Interesting Genesis Tidbits

Do you find any of the following information interesting? What difficulties arrise in your mind when you read the creation accounts in Genesis 1-3? What parts of the Genesis narratives do you find to be "right on"?

“The sun and moon are created only on the fourth day and are not named, but referred to only as the greater light and the lesser light. This may be an implicit polemic against the worship of astral bodies” … “A similar point can be made about the creation of the great sea monsters on the fifth day. In some ancient myths…creation results from the slaying of a sea monster" (Oxford Jewish Study Bible 13).

"While customarily translated rib, the part of the body out of which the second human being is made is uncertain, since this Hebrew term is nowhere else used for the human body” (New Interpreter's Study Bible 10 - Abingdon Press).

The name Genesis is from the Greek translation of Hebrew “Toledot” which means “story, record, or line." In Hebrew it is often referred to as “bereishit” – “in the beginning” (OJSB 8).