Day 1 - BIOY FAQ

I suppose I'll stick to calling it 'FAQ', makes it a bit simpler...
So this is the beginning of my BIOY FAQ posts, which will hopefully continue until the end of the year...
Here I will try to compile the most frequently asked questions on the blog and give answers taken from the various answers given on there (and my own opinion, which will probably coincide with various answers from the blog...)

Genesis 1:1-2:17

1. So, was it actually 7 days?

Views on this point differ. Some people believe in it being literally 7 days, and others think of it as 7 periods of time. The best explanation I found on the blog was that the word translated as 'day' was the Hebrew word 'yom' which was used later in the bible to describe longer periods of time, such as the 40 year reign of King Solomon (1 Kings 11:42 - translated to English as the word 'time'). Therefore, the 7 days represent 7 unspecified periods of time.
There are also others who don't really believe in the whole thing, they just emphasize the importance of believing that God was behind creation, however he did it!

2. Why does it say 'let us make man in our image'?

A few people have commented that this was referring to God as the Trinity, which may or may not be true. One point I found that sounds fairly plausible to me is that in the original translation, it may have been used to emphasize God's magnificence. Though this is not to say that we don't believe that the Trinity always existed (generally, we do).

Note: there weren't actually as many repeated questions as I thought there would be here, though there were quite a few repeated statements, such as:

There is evidence that Genesis 1 was written as a poem (hence the style in which it reads in English), while Genesis 2 is more of a narrative.

'Adam' means 'man', in some cases the word 'man' should have been translated as 'mankind' - so did God create 'mankind' then man and woman equally from this?
I think this is something you have to read Day 2's passages to form a full opinion on it

So, there were 2 trees eh, I never realised that...
Yep, 2 trees, explained better in day 2s passage too - God banished Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden to prevent them from eating from the second tree, the Tree of Life.

Matthew 1:1-25

1. What was the significance of the number 14?

The number 14 seems to have been regarded as special in 2 ways:

Firstly, Hebrew letters had numerical values, and ‘DAVID’ adds up to 14, so it was highlighting his significance - saying DAVID DAVID DAVID.

Secondly, in Revelation it puts forward how the number 7 is the number of perfection, and 14=7×2, and someone else has mentioned how when you look at the generations, that means that there have been 6 sets of 7 up until Jesus, so he was born into the 7th set of 7. Though do note that this was from Abraham, not from Adam.

2. Why show this genealogy when Jesus was not technically (biologically) Joseph's son?

Joseph was still the family of Jesus, so it was partly about who Jesus was associated with - and in those times bloodlines were important - someone commented that your family tree was a bit like your CV. Also note that Mary was a distant cousin of Joseph, so also of the line of David, though in those times it was the male line that was considered important.

3. Why does it say 'divorce' when Joseph and Mary were only engaged?

At the time, an engagement would have been legally binding.

4. What was the significance of the women mentioned in the genealogy?

Matthew went out of his way to mention certain women in the genealogy despite it being unusual to do so. We believe that it was to highlight how Jesus was descended from all sorts of people, including foreigners and people of dubious morals - e.g. Ruth was a Moabite, and Rahab was a prostitute, Bathsheba is referenced as 'Uriah's wife' which points out a problem in the first place, as David was the father!

Note - the third passage was Psalm 1:1-6 but there weren't many questions about this...

Hope that was helpful... that is if anyone reads this, which I'm not sure anyone will!
Useful for me to think through anyway, I suppose...