well

there's a widely accepted belief, outside of the church, that in order to be a christian one must believe the creation story literally as it is ostensibly documented in the bible. in fact, as a christian myself, i even believed this. which, for me, was always pretty problematic as there are a number of obvious glaring inaccuracies in the biblical account.

after reading the first two chapters of genesis tonight, however, and doing some additional research, i've come to accept the view held by the catholic church that the creation story is nothing more than an anachronistic interpretation presented by people (both the author of genesis and the latter translators) with a very particular and limited notion of cosmology and science. the original text, or the earliest known source, alludes to a firmament (heaven) dividing what was believed to be the "celestial waters," probably what they believed to be something akin to a leaking river--the source of rainwater--and the terrestrial waters (i.e. seas, oceans, rivers, etc.--bodies of water found on earth). when i first read the passage i was confused. obviously, we all know, now anyway, that there is no celestial body of water--and that rain is a product of condensation. but this was as of yet undiscovered in the time genesis was written.

equally problematic is the notion of "the firmament," which most sources define as a dome or shell. this is what the author of genesis believed to make up heaven and, furthermore, to divide the two bodies of water. perhaps this notion still holds up and heaven is unable to be seen. maybe it's its own invisible atmospheric structure, containing undiscovered matter which exists in some other dimension or what-have-you--matter which makes up its very physical (or something other than physical) structure and the inhabitants therein. maybe even, in a eerie instance of prescience, whoever wrote genesis knew about the atmosphere and this is what he means when he says "firmament" and that heaven itself is not visible to the naked eye, like i said, it could be composed of some sort of strange physical make-up. who knows? it could be made up of anything. either way, the important thing is that the catholic church, as i'm sure other churches do as well, openly acknowledges that the creation story is nothing more than some old dude's best guess at how things actually happened. it is not to be taken literally. they even say, on the website i found, that, in the vulgate interpretation of the text, at the time the bible was translated into either latin or hebrew and greek (i forget) it was believed that the stars were hung from the ceiling of this massive dome-structure (the firmament) and strung all around the earth. we know though that this is not true and that the stars are far more vast and reside in a realm far beyond our solar system. therefore, we are able to disprove certain historical interpretations of the creation story and also the primary text, as it does not align with scientific fact. that's not to say, however, that the entire bible is completely false or that christianity is wrong because inaccuracies can be found within this primary text. we have to understand that the bible was written by humans, restricted by their own time-particular worldview with their own notions of how the world and universe operate and that they were only trying their best to make sense of what they felt compelled to write. what they were trying to communicate, the spirit of the text, is essentially rigid and unable to be scrutinized, not unlike a poor adaptation of a very complex script.

anyway....