The Bible Thumper

God could have had Moses write Genesis to read like this:

The Book of Moses called, GENESIS

Gen. 1:1: In the Beginning, God created the heavens.
Gen. 1:2: At 10-43 Plank time, symmetry breaks. Gravity becomes a distinct force. God creates the Quantum limit of classical general relativity, and saw that it was good.
Gen. 1:3: At 10-38 Planck time, God created the Limit of perturbative interaction; thermalization of universe and saw that it was good.
Gen. 1:4: At 1x10-35 Planck time, God created Grand unification and spontaneous symmetry breaking. The universe enters a state called a "false vacuum", and God saw that it was good.
Gen. 1:5: At 1x10-34 Planck time, God creted the start of inflation. He saw that it was good.
Gen. 1:6: 1x10-32 Planck time, God created the start of reheating and end of inflation, and saw that it was good.
Gen 1:7: 1x10-32 Planck Time, God began the Electroweak era.
Gen. 1:8: 1x10-11 Planck Time, God ended the Electroweak era. The electro-weak force breaks down into two distinct components, the weak nuclear force and the electro-magnetic force, and God saw that it was good.
Gen. 1:9: 300,000 years after Plank Time, God created the transparent universe - atoms form - matter predominant. He saw that it was Good.
Gen. 1:10: 1 billion years after Planck Time, God formed the galaxies. He notes that they are good.
Gen. 1:11: ~2 billion years after Planck Time, God creates most known elements. Yes, these too are good, God said.
Gen, 1:12: 7 billion years after Planck Time, God creates the first solar system. It's of good design, God said.
Gen. 1:13: 8.5 billion years after Planck Time, God creates life on Earth.
Gen. 1:14: 12 billion years after Planck Time, God creates man in His image. All of them he created. After their own kind, He created them and saw that it was good!
-SELAH!

But, seeing as how His people didn't comprehend concepts such as 1x10-43 or 12 billion (let alone General Relativity, atoms and solar systems), He had Moses write Genesis in a more 'easier-to-read' format that basically says the same thing. It reads like this:

The Book of Moses called, GENESIS

1In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2The earth was barren, with no form of life; it was under a roaring ocean covered with kness. But the Spirit of God was moving over the water.
The First Day
3 God said, "I command light to shine!" And light started shining. 4God looked at the light and saw that it was good. He separated light from arkness 5and named the light "Day" and the darkness "Night." Evening came and then morning--that was the first day.
The Second Day
6 God said, "I command a dome to separate the water above it from the water below it." 7And that's what happened. God made the dome 8and named it "Sky." Evening came and then morning--that was the second day.

The Third Day
9 God said, "I command the water under the sky to come together in one place, so there will be dry ground." And that's what happened. 10God named the dry ground "Land," and he named the water "Ocean." God looked at what he had done and saw that it was good.
11God said, "I command the earth to produce all kinds of plants, including fruit trees and grain." And that's what happened. 12The earth produced all kinds of vegetation. God looked at what he had done, and it was good. 13Evening came and then morning--that was the third day.

The Fourth Day
14 God said, "I command lights to appear in the sky and to separate day from night and to show the time for seasons, special days, and years. 15I command them to shine on the earth." And that's what happened. 16God made two powerful lights, the brighter one to rule the day and the other [e] to rule the night. He also made the stars. 17Then God put these lights in the sky to shine on the earth, 18to rule day and night, and to separate light from darkness. God looked at what he had done, and it was good. 19Evening came and then morning--that was the fourth day.
The Fifth Day
20 God said, "I command the ocean to be full of living creatures, and I command birds to fly above the earth." 21So God made the giant sea monsters and all the living creatures that swim in the ocean. He also made every kind of bird. God looked at what he had done, and it was good. 22Then he gave the living creatures his blessing--he told the ocean creatures to live everywhere in the ocean and the birds to live everywhere on earth. 23Evening came and then morning--that was the fifth day.

The Sixth Day
24 God said, "I command the earth to give life to all kinds of tame animals, wild animals, and reptiles." And that's what happened. 25God made every one of them. Then he looked at what he had done, and it was good.
26God said, "Now we will make humans, and they will be like us. We will let them rule the fish, the birds, and all other living creatures."

27So God created humans to be like himself; he made men and women. 28God gave them his blessing and said: Have a lot of children! Fill the earth with people and bring it under your control. Rule over the fish in the ocean, the birds in the sky, and every animal on the earth. 29I have provided all kinds of fruit and grain for you to eat. 30And I have given the green plants as food for everything else that breathes. These will be food for animals, both wild and tame, and for birds. 31God looked at what he had done. All of it was very good! Evening came and then morning--that 1was the sixth day.
-SELAH!

Not bad for a document written 4,000 years ago!

RGD

Inaccurate, vague, contradictory, and doesn't match what we know of the history of the universe.

Indeed, not bad for a 3,500 year old book. But the Rig Veda is much better.

Clivedurdle

2700 years surely?

Diogenes the Cynic

Genesis still gets things out of order and tells two contradictory stories. Genesis says that the earth was created before the sun and that (in one of the stories) humans were created before animals. It also says that the sky is a solid dome with water on top of it.

And none of it has anything to do with Moses

Here's a way it could have been accurately described and still been understandable.



In the beginning there was nothing. Then God said let there be light and there was light. And the light became a million suns. And God said let there be worlds to circle around the suns. And there were worlds. Then God said let one of these world have water, and the world was covered with water. Then God said let there be life, and there was life in the water. And there were the first living things, and those first living things filled the water and their descendants became all of the living things of the water.

then God said let there be dry land, and there was dry land, and many living things left the water and their descendants became the plants and animals of land, and the descendants of those animals became human beings.


Or something like that. I could probably dicker with it and make it better. Still, it's obvious that the Genesis myth was rooted in a profound ignorance of astronomy, geology and biology and it can't be saved from those mistakes even with the most generously allegorical reading.

RGD

I believe that Job, generally considered the oldest book in the bible is tentatively dates to c. 1500 BC, and that most of the Penteauch (sp?) is c. 1450 BC.

cjack

Just an observation...

People two, three, or four thousand years ago weren't any less intelligent than folks are today. Less informed? Sure, but not stupid.

For example, if you explained General Relativity to one of the engineers who designed the Great Pyramid, I'm willing to bet he'd grasp the concept pretty quickly.

As for atoms and the solar system, keep in mind that Greek philosophers had both deduced the existence of atoms and accurately measured the circumference of the Earth a few centuries before Jesus got himself nailed to a piece of lumber.

I'm sure an "all knowing" god would take this sort of thing into account, and not feel the need to "dumb it down" for any reason.

TySixtus

Hey TBT.

How were there plants before sunlight?

Ty

Jack the Bodiless

Yes, no amount of "dumbing-down" can explain how God gets so many things in the wrong order.

Why not have the birds appearing AFTER the land animals (which is what actually happened)? How does the error of their placement help the story?

Why mention specific plants on "day three" that didn't appear until after land animals on "day six"?

And so on...

edain55337

Just a question for the Bible Thumper...

What God are you talking about? The ancient war god of the isrealites, the split personality of the christians, or the kill them all god of the islamic faith?

The Bible Thumper

<edit>

"In the Beginning,"
http://www.hawking.org.uk/pdf/bot.pdf
http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/beginning.html
"God created the heavens"
http://www.kheper.net/cosmos/universe/Big_Bang.htm
"and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters."
http://zebu.uoregon.edu/internet/l2.html
"And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and He 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."

I'll be back to finish this. Right up to where our Holy Creator creates us in His image.