Genesis 1:1
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2 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.

Alright, now the first thing God ever decides to create are the heavens and the earth. We can deduce a few things here.. firstly, "The heavens" is not referring to the rest of the universe, because if it were, there would be light already... since we know that light comes from an external source, which are stars.. and stars are what make up the galaxies. So naturally, the only thing existing in our physical realm at this point is the earth. Secondly, this should mean that no laws like time or gravity have yet been created for our universe.

Already, we've run into a problem here. The scripture says that the earth has water on it. And what keeps water stuck to the earth? Gravity. But God hasn't created gravity yet! Furthermore, the earth is supposedly dark. But God has not yet created the visible light spectrum. Are these laws of our universe not created by God, then?

Another problem is how the water could possibly be in liquid form. Since the earth is dark, we know there's no sun yet. If there's no sun to be heating the earth, there's nothing to sustain the liquid water. Why is it not frozen?

And furthermore, why does God not like darkness (Since he soon creates light)? Does God use photons to see things? This would continue to implicate that he was not the ultimate creator of the universe. Why did got create such an imperfect system of observing your surroundings, when he could have made a sort of sight that worked in all conditions without requiring light from distant stars?

From an examination of just the first few sentences of the Bible, I can conclude that it is an illogical explanation for existence.

If you think I'm being picky, you're certainly lenient. You'd think the all-wise creator of everything could make the first two lines of his great guide for mankind scientifically and logically accurate.

Wonder how long the words out of context spring up lol

Yes...because god worded the bible

Some christians actually do believe God did lol

there's the problem right there lol

LOL WORD!!

Oh, so he didn't even fix his interpreter's errors?

Well, at least he's striving for peak accuracy in his guide that is supposed to make the difference between eternal salvation or torment for billions of people.

I don't believe God meant for man to write any of that in the bible at all...God IMO wanted man to make discoveries for himself...to walk with life, to discover things to GROW...thats the whole point in evolution...and most likely part of the biggest question ever asked - the meaning of life!!!

again above is just how I look at it

If you have faith then it all makes sense. (I'm being sarcastic, but that's really an answer I have heard before when questioning the inaccuracies in the bible).

Why should it?


Says who?


Not sure what the Earth being dark has to do with the visible light spectrum being created.


Right, because God is going to tell Moses some 4000 odd years ago all the scientific details concerning creation.


No, I just think your being foolish

i totally agree, i don't see why god is responsible for what man put into the bible...furthermore i agree with ur whole perspective of what god wanted us to do in ur oppinion

Because all he has created as of that point are the formless earth and heaven. Nothing else.



Same response, even though this is one of the less important points.



If you can describe something as "darkness", it is because it is absent of light. Without the term light there would be no term for the absence of light.



It's not scientific details, it's just ordering things right.


Then please reply to the rest of the post, such as why the water is liquid in freezing space temperatures, and why God wants light; when, unless you have something that needs light to see, darkness and light make absolutely no difference. Those were the main points, since I knew someone was just going assume he created gravity, etc before he created the earth, even though it says the very first thing he creates is the heavens and earth.

Thank you...I believe in it for it makes logical sense and it gives me the best of both worlds...religion & science combined

they can coexist if they both looked at it that way

Why? Genesis 1 was never written to be an actual account of HOW the universe came to be. The writing style is highly poetic, utilising imagery, wordplay, poetic structures........ Rather, Genesis 1 was an account of WHO was responsible for creation.

So I ask again, why would you expect it to be a scientific account? Because you want it to be?

The issue is... where does the Poetry and the storytelling stop and the truth begin?

Some Religious groups take the entire Bible as being the absolute word of God - they see the Bible as being the recorded history of Man from the very beginning.

It's not just Genesis 1 which has this issue - take for example the Death of Christ:



Compare and contrast with John's account:



In Matthew, there's an earthquake. Rocks are split asunder. The sky turned Dark for three hours. The Dead walk the Earth again. In John's account, none of this occurs.

How much of the Bible is Poetic Licence?

ha ha good call KBA

And this is the problem. When does the Bible become wholly symbolic? When we know enough to realize it could only be symbolic while still having any measure of truth? It only becomes poetic or symbolic (With exclusions of obvious places like Psalms), when we realize it would be incorrect if it was serious. The trouble is that the Bible is not claiming symbolism.. it is, however, claiming to be the absolute word of the creator of the universe.. I feel like Christians are using words like poetry or symbolism to excuse the shortcomings of the Bible. I mean, is it really so much to ask that the written wisdom of the almighty God be neatly presented so it doesn't confuse people with regards to its message?

People used to believe (And like you said, some still do..) that every part of the Bible is literal truth. Science and reason has changed that. In light of this, what part of the Bible CAN we take seriously? What, in the future, is going to become simply symbolic or metaphoric? All of it?

The thing is though that I am basing my assertion on strong textual evidence. I'm not just saying it's poetic because believing otherwise is inconvenient. If you like I can point you towards some of the markers that show that this passage is poetic in nature. Can you say the same for the Matthew and John passages you quoted? I can't see any textual evidence to suggest such. Matthew and John just happen to go through different elements of the same story. There is no evidence that one is poetry or imagery.

Naturally there are those that would disagree with my statement about Genesis being poetic (the first 11 chapters have that distinctive writing style) and that's all well and good for them. I'm just asking why Genesis 1 NEEDS to be be literal, considering the textual evidence to the contrary.

I'd imagine that anyone from a neutral perspective would look at the two accounts of the events of Christ's Death and realise that something was amiss.

There were no physical events that John deemed noteworthy during the crucifixion. The sky did not turn dark. There was no earthquake. Rocks tended to stay fairly still and rock-like. The dead did not walk the Earth.

These particular events strike me as being fairly noteworthy. You'd have thought maybe the odd Historian or two would have noted some of them, if they had actually occurred. Unless, of course, it was fairly commonplace back then for the dead to get up and have a stroll occasionally.

All John found noteworthy of reporting was a conversation between family and that Jesus was thirsty.

As for Genesis needing to be literal - I don't have any reasons why it should be, at all.