Part 1First Creation Story, Part 1
As to the truthfulness of the creation and fall of man, it makes sense to take God's word for it. After all, He was there when it happened—a distinction the rest of us cannot claim.
(C.A. Davidson, Epic Stories for Character Education , p.33)
Part 1
Many prophets of the Judeo-Christian culture testify of the reality of God as the divine Creator
In America , 74 B.C., people were also being led by the philosophies of men to believe that there is no God, and that He did not create the earth. Through His many prophets, however, we can get the eye-witness version of God himself. Here Alma, a Christian prophet of that time, testifies that God lives and that He is the Creator of the earth. He further mentions many other witnesses, which will be quoted in the coming posts this month. We start with Moses and Abraham of the B.C. period, and Paul of the New Testament era. (C.A. Davidson)
44 The scriptures are laid before thee, yea, and all things denote there is a God; yea, even the bearth, and call things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its dmotion, yea, and also all the eplanets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator.
45 And yet do ye go about, leading away the hearts of this people, testifying unto them there is no God? And yet will ye deny against all these awitnesses? Alma to Korihor, antichrist. Book or Mormon, Alma 30:44-45
Abraham
God taught Abraham all about the stars and planets. He taught much to the Egyptians while he was visiting there, which explains why the Egyptians were such experts in astronomy. The following verses , part of a dialogue between God and Abraham, were translated from an ancient papyrus discovered in the 19th century. The Book of Abraham is found today in a collection known as The Pearl of Great Price.
1 And I, Abraham, had the aUrim and Thummim, which the Lord my God had given unto me, in Ur of the Chaldees;
2 And I saw the astars, that they were very great, and that one of them was nearest unto the throne of God;
6 And the Lord said unto me: Now, Abraham, these atwo facts exist, behold thine eyes see it; it is given unto thee to know the times of reckoning, and the set time, yea, the set time of the earth upon which thou standest, and the set time of the greater light which is set to rule the day, and the set time of the lesser light which is set to rule the night.
7 Now the set time of the lesser light is a longer time as to its reckoning than the reckoning of the time of the earth upon which thou standest.
8 And where these two facts exist, there shall be another fact above them, that is, there shall be another planet whose reckoning of time shall be longer still.
Moses (This is from an ancient document discovered and translated in the 19th century. The order of creation is the same as in Genesis. However, unlike Genesis, it is recorded as a personal dialogue between God and Moses. We know that when Moses was leading the children of Israel out of Egypt, there were occasions where God and Moses spoke face-to-face.) The reference here is Moses chapter 2, verses 1-27, in a book of scripture entitled The Pearl of Great Price
1 In the abeginning bGod ccreated the dheaven and the eearth. ~the first book of Moses, called Genesis
1 And it came to pass that the Lord spake unto Moses, saying: Behold, I areveal unto you concerning this bheaven, and this cearth; dwrite the words which I speak. I am the Beginning and the End, the eAlmighty God; by mine fOnly Begotten I gcreated these things; yea, in the beginning I hcreated the iheaven, and the earth upon which thou standest.
2 And the earth was without aform, and void; and I caused bdarkness to come up upon the face of the deep; and my cSpirit dmoved upon the face of the water; for I am God.
3 And I, God, said: Let there be alight; and there was light.
4 And I, God, saw the light; and that light was agood. And I, God, divided the blight from the darkness.
5 And I, God, called the light Day; and the darkness, I called Night; and this I did by the aword of my power, and it was done as I bspake; and the evening and the morning were the first cday.
6 And again, I, God, said: Let there be a afirmament in the midst of the water, and it was so, even as I spake; and I said: Let it divide the waters from the waters; and it was done;
7 And I, God, made the firmament and divided the awaters, yea, the great waters under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament, and it was so even as I spake.
8 And I, God, called the firmament aHeaven; and the evening and the morning were the second day.
9 And I, God, said: Let the awaters under the heaven be gathered together unto bone place, and it was so; and I, God, said: Let there be dry land; and it was so.
10 And I, God, called the dry land aEarth; and the gathering together of the waters, called I the Sea; and I, God, saw that all things which I had made were good.
11 And I, God, said: Let the earth bring forth agrass, the herb yielding seed, the fruit tree yielding fruit, after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed should be in itself upon the earth, and it was so even as I spake.
12 And the earth brought forth grass, every herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed should be in itself, after his akind; and I, God, saw that all things which I had made were good;
13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.
14 And I, God, said: Let there be alights in the firmament of the heaven, to divide the day from the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years;
15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth; and it was so.
16 And I, God, made two great lights; the greater alight to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night, and the bgreater light was the sun, and the lesser light was the moon; and the stars also were made even according to my word.
17 And I, God, set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
18 And the asun to rule over the day, and the moon to rule over the night, and to divide the light from the bdarkness; and I, God, saw that all things which I had made were good;
19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
20 And I, God, said: Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl which may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
21 And I, God, created great awhales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind; and I, God, saw that all things which I had created were good.
22 And I, God, blessed them, saying: Be fruitful, and amultiply, and fill the waters in the sea; and let fowl multiply in the earth;
23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
24 And I, God, said: Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth after their kind, and it was so;
25 And I, God, made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything which creepeth upon the earth after his kind; and I, God, saw that all these things were good.
26 And I, God, said unto mine aOnly Begotten, which was with me from the bbeginning: Let cus dmake man in our eimage, after our likeness; and it was so. And I, God, said: Let them have fdominion over the fishes of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
27 And I, God, created man in mine own aimage, in the image of mine Only Begotten created I him; male and female created I them. God, to Moses. Pearl of Great Price, Moses 2:1-27
Paul24 God that amade the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, bdwelleth not in temples made with hands;
25 Neither is aworshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and bbreath, and all things;
26 And hath amade of bone cblood dall enations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath fdetermined the gtimes before happointed, and the ibounds of their habitation;
27 That they should aseek the Lord, bif haply they might cfeel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:
28 For in him we alive, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his boffspring.
29 Forasmuch then as we are the aoffspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto bgold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s cdevice. ~Paul, Acts 17:24-29