I've already talked about how there are two different creation stories in Genesis (The Seven Days story in Genesis 1, and the Adam and Eve story in Genesis 2). It's obvious that's they are two separate stories because not only does the account just start over, but the order and manner in which everything is created is different. However, that is the least of my problems tonight. What I propose to you now is that in these two stores are actually two different gods. At the very least, they are two very different, even contradictory concepts of god, coming from two completely different religious traditions, both of which somehow got incorporated into the Biblical canon.
Even though it's written second in the Bible, Genesis 2 (Adam and Eve) is actually the older story. I won't bore you with the details because I'm going to assume you're all familiar with the basic plot. The god in this story resembles the anthropomorphic deities of the early Mesopotamian civilizations, from whence he likely developed. He physically forms the earth and everything with his hands. He later walks around Eden and talks to the people, even having to look for Adam when he wants to talk to him. Most importantly, though, this god makes mistakes, changes his mind about the way he's done things, and is apparently unable to know future events. If you claim he didn't make any mistakes, or that he did know all future events, then you're opening up the problem of evil, which is way too complex for this discussion, and not the point. Besides, god himself admits to his own fallibility right there in Gen 2:18, so your point is both irrelevant and incorrect. This god is admittedly fallible, human in his characteristics, and neither omnipotent nor omniscient. In other words, these are not the droids you're looking for. This is not the god you people worship. If you worship this god, then you are a heretic.
The god you worship is more like the one in Genesis 1. As these ancient peoples became more sophisticated, so did their concept of God. Besides the fact that this time he does everything in a completely different order, he no longer forms things with his hands out of the dirt, but literally just speaks everything into existence, and everything he does is apparently good. He is transcendent, or beyond the physical existence. This is the type of god who will later speak through angels, visions, and prophets rather than walking around chatting it up with Adam. This is obviously an entirely different god. However, the god of the New Testament, and of the Qur'an also claim to be the same god talked about here, but we all know those are completely different god concepts as well.
Now I don't have an answer for when or how or from where these different ideas came into the oral tradition of Judaism and later the Biblical canon. It's not a mystery or anything, this information is known, I just haven't done that much research. But what I do know is what it says in the Bible. This is just the surface. It isn't hard, you don't have to be a theological expert to read the first few chapters of Genesis and see these glaring contradictions. What's my point, you ask? Am I implying that the early Hebrews were polytheistic? No, because both of these gods are presented as the only god. I'm just pointng out the fact that your religion was influenced by all of the other religions those people came into contact with, and was also influenced by time and the development of society. The god you think of has not always been god, and your god will eventually be replaced by another and another, as people come up with various interpretations, and technological demands and the needs of any particular people require a different god concept. Yours is but one tiny, fleeting god out of many that have come and gone, just within your own religion. Not to mention the other billions upon billions of gods that have been God to all the other people who've ever lived.
You want the eternal, omnipotent, unchanging Truth? Don't look to God. God changes way too often, fickle to the needs of those in power. Look to science, look to history, look to facts. Not religion.
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