers, April 2015, p. 8.
  15. I Western, Notes on Genesis, Golden West Baptist Church, p. 3.
  16. J Sarfati, p. 71.
  17. D Lyle, A journey through the Bible, Christian Year Publications 2017, p. 34.
  18. Cited by Sarfati, p. 75.
  19. Sarfati, p. 69.
  20. Henry Morris. Morris has these 200 citations listed in Appendix 4 of his commentary.
  21. Sarfati’s list, pp. 77-78 (with a few minor adaptions made).