Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Genesis 1, Version 2.0

I've already posted on why I don't believe in theistic evolution. But here is an abbreviated version of what I would expect to find in Genesis 1 if it was truly a divinely inspired work.
"1 In the beginning, God created the universe. 2 And the universe was a mere speck in the void, but the Spirit of God surrounded it.
3 Then God said, "Let the universe expand." And when He said it, it became so. 4 And God said, "Let the dust of the universe slowly form stars to bring forth light, and planets also." And it was so. 5 From the planets God chose one and called it the earth. And He said, "Let the earth bring forth small living creatures," and again it was so.
6 And God said, "Let the creatures slowly change into many new and different beings. 7 Let the fish become amphibians, and let the amphibians become reptiles, and let the reptiles become birds and mammals, 8 and let there be plants and many other creatures also." And after a long time had passed, it was so. 9 Then God said, "Let mammals slowly bring forth humans that are in My image." And so it was that man arose upon the earth.
10 From men God chose one man and named him Adam, and to Adam He bestowed intelligence above all other men, 11 for it was to Adam alone that God would reveal Himself. 12 And God saw that all that He had made was very good."
It's worth noting that I, a weak-minded and fallible human being, wrote this in just a few minutes. I acknowledge that there may be several problems with this reworked passage – for example, it's too short, it vastly oversimplifies evolution and the formation of the universe, and some of these concepts likely didn't exist in the original Hebrew. However, I would still expect a God who has infinite knowledge, and can therefore come up with literally the best possible combination of words to describe these phenomena, to produce something significantly better than this.

Yet what we find instead is a text riddled with entirely unnecessary scientific errors. This points strongly to the conclusion that the Bible is not the inspired word of God.

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