How was the world made?

I cannot endorse the belief commonly held by fundamentalists that the scriptural account of creation is the only view of that event allowable. I have two main objections to this attitude and they are firstly that the scriptures contain more than version of the event, each different to the other three and all from different sources and times. The second objection I hold is that the scientific evidence is overwhelmingly supportive of some sort of evolutionary process, while the only evidence for the biblical account is the scriptures themselves. I will deal with each in turn.
Firstly to the differing accounts in scripture.
Many readers believe that there are two creation stories in the scriptures. While there are two accounts in Genesis, there are altogether four versions. There are the two Genesis narratives 1:1 –2:4a and 2:4b-25, the first from the “E” source and the second from “J”. The order of creation is different in the two stories as will be seen under.

E...........................................................J
Original watery chaos.......................Original watery chaos with no vegetation
Creation divided into six steps........No note of time
Order of creation...............................Order of creation
i) Light.................................................i) Man
ii) The firmament (heaven)..............ii) The Garden
iii) The dry land..................................iii) Trees of every kind
iv) Vegetation......................................iv) Animals
v) Heavenly bodies.............................v) Woman
vi) Birds and fishes
vii) Animals and man

So here we have two stories with no spacing between about the same issue with major differences in the sequence of events. The argument that there are two different sources does not explain why there should be such a wide variation in the sequence of events. They are talking of the same subject.
The Lamentation of Job, 9:4 ff, 12:7-10, 28:25 ff, 38 is arguably the most poetic of the creation stories and it should be noted here that Robert Pfieffer believed that Second Isaiah, around Chap 40, drew a lot of the material from Job. He also suggested very strongly that Isaiah influenced the authors of the “P” document.
But these are not the oldest versions of the creation myth. That distinction must go to Psalm 104, which is probably a recounting of a much earlier legend, the “Hymn to the Sun” of the Pharaoh Akhenaton, who rules from 1370 till 1353 BC.
We now have four versions of the myth, the oldest being Psalm 104 C 1350BC, J Document C 900BC, E Document C 750BC and the Lamentations of Job C 400BC. The argument has been advanced that Oral Tradition (the handing down of legends by word of mouth from one generation to the next) is largely unreliable and would explain local corruptions of the story, but this will simply not hold water. The accuracy of oral tradition in pre writing times has been amply demonstrated. The art has only been lost since the discovery of writing and our total reliance on that means of communication.

(As an aside, it is interesting to note that the first error in translation occurs in this context Genesis 1:1 translates the word “Elohim” as “God”, and this is inaccurate. Elohim is a Hebraic variant of a Canaanite word “El” which was a generic term used to denote spiritual beings, including, but not restricted to, God. Angels, archangels, seraphs, cherubs, evil spirits, all were included in this word. The Hebrews took this word and added a suffix “ohim” which made the word plural e.g. Cherub/Cherubim, Seraph/Seraphim. This was in line with Hebrew theology of the time that saw Gods as territorial rather than universal. It should also be noted in this context, that Ps 8:5 translated this same word Elohim as “Angels”. While Genesis 1:1 may perhaps be theologically sound, it is still an error of translation)

Secondly, there is much argument about the reliability or otherwise of scientific evidence supporting the theory of evolution. Some of the arguments are well founded and valid, but most of them are not. They are, for the most part, ill founded and unsupported criticisms advanced by people whose enthusiasm outweighs their scientific understanding. But even discounting the doubtful evidence, what evidence there is supports the evolutionary concept. The only evidence that can be advanced for the creationist theory is from the scriptures themselves and as has been shown, they cannot be treated as a scientific document, the writers simply had no science whatsoever. A wide range of attempts have been made to disprove evolution, there have been far-fetched explanations of the fossil finds, including one seriously advanced by a fundamentalist that they are hoaxes perpetrated by God to test our faith. Doubts have been cast on the accuracy of carbon dating techniques claiming that they can be out by 20 percent and therefore are totally unreliable. No evidence has been shown to support this claim, yet it is accepted as accurate and therefore creationism must be the truth, and the world was created in the year 4004BC.This is in spite of the fact that materials have been dated as far back as millions of years and even allowing for a 20 percent error rate, this far exceeds that magical 4004 BC figure

Finally, the reasons for the recording of the story must be examined and to do this, we must understand the reasons for the bibles existence. While the bible contains a variety of literature such as history, genealogy, poetry and eroticism etc., these or not the main purpose of the book. They are included, not as stories in their own right, but to support the purpose of the scriptures. The Hebrew and later Jewish people who committed the stories to written form were primarily concerned with the relationship between them selves as a nation and their God. While they had a sense of their own history and had a highly developed form of poetry, they knew nothing of any of the sciences. Everything that happened in their world occurred as a result of the direct intervention of God. If it rained, then God had made it happen. It was God who stopped the rain and caused a drought, God made the water spring out of the ground to form a well. If they won a battle, it was because Yahweh was stronger than the god of the enemy. Today, we understand something of meteorology and we know that warm air carries more moisture than cold and it rises. As it rises, it is cooled and the moisture condenses out and under the right conditions, falls as rain. The Hebrew people knew nothing of this and saw rain as the result of the direct divine intervention. Yet, even though we understand how it happens, we cannot make it happen. Many have tried; there have been huge sums of money spent on seeding clouds with silver iodes and all to no purpose. We cannot make it rain, rain happens because God has established certain meteorological rules and we can only enjoy the results of those rules.
The same situation applies to healing, we cannot heal ourselves, not even the most advanced, best-educated doctors can heal a patient. All they can do is to establish the optimum conditions for the body to heal itself. We reap the benefits of the miracle of healing. And healing is a miracle even though we now understand more of the principles on which our bodies work. If healing were done by humans, then no one would die.
I claim that the creation is a miracle, regardless of the manner in which it was achieved. We cannot create life; scientists are unable to initiate a new life form. Yes, cloning is now a reality in certain conditions, but that is not creating life. It is simply copying it; a scientist needs to have a living creature in order to duplicate it. Even a baby starts with already existing lives. God, on the other hand, needed no such head start. He created life where there was none and that is the miracle.
We cannot create rain, we cannot heal ourselves, we are unable to form new life. These things are the provenance of God; only He can achieve such miracles. Yet is the rain any less of a miracle because we understand the method by which it happens? Is healing less marvellous because we know more about the way our bodies work? Is a newborn baby dimished because we understand the process of conception and development? The miracle is the fact that these things happen; the manner of their occurring is not relevant.