Does The Biblical Creation Story Work as Allegory?

Most educated and rational people in today's world recognize that the biblical account of creation clearly has no scientific basis.

The following list was compiled primarily for those who say that the biblical account of creation was meant simply as an allegory, and who claim that as such, it is in perfect harmony with what science tells us about the origins of the universe and life on earth.

Below is a complete verse-by-verse breakdown of the six days of creation as discussed in Genesis, Chapter 1.

Day 1

• 1-2: "God was hovering over the waters." The author thought that the universe consisted of nothing but a giant sea prior to creation.
• 3-5: "Let there be light... and light was called 'day', and darkness 'Night.'" Interesting, except that God didn't create the sun and stars until day 4. Oops. It's hard to have light, day, and night, without stars!

Day 2

• 6-8: God created the sky by separating the waters in the sky from the waters on earth. Hmmm. In fact, this modern translation does a good job of hiding the fact that the original authors thought that the sky was in fact a solid structure (the "firmament") which separated the waters above from the waters below. This is also why in many Bible stories, they speak of a hole that literally opens in the sky as things either enter or exit from heaven.

Day 3

• 9-10: God created the land and seas. Hey, he got one right!
• 11-13: God created all the plants. But plants can't exist without the sun, which won't be created until day 4 (that is, another billion years or so, going by the "ages of the universe" theory). Also, many flowering plants cannot exist without animals, because their survival depends on their fruits being eaten and their seeds being spread by the animals.

Day 4

• 14-19: God finally gets around to creating the sun, moon, and stars. God made the moon give off light... even though we now know for a fact it does not.

Day 5

• 20-23: God creates sea creatures and birds. Hmmm. But no land animals. Apparently the creatures went straight from swimming to flying?

Day 6

• 24-31: God makes the land animals, and he creates man.

A curious thing about day 6: God refers to himself as "Us". In fact this happens in several places in Genesis. Perhaps the author(s) of Genesis never intended for this to be a monotheistic religion after all?

Day 7

• Genesis 2:1: God rests.

The need for rest seems to contradict everything that Christianity teaches about God. Seeing as how he is all-powerful, and can be all places at once, it doesn't seem to make sense that he would get tired or need rest.

Summary

Clearly, this story does not coincide with modern science, even when we assume that each day somehow correlated to an age of the universe, perhaps as many as billions of years each.

The earth and heaven are created concurrently on day one. Current scientific estimates give the age of the earth around 4.5 billion years, and the universe about 15 billion years. Give or take.

The earth is created before light. Light is created before the sun and stars. Birds and whales are created before reptiles and insects. Flowering plants are created before any animals. The order of events known from science is in each case just the opposite.