I remember a big book from my childhood where the early earth was described as covered with water. I remember being more interested in the animals on the ark going in 2 by 2.
> In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. ...And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. ... And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so.
So:
First, Earth covered with water, clouds right up against the water, no sun
Then, Earth covered with water, a clear visible area between the clouds and the water.
Then Continents appear.
The Flood account specifically states that the water came not only from rain, but from the "fountains in the deep." Gen 7:11.
Pfft everyone knows this is all just a simulation and "gods"/creation was just the init-script. Gotta do a bulk load into memory of all that water first before computing textures and other compute intensive shit....
To me, that seems to be just something a clothed adult in a pudic society would think, not something the first man would actually feel.
First: "Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame."
Then, later: "Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths."
I don't know, or care to focus on, how literal or figurative the story is. Perhaps it's describing a change that occurred during evolution to (or within) homo sapiens, a change that caused us to be more self-aware (in a bad way?), self-reliant, conscious of good and evil. Just speculation here.
This is something I think about sometimes. We now know that anatomically modern humans shared a timeline and even bred with Neanderthals and Denisovans, probably others. So there was a period when anatomically modern humans, probably cognitively modern (thus capable of language) or close to it, were interacting with these other archaic homo sapiens and probably became aware of their cognitive differences. Maybe these ancient stories reflect an early rationalisation of how human-neanderthal or human-denisovan physical and cultural practices differed. Of course the stories would have to be transmitted for thousands of generations...
Bonus armchair biblical hermeneutics: the Nephilim [1] are the biblical reflex of older stories about one or more archaic homo sapiens.
Though I don't think that's really about Denisovans and Neanderthals. It's just a transition from creation myth to other kinds of myth, and not reflective of any real events. I'm a Christian, and I'm firmly convinced that the first half of Genesis (possibly all of it, but definitely the first part) is just a collection of older mythological stories shaped into a somewhat cohesive whole, with some mention of God shoehorned in, whether it makes sense or not. It's certainly not meant to be taken literally in any way. There might be a kernel of truth to some of them (there probably was a big flood where someone saved a lot of animals), but that kernel is small. From Abraham onward, it starts to look more like it might be based on real events.
* As we get closer to the modern human, we lose body hair to better suit our hunting style. The trade off is we're much more vulnerable since our skin is pretty bad compared to almost every animal out there.
* We make up for this by literally taking other animals' skins and putting it on top of our own.
* Hunting societies begin to emerge in parallel to this change, and shame is a key element of the social interaction that allows that. Shame allows reinforcement and communication of expectations, all without violence or even language. Being exposed means that you cannot even take care of yourself, so you have to be able to show you are ashamed otherwise it means you're absolutely clueless and why would the group want you around if you're clueless?
These observations support my view that the statement "Being exposed means that you cannot even take care of yourself" is not universally correct.
Is it shame?
Is it something else?
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160919-the-real-origin-of-c... comments that it might be decoration.
> Gilligan points out that humans were probably decorating themselves long before clothes even existed. "When you look at contemporary hunter-gatherers who don't use clothing, they decorate themselves brilliantly with body painting. You don't need clothing in order to do that."
https://www.thesouthafrican.com/lifestyle/debunking-colonial... points to several "contexts and situations where elements of dress [broadly speaking] seem to have been of particular relevance." One example is:
> a hunter, before he tracks his prey, must cut himself and rub the cuts with a root called ssho /oa. And he must rub his body with it and wear ssho /oa in a band around his shoulders. This is to get the game to “run foolishly”, not knowing that it is afraid, and to approach the hunter as an equal. ...
> Far from being naked, or nearly naked, the Bushmen of colonial southern Africa had a complex and meaningful practice of dress. It was intimately related to subsistence, identity and their perception of how to live life in the world as they knew it.
The author's book is at http://witspress.co.za/catalogue/dress-as-social-relations/ .
Our skin is awesome compared to almost every animal out there. No other animal can sweat like we do, which is essential to keep our body temperature down during long periods of exertion. Humans can hunt almost any animal to exhaustion. We may not be fast, but we've got way more endurance than any other land-based animal, and our skin is a big part of that.
(Admittedly you alluded to this with "to better suit our hunting style", but I thought I'd make this more explicit. Human skin is fantastic.)
I don't see that. Genesis 1:21 says "great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind" were created on the 4th day, and "every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind" were on the 5th."
Evolution theory has that whales specifically (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_cetaceans ), and all marine mammals, evolved first on land then entered the sea. The same for winged creatures.
Additionally, the Bible has two creation stories, with different orderings. Genesis 2 has man created before animals.
Genesis 2:7 - "And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."
Genesis 2:19 - "And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them"
This is an incredibly important detail that a lot of people ignore. Genesis 2 is a fairly old and classic creation story, whereas Genesis 1 is probably the most recent addition to Genesis, probably written during the Babylonian Exile. It's a poem, structured by the days of the week, that tells that God didn't only create animals and humans, like Genesis 2 tells, but also the very fabric of the universe, light, darkness, the sun and stars, etc. It expands the scope of Creation compared to the more human-level view of Genesis 2. Genesis 2 is the human story of creation, Genesis 1 is the scientist's story of creation (at the time; Babylonians were the scientists of their age and studied the stars).
How are there grasses and herbs and trees (Genesis 1:12) before there's day and night or seasons (Genesis 1:14)? Evolutionary theory says that life was created after the crust cooled down - which means there was already day and night. And seasons too, since that depends on the inclination of the Earth.
Genesis 1:16 says the Moon was created after fruit trees. The earliest seeded trees are from the late Devonian, so no more than about 400 million years ago - well after the Moon started to orbit the Earth.
There are many other creation myths. How do you evaluate them for accuracy if you don't use "the current consensus of the senses"? Perhaps Mbombo really did vomit us up - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mbombo , and we just haven't found the evidence?
To me, it is interesting that the rough outline is similar. Yes, I agree that some specifics are not in the same order. Also, simply the fact that Genesis 1 describes a process at all, seems like a prescient paradigm. And, that there was actually a Beginning, rather than just everything always existing.
> Mbombo
My best guess is that the creation story was passed down orally for a long time, thus there are variations in different cultures. So why would I accept the Genesis account as more accurate than the account given by the Kuba people? That's predicated on my faith in the Judeo-Christian God. Why do I have faith in Him? Because I was born into a Christian household, and learned about the teachings of the Bible, then opened my mind to seek the truth with relentless intellectual honesty (or at least tried to), and God worked in my life (just a case study here), and I couldn't harden my heart to how meaningful He is. So, I was no longer debating with facts, but with a Person. In addition, every intellectual debate always left room to maintain faith or abandon faith. I haven't found an argument that forces me to disbelieve (nor do I have one that forces someone to believe). It's clear from Scriptures that God allows us the choice; that he doesn't make himself undeniably plain.
> The Enuma Elis contains numerous parallels with the Old Testament, and has led to a general conclusion amongst some researchers that the paralleled Old Testament stories were based on the Mesopotamian work. Overarching similarities include: reference to a watery chaos before creation; a separation of the chaos into heaven and earth; different types of waters and their separation during the creation process; as well as the indirect textual similarity between the number of tablets and the number of days of creation: seven.
I therefore think it's difficult to say that Genesis 1 "seems like a prescient paradigm" when the roughly similar outline existed before Genesis was written. At the very least, the Enuma Elis should also be considered an equally prescient paradigm, yes?
And another example of archaeological discovery affirming Biblical accounts after a period of doubt (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hittites#Biblical_background):
> Before the archeological discoveries that revealed the Hittite civilization, the only source of information about the Hittites had been the Old Testament. Francis William Newman expressed the critical view, common in the early 19th century, that, "no Hittite king could have compared in power to the King of Judah...".[10]
From the link you shared, this theory would be interesting to explore:
> Based on an analysis of proper names in the texts A.T. Clay proposed that the Enuma Elish was a combination of a Semitic myth from Amurru and a Sumerian myth from Eridu—this theory is thought to lack solidity, and specifically any historical or archaeological evidence.
Earlier you wrote "simply the fact that Genesis 1 describes a process at all, seems like a prescient paradigm."
I commented that it cannot be seen as a prescient paradigm because earlier texts describe a similar paradigm.
You correctly point out that the Genesis story can be older than Genesis 1.
Which I agree with, since I think the Enuma Elish is the same Genesis story. Or rather, the Genesis account "[borrowed] themes from Mesopotamian mythology, but adapt[ed] them to the Israelite people's belief in one God" ( Quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_creation_narrative ).
I also agree with the concept since the Biblical flood narrative is believed to have been written nearly 1,000 years after older written Mesopotamian flood myths - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_myth#Mythologies .
Any argument for older precedence must also consider that Mesopotamian mythology is also almost certainly far older.
However, you still can't argue that the Genesis 1 description seems a prescient paradigm. At best you can say is that you believe there are centuries older accounts which match the Genesis 1 description and which, if found, would be a prescient paradigm.
But the complexity of that statement doesn't fit your "simply the fact" comment.
> And another example of archaeological discovery affirming Biblical accounts after a period of doubt (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hittites#Biblical_background):
Was all of The Illiad correct because Troy was found?
Note also that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_Hittites comments about ongoing "debates about possible identities between the Anatolian Hittite Empire and the biblical Hittites".
Quite a few across a wide geographic range all identically feature a handful of humans (and possibly animals and/or plants) being forewarned of an impending flood, building boats (or otherwise being put in boats), and surviving until the waters receded. (EDIT 2: I realize now that I got things mixed up and you were asking for the "Earth started off underwater" myths, but there are plenty of examples of those, too).
EDIT: to elaborate further on some specific examples (pulled from Wikipedia, except for the African example which I pulled directly from the cited source, since the article didn't include synopses of any of those examples):
- North America (Hopi): « The other version [of the Hopi story of their entrance into the "Fourth World"] (mainly told in Oraibi) has it that Tawa destroyed the Third World in a great flood. Before the destruction, Spider Grandmother sealed the more righteous people into hollow reeds which were used as boats. On arrival on a small piece of dry land, the people saw nothing around them but more water, even after planting a large bamboo shoot, climbing to the top, and looking about. Spider Woman then told the people to make boats out of more reeds, and using island "stepping-stones" along the way, the people sailed east until they arrived on the mountainous coasts of the Fourth World. »
- South America: « "The Inca’s supreme being and creator god, Con Tici (Kon Tiki) Viracocha, first created a race of giants, but they were unruly, so he destroyed them in a mighty flood and turned them to stone. Following the deluge, he created human beings from smaller stones. "In other versions of this story, the impious race is the pre-Inca civilization of the Tiahuanaco Indians about Lake Titicaca, the large high lake in the Andes. Viracocha drowns them and spares two, a man and a woman, to start the human race anew. Some versions of the Unu Pachakuti have the surviving man and woman floating to Lake Titicaca in a wooden box." »
- India: « Matsya (the incarnation of Lord Vishnu as a fish) forewarns Manu (a human) about an impending catastrophic flood and orders him to collect all the grains of the world in a boat; in some forms of the story, all living creatures are also to be preserved in the boat. When the flood destroys the world, Manu – in some versions accompanied by the seven great sages – survives by boarding the ark, which Matsya pulls to safety. »
- Korea: « Namu Doryeong (Hangul: 나무도령, Hanja: --道令) is a myth about the son of a guardian tree spirit. The son, Namu Doryeong, survived a flood by floating on the tree. He first saved a colony of ants from the flood, then a swarm of mosquitoes, until he had saved all the animals of the world. Namu Doryeong finally saved a young human boy, despite the tree's advice against it. After the flood, Namu Doryeong met an older woman and her two daughters on Mt. Baekdu, where they had been safe from the flood. The woman told Namu Doryeong if he won a contest, he could have her daughter's hand in marriage. Namu Doryeong won the contest with the aid of a swarm of ants, who turned out to be the very ants that Namu Doryeong had saved during the flood. Namu Doryeong and the human boy married the two daughters, and they formed the next race of humans. »
- Scandinavia: « According to the Gylfaginning section of the Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson, Bergelmir and his wife alone among the giants were the only survivors of the enormous deluge of blood which flowed from Ymir's wounds when he was killed by Odin and his brothers Vili and Vé. They escaped the sanguinary flood by climbing onto an object and subsequently became the progenitors of a new race of Jötunn. »
- DRC (Bakongo): « An elderly woman, tired and covered with sores, arrived at a town in a valley. She asked for hospitality but was turned away at every home except the last one she came to. The people there took her in and cared for her until she was well again. When she was ready to leave, she told her hosts to come with her. Because of the other inhabitants' lack of hospitality, the town was cursed, and the Supreme God, Nzambi, would destroy it. The night after they left, heavy rain fell, turning the valley into a lake. All of the townspeople were drowned. »
One point of comparison would be the sheer number of "earth diver" myths (believed to have originated in East Asia, then spread across modern day Russia/Finland and North America), in which some being (often a bird) dives into that primordial ocean and pulls up the land.
http://unurthed.com/2007/12/23/szukalskis-science-of-zermati...
The most famous example would be the Enuma Elish, where the world comes from the meeting of salt water and fresh water.
Kind of glosses over the ~9b years that the ‘heavens’ existed before the Earth formed, and the vast difference in scale.
You’d have to wonder how any explanation that wasn’t obviously made up by a race that lived on the Earth and understood nothing about the wider universe could get the facts so wrong.
>>"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
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.
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw the light, and it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness.
Light in a general, diffuse form started to penetrate the atmosphere at some point (this is the "creation" of light at 1:3). Then there was an expanse created to form a division between water below and those above. For an observer on earth, light would have only gradually penetrated the waters above as they formed into clouds. Eventually, the sun and moon and stars, and their motions, would become visible (1:14-18)
There are some Bible quotes that seem to show transcedental, accurate insights -- like the Earth floating in void, but not much, that's not something central to the Bible.
Dinosaurs are believed to have been here before the flood by some. As for bacteria and viruses, well when you bring sin, you bring forth death, and death has many forms.
Course there's bacteria that isn't necessarily bad, and that's just part of the balance of things.
DNA is literally a language / coded instruction set - something that had to be designed and created, I've written a lot of code, it never ever accidentally writes itself, I have to design it and think thoroughly of what I want it to do.
However, the existence of dinosaurs does not conflict with Genesis at all. The Bible simply says animals were created before man. For how long animals existed before the creation of man is not specified, it could have been millions of years. This allows for dinosaurs to have existed and gone extinct before man came along.
Also, the Bible does not talk about bacteria/viruses, but in the books of Moses, scientifically sound instructions are given as to how to curb the spread of disease through personal hygiene (e.g., burying human waste) and quarantining, etc. This implies a knowledge of the germ theory of disease. Contrast this with the ancient Egyptian "medical" practices of applying human waste poultices to open wounds, and the practice of open defecation common in many parts of the world even now.
You'd have to wonder how a scientific understanding could possibly be reflected in a poem that makes heavy use of reflective structures.
It's a poem, of a particular kind. The people it was written for would not have taken it literally. IIRC the Talmud doesn't say that it is obviously something literal. That's a more modern trend of Christianity, and even there, many sects don't.
There's problems with taking it literally. That it isn't scientifically accurate is the least of those.
Not really. The Mishnah, of the Talmud, originates from around 200CE. The first commentary on the poem treats it as a purely symbolic construction. These commentaries sum up thinking that was already common at the time, based on long oral traditions.
It is a relatively recent development; in the Middle Ages, the literal interpretation was only one of four levels of interpretation, and generally seen as the least important one. It's about the last 2 or 3 centuries that Biblical Literalism became big.
For example, we can almost imagine what memories are shared to us from 3-4 generations back, and assumably that pattern continues. Does it end 20k years ago (presumably not), are there intuitions that are wiped out over millennia, or do we have intuitions that date back to our first multicellular / higher order processing days?
https://theconversation.com/ancient-aboriginal-stories-prese...
It's not just beautiful but coincides almost too perfectly with the science.
No concept of Rayleigh scattering, atmosphere or outer space. Just: Blue? Water!
And yet I heard it read to the crowd of people in a communal building and they listened to it as if it made sense more than 2000 years later, in the age of science, when we already learned how to properly know things.
Is there a variation on "straw man" that's more like "shadow boxing", where someone grossly misunderstands what someone's saying and then argues against their own misunderstanding?
I've never heard any reference to the sky being blue because there's water there. People 4000 years ago weren't stupid. Everyone knows rain comes from clouds, not from a blue sky. If you read one sentence in isolation and it seems stupid or perverse, you should first check to see if you're understanding it correctly, before writing it off, particularly if it's from a different language, culture, or time.
My interpretation of this I've given above already: The "waters above" were the clouds. This makes sense of the paradox that the creation story describes light as being created before the sun. Everyone knows that light comes from the sun; so why would anyone make up a story where day and night happen for three days before the sun shows up?
But suppose instead, what was described was from an observer on a particular point above the earth's surface:
1. Sun ignites; you can see light in general but you can't see the sun because all you can see is fog on a water.
2. The "fog" lifts above the water and become clouds, so now there's visible space between the water and the clouds, but you still can't see the sun.
3. The clouds part, and now you can see the sun, moon, and stars.
Are you accusing me of strawmaning great wisdom of people that didn't have a single measurement device they could apply to what's above their heads?
I read in less then 2000 year old writings of a philosopher that everybody knows that though diamonds are hard, they can be split with goats blood. Should I think deeply about it and come up with charitable interpretation because people back then weren't stupid? Lack of data makes regularly smart people create weird beliefs.
> I've never heard any reference to the sky being blue because there's water there
'Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.'
Firmament is the thing that stars lie onto. So definitely there's saying about waters (not some special waters like clouds but plain usual waters just the same as the ones below the firmament).
Association with sky color blue is my own specific idea about why would anyone in their right mind speak about waters above in exactly the same way as terrestrial waters. I'd even call this interpretation of mine, charitable.
> People 4000 years ago weren't stupid. Everyone knows rain comes from clouds, not from a blue sky.
Ah, but where the clouds come from? Was it also that obvious that they don't come from blue sky?
> My interpretation
...
> The "waters above" were the clouds.
Are clouds mentioned any more than color blue?
Other than that, wonderful interpretation of something that didn't happen and even if it did it couldn't be observed, because on day 4 the only living things were plants.
It's talking about primal elements and how something formed out of formlessness and emptiness. At the point where an actual "earth" (e.g., a planet) is formed there is no mention of it being covered with water; more like the opposite.
Looks pretty clear to me?
The correct analogy for a person from 2020 would be "chemical elements", or even "atoms and molecules".