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If you have an open mind, I recommend the SAB [0]. It's the King James version annotated by skeptics. http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com http://www.skeptics

If you have an open mind, I recommend the SAB [0]. It's the King James version annotated by skeptics. http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com

Karunamon 11y ago
And for an alternate viewpoint that addresses 100% of the annotations: http://www.berenddeboer.net/sab/ http://www.berenddeboer.net/sab/ The author of SAB fell into the snarky dismissal trap in more than a few places. It cheapens the work greatly.
- nogridbag 11y ago
  It's hard for me to take that seriously. I'm on page 1 of chapter 1. I have a real interest in Earths' creation, but I'm also a logical person like many HN readers here. The bible says day and night were created several days before the Sun (and each day has an morning, daylight, evening, and night period). Educated humans now know this is because of the Earth's rotation where the side of the Earth facing the sun is in daylight. The SAB I listed points out this flaw. The link you listed states "Obviously there were photons before there were stars" as it's rebuttal. I'm sorry but it's hard for me to even proceed any further. It's almost laughable. So am I, as a logical person, supposed to believe that god is shooting various amounts of photons from his/her fingers creating these beautiful periods of morning, day, evening, and night for three days or so for no apparent reason? God hasn't created humans yet. God hasn't created plants yet. It serves no function. It's not like he's doing testing before it goes into production - the production environment uses a star (our Sun) and the Earth's rotation to create periods of day and night. Finally, a few verses later the bible says "And 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." The SAB rightfully points out that the moon does not emit light - it only reflects the Sun's light. The link you provided offers the following rebuttal: "obviously the author of the SAB hasn't spend much time outside at night at full moon. That's a lot of light". Hehe.. I do find the link you provided amusing but also a bit depressing honestly. People want so much to believe that they're willing to accept a rebuttal like the one you provided without even thinking for themselves.
  - Karunamon 11y ago
    Those responses are made in direct response to the theological arguments made by SAB, along the lines of "This is a contradiction". "No it isn't, because X". If you're a hard empiricist, you will find nothing in the bible of interest to your life, save for historic/anthropological curiosity. There's no point in getting into such a discussion on Hacker News, interesting as that might be. But the specific thing you mentioned - as an omnipotent being, the very idea of our existence "has no point", let alone the order elementary building blocks of the universe came into existence (at least as described by bronze-age scribes). Be very careful with the "this has no reason to be this way" argument, it could very well be that you don't know the reason, or that there really isn't one.
  - smithkl42 11y ago
    Taking pot shots at fundamentalists is fun, but is really too easy. The skeptics would be better off aiming at a really difficult target like Augustine - who (they might be a little worried to discover) can still shoot back some 1600 years later. Like most other real theologians of that time and since, Augustine was very clear that the opening chapters of Genesis were making theological statements and were not really intended to describe literal, chronological events.
    - giancarlostoro 11y ago
      Genesis 1 is like software development. Each day is a milestone, and God knows how long a day is regardless of having the sun there or not. We can nitpick all we want, but He wouldn't be God if He didn't know more than we did. Even in the small things He humbles people. In any way, I suggest what someone else mentioned, read John instead of Genesis and start from there.
  - esaym 11y ago
    Every time I read someone complaining about Genesis I feel sad because it would seem that they never even made past the first couple of pages. A better "first time" reading plan would be to start in the book of John and through that and Acts, and Romans (they are all back to back). John shows Christ as God. Acts shows the founding of the church and the early works, including an interesting argument in Acts 15 about some thinking that in order to become "Christian", one must first convert to Judaism. And Romans gives a better understand of the position of the Jew, the moralist, and the Gentile before God. (and the book of Hebrews expounds on this more too) But back to your question. There are many views to the first couple of books in Genesis. Here is my take: In verse 3: "And God said, Let there be light: and there was light." Ok, "light" is created. Everything good there. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. Yep, no light means, well no light. 5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. So "Day" and "Night" spelled with a proper capitalization. And we have the phrase "evening and the morning" mentioned with no context as to how long the "evening and the morning" are or how long a "Day" is. 14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: 15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. Next up we clearly see the timing and "setting" of the mathematics behind our solar system, using the elements mentioned above "Day", and "Night", and even expounding into months and years. 16 And 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. 17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, This is not a separate event from the last verse, this is the solution to how our days and years are timed. Instead of "And God made two great lights", think of "And so God made two great lights". This is how I've always taken this chapter. Perhaps it is terrible, or perhaps not. But clearly, the days and evenings mentioned in the earlier verses are not in the same context or definition as we (people that live on Earth) would normally think of them as. This is also where "gap theory" comes in, but I personally reject that as well.
esaym 11y ago
No, SAB is the worst thing ever. I have attended a few street preaching sessions near universities. Many times students would shout the most bizarre doctrines at us trying to trick us, or show how "stupid" we are. And as most "skeptics" are, they were always extremely prideful and it was very hard to get them to divulge where they got there strange ideas from, but when they would, it was always from SAB. The people behind SAB simply went through the bible and picked out things to make fun of, completely devoid of any context, background, or doctrine. If you are a skeptic, "bible apologetics" is what you should be googling. Not SAB, you will not learn anything from that.

If you have an open mind, I recommend the SAB [0]. It's the King James version annotated by skeptics. http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com

Karunamon 11y ago

And for an alternate viewpoint that addresses 100% of the annotations: http://www.berenddeboer.net/sab/ http://www.berenddeboer.net/sab/ The author of SAB fell into the snarky dismissal trap in more than a few places. It cheapens the work greatly.

nogridbag 11y ago
It's hard for me to take that seriously. I'm on page 1 of chapter 1. I have a real interest in Earths' creation, but I'm also a logical person like many HN readers here. The bible says day and night were created several days before the Sun (and each day has an morning, daylight, evening, and night period). Educated humans now know this is because of the Earth's rotation where the side of the Earth facing the sun is in daylight. The SAB I listed points out this flaw. The link you listed states "Obviously there were photons before there were stars" as it's rebuttal. I'm sorry but it's hard for me to even proceed any further. It's almost laughable. So am I, as a logical person, supposed to believe that god is shooting various amounts of photons from his/her fingers creating these beautiful periods of morning, day, evening, and night for three days or so for no apparent reason? God hasn't created humans yet. God hasn't created plants yet. It serves no function. It's not like he's doing testing before it goes into production - the production environment uses a star (our Sun) and the Earth's rotation to create periods of day and night. Finally, a few verses later the bible says "And 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." The SAB rightfully points out that the moon does not emit light - it only reflects the Sun's light. The link you provided offers the following rebuttal: "obviously the author of the SAB hasn't spend much time outside at night at full moon. That's a lot of light". Hehe.. I do find the link you provided amusing but also a bit depressing honestly. People want so much to believe that they're willing to accept a rebuttal like the one you provided without even thinking for themselves.
- Karunamon 11y ago
  Those responses are made in direct response to the theological arguments made by SAB, along the lines of "This is a contradiction". "No it isn't, because X". If you're a hard empiricist, you will find nothing in the bible of interest to your life, save for historic/anthropological curiosity. There's no point in getting into such a discussion on Hacker News, interesting as that might be. But the specific thing you mentioned - as an omnipotent being, the very idea of our existence "has no point", let alone the order elementary building blocks of the universe came into existence (at least as described by bronze-age scribes). Be very careful with the "this has no reason to be this way" argument, it could very well be that you don't know the reason, or that there really isn't one.
- smithkl42 11y ago
  Taking pot shots at fundamentalists is fun, but is really too easy. The skeptics would be better off aiming at a really difficult target like Augustine - who (they might be a little worried to discover) can still shoot back some 1600 years later. Like most other real theologians of that time and since, Augustine was very clear that the opening chapters of Genesis were making theological statements and were not really intended to describe literal, chronological events.
  - giancarlostoro 11y ago
    Genesis 1 is like software development. Each day is a milestone, and God knows how long a day is regardless of having the sun there or not. We can nitpick all we want, but He wouldn't be God if He didn't know more than we did. Even in the small things He humbles people. In any way, I suggest what someone else mentioned, read John instead of Genesis and start from there.
- esaym 11y ago
  Every time I read someone complaining about Genesis I feel sad because it would seem that they never even made past the first couple of pages. A better "first time" reading plan would be to start in the book of John and through that and Acts, and Romans (they are all back to back). John shows Christ as God. Acts shows the founding of the church and the early works, including an interesting argument in Acts 15 about some thinking that in order to become "Christian", one must first convert to Judaism. And Romans gives a better understand of the position of the Jew, the moralist, and the Gentile before God. (and the book of Hebrews expounds on this more too) But back to your question. There are many views to the first couple of books in Genesis. Here is my take: In verse 3: "And God said, Let there be light: and there was light." Ok, "light" is created. Everything good there. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. Yep, no light means, well no light. 5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. So "Day" and "Night" spelled with a proper capitalization. And we have the phrase "evening and the morning" mentioned with no context as to how long the "evening and the morning" are or how long a "Day" is. 14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: 15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. Next up we clearly see the timing and "setting" of the mathematics behind our solar system, using the elements mentioned above "Day", and "Night", and even expounding into months and years. 16 And 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. 17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, This is not a separate event from the last verse, this is the solution to how our days and years are timed. Instead of "And God made two great lights", think of "And so God made two great lights". This is how I've always taken this chapter. Perhaps it is terrible, or perhaps not. But clearly, the days and evenings mentioned in the earlier verses are not in the same context or definition as we (people that live on Earth) would normally think of them as. This is also where "gap theory" comes in, but I personally reject that as well.

esaym 11y ago

No, SAB is the worst thing ever. I have attended a few street preaching sessions near universities. Many times students would shout the most bizarre doctrines at us trying to trick us, or show how "stupid" we are. And as most "skeptics" are, they were always extremely prideful and it was very hard to get them to divulge where they got there strange ideas from, but when they would, it was always from SAB. The people behind SAB simply went through the bible and picked out things to make fun of, completely devoid of any context, background, or doctrine. If you are a skeptic, "bible apologetics" is what you should be googling. Not SAB, you will not learn anything from that.