The Unacknowledged Accuracy of Genesis 1

There are a number of issues. Essentially you are taking a very selective reading of Genesis 1 ignoring parts that don't fit so well.But looking at the issues you raise about plants and the sun.Without an atmosphere light will still reach the surface of the earth - in fact MORE light will, because the atmosphere filters out some of it and diffuses it. How can filtering and diffusing light be described as creating a light ?How can plants survive without an atmosphere ?If the daylight was created in the fourth day, why does Genesis 1:5 talk about day and night, evening and morning ? So why should we not say that this light is daylight ? Is that not what Genesis actually says that it is ?

Perhaps you can explain precisely what you mean by "the phenomenon of daylight" - remembering that it ought to be equivalent to moonlight since - by your reading - these are paralleled in the text.Aside from the fact that I believe that blue green algae are better described as bacteria rather than plants (cyanobacteria) I find it hard to believe that they could survive without an atmosphere of some sort. I would be suprised if you could even have liquid water.The breathability of the atmosphere is another issue - but you can't directly appeal to that because Genesis doesn't directly mention the atmosphere at all. You need to link it to your explanation of the "lights" because that is the part off Genesis that you are actually referring to.

Just to add, it's a good idea to look at a bit more of the context: If the stars are "for signs and seasons" then the stars must be "lights" in the sense used, and so must the Moon. It seems odd, then to suppose that the "greater light" is not the Sun. If the purpose is to light the Earth then it is hard to say how cutting the amount of light reaching the surface could be considered to be productive.So, as far as I can see my reading of Genesis 1:3-5 describing the creation of "daylight" and Genesis 1:14-18 describing the creation of the sun, moon and stars is truer to the text.

I think it's worth taking a little time to compare what Genesis really says with the supposed order given here.Danny's order:

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As it stands, the chronology of universal presented in Genesis is as follows:
Light - the Big Bang
Firmament - the expanse/expansion of the Universe
Earth
Seas
Vegetation
Sun, Moon and stars
Oceanic Life
Land based Animals
Mankind

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Genesis 1:
Seas (Oceans is probably a better word 1:2)
Light - day and night (1:3-5)
Firmament - a solid boundary dividing the seas from the water in the sky (1:6-7)
Dry land ("seas" are created as a consequence of this - but the water was already there) (1:9-10)
Plants - including flowering plants (Cretaceous) (1:11-12)
Sun, Moon and stars (1:14-18)
Sea creatures and flying creatures (apparently including birds & mammals 1:20-22)
Land life (apparently including arthopods and cattle) (1:24-25)
Man (1:26-27)Danny leaves out the preexisting waters and flying creatures, His interpretations of "light" and the firmament also appear to be at odds with the text.The text dealing with the order in which living things appeared also cannot represent the actual order because, with the exception of man it lumps together ancient and modern forms in all three groupings. For every grouping it should be possible to find an example where the ordering is incorrect. There was plenty of sea life before flowering plants appeared. There was plenty of land life before birds or flowering plants or aquatic mammals appeared. But we cannot revise the order to escape this problem, because it is inherent to the "lumping together" - if we move land animals to before plants or before birds we have the problem that cattle clearly appeared later. There is no correct order for these groupings.It is also clear that Genesis 1 represents an Ancient Near Eastern worldview that is not in agreement with modern science. It starts with water. It is geocentric with astronomical bodies viewed as lights in the sky - itself a solid dome that keeps the water out. It is concerned with the life known at the time, with no awareness of the long history of life. To see it as an accurate account of the modern scientific view requires ripping it out of the ancient cultural context where it so clearly belongs.

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There are SIMILARITIES between Genesis 1 and conventional wisdom on universal evolution. These SIMILARITIES are there and there are too many of them to constitute a lucky shot in the dark.

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The SIMILARITIES are based on "interpreting" Genesis 1 so it fits with modern science - there is no "shooting in the dark". The eisegetes knwo what target they are aiming at and are quite happy to strain the text to fit.

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I would ask you to read Genesis 1, something you have probably never done or would ever dream of doing, and see for yourself whether these SIMILARITIES exist or not.

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I did that and posted my findings Message 19. Have you read Genesis 1 ? Did you find the "SIMILARITIES" ? Perhaps you can explain why setting a solid dome in the sky to keep water out is "SIMILAR" to the expanding Universe. It doesn't look very similar to me.

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In the absence of compelling evidence, I reject out of hand any suggestion that the writers of the bible didn't know that light came from the sun, the moon and the stars.

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I think it's pretty clear that the writer of Genesis 1 didn't realise that the sun was the source of daylight - just as he didn't realise that the moon only reflected it. The writer did know that the Sun Moon and stars were light sources but not just how important the Sun is. And it's not too surprising - daylight is diffused by the atmosphere as has already been discussed here. A naive viewer might think that the day sky was itself a light source.If you examine the text it seems quite clear that the day/night cycle is set up in Genesis 1:3-5, in the first day. The Sun, Moon and Stars only appear in the 4th day (Genesis 1:14-18) Yes, they give "light upon the Earth" but we mustn't take it out of context and ignore the earlier verses. Or the fact that this is the 4th day.

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I doubt this. A naive viewer would witness the the sun rising and the day beginning. As the sun gets higher in the sky things become brighter. As the sun lowers and sets into the void it gets dark again and the day is over.

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Yet if clouds block the sun from view, the sky that is not obscured is still bright. Obviously the sun is a light source, but the day sky is, too. Unless you know about optics.

It could have some similarities in broad outlien even if read as intended. If one is prepared to stretch the text and rewrite the order of events then of course it is possible to create more "similarities". See Message 19. I see nothing significant in "similarities" of your creation, which are not found in Genesis.

I said "could have" - I don't think that there are any similarities that require any special knowledge. And yes I did read your ideas about "atmosphere" and they don't make any sense. Not only does it require an extremely dubious reading, it's obviously out of order because plants need atmosphere (not to mention the fact that the plants are not restricted to early plants, but include flowering plants which come later than the first birds, early mammals and much later than "creeping things").

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So much for getting into the spirit of things

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This is a discussion site. If you don't want any criticisms then you are in the wrong place.

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Let there be light - the Big Bang. This seems like a reasonable similarity, if you know what I mean.

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But if you look at it in context it is far less reasonable. There appears to be water. The light is daylight and the dark form which it is separated is night.

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The Firmament - now I'll need confirmation of this because I don't know Hebrew. Can the Hebrew word for Firmament mean both the expanse of the universe AND it's expansion

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My understanding is that it etymologically relates to being "hammered out". And anyway the firmamaent refers to something which divides two lots of water. Does that really make sense if it is the expansion of the universe ?

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Why not all at once? Why not, God just clicks its fingers and Wham!, everything is as it is? Why would the compilers of Gen 1 envision it was done in this 'evolutionary' way, with the simplest forms of life coming first and then becoming increasingly more complex?

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You should rather ask why a true evolutionary account is missing. As I point out in Message 19 the Genesis account does group many things that appeared over a very long period of time into a single day. When the actual histories overlap.

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In the same concordance it says that life was "brought forth" from the seas

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That seems to be only true of sea creatures and maybe birds.If we're going to look at simliarities then at least look at real similarities. Not ones which are based on wishful thinking and ignoring the context.{ABE} If you only want to discuss similarities I suggest that you find clear, definite similarities that can't be successfully rebutted.
I don't thnk that you will find anything of significance.Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

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We can't really regard the 'days' of creation as actual days (I'm sure you can figure out why) so why don't we substitute words like 'phases' or 'stages' instead of days (I'm sure this seems highly unreasonable).

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So far as I can tell the literal meaning does appear to indicate actual days. I can't see any textual grounds for ruling out such a reading - just the opposite. Of course if you want to argue that the entire account is non-literal that doesn't matter.

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As for the waters and the firmament, check out my bizarre interpretation given in message #113

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I don't agree that Genesis 1 is describing the creation of the universe in that sense. Reading it as referring to literal water being separated by the sky, on the other hand makes quite a lot of sense - in a Middle Eastern Creation myth.

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Obviously, in the evolutionary sense, vegetation (even in the form of blue-green algae) comes first (mind you, there was no mention of bacteria, amino acids or any pre-biotic systems) and maybe we can say that even though some plant-life (flowering plants for example) come later in the evolutionary sense, they are all put in the same group (ie: vegetation), call it 'poetic license' if you will.

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That assumes that he writers knew it wasn't really the case, which I'm not about to concede without evidence. In fact it is important to note that the one thing missing from Genesis 1 is any mention of biological evolution - there is no sense of change other than simple additions. You don't get any sense that the animals in the categories change over time or of the connections between the different categories (and it doesn't even recognise that birds or whales evolved from land animals at all)

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And I think you'll find (but correct me if I'm wrong) that the animals "brought forth" from the sea include "cattle, creeping things and wild animals".

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No, they're explicitly brought forth from the earth ("land" in the NIV) - Genesis 1:24

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Correct me if I'm wrong but you appear to be saying "If you want to discuss similarities, there are no similarities so there is no discussion."

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You're wrong. I'm saying that if you don't want to argue over whether the similarities are really there you need to come up with ones too obvious to argue over. I add that I don't think that there are any of significance - but I hope you realise that is stating an opinion that is open to rebuttal. That's a long way from stating that there definitely aren't any at all.

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Did you mean to say that Biblical creationists are the only ones who claim macro-evolution is a belief that the universe created itself out of nothing? Am I just being too blunt with my description of the theory or is there something I'm missing? How would you describe it?

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I can't think of anyone else who would make such a glaring mistake. Evolution doesn't deal with the origin of the universe. Evolution is part of biology, not physics or astronomy. It is about how life develops and changes over time - not individuals so much as populations or the genes that they contain.

That's not how it's used in biology. Macroevolution is all evolution at the species level or above. Even many creationists believe that new species can evolve.I don't think you'll find the term "cosmic evolution" in wide use in science. And if it did it'd probably be much more about the formation of stars, galaxies and other bodies - how the unvierse has changed over time since its origin. (There is an idea that universes reproduce and evolve in a similar way to living things but that is probably not discussed often enough to need a special name).

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Could you please post why it is that you think this? There is nothing in the story that specifies Isaac’s age, yet you seem to know it is 37 and not 36 or such

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If you investigate, 37 is the maximum possible age allowed by the story. Sarah is 90 before Isacc is born (Genesis 17:17). Sarah dies at the age of 127 (Genesis 23:1) - an unspecified time after the story.There is nothing in the events either side of the story that demand any great passage of time. Isaac could easily be 8 - and that's more likely than 37.