Post by Josh on Feb 27, 2008 17:04:32 GMT -8
Moses, Einstein, and a Time Before Time
by Joshua Coles, MS
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” Genesis 1:1
“Any person who sees a ship on the sea rigged and in sail, and heading for the harbor, will no doubt infer that there is a pilot in her who is steering her. Likewise, we must perceive that God is the Pilot of the whole universe, although He is not visible to the eyes of the flesh. For He is incomprehensible” Theophilus, c. 108 AD.
The Story goes way back, as of course a good story would. Don’t we all have a desire to know what came before? We ask our parents about their childhood experiences (or, more frequently, and unfortunately, we don‘t ask and just wonder). We trace so many things back to their roots: observe the current popularity of genealogy websites, for example. We aren’t satisfied until we understand origins. Some historians would say we owe this western preoccupation to the Jews. One can see how that could very well be true by looking at the greatest of all Beginning stories.
Actually, the Beginning Story in Scripture starts before the Beginning. It purports a time before time. I remember as a little “Christian kid” debating this point in some detail with some “atheist kids” down the street. They seemed to have this fixation with the famous question “if God created the universe, who created God?” I remember they said it with not a little degree of smug satisfaction, although they were just parroting something they heard over the dinner table...as I’m sure I was. Now, some Christians have been stumped by this question and simply choose to respond with blind faith. But, really, in the age of general relativity, who needs to run from this retort? If Einstein can imagine a time before time, I think we can take the most brilliant man of the 20th Century at his word. “What do they teach them in these schools?” 1
Besides the fact that scientific knowledge has vindicated a time before time, don’t we intuitively know there must have been such a time? Scripture says he “has put eternity in our hearts”. But even if we can’t imagine it, you’ve got to admit it is one sexy idea. It always sends chills down my spine every time I read that “grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time” (2 Tim 1:9).
Moving on, however, the Genesis story has probably caused more headache and embarrassment for modern believers than most other passages in the Scripture. Genesis 1 and 2 have been a particular bone of contention for the past hundred years in the United States. There are two camps, firmly fixed, staring across no man’s land at each other, not willing to surrender an inch. One camp dedicated to naturalism, the other trumpeting it’s theme song: “Six twenty-four hour days of Creation! Six thousand years since Adam!”. Not the catchiest of tunes, but sung heartily nonetheless.
Now, I know I should tread lightly. Although it will be obvious that I have a particular stance on the subject, I do not intend here to engage in the campaign- just to present my observations and thoughts about the Creation narrative and what it has done to and for my faith. Whatever your predisposition, I entreat you to take some time to beckon “down boy!” to the hounds of conviction and see if you can relate to my experiences. There are veins of gold here I don’t think any of us would want to miss.
As a child and teenager, I remember the special angst that National Geographic specials used to bring me. The joy of exploring the world and uncovering the past inevitably clashed at least once per episode with the painful reaction I felt compelled to have every time some narrator said something like, “This species has been found as far back as 2 million years in the fossil record.” Those of you who grew up in a similar environment know the obligatory “yeah right!” or “whatever” response to such clearly fraudulent claims.
It’s funny, but I remember it being aggravating as well. It fostered a growing feeling that either we’re crazy or the majority of anyone who really knows anything about this stuff is as ignorant as a doorknob. That may be polarizing a more subtle issue, but that is how I felt deep down inside.
I felt this tension between my belief system and the actual world for a long time until I became acquainted with a writer who attempted to reconcile the two in a fresh way. I remember reading my first Hugh Ross book, and after some initial skepticism, feeling a tremendous release and a new appreciation for Genesis.
As an astrophysicist and a Christian, Ross spoke more “as one who had authority” than others I had read and his arguments hit home. It brought back the anticipation in me that if Christianity was indeed true, we should expect to see the record of nature backing it up. God is not playing a cosmic cover-up by obscuring the facts or relishing in deceitful appearances. Perhaps if, in some cases, the record of nature was clear, we had better adjust our tentative interpretations of Scripture. Just as some medieval clerics rejected heliocentricity because it clashed with their simplistic interpretation of the Scripture, so perhaps we have resisted science because we have simply misunderstood the Scripture we are trying so valiantly to defend.
At first, what Ross had to say was for me a bottom line. Just supposing that the paleontologists were right about the age of the earth- what was a beleaguered faith supposed to do then? Ross demonstrated that an old earth was the least of my worries… that an old earth actually argued for the God of the Bible more emphatically than a 6,000 year old universe. Over time, his point of view became to me more than a “bottom line defense” in case the paleontologists were right, but a foundational way of looking at Genesis. The anchors for faith I discovered in the Scripture as a result of the change in perspective are what I have in mind to share with you in this chapter, whichever camp you might find yourself in.
The question of the age of the universe is like the hinge on a door. If the universe is young (6,000 to 10,000 years) as many Christians argue, then certain conclusions follow. If it is old (14-17 billion years), then quite different conclusions obviously result. I had always thought that one’s position on the age of the universe and one’s belief in a naturalistic origin of life went hand in hand. Ross and others divorced the issues, upholding the age of the universe while critiquing a naturalistic explanation for life* (see footnote on Evolution). One might conclude that an older universe lends more credence to naturalistic theory. An earth that is roughly 6 billion years old would seem to have enough time to generate life by chance. However, several issues present themselves immediately.
First, recent findings demonstrate that the earth had only about a 50 million year gap between a state in which the earth’s crust was molten lava and which the first organisms can be found in the fossil record. 50 million years may sound like a long time to you and me, but compared to the much longer amount of time evolutionists previously assumed was available, 50 million years is a veritable miracle. 2
In addition, the whole question of the origin of life has persisted as perhaps the greatest conundrum for scientists dedicated to naturalism. No workable naturalist model has been put forth and the intricacies of the beginning of life show no signs of being unraveled. Ross comments: “With odds as remote as 1 in 10100,000,000,000 (for the simplest living cell to reassemble under ideal conditions after having its chemical bonds broken) the creation time-scale issue becomes irrelevant. Whether the earth has been around for ten seconds, ten thousand years, or ten billion years makes no difference.” The odds of life arising by random chance have so boggled researchers that in fact many today are turning to fanciful alternative theories as to life’s origin on earth. One example is panspermia, which postulates that life may have arrived on earth from space via either an asteroid or intelligent life. Another is the Gaia hypothesis, which in effect deifies Mother Earth.3 Although outside the scope of this book, Ross provides thorough rebuttals of such last-ditch efforts to save naturalism in his many publications.
Not only do naturalists struggle to explain the origin of life on planet earth, they are increasingly at a loss to explain the complexity and inter-dependence of the universe. Scientists have already discovered 35 parameters of the universe that must be precisely fine-tuned for any life to exist at all. From a just-right mass density of the universe to a just-right expansion rate of the universe, the universe is clearly a miracle. And with an additional 122 (and counting) specific parameters for life to exist in just our solar system, life begins to look not only improbable from a naturalism paradigm, but unrealistic without an intelligent Designer. The irony becomes very thick when you consider the fear that Galileo’s heliocentric theories brought to some Christians of his day. Their fear was that by removing the earth as the center of the universe, the Biblical focus on man as the pinnacle of creation would be erased. But now, hundreds of years later, it turns out that Galileo’s search for truth would lead us to a place where we can more confidently than ever affirm the self-evident priority of human life on earth. God has not only made life possible for us on earth, he has gone to great detail to show how impossibly unique we are in the vast cosmos.
Speaking of odds, the Genesis story continues to ring true down through the Creation day accounts. But first, how do we know whether the creation days were 24-hour periods or progressive eras of time? This chapter will not make up your mind, but one thought for me sent me down the path were I began to see the nuggets embedded in an “old earth” framework. Let’s consider Adam for a moment. On day six he is created. Genesis tells us that man and woman were created last on day six, after all the other land animals. Now, according to Genesis 2, Adam was created first and was put to work in the garden. Shortly thereafter, Adam was directed to name all the animals. I’ll let your imagination dictate how long that process would have taken. Next we find, by implicit statement, that Adam is lonely because he has no “suitable helper“. Most men feel the need for intimacy with a female deeply, but realistically speaking, if I had just been created and was seeing, touching, and smelling all of creation for the first time as a fully developed adult human, I think it would take more than 24 hours to realize I needed a mate (let alone to contemplate anything!). Yet, God puts him into a deep sleep, performs a little surgery, and creates Eve. It just doesn’t sound like a 24 hour process to me. And thoughts like this began to bring me to a new way of viewing the days of Creation.
At this point we could delve into the Hebrew involved in Genesis 1 (books are dedicated to debating the hot little three letter word yom) but I want to highlight the amazing result of seeing the days of Creation as long eras of earth history.
Most readers fly right through the days of creation without noticing one of the most tangible displays of special revelation in all of Scripture: the order of Creation events. In a forthright way, Genesis gives us a step by step chronology of earth’s formative history from the perspective of earth. When compared to the what the geological record has revealed to us so far about the history of the earth, the similarities are astounding. For a basic comparison, consider the Biblical chain of events as it relates to the geological record, paraphrased from Don Stoner‘s A New Look at an Old Earth and Hugh Ross‘s Creation and Time:
First, the creation of the universe and earth on Day One (Genesis 1:1). This corresponds well with the big-bang model of the simultaneous creation of matter, space, time, and energy about 14-17 billion years ago and the creation of Earth about 5 billion years ago. Next, the creation of light. Seen from earth’s perspective, this corresponds with the first rays of sunlight falling on earth after it‘s nebular dust had been cleared away about 4.5 billion years ago.
Day two: a separation of the waters above from the waters below. This describes the gradual emergence of a stable water cycle and the beginning of the formation of an atmosphere suitable to life occurring about 4 billion years ago.
Day three: The separation of the waters below from newly formed dry ground. This describes the appearance of continents, being pushed up from the earth’s crust about 2.5-3 billion years ago. Also on this day we find the creation of visible land plants. Although there is no fossil evidence for plants this early, scientists have noted an increase in large amounts of oxygen in the earth’s atmosphere about 2 billion years ago, which is indicative of the appearance of single-celled and multi-cellular plants.
Day four: Genesis speaks of God “bringing forth” the sun, moon, and stars at this time. Instead of referring to the creation of these bodies, the Hebrew may be indicating that these bodies became visible at this time. This corresponds with the evidence that the earth’s atmosphere at this time (roughly estimated at 1 million years ago) was undergoing a change from translucent (light diffusing) to transparent (light transmitting). We do know that prior to this time in earth’s history, the atmosphere was too thick for the sun, moon, and stars to be seen.
Day five: the creation of water creatures and birds. The first explosion of life in the fossil record is aquatic life about 500-600 million years ago. Birds have not yet been dated at this time, however, the wording here may refer to winged insects. Also, recent discoveries push the existence of birds(which are famously difficult for the fossil record to preserve) back further than previously thought.
Day six: the creation of land animals. The fossil record shows large land animals appearing last: reptiles about 230 million years ago, most mammals about 65 million years ago. Lastly in the fossil record we find modern man, with no new species of life appearing after him.
What emerges from the previous demonstration is an amazing similarity. Although there are a few points that may appear to be discrepancies, most can be explained by ascertaining perspective, inadequate information from the fossil record, or further study of the author’s word choices.
This brings me to the point. How is it that Moses (or whoever wrote Genesis) got even several of these variables in the right order? What might seem like common sense to us today, did not hold sway 3,000 years ago. Creation myths from even later periods regularly claimed that man was created before the animals, or that the universe had always been, or that the world was supported on the back of a giant turtle.
(Interestingly, the further a culture is in time and space from the ancient center and origin of civilization, the more inaccurate their creation accounts are. The Egyptian and Mesopotamian creation stories share many similarities with the Genesis account, suggesting a common memory or knowledge of some of the key events of Creation. While these “cradle of civilization” cultures’ myths are more accurate than their counterparts in Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Americas, it is the Hebrew account that reaches the pinnacle of scientific agreement.)
How did the Hebrews inherit a story that conforms so remarkably well with what scientists are discovering today? Ross concludes that no author writing that long ago “could have so accurately described and sequenced these events, plus the initial conditions, without divine assistance.” 4
At the very least, Genesis is not to be trifled with. As opposed to every other religious cosmology, the Judeo-Christian Story of origins rings remarkably true to the scientific facts.
There is a hint of revelation throughout that cannot be easily explained away. It appears that God has gone to great lengths to answer the cry of our hearts to know about the beginning- the beginning of this cosmic drama that we are just a small part of.
Of course, I have only scratched the surface of how the first two chapters of Genesis affirm faith under scientific scrutiny. It is not my intention to turn my experiences with the Word of God into a scientific textbook, yet these points are crucial to our assessment of Scripture and the way the Story of the Universe begins. Extensive research into origins is warranted for anyone seeking to analyze the claims of Genesis, and the previous paragraphs are merely intended to whet the appetite. We, however, must be moving on. “The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, but I have many miles to go before I sleep”.5
1 Lewis, CS. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
2 Rana, Fazale and Ross, Hugh. Origins of Life, p. 85.
3 Ross, Hugh. Facts for Faith. Issue 10.
4 Ross, Hugh. Creation and Time, p. 154.
5 Frost, Robert. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
by Joshua Coles, MS
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” Genesis 1:1
“Any person who sees a ship on the sea rigged and in sail, and heading for the harbor, will no doubt infer that there is a pilot in her who is steering her. Likewise, we must perceive that God is the Pilot of the whole universe, although He is not visible to the eyes of the flesh. For He is incomprehensible” Theophilus, c. 108 AD.
The Story goes way back, as of course a good story would. Don’t we all have a desire to know what came before? We ask our parents about their childhood experiences (or, more frequently, and unfortunately, we don‘t ask and just wonder). We trace so many things back to their roots: observe the current popularity of genealogy websites, for example. We aren’t satisfied until we understand origins. Some historians would say we owe this western preoccupation to the Jews. One can see how that could very well be true by looking at the greatest of all Beginning stories.
Actually, the Beginning Story in Scripture starts before the Beginning. It purports a time before time. I remember as a little “Christian kid” debating this point in some detail with some “atheist kids” down the street. They seemed to have this fixation with the famous question “if God created the universe, who created God?” I remember they said it with not a little degree of smug satisfaction, although they were just parroting something they heard over the dinner table...as I’m sure I was. Now, some Christians have been stumped by this question and simply choose to respond with blind faith. But, really, in the age of general relativity, who needs to run from this retort? If Einstein can imagine a time before time, I think we can take the most brilliant man of the 20th Century at his word. “What do they teach them in these schools?” 1
Besides the fact that scientific knowledge has vindicated a time before time, don’t we intuitively know there must have been such a time? Scripture says he “has put eternity in our hearts”. But even if we can’t imagine it, you’ve got to admit it is one sexy idea. It always sends chills down my spine every time I read that “grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time” (2 Tim 1:9).
Moving on, however, the Genesis story has probably caused more headache and embarrassment for modern believers than most other passages in the Scripture. Genesis 1 and 2 have been a particular bone of contention for the past hundred years in the United States. There are two camps, firmly fixed, staring across no man’s land at each other, not willing to surrender an inch. One camp dedicated to naturalism, the other trumpeting it’s theme song: “Six twenty-four hour days of Creation! Six thousand years since Adam!”. Not the catchiest of tunes, but sung heartily nonetheless.
Now, I know I should tread lightly. Although it will be obvious that I have a particular stance on the subject, I do not intend here to engage in the campaign- just to present my observations and thoughts about the Creation narrative and what it has done to and for my faith. Whatever your predisposition, I entreat you to take some time to beckon “down boy!” to the hounds of conviction and see if you can relate to my experiences. There are veins of gold here I don’t think any of us would want to miss.
As a child and teenager, I remember the special angst that National Geographic specials used to bring me. The joy of exploring the world and uncovering the past inevitably clashed at least once per episode with the painful reaction I felt compelled to have every time some narrator said something like, “This species has been found as far back as 2 million years in the fossil record.” Those of you who grew up in a similar environment know the obligatory “yeah right!” or “whatever” response to such clearly fraudulent claims.
It’s funny, but I remember it being aggravating as well. It fostered a growing feeling that either we’re crazy or the majority of anyone who really knows anything about this stuff is as ignorant as a doorknob. That may be polarizing a more subtle issue, but that is how I felt deep down inside.
I felt this tension between my belief system and the actual world for a long time until I became acquainted with a writer who attempted to reconcile the two in a fresh way. I remember reading my first Hugh Ross book, and after some initial skepticism, feeling a tremendous release and a new appreciation for Genesis.
As an astrophysicist and a Christian, Ross spoke more “as one who had authority” than others I had read and his arguments hit home. It brought back the anticipation in me that if Christianity was indeed true, we should expect to see the record of nature backing it up. God is not playing a cosmic cover-up by obscuring the facts or relishing in deceitful appearances. Perhaps if, in some cases, the record of nature was clear, we had better adjust our tentative interpretations of Scripture. Just as some medieval clerics rejected heliocentricity because it clashed with their simplistic interpretation of the Scripture, so perhaps we have resisted science because we have simply misunderstood the Scripture we are trying so valiantly to defend.
At first, what Ross had to say was for me a bottom line. Just supposing that the paleontologists were right about the age of the earth- what was a beleaguered faith supposed to do then? Ross demonstrated that an old earth was the least of my worries… that an old earth actually argued for the God of the Bible more emphatically than a 6,000 year old universe. Over time, his point of view became to me more than a “bottom line defense” in case the paleontologists were right, but a foundational way of looking at Genesis. The anchors for faith I discovered in the Scripture as a result of the change in perspective are what I have in mind to share with you in this chapter, whichever camp you might find yourself in.
The question of the age of the universe is like the hinge on a door. If the universe is young (6,000 to 10,000 years) as many Christians argue, then certain conclusions follow. If it is old (14-17 billion years), then quite different conclusions obviously result. I had always thought that one’s position on the age of the universe and one’s belief in a naturalistic origin of life went hand in hand. Ross and others divorced the issues, upholding the age of the universe while critiquing a naturalistic explanation for life* (see footnote on Evolution). One might conclude that an older universe lends more credence to naturalistic theory. An earth that is roughly 6 billion years old would seem to have enough time to generate life by chance. However, several issues present themselves immediately.
First, recent findings demonstrate that the earth had only about a 50 million year gap between a state in which the earth’s crust was molten lava and which the first organisms can be found in the fossil record. 50 million years may sound like a long time to you and me, but compared to the much longer amount of time evolutionists previously assumed was available, 50 million years is a veritable miracle. 2
In addition, the whole question of the origin of life has persisted as perhaps the greatest conundrum for scientists dedicated to naturalism. No workable naturalist model has been put forth and the intricacies of the beginning of life show no signs of being unraveled. Ross comments: “With odds as remote as 1 in 10100,000,000,000 (for the simplest living cell to reassemble under ideal conditions after having its chemical bonds broken) the creation time-scale issue becomes irrelevant. Whether the earth has been around for ten seconds, ten thousand years, or ten billion years makes no difference.” The odds of life arising by random chance have so boggled researchers that in fact many today are turning to fanciful alternative theories as to life’s origin on earth. One example is panspermia, which postulates that life may have arrived on earth from space via either an asteroid or intelligent life. Another is the Gaia hypothesis, which in effect deifies Mother Earth.3 Although outside the scope of this book, Ross provides thorough rebuttals of such last-ditch efforts to save naturalism in his many publications.
Not only do naturalists struggle to explain the origin of life on planet earth, they are increasingly at a loss to explain the complexity and inter-dependence of the universe. Scientists have already discovered 35 parameters of the universe that must be precisely fine-tuned for any life to exist at all. From a just-right mass density of the universe to a just-right expansion rate of the universe, the universe is clearly a miracle. And with an additional 122 (and counting) specific parameters for life to exist in just our solar system, life begins to look not only improbable from a naturalism paradigm, but unrealistic without an intelligent Designer. The irony becomes very thick when you consider the fear that Galileo’s heliocentric theories brought to some Christians of his day. Their fear was that by removing the earth as the center of the universe, the Biblical focus on man as the pinnacle of creation would be erased. But now, hundreds of years later, it turns out that Galileo’s search for truth would lead us to a place where we can more confidently than ever affirm the self-evident priority of human life on earth. God has not only made life possible for us on earth, he has gone to great detail to show how impossibly unique we are in the vast cosmos.
Speaking of odds, the Genesis story continues to ring true down through the Creation day accounts. But first, how do we know whether the creation days were 24-hour periods or progressive eras of time? This chapter will not make up your mind, but one thought for me sent me down the path were I began to see the nuggets embedded in an “old earth” framework. Let’s consider Adam for a moment. On day six he is created. Genesis tells us that man and woman were created last on day six, after all the other land animals. Now, according to Genesis 2, Adam was created first and was put to work in the garden. Shortly thereafter, Adam was directed to name all the animals. I’ll let your imagination dictate how long that process would have taken. Next we find, by implicit statement, that Adam is lonely because he has no “suitable helper“. Most men feel the need for intimacy with a female deeply, but realistically speaking, if I had just been created and was seeing, touching, and smelling all of creation for the first time as a fully developed adult human, I think it would take more than 24 hours to realize I needed a mate (let alone to contemplate anything!). Yet, God puts him into a deep sleep, performs a little surgery, and creates Eve. It just doesn’t sound like a 24 hour process to me. And thoughts like this began to bring me to a new way of viewing the days of Creation.
At this point we could delve into the Hebrew involved in Genesis 1 (books are dedicated to debating the hot little three letter word yom) but I want to highlight the amazing result of seeing the days of Creation as long eras of earth history.
Most readers fly right through the days of creation without noticing one of the most tangible displays of special revelation in all of Scripture: the order of Creation events. In a forthright way, Genesis gives us a step by step chronology of earth’s formative history from the perspective of earth. When compared to the what the geological record has revealed to us so far about the history of the earth, the similarities are astounding. For a basic comparison, consider the Biblical chain of events as it relates to the geological record, paraphrased from Don Stoner‘s A New Look at an Old Earth and Hugh Ross‘s Creation and Time:
First, the creation of the universe and earth on Day One (Genesis 1:1). This corresponds well with the big-bang model of the simultaneous creation of matter, space, time, and energy about 14-17 billion years ago and the creation of Earth about 5 billion years ago. Next, the creation of light. Seen from earth’s perspective, this corresponds with the first rays of sunlight falling on earth after it‘s nebular dust had been cleared away about 4.5 billion years ago.
Day two: a separation of the waters above from the waters below. This describes the gradual emergence of a stable water cycle and the beginning of the formation of an atmosphere suitable to life occurring about 4 billion years ago.
Day three: The separation of the waters below from newly formed dry ground. This describes the appearance of continents, being pushed up from the earth’s crust about 2.5-3 billion years ago. Also on this day we find the creation of visible land plants. Although there is no fossil evidence for plants this early, scientists have noted an increase in large amounts of oxygen in the earth’s atmosphere about 2 billion years ago, which is indicative of the appearance of single-celled and multi-cellular plants.
Day four: Genesis speaks of God “bringing forth” the sun, moon, and stars at this time. Instead of referring to the creation of these bodies, the Hebrew may be indicating that these bodies became visible at this time. This corresponds with the evidence that the earth’s atmosphere at this time (roughly estimated at 1 million years ago) was undergoing a change from translucent (light diffusing) to transparent (light transmitting). We do know that prior to this time in earth’s history, the atmosphere was too thick for the sun, moon, and stars to be seen.
Day five: the creation of water creatures and birds. The first explosion of life in the fossil record is aquatic life about 500-600 million years ago. Birds have not yet been dated at this time, however, the wording here may refer to winged insects. Also, recent discoveries push the existence of birds(which are famously difficult for the fossil record to preserve) back further than previously thought.
Day six: the creation of land animals. The fossil record shows large land animals appearing last: reptiles about 230 million years ago, most mammals about 65 million years ago. Lastly in the fossil record we find modern man, with no new species of life appearing after him.
What emerges from the previous demonstration is an amazing similarity. Although there are a few points that may appear to be discrepancies, most can be explained by ascertaining perspective, inadequate information from the fossil record, or further study of the author’s word choices.
This brings me to the point. How is it that Moses (or whoever wrote Genesis) got even several of these variables in the right order? What might seem like common sense to us today, did not hold sway 3,000 years ago. Creation myths from even later periods regularly claimed that man was created before the animals, or that the universe had always been, or that the world was supported on the back of a giant turtle.
(Interestingly, the further a culture is in time and space from the ancient center and origin of civilization, the more inaccurate their creation accounts are. The Egyptian and Mesopotamian creation stories share many similarities with the Genesis account, suggesting a common memory or knowledge of some of the key events of Creation. While these “cradle of civilization” cultures’ myths are more accurate than their counterparts in Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Americas, it is the Hebrew account that reaches the pinnacle of scientific agreement.)
How did the Hebrews inherit a story that conforms so remarkably well with what scientists are discovering today? Ross concludes that no author writing that long ago “could have so accurately described and sequenced these events, plus the initial conditions, without divine assistance.” 4
At the very least, Genesis is not to be trifled with. As opposed to every other religious cosmology, the Judeo-Christian Story of origins rings remarkably true to the scientific facts.
There is a hint of revelation throughout that cannot be easily explained away. It appears that God has gone to great lengths to answer the cry of our hearts to know about the beginning- the beginning of this cosmic drama that we are just a small part of.
Of course, I have only scratched the surface of how the first two chapters of Genesis affirm faith under scientific scrutiny. It is not my intention to turn my experiences with the Word of God into a scientific textbook, yet these points are crucial to our assessment of Scripture and the way the Story of the Universe begins. Extensive research into origins is warranted for anyone seeking to analyze the claims of Genesis, and the previous paragraphs are merely intended to whet the appetite. We, however, must be moving on. “The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, but I have many miles to go before I sleep”.5
1 Lewis, CS. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
2 Rana, Fazale and Ross, Hugh. Origins of Life, p. 85.
3 Ross, Hugh. Facts for Faith. Issue 10.
4 Ross, Hugh. Creation and Time, p. 154.
5 Frost, Robert. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
