Writing 5 Rachna Shah
The Light of Our Life:
An Analysis of Light in Genesis 1 and John 1
Traditionally, light and darkness represent good and evil, but where did these symbolic norms arise from? One source is Judeo-Christian origin stories, scriptures which use these images as metaphors to establish religious creeds for their respective communities. Two particularly significant representations are found in Genesis of the Hebrew Bible and the Gospel of John of the New Testament. The Old Testament and the New Testament both belong to Judeo-Christian thought, but as Christianity separated from Judaism, the latter’s symbols were interpreted in different ways. Thus, while Genesis and John both present light as a divine substance, they
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In the fourth day of creation, God re-introduces and reforms light to Earth. The first day’s light is absolute light (from the Hebrew or) and the fourth day’s lights are luminous bodies or light bearers (from the Hebrew maor). These lights are placed in the “vault in the sky”, meaning heaven, a phrase repeated thrice within Gen. 1:14-19, emphasizing the divine source and the divine setting of light. It also conveys a distance between light and the Earth, and thus God and the Earth. When lights are created, man has not yet been created - thus light is not explicitly made or given to man, as in John. Nonetheless, light has already been intentioned to serve many of the purposes that underlie the structure of man’s life. The purpose of light in 1:4 is repeated in 1:14 as “to separate the day from the night”. This iteration is furthered by expansion, where the unit of God’s focus is no longer only each day but also each year. Lights are described as “for seasons and for days and years”, thus aiding man by providing cycles for agriculture and signs for navigation, the basis of early livelihoods and economies. After God forms a greater and lesser light to govern the day and night, he also creates stars. Unlike the greater and lesser light, stars are dispersed, conveying a spreading of the light. As stars were also used for agriculture and navigation, the formation of lights …show more content…
Nonetheless, light is presented in fundamentally different ways within each text. In Genesis, light operates as a physical guide to creation; in John, it is a moralized embodiment of Jesus, the figure who spiritually guides man toward new life. Light as the basis for life is compared with light as the basis for the reproduction of faith. This contrast is furthered by each text’s depiction of light in comparison to darkness; in Genesis, they are complementary whereas in John 1, the moralization of light and darkness conveys light as morally good and darkness as adversarial to virtue. In Genesis, light is physically separated from darkness and it is created to serve man and to govern the Earth. In John, light shines in the darkness and is given to man. While the meanings and implications of light within each scripture may not completely reconcile, their shared divine origins suggest that man’s path is guided by light, and thus, by
1. In the beginning, when Jesus created the heaven and the earth, 2. The earth was a formless wasteland, and darkness covered the abyss, while a mighty wind swept over the waters (Genesis 1: 1-2). Then God said “Let there be light, and the light was there, and God called light “day” and darkness “night”.
In Fred Sanders’ sermon “Theology of the Trinity,” which focuses on 1 John, Sanders explains that John summed up his theology of God in a single statement: “God is light” (Biola University “Fred Sanders”). Although Sanders notes that summarizing is not always helpful, especially when discussing specific, complicated truths, John’s statement is actually sufficient to summarize the entire Gospel because different nuances of light are implied. First, Jesus is the ‘light’ who accurately “…reveals the Father” because “Light is naked truth” (Biola University “Fred Sanders”). Moreover, the idea of light reminds us that God is holy. As Sanders states, “Darkness is absolutely incompatible with the God who is light…
Both the Cherokee and the Greek started with nothing but darkness. No morning, no evening, only night. Only the darkness ruled in the beginning. “ In the beginning there was an empty darkness” (Greek). Nothing but the darkness ruled in the beginning.
This becomes apparent within his relationship with the moon. Describing it as “a gentle light stole over the heavens, and gave me a sensation of pleasure. I started up, and beheld a radiant form rise from among the trees. I gazed with a kind of wonder. It moved slowly, but it enlightened my path…”
The next two examples of Cather’s use of symbolism to portray the presence of God involve references to both literal and figurative light. God has often been associated with light in literature. The common expression, “to see the light” can mean that a man understands something now clearly, that he had been confused about previously. However, it can also imply a kind of religious conversion, when a man has finally felt the impact of God. When Cather writes, “He felt as if a clear light broke upon his mind,” the author implies that Emil had been touched by God and had found peace from his inner turmoil.
The concept of logos, in the religious sense, changes Gifty’s approach to understanding the world. As Gifty begins to adopt science over religion, the words in the Bible represent her journey
The moves and plots, which produce different fields of understanding, should arise from the nature of scripture. There are moments in consciousness termed immediacy, reflection, and praxis. Symbol’s task in consciousness is in different ways. Since scripture functions in these different ways, sermons also are plotted to work in human consciousness to shift congregational consciousness.
Myths have existed throughout the history of man to convey important ideas and beliefs. While each myth may reflect the cultural values of its creators, common elements connect them across our history. In this essay, we will analyze four myths: "How the World and Mankind Were Created" by Edith Hamilton, The Book of Genesis chapters 1-3 and Revelation chapters 4-22 from the King James Bible, and The Younger Edda (Foreword, Chapters IV, V, XVI & XVII). By identifying shared themes, symbols, and tones within these myths, we gain insight into the universal human experiences they reflect and the values they convey.
Religion assignment 1 A modern depiction of God It says in John 1:1 that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was God”. These words reflect a description of God, that nothing existed before God and everything existed after God. Without God, there would be no creation and no life. Psalm 104 celebrates the majesty of God as the Creator of all that is, all that has been and all that will be.
Then he separated night and day and created the stars. One of the main differences between the stories is what they respect. In the
In the Bible, God is the ultimate power by which all things were created. He wanted to demonstrate his power to all by calling forth the light, the earth and all creates that dwell on it. When God created man, he gave him one job and one restriction. Man was to tend to and protect the Garden of Eden and reign over the other
When God created the earth he began with the separation of light and darkness;
From light everything else was created to help shape the world and divide between dark and light as well as good and evil. The most striking difference between these two myths is their creation myths. According to Brahma, he leaped from the cosmic golden egg and he then shaped good & evil and light & dark from himself whereas According to the Heliopolitans, the first act of creation occurred when the sun god Atum, rose out of the chaos of Nun from a lotus flower and stood on a raised mound he created.
In the bible it states that they split things up from good to bad, light, dark. God said “Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear” So God called the dry land Earth and the gathering together of the waters called the Seas. For Greek creation it doesn’t really state the way they split things up but it does say that “Then out of the void appeared Erebus, the unknowable place where death dwells, and Night. All else was empty, silent, endless, darkness.
This is typically misunderstood as light being created twice, but it is actually light being created once by energy and then specific light sources being created. Another common supposed contradiction is that Genesis 1 and 2 contradict each other because things are created twice. In Genesis 1, the Bible gives us a brief overview of what happen within the seven day span. Day and night, water and land, plants, trees and fruits, sun, moon and stars were all created within the seven days as explained in Genesis 1. In Genesis 2, however, heaven and earth’s creation is further explained and man is formed.