If you’ve ever read the Bible, you cannot get past the 2nd chapter of Genesis (the very first part of the Bible) before you come across a glaring problem:
There are two very different versions of creation:
In Genesis 1, God ‘speaks’ everything into existence, in the following order:
Plants first, then
Birds,
Land animals, and finally,
Adam and Eve together.
In Genesis 2, God ‘forms’ things from existing matter, in the following order:
Adam alone—first, then
Plants,
Animals, and finally,
Eve (best for last).
As a rational human being with an understanding that the Bible is a series of stories passed down from generation to generation before being written down, organized, translated, reorganized, curated, reorganized again, retranslated again, voted on by committee in the 4th century 3 different times, and finally retranslated two more times to get to today’s iteration, a couple of different versions of a creation story makes complete sense.
As a former fundamentalist, who thought that every word in the Bible was Absolute Truth— conveying ultimate wisdom, morality, knowledge, and containing the answers to all mysteries of the universe, and who shrugged off any inconsistencies such as the multiple versions of creation—it’s a little embarrassing.
This is merely the first in a very long list of inconsistencies, immoralities, contradictions, and scientific inaccuracies in the ancient book, so it’s a pretty remarkable feat of indoctrination that so many Christians argue the power and inerrancy of this book, often without even reading it.
Check out today’s other post:
The Original Echo Chamber: the American Church