Genesis
From PhiloWiki
As stated in [Creation Magazine], "If the Scriptures can be wrong on testable matters such as geography, history and science, why should they be trusted on matters like the nature of God and life after death, which are not open to empirical testing? Hence Christians should ‘be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you’ (1 Peter 3:15), when skeptics claim that the Bible conflicts with known ‘scientific facts’."
- Light existed before the Sun and stars were created [Gen 1:14]
- The Earth existed before the Sun and stars [Gen 1:16-17]
- Plants lived without the Sun [Gen 1:14]
Is the creation narrative in the Bible accurate?
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Christian views
- Resources are needed. Feel free to find and add resources.
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Secular views
These descriptions detract from the validity of the Bible.
- "The earth was already in existence when the sun and the stars were created, yet scientists have determined that the stars existed billions of years before the earth and that the sun also existed prior to the earth (which revolves around the sun)."
- "...Creationists, rather than observing the Universe and basing their ideas on these observations, assume that the Bible is a divine revelation that gives an accurate account of the origin of the Cosmos. However, that the Biblical account of creation is the product of human minds, rather than of divine origin, can be inferred from the fact that the ideas it contains appear to be derived from other more ancient Middle Eastern myths:
- "The oldest of these myths are three, probably handed down from barbaric traditions. In the Babylonian myth, derived from Sumerian sources, man was made from clay by Bel; in Egypt, the god Khnoumou, and in Greece Prometheus, fashioned him from clay on a potter's wheel... The Jewish story naturally derived from the folk-lore of the country they lived in, the myths of the Semites of whom they were a part. It was in the Sumerian legend that the gods first made light. Then Tiamat, the ocean goddess, rebelled against them, and Marduk (a name of Bel) offered to subdue her if he were given rule over heaven and earth. He divided her into two, forming with the halves the upper and lower waters, sea and sky, a myth take from the Egyptians. Next were created sun, moon, and stars. The resemblance to Genesis, in which light was first created, followed by the upper and lower waters separated by the firmament, is close. The order of creation of other objects is the same in the two myths, save that in the Sumerian the heavenly bodies came second, and in the Jewish version fourth. This was probably because Chaldeans regarded the study of stars (astrology) as of highest importance." (M. Yearsley: The Story of the Bible, page 60.)"
