Genesis 1-3

New Catholic Bible

Origin of the World and Humankind^[a]

Creation and the Fall

Chapter 1

Origin of the Universe.^[b] ¹In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.^[c] ²The earth was formless and barren, and darkness covered the abyss while the Spirit of God hovered over the waters.

³God said, “Let there be light!” And there was light. ⁴God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. ⁵And he called the light day, and he called the darkness night. This was the evening and the morning of the first day.

⁶God said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters to separate one set of waters from the other.”^[d] ⁷God separated the firmament from the waters, those waters that are under the firmament from those that are above the firmament. And it was so. ⁸God called the firmament the heavens. This was the evening and the morning of the second day.

⁹God said, “Let the waters that are under the heavens be gathered into one place and let a dry place appear.” And it was so. ¹⁰God called the dry place the land, and the gathered waters he called the sea. And God saw that it was good.

¹¹God said, “Let the land bring forth plants, those that produce seeds and fruit trees that have seeds inside of the fruit they bear, each according to its own kind. And it was so. ¹²The land brought forth plants, each according to its kind, and trees that have fruit with seeds inside of them, each according to its kind.” God saw that they were good. ¹³This was the evening and the morning of the third day.

¹⁴God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to separate the day from the night; let them be markers to separate seasons and days and years, ¹⁵and let them be lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light to the earth.” And it was so. ¹⁶God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule over the day and the lesser light to rule over the night, and he also made the stars. ¹⁷God placed them in the firmament of the heavens to light the earth ¹⁸and to rule over the day and the night and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. ¹⁹This was the evening and the morning of the fourth day.

²⁰God said, “Let the waters be filled with living creatures and let birds fly above the earth in the firmament of the heavens.” ²¹God created the great sea creatures and all the other creatures that fill the waters, each according to its kind, and all the birds that fly in the sky, each according to its kind. ²²God blessed them saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters of the sea, and let the birds multiply upon the earth.” ²³And this was the evening and the morning of the fifth day.

²⁴God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures each according to its kind: cattle and reptiles and wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. ²⁵God made the savage beasts according to their kind and the cattle according to their kind and all of the reptiles according to their kind. And God saw that it was good.

²⁶And God said, “Let us^[e] make man in our image and likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the wild animals and reptiles that crawl upon the earth.”

²⁷God created mankind in his image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them.

²⁸God blessed them and told them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth; subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the seas and over the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves upon the earth.”

²⁹And God said, “Behold, I give you every plant that produces seeds upon the earth and every tree that has fruit with its seed inside of it: these shall be your food. ³⁰And I give all green plants to every wild animal and to all the birds of the air and to all creatures that move upon the surface of the earth and that have the breath of life in them.” And it was so.

³¹God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good. This was the evening and the morning of the sixth day.

Chapter 2

¹This is how the heavens and the earth and everything in them were made.

²^[f]God completed his work on the seventh day and on the seventh day he rested from all of his work. ³God blessed the seventh day and he consecrated it, for on it he rested from all the work he had done when he created all things.

⁴This was the origin of the heavens and the earth when they were first created.

Origin of Human Beings.^[g] When the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, ⁵there were not yet any plants of the field nor had any herbs sprouted in the field, for the Lord God had not yet made it rain upon the earth and there was no one to till the soil. ⁶He made a mist rise out of the ground to water the whole surface of the earth. ⁷Then the Lord God formed man^[h] out of the dust of the earth and he breathed his breath of life into his nostrils and man became a living creature.

⁸And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden,^[i] in the east, and he put the man he had formed there. ⁹The Lord God made all sorts of beautiful and nourishing trees sprout out of the earth, among which was the tree of life^[j] in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

¹⁰A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden; then it divided into four tributaries. ¹¹^[k]The first river was called the Pishon. It waters the whole land of Havilah where one can find gold, ¹²and the gold of that land is good. One can also find bdellium and onyx in that land. ¹³The second river is the Gihon. It flows in the land of Ethiopia. ¹⁴The third river is the Tigris. It flows to the east of the land of Asshur. The fourth river is the Euphrates.

¹⁵The Lord God took the man and placed him in the Garden of Eden so that he might work it and care for it. ¹⁶The Lord God told the man, “You can eat of any of the trees in the garden, ¹⁷but you must never eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you were to eat from it, you would surely die.”

¹⁸^[l]And the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.^[m] I wish to make another creature who will be like him.”

¹⁹The Lord God therefore formed every sort of wild animal and all the birds of the air, and he brought them before the man to see what he would name them.^[n] Whatever the man called each living creature, that was the name that it would bear. ²⁰The man gave names to every type of animal, all the birds of the air and all the wild animals, but the man could not find anything that was like him.

²¹The Lord God therefore caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. He took one of his ribs and replaced it with flesh. ²²The Lord God then formed a woman out of the rib that he had taken from the man. He brought her before the man.

²³The man said,

“This one is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh.^[o]
She shall be called woman
because she was taken from man.”

²⁴This is why a man leaves his father and his mother^[p] and joins with a wife, and the two become one flesh.

²⁵Now the man and the woman were naked, but they did not feel any shame.

Chapter 3

Origin of Evil.^[q] ¹The serpent^[r] was the most clever of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. It said to the woman, “Is it true that God told you not to eat of any of the trees in the garden?”

²The woman answered the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, ³but as for the fruit of the tree in the midst of the garden, God said that we must not eat it, nor even touch it, lest we die.”

⁴But the serpent said to the woman, “Certainly you shall not die! ⁵God knows that when you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will become like God, knowing that which is good and that which is evil.”

⁶The woman saw that the tree was good for food and pleasing to look at and desirable for imparting wisdom. She took some fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband who was with her, and he also ate it. ⁷Their eyes were opened and they realized that they were naked. They took fig leaves and sewed them together, making themselves a covering.

⁸They then heard the Lord God walking in the garden toward the evening. The man and his wife hid themselves from the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. ⁹But the Lord God called out to the man and said to him, “Where were you?”

¹⁰He answered, “I heard you walking in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid myself.”

¹¹He said, “Who let you know that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree from which I commanded you not to eat?”

¹²The man answered, “The woman whom you put here with me, she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it.”

¹³The Lord God said to the woman, “What have you done?”

The woman answered, “The serpent tricked me and I ate it.”

¹⁴The Lord God said to the serpent,^[s]

“Because you have done this, you will be the most cursed
    of all the animals
    and of all the wild beasts.
On your belly you shall crawl
    and you shall eat dust
    for all the days of your life.
¹⁵I will establish hostility
    between you and the woman,
    between your line and her line.
Her offspring will crush your head
    and you will bruise his heel.”^[t]

¹⁶To the woman he said,

“I will multiply your sufferings in childbirth;
with pain you shall bear your children.
You shall desire your husband,
but he shall lord it over you.”

¹⁷To the man he said, “Because you listened to the voice of your wife and you ate from the tree from which I had commanded you not to eat,

“Cursed be the soil because of you!
    With effort you shall obtain food
    all the days of your life.
¹⁸Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth for you,
    and you shall eat of the plants of the field.
¹⁹You shall have to sweat
    to eat your bread
until the day when you return to the earth,
    for from it you were drawn.
You are dust,
    and unto dust you shall return.”

²⁰The man called his wife Eve, for she was the mother of all those who lived.

²¹The Lord God made clothing for the man and woman out of animal skins and he clothed them. ²²The Lord God said, “Behold, man has become like one of us, for he has knowledge of that which is good and that which is evil. Now, we must prevent him from reaching out and taking the fruit of the tree of life lest he eat it and live forever.” ²³The Lord God cast him out of the Garden of Eden; henceforth he was to labor tilling the soil from which he had come. ²⁴When he expelled him, he placed cherubim^[u] to the east of the Garden of Eden with flaming swords to keep watch over the way to the tree of life.

Footnotes

Genesis 1:1 The description of the origins of the universe and of humankind is not based on human testimony but is the fruit of reflection that was inspired by God and directed by him over the centuries. The Lord is the supreme master of the universe; he has from eternity formed a plan for the salvation of all the peoples of the earth. Humankind was brought to ruin by its own sin; the sin of Adam disfigured the divine work, but God loves humankind and, in order to lead it to salvation, chooses for himself a special people.
Genesis 1:1 This majestic song in rhythmical prose was composed, it seems, in the priestly circles of Israel, perhaps after the Exile. It reflects the naive ideas of that time on the physical structure of the world: the heavens, for example, are imagined to be a solid vault in which the stars are set. The biblical text is akin to ancient Babylonian stories, now known to us, but it rises far above them. Here, everything that exists is the work of a single God; it takes only his word to create the universe. The Spirit, that is, the “breath,” of God presides over creation. A day will come when, through the Spirit on Pentecost, God will give rise to the new creation, the new humankind that is reborn in Christ (2 Cor 5:17).
Genesis 1:1 The story of creation is not intended as a scientific theory about the origins of the universe and human beings; it takes as its starting point ideas current in that part of the world and intends to teach certain fundamental and perennial truths about God as one, transcendent, existing prior to the universe, and about human beings as his creatures.
Genesis 1:6 The ancient Semites viewed the heavens as a vault made of a solid material—the firmament—which holds back the waters above and separates them from the waters below; from openings in it—the floodgates (see Gen 7:11)—the flood will pour down.
Genesis 1:26 Let us: the plural “us” here is not a plural of majesty (this does not exist in Hebrew) but rather shows the divine process of deliberation as a consultation of God with himself (or with the angels?). When Isaiah describes the divine majesty (6:8), he too feels the need of using the plural; the same in Gen 3:22.
Genesis 2:2 The model of a week that the Priestly account uses in describing the divine creation is meant to teach that the pattern of days of work followed by rest on the seventh day originates in the will of God himself.
Genesis 2:4 The preceding section (Gen 1:1—2:4a) is to be interpreted as a rethinking of certain aspects of creation and an integration, into a systematic and much broader vision, of what had already been set down in the following story, which is older. This Yahwist account of origins is a single piece that is subdivided into chapters 2, 3, and 4. In its literary form it follows the structure of Sumerian-Babylonian hymns that sing of the origins of civilization, but in its content it is truly religious and completely independent of those mythologies. It expresses, in popular language, a theology of the greatest richness and depth.
God is here called by his proper name, Yahweh, the name under which he reveals himself to his people, Israel; he alone, and no one else, is the maker of the entire world.
Man has need of a collaborator, and God provides this. Woman will be by her nature far superior to the animals, which however will provide help to her and the man. The man exercises dominion over them, while man and woman are made for each other and will achieve their purpose each through the other. This law that God has written into the nature of human beings is the basis for the unity of the couple in marriage, which establishes a single human entity that is no longer divisible into parts. Jesus will reaffirm this exigency (Mt 19:3-8) and St. Paul will remind Christian spouses that their union contributes to actuating in time an unsuspected spiritual reality, namely, the fruitful union of Christ and the Church, in which children of God are born (Eph 5:31-32).
The story of creation is meant to say what kind of beings men and women are and what their origin is, but it does not go into detail on the way in which they were created; it does not specify whether God formed man and woman by direct action or through the cooperation of natural forces that took very long periods to accomplish their work. At the same time, the story emphasizes the fact that the material being is animated by a higher vital principle that is not a product of nature but is infused by God himself. Finally, in describing the unity of the couple formed by the Creator the story proclaims that the human species is one.
Genesis 2:7 Man, in Hebrew adam, is the common name of the human species; only beginning in Gen 4:25 and 5:1 will it be regarded as the proper name of the first male. Here and in 3:19, 23, the author connects it with Hebrew adama, “earth.” This is not a scientific etymology but a popular one, based on assonance. In fact, it seems that adam derives from Sumerian ada-mu, “my father.” His companion, too, is initially called “woman” and receives the proper name “Eve” only from Gen 3:20 on. It seems that this name, haua in Hebrew, derives from Sumerian ama, “mother.”
Genesis 2:8 Eden is derived from Sumerian edin, which means a level, steppe-like, desert region. The garden occupies an eastern section of it; this word, too, gan in Hebrew, is properly Sumerian and means a watered and cultivated piece of land. It was translated into Greek as paradeisos, “garden,” giving rise to the name “earthly paradise.”
Genesis 2:9 The tree of life symbolizes the possibility of becoming immortal that was granted as an unmerited gift to human beings, although these were by nature subject to death (Gen 3:22). The tree of the knowledge of good and evil symbolizes the attribute proper to the Creator, by reason of which God is the foundation of the moral order. The first couple attempt to usurp this attribute (Gen 3:5, 22), desiring to decide for themselves what is good and evil for them.
Genesis 2:11 The Pishon and the Gihon are completely unknown; if Gen 10:20 is taken into account, Havilah would be in Arabia.
Genesis 2:18 This is the only full account of the creation of woman in ancient Near Eastern literature.
Genesis 2:18 Not good . . . to be alone: without female companionship and a partner in reproduction, the man could not fully realize his humanity.
Genesis 2:19 Name them: this was the man’s first act of dominion over the creatures around him.
Genesis 2:23 Bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh: a common Semitic way of expressing consanguinity (Gen 29:14) or membership in the same tribe or even simply in the same people (2 Sam 5:1; 19:13-14) or the same city (Jdg 9:2). Here it means that the woman has the same nature as the man; she alone can make possible the love that characterizes the matrimonial bond. The words she shall be called woman, etc., can be understood only in light of the assonance in the original text: Hebrew, isha, “woman,” seems to be the feminine form of ish, “man” in the sense of “male” (adam refers to man as including both man and woman, i.e., possessing the nature common to all human beings).
Genesis 2:24 Leaves his father and his mother: instead of remaining under the protective custody of his parents, a man leaves them and, with his wife, establishes a new family unit. Joins . . . one flesh: the divine intention for husband and wife was monogamy. Together they were to form an inseparable union, of which “one flesh” is both a sign and an expression.
Genesis 3:1 When human beings reject union with God, the source of being and good, they must inevitably perish. This is the meaning of the tragedy that overwhelms the human condition. Envious of human beings and their happiness, another being, like them a creature, urges them to doubt the divine word, thereby putting out the light of their faith. The biblical tradition will call this other being the “adversary” and “the father of lies” (Wis 2:24; Jn 8:44; Rev 12:9). Our author, anxious to combat pagan nature-centered cults that used the serpent as a symbol and strongly attracted the Israelites, presents the adversary under the form of a serpent.
Despite the victory of evil a hope dawns, a light in which the Christian tradition sees the Savior being already announced, a Savior with whom Mary, model of womanhood, is especially associated. The Lord does not abandon fallen humankind that has barred itself from the paradise of friendship with God; but it will have to struggle to win back its happiness.
Genesis 3:1 The Semitic world attributed superhuman qualities to the serpent: the sacred serpent, the divine serpent, symbol of the divinities of the vegetative realm, protector of sanctuaries and borders, symbol of the way, guardian of life-giving plants, effective in divining the future and in black and diabolic magic. The sacred writer speaks of him instead as one of the animals that the Lord God had made, but also as the most clever of all [of them]; the connection with magic makes the serpent an appropriate symbol of activities directed against God; in addition, the serpent’s special way of entering in a hidden manner and striking by surprise makes it an appropriate and instructive image of the tempter.
Genesis 3:14 The biblical tradition uses the serpent to represent Satan; the divine punishment is aimed at the demon. On your belly you shall crawl and you shall eat dust is a customary Semitic way of describing enemies defeated in battle and compelled to acknowledge the power of their conqueror (see Ps 72:9; Isa 49:23; Mic 7:17).
Genesis 3:15 This verse has traditionally been regarded as the protoevangelium, the first announcement of the salvation of the human race. The offspring of the woman refers to the human race but at a higher level to Jesus Christ who is source and cause of the common victory. Consequently, the woman, while certainly signifying Eve, the mother of the human race, refers at a higher level to Mary, the mother of Jesus and the new Eve.
Genesis 3:24 The cherubim and the flaming swords symbolize the divine prohibition. In fact, the mythical winged colossi, half animal, half human, that stood guard at palaces, temples, and thrones of gods and kings in ancient Mesopotamia (known there as karibu; in the Bible see Ex 25:20; 1 Ki 6:27; Ezek 10:14), as well as the lightning represented in the form of flames or a wavy sword on stones marking the borders of territories, meant that access to the place in question was forbidden to profane persons and defended by the gods.

New Catholic Bible (NCB)

Genesis 1-3 New Catholic Bible