Why Faith Fails The Christian Delusion
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Smith in The Priestly Vision of Genesis 1 points out that the book of Psalms
includes some creation hymns that were probably composed earlier than Genesis
1 and adds that those hymns and other creation passages in the Bible may
represent some of the earliest beliefs of the Israelites about creation. However,
because Genesis 1 was composed with greater sweep, significance, and priestly
precision, and placed at the beginning of the Hebrew Scriptures, those other
creation passages lost the prominence they once held.
Some of the earliest creation passages in the Bible depict Yahweh in conflict
with watery foes, not unlike Marduk's battle with the primeval water goddess
Tiamat, or Baal's battle with the sea-god, Yam. Professor Smith has an excellent
discussion of such biblical passages in a section of his book subtitled, "Creation
as Divine Might." Concerning Psalm 74:12-17, for example, he says that it
"makes the divine conflict over the cosmic enemies of the water the basis for the
establishment of the sun, moon, and stars as well as the boundaries of the
earth."39 Smith adds that other texts, "such as Psalm 89:11-13, Job 26:7-13, and
38:1-11 [also] refer to a divine conflict at the beginning of creation." 40
Though the Lord's defeat of cosmic foes was sometimes applied
metaphorically to the Hebrew defeat of the Egyptians (as in the book of Exodus
story about Yahweh splitting the waters of the sea in half and then closing them
to smash the Egyptians), the names of the sea monsters defeated by Yahweh in
Psalm 74 are found in texts from ancient Ugarit where they are identified as foes
whom Baal defeated. Mythical tales of Baal's conquests of sea gods and
monsters also parallel those of Marduk, who conquered Tiamat (an ocean
goddess and monster), subduing her with his mighty wind and then piercing her.
Compare such tales with the image in Job 26:12-13 (from the Jewish Publication
Society Hebrew Bible or Tanakh): "By His power He stilled the sea; By His skill
He struck down Rahab. By His wind the heavens were calmed; His hand pierced
the Elusive Serpent."
Smith goes on to explain the evolving nature of the creation story in the Bible:
Genesis 1 built on and supplanted other Israelite versions of creation that
understood the primordial universe as a field of battle between two divine
wills. It envisions instead a royal-priestly power beyond all powers,
enthroned over the world understood as a holy place similar to a
sanctuary.... The royal politics of creation expressed in texts such as Enuma
Elish and Psalm 74 were replaced partially in Genesis 1 with a priestly
order imbued with the proper religious life of the Sabbath ["rest on the
seventh day"], and festivals of the priestly calendar [the "appointed tunes"
of Gen. 1:14].41
Genesis 1:1 (KJV) states, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the
earth."4' This is a summary of the story that follows, which takes place via steps,
not all at once. Another way of translating Genesis 1:1 is "In the beginning when
God began to create heaven and earth" (see Smith's discussion and other
translations of the Bible).
Genesis 1:2 states, like Enuma Elish, that in the beginning nothing had yet
been formed/named, "And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness
was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the
waters." Creation stories told by Israel's neighbors start in a similar manner-with
a Big Splash rather than a Big Bang-out of which heaven and earth are
eventually made (cf. 2 Peter 3:5 in the NT).
The "deep" is mentioned not only in Genesis 1:2 but also in Genesis 49:25,
which, according to Smith, "lists blessings of various divine figures, including
the `blessing of Heaven above, blessings of Deep crouching below' (see also
Deuteronomy 33:13), and `Deep' in this passage is feminine [as was the
Babylonian sea goddess, Tiamat].... [Moreover,] Heaven and Deep are both
divinities related to cosmic origins in earlier West Semitic tradition."43 Smith
adds, "It is not necessary to see a particular Mesopotamian background at work
behind Genesis 1 in order to compare tehom [the Hebrew "deep"] with Tiamat.
This word for ocean occurs in the Ugaritic texts not only in the god-lists, but also
in mythological contexts. ... [And,] tehom in a battle context is an old West
Semitic idea and not just a Mesopotamian one."44 Nor do all creation stories
employ battle contexts. Some are as serene as Genesis 1. One Babylonian story
that was recited during the building of temples and that featured Marduk as
creator began, "All lands were sea. Then there was a movement in the midst of
the sea." Some Egyptian stories began with a god (Amon) moving over the face
of divine waters (Nu).
Continuing, we find that Genesis 1:3-5 describes the first act of creation: "And
God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it
was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light
Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were
the first day."
God names the first light, "Day," meaning the light of daytime, and sets up a
numbered sequence of earth-days. Naturally, if one is writing a story in which
every act is performed so that the earth may appear and become the lower half of
creation, then there's nothing odd about beginning by creating "earth time." But
modern astronomers know the earth is not the lower half of creation, it's a planet,
and each planet and moon keep their own unique time, "earth time" is not
universal.
At this point in Genesis 1 the "sun, moon, and stars" have not been "made"
nor "set in the firmament of heaven," yet daylight exists. The sun was not
"made" yet? That is what the text says. Therefore, the daylight of the first three
days of creation is a form of light that does not depend on the sun. (In a similar
vein, texts from ancient Ugarit, Israel's West Semitic neighbor, mention gods of
light, as well as gods of Dawn and Dusk that are separate from gods of Sun and
Moon.) Saint Ambrose, an early church father, noted the way daylight preceded
sunlight in Genesis 1, and wrote, "Three days [of creation] have passed. No one,
meanwhile, has looked for the sun, yet the brilliance of light has been in
evidence everywhere.... The light of day is one thing and the light of the sun and
moon and stars another.... The day ... has its light... a serener light.... The sun
adds its brilliance to the light of day. This can be seen at the dawn of day or at its
setting. There is daylight before the rising of the sun, but it is far from being
brilliant." 45
The above distinction brings to mind another Bible verse, Ecclesiastes 12:2,
that says, "... the sun, orthelight, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened..."
[emphasis added]. The Hebrew word translated as "light" in this passage is `or,
which is the same word that occurs in the original Hebrew of Genesis 1:3-5, and
is there called the light of day. "The light" [of day] is thus placed between "the
sun" and "the moon" in order of diminishing brightness, exactly where Ambrose
would have agreed it belonged. "Light" is also spoken of as existing by itself in
Job 38:19, which asks, "Where is the way where light dwelleth? And as for
darkness, where is the place thereof?"
Having compared the events of the first day of creation with the fourth, we
now examine the days that lay in between:
God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it
divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and
divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which
were above the firmament; and it was so. And God called the firmament
Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. And God
said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place,
and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land
Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas ... and the
evening and the morning were the third day. (Genesis 1:6-10, 13 KJV)
Primeval waters are divided by a firmament, creating heaven, after which God
commands "waters" to be "gathered together" under the newly created heaven.
God names the waters "seas" (thus setting boundaries for the sea, a common
ancient Near Eastern concern) and names the dry land "earth." Both halves of
creation (sky and dry land) are now made, but are bare and have to be
accessorized in the days that follow, adding plants to the earth, adding sun,
moon, and stars above the earth, and finally adding animals and humans, a
process of filling creation that resembles other creation myths.
One should also note the difference between the words heaven and firmament
in the Bible. The Hebrew word for heaven (shamayin) appears more than 400
times in the Bible and applies to a wide variety of things, from "birds of heaven,
angels of heaven, foundations of heaven, pillars of heaven, to the firmament of
heaven" (Genesis 1:14). In contrast, firmament (raqia') only appears 17 times in
the Bible. According to Luis I. J. Stadelmann in The Hebrew Conception of the
World, "Shamayin (heaven) designates the space above the earth, including the
atmosphere, the region of the clouds, the firmament and God's abode above the
firmament," places both seen and unseen overhead. Other Hebrew words
translated as "heaven" or "sky" function in a similar, broad manner. But not the
Hebrew word for "firmament." The author of Genesis 1 makes clear that it was
the creation of a "firmament" in the midst of primeval waters that made
heaven/sky possible, as well as earth/dry land.
As Denis Lamoureux, himself an Evangelical Christian, admits in a book
review (see note 2), "Scripture clearly states that the firmament was under `the
waters above,' not in them or part of them. Second, if the writer of Genesis 1 had
intended `the waters above' to mean clouds, vapor, or mist `from which rain
comes,' then there were three wellknown Hebrew words he could have used
(anan, 'ed, and nasiy; Genesis 9:13, Jeremiah 10:13, and Genesis 2:6,
respectively). Instead, he employed the common term for water (mayim) five
times in Genesis 1:6-8.... Third, the sun, moon, and stars are placed in (Hebrew
b) the firmament on the fourth day of creation, above which lay `the waters."'
Additional references to heavenly waters include Psalm 148:3-4, "Praise him,
sun, moon, and stars, Praise him, highest heavens, and ye waters that be above
the heavens" and Psalm 104:1-3, "0 Lord ... who stretches out the heavens like a
curtain: who lays the beams of his chambers in the waters...." The Hebrew word
translated as "beams" is qarah, which refers to structural beams or timbers for a
building. The Hebrew word translated as "chambers" is 'aliyah and specifically
means "roof room" or "roof chamber." The passage therefore indicates that the
God of the Bible built his heavenly chambers in the cosmic waters above the
"roof" of the world (i.e., the firmament of heaven).
Just as there are vast waters above, there are also vast waters beneath the
earth. A passage mentioning them is Genesis 7:11-12 concerning the biblical
Flood: ". . . on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the
windows of the heavens were opened" (NRSV). Thus, the waters of the abyss, or
the great deep "burst forth" from beneath the earth to inundate the land. And
according to the same story, such waters remained in abundance, enough to flood
the earth again should God desire, because the Flood ended only after God
"closed" the floodgates of the sky and the fountains of the deep, and "promised"
not to do such a thing again. So the author presumably thought that such waters-
located beneath and above the earth-were without limit and that God was relied
upon to set their boundaries, as stated elsewhere in the Bible. In that respect, the
story of the Flood agrees with Genesis 1 and with the psalmists who stated that
such waters continued to exist "above the highest heavens," near God's own
"chambers."
But what is a "firmament"? What does the word mean in the original Hebrew?
The Hebrew word raqia' (translated as "firmament") means "that which is firmly
hammered, beaten out, or stamped (as of metal).."46 According to Gerhard von
Rad in Genesis: A Commentary, another word of the same root in Phoenician
means "tin dish," 47 and the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet, used to write early Hebrew,
was a regional offshoot of Phoenician.
Even the Theological Word Book of the Old Testament, authored by
conservative Evangelical Christian scholars R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer,
and Bruce K. Waltke, and published by Moody Press, agreed that the Bible
verses in which the root of ragia' (i.e., raga') appeared were all related to
something solid being spread out, stamped, or pounded down; the following list
provides examples of this translation:
Isaiah 42:5 "`spread out' the earth,"
Isaiah 44:24 "`spreading out' the earth"
Psalm 136:6 "`spread out' the earth"
Ezekiel 6:11 "`stamp' your foot"
Ezekiel 25:6 "`stamped' your feet"
II Samuel 22:43 "I `stamped' them"
Jeremiah 10:9 "`beaten' silver"
Isaiah 40:19 "`plates it' with gold"
Exodus 39:3 "`hammer out' gold leaf"
Numbers 16:39 "`hammered (bronze censers) out' as a plating for the altar"
Note the description in Job 37:18 where we read the following in the KJV:
"Hast thou with him spread out the sky, which is strong, and as a molten looking
glass?" The Hebrew word translated as "spread out" is raga, as in the cases
already mentioned. In addition, the Hebrew word translated as "strong" is
chazaq, which means "strong," "hard," or "firm." In ancient times, mirrors were
made of polished metal, not glass, as they were during the time of King James.
The NEB translation of the verse follows the meanings of the key Hebrews
words more closely and is clearer than is the version in the KJV: "Can you beat
out the vault of the skies, as he does, hard as a mirror of cast metal?" T. H.
Gaster in his article on "Heaven" for The Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible
comments: "Job's expression finds a parallel in the `brazen heaven' of t
he ancient
Greeks, while, somewhat similarly, heaven is described in ancient Egyptian
sources and occasionally by Homer as made of iron." 48
Another example of the idea that something firm lay overhead is found in
Proverbs 8:27-28 (NRSV): "When [God] established the heavens, [wisdom] was
there, when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the
skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep." The Hebrew word
translated as "firm" is amats, which, according to the authoritative Brown Driver
Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, has a specific meaning of "be stout,
strong...." and also "to make firm, strengthen."49 According to The Hebrew and
Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Koehler/ Baumgartner), the meaning of
amats is "be hard" and "to make firm."so
Therefore, three different passages in the Bible, Genesis 1:6-8, job 37:18, and
Proverbs 8:27-28, use three different words to indicate (with remarkable
unanimity) that the biblical sky, or heaven, is strong, hard, or firm. (Speaking of
firmness, Genesis 1 is not the only place in the Bible that mentions a firmament.
Ezekiel 1:22, 26 describes one with the Lord's throne above it, and the wings of
angels "stretched out straight" beneath it, a firmament of "crystal," literally, the
"eye of awesome ice.")
What was the shape of the earth according to the Bible? Isaiah 40:22 provides
the answer: "It is he that sitteth upon the circle (Hebrew, chug) of the earth, and
the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a
curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in." Because this passage
mentions "the circle of the earth," some people interpret it as a description of a
spherical earth. But they are ignoring the context of the verse that has nothing in
it implying sphericity, only "tent-icity," since God "sits upon the circle" and
spreads heaven out like a "tent to dwell in." The Hebrew word chug has a
primary meaning of "circle" and no lexicon of ancient Hebrew offers "sphere" as
a meaning for chug. Moreover, see the previous section on Mesopotamian
cosmology for references to "circle of the earth," and other phrases they
employed with "circle" in them to depict the earth, including the Babylonian
map of the world that depicts the limits of the flat earth's surface as two
concentric circles. Therefore, the phrase "circle of the earth" is not unique at all
and was already in use by flat-earth-believing Mesopotamians long before the
book of Isaiah was written. Elsewhere in Isaiah, the most the author says of the
earth is that God "spread it out" (literally pounded or flattened it out) at creation
(Isaiah 42:5 and 44:24). So there does not appear to be a single verse in the Bible
that depicts the earth as a sphere.- 51
On the other hand, there are numerous incidental phrases as well as entire
passages in the Bible that support the conclusion that its authors believed the
earth to be flat. Take the phrase "the ends of the earth," which arose among
people whose creation stories easily illustrate their flat-earth beliefs, a phrase
just as ubiquitous in the Bible as it is in Mesopotamian literature. Deuteronomy
13:7 speaks of "the people that are round about you ... from one end of the earth
even unto the other end of the earth." Isaiah 40:28 says, "[the Lord is] the
Creator of the ends of the earth."Job 28:24 states, "He looks to the ends of the
earth, and sees everything under the heavens." Also note the use of "the ends of
the earth" inJob 38:12-13, in which God asks Job: "Hast thou commanded the
morning... that it might take hold of the ends of the earth, that the wicked might
be shaken out of it?" God is comparing the earth to a blanket or garment picked