This is the first in a series of posts examining the Bible critically. As I prefer a literal translation rather than the apologetics-laden contradiction-smoothing Biblical translations of modern American evangelicals, I have decided to use the English Standard Version as my Bible of choice, though I intend to occasionally pull details from other translations when and if it seems appropriate.
First I present the chapter in its entirety below.
1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
4 And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness.
5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
6 And God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.”
7 And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so.
8 And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.
9 And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so.
10 God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.
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11 And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so.
12 The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
13 And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.
14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years,
15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. 16 And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars.
17 And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth,
18 to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.
19 And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.
20 And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.”
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21 So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
22 And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.”
23 And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.
24 And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so.
25 And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
29 And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food.
30 And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.
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31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
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Obviously, the sequence of events delineated in these verses does not square with scientific reality, but I hope there aren't a huge number of Christians who are willing to go to bat for the idea that the first book of Genesis literally relates the sequence of creation in exact chronological order. Below is a list of problems with the narrative; it is by no means exhaustive, but these are the contradictions or anachronisms that felt most important to me.
The idea of the Earth and the "heavens" being created simultaneously is a hard one to swallow when science currently estimates that the universe is over 3 times as old as our planet. The universe is currently believed to be something like 14 billion years old, but the act of "creation" is not complete; new stars are being born and dying all the time, new animal species are arising and becoming extinct. Is this because God has started another week of creation, or does he have some kinds of hands-off approach (evolution, anyone?) that allows it to continue without his direct intervention? These questions are far too complicated to be addressed by a millenia-old fairy tale orally recited by a primitive desert tribe.
Even more oddly, Genesis clearly indicates that plants (1:11) were created before the sun (1:14-19) was created on the third day; but basic science (long before the theory of evolution) has proven that photosynthesis, the life-process of the plant kingdom, relies entirely on ambient energy produced by the sun. This energy did not exist until God created the sun and the stars on day 4. So what fed these mystical pre-solar plants? The Bible is silent on this contradiction.
It has been suggested that the words "let the earth bring forth grass (1: 11) and "let the earth bring forth the living creature" (1:24) are actually an open invitation for the belief in evolution, but I don't think accepting the framework of a literal creation story is at all helpful, even if you can cherry-pick elements from the story that might fit the factual point of view. Do these and other verses of Biblical creation leave the door open for an evolutionary perspective? Sure, but that's no reason to permit the illogical assumption that these ancient Jews had it right from beginning to end, when the evidence clearly indicates that they did not.
God separated the light from the darkness on the very first day, and yet the light-creating elements of our universe (namely the stars, including the Sun) were not created until the fourth day. What, exactly, was the source of this primordial light on day 1-3, and what was the reason it was changed to solar energy on the 4th day? Was God dissatisfied with his original fuel? The Bible is silent on this matter, but it's most probable that the ancient Hebrews who wrote this part of the legend simply did not realize that all our earthly light comes from the Sun. Wouldn't God have told them, if they were writing down his Word?
In many versions of the Bible, when it comes time for God to create man, he does a curious thing; he refers to himself in the plural. The translated words are 'And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.' In Hebrew, the plural word for god (Elohim, plural of eloah) is used in this verse (and hundreds of others), and a plural form of the verbs that followed it were used as well. Some have suggested that this could simply be analogous to the 'royal you' -- for instance, not dissimilar from a British monarch using the word 'we' instead of 'I' as her personal pronoun. This does not explain to my satisfaction why the term 'Elohim' and a plural form of God is not used consistently throughout the Bible. Never have I heard a royal vacillate between 'I' and 'we'.
The idea of the Earth and the "heavens" being created simultaneously is a hard one to swallow when science currently estimates that the universe is over 3 times as old as our planet. The universe is currently believed to be something like 14 billion years old, but the act of "creation" is not complete; new stars are being born and dying all the time, new animal species are arising and becoming extinct. Is this because God has started another week of creation, or does he have some kinds of hands-off approach (evolution, anyone?) that allows it to continue without his direct intervention? These questions are far too complicated to be addressed by a millenia-old fairy tale orally recited by a primitive desert tribe.
Even more oddly, Genesis clearly indicates that plants (1:11) were created before the sun (1:14-19) was created on the third day; but basic science (long before the theory of evolution) has proven that photosynthesis, the life-process of the plant kingdom, relies entirely on ambient energy produced by the sun. This energy did not exist until God created the sun and the stars on day 4. So what fed these mystical pre-solar plants? The Bible is silent on this contradiction.
It has been suggested that the words "let the earth bring forth grass (1: 11) and "let the earth bring forth the living creature" (1:24) are actually an open invitation for the belief in evolution, but I don't think accepting the framework of a literal creation story is at all helpful, even if you can cherry-pick elements from the story that might fit the factual point of view. Do these and other verses of Biblical creation leave the door open for an evolutionary perspective? Sure, but that's no reason to permit the illogical assumption that these ancient Jews had it right from beginning to end, when the evidence clearly indicates that they did not.
God separated the light from the darkness on the very first day, and yet the light-creating elements of our universe (namely the stars, including the Sun) were not created until the fourth day. What, exactly, was the source of this primordial light on day 1-3, and what was the reason it was changed to solar energy on the 4th day? Was God dissatisfied with his original fuel? The Bible is silent on this matter, but it's most probable that the ancient Hebrews who wrote this part of the legend simply did not realize that all our earthly light comes from the Sun. Wouldn't God have told them, if they were writing down his Word?
In many versions of the Bible, when it comes time for God to create man, he does a curious thing; he refers to himself in the plural. The translated words are 'And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.' In Hebrew, the plural word for god (Elohim, plural of eloah) is used in this verse (and hundreds of others), and a plural form of the verbs that followed it were used as well. Some have suggested that this could simply be analogous to the 'royal you' -- for instance, not dissimilar from a British monarch using the word 'we' instead of 'I' as her personal pronoun. This does not explain to my satisfaction why the term 'Elohim' and a plural form of God is not used consistently throughout the Bible. Never have I heard a royal vacillate between 'I' and 'we'.
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1 comment:
"Some have suggested that this could simply be analogous to the 'royal you' -- for instance, not dissimilar from a British monarch using the word 'we' instead of 'I' as her personal pronoun."
Not to mention the fact that this custom is almost certainly inspired by the bible.
Is there any evidence of the "royal we" (sounds like a gold plated urinal) existing prior to the bible?
In any case, the plural form of God with a few choice text replacements could turn the bible into a pretty neat SciFi story. I'm reminded of Jim Marrs and his gold mining lizard aliens. (Rule by Secrecy has an Awesome ending.)
You could easily re-imagine the creation mythology to be a brutalized ignorant approximation of a terraforming event managed by a council of aliens.
Aliens terraform a rock (earth) using some kind of temporal technology to speed up the formation of the biosphere, they then seed the planets with people. One alien gets pissed at the program and descends to play god. Tries to explain to the monkeys their real origin, and x thousand years of oral recycling later, we get the white light god etc etc.
P.S. Fungi were a very prominent form of early life. And they don't need light. Indeed, some species apparently thrive on ionizing radiation.
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