Genesis and Other Creation Myths

[Berzerker]

Rather than use the What Would Jesus Do thread, I'll post my response to why the Sun appears after the Earth in Genesis here along with a few assorted myths and links to various images.

God called the light "Day" and the darkness "Night", these phenomenon result from a world spinning near a star. Gen 1:2 says the Earth was not as we know it now but was covered by the deep (water) and in darkness, so prior to creation the world was either not spinning and/or was further from the sun.

Genesis doesn't say when the sun was created, or even that it was created, only that it and the Moon were the 2 great luminaries appointed to rule over Day and Night. The luminaries in the Heaven serve a purpose other than providing light, for signs, seasons and time keeping. Genesis is describing the newly born Earth's "sky", not the universe.

Where Genesis gets into a little trouble is the chronology of life appearing in the world and linking creation to 6 days with a 7th day for rest. These are not literal days but are planets. The biblical monotheists were adopting a pantheistic creation story from Mesopotamia where planets were "gods".

That creation story - the Enuma Elish - describes a sequence of 10 celestial gods appearing before Heaven and Earth. This is why Marduk is clothed with the halo of 10 gods as he is declared "supreme" while preparing for battle with Tiamat (the biblical Tehom), the deity carved up to form Earth.

Tiamat was the 6th planet and the Earth became the 7th planet, the 7th planet from outside our solar system - the Earth is represented by 7 circles in both Sumerian and Incan cosmology. This is the basis for the Sabbath, the day the creator rested.

These celestial gods in the Enuma Elish number 11... That changed to 12 when the Earth and Moon replaced Tiamat, the watery dragon that was dismantled by Marduk to create Heaven and Earth. A 4500 year old Sumerian cylinder seal (V 243) shows our solar system based on the Enuma Elish.

http://theomnireport.blogspot.com/20...n-tribute.html

Compare that cylinder seal with rock art from the Fremont Indians of Utah. Tiamat corresponds with the horned deity in the middle being targeted by the hunter below and right.

http://net.indra.com/~dheyser/fremont/fremont_a.html

The Incan Genesis

http://www.andrewcollins.com/page/news/eq_0815.htm

The ellipse at top center is the Incan creator, it joins or separates 5 objects above with the 4 objects below with the Sun and Moon on either side.

Compare with the Nazca monkey

http://canofmystery.blogspot.com/201...zca-lines.html

Their creator - the monkey - peers down between two hands with 4 and 5 digits.

Or the Nazca "hand"

http://blog.world-mysteries.com/stra...-nazca-glyphs/

The Temple of Kukulcan at Chichen Itza incorporates the numbers 6, 7 and 9 when depicting a serpent snaking up and down the 9 stepped pyramid - 9 being the number of the "Lords of the Night".

http://www.world-mysteries.com/chichen_kukulcan.htm

Dante's Inferno numbers 9 realms as does the Norse 9 worlds represented by the Ash tree Yggsdrasil.

Genesis describes a water covered world before God arrives on the scene to create the Earth. Various Native American myths describe the same water covered world before God sends a divine animal below the water to retrieve mud which is spread out to form the land.

These myths share common features and they're found all over the world. And our science supports them - our oldest rocks (zircon crystals actually) formed in water. Our oceans are older than plate tectonics and life and their age are making researchers rethink the evolution of Earth and its water.

We were told comets brought us our water. No, isotopic evidence says they didn't. So we were told asteroids brought us our water. Well, they do match our water. But the mechanism for delivering that water was the migration of outer gas giants, specifically Jupiter. But that migration was considered the cause for the late heavy bombardment when large asteroids struck the Earth and Moon about 4 billion years ago. We had oceans long before that migration, but the Enuma Elish does describe celestial gods in chaotic orbits disturbing Tiamat.

Here's a link to the Enuma Elish

http://www.crivoice.org/enumaelish.html

 

[Ryika]

3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

[...]

And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.

[...]

God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

So on day 1 God creates light and darkness. Then 3 days go by, each of them with "morning and evening" meaning "light and darkness". And on day 4 God made two great lights to govern the sky.

Please explain in detail how you manage to rationalize that for 3 days light and darkness existed before the Sun and the Moon were made on day 4.

 

[Agent327]

You seem to have missed the somewhat obvious fact that without sun or Earth there would be no 'day' or 'night'. Creating 'light' (the stars, one presumes) does not create 'day'. For that, oddly, one needs a planet (say, Earth) from where to watch its star (in our case, the sun).

So the story teller wants us to believe God created all the stars except one, then waited 3 'days' before creating another star. And some planets.

Now, you can believe that - or you can believe what astrophysicists tell us from observation.

 

[onejayhawk]

I always thought the creation story worked best when viewed as a series of visions or dreams. Given that they were 1000 years old when they were set to paper, some drifting was inevitable.

J

 

[Arakhor]

So, because Dante's Inferno and Norse mythology each had nine realms, that means ancient Norsemen and mediaeval Italians both knew that there were nine planets in the solar system?

If that is so, why does Dante's Paradiso specifically enumerate just the five planets visible to the naked eye? Dante journeys through the heavens of the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the Fixed Stars, the Angels and the realm of the Almighty himself.

 

[abradley]

Something to remember in a discussion of Genesis, Catholics don't take the Bible literally.

This isn't new, it's been that way since the early fathers of the church.

Fr Barron explains it here, it's short, less than 3 minutes.


Link to video.

 

[Bugfatty300]

So where the ancients using modern definition of planets? Did they only count terrestrial planets? Why didn't they count planets in other solar systems? Or dwarf planets? What about What about big asteroids? Don't forget rogue planets.

Are number games concerning human defined concepts like planet really meaningful?

 

[Flying Pig]

Something to remember in a discussion of Genesis, Catholics don't take the Bible literally.

This isn't new, it's been that way since the early fathers of the church.

Fr Barron explains it here, it's short, less than 3 minutes.


Link to video.

Indeed - Biblical literalism is actually quite a new idea (it dates to the 19th century USA). That said, it's interesting to think about what might have driven people to believe that they could only be 'proper' Christians if they disregarded a huge amount of (even then) obvious information.

So where the ancients using modern definition of planets? Did they only count terrestrial planets? Why didn't they count planets in other solar systems? Or dwarf planets? What about What about big asteroids? Don't forget rogue planets.

The easy answer to all of those is that they couldn't see anything other than a big, bright, nearby planet, so thought that they were using the definition of 'something in space that moves' (I suppose, more accurately after Einstein, that moves at a different velocity to the Earth). I don't think many of them (I have the Ancient Greek philosophers in mind, rather than the likes of Galileo and Newton) drew a conceptual division between the Moon and Venus, for example, or even between the Sun and the Moon, though I'm less sure about the last one.

 

[Leoreth]

The Valar created the stars first. Laurelin and Telperion (i.e. day and night) came way later, and sun and moon not before the trees were destroyed by Melkor and all that is left of the light remained in the Silmarilli. So the Bible is clearly wrong about the time frames involved.

Of course it could all just be an allegorical reference to this true creation account.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

So, because Dante's Inferno and Norse mythology each had nine realms, that means ancient Norsemen and mediaeval Italians both knew that there were nine planets in the solar system?

If that is so, why does Dante's Paradiso specifically enumerate just the five planets visible to the naked eye? Dante journeys through the heavens of the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the Fixed Stars, the Angels and the realm of the Almighty himself.

Since Pluto was demoted, that leaves 8 planets. I can't wait to see what kind of creationist mythology future societies will make up to account for Ceres and the dwarf planets in the Kuiper Belt (ie. Sedna, Quaoar, etc.). /sarcasm

Prior to the invention of the telescope, nobody could see any planets farther than Saturn.

 

[warpus]

I don't get why a creation myth necessarily needs to be internally consistent and why it has to necessarily match reality.

Obviously at least 99% of the creation myths in existence are pure poppycock. The remaining 1%? Maybe they have some parts right here and there.

Christians worship Jesus and God, not the specific order in which reality came about.

 

[JollyRoger]

And on the 7th day, God was supposed to edit.

 

[Leoreth]

On the 7th day, God was supposed to do Q&A. But management wanted an early release, that's why we're stuck with strange phenomena like Quantum Physics and Florida.

 

[onejayhawk]

Einstein did not want God playing dice with the universe, however the Bible says that God knows the throw before it happens.

J

 

[Arakhor]

So does quantum physics, apparently.

 

[Leoreth]

Wait. If God is omniscient, shouldn't all wave functions immediately collapse and therefore QE not work as we observe it? Take that, theists!

 

[Arakhor]

If he's also omnipotent, presumably he can exclude himself from the observer effect.

 

[uppi]

Wait. If God is omniscient, shouldn't all wave functions immediately collapse and therefore QE not work as we observe it? Take that, theists!

You can always argue that God being omniscient means that he knows the exact wavefunction of the universe, but does not know how it will collapse.

Now that I think about it: Having God as an external observer not subject to the laws of quantum mechanics would actually be a neat way around the measurement problem. Maybe I should draw up some equations and create a new (?) interpretation of quantum mechanics...

 

[Ryika]

If he's also omnipotent, presumably he can exclude himself from the observer effect.

So he's a god who sees everything but can decide not to see everything which makes him a god that does not see everything unless he does never decide to not see everything, which brings us to the question: Does God have free will? Because even he shouldn't be able to tell given that he has apparently never decided to decide differently.

Man, that's some serious mental work. No wonder there are all those mistakes in the bible, must be so frustrating to be God and have bronze-age nutheads try to write down what you say and completely mess it up. That's like having a 6yo writing your Mémoires.

 

[Leoreth]

You can always argue that God being omniscient means that he knows the exact wavefunction of the universe, but does not know how it will collapse.

Now that I think about it: Having God as an external observer not subject to the laws of quantum mechanics would actually be a neat way around the measurement problem. Maybe I should draw up some equations and create a new (?) interpretation of quantum mechanics...

That would be great?