In the
thirteenth-century Syriac text, The Book of the Bee written by the Nestorian
bishop Solomon, we find an interesting interpretation of Psa 90:2, wherein the
author understands it to relate to God's eternal foreknowledge of events and
not addressing the "eternality" of God. In chapter 1, “Of God’s
Eternal Intention in Respect of the Creation of the Universe,” we read:
It is well for us to
take the materials for our discourse from the divine Scriptures, that we may not
stray from the straight paths of the way of truth. The blessed David saith, ‘Lord,
thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations, before the mountains were
conceived’ (Ps. xc. 1, 2). David, the harpist of the Spirit, makes known
thereby, that although there was a beginning of the framing of Adam and the
other creatures when they were made, yet in the mind of God it had no
beginning; that it might not be thought that God has a new thought in respect
of anything that is renewed day by day, or that the construction of Creation was
newly planned in the mind of God: but everything that He has created and is
about to create, even the marvelous construction of the world to come, has been
planned from everlasting in the immutable mind of God. As the natural child in
the womb of his mother knows not her who bears hi, nor is conscious of his
father, who, after God, is the cause of his formation; so also Adam, being in
the mind of the creator, knew Him not. And when he was created, and recognized himself
as being created, he remained with this knowledge six hours only, and there
came over him a change, from knowledge to ignorance and from good to evil.
Hence, when Divine Providence wished to create the world, the framing of Adam
was first designed and conceived in the mind of God, and then that of the
(other) creatures; as David saith, ‘Before the mountains were conceived.’
Consequently, Adam is older than the (other) creatures in respect of his
conception, and the (other) creatures are older than Adam in respect of their birth
and their being made. And whereas God created all creatures in silence by a
word, He brought forth Adam out of His thoughts, and formed him with His holy
hands, and breathed the breath of life into him from His Spirit, and Adam
became a living soul, and God gave him the knowledge of the difference between
good and evil. When he perceived his Creator, then was God formed and conceived
within the mind of man; and man became a temple to God his maker as it is
written, ‘Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God
dwelleth in you?’ And again, ‘I will dwell in them, and walk in them.’ (The Book of the Bee [trans. E.A. Wallis Budge; First Rate
Publishers], 8)
