Wednesday, February 23, 2005
Newsbreak with Philotas
something interesting
Just reading some random net sites, and in the course of my investigations I came across something that struck me as odd. You know how you can read the Bible many times and not actually understand it? not on a spiritual level, but on a practical level. Check out Genesis 1 and 2.
There are two seperate accounts of God creating man and woman. In Genesis 1, on the sixth day: (v27) "So God Created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (v28) God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."
Now, check out the start of Chapter 2
"This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created. "When the Lord God made the earth and the heavens - and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth, and there was no man to work the ground, but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surgace of the ground - the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living being" (Gen 2:4-7)
Now can anyone else pick up the discrepencies here?
According to Chapter 1:
The Sixth day is after the plants and animals had already been put on earth. it was then that God created man and woman, told them to go and multiply.
According to Chapter 2:
God made the first man out of clay BEFORE any other plant or animal life, then made the garden of eden so they could live there. (this appears to happen halfway through the third day)
There are a couple of ways to interperet this.
1, the "sixth day humans" are everyone else, all the rest of the nations that would spread out and colonise all the cities (the ones that Cain would eventually be driven out to after killing Abel)
(Problems: Why create two humans first and give them a Garden all to themselves if you are going to create MANY people and tell them to spread. Why build the garden if you are later going to make the whole earth fertile? Also, why doesnt Genesis 1 say that he created the man and the woman?)
2 The Chapters are talking about the same event, but chap 2 in more detail. (problem with this is that they arent compatible given the timing that is written)
3 The creation story we have in the first two chapters is a mix of the a couple of different creation myths from the Hebrew culture.
Unfortunately, I think (this is going to be bad) that the most likely option is 3. Something that tips me off as well, is this:
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."
Genesis 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.
Genesis 2:4 (just 3 verses later) This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created
Why? Why say that just after you've described it? look at it objectively for a moment. if you were reading that as a story, doesnt it sound like one short story is ending, and another one starts, maybe a different version of the same story? But if there is only one story, why include the other? And what does this mean if there are two different versions of this story. does that mean it really is only a myth?
Thoughts please. and especially on what this means
SAM
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