WiderBible

For the background of the story of Atlantis, see here. For the full text of Timaeus and Critias see here and here respectively. For more about Solon, the Athenian statesman, see here. For more about Plato, see here. For connecting the “Pillars of Hercules” with the modern Strait of Gibraltar, see here.

Plato says the island was 3000 stadia long by 2000 stadia wide. If you assume the island was elliptical, that gives it an area of 62,000 - 92,000 square miles (depending on the length of the stadia), or somewhere around the size of the island of Great Britain. For the size of Atlantis according to Plato, see here. For the size of Great Britain, see here. For the conversion between stadia and feet, see this definition.

For the location of the capitol of Atlantis relative to the shore, Critias states that the channel running from the shore to the capitol city was 50 stadia. According to this definition, a Greek stadia varied between 607 and 738 feet making the canal 5.75 to 7 miles long.

Critias states that the outer wall was covered in brass, and the middle wall in tin, but it says the inner wall “flashed with the red light of orichalcum.” According to the story, orichalcum was dug out of the earth and was more precious than anything except gold. If it existed, no one knows what orichalcum was. Since the other walls were covered in protective metal, the inner wall probably was too, but that’s speculation. For the references to orichalcum in Critias, see here.

For more on the Hyperboreans, see here. For more on Herodotus, see here.

For the mythological background of Lyonesse, the lost city, see here.

For the French lost city of Ys, see here and here.

Originally the story of El Dorado, or “the gilded one” was was about a ruler in South America who covered himself in gold dust before rinsing in a lake while his subjects threw in jewels and golden objects. Over time the story turned into a tale about a country of gold. The story of El Dorado is recent enough that we still have some details of how it developed over time, and it gives us some insight into how stories change when they are told and embellished. For more on El Dorado, see here.

For more on Francisco de Orellana, see here. His tales of the female warriors he met on the expedition ultimately led to the region being named after the warrior women from Greek mythology, the Amazons, as mentioned here.

For more on recent discoveries of the civilization that used to live in the Amazon basin, see here as well as comments on pg. 173, here about extensive roadways and canals.

Modern scholars think Plato made up everything about Atlantis as a way of illustrating his philosophy. It doesn’t help that Plato is the only source for any references to Atlantis. For the origin of the Atlantis story, see here and here. For more on Plato and Atlantis, see here.

Depending on who you ask, the word “Eden” might be from a Mesopotamian word for “plain,” as in the “Great Plains,” or from a couple of Hebrew words that mean “bliss” or “delight.” For more on the etymology, see Barker, K. L. (2002) NIV Study Bible. Genesis 2:8, note. Zondervan.

For details on the Euphrates, see Barker, K. L. (2002) NIV Study Bible. Genesis 2:14, note. Zondervan. and Horn, S. H. (1979). In The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Dictionary (pp. 345–346). Review and Herald Publishing Association.

For lack of further mentions of “Pishon” elsewhere in the Bible, see Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1978). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 1, p. 224). Review and Herald Publishing Association.

For “Pishon” meaning “gusher” see see Barker, K. L. (2002) NIV Study Bible. Genesis 2:11, note. Zondervan.

For references to “Havilah,” see Horn, S. H. (1979). In The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Dictionary (p. 464). Review and Herald Publishing Association.

What “onyx” was in the Bible isn’t really clear, but it was used as a gem in the Jewish High Priest’s garments. For more, see Horn, S. H. (1979). In The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Dictionary (p. 815). Review and Herald Publishing Association.

It’s unclear if the bdellium mentioned in Havilah is the same as the bdellium mentioned by the Roman Naturalist Pliny the Elder. In Pliny’s day, bdellium came from India, Arabia, and Persia, but destruction and rearrangement during the Flood in Genesis 8 means that today’s geography probably bears little resemblance to the “Havilah” mentioned in this part of Genesis. Later in the Bible, Manna is compared to bdellium (Numbers 11:7). For more information, see Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1978). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 1, p. 224). Review and Herald Publishing Association, Easton, M. G. (1893). In Easton’s Bible dictionary. New York: Harper & Brothers., as well as here and here.

For “Gihon” meaning “spurter,” see Barker, K. L. (2002) NIV Study Bible. Genesis 2:13, note. Zondervan.

For more on the Gihon spring outside Jerusalem (not the same as the river from the Garden of Eden) see Horn, S. H. (1979). In The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Dictionary (p. 420). Review and Herald Publishing Association.

For the location of “Cush” see Horn, S. H. (1979). In The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Dictionary (p. 420). Review and Herald Publishing Association.

If you look at the quote about the Pishon and Gihon in Genesis 2:10-14, they may have been “lost” rivers even when Genesis was written. Both the Pishon and Gihon “flowed” (past tense), while the Tigris “flows.”

For possible locations of the Pishon and Gihon, see Barker, K. L. (2002) NIV Study Bible. Genesis 2:11, note and Genesis 2:13, note. Zondervan.

For details about Josephus, see here.

For Josephus thinking the Pishon was the Ganges, see here.

For alternative suggestions about the locations of the Pishon and Gihon, see Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1978). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 1, p. 224). Review and Herald Publishing Association.

For a map of the Tigris and Euphrates river system, see here.

For the river formed by the last 120 miles of the Tigris and Euphrates, where they merge before reaching the Persian Gulf, see here.

For a map of the Tigris and Euphrates, see here.

The verse in Genesis states that the Tigris flowed east of Assyria. This is referring to the Tigris as it exists now, and the Assyrian empire as it existed around three-thousand years ago. This river bed is probably not the same as the one flowing from Eden but for one reason or another, it had the same name after the Flood. For a map of the Assyrian empire, see here.

Actually, if you dig into the names a of the rivers a little bit more, the four rivers were originally called the Pishon, Gihon, Hiddegel, and Perat. If we didn’t have a paper trail through history showing that “Hiddegel” was later called “Idiglat” and the “Idiglat” was later named the “Tigris,” or, that the “Perat,” or “great river,” was called the “Uruttu” for a while before being renamed the “Euphrates,” then we would have lost track of all the rivers Genesis describes and wouldn’t have the names of any of them on our maps today. For the various names the Tigris and Euphrates have used through history, see Bauer, Susan Wise. The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome (Kindle Locations 14608-14611). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.

Genesis 2:8 says that God planted Eden “in the east,” but what this means is unclear. Since Moses lived around the Sinai peninsula, this would probably be a reference to a location to the east of where he was writing, or around what we think of as Mesopotamia. We don’t know what led Moses to say that’s where the Garden of Eden used to be. With the rearranging of the Earth during the Flood, the location was either based upon tradition or given to Moses by divine revelation. Since the post-Flood civilization began in Mesopotamia, people may have thought that Noah’s ark grounded on a mountain near where it started, and that it’s starting place was near where the Garden of Eden used to be, but this is speculation.

For the traditional location of the Garden of Eden near where the Tigris and Euphrates meet, see Barker, K. L. (2002) NIV Study Bible. Genesis 2:8, note. Zondervan.

Why river names were chosen 4500 years ago is speculation, but I wonder if marketing had something to do with it. If you had the story of a place that used to exist that was famous for its gold, gems, and perfume, you might name your new colony that just to gain the reputation. It’s a little like calling the place “Greenland” rather than “Snow-and-glacier-land.” The same thing could be said of the freshwater spring outside Jerusalem. Perhaps they were just calling it a “spurter,” but maybe they also wanted people to think their water was just as good as the water that used to flow from the Garden of Eden.

For the evidence of large animals listed below, some of them would have been fossilized after the Flood rather than during it, so we don’t know if their large size was due to adaptations to conditions after the Flood or representative of how large they had been in the world before the Flood.

For the timeline of when the giant dragonfly (technically griffinfly) fossil was discovered, see here, for the location, see here, and for the wingspan, see here. For the wingspan of the largest modern dragonfly, see here.

The sea turtle that was about 12 feet long can be found here, though this says 11 feet. Even so, the largest example of Archelon is in Vienna, and it measures about 15 feet from tip to tail according to this article. This appears to be a pre-Flood fossil based on reference in the Britannica article (linked above) to the Cretaceous and an alignment between those ages and a creationist model found here.

For the recent discovery of large penguin leg bones, see this article that references the paper found here which is said to come from Paleocene strata that would be during the middle of the Flood according to creationist chart here.

For the discovery of the bones of the large bird at the Charleston Airport in 1983 and images of the recreated skeleton along with the silhouette of a human for scale and a claim that the bird comes from the Eocene, see here. That site gives the wing span as 20-24 feet, but the paper here lists 6.4m which is just under 21 feet as an estimate along with claiming the bones are from the Oligocene era. For comparison, the largest living bird, given here, is a type of albatross with a confirmed wingspan of 3.63m or just under 12 feet. The creationist chart here gives both the Eocene and Oligocene as occurring during the time the waters of the Flood were receding.

For the dinosaur skeleton found in the American Museum of Natural History, see here that gives a length of 122 feet and 2017 as the year it was named. For the femur being over seven feet long, see here where the length is given as 2.38 meters. Both of those sources put the find as old enough to be in the middle Flood period according to the creationist chart here.

For a recent dinosaur that, as a of 2016, contends for the largest ever found, see articles here and here.

In this whole discussion of the fossils we find of animals before the Flood, it’s important to remember that the animals we reconstruct are based on incomplete information. We could have fossils of the whole skeleton of one animal, while for another we’re extrapolating from only a few small parts. It’s hard to know. Given this uncertainty, the conclusions we draw about their size, let alone their lifestyle and habits, should be taken with a grain of salt.

For the original vegetarian diet of both people and animals, see Barker, K. L. (2002) NIV Study Bible. Genesis 1:29-30, note. Zondervan.

For examples of large tree species, see here.

For facts on the General Sherman and other sequoias, see here, here, and here.

For petrified wood in Ecuador, see here.

For petrified wood in Greece, see here.

For a list of US sites with petrified wood, see here.

For a petrified forest in Germany, see here.

For a petrified forest in New South Wales, Australia, see here.

For evidence of tall trees in Utah, see here.

For the size of trees in Florissant, Colorado, see here.

For petrified trees in Argentina, see here.

For heights of trees that used to exist in Thailand, see here.

The suggestion that these forests were extensive in the world Eden was a part of is speculation. It’s hard to make a clear case for the extent of ancient forests or the sizes of trees that were in them. We have some evidence of large trees in different places around the world, but the data is limited and there is no clear evidence that the trees were bigger than ones we have today, only that the world Eden was a part of may have had an environment that supported growing big trees in more places based on how the fossils are spread out around the world.

For the dimensions of the Statue of Liberty, see here.

The fact that Adam and Eve had to eat from the Tree of Life in order to live forever is clear from Genesis 3:22. Some commentators see this as a measure of faith, that Adam and Eve had to look to something external, to some gift of God, for life. Immortality wasn’t an intrinsic part of their nature. For more, see Easton, M. G. (1893). In Easton’s Bible dictionary. New York: Harper & Brothers.

There isn’t a lot of information on the Tree of Life in the Bible. There are some references here in Genesis (Genesis 2:9, some in Proverbs (Proverbs 11:30, Proverbs 13:12) where it is used metaphorically, and some in Revelation (Revelation 22:1-2) that describes the Tree of Life on a new Earth. I assumed the "new" Tree of Life in Revelation is the same, or at least very similar, to the original Tree of Life discussed in Genesis.

For more on the Garden of the Hesperides, see this article about Pausanias and here for what Pausanias wrote.

At first glance, it might not seem like the Babylonian cylinder of a Palm tree is a picture of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, but look at the whole picture here before you decide.

For more on the “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil” depicted as a Mulberry tree in Chinese history, see Nelson, E.R., Broadberry, R.E. (1997) God’s Promise to the Chinese. (pg. 36).

For the timelines of Moses, Isaiah, and Ezekiel, see “Moses,” “Isaiah,” and “Ezekiel” in Easton, M. G. (1893). In Easton’s Bible dictionary. New York: Harper & Brothers.

One opinion about the passage in Isaiah suggests that Isaiah (and perhaps Ezekiel as well) is just using figurative language to refer to human kings (see Barker, K. L. (2002) NIV Study Bible. Isaiah 14:12-15, note and Ezekiel 28:12-19, notes. Zondervan.). On the other hand, Christians were already interpreting the Isaiah passage as referring to something more significant than an analogy before 300 AD. For more, see Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1977). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 4, p. 675). Review and Herald Publishing Association. as well as here. For a fuller discussion of the question, see From Lucifer to Satan.

The gems Ezekiel lists as covering the “guardian cherub” are 9 of the 12 jewels used for the Jewish high priest (Exodus 28:17-20 and Exodus 39:8-14), emphasizing the closeness that once existed between Lucifer and God in heaven. For more, see Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1977). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 4, p. 676). Review and Herald Publishing Association.

I gave a paraphrase of the passage from Ezekiel. If you want the text word-for-word, see Ezekiel 28:12-17.

In the paraphrase of Ezekiel 28:13, I left out the phrase, “You were in Eden, the Garden of God.” This would seem to make a pretty good argument for connecting this story of the origin of evil to the Garden of Eden, but at least one commentary suggests the phrase should be symbolic of heaven due to context and the fact that the angel was still perfect. I can see it both ways. Ezekiel might be referring to heaven, since the angel was dressed in gems, or he could be making a side comment about where the angel would soon be (i.e. the angel would later be in Eden) to help the audience know who was being described. I left the comment out to avoid confusing things too much. For specifics, see Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1977). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 4, pp. 675–676). Review and Herald Publishing Association.

For a sense of how close this angel once was to God, the phrase “guardian cherub” brings to mind the cherubs that were set over the Ark of the Covenant, God’s throne on Earth, in the Jewish Temple. Ezekiel is saying that this being was one of those cherubs, right next to the throne of God, in heaven. See Nichol, The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 4, p. 675). Review and Herald Publishing Association.

To get a better idea of how bright Lucifer was, note that the same name, “light bearer” is used to describe Christ in 2 Peter 1:19. John also refers to Christ this way in Revelation 22:16. This gives a sense of how high Lucifer was in heaven and how close he was to God. For more, see Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1977). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 4, pp. 170–171). Review and Herald Publishing Association.

For more on the “mountain” analogy from Isaiah and the Babylonian myth about a mountain in the north, see Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1977). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 4, p. 171). For Ezekiel, see The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol 4, p. 675). Review and Herald Publishing Association. You can also see this idea in Psalms 48:2.

The “trade” referenced in Ezekiel 28:16 refers to trading in goods or in words (slandering). If the passage is taken as referring to the king of Tyre, trading in “goods” fits. If it is taken as referring to the guardian cherub in heaven, the definition of “slander” seems to fit better. For more, see Andrews Study Bible (2010) Ezekiel 28:16, note.

As evidence that Lucifer’s ultimate rebellion was more than just himself, you can see references in see 2 Peter 2:4 and Jude 6 to other angels. Revelation 12:4 makes reference to a dragon sweeping a third of the stars from heaven, leading some to suspect that a full third of the angels in heaven followed Lucifer and were expelled with him, while others think it refers symbolically to the Romans taking away Jewish kingship, one of the three branches of their government. For more, see Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1980). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 7, pp. 809–810). Review and Herald Publishing Association.

While it is literally true that God made the devil, it’s more accurate to say that God made a perfect angel, and by choice, that angel changed into the devil on his own. For more, see Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1977). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 4, p. 675). Review and Herald Publishing Association.

For some background on Jewish theories about where the lights came from on Day 1 and Day 4, see here.

For God being light, see 1 John 1:5 and for God giving light in the New Jerusalem, see Revelation 21:23.

For Egyptian sun worship details, see here and here.

For Babylonian connections to moon worship, see references in Bauer, Susan Wise. The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome . W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition. Locations 1995 and 2385 - 2404.

Whether Babylon provides the earliest examples of astrology is unclear. It does provide very early examples. See more, here.

For the Babylonian use of stars for astrology, God did say the stars were to be used for “signs,” but this wasn’t a reference to human destinies as both Jeremiah and Isaiah make clear. For more see Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1978). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 1, pp. 212–213). Review and Herald Publishing Association.

For more on the background of astrology, see here.

For God naming things during creation, see Barker, K. L. (2002) NIV Study Bible. Genesis 1:5, note. Zondervan.

For Calvin and Luther’s idea that the fish and birds were created at the same time because they are related, see Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1978). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 1, p. 214). Review and Herald Publishing Association.

For the different words regarding “life” that Moses used to describe plants and animals, see Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1978). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 1, p. 213). Review and Herald Publishing Association.

The word for “whale” also means “serpent” in Exodus 7:9, 10, 12 and “dragon” in Isaiah 51:9 and Ezekiel 29:3. In this reference in Genesis it could be referring to a “sea creature” as in Pslams 148:7. From Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1978). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 1, p. 214). Review and Herald Publishing Association.

For the association between the Hebrew word for “creatures of the sea” and the local legends, see Barker, K. L. (2002) NIV Study Bible. Genesis 1:21, note. Zondervan.

For more on the Canaanite part-man-part-fish god, see Horn, S. H. (1979). In The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Dictionary (p. 257). Review and Herald Publishing Association.

For more on the Canaanite religion, see sources referenced in the show notes for part 1 of this series that discusses the Baal cycle.

The first time God blessed something is after He made the fish and birds. This further emphasizes the distinction between the animal and plant worlds. For more, see Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1978). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 1, p. 214). Review and Herald Publishing Association.

For more on the categories of animals God specified at creation, see Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1978). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 1, p. 215). Review and Herald Publishing Association.

For more on Mesha and the Moabite stone, see this article.

For more on Nebuchadnezzar, see here and here.

For a timeline of ancient Persian history, see here.

For details on the Behistun inscription showing Darius, see here.

For the parallel between God creating Adam and kings creating images of themselves as monuments, see Barker, K. L. (2002) NIV Study Bible. Genesis 1:26, note. Zondervan.

For other examples in the Bible of people setting up monuments to themselves, see 1 Samuel 15:12 where King Saul did it and 2 Samuel 18:18 where Absalom did it too.

According to Genesis 2:7 and Genesis 2:19, God formed both the animals and man from the “dust of the Earth.” In Hebrew, the word use for “forming” also refers to what a potter or a goldsmith does. For more, see Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1978). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 1, p. 222). Review and Herald Publishing Association.

God declared that Adam would be made in “Our image, in Our likeness.” These “our” references are used as proof for the doctrine of the Trinity, the idea that there are three parts to God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) that are both individual and combined with one another. Here, when Moses uses the word for “God” he almost always uses the plural form while, at the same time, using the singular form of the verb. The Trinity is a pretty involved topic, and one that people tend to debate. It’s probably worth discussing at some point, but well beyond the scope of this episode. For more information see Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1978). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 1, p. 171 and p. 215). Review and Herald Publishing Association.

For a discussion of whether God gave Adam a “soul” or simply made him a “living being” see the discussion in Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1978). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 1, p. 223). Review and Herald Publishing Association.

God stopped naming after Day 3. On Day 4, as mentioned earlier, Moses only describes the sun, moon, and the stars, and on Days 5 and 6, presumably the reason God didn’t name anything is because He was reserving that right for Adam who hadn’t been created yet.

For the importance of names in ancient times, see Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1978). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 1, p. 210). Review and Herald Publishing Association.

For the practice of naming things as a sign of ownership in ancient times, see Barker, K. L. (2002) NIV Study Bible. Genesis 1:5, note. Zondervan.

For more on Columbus discovering and naming things, see here it and here.

For the English changing New Amsterdam to New York, see here. For the city’s brief tenure as New Orange, see here.

If you’re curious why we call the first man “Adam” it’s because, like me, you don’t read ancient Hebrew. In the original language, the world for dust, as in the dust God sculpted, is ‘adamah. For “man” the generic word, the word is ‘adam with a small “a” and for that first man, in English we just capitalize it. For anyone who reads Hebrew, it’s obvious that this is a story of God making the dust come alive. For more, see Andrews Study Bible (2010) Genesis 2:7, note. Andrews University Press.

After creating Adam, God declares that “they” should have “dominion.” The “they” shows that God intended from the start to make a companion for Adam and the “dominion” shows they were meant to be rulers of the world. See Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1978). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 1, p. 216). Review and Herald Publishing Association.

In Genesis 2, it talks about the land before any green plant had sprouted. Instead of a reference to a complete lack of plants, This could be talking about an absence of cultivation, the fact that no one had tilled the ground yet and there was no harvest. See Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1978). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 1, p. 222). Review and Herald Publishing Association.

For this as the only complete story of the creation of woman in the ancient near east, see Barker, K. L. (2002) NIV Study Bible. Genesis 2:18-25, note. Zondervan.

Since parts of the creation story appear in both Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, and Genesis 2 seems to have some differences, people often think they are two different creation stories. Instead, Genesis 2 is just giving more detail. The first chapter is the overview, the second chapter recaps and gives more detail on the part that deals with humans and God. For more explanation on why there seem to be two creation stories, see Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1978). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 1, pp. 221–222). Review and Herald Publishing Association.

For the idea about the rib symbolizing equality between men and women at creation, see Matthew Henry’s commentary here with notes on Genesis 2:21-25.

From the naming-equals-dominion comment given earlier, you could argue that Adam owned Eve because he named her (See Genesis 2:23 and Genesis 3: 20), but that skips over an important detail. If Adam owned Eve, Eve owned Adam too. By using a bone from Adam to symbolically graft the two of them together, they were, in effect, one person, so the ownership discussion is moot. For the naming of Eve, see Barker, K. L. (2002) NIV Study Bible. Genesis 3:20, note. Zondervan.

Ribs regrow after surgery, as noted on p. 83, here. Other common sources for bone grafting materials are from the hip and leg bones as mentioned here. In these cases, one could argue for the use of the rib given the desire to symbolize equality.

For note on why God rested on Day 7, see Barker, K. L. (2002) NIV Study Bible. Genesis 2:2, note. Zondervan.

God was done with all of creation at the end of the seventh day and it was not an ongoing process according to Hebrews 4:3 where God’s work of creation was “finished from the foundation of the world.” See also Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1978). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 1, p. 218). Review and Herald Publishing Association.

For the holiness of the seventh day, the law given at Sinai was perhaps less a statement of new ideas and more as thing to help people not forget things they were already supposed to know. Most of the commandments seem fairly obvious and direct the audience to worship one God and be a moral person in society. The 4th commandment stands out as unusual, but nonetheless important. It was recalled by Isaiah (Isaiah 66:22-23) in the Old Testament and by Luke (Luke 23:54), Matthew (Matthew 24:20) and John in the New Testament, with John noting that the commandments continue beyond the end of the current Earth (Revelation 14:7, 12). See Barker, K. L. (2002) NIV Study Bible. Genesis 2:3, note. Zondervan, and for some details and for the Sabbath as a memorial of creation, see Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1978). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 1, p. 175, p. 221). Review and Herald Publishing Association.

For the story of the manna appearing for the Israelites in the desert, see Exodus 16.

For references to manna in later Israelite history, see Psalms 78:23-25.

It’s true, the plagues in Egypt and the crossing of the Red Sea at the Exodus also would be “proof” of Moses’ God, but it would only be proof of that God’s power, not proof of the history Moses explained. The 40 years of food coming 6 days out of 7 on a continuous cycle, a miracle that lasted 4 decades and kept 2 million people alive, was the proof of the history of the 7 days of creation.

On Day 4 of creation, in Genesis 1:14 God mentions that the astronomical bodies were meant to be used as a calendar for marking off time. It’s unclear if there were “seasons” at creation the way we think of them today. At least one version of the verse suggests “appointed times” is an acceptable alternative translation. In that case, the Jews used months to figure out the “appointed times,” for their national celebrations. See Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1978). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 1, p. 213). Review and Herald Publishing Association.

One suggestion for why Moses refers to each day with the phrase “evening and morning” is that Moses was referring to the times between when God created. God finished creating, and it was an evening and a morning, and then He started creating again. That could be, but it might also just be a way of referring to a complete “day.” Daniel (Daniel 8:14) and Paul (2 Corinthians 11:25) both use similar phrases that are just translated “day.” We count days from midnight to midnight because the Romans counted things that way. In Moses’ time, and for traditional Jews still practicing today, a day began and ended at sunset. Jews count time going from evening to morning, dark to light, night to day. For more on how the Hebrews counted their days, see Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1978). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 1, p. 175, pp. 210-211). Review and Herald Publishing Association.

Weeks and months don’t quite get along. 4 weeks is 28 days but a lunar month is 29.5 days.

For the lack of cosmic cycles that could work as the origin of 7-day rhythms, see here.

Stars can be used to help with a calendar, and often were in ancient times, but they are also great for navigation, being used that way as late as the age of airplanes to navigate across open water. Details of their use in recent times can be found here.

Some might suggest the 7-day “week” came to the Jews from Babylon, but the evidence might suggest the opposite. For the uniqueness of the Jewish week in history, see this article, note 3.

The 7-day week came to the Roman empire in possibly the 2nd century BC according to this article, but the calendar we use today, including the day of rest instead of a market day, is clearly something that came from Christianity into Rome.

There’s some debate over who used a week and how long it was. [This](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309898157_Seven-day_human_biological_rhythms_An_expedition _in_search_of_their_origin_synchronization_functional_advantage_adaptive_value_and_clinical_relevance) article suggests a 5-day week for the Babylonians while the Romans used clusters of 8-days or 10-days. References cited below suggest different groupings.

For the Romans using 8 day weeks, see here.

For the Egyptian 10 day week, see p. 4, here.

For the ancient Chinese Calendar, see here.

For the Assyrian 5-day week, see here.

For comments about which days were special to the Babylonians, and them being considered “evil” see p. 177 here.

For the Babylonians using a lunar calendar, see here.

For more odd calendars in history, the Roman calendar apparently used to have only 10 normal months of about 30 days, with the rest made up as needed. The Mayan and Aztec system used 13 day weeks together with 18 different 20-day months. The Chinese calendar used 30 day months and normal years, but included six 60-day “cycles,” essentially pairs of months, in the system. For more see here and here.

For effects of the circadian rhythm, see here and here.

For Cicadas hatching on a schedule, see here.

For an example of a non-obvious rhythm in nature, it’s interesting to realize that people used to sleep for 2 sets of 4 hours rather than 8 hours straight before artificial lights shortened the nighttime. For more, see this article.

The 7-day, or circaseptan, rhythms in biology also show up as harmonics, or multiples, of that base frequency. A seizure article noted 2-week cycles in some patients while another article noted half-week cycles.

For the 7-day cycle in mood, see here.

For the effect of a 7-day cycle on heart rate and blood pressure, see this article.

For swelling on a 7-day pattern after some surgeries, see this article, p. 7.

For more on 7-day cycles in 7% to 21% of seizure patients, see this article.

The probability a transplanted organ will be rejected tends to peak in intervals of 6-8 days after transplant. See this article, pg. 7.

For the effect of a 7-day cycle on heart rate and blood pressure, see this article.

For a cancer treatment study looking at how half-week and full-week cycles affect drug efficacy, see here. For timing treatments based on a 7-day cycle, among other biological rhythms, see this article and the mention of chronopharmacology.

For the idea that this 7-day cycle isn’t just because of culture, see references to “endogenous” in this article as well as examples of insects, fish, birds, and mammals that also use this rhythm.

For nature knowing the 7-day week, see reference here.

For the pontifex maximus changing the calendar in Rome, see here.

The French gave up on changing the lengths of seconds, minutes, and hours after 17 months according to this article while the 10-day week lasted longer with the French Republican calendar itself continuing from 1793 to 1806 as mentioned here.

For the Soviet Union’s experiments with the length of the week, see here.

For more on the Westinghouse time capsule, see pages of the book of record see pgs. 5-17 of The Book of Record of the Time Capsule of Cupaloy (1938) Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company. New York.

The Rosetta stone gave the key to cracking ancient Egyptian writing, but though it was discovered in 1799, it took another 20 years before people figured out just how hieroglyphics worked.

According to this source, the library of Ashurbanipal was discovered in the 1840s. The tablets discussing the Babylonian stories of creation were found between 1848 and 1876 as mentioned on pg. 1 here.

For the discovery of the story of Baal, see here.

For more on the Babylonian and other stories of creation, see here.

For God speaking rather than competing in creation, see Barker, K. L. (2002) NIV Study Bible. Genesis 1:1, note. Zondervan.

For the gods having to fight for control in other stories besides the one given in the Bible, see Barker, K. L. (2002) NIV Study Bible. Genesis 1:1, note. Zondervan.

For God making the world out of nothing, see Psalms 102:25, Isaiah 40:21-22 and Hebrews 11:3, as well as the Andrews Study Bible (2010) Genesis 1:1, note. Andrews University Press and Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1978). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 1, p. 208, p. 218). Review and Herald Publishing Association.

For the root word behind the term “deep” that Moses used at the start of the story, see Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1978). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 1, p. 209). Review and Herald Publishing Association.

For more on the idea of an eagle “hovering” over it’s nest, see Barker, K. L. (2002) NIV Study Bible. Genesis 1:2, note. Zondervan. For where Moses uses the word again in Deuteronomy 32:11 see Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1978). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 1, p. 209). Review and Herald Publishing Association.

For man as rulers of the world, see Genesis 1:26. For the purpose of the seventh day and the communion of God with man, see Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1978). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 1, pp. 220 - 221, 604 - 605). Review and Herald Publishing Association.

In His day, Moses’ history undermined the religions of Babylon and Egypt. Today, that same story undermines atheism, the belief in no God, polytheism, the belief in many gods, pantheism, the belief that God is a part of nature, gnosticism, the belief that the material world is evil, and materialism, the belief that there is nothing more than the physical world. For a list of the modern systems the Genesis story opposes, see Andrews Study Bible (2010) Genesis 1:1, note. Andrews University Press, and Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1978). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 1, p. 208). Review and Herald Publishing Association. For a definition of gnosticism, see here. For creation in Genesis undermining Gnostic belief, see Andrews Study Bible (2010) Genesis 1:31, note. Andrews University Press. The definition of materialism I used comes from here.

For the perfection of creation, see “very good” in Genesis 1:31 and Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1978). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 1, pp. 217–218). Review and Herald Publishing Association.