Robert Barron | – Understanding Genesis: Creation


Friends, in today’s episode of “The Word on Fire Show,” we begin a five-part series of discussions on the book of Genesis. Our first episode focuses on the Creation story.

Genesis is of course the first book in the Bible and perhaps the most foundational, but it’s also the source of so much confusion. We clarify what the author is intending to convey and the theological and spiritual truths we can pull from the narrative.

A listener asks, how do I start mental prayer, especially if I’m always distracted?

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About The Author

Bishop Robert Barron These are brief and insightful commentaries on faith and culture by Catholic theologian and author Bishop Robert Barron. The videos complement his weekly sermons posted and podcasted at WordOnFire.org.

Comment (35)

  1. This is just my opinion but I think the most important question to ask is where did Moses get his information? I mean nothing survives from that world and our only connection to that world is Noah and his sons.

  2. Bishop, just wanted to share for any thoughts you may have on Venerable Sister Mary of Agreda, a seventeenth-century Spanish nun in her book “The Mystical City of God” on her account of Creation. She received many visions of heaven and the afterlife (she also reportedly bilocated) and says that at Creation, as told in Genesis, the earth was created with space for hell and purgatory in the middle of it, with the middle of the earth indeed full of fiery molten rock and lava. And at the moment God said “let there be light” there was the creation of the angels endowed with beauty, intellect, will, and numerous other graces, and mentions other fascinating details about Mary, and Adam & Eve, in her account.

  3. I prayed a special prayer for someone passing through hard times, a hard time which seem to be mental, financially and emotionally damaging. I pray for this person reading this, that God will come to your rescue, wipe your tears and restore you whole in Jesus name. Amen

  4. In the beginning, God created the world. Adam was created and then Eve. Satan, the murderer from the beginning prexisted Adam and Eve. The Devil came before them. Who else or how else would they've been tempted? So before Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit, Lucifer/Satan/Devil sinned against God. It's where this comes from:

    " How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations "

    The question is: What nations? If by nations, we mean countries of humans, there aren't any at this point on the time line. Adam and Eve didn't populate the earth with people that could be called nations.

    Just understand, common Christian understanding sees Lucifer as the Devil and isn't talking about the King of Tyre or some earthly King. He's seen as a former exalted angel who when he sinned turned into the devil.

    So the Devil is in the Garden of Eden, after his fall from heaven beginning to tempt Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve bore no children prior to the temptation of eating the forbidden fruit. So, no nations yet. Yet Lucifers fall "weakened the nations."

    So if this is all supposed to be sequential, the time lines are messed up.

    When the Devil fell from heaven to earth, there weren't any nations yet established for him to weaken. Adam and Eve didn't even start reproducing at that point

  5. It often seems this comes from a place of belief first then interpretation. Which is fine if you admit that is the case but to then sit and go through these stories discussing them like they can be explained logically is not. I'm not closed to Christianity, infact I think it's what we need at the moment and I'm trying my best with it. But it's frustrating to me that Christians won't admit that the fact these passages are open to interpretation is a real problem. I'm not saying these interpretations are wrong I'm asking where does this certainty come from? Why not admit we can never really know!?

  6. Wow, good information here Bishop, thank you. I'm amazed how I recall a sermon from Fr. Chineyne regarding why Catholics go to mass on Sunday.. He said something to the effect that we don't go for God, that God does not need us and simply it is (meaning Sunday Mass) is for our good, the good of mankind and the rest of creation.

  7. God is in Heaven > God is outside of everything
    The story of Creation is the Truth > The story of Creation is only Saga

    Keep pushing God and his Word further away from our understanding or how we relate to Him and we will soon read God and his Word as mere mythology.

    Maybe focus on that Jesus, God actually came among us to teach us how to love and follow Him. Why put any effort into trying to decipher what the old testament jews had to say about God when he actually came and preached his Word and we have the New Testament to follow AND we have science that can clarify everything that is related to the story of creation. Even science is a blessing from the skies, believe it or not. We don't have to be anti-science to believe in God and that he has given us the opportunity to learn out how we came to be.

  8. Thank for reference to Dei Verbum. I shall look it up. I’d like to ask if Genesis is Theological saga, might I not read the Gospel of Mark as similar gendre: that Jesus is a mythical angle placed in character story to make it easier to understand. Mark is powerful narrative with wonderful revelation of Good News. But I can no more see Mark as history than I can see Genesis 1 and 2.

  9. You can't say "God is not another thing in the universe" in one breath and then in the next insist on things like God wants a personal relationship with us, prayer has an actual impact on the world, there have been real miracles in history, etc., all of which require God to be a thing in the universe that impacts our real world existence. That's trying to have it both ways.

  10. To all Catholics watching this – you may believe in the literal interpretation of Genesis same as the other three senses of Scripture. It is not a matter of salvation, so don’t be concerned if others believe in the modern evolutionary model.

    Yes I believe in Genesis literally precisely because of its power as a mythological saga as Bishop Barron refers to. The most powerful saga is one that literally happened.

    If you disagree, that’s fine. But I caution that once you explain away one portion of the Bible as a mythological saga, it becomes a real temptation to explain more and more of it in those terms.

  11. I'm confused. If Genesis is not to be taken literally, then it is wrong to interpret Paul as saying sin literally entered the world through the man Adam. Original sin is therefore a literary device. No sane God would require the real blood sacrifice of an innocent human to atone for it. For consistency, should the resurrection story be treated the same as Genesis – an instructive "theological myth"?

  12. If the universe is all that exists, then god is part of it. If the universe needs a creator then so does god. Atheists have a very difficult question to face – Why is there something rather than nothing? Believers have an extra, more difficult question to face – Why is there a god rather than no god?

  13. Thank you thank you. Bishop's explanation is so inspiring. I never understand that deep. "God rested on the 7th day is to savor the good… " If I follow Jesus on earth, I also like to take rest to savor / taste the good's around me. How much joy it is . Thank you once again. God bless.

  14. Just think about the story of the flood, and how the names of the people in the bible referred to kinds of people in our historical past, not exactly individuals or cultures or civilizations, but kinds of people. Now think about the meaning of the name Noah, it means tranquility. A people of the kind of tranquility, a people defined by tranquility survived the great flood. Now think about the flood, a wave devastation by means of water. Water is described as a chaotic force, chaos is when the known world is perceived to be under threat by the unknown. Now think about what led up to the flood, the existence of the Nephilim, the Nephilim are children of the sons of God(an artistic choice for the followers of God but really they are the descendants or you could think of them as the derivatives of Seth) and the daughters of Cain(Cain was exiled, he was a sinner, but he was protected by God and the femininity of "daughters" is meant to refer to how chaos is feminine.) So a people who correctly followed God mixed with people who did not(Cain did worship God rightly and that's what led to his jealousy of Able), their children were sort of tainted by the practices of the people who did not follow God rightly, tainted in how children mature by copying their parents. And since the two kinds of people bread with each other and not among themselves the Nephilim came to be the average/dominant kind of person in humanity and there were no longer any sons of God, or people who followed God rightly. And you could think of following God rightly as the recipe for success and a meaningful life, so no one followed the recipe, so the world that these "children" grew up in (the known world) was perceived to come under threat by the world they were turning it into, unknowing of the falseness of their ways they had learned from their parents. The world was becoming a place where their sacrifices to God were unanswered and they didn't know why, just like with Cain. And that's the unkown, their ignorance(the unkown) was a threat to the world they grew up in(the known world).

    A lot of this I have synthesized from listening to Jordan Peterson and confirming those ideas from people like Bishop Barron and Fr. Mike Schmitz, but not all of this has been confirmed, the parts that haven't been confirmed I've sort of read between the lines. I think this is the correct interpretation of the story of the flood, but be skeptical of it cuz I'm no priest or bishop or theologian.

  15. Love that you're doing this episode, Bishop and Mr. Vogt! Thank you, both !
    Great dialogue, no doubt.
    I've always love the story of creation because it shows the Unselfishness of God.He didn't have to create this world and everything in it, but he did.

    He savored/enjoyed the beauty of all his creations, but that's also the sad part when the Serpent destroyed that " savoring moment".It made me sad whenever I meditate on this part because after enjoying/savoring the greatness of his work, the hard and painful work awaits…..to become one of what he created and suffered in the very hands of his creations.Just heartbreaking! 🙁
    Love all your explanation , Bishop and looking forward to part 2 of this Genesis discussion.

    Thankfully,
    Linda Worsham

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