Genesis and Other Creation Myths

So no - I have NO sense of humor about this.

Well, I've developed my sense of humor about this just recently. Because when I took it seriously I felt that something has to be done about it. Growing a sense of humor in that direction just appeared to be easier than abolishing Utube particularly or the Internet as a whole, or chasing up and hunting down every fool one with strange ideas out there.
 
I think he's trying to convert us to worshiping Marduk.


Berzerker isn't peddling science fiction. It's fantasy, with Chariots of the Gods and Velikovsky-type garbage used as "sources".


I'm not amused. I am honestly not amused by this stuff.

Among some parts of society, it's the "in thing" now to be anti-science, or science-ignorant. There's a guy on YouTube who insists that atheists believe that stars were created by mutations. And on CBC.ca there's an obnoxious troll who has a standard set of spammish, insulting posts that he trots out dozens of times in every new article about the space program or new discoveries made by the probes or telescopes. Now he's branched out to trolling the paleontology articles.

So no - I have NO sense of humor about this.
Have there ever not been people like that, though, and why does the existence of crazy people on Youtube or trolls on CBC.ca matter so much to you? There will always be crazy people and trolls on the internet, as I'm sure you know all too well. Why is it worth the effort to try to combat them?
 
Why is it worth the effort to try to combat them?

I think it isn't. But it's always worthy to make some good laugh (I heard people saying that laughing is a very healthy thing to do, while frowning too much may earn the frowning one gastritis).

Besides, science HAS to be questioned all the time in every aspect. It's the only way for it to develop, otherwise it will stagnate, ossify and become dogmatic, and for that stop being science.
 
I get a good laugh out of them too. I actually really like watching conspiracy theorists, just for the amusement factor. It doesn't get better than, say, watching Alex Jones connect all the mundane events in the world into a nefarious scheme by the New World Order.

As for questioning, the issue comes when the questions go from questions out of genuine curiosity about scientific uncertainty to questions designed to drive their pet theory through every little uncertainty there is. There's a transition between asking questions like a scientist would, and asking questions like a lawyer defending his client would. It's pretty easy to spot with, say, climate change or evolution. Once they make it clear that they're not truly interested in the science unless they can use it to push their agenda, it becomes a waste of time to argue with them. Better to sit back and laugh at them instead.
 
Yes, let's bring this discussion into this thread as well. We will soon reach scientific illiteracy singularity.
 
Is Berzerker starting a new religion here?

Reviving an old one ;)

Neither have I tbh, just some looking through. My impression is that Berzerker posts some sci-fi stuff and others shoo him all over the place for being deviant from classical scientific viewpoint, and everybody is amused this way. I honestly doubt whether or not anyone is serious about it.

Deviate from the norm... The science is leading us back to creation. That wont sit well with people who are convinced myth is the product of scientific ignorance, they'll have to grow some as I did when my mind was pried open.

I think he's trying to convert us to worshiping Marduk.

Marduk was in the Babylonian version, a latecomer to the story

Berzerker isn't peddling science fiction. It's fantasy, with Chariots of the Gods and Velikovsky-type garbage used as "sources".

Sitchin

I'm not amused. I am honestly not amused by this stuff.

I'm amused by your stuff :goodjob: I'm glad you're hanging around even if its just to complain

Among some parts of society, it's the "in thing" now to be anti-science, or science-ignorant.

You thought igneous rocks proved water wasn't around much when they formed and you needed a link to learn the seafloor is mostly igneous rock. Was that display anti-science or science-ignorant? I'll vote the latter...
 
Well, I've developed my sense of humor about this just recently. Because when I took it seriously I felt that something has to be done about it. Growing a sense of humor in that direction just appeared to be easier than abolishing Utube particularly or the Internet as a whole, or chasing up and hunting down every fool one with strange ideas out there.
I don't have anything against YouTube itself. It's a really good site that has allowed me to have some very interesting, positive conversations, not to mention catching up on years' worth of one of my soaps that I'd missed, many years' worth of other shows, videos of my favorite music group that I hadn't known even existed, and revisiting old favorites. It's also a way to watch stuff that Canadians aren't usually allowed to.

However, I take no blame for the discussions I end up in pertaining to Richard Dawkins. I asked repeatedly for someone - anyone - here to show me exactly why they kept saying such negative things about him. Nobody did, so I had to do my own research. And except for one or two incidents that were a bit annoying but not too serious, I found him to be a reasonable person who really doesn't have anything against religion unless it's used in inappropriate ways. So to everyone here who tried to turn me against him: It didn't work. In general I find him interesting, and at some point I'll get around to reading his books (have only read a few chapters of one of them at the library).

Have there ever not been people like that, though, and why does the existence of crazy people on Youtube or trolls on CBC.ca matter so much to you? There will always be crazy people and trolls on the internet, as I'm sure you know all too well. Why is it worth the effort to try to combat them?
Bootstoots, my country just got done kicking out a Prime Minister and cabinet that were rabidly anti-science, to the point that they wouldn't allow government scientists to speak to the press and the public about their research without permission - which was rarely given, or if it was given, it was far too late. One scientist wasn't even allowed to promote a science fiction novel he'd written... because it contained real science. In Alberta there were musings a few years ago about allowing the oil industry to have input on the provincial school curriculum, and the reason given was to "help" students learn what they would need to know for future careers. It was clearly just a ploy to drum into the students that "oil is good, environmentalism is evil".

There are still public schools where teachers feel free to impose prayer on the students, and shame anyone who opts out of it. I'd hoped that was a relic of the past, as with situations like I was in. Even when I was doing my Bachelor of Education degree, my practicum was with a teacher like that who ordered me to participate in morning prayers (public school, so this shouldn't have happened), and I had to do some tapdancing around some of the questions the kids asked me during the science class I taught on astronomy. I didn't trust the teacher to grade me fairly if I told the kids the then-current theories about the origin of the universe (they asked) and omitted any mention of Genesis. This was before we had the Charter of Rights, so back then people had fewer legs to stand on when it came to some kinds of discrimination. Were that to happen now... well, if it has happened to any other student teachers, I hope they objected and continue to object. Religion does not belong in science classes.

As for why I bother arguing with people: If factually incorrect information is allowed to stand unchallenged, knowledge and progress not only slow, but they stop and then reverse. And I'm pretty sick and tired of the propaganda that gets thrown around about atheists. Don't tell me to read the bible; I've read it. And just because I've read it, don't expect me to believe it. I've read Greek mythology and I don't think that has any scientific validity either. Ditto the Native American myths (Berzerker asked me umpteen posts ago what mythology I'd studied in my anthropology courses, and the answer is a variety of North- and Meso-American ones, emphasis on the West Coast of Canada, Navajo and Hopi, and Mayans and Aztecs). Marduk was never mentioned in any of my courses, and the only place I heard of that outside of pseudoscientific speeches was when Carl Sagan mentioned him in Cosmos.

Besides, science HAS to be questioned all the time in every aspect. It's the only way for it to develop, otherwise it will stagnate, ossify and become dogmatic, and for that stop being science.
Exactly.

Are you talking about the Climatists, or the anti-Climatists? :confused:
"Climatists"? :huh:

Wow, that's a new term. I assume it still means "those dumb liberal hippies who think the sky is falling, and look at that snow over there, so wow, they're sure a bunch of liars", right? :huh:

Which is about what I've come to expect from people who don't know the different between short-term weather and long-term climate.

And then there's Leonardo diCaprio, filming a movie near Calgary, and freaking out during his first experience of a chinook... :shake:

You thought igneous rocks proved water wasn't around much when they formed and you needed a link to learn the seafloor is mostly igneous rock. Was that display anti-science or science-ignorant? I'll vote the latter...
If you review the thread, you'll realize I didn't bother answering a lot of your comments. And kindly don't put words on my keyboard. That's not precisely what I said.

As for the seafloor, of course it's made of igneous rock. That was never a problem for me, and I did not "need a link" to know that.

I won't be replying to any more of your posts.
 
Don't tell me to read the bible; I've read it. And just because I've read it, don't expect me to believe it. I've read Greek mythology and I don't think that has any scientific validity either. Ditto the Native American myths (Berzerker asked me umpteen posts ago what mythology I'd studied in my anthropology courses, and the answer is a variety of North- and Meso-American ones, emphasis on the West Coast of Canada, Navajo and Hopi, and Mayans and Aztecs). Marduk was never mentioned in any of my courses, and the only place I heard of that outside of pseudoscientific speeches was when Carl Sagan mentioned him in Cosmos.

No comparative religion/mythology courses? I've had Joseph Campbell's books for decades, I recommend him. :) That surprises me. But aren't you the least bit curious as to why so many of these myths describe a primordial world covered by water and darkness? The myth of the diver animal is common to N America, the "land" was submerged and exposed. Same myth as Genesis.

If you review the thread, you'll realize I didn't bother answering a lot of your comments. And kindly don't put words on my keyboard. That's not precisely what I said.

These are your words

Do you understand that Earth didn't always have water? Do you understand where igneous rocks come from?

You appear to think that igneous rocks form in water, or that water is necessary for their formation. I pointed out that igneous rocks form from magma or lava, and that's not where you find liquid water.

Where's your source for igneous rocks forming underwater?

As for the seafloor, of course it's made of igneous rock. That was never a problem for me, and I did not "need a link" to know that.
 
No comparative religion/mythology courses? I've had Joseph Campbell's books for decades, I recommend him. :) That surprises me. But aren't you the least bit curious as to why so many of these myths describe a primordial world covered by water and darkness? The myth of the diver animal is common to N America, the "land" was submerged and exposed. Same myth as Genesis.

Lots of work has been done on this basic paradox - that in a myth, there's no logical limit on what can happen, and yet we keep finding the same ideas popping up again and again. There are a couple of explanations: one is that the story is very old (Odysseus and Gilgamesh might seem similar because the story was passed down from a time before Greeks and Mesopotamians split off from each other), another is that it plays to a basic human need. This can get quite complicated, but it often concerns the limits of how we divide up the world, which are based on ourselves. For example, there are things in the world with obvious means of propulsion, and there are things in the world without: in nearly all cases, things that move quickly are in the former category. When something breaks that rule, we find it unsettling. Hence snakes regularly feature in mythology as evil, dangerous, deceptive forces: this cannot only be explained by their being dangerous, since lions and tigers almost never fill the role of Eve's snake.
 
How about this concept on these myths origin:

Americas apparently were populated from Asia, as native Americans share a lot of physiological traits of Mongoloids (Asians). One of the possible routes for traveling into Americas from Asia is through Bering Strait, which freezes in winter:
In March 1913, Captain Max Gottschalk (German) crossed from the east cape of Siberia to Shishmaref, Alaska, on dogsled via Little and Big Diomede islands. He was the first documented modern voyager to cross from Russia to North America without the use of a boat.In 1998, Russian adventurer Dmitry Shparo and his son Matvey made the modern crossing of the frozen Bering Strait on skis.
In March 2006, Briton Karl Bushby and French-American adventurer Dimitri Kieffer crossed the strait on foot, walking across a frozen 90 km (56 mi) section in 15 days. They were soon arrested for not entering Russia through a border control. :sad:
In February 2012, Korean team led by Hong Sung-Taek crossed the straits on foot in six days. They started from Chukotka Peninsula, the east coast of Russia on February 23 and arrived in Wales, the western coastal town in Alaska on February 29.
(Wikipedia)
So, a lot of people did it, and it could have been done before.

Because Bering Straight is close to the Arctic Circle, and it is winter when you cross it, crossing it is actually an experience you have during what would be the closest thing to polar night. The Sun just doesn't go up a lot, so twilight is the best you have, and because you travel on ice there is no wood to make a fire or something.

If I was there I would sure remember that and would tell the story to my kids and grandkids, and I might be artistic enough for them to like it and tell it to their young ones, and so forth until it is a [folk] lore: some tale with untraceable origin told differently by different people but having distinct common features.

In fact, walkable ice forming over the water in Winter and melting to become unwalkable water again in Spring well might be transformed into anything in folklore. Especially when the people telling each other the story traveled to the south far enough to never see ice in their whole lives. In that case a kid interrupting the storyteller with a question like, "Daddy, how can it be that water becomes walkable?" and the Daddy having no clue himself may result with the kid either getting the Daddy's best guess, or being free to invent any plausible explanation of his own.

That can result in Earth emerging from under the water, the water magically moving sideways, or some diver animal showing its back from the depths for people to walk on.

Besides, Tethys ocean serves the "land emerged from under the water" myth very well with shelly fossils and the whole mineable chalk layers can be found with little effort in many places currently not associated with oceanic bottom.

The logic works like that there: "I see this shell here, but there's no sea down here, the sea is over there. But here is the shell, so the sea has been here once. Must be that it was bigger in the old days, and then retreated from here to where it is now. So land emerged from under the water."

No?
 
How about this concept on these myths origin:

Americas apparently were populated from Asia, as native Americans share a lot of physiological traits of Mongoloids (Asians). One of the possible routes for traveling into Americas from Asia is through Bering Strait, which freezes in winter:

So, a lot of people did it, and it could have been done before.

Because Bering Straight is close to the Arctic Circle, and it is winter when you cross it, crossing it is actually an experience you have during what would be the closest thing to polar night. The Sun just doesn't go up a lot, so twilight is the best you have, and because you travel on ice there is no wood to make a fire or something.

If I was there I would sure remember that and would tell the story to my kids and grandkids, and I might be artistic enough for them to like it and tell it to their young ones, and so forth until it is a [folk] lore: some tale with untraceable origin told differently by different people but having distinct common features.

In fact, walkable ice forming over the water in Winter and melting to become unwalkable water again in Spring well might be transformed into anything in folklore. Especially when the people telling each other the story traveled to the south far enough to never see ice in their whole lives. In that case a kid interrupting the storyteller with a question like, "Daddy, how can it be that water becomes walkable?" and the Daddy having no clue himself may result with the kid either getting the Daddy's best guess, or being free to invent any plausible explanation of his own.

That can result in Earth emerging from under the water, the water magically moving sideways, or some diver animal showing its back from the depths for people to walk on.

Besides, Tethys ocean serves the "land emerged from under the water" myth very well with shelly fossils and the whole mineable chalk layers can be found with little effort in many places currently not associated with oceanic bottom.

The logic works like that there: "I see this shell here, but there's no sea down here, the sea is over there. But here is the shell, so the sea has been here once. Must be that it was bigger in the old days, and then retreated from here to where it is now. So land emerged from under the water."

No?
Reasonable - and interesting about the Bering Strait. I hadn't realized it still freezes that much in winter.

For instance, I wouldn't go out on the local river right now; the ice is still too thin.

All this "walking on water" is something I find quite bemusing. Several dozen of my neighbors have done it this morning, and I did it the other day. The ground here is covered in ice and snow. Some people have made rinks in their back yards and in public green spaces, so people can skate and play hockey. A lot of people around the world are having a "brown Christmas" this year, due to El Nino... but they'll get walloped with snow come spring, and that will produce some stories to tell the kids and grandchildren.

Around here, people who lived here 30 years ago still tell stories about the "Blizzard of '86" when we got several blizzards' worth of snow dumped on us in a day or two, the city shut down for 3 days (many people had no electricity because the wet snow on the power lines broke them; wet snow is heavy), and it took a couple of weeks afterward to clean everything up. Sounds like a normal, albeit severe winter storm? Sure... if it hadn't started on May 29. We were still cleaning up snow well into June. I remember my music teacher being surprised to see me; I had regular lessons at her home, and this was a day or two after the buses started running again. I got off on the main road and hiked the rest of the way through snow that hadn't been cleared yet. She asked how I'd gotten there, since her immediate neighborhood hadn't been plowed and most of it hadn't been shoveled.

So... it doesn't take much to get people talking. And everyone's got an opinion about the weather.

Will my blizzard story still be told in a thousand years? I very much doubt it. But if it is, I hope it doesn't get taken for some supernatural thing; this was a natural event, albeit very frustrating to deal with for people who were unprepared for emergencies.
 
I wouldn't go out on the local river right now; the ice is still too thin. [...] A lot of people around the world are having a "brown Christmas" this year, due to El Nino...
I am one of those "enjoying" a brown Christmas. No snow in Moscow yet, and it's somewhere slightly above 0oC. I had plans to have some fun from sleighing downhill (I know an abandoned sand quarry which is just excellent for that) and now I feel betrayed. :sad:

However, speaking about stories and forgetfulness, there is a story here covering the weather subject:
That year the season was belated
and autumn lingered, long and slow;
expecting winter, nature waited --
only in January the snow,
night of the second, started flaking.

Next day Tatyana, early waking,
saw through the window, morning-bright,
roofs, flowerbeds, fences, all in white,
panes patterned by the finest printer,
with trees decked in their silvery kit,
and jolly magpies on the flit,
and hills that delicately winter
had with its brilliant mantle crowned --
and glittering whiteness all around.

("Eugene Onegin", Russian original by A.S.Pushkin, English version by Ch.Johnston)
So the weather like it is outside now is not totally unheard of in these parts.

Which gets me back to the stories and if they are remembered. I strongly feel that the chances for the stories to hold depend on two basic factors:

1. The power of the story. If it is an epic thing, odds are better it will be remembered.

2. The information background. Frankly, I have no idea if somewhere out there there is or is not someone who writes stuff as good as Pushkin's, because the Internet provides me with so overwhelming loads of crap information that I have no chance to dig through it to find that guy.

In fact, even Pushkin fails to beat that 2nd one, because although I remember SOME of his lines, there are people already who barely know who he was, let alone cite him. The story of the "Blizzard of '86" stands even fewer chances, unless some Snorri Sturluson dude digs it out one day and writes some Edda based on that.

Contrary to what we have now, in the old days there was little literature but the epic. So the stories lived longer, I guess.
 
You have a hypothesis, not a theory.


Do you understand what constellations are? They are patterns in the stars that were created by human imagination. Different cultures saw different patterns, and imagined different stories to explain them.

The constellations are not permanent. They may seem so, but that's only because the stars - which are constantly in motion in their orbits around the center of the galaxy - take such a long time from our perspective. Over a period of tens of thousands of years, the constellations won't look the same at all.


I think that my knowledge is a little wider in scope than a hypothesis. There is much more knowledge independent of the limited wording in Genesis that I am basing my supposition on.


I did not mean to make it sound permanent. I meant that we are where we are in the universe, and not some other spot, because that is where this solar system was fixed in relation to the rest of the universe.

Genesis doesn't say God created matter or the universe.

The Tanakh or original writings did say that. The argument is not over the order of the universe, but that wisdom was the first creation, and then the universe.

The "Earth" existed but was covered in darkness and water and that was followed by the interaction of this primordial world (Tehom) with God's "wind" or "spirit". Then and only then does God's "light" become part of the story.

Matter: physical substance in general, as distinct from mind and spirit; (in physics) that which occupies space and possesses rest mass, especially as distinct from energy.

The universe was created by God with matter, and air. Not sure why it cannot be at rest, distinct from energy. That is the standard definition. The term matter did not exist, but the terms earth, air, water, and fire did. Air and sky can be used in exchange with the heavens. Earth can be the matter that makes up all planetary bodies. There are gas planets that are made up of different elements other than those elements that make up the earth. The earth still falls under the definition of the state of matter before energy re-acted with that matter.

So what does God call this "Light"? He calls it "Day" and he separates it from the darkness he calls "Night" and that was the first day. The primordial world was now spinning near a star.

The 2nd day is devoted to the formation of "Heaven(s)", the firmament, the hammered out bracelet - a barrier or demarcation line placed amidst or between the waters.

In the next verse, it says that matter and air was formless and void. Then the wind mixed with the air over the void and formed water. God did not make light. He told it to happen. That is when the matter at rest took on the form of energy and light happened. After three days of coalescing, the stars and planets were taking their form, and their positions were being "set" in space, the earth was spinning and ready for life to begin.

As you can see Heaven is not the universe and does not appear in the story until the 2nd day. Also, notice how evening (darkness) precedes daylight? Time, as you put it, did not begin with the light.

So you have matter, at rest, vast amounts of emptiness called air, then the wind/spirit mixed with the air and formed water. There was no time nor motion. The first day was the point at which energy started which produced light to spread throughout the universe. Matter was still formless, and the energy at that point immense to the degree that it had to be forcefully separated into two forms to allow the matter to coalesce and take form into all the stars and chunks of matter in the universe.

Evening and morning being the first day is only a manner of perspective. The energy release at that time being so massive would have torn anything to bits. The separation of light and darkness leaving the world and all other bodies in the universe to form during the darkness. The matter, along with the water forming the earth. The earth would not have survived the initial release of energy. Coming out of the darkness to the light of the also newly forming sun would give it the first daylight and day. There was rapid expansion and rapid cooling.

God did not create the waters or the Earth (dry land), the latter was revealed when the former was gathered into Seas. The Earth appears on the 3rd Day and is followed on the 4th Day with the creation of its "sky". The luminaries in the Earth's sky were not created, they were given or appointed their roles - to serve for signs, seasons, to rule over night and day.


Water was forming before the first energy release. There had to be room for matter, including liquid water, and vast amounts of empty space, seeing how, no matter was brought into the universe after the initial energy release. The water would explain the rapid cooling period. Then in the cool down and the event of darkness that lasted for 60 hours we have the redshift or blueshift we can see from the motion of those first galaxies forming, and then energy again permeated the universe during the last half of the 4th day.

It did not matter if there was light from the sun yet. There were two separations of water. There was no dry land. During the second day while the earth was cooling the water at the top was separated into two sections with a fixed area of space between them. The third day was the separation of water from land and the seeding of plant life. Then there was a period of 12 hours, and then the light from the sun and moon started or the moon could have been "seen" the first 12 hours, and then the official first sunrise. The "dark" period was over and the lights from all the stars where being sent out across the universe. Then expansion began and has been accelerating for who knows how long. Some of the ancient accounts have it at 60,000 years.

The only difference between my model and the current one is the size at the moment of energy release. I contend that the starting size is comparable to the current state, instead of a small area of space. Only time will tell who is right. While the initial expansion was rapid, the standard model has to allow for some contraction. The time for an expanding universe of 13.8 billion years would be 13.8 billion years. What is the proof of contraction? If the universe was already 13.8 billion years in size, it still could be expanding and even accelerating. The age of the universe should change exponentially if there is acceleration.

There is a need to make the universe smaller at the beginning to explain why we can see the motion of the whole. The initial reaction was instant and every where at the same time which rapidly sent energy in all directions, and that energy made it every where instantly no matter the original size. The current model says that it could have taken up to 380,000 years for the first rapid heating and cooling time. If the major activity happened within 3 minutes, why would it then take 380,000 years to finish? The universe (according to them) would have only been 380,000 years in size. Then in the next 400 million years, it was the size of a 13.8 billion year universe.

If the expansion was at zero and it accelerated at 1% increase each year, today's expansion rate would be 138,000 times faster than when it started. At that rate, just in the last 2000 years the universe would have expanded roughly 276 billion times larger than it was 2000 years ago. Ok, who knows how fast it is expanding, but acceleration is still affected by time exponentially.

The Genesis account states that the "dark age" was only about 60 hours after an initial 12 hour period. The current model says that it lasted 400 million years. This was after a 380,000 year time period.
 
I think that my knowledge is a little wider in scope than a hypothesis. There is much more knowledge independent of the limited wording in Genesis that I am basing my supposition on.
And that would be...?

I did not mean to make it sound permanent. I meant that we are where we are in the universe, and not some other spot, because that is where this solar system was fixed in relation to the rest of the universe.
Our solar system is traveling around the center of the galaxy too, y'know... We're not fixed in place any more than any other star is. We're constantly in motion.

There are gas planets that are made up of different elements other than those elements that make up the earth.
Whut? :huh:

Hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon... pretty sure those are all found on Earth, along with the rest of it.

After three days of coalescing, the stars and planets were taking their form, and their positions were being "set" in space, the earth was spinning and ready for life to begin.
:lmao:

It takes considerably longer than three days for stars and planets to form. And no, newly-formed planets are NOT "ready for life to begin."
 
Lots of work has been done on this basic paradox - that in a myth, there's no logical limit on what can happen, and yet we keep finding the same ideas popping up again and again.

There are a couple of explanations: one is that the story is very old (Odysseus and Gilgamesh might seem similar because the story was passed down from a time before Greeks and Mesopotamians split off from each other), another is that it plays to a basic human need.

This can get quite complicated, but it often concerns the limits of how we divide up the world, which are based on ourselves. For example, there are things in the world with obvious means of propulsion, and there are things in the world without: in nearly all cases, things that move quickly are in the former category.

When something breaks that rule, we find it unsettling. Hence snakes regularly feature in mythology as evil, dangerous, deceptive forces: this cannot only be explained by their being dangerous, since lions and tigers almost never fill the role of Eve's snake.

Snakes are venerated for the most part, the Bible tends to be the exception, albeit the staff of Moses turning into a serpent kinda sends a mixed message. The authors of Genesis were monotheists dealing with Mesopotamian myths involving the sky god Enlil and snake god Enki, two brothers who often disagreed about the role of humanity.

For example, Enlil the sky god wants the impending Flood kept secret from people because he's not happy with our proliferation. But Enki, one of the deities responsible for our creation, helped the Sumerian Noah avoid death.

And of course we have the same bothers depicted in Genesis, the serpent in the Garden was responsible for procreation and God was not happy about the deed.

How about this concept on these myths origin:

Americas apparently were populated from Asia, as native Americans share a lot of physiological traits of Mongoloids (Asians). One of the possible routes for traveling into Americas from Asia is through Bering Strait, which freezes in winter:

So, a lot of people did it, and it could have been done before.

During ice ages the Bering Strait becomes exposed land the size of a continent. But I'm sure people were making the trip in boats after seas rose, probably even before.

If I was there I would sure remember that and would tell the story to my kids and grandkids, and I might be artistic enough for them to like it and tell it to their young ones, and so forth until it is a [folk] lore: some tale with untraceable origin told differently by different people but having distinct common features.

In fact, walkable ice forming over the water in Winter and melting to become unwalkable water again in Spring well might be transformed into anything in folklore. Especially when the people telling each other the story traveled to the south far enough to never see ice in their whole lives. In that case a kid interrupting the storyteller with a question like, "Daddy, how can it be that water becomes walkable?" and the Daddy having no clue himself may result with the kid either getting the Daddy's best guess, or being free to invent any plausible explanation of his own.

That can result in Earth emerging from under the water, the water magically moving sideways, or some diver animal showing its back from the depths for people to walk on.

I doubt many people walked across an iced over Bering Strait... Yet most of the world describes creation in similar terms. Besides, people would have crossed frozen rivers, lakes, ponds, etc, without it becoming their creation myth. But Flood myths? Yes, I imagine people living on and around the Bering land bridge would have had quite a story to tell as seas submerged such a large landmass.

Besides, Tethys ocean serves the "land emerged from under the water" myth very well with shelly fossils and the whole mineable chalk layers can be found with little effort in many places currently not associated with oceanic bottom.

The logic works like that there: "I see this shell here, but there's no sea down here, the sea is over there. But here is the shell, so the sea has been here once. Must be that it was bigger in the old days, and then retreated from here to where it is now. So land emerged from under the water."

No?

The creation of land preceded life, only the Flood could result in sea shells on top of mountains. ;)

The Tanakh or original writings did say that.

Do those writings claim God made the water in Gen 1:2?

Matter: physical substance in general, as distinct from mind and spirit; (in physics) that which occupies space and possesses rest mass, especially as distinct from energy.

Water is matter and it was around before God

The universe was created by God with matter, and air. Not sure why it cannot be at rest, distinct from energy. That is the standard definition. The term matter did not exist, but the terms earth, air, water, and fire did. Air and sky can be used in exchange with the heavens. Earth can be the matter that makes up all planetary bodies. There are gas planets that are made up of different elements other than those elements that make up the earth. The earth still falls under the definition of the state of matter before energy re-acted with that matter.

According to Genesis both the earth and water existed before God, and the Earth wasn't created, it was revealed by gravity when the water receded into Seas.

In the next verse, it says that matter and air was formless and void. Then the wind mixed with the air over the void and formed water.

" In the beginning of God's preparing the heavens and the earth --

2 the earth hath existed waste and void, and darkness [is] on the face of the deep"

Heaven and Earth dont appear in the story until the 2nd and 3rd days. The water was covering the Earth before creation began.

God did not make light. He told it to happen. That is when the matter at rest took on the form of energy and light happened. After three days of coalescing, the stars and planets were taking their form, and their positions were being "set" in space, the earth was spinning and ready for life to begin.

But this "matter at rest" preceded God

So you have matter, at rest, vast amounts of emptiness called air, then the wind/spirit mixed with the air and formed water. There was no time nor motion.

The water was already there, darkness was upon the face of the deep - the waters covering the Earth.
 
Do those writings claim God made the water in Gen 1:2?



Water is matter and it was around before God



According to Genesis both the earth and water existed before God, and the Earth wasn't created, it was revealed by gravity when the water receded into Seas.



" In the beginning of God's preparing the heavens and the earth --

2 the earth hath existed waste and void, and darkness [is] on the face of the deep"

Heaven and Earth dont appear in the story until the 2nd and 3rd days. The water was covering the Earth before creation began.



But this "matter at rest" preceded God



The water was already there, darkness was upon the face of the deep - the waters covering the Earth.

The second word in Genesis is God. The first word "bereshit" is a time stamp. It can mean: the first, in place, time, order or rank (specifically, a firstfruit) -- beginning, chief(-est), first(-fruits, part, time), principal thing. It is translated as a prepositional phrase telling us that the very first thing that happened was God created the heavens and the earth. Heavens can be air, earth can be the matter that the earth is comprised of. There are gas planets, solid planets, stars and chunks of matter that are too small to be considered in any of the stated categories. The air is more than just oxygen, so the heavens can include all the gasses.

At the very start/the principal thing/in the beginning GOD created. Those are the first three words of the Tanakh. It was not until Robert Young came along in 1862, and decided to change the wording, and the version that you keep using to back up your statement, is probably based on Young's translation. All other translations and versions just state that God created. God was always there and that is what the Talmud says. God created wisdom which is way more important to the Hebrews than even the universe. Even if you read Young, it was still God doing the preparing. After God created the heavens and earth, he moved upon the face of the deep, and there was water.

This was all before the command by God to let the energy do it's thing, which brought forth light. The standard cosmology states that most action across the universe happened in 3 minutes. Then they calculate that it took 380,000 years for the energy to die out, and then 400 million years of darkness before anything else happened. I understand that energy was moving through the entire space of a universe that may have been 13 billion light years across in a matter of minutes. If God had not intervened, it could easily have taken millions of years for physics to take it's course. God said that he did it in 60 standard earth hours. Even if time is not relative, it would seem that without God, it would have taken 400,380,000 years. That is the result from doing all the calculations involved.

If anything it could be said that Young was trying to change the Reading to fit in with the science of the day. He was wrong though in trying to put the light in after the initial start and the so called second start of the "big bang". There was only one release of energy causing light to permeate the matter, gasses and water that God had created. As noted, one human trying to restate what had been understood for thousands of years, does not make it a fact. God still created all matter, and gasses, including water, and it was before the only release of energy in the current cosmological model.

You are correct in stating that the earth did not become the present form until Day 3, and it was still dark that day when God was seeding for plant life. The sun started sending light on the morning of the 4th day. I cannot find why the model needs there to be 400 million years of darkness. It seems there just was, so they mark the period where light and darkness were separated, even before the current galaxies began sending out their own radiation across the universe. Some would state though that even the bits and pieces of the earth before gravity brought them together, could still be called the earth. All it says that God did was separate the waters twice. Once to provide the water for the Flood, which took up the entirety of day 2. The third day was the separation of water and dry land and the seeding of plant life, but it was still dark.

The word create was not used on day 4 when the sun and stars started sending out radiation. It was just the point where the darkness ended and the universe started it's current form.
 
The second word in Genesis is God. The first word "bereshit" is a time stamp. It can mean: the first, in place, time, order or rank (specifically, a firstfruit) -- beginning, chief(-est), first(-fruits, part, time), principal thing. It is translated as a prepositional phrase telling us that the very first thing that happened was God created the heavens and the earth. Heavens can be air, earth can be the matter that the earth is comprised of. There are gas planets, solid planets, stars and chunks of matter that are too small to be considered in any of the stated categories. The air is more than just oxygen, so the heavens can include all the gasses.

God named Heaven and Earth and they dont appear until the 2nd and 3rd days. Heaven is the hammered bracelet, the firmament placed amidst the waters. The water was there first. And the Earth is the name God gave the dry land when it was revealed from underneath the water. The water was there first, the water was there before God ;)

The hammered bracelet and dry land. Thats what God created "in the beginning". God did not create matter, or the water, or the submerged Earth of Gen 1:2. You're not only replacing the definitions of these words with air and matter, your argument requires us to believe God created Heaven and Earth twice, or even 3 times for the Earth.

Gen 1:1 God creates Heaven and Earth
Gen 1:2 God creates a submerged Earth
Gen 1:6 God creates Heaven again
Gen 1:9-10 God creates Earth again

Now does that make sense? You dont like Young's translation? Here's the NRS:

"1 In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth,

2 the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.

3 Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light."

Gen 1:2 describes the situation before God arrived to create - the Earth was covered by water and darkness. And it doesn't say how long that situation existed.

It was not until Robert Young came along in 1862, and decided to change the wording, and the version that you keep using to back up your statement, is probably based on Young's translation. All other translations and versions just state that God created.

His translation makes sense

God was always there and that is what the Talmud says. God created wisdom which is way more important to the Hebrews than even the universe. Even if you read Young, it was still God doing the preparing. After God created the heavens and earth, he moved upon the face of the deep, and there was water.

But God didn't create the water and your logic does require us to believe God created Heaven and Earth multiple times. How does God create Earth (dry land) in Gen 1:1, then immediately tell us this dry land was actually a formless void covered by water and darkness, and then later on the 3rd day of creation this not so dry land becomes dry and God names it Earth?

The only way that makes sense is by ignoring what Gen 1:1 says, or at least translating it within the context of the following story and not the first of multiple creations. Now if the Earth in Gen 1:2 is a formless void, was it created that way in Gen 1:1? If so, then the Earth wasn't created in Gen 1:1 because it wasn't dry land yet. That didn't happen until the 3rd day.

You are correct in stating that the earth did not become the present form until Day 3, and it was still dark that day when God was seeding for plant life.

Then what form was the Earth in Gen 1:1? "In the beginning" refers to events on the 2nd and 3rd days, but the 1st day saw the separation of light and darkness into day and night - the world was spinning closer to the Sun. But that wasn't the Earth yet, that doesn't appear until later and its sky with its various lights comes next. Thats why the 2nd day creation of Heaven doesn't refer to the Earth's sky, the Earth (dry land) didn't exist yet.
 
Or this on the first three days of creation:

Wiki said:
Pre-creation: Genesis 1:1-2[edit]
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.
—(Genesis 1:1-1:2)
Although the opening phrase of Genesis 1:1 is commonly translated in English as above, the Hebrew is ambiguous, and can be translated at least three ways:

1. as a statement that the cosmos had an absolute beginning ("In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.");
2. as a statement describing the condition of the world when God began creating ("When in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was untamed and shapeless."); and
3. essentially similar to the second version but taking all of Genesis 1:2 as background information ("When in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, the earth being untamed and shapeless, God said, Let there be light!").[27]

The second seems to be the meaning intended by the original Priestly author: the verb bara is used only of God (people do not engage in bara), and it concerns the assignment of roles, as in the creation of the first people as "male and female" (i.e., it allocates them sexes): in other words, the power of God is being shown not by the creation of matter but by the fixing of destinies.[24]

One interpretation is that "the heavens and the earth" is a set phrase meaning "everything", i.e., the cosmos. This was made up of three levels, the habitable earth in the middle, the heavens above, an underworld below, all surrounded by a watery "ocean" of chaos as the Babylonian Tiamat.[28] The earth itself was a flat disc, surrounded by mountains or sea. Above it was the firmament, a transparent but solid dome resting on the mountains, allowing men to see the blue of the waters above, with "windows" to allow the rain to enter, and containing the sun, moon and stars. The waters extended below the earth, which rested on pillars sunk in the waters, and in the underworld was Sheol, the abode of the dead.[29]

The opening of Genesis 1 continues: "And the earth was formless and void..." The phrase "formless and void" is a translation of the Hebrew tohu wa-bohu, (Hebrew: תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ:) :) :) :)), chaos, the condition that bara, ordering, remedies.[30] Tohu by itself means "emptiness, futility"; it is used to describe the desert wilderness; bohu has no known meaning and was apparently coined to rhyme with and reinforce tohu.[31] The phrase appears also in Jeremiah 4:23,[Jer. 4:23] where the prophet warns Israel that rebellion against God will lead to the return of darkness and chaos, "as if the earth had been 'uncreated'".[32]

The opening of Genesis 1 concludes with a statement that Darkness was on the face of the Deep (Hebrew: תְהוֹם:) :) :) :) tehôm) Darkness and the Deep are two of the three elements of the chaos represented in tohu wa-bohu (the third is the formless earth). In the Enuma Elish, the Deep is personified as the goddess Tiamat, the enemy of Marduk;[30] here it is the formless body of primeval water surrounding the habitable world, later to be released during the Deluge, when "all the fountains of the great deep burst forth" from the waters beneath the earth and from the "windows" of the sky.[33]

The Rûach of God moves over the face of the Deep before creation begins. Rûach (רוּחַ) has the meanings "wind, spirit, breath", and elohim can mean "great" as well as "god": the ruach elohim may therefore mean the "wind/breath of God" (the storm-wind is God's breath in Psalms 18:16 and elsewhere, and the wind of God returns in the Flood story as the means by which God restores the earth), or God's "spirit", a concept which is somewhat vague in Hebrew Bible, or it may simply signify a great storm-wind.[34]

Six days of Creation: Genesis 1:3-2:3[edit]

God's first act was the creation of undifferentiated light; dark and light were then separated into night and day, their order (evening before morning) signifying that this was the liturgical day; and then the sun, moon and stars were created to mark the proper times for the festivals of the week and year. Only when this is done does God create man and woman and the means to sustain them (plants and animals). At the end of the sixth day, when creation is complete, the world is a cosmic temple in which the role of humanity is the worship of God. This parallels Mesopotamian myth (the Enuma Elish) and also echoes chapter 38 of the Book of Job, where God recalls how the stars, the "sons of God", sang when the corner-stone of creation was laid.[35]

First day[edit]
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.
—(Genesis 1:3-1:5)
Day 1 begins with the creation of light (and, by implication, time). God creates by spoken command and names the elements of the world as he creates them. In the ancient Near East the act of naming was bound up with the act of creating: thus in Egyptian literature the creator god pronounced the names of everything, and the Enûma Elish begins at the point where nothing has yet been named.[36] God's creation by speech also suggests that he is being compared to a king, who has merely to speak for things to happen.[37]

Second day[edit]
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.
—(Genesis 1:6-1:8)
Rāqîa‘, or firmament, is from rāqa‘, the verb used for the act of beating metal into thin plates.[38] Created on the second day of creation and populated by luminaries on the fourth, it may be interpreted as a solid dome which separates the earth below from the heavens and their waters above, as in Egyptian and Mesopotamian belief of the same time.[39] In Genesis 1:17 the stars are set in the raqia‘; in Babylonian myth the heavens were made of various precious stones (compare Exodus 24:10 where the elders of Israel see God on the sapphire floor of heaven), with the stars engraved in their surface.[40]

Third day[edit]
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.
—(Genesis 1:9-1:13)
On the third day, the waters withdraw, creating a ring of ocean surrounding a single circular continent.[41] By the end of the third day God has created a foundational environment of light, heavens, seas and earth.[42] The three levels of the cosmos are next populated in the same order in which they were created – heavens, sea, earth.
 
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