In the Genesis 1 account of creation, God allegedly stated, "Let us make humans in our image."  But who is us?  Isn't there just one God?  Who was he talking to?  Perhaps he was talking to angels.

     An apostolic man named Papias elaborated:

 

God gave some angels authority to arrange the cosmos, and He ordered them to use their authority well, but it came to pass that their arrangement was a failure.[1]

 

     Their arrangement was a failure – what does this mean?  Is the universe some sort of angelic science project gone haywire?  Just looking at the universe confirms the plausibility of such an opinion.  The universe is a wasteland of burning gas, empty space, and cold lifeless rock.  Most of it is either too cold for life, or too hot and fiery for life.  Only a very small portion of the universe is suitable for life at all.  It’s as if some angels said, "Let’s make something really really big, but who cares if it works."  Such is the universe we live in, and it fits Papias' description of a cosmic failure.

     But who was Papias, and why should we care what he said?  According to a 2^nd century source, "Papias was an ancient man, who listened to John, and he was a friend of Polycarp (John’s disciple),"[2] and another source says that he was the bishop of Hierapolis, a prominent town in Asia Minor.[3]  Moreover, Papias said about himself,

 

When people came who had ministered to the Apostles, I asked particular questions about what they said – what Andrew or Peter said, or what Philip, Thomas, James, John, Matthew, or any other of the Lord's disciples said, and what Aristion and Presbyter John the disciple of the Lord say.  I thought it was better to get my information from a living abiding voice than from books.[4]

 

Notice the present tense of say – what Aristion and John say – which implies they were still living abiding voices.  This means that Papias was alive when the last Apostles were still alive.  Since he got his information from Apostles, at a time before the New Testament had even been completed, his opinion about how the universe came about should carry some weight with regard to Christian belief.

     Additionally, Papias' statement appears to be corroborated by what Saint John himself says in the Bible, "I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away."[5]  If God made the first creation good in the beginning, as it says in Genesis 1, "God saw that it was good," then why does John say that this cosmos is going to pass away?  Why should we need a new heaven and a new earth if the first heaven and the first earth were created good?  On the other hand, if angels messed it up, then it makes sense that we need a new heaven and a new earth.  In this light, Papias’ statement can be understood like so:  The universe was created by angels, but the angels messed up, and so we need a new universe.  The natural logic of Papias' statement, when synchronized with John's statement in the Bible about a new heaven and a new earth, is perfectly harmonious.

     Others besides Papias also expressed this view.  Ancient Christian histories written by Irenaeus and Hippolytus, in the period of 175-235 AD, tell us of no less than six other Christian leaders – Menander, Carpocrates, Saturninus, Basilides, Cerinthus, and Simon Magus – who also believed that the cosmos was created by angels.[6]  These six all taught in the 1^st and/or early 2^nd centuries AD, and are therefore among the earliest Christian authorities.  Specifically, Basilides taught this:

 

Jesus was sent by the Father so that by his dispensation he might destroy the works of the angels who created the cosmos.[7] 

 

     For a generation or two after the Apostles, both Gnostics and creationists apparently existed together in the same churches.  This is borne out by the fact that some of the earliest Christians demonstrated a mixture of both Gnostic and Orthodox-Catholic beliefs – notably Papias, who accepted the Gnostic version of creation, yet otherwise seems to have subscribed to the opinions of the Orthodox-Catholic faction, for he was never labeled a heretic by the ancient Orthodox-Catholic historians who had read his writings.  Papias was also the bishop of Hierapolis, a community which had apparently been under the jurisdiction of the Apostle Philip before him. 

Click to read more about how ancient Christian Gnosticism is compatible with evolution.

The creationist narrative in Genesis 1 is contradicted by many ancient Christian texts.  Instead of an Almighty Creator God, ancient Christian texts espouse that the universe is born from blind arrogance and stupidity.  The angels caused evolution to occur from species to species.  There are many gods, (or aliens?), and the Christian God is just one among them.  Satan the Devil writes scripture, and thus the Bible was polluted with Genesis 1.  Archaeology and modern scholarship demonstrate that Genesis is indeed corrupted.  Cavemen walk with Adam and Eve.  Esoteric prophecies reveal the coming of Christ, and also reveal the dark forces that govern the cosmos.  Such are the ancient Christian writings.

Science vindicates the truth of these ideas.  Evolution often happens too fast for Darwin’s theory.  Gaps in the fossil record indicate that some kind of unnatural force acts together with natural selection.  Astrobiology reveals that intelligent life probably evolved long before us.  The fossil record reveals strange clues that aliens abducted species and transported them across oceans, and that DNA from diverse lineages was combined to spawn hybrid species.  Evidently, aliens influence evolution, and they are the gods of the world’s religions. 

This is not fiction.  All these facts are thoroughly documented in the links above.