Atheist Bible Study 1: Genesis

[Drich]

YES!!!! I LOVE THESE!!!!

Let's have a Bible study for atheists. After reading a particular passage from the Bible, I will be sharing my thoughts on it in threads like this. Feel free to share your thoughts on any verse or passage in the book that this thread corresponds to. Theists, of course, can chime in as well.

thanks for the invite.

FTR, I will be personally using the NIV for these threads, as I feel they do a fair job with the translation, and it's in modern English (as opposed to the archaic language of the KJV).

First Bible study thread is on Genesis, first book in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible.

I like the easy to read but niv will be fine.

Probably my most favorite book in the whole Bible. Why? Because it does have some really entertaining stories to read, and unlike others, I love reading lists of names with brief stories about some of them. While the ancient Greek and Norse myths had much more fascinating stories, none of the stories in this particular book of the Bible actually bore me. I think going though Genesis (again) is going to be an enjoyable experience for me.

My first post here will be on Genesis 1 and the first three verses of Genesis 2, which is all about the seven days of Creation. I just had a read of this passage a short while ago, and the first thing that comes to mind here is how easily digestible the passage is. In fact, virtually every passage in Genesis is fairly easy to read (for me, at least).

ok me too

Of course, from a modern scientific perspective, there are clearly quite some falsehoods in this passage. But as an atheist, I have no burden to try to explain away these falsehoods. That's all on literalist Christians. As far as I'm concerned, it's a very nice cosmogony myth story. Not the best, but still beautiful and interesting, providing us with a window into the scientifically naive but creative thoughts of the ancient.

The passage starts with God creating the heavens and the earth. There is no mention of what happened before that, if there was any "before" to that.

indeed!

Interestingly enough, there is nothing here that explicitly says God has always been, despite what some commentaries and children's Bible books tend to say.

sure it does in plain site. In the beginning of everything meaning before the heavens ( light, Sky and Earth) was God. before there was light sky or earth there was God. God is or was before there was time. as light/stars and the movement of the earth denotes the celestial events that mark the passage of time. No light no dark no day. no stars, no light, no day, no way to marks time. So again before there was time God was.

Another thing I find interesting is that God had already created the heavens and the earth from day one,

No read it again.. It says In the beginning. God created the heavens and the earth... end of statement. it say in the beginning God created those things. Then verse two... because before there was light (as in the beginning) meaning before verse three there was no way to count the time.

So in the beginning could have also been eons.. but without any measure to count time it is an enigma that we should not put a time boundary on as it was before time.

and yet there is an apparent contradiction to this a bit later in the passage.

there are zero contradictions in the creation account.

Some people argue that the first couple verses in Genesis 1 are an overview summary, with the rest of the chapter expanding on it.

No. Genesis 1:1 through gen 2:3 is it's own complete 7 day of creation account. seperate from gen 2:4 forward or gen 3.

I have to strongly disagree with this, as the flow (at least in the English translations) doesn't seem to suggest this at all. Also to consider is mention of the waters in the first couple verses. Did God create these waters, or have they always been? And did they occupy every part of space (covering the whole of the heavens and the earth)? Even in modern language, it's hard to tell what exactly is going on here.

Going back to the hebrew "God hovering over the face of the deep" refers to God hovering a vast ocean a earth size ocean without land in the dark.

So in the beginning God created the heavens/sky and the Earth the earth being a global ocean (which co-insides with the whole of life eminating from the ocean per darwin..
https://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/gen/1/1/t_conc_1002

Then God creates light, separating it from darkness.

this one act is day one. this is the first marker of time.

Seems like light is treated here as some distinct entity that can somehow be "peeled" away from darkness. Is darkness really being treated here as the absence of light?

duh... at least from a human perspective. The idea of this comes from rabbinical tradition that how Moses came to know of the knowledge of origins God much like he did with John of patmos. sat moses down in a protective bubble and had him record all that he saw. Darkness then darkness and then Call fourth light then light.. Now let's mix a little science in. in the scientific beginning the earth did not have a clear atmosphere the sky was choked out by ashe fro impacts and volcanic activity. now try to imagine if you were in a little bubble surrounded by water and the su rose with an atmosphere like neptune or venus what would the sun look like? diffused hence, light and darkness.. Of if you prefer God simply created the visible spectrum just three wave lengths of radiant light that could be detected by living beings.. or better yet God created light awareness in his creation. think of a puppy born with his eyes closed.

Whatever the case may be, light was created, and thus night and day came to be, and the first day passes. But when exactly did the first day in this context start?

at the point evening came or the lowest point of light that can be seen before darkness. that is why with the hebrew people a new day starts at sundown rather than sun rise.

From the very beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth? Or when he created light?

Again God created heaven and earth. once this was done. God sat hovering above a planet sized ocean, then created light.

Maybe when he first created light, he kept it inseparable from darkness for the duration of the first evening, and then separated it from darkness to indicate morning? And, yes, I know, light without suns and stars, right? Seems like the ancients had a very different conception of light than we moderns do.

or something simply obstructed a clear view of the sun that was later removed. ever lived in a norther region? where it is just light no sun.. just drearness.. how or why is tis a concept so hard for you guys to transfer?

I'm going to cut it here for now, and continue my commentary on this passage later today (since I have work soon). Just thought I'd get this going now nevertheless.