hi!
Okay, here we go (King James Version):
Genesis Chapter 1:
1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. 6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. 7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. 8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. 9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. 10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. 11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. 12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 13 And the evening and the morning were the third day. 14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: 15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. 16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. 17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, 18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. 19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. ...
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Okay, what did we read?
Things happening:
1. Creation of Heaven & Earth (what is Heaven?)
2. Earth is some boring place... but with WATER already.
3. "Light" -> Sun created
4. creating the firmament... water above and beneath...
5. firmament renamed to heaven (which was created already)
6. mountains and valleys created
7. plants
8. moon! the rest of our solarsystem! stars! galaxys! galactic clouds! billions of galaxys with billions of stars each... and the planets (much work here)
9. in the later verses god created animals and humans (what a mistake ;))
okay... sounds this logical?
one could interpret further on (on every numer from above):
1. god created space (and its laws - the completely void universe) and placed one lil' wet rock in it - earth... floating through space. (or is "heaven" the spiritual place where the angels dwell?)
2. in that universe without any light and with the earth being the only massive body and only gravitation force anywhere there were already water on earth floating around.
3. wheeee! the first star! sun! god threw the lil' earth rock in an orbit finally. forget the times when earth was floating randomly! no its floating while orbiting sun :-D
4. god added some more water and gases (air) here. and magically created a floating orbiting ocean above earth (the one that came down in the flood). maybe humidity is meant?
5. the heaven mentioned here is the earths athmosphere.
6. some serious digging here. we have mountains finally.
7. serious cropping here
9. animals & human
how does it sound? honestly it sounds to ME like someone made up the creation of the universe without knowing anything about it.
in the past it may have sounded logical. that were the times when people thought the earth is the center of the universe (which is logical since earth was created first and everything else was placed around - this was backupped by other verses. like the one when god "stopped" the sun for the battle of ... i forgot his name. you know what i mean.).
i know the workarounds for these flaws to take it to our time without letting it be nonsense.
BUT
i just wont expect it this way. if i would dont know the bible at all and someone comes to me and says: "here! its the bible! it tells about the creation of the universe, the history of mankind and its future!!!!" i would expect god to create the whole universe, pick a planet and create life on it. we KNOW how planets are created today. even in this second somewhere forms a planet around its star. its not like popping somewhere out of nothing and then a star pop up nearby. its heavily unusual that earth existed BEFORE sun since planets are the heavier elements a star threw out formed by gravity.
its even hard to imagine that god created earth and sun for 3 "days" mentioning it so much and then pop up the WHOLE REST of the universe including all other planets and moons of our solarsystem AND ALL OTHER STARS AND GALAXIES! wow!
and again for a human centuries ago it would make sense! earth is the biggest - everything else are just some ordinary lights in the sky. they didnt even know that sun is a star. and some "stars" in the sky are in fact galaxys out of billions of stars.
its also questionable how the floating water above the layer of air was holding its position. jw believe that this layer came down in the flood. is this possible? i dont know...
also its weired that god created the mountains BEFORE the animals and stuff... as we know the continents were together one time (pangea) and mountains build up and flatten down even today! and we see in fossils that animals lived already when pangea existed.
last but not least for me it was always a problem seeing all that stars, galaxys and stuff. the whole universe. why is it SO big? there seems to be no use for all this. again. if i would materialize on earth without knowing anything about this world. and someone told me the whole bible story... i NEVER would expect the universe SO huge and with stars so far away that we cant see them because light from there doesnt hit planet earth yet (what we know because we (mankind) watched new galaxys appearing which wasnt there before). i also would expect earth as the center of the universe and stars being some lil fuzzy things designed to guide us at night. wouldnt it be a great proof for us, when god would have told us in genesis how the universe is really put together? it doesnt need to be specific but a simple "stars are suns" or "god created many stars with its planets and a very special one for the humans" would have been AWESOME.
i also didnt spoke about the creation of the animal and mankind. but: would you expect dinosaurs to be existed when reading the bible? if no dinosaurs were found i would aggresively deny it! no way! the bible would had told us! i would not even think about the earth being so old and the possibility that evolution occurs (animals changing over the thousands of years). i also would not expect the universe being expanding... there are uncountable things i would not expect.
crazy man! so much text! ill love your comments to my bad written post :D
Thank You!
Marcel
Creation And Science
by Marcel 5 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Marcel
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Zico
Hi Marcel!
Genesis and Science have nothing to do with each other. Verse 3 and 4 says:
3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.
This is the first day. The sun isn't created till the 4th day, not as a source of light, but as a sign of the day! So not only did the Earth exist without the sun, but light did as well?
Genesis was written thousands of years ago, it was as good an attempt as you could get for the origin of life back then, but the fact that people still believe it in the 21st Century is madness. -
Marcel
yeah, you're right. for one reason i did not see the double light problem. maybe god used his flashlight in the first day. when i go into my cellar i always say "let it be light" and switch my flashlight on. :-D
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Doug Mason
This is where we try to impose our current way of thinking onto the thinking of a very different culture.
You need to discover who wrote this, when and why. It is possible the writer was trying to say to those who worship the sun, "Hey! My God made that sun". Each creation account was a vehicle for teaching lessons to contemporaries of the person writing it.
It does help if you determine which part of which account of creation comes from which source. For example, the Elohim writers were from a different part of the nation than those from the Yahwist source.
It was only at the time of say Josiah and the Babylonian Captivity that these threads were amalgamated, to be reedited again shortly afterwards. Have you ever wondered why such nice things are said about that king?
Understand the politics of the times (religious and secular) and you start to understand what these guys were getting at. They certainly were not writing to someone living 2500 years later!
Doug -
DHL
I still wonder how people back then somehow realised they weren't monkeys anymore.
Debbie
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dark angle
zicco, pointing out the discrepancies about the light in genesis was vital. ive been pointing that mistake to my folks here but they seem to ignore or unable to discern what that might imply to other biblical narratives.