Genesis 1:2 - Invisibility

To state again, I believe Genesis 1 is referring to the Atonement ritual. In the Bible Atonement and creation are the same things.

Genesis 1:2, in the Hebrew, says that the earth had become chaos and vacant. The prophet Jeremiah, in Jeremiah 4:23, also saw the earth become chaos and vacant. He offers a clue about what is going on in Genesis. In Jeremiah 4:22, he says that what has brought about the chaos and waste is the people's foolishness and lack of understanding and wisdom. The people have not known God. They know how to do evil, but they don't know how to do good. Isaiah 34:11 also notes chaos and vacancy. Isaiah notes that this chaos and vacancy has been caused by bloodshed.

Chaos and vacant in Hebrew are "tohu and bohu". These words are pretty much synonymous and can be translated as "chaos", "desolation", "wasteland", "emptiness", "empty/unreal/a place of idols", "vanity/vain", "futile", "void", with an implicit understanding of evil.

Interestingly the Septuagint says that the earth was "invisible and unformed". Hebrews 11:1-3 says that "what is seen was not made out of what was visible."

2 Enoch states:

Before anything existed at all, from the very beginning, whatever is I created from non-being, and from the invisible things into the visible.Before any visible things had come into existence, and the light had not yet opened up, I, in the midst of the light, moved around in the invisible things, like one of them, as the sun moves around from east to west and from west to east. But the sun has rest; yet I did not find rest, because everything was not yet created. And I thought up the idea of establishing a foundation, to create a visible creation (Charlesworth, 1983, 143)

The "invisible" is the Kingdom of Heaven.

New hypothesis...Genesis 1:1-2 should be translated like this, "With Wisdom God created the Heavens and Earth, and the Earth was invisible and darkness was on the Abyss and the Spirit of God fluttered/hovered on the Waters." I'm, of course, not going for a direct translation from anything, I'm trying to understand how Jesus and the first Christians understood this text.

In Genesis 1:2 the creation is still unseen and invisible. Is the temple the Earth? The Temple in Jewish mythology was understood to be/represent the Earth. It was buried in chaos, waste, void, waters, the deep, the Abyss, human violence and the Flood, but it will emerge, even though it is still unseen. What is being described in Genesis 1 is not a geologic or biological creation. It has nothing to do with evolution or the big bang. If I am understanding this all correctly I should be able to find a lot of New Testament support.

Creation and Atonement

Genesis begins like this, "With Wisdom God created the heavens and the earth, the earth had become formless and void and darkness covered the abyss and the spirit of God moved over the waters. Then God said 'Let Him be light, and He was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness."

My hypothesis is that Genesis 1:1-4 should be translated something similar to this. So I've narrowed the focus, but there is a lot there to unravel and decipher. Tremendous symbolism that needs to be discovered. There's a second part of my hypothesis and that is that these verses are related to the Great Day of Atonement and Jesus Christ. That in fact what these verses are describing is the atonement ritual. Method: to find verses throughout the Old and New Testaments, rabbinical writings and any other writings that will illuminate this text. I'm sure I'll need to make quite extensive use of the works of Rene Girard and Margaret Barker. I've discussed and researched this previously, but this time I'll try to work at it till I get the last drop of meaning out of it. We have some verses and things to talk about for next time, just need to get organized.

Please discuss or cite possibly relevant verses.