Talk:Book of Genesis

Merging with Guide to Genesis
Nobody seemed to object to the merge, so I went ahead and did it and added a redirect on that page. Metz77 (talk) 15:43, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
 * So everything was kept? --[[Image:Pink mowse.png|25px]]Godot  Some would use a tautology to describe it ("The way things are done around here is the wa 16:03, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I edited down the introduction and the subsequent editor that moved it to the current namespace seems to have edited it down further and moved the summary to another page, but otherwise yes. Further Edit: Oh, that was you. So yes, I kept everything except I edited out a bit of one of the introductions when combining them. Metz77 (talk) 03:36, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Cool. I kept wanting to do it, but never had the motivation.  Glad you did.  I pulled the "summary" stuff cause the page was just too wieldy with both the history of genesis, and this summary.[[Image:Pink mowse.png|25px]]Godot   Around, around, around, around, over, and under and through 04:08, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Some of the "contradictions" aren't.
In no way do I think there's any chance the book of Genesis is the literal truth, or even a particularly useful metaphor for anything. However, I think there's a number of small ways this article goes overboard in making that point. In particular, the list that follows the sentence "Still, Genesis is ripe with blatant contradiction from which the text cannot hope to revive. To name a few examples;" contains a lot of things that don't seem like contradictions to me.

In this sort of context, I understand the term "contradiction" roughly as follows: It's a contradiction to say two things that can't both be true; for example, two irreconcilably different accounts of the same event. A good example of something that is a contraction is item 2 on that list; the world can't have both started covered with water and then become divided between land and sea, and started completely dry before becoming so divided.

On the other hand, item 1 doesn't seem to be a contradiction to me. This item merely says the first myth mentions a thing the second one is silent on. Two descriptions of the same event can emphasize different things; there's no contradiction in this. If (for example) the first one mentioned six days while the other clearly stated that it all happened in a single day, that would be a contradiction. There clearly are some genuine contradictions between the two accounts, but this isn't one of them. Or if it is, this article is missing some crucial piece of information needed to convey that.

Of the remaining items on the list, only #7 and part of #3 seem to be genuine contradictions (again, assuming the article hasn't omitted anything important):

3: The main thing this item is pointing to is a contradiction, but the "be fruitful and multiply" aspect is not.

4: Not necessarily a contradiction, though admittedly this does seem like a strange thing for the second account to leave out.

5: Again, not a contradiction, just a topic one of them goes into detail on that the other doesn't see fit to mention.

6: Same comment as 5.

7: Straightforward, genuine contradiction.

So of the seven things on this list, only three (2, 3, and 7) clearly belong there, one of which needs significant editing.

There's similar problems with the list of "conflicts" just below. For example, I don't see the problem with the first item on that list; if you've ever been in charge of people, I can pretty much guarantee you've had to repeat an instruction like that. I'm not sure the Old Testament even claims God is perfect, but let's assume it does: It doesn't follow that the humans He's dealing with are perfect, or that He doesn't need to make allowances for this. Indeed, a God who failed to do this would ipso facto be obviously not perfect.

What do others think? I think the point that this account of the creation of the world is (even granting the whole sky-father aspect of it) obviously a Frankenstein's monster stitched together from at least two other documents can be made without artificially lengthening these lists by including dubious items on them. 24.76.164.207 (talk) 10:57, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Divide
Divide light from darkness--?photon-herding. Is Darkness reified, or is it simply absence of EM?DocSock 10:36, 1 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Umm, ask god, those are some heavy questions. I just assumed it was referring to the band The Darkness. Jrssr5 10:42, 1 June 2007 (CDT)
 * I think the light was divided from darkness at about 1-2 minutes after the big bang, when the plasma became transparent to photons. Am I writing this on the wrong article? ;) human  14:34, 17 February 2008 (EST)
 * Holy discussion necromancy, Hu-Man! -- AKjeldsen Godspeed! 14:38, 17 February 2008 (EST)

You have given a new meaning to the word "Improved" Human.--Bobbing up 16:01, 7 July 2008 (EDT)
 * Thank you :)  ħ uman  16:07, 7 July 2008 (EDT)

Human Civilization and Fire
I always wondered... if inventions that required the use of fire, like spear hardening or ovens, appeared several thousand years before humans could reliably make fire then how the hell did people exploit the use of fire? Did they just wait for a lightning storm or a volcanic erupt every time the fire went out? Because it pretty much had to, repeatedly. --Dr. Swordopolis (talk) 17:53, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I suppose the short answer would be "yes". Forest fires are some of the most natural things, whether it's from dry seasons or lightning strrikes. The odds are early people would have been able to trap some and keep it going. That's one leap. The next leap is understanding it enough to generate it from scratch. Scarlet A.pnggnostic 17:58, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I propose to investigate this issue the next time I have my turn on the RW time machine. Till then we are left with reasonable assumptions and inferences.--BobSpring is sprung! 18:04, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Something on fire Not sure it answers the question. Scarlet A.pngnarchist 18:07, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not questioning it or anything. It just feels weird to imagine living in that situation for thousands of years. It must have been unimaginably scary to live in a world where your livelihood depended on something that you couldn't create and could've gone away at any time. Just one small slip or stray breeze and you would've been unable to cook food or make weapons or warm your baby or anything for days, maybe even months. Gaaahhh. --Dr. Swordopolis (talk) 19:03, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Sun-Day Paradox
While I don't have a source yet, I'd heard that a possible reason God created day/night before the sun was to differentiate God from sun-worship. God being able to create day without the sun to provide light implies that He is the actual source of the light, and not the sun. Or some such.

If/when I find a source, I think this little tidbit would be relevant to the section as it implies the original author(s) of the creation story wrote it more to define their religion than to literally dictate a history.Onychoprion (talk) 19:51, 11 December 2014 (UTC)