The creation story of Genesis is often used as "proof" that the Bible is false. Of course it is true that the universe is constructed in a way that is not even close to what is said in Genesis. But is it reasonable to think that God should have told the people about atoms, leptons, quarks, space-time continuum, conservation of energy, etc.? Personally, I think it highly unreasonable to think that way.
The structure of the universe as described in Genesis is much the same as all other ancient Near East concepts of the universe.
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Looking at this image, it is obvious that it is not an accurate representation of the actual universe. That can not be denied. But, few consider the effect this has on the overall message of the scriptures. That would be none, zero, zip, nada!
Very few people, and I mean VERY few, even know what the scriptures are about. Just Google, "what is the Bible about" for many different answers. But if one want to really know what it is about, they need read nothing more than the Gospel Luke or John.
Luke 24:27,
And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.
John 5:39,
Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.
The scriptures are about Jesus Christ. They are not meant to be a science book. God's only goal in life after Adam and Eve screwed up was to send a redeemer. He had to convince humans to believe the things He said about the coming Messiah. That was all He cared to communicate. He didn't care if Israel knew and understood the intricacies of cosmology as we know them today. Such knowledge was totally irrelevant to the message He wanted to proclaim.
Since Israel was surrounded by the other ancient Near East people, there was no reason to complicate the message by introducing our modern concepts of cosmology. It didn't detract from the message one bit to just let Israel think the same way as the rest of the ancient Near East people. There is simply no way they could have understood what we know today. Why gum up the message with irrelevant information that they never could have understood anyway?
Since God could not really explain the truth of cosmology, and since it didn't matter one whit anyway, He just wisely let them believe what they believed concerning the structure of the universe. It was a moot point.
To those who insist that Genesis must conform to our modern science, I would issue a challenge to come up with the curriculum that would have "enlightened" the ancient Near East on how the world came to be and the structure of the universe.
On a related note, lately I've been seeing a lot of scientific news about radically new ideas on how the universe came to be. Old universally accepted ideas of cosmology and cosmogony are being questioned in light of these new observations. Could it be that 3,000 years from now our image of the universe will appear as quaint and gullible to the then modern scientist as that of the ancient Near East appears to the scientists of today?