Genesis - a commentary

 

William Blake "The Ancient of Days"

Genesis asserts abiogenesis! Who would have thought it! 

1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

Why? Either he had just woken up, or he had been there for an eternity, twiddling his divine thumbs. What made him decide to create the heaven and the earth on Sunday 23 October 4004 BC, around teatime? If God was all that there was, what event could have induced him to create creation? 

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.

Can something that is without form, and which is void be said to exist at all? And what "deep"? Who made "the waters"? Where did these come from? Were they already there? If so, who put them there?

3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

From where?

4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

What with?

5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

Huh?

6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

What waters from what waters? What is this waterproof "firmament" made from? How much water pressure can it take?

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.

I hope he used a suitably strong material.

8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

So heaven is what divides the waters from the other waters. Is heaven very wet?

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.

Pangea?

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.

So it was the EARTH that brought forth vegetation! How come creationists insist that it was God himself?

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.

Note what is doing the actual bringing forth? Why, it's the earth. I wonder how it did it.

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:

I thought he had already "divided the light from the darkness". See above.

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.

The "lesser light" is a reflector. These people had no idea about anything.

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.

Have you any idea how much energy it takes to set even the smallest payload into orbit?

19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his 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 fowl multiply in the earth.

23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

So it was the WATERS that brought forth aquatic life, not any god. Oh, and birdies. They nearly forgot the birdies, it seems. An afterthought.

24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

Again it is not God doing the "bringing forth". It is the earth. God "let" it. How magnanimous of him.

26 And 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 fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

So God is a hermaphrodite?

28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

31 And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Note the use of the word "Good". It is not "perfect". The original word meant "fit for purpose", or "Good enough". 

Also note that nowhere is there any talk of living things "reproducing after their kind". In the English of King James's time, "after their kind" would have just meant "according to their type, sort or species" (knowledge of biology was a bit shaky back then). Don't believe English has changed? Try reading some Shakespeare, or Chaucer. A French bible has "after their kind" as «selon leur espèce». The creationist concept of "kind" is incoherent, and only got invented after we worked evolution out.

https://barryhisblog.blogspot.com/p/genesis-commentary.html

Creationists, it seems, do not have the faith to believe that God could create a world that could itself bring forth life, as Genesis, the scripture they avow, says. It is exceedingly strange. They would rather picture a has-been, worn out, seedy conjurer, pulling mangy rabbits out of a threadbare top hat in a back street cabaret dive that has seen much better days! ;) There is no reason for biblical literalists, sensible Christians/Muslims/followers of Judaism and atheists to disagree about abiogenesis.

It's ironic that creationists miss out on a much more elegant and interesting (and true) conception of creation.