Let me start off by saying the Bible is a big volume. It covers a lot of time and events. And while spirited debates can take place about one book’s relationship to another book, my aim in this essay is not to argue whether the entire Bible fits consistently together. In other words, I’m only interested in Genesis 1.
That’s it.
Genesis 1 says what Genesis 1 says.
I point this out only in anticipation of challenges to the credibility of Genesis 1 when compared to other parts of the Bible. Just because you may see, for example, a contradiction between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2…or between Genesis 1 and some other chapter, that doesn’t change the fact that Genesis 1 says what Genesis 1 says. Comparisons to other books aren’t relevant to this discussion. The overall cohesion of the Bible is a discussion for another time.
Simply put, I am focused only on Genesis 1. The rest of the Bible could be complete fiction and Genesis 1 still says what Genesis 1 says. It is my hope that any challenges to the case I’m about to present will come from your reading of Genesis 1, and not your reading of Genesis 2 or any other section of the Bible.
Fair enough?
With that disclaimer out of the way, let’s move on.
For the sake of simplicity, I’d like to break those interested in this topic into three groups. (I’m quite certain there are more groups and splinter factions from each of these, but I’m only interested in foundational generalities at this point.) First, we have the Genesis 1 Literalists. Second are the Genesis 1 Mythologists. And third are the Genesis 1 Examiners/Unifiers. These monikers might not strike you as appropriate, but nevertheless, that’s what I’ve decided to go with. (I may occasionally abbreviate these 3 groups as G1L’s, G1M’s, and G1EU’s.)
Let’s start with the Literalists. These are people who have been taught that the 6 Days of Creation are only to be understood as six, 24 hour days. They believe that God created all the plants on the 3rd day, the sea creatures and birds on the 5th day, and land creatures and humans on the 6th day. Further, they have been taught that since Adam (the first man) was created on the 6th day and the years of his life are recorded in later chapters, then by studying the lifespans of the Bible characters who follow, it is possible to determine the exact age of the human race by simply tracing back the genealogy. As such, a specific date for the creation of man was arrived at by 17th century Irish Archbishop James Ussher who placed it (Day 6) on October 28, 4004 BC. Doing a little quick math, then, this means that Literalists believe that Day 1 of Creation, the beginning of everything, was 5 days earlier on October 23, 4004BC. So, in the minds of Literalists, the entire Universe and all of mankind just recently celebrated its 6,013th birthday.
These are the affirmative things Literalists glean from Genesis 1 (though, in truth, “Adam” is not mentioned by name in Genesis 1. So technically, the age of the human race doesn’t stem from Genesis 1 so much as from later chapters where Adam is introduced by name. But since Literalists believe the “man” being referred to in Genesis 1 can only be the Adam of later chapters, it’s fair to label Genesis 1 as a foundation for their ‘age of mankind’ theory.)
The Literalist belief that the Earth is 6,013 years old naturally gives rise to many other negative beliefs, such as rejecting “secular” scientific findings like biological evolution (specifically the idea of universal common descent) and geological dating methods. To Literalists, the accepted age of fossils, for example, is due to one of four things: 1) atheistic scientists intentionally lying to the public about fossil ages, 2) well-meaning scientists who just innocently got dating methods wrong, 3) events like the Flood of Noah have tampered with fossils, making them seem older than they really are, or 4) God has intentionally placed old-looking fossils in the ground as a way to test our faith.
In sum, at the root of the Literalist mindset is pure faith. They believe what they believe and any wavering from those beliefs will be viewed as a failure of faith. As such, many Literalists don’t spend time looking at scientific findings because they know it won’t change their minds anyway. They’re content that other, smarter Literalists somewhere “out there” have refuted the atheistic evolutionists and geologists, and that’s good enough for them.
On the opposite end of the spectrum are the Genesis 1 Mythologists. Put simply, they don’t give an ounce of credibility to anything written in Genesis 1. The entire chapter is a work of mythological fiction, written thousands of years ago by a flawed, normal man who was either 1) looking to harmlessly explain how his surroundings came to be, or 2) looking to brainwash and control nations of people by getting them to buy into his nutty ideas. As such, they usually aren’t interested in having theological discussions about whether the days of Genesis 1 are to be interpreted literally or figuratively because, to them, the whole discussion is pointless and based on ridiculous nonsense. You might as well be talking about whether fairies and trolls have to wait 5 generations or 50 generations before riding a unicorn.
G1M’s aren’t necessarily atheists (some could be agnostics or deists who simply reject Genesis), but I believe it’s fair to say that (in the current climate of debate) most G1M’s are atheists who enjoy looking down on irrational, delusional Literalists (they prefer the term ‘creationists’), belittling them and their willful ignorance at every turn. Deep down, very, very few G1M’s are content to simply “respect” the Literalists’ life of faith and agree to disagree (well…in real life they might…but certainly not in the anonymous realm of the Internet, where one’s true feelings shine). Rather, they see the G1L’s rejection of many scientific findings to be appalling, damaging, and a genuine hindrance to human progress (and even borderline abusive and criminally negligent when children are involved). They believe the G1L’s faith is something to be scorned and admonished, not respected.
So in their own lives, G1M’s proceed without paying any attention to Genesis 1. They’re excited about new scientific findings that might shed more light on this world we experience, and generally don’t question the findings of scientists because 1) they believe scientists are bright, responsible people interested in uncovering the truth about our world, or 2) they know that any doubting of science will be seen by their Literalist adversaries as a crack in the foundation of the entire scientific system, and they aren’t about to give the creationists any hope.
The interesting thing about both groups, in my opinion, is that neither has spent much time actually studying the contents of Genesis 1. The Literalists don’t study it because they feel like they already know what it says (based largely on what their traditions have told them about it), and the Mythologists don’t study it because they feel like it’s an irrelevant waste of time. I find it remarkable that two, completely opposite groups of people would develop such strong, unwavering positions about a piece of writing without seriously studying it. (This is, of course, merely my opinion regarding the majority of the members of each group. I’m quite certain there are Literalists who would claim they have come to their Literalist position after a thorough, exhaustive study of Genesis 1, just as there are Mythologists who would say the same.)
But it’s my opinion (and you’re welcome to disagree, of course) that when one really does do a thorough, exhaustive study of Genesis 1, she will come neither to the Literalist conclusion, nor to the Mythologist conclusion.
And so that’s where the third group comes in –the Genesis 1 Examiner/Unifier. This is the group in which I humbly place myself, and so I will inescapably paint it as more favorable than the alternative groups. Put simply, the Genesis 1 Examiner starts off with a belief in one side of the debate and is curious to see whether plausible harmony can be found with the other side. It’s a genuine intellectual olive branch. In other words, a G1E may come from a scientific (or even atheistic) point of view, but is curious to see if the (perceived) Truths uncovered by science can actually mesh with some legitimate interpretation of Genesis 1. Similarly, a G1E may come from a devoutly religious point of view, but is curious to see if the (perceived) Truths espoused in Genesis 1 can actually mesh with the conclusions of modern science. Or, a G1E may have no dog in the fight either way, and just wants to engage in an honest study of both sides.
The people in this group actually read Genesis 1 and actually read the findings of science, and do so with a critical eye. At the end of their examination, they are willing to accept either conclusion –that yes, the two sides are in harmony…or no, the two sides are not in harmony. If they come to the conclusion that there is no harmony, then they will simply revert back to whichever side they started from. But if they come to the conclusion that there is harmony, then that’s a horse of a different color.
Simply put, I believe Genesis 1 and Science are saying the same thing in different ways…they can be unified. I believe that any Genesis 1 Examiner who looks at this issue seriously will come to the same conclusion, which is why I attached the word ‘unifier’ onto the label of group #3. In other words, I believe the inevitable path of a Genesis 1 Examiner is ultimately to become a Genesis 1 Unifier. Given what I’m about to present, I find it incredibly hard to believe that someone could be a G1E without then becoming a G1U…which is why I have combined them.
Bottom line: this essay seeks to demonstrate that Genesis 1, written thousands of years ago, turned out to be scientifically accurate to a shocking degree. The parallels between the two are striking. In the end, we’ll find ourselves asking the most important question: “If all this is correct…if Genesis 1 and the findings of modern science can be unified, what does that mean?” I dare say the answer to that question will make our Mythologist friends a bit squeamish.
Of course, this whole process won’t sit well with the Literalists either. While the ultimate conclusion will please them, they’ll be forced to give up virtually all of their Literalist beliefs. It’s my guess that, unfortunately, many will choose not to do this, deciding instead to continue favoring tradition over examination. There’s an inherent suspicion of “new interpretations” in the Literalist community. They think that anyone such as me who tries to unify Genesis and Science must be liberally bending and twisting the Word of God for the sake of harmony. They think I’m manufacturing a unified connection rather than simply explaining one. And as such, whatever I say will initially strike them as false simply because it’s “new.” If this were actually the truth, they think, then someone else would have figured it out by now and the churches would be embracing it.
Literalists and Mythologists alike are free to react as they wish to this information. Although personally, I find it rather poetic and appropriate that this paper should ruffle the feathers of both sides. Not that I enjoy causing people to wade through an intellectual and/or spiritual crisis, but to me, if both sides have negative kneejerk reactions, that means we’re onto something. At the end, the Mythologists will be happy I’ve agreed that the goofy views of the Literalists are, indeed, goofy. But they’ll be upset and uncomfortable with my ultimate conclusion. Literalists will be happy with my ultimate conclusion that Genesis 1 was, in fact, divinely inspired by God. But they’ll be upset and uncomfortable that many of their literalist beliefs are flat out goofy.
So buckle up. It should be a wild ride.
One last thing before I begin. It’s important that I give credit where credit is due. I don’t want to pretend like I’m coming up with all these ideas myself. This paper relies heavily on the work of a diverse field of authors such as Richard Dawkins, Michael Behe, Paul Davies, Owen Gingerich, Francis Collins, Antony Flew, Norman Geisler, Gerald Schroeder, Andrew Parker, and a host of others (though particular attention has been paid to those last two). I’ve read them all carefully and, if anything, this paper might best be described as an attempted unification of their work rather than a trailblazing work of my own. I quote from them extensively and often, adding in my own comments along the way, and the bibliography at the end will direct the interested reader to the specific works I’ve referenced.
Alright…
Are we ready to see how Genesis 1 and Science are saying the same thing?
Then let’s get to it…starting, of course, at the beginning.
Genesis 1:1
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth…”
What could this possibly mean? Many Literalists immediately look at that and say, “It obviously means that in the beginning (i.e., on the 1st Day of Creation –October 23rd, 4004BC), God created Heaven (the place up in the clouds with angels and deceased relatives) and the Earth (as in, THE Earth, this Earth, our planet the Earth.)” In other words, many Literalists interpret this verse to mean that Spiritual Heaven and the Planet Earth popped into existence on the 1st Day of Creation.
The problem with this, for the Literalist, is the very next verse, which says, “Now the earth was formless and empty.” The same Hebrew word –the word “erets”- is used for “earth” in both verses. So I’m curious how the Literalist can believe that God created the planet Earth, and yet the Earth is formless, void, and empty. I suppose imagining a void and empty planet Earth is easy enough –you just think of a giant sphere with nothing in it. But a giant sphere is a form…a shape. And we’re explicitly told that the earth is formless and shapeless.
We’ll talk more about verse 2 in a bit, but I needed to bring it up here for the purposes of explaining why the word “earth” in verse 1 (the Hebrew word “erets”) cannot be talking only and specifically about the Planet Earth that we call our home. In fact, the Hebrew word “erets” is most frequently translated as “land” when the same word is used elsewhere in the Old Testament.
So if the “earth” in verse 1 doesn’t mean the Planet Earth, what else could it mean? I submit that, despite its frequent translation as “land,” the word “erets” in verse 1 is intended to be a general statement meaning, in the beginning, a firm substance was created, and from this substance, everything of a physical nature would be subsequently composed. (The root of the word “erets” is actually “to be firm.”) In other words, “earth” means “physical stuff.” Protons, neutrons, electrons, quarks, and every other microscopic particle that ever has composed a physical thing or ever will compose a physical thing. That’s what is meant here, in my opinion.
As for the “heavens,” this could be a number of things. Perhaps it actually is Heaven, with a capital H, that lofty place God and His Angels call home. (In fact, the Hebrew word used here is “shamayim,” the root meaning of which is “to be lofty.”) Perhaps it is the Universe, that starry expanse of sky and blackness that we look up at every night. (In fact, when “shamayim” is used elsewhere in the Old Testament, it is frequently translated as both “sky” and “heavens.”) Or perhaps, given the interpretation I just presented for “earth,” a better way to think of “heavens” is simply as “non-physical stuff.” Perhaps that non-physical stuff is the empty space between the particles of an atom. Or perhaps non-physical stuff is things like souls and spirits. Maybe some combination of all that is meant here.
In short, a simple way to restate Genesis 1:1 would be like this: “In the beginning, God created all that we cannot see, and all that we can see.” (It’s interesting to note that a more modern translation of the Bible known as “The Message” actually translates it that way.) Or said a different way, “In the beginning, God created all the non-physical stuff and all the physical stuff.” Or, said more specifically, “In the beginning, God created Heaven and all the other non-physical stuff like truly empty space, souls, spirits, conceptual truths like mathematics, ideas like intelligence and the mind…and also all the physical stuff like subatomic particles of which actual visible, tangible matter would be composed.” Or said yet another way, “In the beginning, God created all that non-physical stuff which would eventually become Heaven, as well as all the physical stuff which would eventually become Earth.”
The overriding idea here is that every physical and non-physical thing which currently exists, ever has existed, or ever will exist is composed of the stuff introduced at the Creation, in the beginning. So said one final way, “In the beginning, God created all the stuff (both physical and nonphysical) that would make up all the rest of the stuff in the universe until the end of time.”
As we can see from the numerous complicated ways it has taken me to present this idea, it’s perhaps not surprising that Genesis 1 (which obviously wasn’t intended to be a highly detailed history paper) succinctly condenses all this into a simple thought: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
Honestly, this doesn’t seem like a stretch to me, especially since the actual Planet Earth doesn’t begin taking shape until later verses. I really don’t think that a more general reading of heavens and earth as non-physical and physical stuff is “bending the word of God.” In short, I think any reasonable person would look at that interpretation and say, “Okay, I guess that makes sense.”
At this point, let’s turn our attention to science, specifically cosmology, and see what it has to say. We’ll start by looking at the phrase “in the beginning.” The Hebrew word for this is “re’shiyth” (pronounced ray-sheeth), and has a pretty straightforward translation to English. It means what you think it means. First…at the start of…in the beginning.
It’s worth pointing out that Genesis 1 didn’t have to identify a beginning to anything. For all they knew, the “heavens and the earth” weren’t created at all. Perhaps they had existed from eternity past. There’s no obvious reason for the writer of Genesis 1 to boldly declare that there was, in fact, a “beginning” to things. Certainly he wouldn’t have had any scientific knowledge on which to base that declaration. Interestingly, from the time of Aristotle 2,300 years ago, scientific theory held the universe to be eternal. Through the early 1960s, even in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary, 66% of leading U.S. scientists still believed that was the case. For 3,300 years, since the revelation of Sinai, the Bible denied it, steadfastly claiming there was a beginning to our universe.
I guess what I’m saying is, it would have been just as likely for the writer of Genesis 1:1 to write, “God, the heavens, and the earth have existed for eternity.” (The Hebrew word that encapsulates the ideas of ‘forever,’ or ‘everlasting’ is “owlam.” I bring this up only to point out that there was a word available to the writer of Genesis 1 had he wished to convey this idea.) But he didn’t write that. Instead, without any real rational reason for believing so, he firmly declared that there was a beginning to the heavens and the earth.
Thanks to Hubble, Wilson, and Penzias (among others), science has now confirmed this to be true.
Edwin Hubble discovered that most of the light emitted by stars of other galaxies showed a shift toward the red. This meant that the galaxies were moving away from us. Equally interesting, he found that the amount of the redshift was approximately proportional to the distance of the galaxy. He interpreted this observation to mean that the galaxies were moving away from us at velocities that were proportional to their present distance from us. These results revealed a consistent distribution of relative velocities among most of the galaxies. Almost all are moving away from a common universal center at speeds proportional to their distance from that center. That is, the farther away a galaxy is, the faster it is moving away. This pattern is logical only if all matter started moving out from a single, common, central location at the same instant. Because we are also in a moving galaxy, we cannot locate where this universal center is anymore than someone on a raisin within the loaf of rising dough could tell where the center of the loaf was. All we can do is measure the galactic velocities relative to our own motion through space.
Second, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson discovered that regardless of the direction they pointed their antenna, considerable radiation energy was always present at a wavelength of 7.35 centimeters, the microwave region of the energy spectrum. This wavelength corresponds to radiation that would be emitted by a black body heated to 3.5 degrees above absolute zero, or 3.5 degrees Kelvin. The discovery of the 3.5K radiation background created a sensation in astrophysics because it confirmed a crucial prediction of the Big Bang theory. If the estimates of the conditions during the first few minutes following the Big Bang are correct, the theory predicts there should be a black body radiation of about 5 degrees Kelvin evenly distributed throughout the entire universe. Its presence is the residue of the intense, high-temperature radiation that must have existed at the start of the universe. It’s a sort of fossil in photons.
As a result of these two discoveries (the Doppler effect showing an apparently expanding universe…and the isotropic cosmic radiation at 3.5K resulting from this expansion), current cosmologists accept the Big Bang as the Standard Model. The idea that the universe has existed eternally in its present state (Steady State Theory) is not supported by observable facts.
The point of this brief (and I do mean brief) recounting of Big Bang evidence is to highlight that both according to science and according to Genesis 1:1, there was a beginning. Since the overwhelming majority of scientists now accept the Big Bang model, I see no reason to provide further evidence for it here. I only want to point out (again) that up until the late 20th century, the scientific consensus was still in favor of an eternal universe. Only in the last 50 years have scientists warmed to the bold declaration made by Genesis 1:1 thousands of years ago. It took scientists a while, but they finally caught up with the truth that the Bible has been preaching for centuries.
So what happened during the Big Bang? The Big Bang did not produce matter directly. It did not directly produce protons, neutrons, electrons, nor elements such as carbon, nitrogen, or oxygen, nor any of the other 92 elements we observe today. It produced a pure, exquisitely hot radiant energy. And from that created energy, the entire material world was constructed. The totality of the physical world, our bodies included, is made of the light of the creation. That transition from energy to stable matter occurred 0.00001 seconds after the Big Bang. The universe was then approximately a million million times smaller and hotter than it is today.
Simply put, according to science, everything that has existed, does exist, or ever will exist was present in that initial explosion. From that initial energy, all matter was produced, and we are still composed of that very same matter today, remnants of cosmic stardust from eons ago. The Earth and the solar system are a mix of matter that has come down to us after uncounted cycles of supercompression within the cores of stars.
Science tells us that there was a beginning, and in that beginning all the stuff of the existence appeared on the scene. Genesis 1:1 tells us the same thing: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
So far, so good?
Oh, there’s one more interesting thing to add here regarding the word “created” in Genesis 1:1. The creation of the heavens and the earth from absolute nothing is at the root of biblical faith. The Hebrew word used for creation, “barah,” is the only word in the Hebrew language that means the creation of something from nothing. (This will be important when we get to Day 6.) Biblically, it is applicable only to the actions of God. It is the second word of the Bible.
Genesis 1:2
“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.”
What could this possibly mean? Again, the Literalist may be tempted to think that we’re talking about the Planet Earth here. As such, they would likely interpret “the deep” and “the waters” to be something akin to actual oceans or canyons on the Planet Earth. Perhaps they imagine some wind-like movement zooming across the surface of an ocean on some oddly-shaped proto-Earth.
But if we accept the interpretation I presented from Genesis 1:1, we can feel safe in saying that the “earth” in verse 2 is still the same as the earth of verse 1…in other words, all the physical stuff. We are then told explicitly that (depending on your English translation of choice) this earth was “void and unformed” or “formless and empty.” The Hebrew for these two words is “tohu” and “bohu.” (Interestingly some particle physicists now refer to T and B as the two basic building blocks of all matter.)
So to explore what this verse might mean, let’s turn to science. I’ll blaze through this in the following paragraphs, but I’ll tie it all back together at the end, so bear with me.
The forces of the Big Bang literally pressed this T and B…this formless, chaotic energy (“Now the earth was formless and empty…”) into hydrogen and helium –almost no other elements were formed at that time. Instead, it took the alchemy of the cosmos to convert this primordial hydrogen and helium into the rest of the elements. Cosmology has shown that at an instant just after the Big Bang, stable matter as we know it formed from energy. Soon after the Big Bang, the energy level, as indicated by the ambient temperature, fell below the minimum value that allowed energy to change into matter as we know it. This transition value, the threshold temperature of protons and neutrons, marks the moment sometimes known as quark confinement. After quark confinement, protons and neutrons –the building blocks of matter as we know it- could no longer form.
As the universe expanded, close encounters among particles became increasingly rare. The nuclear and electromagnetic forces are ineffective when separations exceed molecular dimensions. Gravity became dominant, affecting the relations among the groupings of mass in the universe. There had been a mix of photons and free electrons, or light and matter, in a turmoil of continual collisions. These photon-electron collisions had been so frequent that the photons (light itself) had been literally held within the mass of the universe. Total darkness. (“…darkness was over the surface of the deep…”)
Now, to arrive at our universe from the conditions and substance that existed just after the Big Bang required a one-time homogenization which would direct the course of the universe’s expansion. Alan Guth introduced this as “inflation” in 1979. At 10-35 seconds after the beginning, the universe had a diameter of 10-24 centimeters. At that instant, a unique, one-time force (a sort of antigravity) developed. This force, acting for a miniscule fraction of a second, caused an expansion of the universe at a rate far in excess of any rate prior to, or after, this episode.
After having just explained where I believe the first 2 parts of verse 2 align with cosmology, I submit that the biblical allusion to this one-time inflation is found in the 3rd part of Genesis 1:2: “…and a wind –or Spirit- of God (the one-time force mentioned only here in all of Genesis) moved on the face of the waters (‘waters’ in this sense being the common stuff from which the earth and all that they contain would be produced).” The introduction into cosmological theory of this brief and rapid expansion of the universe is like a marriage of theology and science.
The “wind of God” or “God’s wind” of verse 2 is not like the “strong east wind” that opened the Sea of Reeds for the Israelites leaving Egypt (Ex. 14:21). At the Exodus, the description is of a distinct, physical, albeit God-inspired phenomenon. It was a wind composed of moving air. Here in Genesis, had a true wind of this sort been meant, the action attributed to this wind (merahefet in Hebrew) would be illogical. It does not mean to blow. The wind of the “wind of God” has the meaning of spirit (Eccles. 12:7), or Divine inspiration (Num. 11:17), or God’s Will (Isa. 19:3). It is of great significance that this term “wind of God” is used only once in Genesis. It is a one-time phenomenon.
Astrophysicists also have no conventional explanation for what could have started the outward flow of matter. But very early in the life of our universe, they call for a one-time, new type of force, an “inflationary epoch.” This is what makes the comparison between theology and cosmology so interesting. One-time phenomena are almost never called on by physicists. It is too much like a fudge factor. Yet both science and the Bible call on such a phenomenon at this juncture in our history. It was a wind of God (a ruach elokim in Hebrew), and an inflationary epoch in scientific terminology. It was needed, and it occurred.
Genesis 1:2 tells us, “the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”
Science tells us that after energy was created in the Big Bang, it would have necessarily been formless and chaotic until the forces of the explosion started compressing it into actual physical particles. As the universe continued to get bigger, these particles fell victim to gravity, causing photons (light) to be trapped, which meant total darkness. Then something unique happened. A one-time inflationary epoch that caused the universe to rapidly expand, giving rise to what happens next…
Genesis 1:3-4
“Then God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness.”
With our photons trapped by gravity and free electrons, the result was total darkness. But then the situation changed dramatically as this soup of chaotic collisions was then suddenly cleared of the free electrons. With the electrons removed from this soup, by being bound in stable atomic orbits, the photons could travel freely. At that moment they were able to separate from the matter of the universe and emerge from the darkness. Let there be light…
The “light” of Genesis 1:3 existed prior to the Divine separation of light from darkness, which is described in Genesis 1:4. Both the Talmud and cosmology acknowledge that this first “light” was of a nature so powerful that it would not have been visible by humans. We have learned from science that the “light” of that early period was in the energy range of gamma rays, an energy far in excess of that which is visible to the eye. As the thermal energy of the photons fell to 3,000K, thus allowing electrons to bind in stable orbits around hydrogen and helium nuclei, not only did the photons break free from the matter of the universe (“separated” in the terms of the Bible), but they became visible as well. Light was now light and darkness dark, theologically and scientifically. So 1:3 is talking about invisible gamma light, and 1:4 is talking about visible light (the kind we typically think of).
With an understanding that light was actually held within the primeval mass until being freed by the binding of electrons into atomic orbits, the enigmatic division by God between light (which is totally composed of photons) and darkness takes on a significance consistent with its literal meaning: “…and God separated between the light and the darkness.”
With the separation of light from matter, matter could start to coalesce. Millions or billions of years passed (more on this later). Diffuse matter clustered to form galaxies and stars. Oases of light appeared in the vast expanse of dark space. Stars and planets and life were on their way.
Let’s pause for a moment and speculate on what the Literalist might have thought these verses meant (before reading all this, of course). I honestly don’t know. Surely they don’t think it’s The Sun, since they would likely think (errantly, as we’ll see) The Sun didn’t pop up until verse 16 on the 4th Day. But if the Literalist (based on their reading of verses 1 and 2) believes that the Planet Earth already exists with oceans, then I wonder what sort of “light” they are imagining here.
At any rate, let’s move on to verse 5, the end of the 1st Day.
Genesis 1:5
“God called the light ‘day,’ and the darkness he called ‘night’. And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.”
For the Literalist, this would seem pretty clear, right? After all, when the words day, night, evening, and morning are used in the same verse, we’re obviously talking about sunrise and sunset of a 24-hour day on Planet Earth. Right? Well, again, this might work if the Literalists believed that The Sun was created in verse 3. Even the staunchest Literalist would agree that in order to have a sunrise and a sunset…to have ‘day’ and ‘night’ (evening and morning), you need to have a Sun. But if this is the belief, then, as I said earlier, Literalists find themselves in a sticky pickle when they get to verse 16 on the 4th Day.
Let’s put that aside for a minute and look at this verse in detail.
I submit that the first part of this verse is simply God giving other names to the two things he just separated. I don’t think there’s really anything too deep going on here. The photons that busted out of that first mass to become visible light were now known as ‘day.’ You might also say ‘daylight.’ And the darkness that remained in the rapidly expanding universe was now known as ‘night.’ Simple as that. I don’t think we should read it as a “day” (a period of roughly 12 hours) on Planet Earth (which hasn’t yet been created) or a “night” on Planet Earth (for the same reasons).
But what about evening and morning, you ask? Isn’t the use of those two words bulletproof evidence that we’re supposed to interpret verse 5 in the Literalist way?
Not so fast…
The Hebrew word for “evening” is erev. This is the literal meaning of the word, although the root of erev carries with it implications far beyond that of a setting Sun. What is the visual sensation of evening? Darkness begins. Objects become obscure, blurred. The root of erev means just that, “mixed-up, stirred together, disorderly.” The Hebrew for “morning” is boker. Its meaning is quite the opposite of erev. Morning brings the first light. Objects, visually mingled by the dark of night, become distinct entities and this is the root meaning of boker, “discernible, able to be distinguished, orderly.”
Note the way the text of Genesis is written: “…and there was evening and there was morning...” Had the text been flipped to say, “…and there was morning and there was evening…” our concept of a day might have been better satisfied. But as it is, the text is telling us something crucial about the flow of matter in this universe, a phenomenon so important that it was identified 6 times as the flow from evening to morning. We are being told that within this parcel of space where mankind was to stake his first roots, there was systematic flow from disorder (evening) to order (morning). To appreciate the rarity of this flow from disorder to order, we must acquire a fuller understanding of the laws of thermodynamics and specifically of entropy.
The flow from concentrated, organized forms of energy toward more randomly disorganized energy distributions is referred to as an increase in the entropy of the system. We see randomness (or entropy increase) in every observable system. The trend in the universe is toward chaos, not toward cosmos. And yet, within a limited portion of the universe, highly ordered structures have appeared. Humans are the most extreme example of such localized behavior, so vastly complex that one might question the validity of the 2nd Law. But entropy does affect us, as we observe by breaking into a sweat in a 98 degree room even though the optimal temperature for our bodies is 98 degrees. Our metabolic processes, even when we are at rest, produce so much extra heat, never to be recovered, that we have developed an entire system (that of perspiration) to remove this excess heat by evaporative cooling.
Now comes the major physiophilosophical question: If the universal trend is toward chaos, why is there order at all? The inherent properties of matter that permit (or rather cause) the orderly organization of matter in our universe are represented by the strong and weak nuclear forces, the electromagnetic force, and the gravitational force. The universe didn’t have to include these forces. And if it were the case that it didn’t, then chaos rather than cosmos would indeed have ruled for matter just as it does for heat. The universe might have remained the mass of randomly moving electrons, protons, and assorted subatomic particles present at that first speck of time we refer to as “the beginning.” If that had happened, we wouldn’t be here. Yet the author of Genesis thought this flow toward order was sufficiently important and exceptional to emphasize it by the regular repetition of “and there was evening and there was morning.”
The compartmentalization of the events of our genesis into days bracketed by erev and boker is convenient for talking in the language of man. But the root meanings of the words hold the secret. So let’s put what we’ve learned about the expanding universe and entropy together with the root meanings of erev and boker. In a sense, the Big Bang put its energy into spreading matter. Gravity helped recover part of that energy by forming second and third-generation hot spots, which we call stars. Life’s processes derive their power from this recycling of energy and matter. The biblical text describes this localized progression from less order to more order as a flow from evening to morning, or more accurately, from erev to boker.
Still with me?
Now that we’ve come to the end of the 1st Day, let’s recap the parallels between Science and Genesis 1:1-5 that we’ve just seen. I’ll briefly summarize what Science has told us, and then put the corresponding verse in parentheses next to it.
Science has confirmed that there was a beginning to the Universe -space/time/matter- in an “explosion” known as the Big Bang. Contained in this explosion was all the matter, particles, information…everything that exists or ever will exist. It was all there at the beginning. (Genesis 1:1 –“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”)
Science has confirmed that matter was not formed directly from the Big Bang, but rather matter was a quick byproduct of the exquisitely hot radiant energy that was a direct product of the Big Bang. Before this energy became matter, an appropriate way to think of it would be formless and void. (Genesis 1:2 –““Now the earth was formless and void…”)
Science has confirmed that after energy started coalescing into matter and once certain temperatures were reached, photons found themselves trapped by gravity and electron collisions. No photons means total darkness in the earliest stages of the deep Universe. (Genesis 1:2 –“darkness was over the surface of the deep…”)
Science has confirmed that a one-time, inflationary epoch was needed in order to kickstart the rapid expansion of the Universe. It’s important to note that this inflation didn’t have to take place. There’s nothing in the law of physics that require the universe to be rapidly expanding in the manner we can still observe it doing today. That’s why this call for a one-time inflationary force is so unusual. It’s almost as if some super force took a deep breath and exhaled with a tremendous blow of power that hasn’t stopped to this day. (Genesis 1:2 –“and the Wind of God was hovering over the waters.”)
Science has confirmed that as a result of this rapid expansion, photons were able to travel freely amongst the matter, creating light in the energy range of gamma rays, an energy far in excess of that which is visible to the eye. (Genesis 1:3 –“And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.”)
Science has confirmed that as the thermal energy of the photons fell to 3,000K, thus allowing electrons to bind in stable orbits around hydrogen and helium nuclei, not only did the photons separate from the matter of the universe, but they became visible as well. (Genesis 1:4 –“God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness.”)
Science has confirmed that the Universe tends to favor chaos, not order. So once light was separated from matter -once day and night were separate entities, the progression of randomness, collisions, and disorder to something discernible and orderly is really quite remarkable. In our corner of the Universe, there has been a progression from disorder to order…from the dark and fuzzy to the bright and understandable…from night to day…from evening to morning. (Genesis 1:5 –“And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.”)
So how about that?
Are you at least intrigued that something interesting might be going on here? Are you satisfied that while these interpretations of Genesis 1:1-5 might challenge your traditional understanding of them, I’m at least not going way off the reservation and trying to squeeze square pegs into round holes?
It’s my hope that these interpretations strike you as they struck me: completely plausible and eye-opening when paired side by side with what modern, consensus cosmology has uncovered about the early Universe.
Let’s move on.
Now, in my opinion, we come to a massive gap. Between the start of Biblical Day 1 and the start of Biblical Day 2 is a period of about 8 billion years. (We’ll talk more about all this timing later on. I know the issue of how to reconcile 15 billion years with 6 days is an important one, so I want to save it for the end.) I admit that my handling of Day 2 might be a bit awkward. I’m not quite sure what to do with it. I say this because I’m confident that Day 1 can plausibly be interpreted as I’ve just laid out, and I’m also confident that once we get to Day 3, we’re talking specifically about the Planet Earth. But let’s look at the verses and see what we find.
Genesis 1:6 – 7
“And God said, ‘Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water.’ So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so.”
A specific parallel between science and Genesis 1:6 – 8 somewhat eludes me. (I’ll mention one in a second, but you might think it’s a bit flimsy.) But generally speaking, if we say that Day 1 marks the very beginning of the Universe (about 16 billion years ago) and by Day 3 we’re focused solely on Planet Earth (about 4 billion years ago), then that leaves about 12 billion years of time to fill, with the start of Day 2 being about 8 billion years ago. (Again, I promise we’ll get into these dates at the end of this paper.) So our task is to see what science tells us about the first 12 billion years of the universe and see if these verses make any sense in that context.
When the matter of the universe was freed from the constant bombardment by photons, this matter, now consisting of approximately 75% hydrogen and 25% helium, could begin to cluster and form galaxies and stars. As eons passed, the needed conditions for element synthesis were established by the forces of gravity. Fusion among the nuclei of hydrogen and helium eventually started. From this stellar core fusion came all the elements present in our universe other than hydrogen and helium. Eventually, the stars collapse and a burst of energy is released that rebounds from the center as a massive shockwave. They spew their supply of newly formed elements into space. Over eons, these elements form once again into new stellar systems, recycling the matter of space. Our solar system is one example of this recycling. We are made of recycled stardust.
Essentially, cosmology tells us that this period of time in our universe’s history was spent building the universe as we know it. As hostile as the frigid reaches of space may be, it is the vast universe that provided the time and energy to allow stars to develop and then to die in supernovae explosions, thus producing the elements needed for life and then seeding them into space.
So put simply, Day 2 marks a period of time when the physical stuff of space began (and continued) to coalesce and explode, then start the cycle over again. Elements were produced, and ultimately gathered together, becoming separated by vast expanses of space. Galaxies formed, including our own. Solar systems were formed, including our own. Planets were formed, including our own. Essentially, the common physical stuff of the universe started taking shape and found itself separated by vast stretches of space.
And what does our verse say? It says, “Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water.”
See the potential parallel?
Of course, we’re once again interpreting ‘waters’ to mean the common stuff from which the earth and all that they contain would be produced. In other words, I’ve basically been using “earth” and “waters” interchangeably in these first few verses of Genesis 1. Both mean the common physical stuff of the universe. (As such, Genesis 1:1 might as well say, ‘In the beginning, God created the heavens and the waters.’) In my opinion, I don’t think it’s a stretch to interpret it this way, since actual water (hydrogen plus oxygen) hasn’t yet appeared.
So when Genesis says there’s an expanse to separate water from water, science says there was space to separate planets from planets (or stars from galaxies, etc.).
Perhaps it strikes you as a bit of a stretch, but the reality is, there just isn’t that much going on within the text of Day 2. In terms of verses and words, it’s the shortest of the 6 Days of Creation about which we’re told in Genesis 1. Personally, I think this supports my interpretation that this was just the “workmanlike” period of the universe. This was the necessary, dirty work era. The creating and destroying of stars and worlds that was necessary to lay the foundations (literally) for the universe we observe today and create the elements necessary for life. As such, I’m not surprised that we’re not given much detail.
But indulge me for a minute while I dare to posit a specific possibility for Day 2. Could it be that this is referring to the formation of our galaxy: the Milky Way? We said the start of Day 2 was roughly 8 billion years ago. Fascinatingly, modern science has concluded (though admittedly not unanimously) that this galactic thin disk of ours is estimated to have been formed between 6.5 and 10.1 billion years ago. Our Day 2 starting point fits nicely in the middle of that, right in the sweet spot.
Further, think about the shape of the Milky Way galaxy. It’s a vast, thin disk. We’ve all seen the pictures in our science books. So consider what might be a neat way to describe how that looks. You’ve got a whole lot of matter in a vast, flat disk…and then you’ve got a huge expanse of space above it, and a huge expanse of space below it.
So isn’t it interesting that Genesis 1:7 says, “So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it.”
Just something to consider…
As we move forward, though, and uncover the focus (which as we all know, ends with the human soul) of each day, it’s not ridiculous to interpret Day 2 as the formation of our galaxy. Day 1 –our Universe. Day 2 –our Galaxy. Day 3 –our Planet. Day 4 –the View from our Planet. Day 5 –Animals. Day 6 –Humans. Seems like a nice progressive focus to me.
But we’ll get to all these other days in short order. I only hint at them now to show why interpreting Day 2 as the Milky Way in particular fits nicely within the chain of teleology that eventually leads to the human soul.
Genesis 1:8
“God called the expanse heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.”
Some translations use the word ‘sky’ instead of ‘heaven,’ but it’s the same Hebrew word –shamayim- that we saw back in verse 1, which is traditionally translated as ‘heaven.’ The point is, if your version of the Bible uses the word ‘sky,’ don’t give that too much weight. In other words, I imagine many Literalists (if their translation of choice uses the word ‘sky’) would argue that it’s clearly talking about the literal sky of the Planet Earth, the air above the land that we walk on. But this simply can’t be the case. And again, given that the same word –shamayim- is translated as ‘heavens’ in verse 1 and ‘sky’ in verse 8, it’s a mistake, in my opinion, on the part of Literalists to give the ‘sky’ translation too much credibility.
I don’t think it’s a stretch to just assume that the expanse being referenced here is simply the non-physical emptiness of space that fills the area between stars, planets, and everything else physical in the Universe.
And then we’re back to our “evening and morning” pattern that we discussed earlier. Again, the writer of Genesis is telling us that on Day 2, there continued to be a progression from erev to boker, from chaos to control, from disorder to order, from obscured to discernible, from dark to light…from evening to morning.
Still with me?
Because now we’re getting to the good parts.
When Day 3 begins, the Planet Earth has already been formed. It was formed along with lots of other physical bodies during the workmanlike era toward the end of Day 2. So we pick up Day 3 at the point when water (actual water this time) first appeared on the Planet Earth. This would have been approximately 3.8 – 4 billion years ago. (The Earth itself is about 4.5 billion years old.)
Let’s look at our next verse.
Genesis 1:9 – 10
“Then God said, ‘Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear.’ And it was so. God called the dry ground ‘land,’ and the gathered waters he called ‘seas’. And God saw that it was good.”
This should be pretty straightforward for most readers. I doubt I need to go into too much geology here. Suffice it to say that in the early history of the Earth, the crust finally solidified by about 3.7 billion years ago. Gases pouring out of volcanoes and fissures, along with lava, began to accumulate. As the crust cooled, water would condense and accumulate as oceans. This happened very soon after the crust solidified.
The point is that science tells us the time between dry land appearing and waters gathering on the early Earth wasn’t very long. The two things happened pretty close to each other. Genesis mentions them both in the same sentence. So here, once again, we have science and Genesis in agreement.
But the biggest bombshell is about to drop, because what happens next is arguably the second most important verse in all of Genesis 1 (behind verse 1, of course).
Genesis 1:11
“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.”
In other words…let there be life.
Pay special, close attention to the wording here. It doesn’t say God “created” life (the Hebrew word ‘barah’). It doesn’t say God “made” life (the Hebrew word ‘asah’). It simply indicates that at God’s command, life was produced, or (depending on your translation) sprouted, or burst forth.
This tells us three amazing things. First, the first life would have been a sort of ‘plant life.’ Second, it would have appeared very soon after the first water appeared (since all this takes place within ‘day 3,’ and verse 11 appears immediately after verses 9 and 10, where the oceans are established). And third, the first life wasn’t a special, new creation of God (in terms of its substance). It’s better to think of it this way: Genesis is telling us that the possibility for life already existed within the ‘earth’ and the ‘waters’ of the original Big Bang creation. And more specifically now that we’re firmly focused on the Planet Earth, Genesis is telling us that the possibility for life already existed within the ‘land’ and the ‘waters’ of Planet Earth. God simply activated that potential by his statement, “Let the land produce.”
Again, let me highlight this, because I don’t want you to miss it. On the 3rd day of creation, we are told that God commanded the Earth to bring forth the first forms of plant life, vegetation. It’s interesting that the word “creation” does not appear on Day 3. Creation (‘barah’ in Hebrew) would signify that something entirely new, an entity unable to be made from the materials already present, was needed. No mention of creation means that nothing totally new was needed to bring life into the universe. The Big Bang produced the physical basis for all the materials required for life. This inherent potential for life to flourish on earth led Nobel laureate, organic chemist, and authority on origin of life studies Christian deDuve to write in Tour of a Living Cell: “If you equate the probability of the birth of a bacteria cell to chance assembly of its atoms, eternity will not suffice to produce one…Faced with the enormous sum of lucky draws behind the success of the evolutionary game, one may legitimately wonder to what extent this success is actually written into the fabric of the universe.”
What was needed to spin out the fabric’s potential for life was the Divine command, “And God said…” Genesis 1:11 says, “And God said let the earth sprout vegetation, herbs yielding seed, fruit trees yielding fruit each after its own kind with its seed in it…” That verse is the statement of the Divine command for the earth to produce the first forms of life.
So, in order for science to be consistent with Genesis, we would need to see if 1) science has revealed that the first forms of life were in fact ‘plant life,’ 2) whether life appeared relatively soon on the newly cooled, watery Earth, and 3) if it’s possible for life to sprout forth from the chemicals and elements that would have existed on the early Earth.
I think you know where I’m going with this.
Let’s start with what science has told us about those first forms of life.
An early bacterium evolved a molecule that could use the energy in the sun’s rays to gain electrons from water –it could photosynthesize. The “cyanobacteria” were born. Today, we find fossils of cyanobacteria as much as 3.6 billion years old, so they must have evolved very near to the beginning of life on earth. So it seems we have found out how life was possible on earth, and how the first cell could evolve into species capable of extracting extraterrestrial energy (from the sun). But what has this got to do with plants –grass, herb, and fruit tree? Why did the author of Genesis use these very words?
Looking at it from another angle, after exposing the scientific story, what’s so special about the evolution of the first photosynthetic cells, the cyanobacteria? Should they appear on the first page of Genesis, as the first representatives of life of any kind? Well, the evolution of the cyanobacteria was one of the monumental stages in the history of life on earth. First, the initial life forms were on a collision course with extinction, since they were gradually using up the earth’s finite energy supplies. But the cyanobacteria evolved and brought new energy to the earth –energy from the sun. Then, in order to make their food, the cyanobacteria extracted not only water from their environment, but also carbon dioxide. In return they gave the atmosphere oxygen. An oxygenated atmosphere is far more conducive to life, and the protective ozone layer that formed guarded the earth’s surface from the sun’s high-energy ultraviolet rays, which destroy biological material. These cyanobacteria primed earth for the next stage in life’s history. They were absolutely necessary.
Having said that, the answer to the question about the appropriateness of cyanobacteria to the creation account of Genesis 1 is that they could not be more fitting to represent the first stages of life. But of course the ancient Israelites would have been oblivious to any single-celled life form, let alone what we call ‘cyanobacteria’ specifically. Single-celled photosynthetic forms –some of the earliest life forms on earth- would have lain well beyond the writer’s grasp.
Photosynthesis of course, is synonymous with plant life. Plants, as we all know, are the life forms that make their food from water, carbon dioxide, and sunlight. They are higher life forms than bacteria. Yet the fact that those early cyanobacteria could photosynthesize like plants today is no accident. Cyanobacteria became incorporated into eukaryote cells to form organelles called chloroplasts –the photosynthetic factories of plants. So the plants mentioned in the third stage of the Genesis creation account actually contain modified cyanobacteria.
It is, then, extremely appropriate that the author of Genesis chose plant life for this third stage in his creation account –it accords particularly well with science. In fact, he couldn’t have chosen better. But he was not to know this. Why he so appropriately listed grass, herb, and fruit tree is a question we will leave until later. It is also interesting that water was absolutely necessary for life to have appeared at all, and water was singled out in the Genesis account’s previous stage.
Simply put, science and Genesis agree that the first forms of life would have been ‘plant-like.’
Let’s move onto the second idea (which we already briefly touched on above) –that this plant life would have appeared relatively soon on the freshly cooled, abundantly-watered Earth. What does science tell us about that? In short, and I suspect not surprisingly to you at this point, science tells us that life appeared almost immediately after the appearance of water on the early Earth.
So how was nature to get these individual molecules organized into the complex array found even in the simplest forms of life? In theory, the needed sequence could occur step-by-step in chance reactions over a long period of time. The difficulty with such a slow and random process is that just as there is a given probability of forming an intermediate product in this chain leading to life, there is also a probability of its spontaneous crumbling apart and dissolution.
At each step as we go from simple to more complex compounds, we are in a sense swimming upstream in the flow of entropy. The result is that the likelihood of the disintegration of a newly formed organic compound is much greater than the likelihood of its formation. So if destruction dominates over formation, how is it that living organisms regularly produce complex compounds in copious amounts? Well, the protected environment needed by life…is found within life itself, in its cells. If the cellular system fails, the organism dies. The catalysts of living organisms, called enzymes, are themselves proteins produced by already-living cells. And here’s the point: neither enzyme nor protective cell wall were available to the molecules that preceded life. As we experience it, life is required to produce life.
Of course, some people like George Wald see no problem with this, maintaining that life is the inevitable product of chemistry if one just waits for the random events to occur. Time was his hero. There’s an important lesson to be learned from Wald’s assumptions, but it’s not that life is inevitable. It’s that the trend of thought in this field of life’s origins has very often been based on poorly researched science presented as fact by a few noted personalities.
In 1968, Harold Morowitz at Yale published the book Energy Flow in Biology. Along with other physicists and mathematicians, he had become concerned about the casualness with which some scientists studying the origins of life were assuming that unlikely events must have occurred. These scientists were making assumptions without any attempt to rigorously investigate the probability of such events. Morowitz presented computations of the time required for random chemical reactions to form a bacterium –not an organism as complex as a human, or even a flower- just a simple, single-celled bacterium. Basing his calculations on optimistically rapid rates of reactions, the calculated time for the bacterium to form exceeds not only the 4.5 billion year age of the Earth, but also the entire 15 billion year age of the universe!
And yet, the impression that chance was the source of life, planted by distinguished personalities such as Wald, remains with the general public even though Scientific American later acknowledged that Wald had erred. Ironically, it is the fossil record itself that is gradually dispelling this argument of chance. You see, neither 15 billion years nor 4 billion years are available for this random development of life. In fact, since 1979, articles based on the premise that life arose through chance random reactions over billions of years are not accepted in reputable journals. Life, we are learning, appeared on the Earth almost immediately after the Earth formed.
Sedimentary rocks first appeared 3.8 billion years ago. If we are searching for fossil evidence of the earliest life, then fossils can be preserved only in rock that has weathered, sedimented, and then resolidified with the fossil-to-be contained in the sediment prior to its solidification. Within the oldest sediments found, dated at over 3.3 billion years old, the fossils of spherical and rod-shaped single-celled organisms were discovered by Elso Barghoorn and J.W. Schopf of Harvard. And remember, the cyanobacteria fossils we discussed earlier are dated around 3.6 billion years ago. This puts earliest evidence of life between 200 - 500 million years after the appearance of the first sedimentary rocks, the oldest rock types able to contain fossils. At this relatively young age, several forms of life had already formed. The point is this: it is statistically improbable, in fact, essentially impossible, that random events produced this life in such relatively short time.
Remember, we’ve got the crust cooling, seas gathering and sedimentary rocks appearing around 3.7 – 3.8 billion years ago, and our first evidence of life is found around 3.3 – 3.6 billion years ago. If Morowitz’s computations are correct, it took the Earth 100 – 500 million years to do something (by chance) that shouldn’t have happened (by chance) in over 15 billion years! Think about that! Life popped up (relatively speaking) immediately after it was possible for life to pop up!
So if random events leading to life are statistically not probable, where does that leave the argument? Perhaps a major step forward in our scientific perception of the universe is that we now know that random events did not do the forming. Remember, in the Genesis verse immediately following the gathering together of oceans, we’re told that life popped up at God’s command.
So let’s explore the third idea –how was that possible? Genesis tells us that life was apparently able to just materialize from the existing chemicals on the Earth. Does science tell us how that would have been possible?
A lot of attention was given to the Miller-Urey experiments back in the early 1950s, which appeared to show that by reproducing the atmosphere of primitive earth, then shooting electric sparks through it to simulate lightning, you could produce a red goo containing amino acids (the building blocks for life). This experiment, of course, hinges on whether Miller used an atmosphere that accurately simulated the environment of the early earth.
Now obviously no one knows for sure, but the scientific consensus today is that Miller wasn’t even close. He chose a hydrogen-rich mixture of methane, ammonia, and water vapor. But beginning in the 1960s, geophysicist Phillip Abelson argued against it, and by the mid 1970s biochemist Marcel Florkin declared that Miller’s atmosphere had been abandoned. In 1977, Klaus Dose and Sidney Fox confirmed Miller used the wrong mixture. And in 1995, Science magazine said that experts now dismiss Miller’s experiment because he got the atmosphere wrong.
But even if Miller’s experiment had used the right atmosphere, amino acids are still a long way from a living cell. The gap between nonliving chemicals and even the most primitive living organism is absolutely tremendous. Let me describe it this way: put a sterile, balanced salt solution in a test tube. Then put a single living cell in there and poke a hole in the cell so its contents leak into the solution. The test tube now has all the molecules you would need to create a living cell, right? Congratulations, you’ve already accomplished more than the Miller experiment ever could –you’ve got all the components needed for life. The problem is, you can’t make a living cell. It’d be like a physicist trying to get a rock to fall upwards all the way to the moon. No biologist in his right mind would think you can take a test tube with those molecules and turn them into a living cell.
This isn’t to say that just because the Miller experiment is no longer viewed as credible, there’s no possible way for the nonliving to become living. In fact, as we’ve seen, Genesis calls for it. All I’m saying is that modern science has no agreed-upon explanation for the cause. But rest assured, they’re still looking. Within the field of abiogenesis (which is the study of how life could arise from inanimate matter), there’s the Iron-Sulfur World Theory and the RNA World Theory, among others.
As it stands, though, there’s no credible theory for how life could have come about naturalistically, without direction or guidance. Even if you try to argue that the first cell was a lot more primitive than even the simplest of today’s single-celled organisms, the problem of assembling the right parts in the right way at the right time at the right place, while keeping out the wrong material is simply insurmountable…without direction or guidance.
…without direction or guidance.
The point is this: it’s not that there’s a problem with the idea that non-living matter can somehow become living matter (as far-fetched as it may seem). If science eventually yields a consensus explanation, then that’s great. The problem will be if that explanation tries to pass this event off as happening simply by chance, by luck, by pure accident. As we’ve just seen, if statistics and mathematical probabilities are to mean anything, it’s impossible for something that should’ve taken more than 15 billion years to happen within 100 or 200 million.
The bottom line is this: science may discover ways that the chemicals on the early Earth were able to “spontaneously” come together on their own and form a living thing. They may posit a pathway for the non-living to become the living. But that does not, I repeat, does not conflict with anything written in Genesis 1:11. In fact, it supplements it quite nicely. God said, “Let the land produce.” We can easily take that to mean the ability for life to arise from the existing elements of the land was already there. The only position a Genesis 1 Examiner/Unifier needs to take is that the reason those chemicals came together to form life when they did, was because God said, “Let it be so.”
What will seem like a spontaneous stroke of purposeless luck to the scientist is really a call-to-activation by God.
Let that sink in for a minute.
Still with me?
Alright…let’s cover our next two verses quickly (since there’s really nothing groundbreaking in them), and then we’ll sum up the events of Day 3.
Genesis 1:12 – 13
“The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, after their kind; and God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.”
Not much commentary is needed here. The earth is merely executing the command just given to it by God, and then we see our familiar erev to boker ending, signifying that the move from disorder to order is continuing.
So here we find ourselves at the end of the 3rd Day. Again, we’ll discuss the timing of these days at the end, but what we’ve roughly seen so far is that Day 1 began about 15.75 billion years ago, Day 2 began about 7.75 billion years ago, and Day 3 began about 3.75 billion years ago. Or if you want to use nice round numbers, 16, 8, and 4. Those with a discerning eye might recognize an interesting pattern there…
But more on that later…
Right now, let’s recap the events of Day 3 as confirmed by science and look at our corresponding Genesis verses.
Science has confirmed that the time between dry land appearing and waters gathering on the early Earth wasn’t very long. The two things happened pretty close to each other. Genesis mentions them both in the same sentence. (Genesis 1:9: “Then God said, ‘Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear.’”)
Science has not yet unanimously confirmed how the first forms of life were able to come together and sprout forth from nonliving chemicals, but if and when they do, they’ll be giving credence to Genesis. (Genesis 1:11: -“Then God said, ‘Let the earth produce…’”)
Science has confirmed that the first forms of life were in fact ‘plant life.’ (Genesis 1:11: -“…vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.”)
Science has confirmed that life appeared relatively soon on the newly cooled, watery Earth…within a couple hundred million years. Not only does this obliterate the explanation that life arose from nonliving chemicals by chance, without guidance, but it also supplements Genesis which announces the origin of life in the very next sentence after the gathering of seas. Life sprang forth almost immediately after water appeared, both scientifically and biblically.
At this point, if you’re like me, you might be saying to yourself…holy crap.
Well hang on, because it only gets more interesting. Let’s plow into Day 4.
Genesis 1:14 – 19
“And God said, ‘Let there be luminaries 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, and let them be luminaries in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.’ And it was so. God made two great luminaries—the greater luminary to govern the day and the lesser luminary to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.”
I’m tackling all of Day 4 in one fell swoop here (as opposed to breaking the verses up like I’ve done earlier) because I think it’s easier to understand when taken as a whole.
Now, first I want to ask what the Literalist might take these verses to mean. Do they believe that the Stars, the Sun, and the Moon were all created on Day 4? I would certainly hope not. It boggles my mind to think that people would accept an interpretation of these verses that results in them believing the Earth would be created and supporting primitive plant life before the Sun or the Stars even existed. I mean, I suppose they could believe that as a “faith” thing, but it doesn’t seem to make any sense scientifically.
The point of our investigation into Day 4 is to see if there is a valid, legitimate way to understand these verses other than one that forces us into believing that the Sun, Moon, and Stars were all created after the Earth was fostering life some 3.6 billion years ago. And I believe that yes, there is.
So let’s dive in.
Now, because a quick reading of these verses tells us it was only on the 4th day that luminaries appeared in the expanse of the sky (other translations might have the ‘firmament of heaven’), the presence of plant life on the 3rd day might seem out of order. Light is one of the prerequisites for photosynthetic growth of plants, after all.
But resolution of this apparent conflict is found in the use of the word luminaries rather than light in Genesis 1:14. Now, admittedly, some of your translations may use the word ‘light,’ instead of ‘luminary.’ But when you look at the Hebrew, it’s clear that a different variation of the word for ‘light’ is used in Genesis 1:14 and 1:16, as opposed to the word that was used back in, for example, Genesis 1:3. In the earlier verse, the Hebrew word “owr” is used for light. In these verses of Day 4, the word is modified to “ma’owr.”
In fact, if you go back up and read verse 14-19 as I’ve laid them out, each place where you see the word “luminaries” is where “ma’owr” appears in the Hebrew, and each place where the word “light” appears is where “owr” appears. It’s clear that in one case, we’re talking about the bodies themselves, and in the other case, we’re talking about the light those bodies give off.
So why does that distinction matter? Because light itself already existed. We know that from verse 3. So there was some light source already in existence when the Earth started producing plant life on Day 3. What was the source of that light? Well, it seems intuitive to say that The Sun is the source of that light. In fact, to be more precise, most scientific measurements wind up telling us that virtually the entire Solar System formed at relatively the same time, about 4.6 billion years ago. What this means is that the time between the formation of the Sun, the formation of the Earth, and the formation of the Moon is really very small. They all happened at about the same time (within a couple hundred million years).
(A quick note on the formation of the Moon. Most scientists now believe that the Moon was actually once a part of the Earth, and busted off into its own orbit when the Earth was struck by a large object about 4.53 billion years ago. Evidence for this collision was found by the astronauts of the Apollo Moon landing missions. They turned up lunar rocks that have oxygen isotope compositions which are nearly the same as the Earth. This means that portions of the Moon were once part of the Earth. Scientists announced their findings in 1969 in the journal Science, saying that the Moon was at least 4 billion years old. More recent research measured tungsten content in rocks returned from the moon. Tungsten-182 is what you get when hafnium-182 decays. So the scientists measured the ratios of tungsten to hafnium to determine exactly when the moon formed. This is where the number 4.527 billion years comes from, give or take 10 million years.)
But remember, as we find ourselves in Day 4, we’re no longer talking about the formation of the Earth. Rather, we’re already past the sprouting of life. So that puts us around 3.6 billion years ago, as we said earlier. It seems hard to imagine life sprouting forth and sustaining itself without the energy from the Sun.
So how can we reconcile these verses with what science has told us? How can the Sun, Moon, and Stars already exist, yet the verse “Let there be luminaries in the expanse of sky…” still have any credibility? Let’s turn and see what science has to say about this period of early life on the (at this point) approximately 1 billion year old Earth.
Prior to the appearance of abundant plant life, the Earth’s atmosphere was probably clouded with vapors of the primeval atmosphere (like Venus). There was already light on the 3rd day in the sense that the atmospheric vapors transmitted radiant energy. The atmosphere, however, was translucent, not transparent. Therefore, individual luminaries were not distinguishable from a vantage point on Earth. In other words, if you were standing on the Earth’s surface at that point in time, you could look up and you wouldn’t see the Sun, Moon, or Stars due to the conditions of the sky. But diffuse light was still present, and that provided energy for the initial plant life.
Here’s the important part. The early plant life actually helped clear the atmosphere through the process of photosynthesis, which removed carbon and nitrogen compounds from the atmosphere and incorporated them into cellular material. As these biologically driven reactions proceeded, the Sun, Moon, and Stars became visible on Earth as individual sources of light. That Genesis 1:14-18 is describing this event from an earthly viewpoint is made clear by the reference to the moon as a great luminary (Gen. 1:16). The Earth is the only celestial body close enough to the Moon to see the moon as a great luminary.
In other words, remember that we are now firmly talking about events on the Earth. We started with the beginning of everything (Day 1), then zoomed through the formation of galaxies (including our own), stars (including our own), and planets (including our own) of the universe (Day 2), and then turned our focus squarely on the surface of the Planet Earth (Day 3). So now that we’re on the Earth, everything that happens next (post-Day 3) is best understood in the context of what things would be like from an earthly perspective. As such, these verses aren’t describing the “creation” or the “making” of the Sun, Moon, and Stars. They’re describing the fact that they have only now become visible on the Earth, from the Earth’s perspective.
Let me see if I can put this another way.
When verse 14 says, “And God said, ‘Let there be luminaries in the expanse of the sky…’”, a scientifically accurate way to think about that would be to say, “And God said, ‘As a result of the already existing plant life photosynthesizing, let the atmosphere clear up so that the great luminaries –which already exist- can finally be visible in the expanse of the sky…’”
Make sense?
These verses shouldn’t, in my opinion, be read as a “creation” of brand new luminaries that didn’t already exist. Rather, they should be interpreted as a grand “clearing of the air” that allowed the Sun, Moon, and Stars to simply become visible enough to be used for the purposes described (i.e. keeping calendars, scheduling festivals, providing light, etc.)
But what do we do with verses 16 and 17, you might ask? I mean, a Literalist might say, “Hey, those two verses clearly say God MADE the luminaries, MADE the stars, and SET them in the sky. How else should we read that other than to believe that He actually and literally MADE them at this time?” To that Literalist I would say, go back and read the end of verse 15.
“And it was so.”
Catch that? In verse 14 after God says, “Let there be luminaries in the expanse of the sky,” we’re told “And it was so.” Only AFTER that do we get the verses about making the luminaries and setting them in the sky. So I’d need the Literalist to explain to me how God called for luminaries, they were created (“and it was so”), and then God made the luminaries. Was he making something after it had already been made? Of course not. That’s why this particular Literalist reading breaks down, in my opinion. There’s no need to make something that has already been made.
A better way to view verses 16 and 17, in the context of all we’ve just been discussing, is simply that it’s a recap of what has already happened, as well as an explanation for why they exist in the first place. Remember, if what we’ve been saying is accurate, then we weren’t told about the formation of the Sun and Moon when they were actually formed (toward the end of Day 2). Perhaps the writer of Genesis 1 is using the newfound Earthly visibility of the Sun and Moon to simply go back and remind us that it was, in fact, God who formed these 2 luminaries in the first place (either directly, or indirectly by simply putting into motion the matter and processes that would lead to the formation of Stars and Moons).
It’s also interesting for the Literalists to note that in the Hebrew, the verb for “made” doesn’t appear before “the stars” at the end of verse 16. It really just translates to “and the stars.” So it’s possible that the verse should read “…the lesser luminary to govern the night and the stars.” In that case, it really takes on a whole different, poetic meaning then. All it might be saying, poetically, is that the Moon is the biggest thing up in the sky, so it appears to govern the night and the stars around it. Other commentators view the term “stars” as being added as the third object of the verb “made.” These commentators speculate that perhaps the language is phenomenological, meaning that the stars just simply appeared in the sky from this time forward.
And in fact, that’s exactly what I’m saying.
To sum up, science has told us that in the early periods of life on Earth, the atmosphere (or ‘sky’) was translucent, not transparent. It certainly looked nothing like it does today, and if you were standing on Earth at that point, you wouldn’t be able to look up and see the stars. But translucence still allows light to pass through (think of frosted window glass). So the light from the Sun was still able to energize the primitive plant life on Earth. Once photosynthesis started kicking into gear, compounds were removed and the atmosphere was cleared, making the great luminaries visible from the Earth for the first time. This event of atmospheric clearing is what happened when God said, “Let there be luminaries in the expanse of sky…”
Think about it. It only makes sense to talk about using the luminaries for keeping track of calendars, seasons, and festivals once they are actually visible from an earthly perspective. Then the following verses (16 – 18) are simply a recap or a reminder that God’s hand (direct or indirect, either interpretation is allowable) was in the forming of these luminaries in the first place, and also perhaps to explain a few basic purposes of these luminaries (to govern the day, to give light, to govern the night, etc.).
The point is: I believe it’s incorrect to read verses 14 – 19 as if anything new was being formed for the very first time.
So given all that we’ve said about this, let me attempt to rephrase verses 14-19 in a way that might be useful. First, as a reminder, here’s what Genesis says:
“And God said, ‘Let there be luminaries 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, and let them be luminaries in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.’ And it was so. God made two great luminaries—the greater luminary to govern the day and the lesser luminary to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.” (Gen. 1:14-19)
And here’s how you might rephrase it:
“And God said, ‘Let the plant life that already exists on the Earth photosynthesize so that the air will be cleared and the great luminaries of the heavens -which have existed and been visible to Me for some time now- can finally become visible from Earth. Once they are visible, they can be used [by the humans who will eventually populate the Earth] as signs to mark seasons, days, and years, and also to simply shed light on the Earth.’ And it was so. The air cleared and the luminaries became visible. Oh, by the way, just to remind you, it was God who made these two great luminaries in the first place, and He made them for a purpose. The Sun will govern during the day, dominating the entire sky, and the Moon will govern the night, appearing dominantly larger than all the stars it is set against. Their purposes are to give light to the Earth, govern the day and night, and effectively separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And the process of disorder moving towards order continued –the fourth day.”
I gotta be honest. That makes sense to me. Doesn’t it make sense to you, too? I honestly, truly, for the whole life of me do not believe I’m stretching this. I don’t believe this is trying to play with words or fit square pegs into round holes. Given what we’ve learned from science, this really does seem like a plausible and acceptable interpretation of these verses.
I hope you agree.
Onto Day 5…
Genesis 1:20 – 21
“And God said, ‘Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.’ 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.”
Okay…
You might be surprised that I’ve gone this long without seriously diving into the Theory of Evolution, but I can’t put it off any longer. I’m going to try to keep this as succinct and as relevant to our discussion as I can. First, let me draw the difference (some of you in the Genesis 1 Mythologist camp –who tend to be atheistic evolutionists- might not agree with this distinction) between Darwinism specifically and Evolution in general.
The three most important ideas of Darwinism to keep straight from the start are random mutation, natural selection, and common descent.
Common descent is what most people think of when they hear the word “evolution.” Yet in a very strong sense, the explanation of common descent is also trivial because it tries to account only for the similarities between creatures. It says merely that certain shared features were there from the beginning –the ancestor had them. But all by itself, it doesn’t try to explain how either the features or the ancestor got there in the first place, or why descendants differ.
In contrast, Darwin’s hypothesized mechanism of evolution –the compound concept of random mutation paired with natural selection- is decidedly more ambitious. This pairing tries to account for the differences between creatures. It tries to answer the pivotal question, “What could cause such staggering transformations?” How could one kind of ancestral animal develop over time into creatures as different as, say, bats and whales?
Let’s tease apart that compound concept. First, consider natural selection. Like common descent, natural selection is an interesting but actually quite modest notion. By itself, the idea of natural selection says just that the more fit organisms of a species will produce more surviving offspring than the less fit. This is hardly surprising.
So by far the most critical aspect of Darwin’s multifaceted theory is the role of random mutation. Almost all of what is novel and important in Darwinian thought is concentrated in this 3rd concept. In Darwinian thinking, the only way a plant or animal becomes fitter than its relatives is by sustaining a serendipitous mutation. If the mutation makes the organism stronger, faster, or in some way hardier, then natural selection can take over from there and help make sure its offspring grow numerous. Yet until the random mutation appears, natural selection can only twiddle its thumbs.
So what does modern science show? In brief, the evidence for common descent seems compelling. The results of modern DNA sequencing experiments show that some distantly related organisms share apparently arbitrary features of their genes that seem to have no explanation other than that they were inherited from a distant common ancestor. Second, there’s also great evidence that random mutation paired with natural selection can modify life in important ways. Third, however, there is strong evidence that random mutation is extremely limited.
Genetic accidents can cause a degree of evolutionary change, but only a degree. As earlier generations of scientists agreed, except for at life’s periphery, the evidence for a pivotal role for random mutations is terrible. Mathematical probabilities and biochemical structures simply cannot support Darwinism’s randomness, except at the margins of evolution. (If the reader is interested in the evidence for this conclusion, she can contact me, and I will provide what I’ve found. It would just take too long to explain it here.) For a bevy of reasons having little to do with science, this crucial aspect of Darwin’s theory –the power of natural selection linked to random mutation- has been grossly oversold to the modern public.
Not only has classical Darwinism’s proposed mechanism of random mutations fallen on hard times, his adamant stance that evolution is a gradual, slow process has also been obliterated by the fossil record. In essence, the fossil record tells a story of evolution in fits and starts; the idea of gradual evolution is well and truly buried. Evolution has not proceeded at a steady, uniform pace.
Gradual evolution is a fundamental tenet of Darwin’s theory. But there is no rhythmic flow from the simple to the complex. Staccato is a more accurate description of the record. As such, most serious paleontologists now accept that a form of punctuated evolution is the best that can be derived from the information that fossils present to us. (Note: that doesn’t mean a punctuated evolution is true, only that a punctuated evolution is all the fossil record allows us.) A life form appears. There may be changes within the form, but its basic structure remains until it disappears and a new, different structure arises in its place, suddenly. A gradual, or slow, evolution of a new species from one that predates it is never seen in the fossil record. In fact, an account of the fossil record shows that as far as macroevolution is concerned, stasis, not change, is the trend with all species yet formed.
The statement Darwin repeats several times in Origin of Species, that nature does not makes jumps, is simply false. Transitional forms are totally absent from the fossil record at the basic level of phylum and rare if present at all in class. Only after basic body plans are well-established are fossil transitions observed. Darwin would have been much closer to the truth had he written the exact opposite –that nature only makes jumps.
Looking more specifically at the fossil record, we can make our case that gradual evolution has been found to be false at every morphological change. First, one-celled life sprang into being as soon as water was present, 3.8 billion years ago. As we’ve discussed earlier, there’s nothing slow, gradual, or random about life popping up as soon as it was able to. Following the first life, you might have expected that complex multicellular organisms would then have developed in orderly successive stages. Such was not the case. Instead of a gradual steady thrust of life evolving complex structures, 3.2 billion years passed during which life remained confined to one-celled organisms, followed 650 million years ago by the simple globular forms of uncertain identity, known as Ediacaran fauna. Then, 530 million years ago in the Cambrian era, with no hint in earlier fossils, the basic anatomies of all life extant today appeared simultaneously in the oceans. The Cambrian Explosion of life is one of the century’s greatest discoveries.
Notice I said it appeared in the oceans.
Keep that in mind. We’ll return to it later.
When we briefly look back at what we’ve already covered in Genesis, we find that the biblical parallel to this scientific account is striking. We’ve got the beginning of life on Day 3, immediately after the first appearance of liquid water on Earth (also day 3). One might have expected that in the biblical rush to get life started, the Bible would then proceed at once with animal life. But such is not the case. There is a lapse, a hiatus. During the entire 4th day, life is not mentioned. Then on Day 5 –which we’ll look at in more detail after I’m done with this primer on Evolution- Genesis describes an explosion of life. The waters, we are told, “swarmed abundantly with moving creatures that have life” (Gen. 1:20). Day Five, as we will discuss shortly, corresponds to this Cambrian era, 530 million years ago.
Until the mid-1980s, the understanding of the development of animal life was that it had followed the logical path of a gradual evolution with more simple phyla over eons leading into more complex phyla. With the unveiling of the Burgess Shale fossils, this concept underwent a drastic revision. These fossils (in conjunction with others) indicate that all animal phyla appeared almost simultaneously (relatively speaking) 530 million years ago in the Cambrian period. All further development was confined to variations within each phylum. One of the great mysteries of animal evolution is why no new phyla have appeared since that Cambrian explosion of life.
The fossil evidence challenging the classical concept of gradual evolution has been found worldwide: in western Canada, in southern China, in Africa, Greenland, and Sweden. The Cambrian Explosion of life encompassed the globe. Jointed legs, food-gathering appendages, intestinal structures, notochords, gills, eyes with optically perfect lenses –all these “evolved” simultaneously. Sponges, rotifers, annelids, arthropods, primitive fish, and all the other body plans represented in the 34 animal phyla extant today appear as a single burst in the fossil record. And it happened 530 million years ago. These are the facts. And they are undisputed.
So what’s the point of all this?
My hunch is that if you’re a G1 Literalist, you’re desperately hoping I’m going to conclude that Evolution is false. And if you’re a G1 Mythologist, you’re likely wondering why you haven’t been told that 2 of Darwin’s key tenets have been beaten to a pulp by the march of science. Well, here’s what I’m saying, based on science. (We’ll get back to our verses in a second.)
I’m saying that Universal Common Descent certainly appears to be true. Everything that is living (or ever has lived) is most likely physically descended from that first form of life that God commanded the land to produce back in Genesis 1:11. The similarity of proteins diverse in life forms is statistically strong evidence that they have a common ancestor. It is counterproductive for Literalists to ignore the results of this research. Because the proteins of an organism are the product of the genetic coding of that organism, similarities in the proteins imply similarities in the genetic heritage. The strongest evidence for a common ancestor of all life is the similarity of genetic material among all forms of life. DNA and RNA are so complex that the probability of their independent development in the plant, fungal, and animal kingdoms is vanishingly small.
(But wait a minute, you say, doesn’t the Bible say that man was specially created by God? And wasn’t Eve ripped out of Adam’s side? How can the Bible and universal common ancestry both be correct? Good question. We’ll get to that when we arrive at Day 6. For now, let’s stick with the events of Day 5.)
So, in my opinion, my Literalist friends ought to start warming up to the idea of universal common descent. It certainly appears to be true. The phenomenon of Natural Selection is also true, but as was mentioned earlier, this is not surprising. As Richard Dawkins writes in his newest book The Greatest Show on Earth, “It is genes which determine sequences of amino acids, which determine tertiary structures of proteins, which determine the socket-like shapes of active sites, which determine cell chemistry, which determine the ‘starling-like’ cell behavior in embryonic development. So, differences in genes can, at the originating end of the complex chain of events, cause differences in the way embryos develop, and hence differences in the form and behavior of adults. The survival and reproductive success of those adults then feeds back on the survival in the gene pool of the genes that made the difference between success and failure. And that is natural selection.”
Or in short, to use the phrase we’ve all heard many times…survival of the fittest. There’s nothing controversial about that.
But the final 2 aspects of Darwinism are false. Well, let me clarify that. Random mutations certainly do happen. And gradual evolution has been observed in lab experiments. So it’s not that these two ideas have been proven nonsensical and flat out ridiculous. Not by any stretch.
What has been proven wrong is the application of these ideas on a global, macro-scale. In other words, random mutations, while being a very real phenomenon, are simply not sufficient to explain all the diversity and complexity of life on Earth, and gradual evolution is not what the fossil record shows us about the global history of life.
So if you want to think of it real simply, remember this sentence: When thinking big-picture about how the diversity of life has appeared on Earth, common descent and natural selection are true…but random mutations and gradualism are false.
Evolution is true, but classic Darwinism is wrong.
That’s what I’m saying. And the science supports it.
So what are we to do with this? Let’s turn back to our Genesis verse. As a reminder, here it is again:
“And God said, ‘Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.’” (Gen. 1:20)
First, you might notice a similarity between the beginning of verse 20 and the beginning of verse 11. It doesn’t say God physically “made” the living creatures. It doesn’t say God physically “created” the living creatures. It simply says, “Let the water teem…”
Just like “Let the land produce…”, now we’ve got “Let the water teem.”
My point is this: a theory of the evolution of life is completely supported by Genesis 1. More specifically, a theory suggesting that single-celled life and plant life evolved into multi-celled life and animal life is also completely supported by Genesis 1. There is no new physical creation going on anywhere between verses 11 and verse 20. If we accept that life already exists (which we must, since it was declared back in verse 11), then there is no biblical reason to reject the notion that this primitive life continued its physical evolution, by some mechanism, into multi-celled life.
Similar to what I wrote earlier, consider this: science may eventually come to a universal agreement on the mechanism that fuels biological evolution. On the global level, it’s not random mutation. There are other theories such as the ‘latent library’ theory –that the adaptive variant was already contained within the genetic material of the parent generations, just waiting for the right conditions (or dare I suggest, waiting for the Divine Command) to activate. But whatever they come up with, it will not, I repeat, will not conflict with anything written in Genesis 1:20. In fact, it supplements it quite nicely. God said, “Let the water teem.” We can easily take that to mean the ability for life to go from single-celled to multi-celled, complex organisms was either already there, or completely capable of happening by virtue of the chemicals already present. The only position a Genesis 1 Examiner/Unifier needs to take is that the reason those waters started to teem with complex life when they did, was because God said, “Let it be so.”
What will seem like a random mechanism of genetic variation to the scientist is really a call-to-activation by God.
The bottom line for my Literalist friends is: don’t fear theories of physical evolution. You have no reason to be so hostile toward it. It doesn’t conflict with Genesis 1.
So let’s turn our attention more directly on verse 20. It tells us that the waters, the seas and oceans of the world, was where the first multi-celled organisms (creatures) appeared. Is that true? Does science back that up?
Well, first off, let’s not lose sight of how extremely interesting this is, since the individual who wrote these words lived far from the sea and would have known only of the land mammals, birds, and insects with whom he shared his territory, plus perhaps one or two fish from the sea. But the animals of the waters are referenced specifically and unmistakably. There’s no mention of animal life on land yet. Why would the writer record such a thing? It goes against all he knows. In fact, it portrays what he does not know.
To find our answer, we need to take a closer look at the period of time in Earth’s history known to scientists as the Cambrian Explosion. I’ve mentioned it several times already, but specifically, by looking at fossils from that period (about 530 million years ago), we see that most of the major animal phyla appear together abruptly in the Cambrian, fully formed. The phenomenon is so dramatic that it has become known as the “Cambrian Explosion,” or biology’s big bang. In short, the major phylum-level differences that Darwin predicted would appear last in the fossil record actually appeared first.
(A quick note about terminology: A “phylum” is the highest level in the Linnean system for classifying animals. Phyla can be thought of as groupings of animals based on general body plan. Despite the seemingly different external appearances of organisms, they are classified into phyla based on their internal and developmental organizations. For example, despite their obvious differences, spiders and barnacles both belong to the phylum Arthropoda; but earthworms and tapeworms, although similar in shape, belong to different phyla.)
So what evidence is there that multi-celled life began in the oceans? Put simply, a study of the types of animal fossils found in the Burgess Shale and Chengjiang sites (among others) confirm this for us. Suffice it to say, the idea that complex animal life began in the oceans with animals like jellyfish, worms, and soft-bodied animals is not challenged by modern science. It is well-supported. It is no secret that each individual phylum first appeared as simple aquatic forms and became more complex with the passage of time.
So it does appear that the 5th stage in the creation sequence as described in Genesis was precisely correct –that vast numbers of marine creatures appeared. Once again, an event in the history of life matches an event in the creation story. Extraordinarily, the Genesis creation story implicates a diversity of sea creatures, and that’s exactly what we find in the fossil record from the Cambrian era. There is no way such diversity could have been understood at that time.
So what evidence is there that multi-celled life began in the oceans? Put simply, a study of the types of animal fossils found in the Burgess Shale and Chengjiang sites (among others) confirm this for us. Suffice it to say, the idea that complex animal life began in the oceans with animals like jellyfish, worms, and soft-bodied animals is not challenged by modern science. It is well-supported. It is no secret that each individual phylum first appeared as simple aquatic forms and became more complex with the passage of time.
So it does appear that the 5th stage in the creation sequence as described in Genesis was precisely correct –that vast numbers of marine creatures appeared. Once again, an event in the history of life matches an event in the creation story. Extraordinarily, the Genesis creation story implicates a diversity of sea creatures, and that’s exactly what we find in the fossil record from the Cambrian era. There is no way such diversity could have been understood at that time.
The Bible records that animal life appeared in the waters on Day 5 and on the dry earth on Day 6. This is after the Sun became visible in the firmament of heaven on Day 4. This timing is logical if the appearance of the Sun and other luminaries is in fact related to the oxygenation of the atmosphere. It was the availability of oxygen that allowed the development of life forms larger than bacteria and algae and also produced the uv-absorbing ozone layer allowing the population of dry land. Only after the biosphere became oxygen-rich could the large forms of life develop. They appear in the fossil record just following the appearance of the geological evidence for an oxygen-rich atmosphere. In accord with this, both the fossil record and the biblical account place the appearance of large animal life after the appearance of oxygen-producing plants.
The era of the Cambrian Explosion represents a time approximately 100 million years after the molecular oxygen concentration in the atmosphere rose to a level able to support large multicellular animals. The increased availability of oxygen produced a tenfold improvement in the efficiency of energy extraction from consumed foods. This may have been one of the missing ingredients that had helped keep life single-celled for the previous 3 billion years. With the newly found energy, life could develop larger, more complex structures.
But what about birds? They’re mentioned next, after the appearance of marine life. Does science support that?
Not quite.
Remember, according to our timeline (which we haven’t really explored in depth yet, but I promise we will), Day 5 takes place roughly from 750 million - 100 million years ago. This covers the formation of soft-bodied multi-cellular organisms in the oceans (as we’ve just discussed), and it also covers the Cambrian Explosion where all the phyla were established. But when you look at traditionally accepted evolutionary timelines, a whole bunch of different animals come between early marine life and birds, not the least of which are the dinosaurs, growing to enormous sizes and dominating the land beginning around 250 million years ago. In fact, the fossil record indicates that birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs during the Jurassic period, around 150–200 million years ago. The earliest known bird is the Late Jurassic Archaeopteryx, c 150–145 million years ago.
So how can we make sense of this?
I suggest that we might interpret verse 20 to be bookending the animals of Day 5. In other words, Day 5 began with the simple, aquatic life and ended with the appearance and growth of birds. It’s almost like saying, “From New York to Los Angeles, I’m going to get to the Pacific Ocean.” Just because you’re only listing the starting point and the ending point, we shouldn’t assume that you won’t be crossing everything in the middle. Of course you will be. You have just chosen not the mention them all.
It’s my opinion that the Bible does the same here. It starts with the teeming sea creatures (600ish million years ago) and ends with soaring birds (150ish million years ago), failing to mention the amphibians and massive land reptiles who appeared in between.
There’s one other very, very important thing to notice about these 2 verses. Here they are once again:
“And God said, ‘Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.’ 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.” (Gen. 1:20-21)
In verse 20, the Hebrew word “nephesh” appears for the first time. It is one of the Hebrew words for “soul.” In fact, a more literal way to translate Genesis 1:20 would be to say, “And God said, ‘Let the waters swarm with moving creatures having a living soul.’”
Now, according to all ancient Hebrew commentaries, the creation of the universe described in the opening verse of Genesis was the only physical creation. One physical creation is also the message of science. We call it the Big Bang. Everything that ever was or will be is made from the light of that first creation. The second creation is what we find here on Day 5, relating to a creation within animals. This was not the creation of their bodies –those were made from the already existing material- but the creation of the wholly ethereal “nephesh,” the soul of animal life. The nephesh gives animals a level of choice and motion not found in plants. Animals choose among foods, driven in part by instinct. But the nephesh is totally self-centered, driven toward maximizing pleasure, survival, and progeny. The world, according to the nephesh’s view, is there to be exploited for the self’s own needs.
In verse 21, we see that eye-catching word “created.” This is the Hebrew word “barah.” We’ve seen it only once before, in the very first verse of the Bible. It is the idea of bringing something completely new into the world. So we must ask ourselves, what is it that God is creating here? Is it the physical bodies of these animals? Or is it the nephesh, the animal soul?
I interpret it to be the latter, because “nephesh” not only appears in verse 20, but it also appears again in verse 21. And we already know that these animals physically exist because God says in verse 20, “Let the waters teem.” It is after the waters are already teeming with animal life that God creates something entirely new within them –their nephesh.
Their soul.
Still with me?
Okay, let’s finish up the last two verses of Day 5 (since there isn’t much to say about them), and then we’ll recap.
Genesis 1:22 – 23
“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.’ And there was evening and there was morning –the fifth day.”
Not much going on here. Just God blessing the animals. And then we’re told that we’re still going from disorder to order.
Alright, let’s recap Day 5.
In the 5 million year transition from pre-Cambrian to Cambrian life, the basic anatomy of every animal alive today developed. Massive morphological changes were required in every part of the ancestral genome. Even more confounding to the traditional logic of evolution, there is no evidence of evolution within the 5 million year period. Each of the animals in this era makes it first appearance fully developed. The idea of a massive and multi-faceted evolutionary change, occurring in a single generation –or even in a few- simply does not stand up to the scrutiny of statistics.
So you might say, they appeared according to their kinds.
The fossil record implies an exotic developmental occurrence at the Cambrian. These data are reported in the leading scientific journals. But how to explain the data is a mystery that becomes more mysterious with each new fossil. Fossils reveal the events. Unfortunately, they do not disclose the processes by which those events occurred. No matter what we discover (even Hox genes), we seem forced to revert to the idea of latent genes, waiting patiently to be cued by the environment for expression.
In the Bible, changes in characteristics of humans are also discussed, the most obvious being the change in life span. What we learn from this is that it is in accord with biblical tradition for changes to occur within a given species and that these changes can be the result of environmental influences. Natural forces influence the development of life, but tradition insists that these forces at key junctures were and are divinely directed.
We can only conclude that evolution is channeled along certain paths, working new variations into old original themes. And when we see “convergent evolution” in such things as the human eye and the octopus eye, it’s even further evidence that this does not occur by chance. It cannot have occurred by chance. Evidence from anatomy, molecular biology, and the fossil record is that evolution is channeled in particular directions. In that sense, we are written into the scheme.
So I’ve said a great deal about Evolution in particular. It strikes me now that, while I hope you found it interesting, the discussion is largely beside the point. Because again, even if (hypothetically speaking) purely random mutations could mathematically be responsible for all of life’s diversity, who are we to know if a particular gene mutation was actually “random”?
After all, for the purposes of our discussion, we’re not interested in whether run-of-the-mill, modern gene mutations are actually random. We assume they are. We observe mutations in the lab and we don’t suppose that God is up there pulling the strings on every one of them. But that doesn’t mean He didn’t pull the strings on the particular mutations that kicked off the Cambrian Explosion, the ones that ended up solidifying all of life’s animals according to their kinds. When God said, “Let the waters teem,” perhaps some “random” mutation occurred, or perhaps some already present ability was activated that allowed life to evolve further.
Upon reading that paragraph, I imagine my atheist friends would react by saying it’s all pure speculation. And further, that it’s silly and irrational of me to posit some Deity tampering with genes 530 million years ago. It’s unnecessary, they would say. We observe enough apparently “random” mutations today to safely assume that mutations, whenever they’ve occurred, have always been “random.” There’s no need to invoke the invisible hand of a God.
In response, I would simply say…consider all this evidence I’ve provided so far in this paper about the mind-boggling congruency between Genesis 1 and modern science. The two accounts line up almost perfectly (and we’re not even done yet). And at each point where something has happened that science can’t fully understand the “how?” or the “why then?” (or that they are comfortable chalking up to a chance, random, purposeless event), there is a corresponding verse in Genesis 1 that tells us, “And God said, let it be so.”
My point is, if my atheist friends can read this case I’m putting forward, notice that God’s commands in Genesis 1 line up exactly with the three major things that science can’t confidently explain (the creation of everything, the origin of life, and the Cambrian Explosion), and still believe that invoking God is an unnecessary or irrational step…then I would humbly suggest that they are in deep denial. A denial that stems from their emotional desire to keep on not believing in a God, and not because they’ve rationally considered the evidence and interpretations I’ve presented.
But anyway…
The bottom line is this: as life progresses from Day 3 through Day 5 of Genesis 1, we are not told that anything physically new is created. This leaves the biblical door wide open for a theory of evolution. And since science has all but confirmed universal common descent, there’s really no reason for the Bible-believer to resist the physical evolution of animals by natural selection acting on some yet unknown mechanism.
To sum up…
Science has confirmed that the first complex life began in the waters, and that this life was a physical evolution from earlier, single-celled forms. (Genesis 1:20 – “And God said, ‘Let the waters teem…’)
Science, via fossils, has confirmed that all animal phyla appeared almost simultaneously (relatively speaking) 530 million years ago in the Cambrian period. All further development was confined to variations within each phylum. (Genesis 1:21 – “…according to their kinds, according to its kind.”)
Science has confirmed that birds developed late in the evolutionary timeline, placing them as descendants of dinosaurs. Based on our timeline –which we’ll get to eventually, hang on- it is not a stretch to interpret verses 20 and 21 as making a bookend statement, telling us about the types of animals that appeared toward the beginning of Day 5, as well as the birds that appeared at the end of it. (Genesis 1:20 – “…Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.”)
And the brand new creation of Day 5 that inspired the Hebrew writer to use the word “barah,” was the creation of the animal soul, or in Hebrew, the “nephesh.” The word appears in both verse 20 and 21, just before and after the word “barah” is used for only the second time in the Bible.
So far so good?
Then let’s move onto the grand finale –Day 6.
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. ”
Once again, we notice that there is no mention of creation at the start of Day 6. Nothing new is being created. The Hebrew word “barah” does not appear in this verse. We are told (as before) that God simply commanded the land, on its own, to produce living creatures (with a “nephesh,” because that Hebrew word does, in fact, appear again…presumably the same “nephesh” that was passed down from the animals of Day 5).
What’s interesting here are the types of animals mentioned.
So let’s see…if our interpretation is valid that Day 5 covered the evolution of all the complex animals from the first soft-bodied multi-celled organisms, through the Cambrian Explosion, through dinosaurs, and wrapped up with birds (around 250-100 million years ago)…if all that is correct, then what sort of animals does science tell us evolved and rose to dominance (which would make them worth mentioning) approximately the same time as birds or shortly thereafter (around 100-50 million years ago)?
Doing my best Dana Carvey as the Church Lady impression…
Could it be…mammals?
And low and behold, look at what sorts of animals are mentioned in verse 24: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals.
Sounds like mammals to me.
The Hebrew words used in this verse are “behemah” (pronounced ‘be-hay-maw’) and “remes” (pronounced ‘reh-mess’). The root word of “remes” simply means “to creep, move lightly, move about, walk on all fours.” So we’re talking about animals that creep and scurry about on the ground (bunnies and squirrels, anyone?). The other word, “behemah,” is usually translated generically as “animal” elsewhere in the Bible, but also has many translations where it means “cattle” or “livestock” (pigs and cows, anyone?).
So if we continue with the accepted evolutionary timeline and see it as a reasonable interpretation of verse 24 to be talking about mammal-type creatures, then Science and Genesis agree yet again.
Genesis 1:25
“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.”
The first thing we notice about this verse is the deliberate use of the word “made” –the Hebrew word “asah”- as opposed to the word for “created,” which is “barah.” Remember, the last time we saw the word “asah” was back in verse 16 when we were told on Day 4 that God “made” the Sun and the Moon. But as we said then, this was to be interpreted as a “recap” of actions that had already happened rather than an action that happened at exactly that moment. We came to this conclusion based on our scientific timeline, as well as the appearance of the phrase “and it was so” in verse 15.
We can apply the same rationale here. Since verse 24 ends with the phrase “and it was so,” it makes no literal sense to interpret verse 25 as announcing the literal, physical creation of these mammals (at least not in the “poof, they magically appeared out of nothing” way that I imagine most Literalists interpret it). Rather, I suggest we interpret verse 25 as simply another recap of what had happened at some point in the recent past. In this case, that mammals were “made” from the same physical stuff of the Earth as the animals of Day 5 and the vegetation of Day 3.
But wait, the Literalists say, it’s the word MADE! How do you get around the word MADE?! It seems like a stretch and it smacks of apologetics to interpret MADE as anything other than…well, MADE! Again, let me remind you that the phrase “and it was so” at the end of verse 24 should not be overlooked by the Literalist. Only after that phrase does the word “made” appear. You can’t physically make the same thing after it has already been physically made.
But let me allow for another possibility that might make the Literalists feel better. While we know that nothing fundamentally new was created in verse 24 or 25 (in other words, it’s incorrect –in my opinion- to believe these animals suddenly and magically popped into existence), if you want to interpret the use of the word “made” as an indication of God’s direct role in the physical forming of these animals during the process of evolution, then I have no problem with that.
Similarly, back up in verse 16, when we’re told that God “made” the two great luminaries as visible from Earth (the Sun and the Moon), if you want to interpret that as God directly intervened to somehow engineer the processes that physically made the Sun and the Moon, then I have no problem with that either.
Of course, that’s a faith thing. And that’s fine.
All I want to get across is that the use of the word “made” in verse 16 and here again in verse 25 should not be taken as though these things physically and literally popped into existence out of nowhere at the exact moment when the word “made” is used. The Hebrew word “asah” does not mean “created.” That’s what “barah” means. Instead, the word “asah” means to fashion, or construct, or shape out of already existing material. Such as to go “make” an altar (Ex. 30:1), or to go “make” a tunic (Ex. 28:40).
Again, when the word “asah” appears, if you want to interpret that as an indication of God’s direct hand in fashioning or guiding the physical appearance or evolution of the thing being discussed, that’s fine. (Honestly, that’s the way I interpret it. I just, as I’ve said, don’t apply the Literalist timing to it, for the scientific reasons I’ve already discussed.) But let’s just agree to divorce ourselves from the idea that the word “asah” indicates a whole, special, brand new introduction of physical material that didn’t exist before. It doesn’t mean that. And the text of Genesis 1 doesn’t require you to interpret it that way. Had a brand new creation of some sort been meant, the word “barah” would have been used. But it is not.
Fair enough?
Okay…
Now we get to the good part. The part you’ve all been waiting for.
The appearance of man.
Genesis 1:26
“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.’”
Now, this is important. When we see the word “make” in our translations, it once again is the Hebrew word “asah.” By now, since you know what that means, you probably know what I’m going to say. Nothing physically new is being introduced here. As such, the use of the word “asah” is completely compatible with a scientific theory that involves mankind evolving from previously existing life forms. And again, if you wish to see God’s hand and direction in that process of evolution, that’s fine.
Think about it…
The specialty of mankind is not the physical attributes we have. All primates have grasping upper limbs and overlapping binocular vision. Based on the position of the larynx inferred from skull shape, articulate speech has been possible for over 100,000 years. The size of the cranial cavity, from which brain size is estimated, has not changed much in the primate we call Homo sapiens for the past 100,000 years. So because our physical makeup is not what makes us unique and because sages and scientists agree that the matter of mankind has a common origin with all other universal matter, a theological problem is not posed by having the physique of mankind develop through an evolutionary process. Only on the first day was matter created from nothing. Thereafter, all things were formed from the existing elements. For this reason it is written that at God’s command (punctuation), the waters and the land brought forth life.
The early fossil record is too complete and too well documented to pretend it is all fantasy of some misguided paleontologists. More than 100,000 years ago, Neanderthals started burying their dead. At about the same time, Cro-Magnons also appeared. As fate would have it, this battle for dominance between these two species played out in the Middle East. Cro-Magnons won, and Neanderthals disappeared from the fossil record. Fossil finds from 6,000 – 40,000 years ago fill museums. As for comparative anatomy, we could go on for pages. The human cranial capacity (brain size) and shape is the same as the 1.4 liter brain found in 40,000 year old Cro-Magnon fossils. About 10,000 years ago, the beginning of farming occurred in what is today central Israel and northern Syria. About 9,000 years ago, we find reeds being woven into baskets. By 8,000 years ago, pottery had been developed. All this, and yet, according to the dates of the Bible, no Adam. The Bible, of course, talks about pottery, how it is used, its purity and contamination (Lev. 11:33). But the Bible doesn’t say a word about who invented pottery…because, I believe, that event predated Adam, and the Bible was well aware of this. The case with metalwork is different, naming Tuval-Caine as a master of forging copper and brass. Cuneiform, the first form of writing, dates to the biblical time of Adam and Eve.
The point is this: In an attempt to harmonize this part of Genesis 1 with what science has found, I suggest we might interpret a gap between verses 26 and 27. Specifically, it would be the length of time between the first evolution of “human-like” creatures and the “Creation” of Adam (I’ll explain why I put creation in quotation marks in a minute).
It should be said that reading such a gap between these two verses is not mandatory; it’s simply the way I choose to read it. One could also just say that verse 26 picks up at the point where Adam, specifically, is discussed, meaning that all the Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons existed in the time covered by verses 24 and 25. I see no inherent reason why either interpretation doesn’t work.
The reason I stand by my gap theory is because there’s a difference between the “man” mentioned in verse 26 and the “man” mentioned in verse 27. We’ll discuss that difference here in a second. But remember, the Hebrew word for “man” is “adam.” In other words, as far as Genesis 1 is concerned, it’s not accurate to interpret “adam” as a name, like John or Frank. It’s a general term for “mankind.”
In fact, in the Hebrew, verse 26 reads, “Amar Elohiym asah adam…”, which basically translates to “Said God, ‘Let us fashion mankind…’” There is no new creation going on here. That is coming shortly.
One other thing real quick…
The author of Genesis also stated explicitly that mankind was made in the “image,” as a “likeness” of God. Does this mean there exists a physical similarity between man and God? Well, it’s a basic principle of the Judeo-Christian tradition that God has no physical, bodily attributes. This seeming contradiction between the incorporeality of God and making man in God’s image is resolved by the root meaning of the Hebrew word for image, which modifies the word likeness in the biblical text. That meaning is “shadow.” Man is indeed intended to present a likeness of God. But the likeness is not physical. It is the projection of God’s acts as they appear in this world, God’s shadows, as it were. Theologically speaking, we are obliged to emulate God as we perceive God’s interactions projected within our world.
So anyway…
If we’re correct about this interpretation, cave paintings that predate Adam by 20,000 years and the 10,000 year old inception of agriculture become understandable. These not-quite-fully-human creatures had human-like skills. So why weren’t they fully human? Because even though they had the “nephesh,” they still lacked the most important thing…
The final creation…
Genesis 1:27
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
First, let’s understand which Hebrew words are being used, then we’ll attempt to explain them. The word for “created” is definitely present –the word “barah.” We’ve seen it before. So there certainly is something being created in this verse. And the word “adam” is also used, so the creation has something to do with mankind.
But there’s something else in the Hebrew that jumped out at me. Something that (for some reason) hasn’t been translated in the English. Here’s what the Hebrew actually says:
“Barah Elohiym eth adam…”
Notice the word “eth”?
Do you know what it means? Ironically, all you need to do is just switch the letters around for a translation to English because the word means “the.”
So let me explain why this jumped out at me. Remember back in verse 26, it simply said, “Amar Elohiym asah adam…”, and now we see, “Barah Elohiym eth adam…” In other words, one says (roughly), “Let us fashion mankind,” and the other says, “God created the man.” One is general, the other very specific.
It’s as if we’re being told that in verse 26, all of mankind was fashioned, and then in verse 27, one particular man (“eth adam” – THE adam) was selected for some special new creation. We have mankind made, and then we have one man created.
Understand what I’m saying?
So the question we have to ask ourselves is: what was being created in this one specific man? It doesn’t seem correct to say it was his physical body. After all, we were just told that all of mankind was already fashioned back in verse 26. It doesn’t seem consistent to believe that God would physically re-create something he has already physically created. In other words, God created all the physical stuff way back on Day 1, in the very first verse of Genesis, remember. Since that time, everything that exists, including all mankind and this specific “adam” in particular are all made of the stuff of that physical creation. What I’m saying is: it seems faulty to believe that the physical man named Adam magically popped into existence at this very moment in time.
It makes much more sense -given science AND given the interpretation of Genesis 1 we’ve been talking about for pages and pages now- to say that a whole bunch of “human-like” people, after evolving (perhaps at God’s direction) from previous physical life forms, were wandering around on the Earth with the “nephesh,” burying their dead, doing cave drawings, and creating pottery…and then at this particular point in time (the time of verse 27), God selected one particular man and put a brand new creation into him.
Let that sink in for a minute…
Because what I’m saying is that Adam was the chosen one. Of all the human-like people walking the Earth at that time, God looked down, went eenie-meenie-miney-mo, and selected this one lucky guy to receive some new creation. So when atheists tend to scoff at me while asking whether I actually, really, truly believe that Adam was a real person (they assume he’s just part of the myth), I always, without hesitation, say yes. Adam absolutely existed. (In fact -this might dip into Christian theology here, so I apologize for getting off track- but it seems to me that Christians MUST believe that Adam was a real person since the Apostle Paul himself references Adam in important ways in Romans and 1 Corinthians. What I’m saying is: I don’t think this new wave of “liberal” Christians can believe the Old Testament records of Adam are false or mythological.)
Adam was very real.
So what was the new creation he received?
Interestingly, we’re not told what it is in verse 27. So you’ll have to excuse me on this one, because I know I said I wasn’t going to go outside of Genesis 1. But elsewhere in the Old Testament, there are clear references to this new creation, and it’s a creation that only humans possess.
It is the “neshamah.” The breath of life. The human spirit. The direct link between man and God. It’s the next step up from the “nephesh.”
The Hebrew word “neshamah” first pops up in Genesis 2:7, when we’re told that God breathed into Adam’s nostrils the breath of life, and he became a living soul. It is my contention that this “neshamah” was the creation in verse 27, the third and final creation, the creation that gave Adam a Spirit and separated him from all the other human-like people who only still had the “nephesh.” And it is this “neshamah,” this Spirit, which truly makes us “human” in the sense we typically mean today. This “neshamah” has stayed with humanity since Adam, ensuring our direct link to God.
Still with me?
Is your mind blown yet? Haha...
Let’s go over it again, because it’s (obviously) very important.
The Bible first states that God will make man in God’s image and likeness (Gen. 1:26). In the following verse, it is written, “God created mankind in his image, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them.” The verbs make and create are both used, and so, from these two verses, it appears that both making and creating were involved in the appearance of the first of mankind. Later (Gen. 2:7), it is explicitly stated that mankind is formed from a previously existing substance, in fact, the same substance used to form fowl and land animals (Gen. 2:19). However, a special ingredient not mentioned before is summoned at this juncture. God breathes a neshamah, a “soul of life,” into this creature, and the man became a living being.
All animals have already received a life-giving soul, a “nephesh” in Hebrew. The animal that was about to become Adam was no exception. However, at a crucial junction some 6,013 years ago, a quantum change occurred. Into the physical form that contained the nephesh of Adam, the Creator placed an additional spirit, or soul, the neshamah. It is this neshamah that has set mankind apart from the other animals. Since the Bible defines a human as an animal with a neshamah –the spiritual soul of humanity (Gen. 2:7)- there is no biblical problem with human-looking creatures predating Adam.
In Genesis 1:26, God talks of making mankind. In Genesis 1:27, the word create is used to describe the infusion of the soul of humanity. Since both of these verbs characterize our human origins, there must be an essential difference in their importance. Creation, in biblical language, refers to God’s introduction into the universe of something from nothing. And it is an instantaneous act. The universe was first created (Gen. 1:1) and then made (Ex. 31:17). That order was essential. Before the creation, there was nothing with which to make.
For Adam, the order was reversed. The fact that Adam was first made (Gen. 1:26) and only later created (Gen. 1:27) informs us unequivocally that some amount of time passed during which mankind (in general) and Adam (in particular) was fashioned. The neshamah was implanted only after that vessel was complete. Whether that time was measured in microseconds or millions of Earth years is unclear from the text. What is certain is that the making of Adam’s body was not instantaneous and that its making preceded the introduction of the neshamah. Making takes time. But the ultimate change from the final physical form (perhaps the traditional 20-year old Adam) into a Spirit-filled Human was instantaneous, the creation of the neshamah.
Got it?
The Bible, then, describes a qualitative leap, a creation, at Adam that occurred just over 6,000 years ago. Archaeology has provided us with an impressive record of that change. Though the soul leaves no material remains, the effects of the spirituality brought by the neshamah are written loud and clear in the remnants of ancient Mesopotamia. Every museum sets the division between prehistory and history at the invention of writing. Archaeologists date the first writing at 5,000 – 6,000 years ago, the exact period that the Bible tells us the soul of Adam, the neshamah, was created.
So yet again, we have science and Genesis 1 in agreement. I’m starting to sense a pattern here. Haha…
There’s one other thing to touch on in verse 27 before we quickly close out Genesis 1 and move onto the time discussion. Clearly, both male and female are mentioned here. In the Hebrew, the latter part of that verse looks like this:
“…barah eth zakar neqebah barah eth.”
Literally, that (roughly) translates to “created the male female created the.” So if you massage the pronouns a little bit, the translation we’re used to seeing in English is accurate. It’s correct to read it as “male and female, God created them.”
So what are we to do with this? Well, it seems clear to me that God not only put the new creation (the neshamah) into a specific (“eth” – THE) man, but He also put it into a specific (“eth” – THE) woman. Call her Eve, if you want. Or if you’re into vampire lore, call her Lilith. Either way, in Genesis 1, we’re not told the proper names of either the man or the woman. All we’re told is that both the man and the woman are given this new creation, which I am interpreting to be the neshamah. Of course, biblical tradition holds that these two people were Adam and Eve.
But wait, you might be asking yourself, what about the tradition that Eve was physically ripped out of Adam’s side and created that way? Isn’t that what the Bible says? Well, again, I’m trying my hardest to stick to Genesis 1, not the latter part of Genesis 2. I don’t want to get into a discussion about the “infallibility” and cohesion of the entire Bible here. Suffice it to say that, at the risk of opening up a can of worms, I don’t think the Bible should be read literally in every place. And further, I think it’s a mistake (one that atheists are quick to pounce on) to believe that you have to throw the whole Bible into question if you discover that some parts of it aren’t literally true. Atheists (and regular skeptics, as well as some devout believers too, I imagine) tend to think of the Bible as an “accept it all, or dump it all” collection of writings. They tend to portray one or two or 20 conflicts as grounds for tossing out the entire book. I can’t stress enough how misguided I think this “baby with the bathwater” mindset to be.
Of course, I understand why devout believers feel this way. After all, they think, if I admit that this part isn’t factually true, then why should I think ANY of it is factually true? Isn’t it a slippery slope? Who gets to decide what’s true and what isn’t?
Well, while those are all good questions and concerns, I think the simple answer is discernment. Perhaps it’s possible that in some parts, the Bible is telling us the factual truth, and in others, it’s simply telling us what we need to hear, using illustrations to convey a message. Perhaps in some parts it’s being literal, and in others it’s being metaphorical or allegorical, or speaking in parables. Just because we might find it a daunting task to decipher which parts are which, that doesn’t mean that’s not what’s going on. For example, maybe what we’re supposed to take from the latter half of Genesis 2 is simply the lesson in verse 24, that it’s God’s intention for men to bond with women in a special way (marriage, perhaps). Maybe (and I stress MAYBE for my Literalist friends who are probably about to blow a gasket right now) the whole story about a woman being literally and physically taken from a sleeping man’s side is simply the writer’s way of explaining to us why men and women are supposed to form that special bond. In other words, maybe it’s the lesson that we should interpret literally, not the story itself. Maybe. Maybe. (Or maybe not…haha.)
Again, the only reason I’m suggesting a different interpretation of the end of the Genesis 2 story is because I think we’ve seen that Genesis 1 is remarkably, amazingly scientifically accurate. In other words, if Genesis 1 seems to conflict with some part of Genesis 2, my allegiance in regards to the uncovering of factual, literal, physical truth goes with Genesis 1.
Genesis 1 smacks of literal truth. It oozes scientific credibility. It really beats me upside the head as being Divinely inspired. It is amazing.
Genesis 2…eh…well…let’s just say I think it’s more in the theology business, conveying God-inspired lessons and ideas. Lessons and ideas that I (as a devout believer) certainly find Divinely inspired and true, but perhaps the stories used to convey those lessons and ideas shouldn’t be taken as the literal, factual, physical truth. Perhaps.
Okay, now that I’ve alienated all my Literalist friends forever, let’s finish up Genesis 1. Haha…
Genesis 1:28 – 31
“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.’ 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. 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. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.”
I don’t think there’s anything too controversial here. We’ve established that a man exists with the neshamah and a woman exists with the neshamah. They are told to increase in number, so presumably they make sweet love and begin to populate the Earth with more people who carry the neshamah. The word “nephesh” pops up again in verse 30, which is appropriate since we’re talking about beasts and creatures again, not humans. So the use of that word is consistent with all we’ve been saying thusfar. And then we get our familiar refrain from disorder to order, from evening to morning.
Only this time, we’re told that God thought it was “very” good. The Hebrew word used here is “me ‘od” (pronounced, meh-ode) and it simply means “very.” So it is translated correctly. The interesting thing is that God hasn’t declared anything else to be “very” good. Only after humans are given the neshamah on Day 6 does God confidently say that things are very good. The most obvious reason for this (that I can come up with, anyway) is that Spirit-filled humans were the goal all along. We were the ultimate point of the entire creation.
Okay…
So technically, that’s the end of Genesis 1 in most Bibles. The part about God resting on the 7th day is actually part of Genesis 2. So I’m going to leave it out since the first 3 verses of Genesis 2 don’t conflict with anything we’ve been discussing.
So…by now, I’m sure you’re all itching to hear my rationale for this timeline I’ve been working from. I understand. So rather than summarizing everything we’ve been over thusfar, I’m just going to dive right into the timeline, and save my Grand Summary for the very end.
Here we go…
16 billion years = 6 days
The Bible gives God six days to form mankind from the material produced at the creation. Current cosmology claims, it even proves, that nature took some 15 – 16 billion years to accomplish the same thing.
Which understanding is correct?
Both are.
Literally.
With no allegorical modifications of these two simultaneous, yet different, time periods. Misplaced fossils and changes in radioactivity are not needed to reconcile science and theology because the same single sequence of events that encompasses the time period from “the beginning” to the appearance of mankind did take six days and 15 billion years –simultaneously- starting at the same instant and finishing at the same instant.
Have I got your attention yet? Haha…
“Wait a minute!” you scream. “Are you on drugs? You’ve strung me along this far, spending pages and pages saying things that sound pretty plausible only to go completely daffy on me now? I’ve trusted you! You’ve opened my eyes to some things I hadn’t thought of before! And now I find out that you’re basing a lot of it on some nonsense that BOTH ages are LITERALLY correct? That makes absolutely no sense?! How can the universe be BOTH 16 billion years old AND 6,000 years old? LITERALLY? I feel like I’ve been hoodwinked and swindled! You suck, man! You suck!”
Okay…
Now that you’ve got that out of your system, let me explain. Modern physics has proven this proposition (that the universe is both 16 billion and 6 thousand years old) to be rigorously correct. In the following pages, we will explore this seemingly illogical reality, bringing it to a logical conclusion.
I’ll start by invoking Albert Einstein. Surely he has some credibility with you. So pay attention, because this next sentence is the core of this discussion.
Ready?
Einstein demonstrated that when a single event is viewed from two frames of reference, a thousand (or even a billion) years in one can indeed pass for days in the other.
The basis we seek for matching the biblical and cosmological calendars is, in fact, partly found in relativity. Einstein’s theory (which is really a law, at this point) tells us that dimensions in space and the passage of time are not absolute. Their measurement is an intimate function of the relationship between the observer and the observed. It seems incomprehensible that the flow of time, which is so constant in our daily lives, can actually change –but it can.
The essence of relativity tells us that when the velocity of an object changes, its mass also changes. At small velocities, the mass of an object is essentially the same as the original rest mass. But for galaxies streaming through space or subnuclear particles speeding within an accelerator, the story is entirely different. Both may have relative velocities that are a large fraction of the speed of light. And furthermore, the increases in mass are observable only by someone at rest relative to the moving object. An observer moving along with the object cannot detect this change in mass.
Measured within the inertial frame, all values remain the same. Measured across reference frames (i.e. from a frame that is in motion relative to another), the values of size and mass change. If all the parts of the universe were in equal and uniform motion, relativity would have little relevance for our present study. But this is not the case. It is the experience of observing events across reference frames that will be essential when we return to the biblical analysis of cosmology.
Einstein had the courage to state that regardless of the velocity of the observer, toward or away from a source of light, the speed of that light remains constant. It defies all logic. Consider this: If a pitcher throws a baseball to the catcher at 90mph, the catches sees the ball approaching him at 90mph. Now, if the catcher gets up and runs toward the pitcher at 20mph, the speed of the ball relative to the catcher is now 110mph (90+20). And obviously, the speed relative to the pitcher remains the same at 90mph, since he’s not moving.
With me so far?
Okay, now…for the next pitch, instead of throwing a ball, the pitcher just flashes a picture of a ball toward the catcher. The light of the picture moves out from the pitcher’s hand at the speed of light (300 million m/s). And this time, let’s say the catcher runs out toward the pitcher at a speed of 1/10 the speed of light (30 million m/s). So, using the same logic from our earlier example, we’d expect the catcher to see light approaching him at 330 million m/s, right?
But no!!
That is the whole paradox of light that Einstein was brave enough to declare. It’s mind-twisting, annoying, and at times infuriating. The catcher actually sees the light approaching him at exactly the speed of light, 300 million m/s, even though he is running toward the light and so in effect adding his speed to the speed of light. Light, regardless of the velocity of the observer relative to the light source, is always observed to move at 300 million m/s.
Always.
How can two observers, one moving and one standing still, measure the same speed for the light? Common sense and logic say that they cannot. But relativity says they do. And the Michelson-Morely experiment proved it. (I won’t go into that here, but the reader is encouraged to Google it.)
Combining the principle of relativity and the constancy of the speed of light leads inescapably to the phenomenon of time dilation. We can demonstrate this through experiment. The difference in perceived time is called relativistic time dilation.
And it is this dilation that makes the first 6 days of Genesis reassuringly compatible with the 15 – 16 billion years of cosmology.
So let us now consider changes that have occurred since that instant of “the beginning,” changes in relationships among the Creator, the universe, and man. In doing this, we must keep in mind that we can experience differences in time’s passage only when comparing events across the boundary of two reference frames. And even then, only when the gravity of two reference frames is vastly different, or when the relative velocities between the two reference frames approach the speed of light. Within a reference frame, regardless of its relative speed or gravitational force, all will seem perfectly normal, just as it does for all of us even though at this moment we are literally hurtling through space.
If, at this point, you find yourself saying there is no way of comprehending how or why gravity can make time slow down, consider that you probably have no problem conceptualizing the effect of gravity on weight. We all know we “weigh less” on the Moon because the force of gravity there is 1/6 that of the Earth’s. And changes in the force of gravity produce parallel changes in the weight of mass. Just as gravity affects the weight of mass, it also affects the flow of time, but at a much less dramatic rate.
To imagine this, think of a planet so massive (let’s call it Mannix) that its gravity slowed time by a factor of 350,000 relative to Earth’s rate of time. That means that while we here on Earth live out two years, a mere 3 minutes would tick by on Mannix. In Mannix’s time, 3 minutes will have passed. But for us on Earth, those 3 minutes will have taken 2 years. In those 2 years, people on Mannix will have aged only 3 minutes. That is the proven nature of time in our awesome universe.
Now, here’s where it gets relevant. Had I (on Earth) been able to watch the people on Mannix from my low-gravity location on Earth, her time and all her observable events would have passed v e r y s l o w l y. Of course, to me, in my system, events were totally normal. But if I were on Mannix, my clocks and actions would be normal while I was there, but if I could look across the reaches of space from the high-gravity system on Mannix to the low-gravity system on Earth, all the clocks would be spinning very fast and all the Earth-people’s actions would be moving very rapidly. Between two beats of a Mannixian heart, an Earthling’s heart would be 350,000 times.
But remember, there was only one sequence of events. For people on Mannix, that sequence takes 3 minutes. For us here on Earth, that identical time span took 2 years. And both occurred in exactly the same “time.” A Mannixian lived 3 minutes while an Earthling lived 2 years.
And which time is correct?
Both. It’s all relative.
The point, which I hope makes sense by now, is that there are any number of ages for our universe, each being “correct” for the location at which the measurement is made. And there are literally billions of locations where a clock, if we could place one there, would tick so slowly that 15 billion Earth years would pass while it only recorded six 24-hour days.
The biblical commentators on whom we rely said explicitly that the first 6 days of Genesis were six, 24-hour days. This means that whoever was in charge recorded the passage of 24 hours per day. But who was there to measure the passage of time?
Well, until Adam appeared on day 6, God alone was watching the clock. And that is the key.
When we talk of a billion years, we don’t metaphorically mean it felt like a billion years. It was a billion years! If, during those first 6 days, a clock had been suspended in that part of the universe now occupied by Earth, it would not necessarily have recorded 15 – 16 billion years. In the early universe, the curvature of space and time in this spot was probably very different from what it is now. Instead, a compromise had to be made to describe the sequential development of the universe.
This compromise was to choose, for the time preceding Adam, the Creator’s own reference frame that viewed all the universe as a single entity.
Did you catch that last sentence? It is phenomenally important.
In other words, the first 6 days of Genesis are “timed” from God’s perspective, not man’s. What was literally 6 days for God (144 literal hours), was 15 – 16 billion years by our time. But of course, we weren’t around to measure it, so the writer of Genesis 1 used God’s clock instead.
It is only at the instant when God places in Adam this breath (in Hebrew the neshamah), that both the created and the Creator become inseparably linked. It is at this juncture that one out of billions of possible clocks was irrevocably chosen, by which all future acts would be measured. In the jargon of relativistic physics, it was at the moment of Adam’s appearance that the part of the universe where man dwells started to operate in the same space-time reference frame as its Creator. At this point, the chronology of the Bible and the flow of time on Earth became one –the common space-time relation between God and man was now fixed.
So when the Bible describes the day-by-day development of our universe in the 6 days following creation, it is truly referring to six, 24-hour days. But the reference frame by which those days were measured was one which contained the total universe. This first week of Genesis is not some fairy tale to satisfy the curiosity of children, to be discarded in the wisdom of adulthood. Quite the contrary, it contains hints of events that mankind is only now beginning to comprehend.
Okay…deep breath.
If all that technical physics-talk breezed right over your head, let me see if I can simplify it. So if you leave only remembering one thing, remember this: Relativistic physics has shown us that, depending upon the reference frame of the observer, the exact same amount of ‘absolute’ time will seem to pass differently in different places, and because of this, we can be sure that there is no scientific conflict in saying that the Universe is literally both 16 billion years and six days + 6,013 years old. It simply depends on whose clock we are using to record the time.
Is your mind blown yet?
When you actually understand what science has discovered, it pretty much makes all the vague “1,000 years is but a day to God” stuff seem pretty silly, doesn’t it? What I mean is, for decades Christians have been content to just shrug their shoulders about the age of the Universe and say, “Well, I guess the ‘days’ of Genesis 1 can really span long periods of time. Whatever.” And then they really don’t think about it much more after that. They just kind of ignore the issue.
But the Hebrew is clear: these days ARE to be understood literally as six, 24-hour days. So the Psalm 90 excuse doesn’t really work. Thanks to our good buddy Einstein (and others, of course), Christians no longer need to hide behind ignorance and vagueness. We now understand exactly how we can have our cake and eat it too.
Both times are literally correct.
But how specific can we get? Let’s dive deeper.
The immense stretching of space since the Big Bang has strong implications for our cosmic clock. Waves of radiation that have propagated in space since the early universe have been stretched, expanded, by the same proportion that the universe has expanded. For example, as the universe doubled in size, the distance between wave crests (and hence the time between ticks on its clock) also doubled as the wave was stretched by the expanding space. For that clock, time would be passing at half its original rate.
To measure the age of the universe, we look back in time. From our perspective using Earth-based clocks running at a rate determined by the conditions of today’s Earth, we measure a 15 – 16 billion year age. And that is correct for our local view. The Bible adopts this Earthly perspective, but only for times after Adam. The Bible’s clock before Adam is not a clock tied to any one location. It is a clock that looks forward in time from the creation, encompassing the entire universe, a universal clock tuned to the cosmic radiation at the moment when matter formed. That cosmic timepiece, as observed today, ticks a million million times more slowly than at its inception. The million millionfold stretching of radiation caused that million-million-to-one ratio in this perception of time.
The cosmic clock, then, records the passage of one minute while we on Earth experience a million million minutes. The dinosaurs ruled the Earth for 120 million years, as measured by our perception of time. But to know the cosmic time, we must divide Earth-time by a million million. At this million-million-to-one ratio, those 120 million Earth years lasted a mere 1 hour. That’s the peer-reviewed physics and the biblical tradition of this discussion.
Now for the modern theology. What does all this mean for the age of the universe? In terms of days and years and millennia, this stretching of the cosmic perception of time by a factor of a million million, the division of 15 – 16 billion years by a million million reduces those 15 billion years………to 6 days!
Genesis and science are both correct. When one asks if 6 days or 15 billion years passed before the appearance of humankind, the correct answer is “yes.”
Here's a handy dandy chart that will absolutely blow your mind (and start to make sense of the timeline I've been using all along):
Here's a handy dandy chart that will absolutely blow your mind (and start to make sense of the timeline I've been using all along):
As the universe expanded, its size (scale) and temperature, and therefore its clock, were becoming ever more similar to that of our current universe. Because of this, the “duration” of each successive 24-hour Genesis day encompassed a span of time ever more similar to time as reckoned from our Earth-perspective. Each doubling in size ‘slowed’ the cosmic clock by a factor of 2. Since the time required for the universe to double in size increased exponentially as its size increased, the fractional rate of change in the cosmic clock (relative to Earth time) decreased exponentially.
The best way to think about the opening chapter of Genesis is that it acts like the zoom lens of a camera.
Day by day it focuses with increasing detail on less and less time and space. The first day of Genesis encompasses the entire universe. The 2nd day is perhaps only our Galaxy. By the 3rd day, only Earth is discussed. After the 6th day, only that line of humanity leading to the patriarch Abraham is in biblical view. The Bible realizes the universe still exists. But its interest now rests solely on one line of humanity.
Interestingly (and this should make my science friends quiver with glee), this narrowing of perspective, in which each successive day presents in greater detail a smaller scope of time and space, finds a parallel in scientific notation. In fact, Genesis has chosen a logarithmic scale to display in words the events of that vast span of time from creation of the universe to the creation of the soul (not the body) of humankind. But the biblical relationship for time is not the artificial 10-based log system used in most examples. Genesis has chosen a base that occurs throughout the universe, a base known in mathematics as the natural log, e. The graceful curve of the Nautilus seashell occurs in nature more often than any other shape. Graphically, it also describes the relation between Genesis time and Earth time as the universe expanded out from its point-like creation of the Big Bang.
The biblical choice for the timing of each Genesis day is in itself interesting. The opening of each day is heralded by a cosmic or global punctuation of major significance. The start of Day One, some 16 billion years ago, marks the creation of the universe –the Big Bang. Day Two opens at approximately 8 billion years ago, one of the dates estimated for the shaping of the galactic disk of the Milky Way (the date is speculative and not all cosmologists agree on it). Day Three begins 3.8 billion years ago, marking the close of an era during which Earth was bombarded by a rain of meteors so intense as to have made the start or survival of life highly improbable. Immediately, at that date, the first liquid water and the first traces of life appear. At 1.8 billion years ago, the start of Day Four marked the beginning of eukaryotic life –life forms having cells with an inner nucleus containing most of the cell’s genetic material (DNA). Prior to this time, all life was prokaryotic –having cells without nuclei. All life forms larger than one-celled organisms such as bacteria are eukaryotic. Day Five, starting 750 million years ago, timed the appearance of the first clearly multi-cellular organisms all the way through the dinosaurs and birds. And after the decimation, in the fullest meaning of the word, occurred at the start of Day Six, 250 - 100 million years ago, the stage was set for the flourishing of mammal life on dry land.
The Bible relates in 31 verses, in a few hundred words, events spanning 16 billion years. Considering the brevity of the biblical narrative, the match between the statements and timing in Genesis 1 and the discoveries of modern science is phenomenal, especially when we realize that all biblical interpretation used here was recorded centuries, even millennia, in the past and so was not in any way influenced by the discoveries of modern science. It is modern science that has come to match the biblical account of our Genesis.
There is no one correct age for the Earth or the mater contained therein. The duration of days or years or even billions of years is only a relative observation. It is only locally correct. Until the observer and the observed are joined in a single space-time frame, there is no one-to-one correlation. For the Creator and the created, the union of frames of reference occurred when mankind, represented by Adam and Eve, absorbed the image of God, some 6,013 years ago.
Consider your mind officially blown.
At this point, I think we’re ready to wrap up. Let’s summarize the major points of what we’ve seen (i.e. the parallels I find to be the least controversial), and then present the dramatic conclusion we should draw from all this.
Summary
Our task was to see if we could uncover a plausible interpretation (one where we weren’t merely playing word games that amount to forcing square pegs into round holes) of Genesis 1 that demonstrated a parallel to the findings of centuries of scientific discovery.
We first saw that both science and Genesis declare that there was a beginning of space, time, and matter. We noted that until the undeniable Big Bang evidence of the 20th century, science had always held that the universe was eternal. We also noted that the writer of Genesis 1 certainly didn’t have to indicate there was a beginning. To him, writing thousands of years ago, the universe might well have been eternal in his mind too. And yet, he boldly declared there was a beginning. Science has come to agree.
We then saw that both science and Genesis declare that everything that has ever existed (physically) or will ever exist was a product of that initial creation. In other words, science doesn’t think there was some moment, say, 7 billion years ago when a whole bunch of new matter popped into existence. Rather, all the matter that exists today evolved from the stuff of that first explosion. Genesis declares the same: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” All that is unseen and all that is seen. From here on out, Genesis does not describe any new physical creation. As we discussed, had the writer meant to indicate that new physical matter popped out of nowhere, he would have used the word ‘barah.’ But he doesn’t. He uses the word ‘asah,’ meaning to ‘make’ or to simply ‘fashion’ out of already existing material. So thousands of years ago, the writer of Genesis 1 boldly declared that there was only one introduction of physical matter -at the initial creation. Science agrees.
We then saw that science is persuaded that life arose on its own from non-living chemicals. The specifics regarding the Origin of Life are still being hotly debated in the scientific community, but we saw that any sort of “spontaneous” generation of life is not in conflict with Genesis 1:11, which announces the Origin of Life with the words, “Let the land produce…” We discussed how this phrasing is easily compatible with any forthcoming scientific consensuses on abiogenesis. All the devout believer needs to say is that the reason this life generated when it did was because God gave the Divine command. Again we can point out that the writer of Genesis 1 didn’t need to phrase it this way. Why would he write, “Let the land produce…”? Doesn’t it make much more sense to use the word ‘barah’ and confidently declare something like, “The great God of the Jews instantly created new life in all its majesty!” But that’s not what we see. Instead, we see the Bible humbly announcing that life began on its own (at God’s command) from the properties inherent in the land. Science agrees. (Well, not with the ‘at God’s command’ part. Haha…)
We then saw, amazingly, that the first form of life mentioned is vegetation, otherwise known as plant-like life. Science agrees. The first forms of life eventually became cyanobacteria which developed the ability to photosynthesize, a hallmark of plants. We noted that this was incredibly striking for the writer of Genesis 1 to say. Why on Earth would he write that vegetation was the first form of life? It just seems so unnatural. To him, wouldn’t humans be the pinnacle of God’s creation? Why mention silly little plants at all? And yet, he does. The Bible tells us that vegetation was the first form of life. Science agrees.
Then on Day 4, after life has already begun, we see an odd gap in Genesis 1. Life isn’t mentioned at all. This seems peculiar. Interestingly, science has shown us that after the first life appeared, an enormous gap of time (billions of years) passed before those single-celled organisms evolved into multi-cellular, complex organisms. In my opinion, this is probably the most shocking, striking, jaw-dropping parallel of them all. It makes absolutely no sense for the writer of Genesis to introduce something as awesome as life on Day 3, then not mention it at all on Day 4. If I were writing Genesis 1, I imagine I would be all too enthusiastic about describing life in all its glory as quickly as possible. And yet, we see this gap on Day 4 where no changes about life are mentioned, presumably because nothing significant has taken place. Science agrees.
We then talked a little bit about Darwinism and discussed the idea of complex creatures evolving from these single-celled organisms. We questioned whether random mutations were a sufficient mechanism to explain all of life’s diversity, but in the end, we said that even if it were, there is no conflict with Genesis 1:20. That verse simply says, “Let the water teem…” Again, the phrasing of this verse makes it fully compatible with a theory of Evolution. The writer of Genesis 1 does not boldly declare that these new living creatures were physically created out of nothing. He simply tells us that the waters must have been able to produce complex life, at God’s command, of course. Science agrees (well, again, not with the ‘at God’s command’ part.)
Quickly, along those same lines, we also saw how the Bible places the start of complex life in the waters. Science agrees. We remarked, again, how unnatural this was for the Genesis 1 writer to say. As a man (presumably) living on land somewhere in the Middle East, why would he think to tell us that the waters were the first place to teem with complex life? It seems to go against all he knows.
Then, during Day 6, we saw Genesis telling us that mankind (in general) first developed…then some time passed…and only later was Adam (specifically) created. We said this new creation was not physical, but the Human Spirit, the neshamah from God. Scientific fossil discoveries of Cro-Magnons, Neanderthals, and other various “human-like” creatures stretching back tens of thousands of years seem to support this general evolution of the physical human body, and the invention of writing (as well as other “progressive” human things) seems to confirm that something dramatically different happened to humanity about 6,000 years ago. In short, Genesis 1 tells us that there is nothing inherently special or new about the physical makeup of the human body, but there is something special and new about this “mind” or “morality” or “consciousness” of the human animal. Science agrees.
And finally, we saw how relativistic physics finally puts to rest the arguments over the age of the universe. There is no need to continue arguing whether the Universe is 16 billion years or 6 days + 6,013 years old. Both are correct. Literally.
And that’s where we find ourselves.
So what are we to make of all this. I believe well-respected evolutionary biologist Andrew Parker said it well in his latest book The Genesis Enigma. Here’s what he writes: “If my inference is right, then the writer of Genesis 1, or rather the announcer of the story –Moses- surely must have received divine intervention. That is to say, he must have been spoken to by God. The image of life’s and the universe’s origins formed in the mind of the writer of Genesis 1 or Moses must have been placed there by God. Here then is the Genesis Enigma: the opening page of Genesis is scientifically accurate but was written long before the science was known. How did the writer of this page come to write this creation account? Again I must admit, rather nervously as a scientist averse to entertaining such an idea, that the evidence that the writer of the opening page was divinely inspired is strong. I have never before encountered such powerful, impartial evidence to suggest the Bible is the product of divine inspiration. I would argue that the Genesis Enigma, under this line of reasoning, becomes evidence for God.”
Did you catch that?
All this that we’ve been discussing…all this conversation…all these details…it all leads to the conclusion that Genesis 1 is solid evidence for the existence of God.
Evidence.
Hard, solid, firm, irrefutable evidence.
I mean, how else do you explain it? The only other explanation, as far as I can see, is that the writer of Genesis 1 just got lucky.
Phenomenally, amazingly, unbelievably, incredibly, unimaginably lucky.
But come on…
The idea that the writer of Genesis 1 just happened to toss the creation and evolution of the universe together in the right order by pure chance is ridiculous. Surely no rational person would believe that. If you believe that, I’d love to meet you…and sell you some land in Canada.
Upon recognizing this inevitable conclusion (that the parallels between Science and Genesis 1 provide solid evidence for the existence of God), my instincts tell me that my atheist friends will scurry back and pine through each of my interpretations looking for any hole they can find. They’re so invested in their atheism that they simply cannot and will not believe I’ve gotten all this correct. Surely there must be something I’ve stretched too far. Surely there’s something I’ve described upon which they can cast enough doubt that will enable them (in their own minds) to disregard everything I’ve said.
Well…do your best.
I just hope you’re honest with yourself. Are you looking for holes because I haven’t made my case and you genuinely believe there might be some holes to find? Or are you just unwilling to accept the conclusion that your atheism is false?
It might be time to face it…
God exists.
Further, the God who exists is the one who inspired the (presumably) Hebrew writer of Genesis 1. Perhaps you think it is mere coincidence that this text (Genesis 1) appears in the volume known as “The Bible,” which is the greatest selling and most influential book of all time. Maybe it’s time to extend that little old book a bit more credibility.
The truth is, of all the ancient accounts of creation, only that of Genesis 1 has warranted a second reading by the scientific community. It alone records a sequence of events that approaches the scientific account of our cosmic origins.
Perhaps the famous American physicist, astronomer, cosmologist and winner of the NASA Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement, Dr. Robert Jastrow said it best: “For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance, he is about to conquer the highest peak, and as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”
It’s time to end the division. Science and Genesis 1 are telling the same story.
How you choose to use that information is up to you.
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