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The First Week of History

Creation! "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Genesis 1:1 In our Adam's Map of History, which uses the works of a well known biblical chronologist, James Ussher, this happened around 4004 BC. Readings:
  • Chronological Bible: Genesis 1:1-2:25
  • John 1:1-14,
  • The Victor Journey Through The Bible: Creation (p. 10-11)
  • Adam and His Kin: Chapter 1 "The Beginning of Time"
  • Genesis: Finding Our Roots: Unit 1 "God's Book of Creation"
  • The New Answers Book 1: Chapter 2 "Why Shouldn't Christians Accept Millions of Years" and Chapter 8 "Could God Really Have Created Everything in 6 Days?" (See links)
  • The Greenleaf Guide to Old Testament History: Lesson 1 "God Creates" Discussion questions
  • The Great Dinosaur Mystery and the Bible, by Paul S. Taylor
  • What in the World? Track 2 "Creation"(6:12)
  • True Tales Track 2 "Dates for Creation" (9:56)
Scripture Study:
(From Genesis Finding Our Roots)
  1. Draw a line to separate each day of creation
  2. Number the sections to show the 6 days of creation
  3. Circle the word "created" everywhere you find it (there are 3) and number them in order. The word create in Hebrew is bara and means to create (bara) something out of nothing (ex nihlo) *See notes under Topical Studies on the word create (below)
  4. Tell what happened on one or more of the creation days
  5. Memorize verse 1:1 in English and in Hebrew (transliterated):
Be·re·sheet (In the beginning) bara (created) e·lo·him (God) alef-tav (*Yeshua) ha·sha·ma·yim (heavens) ve·'et ha·'a·retz (earth).
* I was taught that the Hebrew letters here (alef and tav) reference Yeshua (Jesus) ~ He is the aleph-tav (alpha-omega in Greek) ~ the beginning and the end (Revelations 1:8, 21:6 & 22:13) and was in the beginning with God (John 1:1). Topical Studies: (From Genesis Finding Our Roots) Dragons Verse 1:21 says, "And God created tannin." KJV translates this as whales, but the word tannin means dragon. Ancient people called them dragons, but we know them as dinosaurs. Sir Richard Owen coined this term in 1841 and it means "terrible lizard." So, we see that God really did create dinosaurs! Create We found earlier that the word create (bara) occurs only 3 times in Genesis 1 (in verses 1, 21, and 27). Only these three times did he bara something out of nothing. In the other verses, God made (asah) something. Asah means "to do, make."
So, the three bara's are worth looking at closely. Verse 1 tells of God's original creation of all matter and energy. He made the universe out of nothing (Hebrews 11:3). Following that original creation, came light, land, water, sky, plants and heavenly lights, not created but made from the original matter and energy created on the first day. ~ Ruth Beechick in Genesis Finding Our Roots p. 12
The second act of bara was when He created animal life and the third act of bara occurred when He created human life as outlined below:
  1. matter and energy
  2. animal life
  3. human life ~ "It took a new act of creation to make man in the image of God." ~ RB
I thought this was interesting. Ruth Beechick goes on to explain that bara occurs 54 times in Scripture and nearly always refers to creation by God. So, then I pondered Psalm 51:10 ~ "Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me." The word for create is the same bara. Does He bara (create out of nothing) a new heart? Furthermore, the Adam's Chart of History, brings up another point. When the earth was created it was "without form and void." Does this imply a chaotic state?
"Matter," says Dr. Eadie, "was created in order to be shaped. It was brought into existence for the purpose of afterwards making it into various forms and adaptations." (From Adam's Map of History ~ 3rd fold out under Scripture Chronology)
So, it was without form and void, but only because matter merely existed at that point ~ without being formed or shaped ~ rather than what opposing theorists who would say that the earth was formless and void because it was destroyed and then recreated. I don't see any evidence for the latter. Day We learned a neat study rule ~ the first use of a word in a writing shows the meaning of the word there on out, unless the context implies otherwise. The word for day in Hebrew is yom. The first appearance of yom is in reference to " the evening and morning were the first day (yom)." In this context, yom is a 24 hour day and is a literal 24 hour cycle. So, when yom is used elsewhere it is referring to a literal day, unless the context shows otherwise. Origin of the Week This was an interesting study on why we have a 7 day week. It is easy to see that the month is connected to the moon and the year is connected to the sun, but where did the week come from? From the first week of history!
Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shall you labor, and do all your work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD (YHVH) your God (Elohim): in it you shall not do any work, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, your manservant, nor your maidservant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger that is within your gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: and the LORD (YHVH) blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it. Exodus 20:8-11
Significance of the number 7 The number 7 stands for spiritual perfection or completion. The number 7 is significant throughout the Bible. Earlier in my post, I suggested that the earth was only about 6,013 years old. This is a close estimate but we may be a few years off. Based on what I know of the significance of the number 7, I am suggesting that the earth is less than 6,000 years old. Why? Because in the Scriptures it says a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as a day. We already know that the day in Genesis was a literal 24 hour day. So what does this mean? It means we are in the last "day" before the coming of our Messiah. The 7th day is a Sabbath ~ a rest ~ and our Messiah will return to set up His millennial kingdom (millennial means a period of a thousand years) and there will be a thousand years of peace (rest) under Yeshua's (Jesus') rule. Interestingly enough, the Jewish calender year is 5770 and while it too may be off, we know we are getting closer to the "end times." Hebrew words we learned: bereshit - beginnings bara - create yom - day asah - to do, make eretz - earth echad - one, first one shavua - week tannin- dragon
Stick Figuring Through the Bible: Old Testament Overview:
Samples of Dylan and Nathan's "Stick Figuring"
I love that we will have notebooking pages to accompany our study. I have plans for other pages as well, but this will be a great outline of all that we are studying this year and the timeline and character/event cards (I'll share pics of those next time) will help them remember key events and people. Art:
For art we are making a Days of Creation Book using the book, The Days of Creation: Teaching the Glory of God's Work through Art. This is a really neat study and we are learning a lot about watercoloring.
The colors we are using.
We are using a wet on wet technique and each watercolor represents a different aspect or day of creation. I will share some of the techniques we are learning and our finished works of art as soon as we finish.
As we finish up our watercoloring, we will also be watching the Wonders of God's Creation. This is a 6 disc series by the Christian based Moody Institute of Science and is one of our recommended resources. We ordered these through Netflix and our first two arrived yesterday. I incorporated my young children into our study and will share all that we did in another post coming up. Up next: the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve and the Fall.


  1. Wow-you guys covered a lot! I think the Art Study looks really interesting. Blessings to you all Michelle, keep training them up-you're doing such a wonderful job, and I can tell you love it.

  2. Speechless! Ok - maybe not....I love it and I can't wait untill we return to this period....thanks for all the links and resources.