Creation - Research

Introduction: Creation as Cosmic Sanctuary

Genesis 1-2:3 can be viewed as the building of a cosmic temple. The three great domains, seas, earth, and heavens, mirror the three-section structure of sacred space: base, slope, summit; outer court, holy place, holy of holies.1 The narrative builds toward its climax as God fills all He has made, sanctifying the whole cosmos as the place of His presence. When God’s people, the body of Christ, assemble to worship and meet with Him, they step into and embody a habitable, holy micro-cosmos: a space where He dwells with His creatures and they dwell with Him, receiving both His blessing and His commission.

Genesis 1:1–2 — From Chaos to Ordered Space

Before God orders the cosmos, the land is described as tohu va-vohu, a chaotic wasteland.2 This chaotic wasteland is paired with “darkness” and “the deep.” The Hebrew tehom (“deep”) has no “the” before it, making it function almost as a proper name, and is grammatically feminine elsewhere. Its form therefore aligns with Tiamat, the goddess of the primeval sea in Mesopotamian myth. Genesis’ audience would have known chaos-combat stories (e.g., Marduk and Tiamat), and the prophets later allude to such motifs (Isaiah 51:9-10), but here there is no battle; Genesis pointedly demythologizes the deep.3 Instead, the Spirit of God hovers over “Deep”, and from this moment the tehom recedes from the narrative. In its place are the mayim, waters now present under the Spirit’s ordering presence, ready to be shaped.4 Already a pattern emerges that will recur on the approach to the cosmic mountain as God’s people assemble for worship: God leads through wilderness to waters, and His presence, not rival powers, governs the deep.

Genesis 1:3–10 — God’s Word Over Darkness and Sea

Both darkness and the chaotic waters are addressed by God’s speech: light is separated from darkness; waters from dry land. God will speak eight more times to create (ten creative speeches in total), bringing order and life. On the mountain, hearing and embracing God’s word is central to God’s people being remade and prepared for mission. Genesis again alludes to, yet bypasses, competing myths: Enlil separating heaven and earth; Marduk splitting Tiamat to form sky and land; Ptah speaking gods into existence; Shu lifting the sky goddess above the earth; Baal conquering Yam (with Anat’s later boast over Yam and a seven-headed dragon).5 The point is not to borrow their cosmology but to deny their theology: Yahweh orders without contest and rules without rival.

As we come to the cosmic mountain in worship, we collectively reassert that it is Yahweh who created and ordered the universe. Revelation’s first heavenly songs (Revelation 4:8, 11) center on God’s uniqueness and role as creator. In a world that invites allegiance to created powers, assembling in worship reorients our lives to God.

Genesis 1:11–13 — God as the Source of Fruitfulness

Cosmic mountains are places of fruitfulness and provision, but Genesis insists that God—not river, rain, or royal hero—is the source. The Egyptian “Hymn to the Nile” credits the river’s flood with generating life,6 Enuma Elish hails Marduk as “Creator of grain and plants,”7 and the Baal Cycle ties rain and abundance to Baal’s reign.8 Genesis counters: God speaks, the earth yields. This garden abundance will be concentrated at Eden’s summit and later symbolically woven into tabernacle and temple decor.

Genesis 1:14–19 — Lights for Worship and Order

Calling the sun, moon, and stars “lights” demythologizes them. The Hebrews words for “sun” (shemesh) and “moon” (yareach) were the names of gods in surrounding cultures; stars, too, were treated as powers governing fate.9 Genesis reframes them all as pointers to the creator. The word “light” (ma’or) often refers to the seven-branched lamp in the tabernacle, an association that not only underscores God’s authorship of cosmic lights and their role in ordering Israel’s worship calendar but also evokes the lamp as a stylized tree of life.10 Their purpose is “for signs and for seasons”: ’oth (“sign”) signals divine signs, and mo’adim (“seasons”) points to appointed times for worship rather than spring, summer, winter, and fall; “days and years” signify their role in ordering time for worship.11 Notably, “for signs and for seasons” sits at the exact numerical center of Genesis 1:1–2:3, highlighting worship’s centrality in the created order.

Genesis 1:20–25 — Blessing, Boundaries, and Harmony

The “sea creatures” (tanninim) are more literally “sea monsters/dragons”. Their presence maintains Genesis’ anti-combat stance: such creatures exist by God’s decree, not as rival deities or their servants.12 Here also the first “blessing” appears, signaling that life and fruitfulness flow from God’s favor.

Genesis’ repeated “according to its kind” (lĕmînēhû) establishes boundaries within God’s ordered world. These boundaries underlie later purity laws (Leviticus 11; Deuteronomy 14) and resurface in the ark narrative (Genesis 6–7), where “kinds” are preserved through the waters of the flood. Honoring the distinctions God embedded in creation, whether in Edenic stewardship, ark preservation, or Israel’s dietary regulations, participates in creation’s harmony. Ascending the cosmic mountain in worship is an ascent into ordered holiness where chaos is overcome and every realm stands in right relation to its Maker. When the church gathers, we step into that pattern: we approach the God who tames chaos, sets boundaries, and fills His sanctuary with life. We enter as God’s partners in bringing order and life to the cosmos, creatures blessed and recommissioned.

Genesis 1:26–31 — Humanity as God’s Image and Likeness

“Image” (ṣelem) elsewhere names idol statues (e.g., Baal in 2 Chronicles 23:17). In the Ancient Near East, such images were treated as physical manifestations of a deity that bore its essence and acted on its behalf.13 Mesopotamian mīspî (“mouth-washing”) and pītpî (“mouth-opening”) rites formally transformed a crafted object into a god’s dwelling. Artisans ritually denied authorship, confessing a divine craftsman as maker, and underwent symbolic acts like cutting-off or disabling their hands to sever human claim. Through incantations and purifications likened to divine birth, the statue was inducted into its divine family, came alive to receive offerings, and enthroned.14 Against this backdrop, Genesis’ claim that humanity, not wood or stone, is God’s ṣelem frames the “image of God” as a living, relational, priestly-royal vocation within the cosmic sanctuary.

“Likeness” (demût) means “to be like, resemble,” and in Ezekiel’s inaugural vision it is repeatedly used to describe both the composite forms of the four living creatures (Ezekiel 1:5, 10) and the radiant, human-like figure enthroned above the expanse (Ezekiel 1:26). The term can also denote a “model” or “plan,” which anticipates its conceptual link to tavnît, the “pattern” shown to Moses on Mount Sinai, another cosmic mountain (Exodus 25:9, 40).15

Taken with ṣelem, demût affirms both representative form and corresponding nature. Just as idol-makers worked from a divine archetype, so the tabernacle was constructed according to the heavenly model.16 Where the Ancient Near East temple-idol complex paired image and house to mediate a god’s rule, biblical theology pairs the living image (humanity) with sacred space (Eden, later tabernacle/temple) to manifest and serve the Creator-King. The tabernacle, as a microcosm of creation, and humanity, as God’s image within it, share a common vocation: reflect divine glory, order sacred space, and lead creation in right worship. In the Genesis-to-Exodus pattern, God first makes His living image, then provides His dwelling place, uniting royal and priestly themes in service of His reign.

Humanity is then blessed and commissioned. In this context, “subdue” means to bring the earth under ordered stewardship.17 Humans are to extend God’s work of bringing order out of chaos, cultivating conditions for life to flourish. God grants authority (“rule”) to accomplish this mandate, encompassing creatures of sea, sky, and land, the full range of cosmic mountain sacred space. He also provides what they need for their work: food for humanity and for the creatures under their care.18 When we assemble for worship, we receive this covenantal blessing-commission anew.

Genesis 2:1–3 — Sabbath and the Completion of Sacred Space

Though only three verses, the seventh day is highlighted being mentioned three times.19 In Hebrew, each verse contains seven words, a further emphasizing the day’s importance.20 “Work” is mentioned three times as well, perhaps to denote the completion of the three levels of the cosmic mountain-temple: the sea, the heavens, and the land. With sacred space now fully ordered, God ceases (šābat) from His creative activity, a cessation that transitions into the state of stability, security, and enthronement (nûḥa, mĕnûḥâ). As Exodus 20:11 links creation’s rest to this enduring stability, and Psalm 132:7-8, 13-14 locates God’s “resting place” within His chosen dwelling and footstool (the ark in the Holy of Holies), the Sabbath becomes not mere inactivity but the settling of the King into His temple.21 The creation of sacred space is finished, foreshadowing the tabernacle’s completion and God’s glory filling it (Exodus 40:33–35).[^22] The blessing and hallowing of the seventh day bless and hallow the cosmic mountain-temple: God fills ordered creation and dwells with His creatures in harmony. The seventh day, and the ritual Sabbath that develops from it, proclaims God’s presence with creation, the intersection of heaven and earth, the spiritual and physical realms.[^23] Thus, all of creation is God’s temple and has access to His presence.[^24] However, as God’s creatures rebel against him, they are separated from sacred space. When the church assembles, that separation is removed by way of Jesus, our high priest, and we taste once again the reigning nearness of God.

Bibliography

Brown, Francis, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs. Enhanced Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon. Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, 2000. Logos Bible Software edition.

Cassuto, Umberto. A Commentary on the Book of Genesis. Part 1: From Adam to Noah (Genesis I–VI 8). Translated by Israel Abrahams. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, Hebrew University, 1961.

Hasel, Gerhard F. “The Significance of the Cosmology in Genesis 1 in Relation to Ancient Near Eastern Parallels.” Andrews University Seminary Studies 10 (1972): 1–20.

Hurowitz, Victor Avigdor. “The Mesopotamian God Image, from Womb to Tomb.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 123, no. 1 (2003): 147-157. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3217848.

King, L. W., trans. The Seven Tablets of Creation. London: Luzac & Co., 1902. https://sacred-texts.com/ane/enuma.htm.

Lichtheim, Miriam. Ancient Egyptian Literature, Volume I: The Old and Middle Kingdoms. 3rd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006.

Morales, L. Michael. “The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus.” PhD diss., University of Bristol, 2011.

Sayce, Archibald Henry, ed. Records of the Past, 2nd Series, Vol. III. London: Society for Biblical Archaeology, 1890. https://www.sacred-texts.com/egy/rop/rop03.htm.

Walton, John H. The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2009. Kindle edition.

Walton, John H. Genesis. The NIV Application Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2001. Kindle edition.

Wenham, Gordon J. Genesis 1–15. Vol. 1 of Word Biblical Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2014. Kindle edition.

Wright, Christopher J. H. Recalling the Hope of Glory: Biblical Worship from the Garden to the New Creation. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001. Kindle edition.

Wyatt, Nicolas. Religious Texts from Ugarit. 2nd ed. Biblical Seminar 53. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002. Electronic edition, accessed via Logos Bible Software.

  1. Morales, The Tabernacle Pre-Figured, 145. ↩

  2. Morales, The Tabernacle Pre-Figured, 69. Morales notes that “weltering wasteland” is his translation of tohu va-vohu and references Everett Fox’s “wild and waste” (Five Books of Moses, 13) and Robert Alter’s “welter and waste” (Five Books of Moses, 17). See also Wenham, Genesis1–15, 1, “total chaos”. ↩

  3. Cassuto, Genesis: From Adam to Noah, 23–24; Hasel, “Cosmology in Genesis1 in Relation to ANE Parallels,” 7. ↩

  4. Morales, The Tabernacle Pre-Figured, 76. ↩

  5. Hasel, “Cosmology in Genesis1 in Relation to ANE Parallels,” 8; Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, Vol.I, 54–55; Wyatt, Religious Texts from Ugarit, 67, 79. ↩

  6. Sayce, “Hymn to the Nile,” in Records of the Past, Vol.III, 48–49. ↩

  7. King, Seven Tablets, 7th tablet, line2, p.92. ↩

  8. Wyatt, Religious Texts from Ugarit, 137. ↩

  9. Walton, Genesis, 122; Wenham, Genesis1–15, 21. ↩

  10. Morales, The Tabernacle Pre-Figured, 108, 110n.183. ↩

  11. Cassuto, Genesis: From Adam to Noah, 44; Wright, Recalling the Hope of Glory, chap.13, “Holy Days” (Kindle loc.2171). ↩

  12. Brown, Enhanced Brown-Driver-Briggs, 1072, s.v. “תַּנִּין”; Hasel, “Cosmology in Genesis1 in Relation to ANE Parallels,” 19. ↩

  13. Walton, Genesis, 129–30. ↩

  14. Hurowitz, “The Mesopotamian God Image,” 150–53. ↩

  15. Wenham, Genesis 1–15, 29. ↩

  16. Wenham, Genesis 1–15, 31. ↩

  17. Walton, Genesis, 131. ↩

  18. Wenham, Genesis 1–15, 32. ↩

  19. Morales, The Tabernacle Pre-Figured, 117. ↩

  20. Cassuto, Genesis: From Adam to Noah, 61. ↩

  21. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis 1, 72. ↩

Updated: