The Creation Account

      "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth."  Thus begins the first chapter of the first book of the Bible – Genesis 1.  It goes on to tell how God created the entire cosmos in only six days. 

      Genesis 1 says that plants were created before the sun,[1] which is impossible, since plants need sunlight to exist.  It says that earth was created before the stars,[2] which is also impossible, since planets are born from the heavy metals forged in stars.  It also claims that daytime was created before the sun,[3] which is bizarre even from a primitive ancient viewpoint, for one would think that the ancients could have easily concluded that daytime is caused by sunlight. It also says that trees came before fish, and that birds came before "creeping things" – both statements being contrary to the fossil record.

 

The Hebrew Cosmos

      The ancient Hebrews conceptualized the cosmos very differently from the way modern science does.  Their concept of the cosmos was wholly incongruent with science, and unfortunately for creationism, it was the premise on which Genesis 1 was written. 

      Genesis 1 mentions "the firmament" nine times.  What is the firmament?   According to Hebrew cosmology, the firmament is a solid structure which separates the oceans of heaven from the atmosphere of the sky, and thus keeps the oceans of heaven from falling on us.[4]  If this were accurate, then the mission to the moon would have needed a submarine.  There are floodgates in heaven which open up and pour these oceans into the clouds.[5]  The clouds are like bags that transport rain for distribution.  It is considered miraculous that the clouds don’t burst like water balloons under the weight of the water.[6]  Other types of weather, such as snow, are contained in the warehouses of heaven.[7]  From these absurdities, it is clear that the Hebrews did not understand evaporation, and therefore invented other means to explain precipitation.

      Their understanding of basic astronomy was also entirely lacking.  The Bible says that the stars are actually angels who live inside the firmament.[8]  Thus, since rainwater is above the firmament, and stars are within it, rainwater is right above the stars.  The stars are not light years away in outer space.  No, they are right here close to home shining in our rainwater!  The firmament rotates around the earth, and with it, all the heavenly bodies.  Therefore, the sun, the moon, and the stars all rotate around the earth,[9] contrary to Copernicus.  The firmament, together with all its heavenly bodies, is supported by pillars in the sky.[10]  If this were true, there would be a lot more plane crashes.

      Their understanding of geography was equally flawed.  According to Psalms, in the beginning, water covered the entire earth, but God set a compass on the ocean to draw a circle where dry land would be.  The waters receded at his command, and so dry land was born.[11]  Notice that there is only one continent, and that it is in the shape of a circle.  This is what is meant by the passage "God sits on the circle of the earth."[12]  Many creationists quote this passage in order to "prove" that the Bible told us the earth is round.  Thus, they reason, the Bible must have been divinely inspired, because everybody else at that time thought the earth was flat.  But "the circle of the earth" has nothing to do with the earth being a sphere as we know it today.  Rather, the term applies to the circle of dry land, a continent on the earth, not the whole planet earth.[13]

      Their understanding of what's inside the earth was also wrong.  They believed that the circle of dry land is supported by pillars under the dry land.[14]  Underneath the dry land, the Hebrews supposed an underworld called sheol housed the dead.[15]  They thought ocean water extends around the bottom of the land.  These waters below the land were believed to seep into the underworld.[16]  From the underworld, water was thought to gush up in springs, thus making rivers and lakes.[17]  These springs are "the fountains of the deep."[18]  Thus, aquifers come from ocean water. 

      Genesis 1 is hopelessly inseparable from this pervasively ignorant and unscientific cosmology, for it presupposes that these absurdities are correct.  We can see this from the statements within it, such as the stars being in the firmament, the waters being above the firmament, the dry land appearing after being submerged in the void of the deep – all of these notions stem from the erroneous cosmology described above.  Thus, any literal interpretation of Genesis 1 is entirely untenable and patently absurd.  This is true regardless of whether or not evolution is a viable alternative.  Even if Charlie Darwin were entirely wrong, we must still discard all literal interpretations of Genesis 1.

      How many creationists insist that rainwater resides above the stars, or that springs come from the ocean, or that the sun revolves around the earth?  Not many.  Therefore, since they do not insist upon a literal reading for these points, then why do they insist that "every living creature brings forth after its own kind,"[19] as Genesis 1 says?  For if they admit that Genesis 1 is wrong about astronomy, geology, geography, oceanography, meteorology, and every other branch of science, as indeed they tacitly already do, then why do they insist that Genesis 1 is correct about biology?  Thus, they are inconsistent in their application of the literalist doctrine, for they have singled out one branch of science to attack, namely evolutionary biology, while tacitly admitting Genesis 1 is literally wrong about all other branches of science.   

 

The Date of Creation

      Creationists generally believe that God created everything about 6,000 years ago.  When asked for a precise date, they usually do not give one, but only say that it happened "about 6,000 years ago." 

      Why can't they give a precise date?  Did the Bible neglect to tell us the exact date of creation?  No.  The Bible does tell us the exact date of creation.  We just have to calculate it.  Here is the calculation: 

 

1056 years from Adam to Noah’s birth (Genesis 5).

600 years from Noah’s birth to the Flood (Genesis 7:6)

292 years from the Flood to Abraham’s birth (Genesis 11:10-26)

100 years from Abraham to Isaac (Genesis 21:5)

60 years from Isaac to Jacob (Genesis 25:26)

130 years from Jacob to the sojourn in Egypt (Genesis 47:9)

430 years from the sojourn to the Exodus (Exodus 12:40)

480 years from the Exodus to the first temple (1^st Kings 6:1)

And finally, King Solomon began to build the temple in 966 BCE.  We know this from the corroboration of Assyrian and Babylonian texts with the Bible.

 

Wallah, we have a date for creation.  Add 'em up and you get precisely 4114 BCE.  But there are problems, and they concern the earliest origins of the Hebrew nation and the Bible.

      One problem is, if the statement in 1^st Kings 6:1 is correct, that there were 480 years between the Exodus and 966 BCE, then the Exodus happened in 1446 BCE.  This is a problem, because Palestine was under Egyptian occupation during the 1400's BCE, and into the early 1300's BCE.  What sense does it make to "let my people go" from Egypt, just so they can migrate to another province within the Egyptian Empire?

      Another problem is, archaeology demonstrates that the Hebrew nation did not even exist in Palestine before the 1200's BCE.  As Dever points out, their arrival was marked by changes in house building, a lack of pig bones, the disappearance of Canaanite temples, and the appearance of written Hebrew names, all of which occur about 1200 BCE.[20]  Also, the Egyptian Stele of Merneptah from 1220-1210 BCE mentions "Israel" by name.  So archaeology suggests a date for the Exodus in the 1200's BCE.  But there is little evidence for the Hebrew invasion that the book of Joshua describes, and the earliest pottery of the Hebrews looks Canaanite, which indicates that the Hebrews did not so much conquer the Canaanites as come from them.[21]  This calls into question the Biblical book of Joshua, which records that the Israelites accomplished a genocide of the Canaanites.  On the other hand, it supports the Biblical book of Judges, which records that the Israelites intermingled and lived side-by-side with the Canaanites for a long time.  It is to the book of Judges, therefore, that we should turn next, because it seems to be congruent with archaeology.

      The chronology of Judges totals 450 years.  To get a date for the Exodus, we must add 40 years for Moses, 30 years for Joshua, 40 years for David, and perhaps 40 years for Samuel and Saul.  This yields 600 years between the Exodus and the first temple, in contrast to 1^st Kings' 480 years.  Thus, the Bible contradicts itself by roughly 120 years.  The Jewish historian Josephus evidently favored Judges’ chronology, for he said that there were 592 years between the Exodus and the temple.[22]  A 2^nd century Christian named Theophilus gave a similar date for the Exodus, 566 years before the temple.[23]    This puts the Exodus in the mid 1500's BCE. 

      The mid 1500's BCE is indeed a good fit, for it corresponds to well-known Egyptian history concerning the expulsion of a Semitic people called the Hyksos.  We know from Egyptian archaeology and from ancient histories that the Pharaoh of that time was named Ahmose.  The 2^nd century Christian philosopher Justin Martyr confirmed that Ahmose or "Amasis," as he wrote it, was the Pharaoh of the Exodus.[24]  Josephus even tells us explicitly that the Hyksos were the ancestors of the Israelites.[25]  Hence, a strong case can be made that Biblical recollections of the Exodus should be identified with the expulsion of the Hyksos.

      Yet this raises another problem.  As stated above, the Hebrew nation did not settle in Palestine before the 1200's BCE.  If the Exodus happened 300 years beforehand in the 1550's BCE, then where were the Hebrew people for the intervening 300 years?  Egyptian history records that nomads in the deserts south of Palestine knew the God Yahweh during that time.[26]  This dovetails with the comparatively ancient Biblical Song of Deborah, which says that Yahweh came from "Edom," "Seir," and "Sinai" – all of which are in the deserts south of Palestine.[27]  The Bible apparently remembers this 300 years in the southern deserts as "40 years in the wilderness."[28]  40 years is hardly 300 years, and so the Biblical chronology seems derived from fuzzy memories. 

      Another problem is with the sojourn in Egypt.  The Bible says Israel was in Egypt for 430 years.  That opinion is from the Masoretic Text or "Hebrew Bible."  But the Septuagint, Josephus, and the Samaritan Pentateuch all say the 430 years includes not only the time in Egypt, but also the time the patriarchs were in Canaan.[29]  Egyptian chronology favors this second opinion, because the Hyksos migration to which Joseph is tied occurred in the 1700's BCE, which is less than 430 years before the Exodus if it happened in the 1550's BCE.  This subtracts 215 years.  All totaled, Josephus said there were 3,102 years between the temple and creation, which yields a date for creation of 4068 BCE.[30]

      Because of these complications, creationists cannot give an exact date for creation.  They can only say creation happened "about 6,000 years ago," because the Biblical chronology is so problematic that no precision is possible.

      As if that weren't enough, they still have the testimony of the ancients to contend with.  Ancient Christian writings assert that creation occurred 5,500 years before the time of Christ.[31]  This means creation happened 7,500 years ago.  Hence, when today’s creationists claim that the earth was created about 6,000 years ago, they are actually contradicting the testimony of Jesus Christ’s earliest followers who believed it was created earlier. 

      Thus, even if we dismiss science entirely, the Bible cannot settle its own internal chronological problems well enough for us to trust a literal interpretation of the creation account in Genesis 1.

 

Genesis 1 Versus Genesis 2

      It has long been recognized that a natural break occurs in the middle of Genesis 2:4, which separates two very different creation accounts.  Genesis 2:4 begins, "These are the generations of the heavens and the earth, when they were created."   This phrase, "These are the generations of…," is used 11 times in the first five books of the Bible,[32] and it is a queue that the proximate verses constitute a contiguous stand-alone passage within the text.  It is a very common way to indicate an independent passage.  Hence, Genesis 1:1 thru 2:4a is one passage, and the text following it is a separate unrelated passage.

      Genesis 2:4b marks the start of a different creation account: "In the day that Yahweh-Elohim made the earth and the heavens…"  From the very first verse of this second account, three points are in tension: 

 

In Genesis 1, God is called Elohim.  In Genesis 2, God is called Yahweh-Elohim. 

In Genesis 1, creation takes six days.  In Genesis 2, it only takes one day. 

In Genesis 1, it says "the heavens and the earth."  In Genesis 2, the phrase is inverted – "the earth and the heavens."

 

Three times Genesis 1 lists "heavens and earth" in that order.[33]  But the second account breaks this pattern, saying "earth and heavens."  What are the chances that the author would reverse the order of "heavens" and "earth?"  Compound those odds with the chances of that same author using another name for God, and also contradicting oneself with a one-day creation instead of a six-day.  These are long odds.  It is much more probable that we have two different authors, one for each passage.  Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 were written by two different people! 

      The evidence for dual authorship compounds quickly as we further compare the two passages.  Not only are they written by two different people, but they are entirely contradictory toward each other!  In Genesis 1, humans are the last thing God created.  In Genesis 2, Adam was the very first thing God created.  In Genesis 1, plants and trees and grass were created on the third day, which was before Adam and Eve were created.  In Genesis 2, Adam was created before there were any plants or herbs in the field.  In Genesis 1, the animals were created before humans.  In Genesis 2, the animals were created after Adam.  In Genesis 1, Adam was supposed to govern the entire earth.  In Genesis 2, Adam and Eve were originally supposed to be confined to the Garden of Eden.  In Genesis 1, the earth was submerged in water before creation.  In Genesis 2, the earth was dry before creation.  Hyers notes,

 

The setting of Genesis 1 is one in which there is an overwhelming abundance of water… Genesis 2, however, begins with an opposite problem: not enough water… Genesis 1 has drawn upon the imagery of the great civilizations inhabiting the river basins and/or adjacent to the sea, while Genesis 2 has drawn upon an imagery more in accord with the experience of wandering shepherds.[34] 

 

This observation ties Genesis 1 to Babylon – a place where two rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, provided an abundance of water, and where there had been a myth concerning a great Flood, to which Noah and the Babylonian legends of Gilgamesh and Atrahasis all testify.  Genesis 1 is therefore tied to Babylon.  Since Israel did not fall under Babylonian influence until the late 600's BCE, there is cause to assert that Genesis 1 was not incorporated into the Bible any earlier than the 600's BCE. 

            In contrast, Genesis 2 could very well date in some form to a much earlier date, for it fits the original lifestyle of the earliest Hebrews, who were desert shepherds in the 2^nd millennium BCE.  Genesis 2 is therefore the original creation story of the ancient Hebrews.  Genesis 1 is not.