Genesis: Moses' wacky senile tale (Part 1)

     Ever listen to your grandfather tell a story but not quite understand all of it because it was--well, incomprehensible?  You would listen, smile, and nod, of course, giving him the benefit of the doubt since his senility was ever increasing as he aged and neared his death.  But as you listened on, you realized that what Gramps said two minutes ago in the story, he must have forgotten, because the facts don't add up.

    That's what it must have been like to listen to Moses (who's commonly held to be the author of the Torah) tell his story of Genesis.  It's a great and fantastic story, but parts of it just don't make sense if you read it in order.  Many scholars solve this problem by claiming that the order in which the first five books of the Bible were written (or told) were not really the original order.  And even within the first book, Genesis, many scholars believe that the first chapter was written after the second.  

    But just to show the incongruities of Genesis, if read in the order its presented, I will explain the creation story:

Day 1: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth".... But, before you get an image of earth and heaven, which most might when imagining the first sentence...

"Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters."

God(Right) hovering over, what we can presume to be, the waters.

Okay, so everything was in darkness, but they were there.  Alright, I can imagine that.  Just like when I am in dark room and I stub my toe on a table leg.   Got it.  

And God said, "Let there be light."

While the Bible doesn't say where this light comes from, many believers think it was a light from God.

Great! Now we can see.  There is a godly light.  Now we can see the earth and heavens.  During the rest of the first day, God separated the night and the day.  Booyah, day one complete. 

Day 2:  "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate the water from water." God now separates the water, creating upper water (sky), and lower water(ocean).  Damn it, I already put in a picture of the earth with clouds up above.  Why couldn't you tell me this earlier, Moses!  Now I gotta change the image.

Addendum: Earth with no clouds(left), then god separates, creating clouds(right).

Day 3: "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear."   If you look close at my picture above, the land is already in the picture, too, just like the clouds were.  Well, forget it, I'm not changing another image!  Sorry, but when I think "earth" I either think of the whole Earth or ground/dirt. Yet, here, until Day 3, Moses only means a water earth.  (I sense a Water World prequel idea, Kevin Costner).

To continue, God then adds vegetation.  I'm going to go the easy route here and use Sim Earth screen shots to illustrate.

"Was creating the world as fun as Sim Earth for the Super Nintendo?" is a question I would ask God if I got a chance to meet him.

Third day- done.

Day 4: "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night...God made two great lights-the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night."  Wait a sec, didn't God already separate night and day?  Isn't this a little redundant?  Okaay...just smile and listen on...  At least now we can mark seasons and days and years now.

What happened to the godly light before?  Did the sun take its place?  Was it offed by the co-conspirator, Moon?

Fourth, finished.

Day 5: "Let the waters teem with living creatures, and let the birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky"

Day 6: "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals each according to its kinds."

I wonder, when were insects created?

But Day 6 isn't over yet!  We humans are created next!  

"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."

   Yes! And here God gives us total authority over the earth and its creatures.  Not a bad gig, huh.  However, did anyone notice that God refers to himself in the plural here?!  "Us", "our image", and "our likeness"!  At this point I would've had to stop Grandpa Moses and ask him, "What do you mean, 'us' and 'our'?"  Unfortunately, we can't do that, and this verse has led many scholars believe that the Hebrews were once polytheistic (believing in many gods).   Either that, or angels...but then that wouldn't make humans uniquely created by God in his image alone, now would it?  There is definitely something fishy going on here, that I'll return later to in another post.

Verse 27 goes on to say, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created him." (The repetitiveness here is definitely a characteristic of old age).

So, here, we have God creating Adam and....EVE?!

Eve has some muscles on her!  No wonder why Adam listened to her and ate the fruit.
He was probably scared.

Why,that's not the normal Michelangelo depiction of God creating man first!  What's going on here?  We turn to chapter 2 of Genesis.

Next part--->