NOTES for Gen 1:20-31
20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. |
21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. |
22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. |
23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. |
24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. |
25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. |
26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. |
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. |
28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. |
29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. |
30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. |
31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. |
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Today's reading contains a very vivid verse that truly says a great deal about the essence of the human being. "And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them". Look: God created the human being, male and female. Elementary knowledge of arithmetic is enough to count: man and woman are two people, not one!
And from this several conclusions immediately follow. First, it is clear that we are speaking about humanity, about people, and not about "one specimen." Second, it is important to God that this humanity could not consist only of men or only of women. Reproduction has nothing to do with it; for God it is no problem to create a being that reproduces by division or budding. The point is precisely that the fullness of human qualities is revealed in mutual complementarity. Third, this clarification of the difference between man and woman is made only for the human being. It is not said of animals, "male and female He created them." And this means that the psychological and spiritual differences between man and woman have greater value and greater significance than the differences between animals of different sexes.
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