Quote (WhirlingDervish @ Feb 16 2011 03:43am)
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Created here is the word בָּרָא
Within the idea of create, "make", "do" it has has connotations of "dividing" and "making fat", just for starters.
While I do not see any intention to explain or justify a "Scientific" in the context, at least explicitly or even in a prime/secondary reason for the expression; it also seems to hold no forced tangent from Scientific theory, be it Big Bang, String or M-Theory.
I suggest you leave it there or you will get sucked into a war between bad Science and Godless religion.
Shalom
In my opinion, Genesis 1 is purely figurative, and its main purpose is to list off all of the things that God is NOT. He is NOT the Earth, he's NOT the sky, he's NOT the Sun, he's NOT the Moon, he's NOT an animal/plant/man. Right in the first chapter of the Torah, Moses immediately says that many of the pagan religions are flat-out wrong. Of course, this is necessary for every new concept -- to discredit existing schools of thought so that you can introduce your own and have people consider it.