The Skeptics Annotated Bible (5 page)

(1.14)
“Let them be for signs.”
God placed the sun, moon, and stars in the firmament so that they can be used “for signs.” This, of course, is exactly what astrologers do: read “the signs” in the Zodiac to predict what will happen on Earth.
4 Does the bible condemn astrology?

15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

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.

(1.16a)
“God made the two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night.”
But the moon is not a light; it only reflects light from the sun. And why, if God made the moon to “rule the night,” does it spend half of its time moving through the daytime sky?

(1.16b)
“He made the stars also.”
God spends a day making light (before making the sun and stars) and separating light from darkness; then, at the end of a hard day’s work, and almost as an afterthought, he makes the billions of trillions of stars.
5 When were the stars made?

17 And
God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth
,

(1.17)
“God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth.”
Then why is only a tiny fraction of stars visible from earth? Under the best conditions, no more than a few thousand stars are visible with the unaided eye, yet there are hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy and a hundred billion or so galaxies. Were they all created “to give light upon the earth”?

18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

20 And God said,
Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl
that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

(1.20, 24)
“Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl … Let the earth bring forth the living creature.”
Does the Bible teach evolution?
6 From what were the animals created?
7 From what were the fowls created?

21 And 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.