I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 1-3. When I started this blog I initially decided to use the New Living Translation(NLT) for various reasons.  The reason which continued to apply was that, because it was a translation I had not used in any other setting, it provided me with a fresh look at the passages.  I realized during the last year that I have been using the NLT for this blog for so long that it no longer lets me see the passages from a fresh perspective.  SO, I decided that come the new year, which has now come, I would switch to using the NIV, which overall I prefer to other translations.

I am not quite sure where I am going with this, but I think I see a message for us from bits from each of the two creation stories and the story of the Fall.  In the first of the two creation stories (which I believe to be two different perspectives on Creation, not competing and contradictory stories), we learn that God created mankind in His image, and as male and female.  I think it is telling that the composer of this story included the idea that God made mankind male and female in the part where we are told that God created mankind in His image.  Then, in the second creation story, after Adam has reviewed all of the animals and found none of them a suitable partner, God makes a woman from one of Adam’s ribs.  The primary point of this part of this story being that Adam and Eve were one.  The writer editorializes that this is why a man leaves his mother and father and is joined with his wife.  This passage is the foundation of marriage.

Finally we come to the story of the Fall.  Adam and Eve sinned because they were not content to be as God had created them.  The serpent convinced them that if they ate the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they would be better than they were as God had created them.  This was their sin, they thought that God had not gotten it right and that they could do it better,  I think if you look around you can see how people today still think that God did not get it right and that they can improve on how He has made them.