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The Thinking Man's Bible: The New Age of Reason |
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Chapter 8 |
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One of the most fascinating aspects of Bible-worship is the idea that, despite evidence to the contrary, the Bible is true as written-it’s a matter of faith. This puts the literalist in the unenviable position of having to justify even the most inconvenient of Bible stories, especially the two Genesis creation tales. Believing in a creator is one thing, but believing that this creation was done according to Genesis is quite another. This chapter will compare the Genesis stories with the facts of nature. |
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Creation If we toss out all skeptics’ evidence because they weren’t around during creation, then we must also toss out Genesis because the purported author, Moses, wasn’t there either. Let’s see how the creation stories stand up to the facts of nature. 8.1 Cosmology shows us that the earth formed after the sun coalesced from primordial matter and from the debris of previously exploded stars. Genesis said that the earth formed first. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Gen 1:1 "And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven…" Gen 1:14 "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. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth." Gen 1:16,17 8.2 There is no evidence for the obsolete concept of stars fixed in a firmament-the crystal spheres. Spacecraft have flown through the solar system with nary a tinkle. "Let there be lights in the firmament…" Gen 1:14 "…and God set [the sun, moon, & stars] in the firmament of the heaven…" Gen 1:17 8.3 Genesis stated that water existed above the firmament which held the sun, moon, and stars. Astronomers have looked billions of light-years into space, but there’s still no evidence of any firmament, much less waters above. It would strain credulity to claim that the extremely sparse water molecules found in free space constitute waters above the firmament. "…and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament…" Gen 1:7 8.4 Day and night are caused by the earth rotating on it’s axis, thereby making the sun visible from only half of the earth at any given time. Genesis said that God created the sun after he created day and night. "And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day." Gen 1:5 "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night;" Gen 1:14 "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. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth." Gen 1:16,17 8.5 Stars wouldn’t have been of use as "signs" for hundreds to thousands of years after creation. The stars of the zodiac are hundreds to thousands of light years away, so it would take light hundreds to thousands of years to reach earth. If one were a literalist, then astrology and soothsaying should be major subjects in divinity schools. "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven…and let them be for signs…" Gen 1:14 8.6 The Bible said that the first life forms were grasses, seed plants, and fruit trees, but the fossil record shows that these plants evolved after microscopic and early soporiferous types. "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 the earth [did]…the third day." Gen 1:11-13 8.7 The Bible said that land plants were created before sea creatures, but the fossil record shows that life existed in the seas long before land plants evolved. "And the earth brought forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind, whose seed was in itself, upon the earth: and the earth [did]…the third day." Gen 1:12,13 "And God created(2) …every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly…fifth day." Gen 1:21,23 8.8 Genesis said that whales were created before mammals, but Paleobiology shows that whales evolved from land mammals. "And God created great whales…And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. 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 [sixth day]." Gen 1:21,23,24 8.9 Contrary to the Bible, the fossil record shows that creeping things (insects, arachnids, etc.) existed long before birds. "And God created(3) …every winged fowl after his kind…fifth day." Gen 1:21,23 "And God made…every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind…sixth day." Gen 1:25,31 8.10 The Bible said that plants were created before the sun, but these plant types needed sunlight to live. This is even more significant if we try to stretch the length of a creation day (discussed later). "And the earth brought forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind, whose seed was in itself, upon the earth: and the earth [did]…the third day." Gen 1:12,13 "And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day…fourth day." Gen 16,19 8.11 The Moon is not a light but a reflector, and it’s visible at night only about half the time. "And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night…" Gen 1:16 8.12 God created humans two different ways, neither of which corresponded to natural processes. In Genesis 1 & 5, humans were created in God’s image out of nothing. In Genesis 2, a man was created from dust, and a woman was created from the man’s rib. Why didn’t God make Eve the same way he made Adam? If man was made in God’s image, was God also made from dust or a rib? "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…So God created man in his own imAgemale and female created he them." Gen 1:26,27 "…in the likeness of God made he him; Male and female…" Gen 5:1,2 "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." Gen 2:7 "And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman…" Gen 2:22 Actually, making Adam from dust was not an act of creation but of transmutation,(4) since existing matter was used in the process. "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground…" Gen 2:7 Making Eve from Adam’s rib wasn’t an act of creation either. It was closer to an act of cloning, except that you can’t clone a female from a male. "And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman…" Gen 2:22 8.13 Genesis said that humans were created in God’s image, the image of an "invisible" God, at that. This requires the literalist to address some interesting questions. "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." Gen 1:26,27 "…in the likeness of God made he him; Male and female…" Gen 5:1,2 "…Who is the image of the invisible God…" Col 1:15 8.14 Another set of problems arise from the Biblical claim that God spoke. Did God have vocal cords? Why would God have even needed to speak? Speech is a form of communication by controlling vibrations of air molecules so as to be interpreted by a listener as language. How did God speak before air was created? Actually, we shouldn’t apply too much weight to the Genesis accounts, since the author wasn’t an ear-witness. Not even Adam would have been around to hear God’s creation speech, so no one could possibly have passed on an authentic report. "And God said, Let there be light: and there was light." Gen 1:3 8.15 Who were the "sons of God" in Job who were present at the creation of the earth? They weren’t mentioned in Genesis. Was there a mother of the sons of God? "Where wast thou when I laid the foundation of the earth?…When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?" Job 38:4,7 8.16 Genesis said that rainbows were created in the clouds by God as a reminder of his covenant with Noah. Rainbows also exist outside of clouds, a natural result of optical refraction in rain droplets. This is testable every day, and you can make a rainbow yourself. No divine intervention is necessary.(6) "I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth…And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth." Gen 9:13,16 8.17 Why should we take Genesis seriously when it said things which are at odds with history, human psychology, and every modern view of economics. Certain traits and talents may be influenced by heredity; but it is just plain nonsense to claim that major economic divisions and labor skills were, are, or should be hereditary. Societies which practice these traditional economies have produced nothing but backwardness, misery, and poverty. "…[Jabal] was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle. [Jubal] was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ…Tubalcain, an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron…" Gen 4:20-22 |
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Length of a Creation Day Why should we take the Genesis creation story seriously when it said that an omnipotent God needed six days to create the world? Why couldn’t he do it instantaneously, and why did he need rest afterward? If the acts of creation took any time at all, then the laws of nature would be a simpler explanation for the existence of everything we know of since just after Time-Zero, because there would be no magic required. "Not only is the day-age theory unacceptable Scripturally, but it also is grossly in conflict with the geological position with which it attempts to compromise." (Morris and Clark, 94) "…the ‘days’ mentioned in Genesis 1 were nothing more than ordinary days, as we know them, of 24 hours each." (Ryrie, 185) 8.18 "Day" (Hebrew: yom; Greek: hemera ) was used 100+ times in the Old Testament; and when used with a specific number, it always referred to a 24-hour period. "Days," plural, was used 700+ times in the Old Testament; and it always referred to multiples of 24-hour calendar days. Longer periods were never even hinted at. 8.19 The Biblical references to "evening and morning" directly corresponded to Jewish usage where the new day started at 6:00 PM and lasted 24 hours. The terms would have been meaningless without a difference between daylight and darkness, and there were three of these evenings prior to the creation of the sun. "God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day." Gen 1:5 "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. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth. fourth day." Gen 1:16,17,19 8.20 Since daylight and darkness are produced by the rotation of the earth relative to the sun, a thousand-year or million-year day would have meant that one side of the earth would have faced the sun continuously for thousands or millions of years (like Mercury). This would have produced intense heat and cold on the opposite sides of the earth and would have been catastrophic to life, the oceans, and the atmosphere. "God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day." Gen 1:5 8.21 If a Genesis day were even a thousand of our years long then the rest of early Genesis was nonsense. It would mean that Adam lived over 339 million of our years, Noah would have lived over 346 million years, Noah would have had the patience to wait 7,000 years for the deluge to begin after he loaded the animals into the ark, the deluge would have lasted 40,000 years, the flood would have lasted 140,000 years, etc.
- Adam lived 930 years. Gen 5:5 8.22 Adam was created on the sixth day, but he wasn’t driven out of the Garden of Eden until after the seventh day. Seth was born when Adam was 130 years old, after Adam’s exile from the garden. Therefore, the seventh day was less than 130 years. This limited the seven days of creation to 910 years at the outside. "So God created man in his own imAgeAnd the evening and the morning were the sixth day." Gen 1:27,31 "And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made." Gen 2:2 "Therefore the Lord God sent [Adam] forth from the garden of Eden…" Gen 3:23 "And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son…Seth." Gen 5:3 8.23 If the normal lifetime of men was between 125 years and say 200 years, and since the Bible said that Jesus was descended from Adam in 77 generations, the time of descent from Adam to Jesus would have been approximately 9,000 to 15,000 years at the outside. Therefore, the seventh day (God’s day of rest(8)) could not have been longer than this 15,000 years. At a day’s length of 15,000 years, this would have made the age of the earth just over 100,000 years. Doubling or tripling the age of each day would still get us nowhere near the necessary billions of years. "So God created man in his own imAgeAnd the evening and the morning were the sixth day." Gen 1:27,31 "…[man’s] days shall be an hundred and twenty years." Gen 6:3 Jesus’ genealogy. Lk 3:23-31 8.24 Photosynthetic plants were created a day before the sun was created. These plants may have lived for some days without sunlight, but how could they have survived thousands of years? This limits a creation day to some weeks at most. "And the earth brought forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind, whose seed was in itself, upon the earth: and the earth [did]…the third day." Gen 1:12,13 "And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day…fourth day." Gen 16,19 8.25 Defining a day as anything other than 24 hours would contradict God’s commandment for the sabbath and work week. Commandment V. "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work…For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it." Ex 20:8-11 |
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Noah’s Flood 8.26 If Noah’s flood had covered the whole earth 15 cubits (22 feet) above the highest mountains, it would have required massive quantities of water in addition to the water already in the earth’s oceans, lakes, rivers, and atmosphere. The flood would have required at least 2.2 times the existing ocean quantity to cover Mt. Ararat or 3.4 times to cover Mt. Everest. Where did it come from? Better yet, where did all that water go? "And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered." Gen 7:19,20 8.27 If God destroyed all the animals that breathed, how did the whales and dolphins survive? They breathe, but they cannot have lived aboard the ark for a year. "…I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven…" Gen 6:17 8.28 If God destroyed all the animals that breathed, where did the descendants of the giants (Nephilim) come from? There was no mention of their being taken aboard the ark. "There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that…" Gen 6:4 "And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight." Num 13:33 8.29 If God destroyed everything in the earth, how did plants reestablish themselves, if the microorganisms that fix nitrogen in the soil were destroyed. "…I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth…every thing that is in the earth shall die." Gen 6:17 8.30 How did the animals know they needed to go to the ark? How did they know where it was? How did the slowest ones get from their remote habitats to the ark in time? Snails, for example, would have taken hundreds to thousands of years to slime their way over to the Mesopotamia from the Western Hemisphere and Australia, even with land bridges. There is no evidence that the vast number of earth’s species (or "kinds") ever inhabited Mesopotamia. How did koalas, pandas, platypuses, penguins, llamas, etc. get there? How did cold-weather species survive in the South-West Asian heat? How did these travelers avoid becoming a meal for less-pious predators along the way? After the flood, how did they get back to their respective habitats? 8.31 How did the raven live outside the ark for twenty days if even the dove hadn’t found any dry land yet? Its survival is fortunate since there were only two ravens on the ark. "And he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up form off the earth. And he sent forth a dove from him…but the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot…" Gen 8:7-9 "Of fowls…two of every sort…" Gen 6:20 8.32 Where did the olive leaf get plucked from? An olive tree would hardly have survived under brackish water for a year. "And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off…" Gen 8:11 8.33 Even though Genesis could be interpreted such that only air-breathing life was eliminated in the flood, how did all the sea life survive? They cannot have lived in the ark, and the oceans were diluted 2:1 or 3:1 with fresh water. How could fresh-water and salt-water fish have survived in brackish water for a year? 8.34 The ark, at 450 ft, exceeded the known practical length of wooden ships, which is about 300 ft. The longest wooden ship ever built was 325 ft, and it was not structurally sound. "The length of the ark shall be 300 cubits [450 ft]." Gen 6:15 8.35 The ark contained only one, 18-inch window to ventilate this three-story vessel housing millions of animals. If the ark’s door was also opened during calm weather, the cross-ventilation would still have had been limited by this tiny window. The ASPCA would not have been happy with the mass suffocation. "A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it." Gen 6:16 8.36 A flotilla of arks would have been necessary to carry pairs from each of the 1600 species of mammals, 12,500 species of birds, 600 species of reptiles, and over 1,000,000 smaller species (Ball, 50), along with the food, fodder, and fresh water necessary to sustain this menagerie for a year. 8.37 Even if Noah took enough supplies for his menagerie, how did he know how much to take? God didn’t tell him how long they would be afloat. "And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them." Gen 6:21 Without refrigeration, canning, or freeze-drying, what did the carnivores eat for a year… their shipmates? The notion which some apologists propose-that carnivores were herbivores before the flood, then miraculously transformed-is not supported by the types of teeth found in fossil carnivores. 8.38 After leaving the ark, what did the carnivores eat? "…every living substance was destroyed…both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven…and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark." Gen 7:23 8.39 Present species of vegetation must have survived the flood, but the Bible didn’t explain how land plants survived a year under brackish water without sunlight or air. 8.40 What happened to the dinosaurs and other now-extinct plants and animals in the fossil record? They must have been taken aboard the ark, because Genesis didn’t make any exceptions. The Bible didn’t list any extinctions, either. Besides, contrary to misinterpreted and faked footprint evidence, men and dinosaurs did not coexist. "And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark…" Gen 6:19 "…two of every sort shall come…" Gen 6:20 "Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens…and of beasts that are not clean by two…" Gen 7:2 8.41 Noah was extremely lucky that his 450-foot wooden ship landed nice and level, especially in a mountain range. If it had settled on a slope or ridge it would have broken up and sunk along with its cargo. How could God and Noah have depended on such a favorable landing? "And the ark rested…upon the mountains of Ararat." Gen 8:4 8.42 The ark’s inhabitants must have carried all the present disease bacteria and viruses as well as the genetic weaknesses and flaws that humans and animals now have. How could these basket cases have survived a year in close quarters, breathing the same air, and exposed to all that sewage? 8.43 If Noah and his family were the only humans after the flood, then they must have carried all human racial characteristic genes. However, races can be shown to be continuous for hundreds of thousands of years, even in the isolated continents of America and Australia. Racial characteristics were apparent in carvings made thousands of years before the flood. 8.44 According to the Bible, the flood occurred about 2348 BCE; but the Egyptian historical records, which were continuous from Menes (3400 BCE) to Darius Ochus (340 BCE), never mentioned it. More simply, if they were all killed in the flood… 8.45 Why didn’t other experienced seafaring peoples survive the flood? They would have had sea-going vessels and would have been capable of surviving at sea for long periods subsisting on sea-life (which obviously lived through the flood) and rainwater (as Noah must have done). 8.46 There is evidence of local flooding in many parts of the globe, including Mesopotamia, but there are many places on earth that show no geological signs of immersion whatsoever. |
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If you’re interested in the creationism/evolution debate and the contortions that the creationists use in defending Genesis, you’ll have to read one of the many learned books on the subject.