Acknowledging that a significant of understanding Genesis chapter 1 is realizing the ANE background against which it was written, Joel Watts, AKA Polycarp, suggests we do the same with our modern backdrop of atheistic evolution. How would you write it?
So, what if we did the same thing today – what if God inspired us today to tell of His power and authority against atheistic evolution? I use this term to note only an evolution which dispenses with God completely and not evolution as a whole which includes theism, etc… Or, perhaps, what if we told the tell that Science tells, but using mythological language? What would it look like?
6 thoughts on “Rewriting Gen. 1 against atheistic evolution”
Thank you, Dr. Brady!
There was no beginning, really, matter is neither created nor destroyed. The earth came into being, however, about 14 billion years ago. It was an insignificant little blue speck in a vast, and when I say vast I mean mind-boggelingly big, universe.
The earth’s crust cooled, haver having separated from the moon, which also cooled, and there was some form of stuff that created life here, which allowed for some kind of life process that gave earth an atmosphere. The crust cooled, but the core was spinning liquid metal so the fragile atmosphere was protected from the small unspectacular sun’s radiation.
Eventually, after a long time, life continued to become more complex, very complex, and the strongest survived. A rare, but surely not unique, thing was taking place. For a brief time, there would be life in the midst of dead space, this is very good.
All the animals multiplied greatly and diversity of life was great. Then something extraordinary happened. One species, in the branch called Hominin, changed greatly. Over just a few thousand years, about 300,000 years ago, one group of animals took a quantum leap. Either a random, seemingly impossible, extraordinary mutation in their DNA took place; or some form of life from somewhere else, outside of earth, and perhaps outside of this universe, did something to change these primates into essentially modern humans.
Out of nowhere people built complex buildings, knew of math, engineering, formed language and actually began to write things down.
Then people invented god to explain all these extraordinary things.
This is the story of earth, to say one in a million is vastly understating the situation by orders of magnitude, it’s really more like 1 in a trillion x a trillion, and that’s just that it would happen once. The universe is vast, but not that vast, but glory be to Darwin, it happened (or perhaps thanks the aliens).
Thank you John (or do you go by John Mark?). Of course what you have written is simply an affirmation of the atheistic evolutionary view and I think Joel was looking for examples of how one might rewrite Genesis 1 in contrast with contemporary views, as Gen. 1 is in contrast with its contemporary context.
“The big bang theory: God spoke and BANG! It happened.”
OK, no. Seriously:
I’ll stop there. Someone else write the next few verses. (I’ll be P, someone else be J)
I wish to death I could remember the author, but a Midwestern field biologist wrote up a fine set of reflections on his craft, and at one point, God (the Creator) appears to him in a vision beside the boggy marshlands he mucks around in. She is a stunning red head riding with her hair blowing in the wind as she drives a convertible no-handed.
Or something like that. That might be the beginning of a “J” narrative.
Oh. My.