7. According to the Bible, how does God manifest himself in nature?

8. List the seven points of the Bible's teaching on creation.

9. What does the word "in the beginning" mean?

10. What does the name of God, Elohim, mean?

11. What is the meaning of the words "heaven and earth"?

12. What does the Bible refer to Chaos, and how does the Bible's concept of Chaos differ from pagan concepts?

13. Why are anthropomorphic expressions used in the Six Days?

14. Why does God give names to natural phenomena in the Six Days?

15. What is the meaning of the biblical "day"?

16. Point out the features of the composition of the Six Days.

17. What is the relationship between the Six Days and science?

18. What do the words "let us make" and "in our image" mean?

19. What is the image of God in man according to the Six Days?

20. Describe the patristic teaching about Adam.

21. What does divine "rest" mean?

22. What is the spiritual significance of the Sabbath?

Appendix to §17

1. Fragments from the Babylonian cosmogonic poem "Enuma elish"

In 1920, the German Assyriologist F. Delitzsch (see §10, 3) in his book The Great Deception tried to prove that all the basic ideas of the Old Testament were borrowed from Babylon and that the Bible's teaching on creation depends entirely on the Babylonian cosmogony. Whether this opinion is true can be concluded from the following texts:

When the sky above is not named, And the dry land below was nameless, Apsu the firstborn, the all-creator, Foremother Tiamat, who gave birth to everything, Their waters mixed together. There were no reed pens then, There were no reeds to be seen, Nothing is named, nothing is marked by fate.

Further, it is narrated how the World Ocean (Apsu and Tiamat, fresh and salt waters) gave birth to the gods. Their noise disturbed the peace of the ancestors. And they heeded the advice to destroy the young gods. Then the god of wisdom Eya put Apsu to sleep and killed him. Then he built himself a palace, where he conceived the god of the spring sun, Marduk, from the waters of the slain Apsu. The sky god Anu began to disturb the foremother Tiamat with his winds. She decided to avenge her husband Apsu. But Marduk promised the gods to defeat her on the condition that they recognize him as king. With the consent of the gods, Marduk went out to fight Tiamat.