This page has now been inked, lettered and coloured. Some points
to note: In designing this page I chose to start by illustrating a
big panel to show what is going on (this type of panel is typical
of manga but is also used in western comics nowadays), before the
world has been created, we can see the Trinity is present (check
the recent Catholic Catechism for instance). A good page to read
on this subject is Adam,
Eve and Evolution.
One notes first of all that the important aspect is that God
created us because He loves us; the how it was done is not
important as that fact; the Bible's account of creation is not
there to explain how creation happened scientifically. On the other
hand it is incorrect to say "creation is a fictional story,
evolution is truth". Why? Because Genesis 1 is still recording
God's work, things God really did. In the Catechism, it is
explained that: "Scripture presents the work of the Creator
symbolically as a succession of six days of divine 'work,'
concluded by the 'rest' of the seventh day" (CCC 337) but "Nothing
exists that does not owe its existence to God the Creator. The
world began when God's word drew it out of nothingness; all
existent beings, all of nature, and all human history is rooted in
this primordial event, the very genesis by which the world was
constituted and time begun" (CCC 338). It is therefore impossible
to dismiss the events of Genesis 1 as a mere myth. They are, in
fact, accounts of real history, even if they are told in a style of
historical writing we no longer use today." There are two ways to
read the account of the six days of creation in Genesis. The
Chronological Reading understands that the six days of creation
followed each other in strict chronological order, however some
probably incorrectly think that the 'day' might not have been a 24
hour day. This is probably incorrect because Genesis considers a
day to take place from "evening" to "morning", a 24 hour day. It we
are not meant to understand them as 24 hour days, it is because
Genesis 1 is not meant to be understood as a literal chronological
event. The Topical Reading of Genesis 1 points out that historical
material was classically ordered by topic rather than in strict
chronological order, that God really did all these things (just not
in the order listed in Genesis 1) - in other words the "order" in
the text has to be ignored, as the text is ordered topically (not
chronologically) and the ancient audience of Genesis would have
certainly understood it to be that way, it is argued.
One cannot dismiss the story of Adam and Eve and the Fall. One
cannot think that "Adam" represents a certain number of first
parents, this was made clear by Pope Pius XII in his Encyclical
Humani Generis 37 of 1950 (see the above link for details). This
position, called polygenism, was condemned by the Catholic
Church. Genesis 2:25 refers to "the man (human) and his woman", so it
does not allow for "adam and eve" to be anything different than two
people. Even Genesis 1:26 refers to a "man" (single one) (or
single human) rather than a collective humanity.
Some good christian music to listen to while reading this manga
- Don Francisco's "As it was/So shall it be", it's about Creation
also, and some of the comments are inspired by the song's lyrics
and reflections on Genesis.
For more information on how St Augustine digged up a fossil and was
not a literalist with regards to Genesis, see
this page.
Reading Link: An interesting article on purity.
By the way, I don't necessarily agree with the contents of sites I link to. They are related on the topics..
