A secret in plain sight.

Much debate rages over the Bible's Creation account, many Christians insist it must be taken literally and that it teaches that the Universe is about 6000 years old. Others claim that this cannot be and that the fact that the Bible says this shows that it cannot be true. Then other Christians argue that the text is not intended to be taken literally and that it in fact not saying the Universe is young. While libraries of books have been written on this subject. To me however there lies in the Creation an account of a secret, about how we are to be living in the Creation, I call it a secret because no one seems to notice it, though it doesn't seem very secret to me at all

This secret might be one that Alan Watts speaks of in “The Book” when he says, “There are indeed secrets in the Bible and some very subversive ones, but they are all so muffled up in complications, in archaic symbols and ways of thinking,”

To me the message is loud and clear, as if sirens are going off and lights are flashing, this is perhaps the single most important message in the entire Creation account, whether you take the account literally or as an allegory it does not matter, the message here is the same either way, it is a call to action that to my knowledge no Church even has noticed. A picture of what the Earth was designed to be, and what we should be working to make it.

This secret is primarily contained in just three verses, and they are not even next to each other. This certainly contributes to it being missed. The Chapters and verses, not in the original, but added much later, tend to affect the way we view the text, it turns it into a collection of thoughts and can cause os to miss grand themes that are in the text.

The first of these verses is, Genesis 1:28 “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 moves upon the earth.” Mankind was to go out from that spot and fill the earth, Populating every corner and subduing it and having dominion. Now often subduing and having dominion is taken to mean exploiting or destroying, but this is not what is intended. Rather it is living in harmony with the Creation so that man fits into the ecosystem and has his needs met by it.

Then the second verse comes in the next chapter, Genesis 2:15 “And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.” The filling of the earth and the subduing it was to start in the garden, a place specifically prepared for man to start, a place that would serve as a model for man's dominion over the earth. The existence of the garden implies that there were places that were not the Garden, that the garden conditions did not cover the earth'

Finally in the third chapter, we have this, Genesis 3:23 “Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.” Man is expelled from the Garden because of his disobedience. Again this also implies that the garden was limited to a specific part of the earth and did not extend to every part of it.

So then going back to the first verse, where man is commanded to fill the earth if man had done this without the disobedience that led to expulsion from the garden, wouldn't he have had to leave the Garden? After all the garden did not cover the whole earth. How could man reach every point on earth without leaving the garden, but why would man be required to leave the garden except for disobedience? The only way mankind can cover the earth, without leaving the garden, is to extend the garden as mankind moves out into the earth. This is plan A for the planet, to be filled by mankind, and for mankind to live in harmony with the earth and the rest of the Creation. To live on earth in a manner that bring abundant life, instead of in the current extractive way that is slowly destroying life. This is the message we should be spreading about the creation account, not arguing over how old the planet or the Universe is. The age of the earth is mere trivia, a distraction from what really matters. No one lives or dies because of on opinion or another over how old things are, but people die every day because man lives in an extractive, consumptive. selfish way. Very few people in the Church even notice. Most in fact buy into the very economy that is built on death and exploitation.