In yesterday morning's study at the church, I mentioned the importance of studying Genesis from the perspective of its earliest readers, rather than from the perspective of readers living in the 21st century. So, for example, when it comes to the categories of animals Genesis 1 tells us God created on Days 5 and 6, we should not strain ourselves with attempts to reconcile them with the taxonomy of the Linnaean System. It is more useful for us to try to understand the categories God used from the perspective of the Israelites who were alive when Moses completed his writings.
From that perspective, we quickly come to the conclusion that the categories God used in Genesis 1 made perfect sense. They were categories of living "nephesh" already very familiar to the Israelites.
The categories themselves were: sea "nephesh", birds, livestock ("behemoths"), creeping things that creep, and other (NIV-"wild animals"). The Israelites would have recognized these same categories from their daily considerations of God's dietary restrictions. In Leviticus 11, God lays out the restrictions he expected Israelites to follow using these five categories. In each case, God told the Israelites, there are some of the animals in the category that I declare to be clean. You can eat them. And there are also animals in each category that I declare to be unclean. Do not eat them.
In other words, the Israelites were accustomed to God distinguishing among the animals using the five categories and using the further designation of either "clean" or "unclean". What would have surprised, perhaps even shocked, the Israelites when they read Genesis for the first time is their discovery that God originally had blessed all of the animals in each of the five categories.
That discovery would have led to the additional observation that God originally had also blessed all of humanity. By the time Genesis was written, the situation had changed dramatically. God's favor was no longer upon all of humanity. Instead, God singled out the people of Israel as "his treasured possession" (Deut. 14:2). In other words, just as God began marking distinctions among the animals in each of the five categories after the Fall, so he began marking distinctions among human beings.
God's choice of Israel to be his treasured possession was an offer for them to live as his people. That meant they were to live in faith and obedience, both of which marked them as holy or separate from everyone else. Accordingly, toward the end of Leviticus 11, the chapter that explains the dietary restrictions, God said: "I am the Lord you God; consecrate yourselves and be holy [by means of adherence to the restrictions], because I am holy. Do not make yourselves unclean by any creature that moves about on the ground. I am the Lord who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy" (verses 44-45).
God is still marking distinctions among human beings today. Not everyone is among those who are counted as God's favored people. What makes the difference today is not adherence to dietary restrictions. Rather, it is faith and obedience toward the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus himself repeatedly called attention to this division among people. In John 3:36, for example, Jesus said: "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him."
Tomorrow, I will write about the dinosaurs, and I will be including a few links to other sites with some very helpful info on these somewhat mysterious creatures...
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