Genesis

From SkepticWiki

1 Definition
2 Genesis of Genesis
3 Beliefs based on Genesis
4 The Flood
5 Contradictions
6 Sexual Themes
7 Trivia
8 References and Further Reading

[edit] Definition

Genesis is an ancient Hebrew account of the beginning days of the world. It is the first book of the Torah or Pentateuch, and is placed first in most canonical Christian Scripture.

“Genesis” is a Greek word meaning “birth”. In Hebrew the book is known as “Bereishit”, the first word in the book, meaning “in the beginning of”. It is also known as the First Book of Moses.

Note: The King James translation of Genesis is used in this discussion. Notes in (a:b) format refer to chapter and verse.

[edit] Genesis of Genesis

The authorship and date of the book Genesis is disputed. A popular Christian view is that the book was written by Moses during the Egyptian exodus. This would place the date of writing at around 2500, BC, assuming the accuracy of biblical timelines. Another theory claims that the book was compiled in the 5th century BC, from earlier sources. To Christians, the book represents the Word of God, and thus the original author is God himself.

[edit] Beliefs based on Genesis

Genesis is the primary basis of fundamentalist Christian worldview. In many ways it is at odds with the current scientific views on cosmology, astronomy, geology, biology, and history. This has led to a political conflict in America concerning which view is to be presented in public schools, and under what context.

The term Creationism is used to denote a supposed scientific basis for the claims of Genesis. Most of the methods and findings of Creationism are regarded as pseudoscience by scientists.

[edit] Creationism

(Main Article:Creationism)

"Let there be Light"

According to Genesis, the Earth was created about 6000 years ago (see the main article on Biblical chronology). There is, of course, much debate on this figure [1]. Little is said about the remainder of the universe, except that the Sun was created after the Earth, and the remaining stars after that. This is at odds with current scientific understanding, which places the age of the universe at about 15 billion years, and that of the Earth at about 4.5 billion. According to Genesis, the first creation was light. Paradoxically, the creation of light occurs before the creation of such light-producing objects as the Sun and Moon. This has suggested to some creationists that light appearing to originate from distant sources was created in transit, thus appearing to come from a source older than the universe suggested by Genesis. This is an unfalsifiable hypothesis, and has been ridiculed as a form of Last Thursdayism.

[edit] Origin of Life

Interestingly, Genesis claims that God did not directly create animals and plants, but commands the earth and oceans to “bring forth” these things. Some have argued that this represents something like evolution. In any case, the creation of all life takes only two days. The current scientific view is that life evolved over billions of years. The order in which various life forms are created in Genesis is also contradictory to the scientific view. Genesis uses the interesting term “kind” to describe types of living things (1:11; 6:20). Creationists have generally equated this term with “species” in the scientific sense. One claim is that while evolution may bring forth new varieties within one kind, it is not possible for new kinds to evolve. However speciation has been observed in recent times. In light of this evidence, the term “kind” may be re-interpreted to be consistent with the claim that evolution of kinds is impossible.

[edit] Origin of Man

"Let us make man in our image, after our likeness"

According to Genesis, humans were created by God “in our image, after our likeness”(1:26), in one day, using earth as raw material. This implies some special relationship between God and Man. This view takes offense at the scientific theory suggesting that humans are simply another type of animal, and that they are the result of natural and impersonal forces.

[edit] Cosmology

Genesis does not go into detail on the structure of the world, but some features can be inferred from the narrative. The second day of creation is concerned with the construction of a “firmament”(1:6), which “divided the waters from the waters”. Later this firmament is identified with “heaven”(1:8). This suggests that the sky is something like a clear dome, with water above it. This setup is reinforced by a later description of the Flood, in which “the windows of heaven were opened”(7:11), resulting in a deluge. The firmament of heaven is also the location of the stars (1:17).

[edit] The Flood

(Main Article: Noah’s Flood)

One of the more prominent stories of Genesis is the story of Noah’s flood (6-9). According to Genesis, God, sickened by the wickedness of man, decided to destroy all life on Earth with a flood. Only the “just and upright” Noah and his family were permitted to survive, by living in a large ship or “ark” for the duration of the flood. To preserve animal life on Earth, Noah was instructed to take pairs of animals aboard this ship.

This flood, as Genesis relates, covered the entire earth, to the mountaintops. Assuming a water depth of 5000 meters (which wouldn’t even cover the higher mountains), the volume of such a flood would be about 2.6 quintillion cubic meters, in addition to the existing ocean. The current volume of the Earth’s ocean is about 1.3 quintillion cubic meters. In short, a flood of the size described would require triple the amount of water currently on Earth. It is unclear where such a vast amount of water would come from, or how it could subside in 40 days as described in the story.

The size of Noah’s ship is problematic from several angles. It is described as being 300 cubits long, or about 450 feet. No wooden ship has ever been built that remotely approaches this size, even with modern engineering knowledge. Wooden ships about 300 feet long have been built using steel reinforcement. Another problem is whether even a ship of this size could contain all the species of the Earth for forty days.

Calculations have shown that a ship the size of the ark would have been strained by the cargo of insects alone. Creationist counterargument resorts again to the that troublesome word “kind”. They counter that the ark may have carried representatives of each “kind”, (e.g.: seven pairs of grasshoppers), from which the myriad variations evolved in the subsequent period through “microevolution”.

No remains of Noah’s ark have ever been discovered. However, from time to time, expeditions to Mount Ararat in Turkey have been launched with the hope of finding such remains. These expeditions, usually sponsored by Christian groups and employing less-than-scientific archaeological techniques, have occasionally returned with wondrous accounts and suspicious fragments of wood. See: Noah's Ark Remnants

No geological evidence for a worldwide flood has been discovered, although many local catastrophes are evident in the ancient world. There is some geological and archaeological evidence for a sudden catastrophic inundation of the area surrounding the Black Sea in the 6th millennium BC[2].

Ancient literature is replete with flood legends, such as Plato’s Atlantis, and the flood related in the epic of Gilgamesh. Many of these have parallels to the Flood story of Genesis. This has suggested to some that an actual event may have been memorialized in legends.

[edit] Contradictions

Many Christians view Genesis as allegorical, or spiritual, and thus do not see any reason to be concerned with apparent contradictions in the mundane language. Others see Genesis as inerrant in substantive facts, while admitting that minor defects may have been introduced through the prejudices of its many authors and editors. But to literalists who believe that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, there can be no contradiction in Genesis, either within itself, relative to the remainder of the Bible, or to obvious facts. Numerous apparent contradictions have been identified by skeptical research. These may be dealt with by literalists in several ways. In the case of inconsistency with scientific knowledge, it may asserted that scientific knowledge is wrong, or the scientific knowledge may be shoehorned into the biblical view. In the case of apparent internal inconsistency, ad-hoc hypotheses and ridiculous theories may be proposed to resolve the conflict. If all else fails, the inconsistency may be labeled a mystery or a miracle.

Here are a few of the apparent contradictions contained entirely in the book of Genesis:

There are two contradictory creation narratives. In one, humans were created before animals (1:25-27); In the other, humans created after animals (2:18-19). In one, Creation took six days (1:3-2:3); in the other, Creation took one day (2:4);
God tells Adam that he will die the day he eats the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (2:17), Adam eats the fruit, but goes on to become the longest lived person in the entire Bible. (5:5)
God tells Cain he will be a “fugitive and a vagabond” (4:12); Shortly afterwards, he marries, has children, and founds a city (4:17)
We are told that the descendants of Noah speak many different languages(10:5). Yet the story of the Tower of Babel begins by explaining that everyone speaks the same language (11:1).

[edit] Sexual Themes

Certainly most Christians would advocate the reading of the Bible to children as part of their religious education. At the same time, many Christians would see the sex-absorbed popular media as inappropriate for young children. Paradoxically, Genesis is probably the second-most sex-laden book of the Bible. But unlike the Song of Solomon which describes a romantic wedding celebration, Genesis contains some seriously raunchy stuff, including a disturbing incestuous menage-a-trois. (19:30-36). It is possible that some Christians are unaware of the darker side of their holy book, since these episodes are not traditionally read in religious services, nor represented in children’s coloring books.

Of particular infamy is the story of the destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. According to this tale, Lot’s house is surrounded by a mob, who wish to rape his two (male) guests. Lot offers them his virgin daughters instead, which the mob refuses. Eventually, the city is destroyed by God for its wickedness. (19:1-29)

Some see this as a fable emphasizing the duty to guests; one’s guests are to be protected even to the exclusion of family members. However, most Christian teaching attaches significance to the implied homosexuality of the mob, and see this story as making heterosexual rape preferable to homosexuality. We are not told what specific brand of wickedness was prevalent in the main population of Sodom, nor in Gomorrah, but the word “sodomy” originates from the view that Sodom’s main sin was deviant sex. This story is used even today to justify hatred or discrimination against homosexuals.

Genesis describes some behavior towards women that by today’s standards would seem ungentlemanly, at the very least. The patriarch Abraham, concerned that his wife Sarai will be kidnapped by the Egyptians, asks his wife to claim that she is his sister; so that the Egyptians will not kill him.(12:13) Later, in another city, Abraham uses this ruse a second time.(20:2). Still later, his son Isaac also uses the “She’s my sister” act (26:7).

[edit] Trivia

Astrology is first mentioned in the bible in Genesis 1:14; Let there be lights in the firmament …and let them be for signs…
“Giants” are mentioned in Genesis 6:4. Belief in biblical giants contributed to the embarrassment surrounding the Cardiff Giant.