Although there are not too many examples of those in Genesis, I’m afraid.
Actually, there are. But we were talking about creation myths and Genesis 1, no?
It’s a shared origin story. While Genesis 1 itself has many elements shared with other cultures in the region (and is probably derived from them) the rest of Genesis serves to link that origin to the idea of the Jews as a chosen people.
We were talking about conversion. Which of the neighbors of the Jews were converted to Judaism by those means?
And to add, the OP’s question does not concern the correspondence between the myths and our current state of knowledge. It’s about plausibility at that time, so without any of modern science, without even heliocentrism, without Darwin.
I find it incredibly difficult to guess what I would have found plausible under those circumstances on the assumption that I had my critical thinking skills but only crude observations.
A creative agent, certainly. Although it might have occurred to me that it raises the question of who created the creator, I think I would have dismissed that as just a more difficult question to answer later.
Although Genesis seems on the less bizarre end of the spectrum (no maggots or turtles), one might argue that the stranger myths were more obviously intended to be metaphorical, and that’s a virtue. It avoids disputes over whether an account should be treated as literal truth claim or metaphor.
The big bang theory. What I want to know is who lit the blue touch paper?
I would think you might want to know what the theory is, first. That way, you would know what questions to ask about it.
Are you describing the Cherokee Indian creation myth? It sounds like it. It’d be interesting if a different culture had the same mythology.
I honestly don’t understand how a Neanderthal, let alone a member of a Bronze Age civilization, could think that there were fruit trees growing before the sun existed. I consider the claims in this thread that Genesis even roughly agrees with modern science to be further evidence that religion and rationality are incompatible, and religion usually wins.
To be fair, it’s true that people 2500 years ago couldn’t really disprove Genesis, but that’s irrelevant in light of what else they swallowed. For example, in 2 Samuel 7, Yahweh promises David that Israel will no longer be bothered by its enemies, and that he and his line will rule Israel forever. He explicitly states that this idyllic period begins no later than the building of the Temple (i.e., with Solomon), not some distant time, and he explicitly states that it is not conditioned on the conduct of his descendants.
What actually happened, even according to the Bible, is that nothing in that promise was fulfilled. Israel was constantly at war, from the time of David until the time it was completely destroyed. Solomon was the only member of David’s line to rule over Israel; when he died, 5/6 of the kingdom seceded, and was ruled by non-Davidic kings until it ceased to exist. The remnant, Judah, was sacked by Egypt five years after Solomon’s death, and the Temple and palace treasures were carried off. There were “good” kings and “bad” kings, but what they all had in common was they were either fighting wars against their enemies, or paying tribute to them. Judah was the vassal of various empires for a couple centuries longer than Israel, until it too was destroyed and exiled. There hasn’t been a Davidic king for some 2500 years. And the troubles of the Jews since the Exile are too well known to belabor, but nobody would say that they’ve been unbothered by enemies.
Any Christian or Jew who read, say, that in the Quran, Allah promised eternal rule over all of Islam to the Rashidun caliphate, which lasted only four (not just two) generations, would instantly conclude that it was pure bullshit. But when it’s in their own scriptures, even though it’s perfectly clear that the promise was bullshit, they don’t blink an eye. It might still happen sometime in the future, three or four thousand years after the time of David, so that’s good enough for them.
Just amazing.
ETA: Merry Christmas, everybody!
Did you notice Colibri’s comment #12 above? I found that insightful. The Genesis implementation of creation as a series of separations of previously homogenous states. This provides more internal consistency to the creation of Sun, Moon and stars so late. Diffuse light was there early, perhaps condensing into the discrete celestial objects later.
(And, lest someone again says “Golly, that sounds just like the Big Bang”, no it really doesn’t. The “condensing light” part was my own speculative interpolation, and none of the rest of the details remotely resemble the sequence or process of modern cosmology.)
The Bible (OT) tells us of the order of creation what I would like to know is what started it all off
Equating the Big Bang with “Let There Be Light” is a bit of a stretch – the universe was entirely opaque for the first 150,000,000 years.
Just to nitpick a little, recombination was at 378,000 years? And prior to that, although no photons traveled very far, there were plenty around. If you were in the universe, you would have tanned rather quickly. So opaque, but not dark.
Implying the big bang makes any sense. There was nothing, then everything was at the same point, which then expanded rapidly for no particular reason. As if the start of the universe is obliged to, or even can be satisfying for humans.
A lot of creation stories start with a giant egg or the world coalescing out of a formless void, chaos, or some sort of giant primordial ocean. That’s vaguely more plausible than a god sneezing or ejaculating or sacrificing themselves to become suns.
And what do you mean by “make sense”? “Believable” in what sense? I admit, many of them don’t really make sense to me, but is that the myths’ falult, or is it my fault for not understanding the symbolism? How can I tell whether they’re believable without understanding what they’re really trying to get me to believe?
From the Wikipedia article on creation myths:
I expect some do make sense, or did at one time, though I can’t say I know of any. But after all, they were created to make sense out of what was seen, unseen, known and unknown.
This is exactly how scientists formulate their initial hypotheses. But scientists are willing to go back and revise their thinking in the light of new evidence. That’s where the genesis stories drop the ball.
To re-quote myself
Who lit the blue touch paper.
We have a good idea of how, when and where creation occurred the question is why did ? light the blue touch paper, this is the question that is the founder of religions as people seek the truth that has become a quest for so many who wish to discover who or what is ? and why did ? create a universe.
Does our creation myth–the big bang–make any sense? Where did the material of the big bang come from? What drove the exponential inflation? It would be easy to ridicule (and doubtless has been).
Before evolution came along (as an idea much older than Darwin–his grandfather was a strong advocate) the idea that there was a single creation-of-life event would have seemed absurd. Don’t you think later generations will find some of our fervently held ideas ridiculous?
Remember the “H” in the forum name.
Asimov — “When people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.”
Are you aware that almost none of your posts make any sense whatsoever?
The Big Bang Theory is backward-looking. The model fails as the size of the observable universe nears zero. The theory makes perfect “sense” until that point, it is solidly supported by numerous compelling lines of evidence.
Cosmic inflation is a more tentative model for what happened just before, and for which there is only yet good circumstantial evidence. Then there are more speculative ideas like eternal inflation that may explain more.
All of these models have a limited domain of validity. All scientific theories are incomplete. And no scientific theory explains, or attempts to explain, the existential philosophical question of why there is “something rather than nothing”. However, the fact that science cannot tell us everything does not imply that it can tell us nothing. To equate scientific knowledge with ancient myths is facile. Not all levels of ignorance are equivalent, as TonySinclair’s Asimov quote expresses so elegantly.
It seems to me that the enlightenment and the birth of modern empirical science was the point at which humility about knowledge became a virtue. It is the most fundamental principle of the scientific method that all knowledge is provisional. In the practice of science, we constantly look for ways to break our pet models and theories. Humanity has yet to fully embrace the complementary implication that knowledge based on the arrogant certainty of faith is a vice, but we’re getting there.