Gen 1.1 vs. Gen 1.8 HELP!
Offline Gen 1:1 "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."
Gen 1:8 "And God called the firmament Heaven."
I can't understand how is that possible that someone creates, say, an electron and a positively charged ion, and then gives the ion a new name .... electron.
Theology is certainly not for me ... 
But I have tried to ask this question on several forums and did not get anything constructive.
Here is a typical response which does not help much...:
"Genesis is not interested at all about material origins; rather, the concern is for functional origins.
An analogy would be the construction of a brand new university. When does it really become a "university," rather than just a bunch of empty buildings? The construction can be finished (the material origins) but it isn't really a university until the professors and administrators and students are all gathered together and the course offerings and requirements are established (functional origins).
In short, your interpretation is culturally naive, since it does not take into account the concerns of the ancient writers and ancient audience.
See John H. Walton's, The Lost World of Genesis One"
Anyone can help me to understand the first page of the bible??? I really could not read beyond this first page.
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The Bible contradicts itself numerous times. Why hang yourself up on this one? None of it makes any relevant sense. I doubt that you are really an atheist!!
Understanding that there is no purpose in the Universe frees us all to find one.
WUT? So you are a doubter...
Well, you can buy a puppy days before naming it... so why not an imaginary place?
I understand wanting to know what the hoo-rah is about when it comes to christianity. But it really isn't worth the effort of trying to understand the bible. The way I read it when I was a trying to be a theist was to just not think. Turn your brain off and just let it glide --
Or you can keep in mind, it was written by a bunch of nomadic bronze/iron age goat herders/orchardists who were doing the best they could with what little information they had.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
Yea, this pretty much sums it up, with one exception: Within certain preconceived assumptions theists will devote endless intelligence toward reconciling the contradictions.
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
I think I am starting getting it. So, the firmament named heaven is like the hotel California. Well, then I have a big problem with with the orchard of Eden.
Or wait a minute, did god make two heavens ?????
No, no, no. Eden was heaven. On earth. When god threw them out, he moved heaven up there. Where? You know, up.
This is where the J Witnesses get their idea of a heavenly paradise on earth - from the idea that Eden==Heaven on earth.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
My x-tian opponent at debatingchristianity has now suggested that there is no contradiction because in NLT (I was using KJB) the same line reads as: Gen 1:8 and he called the scape "sky".
But I seem to be more determined in figuring it out about KJB than my x-tian friend and I found that theologians suggest that in Gem 1.8 god created one of THREE heavens (heaven on the earth, the heaven for afterlife non-atheists, and the personal heaven for god himself). God seems to get quite good in making heavens, but he apparently decided to screw the heaven of Eden.
It looks like I can read the book further.
Youtube Atheist Activist Reading the Bible so other people don't have to
Genesis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi6n0NDGOaA
Her series of videos are thus far all the way up to the Book of Joshua. Only about 60 something more videos to come.
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno
Genesis 1:1 from the Hebrew is better translated, " At the time god created the heavens and earth" means everything. Verse 8, God called the expanse sky... the expanse separated the water above the sky(rain) from the water below the sky. The sky was thought of as hard as a mirror (Job 37:18) and like a canopy (Isaiah 40:22) over the land. You'll note also that the plants ( verse 11)were created before the sun (verse 14ff) ...earth comes first after all ( geo-centered) so that there could signs to indicate days and years (astrology). It's just a creation myth trying to explain the world around a primitive people.
The darkness over the face of the deep is the original chaos. Notice that both god and matter were co-existing at the beginning. ( This parallels and may be from persian Zoroastrianism during the Jews Persian captivity placing the myth around 600 BCE But god's spirit ( RUACH= breath) was hovering over it. In Zoroastrianism Tiamat is the beast of chaos/ocean.
"You can't write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say sometimes, so you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whip cream."--Frank Zappa
http://atheisticgod.blogspot.com/ Books on atheism