Atheist Bible Study 1: Genesis

[KevinM1]

I could never make it through Genesis. When your first statement is "In the beginning god created heaven and earth," my brain screams "prove it!" Since everything that follows are simply more assertions, I simply stop reading when I get to the boring genealogy section. Between the unsubstantiated bullshit and the lineage of long dead people I don't care about (if they even existed in the first place), I just nope right out of there. Got better things to do with my time.

[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.

[Minimalist]

When you said "cut it" I was hoping you meant your throat.

[Mystic]

في كتاب التوحيد حدثنا علي بن أحمد بن محمد بن عمران الدقاق رحمه الله قال: حدثنا محمد بن أبي عبد الله الكوفي عن محمد بن إسماعيل البرمكي: قال: حدثنا جذعان بن نصر أبو نصر الكندي قال: حدثنا سهل بن زياد الادمي عن الحسن بن محبوب عن عبد الله بن كثير عن داود الرقي قال: سألت أبا عبد الله عليه السلام عن قول الله عز وجل: " وكان عرشه على الماء " فقال لي: ما يقولون؟قلت: يقولون إن العرش كان على الماء والرب فوقه، فقال: كذبوا، من زعم هذا فقد صير الله محمولا ووصفه بصفة المخلوقين ولزمه ان الشئ الذي يحمله أقوى منه، قلت: بين لي جعلت فداك، فقال: ان الله عز وجل حمل علمه ودينه الماء قبل أن يكون سماء أو ارض أو انس أو جن أو شمس أو قمر فلما أراد ان يخلق الخلق نثرهم بين يديه فقال لهم: من ربكم؟فكان أول من نطق رسول الله وأمير المؤمنين والأئمة صلوات الله عليهم، فقالوا: أنت ربنا فحملهم العلم والدين، ثم قال للملائكة: هؤلاء حملة علمي وديني وأمنائي في خلقي وهم المسؤولون، ثم قيل لبني آدم: أقروا لله بالربوبية ولهؤلاء النفر بالطاعة فقالوا: نعم ربنا أقررنا فقال للملائكة: اشهدوا، فقالت الملائكة: " شهدنا على أن لا يقولوا انا كنا عن هذا غافلين * أو يقولوا انما أشرك آبائنا من قبل وكنا ذرية من بعدهم أفتهلكنا بما فعل المبطلون " ان ولايتنا مؤكدة عليهم في الميثاق.
A man asked Imam Ja`far as-Sadiq [a] about the verse, "It is He who created the heavens and the earth in six days - and His Throne had been upon water." (11:7)
The Imam asked the man, "What do the people say?"
The man said, "They say that the Throne is upon water and the Lord is on top of it."
The Imam said, "They have lied. Whoever alleges this has made Allah a carried thing, and described Him in the way that the creation is described, saying that He needs something stronger than Him to carry Him."
The man said, "Clarify it for me - may I be your sacrifice."
So he [a] said, "Allah had set His knowledge and His religion upon water before there was a heaven or Earth, or human or jinn, or sun or moon.
When He decided to create the creation, He brought them forth and said to them, 'Who is your Lord?' So the first to speak was the Messenger of Allah, the Commander of the Faithful, and the Imams. They said, 'You are our Lord.' So He set the knowledge and the religion upon them, then He said to the angels, 'These are My trustees and the holders of My knowledge and My religion in My creation. They are the ones responsible.'
Then, He said to the children of Adam, 'Acknowledge the Lordship of Allah and the obedience of this group.' So they said, 'Yes, we acknowledge it.'" (Kitab al-Tawhid)




A man asked Imam Ja`far b. Muhammad [a], “Are there more angels than humans?”

The Imam replied, “By the One who has my soul in His hands, the angels of Allah in the heavens are greater in number than the amount of grains of dirt in the Earth. There is not a place in the heavens except that there is an angel that glorifies and sanctifies Him, and there is not a tree or a lump in the Earth except that there is a guardian angel whose actions are observed by Allah – and Allah knows best about it. There is not one from them except that it gets closer to Allah everyday through our wilaya, the Ahl al-Bayt. They seek forgiveness for our lovers, and they curse our enemies and ask Him to send His punishment to them. And His saying, [b]‘Those who uphold the throne’ – meaning, the Messenger of Allah and the deputies after him who uphold the [revealed] knowledge of Allah [/b]– ‘and those around it’ – meaning, the angels – ‘glorify in the praise of their Lord and seek forgiveness for those who believe’ – meaning, the followers of the Family of Muhammad – ‘[saying:] Our Lord, You have encompassed all things in mercy and knowledge, so forgive those who have repented’ – from the allegiance of so-and-so and so-and-so and Bani Umayya – ‘and have followed Your way’ – this is the wilaya of the Vicegerent of Allah – ‘and protect them from the punishment of Hellfire. Our Lord, admit them to gardens of perpetual residence which You have promised them and whoever was righteous among their fathers, their spouses, and their offspring. Surely, it is You who is the exalted in Might, the Wise.’ – meaning, those who aligned with `Ali [a], for that is their deliverance – ‘and protect them from sins. He whom You protect from sins that Day, you will have given him mercy,’ – meaning, on the Day of Resurrection – ‘that is the great victory.’ (40:7-9) – meaning, whomever Allah delivers from these (so-and-so, so-and-so, and so-and so).”

a


O Allah I beseech You by that name which is preserved in the hidden treasurers, 
which is the greatest and the most important, Proof, Truth, Protector, Pure, which is light and is from light. 
It's light is with the light, and that light is above all lights, light filled with lights, brightness in brightness. 
That light by which all the darkness was illuminated/shined, which destroyed all the compellers which could not be controlled  by the Heavens or the Earth. 
O He through whom the fear of a fearful can be averted, the magic of the magician be cast away, 
the conspiracy of consipiror can be void, the jealousy of every jealous be finished, the rebellion of every rebel is stopped, 
in Presence of His Greatness the mountain the dryness, the wetness split open 
and if spoken then the Angels protect and if written on a ship and left then the stormy waves cannot reach it, 
with it every transgressor and enemy and disobedient devil is controlled and it is Your Majestic and Greatest name which You have used for Yourself, 
[b]by which You are on the Holy Throne and on Your Exalted chair. [/b]
O Allah who is Greater and the Greatest, 
O Allah the honoured light unparalled Greater of the Heavens and the Earth. 
O Lord of Majesty and Generosity I beseech You by Your Honour and Your Majesty and Your Power and Your Abundanc[b]e and by the Position of Mohammad and his family (s.a.w.a.). 
I supplicate to You by You and by Mohammad and his family [/b]that send blessings on Mohammad and his family and free me, 
and my parents and the believing men and the believing women from the fire of Hell 
and send blessings on Mohammad and his family. 
Surely You are the Praised the Glorious.




 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.



I commenting on that, the Quran says "and his throne was upon the water that may try which one of you is best in acts".



The spirit of God is synonymous with Image of God which is same Name of God and it's the same throne of God or God's King or his authority or sovereignty.



I will try to prove this 2nd verse is the foundation of all that the Bible teaches about the Prophets and true Kings and their position.



This 2nd verse is so important.

[vulcanlogician]

I'm a big fan of using stories like this. Here's the advice I like, even though it's kind of old:

I have a soft spot for Plato. Nice post.

I find it extremely interesting that you would suggest such an interpretive mode. As I take it, you propose a self-reflective reading of the Bible.

We're not even talking rank and file believers here--it is rare to find even Christians who mine the text so deeply for meaning. (A forum of atheists seems out of the question.) Right out of the gate, we can say that none of those who take the Bible literally go that deep. After all, to them, the Bible is simply a recounting of historical events. No need for serious introspection of any kind when reading Genesis. Why would you reflect so deeply on that? Even those who take an allegorical approach often do not go as deep as you recommend. To them, the allegory refers to a standard religious symbology. Nothing more. C.G. Jung is not a regular contributor here. I don't know many forum users interested in reading the Bible for self-reflection.

If you have anything to contribute along this vein, I'd be interested in hearing it. As for myself, I think I will weigh in on the myth value of certain stories. But you gotta understand: most atheists here don't have a problem with religion because its adherents reflect deeply on the symbolic meaning of religious texts. We have a problem because people take it literally. A great number of people make claims like "we have school shootings because people don't take the Bible literally anymore"... they vote and support politicians based on this literalist interpretation... we have a congressman who said "there is no need to worry about global warming because God promised Noah he wouldn't flood the earth again"

Many of us (including myself) would like to read the text with a literalist interpretation in mind, so that we might criticize it on that account. But, also, I'm interested to hear it if you want to interpret the text as Socrates recommends in Phaedrus. 

********

Grandizer, I'll probably have something to add on Genesis 1 tonight or tomorrow.

[Minimalist]

Don't forget to "prove" that Mighty Mouse is real too, while you're at it!


 

[Mystic]

I think the beginning is all provable things, it's how morality HAD To be created.

It's parables regarding the very beginnings of it the very foundations, when the earth was formless, and then what it became through out the stages, all the way to now.

Of course, it's explaining why and how the world fell as well.

---

Don't forget to "prove" that Mighty Mouse is real too, while you're at it!


 

That's a nickname, people who I played hockey with would call me HA!

You bring back old memories!!!

[Neo-Scholastic]

I'm interested in having a discussion about the text from all angles,...

I'm pretty sure it already has been going as far back as Origen and Valentinus. Swedenborg obviously has a unique approach and IMHO worthy of serious study, but he expounded on Genesis and Exodus for 22 volumes. Personally, I see a lot of parallels between Plotinus and Swedenborg. The Swedenborgian perspective the interior meaning of Gen 1 is about the regeneration of the individual soul as it comes to know God. That sounds to me very similar to the Return to the All in the Enneads. Similarly the interior meaning of Gen 2 is about the corruption of the individual soul as it moves away from God. That sounds like Plotinus's Emanations from the All. As far as I can tell the concepts overlap very well.

Otherwise I believe an unserious approach to scripture will produce unserious results. But if you're looking for a Jungian/secular approach, Jordan Peterson has a whole series of podcasts that might interest you.

[SteveII]

You can't study Genesis 1 without textual criticism:

To understand what scholars are talking about when they discuss the "J" or "E" or "P" Text of Genesis, it helps if we look closely at the first two chapters of Genesis*, which illustrate the subject. If we note some textual oddities first, it becomes easier to see how scholars formulated the ideas of the J, E, and P text.

To begin, when textual criticism and its systematic techniques for analyzing ancient manuscripts first became available in the 18th and 19th centuries (and even earlier in nonscholarly readings from the Renaissance) many readers noticed some odd details in the book we call Genesis. The first part of Genesis (1:1-2:3) differed from the later parts (Genesis 2:4-3:23) in interesting ways.

(1) First, each of these two sections of Genesis contains a different introduction for the creation story. Genesis 1:1 launches with the eloquent and imminently quotable, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters."

The text reaches its conclusion in Genesis 2:1, where the narrative voice announces, "Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array." Finis. The end. However, a second introduction appears in Genesis 2:4: "This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created. When the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth . . . ." This initially seems a little redundant--at least on the surface of things. It seems to suggest a second creation story rather than one alone.

(2) The sections also differ in genre. One is written in poetry and the other is written in prose. Genesis 1:1-2:3 is a poetic text. It is metered, and probably the writer(s) intended for it to be sung as a hymnic chant. Rhyme is not all that important in Hebrew poetry, but Hebrew poems commonly use repetition, chiasmus, parallelism, and other rhetorical schemes and tropes. The Genesis 1 text uses "high style" and those artistic devices common to Hebrew poetry--especially catachresis, anaphora, and parallelism. To indicate these artistic qualities here, most NIV translations reproduce the text with hanging indentation to mark the poetic structure. Each section begins with an anaphora: "And God said . . ." Each section ends with epistrophe: "And there was evening, and there was morning--the . . . day." Likewise, after the first two days, we have the artistic repetition of the phrase "And God saw that it was good," leading up to a final crescendo, "and it was very good" in Genesis 1:31. This structure is high poetry in the best Hebrew style.

Contrast that with the material following. Genesis 2:4-3:23 is a non-poetic text. It is written in prose rather than in poetic lines--no meter. It does not use anaphora and parallelism the same way as that first section. To indicate the non-poetic nature of the text here, most NIV translations break the text into paragraphs. In terms of literary devices, the primary schemes and tropes are puns providing Hebrew folk etymologies. For instance, the narrative voice tells us that humanity (the Hebrew word adam) is called adam because God made him from adamah (ground or dust). The folk etymology provides an etiology explaining why the word for "woman" in Hebrew sounds so much like the Hebrew word for "man."

(3) Partly because of the difference between poetic devices and puns, and partly because of changes in diction, the tone of each passage is quite different. In the Genesis 1 passage, the diction is grandiose--designed to emphasize the majesty and the ordered nature of creation. In Genesis 2:4 and following, the tone becomes more familiar--more "folksy" and simple. We have moved away from the grandeur of the heavens where a disembodied Spirit of God hovers over the dark waters to a smaller setting--the muck and dirt of a single garden where we find God shaping men out of mud and where animals like the serpent can talk in the best beast fable tradition.

(4) Fourth, Genesis 1:1-2:3 treats the matter of creation differently than in Genesis 2:4 and following passages. In Genesis 1:27, God simultaneously creates multiple men and women on the sixth day, and he does so by speaking:

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. [Note the plural forms indicated by the object pronouns them in the top and bottom passages]

Contrast this bit with the section following Genesis 2:4, where we read a different creation account: "And the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being" (Gen. 2:7). Here, rather than an abstract and transcendental deity that speaks humanity effortlessly into existence, we have a God who works in the dirt and sculpts a single male human from the earth, rather than one who commands the land itself to produce living creatures. God, as described in this passage, uses a form of divine C.P.R. to instill his holy essence in humanity. To create woman, rather than making several different men simultaneously with several different women, God in Genesis 2:21-22 extracts a rib from Adam and fashions Eve out of this body part--but without breathing his essence directly into her.**

The acts of creation characterize God differently in each section, suggesting a different perspective or attitude towards God. In Genesis 1:-2:1, the Spirit of God need not exert himself to create the cosmos--only talk. He is an abstract, remote, omnipotent, and grandiose God hovering over the dark waters. Creation is effortless.

When we get to Genesis 2:2, however, we have a God that can grow tired and needs rest: "so on the seventh day, he rested from all his work." Rather than presenting the remote and omnipotent deity appearing in Genesis 1, this section of Genesis depicts a God who needs helpers like Adam to tend his creation. This depiction characterizes God in a more earthy, physical manner. Instead of speaking Eden into being, he plants the garden (Gen 2:8). Additionally, he feels sympathy for lonely humanity (Hebrew adam), so he builds him a helper (Gen. 2:20-21). This God takes walks in the shade of the garden (but he only goes for walks when the day is cool, as Genesis 2:8 tells us--apparently to avoid the hot weather?). Furthermore, the text characterizes God as limited in perception rather than omniscient. When Adam and Eve hide from God, God can't seem to locate them, so God calls out to them to reveal themselves (Genesis 3:9). It's a striking difference in the narrative voice and in characterization.

(5) The sequence of what gets created when appears to be slightly different in each account. In Genesis 1:1-2:3, the sequence is as follows:

Day One: Light or "Day" is separated from Darkness or "Night." We have an evening and a morning pass by (though the sun and moon are not yet created, nor solid ground to be a revolving earth).
Day Two: An expanse or barrier (the firmament) is made to separate and hold apart the "waters above" and the "waters below." Another evening and another morning pass.
Day Three: God separates the "waters below" from dry land. The "waters above" are still left in place somewhere above the firmament. On the same day, God commands the land to produce vegetation including both seed-bearing trees and plants (though the sun is not yet created for photosynthesis). Another evening and another morning passes.
Day Four: The sun, the moon, and the stars are created. Another evening and another morning pass.
Day Five: Aquatic creatures and birds are created. Another evening and another morning pass.
Day Six: Terrestrial creatures are created--including livestock and "all the creatures that move along the ground." Then God makes humans. Another evening and another morning pass.
Day Seven: God rests from his labors.

This account above from Genesis 1:1-2:3 contains elements very similar to Mesopotamian creation stories found in The Epic of Gilgamesh and other texts. It takes ideas of the firmament common in both Egyptian and Mesopotamian cosmology, but it restructures the creation so that it is the work of a single deity rather than a combined effort of several gods in conflict. Like the Egyptian and Mesopotamian creation stories common in the 8th century BCE, it assumes a chaotic watery darkness as the primal state of the cosmos.

https://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/Genesis_texts.html

This is only half. The other half is just as interesting.

[GrandizerII]

There are many ways to study writings, including textual criticism and sharing one's personal thoughts on what they just read.

But regarding the quote you provided, sure. It's clear in the texts that the two accounts of Creation don't perfectly complement one another. This is not an issue for me personally, nor was I completely unfamiliar with the scholarly research on this.

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Grandizer, I'll probably have something to add on Genesis 1 tonight or tomorrow.

Cool, looking forward to a serious () discussion. No pressure, of course. Only do it if you have time, and still feel motivated.

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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.

Ok, Drich, I will confess this bit here is a very reasonable interpretation. So thanks for bringing me this interesting perspective.