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Monday, March 09, 2020

Was the original creation perfect?

Many Christians believe that the creation was perfect before the Fall. Perhaps. But the Bible doesn't really say that.

A search for the Hebrew word meaning "perfect," in the Blueletter Bible, from the King James Version, results in 91 instances, in 85 verses. (If anyone needs reminding, the Old Testament was mostly in Hebrew, and the New Testament was mostly in Greek, so searching for a Hebrew word doesn't result in any New Testament occurrences.) The first three instances of "perfect" are as follows: The superscript, and/or link, right after the word, perfect, below, is a link to the results of the broader search.

 Gen 6:9 These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect H8549 in his generations, and Noah walked with God.

 Gen 17:1 And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfectH8549

 Exo 12:5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, H8549 a male of the first year: ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats:

These three instances refer to the attitudes of two humans, servants of God, and to an animal sacrifice. Most of the uses of perfect in the Old Testament are like these.

A search for "good" also gives results. The first occurrences are in Genesis 1-3, about some aspect of created entities -- "behold, it was good," or "it was very good."

Then, there are the next two occurrences, one of which is translated into a different English word, rather than good:

Gen 6:2 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; H2896 and they took them wives of all which they chose.

Gen 15:15 And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good H2896 old age.

One of these is a description of female attractiveness, and one is related to living a good, long life.

However attractive a woman might be, or, actually, several women, it is hard to believe that they were all perfect, or perfectly attractive. Close, maybe, but not perfect. And it is difficult to believe that a good, long life (Abraham's is the one in Genesis 15) was perfect. He was a good man, an example of faith, but he made some mistakes, and fell short of perfection. He allowed his wife to talk him into siring a child with a servant girl, and he lied to other men, saying that Sarah wasn't his wife, when she was. Most likely, there were other failings, not mentioned specifically in the Bible. His life was good, not perfect.

The word perfect is not used in describing the created world. Rather, "good," or "very good," is found in the first part of Genesis. I checked the translations of Genesis 1:31, which summarizes God's creative activity, and none of the English versions of the Bible use the word, perfect, which, as shown above, was used in other places in the Old Testament. They all use very good.

For this, and other reasons, it appears that saying that the world, as created, was perfect, is reading something into scripture that isn't there.

Thanks for reading.

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