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Genesis (American Standard Version, 1901) · 1 of 73 · tr. American Standard Version (1901)

1:1-1:25

[1:1] In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. [1:2] And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep: and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. [1:3] And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. [1:4] And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. [1:5] And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day. [1:6] And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. [1:7] And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. [1:8] And God called the firmament Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day. [1:9] And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. [1:10] And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. [1:11] And God said, Let the earth put forth grass, herbs yielding seed, and fruit-trees bearing fruit after their kind, wherein is the seed thereof, upon the earth: and it was so. [1:12] And the earth brought forth grass, herbs yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit, wherein is the seed thereof, after their kind: and God saw that it was good. [1:13] And there was evening and there was morning, a third day. [1:14] And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years: [1:15] and let them be for lights in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. [1:16] And God made the two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. [1:17] And God set them in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth, [1:18] 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. [1:19] And there was evening and there was morning, a fourth day. [1:20] And God said, Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. [1:21] And God created the great sea-monsters, and every living creature that moveth, wherewith the waters swarmed, after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind: and God saw that it was good. [1:22] And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth. [1:23] And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day. [1:24] And God said, Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind, cattle, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth after their kind: and it was so. [1:25] And God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the ground after its kind: and God saw that it was good.
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Themes
Anthropomorphismtheology

Attributing human characteristics, emotions, or form to the divine; embodied divine imagery.

God is described as seeing, calling, and judging that things are 'good'—attributing human perceptual and evaluative capacities to the divine.

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Cosmogonycosmology

Narratives or doctrines of cosmic origin — how heaven, earth, and the primordial deities first came into being. The Kojiki's deities born alone on the Plain of High Heaven, Voluspo's Ginnungagap, Genesis's tohu wa-bohu, the Timaeus's Demiurge fashioning the Receptacle, the Hesiodic Theogony, the Kalevala's egg-cosmogony, Egyptian Nun-and-Atum. Distinct from emanation_hierarchy (structural-ontological cascade), letters_of_creation (mechanism of creation), and apocatastasis/frashokereti (end-state restoration); cosmogony is temporally-narrative beginning.

The entire passage is a temporally-narrative account of how heaven and earth came into being through divine speech, from waste and void through successive days of creation.

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Living Godtheology

The divine conceived as active, present, and dynamic—not an abstract principle but a personal responsive reality.

God is portrayed as actively speaking, seeing, dividing, calling, making, and blessing throughout the passage—a personal, dynamic reality rather than an abstract principle.

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Logoscosmology

The divine reason, word, or ordering principle through which the universe was created; mediates between the transcendent God and the material world.

Creation is effected entirely through divine speech ('God said, Let there be...'), making the Word the mediating ordering principle through which the universe comes into being.

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Word Power Incantationpraxis

The doctrine and practice that spoken or sung word carries causal-magical force — that uttering names, formulas, songs, or incantations alters reality directly rather than merely communicating about it. Vainamoinen's runo-songs that move mountains and command iron, Norse galdr, Vedic mantra, Shinto kotodama, the magician's barbarous names in the Greek Magical Papyri, Iamblichean arcane signatures and inexplicable symbols, biblical creation-by-word. Distinct from sacred_names (the ontological power of names themselves) and prayer (address to the divine); word_power_incantation is the magical-causal efficacy of the spoken word as such.

Each utterance of God ('Let there be light') directly brings reality into existence, demonstrating the causal-magical efficacy of the spoken word as the mechanism of creation.

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Related passages · 7 parallels
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