The preceding chapters about God’s timetable are a prophetic interpretation of Genesis 1. It stands independent of the plain reading and how you understand it. However, in the following chapters I will be presenting different ways to understand the historical events in Genesis. So keep your wits about you. This is an area that has been attacked ferociously. But I am not going to attack it. Adam, Even, Cain, Abel, Noah and the flood are all as you read them. Further, in my opinion the image of God and the role of Jesus are enhanced.
The big warning is because it will look like I am changing the plain reading. But actually I will only be introducing a different paradigm or background against which you can set the plain reading. But I know how this is often received by precious saints who have already created their own background against which to set the story. I also know that many attempts to pervert, undermine or attack the Bible have occurred in the same areas I will examine. So it is to be expected that my offering will be challenged.
Now before you take the high ground and claim that I am perverting the plain reading, please consider these points:
In Genesis 1:31, God said that His creation was very good. It is common to reinterpret this as meaning perfect and being perfect, Adam was immortal. But in Genesis 3:22, God said that Adam had to eat from the tree of life to live forever. So in a plain reading Adam was not created immortal.
In Genesis 1:29-30, God allocates seed and fruit to man and green plants to the animals. This is commonly understood by adding “only”, that is, as if God only gave man fruit and seed to eat and only gave animals plants, thereby implying a vegetarian diet. But that has its own problems.
Genesis 3 is an amazing chapter in which we move from God’s glorious creation to man’s fallen state. It starts with a clever articulate animal that is called “The snake” before it is transformed into a snake. The snake speaks with the knowledge and intent that only Satan had. So everyone knows that the snake is Satan, and they routinely understand the plain reading that way. In fact you have to – we have to know that Satan got his authority because man obeyed him rather than God. The clever, articulate animal in the plain reading becomes irrelevant when we use this revelation to read Genesis 3.
In Genesis 4, Cain kills Abel and is sent away by God, who protects Cain from other men. Where did these other men come from? In a plain reading, Seth is the next child born after Cain and Abel, and when you look at Genesis 5:3-5 it suggests that all the other children of Adam were born after this. Well, in order to explain the other men that Cain was afraid of, we accept that some of the other children born to Adam could have been born before Seth. So logic is allowed to shape the plain reading.
Genesis 6 talks about the sons of God and the daughters of men. Adam is clearly described as the son of God, so why do many scholars uphold that the sons of God were demons? This is clearly contrary to the declaration in Hebrews 1:5 that God never called an angel His son.
So I want to let you know that the plain reading has had a lot of clarification added over the years. Some of it is fine. Some of it I hate. All of it was done with some presumed scriptural justification. All or most was done in an attempt to defend the Bible against attacks. Often this critical analysis of scripture is really exciting. Often you see things in the original Hebrew that has been missed in translation. God’s Word has amazing depths that we are still discovering.
The preceding section is just to let you know that what you presume is the plain reading, is already coloured. I am going to make some observations and draw different deductions. I want to let you know that I uphold the plain reading in the above-mentioned places, and in other places where deviations are commonly accepted. Actually, I would be so bold as to claim that the understandings I offer makes the Bible read more consistently under a plain reading. But perhaps most importantly, I claim that the following sections of this book will present an image of God during the early Genesis chapters that is more consistent with God, the Father of Jesus, as revealed in the rest of the Bible.
So, are you ready? I’ve just made a massive claim. Let’s see if I can back it up.