Journal On Lawn's Journal: Genesis as Kindergarten Science? 1:1 2
Where do we start with little five year olds?
Genesis is abstract such that it might map to that early big bang, or it could map to the first time our sun light up what would soon be its domain -- our solar system.
Cosmology cannot reliably peer into the big bang. Our models break down in the immense heat and physics that boiled the universe over in those first moments. We know quite a bit about the stellar nebula that must have coalesced into our sun and planets. But for Kindergartners, the rule of cool reigns, and nothing is more awesome than the Big Bang.
So lets start with Genesis 1, and I take some license with the translation to suit it to our audience:
To start there was God beginning creation of the ground and sky
even the earth was formless, void -- just darkness over the surface of the deep.
And the Spirit of God was brooding over the deep face of the depths.
I don't think this really a stretch from the original language. "The Deep" here and even the word formless are similar derivations to a chaotic dragon that we call "Tiamat", representing the depths of the salty ocean from the Babylonian traditions. Even in Taoist beliefs the beginning is signified with he distinction made between yin and yang, a division of chaotic energies that like Tiamat are closely related to chaotic dragons. The serpent shape dividing, and circumscribing these energies are meant to evoke the imagery of dragons. The creation of the universe from the body of a Dragon is a tradition which dates back over 100,000 years to earliest humans in Africa. We'll get more into this allusion when we more specifically talk about the 'waters' in later verses. But for now 'deep' is best given as a close synonym to seas or chaotic depths.
While "dragon" would certainly appeal to the kindergarteners more than just a depth, there is a reason to keep it a bit subdued.
There is little physical we can work with before the big bang, our stage is pretty simple. Almost abstractly so, like a surrealistic painting to give the imagery too much form might ruin the mood.
To begin we have nothing but a motivation, (to me spirits are our way of describing basic emotional influences) and an immensity to move in. That feeling and motivation has an energy that might best be described as kenopsia, "the eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place thatâ(TM)s usually bustling with people but is now abandoned and quietâ"a school hallway in the evening, an unlit office on a weekend, vacant fairgroundsâ"an emotional afterimage that makes it seem not just empty but hyper-empty, with a total population in the negative, who are so conspicuously absent they glow like neon signs." Or perhaps the feeling we have on a dark starless night on the ocean, when all we can percieve is our own existence, and an immense depth of potential we are just barely penetrating the surface of. You feel the life of untold mysterious creatures below you, and feel absolutely alone and singular in the immensity all at the same time.
Like an empty canvas, but painted in a way where that canvas feels more like whatever a potential universe is formed from.
To me, that is -- if I am successful -- the best way to start with kindergartners. What we feel, what we see didn't exist yet but you can feel its potential all the same.
In order to not interfere with cosmology or religion we start as abstract as possible, with only the theatrical and physical elements needed to set the stage when there really can be no physical stage.
Moo (Score:1)
over the deep face of the depths.
"deep" fits neither the words nor the context.
"depths" It says water, not depths.
Re: (Score:2)
I agree, Genesis makes a very explicit distinction between the deep and water. I'm admittedly taking figurative license that an ocean and a depth can often describe the same thing.
In the next part I go further in the concept of water being an allusion for chaos when i talk about the separation of the waters from the waters. At that point Genesis tries (in my opinion) to move from an allusion of cosmic chaos as "waters" and the waters the allusion was built on, the waters we actually experience.
I'm trying t