Genesis In the beginning...

The first sentence makes itself quite clear about what happened here. No ambiguity, no wriggle room; God created the heaven and the earth according to the Bible. But the account is very strange, and takes a fundamentally inaccurate view of the universe. It implies a starting point of a flat featureless ocean (1:2 and 1:6), whereupon light is added without a source (1:3), suggesting a lack of knowledge as to where the light comes from; how could there be an evening and a morning without the sun?

Then there's the firmament business (1:6). What the hell is that? Or rather what in heavens name is that? Well it is in fact an implication of a solid sky, a bowl displaying the stars about which the celestial spheres traveled; an geocentric universe. Actually no, a universe in layers. Which is quite simply wrong. If you doubt this interpretation, then it is even easier from the Hebrew, which was the word used for a metal dome beaten out of a metal sheet.

Then the water is gathered together into one place and land appears... rather than the land rising above the water, in accordance with the laws of physics. Then the plants come along, which I guess is accurate apart from the grass bit, which wasn't around for a long time... ferns came first and were the dominant plant species through much of the dinosaur era... I mean c'mon guys, you're trying to take this stuff literally! Then the stars and the sun were made AFTER the grass... no photosynthesis for you!! And they're all *set* in the firmament (inescapably inaccurate) in order to give light to earth... despite the fact that a desperately, stupidly, unimaginably small fraction of stars in the universe are visible from Earth. Then the waters bring forth their creatures and the fowl (though the fowl come from the earth in 2:19) which can be said to be accurate, broadly speaking, but then the earth separately brings forth cattle etc. and ruins it all.

Then He makes man in his own image. This is the beginning of a very human view of the universe, the "own image" milarky being the most obvious symptom. This is to me indicative of man placing himself at the center of the universe rather than the universes creator. How incredibly self-centered is this view, in this day and age, when we have a more accurate perception of the true form and scale of reality. This view, I'm afraid, only makes historical sense in terms of the society that generated it.

Then there's a lot of man has dominion stuff, eat everything! Even the poisonous stuff, see what happens... oh and the drugs. And all animals were herbivores, apparently. Even tapeworms, mosquitoes, tigers... never mind.

According to Karen Armstrong and her excellent book, this chapter was in fact written after Genesis 2, and was written to portray the unity of nature and all humans, with everything being good and harmonious, and all man created equal. Lovely. If only it were all like this... poetic, and meaningful as a metaphor (if you believe in God).

Well that's chapter one... I did warn you! for further reading about the ancient view of the universe portrayed in Genesis, I found Is Heaven the Sky?. Pretty well-stated :) anyway, next chapter is next! Funnily enough...