So, let us begin.
And what better way to begin than the first page.
(Note: For this and all following posts on Bible books, chapters and passages I will be using the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible. I do this for many reasons, but primarily because it is the most often used version by people who challenge or debate atheism. I am not saying that this version is the most accurate version in terms of translation from original manuscript, because it isn’t, however it is the one that was force-fed to me, and as I mentioned, the most referenced.
I would also mention that for those of you who either don’t have a Bible {I am lucky enough to have a beautiful old KJV Bible that my late father gave me when I was a child, as well as copies of seven other versions} or just don’t want to constantly leaf through it I will always supply a link to the relative book or passage via Biblegateway.com. This site is very useful for study of the Bible as it is searchable and contains most of the current translations of the Bible. If it had been around years ago I wouldn’t have had to buy so many darn Bibles.)
This book starts with that most famous of phrases: “In the beginning.” Like I said, what better place to start. This is the oft referenced ” six days of creation” story which is different from the story in chapter 2 which introduces us to Adam and Eve, but we’ll get to that when we get to chapter 2.
So, In the beginning (day one) God creates the heaven (sky) and earth (technically water for now). As the story goes on it mentions that these things are basically a big, dark, empty blob of water with wind moving over it. (Gen 1:2)
God then creates light, divides that from the dark, makes day and night, as well as evening and morning, and that ends the first day. (Gen 1:2-5)
It’s important to note here that day, night, evening, and morning are specifically mentioned. Many, will say that the six ‘days’ need not have been days they could have been eras, epochs, or whatever, but it clearly says “day”, so don’t let these arguments stand. Either the Bible is saying ‘one day with a morning and an evening’, or it’s not: it can’t be both; e.g. either the Bible is true or it’s not. Later on in Deuteronomy we will learn that you aren’t supposed to change or edit any word of this book.
Moving on.
Day two-God creates a dividing line between the water he had already made and the heaven (sky). Then he takes some of the water and puts it in the sky. Then he clocks out as he is done for the night. (Gen 1;6-8)
Day three-God finally forms the water under the sky into a less blob like state, then makes dry land appear. He calls the dry land “earth” and he calls the water “seas.” Why he had to recreate the earth that he had already created two days ago is unclear. But, in the scheme of things not really important. He then causes plants to grow out of his newly created dryland and calls it a day. (Gen 1:9-13)
Day four- God creates the Sun, the Moon, and stars. Now this day deserves a good bit of detailed reading.
In Gen 1:14 the Bible says: “And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night;… .” However, in Gen 1:4-5 he had already “…divided the light from the darkness. 5 And…called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night” when he had created light. What we aren’t told is why he had to divide night and day again. Did they creep back together? Did he undo it and not tell the author? Is it a mistake?
Anyhow, Gen 1:14 finishes of by saying “…and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:” Once again, the time span for a day is set. It is the 24hr cycle of Earth’s rotation as it orbits the Sun as we know it today. It’s not an era, or an epoch, or anything else: it is a day. Unless of course this passage is wrong. (Note: what I said about the Earth orbiting the Sun is refuted by the Bible later on in Isaiah. Again we will get to that later.)
Gen 1:15-18 redundantly states that he puts his new lights in the sky and that the biggest one is for day (there’s that term again) and the smaller one is for the night. And decides that he is kind of proud of himself.
Gen 1:19 Marks the end of day four.
Day five- God creates all the animals in the water and the birds. He tells them to have babies, but puts a caveat on the birds telling them to only live on dry land. My guess is that he didn’t like the penguins. Once these things are done it’s Miller time for Day five. (Gen 1:20-23)
Day six- Day six is a big day. (Note: Technically the image at left doesn’t fit this story as it is based on story #2, but I like it so there it is) First God creates all the land animals (Gen 1:24-25), then they create men and women. No, that wasn’t a typo, I meant to put “they”, because in Gen 1:26 God says “…Let us make man in our image, after our likeness… .” Who was God talking to? Who ever it was it had to be female because later on in Gen 1:27 the Bible says “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” It clearly says that the male created a male and a female, which according to the previous passage was in the “likeness” of himself and his female companion.
After God creates people he/they give(s) control over all the animals to the people then tells them to have lots of babies and that they are vegetarians (Gen 1:28-30). He/they then stand(s) back and look(s) at his/their accomplishments over the last six days and decide(s) that he/they has/have done a good job, and calls it a day. (Gen 1:31)
So ends Genesis Chapter 1. Up next in Chapter 2 we have all sorts of goodies, such as the ordination of the Sabbath and the other creation story. See you then.
The Bible for Atheists 