Two groups of people insist that Genesis and modern science are incompatible: Secularists and Young Earth Creationists. Both camps have damaged the credibility of the Jewish creation story. But today I would like to suggest to you that there’s a 3rd way. A modern literal interpretation of Genesis 1 matches modern cosmology, geology and the fossil record… exactly. As we read this chapter together, I would like to make three simple assumptions:
1) The events are described as they appear from the surface of the earth beginning with verse 2.
2) We’re going to assume “day” is a period of time, not 24 hours. The Hebrew word for day (“yom”) has a variety of meanings in Genesis. A “day” can be a million or even a billion years.
3) Living creatures in verse 24 are “livestock” – not all land animals, but advanced mammals.
| Genesis | Science |
| 1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. | The text literally means “At the beginning of time God (who already existed) created everything out of nothing.” Today we understand that the Big Bang was the beginning of matter, energy, space and even time itself, all expanding from a single point in a very precise manner. The Big Bang theory was resisted for decades in part because of its resemblance to Genesis 1 and its metaphysical implications. |
| 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. | This verse establishes the physical vantage point that is used from here forward. 4 billion years ago, following the “Hadean” period, the earth was a hostile, stormy, turbulent, water-covered ball. The Hebrew word for “hovering” is also used elsewhere in Genesis to describe an eagle protecting her young in the nest. Science tells us that the earliest life forms began in the ocean ~3.5 billion years ago and I believe this verse hints at this. |
| 3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning-the first day. | The atmosphere changes from dark to opaque. Light can now shine through earth’s thick clouds. Now there is day and night on the surface of the earth. The phrase “There was evening and there was morning” is an ancient Jewish expression of completion. |
| 6 And God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the expanse “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning-the second day. | The water cycle begins. Clouds condense and form the ocean. Water evaporates from the ocean and forms clouds. |
| 9 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good. | The continents (“Pangea”) rise above the surface of the ocean, forming land and sea. |
| 11 Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning-the third day. | Plants appear before animals. Notice that the wording in the Bible says the land produced vegetation. It does not rule out an evolutionary process. |
| 14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made two great lights-the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning-the fourth day. | Up to this point the atmosphere has been thick and opaque. It is not possible to see the sun and moon as distinct objects in the sky. The atmosphere clears. Now sun and moon are visible. When it says “God made two great lights, the Hebrew word for “made” is a different word than “create.” Create means from scratch, made means “made evident.” The moon and stars were already casting their light on day 1 (see verse 3), but were not visible as distinct objects until day 4. Notice that 24 hour days are not even mentioned before day 4. |
| 20 And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.” 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” 23 And there was evening, and there was morning-the fifth day. | Day 5 spans from 500 million years ago (after the Cambrian explosion) to 50 million years ago. The earth is dominated by birds and fish. Insects and dinosaurs are also present on the earth during this time but are not mentioned in Genesis 1. |
| 24 And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. | Day 6 is the busiest day (50 million years ago to less than 100,000 years ago). The earth is dominated by large mammals. Jewish people would have thought in terms of livestock. |
| 26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” | God refers to Himself as “our” – God is plural. The first reference to the Trinity. |
| 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. | Man is a spiritual being, the first creature made in God’s image. Unlike the animals, man is both body and spirit. |
| 28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” | Man is given responsibility to take care of the earth. |
| 29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground-everything that has the breath of life in it-I give every green plant for food.” And it was so. | |
| 31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning-the sixth day. | The text says all was very good. It doesn’t say it was paradise or perfection. |
| Chapter 2 verse 1: Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. 2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. | God ceases from his creative work on the 7th day. There is no statement “And there was evening and there was morning, a 7th day.” We are living in the 7th day now. |
If we had to make obtuse, complex assumptions in order to make this fit, we would have a serious problem. But our assumptions are simple, even elegant. This poetic 3500 year old text matches modern science exactly.
As little as 100 years ago, the prevailing scientific view disagreed with Genesis 1 (the “steady state” theory of the universe was in vogue). Genesis produced a testable hypothesis. Since then, astronomy, geology and biology have shown Genesis was right and the science of the time was wrong.
No other ancient text, scripture or religious tradition has a creation story that even comes close to Genesis in its accuracy. The Jewish scriptures compete admirably in the marketplace of ideas in the 21st century.
How did a bunch of nomads roaming around in the desert in 1500 BC get this sequence of events exactly right? I submit to you it’s because God told his prophets what He did.
Elsewhere on this site I make an bold case that living things have a Designer. I argue that evolution is not random or accidental, but an engineered process. But it’s the remarkable accuracy of Genesis that persuades me to be a Christian and not an agnostic or deist.
Augustine said, “God wrote two books: The Bible and the book of Nature.” It’s important to acknowledge that modern science also informs our interpretation of Genesis. Each tells us about the other.
In an upcoming post I’ll look into Genesis 2 and the origin of man and woman.
I invite you to listen to Hugh Ross’s lecture “New Scientific Evidence for the Existence of God” where he explores the history of Big Bang science and its relation to Genesis in much greater detail.
Perry Marshall
Download The First 3 Chapters of Evolution 2.0 For Free, Here – https://evo2.org/evolution/Where Did Life And The Genetic Code Come From? Can The Answer Build Superior AI? The #1 Mystery In Science Now Has A $10 Million Prize. Learn More About It, Here – https://www.herox.com/evolution2.0
kenkoskinen says:
“One Hebrew word/term does not make the translation. It is the context that determines its meaning. The entire account is about a creation event/miracle.”
I totally agree with that and I totally amused and amazed by the argument between the Young Earth and the Old Earth groups. Who can prove it either way scientifically, or with archeology or astronomy? Can we duplicate the experiment? After thousands of years can we know what the original authors meant or actually wrote. All we can do is accept the best guess that agrees as closely as possible with our current limited scientific knowledge.
Another thing that amuses me is that certain groups and individuals will argue ad nauseam about the young earth vs old earth theories and totally ignore the verses that state in plain English that Man and Women were created in the “Image Of God” therefore the gods that created men in their own image MUST look EXACTLY like US. Gen 1: 26, Gen 1:27, Gen 5:1. THREE TIMES it says this, so it can not be an error in translation. Two eyes, two ears, one mouth, two hands, two feet.
NO ONE, and I have spoken to many pastors, has ever proven from the Bible that I am wrong on this. They can argue for hours on the Old Earth vs the New Earth theories, which I could care less about because they are unprovable, but they totally ignore the obvious in front of their face information about the creation of man.
I sent similar information to Henry Makow of SaveTheMales.ca re: Judaism’s God and received the following reply, “David, I posted this insightful response. Thanks. I believe God is a Moral force and all others are indeed projections of their wishes. h”
So where does it say, suggest or even imply that men have to look exactly like God?
In all my years of discussing theology you are the first person to ever say this. Where did you get this?
Perry Marshall writes: “So where does it say, suggest or even imply that men have to look exactly like God?
Where did you get this?”
From the King James Bible (other translations read the same)
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning (the “Creator”, “The Source,” “The Force,” “The Great Spirit,” etc.) God created the heavens and the earth…
John 4:24 “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”
That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: Jn 17:21
God worketh all in all. ICor 12:26
…that God may be all in all. ICor 15:28
Christ is all and in all. Col 3:11
One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all and in you all. Eph 4:6
THE ABOVE CREATOR GOD IS IN AND IS THE ENTIRE SENTIENT UNIVERSE.
THEN THE SCENE CHANGES AND OTHER LESSOR ALREADY CREATED BEINGS ENTER THE STAGE. Call them gods, angels, extraterrestrials, or what ever.
Genesis 1:26 Then (the) God said, “Let Us make man in OUR IMAGE, according to OUR LIKENESS….
Genesis 1:27 So (the) God created man in HIS OWN IMAGE; in the IMAGE OF (the) GOD He created him; MALE AND FEMALE, He created them.
Genesis 5:1 In the day that (the) God created man, He made him in the LIKENESS OF (the) God. 2 He created them MALE AND FEMALE… (just like the Gods)
Gen 2:15 And the physical gods “took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.” (Slaves/Servants?)
Gen. 2:12 “… the tree of knowledge, thou shalt not eat…” (Even as slaves were forbidden to learn to read and write?)
Gen 3:21 “…the physical gods made coats of skins, and clothed them.” (Why skins, what was wrong with fig leaves or cotton?)
Gen 3:22 Who was this god talking to when he said, “…the man has become one of US…” AND WHY WOULD THIS BE A THREAT TO THE CREATOR GOD OF THE UNIVERSE?
Gen 6:2 …the sons of the gods saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.
Gen 6:4 And the sons of the gods came into the daughters of men, and they bare children of them… (Further proof that the gods were physical and genetically compatible)!
Gen. 4. The story of Cain and Abel is an additional example that these were physical gods. Abel was a keeper of sheep and Cain was a tiller of the ground.
Why would a Spiritual God, the ESSENCE that created, inhabits, runs the entire Sentient Universe consisting of billions of galaxies, with trillions of suns and planets, come to a puny little planet circling a minor sun on the outskirts of a minor galaxy to have more respect for a roast leg of lamb than for a platter of vegetables? Surely this is a trait more befitting a being much lower in the hierarchy.
Who is this LORD that is concerned when Mankind wants to build a city and a tower in the story of the tower of Babel? Gen 11:4 Why is this a threat to him?
How does your research interpret these passages?
It took me more than fifty years to understand that there were many gods lumped under the term “God” in the Bible and understanding this totally opened a new understanding of the Bible and our place in history and the universe. This information has been hidden in front of our eyes for generations. Most theologians won’t touch it.
Jesus said, “By their fruits ye shall know them.” Matt 7:16, 20
David writes: “How does your research interpret these passages?”
Well, Perry, I know that you have been lying awake nights, and searching your Bible for scriptures to show that my perceptions are incorrect. Just kidding!
Actually I assume that you are far too busy and have much more important things to do.
However, for me your rebuttal from scriptures showing that my current thinking is in error is vitally important because as Jesus said, “By their fruits ye shall know them.” Matt 7:16, 20 so it has caused my entire understanding on the Old Testament to change.
For instance, I was taught from childhood that the Jews are God’s chosen people.
Now the question becomes, “What God?” Who is this “Lord, your God” who makes Joshua and the Israelites into a band of murderers and thieves who covet their neighbor’s lands, houses, vineyards and olive groves? A God of War, Hatred, and Greed?
Is this the same “God of Laws” who says in Exodus 20, “Thou shalt not kill, steal, covet, etc?”
In the 40 years that the Israelites were in the desert, why did not this God who made water flow from a rock, cause the weather pattern to change so that the Desert blossomed as promised.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg13818671.100-satellite-uncovers-ancient-arabian-river-.html
Satellite uncovers ancient Arabian river. Geologists studying remote sensing images of Arabia have found a dry riverbed covered by desert sands. The 850-kilometre channel begins in the Hijaz Mountains of western Saudi Arabia and ends in a delta that covers more than two-thirds of Kuwait, says Farouk El-Baz,
I have an avocado tree that had at least a 1000 avocados on it this year, tangerine and orange trees that have hundreds of fruit, and bananas with bunches weighing over 60 pounds. All of which are about 20 years old. I give the excess fruit to the neighbors, the food bank, and hospital personnel where I volunteer. All this plus more on less than 1/4 acre.
What could the Israelis have done with a 600 mile long river if God would have changed the weather pattern back to where it was 10,000 years ago? Plus they would have been sitting of the Arabian oil fields instead of being in the path of marauding armies through out history.
David of Hawaii As per the young Earth theory/interpretation science also weighs in on the mater and it is nonsense.
As per the Israelites wandering 40 years in the desert and other related maters download my essay “The Day the Sun & Moon Stood Still ” on http://antspub.com Click on any Downloads button and you can chose the free essay.
Recently, I’ve wondered the following: What did the author of Genesis see? What was written and why was it written?
I have taken the position that the Bible is literal unless it says otherwise. For instance, it tells us when “Jesus spake to them in a parable,” or if other non-literal speech is used.
As part of my own faith, I believe God has granted me visions a time or two – glimpses of questions I have asked with very enlightening, visual responses. If this is how God communicated with authors of the Bible, how would they interpret what they saw? If some intelligence were to tell the current story of the universe in visual cues, how would an ancient author write that down?
According to the Big Bang, matter and energy would have been so dense during the first 100,000 years of the universe that light would have been everywhere, from edge-to-edge.
Therefore, I wonder if the Big Bang is the “let there be light” portion. Perhaps the first two verses hint at something different. If we look at John 1:1, we have a more abstract account. Both “beginnings” tell of “intent” in your communication model, yes? So maybe Genesis 1:1-2 just establishes that it was God’s intent to create the universe. Perhaps the universe is expanding into a rippling wave (God moved over the face of the deep), and perhaps that explains the “clumping” of matter despite what should be an even spread given the power of the explosion.
I would say that someone watching a video of the origin of the universe with the understanding of ancient times would have a hard time expressing what he saw in words.
zaq.hack
The Hot Inflationary Big Bang theory claims the universe was very dense but light was not everywhere, from edge to edge. In fact it is the opposite. Photons or particles of light were in constant interaction with other charged particles and it was a period of absolute darkness. It was not until about 380,000 years from the genesis that the universe and expanded sufficiently for temperatures to have lowered enough for what is called the last scattering. It means that after this point light firstly began to free flow in space/time. The afterglow of the original light is the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation that has and is being extensively studied via experiments like WMAP and Planck satellites.
Realize Genesis 1 speaks to the creation of the heavens and the EARTH. Our planet did not exist for the first 9 or so billions of years after the Big Bang. Attempts like yours and Perry’s are merely wishful thinking. The Genesis myths are completely divorced from what really happened and/or from modern scientific models.
The Dark Dragon posted great questions; and has chosen not to be a theist. God doesn’t have a body in the traditional sense. Jesus Christ was thought to be God in flesh and it got him killed. Dr. Stephen Hawking says the universe works just fine without God and has developed from condensed matter, ” BBT”. Warm fuzziness comes with God. Something to always look forward to. It is more pleasant to think of fuzzes than eternal darkness…or this is it…nothing to look forward to and imagine. The facts are clear we don’t need God to live or die. We will all die someday.
Recently, I heard a group of Rabbi’s discussing the Bible. Their opinion with supported evidence is the Bible is a book of questions…Not the book answers we were taught to believe. I have to agree it’s a book of questions.
what can you say about plasma cosmology ??
BBT always go side by side with theory of evolution , right ??
by the way, your explanation of Genesis is wrong…
Are you a catholic ??
my comment is directed to Perry
thanks
Plasma cosmology is adherence to the gravitational attraction of planets and all matter. We can’t produce the exact elements in a collator today that were present when evolution began. Background radiation(noise) is a record of a colossal explosion. BBT is evolution. I don’t remember what I said about the book of Genesis, it doesn’t break down life in its elementary parts? I was baptized catholic but don’t practice Catholicism.
I am not at the learned level of most of your commentators! But I seek to get from you Perry:
1. Can God the Creator “enter” the time dimension and be able to control the same (time)?
2. Is Jehovah,the God of Israel, the same as God the Creator? I find it curious that a Creator God would “choose” one people over all others (of His Creation!).
3. God has “allowed’ us to work out the beginning of the Universe. Has anybody worked out how it (the Universe(s)) will all end if it will ever end?
Hi ndegwa,
I make no pretense of being learned because I am still asking many questions also. All I can give is my limited understanding:
Question #1
John 4:24 “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”
God worketh all in all. ICor 12:26
…that God may be all in all. ICor 15:28
One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all and in you all. Eph 4:6
If God is ALL and in ALL, then He/It must be the SENTIENT UNIVERSE.
There is no other concept that fits the above passages.
That can only mean that God is outside of TIME and that he has created TIME as his playground for Himself and for us, his children to use to learn lessons for our growth and to determine if we will chose Him or if we will be seduced into following the lessor god of this world to choose greed, lust, and murder.
Question #2.
If my findings are correct as made in other comments on this website and thread, that there are several Gods lumped under the term “God” in the Torah, for as Jesus said, “By their fruits ye shall know them.” (I am waiting Perry’s rebuttal on this).
If you read the book of Joshua carefully, you will note that there is a distinction because the author never says that “GOD, the Creator of the Universe” was involved. In fact it plainly says that “…after the death of Moses, the servant of the ‘Lord’, that the ‘Lord” spoke unto Joshua…”. In every passage in Joshua, this god is described as “the Lord, your God”. The Lord said this, the Lord said that, the Lord your God said… This was the god that chose and seduced Israel to worship him. It has therefore MY HUMBLE understanding that this capricious god who recommends murder, genocide, theft, and greed is NOT the same as the LIVING SPIRIT OF THE SENTIENT UNIVERSE.
Question #3
Scientists and astronomers only think that they have worked out the beginning of the Universe. What if the so called “Big Bang” is only one of many “small bangs” in an ongoing series of universes or multiverses? Astronomers are only now beginning to understand a little bit about the “dark matter” that is an overwhelming part of this universe.
Most of them refuse to even consider the possibility of interaction of UFOs, extraterrestrials, angels, etc with mankind from back in prehistory up to the present time.
Many don’t even consider an “afterlife” because they cannot reproduce it, despite the thousands of individuals who have been resuscitated through modern medical miracles and have told many stories of their adventures while supposedly dead.
Will this Universe end? Only if God dies. Then the very atoms which have in perpetual motion since the “Big Bang” will collapse into nothingness and us with it.
Good luck in your search for the truth. The above is only my limited understanding. Don’t take my word for it.
I have studied the Bible seriously for 40 years and science for the last 15 years more in microbiology. I have concluded the Bible is hog wash as is Christianity. But I have been diagnosed with an analytical mind.
It is postulated that the sun will consume the earth in another 5 billion years. The earth will experience another ice age and rearrange the continents again.
Gee, only 5 billion years! Isn’t that about the average human life span?
Actually, I am more concerned about the return of Niburu on or about 12-21-12 as forecast by many profits and see-ers whom I haven’t heard much from recently since it was supposed to be visible in our Southern skies as far back as 2003.
Anyway, it is speculated that Niburu’s passage is the trigger that starts the new tectonic plate movement that in turn rearranges your continent again.
Irony will get you everywhere? 5 billion year life span. In the perspective of the age of the observable universe human life is just a drop in the largest ocean on the planet.
I find the back and forth claims to prove or disprove Bible/Geneses write ups to prove current science, rather amusing. Lert me put in my two bits worth and give out my understanding of how I see it:
Remember there is only ONE GOD who has NO begining and NO END.
-our sun is 5 b.y old and midway in its life cycle and our sun and earth shall cease to exist in another 5 b.y. The intelligent human race is only 10,000 yrs old on a planet that is 4.50 b.y old.
– the first record of life on planet earth dates back to 3.80 b.y as single cell algal mats among oligomictic quartz pebble conglomerates that contain placer gold and uraninite- allowing a precise dating of the sediments. These are high energy sediments deposited by alluvial river channels, thse archean sediments fill a large sedimentary basin of 350 miles by 150 miles in south Africa. This confirms the presence of a solidified rocky terrain on the primodial earth of only 700 million yrs of age. Such terrain contained abundant quartz veins rich in gold and uraninite that were eroded by tgorrential rains and powerful high energy rivers over several million years that filled the large sedimentary basin that has produced 30% of all the gold mined on planet earth to date.
– i like your assumption of God writing the first software of life and implanted into a carbon molecule to give it a function that we call life,thru mutaion the advanced life forma evolved as per Darwin (1865) theory of Evolution. Such theory is fact basesd on fossil records and it is not an arbitrary assumption, whereas the theory of creation leads us to unlimited assumptions and presumptions?
– It is wrongfully assumed that the whole earth was covered by water when the first seed of life was implanted by our Creator at 3.80 billion yrs ago and that life started in an ocean ? Life started among lagoons on land, as per the known fossil records. I have personally examined these fossilised rock samples under a microscope and conducted the petrographic study.
– the first Humanoid ( two legged animal) dates back to 6 million yrs and the first human activity dates back to 100,000 yrs and the first record of written script dates back to only 7000 yrs. Human Prophets and related religeons date back to about 5000 yrs onward with each religeon carrying a dogma of SUPERIRITY causing imeasurable pain and sufferings of human race ! I ask the fundamental question did God want this suffering of the human race ? God wanted the human religeon to be FORGIVENESS AND LOVE NOT WAR OVER RELIGEONS ? I bet you today even God is at a loss to understand the path that human race has chosen for itself? The very message of God thru his chosen and enlightened Prophets has been miscontrued and defeated the whole purpose of God’s wish. The oldest scripture book Rig Veda dates back to 4500 yrs.Bible dates back to 1500 to 2000 yrs and so the other holy scriptures had followed to the present day. The messengers have long gone and left their teachings to the subjective individual human interpretations. Remember the humans are limited by the capacity of their brain and the knowledge it holds. We can only reason to the extent of our knowledge and our ego takes over and we take the position of being right. All such positions are never objective but subjective to that persons own knowledgeand ability.
We humans posses a particular gene that allows us to learn language and to think and communicate in writing- this gene sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom.
The scientific world accepts the fact that God exists and that God does not trigger tsunamis, earthquakes or tornadoes-these are result of physical processes of plate tectonics changing weather patterns.
I find that there is a distinct difference between religeon and spirituality. Religeon is based upon someelse’s beliefs and experiences, whereas the spirituality allows connecting with your soul and to connect with the Supreme we call God. My own spiritual meditation has allowed me to establish a clear connection with God, where my Prayers are answered. It is necessary for you to confess your sins and mistakes to God and not to a priest who may be a bigger sinner than you ? God does forgive- afterall we are all his children and He does want us to well!
Religeous teachings can be interpretted and not agreed upon till the cows come home!
Practice non-voilent truthful living and adopt LOVE AND FORGIVENESS as your religeon- you SHALL BE REWARDED!
let us not forget each Prophet was a God’s Messenger but NOT GOD, his writtings are also subject to his life time experiences which do not include the entire universe and all the factors that govern our lives on planet earth. It is debateable if the intelligence- gene possesed by humans was introduced by Ancient Aliens- who were probably the true messengers of God if not the God Itself?
Each of us carry a third eye that allows us to look beyond physical objects and leads us into the sixth dimension and beyond. The health of our third eye is subjected to the health of our Pineal Gland that seperates our physical brain from the spiritual brain. Today’s polluted environment and excess fluoride intake has poisoned our pineal gland and reduced our ability to meditate and connect with the sixth dimension and beyond. Our Prophets had the ability to utilise the pineal gland effectively and connect with the sixth dimension and return to write their encounters and dialogues with God!
If you interview 100 people who had revived after having been declared clinically dead, 90 people would tell you that they remember travelling thru a long tunnel and to encounter a Bright Light at the other end, a light that was over 10,000 times brighter than our sun. The Master Souls present with God had instructed the parted soul to return back to earth to complete his/her soul’s learning experience of the current life. Consequently, the soul returns back to a body with brocken bones and badly brused body. The long tunnel travel is most likely tied to the Wormhole travel thru bent space onto the other side.
It is reasonable to assume that our Creator had implanted the seeds of life on several planets aqnd asteroids across the universe. Such seed of life managed to germinate to advanced life forms only on planets where the life sustaining atmosphere had evolved. On planet earth the evolution process had perfected itself to evolve and develop into the human form. It is likely that life on distant palnets may have evolved over a longer time period of say 5 to 7 billion yrs or longer and has evolved into a life form with an intelligence superior to the human beings and such life forms – the Aliens, are using the wormhole bent space travel to travel across the universe in short time span and they had visited planet earth between 5000 to 14000 yrs ago and helped humans to build the pyramids and other structures around the globe. How could the early humans visualize that a pyramid structure taps into the earth’s elecromagnetic field and without any means of communication and travel bult such large pyramid like structures across the globe?
I go a step furhter and state that our imortal soul is the Black Box of a mortal human body. Our life long memories are recorded in the memory bank of the soul and memories of many a life times are carried in the soul to eternity. The information stored in the Black-Box (Soul) is analyzed by God to establish our next life’s destiny. We carry the potential to change our destiny by spiritual practice and by asking for forgiveneness for our sins and our mistakes-TRUST ME GOD DOES LISTEN AND FORGIVES ! Moses was forgiven for murdering a Roman soldier!
In closing I must convey that your interpration of the Genesis and the Bible is only limited to your understanding as to the intended message of the writer, who also happens to be a gifted and enlightened human soul. There is no harm in trying to read and anlyze the intended message from a Holy Book, but if you try to connect with real God – the PLEASURE IS so IMMENSE AND FULLFILLING AND FULL OF CONTENTMENT AND JOY AND ACCEPTANCE- WHAT A BEAUTIFUL LIFE THAT CAN BE !!!
I PRAY AND SAY THAT MAY GOD BLESS YOU ALL WITH THE WISDOM THAT YOU ADOPT THE RIGHT PATH THAT HELPS HUMANITY FOR A HAPPIER TOMORROW FOR ALL THE BROTHERS AND SISTERA OF THIS VILLAGE WE CALL HOME- OUR BEAUTIFUL BLUE PLANET WE CALL EARTH!!!
Pls comment on my feedback. Thank you
it appears that you can argue till the cows come home, about your own interpretation of the Bible and Genesis against a whole bunch of others but shall fail to reach a common conclusion! WE must come to realize that these holy scriptures are written by gifted scholars guided by the enlightened Prophets. Life and God are subject to their own experience and knowledge and is not absolute in any sense of the word.Consequently,Science can have a purifying effect on religion, freeing it from beliefs of a pre-scientific age and helping us to a truer conception of God. There remains a sense of awe, a sense of reverence, and a sense of great mystery that remains to be explored and better understood. The Bible and the book of Genesis could not have put out the latest scientific knowledge as we interpret the script in any which way that our own limited brain sees it to be ?
Perry
I have submitted two notes with great deal of effort and you have ignored both of my comments ? Are you afraid of people contradicting your one track philosophy on what you are trying to preach but afraid to take on a different point of view ?????
Jassi,
Thanks for your point of view. It is appreciated.
perry’s interpretation of genesis 1 is wrong
shana says: October 16, 2013 at 11:50 am
“Perry’s interpretation of genesis 1 is wrong.”
Hmmm! You have your opinion and you are welcome to it, but on what theory do you base your opinion?
“One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, … at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established.” Deut 19:15 Also Matt 18:16 and 2 Cor 13:1
The Young Earth Theory stands by itself based on the brilliant deductions of a 16th century scholar, however it falls apart when you compare the modern day discoveries of paleontology, archeology, and astromony.
The Creator God who created and inhabits the entire Sentient/Alive Universe composed of millions of galaxies, trillions of stars as well as uncountable numbers of habitable planets is not about to waste His/Her/Its time creating a lie on a tiny little planet just to fool a bunch of so called Human Scientists by tossing a bunch of fossilized dinosaur bones around the earth in order to make them think that the earth is older than it is. However if like Perry and Jassi say, you use the term eons or God’s Days instead of earth days then you have a fair match with the Big Bang Theory and thus the word of two witnesses instead of just one. Don’t worry, there is much to learn yet about the beginnings of the Universe, or even how the atoms which are mostly empty space in such a simple thing as a rock can stay in perpetual motion for a day, a month, a year or even a billion years without winding down and collapsing into nothingness.
There is much that Earth Scientists have yet to learn. They can not deal in matters of spirit and soul because they cannot test for it nor replicate it.
Jassi Nikhanj says; September 9, 2013 at 6:16 am
Perry
I have submitted two notes with great deal of effort and you have ignored both of my comments ?
Great discourse, and I agree with the possible exception that you say, “The intelligent human race is only 10,000 yrs old on the planet.” Recent findings are that humans or somebody like us has been around much longer.
Perry,
That was a pretty good Creation vs. Science chart. I could swallow about 90% of it. I’m choking on the Trinity bit and the ever present 7th day, but overall it was well done.
You may be interested in this 4-part series by R. David Fohrman just recorded in Oct. Over the years, I’ve seen scores of presentations about “creation & science” (including dozens of mildly entertaining young earth contortion acts). This is the best presentation I’ve seen in a while.
https://www.alephbeta.org/course/view/the-cherubs-secret-how-to-read-the-biblical-creation-story
It highlights some very interesting observations about the Jewish understanding of creation vs. the best of today’s scientific understanding of the universe. I really appreciate how he brings everything up to the idea of the tabernacle as a type of ante-creation with the secret of its cherubs. Brilliant.
I think you’d enjoy it.
♡Collette
P.S. & btw I’m coming from a Messianic movement perspective but R. Fohrman (as far as I know) is an orthodox Jew.
Don’t let the 4 parts scare you off. It goes by quickly if you’re tracking with him (but maybe I’m immune since I loved every minute of the 3 hrs × 23 wks it took for one of my Torah teachers to get us through Gen 1 & 2). Enjoy.
https://www.alephbeta.org/course/view/the-cherubs-secret-how-to-read-the-biblical-creation-story
I’m just beginning to dip in. Looks interesting. Thank you for the post.
Dear Perry
I have recently discovered your blog and various articles, and there is so much I admire in your work. However, in your preamble in this particular article you make assumptions about what you are going to do to address Genesis 1. May I point out that the narrative was given to Moses by God, and God is Holy: that is, He is incapable of sin or uttering lies, and lies themselves contain an element of concealed truth, and are designed to mislead.
God does not mislead, and confirmation of a 24-hour day was given expressly to Moses in Exodus 16, 20, 24, 31 & 34. Assumptions have the enormous potential for error, so I should respectfully ask you to re-examine the entire content in this light, as initial erroneous assumption affects ALL subsequent conclusions. Assumption or doubt is not the stuff of Scripture, which is the imparting by Divine Inspiration of God’s Holy Word, so it must be Truth alone or it may not stand the test of time, and no other connotation may be entertained.
As for the version used for quotations, I subscribe to the Society for the Distribution of Hebrew Scriptures to Israeli Jews, and their experience is that ONLY the English translation of the Torah, (Tanakh), in the Masoretic text as presented by the King James or Authorised Version, is accepted into Government Departments and Libraries and Schools, where Bibles are written bi-lingually in, for example, Hebrew-English, and there are of course many other language editions currently on issue for free, as no charge is made because of their concern that Jews may come to a saving knowledge of the Saviour whom their forebears rejected, and still look for their Messiah who has already been, in the form of Jesus Christ. The funding is by private subscription, and book stalls where the Society is active in all things Jewish, with due sensitivity to their culture and beliefs.
Various Missions to the Jews have that same concern, one of the earliest being the Rev John Wilkinson, founder of the Mildmay Mission to the Jews on January 1st 1897. It also printed useful leaflets for personnel going to battle during the Great War of 1916-18. I have one issued to my father-in-law as a seventeen-y.o. recruit who survived without injury, as did his two elder brothers.
https://messianicjewishhistory.wordpress.com/2016/01/01/1-january-1897-to-the-jew-first-hudson-taylor-sends-donation-to-john-wilkinson/
.
The early earth was a shapeless blob of pure water, H2O, within a place designed for it within a circle, space. ( You will recognize Godel here ). It was void, no thing in it, water only. The only logical assumptions possible are that an atmosphere and conditions suitable for sustaining the formula for reproduction and recycling of water were laid down *before time began*. ALL matter is a product of water, which exists as a solid, liquid and gas. Its presence is detected in all matter: the triple point of water is the temperature at which ice, liquid water and steam are simultaneously in equilibrium; the presence of all other substances must be excluded.
In view of this, the possibility of the ‘blob’ being ice at Absolute Zero cannot be ruled out, as no other life was present, other than the Spirit of God moving or watching over it. No timescale is mentioned here, and it is disingenuous to suggest billions of years BEFORE time is invented, and indeed is a strong possibility, as at that temperature no motion of any kind occurs; nor is there evidence that matter exists, and atoms are equal in harmony as positive and negat, and Kelvin is the possible fulcrum upon which the Universe is balanced. In Theory therefore, the supposed Big Bang could occur at 0, and Light, as applied by God the Creator who *spoke* creation into being, *is* the Alpha that is the Primary Event in the Beginning. As temperature is applied externally, heat, volume and pressure are essential components in the composition of matter. Excesses may be safely assumed to be avoided by God’s Light being carefully applied during the first three days of Creation when the only life was vegetarian, and that under God’s care. so it was no damaged or burnt up by His Light. Application in reduced scales according to Wisdom.
Colossians 15-17
[Jesus] Who is the image of the invisible God, the Firstborn of every creature: For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him, and for Him: And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist.
Now, it says distinctly in verse 3 that God *spoke*. For the first time in recorded history, He spoke. It must have been awesome, as sound cannot be heard external to an atmosphere, er, though I hasten to add that God speaking does not require atmospherics or ANY kind of matter, so the sequence as laid down in Genesis occurs according to the Plan designed for the Universe and all things within it. ”Things” being attributed a name.
The Power of that Sound must have been awesome, and triggered events in sequence, as enumerated, over a six-day period of twenty-four hours each. By supernatural application , time is NOT of the essence in its perfomance — just the conditions designed for it to occur, and they were already in place BEFORE Creation. Creation itself is all about LIFE; all kinds.
If you have some experience of cymatics, this link is a good place to refresh the memory.
‘Bringing matter to life with Sound’
https://youtu.be/2LuwzGOfvQY
Kind regards
RayH.
Dear Perry Marshall, By all means take a closer look at Genesis 1, but take a look not to try and invent ingenious means to reconcile Genesis 1 with modern science. Take at look at it in terms of other ancient Near Eastern creation tales. It fits their milieu, not modern science. Let me give some examples:
Genesis 1:1 states, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” This opening line is often misinterpreted as stating literally that God instantly created heaven and earth and all that is in them, boom! Instead, it is merely a preamble, a summation in one line of the story that one is about to read–because _how_ heaven and earth were created and filled with things is all explained afterwards. Earth is called out of the unformed watery darkness, and heaven is created by separating those primeval waters; Still later, heaven is filled with sun, moon, stars.
In detail, using examples from ancient cosmologies…
The Babylonian creation epic, Enuma Elish begins with an opening line that summarizes the story one is about to read, namely the story of the creation of heaven, earth, sun and moon. It begins, “When on high no name was given to heaven, Nor below was the netherworld called by name. . . . When no gods at all had been brought forth, None called by names, no destinies ordained.” (See also Mark S. Smith’s discussion in The Priestly Vision of Genesis of both the cultural and linguistic justification for translations of Genesis 1:1 that read, “When God began to create. . .” Smith is an OT scholar specializing in a study of ancient creation stories, and ancient notions of high moral gods, henotheistic gods of the ancient Near East).
Genesis 1:2 agrees with the beginning of Enuma Elish, that in the beginning nothing had yet been formed/named, “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” Speaking of these primeval waters, note that they have a “face” upon which the spirit of God could move, implying that the waters were flat, as was their cosmos as we shall see. Also that both Enuma Elish and Genesis 1 begin with primeval waters—with what one might call a Big Splash rather than a Big Bang—out of which heaven and earth are eventually made (compare 2 Peter 3:5 in the NT, “The heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water”). The Egyptians likewise envisioned their flat-earth cosmos as being surrounded by primeval waters lying above and beneath and all around the earth.
The “deep” is mentioned not only in Genesis 1:2 but also in Genesis 49:25, which, according to Smith, “lists blessings of various divine figures, including the ‘blessing of Heaven above, blessings of Deep crouching below’ (see also Deuteronomy 33:13), and ‘Deep’ in this passage is feminine [as was the Babylonian sea goddess, Tiamat]. . . . [Moreover,] Heaven and Deep are both divinities related to cosmic origins in earlier West Semitic tradition.” Smith adds, “It is not necessary to see a particular Mesopotamian background at work behind Genesis 1 in order to compare tehom [the Hebrew “deep”] with Tiamat. This word for ocean occurs in the Ugaritic texts not only in the god-lists, but also in mythological contexts. . . . [And,] tehom in a battle context is an old West Semitic idea and not just a Mesopotamian one.” Nor do all creation stories employ battle contexts. Some are as serene as Genesis 1. One Babylonian story that was recited during the building of temples and that featured Marduk as creator began, “All lands were sea. Then there was a movement in the midst of the sea.” Some Egyptian stories began with a god (Amon) moving over the face of divine waters (Nu).
Continuing, we find that Genesis 1:3–5 describes the first act of creation: “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.”
God names the first light, “Day,” meaning the light of daytime on earth, and sets up a numbered sequence of earth-days. Naturally, if one is writing a story in which every act is performed so that the earth may appear and become the lower half of creation, then there’s nothing odd about beginning by creating “earth days, earth time.” But modern astronomers know the earth is not the lower half of creation, it’s a planet, and each planet and moon keep their own unique time, “earth time” is not universal.
At this point in Genesis 1 the “sun, moon, and stars” have not been “made” nor “set in the firmament of heaven,” yet daylight exists. The sun was not “made” yet? That is what the text says. Therefore, the daylight of the first three days of creation is a form of light that does not depend on the sun. (In a similar vein, texts from ancient Ugarit, Israel’s West Semitic neighbor, mention gods of Light, as well as gods of Dawn and Dusk that are separate from gods of Sun and Moon.) Saint Ambrose, an early church father, noted the way daylight preceded sunlight in Genesis 1, and wrote, “Three days [of creation] have passed. No one, meanwhile, has looked for the sun, yet the brilliance of light has been in evidence everywhere. . . . The light of day is one thing and the light of the sun and moon and stars another. . . . The day . . . has its light . . . a serener light. . . . The sun adds its brilliance to the light of day. This can be seen at the dawn of day or at its setting. There is daylight before the rising of the sun, but it is far from being brilliant.”
The above distinction brings to mind another Bible verse, Ecclesiastes 12:2, that says, “. . . the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened . . .” [emphasis added]. The Hebrew word translated as “light” in this passage is ‘or, which is the same word that occurs in the original Hebrew of Genesis 1:3–5, and is there called the light of day. “The light” [of day] is thus placed between “the sun” and “the moon” in order of diminishing brightness, exactly where Ambrose would have agreed it belonged. “Light” is also spoken of as existing by itself in Job 38:19, which asks, “Where is the way where light dwelleth? And as for darkness, where is the place thereof?”
So, there is evidence that ancient Near Easterners, including ancient Israelites, viewed the light of Day as separate from the light emitted by the Sun. This makes sense of Genesis without having to employ Dr. Ross’s ad hoc cloudy explanation. Dr. Ross his added his own inventions to the text, of clouds parting when no such clouds are mentioned and the text plainly says the sun and moon were “made” on day four and “set in the firmament” on that day. Moreover, it would be odd if the fourth day of creation involved no creation, but simply clouds moving about. And as I said about Gen. 1:1 it is a preamble that summarizes the story to come, it does not say that the heavens and the earth were created with everything in them right at the start. In fact, it says in the next verse that everything, including heaven and earth was without form and void, and had to be called out of that void. It also says the creation of light on day one was the first day God started creating anything. It was the first time God spoke words of creation. As for where the formless darkness came from, ancient creation tales took it for granted that it existed “in the beginning.” So Genesis 1:1 is only saying _when_ creation took place — “in the beginning” — rather than saying God created everything at once, earth and heaven and all that is in them.
Perry, To add to my recent comment, there is no mention of “clouds parting” to reveal the sun and moon on “day four” of creation. That is an ingenious attempt to harmonize Genesis 1 with modern science and has nothing to do with what the text actually says. The text says the sun and moon were “made” on day four and “set in the firmament” on that day. Moreover, it would be odd if the fourth day of creation involved no actual creation, but simply clouds moving about.
Note this about the light of day compared with the light of the sun and moon:
Genesis 1:3–5 describes the first act of creation: “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.”
God names the first light, “Day,” meaning the light of daytime on earth, and sets up a numbered sequence of earth-days. Naturally, if one is writing a story in which every act is performed so that the earth may appear and become the lower half of creation, then there’s nothing odd about beginning by creating “earth days, earth time.” But modern astronomers know the earth is not the lower half of creation, it’s a planet, and each planet and moon keep their own unique time, “earth time” is not universal.
At this point in Genesis 1 the “sun, moon, and stars” have not been “made” nor “set in the firmament of heaven,” yet daylight exists. The sun was not “made” yet? That is what the text says. Therefore, the daylight of the first three days of creation is a form of light that does not depend on the sun. (In a similar vein, texts from ancient Ugarit, Israel’s West Semitic neighbor, mention gods of Light, as well as gods of Dawn and Dusk that are separate from gods of Sun and Moon.) Saint Ambrose, an early church father, noted the way daylight preceded sunlight in Genesis 1, and wrote, “Three days [of creation] have passed. No one, meanwhile, has looked for the sun, yet the brilliance of light has been in evidence everywhere. . . . The light of day is one thing and the light of the sun and moon and stars another. . . . The day . . . has its light . . . a serener light. . . . The sun adds its brilliance to the light of day. This can be seen at the dawn of day or at its setting. There is daylight before the rising of the sun, but it is far from being brilliant.” [Saint Ambrose, Hexameron, Paradise, and Cain and Abel, trans. J. J. Savage (New York: Fathers of the Church, 1961), pp. 126, 130, 132. (Hexaemeron, Lib., 4, Cap. III.)]
The above distinction brings to mind another Bible verse, Ecclesiastes 12:2, that says, “. . . the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened . . .” [emphasis added]. The Hebrew word translated as “light” in this passage is ‘or, which is the same word that occurs in the original Hebrew of Genesis 1:3–5, and is there called the light of day. “The light” [of day] is thus placed between “the sun” and “the moon” in order of diminishing brightness, exactly where Ambrose would have agreed it belonged. “Light” is also spoken of as existing by itself in Job 38:19, which asks, “Where is the way where light dwelleth? And as for darkness, where is the place thereof?” The book of Job like the book of Genesis, agrees that “light and darkness” do not rely upon the sun, but have their own separate and distinctly mysterious dwelling-places:
So, there is evidence that ancient Near Easterners, including ancient Israelites, viewed the light of Day as separate from the light emitted by the Sun. And such a belief continued till the day of St. Ambrose, And Ambroseʼs teaching remained one of the “treasures of sacred knowledge committed to the Church” right up till the Middle Ages at which time Jews could still be tortured or condemned to death for disputing it. Like all dogmas it inspired subversive humor from those forced to assent to it:
“Which is more important, the sun or the moon?” a citizen of Chelm asked the rabbi (“Chelm” being a village of Jews who lived in the shadow of the Inquisition).
“What a silly question!” snapped the rabbi. “The moon, of course! It shines at night when we really need it. But who needs the sun to shine when it is already broad daylight?”
(Joke drawn from Encyclopedia of Jewish Humor, Henry D. Spalding, Ed., New York: 1969)
Perry you claim to understand that “Science is about empiricism and inference, not wild speculation” but you followed Hugh Ross in his wild speculations about the Genesis creation myths and other text. In biblical studies the text is the data and any assumptions one makes can’t go against the data or text. When one reads something into the text that isn’t there, we call it eisegesis or reading out-of-context. If you want to understand any writer you have to read in-context. It’s called exegesis.
Genesis 1:1 proves the writer did not understand cosmology. It claims “in the beginning god created the heavens and earth.” The space/time of the observable universe began about 13.8 billion years ago; but the earth is only about 4.5 billion years old. The earth was not created in the beginning. This is false cosmology and proves this statement cannot be attributed to any assumed creator god. However these kind of false notions were believed by early peoples as they wrote in their creation myths from geocentric perspectives.
Genesis 1:2-5 goes to the deity solving the initial darkness problem by creating light; and it divided the day from the night. Okay so the world is no longer in perpetual darkness; so obviously one could see things. Yet Ross, you and others invented a tale about clouds creating so much darkness that one couldn’t even see the Sun, Moon and stars. This is not in the text and goes against the earlier account of the creation of mysterious light that divides day and night. This is wild speculation and/or making/inventing unwarranted assumptions.
There is not any mention of the creation of sea life in Genesis 1:2-5! You are inventing another belief by reading non-existent things into the text. Life in the waters firstly appears in Genesis 1:20-23 along with birds. Earlier, the text claims that some land plants were created before sea life is even mentioned (Gen. 1:9-13). This is the first mention of life and is complete nonsense. You know that life firstly appeared in the seas and birds weren’t created at the same time. I could go on, but that should be enough for now.
I was a little disappointed in this conclusion after listening to your excellent video on Origin of Life: New Discoveries About DNA, God and Evolution. I was very pleased to hear you describing information as the key to understanding the origin of life, but I do not think you have taken it far enough.
I am a Christian and a software developer, so I deal with information science on a daily basis. One of the most important aspects in my job writing code is managing State. I suspect you understand this term with your background, but for anyone unfamiliar, state is the current values or contents of the program. I bring up state for the purposes of discussing state transition: the means by which a program transitions from one state to the next. Programmers do this by manipulating variables, but state transition exists in every area of our lives, both modern and ancient. When a man begins to write a comment on this forum, he starts with typing one character, that is one state. The next character is the second transition state. This continues until the comment is complete. When you understand state transition you learn something important about the universe.
Not every state needs to be built from scratch–some can be created.
Let’s take an email for example. I may spend a great deal of time writing you an email. I am building the information one character at a time. But when the the email is transmitted to your machine, the machine does not spend the time that I spend choosing characters, words, sentences and paragraphs to form the information I am attempting to communicate, it simply fabricates it on the fly from the transmission. In essence, the email I may have spent minutes or hours building, the computer instantaneously creates in mere milliseconds.
It is because of this that you should be able to look at the story of Adam and recognize that the state transition from the moment he did not exist, to the moment that he did exist, took God no time, just as it took no time for your computer to generate this post on your forum. It did not take Adam years to grow up to learn to walk, so that he could walk with God, nor did it take years of education to teach Adam language, so that he could name the animals, and communicate with God. It’s as though the information was received by the very dust that formed him and imbued both age, maturity, intellect, and knowledge in the span of a single state transition.
When we see that happen with Adam, it simply becomes a stepping stone to go back a chapter and see the same thing happen in Day 1 through Day 6. Billions of years of effort and work condensed into the span of less than a 24 hour period–as God spent some of the day considering and remarking that his work was Good.
But if you are still skeptical, create a World of Warcraft account, login, look for a dragon bone and as you study the dragon bones ask yourself this question: How old was the dragon when it died? How long have the bones been in the ground? If it is reasonable for a paleontologist to come along and speculate that a dragon is a rather large creature, like a dinosaur, and the lifespan would probably be equivalent to 300 years and that carbon dating of the bones indicates it lived several hundred million years ago then we are going to have a problem. Because Blizzard studios was only found in 1991 and World of Warcraft only came out in 2004, so those bones cannot be more than 16 years old.
David,
I suspect that underneath all of this is some different assumptions we have, respectively, about the age of the earth.
Given that you are a software developer you are clearly educated and able to deal with precise technical concepts.
As an Electrical Engineer, I think just the speed of light alone (which is an absolutely critical constant in all kinds of very practical, get-it-done engineering problems) is sufficient to establish beyond any question whatsoever that the universe is billions of years old. I talk about this in numerous places on this website, you can go through various articles here:
https://tinyurl.com/evospeedoflight
This article is good for example: http://evo2.org/not-young-earth-creationist/
Once my attention was drawn to Adam’s age on the day of his creation, the answer to the age of the Earth and the universe was resolved. God made a man on day 6. Adam was less than a day old yet he was able to walk and talk with God. I do not know any 1 day old human beings able to do either of those things. Likewise, God created the Earth in one day, but I think you and I can agree that a one day old Earth isn’t capable of supporting any life in less than 2 days. Which is where computers come in to play to demonstrate how information states work. Computer simulations are able to “load” states instantaneously. Either the computer can run a simulation with seed data and go through each logical step, or it can load a saved state from any step in the sequence of state transitions. The differences in our assumptions on the age of the Earth, while they may be validated by the other sciences, are completely wiped out when it happens inside of a finite state machine, because information science provides those mechanisms in which an object may be instantaneously instantiated to any valid state. We know that no 1 day old man can walk and talk. But if you think of it in terms of software, it becomes readily apparent. If I have an object Man and I instantiate it with all the qualities of a 16 year old having the knowledge of language and the experience of walking, then even though that object is less than 24 hours old, it can still function as though it has 16 years of experience that never happened.
But if a computer can do that with a program object inside of a simulation, then we are who live, move and have our being in Him, can also have our states instantiated. And not just us, but also all the planets and stars. Starlight isn’t a problem for a simulation as starlight can be instantiated with each photon rendered just as computers render the projected path of light rays on a computer screen. In fact, you would be hard pressed to find any scientific explanation that information cannot summarily dismiss through a fundamental understanding of how finite state machines can have their states saved and loaded from a storage device.
An entirely rational implementation of state machines can be demonstrated in the philosophy of Last Thursdayism, the philosophy that the whole universe sprang into existence last Thursday and all our past knowledge and experience were preloaded into our minds such that we believe we lived through things we did not actually live through. It is precisely what we can expect to happen to a computer animated AI character in a video game every time the game starts and pre-loads the character with a set of pre-defined settings to prep the character for the game experience rather than building them from scratch every time.
I am not saying that the Earth looks 6000 years old. I am saying the Earth looks however old scientists suggest it looks, but that in actuality, it has only been there for 6000 years old. Likewise, I am not saying Adam looks like a 1 day old baby. I am saying he looks and acts like a 16+ year old man, even though he is actually only 1 day old.
Information science is the first and primary science that all science requires in order to operate successfully as a science. Scientists need to be able to organize their thoughts, to record their data, and to communicate their findings. None of that is possible without information or the science by which information operates. To disregard such a primary science in their pursuit of understanding the universe, scientists have done just that. They have dismissed the reality that state machines(a logical mechanism within organized information) that is foundational to information. Well, if information is wrong about state machines, how are the computers they have prepared their conclusions working? Magic?
How is this view different from Last Thursdayism?
Last Thursdayism exploits a state machine to deceive the entities within it. God explicitly tells us when he started. I understand that we may disagree on the length of the period specified by a day, but if we simply take God at his word that he was describing evening and morning for each day tied with the genealogies then he quite clearly told us when the beginning started. Let’s also keep in mind that Adam’s biggest mistake was believing with his eyes the effect the forbidden fruit had upon his wife rather than believing what God told him concerning the fruit. Likewise, what risk is there if we do not take God at his word when he talks about evening and morning in terms of literal 24 hour periods because we “see” all the evidence for an old earth and actually believe that time passed? There’s really no reason to. State machines are fundamentally persuasive in convincing us of time that never happened simply because they can initialize to advanced(aged) states that the system never transitioned through to get to that state.
So if we take God at his word (which is your preferred language for taking Genesis 1 as interpreted in a King James bible, as literally as possible) then all geology and earth history before 4000BC is an illusion. So today when we see a star that is 10,000 light years away, and we can see it orbiting another star, those two stars were not there 10,000 years ago when the light appears to have left the star. The light reaching our eyes now was fabricated to make it appear as though they were there then, so their light can reach us now. Am I understanding you correctly?
David,
There’s another reason to take complex historical processes seriously, in a way that most creationists do not, and that is cancer.
Best definition of cancer I know of is:
Cells evolving out of control.
The recent symposium at http://www.cancerevolution.org highlights the incredibly sophisticated mechanisms of real-time evolution in tumors. These parallel historical events like the Cambrian explosion. One of the reasons we’re not winning the war on cancer is: The Neo-Darwinists have not taken real-time evolution seriously, and neither have the intelligent design people, so the real science has been drowned out in the shouting match between these two camps.
I encourage you to watch some of the presentations, particularly those by Noble and Shapiro, and Davies and Bussey.
Perry,
This is quite interesting. Sarah Salviander (astrophysicist) has her own quite detailed comparison of Genesis 1 and the science… 26 statements in Gen 1, and notes about the status of those in modern science. I encourage at least linking… I suspect y’all have much in common 😀
https://sixdayscience.com/genesis-1-modern-science/
Thank you, she is definitely right about Sam Harris underestimating the insights in scripture.
Pete,
I’m a fan of Gerald Schroeder, he has a good way of framing the Genesis story, while retaining scientific rigor.