It wasn’t long before I found the need to comment. In fact, it took just 10 words:
In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.
A couple important points to consider:
First, since God’s creation of heaven and earth predates his creation of man, it must be assumed that the story of creation was passed down from God to his scribes. A quick examination of Biblical research indicates that this is correct, though the author of Genesis is not certain in religious terms. The Jews believe that Moses is the author of the story of creation, inscribing the word of God for all to read. Early Christians also believed that Moses was the author, but later Biblical historians have posited the possibility of two or more authors for the Book of Genesis.
For my purposes, it’s only important that we agree that although the Book of Genesis was written by man, the story itself, if it is to be believed, must have come from God.
This leads me to my concern: Why should we trust the word of God? Since there are no eyewitnesses to the Earth’s creation, who is to say that God is a reliable source? Since God clearly wants to be worshiped as the one and only God, as evidenced by at least three of the Ten Commandments, isn’t it conceivable that he might take more credit than is deserved in order to bolster his perceived power and appeal?
God may be all powerful and all knowing, but he is also the designer of miserable failures like the dinosaurs and the dodo bird. Why wouldn’t he attempt to make the creation of the earth sound as good as possible?
He admits to being a jealous God, but why do we assume that he is an honest one? It seems like an enormous cognitive leap to me.
Not good when I start by questioning the first ten words of the text.
I hope to read more than ten words tomorrow before needing to stop and comment.
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