Does Genesis Match Science?
This article is currently under construction; it will be published in the near future.
Introduction
This article examines the Genesis account of creation, to show how it harmonizes with our understanding of earth’s natural history.
You can read about the arguments for understanding Genesis to be describing a long time period in Old Earth Creation.
My philosophical bias is that of a Bible-believing Christian who believes that the Judeo-Christian God created this space/time cosmos and the life within it ex-nihilo, that is from nothing, as described by the Christian scripture.
This article is my personal understanding as a lay person; others may have a different interpretation. I am not a scientist.
A Perspective on Creation
Genesis 1:1-2 (ESV)
1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
26 Then God said, “Let us make man[h] in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
Recall that in Hebrew words are in short supply and often reused. Well, the Hebrew phrase to denote all of creation is “the heavens and the earth”. (As something of an aside, the phrase “the whole world” and similar in scripture usually connotes the extent of human civilisation at the time.)
Verse one covers all of cosmic history up until the earth was formed, orbiting the sun and the galaxy has settled into a relatively stable formation. Verse two, begins a considerably more detailed narration of the events of preparing planet earth for mankind. And, here, notice an interesting progression in detail – from God’s perspective, this entire cosmos is all about mankind; as we get nearer to the “salient point of the story”, we see increasing detail. One verse for billions of years of cosmic history, one chapter for millions of years of earth history up to the creation of mankind and, in Genesis 2, most of the chapter detailing the first few months or years of the creation of one man and one woman. Since the Bible is about the salvation of mankind, and not about cosmic or earth natural history, God expediently arrives at the “meat” of the matter. (As another aside, this should give you a good idea of what is most important to God.)
So, at verse two the earth is in a primordial water-covered state. Its atmosphere is thick and heavy – no light can penetrate. Then, God speaks, “Let there be light”, and the atmosphere becomes translucent (but not yet transparent). So begins the preparation of planet earth for humanity. The subsequent verses describing the natural history of the earth in bullet form make more sense once you realize that the focal point shifted from the cosmos in verse one to the planet earth in verse two. A critical examination of this account can be found in Days of Creation (article forthcoming).
Further Reading
Reasons To Believe:
The mission of Reasons To Believe is to show that science and faith are, and always will be, allies, not enemies.
God and Science: This site provides answers to questions about God, evidence for God’s existence, His care and love for mankind, and His provision for joyful living both now and into eternity through His Son, Jesus Christ.