Now this is quite possibly the easiest way to show that the Bible is not literally true and thus not infallible, since it was written in the pre-scientific era by humans who had no knowledge about biology, astronomy, advanced mathematics and whose method of recording historical events was extremely poor. Statements of 'facts' whether historical or scientific are one of the many problems with biblical literalism.
I already addressed the fact that the Genesis creation accounts are part of the genre of Creation Myth's, and by definition should not be taken literally, but let's take a second look at them from a scientific standpoint.
-The earth is created before the stars?
-Light is separated from darkness, but we still have no stars?
-There is a solid object called a firmament between 'heaven' and earth that separates the higher waters from lower waters?
-Plants are made before the sun? photosynthesis fail.
-God places the sun and stars in the previously mentioned solid object called the firmament?
-The moon is a light source?
-All animals were herbivores?
-The entire creation takes six days? The universe is 13.7 billion years passed the big bang, new stars and planets are constantly coming in and out of existence.
-Humans weren't created from the dust, but evolved over a long period of time.
-Adam went and named all the animals? That must have taken a while since there are hundreds of millions of species currently alive, not to mention all the ones that have gone extinct since the origin of life(which Adam was supposed to have been very close to) .
-Woman was created from the rib of man? Actually, men and women evolved together over millions of years..
I'll stop there, because there are about 40 more factual errors in the rest of genesis following the creation myth, including Noah's Flood, 970 year old humans, and historical errors, such as the assertion that the Philistines were in the land of Canaan around 800 years earlier than they actually were. It seems quite obvious that there is no way that Genesis is literally true at all, and it most certainly is not infallible, unless you define infallible as 'rife with errors'.
Part 5: New Testament
Part 4: Errors
Part 2: Contradictions
Part 1: Creation Myths
..and this is why whenever i argue with a Christian, i use Genesis. Gives you all the ammo you ever need.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite problem with Genesis is the issue of Cain's wife. So, the first two humans, Adam and Eve, had two sons, Cain and Abel. Total world population: 4. Cain kills Abel. "Welcome to Earth, Population: 3." But then Cain leaves for Nod, *and finds himself a wife.* Where did the wife come from? And what about this whole other town where she lived?
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