Verses 24-25 Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind"; and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

At the end of the age of the great reptiles and dinosaurs, a giant meteor, some ten kilometers in diameter, slammed into the earth, traveling at 20 miles a second, the speed at which meteors hit our atmosphere. The huge explosion filled the air with dust that circled the earth. This blocked the sun for many months, causing all animals heavier than a few pounds to die. The dinosaurs did not survive this ecological disaster, but some smaller mammals did. With the dinosaurs gone, mammals were able to grow larger, change and spread into new environments. Most of the mammals we see today, like horses, cows, dogs and dolphins are very different than their relatives of long ago.

The event that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs is thought by most scientists to have occurred about 65 million years ago. From the disappearance of the dinosaurs onward, mammals began to change and grow larger. There is still a controversy as to whether mammals, like all other animals, changed gradually, or in dramatically sudden changes. Since there is little hard evidence of gradualism in the fossil record, several prominent evolutionists devised the “punctuated equilibrium” theory of evolution. The theory is one explanation of the evidence observed in the fossil record.  In a nutshell, it claims that organisms remain virtually unchanged for long periods of time and then suddenly change. Put in another way, evolution, especially species change, happens quickly. This is a way to explain the sudden appearance of new species in the fossil record in relatively short periods of time. Critics have called punctuated equilibrium “evolution by jerks.” Gould is reputed to have responded that neo-Darwinism is "evolution by creeps"!

Whatever you might think of the theory of punctuated equilibrium, even its critics, e.g., Richard Dawkins, agree that Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge have shown that there were sudden bursts of speciation in the history of life. Change is often not gradual as many had believed. There do seem to be a lot of “jerks” in the fossil record and a pronounced lack of “creeps!”

Clarifying translation: God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures [nephesh hi’yah], each according to its kind.” And it was so. God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, and the animal according to its kind, and every creeping being of the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

Verses 26-31 Then God said, "Let Us make Adam in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." So God created the Adam in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. And God said ‘Behold I have given you every herb yielding seed which is on the face of the earth and every tree in which the fruit of the tree gives seed, for you it is food; and to every beast of the land and every flying creature and all life that creeps on the earth every green herb for food. And it was so.” Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

God’s final creation on earth was humankind. At first these human-like beings did not have a spirit like we do. Spirit  gives us the ability to be  aware of God. The spirit [neshama in Hebrew] is what makes us human. If we did not have a spirit (neshama) we would only be animals in the shape of humans. In fact, the oldest writings about the Bible tell us that the making of Adam (Genesis 1:26) relates to such animals without a spirit (neshama) while the creation of Adam (Genesis 1:27) is the first human, the creation being the spirit (neshama) put by God into the Adam. The ancient commentators wrote down this understanding many hundreds of years before science discovered the bones of “cave men!” How did they know? They carefully read the Bible in its original language.

The spirit in humankind was to be a great gift and a great responsibility. God would only give it when He felt that the Creation was ready. God knew that once humans had spirit and the ability to think for themselves, they would be free to choose between good and evil; they would also have free will to accept or reject their Creator.

Note that ‘male and female He created them’ is in the plural. The word Adam refers to male and female. Genesis 5:2 tells us that “God created them male and female and called their name Adam in the day that they were created.” Their name was called Adam. The name Adam does not refer only to the man.

“And behold it was very good.” For all the days prior to this moment, it had been “good.” Now it was “very good.” The world was ready for humans to go out and fill the earth with goodness and love. On day number two there is no statement that “it was good.” That is because the parts of the world made on day two had not reached a level of completion; hence the delay until day three to label all as good, twice good.

Clarifying translation: And God said, “Let us make Adam [the Hebrew reads Adam, not man] in Our image, after Our likeness. They shall rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and over the animal, the whole earth, and every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” So God created the Adam [Here with the creation of Adam, the Hebrew reads ‘the Adam’ not just “Adam.” “The Adam” is a specific being. In the previous verse where we are told that God made Adam, the word “the” does not modify Adam. There Adam is a general being] in His image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea, the bird of the sky, and every living thing that moves on the earth.” God said, “Behold, I have given to you all herbage yielding seed that is on the service of the entire earth, and every tree that has seed-yielding fruit; it shall be yours for food. And to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the sky, and to everything that moves on the earth, within which there is a living soul, every green herb is for food.” And it was so. And God saw all that He had made, and behold it was very good. And there was evening [Erev: chaos] and there was morning [Boker: order, clarity], the sixth day.

About 6,000 years ago
If we add up all the generations in the Bible and then add on the years of governments and rulers such as kings and queens and presidents after the end of the Bible, we find that Adam was created a bit less than 6,000 years ago.

About 6,000 years ago, God decided it was time to give the gift of spirit to humanity. He breathed spirit into Adam. Adam was the first human with the conscious opportunity to have a relationship with His Creator. Before Adam there may have been animals that looked human. Today we call them hominids. The oldest commentary we have on the Bible, from 1500 years ago, called them “the masters of the field.” We are told that they looked like humans but they did not have the neshama, the spirit of God. How did these commentators over a thousand years ago know about these hominids? Science only discovered their fossils a few hundred years ago. The commentators said that they learned this information by carefully studying every word of the Bible. Scientists discover it by carefully studying nature.

The first records of writing date back about 6,000 years, just after God breathed spirit into mankind! Only a very smart and aware creature can write. God had created beings with large brains to learn, hands to work with, and hearts to make choices in life. Most importantly, God created the mind, a spiritual creation that is more than just the brain that houses it! Every animal has a brain, but only humans have minds.

More than 100,000 copies of Dr. Gerald Schroeder's book, The Science of God, have sold since its publication in 1998. It's been published in seven other languages.

Day 1

Verse 1-5: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters. Then God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, day one.

Day 2

Verses 6-8: Then God said, "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters." Thus God made the firmament, and divided the waters that were under the firmament from the waters that were above the firmament; and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.

Day 3

Verses 9-13: Then God said, "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear"; and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth"; and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning a third day.

Day 4

Verses 14-19: Then God said, "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth"; and it was so. Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.

Day 5

Verses 20-23: Then God said, "Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let winged creatures fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens." And God created great reptiles (in the original Hebrew, the big ta’ni’neem) and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged animal according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let winged animals multiply on the earth." And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.

Battle Over Mt. Soledad Memorial Cross Heats Up

President Bush Supports Cross; House Passes Bill To Preserve It; Senate Bill Introduced - ACLU Continues Its Campaign to Stop Its

ANN ARBOR, MI – The Bill to protect the Mt. Soledad memorial cross, H. R. 5863, overwhelmingly passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 349-74. The Bill transfers possession of the veterans memorial in San Diego, California to the federal government. The Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, worked closely with Congressman Duncan Hunter (R-CA), the main sponsor of the Bill, on the language of the legislation.

Thomas More Law Center

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