Explain two religious beliefs about the creation of the world. Refer to scripture (5 marks)

Christians believe that God appointed human beings to be in charge of what he created, and to care for the world as responsible custodians. Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ (Genesis 1:26)

Inspirational - Other Christians believe that the Bible was inspired by God, which means that there could be inconsistencies in the stories because they were written by humans, who, whilst inspired, are not completely perfect. This means the Bible’s stories can be interpreted in many ways. Christians who hold these beliefs could, for example, question the duration of a ‘day’ in Genesis - in this context, could the word ‘day’ actually mean an era?