Now here's some humor - answering the anti-Creationism critics.
Reconciling GenesisTo reconcile Genesis’ account of creation with science only two assumptions need making:
Assume:
1. The observer is standing upon the Earth (in reality most readers of Genesis had no concept of space, just as we have little idea of a “multi-verse” of whatever lies beyond this)
2. That the “days” are symbols of completeness or periods of creation.
… and that one event is repeated.
The order according to Genesis:
1. The separation of light from dark
2. Separation of the waters and “firmament”
3. Creation of dry land and the grasses
4. Creation of the sun, the moon and the stars
5. The waters bring forth life.
6. The land brings forth life.
Saturn’s moon Titan is considered a “pre-cursor Earth.” That is, a cloud shrouded, pre-biotic world which approximates the early Earth. I will use this as a basis for understanding the primordial Earth.
The order according to science:
The molten Earth – (not mentioned in Genesis) 4.7 billion years ago.
The first oceans. Prior to 4.4 billion years ago.
The emergence of the granite continents from the seas. 4.4 billion years ago.
The clearing skies. ??
First life forms inhabiting the seas. 4.5 – 3.5 billion years ago.
Life colonizes the land. 580 million years ago.
Emergence of man. (Depends on what is “man.”) 2 million years ago.
KJ version:
[1] In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
[2] And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
[3] And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
[4] And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
[5] And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.The existence of an early ocean was not accepted until 2005 when Australian scientists were able to study the chemical composition of zirconian crystals dating from the pre-continent age.
Assuming a Titan analog, the early Earth would have been dark until the cloud deck cleared, bringing light. This would have exposed the day and night cycle caused by the Earth’s rotation.
[6] And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
[7] And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
[8] And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
I do not understand what the “firmament” here means. I checked it in parallel translations. This might mean the air itself as it separates the waters below from the waters above.
[9] And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
[10] And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.
[11] And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
[12] And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
[13] And the evening and the morning were the third day.
“Dry land” meant the granite blocks which rose above the submerged basalt crust. The continents required the existence of oceanic water to initiate the motion of plate tectonics (continental drift) and this in turn created the granite necessary for the lighter continents.
14] And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
[15] And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
[16] And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
[17] And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
[18] And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
[19] And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
This repeats day 1.
[20] And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
[21] And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
[22] And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.
[23] And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
It is the waters which create life. Water is life’s “solvent.” God’s agency is to command, NOT TO DIRECTLY ACT UPON. Until Darwin’s Origin of Species it was not understood how a bird could come from the ocean.
1. Birds come from therapod dinosaurs
2. Dinosaurs evolved from reptiles
3. Reptiles evolved from amphibians
4. Amphibians evolved from fishes
This is one of the earliest references to life coming from the sea.
[24] And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
[25] And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
[26] And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
[27] So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them….
[31] And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
God made man in the image of something which already existed. The “second” Genesis account suggests that Adam and Eve were not the only people on the Earth, for Cain went out and married into people not know to that family.
Genesis is roundly criticized in our secular society. It is remarkable that its account accords so closely to what is agreed upon in science.