Lord, inspire us to read your Sacred Scriptures and to meditate upon them day and night. We beg you give us real understanding

of what we need, that we in turn may put its precepts into practice. Yet we know that understanding and good intentions are worthless, unless rooted in your graceful love. So we ask

that the words of Scripture may also be not just signs on a page, but channels of grace into our hearts. We ask this through Our

Lord Jesus christ your son, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy spiritk, One God forever and ever. Amen

St. Thomas Aquinas: Prayer before Study Creator of all things, true Source of light and wisdom, lofty origin of all being,

graciously let a ray of Your brilliance penetrate into the darkness of my understanding and take from me the double darkness in which I have been born,

an obscurity of both sin and ignorance. Give me a sharp sense of understanding, a retentive memory, and the ability to grasp things correctly and fundamentally.

Grant me the talent of being exact in my explanations, and the ability to express myself with thoroughness and charm.

Point out the beginning, direct the progress, and help in completion; through Christ our Lord.

Amen. St. Thomas Aquinas

Follow up from last week

Question: When was hell created? I consulted Monsignor Cihak and…

When was hell created? Day 1 on creation when God separated the light from the darkness. This is when the angels are made, and followers of Lucifer fall from grace (darkness). And Day 4 which populates the spaces of light and dark, the heavenly bodies represent the physical world—planets and stars. But the stars are also a reference to the angels and we have reference again to the from Revelation chapter 12:3-5

Illustration, Bergsma. Pitre A Catholic Intro to the Bible O.T. Ignatius Press 2018

“And another sign appeared in heaven; behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems upon his heads. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, that he might devour her child when she brought it forth; she brought forth a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne…”

However until Jesus’ crucifixion, there was not a hell of the dammed for human souls. There was a place of the dead, Shoal. And when Jesus dies, He splits the light from the dark (similar in language to the first Creation but here Jesus is re-creating everything) and at that point, hell is for the dammed and Heaven is for the children of God.

Genesis 2 & 3

Genesis The Second Creation StoryGenesis 2:4a marks a literary “seam” or a literary “joint.”

Genesis 2:4b begins “The Second Creation Story”

Where Genesis 1 -Genesis 2:4a gives a big overview of the cosmos, The Second Creation Story give an up close look at the main characters, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden

Genesis 2:4b begins “In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens….” This does not denote time, it’s a Hebrew idiom meaning “when.”

The Garden of EdenThe most sacred estate within the cosmic Temple of the world (The Holy of Holies of the cosmos world) Where God Communes with mankind.Eden represents a state of Grace & Man is created outside the garden and placed there by God-elevated from a natural state to a blessed state.

Mountain or mountain top with rivers flowing out and down from it

“The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till and keep it” Gen 2:15

Hahn, Mitch, Genesis Notes, Ignatius Catholic Study Bible

“The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till and keep it” Gen 2:15

1st creation account—vegetation and animals are created before man while the second creation account shows us that man was created first then plants and animals. (No discrepancy here) This accounts for the beginning of “agriculture,” where there were animals and vegetation prior to man, but “no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no barb of the field had yet sprung up” Gen 2:4b.

The animals that the Lord presents to man are intended to be “helpers” “So out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man….” (sharks and vultures are not potential helpers but dogs and horses are potential helpers to man).

Agriculture begins. Adam is a farmer.

Agricultural Themes of Genesis 2 Gen 2:5 no farmers of cultivated plants in the beginning “when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up…”

Gen 2:8 God plants a garden, “And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed.”

Gen 2:9 “Domestic” trees (good for food) are created. “And out of the group the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food…”

Gen 2:10 Rivers for irrigation flow from Eden

Gen 2:15 “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.”

Gen 2:19 God creates domestic animals “potential helpers” for Adam. “So out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field…and brought them to the man…”

Pitre, Brant James . A Catholic Introduction to the Bible: The Old Testament (p. 161). Ignatius Press. Kindle Edition.

“The LORD God then took the man and put him in the garden of Eden, to till it and keep it” (Gn 2:15). According to Rabbinic tradition, the temple is the mirror of creation and therefore Adam was considered a priest with priestly duties. To “keep” the garden can be understood as guarding the garden, like the priests guarded the sanctuary. Eden is a holy sanctuary and Adam’s job is to till and keep it—a work perfectly suited to him.

Guarding the garden, however, implies that there is something to guard it from. In fact, this enemy is revealed in Chapter 3. The serpent from the third chapter of Genesis is identified in Revelation as the huge dragon, Satan (Rev 12:1). The Hebrew word, “Nahash,” which is used for “snake,” is also refers to “a draconic sea serpent that represents opposition to the Lord.” There was a dangerous enemy to keep out of the garden.

Jesus did not shrink from His encounter with the devil to save His bride the way that Adam did. Jesus was willing to die for His bride—something that Adam was not willing to do. Rather Adam blamed Eve.

Nature of Man“The LORD God formed man [Hebrew ādām] of dust from the ground [Hebrew ‘adāmāh], and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Gen 2:7). The Hebrew for “formed” is the word yātzar, which is commonly used of pottery and the work of a potter, giving rise to the common image in the Scriptures and tradition of God as a potter forming Adam from the clay of the earth.” Pitre, Brant James . A

Catholic Introduction to the Bible: The Old Testament (p. 161). Ignatius Press. Kindle Edition.

Human beings are a composite of body and soul.

We were not originally created for death. It’s not natural for us

Adam and Eve were endowed with “preternatural gifts,” 1.Infused Knowledge 2.Immortality 3.Integrity (human appetites being completely submitted to the human intellect)

As well as the “supernatural gift” of sanctifying grace we call 4. Original Righteousness

The four gifts correspond to the four Cardinal Virtues: 1.Prudence (relating to knowledge) 2.Fortitude (relating to immortality) 3.Temperance (relating to integrity) 4.Justice (relating to original righteousness)

Through sin, humanity lost the preternatural gifts and the supernatural gift and fell to a natural state. Man’s intellect became darkened, he became subject to disease and death, concupiscence or the “lust of the flesh” arose in man, and he lost his original righteousness and thus gained original sin.

Our First Parents were a “Holy People” (a couple) in a “Holy Land” (Eden). Their holiness

was manifest in a fourfold harmony

between themselves and nature

between body and soul (no shame—perfect spiritual, intellectual, and material integration)

between each other (one flesh)

between themselves and their Creator

Dauphins & Levering, Holy People, Holy Land 2005 Brazos Press pg 31

Image & Likeness—Adoption & CovenantGen 1:26 “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”

Image—Ancient Near East emperors placed their images in different places within their realms to represent their authority—So we infer that the sacred author is denoting God’s authority within mankind who is made in God’s image. “Man is the representative of God’s royalty on earth and the bearer of God’s authority. He is a divine vice-regent”

Image and Likeness—the language of sonship. What kind? Adoptive Sonship. Adoptive sonship in antiquity was established through adoption. We see a covenant form between God and the First Couple.

Bergsma, Pitre. A Catholic introduction to the Bible volume 1, Ignatius press 2018.