I am new to this forum and had previously thought that perhaps Genesis presented us with an allegorical account, and I wondered how one should go about interpreting it. However I have been advised that I should interpret Genesis literally.
This has presented me with a number of problems, for which I would like assistance:
1In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
2And 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.
3And God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light.
4And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness.
5And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
6And God said, "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters."
7And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so.
8And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
a.) Did God create the Earth before the rest of the Universe, as Genesis implies?
b.) Light comes from the Sun, but if God created light prior to the Sun or the rest of the Universe, where was light coming from at this point?
c.) The passage of day and night is produced by the Earth's rotation round the Sun. Genesis implies that this is not true, as God created day and night prior to creating the Sun and the stars. Is this so?
16And God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also.
17And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
18and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.
d.) The two great lights being referred to are presumably the Sun and the Moon. But the Moon is not a source of light, it merely reflects light from the Sun. Is this not so?
e.) If God had already created a source of light as well as night and day, why was there any need to create the Sun to give light upon the earth?
21And God created great whales and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind; and God saw that it was good.
24And God said, "Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth after his kind"; and it was so.
25And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind; and God saw that it was good.
f.) There is no mention here of Dinosaurs. God appears to create only those creatures which inhabit the world today. Are Dinosaurs a myth as Genesis infers? If so, where does all the overwhelming fossil evidence come from?
2And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made.
g.) Again, the passage of days is caused by the earth orbiting the Sun. Other planets in the solar system have days of a different duration as they have different orbits and are further to/from the sun. The seven days mentioned in Genesis commence prior to the creation of the Sun however. Were these days measured in 24 hour periods?
4And the serpent said unto the woman, "Ye shall not surely die;
5for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil."
h.) How was Serpent able to speak? Why was it put in the Garden to tempt Eve in the first place?
19In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground, for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."
i) It is implied that Adam and Eve were both immortal prior to eating the Forbidden Fruit. Is this so?
j.) God was so displeased that they had eaten of the Forbidden fruit that he cursed Eve with the pain of Childbirth, and ensured they both would need to work hard to feed and clothe themselves from now on, and would one day die and return to the soil from whence they came. So death is the price we pay for Sin. If this caused God so much displeasure, why did he create Adam and Eve with the capacity for weakness in the face of temptation? Indeed, what was the point in tempting them at all? The fact that there was a talking snake in Eden, suggests that God deliberately wanted to test them. But why, if God as the Creator would have known the likely outcome anyway? If this whole account is taken literally, it doesn't appear to contain any logic.
17And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. And he built a city, and called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch.
k.) Adam and Eve had two sons, Cain and Abel. Cain had a wife who bore him a son. Where did Cain's wife come from? This implies that Adam and Eve were not the first humans upon the Earth for if they were there's no explanation for the existence of Cain's wife. What should I believe here?
I am asking these questions as I am keen to build my Faith, and yet if I'm to believe the account of Genesis literally, I am already faced with powerful obstacles that appear to be requiring me to reject all logic and common sense. How can I reject those very faculties which God has imbued in me?
I hope that at least one of you can lend me some assistance.