Video: The 3rd Creation Account in the Bible:

The 3^rd Creation Account in the Old Testament:

Introduction:

Jennifer Bird PhD asked, in a thumbnail, the question: How many creation accounts are there in the Bible?

Video 1: In the above video, Jennifer Bird PhD asks how many creation stories there be in the Christian Bible. I think that the correct answer is “3”, although, unfortunately, I have not yet viewed this video.

I know of three. I discuss all of them in the below video, but, in particular, the lesser known 3^rd creation account, where the Jewish god slays a female sea-monster called Rahab, and fashions the created world with her body. I call attention to the Egyptian sky goddess Nut or Nuit who, seems to me to resemble Rahab, in some respects.

Figure 1: The Egyptian Sky Goddess, Nut. According to wikipedia, Nut features in the creation myth of Heliopolis. credit: Eternal Space. Creative Commons.

Video 2: My video on the 3^rd creation account in the Old Testament. In the thumbnail, pictured, the scroll, in the top left reads:

Figure 2: An Isaiah Scroll that I drew. Written on it in Hebrew is: ‘סֵ֫פֶר־יְשַׁעְיָ֫הוּ‚, or, transliterated: ‘sḗp̲er-yəšaʿyā́hû’, which means: ‘the Book of Isaiah’.

The scroll in this thumbnail reads, in Hebrew: ‘The Book of Isaiah’ wherefrom I read in this video, and, in particular, from ch. 27 v.1. I employ the Legacy Standard Bible, in this video, because, as Kipp Davis points out: we really ought to translate the tetragrammaton as ‘Yahweh’ and not as ‘LORD’. The LSB is to be commended for doing this.

My Video Transcript:

(My video transcript for this video may be viewed as a word document.)

CIARÁN AODH MAC ARDGHAIL: “The third creation account in the Bible: and the version of the Bible that we are reading is John MacArthur’s Legacy Standard Bible and the reason why I use this is because Kipp Davis says that ‘LORD’ is really a mistranslation whenever we see yod hey vav hey [יהוה], in Hebrew, we should really translate that as ‘Yahweh’ and not as ‘LORD’. Most Bibles translate the tetragrammaton— tetragrammaton [τετραγράμματον] is really a Greek word that means: ‘four-lettered-thing’ ‘tetra-’ [‹τετρα-›], in Greek, means: ‘four’; ‘grắmma’ [‹γρᾰ́μμᾰ›], in Greek, means ‘letter’, and: ‘-on’ [‹-ον›], in Greek, means ‘thing’, so the ‘tetragrammaton’ is: ‘the four-lettered thing’, and the four letters are the Hebrew letters yod hey vav hey, and whenever we see yod hey vav hey, I agree with Kipp Davis we should translate it as ‘Yahweh’ and not as ‘LORD’, and the Legacy Standard Bible does this admirably and there are at least three creation accounts in the Bible. Jennifer Bird recently did a show: How Many Creation Accounts Are There in the Bible? and if you are a Fundamentalist or an Evangelical who adheres to biblical inerrancy, then you most likely would say ‘one’, however if you do not adhere to biblical inerrancy then it’s quite obvious that in the Book of Genesis there are two conflicting creation accounts: the Elohim creation account and the Jehovitic or Yahwistic creation account and these two accounts are completely contrary to one another. One creation account takes seven days whereas the other one takes only one day. I think the second creation account, which I think is the Jehovitic creation account: it begins with ‘in the day when God created the heavens and the Earth...’, whereas the previous creation account; the Elohim creation account; it takes 6 days and then God rests on the seventh day, which is ‘shabbath’ [‘שַׁבָּ֫ת‚] or ‘sabbath’ or ‘Saturday’ and that’s why the Ten Commandments tell us to keep Saturday . ‘Sabbath’ is a mistranslation. ‘shabbath’ [‘שַׁבָּ֫ת‚] means ‘Saturday’, so it’s not keep... the Commandment is not: ‘keep the Sabbath!’ it’s ‘Keep Saturday!’ or ‘keep the...’ ‘keep the seventh day!’ so I mean these people want to hang the Ten Commandments everywhere: they breach at least one of them because they don’t keep Saturday and I think even in the wording of the Ten Commandments it says ‘You must keep Saturday because on Saturday God rested!’ God didn’t rest on Sunday, indeed Sunday was the day he began the creative work... however that is its own tangent... so there are at least two creation accounts in the Bible and these are found in the Book of Genesis, [in] the opening two chapters, however there is also a third creation account in the Bible, and this is an account where the Jewish god slays a Great Serpent and then I think creates the ‘firmament’ the ‘raqî́yan͡g’ [‘רַקִ֫יעַ‚] or the ‘sky’ with the body of this great sea serpent and this great sea serpent is called ‘רַהַב‚ or ‘Rahab’, so this is another creation account and it’s very similar to the Egyptian creation account where I think it’s the goddess Nuit, one of the Gods takes goddess Nuit and puts her up in the sky and she becomes the sky... so there is another creation account in the Bible and we see glimpses of it... I think the redactors tried to get rid of it but they didn’t get rid of it completely, and here we see in Isaiah chapter 27:

‘In that day Yahweh will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent,
With His fierce and great and mighty sword,
Even Leviathan the twisted serpent;
And He will kill the dragon who lives in the sea.’

so there is this myth referred to periodically in the Old Testament of Yahweh killing a great sea dragon and I think the biblical Scholars say that this is in reference to the earlier creation myth where the Jewish god killed Rahab and then created the sky with her body and that was the means in the Book of Genesis: it talks about God stretching out the heavens and dividing the waters that are beneath the [‘רַקִ֫יעַ‚] ‘raqî́yan͡g’ or ‘firmament’ and the waters above the [‘רַקִ֫יעַ‚] ‘raqî́yan͡g’ or ‘firmament’ and perhaps this is how he did it: he killed Rahab and he used Rahab’s body to divide the waters from beneath the firmament from the waters above the firmament and so I just thought that I would discuss this because Jennifer Bird has already discussed it and I find it extremely interesting.”

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Ciarán Aodh Mac Ardghail (Ciarán Mc Ardle) is a digital creator from Ireland. Here is his linktree. Here is his YouTube Channel. Here is his LinkedIn. Here is his Instagram.

“He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” Is Fantasy Theobabble

It’s the religious version of “Always look on the bright side of life”

Once god-is-good, god-is-great has been locked into religious human brains, it can be difficult to grasp the world as it actually is: that is, so much suffering and pain are overlooked or minimized. When the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami killed 225,000 people, a Muslim cleric knew that his god was upholding moral standards: he claimed that European tourists wearing bikinis had prompted his deity to exact revenge. How does this square with the boast that “He’s got the whole world in his hands”? –which is meant to be an affirmation of god’s love. Well, it doesn’t, of course. In recent days we have seen horrendous devastation caused by the powerful earthquake that hit Thailand and Burma. The level of human suffering is staggering. The death toll will be in the thousands, and reconstruction will take years. Was god getting even for something here? No doubt clerics will try to put the best possible spin on this tragedy, to get their god off the hook.

Read more »

An Interesting Documentary on Northern-Irish Monarchism

R. C. Sproul (1939–2017) is a Presbyterian Philosopher whom I like to listen to.

He mentions the German word for: Enlightenment, which is: ‘Aufklärung’. I love this German word! It means, etymologically: ‘on-clearing’!

It is as though Christianity were a great confusion and befuddlement—which it is!—and then the Enlightenment came along, and some clarity returned to Western thinking.

I also like the word: ‘deconversion’. Eymologically, a ‘conversion’ is an ‘intense twisting’ or an ‘intense turning’. A deconversion is a reversal of this process. Christianity twisted your wits. Now, thanks to your deconversion, your wits have been untwisted.

Sproul talks about Montesquieu’s (1689–1755) ideas about monarchy. Monarchy requires honour. Queen Elizabeth II had honour. Does King Charles III have the same level of honour, though, as that possessed by Elizabeth II?

The Queen and Us is a BBC Not documentary from 1997concerning monarchism in Northern Ireland.

The Reverend Ian Paisley (1926–2014) has misgivings about Charles’s divorce and upcoming remarriage to a divorcée, Camilla Parker Bowles.

The Orange Order—a Protestant fraternity— doesn’t like the idea that Bowles is married to a Catholic. They don't like the idea of a divorced-and-remarried monarch on the throne of England. Robert Saulters, who was the Grand Master of the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland, from (1996–2010), wanted the crown to pass to William.

But, here is the thing: William is rumored to be a crypto-atheist!

And so, from a Protestant point of view, the British monarchs are only getting worse. Elizabeth was a true believer in Christianity. Charles seems to believe in some sort of generic deistic god, and William, it seems, doesn’t believe in God, at all!

At present, England and Scotland are Protestant theocracies. Both have established Protestant Churches. The most senior English Anglican Bishops sit in the House of Lords, and are termed ‘The Lords Spiritual’. As a secularist, I favour disestablishment.

Disestablishment is a Presbyterian idea. In Presbyterianism, there is the idea of the Church giving a ‘prophetic critique’ of the government. The Church can only prophetically critique the State if Church and State remain separate.

Whereas the King is the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, he is merely a member of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. The King becomes a Presbyterian, when north of the border. Down south he finds himself an Anglican, again.

John Knox (c. 1514–1572) could not have thundered against Mary, Queen of Scots (1542–1587) if he was ultimately employed by Queen Mary. He who pays the piper calls the tune.

Secularism is not State Atheism. I would be equally opposed to State Atheism as I currently am opposed to theocracy and established churches.

I recommend Bruce Gore’s, an American Presbyterian’s, lecture series on the Presbyterian Roots of the American Revolution.

In the below documentary, The Queen and Us (1997), there is a Presbyterian minister, Reverend David Mongomery, who also calls for the disestablishment of the Churches of Scotland and England. I like Presbyterians. They are natural freethinkers. Indeed, the problem seems to be in Ireland that too many Presbyterians are freely thinking their way out of Christianity altogether. A couple of weeks ago, I attended an Ulster-Scots—what Americans would term: ‘Scots Irish’—heritage night in an old derelict Presbyterian Meeting House that was slowly being renovated. Both of the Presbyterian ministers, present, spoke of decline in the Irish Presbyterian Church. There are some counties in Ireland without a Presbyterian Congregation at all. Cork, a massive county, both in terms of area and population, only has two Presbyterian congregations left. However, becoming a non-theist does not actually necessitate giving up Presbyterianism altogether, as there is a Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church in Ireland that is affiliated with the Unitarian Universalists. In Ireland, it is possible to be both a Non Theist and a Presbyterian, and, in my estimation, if Presbyterianism has a future in Ireland, then surely this is it.

Figure 1: The pulpit from Cahan’s Presbyterian Meeting house that I attended for an Ulster Scots’ heritage night.

Video 1: An interesting series of talks concerning Presbyterian and the American Revolution.

Prince William’s Doubt: It’s Normal—It’s Impossible to Be Certain Whether There Is a God

Video 2: An interesting talk by R.C. Sproul concerning the Enlightenment.

Video 3: An interesting documentary produced by BBC Northern Ireland on Northern-Irish monarchism.

Ciarán Aodh Mac Ardghail (Ciarán Mc Ardle) is a digital creator from Ireland. Here is his linktree. Here is his YouTube Channel. Here is his LinkedIn. Here is his Instagram.

Precise Reasons Why Prayer Is a Fantasy Exercise

No matter how much the devout want it to be real 

It is not commonly grasped that Christianity is soundly falsified by a few verses in Acts 1 that describe Jesus’ ascension to heaven:
 
“…as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.’”  (vv. 9-11)
 

Based on our knowledge of the Cosmos—in stark contrast to what the Bible authors believed—we know that this cannot possibly have happened. Above the earth’s atmosphere, there is the cold, radiation-
filled void that we know as outer space. The Bible authors had no clue that earth was one planet among many that orbit our sun. The blunt truth is that Jesus disappearing this way from the earth is a cover-up: the New Testament lies about what happened to Jesus at the end. His resurrected body cannot have escaped the planet, so either he’s still

walking around—or he died again. We are entitled to ask what happened to Lazarus: how long was it before he died again? (See John 11) And what happened to all the dead people in their tombs who came alive at moment Jesus died on the cross—then toured Jerusalem on Eastern morning? (see Matthew 27:51-52) Did they just head back to their tombs, to resume being dead?

Read more »

Here's An Earlier Paper On the Evil God Challenge

It was published by Steven M. Cahn, “Cacodaemony,” in Contemporary Philosophy of Religion, ed. Steven M. Cahn and David Shatz (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), pp. 20–24. This paper was previously published in 1977. Cahn shares the parallels between an omnibenevolent God and an omnimalevolent Demon. Then he compares John Hick's "Soul Making" theodicy with a "Soul Breaking" theodicy. I couldn't find the text but here is a reading of it. I found it better to turn off the sound and read it myself, but see for yourselves.

An Enlightening Conversation between Richard Carrier PhD and Godless Granny

This is an extremely enlightening conversation that occurred on a livestream between Richard Carrier and Godless Granny.  “The Historical Jesus” has been ‘quest[ed]’ for—to borrow an expression from Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965)—since the days of Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694–1768). This quest hasn’t turned up much… if indeed anything! I think that it is high time that we call this failed quest off, as it is beginning to appear as futile as a wild goose chase.

Richard Carrier explains that the documentary evidence that we would expect—were Reimarus’s historical Jesus a reality—really isn’t there. Carrier goes on to hint that perhaps certain documents from the ancient past were either doctored or destroyed, because the lack of Jesus’s being mentioned in these same documents could not easily have been explained. Documents that most likely would have mentioned a historical Jesus—if such a personage actually existed—have, quite conveniently, not come down to us. Documents that would have mentioned a historical Jesus, if such a person actually existed, are, extremely conveniently, no longer extant.

To reiterate: I personally am not a Mythicist. However, paradoxically, I do not believe that much—if indeed anything—can be known historically about the Jesus character presented to us in the New Testament. My position is a tad paradoxical: a historical Jesus, in all likelihood, existed, however we are unable to know much, if anything, about him historically. To me there is enough that we can distill from the fictional writings of the New Testament such that a historical Jesus becomes more likely than not… however, from these same fictional writings we are not able to distill any history concerning the doings of this same Jesus character.

Ciarán Aodh Mac Ardghail (Ciarán Mc Ardle) is a digital creator from Ireland. Here is his linktree. Here is his YouTube Channel. Here is his LinkedIn. Here is his Instagram.

An Atheist Grief Observed by Tim Callahan

Tim Callahan looks at C.S. Lewis's grief and his own. Skeptic religion editor Tim Callahan reflects on the loss of his home in the Altadena fires and the subsequent suicidal death of his daughter. LINK.